Page 6037 – Christianity Today (2024)

Donald G. Bloesch

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A Protestant theologian writes on “conversion,” a major theme facing the World Council of Churches’ Uppsala Assembly in July

Conversion is again becoming a live issue in theology. The new interest in the Christian life and the sacraments has focused attention upon the meaning of the decision of faith. The growing ecumenical dialogue has also served to awaken interest in the doctrine of conversion, inasmuch as soteriology has been the principal area of conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism in the past.

The English word “conversion” is associated with the Hebrew word shuv, which means to turn back or return, and the Greek words epistrepho and metanoeo, both of which indicate to turn towards God. The key term in the New Testament is the latter, together with its noun form metanoia. This term signifies not simply a change of mind (as in classical Greek) but a change of heart. Metanoia can also be translated as “repentance.” John Wesley was certainly true to the basic witness of Scripture when he defined conversion in his dictionary as “a thorough change of heart and life from sin to holiness, a turning.” Although conversion is basically a change in one’s relationship to God, this spiritual change entails a transformation in social attitudes as well. Conversion is primarily a spiritual event, but it has profound implications in the secular or public sphere of man’s life. It points man toward a spiritual goal, but he is called to pursue this spiritual goal in the midst of the grime and agony of this world.

This is not to imply that social righteousness is an automatic consequence of individual regeneration. It is simply not true, as popular piety sometimes expresses it, that when everyone becomes a Christian, we shall then have a Christian society. This would be the case if conversion entailed perfection, but the newly converted Christian is far from perfect. Indeed, because sin persists within the Christian even unto his death, he needs to be disciplined and restrained by law just as the non-Christian. A significant difference is that the genuinely converted believer recognizes his frailty and deficiency and therefore is able to resist the temptation to idolatry. It must also be said that the Christian is able to bring the spirit of Agape love into the political arena and can therefore be much more sensitive than the nonbeliever to the dire needs of humanity. The temptation of those who stand in the tradition of evangelicalism is to claim too much for conversion. But the peril in the circles of neoliberalism and neo-orthodoxy is to fail to recognize that conversion entails an ontological change, that the converted man is now a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17).

We cannot subscribe to the belief rampant among the devotees of the older Lutheran orthodoxy that the Christian lives in two separate spheres, the spiritual and the secular. The truth in this position is that the spiritual and the secular do signify two different dimensions, but they must not be separated. When Jesus said that we should give unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s (Matt. 22:21), he was not implying that life is divided between Caesar’s rule and God’s but that all of life belongs to God; the little that belongs to Caesar by God’s permission can be returned to Caesar. In the view of Jesus, even Pilate derives his authority and power from God (John 19:11). The secular state is not a kingdom that can demand absolute allegiance but rather a political society brought into being for the purpose of maintaining law and order. Moreover, it is in such a society that we are called to work out our vocation to Christian sainthood.

The Bible does, however, speak of an invisible spiritual kingdom that is opposed to the rule of God and has entered into the world corrupting the loyalties of men and nations. It is this kingdom, the kingdom of darkness, that we are called to battle in the name of Christ. But this battle takes place on every level of man’s life, the political and economic spheres as well as the spiritual. When the state becomes enslaved to the powers of darkness, when it demands for itself unconditional loyalty, then the Christian must protest, and he must make this protest known in every area of life. When the state pretends to be a kingdom that encompasses all of life, a self-sustaining political order, a power unto itself, then the Christian must be prepared to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).

The converted sinner will be primarily concerned about the spiritual lostness of man, but he will also agonize over the injustices that the lost condition of man engenders. The Church as a Church should generally beware of getting involved in partisan politics because its mission is fundamentally spiritual. It is called to herald a Gospel concerning a kingdom that is not of this world. It is commissioned to prepare men for membership in a heavenly, not a secular, city. At the same time, when political issues become moral issues, then the Church must speak to the political situation. When the life and work of our fellow men are placed in jeopardy, the Church dare not remain silent. But what it speaks must be the Word of God and not a political or sociological opinion.

We must be careful not to identify the Gospel with a social crusade or a program for social reform. This does not mean that we as Christians should not take part in movements that seek to bring about social reform, such as the civil-rights movement. On the contrary, wherever men are seeking a just social order we should lend them our earnest support. Indeed, Christians should be in the vanguard of those who seek to correct the inequities and injustices within society. Yet we must always remember that social reform does not of itself prepare the way for the kingdom of God. Nor is a relatively just society in this world ever to be equated with the holy city of the saints prophesied in the New Testament (cf. Heb. 11:10, 16; 13:14; Rev. 21:2, 10). We must also bear in mind that evangelizing is not the same thing as humanizing or civilizing, as Bishop Robinson has contended. (On Being the Church in the World, p. 19.) Nor is evangelism to be equated with social action, as in the writing of Harvey Cox and Colin Williams.

It is becoming commonplace to affirm that Christianity has destroyed the demarcation between sacred and secular. The danger of this is that it leads one to view the mission of the Church solely as social service and conversion as a purely psychological change that facilitates integration with one’s social environment. But conversion signifies in the first instance not a new social attitude nor a richer personal life nor a new self-understanding but rather a spiritual rebirth, a new existence, which is a gift of the Spirit of God. This new birth will have repercussions in every area of man’s life and may very well lead to social concern and psychological integration. But the trouble today is that we are putting the cart before the horse and seeking to change the environment without changing the man. Kierkegaard had some wise words for us on this point: “Oh, let us never forget this, let us not reduce the spiritual to the worldly. Even though we may earnestly think of the spiritual and the worldly together, let us forever distinguish them” (Purity of Heart, p. 181).

The truth in the position of those who uphold a secular theology is that man needs bread as well as the Bread of Life. He has need of freedom and equality of opportunity as well as the freedom of the Spirit. He rightly yearns for freedom from oppression and slavery as well as for freedom from sin. Yet we must forever hold on to the biblical truth that man does not live by bread alone (Luke 4:4). The one thing needful is the hearing of the Word of God (Luke 10:42). That which is indispensable for the abundant life that Christ came to give us is conversion by the power of his spirit.

God’s grace must be appropriated by man if it is to be effectual for his salvation. The salvation procured by Jesus Christ must become a concrete reality in the lives of men. And this means that repentance or conversion is also decisive for man’s salvation. Calvin acknowledges that Christ “exposed himself to death, that he might redeem us from the sentence of death … but it is not enough for us unless we now receive him, that thus the efficacy and fruit of his death may reach us” (Tracts and Treatises on the Doctrine and Worship of the Church, II, 89). The victory that overcomes the world is not only the cross of Christ but also the faith of the believer (1 John 5:4).

In the older Reformed theology, regeneration signifies the work of God in the heart of man, whereas conversion or repentance represents man’s role in the drama of salvation. What is important to understand is that these two realities are not parallel processes but rather two ways of explaining the paradox of salvation. To affirm, as some revivalists have done, that we must give our hearts to Christ and then his Spirit will regenerate us, is to fall into a kind of semi-Pelagianism or synergism. The very fact that we do surrender our lives to Christ is a sign that regeneration by his Spirit is already taking place.

Conversion has been rightly associated with regeneration, since it entails not only a turning towards God but also an inward cleansing. It is well to bear in mind that sins are taken away in repentance and faith as well as forgiven. Christ saves us not only from the guilt and penalty of sin but also from its power. We are saved by Christ working within us through his Spirit as well as by Christ dying for us on the cross of Calvary.

Yet it is important to recognize that our regeneration, although beginning in a particular time, has still to be completed. This indeed is the position of the Protestant Reformers, Calvin and Luther. The work of renewal and purification is not accomplished all at once, but it must continue throughout the life of the Christian. Our carnal nature is crucified in baptism and faith but not yet eradicated. The new birth means that our life-orientation has been changed, not that our hearts have been completely purified. The Christian is still a sinner, even though he is no longer in sin because he is now united with Christ at the very core of his being. Yet vestiges of sin remain within him even though he is now rooted in the holiness of Christ. This is why our Reformed fathers spoke of the justification of the ungodly, which means that believers despite their sin are justified. At the same time we need also to speak of the justification of the converted, since it is only those who believe that are declared to be righteous in Christ.

Regeneration like conversion can be regarded as both an event and a process in that the Holy Spirit seeks to consummate what he has begun. We err both by viewing the initiatory stage of regeneration as the climax of the Spirit’s work and by treating regeneration as a general life process that entails no decisive break with the past. Regeneration in the broad sense involves the whole work of cleansing and renovation, but in a narrower sense it can be regarded as the act or acts by which one is received into communion with Christ. Even in this more limited sense, regeneration can be held to occur in a series of stages beginning with the seeking for Christ by the prompting of his spirit and ending in commitment to Christ in the power of his Spirit.

Regeneration is closely associated with sanctification and may be said even to include it. Both terms refer to different aspects of the same process, but it is possible to make a formal distinction between them. Regeneration can be understood as participation in Christ, being engrafted into Christ, while sanctification connotes obedience and conformity to Christ in life and work. Whereas regeneration means entering upon a new existence, sanctification is concerned with the development of a holy personality. Regeneration signifies the washing away of sin and inward spiritual renewal; sanctification means being set apart from the world for consecrated service (cf. Eph. 5:26, 27). We must not only receive the Spirit in faith but also be directed by the Spirit in love to follow the path of our Master. Our participation in the revivifying power of Jesus Christ begins in the crisis of repentance and faith; we are turned in an altogether new direction, but we are not yet made whole. The cleansing and renewing work of the Spirit must continue until we are wholly conformed to his image. Consequently we are not fully regenerate until we are entirely sanctified. It can be said that sanctification has its commencement in regeneration and that regeneration finds its fulfillment in sanctification.

Justification is our acceptance by God and is indeed the ground of our regeneration and sanctification. Justification occurs simultaneously with regeneration in that we receive God’s grace only by participation in Christ through faith. Yet in contradistinction to both the dominant strand of Roman Catholic theology and Schleiermacher, we affirm that the cause of justification is not our inner renewal but rather the free grace or mercy of God.

Milton D. Hunnex is professor and head of the department of philosophy at Willamette University, Salem, Oregon. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Redlands and the Ph.D. in the Inter-collegiate Program in Graduate Studies, Claremont, California. He is author of “Philosophies and Philosophers.”

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Geoffrey W. Bromiley

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Relativism, based on the word “relation,” has much to commend it in theology as in all else. It recognizes that things have to be set in relation, whether to other things or to the observer or speaker. Without it, historical judgment would be impossible. And without it we should be set in the hopeless conflict of warring absolutes.

A certain degree of relativism is necessary for a proper understanding of the Bible. The words of Scripture have to be seen in relation to their linguistic history and usage. In different passages they can have varying senses or nuances that can be determined only by study of the “relations.” Doctrines, too, must be viewed with a degree of relativism. One must study the development of Christology, for example, in its various inner and outer relations if he is to gain a comprehensive and accurate picture. Similarly, the biblical happenings are in a real sense relative to the general historical background against which they take place.

Relativism will also play a proper part in the presentation of the Gospel by theologians and especially by preachers. This is partly a matter of communication, the finding of intelligible words for today; often these are not the words of Scripture itself. It is also a matter of apprehension. If Paul saw in a glass darkly, so do all other writers and speakers. Not enjoying, as the biblical authors did, a special inspiration of God, they can present truth only to the best of their understanding and ability. At this level, then, the exposition will be relative to the expositor. The Reformation insistence that subsidiary standards are reformable rests on this.

The value of the principle of relativism is excellently illustrated in the modern renewal movement in Roman Catholicism. Rome with its infallible dogmas seems to offer an extreme of misguided absolutism. Nevertheless, a little historical relativism, not unjustly applied in this area, can quickly redress the situation. Thus the Tridentine decree on justification might be seen as a corrective to antinomianism, or as an isolated segment that will appear somewhat different in its full context, or as a partial statement to which qualifying additions must be made, or, not as the doctrine itself, but as a sixteenth-century expression of the doctrine that will perhaps demand different expression in a different age. Along these lines relativism offers welcome liberation to many who would otherwise find intolerable the acceptance of formulations they have no means of negating without disruption.

If there is a justifiable relativism, however, there is also a great need to discern the limits of its application. By setting a thing in a different relation, it is easy, not merely to understand it better, but also to change it so that its emphasis differs, or it no longer means what it did. Thus one enthusiastic Roman Catholic has suggested that papal infallibility is simply a historical way of expressing the infallibility of the Holy Spirit. With a little ingenuity almost any statement can be made to mean almost anything. The ultimate relation here is not to specific objects or circ*mstances but to the thinker himself, who is subject to no very obvious verifiable controls.

Even in historical documents or doctrines, relativism can thus play a harmful role. And when applied to Holy Scripture, an injudicious and unrestrained relativism can be quite devastating. The reason is that Holy Scripture is uniquely normative. Historically normative as the firsthand account of the things relating to Christian faith and life, it is also absolutely normative as a work that, written by men, is inspired of God. Relativism, improperly understood and applied, erodes not only the historical authority but also the divine authority, which confers on Scripture a distinctive absoluteness.

It brings about this erosion in various ways. Instead of functioning as a true historical relativism, which can be a great help to interpretation, it may try to assess biblical events and teachings only against the contemporary background. Again, it may attempt to distinguish between various strata of the Old or New Testament tradition in such a way as to set the data at apparent odds with themselves. Furthermore, it may play the game of sifting a kernel of content from the husk of expression, or timeless truth from contingent fact, or an existential substance from mythological accidents, assuming that the kernel or truth or substance may then be presented either in pure form or with a new external wrapping. Finally, it may regard even the ethical content as only a historical interpretation, one that may have been good enough for its day but has to be replaced by better—or at least more relevant—interpretations in each age.

A distressing feature is that many who protest forcefully against this type of relativizing can be just as guilty of it—“the times have changed”—when they find something difficult or uncongenial. The thin edge of the relativistic wedge can easily pry open the whole door.

Relativism may thus have a devastating effect upon attitudes toward the Bible and its authority. It is finally disastrous, however, when applied to the author of Scripture, who is also Scripture’s true theme and content. God is absolute. If there is relativism in regard to him, it is because we are relativized by God, not because he can be relativized by us. God does indeed meet us in the changing circ*mstances and experiences of life, so that we can see new facets of him and correct our imperfect ideas. He himself, however, does not change. When the relation between God and man is at issue, only one of the factors is mutable and relative. There can be no greater mistake than to attempt to bring God himself under a principle of relativism.

Yet this is precisely the mistake so much modern theology makes, because it is so intensely subjective and anthropocentric. It treats man himself as the ultimate point of reference. Thus it ceases to be real theology and becomes religious anthropology. Ideas of God are the theme, rather than God in his own objective reality. It is easy to relativize ideas of God. One has only to say: That is your idea and this is mine, or, That is the Babylonian idea and this is the Greek, or, That is the second-century idea and this is the twentieth-century idea, or, That used to be my idea and now this is—and relativism rules. If man is the subject and his ideas are the theme, then the attempt to relativize God can hardly be avoided unless each man absolutizes himself and his own idea, which is precisely what many of us do.

Now ideas of God do, of course, enter into theology. This is why there is a legitimate relativism. What Christians think about God is variable and open to correction. It may indeed be influenced by shifting historical factors. Nevertheless, God himself is not variable or imperfect or shifting simply because the Christian’s idea of him is relative rather than absolute. God is not to be equated with the idea about him. God does not exist merely in the believer’s (or unbeliever’s) mind. God is true and objective in himself. In this objectivity he is absolute. He is the absolute norm of all thought about him.

This means that the Christian’s task is to adjust his understanding of God, not to the better thought of the age, not to the superior ideas of others, not to his own development in thought or experience, not to any form of speculation, but to God as he really is, to God as he has shown himself to be in his saving word and work. The Christian’s task is to bring his relative thinking into relation to reality, into conformity with God himself as he truly is. Just as a scientist’s description of the world, if it is to be scientific, must be based on the world as it is, so the theologian’s concept of God, if it is to be theological, must be based on God as he is. There is here an absoluteness of the object.

In this work, God, who is person as well as object, does not leave believers to their own efforts. In Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit God is both a known reality and a reality who makes himself known. He makes himself known through his word, through his work, through Holy Scripture, through the present ministry of the Holy Spirit. Hence even ideas of God, subject though they are to historical factors, may be brought into conformity with the truth. Such ideas are not all relatively right and relatively wrong. They are absolutely right in so far as they conform to the reality as it may be known from Scripture; and they are absolutely wrong in so far as they do not. The reason for the relative aspect is not that God himself is relative (or unknown). To treat God as relative (or unknown) is simply to show that subjective opinion has been substituted for objective reality. This is not just bad theology; it is not theology at all.

Relativism, then, has a proper place in theology as an aid to understanding God’s word and work and also as an aid to self-understanding. In its restricted place, it has a salutary function. But if it is allowed unlimited entry into spheres where it does not belong, it destroys both knowledge and faith, though it may seem to offer dazzling rewards. Relativism is not to be absolutized; it is itself to be relativized by the absolute.

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Ilion T. Jones

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Among the changes taking place in Christendom in recent decades, none is more radical, or more controversial, or fraught with more serious consequences, than the Church’s understanding of its role in society.

Traditionally the Christian Church has devoted its major resources to the evangelization of individuals. But recently a number of church leaders, both ministers and laymen, have embarked upon a campaign to persuade the churches to use their resources to bring about a social revolution. Sometimes this movement is described as the evangelizing of social institutions, in contrast to the old plan of evangelizing the people who operate these institutions. At other times its proponents say it is designed to change social structures rather than to change human hearts.

The movement seems to be gathering more force than its most zealous leaders could have dared to hope. At recent national and international gatherings, some churchmen have enthusiastically proposed that social revolution become the primary task of the Church in our times. In the National Council of Churches’ Conference on Church and Society last year, a main topic for discussion was, “The Role of Violence in Social Change.”

A leader of one large denomination has been pleading with his fellow churchmen to accept the new idea that power in the hands of the Church is a legitimate instrument of social change. He calls for a “willingness to use power in the secular sphere with varying degrees of sophistication to influence political, social and economic decisions in the community and the nation.” It is not uncommon these days to hear the phrase, “the power-wielding role of the Church.”

Those who speak of this are not hesitant to specify what kind of power they have in mind. For one thing, they mean “economic” or “money” power. They urge that the churches’ invested funds be deposited in banks that use the money in ways that promote the social changes they advocate, and withdrawn from those that do not. They also propose boycotting the products of large corporations whose labor policies do not agree with theirs. That is, these churchmen are openly using money as an external force to achieve what they consider to be the Church’s goals.

They are also thinking of political power. Some theological seminaries now teach their students how to analyze bills introduced in legislative bodies and how to lobby for the passage of particular bills. Nearly every mainline denomination now maintains lobbyists in the national capital and in some state capitals. Most denominations now issue numerous materials on a vast array of social problems; these materials, known as “policy priorities” or “guides to legislation,” instruct ministers and members in “the dynamics of planned social change.” This enterprise is fast becoming the primary work of the Church, consuming or threatening to consume the largest portion of its time, money, and other resources.

Often it is suggested, not only that churches work to change the traditions and structures of the present systems of power, but that they develop a “theology” or “ethic” of revolution—or as one person calls it, “A Gospel of Revolution”—and teach church members how to proclaim and promote it. In some quarters this gospel has practically superseded the New Testament Gospel of redemption.

This new gospel strongly appeals to young theological students—at least, some of the most enthusiastic support of it may be found in the seminaries. In one seminary this new point of view has so interested the students that they are clamoring for courses on “politics and political crises in our country” and on “rudimentary economics and fundamental economic dynamics,” so they may be prepared for their role as leaders in radical social change. In a publication at this seminary a student recently wrote: “Everyone knows that power not ideologies run this world.… The church must learn to manipulate power or perish.”

An advocate of church union in Canada in the early 1920s was quoted as saying, “By the creation of this United Church we shall establish a religio-political body to which no other social institution, not even the national and state governments, will dare to say ‘No.’” That, or something like that, seems to be what the “revolutionists” are trying to do with the Church in our day. In other words, the churches are using power as a weapon.

There are signs that this new movement is causing a considerable amount of disruption in many local parishes. The religious press continually tells of disturbances that are seemingly due to the activities of the Christian revolutionists. We read of churches that are losing members, split into warring factions, unable to raise enough money to meet their operating budgets, unable to find ministers; of pastors forced to resign, or losing confidence and interest in preaching; of widespread complaints that the New Testament Gospel is no longer proclaimed from pulpits.

Some of the new leaders offer a quick, stock explanation for these disturbances: ultra-conservatives, they say, are still objecting to the old “social gospel,” or to any application of Christian ideals to social problems. But that explanation does not fit the facts. Practically all our leading colleges and universities were established by churches to combat ignorance and illiteracy. Most denominations have established hospitals to fight sickness and disease and neighborhood centers in cities to minister to the victims of social ills and injustice. The foreign-missionary enterprise has used not only evangelists but also teachers, doctors and nurses, agricultural experts, and a variety of other professionals to minister to the needs of the whole man and of the total community.

No, these Christians are not opposed to the application of the Gospel to social problems. They are opposed to the manifest misinterpretation of the New Testament Gospel and its displacement with a totally different gospel.

A denominational official in charge of university work reported that when he had finished speaking to some students about applying the Gospel to social problems, one of them remarked, “I wish you would first tell us what the Gospel is we are supposed to apply.” That student raised one of the most important questions before the Christian Church today. Precisely what is the Gospel? Evangelical Christians have what they believe to be valid biblical answers. The simplest is that the Gospel is composed of what Jesus said and what he did as this is recorded in the New Testament. But that requires elaboration.

Jesus was a prophet, the last and greatest of his line of Jewish prophets. He proclaimed the principles of the ideal society, which he called the Kingdom of God. These principles have social implications, some of them radical. In fact, many of his followers were Jewish Zealots who to the very end expected him to declare himself their Messiah-King and help them gain political independence from Rome. But the records make it plain that he chose not to lead either a social or a political revolution and not to organize an institution for revolutionary purposes.

Furthermore, during his temptation in the wilderness, when he was trying to decide upon the nature of his messianic ministry, he rejected the use of force as an instrument. Later he warned the people about men of violence, some of whom he identified as followers of John the Baptist, who were trying to take the Kingdom of God by force (cf. Matt. 11:11 f.). In the light of all the information in the New Testament about his ministry, it is difficult to see how his followers could conclude that they should use coercion, threats, or violence to build the Kingdom of God.

It was in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that the purpose of his messianic mission was fully seen. When on the cross he cried “It is finished” and gave up his life, his redemptive purpose was accomplished. His death as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world completed his perfect life. He had tried several times unsuccessfully to warn his followers that his death was inevitable and had divine significance. But only after his resurrection, when they saw their risen Lord, were the disciples able to understand the meaning of Jesus’ life.

Two important questions for the Church are provoked by the somewhat casual remark of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Colossians. The Church is the Body of Christ, he says (1:24). This means that the Church is the instrument through which Christ carries on the work he began during his brief earthly ministry. Immediately the question arises: What is the Church supposed to do to carry out this divine role in the world? The answer as commonly given by the great majority of Christians may be stated briefly as follows:

1. Christ established the Church to preach and teach the Gospel to the people of the whole world. His last word to the disciples just before he vanished from their sight was, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, … teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19, 20). The purpose of their preaching and teaching was to persuade people to believe in Christ, to accept him personally as their Master, Lord, and Redeemer, and to be his faithful follower for life. This basic work of the Church, called evangelism or evangelizing, is carried on continuously, or should be, by the ministers, officers, teachers, and all other members of the church in the hope that all who listen will decide to become Christians.

Some church leaders today seem to like to turn words upside down, or to give them new meanings. For example, take the expression “evangelizing the structures of society.” “Evangelize,” according to the dictionary, means “to preach the Gospel to.” Can we preach the Gospel to “the structures of society”? To the people who create and operate social structures, yes; but not to the impersonal structures themselves.

2. Christ established the Church to persuade people to use all their abilities to put the Gospel to work in theareas where they live and labor. He said to the multitudes who followed him, “Seek first his [God’s] kingdom and his righteousness …” (Matt. 6:33). One of the most disheartening things in the Church today is that so many Christians seem to have no feeling of obligation to serve God in their daily occupations. Somehow they do not see any connection between their religion and their work. I once heard the editor of a large newspaper say to a group of Boy Scout executives, “I make my living as the editor of the paper, and I serve God by working in the Boy Scout movement”—as if he couldn’t or shouldn’t be expected to do both at the same time.

The laymen’s movement is often said to be one of the most significant religious movements in our century. Its main purpose is to enlist laymen to involve themselves in the affairs and welfare of the Church. One important thing emphasized by this movement is that all Christians are ministers of Christ. But some laymen apparently have taken that too literally. They are trying to become ministers in the technical sense, doing things that ordinarily are regarded as the responsibility or professional ministers, such as conducting public worship and preaching. The most important contribution a layman can make to the work of the Church takes place not within the walls of the church building but out in society, where he engages in his daily work. That is primarily where he should put his special talents to work for God. There he becomes the Church extended into the world. There he proves himself to be “the salt of the earth,” “the light of the world,” the “leaven” for Christ that permeates the social structure.

Dr. John A. Mackay once reported that the minister of finance in the French government, who was a noted Protestant leader, said to him, “It is not the function of the Church to create a new civilization but to create the creators of a new civilization.” The major role of the Church is to infuse the Spirit of Christ into all organizations of society through the Christians who have influence in those organizations. The Church must not only teach these things continuously but also provide ways for Christians to study the social implications of the Gospel and how they can put these to work in their various callings.

3. Christ established the Church to help Christians discover the spiritual resources for living. These are found primarily in what we call experiential religion, or the mystical communion for God and man. The New Testament is filled with this mysticism. Our Lord prayed. Apparently he set aside regular periods for communion with God. He regularly attended public worship in the synagogues. He taught his disciples to pray, to go into private “closets” for prayer and meditation, and he took it for granted that they would attend public worship as he did.

While he was still active in his ministry he promised to be spiritually present with his disciples wherever they gathered together: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:20). After his resurrection, as his last statement before he vanished from their sight, he said, “I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

Those promises came to be the most precious possession of the early Christians. They believed not only that the Master was with them when they met together but also that this spiritual fellowship was the source of their inner strength. The Apostle Paul even went so far as to say that he himself lived only because Christ lived in him.

One of the central beliefs held by the early Christians was that because of Christ’s redemptive work they had experienced a second birth, had died to sin and risen as new men in Christ (cf. Rom. 6 and Col. 3). They asserted positively and pointedly that “if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17). Paul exhorted the new Christians to put off the old nature and “put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God …” (Eph. 4:24).

This emphasis in the New Testament on experiential religion, or mystical communion between God and man, is missing in far too many churches. And in some seminaries it is openly rejected, regarded as outmoded. Recently a professor in an Eastern seminary not only urged divinity schools to remedy this situation but even went so far as to recommend that students not be allowed to graduate without showing competence in this area of religion.

In a recent appraisal of our American civilization (Life, Dec. 8, 1967), the English historian Arnold Toynbee said that one of our American weaknesses is that we have lost the “art of contemplation,” or “the inward spiritual form of religion.” Partly because of our churches’ neglect of this aspect of Christianity, American young people have turned to drugs to find what they call a significant religious experience. But now many seem to be forsaking drugs and turning back to some of the contemplative ancient religions of the Far East. Let us hope that before long they will discover the authentic mysticism at the heart of the Christian faith.

Many persons are predicting radical changes that will turn our social order even more topsy-turvy. I claim no ability to tell what is sure to come. But I am willing to offer some predictions of things that are sure not to come.

Modern social engineers are not going to devise a better social order without making better, more responsible men. Psychologists, psychiatrists, and educators are not going to make better men without the spiritual motivations, disciplines, and resources of religion. Religion of the right quality, of the socially effective kind, is not going to be generated without the unique work of the Church.

Earlier in this century Lord Eustace Percy made a statement that ought to be broadcast throughout our land: “To think of changing the world by changing the people in it may be an act of great faith: to talk of changing the world without changing the people in it is an act of lunacy.”

- More fromIlion T. Jones

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I have never had a propensity for flag-waving. But a revival of patriotism would be a happy antidote to both anarchy and nationalism. Webster’s competent “unabridged” ghost writer defines patriotism as devotion to the welfare of one’s country—not simply to national interests. But multitudes today are devoted to self-interest above all else and think of national welfare mostly in terms of larger government subsidies. John F. Kennedy’s ghost-writer struck more durable pay dirt when he wrote those classic lines: “Ask not what America will do for you—ask what you can do for your country.”

Seldom do I feel more like flag-waving than after a trip to other lands. Except for customs line-up and pile-up, American re-entry is always an exhilarating adventure. It would have been too bad had thousands of citizens been discouraged by heavy travel impositions from discovering for themselves what a privilege and blessing it is to live in these United States.

For all the mass-media propaganda about our deteriorating image abroad—and who can gainsay a troublingdecline?—friends I’ve made in Africa and Europe and the Middle East would gladly trade a great deal for the opportunity of beginning again in the U. S. A.

Many died to bring this nation to birth, and many die still to preserve its integrity. It would be an inestimable betrayal if those of us who enjoy this land of privilege were to subvert this heritage by selfish pursuits and ambitions rather than to practice devotion to the national good. Welfare, or well-being, ought not to be equated merely with food stamps.

John Warwick Montgomery

Another Martin

The day Martin Luther King was buried, many San Francisco bus drivers didn’t want to work. An overtime replacement on the Hunters Point run, white driver Martin Whitted, 28, was robbed and shot to death by four Negro youths.

Amid rising public outbursts of rage with inflammatory racial overtones, his widow, Dixie, mother of three, went on TV to ask that memorial gifts be sent to their church, St. Mark’s Lutheran, for Hunters Point youth programs so “something for them” would come from his death. More than $5,000 poured in, and her Christian witness was widely heralded for defusing racial tensions. The Chronicle called it “an act of hope for the city.” gelist held out the Cross as the sure hope and the only lasting solution to the problems of war and race. And in Christ, he said, lies the answer to the need for personal fulfillment.

The message—clear and simple—was essentially unchanged from the sermons Graham preached during his 1959 Australia crusade. Yet it found a flood of new response, especially among youth.

Ideal weather conditions helped get the outdoor meetings off to a good start. The Sunday afternoon service was held under cloudless skies with a temperature in the high 70s. The breeze off the blue Pacific tempered the effects of the bright sun. But by Monday night the weather had turned into what residents called “winter wind,” and the great profusion of miniskirted teen-agers wrapped themselves in blankets. It is currently autumn down under. Like Florida, the eastern Australia coast rarely hits the freezing point. Taking advantage of one of the better days, Graham shot his best round of golf at the Royal Sydney Course: a one over par thirty-seven for nine holes.

The crusade was held at the Sydney Showground, a stadium that makes up in size what it lacks in beauty. Larger than major-league ball parks, it is part of a fairgrounds type of complex that hosts the annual ten-day Royal Easter Show, an agricultural exhibition that this year drew a million and a half people. Graham spoke from a canopied platform ringed by tropical plants.

In addition to the mass meetings, the Graham organization conducted a School of Evangelism in Sydney as part of the crusade, plus daily noon Bible exposition by Graham associate Roy Gustafson. The effects of the mass meetings were augmented by relays to 131 outlying points. A film of the opening service was shown on local television and subsequently in Melbourne, Australia’s number-two city. The audience included American servicemen on rest and rehabilitation from Viet Nam.

Antagonism to the crusade was minimal. Eighteen posters with Graham’s picture were defaced, including one in front of the Anglican cathedral in which Graham was made to look like Hitler. Police investigated, but there were no clues.

One Methodist clergyman publicly attacked Graham for “primitive emphasis on blood.” By contrast, Roman Catholic Cardinal Norman Gilroy invited Graham to a friendly tea. One Catholic church lent its bus to a Protestant congregation to transport people to the crusade.

The Sydney crusade, conducted with a budget of $200,000, was said to have the support of more local churches than any other crusade Graham has held in the British Commonwealth. This is partly because Sydney is an evangelical stronghold. Anglicans, who dominate the city’s religious spectrum, are led by Archbishop Marcus Loane, outspokenly biblical and president of the crusade executive committee (see April 12 issue, page 42).

But the whole Australian posture of friendship toward the United States may also play a part. Australia and America have been holding hands across the Pacific for a long time. In recent years they have become even friendlier. As Britain pulls out of Asia, Australia more and more comes under obvious American cultural influence. Australia assembles cars reflecting more of Detroit than of Europe. Two years ago she switched her money from the pound to the dollar decimal system. Coffee is strongly challenging tea.

Australia’s new Prime Minister John Grey Gorton is a strong anti-Communist and a great friend of the United States. His wife was born in Maine. He was understandably annoyed, however, when he was not consulted before the announced de-escalation in Viet Nam.

Although America and Australia are separated by half a world, they do have the Pacific Ocean in common. And no country has shown more interest in Australian security than the United States.

For his part, Graham has done Australia the good turn of reminding their citizens dramatically of their need of spiritual security. Australian Christians—busy, prosperous, and pleasure-bent—face a great opportunity. Ringing their northern borders is the neediest and most populated portion of the earth: a billion and a half people, many poor, illiterate, and without the Gospel.

PERSONALIA

Diesel millionaire J. Irwin Miller, former president of the National Council of Churches, was on the road last month as chairman of a committee to develop enough support—fast—to draw Nelson Rockefeller into the presidential race. Meanwhile Editor B. J. Stiles of the University Christian Movement magazine motive, who endorsed Robert F. Kennedy in the February issue, went on leave to join RFK’s campaign staff.

Senator Robert F. Kennedy said he took communion at a Washington, D.C., Negro Baptist church recently as a “gesture of fellowship,” not as a sacrament. The Vatican last year said Catholics may attend Protestant services but may not receive the Eucharist.

The Rev. William Starr, Episcopal chaplain at Columbia University, testified against expulsion of Barnard junior Linda LeClair, who has been cohabiting with another student, Peter Behr. Of housing rules, Starr said, “If they are an impediment, they are ridiculous.”

Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore, Jr., of Washington, D. C., has gone on leave to be director of Operation Connection, which seeks $10 million to build political and economic power for the poor. The Rev. Albert Cleage, militant black nationalist, is a leader of the campaign.

Asbury College’s board confirmed by 18–9 the ouster of President Karl K. Wilson at a controversial previous meeting, but praised Wilson’s integrity and character. The statement noted “unfortunate disunity” among faculty, students, and alumni during the furor.

Former Southern Baptist pastor Dupree Jordan, Jr., has been named by the war on poverty to enlist religious activity. Canada’s foreign-affairs ministry appointed Catholic priest Harold Oxley to develop liaison with churches and private agencies working in developing nations.

The Rev. M. L. Wilson, head of the National Committee of Negro Churchmen, was elected board chairman of the Protestant Council in New York City, succeeding labor leader A. Philip Randolph.

Joseph L. Bernardin, 40, auxiliary bishop to the late Paul Hallinan of Atlanta for two years, was approved as a chief executive of the U. S. Catholic Conference by the Vatican.

William R. MacKaye, 33, of the Washington Post, won this year’s award from the Religious Newswriters’ Association. The Post’s other religion specialist, Kenneth Dole, won the 1956 award. RNA chose Jack Hume of the Cleveland Press as its new president.

CHURCH PANORAMA

The 1968 Catholic Directory reports a baptized membership of 47,468,333, an increase of 603,423.

Because of possible future riots, Baptists have been denied a permit for a public march and rally at their October Continental Congress on Evangelism in Washington, D. C.

The Episcopal Church plans to hold the second special convention in its history next year at Notre Dame University.

Episcopalians are planning a liberal-arts campus as a satellite of Baptist-related Stetson University in DeLand, Florida.

Often reticent, members from fifty of Italy’s eighty Baptist churches took to the town piazzas for one-week crusades in five regions, resulting in many decisions for Christ and new evangelistic zeal.

MISCELLANY

Memphis garbagemen won most of their demands in a strike settlement two weeks after the murder there of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who was aiding strikers.

The top leaders of the National Council of Churches, U. S. Catholic Conference, Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops, and Synagogue Council of America joined in an unprecedented Easter Sunday appeal for a $10 to $12 billion program to aid the poor. “Only through massive contributions,” they said, can the nation “duly honor the life-offering of Martin Luther King, Jr.”

An extensive Citizens Crusade Against Poverty study, which had Episcopal and United Presbyterian aid, charged that at least ten million Americans are going hungry, and urged reform of federal food-distribution programs.

At a Yankee Stadium ceremony, former star Bobby Richardson was presented the ten millionth copy of the American Bible Society’s Good News for Modern Man translation.

Dean Elmer Usher of the Episcopal cathedral in Phoenix is suing the Arizona Republic for $600,000 over a news article that said he pushed a camera into the face of a photographer at a court hearing.

At a Princeton theological meeting, British Bishop John A. T. Robinson suggested that in a “religionless age,” bishops should be recruited, through advertising, from “prophetically minded” secular executives.

A Harris poll shows 55 per cent of U. S. whites and 32 per cent of U. S. Negroes have guns in their homes.

A Negro Baptist church near Meridian, Mississippi, that had previously been hit twice by arsonists burned to the ground early Easter Sunday.

Religious contributions made up 46.9 per cent of the nation’s $14.5 billion in giving last year, reports the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel.

Pravda called for abolition of the Soviet Union’s traditional Easter and praised an “atheist missionary ship” that cruises rivers in a province north of Moscow.

The Roman Catholic weekly in Camden, New Jersey, proposed Vatican City as the site for peace talks between the United States and North Viet Nam.

The 1968 U. S. Post Office Christmas stamp will be a five-color reproduction of “The Annunciation” by Jan Van Eyck.

Argentina has denied long-term visas to 200 U. S. Mormon missionaries, though none had been expelled as of mid-April. Some Protestants fear an eventual ban on all new missionaries.

India’s policy of nationalizing Christian missions will mean expulsion of foreigners whose presence “is considered prejudicial to national interests,” the home minister said. Those with special training may stay unless Indians can fill their jobs.

After years of hostility, the Sudan is open to Roman Catholic missionaries from Tanzania and has permitted a Catholic periodical to reopen. For the first time, Sudanese Christian and Muslim leaders conferred recently.

THEY SAY

“Faithless people are as old as the family of man. This is not a day of death. This is a day of triumph. This is Easter morning, and one of these days all of God’s children are going to get up. We’re not serving a dead God. I’m not serving a dead God. You tell me about a dead God after all I’ve gone through this past week. He’s got me standing up here. Then don’t tell me God is asleep.”—The Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr., in his Easter sermon.

Deaths

NORMAN J. BAUGHER, 50, fourth-generation minister in the Church of the Brethren and its top administrator since 1952; in Elgin, Illinois, of a heart attack.

GUY EMERY SHIPLER, 86, editor of the Churchman, unofficial Episcopal monthly, for forty-five years; champion of liberal causes and critic of Catholicism; in Arcadia, California, of a stroke.

ENRIQUE PEREZ SERANTES, 85, Cuban archbishop who once saved Fidel Castro’s life but later became an arch-foe of his regime; in Santiago, Cuba.

- More fromDavid E. Kucharsky

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This article is based on reports from Prague by Maynard Shelly, editor of “The Mennonite”:

While Washington and Hanoi volleyed negotiation sites, the third Christian Peace Conference assembly, not satisfied with President Johnson’s peace moves, called for a “complete, final, and unconditional” bombing halt and withdrawal of all U. S. troops so “the admirable Vietnamese people can finally make its own decisions.”

The assembly seemed less opposed to the war itself than to U. S. involvement in it. Delegates took two collections, totaling $1,500, for the National Liberation Front, then noted “with sadness that many Christians remain silent in the face of a war of annihilation by a world power against a small nation—which one can almost call genocide.”

The hardly hawkish American delegation, which had been more hopeful about Johnson’s peace moves, objected to the word “genocide.” Delegation leader Charles G. West of Princeton Seminary doubted that even anti-war groups would consider the statement “the word of God” or “an effort of Christians to understand themselves as under the Word of God.”

Masahisa Suzuki, moderator of Japan’s United Church of Christ, said “there is not the same criticism of what the countries of the East are doing.” Indeed, Westerners who often opposed their governments were disappointed that many Easterners were not even mildly critical of theirs and—in fact—did not take criticism by others kindly. Because socialist groups predominated, their thoughts usually colored official statements.

The Christian Peace Conference was organized in East Europe in 1958 to talk about world peace back when that was all the Stalinist regimes let the churches do. Now, as satellite countries move toward openness, the CPC seems to lag in dialogue.

But in Geneva the week after the assembly, Czechoslovakian Marxist Milan Machovec hailed the CPC as a significant example of liberty in his country, where democratization was occurring without gunfire. Politics is not isolated, he said, but is influenced by non-political systems like Christianity that often are more liberal than hard-line Communism.

While Christians and Marxists talked at the WCC-sponsored Geneva dialogue, Roman Catholics in Czechoslovakia met with members of the new cabinet. Their talks yielded government promises to return three bishops to their sees after eighteen years and to lift admission requirements on seminary students. “I am convinced,” said Bishop Frantisek Toma-sek after the meeting, “the new communist leaders honestly seek to restore religious freedom. For our part we want nothing more than to be good citizens and free Catholics.” He spoke for about 75 per cent of the Czech population.

This is the way things are looking in other satellite countries:

POLAND: Revolution in Poland appeared first among the 40 per cent of the population under age 19. To curb student demonstrations, officials closed several departments of Warsaw University, suspended 1,300 students, and drafted more than 200 others into the army. When a Roman Catholic legislator criticized police use of force during the demonstrations, he was fired.

In all, more than fifty top officials suffered a similar fate in Poland’s most severe purge in recent decades. Ignoring party boss Wladyslaw Gomulka’s call for cessation of anti-Semitism, his hard-line opponents have used the unrest to oust moderates and to encourage criticism of Gomulka.

EAST GERMANY: No wind of revolution stirs East Europe’s last staunch Stalinist state. Indeed, with a new constitution, East Germany is settling even more firmly into the totalitarianism that isolates the country from its liberalizing neighbors. The new document omits provisions for human rights included in the previous constitution; but they were rarely observed anyway. One concession to Catholic and Lutheran bishops adds in the final version a statement guaranteeing each East German citizen “the same rights and duties regardless of his nationality, race, ideology, or religious profession and faith.” Many East German Protestants fear the new constitution will sever their ties with Western churches, the last major formal link between East and West Germany.

RUMANIA: Liberalization in Rumania occurs as the government strengthens diplomatic relations with the West, though internal changes come slowly. Churches reflect the growing external freedom. Last January Rumania’s prime minister met with Pope Paul at the Vatican. Earlier, Bishop Aaron Marton was released from the house arrest.

YUGOSLAVIA: Government permission to translate, publish, and distribute Bibles and other religious literature and to build churches is a hopeful sign for religious freedom in Yugoslavia. Although Communism requires commitment to atheism, a Belgrade newspaper called for more and better atheistic propaganda. The need became apparent when the paper’s survey indicated religious interest among 70 per cent of the people, including Army officers, who are supposed to show none.

Dialogue between churchmen and Marxists is hampered, according to one high-school political-science dean, not by the Church but by the Marxists, who know too little about either their own or Christian ideology.

BULGARIA: Political liberalism steadily breaking into Bulgaria has opened a cautious new freedom for intellectualism. A similar breakthrough is appearing in church-state relations, though tension has not evaporated entirely. Hardline Communists see “serious shortcomings” in atheistic education, describe growing hostility of clergymen to the regime, and complain about “activation and modernization of the work of clergymen.”

ALBANIA: For several months now Albania has had no laws dealing with church-state relations. But that does not mean churches have greater freedom. On the contrary, Albania in effect eliminated the organized church and became “the first atheist state in the world.” And laws are unnecessary to govern something that does not exist.

THOSE OTHER EDITORS

Associated Church Press editors met in Washington, D. C., the same week as the American Society of Newspaper Editors, where Nixon charmed and Rocky droned.

Both Johnson and Humphrey had pulled out of ACP engagements, and Kennedy, McCarthy, and Nixon rejected bids to address the editors, who speak to 23 million readers, mostly Protestant.

“Mostly,” because ACP has a couple of Eastern Orthodox members and this year took in its fourth and fifth Roman Catholic publications. Next year it will hold its first joint meeting with the Catholic Press Association. The year after that, its annual meeting will be part of a Religious Communications Congress that will also include CPA, the Religious Public Relations Council, Evangelical Press Association, and several similar groups. ACP this year opened up non-voting associate membership for Jewish editors.

Of all things, ACP will be led at the 1969 ecumenical get-together by its first Southern Baptist president, Dr. W. C. Fields. In his 1968 address, Fields took note of racial discord in the District of Columbia and elsewhere, then said:

“Racial discrimination in our country and in our churches should be abolished, not because of a constitutional clause or the Communist challenge, or even because a horrified world is watching. Race prejudice should be cleansed from our lives and from the lives of our people because it is a sin …”

As at ASNE, there was a good sampling of politics. Dean Rusk’s suave off-the-record briefing on Viet Nam de-fanged critical editors—at the meeting, at least. Navy chief chaplain James Kelly made the remarkable statements that not a single one of his chaplains in Viet Nam has any doubts about U. S. war policy, and that the religious press has given better and more objective coverage of the war than the secular press. Senator Walter Mondale, Humphrey’s stand-in, accused the Church of doing little to get the open-housing bill through and said history might judge religious leaders harshly. The Rev. Walter Fauntroy, vice-chairman of the D. C. City Council, said the “Gospel” the poor need to hear is that the United States will create millions of public jobs. Edward Lindaman, Apollo Program manager for North American Rockwell, rhapsodized over beneficial side-effects from the billions going into next year’s moonshot.

Senator Mark Hatfield said he’s grateful for Church social concern but cautioned that people also need inspiration and “the authority of Scripture, of God, of Christ in the lives of men. If the Church fails here, no other institution can fill that void.” Convention Co-chairman Carl F. H. Henry of CHRISTIANITY TODAY said that to many of the speakers, “the hope of the world” was not Christ’s resurrection but the sort of thing ASNE was talking about. Is the “Christian press being subverted by the secular ideals of our time?” he wondered.

ACP judges gave five general Awards of Merit—based on content, visual appeal, and imagination—to denominational youth monthlies Arena One and Youth, the United Church [of Christ] Herald, the Roman Catholic quarterly Continuum, and motive, which won last year’s prize for content.

OBSCENITY UNDER 17

The United Supreme Court last month upheld, 6 to 3, New York’s law banning sale of girlie magazines to persons under age 17. Thirty-four other states have similar laws. The ruling sets up a dual standard; one of the magazines involved in the case was judged not obscene for adults by the Supreme Court last year. The court also ruled 8–1 that Dallas can’t classify a movie as unfit for children because current standards are too vague.

The court threw out Mississippi’s 1964 anti-picketing law and decided to rule on the constitutionality of the strict parade ordinance in Birmingham, Alabama.

On April 22, the court heard arguments on the New York law requiring public schools to lend textbooks to church and other private schools, but gave few clues on which way the decision will go.

MASONS: NOT YET

It was a sure thing, said the reports from Rome. The Vatican was ending its 1738 ban on Catholics’ joining Masonic lodges. Several days later the Vatican said the reports were “without foundation.” Sources explained that in some Scandinavian cases, converts to Catholicism have been permitted to retain lodge membership.

Whether or not the official stance changes eventually, a noticeable thaw has developed in some parts of the United States between Masonic groups and the Catholic men’s lodge, Knights of Columbus. At a K. of C.-Masonic “prayerathon of brotherly love” in Kenosha, Wisconsin, a year and a half ago, Masons attended a Mass and K. of C. official Lee Everts prematurely declared “the deathknell of prejudice against Masons in the Catholic Church.”

The historic anti-Catholic stance of Masonry is well known. The lodges have generally made great inroads among Protestants, often because of this anti-Catholicism. Ecumenism may be changing that.

Nonetheless, ties to the Protestant Establishment abound. The District of Columbia Grand Lodge has held a special service in the city’s Episcopal Cathedral. The Imperial Chaplain of the world’s 851,000 Shriners is the Rev. Timothy Reeves, an Illinois Methodist.

Most anti-Masonic sentiment among Protestants is in conservative groups such as Lutherans, Seventh-day Adventists, and Christian Reformed. After extended synod debate, one of South Africa’s Reformed denominations forbade church members to belong to the Masons, stating:

“Freemasonry is a religion, but a religion without Christ. Freemasons are heathens for they do not pray to the God of the Bible, but to their own god.

They do not recognize the writings of the Bible, but believe God’s word was brought to them through the books of the great heathen religions. They preach that Christ was not man’s only Saviour, but that man can save himself. Their ethical standards and moral codes are not in keeping with the Bible.…”

Besides theological and moral grounds of opposition, there may also be practical reasons. Masonic duties consume much time of the four million members in the various U. S. bodies, many of them church members. Then there’s money. Scottish Rite historian James Carter has claimed the Masonic groups have accumulated “more liquid assets than any corporation in the United States” except the top financial houses and insurance companies.

MORE GLOCK-STARK

Following up their best-selling book on anti-Semitism, Berkeley sociologists Charles Glock and Rodney Stark charge that the Bible and the doctrine of man’s free will are prime contributors to prejudice, and that active churchgoers are more bigoted than anybody else.

Stark, reporting on a five-year study financed by B’nai B’rith, told a recent California symposium, “A great many church people, because of their radical free-will image of man, think that Negroes are themselves mainly to blame for their present misery.” This blinds them to “forces outside the individual which may utterly dominate his circ*mstances. Instead, one is led to dismiss misery of the disadvantaged as due to their own individual shortcomings.” He wished aloud that the “freewill image of man” could be dropped from “contemporary Christian doctrine.” The prejudiced churchgoers, he said, embrace most church doctrines but are less apt to “accept Christian ethicalism.” For instance, they would deny civil liberties, public office-holding, or schoolteaching jobs to atheists.

Conferees hoping for enlightened rebuttal from a theologian were further jarred. San Francisco Theological Seminary’s Noel Freedman said such Christians were only being “faithful to the history of the Church,” since the theme of inequality permeates the Bible. They cling to their prejudices “because they feel it is an essential part of their religion.” The New Testament “is simply an anti-Semitic book,” he explained, and “every figure in the Old Testament has slaves.” Even the Israelites took their slaves on the Exodus. He concluded sardonically, “Here is this great crusade for freedom!”

Symposium keynoter Arthur Flemming, president of the National Council of Churches, said “we plead guilty to charges of racism” in the light of the President’s riot commission report.

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Adon Taft

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What may be the nation’s biggest Protestant denomination was born April 23 in the heart of Texas—a land fabled for bigness in everything. It was the union of the 10.3-million-member Methodist Church and the 750,000-member Evangelical United Brethren Church into the United Methodist Church.

(There is some question whether the Southern Baptist Convention is larger, because of wide variance in the way memberships are reported.)

Dr. Albert C. Outler, noted Methodist theologian, forecast that the merger, dramatically portrayed in color on national TV, is only the beginning of what eventually may become one all-encompassing Christian Church. “No part of our venture in unity is really finished as yet,” the 1,200 official delegates and 8,000 Dallas onlookers were told.

Both the Methodists and EUBs were among the ten denominations in the Consultation on Church Union, aimed at bringing a single Protestant church with 25.5 million members. Their merger was the first within the group. Some skeptical observers predicted it will also be the last within COCU.

Nevertheless, the leaders of the new United Methodist Church indicated they will push union with all the others, particularly the three Negro Methodist denominations in COCU. For some southern laymen in the Methodist Church, however, even full integration of Negro conferences from the old Methodist Church was a big enough task for the foreseeable future.

The creation of the new denomination was not without some birth pangs. One incident occurred the night before the union ritual when fifty-six churchmen—most of them Negroes—walked out of a joint communion service for the uniting denominations to express concern for the racial question in the new church.

“We do not believe that within the United Methodist Church we are truly in love and charity with each other—black and white,” according to a statement circulated by the Rev. A. Cecil Williams of San Francisco. “We are deeply concerned over the intentions, purposes, and structures of the new United Methodist Church. We find no indication that the uniting conference intends to take immediate steps to deal with racism in its structural life.”

A bitter condemnation of President Lyndon B. Johnson by a delegate from Malaysia on April 24 further pointed up the way the question of race was beginning to dominate this first UMC General Conference.

“Asians will not be used as cannon fodder for the white man any longer,” shouted Dr. Chee Khoon Tan, a member of the Malaysian Parliament. Bishop Paul C. Hardin, Jr., of South Carolina had to cut off the tirade because time had run out and the delegates refused to extend it.

Tan had been speaking on a proposal of the social-concerns committee to both commend the President for his peace efforts and remind him of his offer to go “anywhere, anytime,” to talk. After a motion to delete that critical portion, Tan rose to say that “we have commended the President who has brought death and destruction to Viet Nam, the man who is killing both the innocent and the guilty.” The matter was left hanging.

Race dominated most of the opening session, in the report from a commission trying to set up guidelines for the ending of Negro conferences within the church.

The militant Black Methodists for Church Renewal, with the backing of a more numerous white group, Methodists for Church Renewal, lost by a close vote an effort to get the matter referred to the social-concerns committee, where their greatest strength lies. Instead, the report went to the conference committee.

However, it was evident from the applause given such black Methodist speakers as the Rev. Roy Nichols of New York that delegates generally wanted quick integration of the Negro conferences into previously white conferences, with Negroes represented at leadership levels.

“This is not an effort for a power play for selfish reasons,” Nichols said of his proposals to spell out definite numbers of Negroes at policy-making levels and other provisions for Negroes. He reminded the delegates that “many things have happened since February when this report was made—the leader of moderation has been struck down,” an obvious reference to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The biggest test of the racial climate was to come with the presentation of the proposed quadrennial emphasis for the church. Two main points were the raising of a $20 million fund for use in meeting the city crisis—particularly in Negro ghettos—and the forming of United Methodist Voluntary Service, something like the Peace Corps, for young people to work in “reconciliation and reconstruction.”

The principle had general approval, but considerable opposition was building to the $20 million sum and to proposals that the money go directly to black-power groups for use as they see fit.

That much money seemed staggering to some delegates, who pointed out that other budget requests are up more than one-third and additional expenses are expected in bringing financial arrangements in Negro and EUB churches into line with those in the old Methodist Church.

One of the key men in the race question is the Rev. Woodie W. White, an urban missioner in Detroit. He is one of the first Negro delegates to a Methodist General Conference elected from a predominantly white district. Dedicated to the work in the Negro ghettos, the young churchman is one of the founders of the Black Methodists group, which published a race-conscious daily paper, Behold, at the conference.

He listed two concerns: how do black Methodists organize to address the Church on racism, and how do they speak as black Methodists to the black revolution?

Behold said the opening communion service which sparked the walkout had an all-white choir and a massive all-white usher corps. The paper added that the preacher of the evening, Georgia’s Bishop Nolan Harmon, was remembered by few of the thousands as one of the eight white critics to whom Dr. King had addressed his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

Behold also criticized the episcopal address by Bishop Lloyd Wicke of New York because it made no mention of King’s cause or murder. Wicke, however, issued a strong attack on war in general—without mentioning Viet Nam—and gave firm backing to dissenters, even those who break the law. In the repressing of big-city riots, he said, “the employment of troops, however reluctant, may be the symbol of creeping totalitarianism.”

OTHER WESLEYAN ECUMENICS

With attention riveted on the grand alliance of 11 million Wesleyans formed in Dallas (previous page), little notice went to a significant stride toward cooperation among the nation’s 1.5 million conservative Wesleyans, at the Cleveland centennial convention of the National Holiness Association, April 16–19.

There was sparse reaction in Cleveland to the Methodist-Evangelical United Brethren merger, though a few private expressions of sympathy for the EUBs were voiced.

The conservatives have been talking about cooperation for a long time, but action has failed to match rhetoric. Almost everyone agreed that something should be done; no one seemed to know just what. As the economic and organizational value of cooperation became increasingly apparent, church leaders began meeting in earnest two years ago under the convenient NHA umbrella.

Out of these meetings grew a well-studied proposal that amounts to a step toward unity among the thirteen NHA denominations.¹NHA affiliates: the Brethren in Christ Church, Churches of Christ in Christian Union, Evangelical Methodist Church, Free Methodist Church of North America, Holiness Christian Church, Ohio Yearly meeting of Friends, Pacific Northwest Conference of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, Pilgrim Holiness Church, Rocky Mountain Yearly Meeting of the Friends, Salvation Army, Canadian Salvation Army, United Missionary Church, and Wesleyan Methodist Church of America. Auxiliary members: eightysix associations and camp meetings, three missionary societies, fourteen educational institutions. The 625 delegates at Cleveland approved “cooperative ministries” in publishing, missions, evangelism, higher education, and other areas as need arises. An executive director will work with those member denominations using the services.

All this came after frequent revisions by cautious leaders. The idea has had three names, each a substitute to soften ecumenical overtones: First, “federation,” later, “federated services,” and—just before the proposal was submitted—a shift to “cooperative ministries.” Regardless of name, delegates liked the intent and approved it without floor debate. Now each denomination will decide which ministries to cooperate with, and whether to support the expanded annual budget of around $30,000.

Technically, this is the first ecumenical move made by the NHA since its beginning at Vineland, New Jersey, in July, 1867. However, the organization has been handy in helping to bring about various holiness church mergers. The largest and most recent will be completed June 26, that of the Pilgrim Holiness and Wesleyan Methodist Churches.

The NHA started as an organization of annual camp meetings in the East and South, and later supported a missionary organization. But in the past twenty years, with leadership largely from denominations, it has dropped the missionary ties, though three independent missionary groups are still members.

The Cleveland action provides the historically individualistic churches a chance to find out, through a trial relationship, what real possibilities lie in further mergers. The test will come when leaders from denominations varying greatly in size join in a working relationship. The 450,000-member Church of the Nazarene is considering applying for NHA membership. It would be a sibling to half a dozen denominations with fewer than 10,000 members each. The NHA board has equal representation among denominations, but budget allocations will be based on denominational size. How all this will work out is still undecided.

These problems and others have already been faced to some extent by the ten-year-old Holiness Denominational Publishers Association, which will be part of the NHA’s cooperative ministries. Seven of the eleven denominations in the HDPA (including the Church of the Nazarene) are now planning a united curriculum. Although conflict over Sunday-school teaching methods has arisen frequently, nevertheless progress toward the new curriculum is apparent, according to Chairman A. F. Harper.

Centennial speakers emphasized again and again the immutables of Wesleyan theology, to the hearty chimes of delegate amens. The authority of the Scriptures, free grace to all men, God’s holiness, the sinfulness of unregenerate man, and two distinct works of grace—these were well covered. There was also a long look backward across the hundred years, aided at one point by a telephone conversation with past NHA officer John L. Brasher, who celebrated his personal centennial during the year.

A touch of contemporaneity came through the social action committee, which presented the most definitive statement on social issues in the 100 years. It upheld educational programs in human rights and family planning, and condemned drugs and hom*osexuality. “We call upon the NHA,” the statement also said, “to consider a program of coordinated and cooperative efforts to meet the physical needs of urban men, women and youth. Further, we ask that the NHA develop biblical concepts of life and death that may serve as guides for a position and for participation in the decisions on such moral issues as birth and genetic controls, abortion, and organ transplants.”

The statement expressed concern “about totalitarian force as an alternative to violence when the government acts illegally against the freedom and the privacy of the individual.”

On separation of church and state, the committee recognized “that the redemptive function of the church can only be carried out when the government assumes its protective function for the freedom of religion.” It also held that “the teaching of the Bible as literature is a legitimate function of the public schools.” It made allowance for “wars of defense,” and added that “while peace-making is a priority for Christians, we do not accept ‘peace at any cost.’”

Opposition to permissiveness in television programming and to divorce was restated, but the committee suggested that holiness churches should minister to a “growing number of divorced and remarried people and … forgive and accept them within God’s redemptive context.”

Dr. Paul S. Rees, member-at-large of the NHA board, chided holiness churches for lack of interest in social issues. “Evangelicals are social reactionaries,” he said. “We need not be. We can be theologically conservative and socially progressive.… You don’t know what it means to be a Negro in America if you are a white man.” Speaking to Wesleyan adherents, he added, “If we are going to follow Wesley, let’s follow him all the way. The final part of his admonition was ‘… and to reform a nation.’”

The Rev. Wingrove Taylor, a Pilgrim Holiness minister from Barbados, also touched on the racial problem. “You brought holiness to me,” he said, “but you did not take it next door.”

Succeeding Dr. Paul Kindschi as president of NHA is Bishop Myron F. Boyd, a Free Methodist.

The cooperation move, the social-action statement, and the spiritual and social sensitivity of the speakers added up to more than the sum of their parts. There is a force in the background somewhere pressing for needed change. How united that force becomes may well determine the future effectiveness of the holiness churches.

ELDEN E. RAWLINGS

MORE THAN CARPENTRY

“We not only have to say what we believe but show it,” the Rev. Dr. Samuel H. Moffett told 400 persons at a Pittsburgh conference of Presbyterians United for Biblical Confession. The Presbyterian seminary dean from Seoul, Korea, said Communists also stress good deeds. “We must not show only concern but also the reason we have it, which is Jesus Christ.”

Moffett said there is no evidence that Jesus’ “being a carpenter, simply being there, affected anyone significantly. Only after he started to preach did things begin to happen.”

PUBC, concerned with the loss of 39,000 members of the United Presbyterian Church in two years, held three regional conferences last month to “update evangelism,” including seminars on special types of ministry.

- More fromAdon Taft

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Cybernetic Religion

Toward an American Theology, by Herbert W. Richardson (Harper & Row, 1967, 170 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Gordon R. Lewis, professor of systematic theology and Christian philosophy, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, Denver, Colorado.

The death-of-God theology buries belief in a personal God but marks the beginning of a fresh American approach to theological thinking, according to Herbert W. Richardson, assistant professor of theology at Harvard Divinity School.

Our high regard for a God with a personal self-consciousness, Richardson says, is simply the projection of seventeenth-century philosophy into Scripture. However, atheistic rejections of God as an individual person are merely transitional. An atheistic culture is impossible in principle, for “an absolute denial of God finally negates its own negation.”

Culturally, the era of the individual is rapidly being swallowed up in what Richardson calls the age of sociotechnics. Man now exercises technical control not only over nature but also over all the institutions that make up society: economics, education, science, and politics. Cybernetics is concerned with the control of probability systems whose terms are the manifold decisions of free individuals. Since America has created and promulgated social technology, it is fitting that America should produce the distinctive theology for the new age. With little reference to Scripture, but some guidance from the history of doctrine, Richardson seeks to chart the way.

The shift to a social conception of God is required, he thinks, by the sociotechnic age. Although Richardson continues to use personal pronouns of God, he says we can no longer think of God as a person explicated by a theological emphasis on the historical Jesus. Apparently we are to think of God as the general goals for a cybernetic system. These goals may be “conceptually imprecise, but symbolically precise.” The myth becomes the message. The new ethical principles will move away from independence and competitiveness to teamwork and conformity to the systems of society necessary for optimum organization of human life. God is “the unity of the encompassing system of social relations.”

A philosophical analysis of unity discloses (1) the unity of the individual, or individuality, (2) the unity of any two or more individuals when taken together, relationality, and (3) the unity of any or all possible relationalities taken together, wholeness. It must not be forgotten that these are three types of unity. The unity of the three is not: one of the three, a fourth hypostasis, nothing at all, or relatively the negation of some determinate being. The unity is the three themselves, that is, “the oneness is nothing other than the threeness of these three ones.” This unity is present in all things, but it also transcends them. We must affirm not only the reality of individuality, relationality, and wholeness, but also the reality of “the unity of unities.” Although Richardson does not wish to consider this a personal God, he asserts its identity with the “one Lord” of biblical experience (Deut. 6:4). He does not consider his henological argument an explanation of the Trinity, however useful it may be as an analogy.

Reading For Perspective

CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S REVIEW EDITORS CALL ATTENTION TO THESE NEW TITLES:

• The Philosophy of Gordon H. Clark, edited by Ronald H. Nash (Presbyterian and Reformed, $9.95). A fascinating, challenging Festschrift on the encyclopedic thought of the outstanding evangelical Protestant philosopher of our day.

• The Progress of the Protestant, by John Haverstick (Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, $14.95). Haverstick presents highlights of Protestant history from Wycliffe to Barth through 500 illustrations and a limited but lively text.

• … And Thy Neighbor, by Sam Shoemaker, edited by Cecile Offill (Word, $3.50). A sampler of sermons and writings by the late Dr. Sam Shoemaker that stresses the revolutionary spiritual power in the New Testament message and calls men to a victorious life in Christ.

The strategic point of contact with the world for Christian apologetics is the possible transcending of every ideological conflict through this invisible power of reconciliation at work in all things. If the power of reconciliation is at work in everything, we wonder why Richardson singles out the United Nations, the Peace Corps, the worker priests, federal mediators, and ecumenism about which to say, “These are the institutions where God is working in the world today, but only the fides reconcilians will have the eyes to see.” If, as Richardson assumes, every individual act is ultimately socializable, what happens to individual decision and responsibility before God? Is not a very shallow view of sin implied in the anticipation of reconciling all conflicts among men with a single cybernetic system?

In developing his system further, Richardson would do well to consider the biblically revealed possibility that society might in fact be programmed not by the Christ but by antichrist! By what criteria can we distinguish the social unity that is of God from the unity that is demonic? As the cybernetic age dawns, persons must program society’s computers. It becomes more crucial than ever that they be regenerate persons bound by the authority of the crucified and risen Lord disclosed in inscripturated truth.

Why Do We Experience Guilt?

The Paradox of Guilt, by Malcomb France (United Church Press, 1967, 127 pp., $1.95), is reviewed by Willard F. Harley, Sr., professor of psychology and director of counseling, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

Both pastor and psychotherapist must frequently deal with the problem of guilt and feelings of guilt. In The Paradox of Guilt Malcomb France brings together an array of assumptions that he weaves into some very creative propositions. He wants to provide a “Christian study of the relief of self-hatred,” upon which he ambitiously hopes that “a new theology of guilt might be constructed.” Those who subscribe to historical Christianity will be disinclined to accept his definitions of “Christian” and of “guilt,” however, and those who subscribe to mainstream psychological inquiry will be disinclined to accept his behavioral interpretations. France readily admits, “What I have written is a personal view and not presented as possessing any other authority.” Yet, as a piece of imaginative speculation on a difficult subject, the book makes interesting and provocative reading.

France begins by limiting his treatment of guilt “to those situations where recrimination and remorse are dominant, where guilt feelings are too strong to be constructive, and where the element of grief is either absent altogether or else swamped by self-attack.” This definition points to what is usually thought of as neurotic grief. France sees this guilt as originating in infancy. When the infant is left in his crib against his will, he feels abandoned and rejected by his mother. He responds by hating her and by hating himself for hating her. “Through her absence he is being given a bad identity; to be him is to be unwanted.” “… Since his mother is in the place of God, it seems to him that there must be a kind of rightness in what he has suffered. He has brought it all upon himself, by being himself.… By not coming she is making him bad and worthless.” He feels himself to be “horrible, repulsive, a creature unfit to be loved.” France asserts emphatically, “Beyond question this is the birthplace of self-hatred.”

All this is, of course, highly speculative. We are always on weak ground when we “anthropomorphize” the infant or attempt to read his thoughts. Numerous studies show that extreme neglect is indeed harmful to the psyche of the child. But the occasional frustrations of not being picked up and of waiting for meals are not likely to be so devastating as France supposes.

France sees the story of the Garden of Eden as describing “the memory of a real state in which for a time every human being has lived.” Just as Adam was at first innocent, so is the infant. Adam, in asserting himself, contrary to God’s command, became a person at the price of guilt. Likewise the infant, in asserting himself against his mother, becomes a person, but also at the price of guilt. Thus he leaves the innocence and nothingness of infancy in order to become a person through self-assertion.

But if our alienation from God is nothing more than the self-assertion by which we have become persons, we can scarcely repent of such a “sin”; with France, we may divest ourselves of guilt simply by concluding we were not guilty in the first place. In his view, it seems, salvation is derived through self-forgiveness, which we achieve by denying that we ever were really guilty.

The death of Christ points the way for us, France says, by showing us a person who, originally innocent, identified himself with our self-hatred by hating himself and feeling the same alienation from God that we felt from Mother. France proposes that we can love Christ only if we see him as guilty. “Good, compliant, respectable people are unattractive.… Seeing goodness or righteousness in others makes us lonely.” “An innocent Savior could not save.” It is Christ’s hating himself and joining “in man’s condemnation of God’s faithlessness” (for abandoning Christ in his moment of suffering) that makes him the kind of Saviour we can understand and accept, and in understanding and accepting him we understand and accept ourselves.

Nowhere does France consider the biblical concept of sin or the vicarious atonement. In his view, had Adam (man the individual) never disobeyed God, he would never have become a person. Not to be a person is nothingness. The Paradox of Guilt, then, is the inexorable need to escape the nothingness of innocence in order to become a person, albeit a guilty person. We are alienated from God, not because we have done wrong, but because we are persons. France seems to imply that the only guilt God has concerned himself about is a neurotic guilt that needs only self-forgiveness. The Bible, however, addresses itself to real guilt that needs real atonement and real forgiveness.

Although France does not refer to the biblical doctrine of grace, he clearly recognizes the futility of urging the guilt-ridden to work harder to be good. The overwrought conscience compulsively seeks expiation; it is too easy to incite to penitence those who cannot forgive themselves.

France has brought to light much that merits consideration by those who minister to people burdened by feelings of guilt. But his approach to guilt seems to have little in common either with mainstream psychology or with careful biblical exegesis.

When, How, And Where To Refer

Referral in Pastoral Counseling, by William B. Oglesby, Jr. (Prentice-Hall, 1968, 139 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Earl Jabay, chaplain, New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute, Princeton.

Those who come to a pastor for help sometimes have problems that exceed his competence. This book shows him how to refer such persons to the other professional people or service organizations that can best deal with their problems. The author, who is professor of pastoral counseling at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, adeptly draws on his considerable counseling experience in describing when, how, and where to make referrals.

There is a concrete, down-to-earth quality about Dr. Oglesby’s writing that makes this book a practical guide, especially for the young pastor. He offers numerous examples to explain not only the process of referral but also the ways of finding the right marriage counselor, adoption agency, welfare agency, psychologist or psychiatrist, and so on.

This helpful book stimulates one to reflect on some of the persistent questions involved in referral. Why is referral to medical people always a one way street? How can we help pastors resist the temptation to view the psychiatrist and psychologist as omnicompetent? How could pastors be better trained to deal with people?

It is time to take a hard look at referral. This volume is a constructive guide in that direction.

Does Ecumenism Bring Sterility?

The Ecumenical Mirage, by C. Stanley Lowell (Baker, 1967, 205 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Robert Boyd Munger, pastor, University Presbyterian Church, Seattle, Washington.

A good debate requires a good rebuttal. Hundreds of books have been written advancing ecumenism; C. Stanley Lowell’s The Ecumenical Mirage is one of the few to make a sharp, cogent attack upon the basic assumptions and observable effects of the current movement toward church union.

Lowell does not hedge about his position: “The naïve assumption that a Christian unity embodied in one great church represents the will of God will be challenged throughout this book. I believe, in fact, that those who so plead have catastrophically missed the will of God.” His conclusion: “[Ecumenism] is not an authentic manifestation of the Holy Spirit but merely the cultural drift among nominal Christians who are without real convictions. It is a sickness of our time, or a symptom of it.”

He supports his thesis in two sobering chapters, “Ecumenism and Sterility” and “Proliferation and Health.” Member of the mainline churches should take a hard look at the statistics of faltering church growth in denominations identified with the ecumenical movement, in contrast with figures of rapid growth in churches outside the movement. Lowell concludes that church merger leads to sterility because of the inevitable surrender of distinctives and loss of convictions. Whether the surrender of distinctives results from church union or is part of a deeper malady he does not make clear.

The author attempts to show that the proliferation of churches is a sign of spiritual vitality: “History teaches that reforms come about only under challenge and only when the challengers are firm to the point of proliferation away from the group to be reformed. This is why division has been good for the church. A church incapable of proliferation is dead.” His fear that Protestantism will ultimately be absorbed into a monolithic Roman Catholicism is an outgrowth of his experience as an accredited correspondent at the Second Vatican Council and as editor of Church and State magazine.

Since the book is intended as a rebuttal, its negativeness is understandable; still, one wishes Lowell had made some positive suggestions about the desperate need for Christian unity in a day of world community and massive social structures. At times, it seems to me, he lets his strong feeling carry him beyond an objective interpretation of the data and even to some unsubstantiated imputations of motive.

In dialogue each party must take the other seriously. For this reason I hope this book will be read by those who see in church union the solution to the problems of Christendom, even as I hope the authentic longings of God’s people that all might be one in Christ Jesus will not be brushed off, but will be heeded responsibly, by those outside the ecumenical movement.

A Clear Perception Of Reality

A Second Touch, by Keith Miller (Word, 1967, 156 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by C. Ralston Smith, director of development,CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Washington, D. C.

This stimulating and refreshing little volume is a relevant application of the miracle of Jesus Christ in which he twice touched a blind man to restore his sight completely. The obvious application is that some of us who name the name of Christ need the second touch; we are still in the first stage, where haziness prevails and persons are not seen in clear perspective. The author takes us along with him in his own experience of gaining a clearer perception of reality.

In three segments Miller outlines an autobiographical odyssey, applies newly discovered truths to everyday situations, and approaches the tangled skein of institutionalism with a view to unraveling it. A good summary statement is this:

I have found that the thing which has helped me most is that during these past few years I have begun to become conscious of what I think it actually does mean to live and grow as a Christian. I have begun to believe that the Christian life is a pilgrimage, not a program; a pilgrimage with people who want to be willing to love, live, and possibly die for Christ, each other, and the world. I have begun to experience what it is like to take the risk of revealing my true needs, and to love other Christians enough to let them help me when I really hurt—as well as trying to help them [p. 125].

This is a poignant, personal book. It will get to the reader if he has any feeling of failure in the past, frustration in the present, or futility about the future. There is nothing pharisaical about this honest-to-God recital of life in the home of a Christian couple. No classroom theories are found here; rather, Miller deals with the events that make up the dawn-to-dusk life of most of us. The suggested vitalizing diet is not the ambrosia of the gods but the meat and potatoes of daily sustaining grace.

It is easy for me to be enthusiastic, and even a bit prejudiced, toward anything that comes from Keith Miller. I knew him a few years ago in Oklahoma City when he was determining how best he could serve God. In my study and at his office with his two Christian fellow workers, I benefited from his winsome and genuine searching and from his unpretentious honesty. Here’s hoping he keeps growing, and telling us about it in this fresh, invigorating way.

True To The Fathers Of Methodism

The Wesleyan Bible Commentary, Volume 1, Part I and Part II, edited by-Charles W. Carter (Eerdmans, 1967, 550 pp. and 497 pp., $8.95 each), is reviewed by Ludwig R. M. Dewitz, associate professor of Old Testament language, literature, and exegesis, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia.

The Wesleyan Bible Commentary is intended “to maintain the faith of the Fathers of Methodism” while at the same time taking full advantage “of the latest and best information available to present-day Bible scholars.” Volume I consists of two complete books, one dealing with the Pentateuch, the other with all the rest of the historical books, Joshua to Esther. There are a general introduction to the Pentateuch and particular introductions to each of the other books.

The documentary theory is seen as a villain: “On the whole, the results of this type of study have been destructive,” the “level of an authoritative revelation” having been reduced “to a fallible record of the religious evolution of finite men groping after eternal truth.” Yet while JEPD is dismissed, a complete Mosaic authorship for the Pentateuch is not claimed. Mr. Haines, who deals with Genesis and Exodus, takes the position that the Pentateuch consists of “large portions written by Moses using preexisting sources, substantial editing by a later editor or editors with the slight possibility that they also used some pre-Mosaic sources either not available or not used by Moses himself.”

Although introductory questions of authorship and historical setting are not central to a commentary of this sort, it is regrettable that the introduction to Deuteronomy is overly short. Moreover, comment on the chapters dealing with the centralization of the cult and the restriction on the Kingship should have some reference to the historical-critical perspective.

Generally, the comments are clear and interesting. They underline quite rightly that, whatever the various records may have meant to the original writers and listeners, they do have additional meaning to a Christian. For example, the account of the Passover rightly includes a view from the New Testament perspective. It may not be obvious to all, however, that use of the plural form of Elohim for God has reference to the doctrine of the Trinity.

The bibliographies given at the end of each book include both conservative and liberal writing.

A real deficiency is the lack of maps and other illustrative material. One always can get this elsewhere, of course, but in the discussion of the tabernacle or the ark, for instance, a drawing or two would have been of real help.

The commentary is meant to aid those who teach the Bible in Sunday school and Bible classes and all others who wish to study the Bible more systematically. For this it is well suited and should find wide use.

Theological Brinkmanship?

The Dimensions of the Church: A Post-conciliar Reflection, by Avery Dulles (Newman, 1967, 118 pp., $3.50), is reviewed by Carl S. Meyer, director of graduate studies, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.

Avery Dulles of the Society of Jesus looks at the Roman Catholic Church in its relations with other churches, the unevangelized, and secular institutions in the light of the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council. However, he does not do justice to the council’s concept of the Church as the people of God as it is brought out in Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution of the Church. Instead he goes to a broad definition of the Church that smacks of universalism.

Lumen gentium does indeed contain a prayer that the entire world might become the “people of God.” It also teaches: “Those also can attain to everlasting salvation who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel of Christ or His Church, yet sincerely seek God, and moved by His grace, strive by their deeds to do His will as it is known to them through the dictates of conscience.” In this, what is Christ’s role? Is his universal dominion, in which all his enemies are subjected to him, the inclusion of all in everlasting bliss? Is his universal atonement the same as eternal life for all, as if rejecting him were tantamount to accepting him? “We have, as it were, a secret presence of the Church even where the spoken or written word of the Gospel has not yet permeated,” says Dulles. He does not, however, accept the view of Eugene Hillman that the presence of the Church in a given ethnic-cultural group is operative for the eternal life of all past and future members of that group.

But how can Dulles or Lumen gentium postulate that the Gospel is not necessary for salvation? The Church must proclaim the Name, the only way of salvation for man. All those who believe on that name will be saved; those who do not will be damned. This is the message of Christianity; it cannot be diluted. And it is the reason for missions, whether at home or abroad. Christianity is an exclusive religion. That is not the same as saying that there is salvation only in the Roman Catholic Church, nor is it limiting the power of God. But to his followers the Redeemer has given orders: Go, preach the Gospel, baptize, teach.

Book Briefs

Born to Climb, by Dick Hillis (Word, 1967, 157 pp., $3.50). Illuminating biographical sketches of twenty contemporary evangelical missionaries by the founder and director of Overseas Crusades.

Luther’s Works: Lectures on Genesis, edited by Jaroslav Pelikan, translated by George V. Schick and Paul D. Pahl (Concordia, 1968, 412 pp., $6). The German reformer deals mainly with Jacob’s experiences in this new translation of lectures on Genesis, chapters 26–30.

The Thought of Teilhard de Chardin, by Emile Rideau (Harper & Row, 1968, 672 pp., $12.50). An analysis of the Roman Catholic paleontologist-theologian’s erroneous view that the universe and man are progressively evolving toward an ultimate state of redemption in the Cosmic Christ.

The Westminster Pulpit, The Preaching of G. Campbell Morgan (Revell, 1968, Volumes I-X in five books, $29.95). Masterpieces of expository preaching by the minister who addressed thousands weekly for four decades in London’s Westminster Chapel.

David Brainerd: His Life and Diary, edited by Jonathan Edwards (Moody, 1949, 384 pp., $4.95). Re-issue of the classic biography of an early American missionary to the Indians whose short life had great spiritual impact; written by one of the greatest theologian-preachers in the nation’s history.

The World of the Bible, by Anton Jirku, translated by Ann E. Keep (World, 1967, 167 pp., $10). Geographical, historical, and cultural studies of the ancient Pales-tine-Syrian region based on documents and letters, biblical texts, and recent archaeological findings.

The Old Testament for Everyman, edited by Frank Dell’Isola (Meredith, 1968, 427 pp., $8.95). A condensation and chronological rearrangement of the Old Testament based on the RSV and Confraternity of Christian Doctrine edition.

Geneva and the Consolidation of the French Protestant Movement, by Robert M. Kingdon (University of Wisconsin, 1967, 241 pp., $8). A scholarly study for church-history buffs.

Language, Persons and Belief, by Dallas M. High (Oxford, 1967, 216 pp., $4.75). High analyzes Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and challenges the assumption that faith and reason are altogether separate processes.

Changed into His Likeness, by Watchman Nee (Christian Literature Crusade, 1967, 123 pp., $3). Spiritual lessons for today gained from God’s dealings with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Church and State in Confrontation, by Herbert Stroup (Seabury, 1967, 246 pp., $6.95). A sociologist considers church-state relations from biblical times to the present.

Paperbacks

The Evolving World and Theology, edited by Johannes Metz (Paulist, 1967, 184 pp., $4.50). Catholic and Protestant scholars, mainly European, who accept the evolutionary hypothesis grapple with its ramifications in the formulation of theology.

The Preacher and His Models, by James Stalker, and The Glory of the Ministry, by A. T. Robertson (Baker, 1967, 284 and 244 pp., $2.95 each). These reissues in Baker’s “Notable Books on Preaching” have what it takes to spark a minister’s mind and spirit.

The Treasury of C. H. Spurgeon, by C. H. Spurgeon (Baker, 1967, 256 pp., $1.95). Sermons by the nineteenth-century “Prince of Preachers” that still ring true in 1968.

The New Testament in the Contemporary World, by Warren W. Jackson (Seabury, 1968, 154 pp., $2.50). A highly readable exposition of the dominant attitudes toward God, the universe, the Bible, and Jesus Christ found in many of our seminaries today. An antisupernatural stance, evolutionary constructions, and low view of Scripture are passed off as factual conclusions. Written for secondary students, this work offers a distorted view of the biblical picture of God, man, and the world.

Jerusalem Through the Ages, by Charles F. Pfeiffer (Baker, 1967, 94 pp., $1.95). A brief but fascinating profile of the great city from its first biblical mention in Genesis 14 to the present day.

The Second Vatican Council, edited by Bernard C. Pawley (Oxford, 1967, 262 pp., $3.75). Eight Anglican Vatican II observers give their reactions to the council’s deliberations on divine revelation, the church, religious liberty, ecumenism, and other topics.

Ideas

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In 1900 there were approximately 250,000 college students in the United States. Today there are more than six million, an increase of 2,400 per cent. And this present student population is expected to increase by 50 per cent in the next ten years. What will these millions of students learn in their college years? In particular, what will they learn of Christian principles, absolute values, and biblical morality?

The first colleges in America were founded by Christians and had educational objectives in harmony with divine revelation. Timothy Dwight, president of Yale from 1795 to 1817, advised the class of 1814, “Christ is the only, the true, the living way of access to God. Give up yourselves therefore to him, with a cordial confidence, and the great work of life is done.” For the president of any great university to make such a statement today would probably be educational suicide. Now, with few exceptions, colleges and universities have abandoned the teaching of Christianity and the revealed moral standards of the Bible.

The move was not merely to a neutral position; often course material is decidedly hostile to the biblical faith. The March, 1967, issue of McCall’s magazine has an article entitled, “What College Catalogues Won’t Tell You,” based upon a questionnaire sent to a large number of student editors across the country. One question asked: “On which campus is a person most likely to lose his religious faith?” The answer: “Berkeley, the University of Chicago, any church-supported school.” Apparently, many of the church-supported schools are more theologically dangerous than the great universities, presumably because they require courses in Bible or religion that are taught from the liberal point of view.

The Center for the Study of Higher Education in Berkeley conducted a study of its Merit Scholars that included questions on their religious beliefs. Eighty-eight per cent of 395 men and 91 per cent of 175 women acknowledged that when they entered college they had felt a need for religious faith. By the end of the junior year the percentages had dropped to 51 and 69. In other words, 37 per cent of the men and 22 per cent of the women lost their sense of need for religious faith in three years. And there would certainly be further casualties in the year preceding graduation.

Noting these trends, Dr. Roy L. Aldrich, retiring president of the Detroit Bible College, said: “Modern educational philosophy has departed from the values of the Bible. No absolute values are any longer believed or taught by the educational establishment.”

What is a university? This definition of a university or college is given by the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies:

Places of higher education are, in the modern world (a world in which religion has lost its universal authority), the chief custodians and interpreters of value in society (Paper No. 1, 1965 report, p. 19).

The report goes on to say:

We think it improper to impose a rigid and preconceived moral system on students, but we insist that they discover and develop their own value system (ibid.).

According to these statements, the college should be an interpreter of value in society and yet teach that there are no fixed values or moral systems. This doubletalk bewilders the student.

Jacqueline Grennan, president of Webster College, which was formerly a Roman Catholic institution but is now independent, said in a panel discussion on modern education:

Only if we open up the system and let him [the student] see that there is no absolute morality, no absolute truth, but only an awful responsibility to try to find it—only then, I think, can we open up the dialogue and have the student share responsibility with us [“The New Education—Teaching Tomorrow Today,” The General Electric Forum, Fall, 1966].

No one contradicted or questioned Dr. Grennan at this conference of college presidents and government officials. Yet the statement was patently irresponsible. She was saying that although there is no absolute morality or truth, nevertheless students are responsible for finding it. This is like telling a child, “There is no Santa Claus, but you must find him.” No wonder students become rebels, beatniks, or drop-outs. And no wonder many commit suicide.

The Aspen report comments that “students are complaining that they do not find in their studies material that provides them with significant answers and a meaningful education” (p. 18). The National Student Association, at its 1965 conference, studied student stress. Its report shows the same discontent with educational experiences because the basic questions of life are not answered: “Who am I? Where am I? Where am I headed? Do I really want to go there?”

The loss of absolutes in education has lead to the so-called new morality and situation ethics. A leading advocate of the new morality, Dr. Joseph F. Fletcher, professor of social ethics at Cambridge Episcopal Theological School, would add a word to each of the Ten Commandments:

Thou shalt not kill, ordinarily.

Thou shalt not commit adultery, ordinarily.

Thou shalt not covet, ordinarily.

He said further: “Situation ethics has been criticized for leading to permissiveness in sex. And that is correct. It does.”

Dr. H. Philip Hook of Wheaton College made this significant statement in a recent article on the new morality: “This is the morality which has conquered the college world today; it is less than half a generation from becoming the standard ethics of our nation” (“Why Not?,” p. 2).

The teaching of morality used to be considered an essential part of education. So general was this assumption that the article on education in the Michigan constitution begins with these words: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” In the light of modern educational philosophy, this statement is obsolete. For most educators, religion has lost its authority and morals are relative.

Real Christian education furnishes a set of values that are not just well established—they are absolute. It answers with authority such basic questions as: “What am I? What am I here for? What is the highest purpose of life? Where am I going when this life is over?”

Some time ago Billy Graham spoke to University of California students in cooperation with the Campus Crusade evangelistic convention. The radicals in the audience interrupted parts of his message with boos and catcalls, but they quieted down when he spoke of their unresolved problems—death and eternity. He told about a college girl who was fatally injured in a car accident. Her last words to her mother were these: “Mother, you taught me everything I needed to know to get by in college. You taught me how to light my cigarette, how to hold my co*cktail glass, and how to have intercourse safely. But Mother, you never taught me how to die. You better teach me quickly, Mother, because I’m dying.”

Despite the babble of conflicting voices and increasing clamor of the apostles of the secular, it is still true that the great questions of life are answered in the Bible and specifically in the person and work of Jesus Christ. He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus Christ is the only person who fulfills completely our basic needs, because he is the only absolutely reliable person and he loves us with an everlasting love. As Augustine said: “Thou hast created us for thyself and our souls are restless until they rest in three.” Christ alone offers wholly adequate moorings for a man’s life. No person is properly educated for life who is not also educated for the life to come.

Lurking behind the problems attending the war in Viet Nam and the racial crisis is a serious situation in American life that promises to alter drastically the direction of the nation in future years. A deepening chasm exists between the present older and younger generations. Young Americans are protesting as never before.

Rebelliousness and impatience among youth is nothing new, of course; generation gaps have always existed in dynamic societies. Three hundred years before Christ, Aristotle in his Rhetoric described young men as “violent in their desires, prompt to execute their desires, incontinent, inconstant, easily forsaking what they desired before, … ready to execute their anger with their hands, full of hope … because they have by natural heat that disposition that other ages have by wine.” The young have always spearheaded movements that have had profound effects on society, be they the Christian Church or the Communist revolution. Certainly America would be a poorer country if her young did not exhibit the daring idealistic aspirations that provide the spark for progress.

But today the quantity and quality of young people’s rebellion against their forebears and against the society that has nurtured them causes many thoughtful people—young and old—to wonder whether the upcoming generation can sustain and advance a free, orderly, and stable society for the benefit of all its citizens.

The present under-thirty generation is significantly unlike previous generations that have carried on America’s ideas, traditions, and institutions. They constitute a larger group, both in number and in percentage of the population; in the United States the median age is now twenty-five. They are healthier and wealthier; only a limited minority has experienced the suffering of war or material deprivation. All have grown up in the tense cold-war period and have been bombarded by the appeals of an increasingly materialistic society. They are especially frustrated today both by the continuation of war, with its danger to human life and its threat to their personal plans, and by the failure of easy-to-come-by materialistic rewards to provide real satisfaction.

Exposed to more education than their forebears, today’s young people have imbibed a liberal philosophy that relativizes truth and enshrines doubt. In the education of most, empirical studies have eclipsed the humanities, the essential goodness of man and his ability eventually to resolve all problems have been promoted, premarital sexual experimentation has been winked at, and God and his Word have been omitted from serious consideration. Although their intellectual skills have been developed, as a whole their understanding of the spiritual dimensions of life remains undeveloped or warped.

Broken families, lack of unity and love in home life, and parents’ overconcern with economic considerations and underconcern for their total welfare also have taken their toll. Many young people have received too much too easily and are ungrateful; they fail to appreciate all that has gone into development of the high living standards and the free and stable economic system and democratic institutions that have helped make America the twentieth century’s promised land. Aroused by militant social critics, the young find it easy to express anger over our nation’s admitted shortcomings but have little to offer in the way of constructive solutions to vexing problems. With the desire to establish their individuality and to make their mark in the public arena, the “now generation” is emerging as the “protest generation.”

The activism of the protest generation has been encouraged by a multi-medium culture that has stretched their awareness of human happenings and urged them to become participants rather than spectators. Although rebellious protest is by no means the hallmark of all under-thirty people (many thousands are committed to responsible, reasoned means of improving society; many millions more are sheep who accept life in whatever shape it comes), the conspicuous spirit of the younger generation is one of resentment and alienation. Because many have accepted a value system that has abandoned all absolutes, made immediate practicability and pleasure the criteria for judging any idea or practice, and posited that laws are made to be broken, a communication breakdown has occurred between young and old. Parents do not understand why their children resent their advice and flout their authority. Communities are baffled by the determination of many youths to wear their hair long, dress outlandishly, expose themselves to the dangers of LSD, and relish obvious non-conformity. College administrators are perplexed by students’ readiness to stage sit-ins and go to jail to gain immediate redress for alleged grievances. Government officials are burdened by the strongly felt anti-war sentiment that causes many to defy the draft and last year led thousands of young activists irrationally to storm the Pentagon. The nation is outraged by the militant young civil-rights extremists—white and black—who advocate and use violence as the means of coping with racial problems.

Other generations have registered protest, but never on the scale or with the intensity that young Americans have displayed during the past decade. And the recent left-wing rioting in Berlin set off by the shooting of anti-American “Red Rudi” Dutschke, as well as frequent outbreaks of violence in London, Rome, Stockholm, Hong Kong, and elsewhere, shows that the protest generation is not found only in the United States. The mood of today’s youths throughout the world is estrangement from their forebears, ill will toward any and all societal “establishments,” rejection of all old solutions (despite time-tested evidence of their workability), and an overestimation of the efficacy of civil demonstrations and power-plays to bring about solutions to human problems. It is cause for great concern.

Yet despite their rebellion and limited wisdom, the protest generation also shows qualities that are important for all men. They detest sham in all forms (except maybe that “delectable con-man Maharishi Mahesh Yogi,” as Malcolm Muggeridge has referred to him) and see the folly of allowing the quest of money and material assets to choke out the joy of living. They are willing to commit themselves to arduous tasks—as recently seen in the politicking of Eugene McCarthy’s student supporters in the New Hampshire primary—and are seeking causes that merit enthusiastic commitment. Although the younger generation’s patience with society may be short, their vision of the future limited, and their understanding of man naïve, their potential is probably greater than that of any other generation.

But if the angry mood and behavior of the young continues to increase during the next decades, the course of world history will surely become more chaotic and bloody. Strong-armed political czars will finally emerge to quell anarchy and restore order. The result will be the denial of that which young protestors most seek: freedom. Thus the full flowering of the liberal world view fostered by the youth will result in unbridled, sinful rebellion and a consequent totalitarian takeover in many societies.

If, however, the keen minds, strong hearts, and able bodies of the young are directed to the purposes for which man was created by God, the coming generation could be the best in man’s history. The utmost need of the hour is to confront the protest generation with the person and Gospel of Jesus Christ. Only by vital faith in the living Lord of redemption and history can youth find the wholeness, purpose, and power that will enable them to fulfill their possibilities. The Church must spare nothing to enlist its people and pledge its resources in an all-out effort to win the younger generation to Christ. So far its record in this is dismal. Part of the reason for current rebelliousness is that the Church as well as the home has not cared sufficiently for the young. Older Christians must listen and relate to youths in their communities in order to be able to communicate Christ’s love and truth to them. And younger Christians must realize that they, more than any others, bear the responsibility of bringing life-giving Christian truth to their non-believing fellows, for young people will most readily listen to their peers. All Christians must help the younger generation to see that only Jesus Christ can deliver the freedom, purpose, joy, and glorious future they are seeking. Believers in him are called to protest rightfully against unrighteousness and to participate creatively in God’s concern for needy people and in the building of his kingdom in the hearts of men.

Today’s younger generation stands before the world as potentially the best or the worst in the history of man. Many of its members are desperately seeking spiritual truth and reality. Senator Mark Hatfield recently said, “Some hippies seek deeper spiritual courses than people in the pew and have a deeper hunger for truth than some men in the pulpit.” The destiny of the world will be greatly affected by the way the Church responds in its witness to the protest generation. We must not fail them.

HIGH CALLING FOR CHRISTIAN EDUCATION

If Christianity is true, as all Christians insist, the task of the Christian college is self-evident. The Christian college, particularly the evangelical one, should strive to advance the truth in all its facets. To do this it must listen to all forms of human knowledge and relate biblical perspectives to them—to philosophy, history, the arts, science, and literature. Unfortunately, evangelical campuses sometimes settle for indoctrination and are content to immunize their students against “secular” modes of thought.

There was a time when criticism of the evangelical colleges came from the liberal camp. But no longer. Today it comes largely from within the Christian school—from students and from the more disaffected and courageous members of the faculty. Unbelievers, for their part, seem to write off the religiously oriented schools entirely and regard a Christian education as outmoded and irrelevant.

Dissatisfactions are often seething just below the surface on Christian campuses. Recently one faculty member of an evangelical school criticized many in his environment for “an almost complete lack of culture and poise.” Unfortunately, Christian teachers and administrators not infrequently lack good manners and social polish and act boorish, both singly and collectively. There is scant comfort in the fact that their counterparts can be found on the secular campuses.

More serious is the fact that the Christian school sometimes seems quite unaware of influential areas of thought in the world. Consequently, it lacks an adequate understanding of those who hold divergent views and is sometimes intolerant of them. This attitude is bad enough within the fundamentalist ghetto, for it produces Christians who are intellectually circ*mscribed, even ignorant. For the schools that train missionaries and pastors and send them to win the world, however, it is disastrous.

Many church-related schools have lost their doctrinal soundness; lacking this base, some have almost ceased to be Christian. This is unfortunate. On the other hand, doctrinal soundness alone cannot make a good teacher or scholar, much less a winsome apologist for Christian truth in an anti-Christian and secularly oriented world. The Christian scholar—both teacher and student—must be steeped in genuinely Christian perspectives and committed to the major tenets of biblical religion. But he must also be versed in non-Christian modes of thought and able to articulate a Christian position against this background. Moreover, he must grapple with the primary issues, not the secondary ones, and must seek to present the case for Christianity by the strength of analysis and logic rather than by rhetoric, polemics, and preaching.

Students and faculty who accept this task and work vigorously at it will go far to make the evangelical campus what it has every opportunity to be: an intellectual lighthouse in a darkening and disoriented world.

A TASK FOR NEGRO MILITANTS

With the pall of smoke from gutted, riot-torn city blocks barely gone from over the Capitol, Washington awaits the militant invasion of civil-rights protestors determined to press demands for greater expenditures and programs from Congress. The violent street scenes of the past month have done little to cool the ardor of civil-rights leaders for achieving objectives by militant demonstrations. Although they avow non-violence, most Negro spokesmen have not renounced the riots as deplorable and detrimental to true racial progress. Rather, many view them as the expected and understandable response to unfortunate social conditions. They now plan even broader public exhibitions—marches and a massive tent-in—to further dramatize their demands.

Whether civil-rights leaders intend it or not, the Washington demonstration is likely to heat up tempers among volatile Negroes and whites more than enlighten the hearts and minds of those who can improve the condition of Negroes in society. Rather than induce reflective thought and responsible action, the militant crusade will tend to deepen disharmony and possibly to precipitate violence. Thus we and many others who champion elevation of the status of Negroes in society through more jobs, better education, equality in public accommodations, and, most of all, greater personal respect, are apprehensive about the plans for Washington. If civil-rights leaders want to make a constructive impression, they would do well not to stage a useless tent-in but to organize a program for economically deprived Negroes to work together to remove the rubble and rebuild many facilities destroyed by rioters in past weeks. This would show Congress and the American people their determination to apply themselves to the task of social reconstruction. Angry utterances and mass demonstrations will do less to help the ordinary Negro gain greater recognition and opportunity than will steady, conscientious persuasion in our public forums backed up by responsible and continuing enterprise in making America a better place in which to live.