Page 6279 – Christianity Today (2024)

Ideas

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

Back in the old days of China, the emperor built a gigantic wall to defend the country against the barbarians to the North. It stretched for miles across the border, scraping the sky, and wide enough for chariots to pass on top. It remains one of the wonders of the world—perhaps the one man-made object that will be visible from the moon. But as a defense effort the wall was a dud. The enemy breached it merely by bribing a gatekeeper.

We fork over almost all that’s in our national pocket now to be policed around the clock. It would be suicide not to take these precautions, but foolhardy for us to think that they are adequate. Communist screams distract us from our moral health and Christian obligations. It would be heartbreaking, after all the bankrupting military trouble we have been put to, if the bottom fell out of the integrity of the American people and our monumental “Dew Line” became our gravestone just as the “Great Wall” marks the tomb of the Chinese Empire.

We are not imagining things when we express anxiety over the moral condition of America. The soldiers who welched on us in Korea are symptoms. It made us sick to see the way the communes swallowed up the homes in China, but some monster is gulping them down in this country. It will consume a half million homes this year. What will happen to the children? Former Harvard President Conant is scared of the smoldering “social dynamite” in the slums—the dark-skinned teen-ager out of school, out of work. No employer wants him—not even mother. The “west sides” of our cities are crawling with these young criminals until it is “not safe on the White House steps after dark.” There are more female barmaids (not counting barflies) than college coeds. Those poor girls will not make very good mothers. But the campus is not snow-white. The most impressive classrooms and field houses include cheating. At night the golf course can be a brothel. Even the Communists are complaining about the moral listlessness of our movies. But think of the Americans, fixed night after night to the almost vacant stare of TV. And if the average American can no longer trust his marriage partner to keep the most sacred vow over two times out of three how soon shall we turn up with a dishonest gatekeeper at the wrong place?

On the Fourth, an adolescent republic, grown prodigal and in a pinch, should run back to its founding fathers for more faith and light. Why did we ever leave England in the first place? What did our fathers die for? What heritage is ours “to have and to hold” that our young political playmates down at the U.N. don’t know about? “What makes a nation great?”

Jefferson’s words call us back to our good upbringing: “I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” How can we take that negatively! That makes us at war with Communism, any Ku Klux Klan or inquisition, too heavy industry, too loud labor, too much government, the chain of sin, the bonds of unbelief.

But liberty was not our father’s first love. Freedom is the fruit of the Christian faith. Was Jefferson a Christian? He said he was. And he was not afraid to admit, “The God who gave us life gave us liberty.” Liberty is not to be taken lightly only as our “unalienable right,” but as a sacred trust for which we must answer to God himself. Our time is not spare time. We pledge our allegiance “under God.” We are free only if subject to him. Our land will be bright with “freedom’s holy light” only so long as we can pray fervently, “protect us by Thy might Great God our King.” Jefferson’s voice cracks like a whiplash across the face of sacrilege: “Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.” There is only one place where liberty could possibly be: “Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” All else is license.

This should send us to our Christian battle stations. Liberty is a way of saying, saving, our opportunity to serve God.

Our country was born believing it was the child of God, convinced it was going somewhere for His sake. “Our Pilgrim fathers by the light of the smoking lamp on the Mayflower, before landing at Plymouth inserted these words into the Mayflower Compact. ‘We whose names are underwritten have undertaken for the glory of God to establish in Virginia the first colony for the advancement of the Christian faith’.” The prayers of George Washington that awful winter at Valley Forge and of Lincoln during the dark, bloody hours of disunion promise something more than this country’s survival; some bigger national purpose than the pursuit of our own happiness breathes in our official documents. We are now engaged in a death struggle to everything we hold dear. Like Lincoln, in those heart-rending days a century ago when brother slaughtered brother, we do not know what else to do than arm to the teeth. But there is one thing about which there can be no mistake. If our beloved land lives to see the light of day dawning a century away, it will not be merely because we were the best bomb makers the world has ever seen, but because somehow, even during this depression, we were able to make God a profit.…

How will the archaeologist read the epitaph of the Americans? ‘The Almost Chosen People’ as one title has it? Or will we manage in the bloodcurdling distractions of television thrillers and international terror to keep this nation “under God” and “be true to Thee ’til death”? From God’s point of view it remains to be seen whether this planet can produce anything more promising than those poisonous “mushrooms,” engulfing and fatal. God did not plant His fig tree to get fungi. Our existence hangs as surely as Israel’s did on whether we can produce godliness in large enough quantities to bring down to earth His dreams of a Kingdom. (David A. Redding, The Parables He Told, Fleming H. Revell Co., Westwood, New Jersey, 1962, pp. 141 ff.)

If we could see our country once more, not on our own or at the whim of Communism, but as the servant of God, Creation would stop shaking and begin again to make some sense. The chaos of our national philosophy would come clean and clear. We would rediscover our place, our importance to God, recover the precious relief of security. The shrieks of bullies would shrink to size in that perspective. Panic would be inconceivable among a people who knew firsthand that they could trust their King. The editors of Christian Herald embraced this quaking year with words worthy of our heritage: “The future is as dark as the threats of men. Or the future is as bright as the promises of God.… Does Khrushchev tower above Christ? Do we say, ‘This one, God, is too tough for You—we’ll handle it ourselves’.” Perhaps our trouble today is that men fear men rather than God. Christianity could put our co*ckeyed picture right side up and restore to God responsibility which only his shoulders are broad enough to bear.

Our belief begins with God, but it brings out the best in men and finally boils down to greatness. Ours is not a “do nothing” faith. “The Christian’s strength,” as the Herald’s editors said, “is not in having done nothing to stand; but in having done all to stand.” To believe means to obey—go back to church, get under the covers of The Book again. We will have to restore the ways as well as the walls of Williamsburg. Today’s extremity is our tutor—to teach us that carrying a nuclear knife is not enough to keep a nation safe. Tennyson said of Galahad: “His strength was as the strength of ten because his heart was pure.” We could use a Galahad at every gate. For we have to be ready any minute now not only to fight, but to outlive, outlove, outlast the foe, and able to say, “such as we were we gave ourselves outright” (Robert Frost).

And if we can look up from checking our ammunition long enough to practice up on this old faith we can get through this jagged knothole as our fathers got through theirs. If we actually depend upon God we can depend upon each other to put up a Christian fight inside and out. Fear will freeze us to death. But faith, if followed out, will find the practical way. And then, when we look back upon these “Sixties” we too shall be able to say what George Mason said about our newborn country after the “Seventies” were safely over, almost two centuries ago; “It seemed as if we were treading on enchanted ground.”

Presbyterians Depart From Geneva In Headlong Flight

“They came to the Delectable Mountains.” So runs the narrative in Pilgrim’s Progress. And as the Presbyterian pilgrim journeyed to Denver and gazed upon 170 miles of unbroken Rocky Mountain grandeur, he would surely think of Geneva and the towering Alpine splendor in view there, somehow reflecting the nobility of John Calvin’s stress upon the sovereignty of God. And were a May visitor to doubt that he was indeed an observer of the 174th General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., he would have but to meet a Baltimore delegate whose name for pure Presbyterianism outshone all the rest: the Rev. Dr. John Calvin Knox Jackson—a name unlikely to be borne by any future pope apart from a sensational ecumenical breakthrough.

Also on hand was the eloquent Scots Presbyterian preacher of New York City’s Madison Avenue Church, Dr. David H. C. Read, who challenged Presbyterians to a recovery of “theological guts” in order to speak clearly to the world. “What we need,” he said, “is simply more time and emphasis given to the Bible and the doctrines of the Church. There is something wrong when a Church begins to carry a load of organization, promotion and committees beneath which its theological base is scarcely showing.” Indeed, a committee on theological education reported its concern about a “reported widespread lack of competence among candidates for ordination in their knowledge of the form and content of the English Bible.”

Read pointed to the Reformers as he rejected the idea that the Protestant heritage can be reclaimed simply by complete opposition to alcohol and gambling, coupled with a rigid separation of church and state: “Whatever our personal views may be on any of these questions, by no stretch of the imagination could they be identified with the Reformed tradition. Calvin, Luther and Knox would have been astonished to hear any of them.”

This, however, did not deter Read’s pragmatic American cousins from largely bypassing theology in favor of deep involvement with church-state problems and the alcohol question. Indeed, a special committee on church and state, authorized in 1960, brought forth a report which took a far more radical step on church-state separation than has been historically associated with Presbyterians or with any other major denomination. Acknowledging that Calvin assuredly was not the source of the report’s position, the committee called for a “secular” state by which it assertedly meant “impartial” toward Church and not hostile toward religion. The report thus opposed, among other things: (1) Bible reading, prayer, and celebration of religious holidays in public schools; (2) use of public property for religious displays and pageants; (3) special tax privileges for the church, with local churches urged to make contributions to local communities in lieu of taxes, in view of existing tax exemption laws; (4) special tax exemptions for ministers; (5) exemption of ministerial candidates and clergymen from military service except as conscientious objectors; (6) stiffening of existing Sunday closing laws and passing of new ones; (7) use of civil authority to censor on religious grounds material offensive to religious groups.

This report engendered lengthy and heated debate. Promotion of a “godless state” was charged and denied. The commissioners (delegates) voted to drop the word “secular” and then decided to seek grass-roots sentiment on the report, that a revised version may be submitted to next year’s General Assembly.

An interesting footnote to the above action was the Assembly’s refusal to act on a proposal to prepare for establishment of a Presbyterian system of parochial schools if tax funds should become available for such. After 1870, Presbyterians reportedly abandoned private schools, believing they could accomplish more by opposing the “secularization” of public education. It now appears that some Presbyterians desire just that secularization.

Presbyterians have historically looked upon the ideal of complete separation of religion and state as a gross oversimplification of the human situation. They have seen the goal of moral government apart from religion as unrealistic and unattainable. And they have seen the impossibility of a neutral state. Secularism and naturalism are not neutral.

The Scottish Sunday: A Significant Change

The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland last month discussed the Westminster Confession and the Christian use of Sunday. A radical departure from the traditional standard (misprinted in a national daily as the “Westminster concession”) was seen in the attempt to drive an official wedge between the Confession and a true understanding of Scripture. Certainly the latter is very necessary when some Hebridean islanders who consider it a violation to go for a walk on the Sabbath get around it by a nice legalism which makes it a work of mercy to exercise the dog that day.

Such a situation should stir Christians to renewed witness, for it is profitless to enjoin absence of activity on those who need the presence of God, and useless to demand from them a wooden obedience to one commandment instead of calling for glad surrender to Jesus Christ who came to fulfill the whole law.

Misunderstanding The Sermon A Pacifist Fallacy

Twelve hundred people were recently arrested in London during the Ban-the-Bomb demonstrations on a scale hitherto unknown in the United States. The number undoubtedly included a large proportion of cranks, chronic malcontents, social misfits, confused youths, and potential rebels in search of a cause. But what of others who professed to take part in the name of Christ? The analogy of the ostrich could be off-beam. Might not God in every generation call some of his servants to prophetic witness against the evil of war? After all, war is merely one writ-large manifestation of man’s trying to run his own life without Christ; it cannot be isolated from other forms of sin.

Such a call, however, will assuredly come only to men whose lives are “all-of-a-piece” and who are wholly dedicated to the service of God. Pacifists tend to demand for this single issue an absolute obedience which they are unwilling to give over the whole range of life, and are selective in their appeal to the Sermon on the Mount. Non-violence itself can foster hate unless it is the counterpart of that positive attitude of love which serves a neighbor. War is hell, but in a fallen world the demand for justice no more abolishes the propriety of the one than the other. The real problem is man and society, not guns and bombs.

Moscow Radio Presents A Dual Posture Toward Religious Interests

Radio Moscow skirted the path of a paradox in its posture toward religion this month.

One commentator boasted that a number of Russian and foreign clergymen are expected to attend the Communist-sponsored World Peace Conference in Moscow next month. He declared that four “priests” from the United States and three from Canada had promised to attend. (He did not name them.)

In another broadcast, Moscow Radio said the so-called Summer Festival of the Communist Youth Organization in the Estonian Soviet Republic will be dedicated to the organization’s “struggle against the influence of churchmen.”

Stock Market Tumbles In Confused Economic Climate

The tumbling stock market struck its hardest blow at multitudes of small investors in American business enterprises. Many factors contributed to the decline, not least among them President Kennedy’s tempery rebuke of the steel industry on April 11.

There is widespread fear among investors that a fundamental change has taken place in the nation’s political as well as economic climate. At his April 18 press conference, President Kennedy made clear the Government’s intention to exert greater direct influence over prices than the country has ever before experienced in the absence of declared war.

Does government by men, in contrast to government by law, best serve American ideals and aspirations? This is not just a philosophical or rhetorical question. Government pressures which established the current price of steel were clearly based on the judgment of men and not on the enforcement of law.

What advantages or disadvantages to the future of the country lie in selective price control by the Executive branch? Does not selective price control abridge the right of property on unequal terms, denying freedom to one while permitting it to another? It jeopardizes any business that arouses the ire of officialdom; it invites price conspiracy against the public through collusion between government and business for favors rendered. Few more effective means of concentrating and wielding power can be conceived.

If the freedom of the steel men to name the asking price of their products can be repressed by government, what does the widening image of omnipotent government imply? The force of government can be brought to bear on any wage or any price of any product or service. And the handling of the steel controversy supplies a precedent: nothing more is needed than the decision of a tiny handful of men in the White House. Americans may well ponder the security of their rights and property of every nature under this relationship to government.

Edward John Carnell

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

As in other matters pertaining to faith and practice, the evangelical looks to Scripture when he defines the boundaries of acceptable church government. At first glance, however, Scripture seems disturbingly indecisive, for no specific government is legislated for the Church. The general principles of polity are clear, but not the details. This is one reason why questions of government have caused such deep and lasting divisions in the Church.

It seems that the Spirit of God has been pleased to allow a certain flexibility in matters of form and order. In any case, we have no right to boast, for no branch of Christendom has precisely the same kind of government as that which existed in the early church.

The Necessity of Government. According to the Apostles’ Creed, the Church is a communion of the saints. This view comports with Scripture. True believers are a fellowship in Christ. This fellowship is not an external society whose rights dissolve when the corporation dissolves; it can exist without any organization at all.

But if this be true, why should the Church be yoked with ecclesiastical rule? Why not let the fellowship carry itself? The answer is, government keeps the affairs of the Church decent and orderly, that the ministry of the Word might not be hindered.

Although the Church is not an external society, it is a vital society with a normative ground of existence. Christ is the head of the Church, and Christ is confronted in and through Scripture. This is why the ministry of the Word is so essential to the fellowship. Unless Scripture is studied and preached with diligence, Christians will not know what God requires of them.

But if the ministry of the Word is to prosper, it must be delivered from the distractions of secondary duties. Hence, the Lord has been pleased to ordain auxiliary ministries in the Church—those of serving, teaching, and rule. These ministries, taken together, form the substance of church government. They give stability to the fellowship.

The Ministry of Serving. Scripture tells us that the ministry of serving was created to resolve a conflict of interests in the Church (Acts 6:1–6). The Hellenists murmured against the Hebrews because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Charges of injustice threatened the fellowship. The apostles knew that something had to be done about the matter, and done at once. But they also knew that it would be wrong for them to leave the ministry of the Word to serve tables. Therefore, deacons were appointed to oversee the practical affairs of the church. Nothing must come between a pastor and his task of preaching the Gospel.

There is no limit to the ways in which the ministry of serving can lift burdens from the ministry of the Word. When a pastor is cumbered by much serving, he neglects his duties as a shepherd of the flock. Rather than giving himself to prayer and meditation, he types stencils for the bulletin, does janitorial work, or coaches a basketball team. Or his strength may be depleted by larger distractions such as fund raising, building church properties, or managing a complex educational system. A pastor must follow the example of the apostles: he must practice the art of delegation. Christian education directors and psychiatrists may be as necessary to the ministry of serving in the modern church as deacons were in the early church.

The Ministry of Teaching and Rule. Although the apostles entrusted the ministry of teaching and rule to elders, the appointment of elders—unlike that of deacons—did not arise out of a specific incident in the life of the fellowship. We are not told when the first elders were set apart or why. We are simply told that when relief was sent to the distressed brethren in Judea, the money was delivered to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul (Acts 11:29, 30). It appears that the office of elder belonged to the government of the Church from the earliest times.

When Christ founded the Church, he drew on a fellowship which was already in existence. This fellowship was formed of Israelites who were accustomed to the mode of government that prevailed in the synagogue. Therefore, it was only natural that this mode would be carried into the new communion. The office of elder “continued in substance what it had been hitherto under the Jewish synagogue system in its best days, with suitable modifications and developments in accordance with the free spirit of the Gospel, and the Providential circ*mstances in which the Christian congregations found themselves placed. This presumption is confirmed by all the evidence, direct and indirect, bearing upon the point in the New Testament documents which belong to this period of the history” (D. D. Bannerman, The Scripture Doctrine of the Church, p. 410).

Although the apostles outranked the elders in authority, the elders were destined to become the highest permanent officers in the Church. There is no record that the office of apostle continued after the death of John; Scripture neither commands such a continuance nor does it specify the qualifications of those who should seek the office.

But the qualifications of those who seek the office of elder (or bishop) are specifically set down in Scripture (1 Tim. 3:1–7). The question was not left to chance. The Apostle Paul appointed elders in the places where he had preached, and at great personal risk. We could ask for no more forceful proof that the Gentile churches were to be governed by the same polity that prevailed in the Jewish churches.

The Purpose of Elders. The elders were entrusted with the tasks of teaching and rule. “This double function appears in Paul’s expression ‘pastors and teachers,’ where, as the form of the original seems to show, the two words describe the same office under different aspects. Though government was probably the first conception of the office, yet the work of teaching must have fallen to the presbyters from the very first and have assumed greater prominence as time went on” (J. B. Lightfoot, “The Christian Ministry,” A Dissertation in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, p. 194.) The ministry of teaching and rule had exactly the same goal as the ministry of serving: to keep the affairs of the church decent and orderly, that the ministry of the Word might not be hindered.

After the elders were appointed by the apostles, they served as a self-acting body. They could take the needed steps, with the concurrence of the congregation, to add to their number or to create any subordinate offices that might be needed for the more perfect life of the Church.

It should be observed, however, that though the elders were to teach and rule, Scripture does not spell out their specific duties. Scripture assumes, as it does in the case of the deacons, that as long as the elders are full of the Spirit and wisdom, they will not only see what is required of them but they will discharge their duties with cheerfulness and dispatch.

The Functional Element in Church Government. The church is presently divided on whether the ministry of rule requires a separate officer, such as bishop or superintendent, or whether this ministry belongs to pastors or elders who enjoy parity of rank. Two points should be noted in this connection.

First, the New Testament equates the offices of “elder” and “bishop.” Therefore, any distinction between these officers is based on expedience, not principle. “There was in apostolic times no distinction between elders (presbyters) and bishops such as we find from the second century onwards: the leaders of the Ephesian church are indiscriminately described as elders, bishops (i.e., superintendents) and shepherds (or pastors)” (F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Book of Acts, [Eerdmans], p. 415). The validity of this exegesis is generally acknowledged.

Second, and more important, the ministry of rule, like other auxiliary ministries in the Church, is free to develop its office according to the needs of the times. In the actual life of the fellowship, therefore, divergent modes of government may emerge. These modes may be the result of rich cultural and social influences. Or they may simply grow out of the dictates of expediency.

There may be times when a fellowship is so small that all the prescribed ministries in the Church—that of the Word, serving, teaching, and rule—may devolve on the pastor himself. As he succeeds in training others, he can delegate the auxiliary ministries. But he must proceed slowly, for it is not wise to lay on hands hastily (1 Tim. 5:22).

When a fellowship reaches vast proportions, however, expedience may dictate that a separate office of rule be created. And it makes precious little difference what name is given to the officer in charge—whether bishop, archbishop, superintendent, or state secretary.

In some cases it may be more expedient to vest the office of rule in a group of men—a council of pastors or elders, a pastor and his deacons, etc. Neither the number of men nor their title is important. The important thing is that the office of rule is founded on biblical principles.

Church Discipline. When church members are guilty of gross immorality, they must be excluded from the fellowship until they give signs of evangelical repentance. The New Testament is clear at this point (see for example 1 Cor. 5). Gross immorality cannot be ignored, and neither can it be tried by just anybody. If the fellowship is to be kept decent and orderly, specific persons must be vested with authority to administer discipline. Spheres of lawful jurisdiction must be defined.

When church members follow false teaching, however, the New Testament is not so clear. On the one hand, Christians are commanded to continue in the teaching of Christ and the apostles. But on the other hand, they are not told precisely what doctrines are essential to fellowship, nor are they told precisely what to do with errorists. For example, certain Judaizers went about teaching the necessity of circumcision (Acts 15:1–5). The apostles denounced the error, but they did not excommunicate the Judaizers. Again, there were some in Corinth who denied the Resurrection (1 Cor. 15:12). The Apostle Paul was shocked by such a denial, but he did not command the Corinthians to undertake heresy proceedings. And so it goes (see, e.g., Rom. 16:17; 2 Thess. 3:14, 15; 1 Tim. 6:3–5; 2 Tim. 2:14–19, Titus 3:9–11; and 2 John 9–11).

Since the data in the New Testament are not decisive, it is only natural that the church will be divided on how far to go when confronting errorists with the evil of their ways. Some denominations will create elaborate judicial machinery, while others will try to exclude errorists by the use of moral pressures alone. The mechanics of discipline are not important. The important thing is that the church is sincerely trying to continue in the teaching of Christ and the apostles. Complacency and indifference are the attitudes most to be feared.

Conclusion. Since church government is a servant of the fellowship, it is a means and not an end. This is an important point. We must not separate from one another because we do not agree in details of government. If we do, we forget that love, not skill in ecclesiastical rule, is the sign of a true disciple. Worldwide Christian fellowship is the ideal for the Church. Whatever hinders this ideal should be brought under the scrutiny of Scriptures.

Instead of boasting about superior polity, we ought to occupy ourselves with the weightier matters of the law-justice and mercy and faith. “Happier are they whom the Lord when he cometh, shall find doing in these things, than disputing about ‘doctors, elders, and deacons’” (Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, Prefare VI, 5).

Devising new offices is not the whole answer to problems arising out of the complexity of the modern church. The offices in the New Testament are simple and effective. The sheer multiplying of offices may be a sign that the Church is substituting human wisdom for a life of faith and grace.

We do not need additional officers as such. What we need is prophets of God who can call existing officers back to biblical standards. As long as rulers are filled with the Spirit and wisdom, any form of government will do. And if rulers lack these virtues, even the most cleverly devised polity will be found wanting.

Too much government leads to tyranny, whereas too little government leads to anarchy. Either extreme disrupts the fellowship. Good rulers will not only steer the course between these extremes, but they will cheerfully acknowledge that their own authority is derivative and subordinate. Ecclesiastical rule has no independent rights. It exists as a handmaid to the ministry of the Word.

Bibliography: G. W. Bromiley, Christian Ministry; A. Harnack, “Organization of the Early Church,” The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. VIII; C. Hodge, Discussions in Church Polity; T. W. Manson, The Church’s Ministry; “The Ministry in the New Testament,” The Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary Record, Vol. LVII, No. 3, July, 1952 (a Study prepared for the Commission on the Doctrine of the Ministry of the United Lutheran Church in America); V. Taylor, “The Church and the Ministry,” The Expository Times, Vol. LXII, No. 9, pp. 269–274.

Professor of Ethics

and Philosophy of Religion

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, California

- More fromEdward John Carnell

L. Nelson Bell

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

Universalism is nothing new. As a church the first Universalist congregation in America was founded in Gloucester in 1779. Eleven years later the Universalists meeting in Philadelphia prepared their first declaration of faith and plan of government.

As time progressed the liberalism of the Universalist church increased until in 1942 the charter was changed to read: “To promote harmony among adherents of all religious faiths, whether Christian or otherwise.”

Finally, in May of 1960, Universalists and Unitarians merged into the Unitarian Universalist Association.

At no time have the major evangelical denominations recognized these churches as a part of the Protestant tradition, nor has either of them been admitted to membership in cooperative church groups.

Evangelical Christianity is now confronted by a different form of Universalism, all the more dangerous because it insidiously distorts the Gospel and opens the door of salvation to all, not on the basis of faith in Christ but on the basis of inherited participation in God’s redemptive love. As the “perfect pedagogue” His salvation must be effective for all men, we are told.

That the Unitarian-Universalist concept has a deadening effect on its believers is easily demonstrated. After nearly two centuries there are only a few hundred congregations with a total membership of less than 200,000. Missionary purpose and evangelistic zeal are naturally lacking—why preach to a need which does not exist?

The Universalism which the major denominations find in their midst today may not involve crass Unitarianism, nor the frank syncretism of Universalism, but this increases its danger for there is, on the surface, an apparent attempt to magnify the redemptive work of Christ which is appealingly deceptive.

Strange to say, those who espouse this new Universalism avidly try to bolster their position by a method they only too often try to deny to others, the quoting of “proof texts.” At the same time they find it necessary to reject the total revelation to be found in the Scriptures and to pass over other statements in the Bible which completely refute their position.

True, some theologians admit the possibility that some people may be lost while they reject the biblical affirmation that some men are lost.

The argument frequently heard from laymen is that, “God is too good to condemn anyone.” Apparently they do not know that man is already condemned by his sins and that God’s love is evidenced by his provision for man’s redemption through the death of his Son.

Because of its importance to and effect on individuals and the Church, we should examine this matter carefully. Among the Bible verses quoted to support this new Universalism are John 12:22; 1 Cor. 15:22; 1 Tim. 2:4; and Phil. 2:10, 11.

Let us examine these verses.

In John 12:32 we read, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Jesus was speaking to Jews and he was telling them that his crucifixion would draw “all men,” Gentiles as well as Jews. His was a universal offer of salvation and men from every tribe and nation would respond.

Rna

Eutychus Associates had just finished setting up a task force on teaching machines and programmed learning when the whole thing was undercut by worms. Our research consultant who reads the newsmagazines now informs us that teaching machines have been up-staged by RNA. That’s where the worms come in.

RNA is ribonucleic acid, a chemical alleged to be in short supply among elder folks who forget where they put their glasses, but said to be abundant in educated flatworms. According to the article, injections of artificial RNA improved the memory of the oldsters. The worms enjoyed their RNA raw. Unconditioned flatworms were given a diet of other flatworms who had been trained to react to a flashing light. Eating this educated meat enabled them to learn the same trick twice as fast as worms who ate only the usual underprivileged fish bait.

If faulty memory makes you lose job opportunities, if you forget the boss’s name when you’re asking for a raise, if nobody loves you—then go out to the lab and eat worms. You may then thrill to a new skill, and cringe like a worm whenever a light is turned on.

Wait till the breakfast food people get this. We can expect brands like TOTAL RECALL and DOUBLECHECKS, perhaps even SHREDDED WORMS.

But suppose you want to be smarter than the average worm. Can digestible data be stored on tapeworms? Or must our diet include something a bit brighter? One scientist is credited with a flight of fancy. If memory is edible, he reasons, why waste all the knowledge a distinguished professor has accumulated at retirement age?

Should we assume that he is describing 1984, or joking? At any rate, absent-minded professors are safe. The Ph. D. may remain, but the RNA is exhausted.

Before you invest in RNA chemicals, stop to consider the market. For every researcher who wants to remember something, there must be ten who would rather forget something. For a happy birthday our culture chooses tranquilizers over memorizers ten to one.

Soon the magic pills of science will make us as adjustable as Alice in Wonderland: big or little, bright or dull—chemically conditioned. Yet somehow no one promises a chemical to give meaning to this flexible existence. For that a man must eat of the Bread from Heaven.

EUTYCHUS

Arrivederci, Barbarians

I imagine Charles Lowry, “Perspective on the Power Struggle” (May 11 issue), translated to Roman Christendom of the fifth century. As the barbarians over-run Europe, I hear him counsel …:

“There is an unprecedented struggle in our world between pagan barbarians and Christian Romans. The barbarians, in violation of religion and civilization, threaten to remake the world in an image of terror. We Romans are potentially much the stronger. Unfortunately, at the moment our leaders are not as pious as the commoners, religion is excluded from public life, and materialism and modernistic notions are corrupting the fabric of our common life.

“Only if we take our Christianity seriously can the tide be turned.… If we capture any barbarians we should be kind to them. If we meet any … on the street or in business, we should be civil and courteous. If we must kill them, we must do so with love.… Above all, we must match power with power. If necessary, we will fight with every weapon we have, and not only kill all of their warriors, but destroy their women and children and level their villages and camps. We should not even pause at having our own populace annihilated and our own civilization destroyed. As long as we think of our force as dedicated to God and truly controlled by love and justice, we have to use all possible force. Of course we do this as Christian citizens and not as Christian individuals.

“As Christian believers we are still idealistic—but again not so publicly that the barbarians might notice it. We are to go on praying and hoping … that we won’t have to use force or, that if we must, God and anybody left to judge will see … that we really only meant it with the very best of intentions. If the worst should befall us, we shall have destroyed barbarians and Romans in the service of law and order and to the glory of the Christian God.

“If we are intelligent, better Christians, and willing to sacrifice, these seeming contradictions may work out. In fact, the best thing might be to train Christian missionaries who will be able to show barbarian leaders that Christian Rome is really not so divided, impious, and materialistic as we know it to be. If they simply will not be convinced that way, then we are always ready to wipe out the whole lot of them just to prove our superior religion and way of life once and for all.”

NORMAN K. GOTTWALD

Professor of Old Testament

Andover Newton Theological School

Newton Centre, Mass.

Does Dr. Lowry actually dare to say that “authentic Christianity” has this glorious (!) witness—namely (p. 5), “far from declaring, in accordance with some theologians in their most recent pronouncements, that we will never initiate nuclear war in any form, that is just what under present circ*mstances we must be willing to do” (my italics)? Is this, Sir, the witness of Christianity? How does it differ from the sinister expediency of Khrushchev himself? How strangely it sounds on the lips of Jesus—whose followers I thought somehow we are. Even firebrand Reinhold Niebuhr is less militaristic than you on this!

BEN W. FUSON

Kansas Wesleyan University

Salina, Kan.

Dr. Lowry has only words of condemnation for communism chiefly because it does not believe in God or any hereafter. He criticizes communists because they wish to “build Heaven on earth.” That would not seem to be anything very heinous. Jesus had the same idea and “went about doing good” to accomplish just that, and spending much of his time healing people of their sicknesses. If Marx and Lenin had the deep desire to improve the condition of the mass of the people—as they did—and free them from their slavery under the rule of the capitalist, that surely should not be to their discredit, though we rightly abhor the many cruelties by which the Kremlin pursued its course in trying to seize all economic and political power and extirpate religion.…

GEORGE L. PAINE

Cambridge, Mass.

A Mailman’S Medley

I have received a goodly number of very interesting letters in connection with my recent article (“Ecumenical Merger and Missions,” Mar. 30 issue). Most of the mail was favorable and even those letters which raised questions were irenic in spirit and tone. Some arguments advanced in these letters are interesting indeed.

Several people argued that it was not fair to judge the missionary effort simply on the basis of the number of foreign missionaries and the increase or decrease of the field staff. It was in connection with this argument that one eminent Presbyterian indicated that the United Presbyterian Church is sending fewer missionaries but placing more emphasis upon financial support of national churches. It is interesting to observe that over a period of many years from 4 to 8 per cent of the total amount of money received by all of the churches in the Presbyterian Church was spent for foreign missions. Today slightly more than 3½ per cent of the total income is spent for foreign missions. This means that there has been a proportionate decline financially as well as in the number of missionaries.

Another Presbyterian suggested that in Latin America the idea “Yankee, go home” might be useful and that perhaps the national church would be served better if the missionaries in Latin America were to go home. I have no objection whatever to the redistribution of missionary forces. Some places where missionary strategy dictates that the missionaries should be removed, this could be done, but with a thousand tongues in which no portion of the Word of God has ever been translated there should be plenty of room for “displaced” missionaries to go and for hundreds of others who have not gone yet!

A key missionary expert from the United Church of Canada felt that since approximately one-half of the missionary work of the United Church was concentrated in China that it was unfair, in view of the cataclysm in China and the exodus of the missionaries, to assume that what I said was representative of the United Church. However, there were other churches who were equally committed in China, but who have not only recovered from the China debacle but have doubled, tripled and quadrupled their missionary forces. This is likewise true of some faith mission groups that are not denominationally oriented.

One of the most interesting comments came in a letter which expressed the writer’s unhappiness with the substantial rise of the faith missionaries and stated that this posed a threat to the ecumenical movement. Of this there can be no doubt. What the outcome will be, so far as the faith missionary impulse is related to the ecumenical movement, I do not know. And I suspect that no one else knows either. But that it will have a tremendous effect upon the ecumenical movement overseas admits of no doubt.

HAROLD LINDSELL

Vice-President

Fuller Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

Air Power

Dr. Goppelt succeeds well in bursting Bultmann’s bubble (Apr. 27 issue). He also lets a quantity of air out of Barth’s balloon. But he doesn’t succeed too well in getting his own theological craft off the ground.…

E. ARNOLD SITZ

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church

Tucson, Ariz.

Evaluation Of Evaluation

Walter R. Martin’s review of Herbert Bird’s Theology of Seventh-day Adventism (Mar. 2 issue) is, in my judgment, grossly unfair. Martin charges Bird with using “outdated quotations, particularly on the nature of Christ.” To be sure, Bird does use the “infamous Wilcox statement.” He mentions, however, in a footnote, that some Adventist leaders with whom he has worked “have not heard of its having been disqualified as denominational material, and have sought to defend it …” (p. 65). Bird further observes that he has not found this statement referred to in Questions on Doctrine, where one would expect the denomination officially to repudiate it. Other statements on the nature of Christ are drawn by Mr. Bird from Wm. Branson’s Drama of the Ages (written in 1950, and therefore hardly an “outdated source”) and from Questions on Doctrine, the most recent authoritative statement of SDA beliefs (1957). From the latter volume Bird even quotes a statement by Mrs. White, the inspired prophetess of the movement, to the effect that Christ “took upon His sinless nature our sinful nature” (p. 69); he clearly indicates the difficulties he has with the way the nature of Christ is described in this latest official volume of SDA teachings. It is therefore most unfair to assert that Mr. Bird, in discussing the nature of Christ, relies chiefly upon outdated quotations.

Mr. Martin’s objection to Bird’s statement that there can be regenerate people among the SDA’s as inconsistent with the charge of Galatianism overlooks the fact that even the Apostle Paul, who rebuked the Galatians for having begun to follow the errors of Galatianism, still addresses them as brethren (Gal. 1:11, 3:15, 5:13, etc.). It is one thing to attack the teachings of a group as unscriptural; it is quite another thing, however, to say that because of this fact there cannot be regenerate persons among them!

Mr. Martin accuses Bird of having ignored research work which tends to disprove his main thesis: viz., that SDA is a revival of the Galatian heresy. It is, to be sure, unfortunate that Mr. Bird makes no reference anywhere to Martin’s own recent work on the subject, The Truth About Seventh-day Adventism. However, Mr. Bird bases his charges on research of his own, done with primary sources. In the chapter dealing with SDA and salvation, Mr. Bird quotes from Froom, White, Branson (all SDA authors) and Questions on Doctrine. He fully recognizes that in Questions on Doctrine SDA’s affirm that they believe in salvation by grace alone, but his contention is that their teachings on the investigative judgment (with respect to which Martin admits that Bird has done a good job) are not consistent with that claim! For the main burden of the investigative judgment doctrine is that what really determines whether a man is saved is his obedience to the law and his unfailing confession of every single sin! Furthermore, Bird finds evidence for “Galatianism” in SDA teaching on the Sabbath Day (p. 113) and in their rules about the avoidance of certain types of food (p. 125). He culls their teachings about these last-named matters largely from Questions on Doctrine and from Arthur Lickey’s God Speaks to Modern Man, written in 1952, and therefore hardly to be considered an “outdated source.” (Incidentally, both Lickey’s book and Branson’s Drama of the Ages are found among the “Representative Adventist Literature” listed in the back pages of Questions on Doctrine.)

I conclude that Mr. Martin has not given us a fair evaluation of what I consider to be a competent treatment of SDA theology.

ANTHONY A. HOEKEMA

Dept. of Systematic Theology

Calvin Theological Seminary

Grand Rapids, Michigan

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

Among its ministers the church numbers a group of problem preachers, those middle-aged and older men who are just biding their time until they can draw retirement checks from Pension Boards and Social Security. Meantime they contribute little to local congregations and to the overall work of the church.

Perhaps the church can learn from large secular corporations. Listen to Mr. Johnston, for example, the personnel vice-president of a corporation as he talks to Mr. Hill, consultant from an outside management firm: “Here’s my problem. We have four division managers—all from 50 to 57 years of age—who are one level below vice-presidential rank. Top management has decided these men aren’t qualified to handle vice-presidential assignments, so they won’t be promoted.”

“Perhaps,” Mr. Johnston continued, “it’s significant that the men themselves seem to have reached the same decision. On the way up to their present positions they were good performers. Until recently, they were effective division managers. But now they have begun to coast. We’ll have to make other promotions around these men. In doing this we anticipate some trouble and friction. We also see problems in letting these division managers stay just to coast along eight or more years to retirement. We don’t want to discharge them, because each man has given the company some 30 years of loyal and effective service. What can we do?”

“What do you pay these men?” Hill asked.

“An average of $25,000 a year.”

“Then if they stay with you until retirement, the company actually faces a bill of at least a million dollars for what you fear will be increasingly unsatisfactory performance.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” said Johnston, “but you’re right. And when you nail the figure down this way, the prospect is very disturbing.”

Every corporation head has several managers or even vice-presidents who present a similar problem. Every company of medium or larger size has its share of older executives who seem to have exhausted their potential. They have stopped growing. They are just resting on their oars, and waiting for retirement.

Likewise, every bishop, synod president, or executive secretary knows ministers who have sloughed off in the work both in local congregations and in the wider outreach of the church. While their congregations may meet benevolence goals, these men no longer manifest any buoyancy in their work for the Lord.

The problem is widespread and serious at a time when shortage of pastors is a critical threat to successful church work. Yet it has not received adequate attention. Most of the interest in developing and assisting pastors has centered on recently ordained men or on those assigned to mission churches. This concentration of attention on younger men is understandable, of course, in the effort to discover particularly promising ministers early in their careers. Enthusiasm for developing capable young pastors, however, should not blind the church to the tragic waste of experience and maturity that comes from allowing older men to just drift out their remaining years.

Besides this waste of valuable talent, moreover, the church faces an even greater danger. Everyone knows that usually the most powerful and potentially most constructive influence on a congregation is its pastor. A minister who has stopped growing is not likely to inspire his people very much, either personally or through his sermons. A corrosive weakening of the spirit of the people may penetrate the congregation. No congregation is so strong that it can afford to accept stultifying influences for even a few years.

What’S The Answer?

Those church executives who have begun to recognize the problem in its full dimensions have also begun to explore ways of meeting it. From their experience, as well as from research in the dynamics of human performance, some tentative answers are emerging.

The first point to remember, of course, is that one may be wrong in concluding that a pastor has reached his top potential. After marking a rise for many years, a pastor’s curve of development may level out for various reasons. He may be bored by lack of challenge. He may be resentful over policies of church advancement. He may be disturbed over his own aging. He may not properly appreciate his great value to the congregation as a prime influence for its constructive growth.

Thus an older pastor may allow himself to barely hold his own or even to deteriorate at a time when, with proper incentives and opportunities, he could still show further and important growth. And even if he seems to have reached his peak of pastoral effectiveness, he surely need not decline from that level.

The problem is to find the causes for apparent cessation of growth, and then to find the incentives that will release unused abilities. Solving the problem is well worth the effort on the part of church executives, for it can help the present older pastors, and also prevent younger men from developing troubles later on.

Discovering and developing superior pastoral talent in young ministers is neither easy, nor necessarily always successful. Mature pastors who have reached a plateau, on the evidence of previous performance, at least show above-average creativity, ability, and initiative. Their accumulated experience should not be wasted. The time spent refreshing older pastors will yield at least as good a return as time spent in training younger but untried men.

What is known about an older person’s capacity for development? Psychologists would probably say, “Not much.” But adding the tentative thinking of psychologists with the observations of executives in industry may still provide valuable help.

Psychology Of Pastoral Achievement

In younger pastors, the desire to achieve—for Christ, for the church, and for themselves—is a powerful motivation. This desire also reveals personal needs and wants and family responsibilities. The passage of time lessens those considerations. Pastors have realized at least some of their objectives, discharged some of their family commitments, and have come to accept their limitations or lack of personal capabilities. Some limitations they ascribe to misfortune. Psychologists tell us that when achievement falls short of aspiration people are likely to adjust their goals downward.

As one 59-year-old rector put it: “When I was a young man in the church, I had it firmly fixed in my mind that I was going to be a bishop. Well, you learn as you grow older. Somewhere along the line, I began to recognize that only one man could be bishop in our diocese at a time. Many outstanding men do not get to that level. I learned some other things, too, some about the church and some about myself. I discovered that it was not only ability that got you to a bishopric, but circ*mstances had a great deal to do with it—for instance, the circ*mstance that consists in being at the right place at the right time and properly visible.

“I also discovered that you pay a high price for advancement to the top. You take on tremendous responsibilities. You work under heavy tension. You are called upon to sacrifice your cherished family life to your work. You see little of your wife and children and have little energy left for them when you do see them.

“I also learned that there are other things in life besides position—things that I value highly, such as being with the children as they grow up. I do not know exactly when it happened, but along through the years, somewhere, I lost sight of the bishopric. I made a kind of easy agreement with myself to settle for the church where I was and still am. Even though I’m now more than satisfied with this parish, I surely do not have to be ashamed of my achievement.”

This is a good statement of what the psychologist means by “downward adjustment of the level of aspiration.” And as this rector expressed it, such adjustment often results from combining a clearer view of the facts with alternative goals.

Lessening of physical vigor may also contribute directly or indirectly to a weakened drive for achievement. For one thing the aging process often dictates a slower pace of work. Or a lower energy level may make it easier for a pastor to prefer less demanding objectives. Or the same aging process may see a man, in the interests of security, replace some of his risk-seeking and risk-taking attitudes with those that show greater conformity to usual procedures. Young pastors are eager to establish a reputation; older men show concern over losing it.

Along with the downward adjustment to objectives, ministers sometimes develop a sour attitude toward the church’s treatment of the pastor. One pastor near retirement said, for example, “I’m glad that I’m at the end of my ministry, instead of the beginning, in these days of instability, lack of respect for the ministry, and change.” Indeed, while this approach was realistic, it was also somewhat cynical.

Many church executives would have to echo what one pastor expressed: “You have to get used to some pretty inequitable treatment in the church. Even outstanding accomplishment in a congregation is not rewarded and recognized as it should be. The church lets you sit where you are while the fellow with connections, influence, and the right background gets the opportunities for the outstanding call.”

These foregoing observations give us clues for remedial action. For one thing, if a man’s personal and pastoral growth is to continue, the diminishing drive for achievement must be replaced by some other positive motivation. This substitute motivation must be one that fully recognizes an individual’s changing life circ*mstances and the attitudes that grow therefrom. Moreover, to be fully effective, this fresh motivation must relate to actual performance and must not issue from mere policy statements and exhortation.

A business organization was planning a comprehensive internal development program for a group of managers immediately below the vice-presidential level. Some doubt was expressed about the value or wisdom of permitting older managers to participate. In confidential interviews, some of these older men had already shown skepticism about the development program and little interest in participating. After considerable delay, the decision to participate was left to each man.

Only a few older executives elected to attend the first sessions. No pressure was applied to have them change their minds. As time passed and increasing numbers of managers took part in the course and reported favorably on their experiences, attendance by the older managers began to pick up. In the end, practically every one of the older managers had chosen to attend the course, even men within two or three years of retirement age. With rare exceptions, the reaction of the older executives was positive, often enthusiastic.

One man told his boss, “This is the finest thing that the company has ever done for its managers. I didn’t want to attend the course. I arrived with a chip on my shoulder. I really volunteered to go just so that I could criticize the show. But by the time I finished the three weeks, I was ready to tell anybody in my position that if he did not attend, he was missing the greatest experience of his life in this organization. I already see a dozen ways in which I can improve my influence on the fellows that I supervise and help them to build their abilities for the future. My only regret is that this didn’t happen to me 20 years ago.”

Another man said, “I have four years to go to retirement. My mind was fixed on that target and I was simply resting on my oars. Now I see at least three major problems that I want to tackle that will result in a big improvement in the performance of my department. What I’m worried about now is that the time left to me is so short that I don’t see how I can carry out what I want to do.”

Special Announcement

Universalism with its profoundly unbiblical thesis that all men are already saved is sweeping Protestantism.

To arouse active concern over this distorted “gospel” which cuts the nerve both of evangelism and of missions, CHRISTIANTY TODAY announces a stimulating venture. More than $1,000 will be awarded for relevant sermons (abridged to 2,500 words in written form) that 1. expose the fallacies of this contemporary movement and 2. faithfully expound the biblical revelation of man’s final destiny and the ground and conditions of his redemption. Selection of the winners will be by CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s editorial readers, whose decisions will be final. First, second and third place awards of $500, $250, and $125, respectively, will be paid upon publication of the sermons. The Editors reserve the right to publish two additional manuscripts selected for fourth and fifth place awards of $75 each. All rights to winning manuscripts become magazine property.

All entries in this competition must be original sermons actually preached to a congregation sometime during 1962. Two typewritten, double-spaced copies of each submitted sermon should be postmarked to the Washington office of CHRISTIANITY TODAY no later than December 31, 1962. No manuscript will be returned unless a self-addressed, stamped envelope accompanies the entry. Attached to each sermon (both copies) should be a cover page giving the contributor’s name, address, and present station of service.

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

A recent survey of American Protestant clergymen by CHRISTIANITY TODAY showed, in representative sampling interviews, the following results: 93 per cent of the fundamentalists, and 76 per cent of the conservatives, maintain that the doctrine of the Second Coming of Christ is essential and should be preached; 26 per cent of the neoorthodox ministers consider the doctrine essential; and only 30 per cent of the liberal clergymen held that it should be preached. All in all 26 per cent of the clergymen interviewed did not think that the doctrine of the Second Advent of Christ was essential to their teaching or preaching. When a convocation of church delegates from around the world met in Evanston, Illinois, a few years ago, Life magazine reported that only 10 per cent of the American Protestant clergymen questioned found any significance in the doctrine of the Second Advent.

We once interviewed a minister who had gained some reputation as an authority on the Second Advent of Christ. He recalled that for ten years he hadn’t preached on that theme from his pulpit. He had heard too many preachers who knew more about Antichrist than they did about Jesus Christ, who knew more about “the great tribulation” than they did about regeneration. Some premillennialists caused him to lean toward postmillennialism; some post’s made him favor the pre’s! Finally he became something of a “panmillennialist”—everything would “pan out” all right when God was through in history! But, forced to face the fact of his cowardly position, during the years when he eschewed eschatology in his pulpit he engaged in a serious study of the subject, discovering that a vast body of Scripture spoke definitely of the Second Advent of the Lord.

“If the Scriptures say anything at all with clearcut, ringing force,” said the clergyman, “they say that Christ will one time return to the earth that crucified him. To efficiently complete man’s redemption he must invade history again as certainly as he invaded it once. Once the far left-wingers tried to make out that the disciples put in Jesus’ mouth those things which he himself speaks about his own return. But lately we don’t hear so much about that. To those who accept as authentic the sayings reported to Jesus in the Gospels the promise is clear—‘and then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory’ (Luke 21:27) and ‘For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be’ (Matt. 24:27).”

Jesus And His Disciples

The Gospel of Matthew gives a vivid account of the disciples putting a plain question to Jesus; what was to be the sign of his coming, and of the end of the world (Matt. 24:3)? Jesus might have answered this question with one of the enigmatic statements he was capable of; but he replied to it with sincerity and simplicity. Perhaps, after all, he felt that his followers were justifiably interested in such a vast subject! Why should he be unwilling to offer information on it?

So Jesus answered them. As far as we can discover he gave a more extended reply to this question than to any other the disciples asked him. The reply has many points. Many things will happen in connection with his coming. People will be misled by false teachers. There will be fraudulent christs. Wars will come, and rumors of wars. Nations shall attack nations; famines and earthquakes will take their toll. Christians will be persecuted. The hatred of nations will fall on believers. Faith will dwindle. Perfidious prophets will arise. Wickedness will spread to worldwide proportions. Some strange “abomination of desolation,” predicted by the prophet Daniel, will occur. A vast tribulation will shake the earth, worse than any before it, worse than any to come after it. There will be some sort of solar disturbance. The sign of the Son of man will appear in the heavens. A trumpet will sound. Angels will appear and gather God’s chosen ones from the four winds. Men will be as oblivious of the approaching doom as men in Noah’s day were unaware of the coming flood.

An article in Redbook magazine (August 1961) asserted that only one per cent of the ministerial students interviewed in several well-known American seminaries are convinced there will be a second coming of Christ. Although these young seminarians do not find the return of Christ a paramount theme, Jesus, when questioned about it by his followers, gave them an impressive sermon on it. To be sure it has been argued that Jesus was talking about the collapse of Israel and the fall of Jerusalem rather than the end of the world; but it is difficult for some of us to understand how this was the “end” to which he referred—seeing as how the Gospel was to be “preached in all the world, for a witness unto all nations” before that “end” came (Matt. 24:21)!

Consider also Jesus’ words: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved.…” Obviously such a global cataclysm could not be comprehended in the destruction of one ancient city! Both Hiroshima and Nagasaki saw tribulation as great, if not greater, than Jerusalem when it fell to Rome. Indeed, confronted by this mind-staggering picture which Jesus drew in response to his disciples’ query regarding his Second Coming we seem forced to decide that he was wrong about the whole thing—or else what he predicted is yet future.

Modern Man’S Unbelief

Naturally Christ’s reappearance seems an absurd idea to many in this age of automation. But is the idea more irrational to science than the doctrine of justification by faith to the mind of the philosopher? What could be more irrational than the idea of a holy God loving unholy men, and his justifying the ungodly? Is this not unreasonable in the light of human wisdom? It disturbs our system of a moral accounting; it jars our neat plan for punishing the guilty and rewarding the just. Is it not, in the hard light of “reality,” something of a theologian’s dream? Even the Bible scribes had to admit that it was “marvelous”; but it was the Lord’s doing! Even so shall the completion of our redemption, at the coming of Christ, be the Lord’s doing.

When we asked one minister what he thought of the Second Coming of Christ he said, “Such a phenomenon, making God a mighty Magician, is fit only for dreamers!” Still, God might have appeared as something of a cosmic Thaumaturgist had we been on hand to witness Creation! And the resurrection of Christ from the tomb may seem rather “magical” if we try to encompass it with test tubes and slide rules.

One man, after hearing a sermon on Christ’s second advent, cried, “Only a child could believe that God would indulge in such fantastic goings-on!” But it was Jesus who said that unless a man be converted and become as a little child he could not come to realize God’s kingdom. God’s “fantastic goings-on” have never been too easy for the dedicated earthling to accept! “Father, Lord of heaven and earth,” Jesus once prayed, “… thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matt. 11:25).

The doctrine of Christ’s return is not, of course, for those who put the ideas of the naturalists above the Word of God. It is only for those who are yet naive enough to believe the Scriptures, which Jesus said could not be broken. And it is interesting to observe that these same unbreakable Scriptures predict that men generally will not believe in the Lord’s return. “… there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation” (2 Pet. 3:3–4).

Still, a considerable host of men, even in this day when the SAC-eagles roar and our rockets are tilted at the stars, with the necessary theological naïvete, agree with the staggering unsophistication of the Scriptures: “… unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time” (Heb. 9:28).

They believe, with Jesus, that the Scriptures cannot be broken, and that he will come again as certainly as he came the first time. The Scriptures were right about him once; they will be right about him once more. He came the first time in humiliation; he will come again in exaltation. Once he had not where to lay his head; the next time he will have crowns to give his own. He came once and was judged by men; he shall come again and be the judge of men.

There was a Babe in Bethlehem; a Teacher on the mount; a Saviour on a Cross; a Lord triumphant over the tomb. There shall be a King on the eternal Throne. Multitudes are looking, as multitudes have always looked, for the King’s appearance. They wait for him, unshaken by communism, unstaggered by pragmatism or existentialism, undaunted by Bultmannism. Two hundred decades of time away from the closing cry of the Church’s mighty Book, believers take it up still—“Even so, come, Lord, Jesus!”

At the Tomb

Why do you look among the dead

for him? Whom death cannot destroy

you seek in vain where mourners tread;

why do you look among the dead?

The tomb is bare, the guards are fled,

and earth has lost despair to joy.

Why do you look among the dead

for him whom death cannot destroy?

TERENCE Y. MULLINS

Ermanno Rostan

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

Matthew 11:15–19

The Preacher:

Ermanno Rostan has been since 1958 Moderator of the Waldensian Church of Italy. After studying at Rome and Edinburgh, he was ordained in 1933 and served as pastor in the Waldensian Valleys. From 1940 to 1943 he was the only Protestant chaplain in the Italian army. He holds a doctorate in law from Turin University, and an honorary D.D. from Moravian Theological College, Bethlehem, Pa. Dr. Rostan is the author of two evangelical books in Italian, and has edited Protestant religious journals.

The Text:

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,

And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.

The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.

During his earthly life Jesus liked to watch children at play in the village squares in the peaceful Palestine countryside. He would notice children and watch them at length, not from mere curiosity, but because their behavior had a special meaning for him, about which he wanted to speak to the adults of his generation.

In Matthew’s Gospel we have preserved a vivid and realistic impression of those children’s games as well as Jesus Christ’s motive in speaking of them to his contemporaries, to make them face up to their responsibilities. Since Christ’s word is pronounced with the accents of truth and eternity, it will not be difficult for us today to recognize in it a message for all of us—both as churches and as individuals.

A Meaningful Game

The game of which the Gospel speaks is a very simple one but it involves active responsible participation in order to be played properly and meaningfully.

The children would be divided into two groups, one seated, the other standing. First a marriage would be enacted, then a funeral. The children seated in the square would play a dance tune on a flute. The game required dancing and festivity, but it would happen often enough that the children remained motionless in their places for who knows what reason, moodiness or indifference. Then there would be a change of scene, if the marriage game had not succeeded well, and they would sing dirges, as at a funeral. This time also however, the actors remained unmoved as if the matter had nothing to do with them or displeased them. In each case it was at once obvious why the children refused to respond: it was their lack of interest in the game, or lack of concern for it to go well; and so their behavior provoked their fellows’ rebuke: We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

In such terms, common as they seem, Jesus spoke to his contemporaries, pointing out to them their spiritual make-up so childishly uninvolved in the great crisis of faith and the clamant necessity for Christian action to bring about the plans to God. Whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

Why this bitter, scourging, comment of Christ with all its overtones of severe condemnation?

The men and women of that day had been present at two great spectacles and had heard two tremendous messages: those of John the Baptist and of Jesus. John the Baptist—so the Gospel says—came “neither eating nor drinking”; his personality was marked by moral austerity and a vigorous prophetic preaching, whose characteristic was the coming of the wrath of God: O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:7, 8). But his contemporaries considered him on the one hand, too demanding, and on the other too lacking in sociability and humanity. His language was harsh even for the ears of the religious so that they said: “He hath a devil” and preferred not to listen.

But Jesus had also come, the Son of Man, clad in Messianic dignity, according to prophecy and, as prophecy had said, not, using his powers for himself but putting them at the disposition of the poor and the lowly: Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).

Jesus Christ had come “eating and drinking”; he had entered the homes of Zaccheus and Levi, though he was Emmanuel—God with us. Yet his contemporaries, mostly unconscious of that miraculous presence of the Godhead in the reality of human flesh, made light of him and, unfavorably impressed by the way Christ sat so loosely to the rigid formalism of official religion, said of him: Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans, and sinners.

Both alike, the men and the children in the streets, in Jesus’ time refused to take the stage and act in God’s plan with a sense of concern and responsibility.

The Modern Parallel

Today the game goes on, and history repeats itself. The situation is no less disturbing because our generation—at least in the West—does not withhold official respect from Jesus Christ and has no desire to rate him as a “gluttonous and a winebibber.” Yet it is perhaps more serious for our generation, for ours is a civilization that, for several reasons, calls itself Christian. Many are content to use Christianity’s external wrapping which they believe in, or say they believe in, merely to promote their private or national interests under specious excuses that drain the Gospel of its content and life. Thank God, there are men who repent like Zaccheus or go in search of the Master like Nicodemus: yet the Christian conscience is not deeply moved by the message of Christ which is ever a message of judgment and of grace. The number of churches and church organizations multiply; yet so does the number of those who sit as dull, apathetic spectators of world scene through which Christ passes every day, and where every day we can respond with the obedience of faith or with lack of concern.

When we talk like this it is easy to think of other people, of men far removed from our religious spheres. There is always the temptation to draw a hard and fast line between church and world, between sacred and profane, between “religious” people and those not so (or at least not seemingly so, even if, at times, they have hearts not as hard as our own). We speak easily of West and East, of Christianity and materialism, of belief and unbelief, as if God’s judgment was for but a part of humanity, especially the part not officially Christian. But Christ’s presence on the stage of human history is a disturbing presence for all, even for the Christian churches, amongst whom is no lack of lookers-on who cannot clearly make out the message of Christ, and do not feel the urgency of that interior response—the decision born of faith in Christ.

One hardly knows any more how to speak to such superficial Christians, perpetually turned aside by other issues. Give them a serious word and they do not want it because it lacks the note of joy. Give them a glad word, full of hope, and they reject it because they miss in it the notes of severity or solemnity. However the Gospel of Christ is presented, they always find a way of side-stepping the need of self-involvement. What they want, even they do not know: but what they do not want is quite clear. They want nothing that would compel them to stop and enter into themselves in the presence of God: nothing that would oblige them to take up the cross and follow Jesus. As long as religion keeps to the realm of a discourse of an academic or a social nature, they are willing to show interest. But let religion become that serious demanding thing it was on the lips of the Baptist and even more so in the preaching of Jesus, then they decide that is not the game they want. They change the subject, they talk of work, of affairs, of national or international situations as if Christ were not present in our generation with us, or with the problems of our day. So, today, many remain apathetic and bored in the presence of the Lord, though they are far from being indifferent towards all that concerns their material well-being and their political and ideological convictions. Should we play at weddings or not? Then someone will have to dance! Do you want to play at funerals? Then someone will have to weep! Too many Christians, alas, stand still and only play the “bagpipes.”

The Need For Commitment

Now, should you ask me where such Christians are to be found, I have to reply that one cannot easily make a map of Christendom. One thing I do know, and that is no one can be quite certain of himself or of his own Christian denomination. None is quite immune from the Satanic suggestiveness of apathy and conformism in religion. We are often impressed by the scientific achievements of our epoch and yet we do not manage to grasp the idea of Christ being here on our earth, inside our life and inside the destiny of men. All too often we exchange essentials for what is of minor importance and condemned to perish. For that reason the Gospel recalls us to personal commitment and a clear sense of responsibility.

Commitment to Christ is the negation of apathy, and of that Christian rhetoric so much more dangerous than worldly rhetoric. It is that intimate act of decision made by man before his God: the “yes” of faith in Christ; a yes to be repeated day after day in a world that is changing and where other lords seek to reign over us.

Commitment to Christ does not mean getting Christ on our side, making him keep step with us or forcing him to walk in our ways. He walks down all the ways of the world, even those where we would prefer he did not go lest he disturb our ecclesiastical or national projects. His word alone is worthy of our trust for life and for death. Only let us be willing to follow him without complaint, without a nostalgia for dead things, without fear in the face of disasters that threaten the earth. It is he who gives a new direction to our being, it is through him that we have life: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent (John 17:3).

Commitment to Jesus Christ opens the path for us to responsible Christian living. The finest of theological formulae remain a dead letter unless translated into action and living witness. Jesus has come into the world as an actor with full responsibility for effectuating God’s plan for the redemption of humanity. He wants us to be his fellow workers, not mere spectators of his coming, or profiteers of his kingdom. The command “Do thou follow me” is for one and all of us, and calls for a humble response from us. The brief time of our earthly life, the Today in which he speaks to us, is the time for us to decide and to serve.

Perhaps this will entail humiliation or fatigue. Faith is indeed a battle to be constantly sustained, not a quiet and fixed possession. What is essential is to be able to discern in all the confused voices of the world the voice of him who is still calling men into his service. Can we but listen to that voice in our corporate and individual existences, I believe we shall be able to say with the apostle: For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe (1 Tim. 4:10).

Certainly we must pray every day that this become our experience.

It is senseless to divide our citizens who make up the loyal, active, dependable supporters of the nation, by using invectives and bitter criticisms, just because a few become overzealous, and sometimes say things that cannot be proved about some namby-pamby political leadership, and soft-peddling on atheistic Communism.

The newspapers, a little time ago, quoted a state leader as being vociferous in his damnation of what he calls the “rightist groups,” and said, “These are more dangerous than the Communists.” That is just nonsense.

These political “straddlers” and “moral inbetweeners,” and “religious no-man’s-landers” surely know that the Communists have no “middle ground” in their ideology. All men of all nations are, to them, either Communists or anti-Communists. We all know where the Communists stand. They are not afraid to declare themselves. They glory in it. However, they also know, if by use of smears and innuendos, they can get Americans divided by the neutralists, then the “in-betweeners” are actually aiding their Communist conspiracy. We can destroy ourselves without Communist atomic bombs. Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me and he who gathers not with me scatters abroad.” That is pretty clear-cut thinking. That is the kind of thinking, loyal Americans, whether rightist or not, expect from the Capitol at Washington down to the humblest cottage.

This is exactly the day when all Americans, whether Christian or otherwise, should let each other know where they stand on the truth about our enemies, and atheistic Communists, and also on materialistic Socialism and the American free way of life. The best way to combat extremes, whether they be called rightists or leftists, is for all of us to let all other Americans, and even our enemies, know where we stand on all moral, economic, political, sociological, yes, religious loyalties.

The Americans who advocate coexistence, free fellowship, and companionship with professed enemies of Christian freedom and the true free way of life, seem always more ready to defend the so-called rights of these enemies than they do of their patriotic American brothers. We believe there can be no “in-betweenism” in matters of life and death, right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lies.… We want our leaders, political, social, educational, religious, to let everyone, even our enemies, know where they stand, just as did Luther when he said, “Here I stand, I can do no other,” or like Patrick Henry, when he declared, “I know not what others may do, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” There was no equivocation or secret evasion there. There must be none in our political, economic, social, religious leadership in America, against atheistic Communism—the world’s great conspiracy.

America could, and would, change for the better, the whole complexion of political and moral confusion in a few weeks, if all elected and appointed leaders in all national agencies would declare themselves as dedicated Americans, unable to be bought by any group except for the welfare of all Americans, and also, that they would demonstrate by their actions and by their votes that they will stop the waste in government, and practice sacrificial living and spending themselves, instead of just demanding the sacrifice be made by the people who elect them, and moreover, that they will practice Christian ethics at home and abroad.

Christian patriots must be known as men of the right, because they are dedicated to God’s truth, to the whole truth. They must endeavor to be truth-tellers because they are truth-lovers, and therefore, truth-livers. “Speaking the truth in love,” is the finest formula for the cultivation of goodwill and friendship in cooperative living, whether personal or national or international. No one need to be ashamed to be called a rightist, if he thinks right, speaks right, and lives right. This is the day to come out of the grey into the white, to come out of the dark into the light, to come out of the left into the right.—DR. GORDON PALMER, former president of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, in a radio broadcast on the Christian Patriotism Hour.

- More fromErmanno Rostan

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

Recently a Sunday supplement in our Nation’s capital carried excerpts from a sermon entitled “Why I Know There Is A God.” The sermon had been delivered on Layman’s Sunday last year in an Arlington, Virginia, church. It was a message in simple terms of belief in God and in Christian principles. It concluded with the thought that man is placed on earth as a free agent. He is given freedom of choice and only he can make the decision as to whether he will or will not live by the guidelines which Christ followed throughout his days on earth.

The parishioner who delivered that sermon on Laymen’s Sunday was American Astronaut John Glenn. The rugged and unshakable faith expressed in the title by the author of the sermon permeated the whole.

Scarcely more than a month later, in the course of a tour of the United States, Soviet Cosmonaut Gherman Titov reportedly was asked if his journey into space had had any effect upon his philosophy of life. According to the press, the cosmonaut said flatly, “I don’t believe in God.”

The statement was carried in an article under the heading, “Titov Puts Belief in Man Alone.”

Dividing Two Worlds

Perhaps nothing could dramatize more fully the gulf between philosophies of the noncommunist and communist world—the spiritual versus the material—than the words of these spacemen. Nor could any words point up more clearly the truth in the statement attributed to William Penn: “Those people who are not governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”

If one is indeed to believe in “Man Alone,” what are the guidelines to be followed except power? Belief in a version of the perfectibility of man through forcible self-assertion led to the Hitlerian holocaust. What can a philosophy which denies God—which depends upon man alone—lead to except an even more terrible holocaust?

Through the ages thinking man has looked out beyond himself. Cicero expressed his thought thus:

There is something in the nature of things which the mind of man, which reason, which human power cannot effect, and certainly that which produces this must be better than man. What can this be but God?

Many years later, the man whose great faith held a tiny army in being at Valley Forge and won for us the freedom we enjoy today asserted his belief that: “It is impossible to govern the world without God.…”

The Inroads Of Atheism

Today, almost half the world is under the tyrannical rule of men who deny God. Here at home, alien forces strive to destroy the faith which forms the foundation of individual freedom. The sickness of secularism permeates large areas of our society. The Ten Commandments are ignored; the teachings of Christ dismissed. To many people, the word principle-fixed, immutable, unchanging—is simply a word and nothing else. Scores of pseudo-sophisticates today imply that it is not possible to adhere to a creed and remain intellectually free. These fervent worshipers of unbelief apparently are unable to comprehend man as a spiritual creature. They have no moral guidelines by which they may steer their own course of action. As a consequence, they are unable to supply effective guidelines for their children. Indeed, there are those who do not wish to expose their children to any training of any type which might be labeled spiritual. Such parents allegedly propose to “let them grow up and make their own choice of religion when they are sixteen or seventeen.” These so-called broadminded individuals have never planted a garden or they would know that a plant cannot grow and flourish until a seed has been germinated and the subsequent shoots are adequately watered, nourished and cultivated.

The spiritual side of the human creature similarly requires care if it is to flourish and develop. The guidelines given the child at the earliest age are vital to his future. Human beings need rules to live by, and self-rule is possible only as self-discipline is practiced. A world without moral disciplines inevitably must degenerate into a world without legal disciplines. When this happens, the word justice becomes a meaningless mockery.

The Empire Of Evil

We are witnessing this degeneration on a world scale as atheistic materialism advances like an icecap, smothering all opposition, destroying freedom, “remaking” the human creature into a soulless “communist man.” We are witnessing this degeneration on a national scale as atheistic materialism expresses itself in lawless terrorism on city streets and rural byways. We cannot ignore the increase in youth crime in the course of the past several years. The problem is not confined to any state or group of states. It is national in scope. Since 1948, police arrests of juveniles have more than doubled, while the population of our young people has increased by less than one half. In the course of this period, arrests of young people have increased six times as fast as arrests of individuals who have reached their eighteenth birthday.

It is true, of course, that these crime figures relate to only three or four per cent of our young people, yet our youth is contributing an ever-increasing portion of the total police arrests in this country. Youths represent 14 per cent of all arrests in the city and 15 per cent of all arrests in rural areas. Young people account for 61 per cent of all auto thefts, 49 per cent of all burglaries, 47 per cent of all larcenies and 26 per cent of all robberies.

Tolerance Of The Illegal

As moral disciplines decline, citizens become more and more willing to condone what may appear to be minor illegalities but which actually feed and keep alive the hydra-headed monster of organized crime. Illegal gambling may seem relatively harmless, yet it, together with prostitution, the sale of narcotics and obscene material, and a variety of rackets, supports a virtual empire of crime. Investigations have revealed that the underworld exerts its sinister influence in astonishing places. Almost every area of American life is touched in some manner by the organized empire of evil. It becomes visible in some instances in the corruption of public officials. It infiltrates labor unions. It buys its way into, or otherwise gains control of, legitimate businesses in numerous fields. Yet the overlords of crime do not look the part. To the uninitiated, many of the leading racketeers appear to lead lives above reproach. Some take part in community projects, help in charity drives, and even may play a role in religious activities. They wear no brand marked “hoodlum” and, unfortunately, scores of private citizens who think of themselves as basically honest continue to support them. This is so because a vast percentage of the money placed daily with illegal gamblers flows into the hands of the criminal overlords. This cash provides the capital by means of which vice, crime and corruption spread in ever-widening circles.

When civilizations die, they do so unobtrusively. The dry rot of spiritual decay sets in and the values which form the binding cement of national greatness become honeycombed and hollow. Cynicism, apathy and self-indulgence weaken the foundations of freedom. Failure to accept full responsibility as citizens in lower echelons of government cannot help but be destructive to self-government. Woodrow Wilson, speaking on Constitutional Government in the United States, touched the heart of the matter:

It is this spontaneity and variety, this independent and irrepressible life of its communities, that has given our system its extraordinary elasticity, which has preserved it from the paralysis which has sooner or later fallen upon every people who have looked to their central government to patronize and nurture them.

Guarding Civilization’S Future

We need to make sure that guidelines which served us so well in creating sturdy, self-respecting, self-reliant and God-fearing citizens in the past are not discarded. We need to follow those guidelines closely and make sure that youthful Americans today understand the necessity of holding to them. Faith and determination formed the solid basis of the great dream out of which grew the house of freedom we live in today. Faith in God formed the foundation of that house. Faith in man transformed the vision into reality.

I do not believe that we can begin too early to instill in America’s children a dedication to the morality and decency which derive from sound Christian training. I believe that such training is a very real antidote to the spiritual indifference which so often results in youthful crime. I repeat what I have said on many occasions: The bulwark of religious training is vital if the line is to be held against the forces of corruption, crime and disloyalty. I believe that men imbued with spiritual values do not betray their country. I believe that children reared in homes in which morality is taught and lived rarely become delinquents.

There are spiritual fountains from which free people draw their strength. The guidelines leading to those fountains must be made available to our children if the spiritual ropes which bind men’s souls in strength and courage and dignity are to hold fast when these same children become men and women.

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

The priority of Scripture over tradition ought not to blind us to the genuine value of tradition. Tradition, as Herman Bavinck was fond of saying binds generation to generation, keeping each from falling into spiritual individualism. But tradition always seems to give rise to misunderstandings and tensions within the Church, especially when respect for tradition gives way to suspicion of everything new.

There are strong tradition-oriented elements in the Church which remind us that our strength lies in holding fast to what has been ever true. These elements usually express fear that the Church is in danger of losing what it has received. The voices are loud when the Church seems to be passing through uncertain and strange times and ways. The finger of warning is raised then, and the spector of Daniel’s great outlaw is seen, the one who “thinks to change times and laws.” Falling away is to be observed in many places, and the Church is ready to fall victim to apostasy. So it is to the traditionalist.

From another camp we are likely to hear that the signs of change are really tokens of renewal. The dynamic of life is held at a premium, as it shapes, forms, creates new paths that lead us into new forms of work and worship. This camp does not accept change as impoverishment, but as enrichment. It dare to accept the challenge of a new day.

These two tendencies can easily lead their representatives into opposition. Estrangement can then be caused between men who ought to be united in a common task. In the tension between traditionalism and progressivism, men often fail to come together, to understand, sometimes even to speak with each other. Now and then tension breaks the Church apart. As both sides speak from a sense of responsibility to the Church, it is especially tragic when their differences cause schism in the Church. We have seen what the forming of two camps, the conservatives and the progressives, can do to the Church.

The harm that such group forming has done and can do to the Church is strange and tragic when we consider that the very dilemma is an utterly unreal one as far as the Gospel is concerned. One can recall many texts of Scripture which put the dilemma aside. Paul exhorts Timothy to “keep that which is committed to thy trust” (1 Tim. 6:20). But the arrival of the Kingdom of Christ is such a new thing that we are warned not to try to “put new wine in old bottles” (Mark 2:22). The New Testament is wholly taken up with the radically new, but it never forgets God’s old ways. The former ways of God were directed at nothing other than the coming of this new age. Surely in the light of God’s ways, the dilemma between the progressive and the traditional is a false one.

Our trouble is that we are not personally in such a spiritual and intellectual frame as to grasp the scriptural harmony between accepting the new and preserving the old. This is why the dilemma has had such perverse power in the Church. We lose sight of the biblical wholeness in which both old and new have a part. The Gospel not only has room for both camps: it corrects and reforms them both, pointing the way for both to walk and work together in the fellowship and task of the Church universal.

According to the Gospel we may also say that the phrase “conservative theology” has no significance in itself. The expression stems from the Church’s historic polemic against modernism. Conservatism still has meaning, then, as a reminder that We are to keep our trust in the face of attacks against the Gospel. But a biblically defined theology cannot be described in terms of conservatism. For it is and must be progressive. The Gospel must be allowed to lead us into whatever new and surprising paths it has for us.

We cannot assume that we have exhausted the biblical resources for our understanding of the truth. Consider such mysteries as that of the Word of God coming through the word of man, of God’s electing grace, of our eschatological hope, and many other biblical themes. We have not yet come into the inheritance of complete understanding.

The dangers in conservatism lie in its temptation to forget that the riches of the Word of God are inexhaustible. When it yields to this temptation, it fails to do justice to the Scriptures it seeks to defend. For when one assumes that all has been known and said in the past, he closes the door on new truth that God has yet in store for us. And he shuts the window to the breezes of self-reformation.

Only as we realize that faithfulness to old truths open up new doors of truth to us can we keep the false contradiction between conservatism and progressivism from haunting us. The message is too great for this dilemma and our task is too urgent for us to let it hamper our fulfilling it. There will be need for keeping our eyes open to the dangers that lurk in new and strange paths. We shall have to warn and correct each other. Perhaps just now, in the face of the rich field of biblical studies that has opened new questions and new opportunities, the need for watching closely is especially real.

We may dare hope that God will spare us from the burden of having to accept either progressivism or conservatism as such. We do not have to make a choice between them. Indeed, we shall do the Church a distinct service by refusing to accept the banner of either camp. The future of a rich and fruitful theological effort depends in great measure on our being able to steer clear of the brand-mark of either conservatism or progressivism. We must work, not as progressives or conservatives, but as students of the Word of God.

In this way, theology shall be in a state to serve the pulpit. As long as theologians listen, confident that there is still something to hear, they can be of fruitful service. If they understand something of Job’s feelings, expressed, indeed, while he stood amazed at the wonderful works of God in nature, but relevant also to theology, they will be on the right path. “Lo, these are parts of his ways; but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?” (Job 26:14). G. C. BERKOUWEH

Andrew W. Blackwood

View Issue
Subscribe
Give a Gift
Archives

To prevent A slump in church attendance next summer, begin now to make ready for sermons from Philippians. Keynote, “In Christ.” Commentaries: J. B. Lightfoot; H. C. G. Moule. Read the letter through every day. Study it by paragraphs. On file keep careful notes. Good housekeeping!

The opening sermon may show the lay reader what to look for at home: The joys of an elderly believer (ch. 1); of church people (2); of Christian progress (3); of Christlike living (4). What a letter for devotions and family prayers!

“Being a Gentleman toward God” (1:3). Christlike joy comes through praying for others. Or else, “The Christian Secret of Perseverance” (1:6). Joy comes through relying on God when things look black (12–18), and through living in hope (19–30). To be happy, keep looking up, “in Christ.”

Church people should rejoice because of Christian habits, ideals, and leaders (ch. 2). “What It Means to be Christians” (2:5). A difficult paragraph about the Incarnation, but clear ideals for believers: humility, service, sacrifice. “O Joy that seekest me through pain!” “Christian Joy through Work” (2:12–13c). As in oldtime bread making, work out only what is first worked in. For a believer all labor should be joyous, “in Christ.”

Chapter 3 speaks to the young in heart. Christian progress here appeals to imagination. Business: “The Inventory of One’s Soul” (3:7–8). Long distance running: “The Gospel of the Forward Look” (3:13–4). A locomotive needs a powerful headlight, only a little light in the rear. Another topic, borrowed, “The Christian’s Point of No Return.” Government: “The Ideal Church for This Community” (3:20a). “We are a colony of heaven” (Moffatt). To Philippi, a colony, Rome sent a band of soldiers to “Romanize” the city. On a similar basis Paul established churches all around the Mediterranean. What an ideal for missions today, and for a church!

In pastoral work and preaching some of us use Chapter 4 repeatedly. In counseling from the pulpit, or at a bedside, the meaning of Christian joy in personal relations, through Christ. “Women as Church Workers” (4:3). What a text for Mothers’ Day! “Christ’s Cure for Anxiety,” formerly known as worry (4:6–7). “Troubled about nothing, prayerful about everything, thankful about anything.” A wise churchman says: “My Lord taught me long ago to live without worry, work without hurry, and look forward without fear.”

“The Christian Secret of Contentment” (4:11b). Paul here uses three Greek verbs, in this order: “I have learned as a lesson”; “I have seen in others”; “I have been initiated into the secret.” Who can wonder that while in prison, elderly, penniless, and facing death, he had heavenly joy? “The Christian Source of Power” (4:13). Writing from Rome, where people worshiped power, he testifies to power that God releases to faith. By learning the will of God for his life work, and by doing that will gladly, he could accomplish all that God desired. In history, who else has done so much, with so little, and for so many? Like other golden texts, this one calls for two main stresses: the Fulness of spiritual power; and the Source. If you believe, God releases power.

“The Basis of Christian Security” (4:19). The promises of our God—the riches of his bounty—the grace of the Living Christ. What a testimony from a saint who had suffered second only to his Lord, and was living on money from the friends to whom he sent the letter of joy! For examples, turn to the life of Mary Slessor in Calabar, or David Livingstone in Central Africa, but first to Paul in the Acts of the Holy Spirit. So the epistle ends with “The Simplest of Benedictions” (4:23). What a text!

Minister of Christ’s joy, live with this letter until you know it as a whole and in every part. Linger with the difficult paragraph until you enter into its secret of joy. Then with words as simple and beautiful as those of John Bunyan lead many a lay hearer to “have this mind” that was in the Christ of Calvary.

Lay reader, you wish the pastor to be a happy preacher of the Good News, which he himself most enjoys. So pray for him without ceasing. Then do all in your power to set him free from countless details that the Lord intends other servants to handle (Ex. 18:13–26).

Thus by the grace of God may the pastor give himself to prayer and the ministry of the Word (Acts 6:4), all “in Christ,” and with apostolic power.

In later years, through his Expositions (17 volumes), this man became known as “The Prince of Expositors.” Earlier volumes also excelled, notably The Secret of Power (1882), from which the present sermon is abridged.

Only let your conversation be as it becometh the Gospel of Christ (Phil. 1:27a).

Philippi was a “colony.” The connection between a colony and Rome was a great deal closer than that between an English colony and London. A colony was a bit of Rome on foreign soil. The colonists were Roman citizens. To Paul those Philippians were citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. In that outlying colony of earth he would stimulate their loyalty to heaven.

I. Keep Fresh the Sense of Belonging to the Mother City. Paul was writing from Rome. The idea of being a Roman gave dignity to a man, and became almost a religion.

A. This is a great part of Christian discipline. We speak of the future life, and forget that it is also the present life, “ready to be revealed.” It is so close, so real, so solemn that it is worthwhile to feel its nearness.

B. There is a present connection between all Christian men and that heavenly city. As Philippi was to Rome, so is earth to heaven, the colony on the outskirts of the empire, ringed about by barbarians, and separated by sounding seas, but keeping open its communications, and one in citizenship.

C. So let us set our thoughts and affections on things above.

D. Nor need the feeling of detachment from the present sadden our spirit, or weaken our interest in the things around us here.

II. Live by the Laws of That City.

A. The Good News of God is to be believed, and obeyed.

B. That law is all-sufficient. In Christ we have all the helps that our weakness needs.

C. So “live worthy of the Gospel.” All duties are capable of reduction to this one. Nor is such an all-comprehensive precept a toothless generality. The combination of great principles and small duties is the secret of all noble and calm life.

D. It is also an exclusive commandment. Let us take the Gospel for our Supreme law, and so labor that we may be “well pleasing to Him.”

III. Fight for the Advance of the City’s Dominions.

A. Christian men are set down in some Philippi to be citizen-soldiers, who hold their homesteads on a military tenure, and are to “strive together for the faith of the Gospel.”

B. Stand fast! Defend the faith, and like the frontier guard, push the conquests of the empire, to win more ground for the King.

C. Such warfare against evil has never been more needed than now. When material comfort and worldly prosperity are dazzlingly attractive to many, win hearts to the love of Him whom to imitate is perfection, and whom to serve is freedom.

IV. Be Sure of Final Victory for God.

A. We have no reason to fear our adversaries. No reason to fear for the ark of God, or the growth of Christianity in the world. Why preach in words that sound more like an apology than a creed?

B. Such Christian courage is based on a sure hope, and is a prophecy of victory. “Our citizenship is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Lord Jesus as Saviour.”

The little outlying colony in this far-off edge of the Empire is ringed about with foes. The watchers from the ramparts might well be dismayed if they had to depend only on their own resources. But they know that in His progress the Emperor will come to this sorely beset outpost, and their eyes are fixed on the pass in the hills where they expect to see the coming of their King. When he comes he will raise the siege and scatter all his enemies as the chaff of the threshing floor. Then the colonists who have held their posts will go with him into the land which they have never seen, but which is to be their home. There with the Victor they will sweep “through the gates into the city.”

Never be anxious, but always make your requests to God in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving; so shall God’s peace, that surpasses all our dreams, keep guard over your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:6–7, Moffatt).

The first part of the message deals with anxiety, with a number of cases from life. When Paul says, “Never be anxious,” is he mocking? Not when he brings God into the scene, with prayers of supplication. (A case—Allan Gardiner—a missionary in Patagonia.) Release from anxiety comes along three lines:

I. Prayer Sets Things in True Perspective. Like an artist at work on a canvas, stand back and look at your life in the healing silence that is the presence of God. Prayer steadies the jaded nerves, lifts the fevered spirit into a purer air, and brings a blessed silence into the din of life’s conflict. Thus prayer makes firm the staggering soul.

II. Prayer Brings Our Will into Line with God’s Will. At a time of civil war within, we say what Jesus said in Gethsemane: “Not what I will, but what Thou wilt!” To do that may call for some kind of Gethsemane, but after such prayers we shall always find release, with serenity that the world can not destroy.

III. Prayer Liberates within Us New Sources of Power to handle the difficult business of living. In true prayer you connect yourself with the source of creative power. From the unseen world flow into your life boundless energies so that you can confront the hardest task, the most difficult situation, with grateful knowledge of God’s adequacy.

The latter part of the message has to do with God’s mysterious peace, which “stands sentry” over your soul. This peace of God is to be recaptured every day, by a new surrender of self to God.

“Paul closes with the words, ‘in Christ Jesus.’ There is the ultimate secret … the transforming influence of a friendship with the noblest, strongest, most understanding Friend in all the world. If only we would start each day with Jesus, reaching out from the dust and darkness of this low earth to clasp the hand of our Friend, the ever-old, ever-new miracle would happen once again, and our restless hearts would find rest and healing in the invincible peace of God.”—Abridged from The Strong Name, pp. 169–176, by pennission of Chas. Scribner’s Sons.

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6).

Every believer in Christ wants to become more like his Lord. In writing to a sports-minded city Paul shares his own secret of spiritual growth, “in Christ.” By faith put your trust in Christ. This refers to the Holy Spirit—Christ’s Spirit. Through his Spirit have him ever in your heart. What here follows has to do with time, and with running a long-distance race. In terms of athletics, being a Christian has to do with far more than making a right start.

I. A Christian View of the Past. Get right with God. Then largely forget yesterday’s shortcomings, failures, and sins. Also, at times, the successes. To think much about past mistakes tends to make a person morbid. About past failures, despondent. Let the dead past bury its dead. How otherwise can a person expect to have the sort of joy that the apostle shows in this letter?

Most of all, forget your sins. If God forgives what a person has done his best to make right, why should he keep on asking forgiveness for the same old sins?

As for past successes, much thinking makes a man proud, and pride is the worst of the seven deadly sins. If ever a man had need to learn the Gospel of the forward look, that man was Saul of Tarsus, for much the same reason that a runner ought seldom to look back. If the apostle had not learned to voice his faith in other than past tenses, he could not have written this letter of joy “in Christ.”

II. A Christian View of the Future. Christianity makes much of the future. The goal of the Christian life is perfection. The prize is the favor of God. The pathway is chosen of him: “every man’s life a plan of God.” “I do not ask to see the distant scene; one step enough for me.” For a living example of what this means in the noblest of men, see in Paul a practical person who looked ahead. But remember that he never let thoughts of coming glory interfere with what he was doing for God at the moment. Where in history can you find such a noble example of a Christian idealist? Thank God for such an elderly optimist!

III. A Christian View of the Present. “One thing I do”: resolve to be daily more like the Lord. With the apostle keep straining forward, eager to be still more useful. And be sure to have his kind of apostolic optimism. Like Grenfell in Labrador, when someone pitied him because of his hardships, smile and say: “Don’t pity me; I am having the time of my life!” But remember that with Grenfell as with Paul, abounding joy came by engaging in Christian service, all because he was ever “in the Lord.”

The secret of Christian progress is to be “in Christ.” In his service the past is secure; the future, glorious; the present, full of glorious opportunity. But first be sure of a personal experience of Christ and his transforming Cross. If so, rest assured that the One who started the good work in you will bring it to completion by the Day of Christ Jesus. (By permission of Pulpit Digest, December, 1953.)

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:5; read 2:1–11).

These words introduce one of the most difficult paragraphs in the New Testament, and one of the most sublime. They represent the Gospel in terms of mystery and wonder. In the Bible a mystery has to do with a truth that we mortals can never discover for ourselves, a truth that we accept by faith, because revealed in God’s Book.

I. The Christ Before Christmas. All through eternity before New Testament times our Lord lived in glory as one with the Father. To the Son the saints and angels bowed down to adore, and stood up to sing his praises. Then as now, the wisest and best of all created beings worshiped no one but “very God of very God.” To this hour believers in Christ render him homage because of his Deity, which is a mystery, a “mystery of light.”

II. The Christ of the Cross. At God’s appointed time the Lord Jesus “emptied” himself of his divine glory, and was born in lowly Bethlehem. As a babe and a boy, a man and a carpenter, he did the will of God, perfectly and gladly; also later as Healer, Teacher and Preacher. But all the while he had come to earth to die as our Redeemer. Thus the mystery and the wonder deepen. Today with saints and angels we can only bow down and adore the Redeemer who once died for us men and our salvation.

III. The Christ of the Crown. The drama of our redemption leads us to look beyond the Cross to the Crown. After our Lord had completed his mission on earth he returned to heaven, and there resumed his place at the right hand of his Father. There he rules, and receives the adoration of all the redeemed, both on earth and in heaven.

In the face of this threefold mystery we redeemed sinners can only give thanks to God, while we gladly accept these saving truths that we can not begin to comprehend. In trying to make clear and luminous these mighty truths of redemption we can not turn to human experience for examples about the Incarnation as a mystery.

How then can we of today “have this mind” that was in the Christ of the Gospel? First of all, let every unsaved hearer accept him as Redeemer and Lord. Then the believer will trust the Lord Jesus to reveal by his Spirit how to make the mystery of the Incarnation the ideal and the pattern of everyday living for the Redeemer of men.

SERMONS ABRIDGED BY DR. ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD

ALEXANDER MACLAREN’SCitizens of Heaven

JAMES S. STEWART’SWhen God’s Peace Guards the Door

Outlines of Dr. Blackwood’s Own Sermons:

The Christian Secret of Progress and

The Mystery of the Incarnation

The experiences of life move in varied patterns of joy and sorrow, hope and fear, love and loneliness. The ingredients that combine to make our lives significant or meaningful are often unrecognized or at least unacknowledged.

I have just returned from eight weeks of travel throughout Asia. During my trip I served on the staff of the Third Assembly of the World Council of Churches and therefore had the unique experience of listening in on the heart of the Christian world as it contemplated the next epoch in Christian history.

From the conference rooms in New Delhi to villages for untouchables in South India, a school in Punjab, and redevelopment centers in Hong Kong, a variety of impressions stamped themselves on my heart and mind. One impression particularly emblazoned itself so deeply upon me that I am compelled to do nothing less than invite you to join me in a march of death.

That is right. I invite you to walk with me to death. Everything, even death, we are told, has its appointed time. Perhaps now is the time, then, for the Christian Church to face realistically the challenge of the present world situation. Are we willing to sacrifice all we have to make the Gospel known throughout the world? How much are we willing to sacrifice to bring healing to minds and bodies in India, Hong Kong, or Africa?

The impression which overwhelmed me at the Assembly and during my trip was the urgent need for Christians to purify their witness. The time has come either to stand with the Cross or forever to retreat into the background. The day of playing church has passed. We must put away our little systems and idiosyncrasies and grasp the depth of the reconciliation which Christ brought to the world, and seek to share this reconciliation with all men everywhere.

The urgency of our times is vividly illustrated by the rapid changes occurring in Asia, Africa, and even in North America. Old patterns of life are crumbling under the emergence of new nations, new ideas, and new modes of thought. Everywhere we see society strained to the limit by the dynamic forces that impinge upon mankind. My purpose is neither to comment on these social forces nor even to describe them. One need only read current articles and books on Asia and Africa to grasp the upheavals that are in process.

My purpose, rather, is to focus for you and for me the greatest challenge that the Church is facing today. This challenge is summarized by the word “integrity.” This is what the world is looking for as it seeks to find a sense of direction. Who speaks for the truth? Can we believe what Christians say? Is there an authentic witness to the Christian message? Where can we turn for an illustration and example thereof?

We in America must squarely face a fundamental decision at this point. We are caught up in a building boom in our own country which threatens to throw our sense of values out of balance. We spend $100,000 to $250,000 for educational buildings which are used one or two hours, at best but several days, a week. Our philanthropic giving is perhaps 20 to 30 per cent of our budgets. Yet the Gospel tells us we must be willing to give all we have in order to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord. All is not just 20 to 30 per cent, or some other amount that satisfies our conscience. All would seem to imply an amount sufficiently large to threaten our economic survival! We borrow a great deal of money to build our fine buildings here at home, but I have yet to hear of a church that has borrowed $250,000 to build a school in India, or a hospital in Punjab, or a recreation center in Hong Kong.

In fact, it appears that right now the Church is more concerned about its physical accommodations than about the spiritual situation in the world. Christ has called us to give all we have. The world with its hand outstretched, a world desperately in need of the healing only Christ can bring, is crying and pleading for help. Unfortunately, we do not have 15 or 20 years to meet the needs that are before us today. The world cannot wait for us to finish our building program before we can launch a new missionary outreach. In the next several years the world will make some basic and strategic choices. God help us if we fail to give the people the truth revealed in Jesus Christ.

Undoubtedly many will stand and proudly say, “Here is our fine $750,000 church with all of the latest in Christian education facilities.” But, I ask you, what good will be that fine facility if in the next ten years we are unable to meet the challenge of education, technical help, and medical assistance so desperately needed around the world? Should the Church boast over its buildings of so many new churches, or should it instead repent for its failure to sacrifice for the far-flung cause of Christ?

I know not a single church that has ever given all it could for the work of Christ in Asia or Africa. In fact, most of the time we give as little as we can and yet appear respectable, and give as much as we can without curtailing our current program.

If only the world could wait for us to mature spiritually! But the force of the population explosion will not let us remain static. Either we will catch a new vision of the cross of Christ and with joyous abandon give ourselves and all we have to insure that the world hears the glorious news of Christ, the darkness-dispelling Light, or men will turn to those who deny God and speak for materialism.

I invite you to join me in a march to death. Let us give ourselves without and beyond limit to extol Jesus Christ above the turbulent tensions of our world as the Light and Saviour of all mankind.—JAMES R. HIPKINS, Pastor, Church of the Saviour (Methodist), Cincinnati, Ohio.

MISSION TO THE WORLD—Two months ago an American touring company, sponsored by the State Department and paid for by your tax dollars, presented one of Tennessee Williams’ more depraved offerings to an audience in Rio de Janeiro. The audience hooted in disgust and walked out. And where did it walk to? Right across the street where a Russian ballet company was putting on a beautiful performance for the glory of Russia! How dumb can we get?—JENKIN LLOYD JONES, Editor, The Tulsa Tribune, in an address, “Who Is Tampering With the Soul of America?”

- More fromAndrew W. Blackwood