Page 5813 – Christianity Today (2024)

Organ music swells to the crescendo of congregational singing. Soon a deep, paternal voice reads the Scripture lesson, asks for money, and prays. A soprano sings. After twenty minutes of forceful preaching, the program closes with a slightly hurried prayer.

Religious radio programs like this are as old as broadcasting itself. As Christians in a world of need we are charged to communicate to the world who Christ is. Yet after nearly forty-five years of a technology that virtually made it possible to reach the world all at once, we are still trying to preach the world into heaven using a language and frame of reference the non-church person does not understand. Is it any great surprise that the unchurched are not affected by a music style of a hundred years ago, and that they cannot understand phraseology that would please the ear of a Shakespearian scholar? Is it any wonder that a worship service designed for church use and those initiated in the Christian tradition does not communicate to the non-churched person through radio?

A recent survey found that in the United States radio’s weekly audience includes 92 per cent of all persons eighteen and older, 99 per cent of all teen-agers, and 94 per cent of all people from twenty-four to forty-nine. The lack of effectiveness of religious radio programs cannot be blamed on a dying medium.

What is the government’s attitude toward religious programs? Since its beginning in 1934, the Federal Communications Commission—the agency that regulates broadcasting—has been in favor of religious programs. It has often asserted that these programs are in the public interest. As early as March, 1946, the FCC encouraged broadcasters to carry religious programming. The policy known as the “Blue Book” stated that a radio station has the primary responsibility for choosing programs but that the FCC also has a related duty to perform. The immediate result of the Blue Book was a new license-renewal application form requiring applicants to state how much broadcast time they devoted to certain categories, among which was religious programming. The government licensing agency today continues to show interest in religious programs, and as a result stations want to be able to say that they carry such programs. The limited success of religious programming cannot be attributed to broadcaster unwillingness. Nor is non-availability of stations an excuse: as of August, 1970, there were 6,364 AM and FM radio stations on the air in the United States (Sydney Head, Broadcasting in America, 1972, p. 469).

What else can be limiting the success of religious programs? Take a look at the programs themselves. The principles of good listening are simple to the point of common sense. What does make a radio program interesting? Joseph Johnson and Kenneth Jones offer several suggestions for making a radio program interesting in their book Modern Radio Station Practices (Wadsworth, 1972). They tell us that a successful program relates to the listener’s previous experiences. We cannot describe something new to a person who has no frame of reference for it. The new object or material has to be either demonstrated or described in relation to the person’s own experience. A taped church service has little meaning to someone who can barely remember going to church as a child.

Johnson and Jones say also that a successful program has a comfortable pace. It never lags nor pushes too hard; there is a balance between tension and relaxation. The most highly developed message package there is, the commercial, never tells you everything about its product. It concentrates on a few aspects of the product and repeats the name often. It is forceful but not overwhelming. A program, too, needs this balanced appeal.

The successful program also has a variety of content and pacing. A commercially produced program does not use all the same style of music, for example, or all vocal selections, or all fast rhythms.

Radio is a personal medium, Johnson and Jones point out, one that requires understatement. Only a few elements are needed to tell a story well. Radio can stir the imagination through simple arrangements of sound, as happened in the successful old radio dramas such as “The Shadow,” “One Man’s Family,” and “Amos ’n Andy.” These programs did not try to tell everything; a few simple sounds would create a detailed scene in the mind of the listener.

A program should be presented with ease, with a smooth flow that creates a positive feeling inside the hearer. If a religious program sounds choppy and compartmentalized, the person who stumbles upon the program while scanning the dial is unlikely to listen long. Each element in the program should lead naturally to the next one. It should not be expected, but neither should it come as a total surprise. Dedication and prayer are no substitutes for production errors.

Most people are not overbearing and are certainly not going to put up with overbearing people on the radio. When a simple turn of the knob will change the station, they are not going to listen to a bombastic, holier-than-thou pronouncement from anybody’s ivory tower. The relationship of teacher and student is so often weakened by the inability to feel enough kinship with each other to ask the questions that really matter. How much greater is the chasm that develops when the listener cannot talk back? A little humor or other touch of humanness builds a lot more credibility than an hour of verbal punishment.

FROM THE PARTY, HOME

At the door

the host snaps a cookie

into my hand

kneads my hand around it

almost like a fist

and gives me a sip of juice:

these, he says, for the trip.

A giant fly

buzzes in the dark

on the step

rubbing its forelegs together,

the small hairs like razors.

It is begging the disk

which is becoming part of my hand.

Thinking we might be friends,

I offer it some chipped crumbs

and am surprised to learn

they will not go down,

but shoot from the shocked mandibles

like one full moon,

like stars

SANDRA DUGUID

A program can coax involvement from a listener by giving him something to do. “Sing along …” or “Talk back at us …” both elicit an action and create something of a commitment to or investment in the program.

Johnson and Jones tell us further that the “build-up” is important to an interesting program. A little suspense or appeal to the listener’s curiosity is good. The listener wants to be encouraged to listen. He doesn’t want to have to force himself to pay attention.

A very important aspect of a program that is at the bottom of some elements already mentioned is personality, the character of the program as well as the people on it. People like a radio program if it seems to show more interest in the listeners than in itself, say Johnson and Jones. Some successful programs include letters from their listeners. Some approach their audience as if the program were a person-to-person conversation rather than an impersonal speech to “all you out there in radio land.” Whatever the approach, simple language is necessary. When the medium is print, one can always read it over again if he does not understand everything the first time. With radio, there is no going back.

What can the listener do about inadequate religious programming? Plenty. Every broadcast depends heavily on two things: money and letters. A well-written letter to the radio program (it may be sent “in care of” the station) has immense influence. Most religious program producers do not research their audience; they depend on letters to tell them whether they’re finding an audience. If you don’t like what you hear and don’t write to the program, you are in effect encouraging that program. Tell the producers your reactions and suggest better ways to communicate the message. If the program continues to be poor, refuse to support it. There is nothing Christian about giving money to something you think is ineffective.

There are other possibilities, too. Give some thought to making your own program or encouraging interest in new programs. Are there broadcasting students or hobbyists you know who have a tape-recorder, microphone, and some imagination? Chances are that your local radio station would be more interested in what you can do for them in a creative way than in the usual humdrum hymn-and-message or endless panel discussion that is common religious broadcast fare today. Think of it for a minute. What would you rather listen to? That is what you should be hearing.

Perhaps no other medium of mass communication requires so little to be effective. The technology is not beyond the reach of anyone, and the challenge is to everyone. Are you a Christian? Do you have something to tell and a fresh idea for telling it? If so, religious radio programming could use your help.

Our readers will note that we have a new Eutychus. It has been our policy to make a change every few years. I must express appreciation to Eutychus V, our own John Lawing, Jr., for his splendid contributions. We expect Eutychus to be controversial and hope he will always prick our consciences. Welcome to Eutychus VI.

Bound volumes of CHRISTIANITY TODAY for the period October 1972–September 1973 are now available at eleven dollars a copy, including postage and handling. The book is 1,356 pages in size, and that’s less than a penny a page. It’s a real bargain.

Take a good look at the plight of a minister’s wife in “Thrice I Cried.” Ben Hale in “Radio Church” makes some good suggestions for improving the methodology of religious broadcasting. Our long-time friend, Dick Halverson, has a special word about prayer—something we all profess to believe in but practice so little. We should all try to make 1974 a special year devoted to prayer. The article by Marvin Wilson on bribery (“Prophets and Green Palms”) is a hard-hitting piece that should occasion a positive response.

The upheavals in present-day understanding of world mission expressed in the polarization between Bangkok ’73 and Lausanne ’74 present to us with new urgency the question: What is the abiding task of Christian missions in the rapidly changing scenery of the present decade? Let us quite elementarily define the foundation, content, and goal of mission according to the revealed Word of God.

1. The Foundation. Mission means sending. The most important person in this act is the One who sends. Determinative for mission, therefore, is not “the agenda of the world” but the commission that the sent one has received from his sending Lord. The basic motive of Christian mission is expressed in majestic simplicity in the Great Commission of the Resurrected One: “All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me” (Matt. 28:18). Jesus was sent to take the decisive step in fulfilling the plan of salvation by accomplishing the atonement between the holy God and apostate mankind.

But the mission of Christ did not end on the cross. Rather, it was placed on a new universal foundation through his resurrection from the dead. This is his enthroning as king over the whole world, over all nations, and over all powers in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.

St. Paul, defining his apostolic call, refers to the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord “through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about obedience to the faith for the sake of his name among all nations” (Rom. 1:5). The foundation of mission, therefore, is the fact that God has made his risen Son Jesus Christ the Lord and Saviour of the whole world. This means that all other powers have lost their former positions, and that all gods and idols that man is serving in his religions must give way for the one true faith proclaimed in the Gospel.

2. The Content. When people turn to the one living God and believe in his Son Jesus Christ, they receive the greatest gift that can be conceived of: salvation. It is God himself who saves, and the goal of his salvation is to restore the broken relationship between him and apostate man. For to be without salvation would mean to perish under his wrath, and to be delivered to the destructive forces of sin, devil, and death. All human sufferings, spiritual and corporal, individual and social, are nothing else but expressions of that separation from the fountain of divine life which is caused by sin and judgment. Salvation, therefore, in the deepest analysis, is always the reunification of lost man with God by means of the remission of sins.

This act of atonement has taken place once and for all through the death of Jesus on Calvary, and it is sufficient for the salvation of all mankind. But in order for this reconciliation to become effective fallen man must be informed about God’s offer in Christ and receive it in penitence and faith. Mission is nothing else but the ministry of reconciliation. This reconciliation is first of all the one between God and us, but from this results also the possibility of reconciliation between us and our fellow man. It is the most important task of the missionary, like St. Paul, to go to the still unsaved people and say to them: “We beseech you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20).

This reconciliation is offered through proclamation and is realized through the incorporation into the body of Christ by baptism. But in order to make God’s reconciliatory love visible, the word is accompanied by the deed of mercy. This cares for the temporal sufferings of man, both on the bodily and social and on the economic and political levels. All help in these spheres can be regarded as aspects of genuine Christian mission, if it originates from and aims at the central dimension of the Gospel, salvation.

3. The Goal. It is important to see Christian mission in the context of God’s eschatological plan of salvation. Christ’s Church is migrating on that route which starts from his resurrection and concludes with his second coming. Then his kingdom of grace shall be changed into his kingdom of glory. This means that during our present age his omnipotence over heaven and earth is still concealed. It is concealed by that power which the three enemies—sin, Satan, and death—are still exercising in this world, even though they have been conquered in principle.

The reign of Christ and the renewing power of his salvation are now seen only by the eye of faith. They become visible in the changed existence of regenerated man. They take social shape in the Church of Christ, which is the first-fruit of the renewed mankind. And they show their fermenting force in those social, cultural, and political changes that are achieved by Christians in obedience to their heavenly Lord. In this way it is possible to speak about the appearance of Christ’s kingdom even beyond the borders of the Church in the social and political spheres of this world.

But we must also be aware that these processes are hindered and often destroyed again by man’s disobedience and by those metaphysical enemies that are not yet removed. This world will never become changed into Christ’s rule of glory through human efforts. Not even Christian efforts through evangelism, diaconate, or revolution can achieve this. For this is a promise that shall be fulfilled by no one but the returning Christ himself.

This means that our mission will not create universal mankind united in freedom, peace, and justice. For the answer to the Gospel will always be a double one: faith and unbelief, obedience to and rejection of Christ’s rule and grace. Therefore mission causes a decisive polarization within mankind: the confrontation between Christ’s obedient Church and the opposing rest of mankind. And out of its midst that apocalyptic figure will finally emerge, which is disbelieving mankind’s concentrated answer to the missionary witness: Antichrist.

But Antichrist will find his limit in the witness of the faithful Church. This will be the last form of Christian mission in a non-Christian world. But it will be rewarded by Israel’s eschatological turning toward his rejected Messiah. And this witness will finally be proven true when Antichrist meets his doom through the returning Christ.

How many more congregations will switch from the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. to the National Presbyterian Church?

That’s the big question now that the new evangelical denomination has been formally organized and is functional (see December 21, 1973, issue, page 39).

W. Jack Williamson, moderator of the first NPC General Assembly, predicted that the church would have at least 500 congregations within a year. It already embraces about 273 local churches with some 60,000 members.

Dr. Charles E. S. Kraemer, moderator of the PCUS General Assembly, has said, “My guess is that everybody who is going has gone by now.” He has qualified that by conceding that “a great many are on the borderline.” If all the PCUS congregations that have initiated separation proceedings are successful, the membership of the big Southern denomination will be brought down to about 900,000.

Williamson has contended that liberals forced the split because they went back on their word to include an “escape clause” in a plan to unite the PCUS and the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. A plan of union that included such a clause was discarded last February. A new proposal, made public last month and due to be presented to the General Assemblies of both denominations, eliminates the clause.

“Our liberal friends promised this method,” said Williamson, a 54-year-old Phi Beta Kappa lawyer from Greenville, Alabama, “and we accepted their promises in good faith.”

Williamson had been a member of the committee drafting the merger proposal. Had it provided an out, he said, that would have been the best method for “peaceful realignment.”

PCUS officials, who seemed rather passive in the early stages of the split, have of late been much more outspoken and have been taking the initiative to hold on to their numbers. A PCUS “Committee on the Causes of Unhappiness and Division in the Church” has called on all Presbyterians to accept one another’s differences “as befits the family of God.” The committee, created by the 1973 General Assembly, said it is convinced “that no one need leave the Presbyterian Church in the U. S.” The statement came in a preliminary report mailed to all ministers and clerks of sessions at about the time the denomination’s separatists were getting ready for their first assembly, held in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama. It was requested that the paper be read to the churches. The statement contends that “present tensions result from misunderstandings, exaggerations, and the ascription of general significance to isolated instances.”

A “Committee on Church Property,” also established by the 1973 assembly, has made available a resource file and a “legal memorandum” to loyal PCUS members for use if efforts are made to take their congregations out of the denomination. The guidelines, mailed to stated clerks of presbyteries and synods, are designed to prevent dissidents from keeping church property. Members of the “loyal remnant” are told to file with their presbyteries written appeals for help and, if necessary, to “resort to civil litigation to oust those who refuse to return the property to you.” Advising loyal members not to fear formality and procedure, the guidelines comment, “No one expects you to be an expert, and your notices, complaints and/or appeals do not have to be in any particular form. They may be well prepared or crudely drawn.”

NATIONAL IS NOT NATIONAL

The name of America’s newest denomination may give it some problems. “National Presbyterian Church” was chosen despite a warning in floor debate that such a selection would produce confusion with the well-known congregation of the same name in Washington, D. C.

Dr. Louis H. Evans, Jr., pastor of the capital congregation, says the choice is unfortunate. “It will raise problems for them and for us,” he said in an interview. Evans added that he was surprised the new denomination was willing to risk confusion with his church in view of the congregation’s affiliation with the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., which is generally more liberal in theology than Southern Presbyterianism. “But,” vowed Evans, who is regarded as a conservative, “we will try to work it out quietly with our Christian brothers, and we will welcome in love any folks who come to our church by mistake.”

Local congregations desiring to separate legally have had varying degrees of success: some have been dismissed by their presbyteries with their properties while others have had to resort to litigation.

A six-page “address” to all Christian churches adopted by the NPC General Assembly sets forth the rationale of the new denomination:

We are convinced that our former denomination as a whole, and in its leadership, no longer holds those views regarding the nature and mission of the Church, which we accept as both essential and true. When we judged that there was no human remedy for this situation, and seeing no evidence that God would intervene, we were compelled to raise a new banner to the historic, Scriptural positions which were the faith of our forefathers.

Ultimately it is because the PCUS General Assembly has reduced its view of Scripture to “one among many,” the statement later says,

that we have felt compelled by conscience before our Lord to depart from our mother Church.… A diluted theology, a gospel tending towards humanism, an unbiblical view of marriage and divorce, the ordination of women, financing of abortion on socio-economic grounds, and numerous other non-Biblical positions are all traceable to a different view of Scripture from that we hold and that which was held by the Southern Presbyterian forefathers.

In adopting a book of church order, the assembly included as one of the questions to be asked for candidates for the ministry: “Do you believe the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be the inerrant Word of God, the only infallible rule of faith and practice?” Its doctrinal standards are those set forth in the Westminster Confession, together with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms and the book of church order.

For all the debate, the separation has been remarkably amicable. The address even recognizes evangelicals¹One prominent non-separatist was a featured speaker at the NPC assembly: Dr. C. Darby Fulton, former moderator of the PCUS General Assembly and long-time executive secretary of its Board of World Missions. who have elected to remain loyal to the PCUS:

We trust that they will continue to contend for the faith, even though our departure makes their position more difficult. We express to them our hope that God will bless them in their efforts, and that there may come a genuine spiritual awakening in the PCUS.

One source of tension has been whether conservative groups instrumental in the separation should be allowed to rent facilities at the PCUS conference center in Montreat, North Carolina. The 1973 PCUS General Assembly defeated efforts to bar the groups, but the new General Executive Board of the denomination has registered its “strong disapproval.” The Wilmington, North Carolina, presbytery has petitioned the 1974 assembly to prohibit groups “openly antagonistic” to the PCUS.

The NPC’s General Assembly will meet once a year and between assemblies will carry out its work through four committees: world missions, mission to the United States, Christian education and publications, and administration. For now, at least, each will choose its own office locations and raise its own budget. Commissioners to the assembly will be appointed by local congregations rather than by presbyteries as in the PCUS. Titles to local church properties will rest with congregations.

The Reverend Clinton M. Marsh, United Presbyterian moderator, says the split will speed the merger of his denomination with PCUS. Examining his own denomination, he notes that “the only obvious foot-dragging on the merger issue is from the black constituency in the southeast.” In that area, most United Presbyterians are black, and they fear that “if there is a merger, they will be outnumbered in regional presbyteries by white Southern Presbyterians who they feel are not especially sympathetic with their causes.”

The NPC is the third-largest Presbyterian denomination in America. It is now represented in fourteen of the fifteen states in which the PCUS has congregations, and more than a dozen churches in California were reported interested in joining. Said Williamson, “We’ll restructure the Presbytery of Texas!”

Pressure In Pittsburgh

There’s a quiet struggle going on at Pittsburgh Seminary, a United Presbyterian school. It involves a band of evangelically minded students and a group of perhaps not so evangelically minded professors. So far, the professors have the upper hand.

It all started in the fall when many of the school’s 340 students (287 are full-time degree students) expressed displeasure at the list of courses proposed by the faculty for the intensive three-week January winter term. In an interview, President William H. Kadel explained that the January courses were meant to be innovative ones, exposing the students to issues and situations not likely to be covered at length elsewhere in the curriculum.

The administration decided to ask the students to join the professors in suggesting other courses. Ideas were tossed around in a faculty-student meeting (Kadel suggested something on the theology of Watergate), and ground rules were laid down: 1. the need for the course must be evident; 2. a sizable number of students must sign up; 3. an appropriate professor must be secured; 4. financial support, if needed, must be assured; 5. there must be substantive and/or methodological innovation; 6. the proposed course must be publicly described.

Student conveners were selected to draft and post course proposals. One of the conveners was Wynn Kenyon, son of a Presbyterian minister and member of a seminary prayer group that attracts from ten to twenty students to weekly meetings. In discussions the group agreed that a course on Reformation theology, emphasizing evangelical distinctives—especially biblical authority, was most assuredly a need. Kenyon and his friends wrote out a course description and tacked it on the bulletin board. Twenty-eight students—10 per cent of the school’s full-time student body—registered to take the course.

Word drifted out to the surrounding area, and a number of ministers conveyed well wishes to the Kenyon group, by now organized as the Biblically Conservative Reformed Constituency (BCRC) with Kenyon and Ron Miller, a Gordon-Conwell Seminary transfer student, as co-chairmen. They proposed as teacher a staunch advocate of biblical inerrancy, Dr. R. C. Sproul—a graduate of Pittsburgh and of the Free University of Amsterdam, and scholar-in-residence at the nearby Ligonier Valley Study Center. Several other evangelical theologians were listed as alternates. Meanwhile, the BCRC received pledges of hundreds of dollars for subsidy of the course should it be needed.

The faculty members of the history and theology division, however, rejected the proposed offering. Their reasons, as listed by a teacher in an interview: 1. unacceptability of the stipulation that only a person committed to the evangelical viewpoint be named to teach the course; 2. it lacks innovation; 3. the idea of a course along a single interpretative line is objectionable and has not been practiced at Pittsburgh (demolishing somewhat the preceding lack-of-innovation argument); 4. not enough time exists to prepare the course; 5. personality problems (“we have our own profs who feel qualified to teach the course and at least one is personally upset because an outsider was considered instead”).

Several professors also said they felt the students were being used as pawns by the conservative Presbyterian Lay Committee and Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns. One said he fears it may be an opening move by the conservatives in an eventual attempt to take over the school.

The faculty suggested that the division’s own John Gerstner, an evangelical, could teach the course and grant credit on his history side of the division, but the BCRC held out for credit toward requirements on the theology side.

At a meeting on December 10 President Kadel suggested a further compromise: have Gerstner teach the course with theology professor Arthur Cochrane helping out as sort of team teacher and reactor. Perhaps then credit can be granted in theology.

Again the professors balked and said they needed more time to think about the matter. One professor blurted out that the BCRC’s biblical position has no standing in the United Presbyterian Church. Finally, a meeting was called for next month to decide whether there will be sufficient time to work up the course for sometime in 1975.

In the meantime, several of the other innovative courses suggested in November were scheduled to get under way this month.

Edward E. Plowman

It Happened On Long Island

A two-day gathering on Long Island last month brought together representatives of the establishment in the United Presbyterian Church and its conservative critics. Present were elected members and staffers of UPC agencies, members of the Presbyterian Lay Committee (PLC), and members of Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns (PUBC).

The meeting was called by UPC moderator Clinton M. Marsh in hope that both sides might arrive at a better understanding of each other’s viewpoints, thereby laying the foundation for a greater degree of peace within the troubled denomination. (The UPC budget is $7 million leaner this year, the ranks of conservative groups opposed to controversial social-action policies and alleged theologically liberal trends in the UPC are growing, and there has been a lot of angry talk within the denomination’s inner circle over the way restructure has been handled, especially in the reshuffling and axing of hundreds of employees.)

A UPC reporter described the exchanges in the Long Island meeting as “sometimes formal, sometimes heated, and sometimes conversational.”

PLC president Paul J. Cupp disclosed that the circulation of The Layman, a PLC publication that began with a print order of 48,000 copies in 1968, is close to 350,000 “and still growing.” There are sixty-one PLC chapters, he said, and support comes from some 20,000 contributors.

The main complaint of the conservatives was that few evangelical-conservatives have been chosen to serve in UPC policy-making positions. Yet, said PUBC president J. Murray Marshall, evangelicals want to work within the church for the church’s good, to be a positive rather than a disruptive force.

UPC executive officer William P. Thompson countered with the suggestion that the evangelical-conservatives had not tried hard enough to become involved in the inner workings of the denomination. He also accused them of betraying confidences in connection with past meetings, making it more difficult to get together in the future.

Others hinted that the conservatives should strive to bring about change in the UPC in ways that are more constructive and less destructive.

After it was all over, Marsh commented: “We don’t know what has happened here.… It takes hatching time.…”

The Confidence Gap

Americans have more confidence in their garbagemen than in their religious leaders, if a recent Lou Harris poll of more than 1,800 persons across the country is truly representative.

The U. S. Senate-financed survey found that only 36 per cent of the population has confidence in “organized religion”—one of twenty-two familiar “institutions” listed in the poll. But that is 6 per cent better than last year.

Only two of the institutions drew support from a majority of those questioned: medicine (57 per cent, up from 12 per cent in 1965) and local trash collection (52 per cent). At the bottom of the list was the White House with a 19 per cent vote of confidence, just a notch below organized labor. Higher educational institutions (44 per cent), television news (41 per cent), and the military (40 per cent) all placed ahead of organized religion. (It was not clear whether respondents included local churches in their thinking or just denominational structures, councils of churches, and the like.)

In other sampling, 53 per cent agreed that “there is something deeply wrong with America.” Economic problems and “integrity in government” were listed as the two major concerns.

Rome-Ward Bound?

Anglicans and Roman Catholics may have moved a step closer to eventual reunion with the publication last month of a “basic agreement” on the nature of ministry and ordination in both their churches. The 3,200-word statement was made by a joint commission of the churches and sent for study to Archbishop of Canterbury A. Michael Ramsey and Pope Paul VI, who approved its publication.

The new agreement, which in effect ends a 400-year-old dispute, now seems to provide a theological rationale for recognition of Anglican priests by Catholics (in 1896 Pope Leo XIII declared Anglican Orders “null and void”), a point which the commission said was “a source of controversy between us.”

The commission, composed of twenty-one bishops and theologians from both churches, put off until later consideration of a more thorny issue—the authority and primacy in the ministry, especially the controversy over papal infallibility (the main reason for the Church of England’s split from Rome in 1532). “Agreement on the nature of ministry is prior to the consideration of mutual recognition of ministries,” the commission explained.

OFF PREMISES

Because the pastor and deacons take their church covenant literally, there’s a bit of trouble at First Baptist Church in Texarkana, Arkansas, the city’s largest black congregation.

Letters of dismissal were reportedly issued to four members for selling alcoholic beverages, a practice prohibited in the covenant. (In many Baptist churches members at regular intervals recite a covenant that has been widely used for years, vowing to uphold the code of Christian conduct it prescribes.)

Julius Dillon and Ernest McGraw, members of the church since the 1950s, argued that a large part of their contributions to the church came from beer sales. Dillon threatened to file suit if a settlement could not be worked out.

Mrs. Willie Mae Ingram, another long-time member who was dismissed, said she gave much of her time and money to the church, too.

Willie Edwards, who joined the church recently after promising to quit selling beer in July when his license expired, said he couldn’t make a living just selling groceries. So, he explained, he was forced to renew the license.

The group was set up after Ramsey and the Pope met in 1966 and agreed to initiate “serious dialogue” between their churches. Its task was to “find a way” of overcoming doctrinal differences and move toward “the unity we seek.” After its first meeting in 1970, the commission published a statement of “substantial agreement” on the Eucharist in 1971. The ministry agreement comes after the commission’s fifth meeting, held at Canterbury, England, last summer.

Subjects covered in the statement included mission and the ministry in the New Testament and early church; the priesthood of Christ, the faithful, and ministers; the sacrament of ordination; and the apostolic succession of bishops and their churches. It opens with the assertion that ministry is a privilege and obligation belonging to all Christians, clerical and lay, and that “all ministries are used by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the church.”

Severance Pay

In a ruling expected to affect a number of other churches, the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court decreed that the United Methodist Church can retain control of the property of two breakaway congregations in southwestern Pennsylvania. The latter, formerly Evangelical United Brethren congregations, voted unanimously in 1970 to withdraw from the UMC and to affiliate with the Evangelical Church of North America.

The court cited the UMC Book of Discipline as “a contractural agreement between the parent denomination and its members.” When a local church is a member of a hierarchically governed denomination, it cannot sever the relationship without forfeiting its property to the parent denomination, commented the court.

Religion In Transit

National Council of Churches president W. Sterling Cary announced that four of ten American banks involved in a recent series of loans to the “racist” South African government are pulling out. Several denominational agencies and an NCC unit had been pressuring the banks.

Claude Taylor, 10, was dismissed from membership in a Cub Scout pack in a rural community near Hanover, Maine, because he had crossed out the word “God” in the Scout Promise on his application. The boy’s father, a former Columbia University educator who describes himself as an atheist, argued that the Scouts are not a religious organization. Scout officials in Maine upheld the decision, maintaining the Boy Scouts of America position that “no boy can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing his obligation to God.”

Dr. Morris Chafetz, head of a federal agency on alcoholism, estimates that 450,000 pre-teens and young teenagers in America have serious problems involving alcohol. Alcoholism among 9-to-12-year-olds is soaring, he says. (Two dozen Alcoholics Anonymous groups geared to pre-teens have sprouted up in the last five years, and they are growing, according to reports.)

Operation PUSH, the breakaway civil rights group founded by former Southern Christian Leadership Conference worker Jesse Jackson, is broke. Board members said there are debts of more than $50,000 but only $6,000 in the bank.

More than 25,000 persons attended the sixty-sixth annual meeting of the four-million-member Church of God in Christ, held in Memphis. Nine of the ten days were given over to spiritual pursuits. On the final day, the General Assembly of the predominantly black Pentecostal denomination voted a budget of $1.9 million. The sessions were closed to the press.

North Carolina congressman Sam Ervin, the Democrat of Watergate fame, has come out in support of radio preacher Carl McIntire and the minister’s case against the Federal Communications Commission. (The FCC declined to renew the license of McIntire’s WXUR in suburban Philadelphia. Ervin says he thinks the FCC’s “fairness doctrine” ought to be overhauled or scrapped.) Meantime, McIntire got national publicity when he proclaimed widely that the comet Kohoutek is a sign of the second coming of Christ. Other signs include the UFOs, says McIntire, who believes they are operated by intelligent beings from somewhere other than earth.

David “Moses” Berg, head of the Children of God sect, announced that the comet Kohoutek is a sign of impending judgment and national calamity. He urged his followers to flee America by January 21, when presumably the judgment will fall.

Boston, Massachusetts, police are investigating allegations that some Roman Catholic priests have been givingpayoffs to police in connection with illegal gambling activities in some parishes. The allegations turned up in a letter at a special post-office box for citizens wanting to report possible police corruption.

I.Q. of 145 and Can’t Remember?

A noted publisher in Chicago reports there is a simple technique for acquiring a powerful memory which can pay you real dividends in both business and social advancement and works like magic to give you added poise, necessary self-confidence and greater popuarity.

According to this publisher, many people do not realize how much they could influence others simply by remembering accurately everything they see, hear, or read. Whether in business, at social functions or even in casual conversations with new acquaintances, there are ways in which you can dominate every situation by your ability to remember.

To acquaint the readers of this publication with the easy-to-follow rules for developing skill in remembering anything you choose to remember, the publishers have printed full details of their self-training method in a new booklet, “Adventures in Memory,” which will be mailed free to anyone who requests it. No obligation. Send your name, address, and zip code to: Memory Studies, 555 E. Lange Street, Dept. 690-10, Mundelein, Ill. 60060. A postcard will do.

Personalia

Dr. R. H. Edwin Espy, the retired general secretary of the National Council of Churches, will head up a project of New York’s Interchurch Center aimed at stressing America’s religious heritage during the U. S. bicentennial. Also envisioned: a clearinghouse for information on what other religious groups are planning for 1976.

A Portland, Oregon, Episcopal clergyman, Charles Howard Osborn, is the new national executive director of the American Church Union, a high-church body within the Episcopal Church.

Episcopal Church executive officer John F. Stevens was elected to a two-year term as president of the Joint Strategy and Action Committee (JSAC), a coalition of the national mission agencies of eleven denominations.

Doctors have advised Pope Paul VI, 76, to cut back his public appearances and work load. The prelate is suffering from a heart ailment.

Editor F. Paige Carlin of Together magazine takes over this month as executive editor of United Methodists Today, which replaces Together.

Minnesota’s youngest state senator in history, 21-year-old Wayne OIhoft, is a Lutheran involved in the charismatic movement. A farmer on the 1972 Democratic-Farmer Labor ticket, Olhoft ran on the three-plank platform of Christian discipleship, integrity in government, and emphasis on the rural community. He says his real heroes “are the people who are living in God’s will and being blessed because of it.”

President Richard J. Schultz, 53, of Concordia Seminary in Springfield, Illinois, has resigned to do home-mission work for the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in New Jersey.

Robert W. McIntyre, editor of the Wesleyan Advocate, was elected general superintendent of the 85,000-member Wesleyan Church, and George E. Failing took over the publication’s editorship. Failing had left the magazine several years ago to head up a church-sponsored school in suburban San Diego that never got off the ground. More recently he has been teaching at a denominational college in Pennsylvania.

World Scene

Tension is mounting between the South Korean government and the nation’s churches. In a recent consultation, the Korea National Council of Churches drafted a declaration of human rights. Among other things it states that politically the people have been deprived of their sovereign rights and that only a facade of democracy exists in the land. Seminarians and students at church-related colleges have been boycotting classes and cutting their hair in protest along with conducting all-night prayer meetings.

The Dutch government announced it will give $179,000 to the World Council of Churches anti-racism program. Additionally, it will give $100,000 to the WCC’s fund for evacuating foreign refugees from Chile.

Prison authorities in Ireland say that about 50 per cent of the nation’s prison population attends Sunday church services. There are some 1,000 persons in Ireland’s seven jails for juveniles and adults.

Much of the opposition to the martial law regime of President Ferdinand E. Marcos of the Philippines is coming from Catholic and Protestant church leaders, according to news reports. Prominent Methodist educator Nemisio Prudente and a number of nuns and priests have been among those arrested. In New York, a National Council of Churches statement implied that American corporate investment policy is partly to blame for allegedly repressive conditions in the Philippines.

The closely-knit congregation of the Greek Evangelical Church in Katerini, the largest in Greece, celebrated the church’s fiftieth anniversary. Among the 1,500 celebrants was former pastor Argos Zodhiates, expelled from the country several years ago and now pastor of a Greek Evangelical church in Boston.

At a church-growth-workshop in Venezuela in 1972, five denominations which had grown 60 per cent during the preceding decade planned to increase their growth rate over the next ten years to 202 per cent (20.2 per cent yearly). But at this year’s workshop it was discovered they had already added 1,506 members in the past year—a 68 per cent increase.

There are probably more Christians on university campuses in Cuba now than ever before, according to an eye-witness West Indies Mission report, which also mentions “revival” in many Methodist churches. The government seems to have a more relaxed attitude toward church work, the report goes on, and several thousand Bibles recently passed customs.

Seven Ghana churches are expected to unite in 1975, if plans proceed on schedule. Involved are the Anglicans, Evangelical Presbyterians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Zion Church, Evangelical Lutherans, and Mennonites.

The World Council of Churches will help rebuild the North Vietnamese hospital at Hai Duong with $2 million of the $5 million it hopes to raise from its 267 member churches. Of the remainder, $2 million will be used in South Viet Nam and $1 million in Laos and Cambodia.

More than 200 Arabs publicly professed Christ at the opening service of the Assemblies of God Christ Church in Beirut, Lebanon, according to interim pastor Charles Jones.

Overdrafts of about $10 million, escalating at the rate of more than $1 million per year, have been incurred by Catholic parishes in the Diocese of Dublin (Ireland), and banks are no longer willing to lend without a guarantee of repayment within ten years. The debts were incurred in connection with new building programs.

An Iberian Congress on Evangelism will be held June 4–7 in Madrid, and the Japan Congress on Evangelism is scheduled for June 3–7 in Kyoto, sponsored by the Japan Evangelical Alliance (1,300 delegates will be selected).

Bibles for the World, directed by Rochunga Padaite, has plans for mailing The Living Bible to 500,000 telephone subscribers in Ireland next spring.

President Amin of Uganda has banned twelve religious groups, calling them “dangerous to peace and order.” They include Campus Crusade, Navigators, Child Evangelism, Pentecostal Assemblies of God, a Quaker group, and the Ugandan Church of Christ. In a statement on the Middle East, Amin said Hitler was right in killing six million Jews; “the Israelis are criminals.”

The Vatican newspaper said that archaeologists had opened the tomb of the Virgin Mary in Jerusalem and found it empty—confirming the tradition of Assumption (the belief that Christ’s mother was taken bodily into heaven).

Perhaps it was CBS news commentator Eric Severeid who best caught the holiday mood of the nation’s capital in his observation that snow had come to Washington “with all its attributes, including purity.”

With the snow came evangelist Billy Graham preaching repentance to a White House audience and all the people in general, noted Severeid. And then there was the Washington Post’s page-one story on the conversion of Charles Colson, “once the toughest of the White House tough guys,” a central Watergate figure who had had a change of heart.

“Even street litter was out of mind because it was out of sight, covered by all that dazzling purity,” said Severeid, prompting wistful thoughts on behalf of mankind.

Such was the reflective mood too in the East Room of the White House on December 16. As snow fell steadily outside, President and Mrs. Richard Nixon and their 350 guests seemed to listen intently as Graham spoke of the dark days of 1973 (Watergate, the Mideast war, the energy crisis). He warned that worse times were ahead if repentance was not forthcoming, and he held out the hope of the Christmas message.

The guests included senators and congressmen, military leaders, Supreme Court justices, other notables, and their families.

“If we as individuals here in this room today, and we as a nation, would humble ourselves and turn from our sins, God has promised forgiveness, healing to the nation, and eternal life,” declared the evangelist.

The occasion was the forty-second White House worship service since Nixon took office. (Graham has preached at three of the services, including the first one just after Nixon’s inauguration, and he shared the platform at another one.)

As always during the holiday season, the White House was ablaze with color. The East Room was decorated with poinsettias and gold-trimmed Christmas trees. A manger scene graced one wall. Decorative lighting was minimal, though.

The thirty-voice Army Chorus, clad in dress blues and gold braid, sang three carols, filling in for the Yale Wiffenpoofs, who were canceled at almost the last minute when several of the fifteen members announced they would boycott the service, apparently in protest over Watergate.

In a postscript after the benediction, Nixon said he wanted to reassure the American people that there would be enough gasoline to drive to church on Sundays—provided they don’t drive too far.

Graham had been under pressure from some in the religious community to deliver some sort of public rebuke to Nixon, especially in connection with Watergate, or at least to disassociate himself from identification with the White House inner circle. But Graham, explaining privately that such an act would be ethically in poor taste and would ignore the sins of many others, chose to be more general in his remarks. (He also cast aside humorous suggestions that he preach on tithing in light of recent disclosures of presidential giving. The records show Nixon reported less than $14,000 in deductible contributions to all causes on income of nearly $1 million over four years.)

At one point in the message, the evangelist spoke out on social justice. “We must remake the unjust structures that have taken advantage of the powerless and broken the hearts of the poor and dispossessed,” he asserted.

But, he cautioned, while “we all admit that we need some sweeping social reforms—and in true repentance we must determine to do something about it—our greatest need is a change in the heart.”

The service and Graham’s remarks were written up in the Post the next day, but it was someone whose heart had indeed been changed who got the headlines: Charles Colson.

Graham and Colson do not know each other but they have several things in common. For one, they both know Nixon (attorney Colson served as presidential counsel for more than three years—until Watergate erupted in the mass media). They both also know Christ, and both have done serious thinking about the nation’s spiritual condition in light of recent political developments.

In a sense, Colson, 42, is a second-generation Graham convert. He was led to Christ last August by an old Boston friend, Tom Phillips, president of Raytheon. Phillips had been converted earlier in a Graham crusade in New York.

The news of Colson’s conversion first seeped into the press in early December after reporters had spotted him on a visit to a White House prayer breakfast. He had been invited by the guest speaker for the event, Senator Harold Hughes, the liberal Democrat from Iowa who plans to leave public office this year to work full-time for the Washington-based International Christion Leadership organization. Once considered a political enemy, Hughes is now Colson’s spiritual mentor (Phillips had put the pair in touch with each other), and they spend a lot of time together in Bible study and prayer.

Fearing it would appear self-serving, Colson spoke somewhat reluctantly at first with newsmen about his faith, then more freely, leading to the Post story by reporter William Greider, who earlier had done a front-page piece on Hughes.

The press exposure has brought him many letters and telephone calls from other believers wishing him well (he reportedly is under grand jury investigation in connection with the Ellsberg burglary incident) and welcoming him into the family of faith. Some friends have called to say they too recently found Christ. Nixon himself called after reading the Post story, but Colson declines to reveal what was said. In an interview, he did indicate that the President seems of late to be searching for spiritual verities.

Whatever triggered it, Colson says his own spiritual quest began last March—well before the sensational Watergate revelations. Phillips witnessed to him and gave him a copy of C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which got through to him about his ego problems and eventually led him to pray to receive Christ at Phillips’s house a few months later, Colson recalls. He says Christ gave him joy and freedom from fear in the middle of all his troubles.

Will it last? “That’s what I asked myself in August; was it foxhole religion?” But, he adds, “I have no doubts about it now.” He credits the hold of the Holy Spirit upon his life.

Colson was raised in Massachusetts by “devout” Episcopalian parents (“they dragged me through Sunday school, and mom always wanted me to become a minister”).

Although he is nominally an Episcopalian, Colson attends a Catholic church with his wife, Patty, a Catholic. They have three teenage children: Wendell, a sophom*ore at Princeton University; Christian, a high school senior; and Emily, 15. Wendell’s campus friends kid him about his “Jesus freak” dad, and a number of students have stopped by his room to identify themselves as believers. At work, several of Colson’s colleagues refer to him as “the Reverend” in light jest, but one law partner has sought him out for serious spiritual counsel.

Because of his legal difficulties, Colson refrains from speaking about certain topics. He does maintain that more untrue accusations have been made against him than against any other Watergate figure. But, he feels, God has a purpose in it all.

Watergate and the crisis spirit abroad in the country can be the catalyst leading to national spiritual awakening, Colson feels. It can show people the limits on human capacity and make them turn to God, he says. But it will be disastrous, he warns, if the American people think their problems will be solved simply by going to the polls and electing new leaders. “We’ve been looking too much to humans,” he asserts. “It’s time to look to God.”

Colson is clearly on the right track in more ways than one, said commentator Severeid, after pointing out that the snow on Washington had stopped cars and closed schools (thereby saving fuel). “An act of congress has its place,” stated Severeid, “but it’s a simple act of God that gets results.”

The Year That Was

It takes no special journalistic insight to conclude that 1973 was a banner year for reporting religion. There were plenty of interesting events and developments, some of them very significant. But to rate them in order of importance, a practice indulged in by many reporters at year’s end, is a bit more difficult.

Religious News Service (RNS) lists as its top selections: the religious evaluations of and implications surrounding Watergate; the Mideast war and its impact on interreligious relationships; the U. S. Supreme Court decisions on abortion, parochaid, and p*rnography.

But a poll of the Religion Newswriters Association (RNA) places different stories at the top: the controversy in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod; the decline of social activism accompanied by an increased emphasis on personal religion; the refusal of the Episcopal Church to ordain women.

A survey of the CHRISTIANITY TODAY editorial staff gives first-place rating to the Missouri Synod story. The Billy Graham crusade in South Korea and the Ted Patrick “deprogramming” issue are tied for second, with financial problems and disclosures of various organizations (Underground Evangelism, Rex Humbard, Thomas Road Baptist Church, and others) a close runner-up.

In telephone interviews, several well-known religion writers listed their selections. Virginia Culver, Denver Post: Missouri Synod; continued growth of the charismatic movement. William Willoughby, Washington Star-News: Ted Patrick and deprogramming; Missouri Synod. Edward Fiske, New York Times: rise and growth of certain cults; deprogramming. Tom Harpur, TorontoDaily Star: Key 73 as a failure; increased emphasis on healing ministries in traditional churches. Richard Ostling, Time: continued growth of neo-pente-costalism; Missouri Synod.

In addition to those mentioned above, other significant stories include: schism in the Southern Presbyterian Church; religious opposition to a number of restrictive governments; churches and the energy crisis; evangelism and church growth overseas; Bill Gothard’s popularity; church involvement in famine relief; the Vatican’s reaffirmation of papal infallibility.

Not Privileged

American Lutheran Church social-concerns executive Paul Boe of Minneapolis must go to jail if he doesn’t tell a grand jury everything he knows in connection with the American Indian Movement’s takeover of Wounded Knee. United States District Court judge Fred Nichol made the ruling in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after examining Boe’s written accounts of his discussions with AIM leaders. Nichol rejected Boe’s argument that the discussions with AIM leaders were protected under the clergyman-penitent privilege (Boe is an ordained minister).

The argument does not stand up, said Nichol, because often more than one person was involved in Boe’s communications. Also, he commented, “If the people at Wounded Knee weren’t members of his church, how can it possibly be regarded that he is different from any other well-meaning social worker?”

Denominational officials say they will help Boe fight the ruling.

Blame The Jews?

Because of the oil shortage and energy crisis, a lot of Americans are going to blame the Jews. Therefore American Jewry had better brace for a wave of anti-Semitism.

That was the gist of a front-page editorial entitled “Wake Up, Jewry,” in the B’nai B’rith Messenger, a weekly tabloid published in Los Angeles. In a manner bordering on hysteria, the paper suggested Jews will be blamed for the lights-out Christmas, job layoffs, chilly houses, and gasless Sundays. It quoted a bumper sticker, produced by U. S. Nazis, bearing the slogan, “We Need Oil, Not Jews.” “My God, if there were no Israel, the Arabs would still be turning off the taps at the behest of the Russians to sap the strength of the Free World,” retorted the editorial.

Even the Jews for Jesus group is worried. “I believe the editorial is right,” says West Coast Jews for Jesus leader Moishe Rosen. “We stand at the brink of a wave of anti-Semitism.”

Less To Give

Famine relief efforts by church agencies in India, Bangladesh, Africa, and elsewhere may be jeopardized by shortages of vital food grains provided under government auspices.

New regulations, designed to build up American food reserves—they were depleted by last year’s Soviet grain deal and other overseas shipments—mean less food available for the voluntary agencies. (Twenty years ago, the government set up a “Food for Peace” program, buying up American grains for government-to-government programs and for disaster relief by government and private voluntary agencies.) Grain reserves in America dropped by roughly 50 per cent in 1972, and the Agriculture department is now limiting the size and locations of programs it will support with the publicly purchased food.

A spokesman for the Church World Service (CWS), relief arm of the National Council of Churches, said seventeen countries now show severe or ongoing food shortages, and another thirteen show shortages. Melvin B. Meyers, material resources director of CWS, estimates that a total of 950 million persons—roughly one-third of the world’s population—are affected by the shortages. Voluntary agencies were warned earlier this year that “adjustments” would have to be made in allotments to certain countries, he disclosed. Among the predicted cuts: complete cut-off of institutional feeding programs; reduction in maternal and child-care feeding and food-for-work programs; a shift of the responsibility of school feeding programs to indigenous governments.

CWS has already phased out most of its institutional feeding programs, said Meyers. “Our only mass feedings today are for disaster relief.” Among the nations hardest hit by the cutbacks are India, the Philippines, and Brazil.

Meanwhile, the drought-stricken sub-Sahara region of Africa (see September 14 issue, page 42), continues to receive an influx of international food supplies. Government officials estimate that most of the area’s 25 million people are now living on donated food. The donations include approximately $200,000 given to Africare, a black organization, composed mostly of Washington, D.C., residents. The money is used to purchase food from private businesses and is shared equally by the six hardest-hit African countries. Also, more than $104,000 for African famine relief was raised as a result of evangelist Billy Graham’s plea during the final service of his summer crusade in Minneapolis (see August 10 issue, page 29). Nearly $71,500 was given during the meetings, and the rest was sent in later.

‘Joi Bangla’; ‘Joi Jesu!’

Christ in Bangladesh, by James and Marti Hefley (Harper & Row, 1973, 109 pp., $4.95), On Duty in Bangladesh, by Jeannie Lockerbie (Zondervan, 1973, 191 pp., $4.95), and Daktar/Diplomat in Bangladesh, by Viggo B. Olsen with Jeanette Lockerbie (Moody, 1973, 347 pp., $5.95), are reviewed by Russell Chandler, journalist, teacher, and pastor, Columbia, California.

From the tip of Bengali land that wriggled into Burma to the top that reared into northern India, Bangladesh rejoiced on the seventeenth of December, 1971. Christian missionaries in the world’s 139th (more or less) nation (Christians make up less than 5 per cent of the population) joined in thundering the liberation slogan: “Joi Bangla!” (“Victory to Bengal!”). The new nation is the world’s seventh-largest in population and is the second-largest Muslim state.

Sheik Mujibur Rahman, proclaiming himself prime minister, acknowledged tearfully that the nine months of bloody war for independence from the ruling military junta of West Pakistan had taken a terrible toll: 3 million dead; 300,000 women raped; 30 million destitute (including 10 million refugees returning from India). The national treasury was bare, 75 per cent of the country’s industry was wrecked, and transportation and communications were crippled.

As they had after the disastrous cyclone of 1970, world Christians opened their hearts and their hands to help ease the distress.

Bangladesh is out of the headlines now, but not out of the hearts of those who continue to provide relief and rehabilitation; they hear the infant nation’s cries of hunger mixed with its lusty squalls of growth and new freedom.

These authors bring it all closer home. From their particular points of involvement they tell the story the newspapers didn’t publish. It is a story of the triumph of the love of Christ against tremendous odds, of cooperation and understanding across religious bounds. It is the story of how forty-five relief and missions agencies have worked together to help 75 million people who need everything.

Begin with the Hefley book. Jim and Marti Hefley give an overview with the eyes of seasoned journalists. “Bangladesh was to us only a distant boil on the backside of the world,” they write, until Ray Knighton, then president of Medical Assistance Programs, put them onto the scent of a great, untold story. Shortly, they were winging thirty hours “to the shattered little country that has grabbed the heartstrings of the world.”

The other two books depict the heroic service of individual missionaries, while Christ in Bangladesh highlights what all missionaries and church-related relief groups did “amidst the crimson backdrop of unprecedented atrocities and human suffering.”

The Hefleys first sketch the debilitating effects of the “storm of the century,” the 1970 cyclone, then outline Indo-Pakistani political and religious conflicts since 1948. They imaginatively transpose the situation to the United States: Most Muslims would inhabit watery “Florida” and the western deserts and mountains of “California, Nevada, and Arizona”; most Hindus would live between. The British solution would be to divide their possession into three sections and grant independence to two nations. “Florida” and the western region where Muslims were in the majority would become Pakistan. The larger middle section where Hindus predominated would remain India. This partition would lead to religious riots, mass killings, and migrating waves of people as politicians jockeyed for power and battles raged over boundaries.

The west dominated the east; the Bengalis—60 percent of the total population living on 15 per cent of the land area—felt that the ultimate indignity was President Yahya Khan’s callous disregard of Bengali suffering after the terrible cyclone. The Bengalis voted Sheik Mujib’s party a clear majority. This was unacceptable to President Khan. A frenzy of resistance, violence, and finally, all-out war broke loose.

The Hefley book’s section called “Profiles in Courage” gives a bird’s-eye view of the details spun out in the main part of Jeannie Lockerbie’s On Duty in Bangladesh and Dr. Viggo Olsen’s autobiography, Daktar/Diplomat in Bangladesh.

Miss Lockerbie, a missionary translator and nurse with the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE), was stationed in the port city of Chittagong on the Bay of Bengal in early 1971 when tension erupted into bloodshed. Sixty-five miles to the south, Dr. Olsen was in charge of ABWE’s Memorial Christian Hospital.

Miss Lockerbie’s account of the perilous days when, nevertheless, “God watched over all” is both exciting and moving. In contrast to the Hefleys, who came into the country to assess, Miss Lockerbie writes from the inside as a participant.

Eventually, she and the others in the mission house in Chittagong were forced to evacuate to the hospital at Malumghat, and from there, to Bangkok. But, through what Christians saw as a miraculous turn of events, she and the other evacuees were allowed to return when fighting simmered down:

Once again God rewarded our little bit of faith by opening His storehouse of good things. Every one of us … was given the cream of all visas. That four-year multiple-entry visa meant we could come and go without having to have visas renewed over and over again. Some of our newer missionaries had never had these.

Meanwhile, Drs. Olsen and Donn Ketcham remained at the missionary hospital, which came through unscathed. As the end of 1971 approached, the Mukti Bahini, Bengali freedom fighters, became better mobilized, and it was apparent that with the intervention of India, the Bengalis would best the West Pakistanis.

All three books bring out the sentiment against U. S. policy that surfaced during the conflict. Miss Lockerbie puts it succinctly:

According to [our loyal friends], the United States, long upheld as a citadel of freedom, had failed the Bengalis in their hour of need. Not only had they failed to recognize Bangladesh and come to her aid, but they had actually supplied the weapons and conveyances which the enemy had used to rain death upon the Bengali race. And then when India stepped in to end the massacre, the United States turned nuclear warships against her! Never had anti-American feeling been more intense.

Readers of this review, noting that the co-author of Dr. Olsen’s book is Jeanette Lockerbie, may suspect that there is a connection to On Duty in Bagladesh. There is; Jeanette is Jeannie’s mother, and, I surmise, the polished writer of both books. Idioms, graphic detail, and good techniques of narrative suspense abound in them both.

The first two-thirds of Dr. Olsen’s book would have been tedious for me, however, had I not been pulled along by the promise that he would, at last, get on with the Bangladesh conflict of 1971. Eighteen chapters deal with the doctor’s youth, medical training, conversion to Christ, and decision to found the hospital in East Pakistan. The unfolding life-plan for Vic and Joan Olsen is a fantastic spiritual pilgrimage, though, and impressive evidence of God’s guidance of the dedicated.

Unmistakable in all three books is the theme that, in Christ, “Joi Bangla!” finally becomes the exultant shout, “Joi Jesu!”

Better Questions Than Answers

The Historical Jesus: A Continuing Quest, by Charles C. Anderson (Eerdmans, 1972, 271 pp., $3.95 pb), is reviewed by David E. Aune, chairman, Department of Religion and Theology, St. Xavier College, Chicago, Illinois.

In a previous volume entitled Critical Quests of Jesus, Professor Anderson used six central questions to analyze various higher-critical contributions to life-of-Jesus research. In the present sequel, he clearly summarizes his own evangelical presuppositions (in which he sees absolute historical trustworthiness as a necessary implication of the conservative views of inspiration), and then gives his own answers to the six questions. He devotes a chapter to each question and approaches the solutions from two vantage points: (1) How should the question be answered from a biblical perspective? and (2) How well have modern critical movements done in answering the question from the biblical perspective? Since by “biblical perspective” Anderson means the evangelical stance on revelation and inspiration together with historical accuracy as a necessary correlate, the critics whom he considers end up with very low marks. In effect, our author argues that non-evangelical gospel research is based on non-evangelical presuppositions, a fact of which presumably both we and they were already aware.

The six key questions, together with my brief summary of Anderson’s answers, are: (1) Is it possible to write a biography of Jesus? (The real question, says the author, is, Are the Gospels trustworthy historically? The answer is an emphatic Yes!) (2) What is the place of miracles in the life of Jesus? (They are actual events that occurred as narrated, functioning in both a revelatory and an evidential way.) (3) How should the resurrection of Jesus be interpreted? (As an actual “historical” event, yet in view of the presuppositions of scientific historiography it might be classified better as a “suprahistorical” event.) (4) What is the nature and place of mythology in the New Testament? (There are no myths in the New Testament; God would not have revealed himself in such a cryptic and non-historical way.) (5) What is the historical value of the Gospel of John in comparison with the Synoptic Gospels? (John is equal in historical value to the Synoptics; all the canonical Gospels are absolutely trustworthy historically.) (6) What is the central significance of Jesus? (The incarnation of the God-man is, in every respect, the central revelatory event of all history.)

In many respects the book will sorely disappoint evangelicals, though certainly not in the author’s basic theological stance nor in many (if not most) of the positions he takes. The book appears to be mistitled, since most of the major contours of Jesus’ life and teaching as presented in the four Gospels are passed over in silence. Anderson appears uninterested both in the ways in which some of the results of critical life-of-Jesus research might be incorporated mutatis mutandis into an evangelical framework and in the major contributions of evangelical scholars themselves to the subject. It is painfully apparent that he does not have control over the more important aspects of either the primary sources (his opinions are almost never buttressed by sound and careful exegesis of relevant gospel texts), or the secondary scholarly literature on the subject, whether evangelical or non-evangelical. The one happy exception to this general criticism is his careful and discriminating discussion of the relation between John and the Synoptics.

Unfortunately, Anderson’s refutations of critical positions all too often take the form of either a cavalier dismissal or a line-up of conservative opinion through the excessive use of quotations (apparently with the supposition that if another position is possible, the critical view must be wrong). The book shows little awareness of the more important literary, historical, and exegetical studies of such conservative scholars as F. F. Bruce, G. E. Ladd, M. C. Tenney, Ned Stonehouse, E. E. Ellis, G. R. Beasley-Murray, I. H. Marshall, and R. Meye, not to mention the more conservative of non-evangelicals such as T. W. Manson, O. Cullmann, J. Jeremias, or R. Schnackenburg.

Similarly, in his critiques of the contributions of major critical scholars, Anderson fails to make use of many of the more significant works of his opponents. For example, in his discussion of the resurrection of Jesus, not only does he pass over M. C. Tenney’s The Reality of the Resurrection, but he also neglects the important critical works of Hans Grass, Hans von Campenhausen, Willi Marxsen, and Reginald Fuller. Such omissions in a book of this type are inexcusable.

One consequence of Anderson’s lack of familiarity with primary literature is that he misrepresents critical views. For example, the form-critical fragmentation of the narrative framework of the Gospels was due not to Wrede’s work on the messianic secret but to K. L. Schmidt’s influential book Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu, 1919. Anderson’s contention that form criticism and existentialism are inseparable is contradicted by the many form-critical scholars who are clearly not enchanted with existentialism (among them K. L. Schmidt, M. Dibelius, M. Albertz, E. Käsemann, J. Jeremias, and V. Taylor).

NEWLY PUBLISHED

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, by Harold Lindsell (Canon [1014 Washington Bldg., Washington, D.C. 20005], 227 pp., $4.95). The editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY shares his thoughts on such topics as lying, sex, and society together with suggested general principles to guide Christian behavior.

Archaeology of the Jordan Valley, by Elmer Smick (Baker, 193 pp., $4.95 pb). For both the scholar and the non-specialist, a summary of modern archaeological discoveries. Includes maps and photographs.

Romans: An Exposition of Chapter 6: The New Man, by D. M. Lloyd-Jones (Zondervan, 313 pp., $6.95). Sermons on the sixth chapter of Romans that see the chapter as a parenthesis to explain justification. Part three of an ongoing series on Romans. Disagrees with many of the present commentaries.

The Persecutor, by Sergei Kourdakov (Revell, 254 pp., $5.95). Dynamic story of the conversion of a Russian youth who had brutally persecuted Christians for the Soviet government. Honest and apologetic recounting, aimed at awakening Westerners to the plight of Soviet Christians. (Kourdakov accidentally shot himself to death New Year’s Day, 1973, shortly after completing his autobiography.)

Stop the World I want to Get On, by C. Peter Wagner (Regal, 136 pp., $1.95 pb). A portrayal of cross-cultural missions as a vital part of Christian involvement. Authoritative and very readable.

Introduction to Theological German, by J. D. Manton (Eerdmans, 112 pp., $2.95 pb). For those who need to learn to read theological German but have little or no prior knowledge of the language.

Satan in the Sanctuary, by Thomas S. McCall and Zola Levitt (Moody, 120 pp., $3.95). Examination of biblical prophecies of the end times of Jerusalem. Sees the end coming soon in light of the Israeli acquisition of the temple site through the Six Day War.

The Freedom of God, by James Daane (Eerdmans, 208 pp., $5.95). Study on divine election in an attempt to revitalize preaching on the topic. Stresses the election of Israel, of Jesus, and of the Church as support of his view.

The Persistence of Religion, edited by Andrew Greeley and Gregory Baum (Seabury, 160 pp., $3.95 pb). Thirteen essays reflecting on the failure of secularization to be as all encompassing as its celebrants proclaimed.

The Velvet Covered Brick, by Howard Butt (Harper & Row, 186 pp., $5.95). Examination of the place of authority and submission in the Christian’s life by a prominent evangelical businessman. Conclusions based on personal experience and Scripture. Challenging views.

Dwight L. Moody: American Evangelist, 1837–1899, by James Findlay, Jr. (Baker, 440 pp., $4.95 pb). Dozens of books have been written on one of the most influential Christians of the last century, but this supersedes them all. It was first published in 1969 by the University of Chicago Press; Baker is to be thanked for making it more widely available.

Architecture For Worship, by E. A. Sovik (Augsburg, 128 pp., $3.50 pb). Minnesota architect begins by questioning the need for church buildings and ends with rather modest proposals for design changes. Reflects modern ambivalence on the purpose of the church and the nature of worship.

The Love Fight, by David Augsburger (Herald, 176 pp., $1.25 pb). Sees conflict as neither good nor bad, just natural. Looks at possible reactions to conflicts and provides a constructive approach to dealing with them honestly, gathered from biblical examples. Helpful suggestions.

Church Fights: Managing Conflict in the Local Church, by Speed Leas and Paul Kittlans (Westminster, 186 pp., $3.50 pb). Two professional consultants survey methods for dealing with church conflicts. Written in manual style, the book draws on information from the behavioral sciences, conflict and management studies, and the authors’ own training and experience as pastors. Well organized.

The English Reformation 1529–58, by David H. Pill (Rowman and Littlefield, 224 pp., $3.50 pb). A concise study of the turbulent period involving the disestablishment of Catholicism and the beginnings of Anglicanism. Good bibliographies and helpful glossary of ecclesiastical terms.

The Inquisition, by John O’Brien (Macmillan, 233 pp., $6.95). Honest look at the religious cruelties of the Middle Ages with a view to showing the underlying reasoning without excusing the evil. Shows that violence never converts.

Dancing at My Funeral, by Maxie Dunnam (Forum House [1610 LaVista Rd., N.W., Atlanta, Ga. 30329], 112 pp., $4.95). An unconventional autobiography of a Methodist minister. “Dancing” signifies the present joy of life over the “funeral” of damaging forces of the past. Catchy illustrations.

Introducing the Bible, by William Barclay (Abingdon, 155 pp., $1.45 pb). Brief survey of the Bible and its function in society. Helpful guides for conducting a Bible study. Especially good for the young Christian.

The Gospel According to Andy Capp, by D. P. McGeachy III (John Knox, 132 pp., $2.95 pb). Excellent comments on the human condition and the grace of God as seen through the antics of the cartoon character Andy Capp. Humorous, and yet profound in biblical truth.

The New Agenda, by Andrew M. Greeley, (Doubleday, 312 pp., $6.95). A thorough, well-written examination of the shift in thinking among Catholics since Vatican II and the “moderning” of the church. Thought-provoking observations on contemporary religious questions.

Who’s in Charge Here?, by Kenneth Conners (Judson, 124 pp., $2.95 pb). A helpful catalogue of guidelines for meaningful and satisfying Christian living.

Japanese Religion, edited by Hori Ichiro et al. (Harper & Row, 272 pp., $10). An interesting description of the several religions of Japan and their various organizations. Aids in understanding the values and ways of thinking of the Japanese people.

Romans, by Matthew Black (Attic, 191 pp., $9). The latest addition to the “New Century Bible” is a treasury of exegetical information. The author lays great stress on the Old Testament background of Paul’s theology.

A Sociology of Religion, by Michael Hill (Basic Books, 285 pp., $10). An evaluation of the literature dealing with central issues in the sociology of religion. Comprehensive bibliography for the serious student.

Christians Alive, edited by Cliff Pederson (Augsburg, 112 pp., $1.95 pb). Twenty-one articles from various evangelicals designed to guide thinking toward Christian maturity by generating further thought on spiritual and practical problems. Sound beginning.

The Politics of Love: The New Testament and Non-Violent Revolution, by John Ferguson (Attic, 122 pp., $2 pb). A reverent and dispassionate discussion of the New Testament data that have led many Christians down through the ages to be pacifists. A beautiful and deeply moving book. Should be read by all who seek to follow the Lord Jesus Christ, especially those who are not pacifists.

C. S. Lewis: Images of His World, by Douglas Gilbert and Clyde S. Kilby (Eerdmans, 192 pp., $12.95). Short biography and large collection of pictures of all phases of Lewis’s life. Good photography. Will be welcomed by those who have come to appreciate Lewis through his writings and want to add a further dimension.

Rethinking Church Music, by Paul W. Wohlgemuth (Moody, 96 pp., $1.95 pb). Discussion of the sane, scriptural, professional use of music (popular or classical) in the Church. Stresses the spiritual dimension of music.

Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom, by Samuel Fisk (Loizeaux, 175 pp., $3.95). A helpful compendium of quotations from recent generations of expositors, gathered under topics such as predestination or passages such as Romans 9–11. Promotes a middle ground pleasing to neither staunch Calvinists nor Arminians, but the compiler is seeking to present the teaching of Scripture rather than of systematicians.

Woman in Christian Tradition, by George H. Tavard (University of Notre Dame, 257 pp., $9.95). Theological view of women based on biblical and patristic sources. Major survey, but with rather vague conclusions.

Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and the Opening of Old Oregon, by Clifford M. Drury (two volumes, Arthur H. Clark [Box 230, Glendale, Calif. 91209], 848 pp., $38.50). Comprehensive biography of the Whitman missionary endeavors in Oregon. Functions as a historical overview of the period as well. Of value to students of American history and of missions history.

Tales From Eternity, by Rosemary Haughton (Seabury, 186 pp., $6.95). Survey of various aspects of myths and fairy-tales as they relate to spiritual reawakening and search. Well written and scholarly, yet easily understood. Reveals fantasy as a means of seeing reality objectively through illustrations from various tales and characters.

The Minister in His Study, by Wilbur Smith (Moody, 128 pp., $3.95). Recommendation of books most helpful to the pastor, with some chatty excurses that will be appreciated by those who know this preeminent evangelical bibliophile.

Shakespeare’s Religious Background, by Peter M. Ward (Indiana University, 312 pp., $12.50). For the literature student, a study of the religious implications in Shakespeare’s writings. Scholarly, comprehensive, well written.

At least part of the problem in Anderson’s use of primary literature is attributable to the great gulf he fixes between evangelical and non-evangelical scholarship. While this gulf certainly exists at the theological level, it is less clearly visible and operative at the level of concrete literary, historical, and exegetical research. To hear Anderson tell it, evangelicals have learned nothing from critical scholarship; the supposition is belied by his own acceptance of the two-source theory, a hypothesis of source criticism taken over by an increasing number of evangelical scholars from higher criticism. While Anderson rightly insists on the historicity of the basic revelatory facts upon which Christianity rests, he runs into serious problems in denying the validity of the historical method apart from its contextual location within a conservative view of inspiration. He asserts:

We deny the possibility of setting up adequate historical criteria in the twentieth century to arrive at anything approximating historical truth relative to the life of Jesus based on the Gospels, if we once throw out the view of inspiration we have presented here.

Again,

If … we are placed at the mercy of the historical sciences in order to know anything certain about the Jesus of history, we find ourselves in the position of … recognizing that only a few people are capable of such endeavor.… Moreover, what would Jesus presented to us by this means prove to us?

Martin Kähler notwithstanding, evangelicals must recognize that the constituent aspects of the Christ-event are not historically verifiable because of their inclusion in the gospel record; rather, it is because of the actuality of these events that they are included in a gospel record that provides an accurate (inspired) theological interpretation of them. For example, historical research is limited in that while it can tell us that Jesus was crucified at the hands of the Romans, only the inspired interpretive record can provide us with the theological datum that Jesus’ death was redemptive. The historical method is an absolutely indispensable tool for the evangelical New Testament scholar, though its limitations as well as advantages must be recognized (cf. G. E. Ladd, The New Testament and Criticism). When Anderson asserts that “we agree that if historical research is necessary to faith, this would make faith basically a ‘work,’” it seems to me that he has unnecessarily swallowed the artificial dichotomy between faith and history advocated by Kähler, Bultmann, and others.

Anderson’s positive answers for the six questions he poses are of a markedly uneven quality. In discussing the possibility of writing a biography of Jesus, he skirts the historical and exegetical problems and turns the question into the theological issue of the general historical reliability of the gospel narratives. Similarly, on the subject of the resurrection of Jesus, he avoids commenting on the difficult problem of reconstructing the historical sequence of the resurrection appearances, and never once mentions the old tradition of the “first” appearance to Simon Peter (1 Cor. 15:5; Luke 24:34), widely regarded as historical by critical scholars. A major strength of Anderson’s discussion of the miracles of Jesus is his treatment of Jewish traditions of Jesus as a magician and deceiver, a fact that underscores the historicity of the miracle tradition. His discussion of the nature of myth is uninformed; he could have profited greatly from portions of A. B. Mickelsen’s Interpreting the Bible, particularly in the area of “literal” and “figurative” interpretation. In dealing with the central significance of Jesus, a crucial topic with a great potential for development, Anderson is more concerned with integrating the witness of the Gospels into a systematic theological discussion of Christology (a not unimportant task) than with seeing the unique contribution the Gospels make when viewed from the perspective of “biblical realism” (a term of O. Piper and G. E. Ladd) so necessary to the biblical theologian.

The questions Anderson raises should stimulate other scholars to treat them in a more adequate and comprehensive way.

Setting Sun

The Johannine Epistles, by Rudolf Bultmann (Fortress, 143 pp., $11), is reviewed by F. F. Bruce, professor of theology, University of Manchester, Manchester, England.

A commentary originally published in the German “Meyer” series now appears in English translation in the “Hermeneia” series. When comparing this work with Bultmann’s magisterial commentary on the Gospel of John, one is reminded of the comparison between the Iliad and the Odyssey made by an anonymous Greek author: the Iliad, he says, is like the sun at noonday; the Odyssey, on the other hand, is like the setting sun—“but still the sun … and still, Homer.” So Bultmann’s commentary on the Johannine Epistles, first published when the author was eighty-three, is the work of an old man—but still Bultmann.

The question of joint authorship of the three letters is left open. He says that Third John is a real letter, but that the letter-form of Second John is artificial. Second John is dependent on First John, and First John in turn is the work of someone who had the Gospel of John before him and “was decisively influenced by its language and ideas.” Whereas the Gospel is opposed to “the world,” which stands over against the believing community as its antithesis, the First Epistle is concerned about the infiltration of the world into the believing community in the person of false teachers who claim to represent authentic Christianity, and therefore he says it belongs to a period later than the Gospel. As in the commentary on the Gospel, so here Hermetic and Mandaean parallels are adduced in elucidation of the text.

One symptom of the burden of years is Bultmann’s frequent reference to the work of others for aspects that he does not cover himself. In this regard it is specially pleasing to see how respectfully Rudolf Schnackenburg is cited—welcome sign of a new age of Protestant-Catholic cooperation in German-speaking theology.

Spiritual Awakenings

The Flaming Tongue: The Impact of Twentieth Century Revivals, by J. Edwin Orr (Moody, 1973, 241 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, editor-publisher,CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

J. Edwin Orr has spent a lifetime as both an evangelist and a chronicler of revivalism around the world. This volume concentrates on spiritual awakenings in the twentieth century and ranges wide to include virtually every part of the globe. Most readers will be surprised to learn how many revival-like incidents have taken place in the last seven decades.

Orr’s work is annalistic and as such covers vast territory in small compass. This method does not lend itself to in-depth treatment, but it affords a good overview of the extensive movements of the Holy Spirit in a large variety of places. The author has researched the volume exhaustively, and future historians writing about the history of Christianity will be in his debt. Orr writes with some passion; the annals are never dull. Any preacher, teacher, or lay speaker will find many useful illustrations in the volume.

Perhaps Orr can now direct his efforts toward a magnum opus that would deal with revivalism throughout the history of the Christian Church. This is a work much needed right now.

Fifth in a Series

To teach about the bible even as literature includes its comprehensive vision of the supernatural, of an eternal moral order, of a self-revealing God, and of the whole drama of redemption. Even the Bible’s claim to divine authority can be set forth as a claim that many people have accepted and still consider to be valid. Indeed, it may be properly noted that people do not ordinarily preface their remarks with “Thus saith the Lord!,” while certain literary aspects of the Bible make sense only in that context.

Instructors in public schools are not, however, to plead the special authority of the Bible. And while the public school may adduce the Ten Commandments and the biblical sanction for morality, it must also indicate the various other sanctions adduced for moral behavior; to insist on subscription to any one sanction is definitely precluded. Christians should be content to allow the Bible to be self-interpreting and self-authenticating.

The Supreme Court opinion refers not merely to the literary and historic influence of the Bible but to its “literary and historic qualities”; there is no implication that to study the Bible as literature inevitably reduces it to fiction or myth. In contrast to religions based on internal experience and reflection, biblical religion claims to be firmly grounded in historical revelation; the scope here accorded an interest in the Bible is therefore very great. To teach about the Bible on its historical side is to recognize the Bible as one of the sources of ancient history. If some scholars protest that the Bible’s historicity is unclear, it should be noted that much of other ancient history derives from accounts whose historicity is unclear. As it is, the Bible is the source not only of much trustworthy historical information but also of a particular view of history.

Such study is not to be an outlet for a teacher’s personal beliefs or unbeliefs; it is intended, rather, to enlarge students’ understanding of biblical history and content. Nor may the Christian or Jew or humanist insist that his special area of interest be taught only by a committed partisan. To be sure, the fact that a person is personally in revolt against a particular position in no way makes him an authority in that given area. But what the Bible says is open to all. The teacher’s first task, therefore, is simply to present the literary content and historic claims of the Book. Personal interest in and devotion to the subject matter nurtures competence and expertise.

Teaching about the Bible as here delineated differs markedly, of course, from church-school instruction with its perspective of faith and evangelistic outreach. Public schools are not intended to be channels for achieving the unique goals of the church. Yet because public schools and church schools emphasize different aspects of religion and the Bible, they need not be regarded as competitive. Young people knowledgeable only about the literary and historic aspects of the Bible would certainly be a great advance over those wholly ignorant of their religious and cultural heritage. Such ignorance stems, not only from absence of the Bible from any public schoolrooms, but also from the failure of many of the Sunday schools to reach them.

The third point of the Schempp decision stipulates that study of the Bible and of religion must be “presented objectively as part of a secular program of education,” limitations that presumably would be expected also to characterize the teaching of politics and other subjects. With respect, first, to the emphasis on a “secular program” as the context of education, the difference between church-related and public education is quite clear. Christian education is free to insist that the Logos of God is the center of all existence and truth, and to expound the whole of life and learning in the context of revelational theism. A secular program of education is by no means precluded from exhibiting, but may not insist upon, this option; it is not prohibited, moreover, from indicating that revelational theism continues to be one of the enduring explanatory systems in Western thought, and from indicating its philosophical implications.

To present only alternatives, or only the preferred alternative of a particular instructor, is to compromise American education into unworthy indoctrination. A secular program is one thing; a secular program of education is something much more demanding and precise. To present the compelling options and the reasons adduced for them, and to indicate the problems these options raise for the contemporary mind, and to exhibit the assumptions peculiar to modernity as well as to man in the past—all this is necessary and integral to competent education.

A question we need to ask, however, is this: What is the integrating factor of life and learning in a secular program of education? Such an integrating and cohesive center is hard to come by today, though secular efforts to supply it have been legion. Multiple deities expiring into the death of God, and value systems collapsing into a value-vacuum and into self-assertion, seems to characterize and summarize the present drift to radical secularity. Modern university learning currently has no unifying principle, and its emphasis on personal self-fulfillment leads in the absence of norms to ethical relativism. While secular education has every freedom to raise the subject of such a principle, it carefully evades it, hereby helping to cause its current moribund state. Strange to say, teachers at the elementary level seem more concerned about indoctrination for a cohesive education, and often carry on as if religion somehow can pull and hold everything together, while the secular campus, in its virtual absence of interest in religious realities, implies that the irrelevance of God is its central item of unanimity.

This column by the late Executive Editor ofCHRISTIANITY TODAYwas first published in the February 12, 1965, issue.

Has your home been robbed? The master thief of the ages is abroad and at work. Our pockets are being picked, our homes robbed, our most treasured possessions rifled. Spiritual seed is being plucked from our hearts and minds, and in its place the seed of doubt and error is being planted.

Many of us are unaware of the robbery. Like birds fascinated by the glitter of a diamond but equally fascinated by a worthless bauble, so we seem satisfied with things of this world, with human speculations and solutions, when we should settle for nothing less than what proceeds from God’s love and grace.

Like the victim of an adept pickpocket we have been robbed without knowing it. Like a householder walking in a dream we have been unaware of the removal of priceless treasures from our homes. Like the naïve prey of a flimflam artist we have permitted things of eternal value to be replaced by trivialities.

We ought to search our own homes to see whether they have been robbed. If they have been, certain important things will be missing, and things of no permanent value will have been put in their place.

The Bible. Almost certainly a Bible will be found somewhere; but if it is covered with dust or crowded into a bookcase with unused books, it might as well be a thousand miles away.

There will be many books in the home. Daily newspapers and news magazines will be there, of course, as will professional journals and various other kinds. But in the robbed house the Book of the ages will be absent as a lamp to keep the inhabitants from stumbling and a light to lighten their path.

If the Bible is absent, there will be ignorance where there should be understanding, uncertainty where there should be certainty, confusion where there should be peace, weakness where there should be strength, and—most serious of all—trust in man where there should be reliance on the Son of God.

The family altar. The victim of the master thief will find that there is no place in the home where the family gathers to read God’s Word and pray, no source of reference higher than self and other humans, no force to bind the home together in the face of the tensions that are an inevitable part of our world.

Communications. There will be a number of radios and at least one TV set. There will be a telephone, perhaps with extensions to various rooms. But all messages, incoming or outgoing, will be with people.

In the robbed house communication with God will be severed. There will be no two-way contact with the One who inhabits eternity, no asking for and receiving of divine guidance. There will be no time when with faithful and obedient hearts those who live in the house wait quietly to hear a Voice saying, “This is the way; walk ye in it.”

Yes, the robbed house will be devoid of one of God’s most precious gifts—the privilege and power of prayer.

Values. The house where Satan has had his way will be a place where values are utterly confused. There may be an abundance of material things, but the things that last for eternity will be absent. Fun will be substituted for joy. The praise of men will be chosen rather than a “Well done” from the Lord of the universe. The gratification of physical desires will be the chief interest, and anything that calls for self-denial will be rejected. Self will be paramount as Christ is crowded away from the door of the heart.

Discipline. Both self-discipline and the discipline of children will be absent. Parents will lack those disciplines that proceed from the Christian faith and that make personal example a witness in itself. Children will be denied the character-forming discipline they so desperately need during the developing years.

Grace at meals. A triviality? No, an acknowledgement of God as the source of all good things, and the very least we should offer as we partake of his bounty. The enemy of souls tries to rob our homes of grace at meals and of anything else that gives honor and glory to God.

The Lord’s day. In the robbed house Sunday is a holiday, not a holy day. Instead of physical rest and spiritual refreshment the day provides opportunities for catering to the body and to secular matters.

The Sabbath, a part of God’s economy and loving provision for mankind, is desecrated to man’s immediate and eternal loss. If God’s day is not honored, on Monday morning there is, instead of a refreshed body, mind, and spirit, only tiredness and frustration.

But a home need not be robbed. There are many modern devices that make robbery difficult. Alarm signals may be installed to warn when a burglar is at work. Doors and windows can be securely locked.

And just as one’s house may be protected against thievery, so the home may be made strong against the master thief—Satan. God has provided every safeguard for individuals and for their homes. When these safeguards are used properly, there is perfect safety.

At the top of the list is the two-way communication system, always open to and from our Heavenly Father. Faithful study of God’s Word brings both wisdom and warning. The prayer channel open at all times makes possible cries for help answered by words of encouragement and guidance.

What is necessary for the individual is also necessary for the family as a whole. When God’s means are used, the master thief finds himself thwarted. Many people know their homes are not safe; they know they have been robbed of the things that count. Discouraged and frustrated, they turn to tawdry replacements. But others do not even know they have been robbed.

At the doors of heart and home there stands One who longs to enter and set up the needed safeguards. Christ wants to take over so that there will be no further robbery. He wants to instill in every heart and home the means of grace that enable us to distinguish between valuables and cheap substitutes.

In the things God has provided there is complete protection. There is an amazing provision for restoration of what has been lost.

Long before modern insurance companies thought of the protection provided in a “home-owner’s policy,” God had provided the perfect protection against the most wily of all thieves, the Devil.

He wants us to take out such a policy now!

The turn of the year finds North America courting despair. Too much has been happening. Our consciences are being drained of sensitivity.

The most obvious reason for our disillusionment is the recurring political scandals. These scandals leave us wondering whether any holders of high public office can be trusted. Are the pressures so great that few or none can resist? Is it no longer possible to expect standards of right and wrong to be maintained?

Problems in the Middle East and the apparently consequent energy crisis compound our gloom. A major depression may ensue with widespread unemployment and perhaps an increasing crime rate. What is infinitely worse, we could be plunged into a nuclear war over oil. Ecological imbalance is a growing danger, as is population growth. Toffler insists that change itself represents a menace. Today the threats to our quality of life, even existence, come from an unprecedented number of different sources.

Evangelical churches are for the most part alive and well, though they still house vast stores of untapped potential. They showed some signs of mobilization in 1973.

More important than all these factors, and at least partly the result of them, is the ideological vacuum in which North America now finds itself. The civil-rights movement carried the ideological initiative in the early sixties. Then the New Left and Women’s Lib picked up where the blacks left off. All have had some positive social impact amid the turbulence they generated. Thanks to them, American society as a whole is somewhat more aware of the need for greater justice. But these movements have run out of steam. American blacks still have a long way to go to achieve the equality due them, but their leaders and interested whites have failed to show sufficient perseverence. The New Left, never quite sure what kind of new system should replace the old one, seems to have petered out. If the Equal Rights amendment fails, Women’s Lib may follow it into oblivion. There is currently no movement capturing the imagination of those who have the power to mold if not control society.

We are left with a sobering question: Can or will evangelical Christianity rise to the challenge, or will it let itself be numbed by the surrounding adversity? If true believers do not seize the initiative, the ideological vacuum will be filled by some alien influence. The opportunity will not be with us very long, for nature abhors a vacuum. Would-be messiahs will surface soon and take over the cultural leadership.

Evangelicals’ main problem is that so many of them question whether anything substantial can be done. Os Guinness makes the point well in The Dust of Death:

I have often seen people deeply stirred by the terrible dilemmas of modern society and excited by the relevance of a related Christianity only to be paralyzed by the thought of their own next step or contribution. This malaise of immobility, this dearth of discipline is a blight upon our generation.

A hundred persevering Christians in an intelligent, well thought out effort could turn this country around. The attitude that the world is going to hell anyway encourages evangelicals to accept an overspiritualized view of the future. A mentality develops that says in effect that the drift of this world cannot be altered or even slowed; all the Christian can do is wait for the advent of the next divine era. Such an attitude virtually loses sight of the biblical view of the Christian’s role as God’s agent: he is to preach the Good News of God’s offer of salvation, to be sure, but he is also to tend God’s creation. Our main goal is to help unregenerate men understand the claims of Christ and to give them a chance to accept or reject God’s offer. By working for a good earth, we not only obey God’s cultural mandate to look after the garden, but we also show the unbeliever that we have his best interests at heart, that we are not after his soul simply for the sake of church statistics or personal gratification.

Evangelicals everywhere should echo the Chicago declaration (see December 21 issue): “We make this declaration in the biblical hope that Christ is coming to consummate the Kingdom and we accept his claim on our total discipleship till He comes.”

This means that individual believers must put aside the good and nice for the better and best. The world responds to the pressure of the times by succumbing to a vast assortment of diversions: sex, drugs, sports, and all kinds of creature comforts. For Christians, it is a matter of setting priorities and sticking to them. Will we allow ourselves to be preoccupied with things that take our minds off our problems, or will we work to solve those problems? We need not swing the pendulum to the extreme of austerity or monasticism. We should, however, separate important goals from less important objectives and strive for achievements that will really count in the long run—even if it brings frowns from friends and acquaintances who are content with crumbs. Key 73 gave us a start. Can we not build upon it?

A great new evangelical movement must start with thinking Christians in the congregation and on the campus. The great battle today, after all, is the battle for the mind. Nothing can withstand a great idea supported with passion, and it is at this level that our best prospect lies. Christians on campuses throughout the continent have a special stake in this battle.

At the local church level, a great deal of boredom, indifference, fatigue, and frustration must be countered if evangelicals are to rise to the occasion. These are but symptoms, however, of disobedience to the marching orders of the Church, and they will not be cured by treatment that isolates them from God’s commands.

They will be vanquished when evangelical Christians get their minds off themselves and individual spiritual experience and start thinking about others—working for them and with them for the glory of God and the advancement of his Kingdom.

Daniel Day Williams, 1910–1973

Among the exponents of process theology, a school of thought strongly influenced by the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead, the name of Daniel Day Williams stands out. Williams was ordained to the ministry in his native Colorado in 1936; he later followed the majority of his fellow Congregationalists into the United Church of Christ. Called to various scholarly posts—ultimately to Union Theological Seminary (New York) to succeed Paul Tillich—at the time of his death in early December he ranked, along with his Harvard namesake George H. Williams, among Congregationalism’s academic theologians of international stature.

The origins of process theology lie in an attempt to grapple with the twentieth-century revolution in the scientific world view on the one hand and, on the other, the dynamic theme of the dialectic, elaborated by Hegel and his successors. It involves a legitimate criticism of what many see as an excessive influence of Platonism and preoccupation with categories of being, rather than activity and existence, in the classical tradition of Christian theology. At the same time, it resembles the other branches of modern liberal theology in its defective view of revelation and of truth.

Several of the so-called process theologians built on Whitehead’s thought to speculate about the nature of a dynamic God; the French Catholic thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin pursued similar themes to arrive at a mystic vision of the whole cosmic process. Williams, by contrast, was interested less in the doctrine of God than in the doctrine of man as made in God’s image. The idea and the lived-out reality of love and its fundamental significance for man’s being are the themes of his best-known book, The Spirit and the Forms of Love. As a consequence, Williams’s works have a freshness of approach and insight that makes them stimulating and often useful to evangelical believers despite the major criticisms that must be made of process theology from the perspective of historic, biblical Christianity.

The New Vice-President

Early indications suggest that Gerald Ford will be good for America. The new Vice-President was enthusiastically approved by Congress and well received by the people. Thank God for that. We went through a great deal in 1973, and we look longingly for signs that the country is on the rebound.

Ford came through an intensive investigation virtually unscathed. He is highly respected even by those who oppose his ideology. Those are important factors, especially in light of the fact that he took office under something less than favorable circ*mstances. We challenge Ford to take most seriously the lessons to be drawn from the sordid events of the past year and to remain scrupulously honest. Only by doing so will he contribute to the restoration of a respect for leadership.

A Certain Difference

Just before the Middle East war broke out, the well-known French legal scholar and Reformed layman Jacques Ellul began an article for the French magazine Réforme. Faced with the war, he said that he found all of France, himself included, strangely sluggish about recognizing the tremendous moral implications of the recurrent struggle:

Between the Arabs and Israel, there is a major difference: even if defeated, the Arab world will survive and will remain intact, although it may lose a few square miles of territory. Israel, once defeated, will disappear from the map. Everyone knows perfectly well that the reconquest of lost territories is only the prelude to the next war, because the “Palestinian problem” will not be resolved. What is at stake on one side is absolutely not comparable to what is at stake on the other, and no one who is not blinded by passion can fail to realize that to risk everything is much more tragic than just to risk something [Réforme, Nov. 3, 1973, p. 3].

Ellul accuses the leaders of France—and by implication, of other nations as well—of manifesting a “stupefying ignorance” of what is at stake—comparable to that manifested, for example, by France, Britain, and America toward the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935, and also in countless ways since then. “I am now afraid,” he writes, “that the accumulation of injustice will provoke (and why not) the unleashing of God’s wrath.”

In the conflict between Israel and the Arabs, there is, as in virtually every human conflict, right and wrong on both sides. There is, for example, the question of the Palestinian refugees driven out in 1947–50. But now there are 1.5 million “refugees,” ten times as many as fled the nascent state of Israel. And there would be no refugee problem if the Arab states, so large and possessed of such immense wealth, had accepted them. What would be the prospects for peace and justice in Europe if the 100,000 Hungarian refugees of the 1956 revolt had been maintained until the present in squalid camps near the Hungarian border, armed, incited and periodically sent on raids of sabotage and assassination?

But even the Palestinian problem, aggravated though it has been through twenty years, could be resolved, provided the Arab world is willing to recognize, as it has not yet believably done, Israel’s right to exist as a nation. We may disagree with Israeli action, and acutely feel the embarrassment—and shortages—that support for Israel may cause us and others, but unless we are willing to say that Israel has no right to exist and may properly be exterminated or scattered to the four winds, we must recognize that between the claims of Israel and those of its Arab neighbors there is a certain and significant difference. Unless we face this reality squarely and are prepared to take the consequence, we run the risk of fulfilling what Ellul says France has already begun—adopting a policy of accommodation to the horrible that can only end, for us as for its other victims, with consequences of which we will say with astonishment, “But we never wanted that!”

From Uncle Sam: A Hapless New Year

Like many other religious magazines, including denominational ones, CHRISTIANITY TODAY has always lived from hand to mouth. We have no endowment and must secure substantial gift income each year to balance our budget.

The government recently increased postage rates and will increase them further and substantially in the next few years. To mail the same amount of material in 1974 that we mailed in 1973 will cost us an additional $100,000. The new rates will certainly drive many ailing publications out of business, and many more will be pushed to the wall if the further projected increases go into effect.

It has been argued that the previous mail rates were unrealistic and constituted a government subsidy. For the sake of argument we will grant that perhaps the rates for magazines, newspapers, and non-profit organizations have not fully covered the actual postal costs. One can argue that every tub should stand on its own bottom, that any enterprise unable to hold its own should go out of business.

But if this argument is to apply, it should apply across the board. There should be no farm subsidies; the railroads and airplane companies should not be rescued from bankruptcy by government support; and the thousands of other direct and indirect subsidies should be discontinued. This is a very unlikely possibility.

The free flow of ideas is essential to the democratic way of life. When this flow becomes difficult or impossible, the loss is irreparable. Fifty or a hundred thousand or several million dollars’ differences in annual postage costs can force many newspapers, magazines, and eleemosynary organizations out of business. This is too high a price to pay for postal inefficiency, particularly when the government spends billions of dollars in other subsidies.

What To Do To Earn God’s Favor: Nothing

The Bible shows in the clearest and simplest terms the perfection and permanence of Christ’s atoning work. In Hebrews 1:3 and 10:12 the expression “sat down” is used in describing what Christ did after he had given himself in suffering for human sin. While ministering in the temple and tabernacle the Jewish priests have always stood, as did the high priest when he entered the Holy of Holies once a year. Theirs was a partial work. But Christ our great high priest accomplished redemption once and for all in his death on the cross. There was nothing else left to be done, nor indeed could there be. His was a completed and perfect work to be appropriated individually by faith and trust.

For some reason or other, this all-important point is not readily put across. Many men and women throughout history and even now—theologically intelligent people—have condoned the notion that “we have to do our part.” Perhaps the saddest sight in Rome is penitent pilgrims climbing steps on their hands and knees. Our attitude as believers should be that of humility, and our gratitude to God for what he has done for us should be expressed in good works, but this response on our part does not impart additional grace—saving or otherwise. God’s son did it all!

Reason alone tells us that lowly human beings cannot do anything in and of themselves to gain stature with an almighty, sovereign God. Scripture confirms the principle: Christ paid the debt in full.

Whatever Happened To The S.P.C.C.?

When Eutychus V handed over his duties to his successor, he entrusted him not only with an honored tradition of wisdom but also with an honorable name. Other functionaries are not so fortunate. Not only do very few people have the benefit of a classical title (exceptions: senator, actor, janitor); many of them have even been deprived of their good, old, understandable Germanic ranks. Thus, according to the Department of Labor, foremen, whether men or women, are to become “blue collar worker supervisors.” And those whom we innocently called “garbage men” in former days are now “solid waste collectors.”

But even worse is what’s happening to organizations. In the old days, they used to call themselves what they were: the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Federal Bureau of Investigation. When they abbreviated their names, they put in periods to show that the letters stood for real words: S.P.C.C., W.C.T.U., F.B.I.—all pronounceable only by Czechs or other specially talented elocutionists.

But something happened between World Wars I and II. When Adolph Hitler founded a party, the name was too long: Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers’ Party). Even the abbreviation NSDAP, favored by the party itself, was too long, and they became the Nazis (pronounced Nahtzies). Now no one remembers that those right-wingers thought they were socialist workers. Most people have forgotten also what S.S. stood for in Germany (Schutzstaffel, Defense Squad). The Nahtzies seem to have popularized the idea of trying to pronounce initials: thus the Geheime Staatspolizei, Secret State Police, became not the G.S.P. but the GeStaPo.

Americans resisted this sinister German trend as long as the war was going on, but once the Nahtzies had been put down we could take over not only their rocket experts but also their linguistic habits. The rather belligerently named Departments of War and the Navy were fused into the less threatening-sounding Department of Defense, which in time has been muted down to DOD, somehow rather reminiscent of a rabbit. Now DOD has had to yield its dominance in what might be called QUOTA (quick unloading of taxpayers’ assets) to the more vigorous-sounding HEW and HUD. Lyndon Johnson had a good idea in the War on Poverty, but since its initial letters were not only pronounceable but also, in the view of some, insulting, instead of WOP it became OEO.

Even more promising are the names chosen for how they sound, not what they mean. Thus the Committee of Americans for Remittances Everywhere, or some such thing, was only a rationalization for CARE, and the American Committee to Improve Our Neighborhoods might as well have been the Association Convened to Investigate Old Newspapers; what mattered was ACTION.

Within the church, conservatives have prudently resisted this modernistic trend, for while some acronyms are pronounceable (the rather horsy-sounding NAE for National Association of Evangelicals, BGEA—with difficulty—for Billy Graham Evangelistic Association), they don’t mean anything, and hence people are constantly forced to think about the original organization. Liberals have been less cautious and are paying the price. COCU never had a chance.

EUTYCHUS VI

Beyond Words

Thank you for the Harrison article, “Did Christ Command World Evangelism?” (Nov. 23). In many ways it is very helpful, but one wonders whether the writer has not been overly influenced by the verbalism and media concepts of our day. Harrison equates discipling with verbal instruction. If one looks at the life and work of our Lord along with his words, discipling should go far beyond verbal instruction. It becomes a function of a community of faith, which itself is being discipled. Is this not a more dynamic way to view the discipling process? This does not deny the verbal component, but it is more comprehensive and perhaps more effective. It is certainly more costly.

Elkhart, Ind.

BOYD NELSON

May I offer my hearty endorsem*nt and a couple items in further support of the article.

Pierre Batiffol, a French scholar, in his L’Eglise Naissante, translated as Primitive Catholicism, also shows that while the foreground of Jesus’ ministry was the lost sheep of the house of Israel, the background of his picture was the Gospel preached unto all nations, and many coming from the north and the south, from the east and the west to recline with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the feast of the Kingdom. Then in the matter of Eusebius’s citation of the Great Commission, Matthew 28:18–20, there is a conclusive statement in Socrates’ Ecclesiastical History, 1.8. Here Eusebius writes to his church on his acceptance of the creed of the Council of Nicaea. In this formal statement, Eusebius gives the full text of the Great Commission, thus showing that he did accept the command to evangelize the world and the trinitarian baptismal name of God as the Word of the risen Lord.

WILLIAM C. ROBINSON

Claremont, Calif.

[This] was the fullest treatment of Matthew 28:18–20 that I have ever read anywhere in any other article of similar length. I was especially appreciative of his dealing with the second item of baptism, which is so often ignored.

Only one thing puzzles me: Why did he not develop in one paragraph his outline, Evangelize, Baptize, and Catechize, in the light of the book of Acts? The fact that all three imperatives are thoroughly carried out would certainly supply strong support for his basic argument: “that behind the Great Commission stands the authority of the person of Jesus and his plain, insistent direction to his Church.”

(The Rev.) GEORGE E. VARTENISIAN Tarentum, Pa.

Although I recognize that the emphasis in this issue was on “foreign” missions, it strikes me as calling for another issue to discuss the question of missions in our North American society. Are the same foreigners to whom we would have ministered as missionaries if they were still residing in their own land, rejected and neglected just because they have immigrated into North America? I honestly see greater opportunities for “foreign” missions among the ethnic people of Montreal than I ever did on the foreign field. In just walking down the street here, I literally rub shoulders with at least ten languages and cultures.

HAZEN C. PARENT

Temple Baptist Center

Montreal, Quebec

Cartooning Atrocity?

I was at first incredulous, then shocked, and finally disgusted at the atrocious display of poor taste and bad theology combined in the cartoon you published [in] your November 9 issue. Only a person of ingrained anti-Semitism could fail to see the anti-Semitic thrust of the cartoon. It is also wildly irresponsible if judged by simple standards of secular journalistic honesty, since the humanitarian behavior of Israel as a nation and of its citizens as individuals is well-known in the Middle East and throughout the world. While Israeli soldiers in uniform have been tortured in Arab custody in both Syria and Egypt, Arab terrorists captured in Israel have been treated with extraordinary humanity, even when they have been murderers of children in their beds.… If the political realities justify any cartoon along the lines of the one you published, it would be a cartoon showing an Arab reluctant to see his blood going to help a Jew.

But leaving the political realities to one side, you should be ashamed of publishing the cartoon in either form. For the fact is that a great many Arabs, living peacefully under Israeli administration, willingly contributed blood during the recent war to help wounded Israeli soldiers at the front, and Jews both in Israel and in other parts of the world have contributed heavily to relief efforts benefiting the approximately one million Arab poor who suddenly became part of Israel’s responsibility after the ’67 war.… I cannot say what God is telling you. But I can remind you that we are Abraham’s children by faith, heirs of the promise to Abraham’s seed by faith, and that we who were once afar off have been made nigh by the work of the Son of David. Everything we have in Christ, according to the detailed teaching of the New Testament, was accomplished in fulfillment of promises made to Abraham and his seed. Can we despise the danger to the people into whose promises we have been adopted?

DONALD GREY BARNHOUSE, JR.

Philadelphia, Pa.

In Harmony

Your news survey “An Evangelical Awakening in the Catholic Church?” (Dec. 7) was excellent, thorough, and objective. However, I fail to agree that this is a sign of crumbling authority in the Catholic Church, as the editorial comment (“Roman Catholics—Ready to Hear”) indicated. These evangelical activities, it seems to me, are healthy religious response to the directives of the Second Vatican Council on the Scriptures and ecumenism at the grass roots; surely more in harmony with our Lord’s prayer at the Last Supper, “that they all be one,” and his prayer in Matthew 11:25. I hope CHRISTIANITY TODAY will welcome evangelical Catholics like myself to be among its readers, making the necessary adjustments to a more integral evangelical Christianity.

THE REVEREND THOMAS SULLIVAN

Hospital Chaplain

Arlington Heights, Ill.

Missing Facts

I appreciate very much the article on our St. Petersburg crusade in the November 23 issue (News, “Skinner’s Strategy”). Unfortunately, some of the facts were missing, and Lois Ottaway points out that many pertinent things in her article were missing. Total attendance during our eight-day crusade was 27,000. The 13,500 was for the final weekend—Saturday and Sunday. The article stated that the black population of St. Petersburg is one-third. The fact of the matter is that the black population is 10 per cent and that one-third of the attendance at our crusade was black, which was overwhelming. We were not at all disappointed with that attendance. I only point this out because I would like CHRISTIANITY TODAY to continue such reporting, but I think it is very important that the editor get the sense of the report. Thank you so much.

TOM SKINNER

Tom Skinner Associates, Inc.

Brooklyn, N. Y.

Honest Interpretation

I have been reading with interest your news coverage of the Episcopal Convention in Louisville, and I want to congratulate you and Miss Forbes for the work you have done. It seems to me that she has very carefully interpreted what went on at the convention and has also continued a fair interpretation, especially with regard to the dismissal or phase-out of the General Convention Special Program staff (News, “The Ax Falleth,” Nov. 23). I believe you have done an honest job of reporting the Episcopal Church and that Miss Forbes has a good grasp of what has been going on.

WILLIAM B. GRAY

Parish of Trinity Church

New York, N. Y.

Identity Struggle

The excellent report by Cheryl Forbes (News, “A Question of Identity,” Nov. 9) on our Episcopal Convention is marred by one error. There will be no difficulty at all in determining who is and who is not “officially” an Episcopalian. All baptized Christians who join themselves to our church will be called upon to renew their baptismal vows and receive the laying-on of the bishop’s hands in confirmation.

STANLEY ATKINS

Bishop

Eau Claire, Wisc.

ERRATUM

In Everett F. Harrison’s article, “Did Christ Command World Evangelism?” (Nov. 23), the words “in Acts” were omitted from the sentence, “Critics who are skeptical about allowing as Jesus’ words many of the statements attributed to him in the Gospels and are cautious about accepting some of the data in Acts are quite ready to admit the testimony of Paul contained in his acknowledged letters.”