Page 5895 – Christianity Today (2024)

The man of the cloth suffers from clerical schizophrenia. This seems to be the conclusion of American writers who bring the minister into their fiction. The clergyman is frequently portrayed as confused, frustrated, inept, inarticulate, and irrelevant.

Occasionally a fictional cleric does not run true to form. The ministers in a few novels such as Sheldon’s In His Steps and Richter’s A Simple Honorable Man are effective and dedicated servants of the Word. But many of the positive portraits are sentimental and literarily inferior and do not provide the needed challenge to the prevailing image.

American literature has more often shown us what a minister ought not to be rather than what he ought to be. The clerical image is created from a negative criticism of the profession rather than from an objective and thorough analysis. Most of the ministers who people the pages of fiction are types rather than realistic, three-dimensional characters.

Unfortunately, however, we cannot protest that the prevailing fictional image of the clergyman has no basis in fact. With an eye toward becoming more relevant to the society in which they work, the minister and the ministerial student might well examine their literary counterparts.

The problems of the clergy were presented early in the development of the American novel. The nineteenth-century novelists Nathaniel Hawthorne and Harold Frederic introduced a problem that was to recur in fiction throughout the following century: the minister’s relation to his society.

Dimmesdale, the minister in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, struggles to bridge the chasm between the image the villagers expect and the image he desires. Despite the guilt from his weight of sin, he strives to live the life of a well-respected pastor in the Puritan community. But his attempts are futile. He acknowledges his frailty as a human being and his capacity to sin. Just before he publicly confesses, Chillingworth urges him to salvage his professional honor. “Madman, hold! what is your purpose? Would you bring infamy on your sacred profession?” But Dimmesdale chooses to follow the urging of his conscience and accepts the role of confessed sinner rather than that of respected but hypocritical minister. His expiation is death.

Inability to cope with the demands and strictures of society is the problem of Frederic’s protagonist in The Damnation of Theron Ware. Ware, a young, naïve farm boy new to the ministry, struggles to retain his integrity in a small church financially and intellectualy impoverished and rife with “contumacious fundamentalism.” Through sophistication and rationalism the young pastor attempts to rise above the mediocrity of a minister constantly submissive to the whims and idiosyncrasies of his congregation. The clash between the image he desires and the image his congregation has held for years destroys him. Reconciliation is impossible: he cannot fit into their mold of a conventional pastor. Sadly conscious of his plight, his bishop’s wife concludes, “Whatever else he does, he will never want to come within gunshot of a pulpit again. It came too near murdering him for that.”

During the twenties and thirties, the periods of social reform, American fiction intensified its criticism of the clergy with incisive satires in reaction against churchmen who put the weight of their churches behind prohibition and other social-reform movements. The minister usually appears as a scheming, evil, selfish, ignorant character—as in Sinclair Lewis’s novel Elmer Gantry. This garrulous Midwest minister is perhaps the most crass example of ignorance and hypocrisy in American fiction. He sweeps through the novel praying and playing in a devastating though humorous fashion. Lewis satirizes the minister who leads his congregation into social involvement; Christian motives, he suggests, are often directed by selfish interests. Of this novel John Killinger writes:

These are sweeping indictments, and if they are irritating it is probably because there is enough truth in them to blanch the cheeks of any Christian. All ministers, chaplains, religious teachers, and theological students should be required to read this book at least once a year; it could not but have a salutary effect upon the protestant ministry in future decades [The Failure of Theology in Modern Literature, p. 14].

Fiction of the post-World War II period emphasizes what is perhaps the most serious criticism of the clergy: ineffective ministry in a world of need. Unable or unwilling to act as a prophet to a sick society, the minister withdraws into an insular setting. He offers no relevant message. Society largely ignores him because he seems to be an ornament rather than a functional fixture. He is an accepted but unnecessary person except at weddings, funerals, and Kiwanis Club luncheons (where he offers the invocation).

This is the problem of the Reverend Andrew Mackeral in the novel The Mackeral Plaza by Peter DeVries. Mackeral is a liberal idealist who fights the fundamentalist activities in his town in order to convince himself and the community that his efforts are relevant and necessary. He wants to be accepted by the community—but on his own terms. He struggles to avoid the stereotyped clerical image that he associates with the overzealous preacher.

Mackeral so disliked the term preacher, and so abhorred the term brother, as designations for the clergy that he was always grateful for assurances of their inapplicability to himself. It was not merely the wish to elude prototype that lay at the bottom of this.… it was, more cardinally, a fear of quarantine, a desire to belong to his species that made him want ever so much to be known simply as Mister Mackeral.

The conclusion of the novel suggests Mackeral’s failure to become an effective, positive influence either in the church or in the community. He recuperates from his emotional stresses in a sanitarium while the People’s Liberal Church and the community continue on as they did before his departure.

Another contemporary novel of clerical futility and irrelevance is John Updike’s Rabbit Run. The contrast between old and new concepts of the ministry comes out in a confrontation between the young Reverend Jack Eccles and an old German Lutheran preacher, Fritz Kruppenbach. When Eccles asks Kruppenbach’s advice about his counseling endeavors, the old preacher fires back:

Do you think this is your job, to meddle in these people’s lives? I know what they teach you at seminary now: this psychology and that.… You think now your job is to be an unpaid doctor, to run around and plug up the holes and make everything smooth. I don’t think that’s your job.

The old man continues with criticism of clergymen who become socially involved:

It seems to you our role is to be cops, cops without handcuffs, without guns, without anything but our human nature.… Well, I say that’s a Devil’s idea.… I say you don’t know what your role is or you’d be home locked in prayer. There is your role: to make yourself an exemplar of faith.

His final comments evoke feelings of shame and failure in young Eccles. The man of God is to be concerned not with external action but with internal conviction, says Kruppenbach:

When on Sunday morning then, when we go before their faces, we must walk up not worn out with misery but full of Christ … with Christ, on fire; burn them with the force of our belief. That is why they come; why else would they pay us? Anything else we can do or say anyone else can do and say.… There is nothing but Christ for us. All the rest, all this decency and busyness, is nothing. It is Devil’s work.

The novel ends in tragedy despite the young preacher’s noble, persistent efforts to resolve his problem. The reader is left with a feeling of despair, because of the tragic outcome and also because of the futility of the young minister’s efforts. Updike’s novel is a comment not only on the absurdity of our society but also on the irrelevance of the Churches and their leaders.

One of the few modern novels to present a refreshingly positive and convincing picture of the clergyman is Tell No Man by Adela Rogers St. Johns. In a modern parallel of the Saul/Paul account, protagonist Hank Gavin gives up a $50,000-a-year executive position to become a minister when he experiences a religious conversion and dedicates himself to follow Christ.

Because of his commitment to Christ and to the ministry, Gavin incurs the reproach of his socialite wife, his family, and his friends. His first major difficulty is the ensuing sense of isolation. But he finds in his new faith the courage to face the problems of his new profession. Because of his philosophy of the ministry he becomes more effective and less detached from society: “I can’t separate the Christian life from the everyday life—they’ve got to converge—convergence is our only hope.”

But Tell No Man is an exception. Common in fiction from the nineteenth century to the present is the portrait of the minister as one whose perplexity about his role makes him an ineffective prophet, without the dynamism to lead his people back to the altar. He appears as a member of a peripheral profession. Fiction sees him not as a shepherd leading the flock but as a hireling waiting at the gate; not as an indomitable military leader of an army but as a guard at the rear.

But the negative image of the minister in fiction can have a positive effect; out of it can arise an antidote to the schizophrenia among those who are part of the God-called profession. Writers of fiction then will sketch new images as they observe the changes.

Andrew Mackeral described to his psychiatrist the sort of change needed in the ministry: “Call it an island broken off the mainland and floating away by itself, or trying to if it isn’t fetched back. Or perhaps I can explain it to you in another way. Under these stresses and strains one part of the personality ‘separates’ from the other precisely like the cream in a bottle of milk. Your job—hom*ogenize me.” Perhaps the most urgent prayer of the clerical profession is “God, hom*ogenize us!”

Wilfred Martens is chairman of the English Department at Pacific College in Fresno, California. He received the M.A. from California State College at Los Angeles.

Broad new opportunities present themselves to theological writers within the pale of ecumenism. At the Uppsala assembly of the World Council of Churches a formal dialogue with other religions was initiated, followed by a first session near Beirut and discussions at Addis Ababa, when the WCC Central Committee met there. Further “profitable” discussions are anticipated. Vatican II also opened the doors: though it emphasized that there is no salvation apart from the Church and the Gospel that the Church proclaims, it also asserted that the Gospel is present and operative “in, through, and despite other religions.”

At the end of A History of Christianity in Japan (Eerdmans, 1971), Richard H. Drummond reports:

A second important phenomenon is related to the spirit and documents of the Second Vatican Council but is also to be noted among Protestant Christians. It consists of a new attitude which attempts to understand and appreciate non-Christian religious traditions not only as phenomena worthy of scientific study but also as potentially possessing religious truth and value. This means that Christian theology now considers the possibility that non-Christian religions may be instruments of the God and Father of Jesus Christ to reveal His will and save his people [p. 335].

The syncretistic tendency, the attempt to blend and reconcile various religions, is not new, but never before has it been so prominently espoused by a leading agency for many Christian churches. Promotion of this point of view has come from philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, comparative religionists, and some avant-garde theologians. Arnold Toynbee and many other writers have long declared that Christianity is the most intransigent among the religions because its God will allow no other and its promise of salvation is through its Anointed alone, whose Church alone will prevail in all the vicissitudes and who alone will judge all mankind.

In ancient times Gnosticism, Manicheism, and Islam were efforts to unify mankind through religion for a variety of purposes. Similarly, modern writers like Robert D. Young (Encounter With World Religions, 1970) seem to believe that peace and harmony are created in an ideal world by the melting together of various religions. Young offers the pre-Christian logos concept as a basis for religious synthesis.

Robert Young and Lowell D. Streiker (The Gospel of Irreligious Religion, Sheed and Ward, 1969) advocate “openness” in theology: beliefs should not be specifically stated, and structures should give way to the unstructured style of Asian religions. “Conversion” and “evangelistic mission” are frowned upon, yet in some fashion a mission of religion is envisioned. The accent is on elimination of the evils of human bondage to poverty, ignorance, and disease. Is it then a secular millennium that is envisioned in this “open theology”? Shall we accept a further paganizing of America as a step in the progress toward a humanistic utopia? We see here only a misguided propaganda. The opportunity to propagandize is unlimited today, and the “desperately wicked” heart of man responds readily to any attack on established truth and authority.

Many writers restrict themselves to the dialogue with a particular religion. William Johnston writes “Reflections on Zen and Christian Mysticism,” the subtitle of The Still Point (Fordham University Press, 1970):

First of all, I should say that the Oriental technique can deepen the prayer life of those who are already contemplative.… It could be safely argued, then, that anyone who had spent a number of years in ordinary prayer might profitably attempt some kind of vertical meditation.… Too many potential contemplatives smother the tiny flame of love with endless thinking, when they should be silent, empty, and expectant.

Johnson continues with a discussion of satori, the Zen enlightenment:

And obviously it is this (if it exists) that the Christian should aim at. Yet … that satori cannot come to the Christian because he necessarily clings to ideas, dogmas, and beliefs.… In short, Christianity demands fidelity to ideas of God, of the Bible, of dogma—all which are an obstacle to enlightenment in utter nakedness [p. 179].

It has been said for some time that “liberalism” is dead, a statement tending to disarm the unwary. But if it was ever dead, it has risen again to rear its head under a new helmet. Tillich found the “universal spirit” in many religions, but it seems that even he was not ready for the God-is-dead movement launched by some whom he had influenced, a movement basic to “profitable” dialogue with other religions. Add the “secularization” of the Church, the “revision” of Christian morality, and the new interpretation of “salvation” as in the WCC slogan “Salvation Today,” and we see in preparation an ecumenism like that in the Roman empire, when Emperor Alexander Severus is said to have had in his private chapel statues not only of the deified emperors but also of the miracle worker Appolonius of Tyana, Christ, Abraham, and Orpheus. The word “oikoumene” has returned full circle to its pagan origins.

Contact between peoples in this shrunken world of ours brings an inevitable dialogue between religions. Many people need to understand other religions in the pursuit of their professions. Dialogue can be profitable in many ways relating to the external life, and also in the examples it reveals of the dedication of some devotees to their religions. J. N. D. Anderson has treated this matter in his Christianity and Comparative Religion (Inter-Varsity, 1970). But he goes on to caution, “Neither the Christian church nor the individual Christian can participate in anything which savours of syncretism.” Anderson’s book is a worthy sequel to Hendrik Kraemer’s The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, W. A. Visser ’t Hooft’s No Other Name, and D. T. Niles’s The Message and Its Messengers, all of which are recommended for rereading in the present discussion. These men, all thoroughly familiar with the inner workings of the WCC, show ample evidence that the Church should not neglect the obligation of apologetic writing, though it be a new apologetics.

To think of the Christian missionary as unwilling to confer with other religious leaders on matters of theology would be a misrepresentation: the history of missions offers many examples of this, such as the work of Ziegenbalg and Schwartz in India. Human goals should be sought in common, and they need not involve the destruction of another man’s culture and religion.

In many parts of the world a tolerant pluralism is not easily achieved. Yet a growing enlightenment in many countries may promise a greater toleration, if in the interest of national progress the governments allow the freedom of worship that the principles of pluralistic democracy imply. Evangelical leaders have the opportunity to make their views known to national leaders, who may show greater confidence in honest churchmanship than in the syncretism of a moribund ecumenism.

The words of Stephen Neill in Call to Mission (Fortress, 1970) remind the Church of its abiding task: “The missionary must have no doubt as to the purpose for which he has come overseas. He must be a missionary. That means that, waking or sleeping, he must be dominated by one central concern—that men and women should be brought to know Jesus Christ and to find life in him.”

Otto F. Stahlke is professor of world religions and Old Testament at Concordia Seminary, Springfield, Illinois. He holds the M.A. degree from Wayne State University and the S.T.M. from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis.

A Palestinian maiden hears it announced that through her the Saviour is to be born. Awed by the announcement, humbled by it, she says, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). Isaiah had said that the virgin would conceive and bear a son (7:14), and it was so. Matthew narrates it in detail (1:18–25); so does Luke (1:26–2:40), with trappings of pastoral beauty.

Always some have been unable to see what the late Karl Barth liked to call “the Christmas miracle.” Many of them are thinking about the requirements of biology. Some think the virgin birth refers to a co-habiting of God with humankind, as in pagan Greek thought. But it was no biological event. Even if non-paternal human births had taken place, they would have nothing to do with the high and sheer miracle by which Mary conceived through the Holy Spirit. This was the method of Christmas.

After I had read a paper on the virgin birth at a theological society meeting, a university professor stood to offer his peculiar defense of the doctrine. He said that female rabbits have been known to be shocked into conception, without the male, and that Mary might well have conceived through the shock caused by the angel’s announcement. This man sought to support the doctrine by denying the sheer miracle involved.

At Christmas time, across the centuries and across the world Christians have believed that an honored maiden conceived through the Holy Spirit, in an inexplicable way, and that in the normal time the eternal Son of God was born into human life.

We call this the “virgin birth.” The phrase is time-honored, and we should still use it. But “virgin conception” would better express what we mean, for the miracle was in the conception, not in the birth itself. The phrase “virgin birth,” with stress on “birth,” was used in the earliest centuries to teach the reality of Christ’s humanity as opposed to the Gnostic teaching that Christ was only “poured through” the womb of Mary and therefore had a human body only “in seeming.”

Scriptural support for the virgin birth as the method really is unassailable. James Orr, at the century’s turn, was convinced of the “integrity” of the virgin-birth narrative (The Virgin Birth of Christ, p. 227). So was J. Gresham Machen, a generation later. More recently, writers on the theme such as William Temple, archbishop of Canterbury, and Edwin Lewis of Methodism were likewise convinced. Karl Barth could say: “No one can dispute the existence of a biblical testimony to the Virgin Birth” (Church Dogmatics, II, 176).

The doctrine has been impugned by such scholars as Emil Brunner (The Mediator, p. 324; Dogmatics, II, 355); Gustaf Aulen (The Faith of the Christian Church, pp. 121 ff.); John Baillie (The Place of Jesus Christ in Modern Christianity, p. 119); Rudolph Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament, II, 30); Paul Tillich (Systematic Theology, II, 127, 149); and Nels Ferré (The Christian Understanding of God, p. 192). Yet it has had supporters in our time from many outstanding theologians, in great part because of its unassailable delineation in Scripture.

Take that beautiful passage in Luke 1:5–2:52. It is included in a second-century harmony of the Gospels, and in all the Greek manuscripts of Luke, and in all the language versions. Those who assail the supernatural conception need to realize that all extant manuscripts include the phrase “as was supposed” in Luke 3:23, where we read, “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph.…” And if the virgin birth was a pagan idea, as many impugners suppose, why is the Lucan story couched in what Machen can call “the most strikingly Jewish and Palestinian narrative in the whole New Testament” (The Virgin Birth of Christ, p. 119)?

Matthew’s telling of the miracle is also unassailable. The whole of Matthew 1:18–25 is for the express purpose of describing the miraculous character of the birth.

That Joseph is included in the genealogies of Matthew (1:16) and Luke (1:27) is understandable when one considers the high view of adoptive fatherhood in the Jewish mind. It is so high, actually, that dead men could have sons in a sense. In Old Testament law, if a man died without an issue, his brother was to take the wife and rear a son for the deceased one.

The meaning of Christmas is tied up with the “method,” the virgin birth, to be sure; for if Joseph had been the actual father, the meaning would have suffered. But the meaning of this birth at Bethlehem is a subject all its own. The birth means that the Son of God pitched his tent among us men—here in this “spoilt and fallen world.” He who was discontinuous with human life, and above it, entered into human life, its blood and sweat and tears—but not its sin.

We men cannot go up to heaven and see what God is like. This fact is clear enough, but the doctrinally interested evangelist states it: “And no man hath ascended up to heaven” (John 3:13). Yet though no one from here could go there, one from there could come down here. And one did.

In all the theophanies of Abraham’s career, that “beforehand” man still had not seen God. A person could not see God and live, though Moses at one time was permitted to see God’s back. No man has seen God at any time, John says (1:18). But on that first Christmas, God the Son entered into human life; and by sojourning here, he made God the Father known. It was possible for the Son to reveal the Father to us because there never was a “time” in the Father’s life when the Son was not also existing, the Word being “in the beginning” (John 1:1) even as “God” was (Gen. 1:1). Moreover, the Son existed “with God” (John 1:1), not in separation from the Father; “with” here means “near to” and suggests rapport. Furthermore, the Son who did this was on the same level of being with the Father, since John also declares that “the Word was God” (1:1).

A man looking for something under the one street light on a city block explained to a passerby that he had lost his keys somewhere along the block. On he looked, but only under the light. When asked why he did not search over the whole distance, he said, “This is the only place where the light is.” It is not to be denied that there is a certain faint revelation of God in the natural world. The heavens declare God’s glory. “The invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead …” (Rom. 1:20). But what man as sinner most needs to know about God is that he is merciful, anxious to forgive, a God of love for sinners. On what golf course, or mountain stream, is this observed? Creative ingenuity, yes; but not love and mercy. The only place where there is adequate light on what man needs most to know is in the Christ revelation, narrated and interpreted in the Holy Scriptures.

The first Adam lived the human life badly. The Second Adam, Christ the Lord, “founded in God,” born at Bethlehem “of a woman” (Gal. 4:4), lived our human life perfectly. And finally, in death the Roman way, he spelled out God’s love in drops of blood, became a once-for-all sacrifice, and was raised from the dead. All this and more—much more—is part of what Christmas means.

Many in our time want to maintain the meaning of Christmas while they deny its divinely chosen method. They impugn the virgin birth, yet still bow down before the Christ. Indeed, their declared intention is to do Christ honor by assaulting this miracle. But the late Edwin Lewis was surely right in saying that to surrender Bethlehem’s “stone of offense” precludes a high view of Christ. He wrote, “The evidence is overwhelming that when men begin to surrender belief in the Virgin Birth … they are also getting ready to surrender that belief regarding Christ Himself [the Incarnation] which is the vital center of the whole body of faith” (A Philosophy of the Christian Revelation, 1940, p. 186).

Similarly, Karl Barth warned against “parenthesizing the miracle of the Nativities and wanting to cling to the mystery as such” (Dogmatics in Outline, p. 100). To him, the virgin birth is the “miracle that is a pointer to the mystery [the Incarnation]” (Credo, p. 70); the virgin birth “advertises what takes place” (p. 60). It is connected with the Incarnation “as sign with thing signified” (Church Dogmatics, II, 184).

In Isaiah 7:14 both the method and the meaning of Christmas are foretold. A miraculous birth by the “virgin” (almah) would take place, and the one born would be called “Immanuel,” meaning “God with us”—which is indeed the special significance of this event that causes the world to wear a halo.

J. Kenneth Grider is professor of theology at Nazarene Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Missouri. He holds the M.A. from Drew and the Ph.D. from Glasgow University and did post-doctoral work at Oxford and Claremont.

The American culture is involved with two Christmas stories, each of which has had a great influence on our society. The one, the story of the birth of Christ, leads men to God. The other, the story of Santa Claus, confuses men about God.

As a pastor I deal with people who have difficulty understanding God. In general terms these people: (1) cannot conceive of God as a personality who is vitally interested in them as individuals, (2) have great difficulty in grasping the concept of living by faith, and (3) are not convinced that God means what he says. These attitudes form a common concept in which God is viewed as a distant, unconcerned, and harmless being who sends good and bad unexpectedly but is unable or unwilling to be of real help during a crisis. God threatens man with hell and judgment only to keep him in line in this life, but he will accept all men in one way or another in the end.

How strikingly parallel is this description of God to the nature of Santa Claus! It may be argued that Santa Claus is simply a reflection of the secular concept of God. Thus the Santa Claus story encourages a false view of God during the impressionable years of early childhood. Understanding this helps one understand secular man’s difficulty in relating to the living God revealed by Jesus Christ.

Santa Claus as God? Listen to the song children sing each Christmas.

You better watch out, you better not cry,

Better not pout, I’m telling you why—

Santa Claus is coming to town!

He’s making a list and checking it twice,

Gonna find out who’s naughty and nice—

Santa Claus is coming to town!

He sees you when you’re sleeping,

He knows when you’re awake,

He knows if you’ve been bad or good—

So be good for goodness’ sake!

Oh! You better watch out, you better not cry,

Better not pout, I’m telling you why—

Santa Claus is coming to town!

When asked, “Can Santa really see me through these walls?,” how does a parent reply? If he says, “Yes, Santa can really see you,” the parent is no longer operating on the level of healthy imagination; he is giving his words the ring of reality. The mythical becomes real for the child. Santa Claus can see and know a child’s behavior, rewarding him on the basis of that behavior; he can leave presents in every home the world over in just one night; he has reindeer that can fly.

Time moves on. The child begins to see flaws in this god-like person and in his parents’ attempt to maintain the deception. What he is told about Santa becomes less convincing; he may suspect that his parents are putting him on. For the most part the child will not mind playing the game, for he is well rewarded for his faith. When the parents finally drop the deception, it is revived fifteen or twenty years later by this child for his children. He wants them to experience the excitement and joy he remembers so well, and the process starts all over.

What does the child learn from the Santa Claus myth about a transcendent being? It may be one or all of the following, each of which hinders an adult’s ability to grasp the reality of God.

1. The child’s acceptability. The child learns that Santa keeps a record of his behavior, and that he can be acceptable to Santa by being good. If Santa is pleased, the child will be rewarded with presents. If Santa is not pleased, according to tradition the child will receive cinders and ashes. The way to be acceptable in Santa’s sight, then, is to be good.

2. Santa’s word. As Christmas morning approaches, the child is well aware of Santa’s warning and of his own behavior. He has not been perfect, and he knows it. Yet though he may feel some anxiety, he remembers last year and confidently awaits Santa’s return. And sure enough, on Christmas morning his faith in his own goodness is rewarded again. Thus he may conclude two things. First: He is okay as he is. His behavior, though not perfect, is acceptable to Santa. Second, Santa must not really mean what he says about children who cry or pout, for he gives gifts anyway. No matter what Santa says or what the child does, in the end Santa will reward him.

3. Santa’s presence. Santa visits his people once a year, spending the other 364 days in obscurity. The child may write him at the North Pole, but beyond that the communication is only one way: Santa secretly watching and recording the child’s behavior. Santa is not seen as one who is involved with daily living. A child learns to cope with his problems without expecting the help of the transcendent.

4. Santa’s activity. What does Santa do the rest of the year? He is busily engaged in a nice though rather meaningless activity, making presents. He exists somewhere up north as a harmless, friendly old man with a long white beard.

5. The child’s faith. As the child hears the story presented to him by society and his parents, he believes it. As far as he knows he is being told the truth. Why should he expect other than the truth from his parents? Gradually, however, the child begins to discover that his parents are playing a game with him—a nice game, but a game. As a result he devaluates his parents’ witness to the transcendent. The deception about Santa means the parent knew better all the time. Sadder but wiser, the child learns not to give credence to a way of life that demands faith, for who wants to make the same mistake twice?

Two lessons are apparent. First, Christians should not be surprised that secular man has a deep misunderstanding of the true nature and presence of God. Unless he has later been exposed to the truth of the Word of God, his most meaningful experience with the transcendent has been the Santa myth. He has left behind the outward form of the myth as a pleasant experience of childhood but has yet to find any other understanding of the supernatural.

Second, as Christians we need to be aware of the possible results of an indiscriminate use of the Santa Claus myth with children, especially if it is treated as other than a myth. Contrary to popular opinion (even in the Church), Christians will not spoil Christmas by omitting Santa Claus; rather, they will increase the child’s joy. For not only will Christian parents give the child the birthday of Jesus as the reason for Christmas, but they will make Christmas the basis for the child’s ability to trust God in his later life.

No doubt the American culture will continue to keep the Santa myth alive and well. It is up to the Christian who is concerned for the spiritual health of his children to do otherwise. Christ must be emphasized; Christmas is his birthday. He has come as a gift from God to show love, care, and concern for man—365 days a year. Leave Santa Claus for the realm of myth and fairy story. The earliest information about the transcendent that the child receives should be the true story of Christ, not the myth of Santa.

Samuel A. Mateer is minister of Altadena Valley Presbyteraian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. He received the B.D. from Fuller and the Th.M. from Princeton Seminary.

A recent trip to Greece, Turkey, and Israel has left me with several impressions that may or may not be valid.

The Israelis have made tremendous progress since I was there three years ago. I doubt that there is any possibility of their giving up possession of the Golan Heights or the left bank of the Jordan. The people appear prosperous, their morale is high, and their patriotic devotion to the Israeli state is obvious. Their agricultural production is fantastic. New cities and high-rise apartments in old ones dot the landscape. Israel is here to stay.

Turkey is a poorer land than Israel but has fertile soil and tremendous potential. Its youth are not satisfied with the Muslim faith or the Koran. They appear wide open to the Gospel; spiritually the fields are white unto harvest. But as so often happens, the laborers are few. Here is a great challenge to the Christian Church.

Much criticism has been leveled against the present Greek government, one that is hardly democratic. But the situation is stable, the people seem contented, the streets are clean, and the cities are safe for women even at night. The Greek Orthodox Church is tightly tied to the government, and non-Orthodox agencies engaged in religious work find the going rough. But progress is being made.

Perhaps North Americans could learn a few things from these countries, negatively and positively.

Most evangelicals dislike attaching an adjective to the great word evangelical. But because names like “liberal evangelical” or even “catholic evangelical” are sometimes heard, those who adhere to historic evangelicalism have come to be called “conservative evangelicals.”

Sometimes the adjective is very appropriate. I recall hearing an evangelical leader whom I greatly respect and admire say, “I am a conservative. I am conservative in theology, in religion, in politics, and in economics.”

Non-evangelicals have often seized on this kind of conservatism and dismissed the whole evangelical movement as hopelessly obscurantist. Evangelicals have defended themselves by pointing out that it is senseless to give up lightly the gains of the past. Where the truth has been once established, it is not the path of wisdom to surrender it.

This is, of course, quite true. But it is also true that society rarely advances majority end foremost. While evangelicals have been busy conserving the great traditions of the past, others have often been trailblazers, striking out into new fields. It would not be true, of course, to say that evangelicals have been totally lacking here. There have always been evangelicals who have been daring innovators and who have refused to walk meekly in the old paths. But they have been comparatively few.

I wonder whether we are seeing something new on the evangelical scene. Wherever I look I seem to see evangelicals taking an initiative. While holding firmly to the basic evangelical position, many are refusing to be bound by the old evangelical shibboleths and are advocating radically new ideas and practices.

For example, at the end of August there was a national congress of evangelical Anglicans in Melbourne, Australia. Had this met ten years back it is likely that among other things it would have expressed a firm conviction that the Book of Common Prayer (i.e., the English prayer book authorized in 1662) set out the kind of worship that its members wanted.

The 1971 congress was not slow to express its approval of the godly order of 1662: it is “biblically based in concept and wording,” it has “balance and order,” it is “one of the important links throughout the Anglican communion.” But the congress was a long way from holding that this was the book it wanted its members to use. It thought that the 1662 book had had “an unfortunate influence on our worship and fellowship,” its language might “give the general impression of irrelevance,” and its “rigidity” prevents its “being effectively used in a heterogeneous society.”

So the congress went on to plead for worship suitable to our day and age. It became almost a dogma that service forms must be updated, that modern language must be used both in readings from Scripture and in the language of prayer. While uniformity was seen to have advantages, so too has flexibility, and there was no doubting where the emphasis lay. The congress thought that new structures for the church in Australia ought to make provision for “the orderly exercise of gifts of prayer and speech by qualified members of the congregation, especially extempore prayer and testimony.”

It went further. It maintained that “not nearly enough thinking has been done by evangelicals on the best use of Sunday by local churches.” We all have our settled routines on the Lord’s Day. Could they be improved? The congress thought they could.

More could be written about the way the congress called in question ideas about the ministry, the place of lay people, church union, and much more. Suffice it to say that the largest and most significant gathering of evangelical Anglicans in Australian history was characterized above all by a desire to search for new ways.

This does not seem confined to one country. In Singapore, Bishop Chandu Ray is working in the “Coordinating Office for Asian Evangelism.” I am not in a position to assess the work being done, though from my knowledge of Bishop Chandu Ray I have not the slightest doubt that it is first class. But the exciting thing is that it is happening. Asians are dissatisfied with the traditional approach to the evangelism of their great continent, and they are taking the initiative to do things better. In this and other ways evangelical Asians are making it quite plain that they will no longer simply follow where the missionary leads them.

These Asian evangelicals are branching out in new directions. I will cite just one. Christians in Asia have been traditionally suspicious of the dance-drama. They have seen it as a vehicle for the teaching of Hindus, Buddhists, and Confucianists, and thus as hopelessly compromised. But now evangelicals are taking a fresh look at dance-drama and trying to devise ways in which this very powerful medium can be used to convey the Gospel.

When I was in Manila last year I learned of a new program for establishing 10,000 Bible-study groups by the end of 1973. Many of the Filipinos felt that traditional methods of evangelism were not satisfactory. So instead of applying them a bit more diligently, they thought up a completely new approach. Lay people lead groups in the study of the Bible in private homes. They invite their non-Christian neighbors in and confront them with the challenge of the Gospel. The program is working, as are similar programs in other lands. Groups of evangelical Christians are refusing simply to go along with the traditional approach. In new situations they are using new ideas.

Reports from America seem to show that there are similar new happenings there. Carl Henry wrote in CHRISTIANITY TODAY of July 2, 1971, “Not a little student vitality is channeled into underground activity quite independent of both the ecumenical and evangelical establishments. Often these young believers move into venturesome creative paths, despite high risks. More and more evangelical movements seem to be emerging free of established church patterns” (p. 30). The last sentence is critically important. While there are evangelicals who walk in the old ways, there are others who do not.

And I have really only started. What of British Inter-Varsity, its meetings for students and its fine publications department? What of Key 73 with its prospect of unparalleled evangelistic cooperation? There is much more.

It seems idle to speak of evangelicals these days as conservative. There is conservatism enough, it is true. But an eager search for new ideas and new methods characterizes evangelicalism as it starts the seventies. If this creative, innovative attitude can be maintained, the consequences are incalculable.

LEON MORRIS

Thirteen people gathered in 1950 at California’s Mount Hermon Conference Center to share common problems and dreams for Christian camping. Out of that nucleus grew the Western Camp and Conference Association. Last month its descendant, Christian Camping International, held its fifth biennial world convention at Green Lake, Wisconsin, with 800 delegates representing leadership reaching one million campers.

Christian camping is growing by leaps and bounds, in the United States and especially overseas, according to camping leaders from fifteen nations. They painted glowing pictures of outdoor opportunities for reaching thousands for Christ in their native lands.

The CCI itself has doubled in the last three years, with a current membership of 2,600 from more than 1,000 camps. “There is a new stance and attitude about camping,” said amiable CCI executive secretary Ed Ouland, “and camping involvement overseas is becoming one of the best tools for missionaries today.”

The up trend in Christian camping here and abroad runs counter to the experience of secular and organizational camps, which suffered declines this past year, according to outgoing CCI president Lee Kingsley of Big Trout Camp, Minnesota. (Tent, wilderness, and recreational-vehicle camping are up on every front, however.)

That imaginative evangelical camp directors have plenty going for them was clearly brought out in the smorgasbord of tightly packed seminars, speeches, and nearly 100 workshops arranged non-stop during the four-day conference. Salesmen in forty exhibit booths in the basem*nt below the Green Lake American Baptist Convention dining hall did a brisk business in camp equipment and aids.

A smooth harmony appeared to exist between advocates, of diverse—but not mutually exclusive—camping philosophies. The contrast between program-, speaker-, and Bible-centered approaches and counselor- and activity-centered, decentralized camping didn’t ruffle the feathers of some camping chiefs the way it did at several past CCI conventions. William Gwinn of Mount Hermon (where the antecedents of CCI began twenty-one years ago), one of the most articulate spokesmen for innovative camping, noted that the camp and conference ministry will misfire at either extreme.

Gwinn said Mount Hermon camperships were up for both 1970 and 1971, echoing the view of others, such as Walter Warkentin of Hume Lake in the Sierra Nevada, that the recent economic sag hadn’t dented the ability of most families to attend Christian camps. Hume Lake attendance shot up 17 per cent last year.

And even in depressed Seattle, where the air went SSTing out of the aerospace industry last spring, Jim Gwinn (Bill’s nephew) of Sammamish Bible Camp doubled the budget for next year after upping camp rates this season. Jim Gwinn, who brings a youthful vigor to the revamped camp, has area young people singing the praises of his unique program. A high of the senior-high week is when Gwinn tows kids, strapped to a parachute, behind a power boat at up to thirty-five miles an hour. The easy rider at the end of the parasail soars 300 feet above the water.

Another Gwinn caper is taking his staff choir to local churches to sing. Cars, headlights on, proceed caravan style to the church. An old hearse heads the procession. Emblazoned on its side is a message: “Not death, but life.”

Despite the boom in camp and conference attendance, not all managers find camp coffers full; costs of everything from land to labor and taxes are increasing. And new leisure habits of Americans, coupled with the advent of twelve-month school systems, three-day weekends, and four-day work weeks, converge to alter camp operations.

“I don’t think Christian camps can stay in business unless they go year round and operate as a commercial enterprise,” cautioned Paul Zeller, head of Horn Creek Lodge at 9,000 feet elevation in the Colorado Rockies. Zeller bought 160 acres at $10 an acre there twenty years ago; now he must pay $5,000 per acre to expand his modern family and youth camps to adjacent land.

A recurring theme at Green Lake was family camping: the family that camps together plays, prays, and stays together, exponents said. Debunking the “family-centered church” as mostly myth, Mount Hermon’s Gwinn told a seminar audience that the average local evangelical church has eroded family life by pulling family members off in different directions. Family camping, he added, can help put humpty-dumpty families together again on a spiritual basis by enabling them to have time in a relaxed atmosphere to do things they normally don’t get around to. The family camp is the most effective ministry going, Gwinn declared.

Larry Haslam, who led a free-wheeling workshop on new concepts in trailer and camper ministries, noted that family and day camping are the fastest-growing segments of the camping ministry of the Southern Baptists, the nation’s largest Protestant body. Haslam stressed that a primary purpose of family group camping is to keep families together, as well as to train and use families for evangelism leadership.

Another concept frequently injected into the sessions was the value of “stress” camping. Pioneered by the Outward Bound movement, stress education has been effectively incorporated into Christian camping programs offered at—among other places—Wheaton College-related Honey Rock Camp in Wisconsin. (See also December 5, 1969, issue, page 43.)

One of stress camping’s chief mentors, veteran Wheaton coach Harvey Chrouser, described it as a “sequence of experiences that tends to exhaust a kid physically, mentally, and spiritually.” Such a “valid hardship,” he explained, extends campers to their limit, gives them a “miniature of life” experience, and brings self-discovery and a new awareness of God.

Rock climbs and rappells with ropes on nearly sheer surfaces scare even the most rugged campers, but such cooperative feats—together with the three-day wilderness “solo”—teach trust and reverence, Chrouser said.

Also well received at Green Lake was Bob Davenport of Taylor (Indiana) University, who arrived with twenty-three Taylorites in their specially outfitted bus that has no seats—only bunk racks. Davenport, widely known for his Wandering Wheels cycling groups (a type of “stress” program), explained that the bus, “Possum 1,” transports young people up to 700 miles anywhere from Taylor at night. By morning, the group, accompanied by Christian counselors, awakens to a brand new environment: the ocean, mountains, large cities. Davenport has also scratched new dirt with a motorcycle ministry to youth. Accidents and injuries from all three ventures have been amazingly minimal.

The major addresses at the CCI conclave gave ample evidence that its planners were plugged into the current youth scene. Samples: Youth for Christ vice-president Paul Robbins on rock music and its influence on youth; Basil Jackson, M.D., D.D., and director of surgery and psychiatry at Marquette University on the Christian understanding of the dope menace; A1 Kuhnle of Gospel Films on the effect of media on today’s youth; and Michigan State University’s Ted Ward, who drew a standing ovation for his thrust on how camping can provide trend-setting patterns in non-formal education—the “in” school of current pedagogy. Stanley Baldwin, a researcher of the occult, described the contagion of witchcraft and Satanism among youth.

Jackson laid major blame for the drug problem on the church “which hasn’t done what it is supposed to,” and on parents, who commit “probably ten times more drug abuse” than young people. Many youth try drugs out of curiosity and the need to identify with peers, he said, and the power of group pressure can be used with wisdom in camping situations to counteract drug problems.

Robbins sparked controversy with his advice to youth workers on rock music: Listen and learn (“Those who oppose rock the most generally know the least about it”); be tolerant (“Participate; there are even some tunes you can sing and whistle; loosen up”); encourage young people to get into creative areas of music; and proclaim the message of Christ.

“Music itself is neither moral nor immoral,” he said. “It’s amoral and can be used for any purpose.” While putting down hard or “acid” rock, Robbins said the key to evaluating the suitability of music as the medium for the Christian message is to ask: What is the culture of your immediate situation?

Through the gift of 108 acres near Yorkville, Illinois, CCI is planning a new $50,000 rustic headquarters and resource library. Some $17,000 had been pledged by the convention’s end. Vincent Craven of Pioneer Camps, Toronto, was named president of CCI until its next meeting in October, 1973, at Glorieta Baptist Assembly, New Mexico.

Youth Workers Consider Man

Prophets of doom and hope met last month at the National Youth Workers Convention in San Diego, California. The 450 delegates and 100 late-comers heard such speakers as Hal Lindsey (The Late Great Planet Earth), Francis Schaeffer, and Robert Tschirgi, professor of neuroscience at the University of California at San Diego. Although Francis Schaeffer was the major drawing card, Tschirgi made the conference authentically informative.

A member of the academic elite and a non-Christian, Tschirgi is eminently familiar with the condition of contemporary culture and the student world. He sprinkled his lecture on the potential death of man with intellectual humor, but grew more somber as he outlined the horrors of modern technological advances. He saw genetic, psychological, or neurological control as the only possible way to guarantee man’s continuing existence.

The second evening of the conference Francis Schaeffer followed Tschirgi with warnings and detailed descriptions of man as seen by scientists: a soul-devoid patchwork of chemicals and nerve impulses reacting to environmental stimuli. Schaeffer urged Christians to wake up to the dangers of new scientific and psychological techniques designed to manipulate man. He singled out the genetic and neurological methods of behaviorist B. F. Skinner, whose new book Beyond Freedom and Dignity rejects the concepts of individual liberty and personal dignity—concepts vital to a Christian world-view.

Tschirgi, too, rejected such manipulation, but without an adequate alternative. Schaeffer and the other speakers presented Christianity as the only alternative to the views of behaviorists such as Skinner. They prophesied hope—rather than doom—for man through Jesus Christ.

BRIAN BASTIEN

Bad Day For Blackwoods

Vote-buying is unethical, even by the old stereotyped Southern politician’s standards. Certainly a Christian singing for the Lord would agree with that. But the Gospel Music Association knows there are exceptions.

The GMA, located in Nashville, Tennessee, presents annual Dove Awards for the best recordings of gospel music among its members. This year it invalidated the balloting because the Blackwood Brothers of Memphis swept the awards—buying votes to do it.

As the winner of each category was announced at the awards banquet October 9, it was obvious that the Blackwood Brothers had the votes. “Grave doubts arose in the minds of many association members” about the “unethical solicitation and influencing of voters,” commented a GMA press release. James Blackwood, too, apparently had grave doubts; the next day he wrote a letter to the GMA board of directors admitting impropriety and requesting a reballoting at his expense. He also returned the awards.

President Les Beasley appointed an investigating committee headed by board member Herman Harper. In a touchy all-day session October 25 the committee met with the board (James Blackwood is a member) to present its findings and recommend action.

The evidence pointed to unethical action by the Blackwood Brothers, but the board decided against reballoting this year. No personal action was taken against the group, who in the three years of the Dove Awards have been reprimanded three times. Why wasn’t anything done? According to Harper, the Blackwoods broke no association rules or bylaws. The constitution doesn’t specify that it’s wrong to solicit votes through direct mail or advertising, though Harper added that the GMA has “tried to encourage people not to formally solicit votes.”

James Blackwood, head of the Blackwood organization, supplied most of the information the investigating committee needed. Although the GMA stated that other groups also tampered with the votes, the association headquarters declined to say who. Harper said there was no substantial evidence to back what he called “rumors.”

Blackwood issued a statement expressing full agreement with the decision of the board of directors. He said he took full responsibility “for what I consider unethical solicitation of votes by members of our organization” and would “personally guarantee there will be no repetition.” GMA supplied examples of Blackwood impropriety, such as: “Return this card to the Blackwood office as soon as you vote so we can register your vote and we will mail you a nice gift.”

Did Blackwood know before the awards banquet of the organization’s vote-advertising campaign? The answer is unclear, even from Blackwood. One man at GMA headquarters speculated that he might have been suspicious, but during July and August of last year (the time of the heaviest advertising) Blackwood was conducting a Holy Land tour.

To insure that such an embarrassment doesn’t happen again, the president intends to set up a committee to add ethical guidelines to the constitution and to study a new balloting system. But whether the new rules will allow the board to remove violators from the GMA is an open question. Will Harper be a member of the new investigating committee? he was asked by CHRISTIANITY TODAY. “I hope not,” he sighed.

CHERYL A. FORBES

Deep In The Heart Of Quebec

The Catholic Pentecostal movement (see July 16 issue, page 31) is on the rise throughout Canada, even in the Catholic heartlands of Quebec.

Twelve groups numbering from sixty to 200 meet weekly in Montreal, including large gatherings at the St. Augustine of Canterbury church.

Charismatic groups have been formed in French-speaking seminaries, monasteries, and convents in the eastern township districts of Quebec. Twenty-two of the thirty nuns in one convent are charismatics, according to Martin Ranalli, a Catholic who is the new fulltime manager of the Mass Rally for Christ, an ecumenical charismatic organization (see April 9 issue, page 38).

The Mass Rally has held several large public charismatic meetings this year, has opened an office to assist the charismatic prayer groups sprouting in French Canada, and will soon sponsor a four-day appearance of faith-healing evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman in Montreal.

Catholic charismatic priest Jean-Paul Regimbal asserts the Mass Rally movement is one “of the many signs of the time given to the world as a warning that, indeed, the Kingdom of God is close at hand, and that the glorious return—the Second Coming of Jesus Christ as Lord of Lords and King of Kings—is imminent.”

LESLIE K. TARR

The Bolting Bishops

A virtual uprising by the Ukrainian rite highlighted closing sessions of the Synod of Bishops at the Vatican this month. Cardinal Josyf Slipyj touched off the revolt with a stinging rebuke of the Vatican’s rapprochement with Communism. Speaking in the presence of Pope Paul, the 79-year-old exiled archbishop of Lviv accused the Vatican of ignoring persecution of Ukrainians while interceding for Latin Catholics.

“Because of diplomatic negotiations,” he said, “the Ukrainian Catholics who have suffered so much … are pushed aside as inconvenient witnesses of past evils.”

Slipyj subsequently called together fifteen other Ukrainian bishops in what they described as a synod of their own. The move was in defiance of the Vatican, which has said that Ukrainians cannot convene their own synod as other Eastern rite churches do because they do not have a definite geographical area. Ukrainian Catholic leaders contend that Vatican II guaranteed them the privilege of managing their own affairs without severing ties with Rome. They asked the Pope’s blessing on the new Ukrainian synod, which met at the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus near the Colosseum in Rome.

Meanwhile at the Vatican the Synod of Bishops marked the finale of the month-long meeting with a series of votes on a wide range of issues. The principle of celibacy for priests was reaffirmed but the bishops seemed to be leaving the door open for more ordinations of married men in special situations. In any case, the prelates’ decisions are not binding on the Pope.

The synod may be best remembered for the speech by Slipyj. He ignored the five-minute time limit imposed on all speakers and went on for twelve minutes without interruption. One report said the Pope listened without giving any visible reaction.

“The Ukrainian Catholics who gave mountains of bodies and shed rivers of blood for the Catholic faith and for the Apostolic See are still undergoing very serious persecution,” the cardinal declared. “And what is worse, nobody is defending them.”

He further charged that “people are compelled to go back to the catacombs to celebrate the liturgy. Thousands of priests and faithful have been imprisoned or have been deported, and now church diplomacy looks on Ukrainian Catholics as a nuisance.”

Slipyj is the recognized senior bishop among Ukrainian Catholics although the Vatican has not given him the status of a patriarch. He spent eighteen years in Soviet prison camps after the Ukrainian Catholic Church was forced into the Russian Orthodox Church by the Kremlin. He was released in 1963 and has since lived quietly in Rome. His synod speech was the first he has spoken out publicly.

Presently the Ukrainian Catholic Church is outlawed in Ukraine, where it is estimated there are six million followers. Another million or two Ukrainian Catholics are scattered throughout the world.

Texas Togetherness

Nearly 42,000 black, brown, and white Baptists representing six of the eight Texas Baptist conventions got together in Houston’s Astrodome last month in a meeting hailed by leaders as the biggest in Baptist history.

Black soloist Myrtle Hall and an 8,000-voice choir sang, astronaut James Irwin gave his testimony, and three prominent preachers thumped home the Gospel. They were Dr. Caesar Clark, pastor of the black Good Street Baptist Church in Dallas and editor of the National Baptist Voice; Dr. Rudy Hernandez, pastor of the First Mexican Baptist Church of Corpus Christi; and Dr. Kenneth Chafin, evangelism head of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Hours earlier, 12,000 youths—many of them longhaired Jesus people—piled into the nearby Astrohall for a music-heavy Jesus rally. More than 1,500 decided to join the Jesus ranks in response to an invitation by youth evangelist Richard Hogue, 25. No stranger to many of those assembled, Hogue last spring led nearly 3,000 to Christ in a months-long crusade at Houston’s First Baptist Church (see March 12 issue, page 30).

The Texas-sized experiment in togetherness was the dreamchild of Dr. Jimmy Allen, pastor of First Baptist Church in San Antonio and president of the (Southern) Baptist General Convention of Texas. He conceived the idea two years ago and met monthly thereafter with the presidents of the Mexican and four black Baptist groups to midwife it into existence. Only two Texas Baptist bodies—black and white separatists—refused to cooperate. All six groups convened their annual conventions simultaneously in different halls before and after the giant love-in.

At the Baptist General Convention meeting leaders clashed with small-town and rural messengers (delegates), mostly pastors, on the issue of separation of church and state and emerged from the ruckus defeated. Delegates voted 1,466 to 724 to reject a request to allow Baptist hospitals to receive federal loans and grants. Immediately, Houston’s Memorial Baptist Hospital system and the University of Corpus Christi won release from the Baptist fold to go their own way, and officials predict other institutions will soon follow.

W. A. Criswell of Dallas, former SBC president, warned vainly that Texas Baptists would become a “dying sect” if their institutions are lost through lack of support.

In other action the convention voted to oppose the so-called prayer amendment to the Constitution, calling it “a version of state-sponsored religion.”

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Religion In Transit

A boiler exploded during a Sunday-school session last month at First Baptist Church of Marietta, Ohio, killing the high-school teacher and four of his pupils, and injuring fourteen others.

Methodists will be tapped for $400 million for support of higher education in a campaign slated to begin in 1973.

Twenty Protestant and ten Catholic parishes in New York City have each agreed to “adopt” a cellblock of a Brooklyn prison housing 1,500 inmates. Church members will help prisoners with personal problems and assist them in obtaining counseling, therapy, jobs, and personal necessities.

Citing the “lack of gospel orientation” in a Sunday-school course entitled “The Journey to Freedom,” Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod president J. A. O. Preus said it is being “completely revised” to purge its use of the documentary theory of Genesis authorship and the dual authorship of Isaiah. Synod officials pledged a doctrinal review of all other materials published so far.

The Southern Baptist Sunday School Board under pressure junked 140,000 copies of a new quarterly containing a photo-essay that “could have been construed as improper promotion of integration in churches,” officials said.

The 30 millionth copy of Good News for Modern Man, the American Bible Society’s New Testament in Today’s English Version, was distributed last month. Elsewhere, author Kenneth Taylor autographed copies of his paraphrase, The Living Bible, for the cast of “Godspell,” the off-Broadway hit.

A New York City councilman says he will call for the ouster of the city’s Board of Education if it does not refute the proposals of board president Isaiah E. Robinson, who says that “if astrology is correct behavioral problems in class are caused by a conflict in birth signs between pupils or between teacher and pupils.” Robinson wants educators to use astrology along with “every art and science” to get to know pupils better.

Dr. Jack Hyles, pastor of the 15,000-member First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, broke ground this month for his new Hyles-Anderson Bible College, to open next fall. Dr. Robert J. Billings, principal of the church’s high school, has been named president.

In response to a 1971 General Assembly mandate the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern) is tooling up for evangelism. Executive secretary John F. Anderson has been relieved of all other administrative duties and assigned to spearhead an evangelistic drive. Extra money has been budgeted.

Personalia

Deciding “the will of God,” a blindfolded Egyptian boy pulled one of three assembly-chosen names from a box and thus made a former army officer, Bishop Shenuda, 48, the “117th successor to Saint Mark” as patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church and pope of Alexandria.

Jesus people showed up at a Berkeley concert by folksinger Joan Baez Harriswith “Dear Joan” letter-tracts. Mrs. Harris said that she didn’t dig their “mail” and that if Jesus were here “he’d be organizing” for the Revolution. But after singing the words “Jesus washed my sins away” in “O Happy Day,” she injected: “I wish it were that easy.”

Supreme Court nominee Leslie F. Powell, 64, a former president of the American Bar Association, is a Richmond, Virginia, Presbyterian. And Assistant Attorney General William H. Rehnquist 47, another nominee, is a member of a Lutheran (LCA) church in Bethesda, Maryland. “There are no more regular members in the congregation than the Rehnquists,” said their pastor.

Dan Piatt, a twenty-year veteran member of the Billy Graham team, is now president of the new association for the Final Advance of Scripture Translation (FAST), formed to help translate the Bible into the 2,000 language groups still without Scripture.

National Association of Evangelicals general director Clyde W. Taylor was elected international secretary of the World Evangelical Fellowship at a recent meeting in Belgium.

Vanderbilt University Divinity School professor John R. Killinger, a Southern Baptist, has been named to an eleven-member World Council of Churches study team to investigate the meaning of salvation.

A South African judge found Gonville A. ffrench-Beytagh, Anglican dean of Johannesburg, guilty of complicity in “terroristic activities” and sentenced him to five years in prison. He had pleaded innocent to charges that included plotting to overthrow the white government of South Africa (see September 24 issue, page 47).

The new presidents of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature are Robert Michaelson (University of California at Santa Barbara) and Walter Harrelson (Vanderbilt), respectively. More than 1,500 college and seminary professors attended the joint conventions of the two groups last month in Atlanta.

World Scene

Evangelist Billy Graham may—or may not—hold a crusade in Rome’s 15,000-seat sports palace in 1973. About 150 Italian evangelical churches have invited him, provided he “does not have contacts with the Pope or other representatives of the Catholic hierarchy before, during, or after his addresses.” But Graham, who says he will decide in a month or so, says if he comes it will be with “no strings” attached.

Five thousand families in Quang Ngai province of Viet Nam are being helped by the World Relief Commission of the National Association of Evangelicals following severe devastation by Typhoon Hester. Bread supplied by WRC was for a time the only food available, according to a WRC official.

Radio Ceylon has removed a 14-year-old restriction on evangelical broadcasting, and the Back to the Bible Broadcast was first in line to sign a contract.

Both the South Vietnamese and United States governments have officially designated the Christian and Missionary Alliance as a volunteer relief agency in South Viet Nam. Spokesmen for the CMA, which founded the Vietnamese Protestant church, say official status will expand relief work.

The 1.2-million-member Methodist Church of South Africa is integrated and is on record opposing apartheid, but it severed all links with the national University Christian Movement, which had become a controversial all-black student organization. Backers of the move argued that the UCM lacked bi-racial composition. Older black churchmen reacted bitterly, were soothed somewhat when conference delegates decreed that yearly salary increases for blacks will be raised four times as much as those of whites to reach parity.

Baptists—235 of them from twenty-two churches in Texas, New Mexico, and Tennessee—held a week-long evangelism crusade in seventeen Spanish cities at the invitation of Spanish Baptist churches. Crusade director W. H. Jackson of Abilene, Texas, reported 300 conversions, including a nun who wants to train in the United States and return to Spain as a Baptist missionary.

Deaths

RICHARD L. EVANS, 65, apostle of the Mormon church and soothing “voice” of the weekly Mormon Tabernacle Choir radio broadcast since 1930; in Salt Lake City, of neurological complications from pneumonia.

WILLIAM H. LEHMANN, 102, the oldest pastor of the American Lutheran Church; in Minneapolis.

ISABELO DE LOS REYES, supreme bishop of the 2.5-million-member Philippine Independent Church (Anglican); in Manila.

NEWS

A 20-foot chart displayed on a decorative brick wall greeted the Key 73 Central Committee as it convened in a motel near the St. Louis airport last month. The chart depicted the program calendar for the first joint evangelistic effort ever undertaken by North America’s leading churches. Its subsequent adoption in principle by a unanimous vote of the committee cleared a major hurdle.

“Calling Our Continent to Christ” is the theme of Key 73. The theme Scripture verse is Hebrews 13:8 (“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today and forever”).

Debut of the multi-colored chart, jokingly compared to a dispensational diagram, was preceded by four years of planning and discussion. The 16-member Key 73 Executive Committee, responsible for programming, recommended it to the Central Committee.

Key 73, a year-long effort slated for 1973, includes most of North America’s leading communions (over 100 denominations and evangelistic agencies). Latest to join are the United Church of Canada and the Church of the Brethren. Each group has one representative on the Central Committee.

Although the program calendar lists some special cooperative events and allots times for simultaneous activities, no participant is bound to them. Dr. Theodore A. Raedeke, executive director of Key 73, reminded the Central Committee that “one of the outstanding features of this effort is that it enables all Christian denominations and groups to participate without violating or compromising their doctrinal position or practice.” Every denomination, he emphasized, “is charged with developing its own program or thrust.”

One new participant at the two-day St. Louis meeting commented that he was glad to see that the size of the participating groups did not seem to be determining the extent of their influence. He said he felt that “the Holy Spirit may be moving through the smaller denominations.”

A number of religious organizations are building their 1973 programs to take advantage of Key 73 and to contribute to its success. The American Bible Society has made generous offers of Scripture portions for use as evangelistic tools. Such publications as the Upper Room, the world’s most widely used devotional guide, plan to relate the content of 1973 issues to Key 73.

Newly named to fill vacancies on the Key 73 Executive Committee were Campus Crusade president William Bright and the Reverend John Anderson of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. Both groups have been active in Key 73 negotiations from the outset.

The effort gets its name from the Key Bridge consultations which led up to it. The consultations in turn were so identified because they met initially at a motel near the Francis Scott Key Bridge. The bridge spans the Potomac River between Washington, D. C., and Arlington, Virginia.

An editorial, “Somehow, Let’s Get Together,” which appeared in the June 9, 1967, issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, provided the stimulus for the consultations. Eventually a set of by-laws was adopted that established a small secretariat with an office in St. Louis.

Biggest debate at last month’s meeting focused upon financing; more than half the participating groups have yet to contribute (the Central Committee had decided last year against appealing for individual contributions for the time being). Highlighting the debate were cool but firm floor exchanges between Dr. Joseph Yeakel, head of evangelism for United Methodism, and Finance Committee chairman John Brown of the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ. The Central Committee decided to require financial participation of groups listed in an active category but not to condition membership upon a specified amount.

The Accc: New Leaders, New Goals

The American Council of Christian Churches is beginning its thirty-first year with a new general secretary and a new president: Raymond F. Hamilton, pastor of Temple Baptist (GARB) Church in Portsmouth, Ohio, replaced outgoing president J. Philip Clark of Calvary Independent Presbyterian Church, Glendale, California; and D. Donald L. Gorham, who has been the ACCC southern representative since 1966, assumed the executive role of John Millheim, who will teach theology and ecumenism at the Baptist Bible College (GARB) in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.

Clark—who had led the fundamentalist organization said to represent 750,000 members for three years—and Millheim will remain on the ACCC’s Executive Committee. The new officers were named at the thirtieth anniversary convention of the ACCC, held in St. Louis October 27–29. Sixty-eight voting delegates were registered. There were no blacks.

This convention seemed tame compared to the tumultuous affairs of the past several years. The council’s founder and chief attention-getter, Dr. Carl McIntire, was not present. Although he had threatened to show up and demand “retribution” for injustices allegedly laid on him in Pasadena (see November 20, 1970, issue, page 44), the radio warrior instead was in the nation’s capital demonstrating against President Nixon’s planned trip to mainland China and the expulsion of Nationalist China from the United Nations.

The week before, McIntire was again elected moderator of the Bible Presbyterian Synod (with one negative vote), and ten delegates were to be sent from that body to the St. Louis ACCC meeting, despite the fact that the ACCC expelled the Bible Presbyterians at Pasadena.

McIntire, presenting his ambitious Temple-building plan (see October 8 issue, page 56) to the BP Synod, had glad-hand Maryland state comptroller Louis L. Goldstein in tow, extolling the virtues of the “great ecumenical venture” designed to bring together, Jews, Catholics, and Protestants. Describing the Bible Presbyterians’ response to that disclosure, one observer declared: “There was unanimous silence.”

And less than a week before the ACCC meeting, McIntire led his fourth Washington, D. C., March for Victory in Viet Nam. It rained on his parade—again. The response was almost as dismal as the weather: liberal estimates were that 2,500 conservative supporters joined the two-hour rally on the Capitol grounds.

And in still another McIntire machination, the radio preacher claimed in his Christian Beacon that the Free Chinese ping-pong team he had brought to the United States from Taiwan had caused Red premier Chou En-lai not to send the Red Chinese team although that team had already accepted an invitation to tour the United States.

McIntire cited as evidence for the foiling of the Red team a story that appeared in the Sing Tao Daily News of Singapore on October 9. Chou, according to the article, reportedly told sixty Americans in a news conference that China “is deeply upset about it” (the ping-pong coup).

The ACCC, which mustered only about seventy persons for its national sessions in St. Louis after the first night (when perhaps 600 saw the new Bob Jones University film Flame in the Wind), differs little from McIntire’s position regarding the United States and Red China. In a blistering resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of the United States from the U. N. and the removal of U. N. headquarters from American soil, the council denounced the “tragic, unjust, and immoral action of the U. N. … in accepting Red China and expelling Nationalist China.…”

A companion resolution called for President Nixon to cancel his trip to mainland China. Other resolutions condemned abortion on demand, and favored the proposed Constitutional amendment to allow voluntary prayer in the public schools (adding that Bible reading should also be permitted).

Delegates voted in favor of capital punishment, saying that the death penalty “is taught in the Bible and that God Himself instituted this form of justice.” Other resolutions scored an experimental social-science course for elementary schools (“Man—A Course of Study”) for its “humanism and naturalism,” and roundly denounced the ecumenical movement for deepening apostasy and the “New Evangelical movement (National Association of Evangelicals, Evangelism-in-Depth, Key 73, Campus Crusade) as … compromising groups” and “erring brethren.”¹The ACCC believes that Scripture teaches a trinity of separation: “from apostates and false teachers (2 Cor. 6:14, 18), from brethren who walk disorderly (2 Thess. 3:14, 15), and from the world (1 John 2:15–17). We do not share the belief of some that there are degrees of separation.” All resolutions were adopted unanimously after minimal debate.

The ACCC accepted a new body into its membership: Asbury Bible Churches, a fellowship beginning with six congregations last month. (Gorham, 35, is vice-chairman.) The following day ACCC-affiliated groups organized the American Association of Bible-believing Methodists, composed of the Fundamental Methodist Church, the Evangelical Methodist Church (not to be confused with a larger group with the same name in the NAE), Asbury Bible Churches, Bible Protestant Church, the Francis Asbury Society of Ministers, and independent Methodist churches.

While the ACCC voting membership is composed of eleven associations of churches, the largest by far of which is the GARBC with 130,000 members, Gorham said in an interview that the council will endeavor to put more emphasis on “service to individual Bible-believing churches” in the 1970s, and less emphasis on denominations.

Other goals involve more vital linkage to laymen, youth, and “Bible-believing, separated” Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Negroes. Judging from the small attendance and apparent lack of solid support at St. Louis, the ACCC brass have a decade of work cut out for themselves.

RUSSELL CHANDLER

Disciples Pick Black

A black minister, the first of his race, was elected moderator of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Louisville last month. Dr. Walter D. Bingham will head the 1.5 million-member denomination, formed 170 years ago in Kentucky during slavery days, until 1973. The predominantly white church (it has about 50,000 blacks) is America’s largest native denomination.

Bingham, 50, was elected without opposition. He is pastor of Louisville’s Third Christian Church. “It’s both an honor and a challenge,” he told 6,000 delegates who stood to applaud his election at the biennial assembly.

In other elections, Mrs. H. H. Wilkes of North Hollywood, California, became the first woman to be a vice-moderator of the denomination.

During the early hours of the main convention, the delegates whisked through nineteen church reports in record time, and a crowd of 7,000 was served Communion in the pews in a mere five minutes.

SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT

“Hello there! Welcome to Trader Eli’s, largest chariot dealer in Jerusalem! My name is Sam. Can I help you?”

“I’m just looking right now, but I’m interested in a chariot for a friend.”

“I understand perfectly. Just step right over here and let me show you this little beauty. Here’s a small, easy-handling model with a single-tree for one horsepower. Notice the white sidewalls and the deluxe interior with leopardskin upholstery. The two-tone exterior is available in all those wild colors the ladies really go for.”

“It’s not for a lady friend.”

“Something for a man friend, eh? Well, just step over here and let me show you this racy sports model. Notice how low slung this baby is. Sits right on the ground. And the sleek styling makes it look like it’s doing 100 just sitting still.

“Standard equipment on this job includes brass wire wheels, Acacia-wood dashboard and racing stripe. It also comes with a double-tree for a full two horsepower.

“Since it’s getting near the end of the model year I’ll make you a special deal on this one. Our sales manager’s on vacation so I’ll just slip this one through at 100 denarii over our cost.”

“Actually, I had in mind something with a bit more dignity. We need something to be used in a sort of political parade, so it needs to be a chariot that says prestige and authority.”

“I can see you’re a man of real judgment about chariots. We have exactly the model you need! Just come over here and take a look—the chariot all Judea wants.

“Here’s our luxury model. The emperor himself uses one of these—custom-made, of course. This one is handcrafted.

“Take a look at the interior with cedar-of-Lebanon panels inlaid with ivory. For a touch of luxury there’s a built-in hourglass. The floorboard is covered with the finest goat’s hair carpet. The rail is of the purest bronze.

“Notice the deep purple finish which suggests royalty and the trim which is of pure gold of Ophir. The deluxe wheel covers complete the look of elegance. Can I write this one up for you?”

“Not yet, I need to check with my friend. But I must confess I’m impressed. How about the price?”

“Well, a chariot like this does cost a little more, but then it retains more of its value over the years. You’d never regret making the extra investment for a vehicle like this. Besides, think of it like this: the chariot industry is the bedrock of our economy, so you’re not only doing yourself a favor in buying one of these—you’re doing the empire a favor. As chariots go so goes the nation.

“Why don’t you think about this one and check with your friend? Here’s my card if you decide to take this one. And your name is?”

“Iscariot.”

“I must say, Mr. Iscariot, your friend is mighty lucky to have a man of your discriminating judgment looking out for him.”

OCTOBER 8 SPECIALS

Among the good things in your issue of October 8, the editorial “The Prayer Amendment” and the review, “Bernstein’s ‘Mass’: No Word From the Lord,” deserve special comment. The discussion of the prayer amendment is discerning and the position adopted is the right one. Seven years ago CHRISTIANITY TODAY (June 19, 1964) carried a lead editorial opposing the Becker amendment and it is encouraging that it continues to point out the dangers of well-meaning but ill-advised changes in the Constitution.

Miss Forbes’s sensitive and thoughtful critique of the Bernstein Mass merits high praise. It gives the reader a vivid account of the content of the Mass and combines this with penetrating comment on the musical, theatrical, and spiritual implications of the composition. It’s a first-rate review.

Arlington, Va.

CAPTIVATED, BUT CONFUSED

I was captivated by your timely [article], “A Truce Proposal for the Tongues Controversy” (Oct. 8). However, when I spotchecked the reference to John Wesley’s Journal entry I found that [it] had discontinued with his passing in 1791. Upon checking the same date in 1759 I found the reference I assume Pinnock and Osborne are referring to. I’m not convinced that the physical and verbal manifestations that Mr. Wesley describes are “tongues” and he does not identify them as such. I’m convinced that the principle that Wesley suggests applies to the “tongues” controversy, however, and hope that the rest of the scholarship of this article is more accurate as I would like to use it in my preaching ministry. Keep up the good work.

Labish Center Community Church

Salem, Ore.

We would like to thank [Mr. Draper] for pointing out an unfortunate typing error in our manuscript. The actual date upon John Wesley’s journal entry is November 25, 1759 (not 1795). Due to the large number of inquiries regarding this, we would like to quote and comment upon this. The entry reads in part:

The danger was, to regard extraordinary circ*mstances too much, such as outcries, convulsions, visions, trances; as if these were essential to the inward work, so that it could not go on without them. Perhaps the danger is, to regard them too little, to condemn them altogether; to imagine they had nothing of God in them, and were an hindrance to his work [Works, II, 519].

Though tongues is not specifically mentioned in this passage, it is implied and undoubtedly included by Mr. Wesley, as is indicated from a letter to “The Reverend Dr. Conyers Middleton” on January 4, 1748–9 (Works, X, 54–6). In this letter he argued exactly as our article against those who assert there was no glossolalia after the apostolic age. He concludes (X, 55), “Many may have spoken with new tongues, of whom this is not recorded …: Nay, it is not only possible that it may be so, but it is absolutely certain that it is so.” He finishes by attesting to its then current practice. Thank you for allowing us to clarify a quite important point.

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

Deerfield, Ill.

STOOP TO TWIST

The article, “Black Origins of the Pentecostal Movement” (Oct. 8) by James S. Tinney represents a clear and deliberate effort on the author’s part to build up a black theology and faith as stated in his opening paragraph.

It is regrettable that Tinney would stoop to ignoring and twisting facts in order to try to teach a black doctrine. The truth of the matter about the baptism with the Holy Spirit as witnessed by glossolalia or speaking in tongues is stated in Acts 2:38–39, “For the promise is unto you and your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” There is no hint in the New Testament Scripture that this promise should be racially slanted.

Tinney does a great disservice to God and to his Spirit by calling the baptism of the Spirit an “authentic black faith.” Historically tongues can be traced through history from Pentecost until this present day. There is absolutely no basis for Tinney to say that the Azusa Street revival is an authentic black faith.

State Overseer of Oregon

Church of God of Prophecy

Salem, Oreg.

While it is true that there was significant black participation in the origins of Pentecostalism in the United States, it is a mistake to characterize the movement as a “black faith” or as distinctively African and Afro-American. Although black Pentecostals have often made this point, the overwhelming evidence suggests that the distinctive doctrine of the movement, i.e., that glossolalia constitutes the initial evidence of the Holy Spirit baptism, was formulated by a white man, Charles Fox Parham in his Bible college in Topeka, Kansas, in 1901. It was in Houston in 1905 that Seymour learned of the Pentecostal doctrine from Parham, his “father in the Gospel.” Rather than Pentecostalism being derived from blacks, the opposite is actually true. Seymour’s role as well as that of the Azusa Street Mission was in popularizing the doctrine rather than originating it.

A proper word to describe the origins of Pentecostalism would be “interracial.” Almost from the beginning, the Azusa Street revival had white participants such as Frank Bartleman and Florence Crawford.… The movement was … interracial, the cry at Azusa being, “the color-line has been washed away by the Blood.”

The enthusiastic mode of worship, including glossolalia, had been a pattern of white worship for over a century before Azusa Street. The “great awakenings” of pre-Revolutionary Virginia and Massachusetts, the Cane Ridge revivals of 1800–1801, and the great nineteenth-century camp meetings under both Methodist and Holiness auspices had produced the whole range of emotional demonstrations common to present-day Pentecostalism from the “jerks” to glossolalia. Pentecostals feel that the universality of their faith is seen in the fact that its beginnings and development cannot be ascribed to any one race, nation, or ethnic group.

Secretary

Society for Pentecostal Studies

Emmanuel College

Franklin Springs, Ga.

NO LONGER SHOULDER TO SHOULDER

It seems to me that there is one very glaring defect in L. Nelson Bell’s thinking expressed in his article “On Separation” (A Layman and His Faith, Oct. 8).

Dr. Bell cites the example of the Sunday-school teachers who sought to use well known evangelical literature in the classes they teach. His advice to them—to show their pastor and their district superintendent the literature they wanted to use and endeavor to obtain their consent—in other words, to do their best to try to remedy the situation—was sound advice. But he then advised them that if they could not obtain their consent, he would take the children elsewhere. Dr. Bell then goes on to say, “But at the adult level my own reaction would be to stay in and witness with love and conviction, praying that the Holy Spirit will use this witness to help those who need to be changed.”

Is not Dr. Bell overlooking the vital and important fact that the Church of tomorrow will be composed of the young people of today? Most adults who have been solidly grounded in the faith could remain in a church which has abandoned the faith without having their own faith shaken. But do we adults not have a responsibility to do everything in our power to insure that our boys and girls are likewise grounded in this faith?

When the official literature of the Church differs radically from the Confession of Faith and lessens respect for the Bible as God’s infallible Word—when the church sponsors publications which advocate permissiveness in sex and the use of drugs—when youth conferences encourage our children and grandchildren to sing blasphemous songs—when an official board of the church is actually maintaining a fund to pay for abortions in defiance of God’s commandment “thou shalt not kill”—when radical leaders sponsor liquor parties for youth delegates to our General Assembly, have we not reached the point where we should follow Dr. Bell’s advice to the Sunday-school teachers and “take our children elsewhere”?

The executive committees of the four conservative organizations which have struggled for many years to reverse the radical trends in the Presbyterian Church U. S. met this summer and decided that the time has come to start preparing now for a continuing church which will be faithful to God’s Word, loyal to historic Presbyterian doctrine and polity, and obedient to the Great Commission. The vote to take this action was 25 to 1 with Dr. Bell casting the only dissenting vote.

When conservative leaders who have stood shoulder to shoulder with Dr. Bell over the years decide by such an overwhelming vote that they can no longer condone the continued erosion of Presbyterian doctrine and polity which has been taking place in our church, Dr. Bell’s inference that we are assuming “a self-righteous attitude,” “wrapping around ourselves the robes of personal piety” and “giving up rather than standing up for the truth” could, to say the least, well have been left unsaid.

President

Concerned Presbyterians, Inc.

Miami, Fla.

Just as the pulse and respiration are signs of vitality in the human body, so missionary outreach is a primary sign of a denomination’s spiritual health. Judging from this, a number of the mainline churches are currently suffering from a deep malaise. At a time when the burgeoning world population calls for more and more missionaries, these churches are retreating and retrenching.

Here are comparative missionary statistics for six large denominations. The 1958 totals are taken from the Occasional Bulletin of the Missionary Research Library of New York, whose information was gathered by Frank W. Price and Clara E. Orr. The 1971 figures were secured from the denominations’ headquarters or official publications.

That all these denominations have cut back on their overseas missionary forces would be less significant if the decline reflected a trend among all missionary agencies. But it does not. In 1958 the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (EFMA), missionary arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, had 4,688 missionaries under its banner, according to data from the Missionary Research Library. As of January, 1971, the number had increased to 7,479, exclusive of home staff personnel. This was an increase of about 60 per cent during a time when the six mainline denominations were cutting back by approximately one-third. The six largest missionary agencies in the EFMA grew by 26 per cent, so that the largest percentage of growth was among the smaller agencies.

Most of the larger nondenominational missions operate within the framework of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA). Two of the six largest IFMA agencies showed a decline, but the six largest together showed an increase of 30 percent. For all the IFMA boards together, the 1958 figure was 5,902, the 1971 figure 6,164. The agency that had the greatest increase was Wycliffe Bible Translators, affiliated with the IFMA in 1958 but now non-affiliated. From 705 staff members in 1958 (having started from zero in 1935) Wycliffe grew to 1,762 in 1970, according to the latest North America Protestant Ministries Overseas Directory (available from MARC, Monrovia, California 91016; $7.50 hardback, $4.50 paperback). The unaligned Southern Baptist Convention overseas task force grew from 1,186 in 1958 to 2,494 in 1971.

In an address to fifty missionaries on furlough recently, Dr. David M. Stowe, top mission executive for the United Church Board for World Ministries, noted a 10 per cent decrease in missionary personnel of major U. S. Protestant denominations in the last three years. “Meanwhile, the fundamentalists and pentecostals increased their numbers at about the same rate as the mainline churches’ decrease.” Dr. Stowe added, “Worldwide inflation and the deterioration of American economic power whittle away at the buying power of our mission dollar.… We shall have to rediscover the Christian graces of poverty and sacrifice.”

At approximately the same time, COEMAR, missionary arm of the United Presbyterian Church U.S.A., said that its budget will drop in 1972 to $13.6 million from the 1971 figure of $14.7 million. And overseas personnel will be reduced by 220 over the next two years—100 through retirement or resignation, and 120 by relocation in other work, most likely in the United States.

The missionary decline in these old, mainline denominations was preceded by a change of orientation in the ecclesiastical hierarchies. These were the churches that began to turn away from evangelism and personal soul-winning as they came to envision the mission of the church to be changing the world’s social and economic structures. At the same time these denominations were deeply infiltrated by those who no longer believed in the uniqueness of Christianity and bowed to syncretism (as, for example, Colin Williams, dean of Yale Divinity School, who said that what the Buddhist believes in his situation is as good for him as what he himself—Williams—believes in his own situation). In addition, the mainline churches have been invaded by a neo-universalism. According to this view, all men are already in Christ; they need only to be informed of their salvation.

Syncretism and universalism are deadly foes of missionary outreach, and also of spiritual vitality. It doesn’t take lay people long to lose their enthusiasm and cut their financial support for ministries that their leaders no longer believe in. The future for the overseas missionary ministry of some of the mainline denominations is not bright. But does this mean there is no hope?

The past few years have seen a resurgence of evangelical concern inside and outside the mainline churches. In virtually every church with non-evangelical leadership, offsetting groups have arisen to challenge the status quo and to work to bring renewal to the denomination. In a transdenominational framework, Key 73 may be one of the brightest hopes for constructive change. Missionary retrenchment always signifies spiritual sloth. There will be no reversal of missionary decline without spiritual renewal. This is the first priority.

The China Vote

The demonstration on the floor of the United Nations that followed the vote to admit Communist China and to expel the Nationalist government on Formosa appeared to be more than partisan exuberance. It sent a chill through many watchers, not only because of what had been done but because of what it may have presaged.

The United Nations being what it is, there would seem to be no valid reason to exclude the People’s Republic of China. But the United Nations cannot justify admitting Communist China on its own terms: the expulsion of the regime of Chiang Kai-shek.

The Nationalist government on Formosa was one of the original signatories of the United Nations Charter. It has stood by its commitments to that organization as loyally as virtually any other country. It had every right to continued membership.

One of the ironies of the ouster was that many countries that supported the move had themselves been voted into the organization with Taiwan’s help.

Many of the nations in the U. N. are very small; some have a population of no more than 300,000. This creates a major problem, for the one-nation, one-vote principle gives disproportionate power to little countries.

Some nations may have voted for the ouster in order to show contempt for the United States and to curry favor with the People’s Republic of China. Contempt is hardly a worthy motive, and any hopes centered on Peking may be in for disillusionment.

Many more people are beginning to wonder whether America in her desire to promote international cooperation has not introduced a Trojan horse. The balance of power within the United Nations could now swing to the Communist bloc. That demonstration on the floor when the vote was announced may have had more significance than we should like to think.

We will be willfully blind if we ignore the fact that Communism is still grimly determined to dominate the world. The vote against two Chinas was a political victory for Communism. But the Communists also continue to work through aggression, infiltration, and subversion.

The Christian can take comfort in the knowledge that God is the Lord of history and that he will have the last say. But in the meantime we need to face up to the fact that the Church of Jesus Christ has been driven completely underground in the People’s Republic of China and that in the process tens of thousands of Christians sealed their faith with their blood.

On the other hand, no nation in the world has been more open to Christian missions than the Nationalist government on Formosa. The Christian Church has flourished in that country, and many within the government are active Christians.

Religious freedom is the most important of all freedoms. Where Communists are in power, they shamelessly violate this right even while they speak of “religious freedom.” Some people in the Western nations, even though they themselves have little or no interest in religion of any kind, should take a searching look at past history and at present conditions in the world. Although religious freedom should be the inalienable right of every person, many in the Soviet Union, mainland China, and elsewhere have been deprived of this right.

The United Nations has voted, but God will yet be heard from.

The Pilgrimage Of Eugenia Price

It has been a long ten years for Eugenia Price and the Gould family of St. Simons Island. From the shallow beginning of The Beloved Invader to the not-quite-so-shallow finish of Lighthouse, Miss Price has struggled to grow as a novelist. Unfortunately, the characters of the final novel in her trilogy are as one-dimensional and predictable as in her first, still too reminiscent of Grace Livingstone Hill. But now she has a grasp of the art of description and dialogue, and that we are glad to see, for the modern Christian novelist is all too rare.

Lighthouse is rich in landscape detail and emotional portrayal that avoids melodrama as well as understatement. Miss Price vividly captures the sights and sounds of the Florida wilds and the Georgia coast. She writes simply and directly, with a flair for storytelling. The dialogue, though stilted in some places—the Negro dialect unnecessarily interrupts the story’s flow—reflects the fine narrative.

Some will condescendingly call this novel “escape” literature; others will feel it unworthy of the name of literature. But even one of this century’s best stories, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, has been accused of not being literature. One of the often overlooked fundamentals of good fiction is storytelling, and Lighthouse, despite some weaknesses, is a good story. If Miss Price hasn’t written “first-class fiction,” as Ann Paton hoped she would (see August 22, 1969, issue, page 28), Lighthouse is at least a strong step in that direction. May evangelicals welcome her latest work with a hearty encouraging “Write on!”

The Debut Of Jesus

Jesus people have been picketing the Mark Hellinger Theater in Manhattan, protesting that Broadway’s Superstar is not even a reasonable facsimile of the Christ of the Bible. They have a point. The Broadway hero is not the Saviour who is turning young people off drugs today. But Superstar breaks a long period of cultural silence about the name of Jesus, and the sequel could be a revival of revealed religion.

The Therapy Of Thanksgiving

God expects gratitude. That’s reason enough to practice it. But if one needs more incentive, he might well think of the benefits of thanksgiving. Expressions of gratitude take the focus from ourselves, and contribute to the humbling most of us need.

Thanksgiving forces us to take better stock of our situations. The inventory invariably obliges us to conclude that we are better off than we thought we were.

A look into history suggests that many of the people known for thankful spirits were those who, on a worldly scale, had the least to be thankful for, and vice versa. Jesus himself was the personification of this principle when he gave thanks for the cup. Here was the symbol of the supreme penalty he was about to endure; yet he stated his gratitude for it.

Counting Corpses In Britain

An old controversy flared up again in England with the killing of a police superintendent at about the same time that a young thug pumped nine bullets into another of Britain’s unarmed policemen. The 92,000-member Police Federation charged that the Home Office has “out of sheer panic” concealed the fact that crimes of violence have doubled since capital punishment ended in 1965.

Since 1957 a new defense to a murder charge is “diminished responsibility,” which brings a sentence for manslaughter instead of murder—and reduces the murder tally. The government denies any increase in “willful, premeditated murder.” Maybe so, retorts a police spokesman, “but the number of bodies lying around has increased tremendously.”

Abolitionists see their cause as befitting an enlightened society. The corpse count in Britain and elsewhere suggests that in respect for human life we may be losing rather than gaining sophistication.

Thank God, This Is The Day

This day is supremely important. It is the only day we have right now, for we can neither relive yesterday nor pre-live tomorrow. Yet we can be robbed of today. It is so easy to dwell in the past, rummaging through good memories, mulling over bad ones. And we are prone to project our joys, opportunities, even our living into the future—often at, say, $10 down and $10 a month. We resemble those quoted in Isaiah 56:12: “Tomorrow shall be as this day, [only] much more abundant.” Today thus often becomes something to be endured rather than enjoyed, overlooked rather than overseen. We need the psalmist’s attitude: “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Ps. 118:24).

This is the day to live. Jesus said he came that we might have life abundantly—today. No longer need we pursue happiness. We can be happy or joyous as the Holy Spirit reproduces within us the dynamic qualities of the very life of Jesus Christ. Added together, the traits mentioned in Galatians 5:22, 23 amount to life. And we can have it today, if the Holy Spirit can have us today.

This is the day to be strong. “As thy days, so shall thy strength be” (Deut. 33:25) is a promise we can realize today. In a real sense Christ is our strength (Gal. 2:20; Phil. 4:13), providing stability through every day. Paul discovered this provision in a day of personal weakness, when he was at the end of his own resources. He learned by experience what Christ meant when he said, “My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).

This is the day to decide. We tend to keep putting off the important decisions until tomorrow. Joshua’s words echo still: “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.…” That is the decision that undergirds all others. In one familiar tale the author describes a strategy session in which devils discuss the best way to thwart Christ’s cause on earth. The winning idea: “Tell the people to decide tomorrow. Tomorrow will be soon enough.”

Tomorrow never comes. This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Today is the day for thanksgiving.