Page 6174 – Christianity Today (2024)

The conception of St. Nicholas was radically changed by the appearance of the poem, “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (“ ’Twas the night before Christmas”) in the Troy (New York) Sentinel in 1823. A commonly accepted story is that the poem, written the previous year, found its way into the newspaper without the knowledge or consent of the author, Dr. Clement Clarke Moore. This caused considerable embarrassment to him, since the poem was written only for his children. The public response was so enthusiastic, however, that he willingly included “A Visit from St. Nicholas” in a book of his poems published in 1844.

When one considers Dr. Moore’s reputation as a theologian, pastor, and professor, his feeling about the poem is understandable. He had to his credit, among other works, the first Hebrew and Greek lexicon published in the United States. A man of considerable wealth, he was the donor of the extensive grounds on which the General Theological Seminary in New York City was erected. He served there for nearly thirty years as professor, first of biblical learning, then of Oriental and Greek literature.

Dr. Moore had no way of knowing, when he wrote the words, that his little poem with its fresh view of St. Nicholas would go far beyond the walls of his house and change the whole American concept of the old saint, who had before been pictured as tall and thin, with a somewhat stringy beard.

In a sense it is correct to equate Santa Claus and St. Nicholas (in view of the Dutch corruption of the name). But, as the following lines show, a lot more than his name has undergone change.

When the saints go marching in,There is one whose impish grin,Belly-laugh and roguish wink,Face an un-ascetic pink

Set him off from all the rest;Make one wonder by what test He was canonized.

He’s a strange one in that crowd,Scarce with saintly mien endowed;Clothing smudged from head to foot,Stained with ash and chimney-soot,Tarnished crimson plush—How quaint Does this garb look on a saint!

Breaking reverential hush,Suddenly he makes a rush For his waiting sleigh and deer!(Once more it’s that time of year.)

With a wave and “Ho-ho-ho”He whistles for the deer to go Back to Earth’s environs.

Say, old saint with cherry nose (One shade brighter than your clothes),Stubby pipe twixt bow-shaped lips,Nicotine-stained fingertips,Wreathing you in halo’s stead:Anyone so overweight Seems less saint than profligate.

Sainthood speaks of those who knew,In their lives, how to subdue Desire and appetite.

How’d they ever canonize A fat old rogue with winking eyes?When your record was reviewed,I’m surprised you weren’t eschewed.

Who, before, had ever heard Of an elf-saint? How absurd!Isn’t it preposterous—An elf upon the roster as A member of that saintly throng!Somehow, you don’t quite belong.

Tell me: do you favor Earth With its blend of grief and mirth More than Paradise?Reader, surely you’ve surmised St. Nick has been Germanized,Anglicized,Americanized,modernized,publicized,commercialized,And, by some, now ostracized;Yet, by youngsters, idolized.

If in him there’s incongruity,Legend, myth, and superfluity With regard to Christmas Truth,Let me make it clear: forsooth,Mark my word, O dearest friend,That it’s our fault in the end.

This good saint of ancient vintage.Has been remade in our image.And we’ve acquiesced.

Christian social ethics is vitally concerned to bring its insights to bear upon two of the major problems confronting the American nation today, poverty and unemployment. In a day in which it seems inevitable that the full powers of government will be exerted directly upon these problems, it seems also desirable that some relevant principles of the Christian Revelation be pondered as solutions are considered.

Thanks to modern journalism, the pockets of poverty in our land are being exposed to the light of day. That one-sixth of our population is compelled to subsist upon a wage insufficient to provide adequate shelter and diet, much less a suitable education for the young, ought to lie heavily upon the hearts of us all.

Likewise, the problem of unemployment ought to disturb the Christian conscience. Unemployment statistics alone do not, of course, afford an adequate picture of our national situation. It would be helpful if we could know how many of the five million listed as unemployed are idle simply because no work is to be had. But even without this information, it is clear that a sizable segment of our population is genuinely unemployed.

As the nation looks for alleviation of these distressing situations, one wonders whether the architects of our programs are taking into consideration some relevant biblical principles. Too seldom, for instance, do we hear emphasis on work as “given” to men, and on the fundamental stewardship of time-work. Creative labor seems as deeply rooted in the nature of things as is marriage. The Fourth Commandment clearly designates the “six days” as times for work.

In stating that labor is to be complemented by stated rest, few would insist that the Commandment specifies a work-week of any particular length. But work is divinely ordained; and it is far from certain that mankind has outgrown the need for the Puritan attitude, which holds time and energy to be a stewardship. It strikes one as novel, to say the least, to read in a Christian journal (The Christian Century, April 8, 1964) an editorial that seems to approve in principle a policy in which the work-income pattern would be set aside, so that an “adequate” income would be guaranteed to all, whether or not they worked gainfully for it. It would, on the surface of things, seem better that space and printer’s ink be devoted to the exploration of possible creative alternatives to such paternalistic proposals as are made in Robert Theobold’s “The Cybernated Era” (Vital Speeches, August 1, 1964).

One wonders whether this solution to the problem of unemployment, in a society in which automation and cybernation are producing dislocations, may not in the long pull founder upon the rock of original sin, and lead to complete decadence.

Biblical perspectives upon society’s responsibility for providing opportunities for employment would need to be derived by inference from the general thrust of Scripture. The mandate to work implies the obligation of society to provide the context within which work can be secured. To what extent it is justifiable to create artificial employment when the normal forms become insufficient is an open question. But certainly the attack upon unemployment involves intimately such problems as high school drop-outs. Are those responsible for our public policy giving adequate thought to the possibility of reducing the incitations to, and the opportunities for, the sexual irregularities that so deeply underlie this problem?

We hear much of Appalachia today. Mountains isolate this region from the broad stream of American life, and any attempt to penetrate the region with roads and to introduce industrial development is all to the good. But in another sense, Appalachia is a state of mind, a passivity that all too easily accepts as inevitable “a span of mules to farm a worn-out ‘eighty’ and eleven hungry mouths to feed.” Until this kind of fatalistic outlook is replaced by one that makes the whole of life a stewardship under rational control, little permanent alleviation seems possible.

Another area that should be removed from the area of “playing politics” is our immigration policies. Much is being made these days of the supposed necessity for the repeal or radical modification of the Walter-McCarran Act, with its quota system as directive for our immigration. One wonders whether there is not room for some hard, dispassionate thinking along this line. Why should not immigration be regarded much as is the adoption of a child? In adoptive procedures, there is an advance determination of the kind of environment desired. To attain this, rather than to empty the orphanage, is the goal.

Now, one would think to read such articles as the editorial in the Christian Century (August 12, 1964) entitled “End Racist Immigration!” that what is proposed is a vast increase of the number of technically trained immigrants from the Afro-Asian nations. Actually, what is proposed for the near future is that unused quotas for northern Europeans be filled with those who now await visas from lands whose quotas are over-subscribed. In plain language, this means that there would be a use of unfilled quotas largely by southern Europeans with relatives in this country. To oppose this is, so the argument runs, to imply that southern Europeans are inferior to those from the north. Actually, it means rather that some nationalities are so conditioned by culture that they meet our national needs better than others. To modify the immigration procedures along lines demanded by some would mean, virtually, the importation of southern Europe’s Appalachia to our shores.

One welcomes the seriousness with which religious writers view these and related problems. One wonders, however, whether many of the accepted presuppositions of the attack upon poverty and unemployment are not unrealistic.

Pope Paul VI blazed an ecumenical trail from Rome to Bombay this month. Highlights of his four-day visit to the Indian metropolis included unprecedented discussions with representatives of non-Christian religions. He even quoted from the Upanishads, the Hindu scriptures.

It was the second long journey this year for the 67-year-old pontiff. Last January he travelled to the Holy Land for a historic meeting with Orthodox Patriarch Athenagoras. No pope in recent history has undertaken comparable jaunts, and no pope had ever before visited the East while in office.

Paul VI made more history by holding what amounted to the first papal news conference. He answered reporters’ questions aboard the Air India jetliner on which he travelled as a regular first-class passenger to Bombay. Associated Press correspondent Eugene Levin reported that the pontiff also walked through the tourist-class cabin and chatted with passengers.

Announced purpose of Paul VI’s visit to Bombay was to attend a gigantic Eucharistic Congress, wherein Roman Catholics exalt what they regard as Christ’s real presence in the bread and wine of Communion. There had been some anxiety in Bombay prior to the Pope’s arrival as posters appeared advising him to go back home. He was greeted, however, by record crowds estimated by some as numbering in the millions. On the evening of the first day he conferred with Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri, and the next day he saw President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan.

His meeting with non-Christian religious figures included Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, and Zoroastrian representation. “Are we not all one in this struggle for a better world, in this effort to make available to all people those goods which are needed to fulfill their human destiny and to live lives worthy of the children of God?” he asked.

The Pope also met Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant churchmen in Bombay. He told them he was striving “humbly but confidently for the reconciliation of all Christians.”

An Indian photographer died of injuries suffered in an accident which marred the Pope’s trip from the airport. The pontiff gave $5,000 to help the victim’s family.

In the meantime, the papacy was also making news in Washington, D. C. The jewel-encrusted crown which Paul VI gave up in a symbolic gesture toward poverty was being dispatched to the U. S. capital for permanent display at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The priest who brought the ten-pound tiara into the country said he paid no duty on it. He listed the crown, the estimated value of which is $10,000, as an “ecclesiastical ornament.” He said customs officials did not ask him what it was or what it was worth.

A historic conference in Washington marking Georgetown University’s 175th year featured Roman Catholic theologian Hans Küng, who boldly but delicately raised the question of the adequacy of the term “infallibility.” He said that the First Vatican Council of the last century laid stress on the “binding character” of doctrinal pronouncements but that “never having faced the arguments of Protestant theology, it passed over in silence what we may in accordance with St. Paul call the fragmentary character of these pronouncements.”

Küng added: “St. Paul’s words apply to every human utterance, including the solemn utterances of councils and popes, when he says, ‘For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.’”

Küng suggested that one might be able to find “a more comprehensive concept than the concept of infallibility,” one which would include the “binding” and the “partial.”

Protestant Panorama

Four small congregations in the tiny town of Schellsburg, Pennsylvania, were merged into one last month. The new church is affiliated with the United Church of Christ. The others were Presbyterian, Methodist, and Lutheran.

The United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada are sponsoring a series of radio messages by Stan Freberg. The one-minute spots, pioneered in the United States by Presbyterians, were tested in Canada last July.

The newly organized Utah-Idaho Southern Baptist Convention will be welcomed into the Southern Baptist Convention January 1. It is the twenty-ninth SBC state convention.

Presbyterians in New Zealand approved a new program of dialogue with Roman Catholics, including occasional combined worship, prayer, and Bible study.

Miscellany

The Garden Grove (California) Community Church unveiled plans last month for its proposed 18-story “Tower of Hope” capped by a “Chapel in the Sky.” Also envisioned is a prayer room for a permanent 24-hour prayer vigil.

The American Church Institute says that Okolona College, a 62-year-old junior college for Negroes in Mississippi, will close next June. The institute, an Episcopal-related agency which helps to support the school, says that it may be reopened, however, as a different kind of educational agency.

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Back to God Hour, radio program of the Christian Reformed Church, was commemorated last month with a thanksgiving jubilee service at McCormick Place, Chicago.

A public monument was dedicated in Buenos Aires last month in memory of the late William C. Morris, noted Anglican missionary to Argentina who founded numerous evangelical schools.

Personalia

Dr. T. Watson Street is resigning, effective September 1, 1965, as executive secretary of the Presbyterian U. S. Board of World Missions.

Dr. David J. Wynne was appointed vice-president of Wesley Theological Seminary.

Bishop Shot K. Mondol of India was appointed by the Methodist Council of Bishops to supervise the Manila area of the church after the Philippines Central Conference failed to agree on a candidate.

G. Herbert Shorney was elected president of Hope Publishing Company, noted producer of hymnals, succeeding his brother, Gordon D. Shorney, who died in October.

NEWS: Church and State

The Democratic landslide in last month’s election produced a Roman Catholic plurality for the Eighty-ninth Congress. The denominational breakdown on Capitol Hill in recent years has given the lead either to Roman Catholics or to Methodists, and in the previous Congress Methodists had a slight edge. In the new Congress that convenes next month there will be 14 Roman Catholic Senators and 94 Representatives for a total of 108. Methodists will claim 24 Senators and 69 Representatives for a total of 93.

There will be at least three clergymen in the Eighty-Ninth Congress, including Democratic Representative Adam Clayton Powell, who is pastor of the huge Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. The often controversial Powell has been chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor.

Walter H. Moeller, Democrat from Ohio, is a Missouri Synod Lutheran minister who will be returning to Congress after a two-year absence. Moeller lost a bid for re-election in 1962 but won this year.

A Baptist minister from Birmingham, Alabama, John H. Buchanan, won a seat in Congress by defeating the Democratic incumbent by a two-to-one margin. Buchanan, a graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, resigned a pastorate in 1962 when he made his first bid for Congress as a Republican. He lost that election. His campaign this year was closely tied to the Goldwater program. Buchanan has also been finance director of the state Republican organization and president of the Alabama Republican Workshop.

An interesting sidelight on the denominational makeup of the new Senate is that five of its members grew up in Methodist parsonages. Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota, B. Everett Jordan of North Carolina, George McGovern of South Dakota, John Tower of Texas, and James B. Pearson of Kansas all are sons of Methodist ministers. Jordan, McGovern, and Tower are still Methodists, and Mondale and Pearson are now Presbyterians.

The denominational identifications shown herewith represent a cooperative effort of religious newsmen in Washington. Senators are shown in italics.

Roman Catholic

Addabbo (D.-N.Y.)

Annunzio (D.-Ill.)

Barrett (D.-Pa.)

Bates (R.-Mass.)

Blatnik (D.-Minn.)

Boggs (D.-La.)

Boland (D.-Mass.)

Burke (D.-Mass.)

Byrne (D.-Pa.)

Byrnes (R.-Wis.)

Cahill (R.-N.J.)

Carey (D.-N.Y.)

Clancy (R.-Ohio)

Conte (R.-Mass.)

Daddario (D.-Conn.)

Daniels (D.-N.J.)

Delaney (D.-N.Y.)

Dent (D.-Pa.)

Derwinski (R.-Ill.)

Dingell (D.-Mich.)

Dodd (D.-Conn.)

Donohue (D.-Mass.)

Dulski (D.-N.Y.)

Erlenborn (R.-Ill.)

Fallon (D.-Md.)

Feighan (D.-Ohio)

Fino (R.-N.Y.)

Flood (D.-Pa.)

Fogarty (D.-R.I.)

Foley (D.-Wash.)

Gallagher (D.-N.J.)

de la Garza (D.-Tex.)

Giaimo (D.-Conn.)

Gilligan (D.-Ohio)

Gonzalez (D.-Tex.)

Grabowski (D.-Conn.)

Green (D.-Pa.)

Grover (R.-N.Y.)

Hanley (D.-N.Y.)

Hart (D.-Mich.)

Hebert (D.-La.)

Helstoski (D.-N.J.)

Holland (D.-Pa.)

Howard (D.-N.J.)

Huot (D.-N.H.)

Irwin (D.-Conn.)

Jacobs (D.-Ind.)

Kelly (D.-N.Y.)

Kennedy (D.-Mass.)

Kennedy (D.-N.Y.)

Keogh (D.-N.Y.)

King (R.-N.Y.)

Kirwan (D.-Ohio)

Kluczynski (D.-Ill.)

Krebs (D.-N.J.)

Lausche (D.-Ohio)

Leggett (D.-Calif.)

Macdonald (D.-Mass.)

Madden (D.-Ind.)

Mansfield (D.-Mont.)

McCarthy (D.-Minn.)

McCarthy (D.-N.Y.)

McCormack (D.-Mass.)

McDade (R.-Pa.)

McGrath (D.-N.J.)

McIntyre (D.-N.H.)

McNamara (D.-Mich.)

Miller (D.-Calif.)

Miller (R.-Iowa)

Minish (D.-N.J.)

Monagan (D.-Conn.)

Montoya (D.-N.M.)

Murphy (R.-Calif.)

Murphy (D.-Ill.)

Murphy (D.-N.Y.)

Muskie (D.-Maine)

Nedzi (D.-Mich.)

O’Brien (D.-N.Y.)

O’Hara (D.-Mich.)

O’Konski (R.-Wis.)

O’Neill (D.-Mass.)

Pastore (D.-R.I.)

Patten (D.-N.J.)

Philbin (D.-Mass.)

Price (D.-Ill.)

Pucinski (D.-Ill.)

Rodino (D.-N.J.)

Ronan (D.-Ill.)

Rooney (D.-N.Y.)

Rooney (D.-Pa.)

Rostenkowski (D.-Ill.)

Roybal (D.-Calif.)

Ryan (D.-N.Y.)

Sickles (D.-Md.)

St Germain (D.-R.I.)

St. Onge (D.-Conn.)

Stanton (R.-Ohio)

Sullivan (D.-Mo.)

Sweeney (D.-Ohio)

Thompson (D.-La.)

Thompson (D.-N.J.)

Tunney (D.-Calif.)

Vanik (D.-Ohio)

Vigorito (D.-Pa.)

White (D.-Idaho)

Willis (D.-La.)

Young (D.-Tex.)

Zablocki (D.-Wis.)

Methodist

Abernethy (D.-Miss.)

Adair (R.-Ind.)

Albert (D.-Okla.)

Arends (R.-Ill.)

Aspinall (D.-Colo.)

Ayres (R.-Ohio)

Bass (D.-Tenn.)

Bayh (D.-Ind.)

Belcher (R.-Okla.)

Bible (D.-Nev.)

Boggs (R.-Del.)

Brademas (D.-Ind.)

Brooks (D.-Tex.)

Brown (R.-Ohio)

Callan (D.-Neb.)

Cameron (D.-Calif.)

Collier (R.-Ill.)

Colmer (D.-Miss.)

Conable (R.-N.Y.)

Corman (D.-Calif.)

Cramer (R.-Fla.)

Denton (D.-Ind.)

Devine (R.-Ohio)

Jordan (D.-N.C.)

Kornegay (D.-N.C.)

Long (D.-La.)

Mackay (D.-Ga.)

Mahon (D.-Tex.)

Martin (R.-Ala.)

McGovern (D.-S.D.)

McVicker (D.-Colo.)

Metcalf (D.-Mont.)

Mills (D.-Ark.)

Moore (R.-W.Va.)

Morgan (D.-Pa.)

Mundt (R.-S.D.)

Murray (D.-Tenn.)

Nelson (D.-Wis.)

Olsen (D.-Mont.)

Pickle (D.-Tex.)

Pool (D.-Tex.)

Quillen (R.-Tenn.)

Randall (D.-Mo.)

Rhodes (R.-Ariz.)

Roberts (D.-Tex.)

Robison (R.-N.Y.)

Rogers (D.-Fla.)

Dickinson (R.-Ala.)

Dole (R.-Kan.)

Dowdy (D.-Tex.)

Duncan (D.-Ore.)

Eastland (D.-Miss.)

Fannin (R.-Ariz.)

Flynt (D.-Ga.)

Fulton (D.-Tenn.)

Grider (D.-Tenn.)

Haley (D.-Fla.)

Halleck (R.-Ind.)

Hamilton (D.-Ind.)

Hardy (D.-Va.)

Hawkins (D.-Calif.)

Herlong (D.-Fla.)

Hickenlooper (R.-Iowa)

Hill (D.-Ala.)

Holland (D.-Fla.)

Inouye (D.-Hawaii)

Jennings (D.-Va.)

Jonas (R.-N.C.)

Jones (D.-Ala.)

Jordan (R.-Idaho)

Russell (D.-Ga.)

Shriver (R.-Kan.)

Sikes (D.-Fla.)

Skubitz (R.-Kan.)

Smathers (D.-Fla.)

Smith (R.-Calif.)

Smith (D.-Iowa)

Smith (R.-Me.)

Sparkman (D.-Ala.)

Staggers (D.-W.Va.)

Steed (D.-Okla.)

Talcott (R.-Calif.)

Thomas (D.-Tex.)

Tower (R.-Tex.)

Trimble (D.-Ark.)

Tupper (R.-Me.)

Waggonner (D.-La.)

Walker (D.-N.M.)

Watkins (R.-Pa.)

White (D.-Tex.)

Whitener (D.-N.C.)

Williams (R.-Del.)

Young (D.-Ohio)

Presbyterian

Anderson (D.-N.M.)

Baldwin (R.-Calif.)

Bell (R.-Calif.)

Bolton (R.-Ohio)

Bow (R.-Ohio)

Brock (R.-Tenn.)

Broomfield (R.-Mich.)

Case (R.-N.J.)

Chelf (D.-Ky.)

Church (D.-Idaho)

Clark (D.-Pa.)

Cooper (R.-Ky.)

Corbett (R.-Pa.)

Culver (D.-Iowa)

Curtis (R.-Neb.)

Dague (R.-Pa.)

Davis (D.-Ga.)

Duncan (R.-Tenn.)

Edmondson (D.-Okla.)

Edwards (R.-Ala.)

Ellender (D.-La.)

Ervin (D.-N.C.)

Evans (D.-Colo.)

Everett (D.-Tenn.)

Fountain (D.-N.C.)

Fulton (R.-Pa.)

Fuqua (D.-Fla.)

Gettys (D.-S.C.)

Gibbons (D.-Fla.)

Gross (R.-Iowa)

Gubser (R.-Calif.)

Hansen (D.-Iowa)

Harsha (R.-Ohio)

Harvey (R.-Mich.)

Hays (D.-Ohio)

Henderson (D.-N.C.)

Horton (R.-N.Y.)

Jackson (D.-Wash.)

Jarman (D.-Okla.)

Johnson (D.-Calif.)

Karth (D.-Minn.)

Laird (R.-Wis.)

Lindsay (R.-N.Y.)

Long (D.-Md.)

Love (D.-Ohio)

MacGregor (R.-Minn.)

Marsh (D.-Va.)

Martin (R.-Neb.)

Matthews (D.-Fla.)

McCulloch (R.-Ohio)

McDowell (D.-Del.)

McEwen (R.-N.Y.)

McGee (D.-Wyo.)

Mondale (D.-Minn.)

Morris (D.-N.M.)

Morton (R.-Ky.)

O’Neal (D.-Ga.)

Pearson (R.-Kan.)

Poff (R.-Va.)

Purcell (D.-Tex.)

Reid (R.-Ill.)

Reid (R.-N.Y.)

Rumsfeld (R.-Ill.)

Scott (D.-N.C.)

Secrest (D.-Ohio)

Slack (D.-W.Va.)

Smith (R.-N.Y.)

Springer (R.-Ill.)

Stennis (D.-Miss.)

Stephens (D.-Ga.)

Stratton (D.-N.Y.)

Stubblefield (D.-Ky.)

Thomson (R.-Wis.)

Ullman (D.-Ore.)

Utt (R.-Calif.)

Weltner (D.-Ga.)

Whalley (R.-Pa.)

Whitten (D.-Miss.)

Wright (D.-Tex.)

Congregational Christian

Battin (R.-Mont.)

Berry (R.-S.Dak.)

Bingham (D.-N.Y.)

Burdick (D.-N.D.)

Cotton (R.-N.H.)

Davis (R.-Wis.)

Farnum (D.-Mich.)

Findley (R.-Ill.)

Fong (R.-Hawaii)

Fraser (D.-Minn.)

Griffin (R.-Mich.)

Gurney (R.-Fla.)

Keith (R.-Mass.)

Mink (D.-Hawaii)

Morse (R.-Mass.)

Morse (D.-Ore.)

Mosher (R.-Ohio)

Pike (D.-N.Y.)

Prouty (R.-Vt.)

Stafford (R.-Vt.)

Younger (R.-Calif.)

Episcopal

Adams (D.-Wash.)

Allott (R.-Colo.)

Andrews (R.-Ala.)

Andrews (R.-N.D.)

Ashley (D.-Ohio)

Betts (R.-Ohio)

Bolling (D.-Mo.)

Bonner (D.-N.C.)

Brewster (D.-Md.)

Brown (D.-Calif.)

Byrd (D.-Va.)

Cabell (D.-Tex.)

Callaway (R.-Ga.)

Cohelan (D.-Calif.)

Cunningham (R.-Neb.)

Curtin (R.-Pa.)

Dominick (R.-Colo.)

Dow (D.-N.Y.)

Downing (D.-Va.)

Ellsworth (R.-Kan.)

Farnsley (D.-Ky.)

Ford (R.-Mich.)

Frelinghuysen (R.-N.J.)

Goodell (R.-N.Y.)

Hanna (D.-Calif.)

Hathaway (D.-Me.)

Hayden (D.-Ariz.)

Hechler (D.-W.Va.)

Hosmer (R.-Calif.)

Karsten (D.-Mo.)

Kee (D.-W.Va.)

King (D.-Calif.)

Kuchel (R.-Calif.)

Kunkel (R.-Pa.)

Machen (D.-Md.)

Mailliard (R.-Calif.)

Mathias (R.-Md.)

Matsunaga (D.-Hawaii)

May (R.-Wash.)

McFall (D.-Calif.)

Mize (R.-Kan.)

Monroney (D.-Okla.)

Moorhead (D.-Pa.)

Morrison (D.-La.)

Morton (R.-Md.)

Pell (D.-R.I.)

Pelly (R.-Wash.)

Proxmire (D.-Wis.)

Reifel (R.-S.D.)

Reuss (D.-Wis.)

Rivers (D.-Alaska)

Rivers (D.-S.C.)

Rogers (D.-Tex.)

Roosevelt (D.-Calif.)

Satterfield (D.-Va.)

Schneebeli (R.-Pa.)

Frelinghuysen (R.-N.J.)

Selden (D.-Ala.)

Simpson (R.-Wyo.)

Smith (D.-Va.)

Symington (D.-Mo.)

Thompson (D.-Tex.)

Tydings (D.-Md.)

Van Deerlin (D.-Calif.)

Widnall (R.-N.J.)

Wyatt (R.-Ore.)

Wydler (R.-N.Y.)

Baptist

Abbitt (D.-Va.)

Andrews (D.-Ala.)

Ashbrook (R.-Ohio)

Ashmore (D.-S.C.)

Beckworth (D.-Tex.)

Broyhill (R.-N.C.)

Buchanan (R.-Ala.)

Byrd (D.-W.Va.)

Carlson (R.-Kan.)

Carter (R.-Ky.)

Conyers (D.-Mich.)

Cooley (D.-N.C.)

Diggs (D.-Mich.)

Dorn (D.-S.C.)

Gathings (D.-Ark.)

Gore (D.-Tenn.)

Gray (D.-Ill.)

Hagan (D.-Ga.)

Hall (R.-Mo.)

Harris (D.-Ark.)

Harris (D.-Okla.)

Ichord (D.-Mo.)

Johnson (D.-Okla.)

Johnston (D.-S.C.)

Landrum (D.-Ga.)

Lennon (D.-N.C.)

Lipscomb (R.-Calif.)

Long (D.-La.)

Long (D.-Mo.)

Natcher (D.-Ky.)

McClellan (D.-Ark.)

McMillan (D.-S.C.)

Nix (D.-Pa.)

Passman (D.-La.)

Patman (D.-Tex.)

Pepper (D.-Fla.)

Perkins (D.-Ky.)

Powell (D.-N.Y.)

Randolph (D.-W.Va.)

Robertson (D.-Va.)

Rogers (D.-Colo.)

Shipley (D.-Ill.)

Talmadge (D.-Ga.)

Taylor (D.-N.C.)

Teague (D.-Tex.)

Thurmond (R.-S.C.)

Tuck (D.-Va.)

Tuten (D.-Ga.)

Walker (R.-Miss.)

Watson (D.-S.C.)

Williams (D.-Miss.)

Wilson (R.-Calif.)

Wilson (D.-Calif.)

Yarborough (D.-Tex.)

Lutheran

Broyhill (R.-Va.)

Clausen (R.-Calif.)

Craley (D.-Pa.)

Greigg (D.-Iowa)

Hartke (D.-Ind.)

Langen (R.-Minn.)

Magnuson (D.-Wash.)

Moeller (D.-Ohio)

Nelsen (R.-Minn.)

Olson (D.-Minn.)

Quie (R.-Minn.)

Race (D.-Wis.)

Redlin (D.-N.D.)

Reinecke (R.-Calif.)

Rhodes (D.-Pa.)

Senner (D.-Ariz.)

Stalbaum (D.-Wis.)

Jewish

Celler (D.-N.Y.)

Farbstein (D.-N.Y.)

Friedel (D.-Md.)

Gilbert (D.-N.Y.)

Halpern (R.-N.Y.)

Javits (R.-N.Y.)

Joelson (D.-N.J.)

Multer (D.-N.Y.)

Ottinger (D.-N.Y.)

Reznick (D.-N.Y.)

Ribicoff (D.-Conn.)

Rosenthal (D.-N.Y.)

Scheuer (D.-N.Y.)

Tenzer (D.-N.Y.)

Toll (D.-Pa.)

Wolff (D.-N.Y.)

Yates (D.-Ill.)

Churches of Christ

Anderson (D.-Tenn.)

Burleson (D.-Tex.)

Evins (D.-Tenn.)

Fisher (D.-Tex.)

Sisk (D.-Calif.)

Unitarian

Burton (D.-Calif.)

Clark (D.-Pa.)

Clevenger (D.-Mich.)

Curtis (R.-Mo.)

Edwards (D.-Calif.)

Hruska (R.-Neb.)

Mackie (D.-Mich.)

Neuberger (D.-Ore.)

Saltonstall (R.-Mass.)

Schmidhauser (D.-Iowa)

Vivian (D.-Mich.)

Williams (D.-N.J.)

Latter Day Saints

Bennett (R.-Utah)

Burton (R.-Utah)

Cannon (D.-Nev.)

Clawson (R.-Calif.)

Dyal (D.-Calif.)

Hansen (R.-Idaho)

King (D.-Utah)

Moss (D.-Utah)

Udall (D.-Ariz.)

Young (R.-N.D.)

Disciples of Christ

Bennett (D.-Fla.)

Fulbright (D.-Ark.)

Green (D.-Ore.)

Harvey (R.-Ind.)

Holifield (D.-Calif.)

Hull (D.-Mo.)

Hungate (D.-Mo.)

Jones (D.-Mo.)

Latta (R.-Ohio)

Roudebush (R.-Ind.)

Watts (D.-Ky.)

Protestant

Aiken (R.-Vt.)

Baring (D.-Nev.)

Bartlett (D.-Alaska)

Casey (D.-Tex.)

Chamberlain (R.-Mich.)

Cleveland (R.-N.H.)

Dwyer (R.-N.J.)

Fascell (D.-Fla.)

Griffiths (D.-Mich.)

Hagen (D.-Calif.)

McClory (R.-Ill.)

Meeds (D.-Wash.)

Minshall (R.-Ohio)

Moss (D.-Calif.)

Pirnie (R.-N.Y.)

Schisler (D.-Ill.)

Teague (R.-Calif.)

Apostolic Christian

Michel (R.-Ill.)

Brethren in Christ

Roush (D.-Ind.)

Christian Scientist

Dawson (D.-Ill.)

Hansen (D.-Wash.)

Hutchinson (R.-Mich.)

Evangelical and Reformed

Garmatz (D.-Md.)

Saylor (R.-Pa.)

Evangelical Free Church

Anderson (R.-Ill.)

Cederberg (R.-Mich.)

Mission Covenant

Johnson (R.-Pa.)

Reformed Church of America

Bandstra (D.-Iowa)

Dirksen (R.-Ill.)

Schwenkfelder

Schweiker (R.-Pa.)

Society of Friends

Bray (R.-Ind.)

Douglas (D.-lll.) (also a Unitarian)

Universalist

Poage (D.-Tex.)

United Church of Christ

Ford (D.-Mich.)

Not Listed

Gruening (D.-Alaska)

Hicks (D.-Wash.)

Kastenmeier (D.-Wis.)

Martin (R.-Mass.)

O’Hara (D.-Ill.)

Roncalio (D.-Wyo.)

Todd (D.-Mich.)

The Governors

A denominational census of governors in the United States shows 13 Methodists, 8 Roman Catholics, 7 Baptists, 6 Presbyterians, and 6 Episcopalians for the new year. Here is a complete list:

Methodist: Avery (R.-Kan.), Breathitt (D.-Ky.), Burns (D.-Fla.), Clement (D.-Tenn.), Connally (D.-Tex.), Hughes (D.-Iowa), Johnson (D.-Miss.), McKeithen (D.-La.), Moore (D.-N.C.), Russell (D.-S.C.), Smylie (R.-Idaho), Tawes (D.-Md.), Wallace (D.-Ala.).

Roman Catholic: Brown (D.-Calif.), Burns (D.-Hawaii), Campbell (D.-N.M.), Dempsey (D.-Conn.), Egan (D.-Alaska), Hughes (D.-N.J.), King (D.-N.H.), Volpe (R.-Mass.).

Baptist: Branigin (D.-lnd.), Faubus (D.-Ark.), Hatfield (R.-Ore.), Hearnes (D.-Mo.), Rockefeller (R.-N.Y.), Sanders (D.-Ga.), Sawyer (D.-Nev.).

Presbyterian: Babco*ck (R.-Mont.), Bellmon (R.-Okla.), Guy (D.-N.D.), Rhodes (R.-Ohio), Scranton (R.-Pa.), Smith (D.-W.Va.).

Episcopalian: Chafee (R.-R.I.), Hansen (R.-Wyo.), Harrison (D.-Va.), Hoff (D.-Vt.), Morrison (D.-Neb.), Terry (D.-Del.).

Congregational Christian: Evans (R.-Wash.), Kerner (D.-Ill.), Knowles (R.-Wis.), Reed (R.-Me.).

Latter Day Saints: Rampton (R.-Utah), Romney (R.-Mich.).

Lutheran: Boe (R.-S.D.), Rolvaag (D.-Minn.).

Unitarian: Goddard (D.-Ariz.).

United Church of Christ: Love (R.-Colo.).

Spanish Delay

The long-awaited bill defining the status and rights of Spain’s Protestant minority apparently will not become law before a final vote is taken on religious liberty at the Second Vatican Council’s next session.

Religious News Service reported that such a postponement was indicated by Archbishop Vicente Enrique Y Tarancon of Oviedo when interviewed by Ya, a Roman Catholic daily in Madrid.

It had been expected that the bill would be submitted to the Cortes (Parliament) at its last session this year, just before Christmas, despite reports that opposition to it had been hardening slightly in government circles.

Archbishop Enrique expressed regret over the “resultant delay” in approving the bill caused, he said, by the fact that there was no final vote on the religious liberty declaration by the Council Fathers. He noted that “among those supporting the idea of a rapid vote on the declaration were American prelates, for whom the matter if of the highest possible importance both from the pastoral and political point of view.”

At the same time, he defended the Spanish bishops against any charge that they were responsible for the postponement of the vote. “Only 25 of Spain’s 80-strong hierarchy attending the council did, in fact, sign the petition for postponement, and one of the Spanish cardinals in Rome did not sign the petition,” he said.

Toll includes at least four Protestant missionaries. Christians mourn losses suffered at hands of Communist-backed rebels during rescue operations at Stanleyville and Paulis

In a show of savagery that shocked the intelligent world, bearded Congolese rebels last month turned back the clock and reverted to a barbarian age. Their slaughter of hundreds, if not thousands, of blacks as well as whites gave Congo a notoriety that historians may compare with that of Auschwitz and the Inquisition.

The cruclest aspect of the Congo atrocities was the singling out of Christian missionaries as targets of the barbarianism. At least four Protestant missionaries were slain during the last week in November, along with four Spanish nuns and an undetermined number of Roman Catholic priests. In addition, dozens of Protestant missionaries were missing, some feared dead. Earlier this year, three other American Protestant missionaries died at the hands of Congolese rebels.

The rebels are known as “Simbas,” which is Swahili for “lions.” Their efforts to overrun the Congo have the support of most Communist and some neutralist leaders. Many of the Simbas were observed to be drunk or drugged.

The youngest American victim was Miss Phyllis Rine, 25, a teacher from Cincinnati who signed up for service in Congo in 1960, the year the country assumed independence amidst considerable turmoil. Miss Rine was then a student at Cincinnati Bible Seminary. After graduation she taught at church and public schools in the Cincinnati area. She told the mission board that “during this time I came to know and love the Negro people. I’ve been challenged by the great need for workers in the Congo.” She went to Congo in 1962 under the African Christian Mission, a small independent board of autonomous Churches of Christ. An associate recalls that a few days before the rebels arrived Miss Rine “was all enthused about her plan to ride her bicycle into the Stanleyville suburbs and teach and preach on the street corners.”

Miss Rine was killed by machine-gun fire in a square in Stanleyville, near the monument that stands in memory of the late Patrice Lumumba, the leftist who was Congo’s first premier. She was among some 250 white hostages herded into the square as American planes began dropping Belgian paratroopers and Congolese government troops moved into the city by land. The hostages had been held in the Victoria Hotel in Stanleyville. Many had been beaten and subjected to numerous indignities.

Also killed as the panicky rebels opened fire indiscriminately in the square was Dr. Paul Carlson. 36, whose sentence of death finally aroused the American people to the Congolese rebel threat after three months of indifference. The rebels intermittently voiced plans to execute Carlson on grounds that he was an American spy. In reality, he had given up a lucrative medical practice in southern California to minister to the medical and spiritual needs of a remote region in northern Congo (see CHRISTIANITY TODAY News, December 4, 1964). Carlson was picked off while trying to flee over a brick wall. An eye witness said he was felled by the last shot to be fired before Belgian paratroopers arrived to subdue and disperse the angered rebels.

The fighting in the Stanleyville area also claimed the life of the Rev. Hector MacMillan, 49, of Avonmore, Ontario. MacMillan and his wife and six sons, along with a number of other whites, were being held under house arrest at the Unevangelized Fields Mission headquarters just outside Stanleyville when the paratroopers descended. One or two Simbas reportedly burst into the building and ordered the occupants outside. MacMillan was shot dead in the yard of the compound. The body was brought inside, and MacMillan’s wife spoke at a simple ceremony, telling her sons, “You boys should count it a privilege to give your daddy to Jesus Christ and the work of the Gospel in the Congo.”

MacMillan was identified with High Park Baptist Church in Toronto. He was a graduate of Prairie Bible Institute and served with the Royal Canadian Air Force in World War II. He first went to the Congo in 1945 and was married there. His wife is a native of Pontiac, Michigan, and attended Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College. Their sons range in age from 10 to 17. The oldest was hospitalized with bullet wounds.

Two days after the paradrop on Stanleyville, Belgian troops and American planes staged a rescue operation at Paulis, about 250 air miles northeast of Stanleyville. Seven U. S. aircraft were landed at the Paulis airfield under rebel groundfire. Again the Simbas went on a slaying rampage, presumably in reprisal. About twenty foreigners were killed, including the Rev. Joseph W. Tucker, 49, an Assemblies of God missionary from Portland, Oregon. Mrs. Tucker and the three Tucker children survived.

Tucker’s slaying was the most brutal. He had been held in a Dominican mission with a group of Belgians. A Belgian official recalls what happened: “The first dozen were bound, hands and feet tied together behind their backs—trussed like chickens. They were taken outside and dumped on the sidewalk. Five White Fathers were stripped of their cassocks and their beards were cut off. Mr. Tucker was first. They hit him across the face with a beer bottle and blinded him. Then they beat him slowly, down the spine, with rifle butts and sticks. Every time he squirmed they hit him. It took him forty-five minutes to die. Some of them died more quickly.”

Tucker, a native of Arkansas, had been a missionary to Congo since 1939. He was a graduate of Southwestern Bible College, Enid, Oklahoma, and also studied at Central Bible Institute, Springfield, Missouri. On the mission field he served as a translator and was in charge of a teacher training school.

During the week following the Stanleyville—Paulis operations, Congo government troops and white mercenaries rescued 155 to 160 hostages from rebel forces at Dingila and Bambili in northeastern Congo. There was no immediate word whether any missionaries were among those rescued.

On December 4, the Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, which has fourteen mission stations in the Congo, reported that twenty of its personnel there were still missing. WEC is an interdenominational faith mission known in Africa as the Heart of Africa Mission. Some of its Congo stations are located in sparsely populated areas, which probably explains why the missing were not included in the Stanleyville—Paulis rescue. WEC officials received reports in late November telling of deaths of several WEC personnel at Wamba, but there was no immediate confirmation.

William P. McChesney, 28, of Phoenix, Arizona, a Free Methodist. McChesney, single, attended Great Commission Bible School in Anderson. Indiana. He arrived in Congo in 1960 just ten days before the country became independent and was nearly killed in the ensuing violence.

Miss Muriel Harman, about 60, of Victoria. British Columbia.

Cyril Taylor, about 45, of New Zealand. Taylor’s wife and four children were among those known to have been rescued. Mrs. Taylor suffered serious bullet wounds and was hospitalized at Elizabethville.

Miss Daisy Kingdon, about 60, of Jamaica.

James Rodger, 40, a Presbyterian from Dundee, Scotland.

Miss Elaine Aitken, 30, of Coventry, England.

Miss Pat Holdaway, about 40, of New Zealand.

Dr. Helen Roseveare, 40, of London.

Miss Elaine de Rusett, 35, of Sydney, Australia.

Miss Florence Stebbins, 42, of London.

Mr. Jack Scholes, 64, field leader, and his wife, Jessie, 66, of Blackbull, England.

Mr. Brian Cripps, 27, of London.

Miss Amy Grant, 39, of Wolverhampton, England.

Mr. Aubrey Brown, 47, of Sydney, Australia, his wife, Hulda, 47, of Alberta, Canada, and their four children ranging in ages from five to fifteen.

Miss Winnifred Davies, 43, of Northwiles, England.

Another WEC missionary, Mrs. Mary Harrison, 69, of Edinburgh, Scotland, was seriously injured and was taken to a hospital in Elizabethville.

The Unevangelized Fields Mission listed seventeen adults and six children missing as of December 4. The UFM office at Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, identified them as follows:

Dr. Ian Sharpe, a surgeon, and his wife and three children, of England.

Miss Mary Baker, 50, of Richmond, Virginia.

Mr. Chester Burke, 54, and his wife, also 54, of Calgary, Alberta.

Mr. and Mrs. George Kerrigan, from England.

Mr. and Mrs. Parry and two children, from England.

Mr. and Mrs. Arton and one child, from England.

Miss Louie Rimmer of England.

Miss Jean Sweet of England.

Miss Laurel McCallum of Australia.

Miss Olive McCarten of Great Britain.

Miss Margaret Hayes of England.

Miss Grey of England.

Dozens of missionaries, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, were rescued in the American-Belgian operations at Stanleyville and Paulis. Among them was the Rev. Martin Adolf Bormann, 34, a Roman Catholic priest who is a son of former Nazi leader Martin Bormann. His return ironically coincided with new speculation that the father might still be alive and living incognito.

A number of funds were immediately established in memory of the martyred missionaries. Some are to help the families; others earmark gifts for medical missionary work.

Memorial services included one at the Interchurch Center in New York City, where the speaker was Dr. George W. Carpenter of the World Council of Churches’ Division of World Mission and Evangelism. He noted that “over a substantial part of Congo the fair promise of independence has given place to savagery and chaos; those who hoped for freedom find themselves re-enslaved by enmity and fear.” “It may well be,” Carpenter said, “that no purely secular or purely political remedy can be found. The answer must lie deeper—at the level of a concern for one another so compelling that neither fear nor hate, neither past wrongs nor present dangers, can withstand it.”

A service for Dr. Carlson was held at the First Covenant Church of Los Angeles. Dr. L. Arden Almquist, who delivered the memorial meditation, is executive secretary for world missions of the Evangelical Covenant Church of America. He called upon Christians of the West to “strip yourself of every privilege and become a servant to the world.”

“We claim Christ as Saviour,” Almquist said. “Let us follow him as Lord in perfect obedience. Let us accept the servant role so beautifully described by Isaiah, to which he calls us. In this form, the Good News will be accepted.” Almquist was Carlson’s predecessor at the missionary hospital in Wasolo. Carlson was buried at Karawa.

Christians around the world voiced public sorrow for the slain missionaries and uttered prayers for the surviving relatives. Dr. Oswald Smith of Peoples Church in Toronto, which helped to support MacMillan, predicted that the apparent tragedy will “raise up a great deal more prayer for the missionary endeavor.” He said he also expected that it will cause more young people to “rise to the challenge” of missionary service.

The Rev. Theodore Tucker, African affairs specialist for the National Council of Churches, declared that the most serious effect of the Congo massacre will be from the loss of educated community leaders in that part of the country hit by the Simbas. He cited reports which indicated that the nationalist elite upon whom responsible local government must rely have been all but wiped out.

Four Canadian nuns rescued from Stanleyville said that many of the weapons used by the Congolese rebels are of Chinese Communist origin.

The nuns described their ordeal of imprisonment by the rebels upon returning to Montreal. In Stanleyville, one said, “we were thrown into jail. At one time we were taken outside and beaten with sticks and clubs. Many of the rebels were drugged. We found out later they were given narcotics by their leaders.”

Another nun described “a letter that never came.” It was sent from her order’s mother general—the nuns are members of the Daughters of Wisdom—in Rome to Stanleyville in August, instructing all the order’s sisters to leave. It was never delivered.

African Apprehensions

President Kenneth D. Kaunda of Zambia, born and raised in a Presbyterian mission, told U. S. reporters this month that the American-Belgian rescue operation in Congo “makes us a bit apprehensive.” He suggested that it may have set an undesirable precedent.

Kaunda spoke at the National Press Club in Washington during a brief, informal visit to the United States. He voiced doubts that the Congo hostages would have been killed if the operation had not been ordered.

Asked about the future of missionary work in Africa, Kaunda said, “There is a future for those religious groups who want to serve man.” Those who interfere, he added, “will be thrown out, be they black, white, yellow, green, or blue.”

The Zambian leader, father of nine children, was introduced as a practicing Christian whose favorite book is the Bible. He said, however, that he advocated more cooperation among Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. Christian groups in Africa need to bring local men into higher positions in the church, he added.

Kaunda’s parents taught at a mission operated by the Church of Scotland, and Kaunda himself has been a teacher at Christian missions. His father died when he was eight.

A Prime Minister’S Plea

Congolese Prime Minister Moise Tshombe, a Methodist layman, recently issued a call to prayer while speaking in a Protestant church at Leopoldville. An account of his remarks was reported in Congo Mission News and quoted by American Baptist News Service.

“Every Christian is strengthened and encouraged when he knows that other Christians are bearing him up,” said Tshombe. “For one can be endowed with intelligence and strength and have control of the army and the police, but if the Christian faith is not a living force among the people, nothing will be achieved.”

The Congolese leader added that “I will not be able to achieve anything, and you cannot hope for any concrete or encouraging results, if God does not work with me.”

“I would like to invite all the Christians of this country to think of the Congo, this unhappy land whose sons have been fighting and killing one another for the past four years. We shall get nowhere unless there is true and honest reconciliation. We must remember the words of Jesus Christ, ‘Love one another.’ There is only one force which can help ns and that is the Divine Force. I beg you to pray for the Congo. Our country needs this strength, this Divine Force. And we Christians must be aware of our responsibility because we have a strength which others do not possess.”

“I am proud,” Tshombe concluded, “to be among my real brothers for I too am a Christian. You must not think of me as Prime Minister, but as your infant, your child whom you must nurture. Every child needs milk to grow. I too need that milk—your prayers.”

No Room For Complacency

Analysis of 1964 fall enrollment figures of the 127 accredited Protestant seminaries in the United States and Canada fails to turn up any encouraging trends for denominations faced with shortages of qualified clergymen.

Dr. Charles L. Taylor, executive director of the American Association of Theological Schools, issued this statement:

“Although the number in our member schools is the highest that it has ever been except in 1959, when it reached 21,088, the addition of four new schools with 583 students to membership in 1963–64 means that for the other 123 schools there was a net loss rather than gain.”

“Moreover,” Taylor declared, “the numbers in the entering class in 1963 (5,769) and 1964 (5,596) show a progressive decline from 1962 (5,868) which will affect enrollments in the next two years.”

He added that “persons enrolled as candidates for the graduate type of degrees S.T.M., Th.D., Ph.D., and so on) show a noticeable increase, which means that they are counted for more years and that their present interest in the parish ministry is presumably less.

He pointed to a decline in the percentage of students in the B. D. program over the past five years.

The 1964 fall enrollment in the 127 accredited seminaries totaled 21,025, as reported by the AATS, which is the recognized accrediting agency for Protestant theological schools in the United States and Canada.

Southern Baptists, meanwhile, reported a record net enrollment of 62,000 seminaries, colleges, academies, and Bible schools. The total showed an increase of 4,391 over 1963. All categories of educational institutions showed gains except seminaries. Total Southern Baptist seminary enrollment fell off from 4,278 in 1963 to 4181 this year.

Only one of the six Southern Baptist seminaries showed an enrollment increase. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Louisville went from 817 students to 860. Biggest jump was in the seminary’s school of religious education (Missouri Synod Lutheran totals also recorded a rise in the number of enrollments for teaching careers).

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod reported a slight increase in seminary enrollment over 1963, from 1,003 to 1,015.

First Choice

Trustees of Northern Baptist Theological Seminary ended their year-long search for a president last month with the appointment of Dr. Bryan F. Archibald, an American Baptist clergymen who has held pastorates in Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Jersey.

A seminary spokesman said the trustees acted upon the first recommendation of a presidential search committee in summoning Archibald. He is described as “coming after a thorough consideration of Northern’s historic position in the mainstream of evangelical Christianity.… He is in full sympathy with Northern’s emphasis upon preparation for a biblical and evangelistic ministry.”

Archibald has been pastor of the First Baptist Church of Haddonfield, New Jersey, since April, 1963. Prior to then he served for six and a half years as pastor of Chevy Chase (Maryland) Baptist Church.

When he assumes office on January 1, Archibald will become the sixth president of the fifty-year-old seminary, which formerly was located in Chicago but is now in a suburban area west of the city. He succeeds Dr. Benjamin P. Browne, who retired on September 1.

Archibald is a graduate of Nova Scotia’s Acadia University and Colgate Rochester Divinity School. He holds a Ph. D. in philosophy from Boston University. Interestingly, two other American Baptist seminary presidents have Canadian educational backgrounds: Dr. Thomas P. McDormand of Eastern Baptist Seminary and Dr. Robert J. Arnott of Berkeley Baptist Divinity School.

While in the Washington area, Archibald was chairman of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs and a director of the local council of churches.

Aiding Relocation

Spokesmen for the Near East School of Theology at Beirut, Lebanon, say that sufficient funds have been secured to enable the school to relocate in the vicinity of the American University of Beirut.

The Theological Education Fund allocated the school $90,000 last year, conditional upon the securing of an additional $200,000 from other sources and continued progress in plans of the school to improve its academic program. Dr. Hovhannes P. Aharonian, head of the Near East School of Theology since 1959, has announced that the $200,000 has been advanced and that the school has appointed Dr. Theodore C. Vriezen, professor of Old Testament at the University of Utrecht, as its director of higher studies.

The newly available funds, raised by the United Presbyterian Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations and the United Church Board for World Ministries, in addition to the TEF, will purchase the desired property and will enable erection of a supplementary building.

End Of The Road

For some time concern has been felt by evangelical clergy about what one of them described as the Church of England’s “present drift towards a thoroughly unreformed position.” One weekend last month a double illustration appeared to increase their fears. The press reported that a sixteen-year-old Yorkshire girl had been excluded from a Confirmation class by the local incumbent after she had refused to “make her confession.”

At the same time newspapers and radio were announcing the resignation from the ministry of the Church of England of the Rev. Herbert M. Carson, vicar of St. Paul’s, Cambridge, and a former traveling secretary of the Inter-Varsity movement. Three major reasons prompted his decision. Pledged to use only the Book of Common Prayer and no other in public worship (an ordinance regularly ignored by some), Mr. Carson had come to regard this as bondage of the spirit.

His second problem was linked with the established nature of his church. “I came to believe from my study of Scripture,” he writes in his December parish magazine, “that the whole idea of a state church with parliament as the final arbiter was utterly unbiblical.”

Mr. Carson went on to describe what this meant at parish level. It compelled him to marry couples who had not been to church for years and had no intention of coming—and to do so in a service that treated them as Christians. At funerals he had to utter words about the certain hope of eternal life—“it is a mockery to use them over one who has lived his whole life in neglect or even rejection of the Gospel.… Every time I take such a service I am tending to immunize people against the Gospel.”

The most important problem, however, was that of baptismal regeneration and the demolition of his arguments for infant baptism, leading him to the conviction that New Testament baptism is an ordinance for believers. “The end of the road had come.” declared Mr. Carson. “I could not with any honesty remain outwardly an ordained clergyman of the Church of England while at heart dissenting from her basic position.”

Graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, and a well-known evangelical writer and speaker, Mr. Carson, who is 41 and is married with four children, has given the statutory three months’ notice to his bishop. He has no plans for the future. Last summer another evangelical clergyman, the Rev. G. E. Lane, resigned from his London parish on substantially the same grounds as those outlined by Mr. Carson.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Advance In Adversity

Christian churches in strife-torn Viet Nam are growing. Even though the war has brought extreme adversity, five new church buildings are now under construction.

This is the report brought back to the United States by Dr. Kenneth C. Fraser of Pittsburgh, vice-president of the Christian and Missionary Alliance.

Upon his return from a two-month world tour of Alliance missions, including an entire month spent in Viet Nam, Dr. Fraser said he was deeply impressed with the dedication of the Vietnamese Christians.

“In spite of all this difficulty and danger,” he said, “many of the churches are growing. Among the five new buildings under construction is the American church in Saigon.”

The Rev. Gordon M. Cathey, who was once an assistant pastor under Dr. Fraser, is now minister of the Saigon church. It and a small Anglican church are the only ones whose services are conducted in English in Saigon. The Alliance church, dedicated last month, seeks to attract worshipers from among the 30,000 American servicemen and civilians now in the country.

“This church maintains a very strong youth program for university students,” Dr. Fraser reported. “The Alliance church in Viet Nam is a national autonomous church with radio ministries, Bible schools, seminaries, and literature programs. They invited me over to send forth their first missionaries to Laos and Thailand.”

Dr. Fraser spoke at five pastoral conferences throughout South Viet Nam, preaching from one to four times each day. “One pastor,” he said, “came to a conference from a hospital. A Viet Cong rebel had thrown a paper-covered hand-made bomb under a passing car. Nine persons, including the soldier himself, were killed. The pastor’s hands had been paralyzed.”

Destructive storms in recent weeks have added to the misery of Vietnamese Christians. A typhoon in September destroyed at least one church and damaged a number of others. Last month, heavy flooding caused additional damage.

The Alliance has 333 churches in Viet Nam with 65,000 members and 124 North American missionaries.

ROBERT SCHWARTZ

Quebec In Transition

Is that Martin Luther or the Devil groveling on the ground, held down at the neck by the powerful foot of Ignatius Loyola?

Opinions vary on a large statue of this description, now snow-covered in the fierce winter of Quebec City. If it depicts the Reformer, not the Deformer, it represents the ghost of Quebec past, somewhat as the new Canadian flag that Prime Minister Lester Pearson has promised as a Christmas present represents the ghost of Quebec present.

The present flag, a British Union Jack, peeves French Quebeckers, who are reasserting their cultural distinctiveness and winning new concessions. Radicals among the French want Quebec Province to secede and become a separate state.

The statue in front of Manrese, a Jesuit retreat house on Chemin Ste-Foy, was a product of a previous time of isolationism.¹The statue is a duplicate of one at the Church of the Jesu in Rome. Details on its history are obscure. Conversations with many Jesuits at Manrese and other institutions failed to establish what the sculptor had in mind, but the priests all said they think of the prone figure as the Devil.

Protestants who call it “the Martin Luther statue” have some basis. Crawling around the loser in the metallic statuary struggle is a serpent, which could be the Devil as a separate personality in league with Luther. The cringing man has a Germanic cast, and that book he’s clutching looks suspiciously like the Bible.

“It’s supposed to be Luther all right, or else Luther in the Devil’s guise,” said Dr. John MacKay, a United Church of Canada minister in the city for two decades. “It’s regarded as a joke by both Protestants and Catholics,” he said, an anachronism in the light of improved interfaith relations.

Father Alfred Morisette, an American who lives at Manrese and studies French at Laval University, said that he had always understood Loyola’s foe to be the Devil, but that if it was meant to be Luther, the statue must be viewed “from the historical perspective of 300 years.”

In historic Quebec, he continued, “there was only one church, and the priests, as the learned segment of the population, were very strong. Artisans would be tempted to construe anything non-Catholic in a bad light.… It was the atmosphere of a simple, agricultural people.…”

Despite the ecumenical liberality of Montreal’s Cardinal Leger, such religious isolationism still exists at the grass-roots level.

The Rev. Jean Cruvellier, a scholarly European immigrant who leads a group of French Presbyterians, was surprised at the comments from Catholic laymen after he conducted a Week of Unity service this year: “You read the Apostles’ Creed! Do you Protestants believe that?” or “I didn’t realize you spoke so much about God!”

A Protestant who recently held a meeting with Catholics a short distance from the city said it was broken up by a rock-throwing gang directed by a priest.

However, MacKay said “the feeling is very fine” between the faiths in the city, and Cruvellier was allowed to hold Protestant services for Americans and English Canadians this summer at Laval, a nominally Catholic school (and a headquarters for separatism).

Both priests and ministers agreed the political separatists have nothing to do with Catholicism. The Rev. N. D. Pilcher, an Anglican who is president of the Quebec Ministerial Association, said, “Separatism is not a religious movement, and it is not anti-Protestant. The separatists, in fact, are often anti-church (Catholic), which is not in the traditional pattern of French Canadiens.”

Pilcher said the several thousand Protestants among the 350,000 persons in the Quebec area are “in a very privileged position as a minority. I don’t know what the future will be.”

Protestants are limited in such activities as street meetings, but they have the benefit of a national Supreme Court ruling on a Jehovah’s Witness case that ensures door-to-door sale of religious material without a peddler’s license.

An evangelical leader who didn’t want his name published said he would “expect less liberty to spread the word of God” in a separate Quebec. He also considered separation more conceivable than most Protestants: “There is a good chance it could happen.”

MacKay said, “I don’t consider separatism a tremendous movement. We have understood Quebec over the years, and I don’t think it will have any appreciable effect. The real movement is toward more recognition of French-speaking culture, and I’m in favor of this.”

It is doubtful that Mr. Pearson’s flag, derided as a “Boy Scout banner” by some of British ancestry, will alone pacify Quebec. There is still the perennial irritant that the British Parliament has a veto power over changes in the Canadian constitution. Ironically, suspicious Quebec leaders are afraid of what the other nine provinces themselves would do to provincial rights, and a compromise has proved elusive for years. Although the country’s dollar bills are bilingual, they are still graced by Queen Elizabeth and, in both business and private life, are passed by more British hands than population statistics would warrant.

In the uneasy accommodation ahead, the two distinct cultures will either be split further or come to a new appreciation of each other. The same choice may be facing the two religious traditions.

DICK OSTLING

The Synoptic Problem: A Critical Analysis, by William R. Farmer (Macmillan, 1964, 308 pp., $10), is reviewed by John H. Ludlum, minister, The Community Church on Hudson Avenue (Reformed Church in America), Englewood, New Jersey.

Dr. Farmer’s knowledge makes him the world’s leading authority on modern criticism of the Synoptic Gospels. The first five chapters of his book comprise one of the most Herculean labors of digging out knowledge in the annals of scholarship. This reviewer can independently attest the solidness of the results. When knowledge is lacking, reasoning can only darken counsel by words without knowledge. Dr. Farmer’s reasoning, being founded on his superior acquisition of information, compares favorably with any we have seen.

Librarians will wish to obtain this work because it contains information on the origin and development of critical science nowhere else available. It has masses of new factual information. Much that had been forgotten or lost with damaging consequences has been recovered and set forth in a new light. The book is a library in itself. Future study will center around it as scholars oppose or embrace its conclusions and suggestions.

Dr. Farmer’s examination of the history of modern gospel criticism demonstrates that the two-document theory (priority of Mark and existence of “Q”) at no time had a valid foundation, and that the scholarly consensus favoring it was always an illusion. Indisputable facts—knowledge—make these things clear and leave the two-document theory as discredited as the Piltdown Man.

Teachers in seminaries and colleges will wish to get this book and decide how they are going to answer it, before their students and faculty colleagues begin using it to tear them to shreds! On guard! Much can be saved by jumping off a sinking ship quickly! Everything in Synoptic criticism has been rendered uncertain. Gospel studies may now enjoy an academic field day in this newly created vacuum as grand as that which the Dead Sea discoveries made possible. New interpretations can be proposed and contended for once more. Glory beckons! Fear not! All the lions are lying on The field—dead!

As a sociological study this book poses a good question: namely, how was it possible for so many to have been so wrong about so much so often and for so long, while the whole world stood hailing them as great scholars? Dr. Farmer has demonstrated the reality of this particular blind-leading-blind parade and has offered excellent answers for learned men to take to heart. He is to be congratulated for having so often called a spade a spade.

In chapters 6 and 7, Dr. Farmer proposes a solution of the Synoptic problem; but he does so without first vindicating a right to offer the kind of answer he suggests. A whole chapter is missing between chapters 5 and 6. It is first necessary to make out a convincing case against the authenticity of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, before one has a right to assume that unknown editors in the second and third Christian generations picked up a mass of traditions full of fiction and myths and wove them together into our Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Dr. Farmer has reduced to ashes everything that was thought to disprove the authenticity of these Gospels. Hence, nobody, himself included, can have any right to use form-critical principles and evolutionary assumptions until he has first vindicated a right to use them by establishing a new, convincing case against the genuineness of these documents.

Dr. Farmer’s suggestions are thought-provoking. He avowedly strives to re-establish Griesbach’s theory that Mark was written last. His arguments convinced this reviewer that Mark was written second, rather than last. This suggests the shape of things to come. The result of overthrowing the two-document theory is to leave uncontested the claim that Matthew was written first. This forces future debate to deal with a simple question, namely, whether Luke was second and Mark third, or Mark second and Luke third. The next great battle of the books will fight out this issue. Cases for each view will be forged out and expressed as cogently as possible, and will be attacked violently. Griesbach’s theory will receive a second look and a new sifting. More important still, the idea that Mark was second, which has never yet been strongly stated or fairly tried, will be defined and sifted. The more these two views are argued the better, because the question, thus narrowed, is well on its way to final settlement.

Before this reviewer assumes that Matthew, Mark, and Luke are not authentic, and before he uses lines of reasoning based on such an assumption, he is going to insist on seeing a convincing argument for this. It is written: Show me first your penny! The “penny” he will insist on seeing is that missing chapter that was mentioned. He hopes that others will see the necessity for insisting on seeing the same penny. After all, it is only a matter of the most elementary fairness to the Gospels, and of scholarly integrity in not prejudging the only important questions at issue in this whole business! Others may not see this; he does. Why should he put out his eyes?

The People’S Theologian

John Wesley, edited by Albert C. Outler, from “A Library of Protestant Thought” series (Oxford, 1964, 516 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by John Lawson, associate professor of church history, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia.

This magnificent book, which I have read with great admiration, is a collection of substantial extracts from Wesley’s Journal, Sermons, “Minutes,” Letters, and Treatises, arranged with short but very discerning and scholarly introductions by the editor. The whole is an account of the background and development of Wesley’s thought, and of his position on saving faith, justification, assurance, holiness, and the Church and sacraments. A final section entitled “Theologies in Conflict” shows with what care Wesley repelled the menace of quietism and antinomianism.

The first thing we observe, as Dr. Outler well points out on page 119, is that John Wesley was “by talent and intent a folk-theologian.” His care is not for systematic theology as such but for the spiritual welfare and discipline of his Societies. These writings are all addressed to practical situations. In this Wesley is an essential Englishman, for this has ever been the characteristic method of English Christianity. The Church of England has been adorned by many scholars, but her ideal has always been an educated ministry rather than a learned ministry. Her memorable writings have been her liturgy, and works of devotion, polity, pastoralia, and sermons. My country has never found the inclination to produce an “Institutes of the Christian Religion.” Wesley is decidedly in this track!

The alternative method, characteristic of academic Continental theologians, is devastatingly illustrated today. Since the Reformation this has been to take up a stimulating new idea, express it in an extreme form, make a system out of it, found a school of thought, and stir up doctrinal controversy. These writers naturally fill the pages of textbooks of historical theology and steal all the limelight today! We need to be reminded by a man like Wesley that extreme Christian positions are usually partial and erroneous, and that the everlasting question for the truly judicious theologian, as for the wise preacher, is not “Is it new?” but “Is it true?”

Dr. Outler’s judicious and representative selections and his own notes raise the question: “Was Wesley, the folk-theologian, a Christian thinker?” In the judgment of the present reviewer, at least, the “Arminian evangelicalism” of the Wesleyan movement was a liberating doctrinal synthesis, which since Wesley’s time has been immensely influential in the Church. In this sense Wesley is a Christian thinker. Yet we judge that this doctrine, the leading heritage of Methodism, was not new. It is a strong doctrine of sin and of salvation by grace; yet it is shorn of Augustinian speculation. This is a return to the early patristic position.

Dr. Outler brings this point out in another way. We may ask: “Was Wesley a Protestant thinker?” Certainly he was, but not altogether a Protestant like the classic Protestants. Insofar as the Church of England is both Catholic and Protestant and contains elements derived from Luther and Calvin, the great Reformers have an influence on Wesley. Yet it is only this indirect one. The formative influence upon him was the Church of England, hanging upon the threefold cord of Scripture, the tradition of the ancient and undivided Church, and reason. Thus his doctrine of holiness was largely inspired by the ancient Fathers. His main practical interest in Luther’s writings was to guard some passages from being misunderstood in a quietist sense, while his controversy with what often passed in those times as “Calvinism” was to guard the faith still more abundantly against “Satan’s masterpiece” of antinomianism.

This splendid book reveals the authentic Wesley—the old-school high-church man turned evangelist. It will be read with great profit by all evangelicals, Methodist and non-Methodist.

JOHN LAWSON

No Substitute For Holiness

The Paul Report Considered: Thirteen Studies, edited by G. E. Duffield (Marcham Manor Press, 1964, 94 pp., 7s. 6d.), is reviewed by R. Peter Johnston, vicar of Islington and president of the Islington Clerical Conference, London, England.

In July, 1960, a motion was made in the Church Assembly of the Church of England “that a Commission be appointed to consider, in the light of changing circ*mstances, the system of the payment and deployment of the clergy, and to make recommendations.” After a vigorous debate this proposal was approved, except that the task was assigned to the newly reconstituted Central Advisory Council for the Ministry (CACTM). Mr. Leslie Paul, a distinguished author and sociologist, was appointed to carry out a fact-finding inquiry and to submit a report. In November, 1963, this report was published.

A preliminary “Study of the Paul Report” was submitted to the Church Assembly in February of this year. In a packed house a full and at times heated debate took place. The value of the survey of the present situation in the Church of England that Mr. Paul had presented was readily acknowledged; but many of the conclusions he had drawn were challenged. It was obvious that, although some enthusiastically welcomed the report and saw in its recommendations (there are sixty-two of them!) the solution for all our ills, there were many who considered that some of the suggested reforms would be disastrous for the spiritual life of both the church and the nation.

In The Paul Report Considered we have a series of appraisals from people of differing backgrounds and churchmanship, all of whom have made their mark in their several spheres. The thirteen contributors vary in their reactions. Some are violently antagonistic to the report. Dr. Margaret Hewitt makes some stringent criticisms as a sociologist. Mr. Bulmer Thomas claims that “the diagnosis is wrong and the remedy would kill the patient.”

Canon Davies severely criticizes the abolition of the present system of patronage (by which the choice of a minister is not made by the congregation), which is advocated by Mr. Paul. In place of this system the report recommends that staffing boards be set up on a regional basis with a central directorate to act as a planning body. But, points out Canon Davies, “the chief danger of any general policy for patronage in England would lie in its encouragement of an accommodating type of incumbent, afraid of being conspicuous by not ‘toeing the current line.’ Those with strong convictions, and the more vigorous personalities, would be regarded as dangerous, and be placed in positions where they could do little harm.” Bishop Barry warmly welcomes “Mr. Paul’s proposal to abolish the stubborn, invidious distinction between the beneficed clergy and the unbeneficed, and put them all on the same financial basis.” Yet concerning patronage he says: “I hope this group of proposals will be dropped.”

Both Dr. Hewitt and the Rev. Edgar Stride (vicar of a large industrial parish) point out that a major flaw in Mr. Paul’s report is his almost complete ignoring of the existence of other Christian bodies, especially the free churches. In discussing the deployment of the clergy he seems to think that there are no ministers outside the Anglican church.

Richard Allen has some salutary things to say in his chapter on team and group ministries. He pinpoints some of the difficulties and warns us that the report “is not a panacea for all ecclesiastical ills: empty churches will not fill overnight, money will not flow to the coffers.”

As in any symposium, the contributions are of varying value. But the book is very useful and clearly sets before us the danger of blindly accepting all the recommendations made by Mr. Leslie Paul. Far more important than any attempt at reorganization is the need for spiritual renewal.

In the opening chapter, the Bishop of Pontefract puts it thus: “The fundamental problem confronting the Church of England is for the increase in holiness of her ministry, and through the ministry, the whole people of God, that the Church may the better manifest the love of God. Payment and deployment need not be incompatible with this, but God forbid that they should ever come to be thought of as substitutes for the deeper qualities of the spiritual life of the Church.”

R. PETER JOHNSTON

There Ought To Be A Law

Ethics and Science, by Henry Margenau (Van Nostrand, 1964, 302 pp., $7.50), is reviewed by Gordon H. Clark, professor of philosophy, Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.

Dr. Margenau, competent author of The Nature of Physical Reality and with Lindsay of Foundations of Physics, attempts here to provide a scientific basis for ethics. The first chapter presupposes a fair knowledge of the earlier books and is not designed for beginners.

After this account of the nature of postulation in physics, Margenau argues that the same general procedure can be used to solve the problems of ethics. This, in his opinion, is not to say that norms or the concept of “ought” can be derived from what “is.” Ethics cannot be reduced to physics, but it has the same structure.

Postulates in physics are tentative: the scientist must always be ready to revise them. So too the norms of ethics: there are no norms applicable to all men at all times. Each is to be used so long as it works.

This means of course that ethics is not based on religion. There may be connections between them, or there may be none. Either way, “ethics can stand on its own feet” (p. 149).

Margenau’s observations on religion lead one to doubt that his competence in physics has been transferred to this different field. For one thing, he dates Hammurabi a thousand years after Moses, and Zoroaster a thousand years after Hammurabi (p. 153). Similarly questionable are both his history and his argument that hedonism is refuted by the fact that Moses and Martin Luther were ascetics. He also seizes upon First Corinthians 13 as the sum of Christian morality, ignores the rest of the New Testament, and then complains that love is insufficient for the elaboration of an ethical system (pp. 242–47).

What seems to be a serious flaw in his ethics is his assertion that ethical conflicts are infrequent and unimportant (pp. 266 ff.); that Western democracy and Russian Communism share the same values; that the different values postulated by Hitler did not work since he was defeated, whereas the defeat of ethical nations by brutal conquerors does not invalidate their ideals.

In any case, even if there are fundamental conflicts in ethics, it means no more than the existence of conflicting geometries. “It makes little difference whether you choose as the source of your imperatives the Sermon on the Mount, the Koran, the Analects of Confucius, the eightfold path of the Buddha, or the Tao” (p. 293). And “behavior can differ intrinsically among people because of different choices of imperatives and primary values. There is no obvious reason to suppose that several of these, which differ to the point of contradiction, may not be validated in human living. If this is true, there are several sets of ‘oughts’ between which there can be no reconciliation” (p. 284).

Such is his scientific solution to the problems of ethics.

GORDON H. CLARK

The Wheat And The Chaff

Inspiration of Scripture, by Hugh Martin and R. Bremner (Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Publications Committee, 1964, 219 pp., 21s.), is reviewed by Murdo A. MacLeod, minister, Free Church of Scotland, London.

If the writer of Ecclesiastes were living today, he might have altered his famous remark on the making of books to read, “Of the reissuing of books there is no end.” The eras most favored for this treatment are the Puritan and the Victorian. In reviewing another such reissue, one may be forgiven for making a general criticism of this trend by reissuing the wise words of a writer of the same period: “The literature of one century, whether sacred or profane, will not, when served up in the lump, satisfy the craving and sustain the life of another. The nineteenth [now read, the twentieth] century must produce its own literature, as it raises its own corn, and fabricates its own garments. The intellectual and spiritual treasures of the past should indeed be reverently preserved and used; but they should be used as seed.”

Of the 219 pages in the present volume, only 30 are really worthy of resurrection; these are the section containing Martin’s original booklet, “The Westminster Doctrine.” Here we have the doctrine of the Confession of Faith clearly and cogently set out. Its teaching is first guarded against misapprehension, and then the line of proof is briefly indicated. Martin states that his purpose is not to compose a treatise but merely to give some hints. Within these limits the discussion still has its value and is well worth the attention of all who wish to know what the Westminster Confession teaches, and what it does not.

Without doubt there is much that is profitable in the rest of the volume; but it is so immersed in “old forgotten far-off things, and battles long ago” that to sift the wheat from the chaff of the historical controversy is more than the labor may be worth.

MURDO A. MACLEOD

Theology In The University

Theology and the University, edited by John Coulson (Helicon, 1964, 286 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Calvin D. Linton, dean, College of Arts and Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, D. C.

Higher education has come—or gone—a long way since the term universitas denoted an association of students, later joined by a company of masters, in Bologna and Paris in the thirteenth century. Everyone is aware of the central, even dominating, place of theology in the medieval universities; but not everyone remembers that the universities maintained some degree of academic authority of their own, as symbolized in the movement of students in Paris to the rive gauche to avoid the jurisdiction of the Chancellor of the Cathedral, a movement carrying the support of Pope Gregory IX.

From that day to this, the place of theology in the colleges and universities of Europe and America (with the exception of the Roman Catholic institutions) has dwindled until, in the minds of many, a department of religion is seen as almost an anachronism in a modern, secular, scientifically oriented university. The change is, of course, matched by an equal secularization of life at large, with immense advances in technology and (in the opinion of many) a proportionate loss of values and moral stability. At the very least it may be said that the increase in human well-being and happiness has not been in direct ratio to the multiplication of information and power in the past hundred years or so.

Consequently, as all are aware, there is today a growing movement to foster the growth of “religion” among the academic disciplines, not perhaps as the “queen of sciences,” but as a legitimate area of intellectual study and research. The effort stems partly from the ecumenical movement and the improved dialogue between the Protestant denominations and the Roman church.

This collection of essays grows out of such an ecumenical concern. More specifically, it emerges from a series of meetings of priests and laymen of the Roman Catholic Church in England, assembling since 1952 regularly at Downside Abbey. Its theme is clearly stated: “Theology can choose; it can remain dead and neglected, or take the pressure of the times and live; but if it chooses life it has need of three things: a university setting, lay participation and the ecumenical dialogue.”

Contributors represent the Protestant viewpoint as well as the Roman, and no editorial position is imposed on a free and diverse expression of opinion. As a consequence, the excellence of the volume is more apparent in the quality of its individual essays than in the unity of its message.

A major problem obviously confronting those trying to reinstate theology in college and university studies is that of finding a balance between free inquiry and authoritarianism. In secular American universities, “religion” is often indistinguishable from “philosophy” or cultural anthropology. The Roman Catholic attitude toward this is clear: “There is no adult knowledge of religion when everything is put on the same level: in the bible, the central truth of original sin and the apple of Eve; … the primacy of the Pope as instituted by Christ and the different juridical structures in which this primacy has found its concrete and historically adapted expression, which it will continue to find until the end of time.” So writes Jesuit Peter Fransen of the University of Innsbruck. But, writes Daniel Callahan, associate editor of the Commonweal, reflecting a growing attitude among Roman Catholics in America: “… the traditional American Catholic university approach to theology and philosophy has had some disastrous consequence on Catholic intellectual life.” Anglican Alan Richardson, professor of theology at the University of Nottingham and dean-designate of York, writes: “The pursuit of truth, including theological truth, requires … a free community of scholars for its furtherance.” Scottish Presbyterian J. K. S. Reid of the University of Aberdeen deplores the “seminarization” of theology, and identifies two needs: “There is need for theology to be readily available to all university students—not so much the contents of theology as its methodology as a valid mode of apprehension of truth; and … it is needful that such a discipline should be fully decloistered so that both those who read and those who profess it should be in touch with cognate disciplines.…”

No scattering of quotes, however, can give a fair idea of the breadth or challenging nature of the essays. The context, true, is largely that of the European university; but the academic climate of the Western world is not nearly so diversified as it was a few decades ago, and I know of no better book than this to give the inquiring reader a stimulating introduction to the basic issue involved in this crucial question of the place of theology in higher education.

CALVIN D. LINTON

Freedom Is A Triangle

To Resist or To Surrender?, by Paul Tournier, translated by John S. Gilmour (John Knox, 1964, 63 pp., $2), is reviewed by Earl Jabay, chaplain, New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute, Princeton.

This little volume is a study of dilemma in human experience. Many people have struggled with this subject, but few have brought to it such wisdom and knowledge as I find in this book by Dr. Paul Tournier. He knows his way around in the spiritual world of persons.

A dilemma, the author points out, confronts us with the need to make a choice. Since we are “deciding creatures” (Jaspers), we are immediately concerned to know how much freedom man really possesses as he stands before his dilemmas.

This amount of freedom depends, according to Dr. Tournier, on how much a man has succeeded in passing beyond his automatic impulses, the conditioning of his environment, and the restrictions of logical reasoning. These factors are not to be discounted, but for the solution of dilemmas we need to enter the world of true freedom—the world of persons who are in dialogue.

The dialogue should be triangular. God is the First Person, and from him we may count, if it is his will, upon direct inspiration. But what if God is silent? What if our prayers go unanswered and his Word gives no light? Most probably we are then asking the wrong questions, or rigidly refusing to make the inner changes in our lives that will alter the dilemma. If one’s attitudes can change through the meaningful encounter of persons, the question of resistance or surrender to other persons usually yields to a totally new and acceptable solution.

Dr. Tournier is a psychiatrist of special distinction. He would go out of business if his God were left out of his practice. This wise little book illustrates that fact.

EARL JABAY

Seugnot

They Speak with Other Tongues, by John L. Sherrill (McGraw-Hill, 1964, 165 pp., $4.50), is reviewed by Harold Lindsell, associate editor, CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

The air is filled with strange sounds emitted by Pentecostalists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Baptists, and Presbyterians. They are speaking in tongues, a phenomenon that has invaded the churches everywhere. It is of this that Mr. Sherrill writes.

The book has a threefold emphasis: historically, the author traces the rise of the tongues movement in America; biblically, he establishes an apologetic for tongues from the Scriptures; autobiographically, he recounts his own spiritual pilgrimage from unbelief to belief and thence to the exercise of this charismatic gift.

Sherrill has gone to great lengths to gather his facts, separate wheat from chaff, and establish a credible brief to support the tongues phenomenon. He has succeeded in his effort, for however much one is convinced that some aspects of the tongues movement are spurious, one cannot escape the conclusion that there is also much in it that is genuine. The story is well told, the approach is irenic, and the conclusions are well stated. Anyone interested in tongues would do well to read this fascinating account.

Two interesting items stand out in the mind of the reviewer. First, the oddity of a statement made by the author, who was raised in a theological seminary professor’s home (Union of New York) and educated in a Presbyterian college: while facing serious surgery he heard a sermon on Nicodemus that a man must be born again, and about this he says: “All this meant less than nothing to me.” Second, his name-dropping: Billy Graham, the Norman Vincent Peales, Harald Bredesen, John Mackay, Catherine Marshall, Frank Laubach, Henry Pitney Van Dusen, and others.

HAROLD LINDSELL

Book Briefs

This Side of Eden, by Elam Davies (Revell, 1964, 128 pp., $2.95). Good religious essays on life’s basic issues; the language is crisp, the style invigorating.

Hymns Today and Tomorrow, by Erik Routley (Abingdon, 1964, 205 pp., §4.50). A critical and provocative study of American and English hymnbooks by a recognized authority on hymnody. The author shows that he belongs to that school of modern theological thought that is much concerned whether “up” means “up” in the Ascension.

Once Upon a Christmas Time, by Thyra Ferré Bjorn (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, 92 pp., $2.95). A warm, homey account of Christmases spent in the author’s native Swedish Lapland.

The Christian in Politics, by Walter James (Oxford, 1962, 216 pp., $5). A competent and searching analysis of attitudes of Christians toward politics in early, medieval, and modern times, with special attention given to certain Christian politicians in Britain, such as Wilberforce, Gladstone, and Cripps. The author stresses the wide diversity of Christian opinion, the difficulty of many political choices, the impossibility of institutionalizing love—yet the necessity for Christians to take an active part in politics. Supernatural standards may be unrealizable, says the author, but to declare they have no influence upon politics is wrong.

Unity in Freedom: Reflections on the Human Family, by Augustin Cardinal Bea (Harper & Row, 1964, 272 pp., $5). The president of the Vatican Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity speaks about unity to the Christian, and to the whole human family.

Pilgrim’s Progress in Modern English, by John Bunyan, retold by James H. Thomas (Moody, 1964, 256 pp., $3.95). A somewhat abbreviated version in modern English for those who found the early version long and sticky.

God’s Encounter with Man: A Contemporary Approach to Prayer, by Maurice Nedoncelle (Sheed & Ward, 1964, 183 pp., $3.95). A study of prayer by a Roman Catholic that begins with an analysis of “prayer” as it occurs between man and man.

It Took a Miracle, by Herbert L. Bowdoin (Revell, 1964, 126 pp., $2.50). The story of Ford Philpot, onetime white-collar drunk, now America’s beloved TV evangelist.

The Living Story of the Old Testament, by Walter Russell Bowie (Prentice-Hall, 1964, 214 pp., $4.95). The Old Testament story told on the bias of a profoundly non-Old Testament view of revelation.

Three Essays: Leonardo, Descartes, Max Weber, by Karl Jaspers (Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964, 274 pp., $4.95). The only three essays written by existentialist Jaspers.

That Incredible Christian, by A. W. Tozer (Christian Publications, 1964, 137 pp., $3). Interesting, readable essays, most of which appeared as editorials in the Alliance Witness, of which the author was once editor.

The Local Church in Transition: Theology, Education, and Ministry, by Gerald H. Slusser (Westminster, 1964. 204 pp., $4.75). In the author’s words: “There are two foundations for theology: the Biblical expressions of faith and the witness of the Holy Spirit in the life of the man of faith today, here and now. A living theology for today will have to be forged in dialogue with God’s whole people … at the level of the local church.… Theology as the proclamation of saving facts … is wrong because it fails to understand that faith is the dynamic of life and that the church is a body constituted solely by faith in God.” Thus the Bible and its recorded redemptive history is displaced by the Church’s day-to-day faith and experience. The author’s Church is indeed in transition. It is moving into the place of objective revelation.

Paperbacks

The Word of God and Modern Man, by Emil Brunner, translated by David Cairns (John Knox, 1964, 87 pp., $1.50). First published as Das Wort Gottes and der moderne Mensch in 1947.

Agostino Cardinal Bea, by Bernard I. Leeming, S. J., from the “Men Who Make the Council” series (University of Notre Dame, 1964. 48 pp., $.75). A brief biography of the “cardinal of unity.”

The Problem of the Historical Jesus, by Joachim Jeremias (Fortress, 1964, 28 pp., $.75).

The Sacrifice of Christ, by C. F. D. Moule (Fortress, 1964, 48 pp., $.75). Treats the relation between Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice and those of the New Testament Church.

The Word Is Truth: The Biblical Doctrine of Inspiration, by Edward J. Young (Eerdmans, 1964, 287 pp., $2.25). A forthright defense of the Bible as the infallible and inerrant Word of God, with explanations of apparent contradictions, based on the evidence of the Bible itself, and a pointed refutation of some modern theories that reject a verbally inspired Bible. First published in 1957.

The Legends of Genesis, by Hermann Gunkel (Schocken Books, 1964, 78 pp., $1.75). This is the opening of Gunkel’s monumental Commentary on Genesis. First published in 1901.

Minorities in the New World, by Charles Wagley and Marvin Harris (Columbia University Press, 1964, 320 pp., $1.95). Prepared for UNESCO by social scientists of five countries.

Guidelines for Family Worship, by Anna Lee Carlton (Warner, 1964. 103 pp., $1.50). Just what the title claims.

HEROES AND HERO WORSHIP

One of the better events of our day has been the introduction in Life magazine of a series of reviews—plays, movies, and books. It is worth your while to dig out the October 30 issue and read a review by Douglas M. Davis of Donleavy’s Meet My Maker the Mad Molecule. The review is an excellent commentary on the book and on our day. I plan not to read the book, but I have read the review many times. Donleavy apparently has talent, but he has run out of content because he has nothing better to write about than the non-hero and nihilism. As the reviewer puts it, “When he has finished writing about himself—and sex—there is nothing left to engage him.” I take that to be a very succinct review of lots and lots of modern books.

I was reminded of the attempt people have made to insist that Milton makes a hero out of Satan. In one of his classics, A Preface to Paradise Lost, C. S. Lewis settled that idea for keeps. Satan is really a “non-hero.” He is always talking about himself; and after Lewis has illustrated this, he sums the matter up in this way:

He meets sin and states his position. He sees the sun; it makes him think of his own position. He spies on the human lovers and states his position. In Book IX he journeys ‘round the whole earth; it reminds him of his own position.… Satan has been in the Heaven of Heavens and in the abyss of hell and surveyed all that lies between them, and in that whole immensity has found only one thing that interests Satan.… Satan’s monomaniac concern with himself and his supposed rights and wrongs is a necessity of the Satanic predicament.

What Milton makes perfectly plain is “a hell of infinite boredom … the blank non-interestingness of being Satan.”

Adam would make better company. He can talk about God, the forbidden tree, sleep, the difference between beast and man, stars, angels, dreams, crowds, the sun, the moon, the planets, the winds, and the birds; and he “celebrates the beauty and majesty of Eve.” He lived in a little park on a little planet, but he had a different heart.

IN THE BISHOP’S WAKE

It was my privilege recently to chair a panel discussion in Kansas City on “Honest to God and a Relevant Christianity.” Since Addison Leitch was a valued member of that panel, I read with interest … his article: “Honest to God: Good Grief” (Nov. 20 issue). Many, if not all, of the weaknesses of the book to which he points have good support, but is not some positive appraisal also possible? Why is the book “ringing a bell” with many of our college young people who have at least been exposed to Christianity?…

I shall content myself with giving one example. Professor Leitch describes Robinson’s work as “ethically naïve” because it deals with love alone as the basis for ethical conduct without taking into account the passions. The bishop’s illustration (Honest to God, pp. 118, 119) of the blending of love and law in sexual ethics certainly shows that this is not the case. I think that a reading of his chapter on “The New Morality” and his lectures in Christian Morals Today reveals that the author is trying to find some middle ground between the “old morality” and a complete ethical relativism. In between is the “new morality,” which differs from the old in that [the old] rests on legalistic commands coming at the individual from “outside” (perhaps from a god conceived of as only “out there”) while the new ethic insists on one “inner” imperative: love. And this is Christian agape, a sacrificial, unself-regarding kind of lose. The practical success of the bishop’s approach depends on whether the individuals involved sense the high view of human persons it demands and on their commitment to the redemptive quality of agape as manifest supremely in Christ (pp. 119. 128, 129). (I hope we can accept this point and still differ with the bishop’s theology. Paul Tillich’s new book, Morality and Beyond, is a philosophically astute defense of the same position.)

I suspect that perhaps the “reading of the law” in many of our evangelical services appears external and abstract to our young people. They need to be shown how an agape ethic includes law (in the sense of Christ’s “summary of the law”) in a fresh and meaningful way as an inner command. If this is what Robinson is getting at, it may serve as an example as to why he speaks to many people in a positive way in spite of the confusions to which Addison Leitch and Ilion Jones (same issue) both point.…

Dept. of Philosophy

Central College

Pella, Iowa

I do not believe that Dr. Leitch … deals with Robinson on the bishop’s own ground. [Dr. Leitch] actually retreats within the walls of the Church, the covers of the Bible, and the rigid formulations of doctrine. I believe that Bishop Robinson’s book needs and deserves a much better critique than that which is offered by a mind which seems to be so bound by historic Christianity that it fails to deal creatively with the issues and concerns of today.…

Minister of Education

North Broadway Methodist

Columbus, Ohio

I am with the bishop all the way. Our Gospel of Jesus Christ does not need defending, it needs living, or to be lived. As for the soundness of the book on Scripture, the bishop sticks to the Scripture much more than these articles.…

Bishop Robinson teaches the Gospel, the Gospel of love, from one end of the book to the other, and pray tell me, what does the New Testament teach?…

The Church has too long believed in a mystical god, a supernatural god, whom no one has ever seen nor heard. We need something to hold on to, and the bishop gives us that reality.…

Columbus, Ohio

Ilion Jones’s charge of intellectual dishonesty on page 14 of the November 20 issue raises the question of what honesty really demands, after all. Does honesty demand that a person preach his disbeliefs? Am I required to say from the pulpit next Sunday that I think the Virgin Birth is improbable and irrelevant? I do not think so. It seems to me my call is not to tear down but build up. If I have nothing better than the Virgin Birth to offer, then I should not destroy that belief. If I do have something better, then surely my business is preaching that, and let the Virgin Birth and other superstitions fade as they are no longer necessary.

Your editorial on page 29 asks when honesty is permissible and then says, in effect, “only when it agrees with the Bible.” That is incredible. I can only reject your shibboleth about God’s written self-revelation as the only basis for honest questioning. Surely God is not so small as to limit his revelation to persons chancing to live in the first several centuries A.D.!…

Piney Plains Methodist

Little Orleans, Md.

The two articles that I have most appreciated lately were Jones’s “In the Wake of the ‘Honest to God’ Storm” (Nov. 20 issue) and “Theological Default in American Seminaries” (Sept. 11 issue). There is something seriously wrong with theological education in America, and I sincerely trust that many seminaries will heed your warnings. Old heresies never die; they just leave Europe and move to America.

Asst. Prof. of Philosophy

Western Kentucky State College

Bowling Green. Ky.

There should be many loud and long “amens” for the way in which the book Honest (?) to God and its author, Bishop Robinson, were dealt with.…

Salem, Mass.

I enjoyed very much the two articles that made reference to the book, Honest to God. These were the first articles that I have read about this book which I believe will help channel and challenge the thinking of Christians as to the fundamentals of the faith.

Moreover, I read with interest the report on “Negroes and the Christian Campus.” This was a very good report. Ashamedly it must be admitted that Negro Christians have had some very distasteful experiences with various mission boards here in America.…

Although the [Negro] enrollment is low at evangelical colleges and Bible schools in North America, the enrollment in Bible institutes is higher. There are at least 125 students enrolled at the Manna Bible Institute of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. All of the students are Negroes except for maybe one or two. In Cleveland, Ohio, the Baptist School of the Bible with a Negro president, Walter L. Banks, has a good enrollment. Likewise, in Atlanta, Georgia, the Carver Bible Institute and College has a good enrollment of Negro students.…

Nazarene Baptist Church

Lahaska. Pa.

THE ELECTION

In … “Religious Impact of Johnson’s Sweep” (News, Nov. 20 issue) I noted the following statement …:

“The President said that men in the pulpit have a place in political leadership of our people and they have a place in our public affairs.’” Then follows this comment: “Presumably such encouragement will tend to stir a greater degree of political activity among American religious leaders in future election campaigns as well as in the continuing legislative process.”

And my comment is: Why not?…

The Old Testament is an encyclopedia of great reform and reformers: Moses, Abraham, Samuel, Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Micah, and Jeremiah. More and more, socially minded preachers are finding the Old Testament, and particularly the prophetic literature, applicable to the pressing social, industrial, and political problems of the twentieth century! No academic dreamer or mere easy pulpit orator could have flashed out the sentences that illuminate history and glow down to our day. The prophet never had any notion of avoiding public questions.…

Port Charlotte, Fla.

Your … news section of November 20 reports that the National Council of Churches recently issued “a well-timed indictment of ‘the radical right,’” buttressed by a twelve-page documentary on the subject. This development is in sharp contrast to the attitude of the NCC’s … predecessor, the FCC, in the 1930s and 1940s, when the Communist Party of the U. S. A. was in its heyday, carrying on a widespread program of subversion and abetted by hundreds of front organizations. At that time, we heard no “well-timed indictments” of the radical left, nor did we read of any twelve-page documentaries seeking to demonstrate that the left-wingers’ “primary challenge [was] to the basic philosophy of democracy and to government itself as we have known it.” The council which is now so apprehensive about the right-wing threat to our national security managed to maintain a stoical silence even when left-wing federal employees were discovered, with alarming frequency, to be filching government documents from secret files for transmission to Soviet agents.

A thoughtful observer can draw only one conclusion from this strange dichotomy of policy—and it reflects no particular credit on the National Council.

Sea Cliff, N. Y.

Regarding the editorial, “Putting God on the Ballot” (Nov. 6 issue), may I point out that this is precisely what many pro-Goldwater Christians have been doing, even to the point of preaching him, along with or instead of Christ, from the pulpit.…

Philadelphia, Pa.

Well, the nation voted for immorality and corruption, and for handing our nuclear weapons over to the United Nations. I wish there was some place to hide; but Mexico and Peru are no better; and Australia is worse. If I were not a Christian, I would commit suicide. As is, I can only hope that the great tribulation will be short (for I am not a pre-trib. man).

Los Angeles, Calif.

A DERBY IN THE BALANCES

Re: “Presbyterians Draft New Confession” (News, Oct. 23 issue): The Westminster Confession provides barriers adequate not only to deal with anti-Reformed dispensationalism (VII, v, vi; XIX, v, vi, vii; XXV, i, ii) but also to deal with anti-Christian liberalism.… The trouble is that in the communion from which this document comes the Confession has been a dead letter since the twenties. The “latitude of interpretation” has long been a fact. When evangelicals sought to apply the bars of the Confession in the thirties they found themselves ultimately barred.… And if there really are any barriers to dispensationalism in the new creed, I’ll eat my derby!

First Evangelical Presbyterian Church

Grand Cayman Island, West Indies

Are you not seeking to superimpose your view upon Presbyterianism in general; and is this ecclesiastically ethical?

By the way, none of us is Presbyterian in this entire city.…

Guayaquil, Ecuador

If there is any need for reconsideration and revision of the Westminster Confession and the Catechisms, then surely a convocation of all Presbyterian churches—including those of Canada, Australia, and the Church of Ireland and Scotland—should be called. A unilateral study and statement by the UPUSA, of which I am a member, seems both irrelevant and impertinent.

Polson, Mont.

The Presbyterian committee on the new confession certainly made a tactical error in airing their spadework at the open conference at Princeton. And who can blame you and your wise and faithful editor for moving in to take advantage of the opening? And how could CHRISTIANITY TODAY as an outsider “betray” anything going on inside? But don’t count on having the “final draft” in advance of the 1965 Assembly.

Worcester, N. Y.

Mr. Hawkins’s reaction to [your] “exposé” of the proposed new United Presbyterian confession reminds one of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. A rather upsetting experience, I should think, particularly if the child planned to take away many cookies.

It is sad to observe, however, that Mother Church has forgotten how to discipline.

North Hills, Pa.

FACING OPPOSITE DIRECTIONS

October brought into focus the fact that two great organizations, namely the National Council of Churches and the American Bar Association, were facing opposite directions. Spread across the front of the NCC’s Interchurch News is an article entitled “Clergy Join National Civic Group.” This narrates how such leading clergymen as Bishop R. H. Mueller, president of the NCC, have united with 117 charter members of the Council for Civic Responsibility in opposition to some twelve organizations described as “ultra-right-wing” with allegedly “interlocking directorates” disseminating so-called “radical, reactionary propaganda.” This list includes several organizations with Christian names. Accordingly the CCR is attacking several professedly Christian organizations for their anti-Communist stand. And the NCC is supporting this attack.

Now the same week in which the NCC periodical arrived there was a regional conference of the American Bar Association in Atlanta. Here, Mr. T. Charles Allen, a distinguished Atlanta lawyer, introduced the president of the ABA, the Honorable Lewis F. Powell, Jr., of Richmond, with the following notation: He has been recognized for his promotion of anti-Communist education by the Freedom Foundation. Then Attorney John C. McKay of Miami stated that the ABA was sending the educators from Dade County, Florida, to the Freedom Foundation Seminars at Valley Forge for instruction in methods of indoctrinating our youth against Communism. In this same regional conference Secretary Dean Rusk took explicit exception to Castro of Cuba as well as to the man who labored in a London attic the last century (Karl Marx). Likewise the Honorable Allen Dulles exposed the Communist methodology, while Professor R. B. Allen of Georgetown University and Dr. R. L. Walker of the University of South Carolina denounced its world program and its policy (the Dubose Clubs) of supplying Communist speakers to educational institutions.

Thus there is developing a situation in which many clergymen who take their cue from the NCC periodical may in their antifascism easily become so anti-anti-Communist that they sound pro-Communist to their brethren in the bar association. Ought these things so to be? We are called on to exercise love toward all men whether behind the iron curtain or not. But believing in God the Father Almighty, ministers are not free in pulpit, school, or publication to make or endorse statements that may be construed as approving a God-denying Marxianism. After all, two influences which moved Lee Oswald in his assassination of President Kennedy were his reading of Marx and his sympathy for Castro.

In place of either fascism of the right or Communism of the left, it is the business of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to proclaim the God of biblical revelation, as the Head of the Church, the Lord over the nations, the Father of whom every family is named, the Preceptor of youth, the gracious Saviour of sinners.

Columbia Seminary

Decatur, Ga.

CYPRUS

My longer stay in the Near and Middle East gave me a chance to observe the dangerous developments from a closer distance. Archbishop Makarios’s arms deal with the Soviets just completed could be very clearly foreseen. This act opens a new phase in the Soviet expansion to the detriment of the free world. This recent development should give occasion for a frightening reflection to everyone who has not lost his conscience. This unholy spectacle, a pact between an archbishop and the murderous, monstrous, and insatiable tyrants in the Kremlin, is an abomination in the sight of God. The reasons for this grieve me deeply as a Christian minister and teacher. The Protestant leadership cannot escape responsibility for these developments. If this leadership had not flirted with Soviet agents, poisoning the spiritual atmosphere, and had remained faithful to its calling, this archbishop would never have dared to take this step, which is a betrayal of all that is Christian—a step so perilous to the free world.

If the Protestant leadership had been faithful to its calling, siding with the oppressed, the sufferers under injustice, and the enslaved, instead of fraternizing with the agents of the oppressors, the situation would have been entirely different. This president in archbishop’s garb, now busy slaughtering the Turks, could have received from his colleagues lessons that both the Christian spirit and maturity which deserves self-government demand, namely, to learn to respect the minority groups, in this case the Turks, with whom all thoughtful men must side. A Christian cannot remain silent in this situation.

It has been a source of deep grief to me that the attitude and policy of the Protestant leadership have increased peril and the agony of the world. How immense is its service thus given to Soviet aspirations! In the most recent events it becomes so tangibly clear where this kind of leadership takes us. This should shock all who have been lulled by the soporific effects of a time without political or spiritual leadership.

Lutheran School of Theology

Chicago, Ill.

CONGREGATIONS UNPREPARED

What is wrong with Billy Graham?… The question is acute because … undeserved criticisms belittle a sincere and devoted Christian with an ardent missionary spirit, and at the same time give opportunity for the skepticism of those who are eager to ridicule everything which might lead to God. This was the reason that the Laypreacher Institute, 1964, of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America put the question on its agenda in the Presbyterian Study Center at Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, this summer. From a lively discussion there emerged the following sound opinion.

The evangelistic work of Billy Graham, which has attracted and continues to attract such a large audience as is rarely seen today, is basically a ground-breaking work. His presentation is based on the Scriptures; his phraseology is accommodated to the intellectual level of his audience. His famous wording, “The Bible says,” is appealing, at many times striking.… His voice reaches the mass of people which could never be reached by traditional church work. This is what I mean by his ground-breaking work. The dried-up, rock-hard ground of religious ignorance and impassiveness is what his crusade breaks up like a powerful bulldozer. In the wake of the thunderous echoes of “The Bible says,” the ignorant get a spark and the impassive catch fire. And as a result, people come forward … “to make a decision.”

This is all that Billy Graham can do as an individual. But this can be done only by his kind of mass evangelism. The process of this evangelical work, however, is not finished at all with a decision. The broken ground has to be cultivated, and the responsibility for continuation of the good wrought by mass evangelism falls upon the congregation chosen by each decision-maker. Here, I am afraid, is the point which makes the whole evangelistic movement so unpopular with many. The congregations just do not know what to do with newcomers. They do not fit into the close society of their congregation. In other words, the congregation simply is not prepared for this evangelical work.…

First Presbyterian Church

Trenton, N. J.

LOVES ME, LOVES ME NOT …

You are making a tremendous contribution through this magazine to the Christian world.…

President

Southern Baptist Convention

Jackson, Tenn.

I congratulate you on your fairness.… Sometimes certain of your contributors make me angry, but they always do me good.

Lucknow, India

Your pig-headed addiction to fundamentalist claims which are plainly untenable any longer and your bitter and downright unjust and inaccurate charges against liberalism and the social gospel are not only unworthy of a Christian publication but false to the Scriptures.…

Ferndale, Mich.

From all the importance of the NCC editorials and articles in your magazine, I fully believe that you approve of the NCC people as a whole, and go along with their way of the one world church—and this ecumenism. Don’t you realize that there has been a great coming out of these NCC churches because of their pro-Communist leanings and political pronouncements?…

I think your magazine has gone quite liberal and embraced the big theological liberals of our day.…

Tarzana, Calif.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is both scholarly and inspirational. I have found that your writers toe the mark like men who are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.

Dallas, Tex.

I have been a Christian for only a year and a half now so part of the time the deeper articles of CHRISTIANITY TODAY are a little advanced for me. But I plow through them anyway in order to keep abreast of current issues and theology as much as possible.… My reading schedule (personal and class work) is mountainous over and above daily devotions, and I have an active schedule and small children. But of course in my new life in Christ I wouldn’t have it any other way!…

Meza, Ariz.

Long live CHRISTIANITY TODAY and The Christian Century! We need both of you: the Century for our social and political philosophy, and you for our theology. And come to think of it, you need each other too! In this day of ecumenicity, perhaps you could merge!

First Baptist Church

Scottdale, Pa.

Instead of opening yourselves to the truth of God as revealed in Jesus Christ, in whatever form it may be found, you have identified that truth with a very narrow band in the theological spectrum, and ignored everything else.…

Ass’t Prof. of Biblical Theology

Saint Paul School of Theology

Kansas City, Mo.

I would like to comment [on] how much CHRISTIANITY TODAY has meant to me in my first six months of seminary. In my course on contemporary American religions, which has included current trends in evangelicalism, I have had numerous opportunities to use relevant portions in our class discussions. I believe that the attempt to make Christianity relevant to the age in which we live is a fine step in the “evangelical undertow,” as Time magazine has put it. I look forward to the continuing leadership of CHRISTIANITY TODAY in this movement.

Wenham, Mass.

Today I received my first copy in my subscription to your fine magazine and wish to express my deep appreciation for your many thought-provoking articles. Reading them is like fresh water to a man dying in the desert of thirst! I was raised a Baptist, but in my teen years became associated with Jehovah’s Witnesses. While I maintain great respect for their fundamental knowledge of Bible texts and morality, my six years with them left me in spiritual dearth. Why? No Christ! How wonderful it is to read and hear about Christ again! One learns a lot about ancient Israelite history from them [Jehovah’s Witnesses], but so little about Christ. Perhaps, with the help of your magazine, I may well find my way back to a Christ-centered church.

Washington, D. C.

Please discontinue my subscription to your magazine as of now. It is about as valuable as a newspaper of 1492. Your contributors seem not to have had a really new thought in fifty years.…

Los Angeles, Calif.

Through your magazine you are doing a great work for God! Keep it up!

Principal

Eden Christian College

Niagara-on-the-lake, Ont.

I would like to compliment you on the standard of the magazine which you produce. I have been receiving it for the last eighteen months, and during that time it has come to fill a very important role in stimulating my thinking. In a comparatively remote situation, working in a young and growing church, the importance of this service cannot be overestimated, and I thank you for it.

Presbyterian Mission

Tangoa, New Hebrides

Your magazine is named correctly, for what is called Christianity today is empty, senseless chatter.…

Blacksburg, Va.

I am not taking out a subscription for 1965 yet, for in past years one of my American cousins has had it sent to me as a Christmas gift. I hope he will do the same this year!

This seems to me to be an excellent opportunity of telling you what a great blessing is brought into our house fortnightly by your periodical. My wife and I enjoy every issue, although admittedly some issues more than others. As a doctor, I get quite a number of night calls, and on returning to bed, and finding it difficult to sleep right away, it is with heartfelt joy that I know CHRISTIANITY TODAY is on the bedside table waiting to be perused literally from cover to cover. A fine bonus for attending someone’s teething baby!…

Manchester, England

The third session of the Second Vatican Council ended in an air of keen disappointment over its failure to bring to a vote the issue of religious freedom. Failure stemmed from two sources. There was a conflict of opinion within the council on how the statement of religious liberty should be structured and supported. Moreover, the council’s self-imposed rules called for adequate discussion before a vote on any matter. When the council’s presidents decided against a vote, 1,400 of the fathers, led by liberal American bishops, appealed to Pope Paul to force the vote. The Pope refused to override the decision of the presidents and thereby to countermand the conservatives’ delaying action.

Had Pope Paul honored the American-led appeal, born out of bitter disappointment, his action would doubtless have appeared to many in and out of the Roman church as an unnecessary papal intervention and dictation. As things stood, the appeal to the Pope made one think of the boys who want to change the rules of the game when they are losing.

Actually, the adoption of a statement on religious freedom is not in doubt. Father John Courtney Murray, of Woodstock College, speaking early this month at a Conference on Freedom and Man, said he was Scottish and therefore would lay a small wager that there will be very few negative votes when the issue comes up at the next and final session of the council. The whole council, he asserted, is in favor of religious liberty.

This means, Father Murray said, that the old doctrine of “tolerance” is dead. In the classical view, truth alone had a right to exist; error had none. Thus in a Roman Catholic state, all non-Catholics were to be “exterminated.” In a non-Catholic state, the Roman church tolerated error. Protestants and all the world should be glad that this policy of “intolerance wherever possible” and, where it is impossible, “as little tolerance as possible,” is, according to Murray, “archaic at best, and false at worst.”

But though there was agreement on the necessity of recognizing religious freedom, the council was far from agreement on why a man should possess this freedom, or even on precisely what such freedom is. One school of thought within the council argued that religious freedom is grounded in the factual, internal freedom of man’s conscience and in the free character of the act of faith, and that this provides an adequate juridical basis for religious freedom. This school, predominantly French, was criticized by a chiefly Spanish group who objected that this basis was too subjectivistic, particularly since conscience can err.

Father Murray proposed that the matter be broached from the level of experience and history. He pointed out that man in history has come to the place and time where he now demands increasing rights and the external freedom to express his faith and his inner conscience. One may ask, however, whether beginning with “the state of things as they are today” provides a footing for a view of conscience that really escapes the subjectivism of the French school. Does a shift from the subjectivism of the individual to the moving history of the human race satisfy the Spanish argument? Is a wide historicism inherently more prone to truth than the individual subject?

Protestants have always recognized that before God error has no rights. But they have also recognized that a man has a formal right, before men, to be wrong, and that any attempt to exterminate error is an act of human presumption and to exterminate the erring man an act of murder, unless indeed a man thinks himself God, or one called to act on behalf of God.

But it is precisely here that the question arises about the possibility of freedom of conscience within the Roman Catholic Church. Protestants may be happy to hear Murray say that all Catholics recognize the freedom of the religious conscience, and that they agree that no man may be constrained to do what he believes is wrong or made to refrain (within limits) from doing what he believes is right. The “limits,” of course, are the thing. The Roman church will take a big step at the next session of the council if it adopts a statement recognizing the right of all non-Catholics to practice religious freedom according to the dictates of their consciences.

But what about those within the Roman Catholic Church? Can a structuring of religious freedom that recognizes the factual, inherent freedom of the human conscience, and that neither constrains the conscience to do what it thinks wrong nor restrains it from doing what it thinks right—can this be granted by the Roman Catholic Church to those within its membership as well as to those outside? It would seem that this freedom would be so constricted as to be meaningless at that religious center where the individual stands before God. As long as the Roman Catholic Church claims absolute authority and infallibility on all doctrinal and moral matters, there would seem to be no room for the non-constraint and the non-restraint that the Roman church is said to recognize as of the essence of freedom of the religious conscience.

Is this perhaps the reason why Father Murray seeks a grounding for religious freedom in the actualities of the historical situation, “in things as they are,” and thus disagrees with the French school by insisting that religious freedom is first of all a juridical, not a theological, notion?

America As Seen From Abroad

An American Christian traveling around the world sees and hears much to make him thankful for his citizenship and for the liberties and favors his country enjoys under God. To see at first hand something of how hundreds of millions are living without sufficient food, clothing, and shelter, and to realize that multitudes of the physically undernourished are spiritually without the Bread of Life, is humbling. We who are so surfeited with material things and who live in a nation the state of whose poor would be comparative affluence for refugees from Red China pouring into Hong Kong or for the homeless in India, have much for which to thank God. And high among our blessings are religious and political freedom. Americans are blind indeed unless they acknowledge God as the source of these and many other privileges they so casually take for granted.

To look at other peoples without compassion or with a careless feeling of superiority betrays an unbecoming heartlessness. Better to say, “There but for the grace of God am I.” Moreover, any attitude of superiority is strangely ill-founded in the light of our own defects.

The writer of this editorial was given pause by being asked by the daughter of a friend in Athens whether she would be safe on the streets if she were to come to America for her college education. With a note of puzzlement she asked, “Is it true that in Washington women cannot go safely on the streets at night?” The answer—not only for Washington but also for others of our great cities—had to be a shame-faced affirmative. Whereupon she replied, “But in Athens we are quite safe alone on the streets, even up to midnight.” It takes only casual observation of other great foreign cities, including those in non-Christian lands, to realize the rebuking implications of her remark.

Surely one of the scandals of America is that in the most privileged country in the world, where the Gospel has been preached as fully as in any nation in history and where the message of Christ is constantly disseminated by radio and television, lawlessness abounds. There is much about his country for which an American abroad has reason to be grateful. The noble efforts of missionaries are inspiring; educational and medical institutions built by gifts of American Christians are creditable; government programs of aid to underdeveloped nations speak well for our country, as do most of our representatives abroad. But on the other hand, the penetration of alien cultures by the baser productions of Hollywood and by the salacious products of our presses and other effluvia of a materialistic, sex-obsessed society that seems bent on repudiating its spiritual heritage—all this dispels feelings of innate American superiority.

One’s heart is deeply moved as he sees the appalling need of the world. And his perspective is badly distorted if he fails to include in this need his own favored nation. The scriptural principle is always that of those to whom most is committed most is required. What about our stewardship of the blessings God has poured out upon America?

A little more than a century ago Livingstone worked his way into the dark interior of Africa to carry the Gospel to the natives. In time came Belgian control of the Congo and with it the domination of Roman Catholicism as the national religion. But Protestants also built a strong missionary work; their program of preaching, teaching, and healing—churches, schools, and hospitals—made the Congo an exemplary mission field.

Many groups cooperated through the years, and today this heritage of missions is symbolized by the Congo Protestant Council. In recent years the missionaries have increasingly emphasized the Congolese church and de-emphasized foreign missions. Behind this transition lay the conviction that the church in the Congo belongs under Christ to the Congolese, and the awareness that the Christians neither understood nor wanted imported divisions. During and after the revolution in June, 1960, the “keys of the church” were hurriedly turned over to the Congolese. Implications of this change of role are still being worked out. Socio-economic and political deterioration in Congo-Leopoldville after the revolution bred many frustrations—waste of money, time, and effort. Many a missionary consoled himself with the possibility that the apostolic church may have faced similar problems and with the awareness that in hundreds of scattered villages real vitality remained in the Congolese church. Beyond all doubt the church was firmly established in the Congo. The Gospel was spreading into new and hitherto unreached areas; noteworthy additions were continually reported.

If the Congolese did not understand the problems that had provoked Western Protestant divisions, neither did they comprehend the problems more recently posed by ecumenical union. Neither the ecumenical pressures at work in the Federated Union of Churches of Leopoldville nor the ecumenical advisor brought from Geneva possessed a magic wand to dissolve multiplicity into unity.

Various patterns of missionary activity continued. Some mission organizations not integrated with the Congolese church nonetheless established indigenous churches as an aid to that church. Others viewed their mission as an aspect of the church in the Congo, not as a separate mission or church. A large mediating group held that while major responsibility must be turned over to the church, a place remains for a separate mission until a reasonable, just, and legal turnover of properties can be made. Leico, the publishing house that provides a united Protestant witness in the Congo, is an interesting example of the problems of ecumenical absorption. Owned by twenty-one different organizations—mostly mission efforts—it desires its autonomy, free of control by any council. Yet four of its eleven full directors are Congolese.

Important problems remained—the ex-patriate missionaries, for one. The role of missionaries as administrative agents for churches of other countries was complicated by the sensitivities of the “sending Christian communities.” If old denominational rivalries had created this problem at one level, Anglo-Saxon ecumenical ambitions sometimes seemed subtly to perpetuate it at another. Not a few pastors were disturbed because standards for entry into the churches had lowered since independence. Many Congolese viewed the task of witnessing to the Gospel as vastly more important than organizational efficiency. They preferred a preoccupation with biblical questions to burdensome cultural baggage in matters of church union, and considered the distinction between inclusion in the Body of Christ and affiliation with the “organized church” increasingly important.

The unfinished evangelistic task remains the great burden of the lively Congolese churches. Progress in this effort is faced by two major problems.

Will the Gospel overcome deep-seated tribal divisions among the Congolese peoples? How is the Christian to identify himself in the midst of these intense tribal loyalties, which take precedence over loyalty to the government and to one’s geographical situation, and even over loyalty to the church? The implications of tribalism are not merely national but social and religious. Tribal factions exist within the church in the Congo, and some national Christians feel they can do little to stem the tide of tradition. By tribal tradition a wife ceases to remain a member of her tribe but becomes a member of her husband’s tribe. Yet in time of war and conflict she returns to her own tribe. In more than one instance a tribe has destroyed all members of another tribe in certain villages even when some members of both tribes belonged to the same church. How are true Christians—in contrast with those who have simply “taken the white man’s religion”—to identify themselves in the midst of these tensions? What does it mean, in turn, that even among the white missionaries there are “tribal loyalties” of a sort: that Belgian and Swiss and American workers cling together? Do they need to solve the same problem for themselves? By force of circ*mstance, the white missionaries labor within a single tribe. Natives from various tribes attend the same Bible schools or institutes, but when they graduate they return to witness and work among their own tribes. Nevertheless, native Christians are seeking a way to present Christianity in a super-tribal witness. One Congolese pastor refused to go to tribal war with his blood brethren and thus gave new courage to church members reluctant to participate in such a war. And missionaries are awakening to the extremely important evangelistic significance of the large urban centers with their influx of migrants, among whom tribal loyalties most readily crumble.

What spiritual and moral influences survive in the lives of the many Congolese whose sole contact with Christianity was their attendance at Protestant mission schools? What of government leaders who are graduates of such schools but who have ceased to be effective Christians in their personal lives as well as in their professional lives? What of those who retain a sentimental and emotional attachment to Protestant Christianity but lack a personal commitment to Christ and to the Bible; or of those who have drifted away from a basic profession of faith? Will they contribute to a paganizing of churches whose future is now in the hands of the Congolese themselves? Will they too, as victims of Communist propagandists and agitators, fall into preoccupation with politics?

Never in the history of Christianity in the Congo have such questions assumed larger import than in the aftermath of the Stanleyville massacres. Our hearts reach out to the suffering Congolese. Some have been deceived by Communists; others have fought against them; still others have watched and waited, not knowing where to turn. We pray for the peace of the Congo, a troubled land. The slaughter of white missionaries by Communist-inspired rebels is a testing-time for Congolese Christians, forcing upon their leaders the urgency of a new vision of mass evangelism and a fresh understanding of Christian vocation. They know that Christianity is not doomed in Africa, and that Africa is indeed doomed without Christ. How to reach the African for Christ remains the task of the church in the Congo.

We’Re Still One Nation Under God

What the Supreme Court did not do last month may indicate what it will do in the future. Its refusal to hear an appeal that sought to eliminate the phrase “under God” in the pledge of allegiance to the United States flag may be a hint that the court is not minded to decide all spiritual claims in public life in terms of absolute negation. This should allay some of the apprehension that many felt after the court struck down Bible reading and prescribed prayers in the public schools. Its recent decision not to adjudicate formally the appeal against the pledge of allegiance may indicate the approach the court will take to cases now pending, or said to be pending, on opening prayer in House and Senate, chaplains in Congress, chapels and chaplains in the military, naval, and air force academies, and the taking of an oath of office by public officials.

By refusing to hear the appeal, the Supreme Court in effect left intact the pledge with its acknowledgment of “one nation under God.” We believe the court acted wisely in allowing the recognition of God to remain in the pledge of allegiance to the flag. We also believe that it will continue to act wisely if in the cases pending it refuses to move in the direction of a nation that acts in its public life as if God were non-existent. Had the court decided against the phrase “under God” in the official flag salute adopted by Congress in 1954, its position would have rendered impossible any consistent defense of the mention of God in public ceremonies or even on coins.

When the Supreme Court decides not to hear an appeal, it merely announces its decision, giving no reasons and putting nothing down in writing. This leaves the American people to find their own reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with the court’s action. The reasons given by those who uphold the action often confuse the basic issue.

Thus the Washington Post, for example, agreed editorially with the court and then went on to infer the reasons for the court’s action. The Post contended that the flag pledge that we are “one nation under God” is “in no sense an act of worship” and for that matter “not a religious observance.” “Consequently,” the Post declared, “it has nothing to do with … the separation of church and state.” In this approach, the reasons given in defense of the court are more transparently weak than those given by the appellant to the court for an opposite decision. Admittedly, saying the pledge is not praying or engaging in a formal act of worship; but it is a religious act, and no mere verbalism can hide this from parents who know better and who appealed to the Supreme Court because it is a religious act. No acceptable definition of separation of church and state can be achieved if one holds that only formal religious acts are religious acts.

Similarly, James E. Allen, Jr., New York State Commissioner of Education, defended the inclusion of “under God” by asserting that it is not, in view of the nation’s history, an “essentially religious exercise.” But if the public assertion that this country is one nation under God is not essentially religious, what is it?

As was said, the court gave no reasons for last month’s decision. But when it rendered its prayer decision in 1963, Justice William J. Brennan referred to the pledge of allegiance: “The reference to Divinity in the revised pledge of allegiance, for example, may merely recognize the historical fact that our Nation was believed to have been founded ‘under God.’” Even if we ignore the fact that “under God” was added in 1954, the argument is transparently weak. He who recites the pledge is not merely reciting a historical fact. He is declaring his allegiance to his flag and country, and the words “under God” are as much a part of his declaration as anything else contained in the pledge. Should not he who pledges his loyalty mean all of what he says?

The Supreme Court’s decision to leave the official allegiance pledge alone comports with our national history and with the intent of the framers of the First Amendment, who never intended an absolute detachment of the nation from recognition of the Deity in public life. The First Amendment excludes preferential sectarian treatment—for atheists no less than for theists of whatever kind. It protects the plurality of religious denominations from government control, and it protects government from the control of any group that would impose its own concept of religious pluralism or monism on public life. The Supreme Court, to its credit, realized that the best way to perpetuate this heritage is to let things remain as they stand.

Ninety-one years ago, on the shores of Lake Bangweolo, not far from the Congo, the heart of David Livingstone was “laid beneath the soil of Africa and there, dust unto dust, it mingles with the mould of the land he loved and gave his life for” (David Livingstone, by George Seaver, New York, 1957, p. 628).

Not many days ago, Dr. Paul Carlson, the Rev. Joseph Tucker, and other missionaries of the cross mingled their blood with the soil of the Congo as martyrs. Their great ambition was not to advance national interests, nor to press the sale of corporate commodities, but to spread the knowledge of the Lord whose kingdom is not of this world. As the facts began to pour over the news desks of the secular press, it was not difficult to draw certain conclusions. First and foremost, the United States had blundered again in international relations. Just a few years ago, when the Congo became an independent state, the United States in concert with the United Nations sided against Tshombe of Katanga and delivered the new nation into the hands of rulers whose Communist affiliations were well known.

Mao’s Chinese Reds poured in money, men, and materiel to gain a foothold in Africa and to foment trouble. They succeeded so well that the Congo became a Communist wilderness of hatred, strife, rapine, and murder. Well-ordered cities like Stanleyville were practically split in pieces. Missionary work came to a virtual standstill. The climax was reached when hundreds of foreigners were seized, imprisoned, beaten, and held as hostages to guarantee the survival of the iniquitous regime.

At a tardy moment American planes flew Belgian troops to the Congo to support Tshombe’s efforts to regain control of his country from the murderous forces of the rebel chief Christophe Gbenye and the other leaders of the Communist-backed “Congolese People’s Republic.” The hour was late and the forces far smaller than needed. The Americans moved in no battalion of their own to restore law and order in the key centers. They used no helicopters in the remote areas. Instead they flew Belgian paratroopers who, though familiar with the terrain and its problems, fanned rebel resentments. Strategic areas were recaptured, an explanation was delivered to the United Nations to offset the expected protests of the Communist nations, and some prisoners were rescued. But others died. Some were shot to death after cruel beatings; others were hacked to pieces by glass from broken bottles before death overtook them. There were even evidences of cannibalism. Overseas personnel of the United States government were humiliated and subjected to indecencies. In retrospect, the Congo operation was another commentary on the well-worn adage, “Too little and too late.” It was indeed a dark hour.

But there were bright lights amid the darkness. And none was greater than the light that sprang from the life and witness of the medical missionary, Dr. Paul Carlson. He had served the peoples of the Congo irrespective of their political affiliations. Communist and non-Communist alike had known his ministry of mercy. Night and day he had tramped city and country roads to bring healing to the sick and wounded. He had remained after his family had been evacuated. Conscious only of a mission that sprang from his call and commitment, he had allowed neither terror nor physical suffering to deter him from humble service. Held as a hostage and accused as a spy, he had looked to God for deliverance. His deliverance came by martyrdom, not, as millions of Americans had hoped and prayed, by his safe return to American shores.

Dr. Carlson did not deviate from his commitment; he never lowered his banner from the high sky of faith. Steadfast to the end, he rallied hope and encouragement in the hearts of his fellow sufferers. When he fell, it was not in defeat but in victory. The seed of his death will ultimately bring forth abundant harvest.

We mourn with the families of those unfortunate victims, but we rejoice with them in the heroism of those they have lost. Although some have escaped “the edge of the sword” and others have “received their dead by resurrection,” there are those who were “killed with the sword.” The Christian community can take heart that the “followers of the Lamb” today are no less heroic than those who were torn by lions in the Roman Colosseum. The day of martyrdom is not over. Nor has the missionary task ceased. If ever there was a clarion call to service, events in the Congo are such a call. Let the Church be true to its Lord. If it is, it will send out a hundred new warriors for each one who has given his life.

It is easy to look for scapegoats. Yet if men can learn from their errors and keep from repeating them, even such tragic happenings as those in the Congo will serve the cause of freedom. Already it is clear that the salvage operation was a half-effort; many hostages were forsaken and possibly left to die. The control points were barely restored to law and order but remained exposed to terrorist tactics. Recent Communist history in Asia and Europe should leave no doubt where such a pattern, if continued, will lead. It is precisely such a pattern that led to a divided Korea, a divided Germany, a divided Laos, and a divided Viet Nam, and that, if persisted in, may lead also to a divided Congo.

Bright Star In The Night

Claimed by Britons and Americans alike because of his parental heritage from both lands, Winston Churchill has etched his ineffaceable mark upon modern history. At ninety his frame is bent, his ears are dull of hearing, and death cannot forever be put off. But Churchill’s gift of analyzing world currents, his sound counsels, and his courage to act with vigor remain a rare legacy. These bequests, and his majestic prose as well, will survive into the long future.

After Chamberlain’s regime had collapsed and Churchill had formed a new government, he wrote: “I felt as if I were walking with Destiny, and that all of my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial.” In the fateful hour when France had capitulated to Nazi hordes and Britain was left to fight alone, Churchill told the House of Commons: “If we can stand up to him [Hitler], all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands. But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties.…”

In our time new monsters of tyranny stand at the frontiers of freedom. New threats abound everywhere. Where speaks a Churchill who recognizes and confronts them?