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L. Nelson Bell.

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To live in harmony with the world order instead of in harmony with the Creator is an evidence of man’s inherent folly. For man does not have to exist in the desolate darkness of this world; he may choose the light of God and his eternity.

The world order is without hope, because true hope rests solely in the finished work of Christ, of which the world knows nothing. The Apostle Paul reminded the Corinthian Christians, “Remember that you were at that time [before conversion] separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world” (Eph. 2:12).

The unregenerate world is spiritually blind and without wisdom. Oh yes, it may be filled with knowledge and with scientific achievement, but it lacks the wisdom that comes from God whereby knowledge is controlled and implemented for the glory of God.

The world system can provide for man’s physical life and surroundings but not for his death. Possessions may be acquired, material progress made, scientific know-how harnessed for comfortable living. Insurance may be taken out for accidents, hospitalization, fire, liability, and life—but not for anything beyond the grave.

The world system, being blind, stumbles over it knows not what. The only guidance it has is that which comes from the human mind and experience—good in its way but totally inadequate for the ultimate needs of mankind. What is necessary is guidance by the One who sees all the past, present, and future at once, the One who has promised to give direction to those who truly seek him.

Into this hopeless situation came God’s Son to bring the things man so desperately needs. The world system rejected him and continues to suffer as a result. But there were those who received him then, as there are those who do so today.

The Gospel is the good news that God has done through his Son the things that can lift us to a spiritual plane, unknown and unattainable to those who reject him. What are some of these things?

First of all, man is restored to a right relationship with God through God’s loving forgiveness of our sins for Christ’s sake. That which we could not do, Jesus did for us, so that God no longer sees our sins but sees the righteousness of his Son.

And with forgiveness there also comes cleansing. Sin is dirty, contaminating; it makes a stain on our lives that no detergent of human devising can take away. God speaks to us as he did to the people of Judah, “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isa. 1:18). Centuries later, John, also speaking through the Spirit, wrote, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Two verses earlier he names the divine detergent: “The blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

Not only are we forgiven and cleansed but the filth and worthlessness of our lives is replaced by his presence. Jesus promises, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you” (John 14:15–17). The truth of God’s indwelling presence is one we Christians often stumble over, but it is a glorious reality to be appropriated and enjoyed.

Prevalent in the world system is the idea of self-improvement and self-reformation. Many of the activities of individuals as well as those of our lawmakers center in man’s attempt to change himself for the better. Our Lord told of an unclean spirit that left a man, only to return bringing with him “seven other spirits more evil than himself; … and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first” (Luke 11:24–26).

Man cannot change himself into a new creature. This accounts for our miserable failures, and also brings into clear focus the fact that it is through Christ that we are born again. This is a work of the same Holy Spirit who continues to live in those who believe.

But that is not all. Not only do we receive forgiveness, cleansing, and infilling, but because of our faith in him we receive strength for the daily grind. No matter how good our intentions, we need constant help. To his sleepy disciples Jesus said, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matt. 26:41). The power God offers rests in the person and presence of the One he has sent. “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you” (Acts 1:8)—a promise not only for those disciples who were to go out into a hostile world but also for you and me, who live in a world order just as hostile because it is still dominated by Satan.

The world order is confused, with no recourse to spiritual guidance. Certainly this explains, in part, the predicament of men and nations. But the Christian has ever at his command divine guidance, not only in the emergencies of life but also in the more mundane things—the “little” everyday problems.

Because of what God has done for us and his promised help in every area of life, the Christian should so live that he demonstrates to all around him the difference between a God-centered and a world-centered life.

The believer waits for the Lord and renews his strength in him while the unbeliever rushes hither and yon in the futility of human endeavor.

The believer takes courage from God’s promise, “Fear not, for I am with you, be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my victorious right hand” (Isa. 41:10). The man without faith, however, is filled with the forebodings that stem from loneliness and helplessness.

For the Christian there is the blessed release of casting his anxieties on the One who cares for him (1 Peter 5:7), the assurance of every need supplied (Phil. 4:19), of a peace the world cannot give and cannot take away (John 14:27).

Living in this chaotic, turbulent world order, the Christian stands as living evidence of the saving and keeping power of the sovereign God.

The Apostle Paul has the word: “… be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life” (Phil. 2:15, 16).

What a challenge, and what a privilege!

    • More fromL. Nelson Bell.

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A Positive Contribution

Old Testament Times, by R. K. Harrison (Eerdmans, 1970, 357 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Gleason L. Archer, Jr., professor of Old Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

R. K. Harrison, the well-known scholar from Wycliffe College in Toronto, here surveys Israelite history from the prehistoric beginnings in Jericho to the first century A.D., correlating the pertinent data from archaeology. His purpose is to present this highly technical field on a college level, and so he tends to avoid extensive footnoting and to discuss topics as briefly as clarity permits. This means that many points are made without the benefit of the thorough, scholarly discussion that characterizes his Old Testament Introduction (Eerdmans, 1969). Yet on some questions he goes into detailed discussion, especially when dealing with opposing views.

His approach may be described as evangelical empiricism: he examines each matter of history or criticism on its own merits, in the light of all known pertinent data, rather than attempting to bring everything into line with his basic assumption of the trustworthiness of Scripture. Thus he is consistent with his stricture against the doctrinaire liberal scholarship of the Wellhausen school:

No longer is it permissible or desirable for scholars to formulate some concept of development, whether of a biological order or not, and then attempt to fit the facts into such a structure, regardless of the outcome. Instead, all of the relevant factual material, of which at present there is an abundance, must be considered first, and on this basis some cautious conclusions may then be adopted, with the proviso that they be subjected to change in the light of whatever material evidence is subsequently discovered [p. 26].

In the major areas of dispute in Old Testament criticism, Dr. Harrison is unequivocally evangelical in his position. He sees Moses as the author of the Pentateuch and Isaiah as the author of all sixty-six chapters of the book that bears his name, and he supports the authenticity of the Book of Daniel. In buttressing these positions he makes able use of newer archaeological discoveries that tend to destroy the contrary assumptions of nineteenth-century liberal scholarship. He also makes full use of the Ugaritic evidence to show that the great majority of apparent textual anomalies in Old Testament poetry can no longer be regarded as mere corruptions of the original text; they are, on the contrary, reflections of peculiarities in Canaanite grammar and forms of speech that lost their special significance in the course of time.

Harrison acknowledges that the date of the Exodus is “one of the most problematic issues facing the biblical archaeologist.” With a bit less assurance than in his Old Testament Introduction he favors a late date (ca. 1290 B.C., early in the reign of Rameses II), and thus locates in the Hyksos period the migration of Joseph and Jacob’s family into Egypt.

As for First Kings 6:1, which states that 480 years elapsed between the Exodus and the commencement of Solomon’s temple, he suggests that this may have meant only that there were twelve generations between the two events. But he adds: “If the number be taken literally, however, it argues strongly for a fifteenth-century date of the Exodus.” Furthermore, he cites the remark of Jephthah in Judges 11:26 that places the Israelite conquest of Canaan at 1400 B.C. but makes no attempt to reconcile it with the late-date theory.

Unfortunately, Harrison is content to adopt Edwin Thiele’s lower chronology (732 for the beginning of Ahaz’s reign and 715 for Hezekiah’s) without observing that this is irreconcilable with Second Kings 15:30; 16:1, 2; 17:1, and 18:1, 9, all of which point to 743 as the beginning of Ahaz’s coregency with Jotham and to 728 for Hezekiah’s coregency with Ahaz.

The author’s suggestion that a principle of matriarchy (i.e., inheritance passed through the female line only) operated during the Hebrew monarchy is somewhat novel. He seeks to support this by citing David’s disappointment at not marrying Merab, and his insistence on reclaiming Michal from Phaltiel; this may even have been a factor in Amnon’s seduction of Tamar.

The positive contributions far outweigh the negative features of this survey of Old Testament history, and the volume must be judged a valuable addition to evangelical scholarly works in a somewhat neglected field.

Contradictions—Real Or Imagined?

New Testament Disunity: Its Significance for Christianity Today, by John Charlot (E. P. Dutton, 1970, 260 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Clark H. Pinnock, professor of systematic theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

This book by a young Catholic radical carries to its rigorous conclusion an idea reminiscent of the theory of Ernst Käsemann that the New Testament is at once the basis of the unity and the disunity of the Church. It is the notion that differences, indeed contradictions, in that revered document “destroy forever the possibility of a unified Christian theology.” In facing the same problem, Hans Küng appealed to the rich abundance of apostolic teachings and to a wider and more flexible idea of unity. But Charlot insists on claiming irreconcilable conflicts of thought in the New Testament, offering as his proposal a theology based upon creative human freedom and subjectivity.

The author first states the problem: Christians once assumed the theological unity of the New Testament to be the ground and basis of Christian unity, but, in his view, this conviction was completely mistaken. He discusses textual disunity (without a glance at the evidence for a really superb textual transmission), historical disunity (equally brief and unconvincing in treatment—a couple of alleged discrepancies are discussed that enjoy able resolutions he does not acknowledge), and theological disunity (a longer section consisting of a list of supposed contradictions between certain doctrinal passages). The thesis of this book is only as reliable as the results of radical criticism are valid. Opinions are reproduced, alternative solutions are largely ignored, conclusions are drawn. The author leans heavily on secondary sources that present highly contestable conclusions. In my opinion, the blatant contradictions that Charlot discovers in the New Testament exist only in this liberated Catholic’s mind.

In the second section he critically examines various solutions to his supposed problem. It appears that as a result of criticism all efforts at salvaging the unity of Scripture have fallen to the ground. “The theology disunity of the New Testament is a fact, not a problem.” Although he admits that some of his proposed contradictions might be challenged, Charlot is convinced that sufficient disunity exists to establish his thesis that a normative, biblical dogmatic is out of the question.

The third section is devoted to his own solution. We are to regard biblical language not as a deposit of revealed truths but as an expression of personal encounters with religious reality. No doctrines are absolutely binding and authoritative. Theology is personal and autobiographical. Its claim to propositional truth is to be decisively abandoned.

This is a sad, revealing book that shows where many young sons of the Roman church are now moving. Freed from a triumphalist legalism, they are strongly attracted to the worst sort of radical criticism, resulting in the end not only of Roman dogma but of any doctrinal convictions. In that shift in the documents of Vatican II from static to dynamic categories in formulating the doctrine of revelation, the bishops unintentionally thrust open a door through which many will run to empty mysticism and religious humanism. Evangelical theologians have read and been unconvinced by better arguments against the unity of the New Testament than this one, which is rather superficial and scanty in the marshaling of its thesis.

Aside from Charlot’s caricature of it, there is a problem to which he unintentionally calls our attention. In the New Testament there is a rich diversity of doctrinal expression and ecclesiastical practice. Some of the matters that divide evangelicals today reflect a diversity that was present in the early Church but did not divide it! Can we not suppose that if we were to recognize this diversity and refuse to hide it to protect ourselves, we might find ourselves well on the way to eliminating the scandal of our disunity?

A Noteworthy Contribution

Ecumenical Breakthrough: An Integration of the Catholic and the Reformational Faith, by Herman A. Fiolet (Duquesne University, 1969, 475 pp., $9.95), is reviewed by James Leo Garrett, professor of Christian theology, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

Since Dutch Catholicism has come to be recognized as the locus of avant-garde post-Vatican II Roman Catholicism, it should not be surprising that from the Netherlands should come a major step in Protestant-Roman Catholic dialogue. Herman A. Fiolet is professor of Protestant and ecumenical theology in the Catholic Faculty of Theology in Amsterdam. This book combines and revises two of his works in Dutch, one of which earned him the Coebergh Prize “for the most important theological contribution to church unity” in Holland during 1965–67. The book deals only with the theological dialogue between Dutch Catholics and Dutch Reformed, and Fiolet offers no explanation why Mennonites, Baptists, and other Protestant groups in the Netherlands were not included in the dialogue or considered in the volume.

The goal of “the Catholic ecumenical attitude” should not be “irenic compromise” or “an unconditional return” to the Church of Rome or a mere spiritual, invisible oneness. Roman Catholics must recognize “unity in pluriformity” in place of the older “Western-Latin uniformity.” The major chapters deal with the incarnation, the Church, word and sacrament, grace, and Mary.

The incarnation is treated as the completion of the divine plan for creation, the deliverance of sinful creation, and the glorification of creation. Christ’s solidarity with creation is repeatedly emphasized. The Son’s unity with the Father is taken to be primarily a unity of will. The Calvinistic concern for the two natures should not, according to Fiolet, lead to an autonomous human nature.

Fiolet’s treatment of the New Testament images for the Church is not very impressive for those who have read Paul Minear or Hans Küng on this subject. But he does present a provocative study of the ecclesiological significance of diaspora (dispersion) and paroikia (sojourning community), especially the transmutation of the geographical meanings into the religious. On the “bipolar mystery of the Church” Fiolet prefers to identify the two aspects of the Church as “community of salvation” and “instrument of salvation,” i.e., “redeemed and redeeming community.” These two should not be made “autarchic,” but rather the Church “is the instrument of salvation in the community of salvation.” Fiolet construes the Church as a “dialogue” between the word and sacrament of the special office and the vocational response of the entire laity. Significant indeed is his distinction between “apostolic office” and “ecclesiastical office.” These are marked both by continuity (apostolic foundation) and by discontinuity (the unique “eye-and-ear witnesses” of Christ).

Fiolet’s discussion of sacraments includes only baptism and the Eucharist. He seeks to lead Catholics away from a one-sided preoccupation with the nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist and toward a coordinated emphasis on both word and sacrament. He encourages the Reformed to move beyond their preoccupation with the question of who, being justified, is worthy to partake and toward a moderate objectivism in the sacraments. In discussing the relation of Scripture and tradition, Fiolet depends on J. R. Geiselmann and the Vatican II dogmatic constitution on “Divine Revelation.”

On the issue of sola gratia versus man’s cooperation in salvation, Fiolet magnifies the paradox of grace and freedom and the personal dimension in grace, interprets predestination as personal rather than causal, defends reward as biblical, and reinterprets merit as the sharing of Christ’s glory.

On Mariology the Dutch Catholic magnifies Mary’s “act of faith” as the clue to her motherhood. Her role is that of “a prototype of faith,” a faith filled with anguish and temptation that nevertheless led to her being “the one who is eminently redeemed” by Christ. Fiolet’s effort to reinterpret the various Mariological dogmas in the light of this faith-clue will convince few Protestants, but his protest against any dogmatic development of the “co-redemptrix” role will be appreciated.

Fiolet has made significant strides in ecumenical theology. Usually his positions are clearly stated. Occasionally he manifests an obvious inconsistency. For example, he clearly rejects the idea that the Church is the “extension” or “prolongation” of the incarnation (for such is the glorified man Jesus Christ) but then argues that sacramental action is a “prolongation” of the personality of Christ. His citation of biblical texts is frequent, but his awareness of critical and hermeneutical questions seems limited. Yet the volume invites other efforts in serious fraternal theological questing on issues that really do matter.

Newly Published

A Philosophy of the Future, by Ernst Bloch (Herder and Herder, 1970, 149 pp., $5.95). Although an atheist, the author articulates a theology of hope—hope in oneself and one’s abilities. “I am” is the key to his philosophy.

‘Secular Christianity’ and God Who Acts, by Robert J. Blaikie (Eerdmans, 1970, 256 pp., paperback, $2.95). A very worthwhile study of a recent theological trend (witness the number of books with “secular” in the title). Blaikie concludes, after due consideration of many aspects of modern thought, that “‘secular Christianity’ and biblical theology are mutually exclusive incompatibles.”

The Gospel Tradition, by Harald Riesenfeld (Fortress, 1970, 214 pp., $8.50). Nine previously published articles by a leading Swedish New Testament scholar are here brought together.

Peter Abelard, by Leif Grane (Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1970, 190 pp., $6.95). A Danish church historian ably presents the social and religious background in his study of a key intellectual reformer.

Encounter in the Non-Christian Era, by John W. Sanderson, Jr. (Zondervan, 1970, 95 pp., paperback, $1.60). To understand this “post-Christian era” (with both negative and positive characteristics), we must study the history of Western thought, from Plato on. Though hardly an exhaustive study, this series of lectures does contain some astute analyses of our age.

Men of Revival in Germany, by Ernest Modersohn (Herold, 1970, $2). The stories of many great German evangelical leaders in the twentieth century, written largely as the memoirs of the author.

A New Face for the Church, by Lawrence O. Richards (Zondervan, 1970, 288 pp., $5.95). A professor of Christian education at Wheaton Graduate School documents his change from being a “traditional” churchman to “one who is convinced that ‘let’s do it differently’ is both right and necessary.” His book is suggestive, even provocative, and includes a study of the biblical data on the Church, case studies of churches that are changing, and speculation on the “new face” he foresees for the Church.

Between Two Worlds: A Congressman’s Choice, by John B. Anderson (Zondervan, 1970, 163 pp., $3.95). The third-ranking Republican in the House is a committed evangelical; his is the kind of Christian social action that really counts. Some of the nineteen chapters: “One Society—Open and Equal,” “Our Alienated Youth,” “Poverty Amid Plenty,” “What Kind of Society Do We Want?”

A Dictionary of Comparative Religion, edited by S. G. F. Brandon (Scribner, 1970, 704 pp., $17.50). An essential work for college, seminary, and public libraries.

The New Testament in Shorter Form, by Samuel Terrien (Macmillan, 1970, 211 pp., paperback, $2.95). Samuel Terrien, a professor at Union in New York, has extracted and rearranged large portions of J. B. Phillips’s translation, for which he provides introductory and transitional comments. However, the notes by Phillips himself found in unabridged editions of his translation are preferable.

Competent to Counsel, by Jay E. Adams (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1970, 287 pp., $4.50). Here is an honest, forthright look at psychology and mental illness from the biblical point of view. It is not a simplistic “become a Christian and all will be well” approach, too often found in evangelical circles.

The Oxford Classical Dictionary, compiled by N. G. L. Hammond and H. H. Scullard (Oxford, 1970, 1,176 pp., $26). A major revision of a standard reference work, important for studying the background of the first few centuries of Christianity, among other uses.

Interpretation and Imagination: The Preacher and Contemporary Literature, by Charles L. Rice (Fortress, 1970, 158 pp., paperback, $3.50). The preacher needs to have a “cultural awareness,” but he cannot be so full of literary symbolism as to veil the gospel message—as the author does here in the sermon examples.

Victims of the Long March and Other Stories, by John Pollock (Word, 1970, 115 pp., $2.95). The stories of several people (some well known, others not) who have struggled to change the world, among them William Carey, James Ramsay, Lord Radstock, and John and Betty Stam.

The New Religions, by Jacob Needleman (Doubleday, 1970, 245 pp., $5.95). Examines several Eastern religions (Yoga, Krishnamurti, Subud, Zen, and others) and tries to conclude how beneficial they are to America. Such an attempt might be valid, but this author’s superficial treatment of the subject is hardly convincing.

God Goes to High School, by James C. Hefley (Word, 1970, 188 pp., $4.95). A super-complimentary chronicle of the men and ministry of Youth for Christ.

Call to Mission, by Stephen Neill (Fortress, 1970, 113 pp., $3.95). A thoughtful appraisal of the history, task, and future of the Christian missionary (including what missionaries have done right as well as their wrongs).

Congress and Conscience, edited by John B. Anderson (Lippincott, 1970, 192 pp., $4.95). Essays by several congressmen on ethics and politics. Divergent political views are represented by Senators Goldwater and McGovern, and Congressmen Wright, Bennett, Quie, and Anderson.

Pulpit in the Shadows, by Freddie Gage with Stan Redding (Zondervan, 1970, 123 pp., $.95). The director of a ministry exclusively dedicated to reaching youthful victims of drug abuse tells about it. Well written and timely.

My God Is Real, by David C. K. Watson (Seabury, 1970, 95 pp., paperback, $1.65). A very able presentation of the Gospel based on well-attended lectures to students at Cambridge and elsewhere. Highly recommended.

Some of the above books will later be reviewed at greater length.

In The Journals

This new feature will serve to call attention to a few of the many worthwhile articles of special interest to evangelicals that have appeared in limited-circulation, more or less scholarly journals. Bible and theological schools should be receiving these periodicals, and it is hoped that this feature will encourage them to subscribe to any not now in their libraries. Addresses and single-copy prices of the journals are supplied so that interested readers can order particular issues from the publishers. Journal editors who would like to be sure that their periodicals are being seen for possible mention in this column are invited to write the book editor.

“Exegetical Paper on Job 19:23–27,” by Rudolph E. Honsey, Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, July, 1970, pp. 153–206 (3616 West North Ave., Milwaukee, Wis. 53208). Concludes that Job definitely believed in resurrection to eternal life.

“The Black Student at the Christian College,” by Tom Skinner, Ralph Bell, et al., The Other Side, July–August, 1970, pp. 1–72 (Box 158, Savannah, Ohio 44874; single copies, $1). Messages and discussion from a conference in Boston.

“On Creeds and Making New Ones,” by Herman Ridderbos, Paul G. Schrotenboer, et al., International Reformed Bulletin, Summer, 1970, pp. 1–46 (1677 Gentian Dr. S.E., Grand Rapids, Mich. 49508; single copies, $.50).

“Fundamental Issues in Contemporary Micah Studies,” by John Willis, Restoration Quarterly, May, 1970, pp. 77–90 (Box 8227, Station ACC, Abilene, Tex.; single copies, $1.50). Thorough survey by an evangelical of a much-disputed book.

“The Evangelical and War,” by William E. Nix, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Summer, 1970, pp. 133–46 (Box 10,000, University Park Station, Denver, Colo. 80210; single copies, $1.25). Thoughtful critique of both pacifist and militarist views.

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With this installment we begin the bibliography promised in the lead editorial of the September 11 issue. As stated then, this list is not offered as one that contains only wholly trustworthy books. We hope that our comments will guide the user in forming his own judgments about the value for him of the books mentioned.

TRANSLATIONS The place to begin a study of the Bible is with the Bible. This seems obvious. But all too often—in churches and Bible classes as well as in university and seminary classrooms—people turn to books about the Bible before they look at the Bible itself. And sometimes they never take the second step.

To understand the Bible, you must read it until its message becomes a part of you. To do this you will want to own several translations.

You probably have a copy of the Authorized or King James Version of 1611. Keep on reading it, if only for the majestic beauty of its language. Do not limit your study to this version, however, even if it is the one you prefer. The New Scofield Reference edition (Oxford, 1967) is a slight modernization and correction of the King James coupled with doctrinal and other annotations.

Of the post-KJV translations, the English Revised Version of 1885 and the American Standard Version of 1901 are still the best literal translations of the Hebrew and Greek idioms, and are preferred by many for this reason. However, the language is that of a bygone age (without the virtues that make the KJV a masterpiece of English literature), and a good case might be made for the view that one who needs to know Hebrew and Greek idioms would be best advised to learn Hebrew and Greek.

The Revised Standard Version (1952), despite some lingering deficiencies, is probably the best all-purpose translation both for private study and for public reading, and it is encouraging to observe that most church fellowships in English-speaking countries recognize this. The style is good, readable, but rather formal modern English; it does not depart so far from either the idiom of the Biblical languages or the language of the KJV as to cause the pious reader to wonder whether he is, in fact, reading from the Bible at all. The Harper Study Bible (Zondervan, 1964), edited by Harold Lindsell, and the Oxford Annotated Bible (Oxford, 1962), edited by Herbert May and Bruce Metzger, are two good study Bibles based on the RSV.

For private reading (as distinguished from close, detailed study), a more idiomatic translation is recommended: for example, the New English Bible (1970) or the Jerusalem Bible (1966). The NEB represents the best of British biblical scholarship. Although it has been strongly criticized by some for its translation of certain Old Testament passages, still it is to be commended as the most scholarly and accurate of the idiomatic English versions. The Jerusalem Bible, based on an excellent French translation (it is not simply a translation of the French), is the Roman Catholic counterpart of the Protestant-sponsored NEB. It is not, in general, marked by the same quality of scholarship as its French equivalent; nevertheless, it is an essentially reliable translation that often gives fresh insights into the true meaning of a passage.

There are literally dozens of other translations in print today. Almost any of these (with the notable exception of the New World Translation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses) will be found helpful in some way, though the student may feel overwhelmed by the variety of possible English translations of a given word or phrase (witness Zondervan’s The New Testament in Twenty-six Translations!). Of the very popular recent translations of the New Testament, Today’s English Version (“Good News for Modern Man”) by R. G. Bratcher (1966) has been described as “not only clear and accurate, but also a masterpiece of modern linguistic study”; although it has some of the weaknesses of any translation done by one person, it is undoubtedly the best of this type. J. B. Phillips’s translations of the New Testament (1958) and four Old Testament prophets (1963) into modern English should continue to be popular among young people, though one should not rely on them to the exclusion of the standard versions mentioned above. The student should be aware that the Amplified Bible (1965), which is based on an erroneous linguistic foundation (the incorporation of synonyms and alternative renderings into the text in order to bring out the “full sense” of the original), and Kenneth Taylor’s “Living” series (completed 1970) are not among the better English translations.

If you know a second modern language, by all means use it in your Bible study, but do not get stuck with a 350-year-old translation. Use an up-to-date version, such as La Bible de Jérusalem (the product of the Dominican School of Biblical Studies in Jerusalem), which is probably the best French translation, and the Züricher Bibel, the German equivalent of the RSV.

GENERAL Every serious student of the Bible should know something about the history of Bible translation. The English Bible: A History of Translations, by F. F. Bruce (Oxford, revised 1970), is a very readable and strictly reliable introduction to the subject. Another valuable work by the same author, The Books and the Parchments (Revell, revised 1962), is much broader in scope and seeks to present to the intelligent “layman” the basic features of the biblical languages, the text and canon of the Old and New Testaments, the ancient versions, and the history of the English Bible. A larger work of interest to the seminary or theological specialist is the superbly produced and comprehensive Cambridge History of the Bible (Cambridge, 1963–70; three volumes), one of the truly great cooperative efforts of recent biblical and historical scholarship.

A good statement of an evangelical approach to the authority of the Bible is found in a symposium edited by Merrill C. Tenney, The Bible: The Living Word of Revelation (Zondervan, 1968). Here ten outstanding scholars tell why they hold to the doctrine of “the divine origin and authority of the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God to men” in the midst of the theological relativism and skepticism of the day. Revelation and the Bible, edited by Carl F. H. Henry (Baker, 1958), is more comprehensive than its title suggests, with essays on archaeology, biblical criticism, and hermeneutics as well as theological subjects. It remains one of the most important volumes on the subject and stands as a permanent testimony to the renaissance of evangelical biblical and theological scholarship that began in the English-speaking world two or three decades ago. J. Levie, The Bible, Word of God in Words of Men (Kenedy, 1962), and O. Loretz, The Truth of the Bible (Herder, 1968), offer reverent treatments of the problems of relating the results of modern biblical criticism to a high view of Scripture; the authors are Roman Catholic.

Handbooks or introductory guides to the whole Bible are abundant. Most of them contain little more than the information that could be found in half a dozen articles in a good Bible dictionary, and they often represent inferior standards of scholarship. Some are so superficial and carelessly inaccurate as to be positively harmful. Once again, the emphasis should be placed on works that help the student understand the Bible for himself, rather than attempting to do his thinking for him.

Unique among Bible-study guides is Search the Scriptures (Inter-Varsity); this provides the beginner with a do-it-yourself study program that takes him through the whole Bible in three years. The various Scripture Union publications graded to suit each age group (samples available from The Scripture Union, 2136 Darby Road, Havertown, Pennsylvania 19083), are also to be recommended highly, as are the many other Inter-Varsity Bible-study aids (a catalogue of publications is available from Inter-Varsity Press, Box 5, Downers Grove, Illinois 60515). The excellent Bible Study Guides, published by the Scripture Union in England, are available in North America through Eerdmans.

The Bible Companion, edited by William Neill (McGraw-Hill, 1960), is a reliable guide to the historical, archaeological, geographical, and cultural background of the Bible and contains much useful information for the general reader. A Companion to the Bible, edited by H. H. Rowley (T. and T. Clark, revised 1963), is a fuller and slightly more technical treatment of similar subjects; if the pastor or theological student were to own only one introduction to biblical studies, this would probably be the best to have. The Bible and Modern Scholarship, edited by J. Philip Hyatt (Abingdon, 1965), is a collection of papers presented at the centennial meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature; it is intended to introduce the serious student to the results of modern biblical research. The work is valuable not only because the scholars are of worldwide fame but also because they express very differing points of view on similar subjects. Thus the reader does not get the false impression sometimes given by works that purport to present “the assured results of biblical criticism,” that is, that scholarly opinion about the Bible is more uniform than it actually is.

A unique aid to serious Bible study is Jack Finegan’s Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Princeton, 1964)—a difficult book not designed for the general reader. Finegan provides the more advanced student with an authoritative survey of the principles of chronology in the ancient world and the problems of biblical chronology. Here is discussion of Bible numerology that makes sense!

CONCORDANCES Of the various available concordances to the English Bible, the one most helpful to the general student is Young’s Analytical Concordance to the Bible (Eerdmans). There is little value in being able to look up simply the occurrences of an English word that happens to be used in the KJV or some other translation (which is what most concordances—such as Strong’s—offer), unless all you want to do is locate a particular verse. What the Bible student needs to know are the various Hebrew and Greek words rendered by a single English term, and the various English words used to translate particular Hebrew and Greek terms. By making careful use of Young’s, the student is able to do this. In addition, once he has learned the alphabets, he is able to use both The Englishman’s Greek Concordance of the New Testament and The Englishman’s Hebrew and Chaldee Concordance of the Old Testament (Zondervan). The student who knows more than the alphabets of the biblical languages will, however, wish to make use of the more accurate and scholarly tools available, namely, the concordances to the Hebrew Old Testament by Mandelkern or Lisowsky-Rost, to the Greek Old Testament by Hatch and Redpath, and to the Greek New Testament by Moulton and Geden.

DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS A good Bible dictionary is the most valuable aid to Bible study after the Bible itself. The contemporary student of Scripture is fortunate in the number of excellent works available today. Pride of place belongs to The New Bible Dictionary, edited by J. D. Douglas and others (Eerdmans, 1962), and The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, edited by G. A. Buttrick and others (Abingdon, 1962; four volumes). The former has been correctly described by W. F. Albright as “the best one-volume dictionary in English” (or, one might add, German or French or any other language) and is easily the best buy on the biblical-studies market today. It represents the best of present-day evangelical scholarship, is especially strong in Near Eastern archaeology and history, and contains excellent bibliographies. The IDB is larger, often less conservative in its conclusions, but indispensable for the more advanced student.

Other works sold in the bookstores tend to pale into insignificance beside those giants. The revised version of the one-volume Hasting’s Dictionary of the Bible, edited by F. C. Grant and H. H. Rowley (Scribner, 1963), will be found useful (though it contains no bibliographies), as will its more conservative counterpart, The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Dictionary, edited by Merrill C. Tenney (Zondervan, revised 1969); but neither approaches the standard of the two previously mentioned dictionaries.

Among older works, the five-volume A Dictionary of the Bible, edited by James Hastings (T. and T. Clark, 1900–4), is still extremely valuable and is worth picking up second-hand. The popular International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (Eerdmans, revised 1927; five volumes) will soon be superseded by a revised edition under the general editorship of G. W. Bromiley—wait for it. Another conservative work scheduled to appear in a year or so is The Zondervan Pictorial Bible Encyclopedia in six volumes.

All the worthwhile information contained in the older one-volume dictionaries, such as Davis or Smith, will be found in the NBD, the IDB, or one of the other dictionaries recommended above. Save your dollars, therefore, and buy the best. Unger’s bears the weaknesses of a one-man effort, and Harper’s is too radically “liberal” (without much scholarship) to be of real value. Don’t be misled by the title of The New and Concise Bible Dictionary—it was first published in the late 1800s!

For students who know German, there are two extremely useful reference works in this area: The Biblisches-Historisches Handwörterbuch, edited by Bo Reicke and L. Rost (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1962–66; three vols.) is strong in the area of historical research; Die Religion in Geschichte and Gegenwart (Mohr, third edition 1957–65; seven volumes) is more theologically oriented but is an indispensable tool for the biblical scholar. These volumes are beyond the financial reach of most students, unfortunately, but they are readily available in all good theological libraries.

ATLASES With so many Bible atlases available today, the beginning student finds himself overwhelmed at the prospect of choosing. One word at the start: Choose an atlas primarily for its maps, then move to the category of “historical geography” or even “history.” An inexpensive collection of first-rate maps can be found in the Oxford Bible Atlas (Oxford, 1962). Other inexpensive editions of maps are also available. Not so good for topographical details but better for tracing historical movements, and valuably illustrated, is the Atlas of the Bible (Nelson, 1956), by L. H. Grollenberg, O. P. Finally, the apex of historical cartography has been reached in the product of two Israeli scholars, Y. Aharoni and M. Avi-yonah, whose Macmillan Bible Atlas (Macmillan, 1968) contains 264 maps tracing every movement of importance in the biblical world. Naturally, works of this type involve an element of interpretation, and you will want to keep checking facts in the Bible. Other good (Westminster Historical Atlas of the Bible) and more expensive (New Atlas of the Bible) atlases are also available to round out the cartographic feast.

After securing a good collection of maps, turn your attention to an “atlas” specializing in geographical commentary on the movements of biblical history. In this category falls the scholarly Rand McNally Bible Atlas, by E. G. Kraeling (Rand McNally, 1956), recently supplemented by the Zondervan Pictorial Bible Atlas (Zondervan, 1969), edited by E. M. Blaiklock. Almost half the latter book comes from the skilled pen of R. K. Harrison, who, together with such specialists as geographer J. M. Houston and New Testament scholars F. F. Bruce and Merrill C. Tenney, has written a book of exceptional value for the general reader as well as for the student.

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY Of works spanning both the testaments, George Adam Smith’s Historical Geography of the Holy Land (Hodder and Stoughton, 1910) is still unrivaled for a classical breadth of “feeling” for the land. A more contemporary work, though limited in scope, is Denis Baly’s Geography of the Bible (Harper & Row, 1957)—readable, accurate, and geographical rather than historical. For technical historical geography at its best, though limited to Old Testament matters, The Land of the Bible by Yohanan Aharoni (Westminster, 1966) has no competitor. And finally, for those who read French, the classic La Géographie de la Palestine, by Pere F-M. Abel (Gabalda, 1933–38; two volumes) is still a bargain, if you can find it. One additional note: You will at times need information on the broader world of the Bible, such as Mesopotamia and Egypt; for this consult the Wycliffe Historical Geography of Bible Lands (Moody, 1967), by C. F. Pfeiffer and H. Vos.

ARCHAEOLOGY Books listed as archaeological are often little more than history illustrated by archaeological data, and care must be exercised in the search for an ideal treatment. For the beginner seeking a knowledge of technique, Mortimer Wheeler’s Archaeology from the Earth (Pelican, 1954) is still the best. Kathleen M. Kenyon’s Beginning in Archaeology (Praeger, revised 1966) explores the possibilities on a worldwide scale and outlines the steps necessary to become an archaeologist, even suggesting universities with archaeological programs. For a more specifically Palestinian introduction, the opening chapters of The Archaeology of Palestine (Pelican, revised 1961) by W. F. Albright give a succinct overview. The rest of the book sketches developments within Palestine according to the usual chronological sequence, with special reference to pottery types.

Books dealing with the results, rather than the methods, of biblical archaeology are numerous. Perhaps Albright’s volume, cited above, is the best short, moderately technical treatment. Miss Kenyon’s Archaeology in the Holy Land (Praeger, 1960), similar in format, is the personal statement of one leading British specialist and contains an even fuller treatment of pottery types. Both these books give the detailed technical information needed for an introductory course in biblical archaeology and form a valuable resource for the seminarian and layman alike.

For the reader whose interest turns directly from archaeology to Bible history, a general treatment such as J. A. Thompson’s The Bible and Archaeology (Eerdmans, 1962) or Millar Burrow’s What Mean These Stones? (Meridian, 1941) may be recommended. Burrow’s caution in making archaeology illuminate and confirm the Bible is frequently a valuable corrective to the overly apologetic treatment of some conservative writers. Two very useful and dependable histories, both drawing heavily on archaeology and well illustrated, are Biblical Archaeology by G. E. Wright (Westminster, 1957; the text alone, abridged, is also available) and Jack Finegan’s Light from the Ancient Past (Princeton, revised 1959).

For specific sites, the latest journal and excavation reports should form the basis of any detailed work. Summary articles on twenty-eight sites, chiefly Palestinian, appear in Archaeology and Old Testament Study, edited by D. Winton Thomas (Oxford, 1967), the Jubilee volume of the Society for Old Testament Study. For some other sites there are reliable but popular monographs available, outstanding among which are Wright’s Shechem, Biography of a Biblical City (Duckworth, 1965), Yigael Yadin’s Masada (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1966), Kenyon’s works on both Jericho and Jerusalem (though a bit more difficult for the uninitiated), and various treatments by Nelson Glueck, chiefly relating to the Negev and lower Trans-Jordan.

INTERPRETATION On the history of biblical hermeneutics, see Robert M. Grant, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible, Macmillan, revised 1963), an extremely well-written and interesting book. F. W. Farrar, History of Interpretation (Baker, 1885), is the classic nineteenth-century survey of the subject. Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation (Baker, revised 1956), provides an intermediate introduction to hermeneutics in general, while A. B. Mickelsen, Interpreting the Bible (Eerdmans, 1963), is a more thorough but decidedly less lucid work. The Interpretation of Scripture, by J. D. Smart (Westminster, 1961), is a rather dull book, but it is representative of a less orthodox approach to the subject than the treatments by Ramm and Mickelsen. James Barr’s now famous monograph, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford, 1961) raises some crucial linguistic issues for the scholar, though few have been able to follow him in all his conclusions. It should be noted that more recent books with the word hermeneutic (note the singular!) in the title center around problems of theological methodology and have little to do with the traditional concerns of biblical interpretation.

ONE-VOLUME COMMENTARIES Three up-to-date one-volume commentaries should be mentioned at the beginning: The New Bible Commentary: Revised, edited by Donald Guthrie and others (Eerdmans, 1970), Peake’s Commentary on the Bible, edited by M. Black and H. H. Rowley (Nelson, 1962), and The Jerome Biblical Commentary, edited by R. E. Brown, J. A. Fitzmeyer, and R. E. Murphy (Prentice-Hall, 1968).

The revised NBC replaces the older work of the same title and is a companion volume to the New Bible Dictionary; it represents the very best of contemporary evangelical scholarship and is the one that would be most useful to the majority of the readers of this magazine. Peake’s is more theologically inclusive than the NBC (though it uses a number of the same authors) but is an equally worthy volume; it is aimed at a more academically advanced audience than the NBC. The JBC represents the best of contemporary (American) Roman Catholic scholarship and is especially good in providing bibliographical information; it is unfortunate, however, to find some Catholic scholars very prone to accept the assumptions of nineteenth-century “critical orthodoxy” in a day when these are being questioned by Protestant and Jewish scholars of many different backgrounds.

MULTI-VOLUME COMMENTARIES As a general rule, one must be wary of buying complete sets of a commentary series. It is usually better to obtain the best individual volumes on particular books of the Bible from many different sets. Guides to the best such volumes will appear in subsequent installments of this bibliography. In the meantime it may be noted that The International Critical Commentary (T. and T. Clark) is the standard multi-volume exegetical commentary in the field. Although many of the individual commentaries are very old (dating as far back as 1895), the set is still a fundamental tool for the scholar. The Interpreter’s Bible, edited by G. A. Buttrick and others (Abingdon, twelve volumes), is still popular with preachers and contains some useful information, but is too full of wasted space (the whole text of the KJV and the RSV is included—in very large print) and homiletical chaff to be recommended as an economical investment. The Westminster Commentaries (Methuen) are useful, intermediate commentaries, reflecting a generally Anglo-Catholic point of view; and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, an older and more elementary work, remains useful. The Anchor Bible, under the editorship of W. F. Albright and David Noel Freedman (Doubleday), is certainly one of the most interesting of recent commentary ventures; it represents some of the best of modern Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant biblical scholarship, and places a strong emphasis on historical and linguistic matters. The New International Commentary (Eerdmans) is mostly complete in the New Testament (edited by F. F. Bruce) but only just begun in the Old (edited by R. K. Harrison). It is probably the best multi-volume commentary series written from the evangelical point of view. Theologically, it is moderately Reformed. The Tyndale Commentaries (Eerdmans) are less technical in nature and also represent an evangelical perspective, as one would expect from their sponsorship by British Inter-Varsity. The New Testament (edited by R. V. G. Tasker) is nearly complete, but less than half a dozen volumes on the Old Testament (edited by D. J. Wiseman) are available as yet. Two recently completed sets in the evangelical Wesleyan tradition are the Beacon Bible Commentary, edited by A. F. Harper and others (Beacon Hill, ten volumes) and the Wesleyan Bible Commentary, edited by Charles W. Carter (Eerdmans, seven volumes). Two recently begun sets by large, conservative, denominations are the Southern Baptists’ Broadman Bible Commentary and the Missouri Lutherans’ Concordia Commentary Series.

JOURNALS Several hundred theological journals are being published at the present time, and at least half of them have articles of significance to the biblical scholar. Any good theological library will subscribe to fifty or more of these. In a brief survey like this, there would be no room even to list all those that the student might find helpful. What follows serves simply as a check-list of a small number of the most important ones.

Three important journals for scholars are the Journals of Biblical Literature, the Catholic Biblical Quarterly and the Journal of Theological Studies. JBL contains essays on the Bible and related Jewish literature that are normally very technical; approximately half of each issue is given over to book reviews, which are often very helpful. CBQ is sponsored by the Catholic Biblical Association of America but includes articles and reviews by scholars of other persuasions; it is similar to JBL and is also noted for its good book reviews. JTS is more comprehensive and even more erudite than JBL or CBQ; its reviews are, on the whole, the best examples of scholarly reviewing to be found in any journal. The Tyndale Bulletin, published by the British Tyndale Fellowship (the academic theological arm of Inter-Varsity), is on a smaller scale (published annually); it contains the published forms of the annual Tyndale lectures in Old Testament, New Testament, and biblical theology given at Cambridge each year, in addition to other articles of significance. It is the only journal sponsored by evangelicals that consistently meets the high standard of scholarship represented by the three mentioned previously.

Less technical journals—designed for the scholarly pastor and theological student, as well as for the scholar—include Interpretation, Expository Times, the Evangelical Quarterly, the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, TSF Bulletin, and the Westminster Journal of Theology. Interpretation is probably the best all-round American journal of this level; most of the contributors are Protestant, and all theological points of view are represented (though the evangelical view is not seen in its pages as often as it used to be). Expository Times is a British journal that has been around for many years; some of its articles are quite technical, but most of them are written with the scholarly pastor in mind. The TSF Bulletin, a journal for theological students published by the British Inter-Varsity Fellowship, has always been good but has been greatly improved under the editorship of I. H. Marshall; it contains good book reviews and surveys of biblical research, and and at less than fifty cents an issue is certainly the best buy on the theological journal market. The Westminster Journal of Theology includes all the theological disciplines and is well known as the best of the academic journals produced by American evangelicals. And, naturally, the Bible student would not want to overlook the many helpful essays on biblical subjects and book reviews that appear in the pages of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

BIBLIOGRAPHIES A good place for the student to begin gathering bibliographical information for Bible study is his Bible dictionary (provided he has a good one). The bibliographies appended to each article of The New Bible Dictionary and The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible are superb. The Jerome Biblical Commentary is also an excellent source of bibliography.

F. W. Danker’s Multipurpose Tools for Bible Study (Concordia, revised 1970) is unique. The author not only lists the important tools for biblical study—such as concordances, Greek and Hebrew texts, grammars and lexicons, Bible dictionaries, translations, books on Judaism and the Dead Sea Scrolls, studies in biblical archaeology, and commentaries—but also attempts to teach the student how to use them.

More advanced students will not want to overlook the bibliographies of Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart or Elenchus Bibliographicus (formerly a part of the journal Biblica). All will find the annual book surveys that appear in CHRISTIANITY TODAY each February of value.

The authors are assistant professors at the new Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Dr. Armerding in Old Testament and Dr. Gasque in New Testament.

    • More fromCarl E. Armerding And W. Ward Gasque

David M. Howard

Page 5933 – Christianity Today (16)

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On December 6, 1888, the movement (that had begun in 1886 at a summer conference in Mt. Hermon, Massachusetts, under the direction of D. L. Moody) was officially organized in New York City under the name Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions. A fivefold purpose was developed:

To lead students to a thorough consideration of the claims of foreign missions upon them personally as a lifework; to foster this purpose by guiding students who become volunteers in their study and activity for missions until they come under the immediate direction of the Mission Boards; to unite all volunteers in a common, organized, aggressive movement; to secure a sufficient number of well-qualified volunteers to meet the demands of the various Mission Boards; and to create and maintain an intelligent sympathetic and active interest in foreign missions on the part of students who are to remain at home in order to ensure the strong backing of the missionary enterprise by their advocacy, their gifts and their prayers [John R. Mott, Five Decades and a Forward View, Harper and Brothers, 1939, p. 8].

The slogan “The Evangelization of the World in This Generation” became the great watchword of the SVM. This was misunderstood by some, notably Gustav Warneck, the German historian-theologian of mission, who thought it was an arrogant statement that all the world would be Christianized. It was branded as superficial and naïve. However, W. R. Hogg has correctly placed it in perspective as follows:

The majority of its detractors (most of them Continentals) apparently failed to grasp its true meaning. It did not prophesy nor suggest as possible the conversion of the world in this generation.… The overwhelming majority of students to whom it was meaningful understood by it the responsibility of each generation to make the gospel known to all mankind in that generation. None other can repeat that eternal message to a particular generation. Its own members alone can do that. Understanding this, individual Christians recognized more keenly than ever the bearing of the Great Commission upon their own lives. The watchword, then, in the best sense was a call to obligation—not a prophecy of fact [Ecumenical Foundations, Harper and Brothers, 1952, p. 88].…

Taking a cue from the Princeton Foreign Missionary Society with its “pledge,” the SVM developed a declaration card. The purpose of the card was to face each student with the challenge of “the evangelization of the world in this generation.” The card stated: “It is my purpose, if God permit, to become a foreign missionary.” When a student signed this, it was understood as his response to the call of God. Every student was expected to face the issue and either to respond to it in the affirmative or else show that God was clearly leading him elsewhere.

Growth And Outreach

The growth of the SVM in the following three decades was nothing short of phenomenal. In 1891, the first international student missionary convention sponsored by the SVM was held in Cleveland, Ohio. It was decided that such a convention should be held every four years in order to reach each student generation. Until the 1940’s, this became a pattern, interrupted only by World War I. The first convention at Cleveland was attended by 558 students representing 151 educational institutions, along with 31 foreign missionaries and 32 representatives of missionary societies.

By the time of the Cleveland convention, there were 6,200 Student Volunteers from 352 educational institutions in the United States and Canada. And 321 volunteers had already sailed for overseas service. In addition, 40 colleges and 32 seminaries were involved in financial support of their alumni who had gone overseas as Volunteers. All this had taken place in just five years since the Mt. Hermon conference. The movement had also reached out and planted seeds of similar movements in Great Britain, Scandinavia, and South Africa.

Luther Wishard’s vision of a worldwide alliance of student movements such as the YMCA was bearing fruit in those same years. From 1888 to 1892, he traveled throughout the world “laying foundations for national Student Movements that were later to become members of the World’s Student Christian Federation. Wishard was a Federation trailblazer … John R. Mott, however, did more than any other to found the World’s Student Christian Federation” (Hogg, op. cit., p. 89).

In 1895, at Vadstena Castle, Sweden, the World’s Student Christian Federation was brought into being with John R. Mott as general secretary. While the SVM was only one strand leading to the WSCF, it is notable that some of the leaders of the SVM were also leaders of the worldwide movement among students.

Following the meetings at Vadstena Castle, Mott spent the next two years traveling throughout the world. He visited universities in the Near East, India and Ceylon, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii. Some seventy student associations and four national Student Christian Movements came into being as a result of his tour.

For the next twenty-five years, the story of the SVM is one of constant growth and outreach. An educational program in the schools was initiated and spread rapidly. Mott could later write that “at one time before the war the number in such circles exceeded 40,000 in 2,700 classes in 700 institutions.”

These efforts on the local campuses, the quadrennial conventions, plus literature, speaking tours, and other activities resulted in thousands of students volunteering for overseas service. “By 1945, at the most conservative estimate, 20,500 students from so-called Christian lands who had signed the declaration, reached the field, for the most part under the missionary societies and boards of the Churches” (R. Rouse and S. C. Neill, A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517–1948, Westminster, 1967, p. 328).

World War I caused a temporary slowdown of these activities, but there was an immediate postwar burst of missionary zeal. “The Convention held in Des Moines in 1920 marked the peak of the Movement’s development. It was attended by 6,890 people from 949 schools and was followed by a peak year of newly enrolled Volunteers—2,783” (W. H. Beahm, “Factors in the Development of the Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1941, p. 13).

The growth had been rapid and impressive. But the SVM was now to experience the pressures of other forces that were building up in the aftermath of World War I. The “Roaring Twenties,” the depression of the thirties, and other currents did not leave the SVM unscathed.

Confusion And Decline

Statistics can never give a full picture of any movement, any more than a thermometer can diagnose the disease of a patient. But just as a thermometer can give a reading on general health or decline, so statistics can often give readings of underlying symptoms of vigor or weakness. From the high point of 1920, the SVM experienced a rapid decline. Thirty-eight Volunteers sailed for the field in 1934 (as compared with 637 in 1921). Twenty-five Volunteers enrolled in the SVM in 1938 (as compared with 2,783 in 1920). In 1940, 465 delegates attended the quadrennial convention in Toronto (as compared with the 6,890 at Des Moines in 1920).…

What had happened to precipitate, or to allow, such a drastic decline?

Dr. W. H. Beahm has highlighted the following factors [in the dissertation previously mentioned] …:

1. Many changes of leadership broke the continuity of its life and left the subtle impression of a sinking ship from which they were fleeing.

2. There was increasing difficulty in financing its program. This was closely related to the depression and the loss of Mott’s leadership.

3. The program tended to become top-heavy. In 1920 the executive committee was expanded from six to thirty members.

4. Its emphasis upon foreign missions seemed to overlook the glaring needs in America, and so the movement appeared to be specialized rather than comprehensive.

5. When the interest of students veered away from missions, it left the movement in a dilemma as to which interest to follow—student or missionary.

6. There was a great decline in missionary education. One reason for this was the assumption that discussion of world problems by students was an improvement over the former types of informative procedure. The conventions came to have this discussional character.

7. Their emphasis shifted away from Bible study, evangelism, lifework decision, and foreign-mission obligation, on which the SVM had originally built. Instead they now emphasized new issues such as race relations, economic injustice, and imperialism.

8. The rise of indigenous leaders reduced the need for Western personnel.

9. The rise of the social gospel blotted out the sharp distinction between Christian America and the “unevangelized portions of the world.”

10. Revivalism had given way to basic uncertainty as to the validity of the Christian faith, especially of its claim to exclusive supremacy. Accordingly the watchword fell into disuse and the argument for foreign missions lost its force.

The development of these trends is highlighted by the evaluations of the quadrennial conventions:

Des Moines, 1920

The convention at Des Moines in 1920 was a revolt against older leadership. The 5,000 students who gathered there were not dominated by any great missionary purpose. Many were not even professing Christians. They were more interested in peace relations, economic improvement, and international peace than in world evangelization as such [“Students and Missions at Buffalo,” The Missionary Review of the World, February, 1932, p. 67].

That convention was large in number but the delegates were lacking in missionary vision and purpose and were only convinced that a change of ideals and of leadership was needed. They rightly believed that selfishness and foolishness had involved the world in terrible war and bloodshed and they expressed their intention to take control of Church and State in an effort to bring about better social conditions. The problems of international peace, social justice, racial equality and economic betterment obscured the Christian foundations and ideals of spiritual service. Many students were determined to work for reforms—either with or without the help of God [“Student Volunteers at Indianapolis,” The Missionary Review of the World, February, 1936, p. 68].

Indianapolis, 1924

The youth were in the saddle and turned attention from world evangelism to the solution of social and economic problems. But while earnest and energetic, they were uninformed and inexperienced. They failed to make much impression or to reach any practical conclusions. The SMV seemed doomed [ibid.].

Detroit, 1928

This convention seemed to offer a brief respite from the turbulence and upheavals of the two most recent ones. There was more of a quiet search for truth. Yet the uncertainty of belief on the part of many seemed to be evident.

The platform addresses were free from the impassioned oratory of the earlier Conventions; they were essentially a sharing of facts gleaned through experiences and observation.… Characteristic of the testimonies of foreigners who spoke … was Hashim Hussein’s on “A Moslem Meets Christ”.… He referred to the numerous students at the conference whom he had observed were “talking in terms of comparative religion, of syncretism, and again students who [are] doubting one theological doctrine or another”.… Beyond the Convention the mood of foreign missionary depression continued [W. A. Omulogoli, “The Student Volunteer Movement: Its History and Constitution,” M.A. thesis, Wheaton College, 1967, pp. 114–16].

Buffalo, 1932

The Buffalo Student Volunteer Convention was not exclusively a foreign missionary convention. The watchword of the movement—the Evangelization of the World in this Generation—was conspicuous by its absence [“Students and Missions at Buffalo,” p. 67].

Indianapolis, 1936

The mass of the delegates had little or no knowledge of the Bible and spiritual things. They had evidently not studied the Bible in their homes, in churches or in colleges and universities. They lacked the background and foundations for the appreciation of missionary themes.… The audience was the mission field rather than the missionary force [“Student Volunteers at Indianapolis,” p. 68].

In its fiftieth year of history, the character of the Movement had been so altered of late that it could not in all honesty claim to be contending for its originally outlined objectives. One clear indication of this fact is the place that was given the Movement’s founder, Robert P. Wilder, in the programme of this Convention.… While many of the speakers held to philosophical and theological presuppositions that were not in accord with the Movement, Wilder was accorded no substantial role on the programme [Omulogoli, op. cit., p. 121].

Termination Of Svm

As early as 1940, Dr. Beahm could write that the SVM “has almost ceased to be a decisive factor in the promotion of the missionary program of the churches.” After 1940, its activities appear to be almost nonexistent.

In 1959, the SVM merged with the United Student Christian Council and the Interseminary Movement to form the National Student Christian Federation (NSCF). This in turn was allied with the Roman Catholic National Newman Student Federation and other groups in 1966 to form the University Christian Movement (UCM). The purpose of the UCM at its inception was threefold: “to provide an ecumenical instrument for allowing the church and university world to speak to each other, to encourage Christian response on campuses to human issues, and to act as agent through which sponsors could provide resources and services to campus life.” It is obvious that these purposes, while legitimate in themselves, show little relationship to the original objectives of the SVM as spelled out at Mt. Hermon and in subsequent developments.

On March 1, 1969, the General Committee of the University Christian Movement at its meeting in Washington, D. C., took action in the form of an affirmative vote (23 for, 1 against, 1 abstention) on the following resolution: “We, the General Committee of the UCM, declare that as of June 30, 1969, the UCM ceases to exist as a national organization.…”

Thus, the final vestiges of the greatest student missionary movement in the history of the Church were quietly laid to rest eighty-three years after the Spirit of God had moved so unmistakably upon students at Mt. Hermon.

No human movement is perfect, nor can it be expected to endure indefinitely. But the great heritage left by the SVM can still speak to our generation. The reasons for its decline can serve as warning signals. Its principal emphases can redirect our attention to the basic issues of today: emphasis on personal commitment to Jesus Christ on a lifelong basis; acceptance of the authority of the Word of God and emphasis on personal Bible study; sense of responsibility to give the Gospel of Christ to the entire world in our generation; reliance on the Holy Spirit; emphasis on student initiative and leadership to carry out these objectives.

David M. Howard is director of the Missions Department of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. This essay is taken from his new book, “Student Power in World Evangelism” (© 1970, Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship).

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Eve Chybova Bock

Page 5933 – Christianity Today (18)

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November 15 will mark the three-hundredth anniversary of the death of John Amos Comenius, a churchman, educator, and philosopher who was one of the most famous men of his time and is still highly revered in his native Czechoslovakia. But his legacy does not belong to the Czech nation alone; it belongs to all mankind. It is proper that the anniversary be observed not only in his small native land but wherever the saints of the Christian faith are remembered and honored.

Comenius’s life story is, from the human point of view, a tragic one. He was born in 1592 as the fifth child of a prosperous miller in southern Moravia (now a province of Czechoslovakia) and was left an orphan at the age of twelve. After unsuccessfully trying to carry on his father’s trade, he enrolled at the age of sixteen in a Latin grammar school, and later at a Calvinist Academy. From there he went to the University of Heidelberg, where he became well known for his learned discourses and his interest in the problems of education. His studies finished, he returned to Moravia and became a teacher and minister in his church, the Unitas Fratrum (The Unity of Brethren or, as it is known in America, the Moravian Church). He married a rather well-to-do young lady and settled down in Fulnek in northern Moravia.

Comenius began his ministry and his teaching at the parochial school during a time of turbulent political developments. For decades the most pressing “political” issue of the land had been religious freedom; only a few years before the ordination of Comenius, the Brethren and other followers of John Huss celebrated a decisive victory in their long and bitter struggle for liberty. In that memorable year, 1609, King Rudolph II issued the Letter of Majesty, granting them freedom and promising that “no other decree of any kind will be issued by us or by our heirs and succeeding kings against the above religious peace.” Thus the Unitas Fratrum, which had endured much persecution, had every reason to believe that its time of trial had come to an end.

Yet within a few years, dark clouds started to gather not only over the Brethren but also over all non-Roman churches, indeed, over the whole land, and in 1618 that most cruel of all religious conflicts, the Thirty Years’ War, broke out. The Protestant army suffered a crushing defeat almost at the onset of the war. Protestant political leaders were executed, ministers of the non-Roman churches were jailed and killed, “heretical” books were burned by the thousands, and Catholicism was forced upon the whole population. In 1621 the Spanish army, helping to support the Catholic cause in central Europe, invaded the town of Fulnek. Comenius, whose life was in grave danger because of his ministerial status, was forced to flee, leaving behind his pregnant wife and a small son. He never saw them again. Both of them, as well as the newborn baby, died of the plague brought to town by the soldiers.

For seven years Comenius led the wretched life of a fugitive in his native land. At first, his spirit dwelled constantly at home in Fulnek. Unaware of his wife’s death, he wrote for her a little booklet called On Christian Perfection, trying to convince her—and himself—that “the best thing a man can do is to follow God willingly, though it may be with tears, and accept from his hand with gratitude everything—fortune and misfortune, joy and sorrow, laughter and weeping.” The trusted messenger who was to deliver the booklet and the charming, moving letter that accompanied it brought back the news of the three deaths.

Comenius’s grief was without bounds, and never in his long and sorrowful life was he able to forget his two little boys and the gentle young girl who had been his wife. But even in these tortured times he did not forget his mission as a minister, a man whose duty it was to comfort others. And there were a multitude who needed to be comforted, for the rage of the enemy was beyond belief. The forests were swarming with fugitives like himself, some searching for their children, others for their parents, some dying of disease and hunger, others driven crazy by terror. And every new arrival brought terrifying new stories of torture and slaughter.

This was now his congregation. From his hiding places—deserted huts, caves, even hollow trees—he wrote letters of comfort and little homilies as “The Name of the Lord Is a Strong Tower,” “The Sorrowful,” and “The Press of the Lord.” As soon as these writings became known to the Jesuits, who were forever searching the countryside, they were placed on the Index of Heretical Books; but they circulated in handwritten copies among the fugitives, bringing some measure of comfort into their desperate lives. Besides these small writings, Comenius composed during these years of hiding one of his most excellent and famous books, The Labyrinth of the World and the Paradise of the Heart, a classic of Czech literature. The book pictures a pilgrim who in vain seeks happiness in the world and finds it at last in union with Christ. It, too, was placed on the Index, but even more than the other books was a source of encouragement to the refugees.

When the situation did not improve, Comenius decided to leave the country and await happier times in Poland, where many Brethren had fled during previous persecutions and had established several congregations. With a small band of other Brethren, he crossed the border in January, 1628, and settled down with his second wife in the city of Leszno. There he tried to pick up the pieces of his ministerial and educational work and also continued to write.

From the moment he crossed the border, Comenius cherished the hope that some day he would return. He realized fully that his fatherland would then be in a state of desolation and chaos, and that much work would be needed to bring it back to the material and—above all—spiritual wealth it had enjoyed before the war. He was convinced that education would play an all-important role in this rebuilding, and with this aim in mind he began work on his Didactic, a book “on the art of teaching all things to all men,” dedicating it to the Czech nation. As the aim of all education he set “to become learned in the sciences, pure in morals, trained in piety.” He advocated public education for all children, noble and common, rich and poor, boys and girls, bright and retarded, arguing again and again that to fulfill the destiny of being “in the image of God” one has to develop to the fullest the potential given to him by the Creator.

Later he translated the book into Latin and sent it to several prominent authorities on education. It did not arouse much interest; many of his ideas were too novel and too daring. Disappointed, he turned to other tasks. He prepared his Labyrinth for print, wrote some prayer books and a book on physics, revised a Latin grammar.

Amidst this activity, quite unexpectedly success came to him from another book. Long dissatisfied with the ways in which Latin was taught, he selected several thousand common words, used them in sentences that described some everyday situation or activity, and translated the sentences into Latin. Thus the book taught not only words or rules but also a “subject matter”: it described the universe, explained natural phenomena, spoke of customs and laws, pointed to virtues and sins. It could be used as a textbook of Latin or a textbook of his mother tongue. He called the book Janua Linguarum Reserata (The Gate of Languages Unlocked) and had it published in 1633. It was a phenomenal success. Within a few years it was translated into sixteen languages, among them such exotic tongues as Persian and Mongolian, and it appeared in eighty editions during his lifetime and twenty-six others after his death.

Comenius became one of the most celebrated men of his time and was welcomed with highest honors wherever he appeared. He received invitations from Germany, Holland, Sweden, Hungary, and England to come and establish schools or give guidance to people concerned with educational or cultural matters. On a trip to Holland he met John Winthrop, the governor of Massachusetts, and was offered the presidency of the recently founded Harvard College. The invitation, recorded in Cotton Mather’s Marginalia, reads:

That brave old man, Johannes Amos Commenius, the fame of whose worth has been trumpetted as far as more than three languages (whereof everyone is indebted to his Janua) could carry it, was agreed with-all, by our Mr. Winthrop in his travels through the Low Countries, to come over into New England, and illuminate this Colledge and country in the quality of a President. But [because of] the solicitations of the Swedish Ambassador, diverting him another way, that incomparable Moravian became not an American.

More than two decades later, Comenius repeated his success with another language textbook, Orbis Pictus (The World in Pictures). Based on the same principle that made the Janua so successful, this second book has the distinction of being the first illustrated textbook in the world. There are more than one hundred known editions of it in a score of languages.

But despite his fame and success, Comenius’s life was not a bed of roses. He constantly fought poverty. Even after he was elected bishop, he received no pay from the church, and from the proceeds of his books he supported not only his family but also the impoverished flocks of exiles in Germany, Poland, and Hungary. When he arrived in London to address the British Parliament and was to attend a dinner given in his honor by the archbishop of York, a tailor had to be summoned hurriedly to make him a robe “in the fashion customary among English divines,” so poorly was he dressed.

Poverty, however, was not his worst enemy. Of far greater concern was the fact that one by one, every dream about returning home proved to have been only a dream. The war was dragging on, and luck was mostly on the enemy side. The Protestant Saxons, for a while successful, were beaten. Frederick of the Palatinate, in whom the exiles placed high hopes, died. The Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, a great ally, was killed in the battle. Finally, in 1648, after thirty years of fighting, the two enemy camps signed the peace treaty of Westphalia, giving each other various concessions. Comenius’s fatherland was given to the Catholics.

Comenius was shattered by the terms of the treaty. He pleaded with the Swedish chancellor, one of the Protestant negotiators, that “by the wounds of Jesus Christ ye do not abandon us who are afflicted for Christ’s sake.” But all pleading was in vain. The fate of the exiles was sealed.

Nearer to despair than before, Comenius hardly knew what to attempt next. His beloved fatherland lay devastated in enemy hands; his church was in danger of extinction. Then his wife, a faithful companion throughout the bitter years of exile, fell ill and died. He found solace in writing. In a sorrowful, profoundly moving little book that he called The Bequest of the Dying Mother, the Unity of Brethren, he pictured his church as a mother calling her children to her deathbed and dividing among them “the treasures that God entrusted unto her.” Some of these treasures were bequeathed to his native land, others to all mankind, some to specific congregations or church bodies, others to all Christendom. Probably no words other than the Scriptures are more sacred to Czech Protestants than the words of Comenius’s Bequest.

In spring, 1650, Comenius made a long visit to Hungary, having been invited by the powerful family of Rakoczys to establish schools there. He returned to Poland almost on the eve of the Swedish-Polish war. The first victories of the Swedes rekindled in him for the last time a faint hope of returning home, but soon the situation changed. The Swedish regiment that was occupying the town where he lived was forced to leave, and the advancing Polish army burned the flourishing town to the ground. Comenius, now sixty-four, fled the burning town with nothing but the clothes on his back. He lost all his meager possessions, including his books and manuscripts, and once again had no place to lay his head. After great hardships he arrived in Amsterdam, where through the charity of friends he spent the last fourteen years of his life in reasonable comfort, supervising the publication of his collective works and writing more books. He died on November 15, 1670, and was buried in the nearby town of Naarden. His grave is now cared for by the Czechoslovak government.

Comenius’s legacy to mankind is manifold. During his lifetime he was called “The Teacher of Nations,” and he is remembered mainly for his contributions to education. Many of the “daring” and “novel” ideas expressed in his Didactic have long since been adopted. His call for public education of all children has been answered by civilized nations the world over. The organization of public schooling follows pretty much the plan he set forth. His insistence on the importance of pre-school training and guidance has been proved correct. Many of his practical points of language teaching and learning are as valid today as they were three hundred years ago.

What is often omitted in a summary of his contributions to education, however, is a mention of the force that motivated him to improve upon the educational opportunities of children everywhere—his conviction that each person is precious in the eyes of God. He dwelled with great seriousness on the training of a pre-school child because “Christ, the revealer of God’s secrets, clearly stated that such is the kingdom of heaven.” His interest in the education of the poor and untalented stemmed, not from any social or economic plan, but from the knowledge that “out of the poorest, the most abject, and the most obscure, God has produced instruments of his glory.” His insistence on equal educational opportunities for girls was not a call for women’s rights but an expression of his belief about women:

They are also formed in the image of God, and share in his grace and in the kingdom of the world to come. They are endowed with equal sharpness of mind and capacity for knowledge (often with more than the opposite sex), and they are able to attain the highest positions, since they have often been called by God himself to rule over nations, to give sound advice to kings and princes, to study medicine and other things that benefit the human race.…

Yet it has to be admitted that Comenius did not labor over his books on education and did not travel far and wide to establish schools with the sole motivation of helping to make every human being more reflective of the image of God. He also had a more earthly goal in mind; he strove for a world of concord and peace. This one who had suffered all his life from consequences of wars labored hard to reform the war-torn world he knew, calling nations and churches to mutual respect and cooperation. In matters of church and theology, he stressed purity of life and personal piety far more than dogmatic subtleties, firmly believing that no theological issue was worth quarreling—let alone fighting—about. Concerning the Lord’s Supper, one of the hottest points of dispute among the theologians of his time, he wrote,

Whether this sacrament is received by mouth or by faith alone, why do ye quarrel about it? Why do ye wish to discuss all about which the Scriptures are silent?… Remember that we all know only in part, and especially remember that this mystery was ordained not that the hearts of the believers be torn asunder thereby but rather that they be bound together into one.

Perhaps nowhere else did he express his longing for harmony and love in Christendom more beautifully than in the words of his Bequest of the Dying Mother, the Unity of Brethren:

To all Christian churches together I bequeath a lively desire for unanimity of opinion and for reconciliation among themselves, and for union in faith, and love of the unity of spirit. May the spirit which was given to me from the very beginning by the Father of spirits be shed upon you all, so that you would desire as sincerely as I did the union of all who call upon the name of Christ in truth.

Exactly three hundred years later, in 1948, when churchmen of many nations and denominations met in Amsterdam to form the World Council of Churches and declared, “We intend to stay together,” members of the Czechoslovak, Polish, and Hungarian delegations made a pilgrimage to Comenius’s grave in Naarden, rejoicing at the fact that one of that remarkable man’s fondest dreams was finally becoming a reality.

Comenius was three centuries ahead of his time also in his call for a world government. He spoke of a “senate of the world,” an international body of learned, upright men who would “keep watch as from a high tower” over all nations. It would be their duty to see that no king abused his power, that social evils that lead to wars were eliminated, that people everywhere were taught “not to lower their human dignity by starting hatred and litigation over material things.” They would act as a court of appeal in international disputes, and their findings would be binding on every king and nation. In this unified world, education would play an enormously important role. Comenius envisioned a universal educational program, directed from one headquarters and spreading throughout the world by means of common schools, teaching from common textbooks and in a common language. That way, he felt, the same truth would be presented to all men, misunderstandings would be eliminated, wars would cease, and harmony would be achieved.

Much of Comenius’s work in education, his writing of textbooks, and many of his travels through Europe were in the service of this grandiose plan for unification of the world, often referred to as “Pansophia.” However fantastic the plan sounds to us today, there was a good deal of interest in it, and Comenius came close to attaining a Pansophic College that would be the headquarters of the universal educational program. During his stay in London in 1641–42, the British Parliament accepted the plan “for assigning some College with its revenues as Pansophic College.” But soon afterwards the civil war broke out, and Comenius had to leave England. The only result of his trip there was the founding of the learned Royal Society, which devoted itself to the “mysteries of nature,” not to the problems of world government.

Comenius worked on the pansophic plan for some forty years and presented it in full in his last work, the seven-volume De rerum humanarum emendatione consultation catholica (General Consultation Concerning the Improvement of Human Affairs). Only two of the seven volumes were published during his lifetime; the rest were thought lost. Then in 1935 the manuscripts of the five missing volumes were found in Halle, Germany, and in 1945 they were sent to Prague. The Comenius Institute has since published both the Latin original and the Czech translation. The work, which is almost as voluminous as all the rest of Comenius’s work put together, has been the subject of much research in recent years, and full evaluation will take a long time. It will probably rank as one of the most comprehensive elaborations of a philosophical system, and will establish Comenius’s place in the intellectual history of Europe. Thus a part of his legacy we are yet to receive.

Apart from his contribution to education and to reconciliation among churches and nations, Comenius left to mankind a pearl of great value in the example of his own life. A man of grief, he was also a man of hope. A man of sorrow, he was a man of faith. A man of poverty, he was a man of virtue. All his life, even under the most adverse circumstances, he served the Lord faithfully and in obedience. Protest and rebellion had no place in his heart. Two years before his death he surveyed the long years of his life in a modest booklet, Unum necessarium (The One Thing Needful). Noting sadly, “All my life I have been a pilgrim, never and nowhere did I have a lasting home,” he nevertheless did not complain. The One Thing Needful, as he saw it, was neither wealth nor security; it was the thing Mary chose, willingness to sit at Jesus’ feet. Then in the last chapter he made his personal bequest:

Come, my sons and my daughters, come, my children’s children, and harken unto the voice of your father (before I myself sleep with my fathers): No bequest do I leave unto you besides that One Thing Needful: that ye may fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man (Eccl. 12:13). Then the Lord will be your inheritance (Deut. 18:2) and your shield, and your reward shall be very great (Gen. 15:1).

O that mankind might take up its inheritance!

Eve Chybová Bock is assistant professor of German at Heidelberg College in Tiffin, Ohio. She is a native of Czechoslovakia and did undergraduate work at Charles University in Prague, and she has the M.A. from Yale.

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C. Philip Hinerman

Page 5933 – Christianity Today (20)

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For a church in the great liberal tradition of modern Protestantism to withhold benevolence money from its denomination is sensational news—particularly when this church charges that the denomination has given funds and support to acknowledged Communistic and revolutionary groups. This was the action taken not long ago by one of the wealthiest and most strategic churches in the Midwest against its denominational conference.

The split within Protestantism today is clearly revealed when denominational leaders, rather than denying such charges, admit them and then seek to defend their policies in the name of “reconciliation.” “We have already radicalized the conference machinery and budget” said one activist leader in the bureaucracy. “Now we must begin to radicalize the local church.” One may safely predict, however, that the latter “radicalizing” will be longer in coming than the first.

At first glance, the proposed takeover of the Church for radical ends seems politically motivated. And superficially it is—hard politics, revolutionary if not Marxist. Those who deny it or believe it will go away if ignored are in for a great shock. This struggle is going on in almost all the major denominations in America, and in every geographical section, including the Bible Belt. (In fact, some of the most strategic and clever political action to radicalize the Church is taking place in Deep South enclaves.) But something is happening that transcends the political. The basic issue has been and is now theological.

A review of a book entitled The Secular Search for a New Christ illustrates the theological basis of this shift to the far left. The author of the book is G. H. Todrank, professor of religion at Colby College, and his thesis, comments reviewer R. Franklin Terry, is that “God as a supernatural agent intervening in history and nature is no longer credible; the biblical perspective on human nature and destiny is too narrowly conceived; the church in both liturgy and institutional practice has lost its compelling relevance to the modern world. But man is still incurably religious in that he longs for ‘an abiding sense of fulfillment or deep satisfaction in everyday living’” (The Christian Advocate, Feb. 19, 1970).

Terry goes on to describe the implications of this, in Todrank’s view:

The resulting “crisis for Christianity” is whether a more challenging alternative to orthodoxy can be conceived—a Christology, for example, without Jesus! Hence, we are led to the “quest for secular salvation.” In a pluralistic society, Todrank argues, “no one can claim, in any sense, to be the Christ. This is one of the most serious legitimate criticisms against traditional Christianity today.” In our experience today there are many agencies (Christs) of salvation. Gone forever is the Universal Lordship of Christ crucified and risen.

If salvation can be equated with “an abiding sense of fulfillment” or “deep satisfaction in everyday living,” then to be sure, Jesus Christ (present in gospel, sacrament, and church) is not the only agent of salvation. Beethoven might indeed be a Christ in this sense or Chase Manhattan Bank, depending upon how one defines “fulfillment” and “satisfaction.”

Now that review says it rather clearly, does it not? Every once in a while someone begs me to be more positive in what I preach and write about the state of the world and of the Church. I have been saying recently that there is something either sick or demonic about the present course of the Church, and some people seem to feel that such critical, negative words were better left unsaid. My question is, Who is being negative and who is being positive? Is Todrank, writing against the Christian faith, being positive, and am I by calling his book to your attention, being negative?

Of one thing I am terribly sure—there is a great crisis within the Church in this hour, a crisis that has greater theological implications than any other since perhaps the fourth century. And our strongest foes are those within our own household.

The Church seems to be divided today between those dedicated to changing the structures of society in an effort to build the Kingdom of God, and those who want first to see men changed and transformed so that the Kingdom may ultimately come. Within many of the denominations, great sums of money are being raised from the local churches and then, in the name of “reconciliation,” given to various power blocs and radically militant groups with the idealistic hope that “the structures of an evil society” will be changed.

Reconciliation is a fascinating word, one with a beautiful meaning. In the New Testament, it is used to mean the restoration of harmony between man and God. But amazing things are being done with this lovely word by those who seem to have little interest in its original meaning. The “reconciliation” funds that major denominations are giving to various radical and revolutionary groups—often groups with deep and bitter anti-Christian philosophies—are raised within the local churches by pietistic arguments with fine biblical sounds. Listen to this one, taken from a denominational promotional sheet attempting to raise funds “to change the structures of our evil society”:

We are motivated, not by political, economical, sociological, or even humanitarian considerations, though we recognize such considerations as legitimate expressions of our response to the love of God in Christ with which He first loved us. We are motivated by the love of God manifest in Christ which calls us to total commitment of His Reconciling purpose.

Or this:

Because God is the Reconciler and not we ourselves, we must continually seek the guidance of His Holy Spirit lest we project institution-oriented goals and class values as the purpose of this program. The ministry of reconciliation which we acknowledge as the mission of the Church does not require us to re-create all sorts and conditions of men into our image, nor even to win members for the Church. It requires us to open the way for God to make a people what He will. To say it another way, it requires us to work for conditions in our world that free men and women to attain the utmost of themselves as persons. We do not presume to predetermine what kind of persons they will be.

That says it clearly, it seems to me. Conversion is certainly not to be the number one item of business. I suspect it is not even second or third on the priority list. In the new pragmatic, political church, we are to give missionary money to all sorts of organizations outside the Church to help each to do its own thing. Apparently there are to be no strings attached to the gift, no questions asked.

Some of the major denominations have publicly denied giving missionary money to meet the reparations demand of James Forman. Yet their mission boards have given hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single year to the Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization, an organization that publicly admits that it is a front for Forman’s group and that some of this denominational mission money is being given to Forman. This is an interesting game the denominational boards seem to be playing. Perhaps it is their way of fulfilling the biblical injunction that “when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.”

This clever bookkeeping serves to appease the constituency that pours the millions of dollars into the mission-board coffers annually while the mission boards give money to radicals and revolutionists in the name of reconciliation and the building of a new world structure. And in this way the denominational boards declare that they are fulfilling Christ’s mission upon the earth and doing the work that the relevant Church should be doing in this crisis hour.

To bring it all off successfully, however, and to insure that the dollars continue to pour in from the local churches, requires some care. The goose that lays the golden egg must not be fatally damaged in this delicate operation. The men in high places who produce a pietistic rationale for these operations and mail it out to the local churches acknowledge openly that “we do not presume to predetermine what kind of people” the recipients of the missionary funds will be or ought to become. With disarming honesty the writers announce their dedication to the task of working for conditions in our world that will “free men and women to attain the utmost of themselves as persons.” That makes good existentialist theology. Bultmann and Heidegger would understand perfectly. But it is a far cry from the New Testament theology of both Jesus and Paul.

The kerygmatic reconciliation of the New Testament is between God and man, accomplished by the blood of Jesus Christ. But the reconciliation to which many in the churches today are devoting their efforts is exclusively horizontal reconciliation between man and man, group and group, race and race. Apparently it is accomplished, at least in part, with money.

To speak about these matters is to risk being branded negativistic, judgmental, intolerant. Is it not right, however, to cry out for biblical reform and spiritual revival when the Church becomes choked with unbelief? A necessary part of this is to call attention to unbiblical teaching in denominational literature and colleges and seminaries, and to the leftward and radical turn of the mission boards and women’s societies and other denominational agencies. To speak out on these issues seems to me to be within the great tradition of the Old Testament prophets, and in tune with the hard words of our Lord and with the highest traditions of Protestant and evangelical faith.

I do not believe that evangelical pastors and churches are polarizing the Church. The evangelicals I know are simply trying to survive and to bear some kind of witness in this time of apostasy. Humanly speaking they are weak and powerless within the new church. I believe that politically powerful caucus groups that are making non-negotiable demands, demonstrating, and insisting that budgetary items be cut back and the money given to them with no strings attached—these are the ones who are polarizing the Church.

No one can deny that Protestants are losing ground. In this day of great population explosion, church membership rolls and monetary resources are in a state of decline. More and more members of established denominations are silently leaving their churches. They are not marching and demonstrating. They simply have had it, and are seeking spiritual food elsewhere. The silent slipping away will no doubt continue and perhaps increase as the prospect of a super-church of a dozen denominations looms larger.

Could there be a connection between the decline in membership and contributions and the radical leftward swing of many denominational boards and agencies? My experience has been that some agency officials will quickly deny this, offering some reasons for the great decline. But some agency officials have acknowledged the connection without hesitation, and have cavalierly dismissed it as “the price that must be paid by a truly prophetic church.” And so the polarization within the Church continues at great and terrible speed.

We have looked briefly at the social and political polarization within the Church, but I am sure that the deeper division is theological.

Suburbia Rediscovered

The big news in the religious publishing field in 1971 will be the flood of books and articles that emphasize the importance and the potential of the suburban congregation. Instead of denouncing the suburban church as irrelevant or as overly concerned with a ministry only to its members, these authors will point to the suburban church as a potential power center with the capability of accelerating the pace of planned social change.

This view will be reinforced by the detailed reports from the 1970 census of population. These reports will show a sharp increase in the proportion of the black population living in suburbia. These reports also will reveal a sharp increase in the number of the poor living in suburbia.—LYLE E. SCHALLER, city planner and United Methodist minister, in a article syndicated by Associated Church Press.

Increasingly it seems to me that the real issue of this hour within the Church is whether God hears and answers our prayers. The issue, then, is the supernatural. We are not divided into pietists and social activists so much as we are divided between those who believe and those who do not. There are those who believe that God is there, that he does hear and answer our prayers, and that he does act in response to our entreaties. And there are those naturalists and humanists in the Church today who deny not only the miracles of the New Testament but also the real miracles of this hour. This, it would seem to me, is the real division point.

It is a combination of social concern and evangelistic passion that is the real heartbeat of the Church. The parish church I have served for almost two decades is now an interracial church in an interracial community. This church has a great heritage and tradition of missionary concern, evangelistic passion, and intelligent biblical witness. But it also has great concern for the world at its doorstep. For many years it has given generously both of its sons and of its funds to the world mission of the Church. And for many years it has attempted to reach out into the nearby community to meet the needs of the poor and the dispossessed. For this church, social concern and evangelical outreach has never been an either/or proposition but always both/and, and never more so than in today’s split world. The evangelical church must not only come alive; it must truly begin to care!

What we may now begin to see in the evangelical churches is the start of a great new movement of the Holy Spirit, not only among young people but in the total life of the Church. This is not to be a movement of emotionalism; we have already had that, and it has failed. But this can be a deep and quiet movement of the Spirit touching every area of personal and social living.

Only a spiritual movement in which men become right in their relationship with God and then in their relationship with their families and their fellow men, is worth being called an awakening. Francis Schaeffer keeps reminding us that it is both revival and reformation in life that we so greatly need in the Church today. And we are starting to see this in the life of some local parishes.

I believe that only our Lord can do this, by his Spirit, in the kind of world in which we live today. I do not see sociologists producing a transformation in character and personality, nor do I see money—whether large or small sums, from government or private sources—producing this result. Despite great expenditures, the failure of social and governmental agencies to rebuild the City of Man is clearly visible all around us.

One other positive word remains to be said. Those of us who are believers in this One who has come down out of heaven to deliver us must be more clear and more certain in our witness of him today than ever before. We must stand up and affirm for all men to hear our faith in his saving blood and our trust in him, and in him alone, for salvation. It is the gift of eternal life alone that is our hope for a non-polarized Church—and for a new world!

C. Philip Hinerman has been pastor of Park Avenue United Methodist Church in Minneapolis for nineteen years. He has the B.D. from Asbury Theological Seminary and did graduate work at Pittsburgh Seminary.

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Howard A. Snyder

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True Christian fellowship—what the Greek New Testament calls koinonia—is the Spirit’s gift to the Church. Yet this fellowship is critically lacking in the institutional church today. And this lack goes to the very heart of the impotence, rigidity, and so-called irrelevance of much of the modern church.

The Church is especially under attack today for its rigid institutionalism, its “morphological fundamentalism.” Critics call for more relevant structures for the Church and for a new ecclesiology. I would like to suggest that the New Testament concept of “the koinonia of the Holy Spirit” offers a possible starting point in this quest for more intimate, less institutionalized structures for the Church’s life—a starting point that is at once biblical and contemporary.

A Fellowship Crisis

The Church today is suffering a fellowship crisis. It is simply not experiencing nor demonstrating that “fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor. 13:14) that marked the New Testament church. In a world of big, impersonal institutions, the Church often presents itself to modern man as just another big, impersonal institution. The Church is highly organized at a time when its members are caring less about organization and more about community. One seldom finds within the institutionalized church today that winsome intimacy among people where masks are dropped, honesty prevails, and there is that sense of communication and community beyond the human—where there is actually the fellowship of and in the Holy Spirit.

The considerable popularity of Keith Miller’s The Taste of New Wine (Word, 1965) is largely due, I believe, to his identification of this lack in the Church. He strikes a responsive chord with thousands of sincere Christian laymen when he observes,

Our churches are filled with people who outwardly look contented and at peace but inwardly are crying out for someone to love them … just as they are—confused, frustrated, often frightened, guilty, and often unable to communicate even within their own families. But the other people in the church look so happy and contented that one seldom has the courage to admit his own deep needs before such a self-sufficient group as the average church meeting appears to be (p. 22).

This unintentioned duplicity is an almost inevitable result of current institutional patterns of church organization. It is a description of the Church without koinonia.

Koinonia is, of course, but one aspect of the Church’s total being. The New Testament church was characterized by proclamation, service, and fellowship. All three are essential if the Church is to be faithful. The Church must preach and teach, and it must serve—following the example of Christ.

But koinonia is essential both for effective proclamation and for relevant serving. Koinonia is the Church abiding in the Vine, so that it can bear much fruit. It is the Body becoming “joined and knit together,” upbuilding itself in love, so that the individual gifts of the Spirit may be manifest in the world (Eph. 4:16, RSV). Often both the Church’s preaching and its service have suffered simply for lack of true koinonia.

But what is, specifically, “the koinonia of the Holy Spirit”? And what does it tell us about church structure in our day?

In Second Corinthians 13:14 Paul prays that “the fellowship (koinonia) of the Holy Spirit” may be with the Corinthian believers. And in Philippians 2:1 Paul speaks of the “fellowship (koinonia) in the Spirit.”

Two dimensions are implied in these passages: the vertical dimension of the believer’s fellowship with God, and the horizontal dimension, his koinonia with other believers through the Holy Spirit. It is critical that these two aspects be held together and understood together. The New Testament idea of koinonia is not fully understood until we grasp the significance of the horizontal and vertical dimensions together.

At first we may see here only the vertical dimension of fellowship with God through the Holy Spirit. But the horizontal dimension is also very much present, and perhaps even primary, here: the fellowship among Christians that is the gift of the Spirit. As James Reid has written about “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” (2 Cor. 13:14), “this does not mean fellowship with the Spirit. It is a fellowship with God which he shares through the indwelling Spirit with those who are members of the body of Christ. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is the true description of the church” (The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 10, p. 425, italics added).

Much has been written about the meaning and implications of the word koinonia. Usually the discussion has emphasized the horizontal dimension, the fellowship of Christians with each other. But it is the vertical dimension that supplies the basic content of the whole idea of koinonia. Koinonia in the Church must start with “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,” or else it lacks its New Testament dynamic. Hendrik Kraemer has well said in his Theology of the Laity that “the fellowship (koinonia) with and in Jesus Christ and the Spirit is the creative ground and sustainer of the fellowship (koinonia) of the believers with each other” (p. 107). The spiritual communion and fellowship in the Church that truly is koinonia is something given by the Spirit. It is more than a function of our humanity, it partakes of the supernatural.

Two things, then, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit emphatically is not:

1. It is not that superficial social fellowship which the very word “fellowship” often denotes in our churches today. Such “fellowship” is generally no more supernatural than the weekly Kiwanis or Rotary Club meeting. Most of what passes for fellowship in the Church—whatever its value—is something distinctly less than koinonia. It is, at best, a friendly fraternizing—appealing, but easily duplicated outside the Church. Biblical koinonia, however, is unique to the Church of Jesus Christ.

Typical church “fellowship” seldom reaches the level of koinonia because koinonia is neither understood, nor expected, nor sought. Consequently there are few or no suitable structures for koinonia in the Church. The Church today has become accustomed to a pleasant, superficial sociality that is at best a cheap substitute for koinonia.

2. On the other hand, koinonia is not simply some mystical communion that exists without reference to the structure of the Church. We may talk in abstract terms about “the fellowship of the Church,” as though it were something that automatically, and almost by definition, binds believers together. But the abstract concept is hollow apart from the actual gathering together of believers at a particular point in time and space. We cannot escape this, not on this earth. Christ himself emphasized this necessity of being together (Matt. 18:20). One can have fellowship with God when one is alone, and in any place. But one cannot alone have fellowship with another believer who is not present. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is not some ethereal power that spiritually binds believers together while they are physically separated. Rather, it is that deep spiritual community in Christ which believers experience when they gather together as the Church of Christ.

More specifically, then, we can describe the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit” in the following ways:

1. The koinonia of the Holy Spirit is that fellowship among believers which the Holy Spirit gives. It is precisely that experience of a deeper communion, of a supernatural intercommunication, which perhaps every believer occasionally has felt in the presence of other believers. Its basis is the oneness that Christians share in Christ. A shared faith, a shared salvation, and a shared divine nature are the roots of koinonia.

2. It is the fellowship of Christ with his disciples. Christ spent three years living and working in intimate fellowship with twelve men. As Robert Coleman observes, “he actually spent more time with His disciples than with anybody else in the world put together. He ate with them, slept with them, and talked with them for the most part of His entire active ministry” (The Master Plan of Evangelism, p. 43). These men not only learned from Christ; they shared a level of community that was the prototype of the koinonia of the early Church. It is interesting that in the midst of Christ’s important discourse during the Last Supper, three disciples felt free to interrupt with comments or questions (John 14:5, 8, 22). Together they were experiencing the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

3. It is the fellowship of the early Church, as recorded in the Book of Acts. The first Christians knew an unusual unity, oneness of purpose, common love, and mutual concern—in other words, koinonia. This was more than either the immediate joy of conversion or the knowledge of shared beliefs. It was an atmosphere, a spiritual environment, that grew among the first believers as they prayed, learned, and worshiped together in their own homes (Acts 2:42–46; 5:42).

4. It is the earthly counterpart and foretaste of the eternal fellowship of heaven. The joy of heaven is the freedom of eternal communion with God and fellow believers, without earthly limitations. As the earthly model of this heavenly reality, koinonia in the Church shares the same spiritual nature as life in heaven. But it suffers the necessary limitations of the flesh and of space and time. Thus koinonia in the Church is neither continuous nor universal. Rather, it is interrupted, partial, local—and necessarily so. It is limited and affected by physical factors, but its essential reality is not of this world.

5. It is analogous to the unity, fellowship, and communion between Christ and the Father. A parallel exists between the communion of the Trinity and the koinonia of believers among themselves and with God. Christ’s prayer in John 17 is especially suggestive here. Christ asks that his disciples “may be one, as we are one.” More generally, he prays for all future Christians that “they all be one: as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, so also may they be in us, that the world may believe that thou didst send me” (John 17:11, 21, NEB). Koinonia is the fulfillment of this prayer in the Church, and thus a manifestation in space and time of the communion of the Holy Trinity. It is a supernatural sharing between the Persons of the Godhead and the Church on earth, inseparably involving both the vertical and horizontal dimensions. Christ wanted his followers to be one in their koinonia—one not only with God but also with one another.

Such koinonia is the gift of the Holy Spirit. But is the Church then powerless to create or nurture this fellowship? Or may church structures provide the conditions for the fellowship of the Holy Spirit?

Daniel J. Fleming in a little book entitled Living as Comrades makes the following valid point in this regard: “The fashioning and preservation of this koinonia … is the peculiar work of the Holy Spirit. But … we can help or hinder that consummation by the degree to which we consciously endeavor to enter into community with fellow human beings” (p. 19). And this applies to the Church as well as to individual believers.

The Bible is largely silent as to the structure of the Church. The New Testament contains no Mt. Sinai revelations as to the “pattern of the tabernacle.” We are free to create those structures most conducive to the mission and need of the Church in our time. And the very idea of “the koinonia of the Holy Spirit” may have something very significant to say about such structures.

Implications For Church Structure

At Pentecost the Holy Spirit gave the infant Church, among other things, the gift of koinonia. The creation of genuine fellowship is an integral part of the work of the Holy Spirit. In this sense the Holy Spirit’s work in the individual believer cannot be separated from what he is doing within the Church—not as so many individual believers but precisely as a community of faith.

Failure to see this vital connection between the individual and group aspects of the Spirit’s working weakens our understanding both of the individual believer and of the Church. It is, first, to view the believer’s spiritual development in too much of an individualized, separated sense, as though Christians grow best in isolation. And secondly, it misses an element of basic significance for the structure and ministry of the Church: The Church provides the context for spiritual growth by sharing together a fellowship that is at once the gift of the Spirit and the environment in which he may operate.

Thus a natural connection exists, I suggest, between “the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” and church structure. The nature of this koinonia in fact contains several possible implications for church structure.

1. First of all, as has already been noted, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is a function of the Church gathered, not of the Church dispersed. The obvious implication for church structure: The Church must make sufficient provision to be gathered together if it is to experience koinonia. Koinonia requires being together in one place at one time under the direction of the Holy Spirit. We can talk about the fellowship of the Holy Spirit as being solely a spiritual reality, ignoring the space-time limitations, but this is meaningless. The fact is that the fellowship of the Holy Spirit—New Testament koinonia in the Church—requires, as an absolute necessity, physical proximity. Believers do not experience the fellowship of the Holy Spirit if they do not meet together in an atmosphere conducive to the Spirit’s working.

2. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit naturally suggests communication. Communion without communication would be a contradiction in terms. Thus a second implication for church structure: The Church must gather together in a way that permits and encourages communication among the members.

The fact immediately raises questions about traditional structures of worship in the institutional church. Whatever its value, the traditional church worship service is not well designed for intercommunication, for fellowship. It is designed, both by liturgy and by architecture, for only a one-way kind of communication, pulpit to pew. Indeed, communication between two worshipers during the church service is considered rude and disruptive of the spirit of worship. The traditional church service is not the proper structure for experiencing the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And we may say by extension that no church meeting is conducive to koinonia if it is based on a one-way, leader-to-group kind of communication—whether it be prayer meeting, Sunday-school class, or Bible-study hour. Koinonia appears and begins to grow only in structures that allow and encourage communication.

And since koinonia involves the vertical dimension as well as the horizontal, this communication also implies communion with God—in other words, prayer as a part of koinonia.

3. A third implication for church structure involves the element of freedom. Paul gives us the principle, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” (2 Cor. 3:17, RSV). The Holy Spirit is the liberator, the freer. The freedom of the Spirit and the koinonia of the Spirit go together. Where there is koinonia there is also freedom and openness: an atmosphere that permits “speaking the truth in love.” True koinonia can be experienced only where there is the freedom of the Spirit.

The implication for structure here: The church must provide structures that are sufficiently informal and intimate to permit the freedom of the Spirit. There must be a sense of the unexpected and the unprogrammed when believers come together; the excitement of the unpredictable; a freedom from set patterns and forms. Frequently one finds in an informal and rather loosely structured gathering of believers a greater openness to God’s moving and thus a greater likelihood that the koinonia of the Holy Spirit will be experienced.

This is not, of course, to argue against the proper use of form and liturgy. Believers need those times of solemn corporate worship in which the High and Holy God is honored with dignity and reverence. But in the midst of the dignity and reverence, many a lonely believer inwardly cries out for the warm, healing touch of koinonia. Believers need to know by experience that the Most High God is also the Most Nigh God. If traditional corporate worship is not regularly supplemented with informal opportunities for koinonia, believers easily drift into a practical deism while the Church becomes the guardian of a powerless form of godliness. On the other hand, form and liturgy take on new meaning for Christians who are living and growing in koinonia.

Robert Raines makes essentially the same point in his book New Life in the Church (Harper & Row, 1961):

The church must foster and sustain the conditions in which koinonia can be known. This cannot be done for most people simply through morning worship. Worship is indispensable as the weekly meeting of the Christian community. But it is effective only as the total sharing of all the people of the friendship in Christ they have known between Sundays [p. 71].

4. Finally, the “fellowship of the Holy Spirit” suggests a learning situation. Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit came he would “teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you” (John 14:26). He would testify of Christ and guide the believers into new truth (John 15:26; 16:13). The Holy Spirit came to teach.

Since it is the same Spirit of God who inbreathes and speaks through the Holy Scriptures (2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21), and since these Scriptures themselves testify of Christ (John 5:39), it follows that the koinonia of the Holy Spirit is naturally related to Bible study. We in fact find the two thus connected in the early Church, which devoted itself “to the apostles’ teaching and koinonia (Acts 2:42).

The implication for church structure here: Church structure must include sufficient opportunity for Bible study in the context of koinonia. When Christians meet jointly with the objective task of Bible study before them and under the direction of the Holy Spirit, they experience koinonia that has life-changing results. They find that the way to learn of Christ is in the context of a community of believers taught by the Holy Spirit.

The idea of the koinonia of the Holy Spirit, then, suggests that the Church should provide structures (1) in which believers gather together, (2) where intercommunication is encouraged, (3) in an informal atmosphere that allows the freedom of the Spirit, and (4) in which direct Bible study is central.

Most contemporary church patterns and structures clearly do not meet these criteria. But there is one structure that does: some form of the small group. It is my conviction that the koinonia of the Holy Spirit is most likely to be experienced when Christians meet together informally in small-group fellowships.

The small group can meet the above criteria. It brings believers together at one point in time and space. Its smallness and informality allow a high degree of communion and communication. It does not require formal structuring; it can maintain order without stifling the intimacy and openness conducive to the freedom of the Spirit. And finally, it offers an ideal context for in-depth Bible study.

The early Church experienced the koinonia of the Holy Spirit. We know also that the early Christians met together in small groups in homes. Is this merely a coincidence? Or does the very idea of the koinonia of the Holy Spirit not suggest the need for some kind of small-group fellowships as basic structure within the Church?

George Webber in his discussion of small groups in The Congregation in Mission notes, “No relationship of love can develop unless there are structures in which it can grow.” Koinonia in the Holy Spirit grows when there are structures to nurture it. And where there is koinonia, there is the church that is relevant in the late twentieth century.

Howard A. Snyder is a member of the faculty of the Free Methodist theological school—the Faculdade de Teologia da Igreja Metodista Livre—in São Paulo, Brazil.

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This issue offers readers important essays on several current concerns. No one will want to miss “The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit,” in which Howard Snyder emphasizes a truth that is slowly penetrating the churches: buildings, budgets, and busywork don’t make believers into a body; only the Holy Spirit does. C. Philip Hinerman, a prominent Methodist minister and a key committeeman for the U. S. Congress on Evangelism, looks at another aspect of the predicament of the churches today as he asks and answers the question: Who is polarizing the Church?

After Christmas the Student Foreign Missions Fellowship, missionary arm of Inter-Varsity, will meet at Urbana, Illinois, and some ten thousand young people will attend. In this issue David Howard tells how another great student mission organization, the Student Volunteer Movement, lost momentum and finally ceased to exist. This is “must” missionary reading. In another look into history to find meaning for today, Eve Bock describes the legacy of John Comenius, a man whose life is a lasting challenge to us all.

A bonus in this issue is the first article in a bibliographical series that will appear more or less regularly. This bibliography will, on completion, be a most valuable reference work, for the authors provide not just a list of books but description and evaluation.

John Warwick Montgomery

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This essay comes as an unexpected interruption in my two-part analysis of the theological implications of the current Paris theater. Why the interruption? Simply because this new film is of far-reaching consequence. The New York Times critic—hardly addicted to excessive laudation—regarded it as the classic American war film. President Nixon, who presumably finds his entertainment time at a premium, saw it twice—despite its extraordinary length (about three hours). There is little doubt that Patton will stand as one of the truly great American motion pictures.

On the face of it, the subject matter would not seem to lend itself to such possibilities. I can remember, though I was a child during the Second World War, the reputation General Patton acquired—that of a foul-mouthed, ruthlessly efficient, professional militarist, a twentieth-century Sherman. How could the career of such a man attain the status of a major film event? The answer is twofold: first, Patton’s life can be viewed (and is brilliantly so treated in the film) as a classical tragedy; second, Patton is an archetype of the American character in confrontation with the modern world.

Aristotle, in his Art of Poetry, set forth the fundamental criterion of the tragic art form: the plot, its most vital element, must arouse, through its construction and unity, the twin emotions of pity and fear, and lead to their purgation. How is this achieved? In the drama of the Golden Age (Sophocles offering perhaps the best example), the hero’s fall is the result of a combination of personal characteristics and external circumstances, the effects of which are clear to the audience though only dimly if at all evident to the hero himself. The hero—a man “like ourselves” (homoios), yet of such nobility as to attract our admiration—possesses a hamartia, a “tragic flaw,” which brings about his ruin. This flaw relates, as the great Aristotelian scholar S. H. Butcher put it, to “the necessary blindness and infirmity of human nature”; and it frequently connects with “fate”—with the destiny decreed for the hero by the gods whose laws he may well have trampled underfoot.

Yet, at the same time, the classical tragedy presents the hero, not as an automaton, but as a creature of like passions with us, whose volitional decisions are genuine, and who lives out the mystery of free will and destiny in his own person. Seeing his fall, we experience pity for him and fear for ourselves, and ultimately a catharsis—a purgation of these emotions, since the dénouement occurs as we knew it must.

Patton, as played with consummate artistry by George C. Scott, stands as a modern tragic hero, not unlike an Oedipus or a Macbeth. The comparison is rendered particularly easy because of the historic Patton’s remarkable classical scholarship (he steeped himself in the accounts of all classical battles related to those he himself engaged in—reading Caesar’s Commentaries as another military man would read detective stories).

Patton’s worst enemy was himself. Brilliant as a tactician, he could not help blasting the sloppy generalship of others. Perfectionistic and cruelly hard on himself, he was incapable of tolerating error and weakness in others (e.g., the famous incident of his striking a soldier whose nerves gave out in a key battle of great ferocity). Instinctively right in judging situations and people, he spoke his mind and was cut to pieces by the press and ultimately removed from his command of the Third Army because of the politically ruinous character of his statements (he was convinced that the Russians would create impossible problems after the war and he wanted to put them in their place during it). His strengths were at the same time his weaknesses, and they ultimately brought him down. Like de Gaulle (a not dissimilar personality), he developed a messianic complex, and though he was doubtless right that he was playing a not insignificant role in the cosmic plan, his accomplishments were minimized and in part vitiated by his own inability to control his ego. The termination of the film with Plutarchian lines describing the rapid passing of military glory could not have been better chosen.

The pity and fear elicited by Patton should arise from even more profound considerations, however—at least for Americans. Patton is archetypical of that peculiar combination of good and evil that represents the American character. (Thus the film will offer equal opportunity for rightist America-firsters to praise Patton, and for leftist America-lasters to denounce him; and both evaluations will be equally superficial.)

On the plus side, Patton is the frontiersman who singlemindedly conquered the wilderness (note his fetish: ivory-handled sidearms), built the strongest nation on earth virtually from scratch, won all its wars, first reached the moon, and has for some time been engaged in the aggressive promotion of industry, commerce, and the American way of life in every comer of the globe. On the minus side, Patton is the lover of success and conquest above all other values (“God, how I love it!” he cries on the battlefield), one who can pray for and even kiss the individual soldier who is wounded, but who can be almost utterly indifferent to the fate of thousands (his use of his troops inevitably brings to mind America’s treatment of Indians and blacks—coupled with a touching love for dogs and individual children); the chauvinist (his constant references to “killing Germans and Japs” parallel traditional American superiority feelings and the tendency to isolationistically dehumanize other peoples); and, finally and most reprehensibly, the prophet of national religion who sees God as necessarily “on our side” and his own endeavors as hardly less than expressions of the divine will.

In Patton we have a mirror of America, an amazing mixture of the religious and the profane (“Do you read that Bible at your bedside, General?” asks a chaplain. “Every goddamn day” comes the reply). But volatile inconsistency of this kind could not survive the complexities of the modern world—even under conditions “ideal” for such a personality: the goal-directed, depersonalized conditions of total war. Thus the inevitable tragic fall.

Patton appropriately thought of himself as a Roman general reincarnated, and preachers commonly remind us of the example of Rome’s destruction—arising as much from within as from without. Purgation of pity and fear at such a spectacle requires more, however, than Aristotle thought. The spectacle itself is not enough. The moral cancer of egocentrism must be cut out by the Divine Physician. Varying the imagery, we must behold another tragedy—that which our egotism brought about at Golgotha—and allow the One who was indeed “like us in all points, yet without sin” to make us new creatures through his victory over tragedy.

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Anne Eggebroten

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Music blares as folk and gospel songs are performed in concert by a swinging mod-style band of ten. The audience claps along and finally breaks into signing.

It’s not a misprint: the deaf audience is feeling the rhythm and mood of the music through two young ministers who are interpreting it into the language of signs. As the deaf catch the “words,” they begin signing along on songs such as “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” or “I’m in Love with My God.”

For the young deaf students it is the first time they have ever attended a youth concert and had the kind of emotional, musical experience that a hearing person can have. Responsible for this breakthrough in communication are the Reverend Daniel Pokorney and Father Rudolf Gawlik, Lutheran and Roman Catholic chaplains at the world’s only liberal-arts college for the deaf, Gallaudet College in Washington, D.C.

Athough the deaf can read words of songs or hymns and together rhythmically sign the words, they never in that way approach the feeling and impact possible in a concert designed for them. Pokorney and Gawlik composed verses to songs that preserve the original rhythm and feeling by using a combination of sign language, pantomime, and gestures. The result is expressive, gentle lyrics that somewhat resemble those used by Hawaiian hula dancers.

The concert, first performed last December at Gallaudet, was enthusiastically received, and the troupe is still on a series of tours. A new show, “Sacred and Secular Music,” is in the works.

The rock-gospel concert has made unique progress, but its popularity reflects the huge problems still facing the deaf today. In many respects these persons form a subculture isolated from the mainstream of American life; this often excludes them from church activities and from hearing the Gospel.

Deaf persons in the United States number more than 250,000 according to estimates, yet the numbers of ministers to them is markedly small. Groups with comparatively large ministries include the Assemblies of God, the Southern Baptist Convention, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Episcopal Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. There are perhaps 200 part- and full-time ministers and lay missionaries to the deaf—or one for every 1300 (a ratio that doesn’t do the job in the hearing world, much less in the deaf). Many denominations leave the problem of the deaf to local or regional levels, where it may be met haphazardly or even ignored.

“So then faith comes by hearing,” wrote the Apostle Paul, and to this day the presentation of the Gospel is largely dependent on verbal communication. This creates a real barrier for those who cannot hear.

“It was working with the deaf that made me aware of how tied to language our religion is,” recalls Gawlik. “First you translate the words into more real words, but then you’re still stuck with words.”

Ministers to the deaf now use many means of communication besides language: slides and pictures, gestures and facial expressions, pantomime, and dramatization of the gospel stories. “To me this is ideal. The Gospel shouldn’t be simply verbal but should speak to the whole person,” declares Gawlik, noting that many innovations developed for the deaf have come to be used in teaching hearing people also.

Pokorney, Gawlik, and the other five Gallaudet chaplains stress that communicating the Christian faith to the deaf involves more than translating the spoken language into signs or written material. The common idea, “If they cannot hear, let them read,” is much like Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake.” Much of the syntax and shading of meaning is conveyed by voice cues, outside the range of the quickest hands. The sentence structure of written language retains much of the complexity of spoken language—entirely unknown in the simple sentences of signing. Thus learning to read is like learning a foreign language. For similar reasons, this language deficiency is often coupled with a very limited vocabulary, though not among Gallaudet students.

The average deaf person of 20 has achievement scores at or below the eighth-grade level, and less than a fourth-grade reading comprehension, according to Dr. Ray L. Jones, specialist in education for the deaf. This means that effective outreach to the deaf involves more than translating sermons or providing reading material. The message must be tailored to their special needs.

If educational handicaps present an obstacle to the missionary to the deaf, social handicaps add problems just as great, in the view of the Gallaudet chaplains. Unlike a person with other handicaps, a deaf person can handle the functional aspects of life well: he can use public transportation, go shopping, and hold a job. But the riches of friendship and family life, the sharing of joys and sorrows, are only for those who can speak and hear—or for those few deaf surrounded by others who know sign language. The church as a community for fellowship is denied to the deaf; church-centered activities are all for hearing people.

In some urban areas across the country, this is solved by accepting the necessity of a subculture and forming a deaf congregation with sermons, hymns, and activities in signing. Other churches make an effort to recognize and provide acceptance for the deaf in their community, even though communication remains at a low level.

Most of the ministry to the deaf is carried on by ministers or laymen trained in the language of signs who devote all or part of their time to this work, covering a large metropolitan area or several states. Thus the deaf become minister-oriented instead of church-oriented. Ministries dependent on this kind of a one-to-one relationship cannot be effective with deaf persons scattered throughout sparsely populated rural or small-town areas. The mass media, revolutionizing many forms of communication, are virtually useless in carrying the Gospel to the deaf.

How can the deaf be reached? Should every clergyman know signs and care for the deaf in his community? Should the ministry be left to traveling ministers responsible for large areas?

The Gallaudet chaplains see traveling teams of missionaries as a partial answer. The rock-gospel troupe will continue to present concerts. In another type of team work, experts in deaf ministry would travel around training lay groups to establish the personal contacts necessary for outreach to the deaf. Another group with specialized skills would gather isolated deaf persons for the cursillo, a short, high-powered retreat that provides an experience in Christian Community through art, signing, and body expressions. An experimental cursillo for deaf last summer proved unusually effective.

Can the Gospel break the sound barrier? To find the answer, Christians must first become painfully aware of the need—instead of turning a deaf ear.

Through The Loophole

For the first time West Germany churches, both Protestant and Catholic, are losing members—fast. Until recently, members withdrew from church life but not from the church roll; congregations could still claim a huge membership though services were poorly attended. And all “paper” members were taxed through government channels, making the German church one of the wealthiest on the Continent.

A Tiger For Christ

The man who led the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941, plans to use a new motion picture about it as a means of witnessing for Jesus Christ. Mitsuo Fuchida, the lieutenant commander who flew the lead plane in the 384-craft raid, is now a Presbyterian lay preacher. He will hold evangelistic services in Japanese cities where the film Tora! Tora! Tora! is shown, the onetime rice farmer said in New York last month when the film was premiered.

After World War II, Fuchida was called to consult with occupation authorities in Toyko. There he received a Christian tract from a member of the Pocket Testament League; he later secured a Bible and was converted to Christianity.

Fuchida (his son, a Baptist, lives in New Jersey, and his daughter is an Assemblies of God member in San Francisco) said he is counting on natural curiosity about a historical figure to draw people so he can witness to the Gospel. He praised the movie as historically accurate. The title (in English: Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!) comes from the code message Fuchida radioed after the surprise attack.

But last year the new German government added to the income tax a new, temporary tax of 10 per cent. Some enterprising person discovered he could save himself the new tax by officially breaking with the church—which asked the same amount—and resignations, especially from industrial centers, began to pour in to church officials.

In Aachen, for example, about fifteen people quit the church daily during the last few months; in the heart of the Ruhr area, the exodus was twice that of last year.

JAN J. VAN CAPELLEVEEN

Mrs. Birch’S $200 Million: Getting It All Together

After three years of bitter court fights, Mrs. Pearl Choate Birch, a 200-pound ex-convict, won out over a number of religious organizations last month in a battle for control of her late husband’s $200 million estate.

Temple Baptist Church of Los Angeles, the American Bible Society, the American Tract Society, the American Baptist Home Mission Society, and the Ministers and Missionaries Benefit Board were among groups claiming that 95-year-old California oilman A. Otis Birch was mentally incompetent when he changed his will to name her sole beneficiary.

Civil District Judge J. Roll Fair dismissed the case and paved the way for Mrs. Birch to gain access to the estate within thirty days, thus finally ruling out any claim to the fortune by the charities under Birch’s earlier will. A probate judge upheld the second will after hearing a California psychiatrist testify Birch was mentally competent when he wrote it.

“It was a long fight, but I knew I would win someday,” Mrs. Birch declared at the hearing in Dallas, Texas. “I’m thinking now that I might give those Baptists some of what they’ve been giving me for the last three years.”

The controversy dates back to 1966, when Mrs. Birch was accused of kidnapping the elderly oilman and forcing him to marry her. Then Birch’s private nurse, she left California with him in October of that year and announced they had married in Altus, Oklahoma, a short time later.

A Texas grand jury refused to indict Mrs. Birch after her deaf and crippled husband testified on her behalf before them. The couple then moved to Dallas and lived in a seventy-foot trailer until Birch died in March, 1967. The court fight began when Mrs. Birch attempted to gain approval of a new, hand-written will prepared by her late husband.

As the original benefactors, five religious organizations brought forth lengthy testimony on Mrs. Birch’s prior six marriages, her conviction for murder in 1947, and the events that led to her becoming Birch’s private nurse. They claimed she coerced Birch and his former wife, who died in 1966, to hire her, fully intending to get control of the Californian’s fortune.

MARQUITA MOSS

Anglicanizing The Canonization Breach

A potentially explosive situation over the canonizing of forty English and Welsh martyrs by Pope Paul October 25 has been defused. Anglican leaders in Britain had expressed fear that the ceremony would create ill will and wound Catholic-Anglican dialogue. And the archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Michael Ramsey, had spoken against the saint-making.

Dr. Harry Smythe of the Anglican center in Rome and representatives of other Britain-based churches were to attend the ceremony in St. Peter’s Basilica, however. And Ramsey, with the two other British archbishops, had later said that “we Christians should not look back too much on the conflicts of the sixteenth century.”

All Other Ground …

Stress on anything other than soul-winning seems to be sinking sand for Sunday-school programming in Michigan, according to a survey made by the religion editor of the Detroit News. Churches catering to social action, the survey showed, are losing both members and youngsters. But conservative denominations featuring “traditional” curricula report soaring enrollments.

“Our job is to preach the Bible,” declares Clate Raymond, head of the Michigan Sunday School Association (MSSA). The conservative organization reports an average enrollment growth of 3.2 per cent annually. Raymond claims the MSSA is the fastest-growing association of its type in the world. “I’m interested in poverty and social reform—but not in the church,” he said. “The vacuum that must be filled is spiritual.”

Temple Baptist Church, on Detroit’s far west side, has one of the nation’s ten largest Sunday schools. The pastor, the Reverend G. Beauchamp Vick, teaches the week’s Bible lesson (no other literature is used) to his teachers during a weekday session, and they present it to the 3,400 students on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Episcopal Diocese of Michigan reported a drop of almost one-third in church-school pupils.

The Catholics to be canonized were executed during persecutions from 1535 to 1681. Nearly all could have been spared had they accepted the Anglican Communion service in place of the Roman Mass. A British flavor will be evident during the canonization: music by the English composer Byrd, and Anglican hymns.

Symbolic gifts of two loaves of bread, two candles weighing sixty pounds each, a small barrel of water and one of wine will be offered to the Pope after the proclamation of sainthood as a sign of thanks.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Dollars For Disasters

Canadian evangelicals are launching a new, international ministry of compassion in the form of a special fund to be known as Share, Canada!

The fund, which took two years to organize formally, recently got its official charter from the Canadian government. It will work through existing missions and specialize in quick assistance for disaster victims.

A spokesman said Share, Canada! will make it possible for food, clothing, medical supplies, emergency equipment, tools, and temporary shelters to be moved within hours to wherever they are needed.

The founding committee was initiated by the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada, which is currently providing administrative facilities and staff. The overseers of the fund say they will seek to keep organization and red tape to a minimum.

Personalia

Dr. James W. Angell, pastor of Claremont Presbyterian Church in California, is the $10,000 grand-prize winner in Fleming Revell’s Centennial Contest for the “most significant … work of inspirational nonfiction.” Angell’s book, published this month, is Put Your Arms Around the City.

Jim Nabors, star of the “Jim Nabors Hour” TV variety show, has been named national Christmas chairman for the Salvation Army this year.

The white pastor of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in St. Louis tied up a religious service in conjunction with the city’s first Fall Festival last month when he chained himself to the pulpit of Christ Church Cathedral to protest racism. The Reverend William L. Matheus, a member of the militant civil-rights group called Action, said he was protesting “the hypocrisy of Christian reconciliation.”

About 4,600 persons attended the final rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, last month of a ten-day series led by evangelist Leighton Ford; 774 went forward as inquirers during the meetings.

Scottish Baptist Union general secretary Andrew D. MacRae has been named president of the European Baptist Federation Council for the next two years.

Mrs. Rosa Page Welch of Chicago, a noted Negro gospel singer and member of the Christian Church (Disciples), is now serving on the General Board of the 190,000-member Church of the Brethren—the first non-Brother (or is it non-Sister) to serve on the board.

Grady C. Cothen, president of Oklahoma Baptist University for the past four years, is now president of New Orleans Baptist Seminary.

President Richard Nixon is honorary chairman of National Bible Week, November 22–29.

New York Mayor John V. Lindsay will receive the 1970 Family of Man Gold Medallion Award of the New York City Council of Churches October 26 for his work to solve inner-city problems.

Dr. Eugene R. Bertermann has resigned, effective January 1, as executive director of the Lutheran Laymen’s League to seek “a position less demanding administratively.”

Consultation on Church Union chairman George Beazley, Jr., on ultimate Church union: “It won’t happen in our lifetime. But the goal is to have all Christians in one church—Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Pentecostals—all Christians.”

Anglican archbishop Marcus Loane of Sydney, and E. H. Watson, president of the Baptist Union of New South Wales, announced they will boycott the ecumenical service for Christian unity planned during Pope Paul’s visit to Australia in December. The decision, based on theological differences with Catholicism, stirred immediate controversy.

Religion In Transit

Higher Education—a Christian Perspective, a new journal that will appear this fall, will be edited by Biola College dean of students Craig E. Seaton in La Mirada, California.

Two U. S. bishops and 3,000 Roman Catholic parish priests (about one in thirteen in the nation) signed a statement opposing the Viet Nam war during a three-month campaign ended last month. The results were announced at a Capitol Hill press conference in Washington, D. C.

To Russia With Love, a film produced by Underground Evangelism to show its work distributing Bibles in Iron Curtain countries, will be premiered across the nation this fall.

A major research project—aimed at helping parish pastors improve their ministry—is under way to determine the attitudes and life styles of Lutherans in the United States.

Salvation Army crews were on twenty-four-hour duty in southern California last month serving refreshments to firemen, evacuees, and police during the state’s worst series of fire disasters.

Oregon officials, saying that Portland had the “highest risk of violence in the nation” last summer during the American Legion convention (violent youth protests were feared), credited a coalition of young clergymen for keeping the lid on.

Lutheran Church in America parishes will take a trip into the occult world this month when a new parish-education course, dealing with such phenomena as black masses, fortune-telling, demonology, and tarots, will be released.

A $150,000 “media learning center,” combining into one service the facilities of traditional library and audiovisual programs, was completed on the campus of Azusa Pacific College in California last month.

About half of the forty-man Miami Dolphins football squad now take part in interdenominational chapel services arranged by tackle Norman Evans, a Baptist. Members say their “personal relationships with God” are in some measure responsible for the team’s new hustle that has made the National Football League take notice.

The president of the Greek Orthodox Clergy Association of Detroit wants an interreligious Miss America of Religion Pageant based on spiritual values. “It’s about time we paid attention to … internal beauty,” declared Father Demetrios Kavadas.

The fate of controversy-pocked First Presbyterian Church of Iowa City appeared uncertain again as the congregation of the 1,000-member church voted 143 to 94 to sell the church building last month. Bitterness flared in 1966 when the congregation voted to raze the 112-year-old structure and Iowa University English professor Joseph Baker led a movement to spare it because of its architectural heritage. He was briefly excommunicated for his trouble (see March 1, 1968, issue, page 50).

There were 3,900 church fires throughout the United States last year, an increase of 100 from 1968; the average loss was $4,900, and the value of church property damaged or destroyed reached $19 million.

Boston’s new Roman Catholic archbishop, Humberto S. Medeiros, transferred ten acres of land in Texas this month to the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee to build a Rio Grande Valley union center.

World Scene

Senator Frank Church (D.-Idaho) says his Senate Inter-American Affairs Subcommittee will “thoroughly investigate” charges of political repression and torture in Brazil; hearings are expected early next year.

Scottish Roman Catholics may now attend services of other denominations for “reasonable causes” (examples are blood relationships or friendships with persons of non-Catholic churches). But inter-Communion is forbidden.

More than 1,000 “house Mass groups” are operating among Roman Catholics in England, according to several reports. The home groups are said to be particularly welcomed by young married women “living lives of sheer boredom imprisoned within the walls of their own homes.”

The 84-year-old British Weekly has been bought by the company that owns the Church of England Newspaper, whose chairman is industrialist Sir Alfred Owen.

Hundreds of architecturally notable Anglican churches in Britain are apt to be closed, demolished, or sold to secular agencies because they are “redundant,” the Victorian Society said in its annual report.

Boasting a record enrollment this year, Philippine Bible College (Churches of Christ) in Baguio City includes this provision in an honor code signed by all students: “I will not permit a circumstance to arise that causes me to be alone with a member of the opposite sex, unless given specific permission by my parents.… A violation of this regulation will result in immediate dismissal.”

Men who enroll in the Ontario, Canada, (Anglican) Diocese of Huron as worker-deacons can serve in a parish and still retain their secular employment. The special order is described as a “supplementary ministry.”

Three of the four Lutheran churches in Germany that have split from the national Lutheran church have decided to become one. The Old Lutheran Church, the Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church together have 65,000 members. Nominally, there are 27 million in the national church. The newly formed denomination will call itself the Lutheran Church in Germany.

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