Page 5936 – Christianity Today (2024)

During this year of 1970, while the Western world gropes about in a quagmire of racism, both black and white, it would seem appropriate for the historic revolutionaries, the Christians, to make a public declaration on race. This paper is an attempt at a Christian manifesto on the races of man, declaring to the world our high view of race and culture, and pointing hopefully to that super-kingdom in which “we are no longer strangers and foreigners but fellow-citizens with the saints and of the household of God” (Eph. 2:19).

The Bible contains at least three positions about the races of man:

1. All men are made in the image and likeness of God.

2. All men are descendants of one pair, Adam and Eve.

3. All men are sinful and in need of redemption. These positions are probably distinctive to the Hebrew-Christian tradition.

1. All men are made in the image of God. The lofty view of man expressed in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,” is so indelibly stamped on Western culture that the “imagehood” has survived the obsoleteness of the Creator. This biblical pronouncement cannot be dismissed as mere anthropomorphism or a mirror-image of Xenophon’s theory that men create their gods in their own image. As Cuthbert Simpson remarks,

[To the Hebrew mind] the representation that man was made in the image of God meant much more than that man looked like God or like the divine beings which formed his retinue. The image included likeness to them in spiritual powers … the power of thought, the power of communication, the powers of self-transcendence [The Interpreter’s Bible (Gen. 1:27), 1952].

The powerful effect of this image idea upon our society has probably been grossly underestimated. This Hebrew concept has invested man with an odor of sanctity that is a delight even to the pagan. The extent to which our civilization is indebted to this theory of God-likeness has been well explored by Elton Trueblood in The Predicament of Modern Man and also in an article in Christian Life:

The historical truth is that the chief sources of the concepts of the dignity of the individual and equality before the law are found in the Biblical heritage. Apart from the fundamental convictions of that heritage, symbolized by the idea that every man is made in the image of God, there is no adequate reason for accepting the concepts mentioned [Christian Life, March, 1969, p. 23].

One might honestly ask, though, if this dignity and sanctity were intended for all men, or if the Hebrews, like almost all other peoples of the earth, conceived of themselves as the only “people,” and thus the only heirs of the promise. It is the glory of Israel, and later of the Church, that the oracles of God are for all men. Isaiah could see the mountain of the house of the Lord established as the highest of mountains with all the nations flowing into it, “and many peoples shall come, and say: ‘Come let us go up to the mountain of the LORD … that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths” (Isa. 2:2, 3). We as Christians believe ourselves to be the spiritual Israel, and we bear a powerful message for this age: All men are endowed with a special distinction; they are made in the image of their Creator.

2. All men are descendants of one pair, Adam and Eve. An interesting and recurring conversation I have had in Haiti is on the question whether we all actually had the same ancestor. The suggestion that a white man and a black man should have the same common grandfather is usually greeted with a great deal of mirth. More seriously, the Haitian takes his estrangement so deeply that he may be unable to conceive that we are indeed brothers under the skin. Yet the story of man’s creation in the Bible implies this very conclusion. I doubt that it is dispensable.

I wonder if this “one-family” concept wasn’t the charisma that permitted an ancient Near East tribe to accept emotionally its mission to be a “light unto the Gentiles.” Later, during those dark and doubtful hours when the primitive Church was discovering that the Gospel was for all men, there must have been considerable reassurance in the scriptural traditions about the first man, Adam. Paul, the arch-exclusive ex-Pharisee, was enabled to stand in the Areopagus and proclaim that God had made “from one [blood] every nation of men to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26).

The drama and power of this one-race unity was not lost on subsequent generations of Christians, either: witness Milton’s moving scene in the closing pages of Paradise Lost where Michael permits the fallen Adam to see his progeny from a high mountain, ranging from “Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can and Samarkand by Oxus, Temir’s throne,” to “the realm of Congo, and Angola farthest south; or thence from Niger flood to Atlas mount” (XI, 370 ff.).

Or listen to the impassioned words of the Reverend Robert Hall delivering an address in the city of Leicester in 1823 as part of the British Anti-Slavery Society’s last assault on slavery in the British colonies: He reminds his audience that they cannot remain silent on the subject of human slavery unless they forget that the British nation had already abolished the slave trade, unless they forget that they are the countrymen of Grenville Sharp, Wilberforce, and Clarkson. Indeed, to remain silent “we must lose sight of a still more awful consideration, and forget our great Original, who made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth” (quoted by C. S. Lewis in Christian Reflections, 1967, p. 82).

Standing over against this “one blood” idea of Christians is a vast body of scientific and pseudo-scientific projections regarding the history and evolution of man, indeed the evolution of the entire universe, including the atoms and molecules of which it is made; a broadly painted picture, apparently without meaning, which depicts man as an accidental inhabitant of this globe, existing between the eons of primordial emergence and the eons of slow cooling and death—a dramatic tragedy on the grandest scale of all, one which C. S. Lewis was pleased to call the Great Myth of Western Civilization. Needless to say, the great “myth” does not afford us a clear view of human unity. The different races may (or may not) have branched off some human “stock” at different stages of development. Man is assigned his place as part of the stuff of the universe, taking part in random reactions that are carrying out their capricious destiny. Family, brotherhood, and love may be only adaptive phenomena in the inexorable evolution of events. Racism and brotherhood may both be nonsense. To this somber picture we as Christians have a message of relief: All the races of men are created in the image of God and are part of one family, destined for some glorious purpose that has only partially been revealed.

3. All men are sinful and in need of redemption. In the third chapter of Romans, Paul discusses the spiritual state of the Jews as compared with the Gentiles and reaches that dramatic and well-known verdict: “There is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:22–25).

The Christian view has been that all men share the common disease of Adam’s race, which is sin, and that all may be redeemed and transformed by the mysterious working of that second Adam, Jesus Christ. Christians have long asserted that all of man’s relationships are tinged and stained with sin, causing even the best of endeavors to be sullied with hatred, jealousy, greed, lust, violence, and disorder. To the Christian it is lamentable, but not surprising, that some Christian groups were involved in the destruction of Indian societies in the New World, in the capture and exploitation of black slaves, in the degradation and dehumanization of plantation life, in the racism still present in some Christian churches. What is astonishing, however, is that these so-called Christian societies used the ideologies of their own religion to judge themselves, finding the instruments of cleansing and redemption in the same Book that spoke of their sin. This self-judgment and cleansing I believe to be a unique phenomenon of the Christian society, one which, when seriously considered in the light of man’s history, should give even the atheist cause for reflection. Even the non-Christian social activist of 1970 must acknowledge his debt to the “theory” of Christianity, which, buried in the subsconcious mind of Western society, permits an emotional appeal to the dignity and rights of all human beings.

But the Christian influence on the race question was not limited to self-judgment and restraint of behavior. There was always a dream, as it were, a vision of a redemption of all tribes and nations into a spiritual kingdom in which the races of men would be reconciled to their Creator and to one another. Even the Columbus voyages, motivated though they were by a hope for instant wealth for the coffers of an ailing Spain, often gave evidence of the Christian dream:

So, since our Redeemer has given this triumph to our most illustrious King and Queen, and to their renowned realms, in so great a matter, for this all Christendom ought to feel joyful and make great celebrations and give solemn thanks to the Holy Trinity with many solemn prayers for the great exaltation it will have in the turning of so many peoples to our holy faith, and afterwards for material benefits—Done on board the caravel off the Canary Islands, on the fifteenth of February, year 1493. THE ADMIRAL [Samuel Eliot Morison, Journals and Other Documents on the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 1963].

The European invaders of the New World found they were little prepared to meet and understand the cultural conflicts posed by the complex pagan Indian societies such as they encountered in Mexico, with their weird customs and gruesome practices, including cannibalism and mass human sacrifice. Yet the men of faith held to a higher view of the cultural confrontation. Father Antonio Vasquez de Espinosa, a Carmelite missionary who traveled throughout the New World before 1620, wrote the following estimate of the Indian’s condition:

The Father of Lies, who kept them deceived and blinded, himself taught them this abundance of ceremonies, superstitions, idolatries, and revolting human sacrifices with which he made them worship him, holding these blind heathen tribes under his tyranny until God our Savior with his divine providence and mercy sent them the light of his blessed gospel, to bring them out of that blind darkness in which these poor heathen were cowed by the tyranny of the Devil” [Antonio Vasquez de Espinosa, Description of the Indies, Smithsonian, 1968, p. 24].

The great moral drama of the New World remained to be acted out, and we are convulsed by its contradictions until this day: the black man’s position in Western society, and the accompanying contradiction between Christian racial theory and the greed, arrogance, and racism of society, the Church, and individuals. The battle has shifted many times in the past two hundred years, but the whole of Western society has used Christian tools to judge itself and thus far has stopped the slave trade, abolished slavery, and proclaimed the Negro to be a man, and is currently struggling to see him as a brother.

The Christian ideology depicts a grand spectacle of the fallen tribes of men being united at the foot of the Cross, redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. The only other going option sees the tribes of men arising, as it were, from the primitive ooze and recognizing their common humanity as they strive for the stars, but it offers neither an explanation nor a cure for human brokenness and discord. From a “natural” viewpoint, one could find no more reason for a rapprochement of the races than for a biological equilibrium of trees and bushes in which they could no longer strive for a “place in the sun” but instead seek a mutual pact of brotherhood and well-being. The leaves for the healing of the nations lie in the Christian manifesto.

The three points of the Christian racial thesis are a matter of faith. There will never be any way to “prove” them, though one might postulate that these same aspirations lie deep in the hearts of all men, an almost instinctive clue to their true nature and destiny. If we as Christians are willing to accept these declarations as truth, then I believe that we shall have to push on to some pertinent reflections and conclusions:

1. If we are all of the same family, then we all have essentially the same genetic makeup, and are human in the fullest sense of the word.

2. The differences between the races can be explained by isolation and cultural history.

3. Christians of all races, with their great insight into man’s true nature and their greater motivation to heal mankind’s wounds, are the only hope for racial peace.

1. If we are of the same family, then we have the same genetic makeup and are human in the fullest sense of the word.

The Winter 1968–69 issue of the Harvard Educational Review contained a controversial article by Dr. Arthur R. Jensen of the University of California that asserted among other things that well-controlled testing of Negro I.Q.’s showed that they were consistently below their white peers, and that this should be seriously considered as evidence of genetic differences in learning capacities. He further showed that the testing revealed differences in conceptual and categorical thinking. There was some allusion to the Negro’s early display of motor skills and non-cognitive abilities. There will probably be more of this type of reasoning in the future, though many wise men have already made their dissent in print and in public.

Recent black nationalism and racism in the United States seeks to establish a similar thesis, though this time the genetic inferior is a “beast” or “devil.” The mythology of the Black Muslim movement, dating from Master W. D. Fard, expounded by Elijah Muhammed, and popularized by Malcolm X, shows the white man as an inferior and vengeful degenerate of the original black race. The white race was developed genetically by a Mr. Yacub who hated Allah and “decided as revenge to create upon the earth a devil race … a bleached out white race of people” (Malcolm X: Autobiography, paperback, 1966, p. 165).

To one who has lived for the past twelve years in the world’s first black republic, trying in some way to grasp the nature of the barriers that divide the two races, both these points of view are hopelessly inadequate. The one, using European-based statistical testing, finds the black man “genetically” different, but is apparently oblivious of the fact that the methods used are part of the very culture that the black man only partially embraces. On the other hand, the Negro only senses his alienation from the culture of the white man, and recoils as from something inhuman. Misunderstanding between the two races in this year of 1970 remains critically high. It is doubtful that the strong emotional reactions will be overcome by anything less than a much higher and supernatural grace that gives each race the ability to recognize members of the other, for all their differences, as long-lost kin, men and women who were created for the glory of God and who may yet become part of that great fellowship of redemption. As Christians, therefore, we shall have to reject any theories of genetic differences, and conclude with Father Bartolomé de Las Casas, bishop of Chiapas, that:

All the peoples of the world are men.… All have understanding and volition, all have the five exterior senses and the four interior senses, and are moved by the objects of these, all take satisfaction in goodness and feel pleasure with happy and delicious things, all regret and abhor evil [Eric Williams, Documents of West Indian History (quotation from Historia de las Indias, 1559), p. 110].

2. The differences between the races can be explained by isolation and cultural history.

Granting, then, our genetic oneness and common ancestry, we must try to understand our racial antipathies, no less for the black than for the white.

The melting-pot doctrine has been so much a part of the American scene that it is hard for most Americans to observe the persistence of cultural and national values even among those peoples whose presence in the United States stretches back three or four generations. Yet, recent studies tend to confirm that certain characteristics that might distinguish southern Europeans from northern ones are detectable in the descendants of said immigrants even after several generations. How much more would such differences be noticeable if the original cultures were widely divergent!

Some of the pioneer work on cultural persistence in the New World was done by the great African ethnologist Melville Herskovits, working in the valley of Mirebalais in Haiti in 1934. Herskovits was particularly interested in learning the extent to which African culture and values had persisted in the New World after three centuries of slavery and a century and a half of isolation. He found a certain amount of European intrusion and survivals in Haiti: the furniture of houses is Western, as is clothing, agricultural tools, and certain trades. However, food tastes and methods of preparing food, methods of planting, systems of marketing, the position of women in trading, plural marriage and matriarchy, love of music, rhythm, dance, voodoo, folklore and folk games, patterns of talk and speech, and conversation were so obviously African that Herskovits is forced to concede that the “Haitian Negro has by no means been overwhelmed by European tradition, just as he has not retained his aboriginal African heritage without any change (Life in a Haitian Valley, second edition, p. 297). He further states that “Haiti has experienced as long and perhaps as intensive a degree of exposure to European influence as any area where non-Europeans have lived in contact with European patterns of life.” In a chapter entitled “Some Wider Implications” Herskovits asks the following extremely pertinent question, written in 1936 but devastatingly important in 1970:

But may it not be true that the Negro in the United States has preserved some vestiges of his aboriginal heritage even in outward institutionalized forms; that in his attitudes, points of view, and characteristic responses to social situations, the factors of his dual heritage have not been entirely lost; and as would follow elsewhere as it has followed in Haiti, that this may be reflected in his resulting personality types? Even the possibility of affirmative answers strongly suggests that further investigation of these matters may point the surest road toward racial understanding and toward eventually alleviating the strains which exist between Negro and white groups in the population [p. 302].

When it is remembered that cultural carry-overs apply not only to food habits, tastes for music and dance, or patterns of speech, but also to value judgments, moral views, rules of personal conduct—in general one’s whole outlook on the world—then one should not be surprised to find that the two major races in the United States find it hard to tolerate each other.

An illustration from Haitian life may help to clarify these ideas. The Westerner who comes to Haiti sooner or later learns that the Haitians don’t “see” things in the same manner as he does. He is used to naming objects specifically, such as daisies, lilies, crickets, beetles, and the like; whereas his Haitian neighbor will more often than not call such objects “white flowers” or “yellow flowers” and sometimes not even be too careful to distinguish the colors! The creeping things are merely ti-bêtes—little animals. The foreigner is further upset to find that prominent landmarks seem to be of no particular interest and may not even have a well-known name. Even words for caves and waterfalls have rather uncertain use among the peasant population. Yet the Haitian’s interest in people is overwhelming; the various situations that may occur between persons are blown up into all their theoretical possibilities, giving rise to an immense body of folklore and proverbs that intricately and artfully describe the human scene. One is led to the conclusion that the European is a “thing-people” (fascinated and obsessed by objects and their categorization) while the Haitian is a “people-people” (obsessed by people and their manipulation). If these two cultural predispositions have any carry-over into North America, then it is no wonder that black children do poorly on categorization tests, nor can we be too surprised to hear the black man refer to the white as “beast.”

In 1939 a black Martiniquan named Aimé Césaire explored the black-white frontier in a famous poem entitled Un Cahier d’un Retour au Pays Natal. The author attempts to discover the black distinctive, or “negritude” as it is called in French:

Hurrah for those who never invented anything

For those who never explored anything

For those who never mastered anything

But who, possessed, abandon themselves to the essence of each thing

Ignorant of the coverings but possessed by the movement of everything

Indifferent to mastering but playing the game of the world [Presence Africaine, 1956, p. 71].

For many this will be a very tiny window through which to glimpse the cultural gulf that probably separates the white and black races, but the wall of separation may be equally opaque to white and black, giving rise to “soul” and a search for identity in the one and fear and mistrust in the other. What then is the hope for racial fellowship and peace?

3. Christians of all races, with their greater insight into man’s true nature and their greater motivation to heal humanity’s wounds, are the only hope for racial peace.

The modern humanist will smile at this assertion and declare that of all agencies promoting racial understanding in the modern world, the Church shows least promise of success. He would remind us of the sanctified genocide that opened the New World to colonization, the destruction of the Indian societies, the traffic in African flesh, the brutality of plantation life, the dehumanization of the ghetto, often with ecclesiastical blessings. He would reproach us with the apartheid-like policies of Christian churches all over the world, where racial and cultural separation is practiced as a twentieth-century blind spot.

Yet we might well reply: Granted. But this only confirms our conviction that the races of men are afflicted alike with the sickness of sin and alienation. We are prepared to find the worst in the best of us, and therefore must stand amazed at the apparent healing power of the Christian message:

Who, indeed, proclaimed a universal God for all nations, a justice for all generations? The Hebrews, a people where we might least expect it.

Who, indeed, wrote the words: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near in the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made us both one, and has broken down the wall of hostility?” Paul the Apostle, writing to the despised Gentiles!

Who, indeed, proclaimed the abolition of class and position and died together by the thousands in the arena for Christ?

Who, indeed, defended the races of the New World against their exploitative “Christian” brethren? Was it not the Christians themselves, appealing to a higher god than greed and gain, men and women of the stripe of Bartolomé de las Casas, Roger Williams, William Penn, William Wilberforce, and even Harriet Beecher Stowe?

Who, indeed, has provided the “theory” that underlies humanism, philanthropy, integration, civil rights, and even certain parts of communist doctrine, to the extent that modern Western man has now come to believe that equality, love, justice, human dignity, and human rights are merely man’s natural heritage? Is it not the Christians who in fact have impressed these ideas on Western society to the extent to which they are now proclaimed as “self-evident”?

Where, indeed, in history do we find a society that has judged itself in regard to slavery, exploitation, greed, intolerance, and racism? Is it not significant that the only society to have made even faltering steps in the direction of human dignity happens to be that society which historically has been associated with the Christian religion?

The pagan world can hardly make any claims about racial understanding and peace, but there are non-Christians in the Western world who are striving for understanding and peace among the various races of men. As I have said, it is my conviction that they are using principles that are Christian survivals in Western society, and that they may well repudiate these should the going get rough, for to the non-Christian the ideas of human god-likeness and one-family-ness will never hold the awe of hallowed ground.

One is reminded of the great debate that shook the National Assembly in Paris in 1791 when the question of rights for the colored man in the French colonies arose. The convulsions of the French Revolution were striking at the roots of the nation, and in the discussion the establishment warned that if the “Rights of Man” were applied to the colonies, there would be war, great financial loss, and untold suffering, both abroad and in the maritime provinces of France. In his most famous speech the great Jacobin Robespierre rose and outlined the options—principle or property:

The supreme interest of the nation and the colonies is that you remain free, and that you do not overturn the foundations of liberty with your own hands. Perish the colonies if the price is to be your happiness, your glory, your liberty [C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins, paperback, 1963, p. 76].

But the moral thrust of those early days of inspiration was soon to be lost in the confusion of the Terror and the guillotine. The “borrowed” principles of Christianity lacked that motivation which alone could make love and justice survive the wreckage of greed, bloodlust, and madness. The Christian enters the contest with better weapons than the humanist, for not only does he possess the principles but he comes with the emotional harmony of knowing that these ideas are God-given, part of the great history of redemption.

If this paper has any claim to truth, the stakes are high. The human family is alienated by long isolation and the corruption of sin. Increased contact and familiarity between long-separated cultures and races carries great danger of hatred, polarization, nationalism, and war. In this maelstrom the Christian is proclaiming the super-culture of faith in Christ. He is declaring, after all, that racism is only another word for sin, and that the formidable problems of culture-welding will indeed be accomplished when the estranged tribes of men meet at the foot of the Cross. In that shadow the races of men will share the triumphs of their whiteness, blackness, and yellowness, and each will become more like the other, but the victory will be Christ’s.

There will be danger. One should not forget that Paul’s final arrest and subsequent trials began when he mingled with the hated Gentiles in Jerusalem. The passions aroused in his fellow Jews caused them to throw dust into the air and shout that “he ought not to live” (Acts 21:22). Christians of the twentieth century, in proclaiming the glorious unity of the human races, will necessarily be faced with the enormous problems of intercultural mixing, from the mingling of the races in the schools to the more delicate issues of intermarriage. As in all social revolution, Christ would have us be the saltness of the earth, the lights that cannot be hidden under a bushel; for we bring the light of the Creator to focus on the human problem, and by his grace we shall not shrink from the consequences.

We may well find ourselves in the dilemma posed more than a century ago in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book contains one of the most moving condemnations of slavery ever conceived, and builds up the horror of Simon Legree’s plantation to the pitch where the reader could accept any fate that might befall that inhuman. The climax is reached as Cassy, Legree’s mulatto mistress, creeps into Tom’s cabin and proposes to murder Legree with an axe. Half crazed with the suffering and death all around her, benumbed by the degradation of her life with Legree, she gasps: “His time’s come, and I’ll have his heart’s blood!” Tom replies:

“No, ye poor, lost soul, that ye mustn’t do. The dear blessed Lord never shed no blood but his own, and that he poured out for us when we was enemies. Lord, help us to follow his steps and love our enemies.”

“Love!” said Cassy, with a fierce glare; “love such enemies! It isn’t in flesh and blood.”

“No, Miss, it isn’t,” said Tom, looking up, “but He gives it to us, and that’s the victory.”

Tom paid for his Christian view with his life. In these days the bonds between the races of men are stretched to the breaking point. We shall have to match the courage of a Paul or an Uncle Tom to assert the unity of the human family and the forgiveness of God. The consequences may be awesome, as they usually are in the big issues, and some of us may leave the field of battle strewn with our bodies. Our institutions, our property, our reputations, our families, or our health may be the price, but we will show that it is not by (white) might, nor by (black) power, but by his Spirit that the races will find peace.

William H. Hodges is a medical missionary serving at Hopital le Bon Samaritain in Umbf, Haiti, under the American Baptist Home Mission Society. He holds the MJ. degree from the University of Southern California.

THE PLANTS IN THE BATHTUB

Sir, as I prayed for the dog

(dead) and do for the cat

(with friends), I ask Your care

now for the plants that stand

in an inch of water in the bathtub:

one gangling avocado,

two coleuses, marigolds

(four, I think), waiting

for me to come home.

An indifferent master who took

their company for granted,

watering them, yes,

but stinting on plant food,

granting them only

a few words on weekends,

I miss them a little: the reds,

the pinheads, the beanpole thatched

like a palm. We lived together.

Will You see that they get enough

porcelain light? And, Sir,

please, don’t let them drown.

FRANCIS MAGUIRE

Ten years ago Eugene Carson Blake, then stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church, delivered an address in the cathedral church of Bishop James Pike in San Francisco. Out of that speech has developed COCU, the Consultation on Church Union. It has for its immediate goal the formation of the Church of Christ Uniting, which will include the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church in the U. S., the United Church of Christ, the United Methodist Church, and the United Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.

At the ninth plenary session of COCU in St. Louis last March, a Plan of Union was presented to the delegates. This document constitutes the substructure on which the new church will be built, and in it the provisions of the union are spelled out with precision. It is an impressive product into which much labor and care have been poured; indeed, numerous changes in the text have improved it. It is worthy of the most careful analysis, not only by the denominations currently participating in the merger but by all denominations and all Christians, because it is the announced purpose of the champions of COCU to try to bring into this union, sooner or later, all the churches of Christendom. They envision at last the one holy catholic visible church on earth.

We could profitably examine many of the secondary facets of the Plan of Union. But for most people, the two matters of overriding importance are: (1) What will the theological basis of the union consist in? (2) What will the polity, the church government, be? Answers to these two questions will determine the acceptability of the Plan of Union for many clerical and lay people, whether their denominations are now part of COCU or are among those that COCU would like to add in the future.

The denominations participating in COCU either are presently committed to a confession (or confessions) of faith or have grown up out of church groups that were controlled by creeds or confessions. The Episcopal Church has its Thirty-nine Articles. The Presbyterian Church in the U. S. and the United Presbyterian Church have the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the United Presbyterians have also the Confession of 1967. The United Church of Christ, a result of the 1957 merger of the General Council of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church, has the statement of faith adopted at Oberlin in 1959. The various Methodist bodies are tied in one way or another to the Thirty-nine Articles of Anglicanism, the root from which they have sprung.

Chapter V of the Plan of Union contains The Confession for the new church. Here lies the theological basis to which the churches will commit themselves when the merger takes place. The Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed are specifically cited. But they will have no binding force in the new church. These creeds “the united church accepts … as witnesses of Tradition to the mighty acts of God recorded in Scripture.” They are “classic expressions of the Christian faith” and “have a wider acceptance than the more recent formulations or confessions by separated parts of the church” (pp. 26, 27).

In addition to the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, the new church will accept the “corporate covenant and confessions” of the uniting denominations and “agrees to the continued use of these as enrichments of its own understanding of the Gospel” (p. 27; italics added). But none of these statements, separately or corporately, will in any true sense be binding on anyone in the united church, for the church “will not use any of these confessions as the exclusive requirement for all, nor permit them to become a basis for divisions in the new community” (p. 27). It follows, then, that any who for conscience’ sake raise issues that divide will have to be dealt with, though how this will be done is not explained in the document. Indeed, this sort of statement precludes significant discussions about deep-seated differences that everyone knows exist and cannot be swept under the rug. It also means that the new church will have what is essentially an inclusive, eclectic theology, a collection of what are certain to be conflicting and irreconcilable viewpoints.

It is true that in each of the denominations involved in the union, widely divergent theologies already prevail. There are humanists, liberals, neo-orthodox, evangelicals, and fundamentalists in all of them. In this sense the new church will simply be an enlargement of an already existing pattern. The Plan of Union is so constructed, however, that those who might desire to challenge what they feel are unbiblical opinions will find their hands tied. Those who enter the merger bind themselves to the Plan of Union, “which guarantees to respect the conscientious convictions of individual members and to enhance the deeply personal character of Christian faith” (p. 27) but will not permit confessions to become a basis for division. Thus those who do not believe the confessions will be protected, it seems, while those who might wish to protest unbelief will have forfeited the right to act, since they will have agreed that confessions should not become a basis for divisions.

This introduces into the situation an element not present in most, if not all, of the uniting churches as presently constituted. The right of individual conscience is a precious one; every man has the right to believe as he chooses. But nearly every association of men has its ground rules, designed to open the door to those who are in agreement with the basic beliefs of the association and to close the door against those who are not. This provision will be virtually non-existent in the new church.

Even the power of the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds as witnesses to truth is so diluted in the Plan of Union as to make these creeds inconsequential. “They are for the guidance of the members of the church and are to be used persuasively and not coercively” (p. 27). Various surveys taken in recent years indicate that substantial numbers of the clergy of the uniting denominations now disbelieve many of the particulars of these creeds, and it is ludicrous to expect that such men will use “persuasively” among their people what they themselves deny. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion, then, that the new church, without binding confessions and with no real barriers to exclude unbelief, will be syncretistic.

The projected confession does include some familiar concepts and phrases: Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour; the one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; saved by grace; justified by faith; the authority of Scripture; the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. But these are not defined, and the church is to be informed by the confessions of the uniting churches but not bound by them.

What is meant, for example, by the phrase “authority of Scripture”? Is Scripture inspired by God? If so, all of it or parts of it? Is it to be trusted? Does it present propositional truth? Nor is the confession specifically trinitarian. The statement about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is so worded that any Unitarian could agree to it without crossed fingers or mental reservations (“In glad celebration we worship the one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit [p. 27]). That the one God subsists eternally in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is not made clear. Nothing is said about the eternity of the Son and the Spirit. Nothing is said of the Virgin Birth. The death of Christ is mentioned (“Jesus Christ crucified and risen” [p. 26]; “in his life, death, and resurrection” [p. 18]), but nothing is said of its theological meaning. Whereas the Westminster Confession of Faith (accepted by Presbyterians and, in modified form, by Congregationalists and Baptists) speaks of a vicarious and substitutionary atonement in which the wrath of God was satisfied, the new formulation says nothing like this. Similarly, the resurrection of Christ from the dead is mentioned, but its historic content is left unstated. The phrase “raised from the dead” means different things to different people; since nothing is said of the biblical teaching that Christ rose from the tomb in the same body and that the tomb was empty, members are free to let their “conscientious convictions” determine the meaning of the phrase.

Scripture is said to be “included in the Tradition” and is to be “interpreted in the light of the Tradition” (p. 26). The new church is to be “under the authority of Scripture,” but it is impossible to determine what “being under” means. One thing is clear: the new church will not be committed to an infallible Scripture. There is little reason to hope that churches now seemingly unconcerned about an infallible Word and willing to permit within them all shades of opinion under existing and supposedly binding confessions will in the united church be more strict or more concerned. Indeed, everything points in the opposite direction—to an inclusive church, marked by theological vagary, entertaining opposing viewpoints, having a compass that points in all directions at the same time.

That the formulators of the Plan of Union expected opposition and are prepared to offset it may be seen from a number of illuminating statements: “Our efforts to unite in a common obedience no doubt will release divisive forces” (p. 10), and such divisive forces, even though based on biblical grounds and standing for truth, are not to be tolerated; “we envisage a united church, embodying all that is indispensable to each of us”—even though this may violate logical consistency and the biblical witness itself; “oneness in the church is required for the credibility and effectiveness of Christ’s mission”—a statement that has never been true and one that fails to acknowledge that the greatest missionary advance since the days of the apostles came in the nineteenth century, when the Church was more divided denominationally than at any other period in its history.

Various statements in the Plan of Union can only yield the conclusion that the new church will be committed to the supposition that all men will be saved. Belief in universal salvation is characteristic of segments of the ecumenical movement and seems to be growing in strength. The plan foresees “the oneness of all men as reconciled in Christ’s new creation” (p. 11); “the church invites the world to see foreshadowed the final destiny God has prepared for all mankind and to participate in it” (p. 17); “through this act [the identification of the risen and ascended Christ with mankind] God draws all men into fellowship with his Son” (p. 18). In a church that intends to regard as divisive those who raise questions that could become a basis for division, one can expect short shrift for people who believe in hell and are willing to make an issue of it.

The theology of the new church, as it now stands, hardly constitutes an endorsem*nt of that to which the uniting churches have traditionally been committed since their earliest days. The union will mark the end of adherence to creeds and confessions as we have known them (or their use to determine orthodoxy) and will decisively depreciate the value of great documents like the Westminster Confession of Faith. Rather than hastening the reunion of churches based on biblical truth, the Church of Christ Uniting is likely to be an affront to bodies like the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Southern Baptists, and the smaller denominations in the National Association of Evangelicals.

As it now reads, the COCU confession will not satisfy those who stand in the evangelical tradition. If the united church becomes a reality without considerable improvement of the present doctrinal platform, evangelicals will be faced with difficult decisions. They can go into the union but will have to compromise conscience. They can withdraw by exercising an option that is part of the Plan of Union. If many churches opt out and establish continuing denominations, then the total number of denominations is likely to increase, even though the uniting church will undoubtedly become the largest single Protestant body in the United States.

Evangelicals who are not pleased with the present confession of the new church are likely to be equally unhappy with its ecclesiology. This aspect of COCU we will discuss in the second part of our critique in an examination of the Parish Plan and the historic episcopate, which are integral to the COCU Plan of Union.

With this issue CHRISTIANITY TODAY begins its fifteenth year of publication. Our readers should note the restatement of our purposes in the editorial pages. We are grateful to God for his mercies and for his continuing provision for our financial needs. Religious magazines generally do not pay their own way by subscription and advertising income, and subsidies must make up the difference. We depend on the gifts of God’s people to balance our budget. We ask our friends to read the explanation on page 49 of deferred giving as a means of forwarding our work.

The essay on COCU is the first of two in which we examine the basic issues in this projected merger of key denominations. In the second part, which will appear next issue, we will explore the parish plan and the question of the historic episcopate. Two essays in this issue deal with racism, a problem that has wracked churches as well as governments and nations. Dr. Daniels, a black psychiatrist, speaks compellingly about the psychodynamics of racism, while Dr. Hodges explores the biblical principles that relate to racism and their application to current situations.

Donald Tinder, a Yale Ph.D. who joined us as assistant editor fifteen months ago, is now our book editor. All communications regarding books should be addressed to him.

I recently spent a week at Campus Crusade for Christ headquarters in California, where I had the delightful experience of ministering to hundreds of young people who have put their lives on the line for Jesus Christ and are eager to spread his good news. My own life was blessed and my horizons expanded as I listened to Bill Bright, the president, talk of plans to fulfill the Great Commission of Christ in this generation. We will hear increasingly from this organization and these young people.

This issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY completes our fourteenth year and includes the annual index. Since we cannot run more than sixty-four pages through the press at one time, we were obliged to make room for the index by omitting one page of editorials and the book reviews. Next issue will bring a return to normalcy.

We regret the departure from our editorial staff of Richard Love, who has long felt a burden for face-to-face confrontation with people. He will be engaged in establishing home Bible classes in Tennessee and ultimately in other states around the country. We wish him God’s best. A new editorial staff member will join us in November, and we will introduce him to our readers in a future issue.

Post hoc, propter hoc, which is translated “After this, on account of this,” is a nifty way of falling into logical difficulties. What it means is that we tend to believe that if something follows something else, it is really caused by that something else. Or to put the matter simply, if A is followed by B, we get the impression that B was caused by A. I herewith succumb to the same temptation in trying to answer the question, How did theology ever arrive at its present state?

Somewhere along the line modern theology had a new start with Karl Barth. He is called “neo-orthodox,” and it is easy enough for evangelicals to think of him as being “neo.” But how was he “orthodox”? He was orthodox because he took sin seriously and took Christ seriously and took the Bible seriously. His starting place was always the canonical Scriptures.

Barth, however, was steeped in German liberalism and accepted the critical method of handling Scripture. Thus he went at things differently from the old orthodox or fundamentalist Bible scholars.

In order to accept myth, legend, and even error in the Scriptures, he quit worrying about the words and emphasized the Word to be found in the words. Thus the important thing in the third chapter of Genesis is not the mythological account but the Word that man is a fallen creature. This was not the end of the matter, however. It came to be seen that the true Word in Scripture is the Living Word, Jesus Christ, and that the important thing is to experience him. One need not be overly concerned about the words in which he is communicated. The reader or listener has the Living Word communicated to him through the words, and in the moment of faith or crisis or decision, Christ and the believer meet in a living experience.

Thus for Barth (and I am sure my brevity is not instructive) the Word of God has being and completion finally and only in the experience of the one at the receiving end. There is much more to this, of course, but what is clear is that the center of emphasis shifts from the Scriptures to the living experience of a believer. This is not a bad emphasis, but it can be a bad overemphasis.

Barth was aided and abetted by Brunner, and the whole movement was given social and political significance by Niebuhr. Niebuhr evades absolutes and definitions. He does not deny absolute truth but sees us in our limited experience as having to choose not Right or Wrong but only the Better in situations where we have no absolute choices. Once again the individual in his subjective experience becomes decisive. Our ethical choices are never between Light and Darkness but among the various shades of gray with the hope that we choose a direction of Light.

All this sort of thing was good material for Fletcher and his situation ethics, for Harvey Cox, and for John A. T. Robinson. This approach has colored not only theology but also the social ethics of our day.

That all this is not merely theory can be illustrated by the shocking and terribly saddening report on sexual behavior brought to the last meeting of the General Assembly of the United Presbyterian Church. hom*osexuality is not treated from the authoritative base of Paul’s writing; abortion is not discussed in scriptural terms; extramarital sex is related not to laws but to the one general Absolute of Love. The ultimate concern is not “it stands written” but rather the very human situation in which two lovers might find themselves.

Because sex is so interesting and because the public generally delights in seeing the Church soften its legalism, this report has had tremendous play in the press. Although it was not passed, it was turned loose for discussion, and one can assume that much of it will be found acceptable in time. This shift in emphasis to the “life situation” is the product of a long theological process and the seminary training of a whole generation. And the end is not yet.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, what is the evangelical position? We talk about the verbal inerrancy of the divine originals, “plenary verbal inspiration,” the “authority of Scripture,” and so on. And we discuss how the “new theologies” have eaten away at plain doctrine, dogmatics, systematic theology. One looks in vain, however, for agreement even among evangelicals as to what should be said and how it should be said. What we need are new and clear statements by evangelicals and not mere carping criticism.

And that’s the way it is.

ADDISON H. LEITCH

In Canada, everything that is involved in its becoming a bilingual country is called le fait francais. In the United States, most of us have not yet become aware of la realidad hispana—the fact that our southern neighbors have moved in with us and (even though they have slept late) are now beginning to create quite a stir.

One indication of our unawareness is the fact that none of our censuses, not even the 1970 one, has tried to trace out the details of America’s biggest non-English-speaking minority. We want to know how many blacks, Indians, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Hawaiians, and Koreans live among us, but we don’t ask about the Spanish-speaking groups.

To be more accurate, the census does study the presence of “Persons of Spanish Surname” living in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas (there were 3,464,999 in 1960), and it reports on Puerto Ricans. But where to find Mexican-Americans outside of the Southwest is a puzzle, and how many Cubans, Santo Dominicans, or other Latin Americans have settled among us we do not know. The estimate is that we now have 12,233,000 Americans who speak Spanish. They keep coming at the rate of 200,000 per year, and they multiply at an annual rate of 3 per cent.

Many evangelical Christians, however, are aware of this “Spanish presence,” and in October of this year, in San Antonio, Texas, a Spanish-American Congress on Evangelism will be held. This congress is one in the series that began with Berlin. It was at the Latin American Congress in Bogota, Colombia, that the idea of a special Spanish-speaking congress in the United States was born.

However, the problems facing this congress—and all evangelical efforts—are numerous and complex. Many Spanish-language churches and most Anglo churches (as those of English-speaking Americans are known) are completely unaware of what is being planned. That teams of linguists, sociologists, educators, and anthropologists have been researching and writing about the Spanish-Americans suggests that this group certainly is a hard nut to crack. We merely hint here at the exciting task that confronts the Austin congress and, beyond that, all evangelical Christians.

For Protestants, the primary reason for not getting involved with the Spanish-Americans is the belief that “they are all Catholics.” This turns out to be an imaginary mountain. Benson Y. Landis says that 80 per cent of the Spanish-Americans have no religious affiliation whatever. Thus, without counting the Catholics, the United States has 9,786,690 persons of Hispanic background who need the Gospel.

In addition, the kind of Catholics who come to the United States are the more adventurous ones: those who are dissatisfied and ready to sever their ties with a former way of life. They are ready for change. Christopher Rand, speaking of Puerto Rico, says, “There has long been an anti-clerical tendency there.… Many Puerto Ricans who come up are inclined away from the Church to start with …” (The Puerto Ricans, p. 20). The same thing could be said—but more emphatically—about Mexicans coming to the United States.

Perhaps most immigrants assume that they will continue being Catholics in the United States, but they are due for a shock. For one thing, life here is not lived within earshot of clanging church bells, as it is in Latin America. Nor are there Spanish-speaking parish churches; rather English-speaking churches offer step-child-type ministries for the Spanish-speaking. “There is something very basic missing,” we read in La Raza: Forgotten Americans (Julian Samora, ed., p. 35), “which makes it possible for thousands of Spanish-speaking to leave the Church each year to embrace an alien form of worship.” Glazer and Moynihan add (Beyond the Melting Pot, p. 104): “Thus the capacities of the Church are weak in just those areas in which the needs of the migrants are great—in creating a surrounding, supporting community to replace the extended families, broken by city life, and supply a social setting for those who feel lost and lonely in the great city.”

The Roman Catholic Church, not blind to its predicament, has been casting about for solutions. For one thing, it has replaced its National Council for the Spanish Speaking and its special Bishops’ Committee with the Division for the Spanish-Speaking, with offices in Lansing, Michigan, and San Antonio, Texas.

One other imaginary mountain needs to be demolished: the mistaken notion that Spanish culture and Catholic culture are indissolubly wedded. A non-Catholic Spanish culture, it is said, would be like Istanbul without mosques. Canadians also argued that French culture and the Catholic Church are inseparable. But Edward Corbett says,

An anomaly in the new situation is that Quebec is becoming more French as it becomes more pluralistic on the religious level. As the old cliché that language is the guardian of the faith is disproved and discarded, it is now possible for non-Catholic groups to be assimilated into the French-Canadian milieu or to confirm their adherence to a culture which leaves them free to reject the dominant religion. Many of the most dynamic elements of the cultural renaissance Quebec has been undergoing identify with the mass of French Canadians in language alone [Quebec Confronts Canada, Johns Hopkins Press, 1967, p. 291].

The Canadian experience corroborates what Kyle Haselden has said about Spanish culture in the Death of a Myth.

No one knows how many evangelical Spanish-language churches continental America has, but every book on la realidad hispana speaks of these churches as being an important part of the Spanish-American scene. Ten years ago the Protestant Council of New York reported 427 churches carrying on a Spanish ministry there. Last fall, the Rev. Luis E. Vega, manager of Libreria Caribe in Brooklyn, was certain that there are now more than 1,000 such churches in the metropolitan area. While Anglo churches swelter in the heat of agonizing self-examination, Spanish-American churches are enjoying one of the fastest-growing rates in the world. The number of Hispano churches in the United States could well be over 7,000.

Evangelism among Spanish-Americans, then, need not come apologetically. The climate is just right, and evangelicals have the right answer. The small local church meets the people where they are. It understands their need of concern and fellowship. Before they emigrated, the kinship pattern and the parish church supported them in times of crisis; in an impersonal new world, the evangelical community can gather them warmly into its circle of love.

Nevertheless, nine million Spanish-Americans are still outside that circle. Evangelism needs to create for them this climate of concern. If there is to be a good crop the soil needs first to be tilled and well fertilized. Fortunately it is good soil. In spite of his anti-church bias, the person with Spanish background is naturally religious. “Go with God” and “If God will” are phrases that come naturally to his lips. Love and death are constant themes in his poetry, and to seek spiritual solutions for his deepest problems is the most natural thing in the world.

The immigrants from Puerto Rico and Mexico are young laborers who have large families. The median age in the Southwestern states in 1960 was 19.6 years. At that time the school enrollment of Spanish-background children in Los Angeles, for instance, was 499,118 pupils. In San Antonio, 193,133 Mexican American children were attending school. Evangelicals, and specifically the forthcoming Congress on Evangelism in San Antonio, therefore, must address themselves to youth caught between two cultures.

There are signs that the characteristically patient Puerto Rican and the long-suffering Mexican are getting tired of waiting. Taking the cue from civil rights agitators, they threaten to take matters into their own hands. However, even here the religious element is a vital part of the formula. In Manhattan the Young Lords invade a Methodist church. In Houston the MAYOs take over a Presbyterian church. New Mexico’s Riies Lopez Tijerina once attended a Bible institute. To an audience which included Robert Kennedy, Cesar Chavez of California’s National Farm Workers’ Association said in 1968:

It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strangest act of manliness, is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others. God help us to be men. (Sal Si Puedes, p. 196.)

Normally, in Latin America, to play the man, to defend one’s honor, blots out every other motivation. When Chavez transmutes this blind brute energy into a fight for social justice he is a true genius. And surely, to play the man in personal evangelism is no less a sign of manliness.

Another difficulty for evangelism is the Spanish-American’s characteristic individualism: he is notorious for being a poor joiner. Anthropologist Oscar Lewis points out that this lack of cohesiveness comes from Mexico. At this point Spanish-American organizers of the evangelism congress and subsequent campaigns may need to make a super effort. Perhaps they will enlist the help of their Anglo counterparts.

The Spanish-American community is monolithic in name only. Hispanophiles point out that the kind of Spanish spoken in East Harlem is much different from that spoken in East Los Angeles. Sociologists add that Mexican-Americans differ from the Spanish-Americans of New Mexico; Puerto Rican city dwellers differ from Mexican-Americans in Chicago; and the Cubans of Ybor City differ from Cubans in Miami. And all of these variations pose interesting (if not serious) problems to evangelical leaders.

And what will they do for the disculturized person with a Spanish surname? He can no longer speak Spanish or tries not to, and yet he cannot understand much English beyond what he needs at his job. What about households divided by language—households where children have difficulty communicating with their own fathers and mothers? A million English-speakers who still have Spanish thought patterns are offset by a million Spanish-speakers who have adopted an Anglo value system.

Something stronger than a common language and a common background is needed to pull the Spanish-American community together. This integrating force can be the evangelical faith. God has provided the key; how to use it is the American church’s problem. Protestant churches located near areas where Spanish-Americans live must make their facilities available to them. Why should cooking facilities, day care facilities, and classroom space be closed all week? Why should we wait until the Young Lords and MAYOs shame us into using our talents?

Concerned Christians in places where Anglo and Hispano churches are neighbors can set up a technical assistance program. There professionals (doctors, nurses, lawyers, social workers, teachers, and others) give their services for reduced fees, and if the Hispanic neighbor cannot pay, a non-technical Anglo member picks up the tab.

In non-contiguous churches a Spanish Action Committee can be formed. The committee can visit Spanish-American pastors and work with them in establishing Helping Arm Services for counseling, psychological assistance, housing clinics, day camps, legal advice, and so on.

Also, each Anglo church can have a Spanish-speaking club made up of people who have learned to speak Spanish in school or elsewhere. Club members would invite Spanish-speaking pastors and others to study the Spanish Bible with them. The Lord will open many service opportunities to these clubs, but surely one such avenue will be cooperation in area-wide and city-wide evangelistic campaigns.

On the national level, as CHRISTIANITY TODAY pointed out seven years ago (July 19, 1963), we still need a “coordinating agency for Spanish work,” a National Council of Hispanic Churches. The National Council of Churches has its Department of Spanish American Ministries to coordinate NCC-member activities, but the evangelical associations, Southern Baptists, and others need to be drawn together.

If national unity is to be achieved, a national evangelical magazine in Spanish is needed to tie together the many varied parts. Thousands of small “minority-minded” churches need to know that they are part of an exciting movement of the Church of Christ. A national, evangelical Spanish-language training school for Hispano church leaders is also needed. Missionary statesmen recognize that pastors for Hispanic churches cannot be effectively trained in Anglo seminaries. On the other hand, the present proliferation of feeble Bible institutes only brings north of the border a sad phenomenon which has been often deplored south of the border.

The Spanish-American presence is a leaven which could bring new vigor to the entire lump of American Christianity, or it could join with other disruptive forces to further tear this country apart. The congress in San Antonio merits our watching and our prayers.—WERNER G. MARX, writer and lecturer, Pasadena, California. (Mr. Marx served for thirty-three years as a missionary educator in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.)

A new 55-million-strong church family, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Presbyterian and Congregational), has pledged “full support to Christians throughout the world who labor at reconciling Christians of conflicting convictions, for instance as regards the social implications of the ministry of reconciliation, racial relations, alignment with national policies and development.”

In a strongly worded statement issued at the end of the ten-day uniting assembly, which met in Nairobi, Kenya, last month, the new ecumenical church called on its member churches “to root out racism, with its insidious substitution of color for the God of the Covenant sealed in Jesus.”

The statement condemned the Dutch Reformed churches of South Africa for giving the South African government the impression that the Church supports racial segregation and white supremacy, and the other churches in South African for their lukewarm opposition to apparent oppression and injustice.

It also condemned: the churches of the United States for failing to overcome cultural and social patterns that promote social segregation within the Church and allow injustices within the broader society; the churches of the rich nations for their complicity in structures of the international order that have led to the exploitation of the poor countries; and all churches, such as the Roman Catholic churches in Portuguese territories in Africa and the Presbyterian bodies in Ireland, guilty of supporting injustices committed against their neighbors, and of failing to minister to individuals and peoples who find themselves in conflict with society.

This new, outraged church came into being on August 20 when two confessional bodies, the International Congregational Council (ICC) and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), “died … to rise again as one,” after ten years of negotiations and growing together.

In two brief, separate assemblies at Taifa Hall of the University of Nairobi, the two bodies watched each other vote themselves out of existence. All 700 delegates, representing 127 churches in 75 countries, then came together and voted unanimously on a formal Act of Union.

This formal session, which included the addresses of the heads of the two organizations, Dr. Wilhelm Niesel, president of the alliance, and Dr. Ashby E. Bladen, moderator of the ICC, lasted only about an hour. Then came what to Kenyan observers was the highlight of the conference: a long, colorful procession of these men and women, old and young, from every continent, race, and political camp, along the beautiful University Way to St. Andrew’s Church, where in a service of Word and Sacrament the union was consecrated.

“We, the representatives of Reformed, Presbyterian and Congregational Churches in all the corners of the earth,” the delegates declared at St. Andrew’s, “holding the word of God given in the Bible to be the ultimate authority in matters of faith and life, acknowledging Jesus Christ as head of the Church and rejoicing in our fellowship with the whole Church, covenant together to seek in all things the mind of Christ, to make common witness to his Gospel, to serve his purpose in all the world, and, in order to be better equipped for the tasks he lays upon us, to form this day the new World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Lord, keep us faithful to yourself and to our fellow-men.”

In his sermon Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, general secretary of the World Council of Churches, said he was glad “that the setting of this new covenant is in Africa where we may hope that these once daughter churches of our missions, now sister churches in the alliance, may increasingly give to our fellowship forms of joyful celebration which we reformed of the Atlantic community have somewhere lost in the several centuries of our separate history.”

This spirit of joyful celebration had all but disappeared by the afternoon, when the delegates reassembled at Taifa Hall to start debate on the new organization’s stand on specific world problems, and to determine its course of action for the years to come.

Professor Jurgen Moltmann of Tübingen University in Germany jumped into the very heart of the controversy when in his keynote address to the first plenary session he called on the church to announce “publicly and clearly” its attitude toward apartheid and other institutions that divide the world today. Professor Moltmann was speaking on the assembly’s general theme: “God reconciles and makes free.”

In his audience were twenty-six delegates from South Africa, white and black, representing well over a million communicants of the family of Dutch Reformed churches, some of which are “hard-line” supporters of apartheid. Also present in Nairobi was the leader of the banned Pan-African Congress of South Africa, who challenged the presence in Nairobi of the South African delegates. “The Dutch Reformed Church,” he said in one of his many press statements, “is the corner stone and the main pillar of South Africa’s apartheid policy, which has produced a spate of oppressive laws, political hangings, trials, banishment, and life imprisonment among members of the African majority of South Africa.”

The main business of the assembly was conducted in four study sections. One section, introduced by Professor Hendrik Berkhof of Leyden University, Holland, discussed reconciliation as the key to creation, and the failure of the Reformed churches to keep personal and cosmic elements of the faith together. Berkhof wrote the sectional study paper: “Reconciliation and Creation: The Freedom of God’s World.”

The section that dominated the assembly was one that discussed a paper entitled “Reconciliation and Society: The Freedom of a Just Order,” prepared by Professor Charles West of Princeton Seminary. It dealt with the assembly’s most explosive issues. Among them: Can a Christian ever use or condone violence to change an evil society or defend a just one? Should a Christian advocate first of all individual liberties or social justice when the two conflict?

Statements issued by the study sections and approved by the general assembly will be distributed to the 55 million followers of the church. The recommendations establish the new church as a “world-conscious” and deeply “world-concerned” organization.

At the last press conference the newly elected president of the alliance, William P. Thompson of the United States, announced an unprecedented consultation in South Africa in which each member church of the alliance in that country will present its views on apartheid. He expressed appreciation for the open-mindedness with which the South African delegates had discussed the problems of their country.

In one of the most dramatic confrontations at the conference, an African churchman from South Africa made a slashing attack on apartheid after another African churchman had said: “I am not being oppressed in South Africa. I do whatever I like. I am a free man.” In reply the Reverend G. T. Vika said: “When my friend tells you we are not oppressed and that he is free, I must tell you that that is lies.”

In the end, however, all the delegates from Africa, including South African whites, issued a joint statement in which they declared their support for the struggle of the people of southern Africa who are denied certain basic human rights. But, as Christians, they said, they will continue to regard their struggle as a fight between wrong and right, justice and injustice, and not as one between black and white.

The North American Area delegation also issued a statement. Rejecting the belief that social separation of the races by national law is compatible with the demands of Christian love, the delegation pledged “renewed action for the reformation of our own life in this area of our witness as a church. Acknowledging the equality and unity of all mankind in Christ, we believe that de jure or de facto support of institutional racism by the church is a heresy which denies our unity, our worship of a common Lord, and our witness in a divided world.”

ODHIAMBO W. OKITE

Asa: ‘Rational Faith’

In an age of flight from both barren rationalism and “outdated” religion, where does a Christian scientist stand?

On firm ground, according to Dr. Richard H. Bube, professor of materials science at Stanford University: “Those who turn to an irrational or non-rational approach miss the idea that science hasn’t really made the Christian basis of life unacceptable … and that, in fact, this is the only basis for what they are seeking.”

Speaking at the twenty-fifth annual four-day convention of the American Scientific Affiliation last month in St. Paul, Bube urged the 100 members attending to present to the world a “rational faith.” He distinguished rational action as “on the basis of all the evidence”; nonrational, “without regard for evidence”; irrational, “in spite of evidence”; and rationalistic, “as though scientific evidence were the only evidence.” A rational faith is one based on all the evidence, according to Bube.

The evangelically oriented ASA seeks to promote Christian truth, particularly in the context of scientific evidence. Two major activities of members are witnessing to scientific colleagues and speaking to evangelical church groups on the value of relating science to faith.

Bube is also editor of the quarterly, forty-page Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation, which presents science and Christianity in a vigorous and illuminating relationship. Its goal is to educate the public, especially Christians who fear or reject science. Original articles and reprints on scientific and social issues from other journals are used to give a healthy background for a “rational faith.”

Founded twenty-nine years ago, the ASA has doubled its membership in the past ten years to 2,000, with a growth rate of about fifty members a month. Members write and speak on an individual basis, as well as jointly producing books on the relation of Christianity and science, especially evolution.

Religion In Transit

A new corporation established in Illinois is described as the first predominantly black-owned publishing company designed to produce interdenominational Sunday-school literature. The Reverend Melvin E. Banks, formerly of Scripture Press, is the president.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, two young men were sentenced to twenty days in the workhouse for shouting obscenities during a Billy Graham rally in which President Nixon spoke last May.

A new plane purchased by the Sudan Interior Mission was lost while being ferried across the Atlantic to Nigeria. The Piper Comanche 260 apparently went down somewhere between Boston and Gander, Newfoundland. It was being flown by a commercial ferry pilot.

Northwestern College of Minneapolis is the latest among a number of evangelical schools to purchase educational properties from Roman Catholics. An 89-acre campus with four buildings is being acquired from the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis for $2,575,000.

The United Steelworkers Union has reached an agreement with a factory in Sugarcreek, Ohio, that will permit young men from the local Amish community to work in the plant without becoming members of the union. They will contribute the equivalent of union dues to charitable projects.

The Lord’s Day Alliance is moving out of New York’s Interchurch Center to Atlanta. The 82-year-old organization will occupy a four-room suite in Atlanta’s Methodist Center.

The government of Kenya, East Africa, has approved the purchase of a thirty-acre campsite outside Nairobi by Word of Life Fellowship.

The American Bible Society will distribute Scriptures in New York City, formerly the exclusive territory of the New York Bible Society, by mutual arrangement.

Any Roman Catholic in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles who takes part in an abortion will be automatically excommunicated, decreed Archbishop Timothy J. Manning.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State changed its mind and sued the Internal Revenue Service in an attempt to recover its tax-exempt status.

International Students Incorporated has made its Assisting Indigenous Developments Division a separate corporation, headed by ISI founding-president Robert Finley. The new organization is called Christian Aid Mission.

Construction on the $5.5 million Special Events Center at Oral Roberts University is underway; the facility, which will seat 10,252, is expected to be the largest of its kind in Tulsa.

The Federal Communications Commission refused to renew the license of radio station KAYE in Puyallup, Washington. The Anti-Defamation League, among other groups, charged that the station “consistently broadcast antiblack, anti-Semitic, racially and religiously inflammatory matters.…

Deaths

OLIVER GREEN-WILKINSON, 57, Anglican archbishop of Central Africa; in Lusaka, Zambia, from injuries suffered in a highway accident.

RALPH W. SOCKMAN, 80, distinguished radio preacher and pastor emeritus of Park Avenue’s Christ Church, Methodist; in New York City.

IVAN Q. SPENCER, 81, founder and past president of Elim Bible Institute, in Rochester, New York.

They Say

A news release announcing the forthcoming marriage of Bob Turnbull, chaplain of Waikiki Beach, to Orange Bowl Princess Julie James ended with these words: “This is the first (and last) marriage for both!”

Personalia

The board chairman of Union Theological Seminary, New York, was named undersecretary of state by President Nixon. He is John N. Irwin II, an attorney who is also president of the executive committee of Princeton University.

Richard Cardinal Cushing resigned this month as Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston and was succeeded by the Most Reverend Humberto S. Medeiros. The 75-year-old Cushing said he was “too weak and too old to carry on.” Medeiros, 54, is a native of the Azores who has been a champion of the poor while serving as bishop in Brownsville, Texas.

Dr. H. Leo Eddleman is joining the staff of the Southern Baptist Sunday School Board in the newly created position of “doctrinal reader.” Eddleman, known as a theological conservative, is a former president of the Southern Baptists’ seminary in New Orleans. The board’s publishing arm has been under fire for concessions to liberal scholars.

The United Methodist Board of Missions in New York reported that the Reverend Emilio Castro had been detained for six days by police in Uruguay. Reports received by the board said that the president of the 2,700-member Methodist Church of Uruguay had been arrested for allegedly trying to act as a mediator in the kidnaping of a U. S. agricultural advisor and a Brazilian diplomat.

Kenneth Shoemaker, a vice-president of the H. J. Heinz Corporation, was appointed director of foundation relations for Wycliffe Bible Translators. He has served on a White House task force on rural America.

Anglican Bishop Chiu Ban It of Singapore has been named acting chairman of the East Asia Christian Conference, filling the vacancy left by the death of Dr. D. T. Niles … Anglican Bishop Ian Shevill of Australia has been named executive secretary of the venerable United Society for the Propogation of the Gospel.

Bishop Alejandro Ruiz was elected to an unprecedented third term as leader of the 32,935-member Methodist Church of Mexico.

Wallace Henley, a Southern Baptist clergyman who has been religion editor of the “Birmingham News,” was appointed top press aide to the new Cabinet Committee on Education, organized by President Nixon to smooth out desegregation problems in the Deep South.

The new president of the Latin American Biblical Seminary in San Jose, Costa Rica, is the Reverend Ruben Lores. The Cuban-born Lores has been assistant general director of Latin America Mission, which operates the seminary, and director of the mission’s evangelism-in-depth program.

Sweden has its first female vicar. She is Dr. Margit Sahlin, 56, an ordained woman who was appointed to a parish in Stockholm. The state church now has about sixty women clergy.

J. Clyde Cox was appointed territorial commander of the Salvation Army’s eleven-state Central Territory, and Paul J. Carlson was named to head the eleven-state Eastern Territory.

Rising Brazilian theologian Rubem Alves, 36, will become associate professor of Christian ethics at Union Seminary in New York, beginning January, 1971.

The “bare pit” was a large room off the lobby in Ottawa’s elegant old Chateau Laurier Hotel. Several dozen young people sat around the carpeted floor sharing their concerns. While they talked, an Edwardian-coated youth quietly mounted a stepladder on the stage and began beckoning to a fellow player who had sprawled out on the floor below. The ladder-climber kept motioning to his prostrate friend but made it clear that he was not about to get off the ladder to help him up. In a sequel to the act he came down and embraced passers-by.

The pantomime reflected the underlying challenge posed by last month’s five-day Canadian Congress on Evangelism, of which it was a part: the responsibility of evangelicals to get closer to the people they are trying to reach. Evangelist Leighton Ford put it another way: “I sometimes think the Church resembles nothing more than a holy huddle.… Those who are on the field seem to spend most of their time in the huddle. Some seem to have forgotten the plays and the aim of the game. Some like the coziness and safety—did you ever hear of anybody getting hurt in a huddle? Some have been knocked down so often that the spirit seems to have been knocked out of them. So we spend all our time planning strategy, analyzing the enemy, and sometimes criticizing our own team members.”

Ford urged churchmen to move out of the huddle and get into the fray. He suggested that Christians might well develop a new theme song: “When the Saints Go Marching Out.”

The Rev. Robert Roxburgh, a Baptist from Calgary, said many churches discuss what they call “outreach” but what they really mean is “in-drag.” Authentic fishers of men, he declared, “do not fish in a nice stained-glass aquarium to which have been invited prospect fish to be caught by the big fisherman properly attired, but rather they fish where the fish are—in the fast-flowing streams and muddy pools of life.”

The Anglican archbishop of York, Dr. F. D. Coggan, asserted in a keynote address that fulfilling the command to make disciples is a prerequisite to church renewal. “Obey,” he said, “and you will be renewed. It is as simple as that.… I had rather, ten thousand times rather, incur the divine rebuke for error in method, or even in doctrine, in a task done in obedience to his command, than I would hear him say, ‘I told you to go and you never went.’ When we obey the command and unitedly go out on evangelistic work, I believe we shall find that it will be with us as with the lepers: ‘As they went, they were cleansed.’ As we go, we shall find renewal.”

Though it had shaky moments, the Ottawa congress emerged as a signal triumph for the biblical cause. It may well have ushered in a new era of cooperation among Canadian evangelicals. The more than 600 delegates represented some three dozen denominations, including all the major Protestant communions and many traditionally separatist groups taking their first ecumenical venture (and laying a lot on the line for their trouble). The impact of the meeting can be expected to be felt throughout the North American Christian community.

In delegate discussions, which were numerous, the nature of Christian social responsibility was the most debated subject. One student who claimed an evangelical background had started it off by asking, “Does Christianity really change things?” About 20 to 25 per cent of the delegates were young people, a higher proportion than at any previous congress on evangelism, and the diversity of their views showed clearly that today’s youth do not speak with one voice, not even in the evangelical sphere.

Both the congress leaders and the featured speakers resisted attempts to make the conclave a sounding board for mere humanitarianism. Coggan remarked that “not least among many of the young, there is a deep concern for social justice, a deep hatred of war and poverty, of Rachmanism and of color prejudice, which puts many professing Christians to shame.” He argued, however, that although “every Christian must be a humanitarian, deeply concerned for the temporal welfare of his fellows all over the world … he is far more than that. He is an apostle with a Gospel which concerns the whole man, here and hereafter.”

Coggan, a delegate to the World Council of Churches assembly in Uppsala in 1968, suggested that perhaps that meeting gave “the impression that in fact social concern was in itself the Gospel. We said much about compassion for those deprived of justice and equality because of race or color, but all too little about those deprived of the knowledge of God’s love and so condemned to live in superstition and fear. We manifested a sense of urgency about the righting of the evils of poverty and so on, but all too little urgency to preach the Gospel where hitherto it has never been heard. We heard much of the Christian as a servant of men; did we hear enough about him as the servant of God and derivatively, for His sake and for the sake of His Gospel and its proclamation, the servant of men in need of God?”

Dr. Carl F. H. Henry stated that “nothing is more foundationally important for the world and for the Church in the twentieth century than a recovery of truth. Truth-famine is the ultimate and worst of all famines. Unless modern culture recovers the truth of truth and the truth of God, civilization is doomed to oblivion and the spirit of man to nihilism.”

Delegates were treated to a masterly critique of the new theology by Dr. Kenneth Hamilton, though not all of them appreciated it. Hamilton, who teaches at the University of Winnepeg, said that “the old, pietistic theology was accused of neglecting life here and now, while offering pie in the sky when you die. The new secularist theology promises that pie will arrive for another generation after we are dead.” The theology of revolution, he declared, “finds room for Jesus to the degree that he can be interpreted as an agent of social change and an anti-establishment figure.” Hamilton quoted Gerald Sykes as commenting in The Cool Millennium that “the churches are trying to make up for their intellectual and moral bankruptcy by taking up popular social causes” (though he later said that this did not necessarily reflect accurately his own view).

The most provocative personality at the congress was Frank H. Epp, a Mennonite who wrote a workshop paper against war. Epp charged that “where once evangelism was an instrument of dynamic renewal in society, it now quite often serves the function of preserving the status quo.” He said his pacifist views have led him to the growing conviction that “a Buddhist who carries a cross is closer to Christ than a Christian who carries a gun.”

“Perhaps the most misunderstood biblical vision,” Epp said, “is that called the kingdom, the concept which Jesus chose to describe the totality of the new man, the new order, and the new age.” He accused some Christians of inventing “a false doctrine of separations so that they could conveniently bypass the kingdoms of economics and politics in their proclamation. Those who built bypass highways for the kingdom may not have known—at least they didn’t admit it—but they soon lost the kingdom blueprint itself. The kingdom just doesn’t appear apart from people and outside of society. And the more they lost it, the more they identified with the prevailing religious and political tribalisms of the day. Thus, in 1970 the kingdom was reduced to an unfinished American dream, as in the 1930s it became little more than a German Reich.”

Epp divided his time between the Canadian Congress on Evangelism and a meeting of world federalists. He tried unsuccessfully to arrange a joint session.

Plenary sessions of the congress were held in Ottawa’s new $46,000,000 National Arts Center, across the street from the Parliament buildings where the national motto, taken from Psalm 72:8, is carved in stone: “He shall have dominion from sea to sea.” It was to this end that the congress delegates had gathered. Some observers feel that there is even more ecclesiastical polarization in Canada than the United States, and that therefore the mere assembly of such a cross section of the Church was no small accomplishment. Advance preparations had been seriously impaired by a lingering mail strike. A sizeable corps of secular newsmen covered the congress, though some reporters’ focus upon undercurrents disappointed many Canadian evangelicals.

The congress nonetheless sounded a new call. Coggan reminded the delegates that it’s often a pillow that keeps the word of God from coming through and that an alarm clock can be an important Christian instrument. The meeting in Ottawa served to alert the Church in Canada and elsewhere to its great task. Henry summed up the appeal:

“Upon us as believers the divinity of the Gospel-truth, the demonstration of the Gospel-truth, and the destination of the Gospel-truth places the burden, the opportunity, and the privilege and entrustment of facing the world with the Word. Let us do so in a way that makes decision for Christ not an unintelligible noise or an easy evasion but a welcome option and unparallelled opportunity.”

DAVID KUCHARSKY

Updating A Creed

The British Evangelical Alliance has a new “basis of faith.” The document, drafted by a working committee over a period of years and endorsed in principle by the alliance leadership in January, was formally adopted after consultation with the alliance’s associate members.

In publishing the text, the alliance said it has “not moved an inch” from its traditional evangelical statement. Seasoned evangelical observers noted, however, that it is not as tight a statement theologically as the statement of the World Evangelical Alliance, of which the British group is a member.

Agnostic Meets Missionary

Is the modern missionary still “a joke, a cooking-pot character”? The London-based Church Missionary Society recently encouraged a young agnostic couple to quiz its executives, and then arranged for them to visit Christian work in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. For four weeks Richard and Helen Exley lived with missionaries and investigated their diverse projects. The CMS committed itself in advance to sponsor publication of their findings, “warts and all.” After forty-six hours of tape, four reams of paper, and eighty-seven missionaries, they produced their report (In Search of a Missionary, London: Highway Press, 5s.). The Exleys, both of whom are deeply involved in secular aid work, present their experiences and comments with uninhibited candor. They found themselves shocked by missionaries who swore and wives who “seemed less than perfect or less than loving”; were impressed by meaningful humanitarian schemes and by bachelor workers who managed on less than $100 a year; reflected bewilderment that those who so highly praised African culture should send their children home to be educated; were moved by the pilot who coupled prayers in the co*ckpit before takeoff with expertise and concern for passenger safety and comfort; noted that some missionaries “try so hard they almost become unlovely in trying”; felt the “sudden freezing” in certain Christian circles that labeled them as outside the household of faith.

At the end of their forty-page report, the Exleys said they “were not—to some people’s surprise—converted,” but admitted “with a profound sense of thankfulness that we were able to explore one of the richest, most interesting fields of human endeavor.”

J. D. DOUGLAS

School Tally

Enrollment totals in private (largely church-related) elementary schools will show a decrease this fall, the U. S. Office of Education predicts.

When figures are compiled, enrollment in public elementary schools will for the first time in nearly three decades remain about the same, a total of 32,600,000, the government estimates, while children enrolled in nonpublic elementary schools will drop by about 100,000 to 4,200,000.

Enrollment in nonpublic high schools will remain about the same, 1,400,000, while public high schools are expected to enroll 13,400,000, an increase of 400,000 over last year.

In the college field, a record enrollment of 7,600,000 is expected, a gain of 300,000 over 1969. State universities and other public colleges will enroll 5,600,000, a gain of 200,000, while private colleges, including those that are church-supported, will enroll 2,000,000, an increase of 100.000.

Bidding Troops To Stay

South Korean Protestants held a prayer meeting in Seoul last month in behalf of a continuance of U. S. troop strength in their country (see photo below). At the meeting in Chongkyo Methodist Church they also adopted messages addressed to President Nixon and to American churches in which they pleaded against any reduction of U. S. military manpower in Korea. They fear Communist aggression if the balance of power is altered. Posun Yun, former president of Korea, was among the participants in the meeting.

Evangelical tides within the historic mainline denominations are rising. At the same time, the liberal forces within them are being weakened by an exodus of “new breed” ministers who are leaving the church for secular work. Evangelical visibility, coupled with a bid for power within the ecclesiastical machinery, is making an impact at the national level.

“It’s time the church began to listen to those to whom it doesn’t want to listen,” said a leader of the Good News Convocation of United Methodists for Evangelical Christianity last month. The convocation, attended by 1,600 laymen and pastors from the fifty states and overseas, was the first national Methodist convocation to be held this century outside the auspices of the denominational structure.

The Good News meeting in Dallas August 26–29 is representative of a number of unofficial evangelical groups within the major Protestant bodies that are raising their voices against what they believe is the excessively liberal, Gospel-slighting leadership that controls their denominations.

Two days later in Chicago, a Lutheran congress stressed loyalty to the Scriptures and the confessions. The forum drew evangelicals from the four major Lutheran bodies in the nation; the theme was “Evangelical Direction for the Lutheran Church.”

A nationwide Presbyterian Congress on Evangelism will be held in Cincinnati next September 20–24 in an attempt to get the church “walking on both legs”—evangelism and social involvement. Other similar meetings are planned; a United Methodist Congress on Evangelism will be held January 4–8 in New Orleans. And evangelical groups like the Good News movement have been formed in the American Baptist, Episcopal, and United Church of Christ communions as well.

The Dallas meeting was a blend of concern about social action—and apparent lack of involvement in it by evangelical Methodists—and about the Methodist establishment’s practice of social reform without preaching the Gospel. Variety and balance were evidenced in the messages of the thirteen major speakers, who ranged from Methodism’s grand old man, E. Stanley Jones, 86, to black evangelist Tom Skinner, 28. There was the deft logic of Candler School of Theology professor Claude Thompson, and the magic testimony of illusionist Andre Kol of Campus Crusade for Christ International, who uses his skill to spellbind student audiences around the world. One representative of the Methodist hierarchy, maverick Bishop Gerald Kennedy of Los Angeles, also addressed the convocation.

Most speakers bent over backward to avoid sounding “too negative” toward the church establishment, and Dr. Les Woodson, chairman of the board of Good News (subtitle: A Forum for Scriptural Christianity within the United Methodist Church) echoed a statement oft-pronounced at the convocation: “We have no plans to do more than to restore the historic Methodist Church to its Wesleyan tradition and biblical authority.”

The Good News movement was born three and one-half years ago with the publication of a quarterly journal edited by Dr. Charles Keysor, an Elgin, Illinois, pastor. Each year the magazine has doubled its circulation (presently nearly 10,000 plus 7,000 free distribution) and the Good News organization has doubled its finances. Thirteen regional evangelism conferences have been held in the past year, and last spring, the thirty-two directors (one is black) set up thirteen task forces and authorized the establishment of a national office and a full-time worker. A second national convocation has been set for 1971.

Ongoing concerns of the movement—the chief issues to surface at Dallas—include unhappiness with the denominational curriculum (its de-emphasis on personal faith in Christ¹Woodson said a recent survey indicated that 8,000 to 10,000 United Methodist congregations are using material from non-Methodist curriculum publishers, either instead of or in addition to the official U.M. curriculum.), money and the church (should evangelical Methodists boycott denominational social causes not related to gospel proclamation?), and liberal-dominated United Methodist seminaries (“It’s almost impossible to get an evangelical on our seminary faculties,” said Candler’s Claude Thompson).

The three-day convocation was spirited from start to finish. The frequent “amens,” gospel singing, and hand clapping could have convinced a visitor that he had dropped in on an old-time revival meeting. The rhythmic Junaluska Singers electrified the audience with a rousing performance of “O Happy Day” and sang and played their way to repeated standing ovations. At the closing prayer of dedication, men embraced, tears were shed, and there seemed to be a general reluctance to allow the fragile spell of spiritual communion to be broken—a rare sight indeed at the end of a church convention.

Tom Skinner, in a message reminiscent of the one he gave at the Minneapolis Congress on Evangelism a year ago, drew raves from the delegation (99 per cent white) for his hard-hitting indictment of evangelicals who say Christ is the answer but don’t tell how, who fail to relate their faith to the ghetto, and who “give thousands for foreign missions but won’t cross the street to help blacks.” Skinner also rapped the Americanization of the Gospel by political right-wing conservatives who “wrap Jesus up in the flag so that a vote for Jesus is a vote for America.” “If you really love your country you must be willing to hold up the Scriptures to America,” he said, adding: “When the Scriptures are opposed to what America is doing the church has [usually] gone with the system.”

Dr. Thompson charged that evangelicals “seldom mention the sins that are tearing the country apart.” Why, he asked, is there no conviction for such wrongs as spending money on “massive Methodist mausoleums” (ornate church buildings), not engaging in the civil rights movement (“the original sin in evangelical Methodism”), and allowing rat-hole slum dwellings (some of the landlords are active churchmen).

Other evangelically oriented groups in major denominations are strongly challenging the contention of liberal churchmen that historic Christianity emphasizing a living, personal Saviour is an ecclesiastical backwash.

The American Baptist Fellowship was organized during the denomination’s annual meeting last spring to provide a voice for evangelical pastors and to heal wounds within the ABC. The United Presbyterian Church has two groups: Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns, for pastors and laymen, and the Presbyterian Lay Committee, which stresses lay participation in decision-making at all levels in the church. The Southern Presbyterian group, Concerned Presbyterians, is for laymen.

Lutherans Alert, a group of American Lutheran Church and Lutheran Church in America pastors and laymen; is seeking a possible federation of “evangelical, conservative, confessional Lutherans,” a move supported by the independent, very conservative Lutheran publication, the Christian News.

Within the Episcopal Church, the American Church Union and the Foundation for Christian Theology both expect to make their conservative influence felt at the denomination’s triennium in Houston next month. There are other evangelical groups in the Anglican and other communions (see story adjoining).

“We are just starting to be aware of the possibilities” for evangelical ecumenism, says Good News editor Charles Keysor. “Why I don’t even know how many evangelicals there are in the Methodist Church. We’re like guys drilling for oil—we keep sinking the bit and it keeps going down.”

RUSSELL CHANDLER

Evangelical Consolidation In Canadian Denominations

Evangelicals are banding together in Canada’s major denominations to form groupings that give visible (and sometimes irritating) expressions to their position. The Canadian Anglican Evangelical Fellowship, the United Church Renewal Fellowship, and the Baptist Revival Fellowship exist respectively in the Anglican Church of Canada, the United Church of Canada, and the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec.

The three groups have in common an adherence to their particular denominational doctrinal position and a desire for a return to historical evangelical moorings. Each provides a rallying point for evangelicals, who sometimes feel out in the cold.

The Canadian Anglican Evangelical Fellowship is part of the international Evangelical Fellowship of the Anglican Communion, whose president is Archbishop Marcus Loane and whose secretary is Dr. John Stott. The EFAC includes twenty-two national Anglican bodies around the world.

Despite obstacles, the United Church Renewal Fellowship now claims 600 members; about sixty are ministers. Executive member Dr. Robert Rumball of Toronto’s Evangelical Church of the Deaf reports a sizable group of sympathizers not yet openly aligned with the fellowship.

The newest evangelical “underground,” the Baptist Revival Fellowship, includes pastors and laymen in the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec. Organized this year, the fellowship already claims 100 ministers and a large body of laymen. According to its president, the Reverend Raymond Le-Drew of the First Baptist Church in Orilla, Ontario, the Baptist Revival Fellowship exists “to give visibility and expression to the evangelical position which gave birth to the whole Baptist witness in Canada.”

Observers wonder if these separate evangelical groupings will display enough unity to maintain effective liaison through an interdenominational evangelical alignment such as the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada. Many are already active in the EFC; others hesitate.

LESLIE K. TARR

From Jonah To Jeremiah

Strange things are happening under the name of evangelism these days. Two of the most dramatic are Jonah and the Whale on a Florida beach, and Jeremiah, complete with sackcloth and prophecy of doom in California.

Though both involve costumed drama, present the Gospel, and win many converts (especially youth), they are separated by much more than the North American continent. Their strategies are opposite: one uses a soft sell appealing to those still under the “Prince of this world”; the other sets a collision course aimed to jolt the worldly into listening.

Over 50,000 tourists have watched Jonah, a happy-go-lucky, guitar-strumming teenager, receive a telephone call from the Lord to go to New York (Nineveh) to witness to the hippies. His antics trying to run away from God lead to a jolly climax that turns serious when the audience is invited to run toward God instead of away.

Evangelism is no laughing matter, however, for the “Children of God” headquartered on Skid Row in Los Angeles. Dressed in red sackcloth, yokes around their necks and ashes on their foreheads, they stand in silent formation at such events as the trial of the Chicago Seven, a campus gathering for radical Jerry Rubin, and antiwar rallies. The signs and scrolls they display warn readers to repent: the Judgment Day is at hand.

Both approaches are effective. Jonah’s troupe expected 1,000 decisions before the end of the summer-long performances in Panama City. The comic religious musical was written by the Reverend Bob Curlee of Ensley Baptist Church in Birmingham.

The “Children of God” have grown from a handful five years ago to 125 in Los Angeles and 200 more at the clan’s ranch near Fort Worth, Texas. At both places they live in communes patterned after those of early Christians. Members are required to give up all possessions and to memorize at least two Bible verses daily; they don’t smoke, drink, or use drugs. With long hair and casual clothes, they are especially effective with young people who have left the “system.”

Jonah and Jeremiah are just two vanguards of the rapidly moving front line of evangelism (see June 19 issue, page 36). Others are appearing across the nation, such as in El Paso, Texas, where 600 young people made commitments to Christ in one night of old-fashioned revival—helped along by the hard-rock sound of long-haired Christian musicians.

Converting Tent-Trailers Into Missionaries

Paul, the tent maker of Tarsus, would feel at home with the modern-day tent makers of Bethany Fellowship in Bloomington, Minnesota. For they, like Paul, work at their trade and live communally for one purpose: to support missions.

Since its founding in 1945, the fellowship has grown to seventy members and has prospered in business and missions. The tents form the “cadillac of the fold-down trailer” with sales, now in twenty-seven states, increasing 20 per cent each year. Meanwhile, 129 missionaries have been placed in twenty-five countries, and another 130 are in training.

The tent making began in 1958 when a young staff member worked day and night to perfect the first “traveling tepee.” In the next three years sales of the camper trailer with tentlike canvas walls doubled and tripled. Bethany was first with the fiberglass top and foldover kitchen, and in 1968 came out with a high-rise kitchen that cranks out. “We can’t afford one unhappy customer, for it is a reflection upon a work of God,” says Maurice Johnson, business manager and vice-president.

Community has grown with industry, as members imitate the early Christians of Acts 2:44 who “had all things in common.” These modern believers live in family units in apartment-style buildings, keeping personal belongings such as furniture but eating meals together and worshiping together twice weekly. They dress in simple, modern clothing and do not smoke, drink, or attend movies.²A nursery is provided but is not compulsory; many mothers combine child care with their particular work responsibility. Older children attend local public schools, and all members take an interest in community affairs.

Twenty-five years ago, five families meeting for prayer and Bible study felt called to missions. As Johnson, a member of the original group, tells it: “We thought if we only had one house, there would be more time to prepare ourselves.”

After much prayer, they sold their homes and bought one large house in Minneapolis. At first the men worked at outside jobs and turned in their wages. As the fellowship’s industry grew, they gave up other jobs.

Although they all planned to go to the foreign field, none of the original group went. “In 1945 we had the audacity,” recalls Johnson, “to ask God for 100 young people and the funds to send them to the mission field.” Twenty-two years later, the 100th young man, a son of one of the original members, was commissioned.

When others joined the group, the house became too small. In 1948, they moved to fifty-seven acres in Bloomington. A missionary training and Bible institute was begun; it now employs sixteen members as teachers. Nearly all the children of Bethany staff members are now on the mission field.

Before 1958, the fellowship manufactured toys. Today there are four main products: the trailer, a print shop and publishing house, electronic equipment, and a lefse grill. The lefse grill, a heavy aluminum appliance that gets 100 degrees hotter than other electric grills, was developed by an elderly Norwegian inventor. It looks like an upside-down dishpan. “We thought only Norwegians would buy it,” says Johnson. Yet with little or no advertising, sales have run close to 10,000 a year.

Bethany also manufactures loud speakers and is perhaps the largest supplier of public address systems to missionaries; 700 are sold annually.

Students share the work program, knowing it will someday support them on the field.

There have been difficulties. In 1953 the Minnesota shop burned. “We didn’t think of quitting,” says Johnson. “We were in business twelve days later.” Another fire destroyed the grill department. In 1969 a tornado destroyed four cabins the fellowship used for vacationing and killed four members. The 13-year-old son of the Reverend H. J. Brokke, dean of the school, was among them.

The Bethany story is one of hard work and faith; it is not just a social experiment. The members are committed to the belief that “there is nothing worth living for if you can’t live for the Gospel.”

MARIAN PARRISH

Episode In Birmingham

In all its ninety-eight-year history, First Baptist Church in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, has never had a black member. And if about half its 1,800 white members have their way, that policy will not change. The other half, including the pastor, Dr. J. Herbert Gilmore, favor integration.

The division became acute last July when a black woman, Mrs. Winifred Bryant, and her eleven-year-old daughter Twila Fortune were presented to the congregation for membership. They had become acquainted with the church two blocks from their home through the church’s tutoring program, where Twila had been converted.

On July 5, at what is usually a routine meeting to vote on membership candidates, Gilmore, as moderator, declared the congregation’s voice vote a majority in favor of accepting Mrs. Bryant, Twila, and four white candidates. But opponents objected, and under the church’s by-laws their objections had to be considered by the pastor and deacons. In a closed three-and-a-half-hour meeting, a substantial majority of the deacons, according to Gilmore, declared the objections invalid and unscriptural. Back to a congregational vote went the six membership requests, this time needing approval of two-thirds of the congregation. Several heated congregational meetings later, the six still had been neither accepted nor rejected.

Early this month, twenty-three votes defeated a resolution calling for membership consideration only on the basis of Christian commitment, without reference to race. The status of the would-be members was left in limbo.

Churches Face Postage Increases

Churches and charitable institutions face the virtual certainty of substantial and continued postage rate increases under the new “postal reform” law passed by Congress and signed by President Nixon, even though they and their publications will continue to enjoy a favored status in the new U. S. Postal Service.

In the closing hours of congressional work on the reform bill, a House provision that would have enabled churches and other non-profit institutions to continue to enjoy the present subsidized mail rate was stricken from the bill. In its place, conferees established a preferential rate that within ten years must reflect the actual costs to the post office of handling this mail.

Eternity editor Russell Hitt, “postal lobbyist” for the Evangelical Press Association, said that congressmen had seriously considered wiping out the preferential rate altogether.

Realizing that this would result in a very substantial increase in present mailing rates, the conferees at the very last moment added the clause that provides that the increases shall be spread “so far as practicable in equal annual increments” over a ten-year period.

At present, churches and charitable institutions mail printed matter at the rate of 1.6 cents per piece in third class, and for even less in second-class mail.

These rates are now to be increased to a point that reflects “cost of handling.” This has been defined as the additional cost to the Postal Service exclusive of its investment in buildings and motor equipment. The reasoning is that the latter would be required anyway to move first-class mail. Thus, only labor and additional transportation costs will be counted. This has been estimated at 52 per cent of the total amount required to operate the Postal Service.

Even though the law does not spell it out specifically, postal rate experts here expect a straight 50 per cent reduction from the first-class rate to be applied to non-profit mail users.

GLENN D. EVERETT

The Evangelical Secret?

A noted Roman Catholic scholar, in a major critique of evangelical Protestantism, suggests that its current success “has something to do with the centrality of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit to the evangelical ethos.” Father Kilian McDonnell, O. S. B., warns against an “overblown” doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but asserts that “apart from the power of the Holy Spirit a doctrinally correct Gospel will not, cannot, transform.” McDonnell’s 4,000-word article appears in the August 21 issue of Commonweal.

Reassessing Reticence

The biography of Jos Wedgwood, The Last of the Radicals, tells of a questionnaire he sent to a long list of influential people. One thing he asked was: “To what cause do you attribute your failure?” The book reports that only Lord Beaverbrook denied he had failed.

Long ago as a college freshman headed for the ministry I found myself on a social occasion seated next to a psychiatrist in government service. He showed interest in my plans, while himself disclaiming any Christian profession. Suddenly he asked, “What would you say is the best, and what is the worst, qualification for your job?” Now, normally I am an indifferent disburser of Instant Wisdom, but not on that occasion. “A sense of humor and a lack of reticence,” I said promptly. The reply impressed us both. It impresses me still, despite rueful survey of the intervening years. On humor I might just get by, though my friends might hotly challenge the assumption. On reticence, however, there is no doubt, but a damaging indictment.

It is scant comfort that many another in the ministerial and in other walks can attribute failure to the same deficiency (Lord Beaverbrook, of course, excepted), even if some have not yet tumbled to it. Advancing years seem to help: on her fifty-fifth birthday Simone de Beauvoir reminisced: “I have written certain books, and not written others.” E. M. Forster, probably the greatest of modern British novelists, who died recently at ninety-five, was a master of reticence who had not written anything major for many years previously. “His reputation,” it was said, “goes up with every book he doesn’t write.”

This may bring welcome solace to those who for years have lived uneasily because they had never got down to that classic within them just waiting to be penned, but it won’t do much for the pastor whose ministry is built around the resolve that he will never through silence be the devil’s advocate. I was mulling over that dubious philosophy last week when I came across an utterance of Benjamin Franklin. In consenting to the Constitution in 1787, that indomitable fighter for the rights of the individual said: “The opinions I have had of its errors I sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable of them abroad.” An indignant counter motion would have come from a lesser man, but Ben was witty and wise enough to have made a good pastor. Come to think of it, his expertise with lightning would have been an invaluable pulpit asset, too.

EUTYCHUS IV

Twixt Pit And Excess

As a theological student … I disagree with many articles, but others are stimulating. Most of your articles are more fitting for a theological journal, instead of a periodical appealing to clergy and laity alike. However, “Incarnational Evangelism” (Aug. 21) blended theological acuity with lay application in a most thrilling way.

Mr. Haughton (who, I was pleased to notice, is a pastor and not a seminary professor) is to be highly commended on a fine piece of expository work related to an ever-present question, “How do we communicate the Gospel?” He avoids the excesses of “isolationism” practiced by many conservatives today. Yet he avoids the pit of “compromise in evangelism” into which many evangelicals have wandered.

WILLIAM VARNER

Elkins Park, Pa.

Poetic Gibberish?

That “poem” (“Fall and Then …,” Aug. 21)—would you mind translating it into Americanese so we can understand it?

Robert Frost was once asked by a student if he would tell what a certain poem of his meant; to which he replied, “Do you want me to say it in poorer English?”

But then, even some of Shakespeare’s stuff is in Gibberish, too.

A. V. OLEEN

Yonkers, N. Y.

What’s In A Name?

While I agree that the term conservative evangelicals is redundant to those of us that profess to be evangelicals according to the definition you gave from Webster’s International (“Evangelicals Without Adjectives,” Aug. 21), I do not agree that we should discontinue use of the term at once.

For one thing, the very fact that this term was begun by those within the conciliar movement shows that from their point of view they thought it was necessary to give further identification. It would seem that some who would not place themselves as conservative evangelicals would still classify themselves as “evangelicals.”

Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary gives five definitions for the word evangelical, the third of which corresponds with the definition you gave from Webster’s International. The second definition is “protestant,” and we know that many people in Latin America, Europe, and other places of the world use the term evangelical with this meaning …

Another reason we should not throw out the term “conservative evangelicals” too quickly is because of the use and misuse of the term new evangelical or neo-evangelical. While others use adjectives like this to confuse the term evangelical, I think we still need to continue to clarify the position of most evangelicals by the adjective conservative.

EDWIN L. FRIZEN, JR.

Executive Secretary

Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association

Ridgefield Park, N. J.

Unbinding The Tie

“Strange Company” (News, Aug. 21) contains erroneous information.…

T. Sherron Jackson did not “formally” or in any other way organize the North American Baptist Association. If you are familiar with Baptist polity, you should know that we are of all people in the world democratic in our form of government. It is true that there were leaders; however, the Reverend T. Sherron Jackson was not one of them. He has neither held office nor preached an annual sermon in the association. The Baptist Foundation of America is in no way connected with the Baptist Missionary Association of America. It has never been a part of our association, either officially or unofficially.

CRAIG BRANHAM

General Secretary

Baptist Missionary Association of America

Little Rock, Ark.

• We erred. Jackson, ordained in the former North American Baptist Association, is listed on the ministerial roll of its successor, the Baptist Missionary Association of America. He founded the Third Baptist Church in Little Rock, not the association.—ED.

Jones Power

Your news report “Free Will Baptists: Fending Off the Jonesites” (Aug. 21) is a misrepresentation of the true facts. The leaders of the denomination were charged not with liberalism or heresy … [but] with softness toward new evangelicalism. This latest dress of biblical Christianity prefers positivism without negativism, infiltration to separation, so-called science to revelation, pragmatism to separation, so-called love to biblical principles, results to apostolic injunctions, part of the Gospel to all of the Gospel, dialogue to confrontation, appeasem*nt to repudiation, and contempt to love for the fundamentalist.

Dr. Stanley Mooneyham was invited to speak at the convention this summer. This invitation, however, was withdrawn because of a resolution by the North Carolina Association of Free Will Baptists and a packet circulated by students at Bob Jones University.

BOBBY GLENN SMITH

Greenville, S. C.

When Adding Subtracts

I believe that your news item on the Unity church (Aug. 21) leaves a misleading impression with readers unacquainted with their teachings. Your writer, James S. Tinney, states, “Unity generally affirms standard Christian concepts and considers the Bible the Word of God, but adds its own special disciplines and metaphysical dimensions.…”

I am disconcerted and dismayed that Christianity Today would abet the misconception that this cult is in agreement with fundamental tenets of historic, biblical Christianity.

MRS. TOM DODSON

Fairfax, Va.

• Our reader is right: Unity denies substantial parts of the historic faith. “Adds its own … disciplines and … dimensions” is the key. Among other things, the cult is pantheistic, says heaven and hell are states of mind, and denies the vicarious blood atonement of Christ.—ED.

Solid, Not Soft

I am writing to clarify a possible impression readers might get from your report on the thirty-ninth conference of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (“GARBC Debating ‘Neo-Evangelicalism,’ ” July 31).…

The GARBC stands as solidly today as it did when founded in 1932 on what we believe to be the biblical injunction to separate from unbelief in its various manifestations in Christendom. By its very genius our association cannot be soft toward the neo-evangelical position of infiltration, which by its nature involves cooperation with unbelief in various ways and degrees.

One other small matter. We received into our fellowship this year fifty new churches, not forty-nine. This maintains our consistent growth record for several years, an average of one or more new churches added each week.

JOSEPH M. STOWELL

National Representative

General Association of Regular Baptist Churches

Des Plaines, Ill.