Fred H. Klooster
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The Westminster Shorter Catechism beautifully describes God as “Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth” (Question 4). The Belgic Confession of Faith begins similarly: “We all believe with the heart and confess with the mouth that there is one only simple and spiritual Being, which we call God; and that He is eternal, incomprehensible, invisible, immutable, infinite, almighty, perfectly wise, just, good, and the overflowing fountain of all good” (Article I). Most of these terms are called the attributes or the perfections, of God.
The attributes may be defined as those perfections of God which are revealed in Scripture and which are exercised and demonstrated by God in his various works. Reformed and Evangelical theologians have frequently distinguished communicable and incommunicable attributes. The communicable attributes of God are those which find some reflection or analogy in man who was created in God’s image, while the incommunicable attributes of God find little or no analogy in man. The latter-unity, independence, eternity, immensity and immutability—emphasize the transcendence and exalted character of God.
Preliminary Considerations. 1. It is important to recognize that all of the attributes, both communicable and incommunicable, are the attributes of the one only true and living God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The attributes of God may not be discussed as if they were attributes of deity in general, in order then to move on to consider the triune God as one God among many. Christianity is rightly monotheistic, and therefore all the attributes are attributes of the only true God of Scripture. The recognition of this uniqueness of the living God has sometimes been discussed under the incommunicable attribute of the unity of God (unitas singularitas). (Cf. Deut. 6:4; 1 Kings 8:60; Isa. 44:6; Mark 12:28 ff.; Eph. 4:6; 1 Tim. 2:5.)
2. Since the only true God is the triune God of Scripture, the communicable as well as the incommunicable attributes belong equally to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is therefore no absolute necessity for discussing the attributes prior to the doctrine of the Trinity. There is a good reason for doing so, however, since the attributes characterize the divine nature of the triune God. However, the incommunicable attributes of God must not be confused with the “incommunicable property” of each divine Person, that is, with generation, filiation, and spiration.
3. Discussion of the attributes must also acknowledge the incomprehensibility of God. Finite man can never comprehend the infinite God. The believer will not even be able fully to understand all that God has revealed concerning his attributes.
4. The attributes must be regarded as essential characteristics of the divine being. It is not man who attributes these perfections to God. God himself reveals his attributes to us in Scripture. The attributes are objective and real. They describe God as he is in himself. Hence they are also exercised or demonstrated in the works which God performs in creation, providence, and redemption.
Again these various attributes must not be regarded as so many parts or compartments of God’s being. Each of the attributes describes God as he is, not just a part of his being, or simply what he does. Furthermore, there is no scriptural warrant for elevating one attribute, such as love or independence, to pre-eminence and making others mere subdivisions of it. While there is a mutual relation and inter-relationship between the various attributes, there is a divinely revealed difference between the eternity of God and the immutability of God, between the love of God and the holiness of God, for example. These themes are often considered under the attribute of simplicity (unitas simplicitas).
Discussion of Specific Attributes. Attention will now be directed to a brief consideration of specific incommunicable attributes. The unity and simplicity of God have been discussed. We shall now consider the independence, eternity, immensity, and immutability of God. (The source and norm of our assertions here, as everywhere in theology, must be exclusively the inspired and inerrant Word of God.)
1. Independence (Aseity). Scripture indicates the independence of God in various ways. When Moses was sent to Israel and Pharaoh, it was “I am that I am” (Exod. 3:14) who sent him, the living God who has “life in himself” (John 5:26). God is not “served by men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath and all things” (Acts 17:25). He works “all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11) and his counsel “standeth fast forever” (Ps. 33:11). In this light the independence of God may be defined as that perfection which indicates that God is not dependent upon anything outside of himself, but that he is self-sufficient and all-sufficient in his whole being, in his decrees and in all his works.
Although God has the ground of his existence in himself, he is not self-caused or self-originated, for the eternal God has neither beginning nor end. The independence of God includes more than the idea of God’s aseity or self-existence. His independence characterizes not only his existence, but his whole being and all his attributes, his decrees and his works of creation, providence, and redemption.
The biblical view of God’s independence does not permit one to identify the God of Scripture with the abstract philosophical concept of the Absolute of Spinoza or Hegel. The self-existent, independent God of Scripture is the living God who is not only exalted above the whole creation, but is at the same time its creator and sustainer. And in governing the world, God entered into fellowship with man before the fall, and after the fall he established a new fellowship in the covenant of grace. Although God works all things according to the counsel of his will, he sometimes performs his will through intermediate and secondary causes. He uses men, for example, in the all-important task of publishing the Gospel.
2. Eternity. The infinity of God is sometimes considered as an absolute perfection which characterizes all God’s attributes as limitless and perfect. In this sense all the communicable attributes would be characterized by the incommunicable attribute of infinity. It is primarily with reference to time and space, however, that the infinity of God is considered as the eternity and the immensity of God.
Scripture speaks of “the eternal God” who is our dwelling place (Deut. 33:27). He is “the King eternal” (1 Tim. 1:17) existing before the foundation of the world “from everlasting to everlasting” (Ps. 90:2), “the Alpha and the Omega” (Rev. 1:8). He “inhabiteth eternity” (Isa. 57:15); his “years shall have no end” (Ps. 102:27); and “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8).
Eternity may be defined as that perfection of God which expresses his transcendence with respect to time. God has neither beginning nor end. He does not undergo growth, development, maturation. He existed before the world, he dwells even now in eternity, and he will continue as the eternal God even when history has ended.
Although we must acknowledge that God is not subject to the limitations of time, we must also recognize that time is God’s creation and that he is the Lord of history. History is the unfolding of his sovereign counsel. It was in the “fulness of time” that “God sent forth his Son” (Gal. 4:4). Time is meaningful for the eternal God, for it was on a Friday that Christ died on the cross and on Sunday morning that he rose from the grave. The risen Christ told his disciples, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:20). The Christian, therefore, confidently confesses: “My times are in thy hand” (Ps. 31:15).
3. Immensity and Omnipresence. God is both a God at hand and afar off so that no one can hide himself in a secret place: “Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith Jehovah” (Jer. 23:23 f.). Heaven is his throne and the earth is his footstool (Isa. 66:1). Therefore no one can escape the omnipresent and omniscient God (Ps. 139). “He is not far from each one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:27 f.).
In the light of such passages the immensity of God may be defined as that perfection of God which expresses his transcendence with respect to space. And omnipresence expresses the fact that this transcendent God is yet present everywhere in heaven and earth.
Here again one must seek to grasp the positive implications of this incommunicable attribute. God is spirit; he has no body and hence is not limited by space. Therefore we are not bound to Jerusalem or any other place in our worship of the true God (John 4:21 ff.). On the other hand it was into this world that God sent his only begotten Son. And Christ who now governs the whole cosmos will come again physically at the end of history to judge the living and dead.
4. The Immutability of God. God is described in Scripture as “the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning” (James 1:17). “For I, Jehovah, change not” (Mal. 3:6) is his own affirmation. And by an oath he has “immutably” witnessed to the “immutability of his counsel” (Heb. 6:17 f.).
Immutability is that perfection which designates God’s constancy and unchangeableness in his being, decrees, and works. He remains forever the same true God, faithful to himself, his decrees, his revelation and his works. He undergoes no change from within, nor does he undergo change due to anything outside of himself.
It is necessary to ask whether the immutability of God can be maintained in the face of several scriptural assertions concerning a certain “repentance” of God. For example, with respect to the unfaithfulness of Saul, God told Samuel: “It repented me that I have set up Saul to be king” (1 Sam. 15:11). However, there is a specific statement in the same chapter which indicates that God cannot repent. After telling Saul that God was taking the kingdom from him and giving it to another (David), Samuel adds: “And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent; for he is not a man, that he should repent” (1 Sam. 15:28 f.; cf. Num. 23:19). It appears then that God’s “repentance” must be understood in an anthropomorphic sense to describe the depth of his displeasure and grief in relation to the horrible sins of men. At the same time the faithfulness, constancy, and immutability of God stand out in taking the kingdom from Saul and giving it to David for the sake of keeping his faithful covenant.
There are also instances in which the “repentance” of God is related to a condition, either expressed or implied. The general rule in such instances is expressed in Jeremiah 18: “… If that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them … if they do that which is evil in my sight, that they obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them” (vs. 8 ff.). Thus with respect to Nineveh, Jehovah “saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil which he said he would do unto them; and he did it not” (Jonah 3:10; cf. 3:9; 4:2). Similar references to God’s “repentance” occur in Amos (7:3, 6) and Joel (2:13 f.). In these instances also the word “repentance” it used in an anthropomorphic way to express God’s faithful response to the meeting of a condition, either expressed or implied in his promise, or threat. Rather than contradict the immutability of God, this “repentance” in the total context of Scripture emphasizes that God is faithful and true to his word and promise forever. There is no “holy mutability of God” as Karl Barth claims. “The Lord hath sworn and will not repent” (Ps. 110:4), and his “counsel shall stand” (Isa. 46:10).
The immutability of God does not mean, however, that God is immobile or inactive. The Christian God is always active, never unemployed, or incapacitated. He not only sustains or preserves all that he has created, but he actively governs it in accord with his sovereign and immutable counsel. In all his works the eternal and sovereign God executes his decree and shows himself “the same yesterday, and today, yea and forever” (Heb. 13:8).
Conclusion: The incommunicable attributes describe the transcendent greatness of the Triune God. He is self-sufficient and all-sufficient, transcendent above time and space and yet present everywhere in heaven and earth; he remains forever the same true God, unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. Since all theology concerns God and his relations with men, one’s entire theological position is reflected in the doctrine of the attributes of God. Therefore, a biblical doctrine of the attributes of God should reflect itself in the whole of one’s theology.
Bibliography: Reformed: H. Bavinck, The Doctrine of God; L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology; S. Charnock, The Attributes of God; A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology; C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. I; W. G. T. Shedd, Dogmatic Theology, Vol. I. Neo-orthodox: G. Aulén, The Faith of the Christian Church; K. Barth, Church Dogmatics II/1, E. Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God.
Associate Professor of Systematic Theology
Calvin Theological Seminary
Grand Rapids, Michigan
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REVIVAL
The Church needs a spiritual earthquake to arouse her and send her out on her God-given task.
There is a good deal of talk about “revival” these days, but few persons realize that it is a personal matter, a movement within the Church rather than some manifestation of the work of God outside the bounds of organized Christianity.
To revive means to bring new life to something which is dormant, to bring about activity where all has been quiet, to return to consciousness of life, to restore vigor and strength, to raise from languor or depression, to recover from a state of neglect or disuse, to awaken out of slumber.
A spiritual revival must begin in the Church and one of the aftermaths and corollaries of such a renewing is a new sense of mission, of telling the good news to those who have not heard it.
In many ways the Church today resembles the church in Laodicea—prosperous, rich, and self-satisfied. But in God’s eyes that church was wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. It was a church neutral in matters where there should have been conviction, a church which probably majored on minors and relegated the essential things to a place of secondary consideration.
Frighteningly, she was a church which our Lord was about to cast out of his presence because of her lukewarm attitude to those things about which there should have been burning zeal.
Today too many in the Church are concerned about her organization but indifferent to the content of her message. But in the Scriptures we find that the concern of the New Testament Church was centered on the message of Jesus Christ crucified and risen, while her organization was of secondary rather than primary import.
It is the willingness of some ecumenical leaders to play down Christian doctrine for the sake of a compromised unity which gives many others serious pause. While the Church is an organization, that organization is inexorably based on the faith of those who make up her number, and this faith centers in the person and work of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Scriptures.
There has always rightly existed a latitude for different views on many questions of interpretation. Some are strongly convinced that one mode of baptism is essential, others believe in a different method. But few on either side will question the true Christian faith of the other with whom they disagree.
In the Scriptures, there are doctrines which make up the essential content of our faith, and all of them have to do with the person and work of Christ, the Son of God, and these doctrines are to be preached, taught, believed, and obeyed.
Could it be that there is no evidence of wide-spread revival in contemporary Protestantism because, for the sake of an uneasy ecumenical peace, we have played down those things on which the spiritual life and health of the Church depends?
There are two areas where revival must take place—the pulpit and the pew, and it is not a matter of which one can rightly judge the other. We all need a renewal of a vital Christian faith and a complete dedication of our lives to the living Christ.
Because Christianity is a faith to believe and a life to live, it must be founded on the great verities which have their source in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everyone is ready to admit that spiritual power does not depend on organizations, programs, money, great edifices, or unremitting activity. All of these have their rightful place in the economy of the Church, but they are secondary to the faith and commitment of those who bear the name Christian—and there are no true Christians apart from a vital relationship with Christ.
That is why a revival is necessary within the Church, a work of the Holy Spirit which revitalizes listless Christians and converts unconverted church members. To those who think such a statement a reflection on the Church, we would reply that if we, the members of the Church, do not evaluate our own situation and take corrective measures where necessary, rectification will not be done for any other source. Furthermore, we could stand in jeopardy before God if our lukewarmness is not replaced by the healing and empowering outpouring of God’s blessing through repentance and confession of our sins of both omission and commission.
One of the things desperately needed is a fresh understanding and sense of sin, which can never be attained apart from a realization of the price God had to pay to redeem men.
Involved in such a revival is a new understanding of the necessity for and the historical fact of the Son of God’s coming into the world to die for sinners. The “murder of the Son of God” is not a catch phrase but one of deepest significance, for that is exactly what the sinfulness of man necessitated.
The Church through a spiritual revival needs to recapture the significance of words like “repentance,” “confession,” “faith,” “redemption,” “cleansing,” “consecration,” and “turning from sin to righteousness.”
We are now guilty of an unbelievable smugness in regard to our desperate state as sinners confronted by the judgment of God.
There are times when it almost seems as though we consider that we are doing God a favor by attending church and participating in some program of the Church. We need a Spirit-sent jolt out of this sin of pride and indifference, and it can come through a genuine revival within the Church or by the judgment of God on a church which does not recognize her own blindness and nakedness.
If such a revival comes, what will happen?
First of all the Church herself will be transformed from a cold, often largely secular organization, into a living organism which breathes the love and concern of the living Christ.
The outstanding effect will be the shedding forth of the love of Christ in our own hearts and lives and an outreach of that love to others.
Furthermore, such a revival will restore to the Church spiritual power. No longer will we depend on organizations and programs for success. These will continue but we will look to our living Lord to empower and implement our Christian work and walk.
Finally, such a revival will inspire and empower the Church to bear her rightful witness to a lost and dying world. No longer will we try to force men into a mold; rather we will lead them to Christ who makes all things new to those who surrender to him.
Such a revival is possible, and we should pray for it—that it may begin first in us.
L. NELSON BELL
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GOSPEL BLIMP
Former Book of the Fortnight selections have been limited to fictional fiction. The current selection is real fiction, a low-altitude space tale named (actually christened with Seven-Up) The Gospel Blimp, by Joseph Bayly.
This inflated windbag (the blimp) is the most ingenious evangelistic publicity stunt since the man who worked the human arc angle, keeping several thousand volts at his fingertips. The founders of International Gospel Blimps, Incorporated, are typical suburbanites who conceive of this obvious mass-media device for reaching the next-door neighbor.
The lesson of their fateful experiment is unloaded on the reader with all the delicate indirection of a cargo of “fire bombs” dropped from the blimp. Just to be sure that everyone gets the message, the author takes one more run over the satire-saturated subject, dragging a final chapter with the moral spelled out in a blimp-high streamer.
This is sound blimpsmanship; without that last chapter Mr. Bayly would have had to make a career of answering inquiries about IGBI.
Please stop here and buy a copy of The Gospel Blimp before reading the moral I have in tow. This book will not be distributed free on our Fortnight plan; I only have one copy, and I refuse to part with it.
The moral, of course, is the threat of the Christian organization man. Herm, the gold-braided Commander, caricatures more than the operator in free-wheeling fundamentalist organizations. There are presumably Herms with doctor’s hoods. But the little man who feeds Herm’s appetite for power and plants pansies around the blimp hangar after work is no less an organization man.
A revealing misprint in an ecumenical document found “committee fellowship” rather than “committed fellowship” at the heart of the church. With just the breezy style to keep the Blimp aloft, Bayly’s hilarious spoof perceives this danger and makes the earnest point that Spurgeon found in Elisha’s raising of the Shunammite’s son. In raising the spiritually dead, there is no substitute for close personal contact.
EUTYCHUS
ON BISHOP PIKE
We, the Archdeacon and Clergy of the Associated Mission of Brooklyn, commend you for the honesty and clarity of your editorial in the January 16 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY relative to Bishop Pike’s statement appearing in The Christian Century of December 21. In our opinion such an outlook is far more contributory to strong ecumenicism than the views of Bishop Pike which you criticize in the article.
It is to be hoped that the spirit which you exemplify will prevail in ecumenical circles. Certainly, it will only be in this way that true Christian reunion can be effected, members of the hierarchy and their views notwithstanding.
A. EDWARD SAUNDERS
Archdeacon of Brooklyn
ARTHUR L. J. FOX HARRY J. SUTCLIFFE WILLIAM T. WALKER EUSEBIO ESCARIZ ALBERT H. PALMER ALFRED B. BURKERT ANGEL FERNANDEZ G. LINN FERGUSON JOHN W. EDWARDS DONALD L. IRISH H. L. MICHAEL COWAN ESTEBAN REUS
New York, N. Y.
As Priests of the Episcopal Church, we wish to thank you for your fine editorial on Bishop Pike’s Change of Mind. Your conclusion that his “new-found position represents a break with … the historic church” is quite correct, and most courteously stated.
O. D. REED, JR.
Danville, Ill.
A. W. HILLESTAD
Oconto, Wis.
DAVID E. NYBERG
Granite City, Ill.
HARRIS T. HALL
Ripon, Wis.
A. MEEREBOER
Monroe, Wis.
BENJ. W. SAUNDERS
Racine, Wis.
JOHN R. EDWARDS, JR.
Greendale, Wis.
THEODORE A. BESSETTE
Harvey, Ill.
DAVID J. REID
Michigan City, Ind.
G. COLYER BRITTAIN
Wausau, Wis.
ROBERT S. SWEETSER
Sheboygan, Wis.
GEORGE E. HOFFMAN
Paris, Ill.
ROBT. E. BLACKBURN
Kenosha, Wis.
EDWARD JACOBS
Milwaukee, Wis.
ROY A. F. MCDANIEL
Algoma, Wis.
EDMUND R. WEBSTER
Waupaca, Wis.
ROBERT S. CHILDS
Madison, Wis.
EDWARD C. LEWIS
Stevens Pt., Wis.
R. J. BUNDAY
Marshfield, Wis.
ROBERT PIERSON
Evanston, Ill.
JAS. W. SAMTER
Sheboygan Falls, Wis.
I do not know why you have it in for Bishop Pike, but I do know him well enough to be disappointed in your false inferences, and “double talk.”
BRADFORD W. KETCHUM
Secretary and Registrar
Diocese of New York
New York, N. Y.
What concerns me is when a supposed “critique” is really a subjective heckling.
EUGENE L. LOWRY
First Methodist
Wichita, Kan.
Bishop Pike is to be commended for his openly declaring his change of mind. For those who keep an open or changing mind, new truths may enter in.… I don’t believe God has stopped talking since His book went to press. We must take into consideration that the authors of these books being human, were impressive, emotional and fallible like any man of today.
ELLA G. CEBIK
Stratford, Conn.
Why all this negative talk? Why worry about the ideas of the liberals?
H. P. DUNLOP
Long Beach, Calif.
What will happen to the faith of thousands within the church who have been taught that the creed is the foundation stone upon which our faith is built, that belief in the Holy Trinity, the virgin birth, the sacraments of the Christian faith, are essential to Catholic belief, if statements of belief, as recorded in “Bishop Pike’s Mind has Changed: The Creed Becomes Poetry” are permitted to be broadcast throughout the religious world? I have been a priest for 36 years. Is the faith of the hundreds whom I have trained to be destroyed by a small group of people who revel in the glory of sensationalism at the expense of the Catholic faith?
WALTER P. CROSSMAN
Vicar
St. Francis Church (Episcopal)
Fair Oaks, Calif.
The Bible does say there will be a falling away in the last days.
SOLOMON MILLER
Orrville, Ohio
This, simply, is to say “bravo” and thank you for your skillful autopsy on Bishop Pike’s dead faith. It would be interesting to know if he also sings Ephesians 4:14 (Phillips); 1 John 2:22, 23.
ELBERT D. RIDDICK
Portland, Ore.
The Episcopal Church has always had her eccentrics. Bishop Pike speaks for himself, even as did Dr. Pittinger a few years ago in Look.… The unfortunate aspect is that both are considered men of authority and many accept their words as spokesmen for the Anglican Communion.
It is worthy that both should be considered for deposition which is the way the Church has always dealt with heretics.
It seems that Bishop Pike has become not a “high”, “broad” or “low” Churchman, but a liberal—the worst possible form.
SAMUEL E. BLACKARD
Calvary Church (Episcopal)
Batavia, Ill.
Our vocal Bishop of California is not only in danger of moving out of the historic Church of Jesus Christ, but is also busily removing himself from the Episcopal Church, in thought, if not through an actual trial for heresy.
Your editorial provides an opportunity for me as an Episcopal priest to stand up and tell the Christian Community that the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds, literally taken, i.e., not mythologized, are the bed rock of our profession of Faith. I am sure that in so doing, I speak for the vast majority of priests whom I personally know. The Virgin Birth, the Trinity, all of it, are by me and others whom I know believed thoughtfully, devoutly and completely. We do not have mental reservations, intellectual doubts, nor private interpretations of the most clear and deliberate language of the Creeds. Should there be some portion of the Creeds in our intellectual pilgrimage that temporarily baffles us, we still do not teach our own personal interpretation, but strive to separate our private opinions from what the Church teaches.
Fortunately, our House of Bishops, in their recent Pastoral Letter, has affirmed anew, in the face of such heretical declarations as that made by Bishop Pike and others, that the Nicene Creed is a “part of the essential core of the continuous, historic tradition of the Church” and that the Apostles’ Creed is the “minimal Baptismal Confession.” The Creed is described by our Bishops as essential dogma, narrative in nature, and not abstract or propositional. It is clear that the Bishops’ statement is not so much a defense of what stands without need of defense, as it is a warning and a disciplining of those who verge on heresy in attempts to make the Creeds intelligible to the modern day Christian.…
Such modest disciplinary action of heretics is typical of our Communion. Despite the fact that the Bishops’ Pastoral declaration was stimulated by a petition charging various people with heresy, signed by 4500 members of our Church, our heretics are not brought to trial as they could be, but only admonished as constructively as possible.
And why not use moderation? For Bishop Pike is, after all, only one of more than 100 Bishops, though rather noisy about it. He is not regarded as infallible, nor will he live forever. As long as we parish priests continue to proclaim our faith in the Creeds, his heresy will be forgotten, even more quickly than he will himself, as time and the Church march on.
JOHN A. RUSSELL
St. George’s Episcopal Church
Helmetta, N. J.
CRUX OF THE MATTER
I want to congratulate Dr. Berkouwer for his penetrating yet irenic statement of the true issues separating Reformed and Roman Catholic elements in Christendom (Review of Current Religious Thought, Jan. 2 issue). Having pondered this whole question for several years, I feel convinced that Dr. Berkouwer has put his finger on the crux of the matter.
EDWARD JOHN CARNELL
Fuller Theological Seminary
Pasadena, Calif.
WINTER WONDERLAND
Thanks for what you wrote on the winter in Europe (Jan. 2 issue). I agree with your observations. To understand the development one must take into account that all leaders of Barthian and neo-orthodox theology came from liberalism. This was a counter-movement. But the liberal heritage was still a power in these men. Even Karl Barth always feels closer to the liberal school from which he came (Berlin, Marburg) than to the “orthodox,” conservative theology of his father (Fritz Barth) and that generation. In my review of your interesting symposium Revelation and the Bible I say something about that. The triumph of Bultmann and Tillich (who is the son of an ultra-conservative church councillor in Berlin) is quite remarkable. No serious historian takes Bultmann seriously. This way of disposing of historical facts has nothing to do with sound historical research. A historian has to believe the documents he investigates until he finds out where they are wrong. Bultmann treats the gospels like a prosecutor treats the defendant, believing him in nothing until the truth has been proved.
… You write of me that I “was thrown into prison by the Nazis and rescued by American troops”.… I have been penalized in other ways, but I was never in prison.
HERMAN SASSE
Prospect, South Australia
The issue … of the German Church is not theological, in the decline of the loyalty of the people to the Church. It is a case of power-church, or organization, of The United Church, which always stagnated the life of the Church, anywhere and any time in Christian history.
Nor is the Nazi-era the sole trouble. Nor is the Confessional Church the hope of the Church. On the contrary, it is alienating the loyalties of the people thoroughly and completely. The Confessional people were and are a power-group. They were never elected to office; they walked in. And they elected each other.
Nor was the resistance of the Confessional people to Nazism so much a religious factor as a political one. A strong element in that resistance was plain treason. Their martyrs—at least a number of them—deserved to be executed for collaborating with the enemy of the country: one of them Bonhoeffer.
Another, Niemoeller, always was of doubtful value. Bishops Dibelius and Wurm once appealed on his behalf to Hitler. Hitler asked: “Bitte, meine Herren, ein Moment” (“Please, gentlemen, a minute.”) He then played back a tape of Niemoeller’s telephone conversation. The bishops then said: “Bitte, entschuldigen Sie uns, Herr Fuehrer; wir haben nichts mehr zu sagen” (“Please excuse us, we have nothing more to say”).
JOHN F. C. GREEN
Evangelical Congregational Church
McKeesport, Pa.
Your … article has given me reason to think I should more seriously apply myself to the task of working out intellectually the implications of my personal faith so that I may more intelligently stand for Christ in the intellectual world.
CHARLES YOAK
Chicago Theological Seminary, ‘63
Chicago, Ill.
In your editorial of November 7, 1960 you refer to “some Baptist seminaries” as being “theologically on the move.” Then you state that, “In the North (Philadelphia, for example) and in the South alike, neo-orthodoxy has registered gains.”
If the above comment has reference in any way to The Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, I should like your readers to know that our faculty has to a man disavowed the implications made in the statement. The doctrinal statement of our Seminary has remained unchanged since the founding of the school. Every member of the faculty, as well as every trustee, moreover, annually renews his endorsement of this statement.
GILBERT L. GUFFIN
President
The Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Philadelphia, Pa.
ECLECTIC LUMP
In listing the religious affiliation of Mr. Kennedy’s cabinet nominees … (News, Jan. 16 issue) please don’t lump Lutherans, Reformed, and Mormons under one head.
GLENN C. LASHWAY
Trinity Lutheran Church & School
Fort Dodge, Iowa
MORMONS AND KING JAMES
Re “Mormonism” (Dec. 19 issue), the extracts from the Bible contained in the Book of Mormon are said to have been inscribed on brass plates found by Joseph Smith and translated by him. As these passages are in the exact words of the King James Version, either the K.J.V., so miraculously revealed a thousand years before its appearance in 1611 A.D., must be the only perfect Bible or the plates and their translation were an imposture.
I. N. BECKSTEAD
Ottawa, Ont.
FREEDOM IS INDIVISIBLE
“Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel” (Matt. 23:24). There has come to my attention a booklet prepared by the National Council of Churches for use as a study guide by the social action units of its constituent denominations. Edited by Harold C. Letts, it is entitled “A Case Book on Christian Responsibility for Freedom,” this being the coordinated emphasis of the National Council’s member denominations for 1960–61.
The booklet, which is being widely circulated as part of a well-organized project, treats in a topical manner of what its editor conceives to be various salient threats to freedom. The first case-study deals with freedom in the local church, and implies that any congregation which declines to support social action programs instituted by its pastor, is to that extent unfree. The second case-study has to do with extra-legal restrictions upon the freedom of members of minority groups to live in neighborhoods of their own choosing. The third case-study addresses itself to religious limitations suffered by Protestants in certain Roman Catholic countries. The fourth case-study deals with the problem of the use of public schools for religious purposes. The fifth case-study concerns itself with threats to freedom which are seen as being implicit in legislative investigation of alleged subversion among American churches and churchmen. The sixth case-study reviews the famous incident of the Air Force manual which contained inimical statements about the National Council of Churches and certain clergymen. The seventh and final case-study deals with infringements upon the rights of conscientious objectors.
It is not my purpose here either to question or endorse the legitimacy of these topics for concern. But I am profoundly disturbed by the fact that the most insidious and virulent threat to freedom in America today is not even mentioned. In nearly a hundred pages of material there is not the barest hint that freedom might conceivably be endangered by the increasing intervention of government into the economic sphere. Such an omission makes one wonder!
For the first time in history a major American political party has openly embraced the theory that the consumer is not competent to decide what to buy with his money, and that the “public sector” of the economy must be enriched at the expense of the private. Granted, we have had administrations which have acted according to this theory, but never before was it boldly enunciated as an official party creed. With the imposition of Professor Galbraith’s formulas, the United States and the Soviet Union would cease to differ in principle but only in degree in the matter of government controls. As for the other major party, its candidate’s answer to the advocates of collectivistic planning was to repudiate Secretary of Agriculture Benson, the leading spokesman for the free market in the … [Eisenhower] administration.
A minister I know once preached a sermon on “Majoring in Minors.” It was an indictment of those Christians who neglect the great central doctrines of the faith in favor of an emphasis upon such peripheral concerns as the precise date of the millennium or the question of whether or not jewelry should be worn in church. It seems to me that Mr. Letts and the National Council of Churches’ study booklet are majoring in minors.
The power of the federal government assumes ever more monolithic proportions. Its tentacles reach into the homes and pocketbooks of even the humblest families. The Bureau of Internal Revenue, with its retinue of paid informers, has become such a hellish juggernaut that its own commissioner a few years back resigned his office in disgusted protest against the graduated federal income tax and the monstrous system of bureaucratic tyranny to which it has given rise.
We read increasingly about farmers being fined for raising grain to feed their own livestock, about employers being penalized by federal boards for not acceding to union demands, about liens being placed upon the bank accounts of business people who demur at serving as involuntary tax-collectors. We are fast approaching, if indeed we have not already passed, a point from whence the recovery of economic freedom ceases to be a live possibility in any foreseeable future. Yet none of this, apparently, falls within the scope of the Christian responsibility for freedom, at least according to Editor Letts’ understanding of that responsibility.
Mr. Letts is touching in his solicitude for the right of pastors to run their churches independently of the desires of their parishioners, of minorities to reside in neighborhoods where their presence is not wanted, of persons accused of Communist affiliations to enjoy a fair hearing, of conscientious objectors to avoid military service. But where is his solicitude for the Finn twins, the Kohler Company, Vivien Kellems, and the countless obscurer victims of the Leviathan State. Why does his casebook not include the slightest reference to the violation of their freedoms?
Freedom is indivisible. Let us by all means be zealous in cherishing and guarding religious liberty, civil rights and academic freedom. But let us also remember that, as Wilhelm Röpke has so sagely said, “It is hardly forgivable naïvete to believe that a state can be all-powerful in the economic sphere without also being autocratic in the political and intellectual domain.”
ROBERT V. ANDELSON
Executive Director
Henry George School of Social Science
San Diego, Calif.
THE MESS WE IS NOW IN
The words “existentialism” and “existential” seem to be variously understood. When they first appeared in theological discussions, a D.D. connected them with the philosophy of seizing life’s pleasures while they are still available—carpe diem, for short. More recently, these words have been taken as having reference to theological adjustments on behalf of relevancy to changing world conditions. Still another impression is that they have to do with the assertion of personality against the depersonalizing influences of present-day life. Again, we find these terms associated with the existing situation, defined by a colored brother as “the mess we is now in.”
Light on this “existential” problem would no doubt be welcomed by many readers.
I. N. BECKSTEAD
Ottawa, Ont.
• Modern existentialism is a phase of the philosophical revolt against Hegelian rationalism. Its premise is that the supernatural cannot be grasped in rational categories but (insofar as the supernatural is relevant) is experienced in subjective decision. Perhaps reader Beckstead has heard Nels Ferré’s story of the three baseball umpires—an objectivist, a subjectivist, and an existentialist. The objectivist says, “I call them just as they are”; the subjectivist, “I call them just as I see them”; the existentialist, “They aren’t balls and strikes until I call them!”
—ED.
Graham R. Hodges
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Recently while finishing some play equipment for our toddlers’ room in our new church school building I was reminded: “Be sure to sand off all the rough edges. The kiddies might get hurt!”
Aside from the fact that a public institution should not knowingly have any dangerous toys for children, I wonder whether we parents aren’t going a bit too far in sanding the rough edges off life for our children?
We want to bring them up with no heartaches, no troubles, no wants, no delay in having the things we didn’t have as children, and when they get married—no delay in getting all the expensive gadgets we parents had to save and scrimp 20 years to acquire.
In our over-love we want to save them the bumps and falls which are, or should be, a part of growing up. Our hearts go out to them as they struggle. So we even want to save them the pain, and also the joy, of struggle.
One sad thing I witness every day of the school year is the line of heavily-loaded public busses which go from all parts of our small city to the two junior high schools and one senior high school in the city. Parents rake and scrape and do without in order to give their children a bus ride to and from school, which is not only unnecessary but actually harmful to their bodies. While they boast of how they, the parents, used to trudge three miles to the district school through snow drifts, they allow their own children to ride in an overheated bus just ten city blocks. And any person who tells them they’re pampering and really hurting their children’s health by this indulgence gets short shrift. One dollar a week it costs these parents of Watertown for Johnny or Mary to ride to school—one dollar often taken out of a meagre family budget, and all in the name of giving our children advantages. How quickly can parental love, misdirected, become a harmful thing!
By our insistence on automatic devices in our homes, we Americans have taken out not only inconveniences for ourselves but many of the household and backyard chores which once were automatic instruments of discipline and character training for our children, and we have done all this in the name of love.
In our church life also, we are taking out too many of the rough edges. In places of sharp demands that may prick the conscience, produce guilt feelings, and face children and youth up to conscious, radical decisions as to what they shall do with their lives, we have substituted a gradual, yet somewhat too comforting, process of Christian education which gives a vast amount of information, and even inspiration, yet leaves the child undisturbed and unchallenged, especially in the adolescent years when youth yearns to devote all to something or somebody. Many modern Christian educators would even go so far as to say of Jesus’ demands of the rich young ruler who chose his wealth against discipleship: “We cannot blame the young man. He was a product of his environment.” Jesus knew of his environment, yet he made the sharpest demand he could think of—give up your money and all that goes with it.
How long has it been since any clarion call was made in your church or Sunday School to the young people to commit themselves to Christ? This is a disturbing demand, it is upsetting. To be asked to give up your life, to put your self second, to yield your own interests to another’s—this is tough business.
In many churches and church schools this demanding quality of Christianity is either glossed over or omitted. We want our children to have happy years, playful years, years of smooth contentment and pleasure, for, as adults, we know these years never return.
So, while the Communists are demanding and getting supreme loyalty from millions of youth, we are content, in the name of love for our children, to leave them half-committed or uncommitted to Christ.
But, as Sigmund Freud once said, “Throw nature out with a pitchfork and she’ll come right back every time.” We cannot omit this sharp edge of Christian commitment without serious jeopardy and final judgment. To raise a generation without commitment is to raise a morally flabby and indecisive leadership for the future. No cross, no crown—this ancient Christian adage applies to our children as well as to adults.
It is a great tragedy to see millions of fine American youth grow up today in the hot house environment of city culture with no primary experiences of either joy or pain—to know so few of the elementary, first-hand feelings of having one’s skin cut by rough bark of trees and brier bushes and sharp stones, to know the fear of wild animals, snakes, and high places, to experience the fear of dark woods at night with no one near, to know intimately extreme exhaustion, hunger, privation, cold, exposure, wet feet, soaked clothing, and searing sun. We no longer want to expose our children to the elements which, harsh though they be to the body, are kind to the soul, for they come from God.
So we expose them to the apparent kindness but final cruelty of overstuffed reclining chairs to watch endless television programs which involve no effort but a fastened, hypnotized eye, no demands except physical presence. We give our children overstuffed furniture, even at the dining room table. We let or make them ride to school where they sit in overheated classrooms. At public expense, we pay professional recreation directors to teach them in small play areas instead of leaving vacant space where boys can play and quarrel by themselves, but develop on their own.
In all this process, we hurt them in the name of love. Leave some sharp edges, parents and teachers! And where they have all been taken out in the guise of affection, restore a few, so that when adulthood comes pain will not be something novel, but an old friend and dear teacher.
“It must needs be that the Son of Man be crucified.…” So spake the Master.
It must needs be that our children undergo experiences, thoughts, demands, and teachings which will jolt, hurt, or agonize at the moment of enduring but which will make them finer, stronger, and less selfish.
Let’s not level all the rough edges.
Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.
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A BASIC BOOK LIST AT THE LOCAL CHURCH LEVEL
This bibliography is intended to meet the practical needs of workers in Christian Education at the local church level. The list of one hundred books should be helpful as a guide to understanding and requisite skills. More emphasis has been placed on methods of work than on the nature of Christian education. There is a serious lack of distinctly evangelical works of high quality and philosophical and theological depth—a situation which needs to be remedied. Many basic books were omitted because of liberal bias, some because of their restricted denominational serviceability. Limitations of space dictated the widely inclusive divisions. Choices made were with the counsel of specialists in the field of Christian education.
GENERAL SURVEY
GAEBELEIN, FRANK E., Christian Education in a Democracy. Oxford, 1951, 305 pages, $4.05.
HAKES, J. EDWARD, editor, Introduction to Evangelical Christian Education. Moody, 1961, 460 pages, $7.95.
MURCH, JAMES DEFOREST, Christian Education and the Local Church. Standard, 1943, 1958, 416 pages, $3.50.
PERSON, PETER P., An Introduction to Christian Education. Baker, 1960, 224 pages, $3.75.
TAYLOR, MARVIN J., editor, Religious Education: A Comprehensive Survey. Abingdon, 1960, 446 pages, $6.50.
HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
BENSON, CLARENCE H., A History of Christian Education. Moody, 1943, 355 pages, $3.50.
SHERRILL, LEWIS J., The Rise of Christian Education. Macmillan, 1944, 349 pages, $4.25.
PHILOSOPHY OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
BENSON, CLARENCE H., The Christian Teacher. Moody, 1950, 288 pages, $3.50.
BUTLER, J. DONALD, Four Philosophies and Their Practice in Education and Religion. Harper, 1951, 1957, 618 pages, $6.
BYRNE, HERBERT W., A Christian Approach to Education. Zondervan, 1961, 326 pages, $4.95.
CLARK, GORDON H., A Christian Philosophy of Education. Eerdmans, 1946, 217 pages, $3.
COOKE, ROBERT L., Philosophy, Education and Certainty. Zondervan, 1940, 392 pages, $2.75.
JAARSMA, CORNELIUS, Fundamentals in Christian Education. Eerdmans, 1953, 482 pages, $5.
LEBAR, LOIS E., Education that is Christian. Revell, 1958, 252 pages, $3.75.
MILLER, RANDOLPH C., The Clue to Christian Education. Scribner’s, 1950, 211 pages, $2.75.
SMITH, H. SHELTON, Faith and Nurture. Scribners, 1941, 208 pages, $2.
PSYCHOLOGY AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
BARUCH, DOROTHY W., HOW to Live with Your Teen-ager. McGraw-Hill, 1953, 261 pages, $3.75.
BENSON, CLARENCE H., A Guide for Child Study. ETTA, 1956, 96 pages, $1.25.
MURRAY, ALFRED L., Psychology for Christian Teachers. Zondervan, 1938, 245 pages, $2.50.
NARRAMORE, CLYDE W., HOW to Understand and Influence Children. Zondervan. 1957, 61 pages, $1.50.
WHITEHOUSE, ELIZABETH, The Children We Teach, Judson, 1950, 304 pages, $2.50.
THE TEACHING PROCESS
BENSON, CLARENCE H., Teaching Techniques for Sunday School. ETTA, 1959, 98 pages, $1.25.
EAVEY, CHARLES B., Principles of Teaching for Christian Teachers. Zondervan, 1940, 351 pages, $3.
EAVEY, CHARLES B., The Art of Effective Teaching. Zondervan, 1953, 298 pages, $3.75.
EDGE, FINDLEY, Teaching for Results. Broadman, 1956, 230 pages, $3.
GREGORY, JOHN M., The Seven Laws of Teaching. Baker, 1886, revised 1957, 129 pages, $1.75.
HUTCHINSON, ELIOT D., How to Think Creatively. Abingdon, 1949, 237 pages, $2.75.
Learning and the Teacher. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1959, 215 pages, $3.75.
LEAVITT, GUY P., Teach With Success. Standard, 1958, 160 pages, $2.95.
LEBAR, LOIS E., Children in the Bible School: The How of Christian Education. Revell, 1952, 382 pages, $4.50.
LITTLE, SARA, Learning Together in Christian Fellowship. John Knox, 1959, 104 pages, $1.25.
ROZELL, RAY, Talks on Sunday School Teaching. Zondervan, 1956, 150 pages, $1.50.
ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION
ARMSTRONG, HART R., Sunday School Administration and Organization. Gospel Publishing, 1950, 215 pages, $1.25.
HARNER, NEVIN C., The Educational Work of the Church. Abingdon, 1939, 257 pages, $2.
HEIM, RALPH D., Leading a Sunday Church School. Muhlenberg, 1950, 368 pages, $4.75.
LEAVITT, GUY P., Superintend with Success. Standard, 1960, 143 pages, $2.95.
MUNRO, HARRY C., The Director of Religious Education. Westminster, 1930, 214 pages, $1.50.
PERSON, PETER P., The Minister in Christian Education. Baker, 1960, 134 pages, $2.95.
VIETH, PAUL H., The Church School. Christian Education Press, 1957, 288 pages, $3.50.
DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION AND METHODS
CALDWELL, IRENE S., Adults Learn and Like It. Warner, 1955, 112 pages, $1.
CHAMBERLIN, J. GORDON, The Church and Its Young Adults. Abingdon, 1943, 124 pages, $1.
GRIFFITHS, LOUISE B., The Teacher and Young Teens. Bethany, 1954, 176 pages, $1.75.
HARNER, NEVIN C., Youth Work in the Church. Abingdon, 1943, 222 pages, $2.
LEAVITT, EVELYN L., The Beginner Bible Teacher and Leader. Standard, 1942, 124 pages, $1.10.
MARTIN, MARY G., Teaching Primary Children. Judson, 1942, 104 pages, $0.30.
TRENT, ROBBIE, Your Child and God. Harper, 1941, 157 pages, $2.
WESTPHAL, EDWARD P., The Church’s Opportunity in Adult Education. Westminster, 1941, 209 pages, $1.25.
ZIEGLER, EARL FREDERICK, Christian Education of Adults. Westminster, 1958, 320 pages, $1.25.
THE BIBLE AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
GAEBELEIN, FRANK E., The Pattern of God’s Truth. Oxford, 1954, 118 pages, $3.
GETTYS, JOSEPH M., How to Teach the Bible. John Knox, 1949, 163 pages, $2.25.
HESTER, HUBERT INMAN, The Book of Books. Convention, 1959, 138 pages, $0.75.
SMITH, WILBUR M., Profitable Bible Study. Wilde, 1939, 214 pages, $2.50.
AUDIO-VISUALS IN CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
BARNARD, FLOY MERWYN, Drama in the Churches. Broadman, 1950, 132 pages, $0.75.
CARLSON, BERNICE W., Act It Out. Abingdon, 1956, 160 pages, $2.
DALE, EDGAR, Audio-visual Methods in Teaching. Dryden, 1946, 546 pages, $4.50.
ELICKER, VIRGINIA, Biblical Costumes for Church and School. Ronald, 1953, 160 pages, $3.
HAAS, KENNETH B. and PACKER, HARRY Q., Preparation and Use of Visual Aids. Prentice-Hall, 1955, 381 pages, $6.65.
MAUS, CYNTHIA PEARL, Christ and the Fine Arts. Harper, 1938, 764 pages, $5.95.
Using Audio-visuals in the Church. NCCC, 1950, 16 pages, $0.75.
WITTICH, WALTER A. and SCHULLER, CHARLES F., Audio-visual Materials. Harper, 1953, 570 pages, $6.
RECREATION AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
HARBIN, E. O., Recreation Leader. Abingdon, 1952, 122 pages, $1.50.
EVANGELISM AND CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
AUTREY, C. E., Basic Evangelism. Zondervan, 1959, 184 pages, $2.95.
AVERY, WILLIAM S. and LESTER, ROYLA E., You Shall Be My Witnesses. Muhlenberg, 1948, 144 pages, $2.
DOBBINS, GAINES S., Winning the Children. Broadman, 1953, 172 pages, $2.
ELLIS, HOWARD W., Evangelism for Teen Agers. Abingdon, 1958, 112 pages, $1.
YODER, GIDEON G., The Nurture and Evangelism of Children. Herald, 1958, 188 pages, $3.
MUSIC IN CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
BENSON, LOUIS F., Hymnody of the Christian Church. John Knox, 1953, 310 pages, $4.50.
MORSCH, VIVIAN S., The Use of Music in Christian Education. Westminster, 1956, 172 pages, $3.
SMITH, H. AUGUSTINE, Lyric Religion. Revell, 1931, 517 pages, $4.95.
PRAYER AND WORSHIP
BOWMAN, CLARICE M., Restoring Worship. Abingdon, 1953, 223 pages, $2.50.
MCDORMAND, T. B., The Art of Building Worship Services. Broadman, 1958, 123 pages, $2.50.
PAULSEN, IRWIN G., The Church School and Worship. Macmillan, 1940, 199 pages, $1.75.
POWELL, MARIE C., Boys and Girls at Worship. Harper, 1943, 198 pages, $2.
STEWARDSHIP EDUCATION
MCRAE, GLENN, Teaching Christian Stewardship. Bethany, 1954, 158 pages. $1.25.
ROLSTON, HOLMES, Stewardship in the New Testament Church. John Knox, 1946, 151 pages, $1.50.
ACTIVITIES IN CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
CARLSON, BERNICE W., Make It Yourself. Abingdon, 1950, 160 pages, $2.
JACOBS, J. VERNON, 1000 Plans and Ideas for Sunday School Workers. Zondervan, 1958, 157 pages, $1.95.
KEISER, ARMILDA B., Here’s How and When. Friendship, 1952, 174 pages, $2.95.
LEADERSHIP TRAINING
CRANFORD, CLARENCE, The Devotional Life of Christian Leaders. Judson, 1959, 71 pages, $0.75.
DOBBINS, GAINES S., Improvement of Teaching in the Sunday School. Broadman, 1950, 154 pages, $0.60.
GWYNN, PRICE H., Leadership Education in the Local Church. Westminster, 1952, 157 pages, $2.75.
KNAPP, FORREST L., Leadership Education in the Church. Abingdon, 1933, 278 pages, $1.25.
COUNSELING IN CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
BRUNK, ADA and METZLER, ETHEL, The Christian Nurture of Youth. Herald, 1960, 158 pages, $3.
NARRAMORE, CLYDE M., The Psychology of Counselling. Zondervan, 1960, 303 pages, $3.95.
HULME, WILLIAM E., Counseling and Theology. Muhlenberg, 1956, 249 pages, $3.75.
SIGSWORTH, JOHN, Careers for Christian Youth. Moody, 1956, 160 pages, $0.59.
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION AND THE HOME
EAVEY, CHARLES B., Principles of Personality Building for Christian Parents. Zondervan, 1952, 321 pages, $3.75.
FEUCHT, OSCAR E., editor, Helping Families through the Church. Concordia, 1957, 344 pages, $3.50.
JACOBSEN, MARGARET BAILEY, The Child in the Christian Home. Scripture Press, 1959, 200 pages, $4.50.
OVERTON, GRACE S., Living with Parents. Broadman, 1954, 138 pages, $1.50.
OVERTON, GRACE S., Living with Teeners. Broadman, 1950, 85 pages, $1.25.
BUILDING AND EQUIPMENT
ADAIR, THELMA and MCCORT, ELIZABETH, HOW to Make Church School Equipment. Westminster, 96 pages, $1.25.
ATKINSON, C. HARRY, Building and Equipping for Christian Education, NCCC, 1956, 87 pages, $3.50.
FOSTER, VIRGIL E., How a Small Church Can Have Good Christian Education. Harper, 1956, 127 pages, $2.
LEACH, WILLIAM H., Handbook of Church Management. Prentice-Hall, 1959, 504 pages, $8.65.
SUPPLEMENTAL PROBLEMS
ENSIGN, JOHN and RUTH, Camping Together as Christians. John Knox, 1958, 148 pages, $2.95.
HALL, ARLENE S., Your Vacation Church School. Warner, 1956, 96 pages, $1.
SHAVER, ERWIN L., The Weekday Church School. Pilgrim, 1956, 154 pages, $2.50.
EVALUATION OF CHRISTIAN EDUCATION
MASON, HAROLD C., Abiding Values in Christian Education. Revell, 1958, 176 pages, $2.50.
VIETH, PAUL H., Objectives of Religious Education. Harper, 1940, 331 pages, $2.50.
James K. Friedrich
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Some years ago, I made an experiment in audio-visuals which opened my eyes to a technique that can make the church school a far more effective link in the church’s program. When I moved to Sherman Oaks, California, the nearest Episcopal Church was six miles away; so, with the consent of my bishop, I undertook to start a Sunday School in my home. My use of audio visuals in teaching unfolded for me a vast new world of possibilities for presenting Bible truth in a way that actually makes teaching a pleasure. The boys and girls responded eagerly to “picture teaching.” Indeed, one Sunday morning a prominent composer and conductor asked me what we were doing to make his children want to go to our Church School rather than to Palm Springs for the week-end. My small effort, which started with five children, grew steadily until a mission was established and that mission has become one of the strong parishes in the diocese.
A VISUALLY DOMINATED CULTURE
Out of the experience came a conviction that Christian education had to face realistically the fact that the modern church exists in a visually dominated culture. The motion picture, radio, and television have brought about a veritable revolution in communication.
“Today an average two-year old child has seen more places than his grandfather saw in his whole lifetime,” says Howard E. Tower in Religious Education (Abingdon, 1960). “The same grandfather made up his vocabulary meanings in relation to the word spoken by someone in relationship to the real thing in experience, supplemented by words read in the reader and later the newspaper, magazine, and classic literature. Now the two-year-old grandson sees visual images on the television screen to which meanings are attached which are often unrelated to his actual experience and sometimes unrelated to the corresponding words.… We have experienced a communications revolution. Our culture is visually perceived if not so dominated.…”
The Church School teacher or leader who is not aware of this is severely limited in planning for and carrying out an effective program of Christian education. Certainly the teacher must have such awareness if he is to know the modern vocabulary of his students and what they are thinking and doing. Leaders at the denominational level must be aware of the changed communications situation if they are to develop an adequate curriculum.
THE USE OF MODERN AID
The ideal Church School teaching situation in these times is an adequate curriculum designed to use visual aids. These aids should be made not only to accompany the printed lesson but to be integrated in its very structure. Many denominations are following this pattern in the preparation of their new materials that will come out in 1963 or 1964. A resurrection in teaching effectiveness is on the way, thanks to the pioneers in the churches who have blazed the trail with audio-visual aids.
The teachers’ frustration under old methods lay in the failure of their dialogue to get through to the children. Ordinary Church School teachers are not theologians or Bible scholars or, for that matter, even teachers in the full sense of the word. Yet they feel a sense of duty and loyalty to Christ and the Church that must be met. They offer themselves knowing full well their inadequacies. But God too knows these inadequacies and he also knows that a dedicated person can often be more valuable than one who is merely gifted in teaching ability. The Church School teacher is, and always will be, the living witness of the Christian faith to the children she teaches. Give that teacher the kind of teaching tool that will breathe life into the dialogue and communicate the message, and both teacher and pupil will find themselves in a teaching situation which will achieve amazing results. Such aids must, of course, incorporate a rational dialogue requiring a decision for truth, if they are to be evangelically effective.
It is possible today for audio-visuals to be used in the classroom. The new sound filmstrips are especially designed for this purpose. They fit the “time slot” allotted for “learning time” in the average school. The film with record runs on an average of 10 to 14 minutes, giving the teacher adequate time for discussion in the half-hour usually granted for this purpose. The right tools are now available to help any teacher do a better job. The big teaching advantage lies in such a dramatic presentation of the material that an impact is made which most untrained teachers are unable to accomplish in any other way. The minister knows that what is being taught through the approved audio-visual aid is in keeping with the theology of the church. The children like to learn the visual way. The teacher rejoices to know and feel that the time spent has produced results far and above anything he or she could have achieved without the visual-aid. Discussions are twice as effective because children always react to pictures. After the session the lesson is the chief topic of conversation.
BRIDGING TIME AND SPACE
Audio-visual aids make the Bible a living book. They do not downgrade but rather upgrade the centrality of the Holy Scriptures in the curriculum. Audio-visuals help the pupil to bridge time and distance, to have a new appreciation of the setting in which biblical truth and history transpired, and to obtain a perceptive grasp of the human and divine situations involved. There are dangers here, but individuals, denominations, and educational foundations are engaged in vast programs of research which insure increasingly faithful disclosures of Bible truth.
The superiority of the audio-visual method of teaching may well be illustrated in the presentation of the story of Jonah and the “great fish.” Study of a brief Scripture passage may reveal how God’s mercy saved Jonah from a shipwreck, kept him safely, and eventually deposited him on the beach safe and sound. Yet the real purpose of the Bible story and its vital importance for us today lies in God’s commissioning of Jonah to tell others of God regardless of their race or nationality. God wanted Jonah to realize that religion has life only when it is shared with others, and that not to do this is contrary to the purpose of God. A good sound filmstrip may provide sound effects, storm, shipwreck, and dramatize the story of a man who did not want to do what he was supposed to do as a member of a race God had chosen for a special purpose. The story may end with an illustration in which Jonah finally realizes his responsibility to others of different races and nationalities. A great Bible truth is thus designed and produced to hold attention, deliver a message, and arouse discussion. In the process the teacher discovers an experience in teaching that actually makes the task a pleasure.
Classroom audio-visuals are designed to be used in the most modern classroom techniques. The short focal length throw of the classroom projector allows it to be used at one end of the table. At the other end is the latest lenticular screen which provides perfect viewing at any angle for the children seated around the table. The record attachment is a part of the projector unit. The room does not have to be darkened, for modern equipment will project in normal light. Using the visual-aid tools in this way makes it unnecessary to rearrange chairs when the filmstrip has finished; discussion can begin at once right at the table.
A TOOL FOR EVANGELISM
Strange as it may seem, the 16mm sound film is rapidly becoming a significant educational tool for lay evangelism. A series on the life of Christ or the life of Paul can well be geared into soul winning programs. Indeed the rising tide of religious concern for the nation and the world on the part of laymen has been one of the main reasons for the renewed interest in good Bible films. The layman is serious about his determination to do something in his own way to bear witness to his faith. In presenting a series of films on the life of our Lord or the life of St. Paul, he finds an opportunity to make his witness really count. His friends and neighbors will come to the church to see a good film. Through the experience of viewing the film, an opportunity for real discussion develops. When laymen begin to discuss religion and ask questions, they are going to get more excited about the Christian faith. Ministers are delighted to see laymen enthusiastically take up this method of evangelism. Naturally the minister plays the most important role in this situation. He is the one who must give answers to the questions. Indeed, he may well introduce the film showing, giving remarks pertinent to the content so it will be better appreciated by the viewers. When minister and laymen can thus work as a team, the teaching of adults in the Church School can be more thrilling than teaching children.
Truly a new day is dawning on the horizon of Christian education for both children and adults. Teaching tools such as audio-visual aids are more vital than ever to the program of churches of all sizes. Any Church School curriculum can be supplemented with audio-visual aids to fit lesson content. Reputable and responsible producers assure pastors and teachers that their visual-aids are as theologically and historically trustworthy as any reputable Bible commentary because they are based on sound Christian scholarship.
Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.
- More fromJames K. Friedrich
Ronald C. Doll
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What issues loom largest along the horizon of problems confronting Christian education today? To answer this question, I have polled 53 nationally-known specialists in the field, and have asked them to list and comment on one or two issues which deserve serious consideration and resolution during the 1960’s. Issues which the respondents consider most critical cluster about the following subjects:
1. Vitalization and application of the Christian message in the daily lives of those who have accepted Christ as Saviour.
2. Selection of curriculum content that creates greatest behavioral effect at specific developmental and age levels.
3. Recruitment of able, basically-qualified teachers.
4. In-service growth of teachers in both instructional competence and spiritual discernment.
The first two subjects relate to students; the third and fourth, to teachers. The first, second, and fourth subjects deal with learning; the third, with recruitment of teachers. All of them concern the characteristics and development of human beings. Perhaps we should expect Christian educators to prefer subjects that affect people rather than intellectual concepts and teaching materials. People, after all, are the most difficult, conflictive, and complex creatures in the Christian educator’s environment.
The four subjects may be appreciated all the more when they are seen as belonging to a larger constellation of subjects from which critical issues may be formulated. In the summer of 1959, 200 religious educators and social science consultants identified 16 major subjects for research in religious education (Herman E. Wornom, Editor, Highlights of Recommendations for Research, New York, The Religious Education Association, 1959, passim). Some of the subjects were almost identical with those which I have listed above. Others had to do, for instance, with the relation of religion and culture, the family’s influence on religion, the nature and influence of church and synagogue as educational institutions, the mass media, and materials used in religious education. It appears that the respondents to my questions identified those subjects which lie at the very center of the educational process. Methods, materials, and philosophical concepts are necessary and helpful, but the key question is, “What do we know about the persons with whom we must work?”
KNOWING THE STUDENTS
With special reference to knowing students, the respondents identified these issues:
1. How can we make certain that scriptural content gets into the nervous systems of students so that their daily behavior is favorably affected?
2. What can we do to teach Christian ethics more effectively?
3. What can we do to integrate all subject matter and, in fact, the entire program of Christian education with a world view centered in God through Christ?
4. How can we “capture the correct psychological moments” for mastery of certain scriptural and biblically-related content?
5. What difference do age and developmental level make with respect to the content we attempt to teach?
6. How can we treat students on a more individualized basis according to their developmental levels, degrees of skepticism, and other appropriate criteria?
7. What are the “spiritual characteristics” of children at various ages?
EFFECTIVE TEACHING
With reference to knowing teachers, the respondents asked:
1. What can we do to provide teachers who are well trained and competent and, at the same time, committed Christians?
2. How can we get adults in our churches to assume the true responsibilities of Christian laymen?
3. What kinds of persons should be invited to become Christian teachers?
4. How can we prepare teachers to use the materials and methods available today for more effective teaching of the Bible?
5. What should be the church’s program for recruiting and training Christian education leaders?
6. How can we get a sound philosophy of Christian education (two words: Christian, education) operating?
7. How can the local church train laymen to teach for results in the lives of students?
AGE AND CONTENT
Resolution of issues like these can proceed from two major sources: basic understanding, derived from the Scriptures, about the nature of human beings and about man’s relationship to man; and learnings from the secular world about the growth, development, potential, and education of persons of various age levels. Inasmuch as I cannot deal in this article with all the issues already mentioned, I shall highlight two of them. My first selection, referring to students, is, “What difference do age and developmental level make with respect to the content we attempt to teach?”
To deal with this issue, one should review some of the better-known facts about learning. Learning involves doing, reacting, experiencing. Every learner has a goal or purpose. Learning is motivated, as it proceeds, by its incompleteness, and the learner persists if he sees the objectives of the learning as being worth while. Both the process and the results of learning differ for individual students. Specifically, students differ in their readiness to learn given content, but there are now some rough norms of readiness which are based primarily on the developmental characteristics and needs of the learners themselves. Learning includes so much more than rote memorization of facts; for instance, it involves value clarification, attitude formation and change, structuring of generalizations, development of deep meanings, acquisition of skills, implanting of new appreciations. In the total complex of the learning act, learners take unto themselves those learnings they are able, willing, and ready to accept.
THE DEVELOPMENTAL LEVEL
Consideration of the preceding paragraph suggests that learning should be attuned to the developmental level at which we find the student. Concomitants of the student’s developmental level are factors like his age, his native capacity, and his readiness to learn the subject matter we specify. Consider Herbert, a 16-year-old, eleventh-grade boy in a Sunday School class at Branchville Evangelical Church. What sort of creature is Herbert likely to be? He’s probably restless. Yes, he’s begun to notice girls—in fact, he’s been watching them surreptitiously for several years. He’d like to know more about boy-girl relationships. He clings to his peer group, even when adults oppose what his group stands for. He probably respects deeply both his parents and his Sunday School teacher. In an emergency, of course, he’d turn toward the value system to which his parents adhere. Herbert’s eye is on the future. Mainly, he thinks about his occupation in the years to come, because he believes the right occupation can provide him with what he really wants in this world: marriage, prestige, happiness. Beneath all of his long, long thoughts about himself and his career, Herbert wonders what life is about: “What sort of person is God? How can I please him? What do I owe him for his goodness to me?”
This, in part, is where Herbert stands in human development. We can find out much more about him, but if we know even this much, we have several clues to the subject matter we should try to teach him. Some of these clues are as follows:
1. Herbert respects people who have been successful, and the Bible is literally filled with illustrations of successful people. He is ready to learn why they have been successful.
2. He is ready to receive help from adults, as well as from his friends, in resolving some of the deeper issues of life: why he is here, and what his own life can mean to others, including his Creator. He’s ready to discuss his future, and to listen as other persons talk about the purposes of human existence.
3. Herbert can comprehend many lessons from the New Testament. When he hears what St. Paul says about family relationships, he’s interested in exploring its full meaning.
4. “How does God guide a fellow’s destiny?” Herbert asks. He wants to know what happened to Jonah, to Samson, to Peter, to Paul. Comparative biographies of the heroes of the Scriptures help him see what divine Providence can mean as it appears in Romans 8:28.
5. Herbert is learning in so many ways. One can almost see his attitudes change, his appreciations broaden, and his meanings deepen. Herbert’s time of life is an exciting one, to be dulled only by drab teachers who don’t know Herbert and consequently don’t know what to teach him.
Because both Herbert and the Bible are fascinating, they should be brought together. Herbert is ready to understand selected portions of Scripture that would have been meaningless to him two years ago. While he and the other boys in his class differ in many ways, they have certain common needs and interests. If we know these needs and interests, and also the Book we teach, we can turn even the instructionally poorest lesson material into exciting content.
RECRUITING GOOD TEACHERS
The second issue which I have chosen to discuss concerns selection of maximally effective teachers. Christian educators, like educators generally, need reliable bases for recruiting the best teachers they can find. Cues to teacher effectiveness have begun only recently to appear in the research. Though these cues are merely suggestions of fuller understandings to come, they should prove especially interesting to persons in the field of Christian Education:
1. What a teacher is, what he stands for and believes in, is very significant to his general effectiveness.
2. The effective teacher likes other people and tends to think well of them. He is outdoing, self-initiating, and ambitious (David G. Ryans, Characteristics of Teachers, Washington, D. C., American Council on Education, 1960).
3. The effective teacher sets high standards for himself, but in his relationship with his students, he seeks to be helpful rather than unduly exacting. He is amenable to desirable change in the organization in which he serves, and in the methods he uses in his work (information taken from unpublished data gathered recently by the following researchers: Washburne at Brooklyn College, Coolan and Dipboye at Syracuse University, and Doll and Macdonald at New York University).
4. Finally, the effective teacher rates above average in general intelligence, insight into educational problems, and understanding of learners and their needs.
SIGNS OF INEFFECTIVENESS
The significance of these characteristics soon becomes evident when one sees a person who lacks them. Consider Lucy Smathers, who taught Herbert in Sunday School when he was an eighth-grader. Lucy has never cared much for people, and doesn’t mind saying so. She is withdrawn, lackadaisical, and unambitious. Her manner seems to say, “I couldn’t care less.” Lucy is the Sunday School superintendent’s special problem: often tardy, regularly late in sending the offering and the attendance records to the office, and apparently insensitive to the little interest her students manifest in learning. Though she demands much of her students, she makes little effort to improve herself and her practices. Lucy seems to be below average in mental ability, and she has little understanding of the educational process or of the students whom she is expected to teach.
With this antithesis as a background, the reader should note that desirable teacher characteristics may be found among many persons in the secular world. However, when the characteristics I have listed are discovered in genuine Christians, they are reinforced by inner resources which only the Christian can comprehend. Hence, a Christian educator should ask concerning a prospective teacher: “What is her spiritual standing and stature?” and “How does she rate with respect to other characteristics which appear to make her an effective teacher?” Given a teacher of sterling personal worth in both of these respects, the specialist in Christian education can then proceed to help the teacher grow in service.
I believe it is no accident that Christian educators think first of the human resources—both students and teachers—with whom they work. Precious souls are at the core of their enterprise. For this reason, most of the issues concerning curriculum, methods, materials, and personal roles are likely to be resolved with direct reference to human beings, who have within themselves varied spiritual needs and varied potentialities for learning.
Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.
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T. Robert Ingram
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Schools have bid fair to replace the weather as everybody’s daily subject of conversation, and, to press Mark Twain’s quip further, nobody’s doing anything about them either. To be sure, the quip, like all such remarks, overstates the case in both instances. People are always doing something about the weather; something, that is, to protect themselves from it. So it is with the schools. People are doing all sorts of things to protect their children and themselves from the gigantic government school system now gripping the United States. Christians have tried everything from daily stone-faced Bible reading to “released time” programs without much avail. But just as nobody is changing the weather itself, neither is anybody seriously tackling the school situation.
The trouble lies in the very constitution of the state school system, which poses for Christian people a very serious dilemma. Teaching and learning based upon Christian faith and Christian scholarship are ruled out. They are ruled out not by any political considerations, or even by any inherent “secularism” or “godlessness” of temporal governments as such, but they are ruled out by Christian conviction. Being what it is, faith in Jesus Christ cannot brook a religious structure based upon the temporal power of physical force. Political powers object to the teaching of Christianity only when they themselves happen to be committed to anti-Christian powers; that is, when politicians reach out to enthrone “the leader” in the place of God.
But there is nothing inherent in political power as such which would make it impossible to buttress a religious hierarchy with the policeman. Tudor England tried it boldly by the simple expedient of passing a law requiring all Englishmen to show up in the government church on Sunday morning. That arrangement did not endanger the existence of temporal police power, but it did threaten the existence of true religion in England—so much so that men gave their fortunes and their lives in dissent. So far as I know, the world has always tolerated the totalitarian government which is capped by the king-priest; in fact, it is only Christ who has opened a way to overcome the totalitarian monster. One of the great benefits of his Death and Resurrection was that he freed religion from the grip of temporal government. He would not have been the victor if temporal government had emancipated religion. Christ seized it for himself, and entrusts it only to those ministers of his who will act independently of the sword. Thus, what we in the United States call the doctrine of separation of Church and State, is demonstrably a religious doctrine about politics, not a political doctrine about religion.
ANTI-CHRISTIAN INDOCTRINATION
The matter comes to a head in the schoolroom where everybody is there on pain of punishment. Clearly there is no more room for the free play of persuasion, willing consent and convicted loyalty than there would be in the parish church that was filled by threat of fine and imprisonment. It simply violates Christian conscience to teach the Faith under such circumstances. And let me say again, the matter poses no problem for the non-Christian. The Communist, to take a living example, makes no bones about the fact that his schools are a vast machine for indoctrination with communism. But Christianity presented by force of arms is, for Christians, plainly not Christianity.
When a try is made to present Christianity as an optional intellectual possibility to those whose presence is enforced, a prior assumption has been accepted: namely, that it is possible to understand faith without faith. Such an assumption, I think, would be denied in every persuasion. “When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and [he] knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew) …” (John 2:9).
The dilemma presented to Christians by compulsory school attendance laws appeared at once and has altered only in the steady dilution of what is regarded as sectarian teaching as opposed to general Christianity. It seemed to have slipped by almost unnoticed that Horace Mann’s solution of introducing Bible reading without comment, and instruction in morals, was in fact Mann’s own personal and largely Unitarian sectarianism which was clamped upon school children. The orthodox Calvinists as well as Roman Catholics demurred and have often been the ones to object to that kind of use of the Bible in government schools.
Undoubtedly one reason denominational objection is raised is that denominational leaders, quite rightly, do not want their children taught Christian precepts by persons whose outlook would seem to be at variance with their own. A Baptist clearly would be unhappy to have his child given daily Bible instruction by a Roman priest; and a Roman Catholic would just as surely be alarmed to have his child sitting at the feet of a Methodist or Presbyterian.
ON GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
But another even more inflexible reason was advanced many years ago when it was commonly admitted that the whole scheme of police-enforced schooling was a daring and dangerous innovation.
Just after the Civil War, according to Ken Templeton in his private study of schools, a Princeton theologian, Dr. A. A. Hodge, issued this analysis: “I am as sure as I am of the fact of Christ’s reign that a comprehensive and centralized system of national education, separated from religion, as is now commonly proposed, will prove the most appalling enginery for the propagation of anti-Christian and atheistic unbelief, and of anti-social, nihilistic ethics, individual, social, and political, which this sin-rent world has ever seen.…” “It is capable of exact demonstration that if every party in the state has the right of excluding from the public schools whatever he does not believe to be true, then he that believes most must give way to him that believes least, and then he that believes least must give way to him that believes absolutely nothing, no matter in how small a minority the atheists or the agnostics may be. It is self-evident that on this scheme, if it is consistently and persistently carried out in all parts of the country, the United States’ system of national popular education will be the most efficient and wide instrument for the propagation of atheism which the world has ever seen.”
I think all that could be added to Dr. Hodge’s statement is that his argument is demonstrated by the event. Modern writings on the subject for the most part seem to be limited to a rather pitiful bewailing of the fact that has come to pass, and a catalogue of examples and illustrations. Yet we must never forget that it is Christian conscience itself which must step aside to respect the rejection of any point of doctrine by any person, even a child. For it is a Christian insight into unchanging truth that if a man is not free to believe according to his own lights, he is not free. Therefore, unless we are prepared to go all the way with the ungodly who say men are not free, we are by our own conviction forced into Dr. Hodge’s pattern. Nobody seems to be prepared to say really that a child confined behind the walls of a classroom is free: ergo, he cannot be forced to hear any Christian doctrine to which he may object.
CHURCH-OPERATED SCHOOLS
The way out of the dilemma would seem to be that of the age-old simplicity of repentance. All that is necessary to get out of the suburbs of hell, writes a novelist, is to leave. All that people of the United States need to do is to restore the function of teaching to the control of the various churches. Granted that the task may be mountainous in prospect, faith has removed greater mountains. And faith would dictate that Christian parents tackle the mountain in their own province by sending heir children to schools run by their own churches, or by churches of which they approve.
The parental option, of course, depends upon the existence of church schools which acknowledge no political control. But any congregation can have its own school. There is no magic in numbers in schooling. Strangely enough, in an age when it is only the big school that is supposed to be any good, both parents and school people are talking about small classes. The fact is that many of the greatest Americans have been taught almost entirely by private tutors and millions have known nothing but the little red schoolhouse. Modernists would be hard put to demonstrate a superior product today, or even a general populace as alert, as reasonable, and as discriminatory as in every generation past. No evidence can be advanced to support the thesis that bigness in schools tends toward excellence. It is, rather, all the other way.
The feasibility of church-operated schools has been demonstrated by the rapid increase in these schools during the past ten years. Mr. Templeton shows that in the period between 1940 and 1956, when public school enrollment increased by 22 per cent, enrollment in nonpublic schools increased by 86 per cent. Since 1956 the trend has been ever more marked, and most of the new schools are church operated.
The new schools have been forced to adapt to all sorts of conditions, and have shown a surprising flexibility and often have pioneered into whole new areas of pedagogy. Not the least among these is the rediscovery of the excellence of the non-graded school—the school patterned on the old English form system, or, better still, the little red schoolhouse. That means the small congregation, with only ten to twenty children of school age, can have a first-rate school of its own quite as well as the city congregation with 500 children. Any school, large or small, is only as good as its teachers and its students; these are not modulated by numbers.
Physical facilities are rarely, if ever, a problem. In fact, many communities today are renting church buildings for state schools that are overcrowded. There are few communities where there are not elaborate and extensive church facilities standing idle all week while the same people who paid for them pay to erect separate rooms for week-day school use.
The lack of teachers is pure myth. Scores of excellent teachers would leave the public school in a minute for a church school. I know several who have, at a cut in salary. At the same time there is a vast reservoir of very capable teachers now untapped for the simple reason that many of the best educated and most intelligent people of our country have never spent an hour in a so-called “education” course and would refuse to do so to qualify for a job. Church people, who should be far more concerned to have Christians for teachers than experts in Deweyism and modern methodology, may be expected to change and raise the standards of teacher training materially.
The key to the whole matter is a conviction that teaching cannot be separated from religion; that to teach at all one must teach something about God and about Jesus Christ, the Son of God; and that, therefore, it is the inherent responsibility of free religious institutions to operate schools. It would be unthinkable to compel attendance in any way, and every church must be free to teach children what their parents want to have them taught. If schools are to be truly free they must be free to be bad and to fail to conform to the pattern of the majority. And parents must be free to send their children or not as they decide. For it is also a Christian tenet that parents have sole responsibility for the training of their young—not the state.
Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.
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Paul S. Rees
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Can we validly apply the name “science” to missions?
If we mean an exact science like mathematics, the answer is No. On the other hand, if we mean “classifiable and verifiable knowledge,” an affirmative reply may be admitted.
In any case, Professor J. H. Bavinck, of Free Amsterdam University, Holland, has written a book, lately published by the Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, to which he gives the title An Introduction to the Science of Missions. It is a book of substance: always thoughtful, frequently thrusting, and altogether thorough (What are the Dutch if they are not thorough?).
Professor Bavinck is equipped with a formidable vocabulary. In the Introduction he discusses “apostolics” and “prosthetics,” possible terms to be used in describing the discipline of Christian thought within which we place the world mission of the Church. “Apostolics” would be used to denote “the notion of missions in general,” the concept of the Church as a community of the “sent.” “Prosthetics,” interestingly enough, is derived from a Greek word which in Acts 2:41 is translated “added:” “And there were added unto them in that day about three thousand souls.” The word reappears in verse 47: “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.” Both terms are rejected in favor of the phrase “the science of missions.” This is defined by Bavinck (in words borrowed from Abraham Kuyper) as “The investigation of the most profitable God-ordained method leading to the conversion of those outside of Christ.”
“Elenctics” is an extraordinary word that is used as the subject of the book’s second section. Drawn out from the Greek verb elengchein, it speaks of the whole phenomenon of conviction of sin, and the shame or condemnation growing therefrom. Thus of special importance for missions is our Lord’s word in John 16:8: “And when he [the Holy Spirit] is come, he will reprove [elengxei] the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.”
From the “elenctic” point of view the crucial question with which men everywhere need to be confronted is, “What have you done with God?” Until they are brought to an acknowledgment of the God who stands self-revealed in Jesus Christ, they tend to move in four directions with respect to God:
1. Men may move in the direction of wrong identifications between God (or the gods) and the natural world. Thus we have animism and magic.
2. Others may move in the direction of some form of divine absenteeism. Thus we have the old Chinese belief in a being who created the heavens and the earth, but whose distance from common mortals is so great that he can be evoked only by the emperor.
3. Some will move in the direction of losing God behind laws and norms. Thus we have in Buddhism the contradiction of atheism and devotion in a system in which the all-important thing is not the being of God but the dharma, the doctrine of the eightfold path and all that is associated with it.
4. And some may move in the direction of mysticism. Thus we have, whether by artificially induced intoxication or by philosophical contemplation, the wiping out of the distinction between subject and object, between “Thou” and “I,” and the negation of what is basic in the Christian revelation, that is, the ineffaceable distinction between Creator and creature.
If these are the lines along which we discover the judgment and shame that rest upon St. Paul’s “natural man” (who is any man not “in Christ”), how are we to reconcile this biblical condemnation with what is manifestly true and noble in some of the insights of the higher religions?
For his reply Professor Bavinck would lean on the doctrine of common grace. This is the grace, attributable to a universal operation of the Spirit of God, that preserves the society of sinful man from total self-destruction. It causes even the distortions, derangements, and delinquencies that attach to human emotions, conscience, laws, institutions, insights, and desires to subserve the sovereign purposes of Almighty God. It is the antidote to complete racial destruction. It is the anteroom to the saving grace that is given in Jesus Christ our redeeming Lord.
This, it will be seen, is far removed from the position held by such thinkers as Harvard’s Professor Hocking, that the Christian message derives its supremacy of claim to the fact that it crowns and fulfills the aspirations that are found in the devotees of all the higher religions.
On the contrary, it has been the classical faith of the Christian Church that even such insights and susceptibilities as the Spirit of God has been able to keep alive in the intelligence and conscience of mankind have been twisted and debased in the unhallowed service of pride, so that even “religion” has become man’s final stronghold of self-sufficiency in the “flight from God.” Nor is this true only of pagan religions. It proved true repeatedly in the life of God’s covenant people, Israel. It may be seen indeed in false uses to which this thing called “Christianity” is put today.
Here is the point of convergence between the thinking of Professor Bavinck and that of Bishop Stephen Neill in his recent volume called Creative Tension. He suggests that “the only way in which [Christ] can fulfill human aspirations is first to reduce them to ashes.” He contends that “each religious system, in its autonomy, in its aim of self-realization, is so far in rebellion against God and so far under judgment.” What is intrinsically true in any of these systems will not be destroyed. It will pass through the “scorching fires of Christ’s judgment.” It will die to itself having implemented man’s pride. It will rise in a “joyful resurrection.”
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Spring Book Forecast
Like the eagerly awaited first breath of spring come the announcements of publishers’ “Spring Lists” in the field of religion. The lists for 1961 seem to be larger. More evangelical authors are represented. Several big-name publishers are announcing religious titles on a large scale for the first time. Religion is breaking into the “paperbacks” (see page 31). All this is a good omen for the future.
Before us is a wide panorama of books on systematic and biblical theology, apologetics and philosophy, church history and biography, Old and New Testament studies, pastoral problems, sermons, liturgy and worship, ethical and social problems, Christian education, ecumenism to say nothing of Christian fiction and poetry.
Only a mere fraction of the planned output for the first six months of 1961 will be noted here. There can be no attempt to pre-evaluate. Eventually most of the titles will receive attention from CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S 100 capable reviewers who offer trustworthy guidance in evaluation and interpretation.
Foremost on the horizon is a new translation of the Holy Scriptures. It is only a matter of anxious days until the New Testament of the New English Bible (CHRISTIANITY TODAY, September 26, 1960; January 30, 1961) will be in the bookstores. Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press are publishers in America, as in the British Isles. This work in current English is the fruit of the best non-Roman scholarship in Britain working for 13 years on the earliest Greek Texts. It is not just a version, as the new American Standard Revised, but (at least in prospect) something far richer and better. Dr. F. F. Bruce, noted English scholar, will provide CHRISTIANITY TODAY with an advance review.
Since the LENTEN season is just around the corner these 1961 titles bid for immediate attention: Clarence W. Cranford’s The Seven Last Words and Alfred Doerffler’s The Cross Still Stands (Baker); William D. Streng’s What Language Shall I Borrow? (Augsburg); Reginald Cant’s Heart in Pilgrimage (Harper); Howard Hageman’s We Call This Friday Good (Muhlenberg); Erwin Kurth’s The Passion Pilgrimage (Concordia); and a new reprint The Death and Resurrection of Christ, by Abraham Kuyper (Zondervan).
A classification by fields of interest may serve as a forecast framework:
In the field of SYSTEMATIC AND BIBLICAL THEOLOGY Eerdmans offers Man: The Image of God, by G. C. Berkouwer and Preaching and Biblical Theology, by E. P. Clowney. From Muhlenberg’s presses will come Meaning and Practice of the Lord’s Supper, a symposium edited by Helmut T. Lehman; from John Knox another Karl Barth volume, Anselm: Fidea Quarens Intellectum; Macmillan: A Theological and Historical Introduction to the Apostolic Fathers, by John Lawson; Corcordia: Follow Me: Discipleship According to Matthew, by Martin H. Franzmann; Nazarene: In Christ, by John Nielson; and McGraw-Hill: a collection of highly significant papers in The Theology of Christian Mission, edited by Gerald H. Anderson.
Books on APOLOGETICS, PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE include Nihilism: Its Origin and Nature with the Christian Answer, by Helmut Thielicke (Harper); Natural Law and Divine Miracle, by R. Hooykaas, The Kingdom of Love and the Pride of Life, by Edward John Carnell and The Christian and His Bible, by Douglas Johnson (Eerdmans); Emil Brunner: An Introduction to the Man and His Thought, by Paul K. Jewett (Inter-Varsity); Love Almighty and Ills Unlimited, by Austin Farrar (Doubleday); Self, Religion and Metaphysics, edited by G. E. Hyers; The Spirit of Protestantism, by Robert McAfee Brown (Oxford). On the edge of science Concordia announces Modern Science in the Christian Life, by John W. Klotz; Abingdon: Science Technology and the Christian, by C. A. Coulson; Nelson: Life’s Long Journey, by Kenneth Walker; and Presbyterian and Reformed: The Genesis Flood, by John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris.
The area of CHURCH HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY is rich with promise. Harvard University Press will produce The Autobiography of Lyman Beecher in two volumes, edited by Barbara Cross. Abingdon offers Methodism and Society in Historical Perspective, by Richard M. Cameron. Two comprehensive and definitive histories of American communions are announced—Standard: James DeForest Murch’s Christians Only: A History of the Christian Churches and Churches of Christ and Christian Education Press: A History of the Evangelical and Reformed Church by David Dunn and others. From an unusually long list of titles come: Romanticism in American Theology, by James H. Nichols (University of Chicago); Look Up and Live, a biography of Maud Ballington Booth, by Susan F. Welty (Nelson); Protestant Patriarch, the life of Cyril Lucaris, Patriarch of Constantinople, by George A. Hadjiantoniou (John Knox); Worship and Theology in England, 1690–1850, by Horton Davies (Princeton); Focus on Infinity, by R. M. Albright (Macmillan); This is Protestantism, by Arthur Mielke (Revell) and The Billy Sunday Story, by Lee Thomas (Zondervan).
In NEW TESTAMENT Inter-Varsity adds to its “Introduction to the New Testament” Donald Guthrie’s The Epistles of Paul. Eerdmans announces E. Earle Ellis’ Paul and His Recent Interpreters. Varieties of approach are to be found in The Mind of Jesus, by William Barclay (Harper); The Secret Sayings of Jesus, the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, by Robert M. Grant (Doubleday); The Ethic of Jesus in the Teaching of the Church, by John Knox (Abingdon); Proclaiming the New Testament, edited by Ralph G. Turnbull (Baker); Great Personalities of the New Testament, by William Sanford LaSor (Revell) and another volume by the Greek evangelical leader, G. A. Hadjiantoniou—The Postman of Patmos (Zondervan).
An unusually long list of works in the field of OLD TESTAMENT includes: The Old Testament, Its Origin and Composition, by Curt Kuhl (John Knox); The Old Testament in the Cross, by J. A. Sanders and The Patriarchial Age, by F. Pfeiffer (Broadman); Glimpses of God in Genesis, a translation by J. W. Watts (Eerdmans); Adam to Daniel, edited by G. Cornfeld (Macmillan); King David, Shepherd and Psalmist, by Geoffrey de C. Parmiter (Nelson); The Message of Genesis, by Ralph H. Elliott (Broadman). These volumes are on the edge of archaeology: The Bible and the Ancient Near East, edited by G. Ernest Wright (Doubleday); The Old Testament and Our Times, by Margaret T. Munro (Longmans, Green); A History of Antioch in Syria, by Glanville Downey (Princeton); and Archaeology and the Bible by G. Frederick Owens (Revell).
General BIBLE STUDIES are relevant here. Topping the category and of special significance because of the New English Bible is F. F. Bruce’s The English Bible (Oxford). Somewhat related are The Design of the Scriptures, by Robert C. Dentan (McGraw-Hill); Palestine and the Bible, by Denis Baly (Association); Translating the Bible, by Frederick C. Grant (Seabury); Take and Read, by E. H. Robertson (John Knox); and Herbert Lockyer’s All the Kings and the Queens of the Bible (Zondervan). Baker’s New Bible Atlas will be a publication of more than ordinary significance to Bible students. It is edited by Charles F. Pfeiffer with consultants E. Leslie Carlson in Old Testament and Martin E. Scharlemann in New Testament.
In addition to the Lenten selections SERMONIC literature will be enriched by such titles as Karl Barth’s Deliverance to the Captives, sermons to the World War II inmates of Swiss prisons, (Harper); Frederick W. Schroeder’s Far From Home (Christian Education); D. R. Davies’ Down, Peacock’s Feathers (Abingdon) and Leslie Weatherhead’s Key Next Door (Abingdon); Alan Redpath’s Learning to Live (Eerdmans) and a collection of classics, Valiant for Truth, compiled by David Otis Fuller (McGraw-Hill). DEVOTIONAL works which come somewhat within this classification are Jesus Says to You, by Daniel A. Poling (McGraw-Hill); In Christ, by E. Stanley Jones (Abingdon); and a reprint of Abraham Kuyper’s classic Near To God (Eerdmans).
Practical works in the field of PASTORAL PROBLEMS include: Faith and Pastoral Prayer, by Charles D. Kean (Seabury); How to Increase Church Attendance, by James L. Christensen (Revell). And those that lean toward a PASTORAL COUNSELING category: Minister and Doctor Meet, by Granger E. Westberg (Harper); The Healing Ministry of the Church, by Bernard Martin (John Knox); The Road to Power, by W. Glyn Evans (Moody); The Pastor and Vocational Counseling, by Charles F. Kemp (Bethany); The Minister as Marriage Counselor, by Charles W. Stewart (Abingdon) and Problems of a Spirit Filled Life, by William S. Deal (Nazarene).
Books that emphasize EVANGELISM include: Man to Man, by Richard C. Halverson (Cowman); You Can Win Souls, by C. E. Autrey (Broadman); The Outsider and the Word of God, by James E. Sellers (Abingdon); Edge of the Edge, by Theodore E. Matson (Friendship) and The Suburban Captivity of the Churches, by Gibson Winter (Doubleday).
Another burgeoning area of religious book publishing is to be found in ETHICAL AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS. Among the volumes forecast for the next six months are Perry E. Gresham’s Answer to Conformity (Bethany); Paul Stephen’s answer to Communism, The Ultimate Weapon—Christianity (Nelson); Roswell P. Barnes’ Under Orders: The Churches and Public Problems (Doubleday); Carlyle Marney’s Structures of Prejudice (Abingdon) and Paul Ramsey’s Christian Ethics and the Sit-in (Association). Then there are: a symposium, Sex and the Church, edited by Oscar E. Feucht (Concordia); The Religious Factor, by Gerhard Lenski (Doubleday); Foment on the Fringe, by Shirley E. Greene (Christian Education); The City Church—Death or Renewal, by Walter Kloetzl (Muhlenberg); A Faith of Our Own, by Austin Farrer (World) and—something across the ocean—God and Caesar in East Germany, by R. W. Solberg (Macmillan). Broadman has three titles: Christ and Human Values, by A. C. Reid; Danger Ahead, by C. W. Scudder; and Introducing Christian Ethics by Henlee H. Barnette.
MISSIONS continues to be an inspiring theme for authors. The new books for Spring include: China Doctor, the story of Dr. Harry Miller, by Raymond S. Moore (Harper); Land of Eldorado, by Sante Uberto Barbiere (Friendship); On the Eight-Fold Path in which George Applebor deals with Christian Presence amid Buddhism (Oxford); and This is Haiti, by Paul Orjala (Nazarene). Of a more definitive nature are: Is Christ Divided, by Lesslie Newbigin (Eerdmans); God’s Mission and Ours, by Eugene L. Smith (Abingdon); Man’s Peace and God’s Glory, by Eric B. Fife (Inter-Varsity); and Earth’s Remotest End, by J. C. Pollock (Macmillan).
CHRISTIAN EDUCATION at the local church level and beyond inspires such works as Christian Approach to Educacation, by H. W. Byrne (Zondervan); Tools for Teaching and Training, by LeRoy Ford (Broadman); The Role of the Bible in Contemporary Christian Education, by Sara Little (John Knox); Seeking a Faith of Our Own, by E. Jerry Walker Abingdon); Academic Illusion, by Denis Baly (Seabury); and New Church Programs with the Aging, by Elsie T. Culver (Association).
There is a growing literature on LITURGY AND MUSIC. The Spring books include: The Reform of Liturgical Worship, by Massey H. Shepherd, Jr., (Oxford); The Eucharistic Memorial, seventh volume in a series of ecumenical studies, by Max Thurman (John Knox); A Well-appointed Church Music, by Howard J. Slenk (Eerdmans); Resources for Worship, by Clarice M. Bowman (Association).
In the CULTURAL realm are promised: The Protestant Mind of the English Reformation, 1570–1640 by Charles and Katherine George, and The Cathedral of Granada, by Earl Rosenthal (Princeton). Princeton is also producing with the assistance of 22 outstanding scholars a four volume work on Religion in American Life. James Ward Smith and Leland Jamison are the editors.
If anyone thinks that the well of religious literature has run dry the publishing prospects for 1961 will change his mind. The vitality of the Christian faith foreshadows even better days ahead although a better balance still needs to be achieved between liberal and evangelical in the new titles. Many books in this forecast will prove less than evangelical and sometimes error will be clad in literary artistry more attractive than the truth. But by and large these volumes will increase our capacity to clarify and illuminate our faith and to render a more effective service in the Kingdom of God.
JAMES DEFOREST MURCH
Preaching In Lent
Heart in Pilgrimage, by Canon Reginald Cant (Harper, 1961, 147 pp., $3); The Cross Still Stands by Alfred Doerffler (Baker, 1960, 135 pp., $2.50); What Language Shall I Borrow?, by Wm. D. Streng (Augsburg, 1961, 191 pp., $3); The Seven Last Words, by Clarence W. Cranford (Baker, 1960, 78 pp., $1.50); We Call This Friday Good, by Howard G. Hageman (Muhlenberg, 1961, 83 pp., $1.50), are reviewed by Andrew W. Blackwood, Professor of Homiletics, Emeritus, Princeton Seminary.
For Lent Canon Cant of Britain writes about Christian prayer. Unlike other such books he quotes much from the Bible and little but well from other books; he relies largely on theology (Anglican), and starts with God, Father, Son, or Spirit, not with man; and he also stresses holiness (32 pp.). The first half deals ably with what undergirds prayer. The latter half, which is more directly about prayer, proves less interesting and profitable to a non-Anglican. This scholarly and informative book suffers somewhat from lack of a clear title, and much more from the absence of an index. A wise reader will make his own index, especially in the first half, with its countless “leads.”
Lutheran Pastor Doerffler paints well with a wide brush. In five pages he treats clearly “Five Enemies of the Cross,” then and now. Sixteen topical studies deal with broad subjects, such as, “The Claims of the Cross.” This is a worthy book of its kind, but much of the writing would have served better had it developed into a semi-expository message explaining and applying what a given Bible passage teaches about the Christ of the Cross.
Lutheran Professor Streng reveals learning and clarity in writing about 30 Lenten subjects in five compact series, each one more difficult than the last. In little more than four pages he can deal with the Nicene Creed, or the Athanasian. The professor has done well with what he has undertaken. But would it not have proved more helpful to have a book about any one of the five series, such as “A Long View of Lent”?
American Baptist Cranford has the only conventional title, but among his ten chapter headings seven or eight seem unique and striking, such as, “The Bridge that Only God Could Build,” and “A Conversation Between Crosses.” He has many good ideas, without space to develop any of them biblically, or theologically. Unfortunately, a three-hour service usually allows a speaker only ten minutes or so. That is time enough to deal suggestively with one or two of the easier words, but not enough to get started on the second, or the fourth.
Reformed (Dutch) Professor Hageman deals with the Seven Words in a way new to me. No chapter has a topic, or a clear unifying phrase. After a brief opening chapter, suggested by a great text from Paul, a full-page symbolic mood, cut clear only to lovers of modern art, precedes each of seven examples of the “new preaching,” in the hands of a master. If these eight meditations raise more questions than they answer, then perhaps that is the professor’s purpose in preaching to believers “suggestively, not exhaustively.”
Not being a devotee of the “new painting,” or the “new preaching,” I do not feel competent to appraise either “art,” but I feel that any evangelical minister can learn more from the reading and study of an able book with which he does not agree than from one that states what he already knows and believes. In his later years Benjamin B. Warfield told me that he had practically quit reading books with which he agreed. Then he told me that he had just read one of mine!
If the reader ever arranges for a three-hour service, may he allot enough time to deal with the difficult “Words,” and ask every interpreter to keep Christ in the center of each passing scene. What a revolution that would cause on Good Friday!
ANDREW W. BLACKWOOD
Lenten Trilogy
The Pathway to the Cross, by Ralph G. Turnbull (Baker, 1959, 126 pp., $2); Culture and the Cross, by G. Hall Todd (Baker, 1959, 111 pp., $2); Messages on the Resurrection, by Herschel H. Hobbs (Baker, 1959, 87 pp., $1.75), are reviewed by Charles Ferguson Ball, minister First Presbyterian Church, River Forest, Illinois.
Many facets of the truth gleam in these three little volumes. Dr. Turnbull displays the artistry and the charm which characterizes so many Scottish preachers. The Pathway to the Cross is a scholarly attempt to select the great and outstanding events in the life of our Lord by which He moved toward His cross.
Beginning with the pre-existent Christ and the eternal aspect of the cross the author takes us through the silent years to the baptism, the temptation, the transfiguration, the Passover, the Upper Room scene, the trial, the crucifixion, the resurrection victory and finally the little spoken of ascension. The chapter on the Passover and the Lord’s Supper is especially strong and informative.
The entire series holds one’s attention and reveals a satisfying depth of Biblical exposition. This is not oratory; this is something that will stay with us a long time. The author’s aim was: “to assist us in devotion and spiritual discipline, especially during the season of the year which stresses more than any other the sufferings and passion of our Lord.” This he has most certainly accomplished.
Dr. Todd’s book, Culture and the Cross, contains ten very keen portrayals of lesser known characters in the New Testament. These all center in the cross of Christ. They contain amazing evidence of historical research and wide-read habits on the part of the author, especially in history and the classics. They are scholarly and Biblically sound. The sermons are not couched in ordinary sermonic style. This is stimulating and at the same time disturbing. The disturbing thing is that so much space is given to the building up of an obscure point and so little to the application.
Dr. Hobb’s book, Messages on the Resurrection, is a thrilling exposition of the great fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians. He shows this to be the very heart of the logic of the resurrection. His little book contains only seven chapters but should not be regarded lightly because of its brevity. On the flyleaf the publishers have called it “a masterful exposition.” Careful reading will reveal that this is not fulsome flattery but is indeed the truth.
Dr. Hobb’s book holds the attention effectively and cleverly by a structure that binds the messages together. He sets the scene in a courtroom with a trial by jury progress. God is the judge. We are the jury. The attorney for the defense is the Apostle Paul himself who presents his argument magnificently under the titles: “Exhibit A, B, C, D, and E.” With rare insight he calls his witnesses—Cephas; then the twelve; and then the five hundred; and then two opposing witnesses—James, the Lord’s brother and Paul himself. In the remaining six chapters, the attorney for the defense addresses the jury and hammers home his reasons, one by one, for the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and our resurrection. He concludes his case and makes his appeal for an affirmative verdict. Since we are the jury, the verdict is ours. The work is scholarly and satisfying.
CHARLES FERGUSON BALL
Erotic Candor
The Biblical View of Sex and Marriage, by Otto A. Piper (Scribner’s, 1960, 239 pp., $3.95), is reviewed by Edward John Carnell, Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion, Fuller Theological Seminary.
This is a revision of a volume which students of Christian ethics have come to regard as a standard work in the field. The author exhibits a happy balance of candor and reserve. He deals with some of the most delicate overtures between male and female, yet he never raises a blush nor does he treat sacred matters with frivolity or morbidness.
The author examines the possibilities and disappointments of sex in the light of the biblical evidence concerning the creation, fall, and redemption of man. This evidence is handled with a fairness which is beyond reproach.
Male and female complement their spiritual capacities by gratifying their erotic capacities. When sex is indulged without love, the divine image is perverted and shame is experienced. Sex is not an end in itself; it is a means by which male and female experience intimacies which would otherwise remain concealed. These intimacies open the door to manfestations of love which outlast the transient pleasures of the erotic life.
EDWARD JOHN CARNELL
Christ’S Command
The Healing Ministry in the Church, by Bernard Martin (John Knox, 1960, 125 pp., $3), is reviewed by William Henry Anderson, Jr., Pastor, Fourth United Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh.
A plea for churches and pastors to submit to Christ’s command to preach the Gospel and to heal the sick. Pastor Martin of the Reformed Church in Geneva has two aims in this excellent book: first, to present the biblical teaching on healing; and second; to consider the spiritual issues involved in healing. Neither psychosomatic medicine nor case histories enter this discussion, but submission to the authority of Scripture is the main emphasis. The virtues of depth of understanding and brevity are well combined which make this an ideal book for the busy pastor who wishes to learn how to enlarge his ministry.
WILLIAM HENRY ANDERSON, JR.
True Science
The Christian Approach in Teaching Science by R. Hooykas (Tyndale Press, 1960, 20 pp., 1s.6d.), is reviewed by A. P. Waterson, Lecturer in Pathology, Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
This booklet by Dr. Hooykas never palls, but nevertheless it is something of a surprise on reaching the end to find that it is only 20 pages long. The amount which he has packed into this short space is enormous. He begins with an exposure of the falseness of the ideal of complete objectivity which to many is the hallmark of true science. Hence the importance, as the author points out, of the personality of the experimenter. Scientists (and students of science) are people, although “in real life we never meet one in a chemically pure state” (p. 11).
Despite popular belief to the contrary, there is probably at least as great a proportion of Christians in the ranks of the scientists as outside them, even though since the days of Mrs. Eddy it has been rather difficult to know what to call them. It is one of Dr. Hooykas’ main burdens that such a one cannot keep his faith and his work in thought-tight compartments. In tracing the history of scientific thought, he shows that, while we owe much to the Greeks, Greek ideas in the end led up a blind alley. Science was liberated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, just as religious thought was; and the Puritans, he maintains, were not backward in either cause. The present danger is that science will become “a new idolatry,” a new form of worship of the works of men’s minds. Science taught by an avowed Christian will mean that it is seen by the pupils in the correct light.
A. P. WATERSON
Early Communism
Original Marxism—Estranged Offspring: A Study of Points of Contact and Conflict Between Original Marxism and Christianity, by Robert Frank Fulton (Christopher Publishing House, 1960, 167 pp., $3), is reviewed by Charles Wesley Lowry, Author of Communism and Christ.
This work, based on a Yale Ph.D. thesis and written by a theologian with intensive experience in China over the period 1935–50, will be useful both to theologians and political scientists. It is a study of the first phase of Communism, and we are to understand by this term, written with an upper case “C,” the historical movement which today dominates an entire globe.
This phase called “original Marxism” is carefully distinguished by the author from lower case “c” communism of the sectarian and religious variety; from socialism in general, being interpreted as implying democratic methods; and from “various amalgams” of original Marxism “with the teachings of such later Marxists as Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, Tito and others.”
The central thesis developed is that Marxism arose as the natural child of the Judaeo-Christian heritage—might one not say ideology?—but through the influence of such theological radicals as Strauss, Bruno Bauer, and Feuerbach it was alienated from its spiritual parent and became an estranged offspring. Professor Fulton carries this position out very consistently, going so far as to affirm that the basic difference between “Original Marxism and Christianity” is “the absence in Marxism and the presence in Christianity of an explicit and articulate theology” (p. 130). He goes on quite logically to minimize, as fundamental factors in the equation, both atheism and the rejection of Christian ethics.
The work is, as stated above, useful but must be viewed critically. It moves too much on the surface analytically and abounds in dangerous oversimplifications. Essentially it is illustrative of the fact that non-Communist students and commentators on Marx fall into two classes: the tender-hearted and the tough-minded. A surprising number of able people—one thinks immediately of such names as Tillich, Fromm, Alexander Miller—have had a compulsion to be tender toward Marx. Fulton falls into this category, and this is perhaps the concealed but basic flaw lurking in his study.
By way of contrast, one may mention Professor and Mrs. Harry Overstreet who though their point of view is that of ethical humanism, deal firmly and even severely with the character and person of Karl Marx in What We Must Know About Communism. It would be a good thing if Christian theologians generally read this book.
CHARLES WESLEY LOWRY
Book Briefs
We Wrote the Gospels, by John Calvin Reid (Eerdmans, 1960, 61 pp., $2). Striking and imaginative personal testimonies of the men who wrote the Four Gospels.
The Gospel According to Moses, by W. A. Criswell (Zondervan, 1960, 175 pp., $2.50). Sixteen sermons which trace “the vein of God’s grace that runs through the Pentateuch.”
The Principles of Moral Philosophy, by Ben Kimpel (Philosophical Library, 1960, 234 pp., $3.75). An attempt to develop empirically a sound moral idealism apart from divine revelation.
Messages for Men, edited by H. C. Brown, Jr. (Zondervan, 1960, 150 pp., $2.50). Laymen speak to pastors and laymen concerning their common tasks in the church and the community.
Existential Metaphysics, by Alvin Thalheimer (Philosophical Library, 1960, 632 pp., $7.50). An attempt to apply a definition of “existence” in the solution of a wide range of philosophical problems.
Luther’s Works (vol. 2), edited by Jaroslav Pelikan and Daniel E. Poellot (Concordia, 1960, 433 pp., $6). Luther’s lectures on Genesis, chapters 6–14. Freshly translated from the Latin by George V. Schick.
Conservative Baptists—A Story of Twentieth-Century Dissent, by Bruce L. Shelley (Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary, 1960, 164 pp., $2). Capable chronicle of the Conservative Baptist movement, with extensive space given to documents.