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What kind of music has a place in Christian education? What kind of music belongs in the school program, in the home, in the church, in the recreational life of Christians? The foundation upon which our thinking about the answers to these questions must rest is this: All truth is of God. Therefore, music that has integrity is part of God’s truth and belongs in Christian education. Truth is not confined to the spoken and written word and to such fields as mathematics and science; it relates to the arts also.
So we consider some implications, or variations, of the theme that music is a valid part of God’s all-embracing truth. Chief among them is the need for breaking down the misleading distinction between sacred and secular music. What, after all, is sacred music? Well, according to common practice, it is music linked either to religious words, or music-written for religious use. Thus there are Christians who, while suspicious of all so-called secular music as worldly, attend with clear conscience performances labelled sacred concerts in which a good deal of third-rate, sentimental music has been baptized, as it were, by association with Christian verse; or in which tawdry, tasteless hymn arrangements, false to any real musical integrity, are deemed religious.
But is the principle of sanctification by association a valid criterion for the distinction, so common in evangelicalism, between sacred or Christian and secular or worldly music? Certainly not. Rather the only defensible criterion of the fitness of music for service as a handmaid of the glorious truths of the Gospel is its own, inherent quality, provided that it meets first of all the test of truth.
II
“And what,” some one asks, “is truth in music?” Now it would be presumptuous to attempt anything like a comprehensive answer to this question. But we may at least point in the direction of an answer. Consider it negatively, first of all. Music that is pretentious, music that is vulgar, music that reeks with sentimentality, that shows off by resorting to empty, ear-tickling adornment—witness the so-called evangelistic style of piano playing—lacks integrity. As music it is not true, even though doctrinally it may keep the best of company.
Now what, postively considered, are some of the elements of truth in music? Are they not honesty of expression, sincerity in the sense of avoidance of the cheap and contrived? Surely also they include such elements as simplicity and directness. But on the other hand they do not rule out either complexity or sophistications as opposed to artless simplicity. Bach wrote some enormously complex music, yet there is no higher musical truth than his. Honesty and integrity in music are not confined to the simple and naïve.
In point of fact, there is a vast body of music that has truth and integrity, yet is not fitted for church use, although Christians may enjoy it, because it is part of God’s truth. For example, the Chopin polonaises or mazurkas, beautiful as they are, do not convey religious feeling. They have a place in the Christian’s enjoyment of music but not in church.
Is there, then, music that as music, quite apart from words or religious association, is compatible with spiritual worship? Surely, the answer is a clear “yes.” Music is not spiritual only by association. On the contrary, there is music that is innately uplifting in its appeal. To be sure, it cannot by itself convey doctrine and thus is not specifically sacred or Christian, but in its feeling and in its effect it is spiritually elevating.
Not all of Bach’s religious music was written for church use. Some of the preludes and fugues, such as the great E major Prelude and Fugue in Book II of “The Well-Tempered Clavichord,” are deeply spiritual. Unquestionably many of Beethoven’s slow movements, such as the wonderful Arietta and variations of the last piano sonata (Op. 111), speak with a transcendental, almost heavenly voice. To speak very personally, one of my abiding memories is that of listening after my father’s funeral to the Adagio of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. The Scriptures had indeed given me their unique comfort, yet music also spoke its lesser and wordless language of comfort. Mendelssohn’s Reformation Symphony has its religious moments and not just because of the use of Ein’ Feste Burg. But the César Franck symphony without any such reference is also religious, even mystical, in spirit. The firm majesty of Handel, so compatible with faith, is not confined to The Messiah. Witness the universally familiar Largo which, though composed for secular use, has found such wide religious acceptance. Or take a piece like the brief Mendelssohn song without words, called Consolation, which we have in our hymnals under the name, Communion; or the Schumann Nachtstück, which we know as the hymn tune, Canonbury. Granted that personal taste enters into comments like these, still the point is clear that there is a wealth of absolute music that in itself is conducive to worship.
My own feeling is that more of this kind of absolute music should be used in our churches, not self-consciously but unobtrusively. The question may sound radical, but is the practice of always printing on our church calendars the names and composers of preludes and postludes and offertories a good thing? Certainly we desire to develop understanding of fine music. But a church service is not a course in music appreciation. We must be careful in reaching out for a higher level of Christian music that we do not foster what Don Hustad calls “spectatorism” in which the people look upon parts of the church musical service as a performance.
Consider an illustration from painting. A distinguished artist had finished a canvas of the Last Supper. All was done with great skill, and the chalice in particular had been portrayed most beautifully. As one after another of the artist’s friends looked at the painting, they said, “What a beautiful cup!” Then the artist realized that he had diverted attention from the Lord. Taking his brush, he painted out the gorgeous chalice and substituted for it a more quietly beautiful but far less obtrusive one. So should it be with music in worship. It should not call attention to itself nor monopolize the center of attraction that belongs to the Lord alone. And it may well be that the use, almost anonymously, of some first-rate music that, while unfamiliar, is in itself spiritual, will help the atmosphere of worship.
III
“But what about Gospel hymns? Must all of our church music be classical?” The questions come out of a chief point of tension in evangelical Protestant worship today. Surely the answer is that, when it comes to Gospel hymns and their more formal companions, it is not a matter of “either-or” but of “both-and.” For the criterion for Gospel music must be the truth just as the truth is the criterion for theology. Christians ought not to tolerate a double standard in worship—namely, zeal for the truth in doctrine and disregard of the truth in art.
God’s truth is wonderfully comprehensive. Some of the truest music ever written, music of greatest integrity, is folk music. Think, for example, of the nobility of some Negro spirituals. It is a mistake to confine truth in music to the classical, to the sophisticated, or to the old. Christians ought not be suspicious of music just because it is new or unfamiliar. Our respect for the classics must not obscure the fact that good music is being written in our time. And there are Gospel hymns—and the number is not inconsiderable—that in sincere, artless expression are honest music. They belong in our worship and education. Included among them are hymns like “What a Friend We have in Jesus,” “Blessed Assurance,” or “Saviour Like a Shepherd Lead Us,” a tune by the way, that Dvorak wove into the last movement of his Violincello Concerto.
One gets a little weary of extremists who say, “Away with Gospel music; it’s all trash”; or of those who say, “Away with all the older hymns; they’re all staid, doleful, and joyless.” The antitheses are false. Not all the old, standard hymns are staid and sombre; and even the best denominational hymnals contain some hymns of negligible value, that are hardly ever sung. As for classifying all Gospel music as trash, this is nothing less than obscurantism. It is more difficult to be thoughtfully discriminating than to fall back upon sweeping generalization. Nevertheless, discrimination according to the truth is the only responsible answer to the tension between Gospel hymns and standard hymns.
In point of fact, there is a far greater threat to the musical integrity of our evangelical worship and education than the Gospel hymn. This threat is the invasion of Christian music by certain techniques of the entertainment world. With the almost universal use of TV, radio, and record players, the primary, God-ordained center of education, the home, has been infiltrated by the musical devices of Hollywood and the night club. What does the habitual use of such music do in a home? The plain answer is that it debases taste and cheapens the Gospel. Whoever wrote the editorial in the September 16, 1961, issue of the Sunday School Times was absolutely right in his slashing attack upon the dressing up of Gospel melodies in the garments of show business. If the state of music among evangelicals leaves a great deal to be desired, then records in which the precious doctrines of our redemption are unequally yoked with the movie theatre organ or sung in the mood of cocktail hour ballads has much for which to answer.
As a matter of fact, some forms of jazz may have more musical integrity than this kind of Christian music. As Professor Wilson Wade of Dartmouth says in a recent article, there is a type of jazz that expresses honestly the spiritual lostness and rootlessness of modern man. And while evangelicals would dissent from his conclusion that the integrity of jazz in reflecting the predicament of man today entitles it to a place in worship, there are those who would think its use as a spiritual medium to be less questionable than that of some of the shoddy music that finds acceptance among us. Paul’s exhortation, “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold” (Rom. 12:2, Phillips), is an aesthetic as well as moral imperative; and it applies as much to some of the music so popular among many Christians as it does to jazz.
IV
Now we come to the heart of the matter, which is the formation of musical taste. In his Aims of Education, the great philosopher Alfred North Whitehead has this noble sentence, “Moral education is impossible apart from the habitual vision of greatness.” Let us paraphrase it thus, “Musical education is impossible apart from the habitual hearing of greatness.” Here is the key to the place of music in Christian education.
Look again at the home. And permit me a bit of autobiography. It is my privilege to be the son of a great Bible teacher, one who stood firmly upon the Word of God and who preached the Gospel fearlessly wherever he went. Why am I a Christian today? Because of God’s grace in using the witness of my parents in my home, the place where, as a small boy, I received Christ as my Saviour. And why am I a musical person today? Again, because of my home. Among my earliest memories is that of hearing my father and my oldest brother playing Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony in a four-hand piano arrangement. Or I recall waking up on one of the Sunday mornings when my father was not out preaching and hearing him play Mendelssohn. This was long before the day of radio and record players. Yet we had music in our home. My father and brother were not fine pianists, but they loved and played good music. Yes, musical education is impossible apart from the habitual hearing of greatness—not necessarily in great performance, for that was not nearly so available in my boyhood as it is now, thanks to long-playing records, but in constant hearing of even unskilled performance of great music.
What of musical education in school and college? Here too the same principle holds. Whatever else we do, we must expose youth to greatness in music. Moreover, we need to tell them the difference between the good and the bad, between the worthy and the unworthy. Today one of the watchwords in education is the pursuit of excellence. Christian education, committed to that which is most excellent of all, the truth incarnate in Him who is altogether lovely, can do no less than seek excellence in music, as in everything else.
As headmaster of a school that stresses academic standards and college preparation in these competitive days, I deplore the imbalance of the curriculum in most of our schools. Music ought to be a major subject like English and mathematics. Yet even with the little time at our disposal, some real exposure to greatness is still possible. At Stony Brook, aside from such activities as the chapel choir (which is one of our most respected extra curricular activities), the usual class in music appreciation, private lessons on various instruments, and a rudimentary band, we try to give all our boys some personal exposure to musical greatness. Each year the whole school of 200 plus the faculty is organized for part singing. Through weekly rehearsals, we learn some great music and sing it at public occasions such as the annual academic convocation or the baccalaureate service. Thus we have learned choruses from The Messiah, a Gloria from one of Mozart’s Masses, some Bach, and this year we are working on a chorus from Haydn’s Creation. It is refreshing to hear adolescent boys humming or singing Mozart or Handel as they walk about the campus. Again, there is regular exposure to music of truth and beauty through daily and Sunday chapel, not only in singing of fine hymns but also through the organ. Concerts for the whole school at which distinguished artists perform fine music are a part of our program. But one speaks of these things with humility, realizing how much more should be done.
The principle remains unchanged, whatever our situation. The key to better things in Christian music is the habitual hearing of greatness in music not only in the day or boarding school, not only in college and Bible institute, but in Sunday School also. For the music that younger children hear exercises a formative influence on their taste. Not even the smallest child may safely be fed a diet of musical trash.
V
Consideration of our subject would be incomplete without a final look at ourselves. The great principle, no Christian education without Christian teachers, applies just as much to the school musician as it does to the academic teacher. No one who does not love music and know it at first hand can teach it with full effectiveness. No teacher of music in a Christian school or college, Bible institute, seminary, or church who is not himself a regenerated person, knowing through commitment of heart and life the living Lord, can teach music as an integral part of God’s truth. Music is a demanding art. To achieve excellence in it requires hard discipline and unremitting work. Yet with all his devotion to it, a Christian musician must keep his priorities clear. God is the source of all talent. When He gives talent, including musical talent, He gives it, not to be made an idol of, but to be used to His glory. You may remember how humbly Haydn summed up his musical life. “I know”, he said, “that God appointed me a task. I acknowledge it with thanks and hope and believe I have done my duty and have been useful to the world.” Music is indeed a great gift; but it is the Giver, not the gift, who must have the first place in the teaching and practice of music in Christian education.
In his own account of his conversion, the church father, Jerome, who made the Latin translation of the Bible, tells of a dream that led to his conversion. He dreamed, he says, that he appeared before the judgment seat of the Judge. Asked who and what he was, he replied, “I am a Christian.” But He who presided said: “Thou liest, thou art a follower of Cicero, not of Christ.” For Jerome was a rhetorician and his consuming interest and first love was his study of Cicero.
So the Christian musician must take care that the art to which he is devoted does not usurp the place that belongs to the Lord alone. He must be a Christian first, which means that everything without exception must be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, who in all things, music among them, must have the preeminence.
FRANK E. GAEBELEIN
The Stony Brook School Headmaster
Stony Brook, New York
Ideas
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Bible characters evidently produce good box office receipts in New York theaters. A couple of playwrights, MacLeish and Chayefsky, have put ancient Job and Gideon on the stage with marked success. Though at many points these stage impersonations may have small resemblance to the old seers, they have drawn good audiences and have gotten large write-ups from the critics.
Some of the latter have noted that in both Gideon and J. B. it is indicated that man has outgrown God morally and is pushing ahead toward perfection, leaving the Most High to His outmoded ethics. In Gideon we have the Lord saying that man has ambitions to be a “proper god,” and admitting that the time might come when he would arrive at that status.
Playwrights alone may not reflect this view, but it can be discovered in some theological quarters. Man isn’t satisfied with the biblical God. This God, somehow, doesn’t come up to man’s high expectations. He isn’t good enough, or intelligent enough. Man must be off on his eager quest for something better—through self-expression, self-approval, and self-glorification. Man is evolving toward loftier levels; and God is stuck in the old rut.
This fierce quest may lend stuff out of which successful plays are made; but it turns out, in the actual movement of history, to be a grim joke. Man’s freedom from the “old” God has not helped him. Morally he doesn’t seem to be improving too much, nor has he gained freedom. Moreover he’s terribly scared. He’s frantically digging holes in the ground to hide in. He is turning caveman in the midst of all his automation.
Patently this would-be god has intellectuality. But what does it get him? He is still a killer. Once, in his ignorance, he killed with spears and arrows; now, with his mighty wisdom, he slays with nuclear thunderbolts. He is a dustbound god, a creator trapped by creature instincts. He has power. He is mightier than Thor with his hammer. His rockets ride their fire-shafts into the heavens. His atomic gadgets cause proud cities to tremble. But he is like the man in the Hebrew proverb who has taken a town, but cannot rule his own spirit.
His evolution into a “proper” godhood has not made him happy. It has made him rather miserable. Catching the news-reports about him and his goings-on, we are tempted to think that he walks in great despair. He appears to have a genius for producing woe, generating fear, and building doom. With all his creativity he seems incapable of making a heaven; all he can make is a hell. Could it be that he is evolving toward evil rather than toward good? Is he becoming a god—or a devil?
It’s rather interesting to look into the first book of the Bible and find Satan promising man that if he broke off with God he himself could become a god! So man made the break. Ever since it seems be has been trying to see that Satan fulfills his pledge. He is not satisfied to be a creature; he must be a creator. He must rise from humanity to deity. And he does not seem aware that the thing that urges him on in his sacrilegious quest is that out of which all evil springs—human pride.
A Judean seer in a Babylonian concentration camp by the Chebar River once delivered a warning to a Tyrian prince: “You are proud of heart, thinking that you are a god, in a god’s seat … when you are no god but a man.” The prince’s godhood is doomed; his days are numbered. Enemies are stirring the dust in invasion. “A violent death shall you die, there by the deep. Will you still say, before your murderer, ‘I am a god? To your murderer you are no god, but a mortal!… Your brilliance depraved your wisdom … your fate is awful, there is no future for you” (Ezek. 28, Moffat).
Long ago it was written on a Christian document that the chief end of man was to glorify God. Have we outgrown Him sufficiently to cancel that ideal? Somewhere we took a wrong turn; we departed from among “the flashing thunderstones.” Perhaps we need another prophet to tell us what the Tyrian ruler was told. For it is ironical that we who have not made a good earth should try to make a heaven.
Man is no nearer godhood than was the top of the Babel-tower to God’s throne. We are not creators now more than when God asked Job out of the whirlwind: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Job 39:4, American Translation). We have got too big for our human destiny. It is better that we take Jesus’ advice and become as children again. We have never given a good performance in the role of God. That way lies night. The act is not only blasphemous, it is ridiculous. All our ambitious histrionics does not even produce comedy; it is cheap slapstick that shall end in cosmic tragedy. We had better ring down the curtain on the brave idiotic farce; there is no future for us in it.
Be Wary Of Federal Loans And Grants To Church Colleges
Two proposals that would provide federal loans for higher education facilities involve church-state issues far more deeply than appears on the surface.
A candid word should be said about Senate Bill 1241, the proposed College Academic Facilities and Scholarship Act, and House Bill 8900, the College Academic Facilities Act. It is quite apparent that both in committee hearings and on the floor Congressmen seem reluctant to investigate and to debate church-state implications of this pending legislation. These bills would authorize a five-year loan program (repayable within 50 years at 3½ per cent interest) to public and private four-year colleges. The Senate bill would provide $1.5 billion in federal loans for public community junior colleges. The House bill offers $600 million in loans to finance up to three-fourths the cost of any eligible project including junior colleges and provides an additional $900 million in matching grants to both public and private colleges (old and new) under a five-year program. The Senate bill would apply to the construction of any academic facilities except buildings involving an admissions charge to the public. The House bill applies to all construction except gymnasiums and recreation facilities, buildings that involve an admissions charge, or those used for sectarian teaching, places of worship, or divinity schools.
It is thought unlikely that a bill providing grants to both church-related and public institutions of higher learning can be pushed through Congress unmodified. But sentiment is being rallied for federal loans to both public and private colleges for buildings supposedly devoted to “nonsectarian” purposes. House Speaker John McCormack does not favor federal grants to denominational colleges, but he thinks federal loans should be made available to Roman Catholic institutions and other denominational colleges. Some Protestants have indicated that no pressures exist in their denominational ranks for such loans, and that they do not regard the non-provision of these loans as discriminatory. Unless it provides too little, the loan proposal will have the support of the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
Three comments should be made at once on this mounting propaganda for federal funds to church related institutions. First: when dealing with a sectarian campus, one can find no valid criteria for distinguishing sectarian aspects (ineligible for federal funds) and nonsectarian aspects (supposedly eligible for federal funds). Even the dormitory of a church-related college cannot be viewed as nonsectarian—unless its erection with federal funds gives those of other religious persuasions access on an equal basis to freely propagate their contrary views. Second: some religious bodies will be delighted to build dormitories and other (supposedly nonsectarian) facilities of their church-related colleges with federal funds provided by the taxpayers. They can then deploy ecclesiastical funds to erect additional buildings more directly related to the indoctrination process. In this way federal funds become an indirect subsidy for sectarian purposes. The third observation is this: since the Constitution makes no distinction between higher and lower education, whatever is constitutional for higher education is therefore constitutional for lower education as well. The more American politicians allow the pressures of sectarian groups to influence their voting in respect to the use of federal funds, the more they will find themselves embarrassed by unhappy precedents.
CHRISTIANITY TODAY has previously stated its concern over the growing intrusion of the government complex into education. Those who brush aside the dangers of enlarging federal control tend to represent that segment of political leadership which is gratified by the growth of big government on the American scene. Such leadership presumably would be unperturbed were this process of the past 30 years to continue its direction and momentum for yet another generation. From this perspective the issue is not merely a Protestant-Catholic issue; spokesmen from both traditions have expressed concern about secular government pressures on education. We are convinced that the best way to cancel the political and religious compromises involved in school legislation is to take the Constitution seriously both in the specific matter of church-state relations and, beyond that, in its wider concerns for limited government.
American educators need be wary of the effect of federal loans bringing the church into involvements with the government over a long period of years. Not only is it possible, but recent history shows that it is probable, that controls not presently existing will be set up over such a period. Abuses of one kind or another provide either the context or the pretext for additionally legislated political controls.
The Twist: A Portent For Western Culture
There seems to be a continuing compulsion on otherwise respectable television shows to call for a demonstration of the Twist, latest dance craze. Done amid guffaws, it reminds us that many a sin is tossed off with a laugh. The dance is well named if it refers to twisted moral and aesthetic standards as well as to physical contortions.
Christianity has often banished pagan lewdness from the streets to have it reenter as a night club import from a far-off jungle. But now television often beams the imports into the home. One TV personality found the Twist reminiscent of a fertility dance. Another noted the serious intensity of participants and the apparent lack of enjoyment.
Apart from physicians’ warnings to those over 40, some observers have somberly spoken of soul sickness and see in the Twist a symptom of our culture crisis. Can it possibly be that in the writhing of the dance one can see reflected a convulsion of Western civilization? Is it yet another warning rumble of Vesuvius? a sign of internal crumbling while the Goths batter at the gates?
Absurd fancies? Such dances are always followed by something worse anyway. And yet, is it true there’s always a last time? There was that movie about the last days of Pompeii.…
Wanted: End To Work And Guaranteed Annual Wage?
The 9,000 electrical workers in New York have long enjoyed a 30-hour workweek and a guarantee of overtime even during a building boom demanding extra helpers. For almost 30 years their six-hour day has been union-blessed.
While President Kennedy and AFL-CIO bosses were communicating about labor’s self-restraint on wages to match industry’s self-restraint on prices, the electrical construction workers demanded a four-hour day. They won a new union contract for a five-hour day, twenty-five-hour week, at almost the same pay as before. The Kennedy administration did not intervene.
Simply stated, the objective was less work and improved pay, a program that could lead, as the New York Herald Tribune commented, “to the point of no hours at all and yet a guaranteed wage.”
The President And Rising Pressures For Special Favors To Catholics
Protestant spokesmen rightly commend the President’s refusal to bow to last year’s demand by the Roman Catholic hierarchy for federal aid to parochial schools. His avoidance of a repetition of President Roosevelt’s ill-advised appointment of a personal representative to the Vatican is also commendable. But the Christian Century’s judgment of his presidential record on church-state separation as “better” than that of “any other President … in the past 30 years” on the basis simply of Mr. Kennedy’s first year in office is starry-eyed.
The national Catholic magazine America complains that Mr. Kennedy has avoided public contacts with Catholic dignitaries and has “bent over backwards” to please Protestants. But we recall that Cardinal Cushing’s inauguration prayer got enough television network mileage to cover a full term’s presidential publicity for the hierarchy!
For the moment we don’t think Mr. Kennedy is genuflecting either forwards or backwards. On the parochial school and Vatican issues he is simply following the church-state course expected of an American president. The firmness of his stand here and on other church-state questions is yet to be tested. One significant test will come, should President Kennedy get a Congress-approved bill providing federal funds to church-related schools. His veto of such a bill would decisively answer those skeptics who regard Mr. Kennedy’s emphasis on the unconstitutionally of federal aid to parochial schools as a temporary political stratagem. Even Catholic critics who charge him with political motivation and lack of courage will then have their answer.
Otto Michel
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The New Testament idea of God’s begetting, which has anticipations in the Qumran sect and in the baptismal movements of the Jordan area, incorporates a familiar Jewish term. John 3:3, 7, for example, speaks of begetting “from above” (thus paraphrasing the name of God which the Jews piously avoided). Christians of the Johannine type believed that thereby the living God himself had entered into history, had encountered man in his innermost being, and had recreated him. This concept, which neither orthodox Jews nor Gnostics could understand, is a unique feature of Christianity.
By repeating the initial word Jesus gives special significance to his statement in John 3:3: “Amen, amen, I say to you; unless one is begotten from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Jesus is here demanding from Nicodemus a thoroughgoing change of life, a “turning around,” as the precondition of seeing the kingdom of God—the very thing that Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, found it difficult to do.
According to John 3:5, a second “amen” word, God’s begetting is effected by water and spirit, that is, by baptism and a true understanding of God. John attaches most weight to the gift of the Spirit which brought enlightenment and understanding.
Mysticism, philosophy and sacramental traditions have always misunderstood the mystery of the Spirit of God, and we should not allow ourselves to be guided by them. Jesus himself shows what is meant, for he is the one who actually possessed the Spirit, was conceived by it, lived in its power, and by it was made perfect. Thus the Johannine proclamation of God’s begetting is exclusively centered in Jesus Christ. John shows how life led by the power of the Spirit is life lived in simple obedience to the word of the Father (John 4:34)—the way of faith, love, righteousness and of turning from evil.
The full implication of the Johannine position is seen when compared with that of the Teacher of Righteousness who had previously established in Qumran a religious community which set itself off sharply against its environment. Here the disciples of Jesus remain in the profane world without being able to protect themselves, but sustained by an invisible reality and by their communion with God. God’s begetting in John is related to the apostolic idea of “re-begetting” which appears in a hellenistic tradition. There is the same emphasis on a new beginning: “Blessed be the God … who … begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet. 1:3; cf. 1:23).
Here apparently is a vivid picture which had its setting in Christian baptism and depicts the salvation which, granted to the Church by the Word, can set the individual and the Church in a new existence. The latter is, however, secondary to the Word and to the salvation which determine it. Easter is now presupposed. The Church is sheltered by its steadfast faith in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
But the Church must not declare the Word and the salvation otherwise than it occurred within the scope of the apostolic tradition. The language may vary, the course of history may require other forms of expressing the proclamation, but the power of the Spirit remains to preserve the historic ground of revelation from false claims and dangerous reconstructions. The preservation of the new existence is at stake. In New Testament times the Church was still neither old nor worldly.
The Pauline conception of salvation as justification presupposes that the sinner is pardoned. With that promise God created a new cosmic situation for mankind. But Paul accepted also the principle: “Therefore, if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation …” (2 Cor. 5:17)—a sentence with a doxological note.
The concept of God’s begetting in the thought of John, however, is the strongest wav to emphasize the spiritual source, power and objective of the Christian status, and to delimit it from other possibilities, for the two opposites—begetting by God and descent from the devil—are possible, and run right through the middle of the Church. The individual’s attitude toward sin determines his position (1 John 3:4–12). Thus the Church is not closed off from the evil one: it must prove itself in and through struggle to be “children of the light.” Thus Johannine thought presupposes a tremendous power within the Church to detach itself from everything contrary to the Spirit of God, not in order to disengage the Church from the world (Bultmann), but to testify to the Spirit of God in the decisions of earthly life.
While justification tends to stress the solidarity of men under the Cross, and to praise exclusively the grace of God, God’s begetting underscores the contrast between spirit and flesh. That finally only God himself can distinguish the “children of light” from the “children of darkness” is basic to the New Testament.
The Development of the Dogmatic Tradition. For Martin Luther the center of the New Testament was justification; upon it the preaching of the Gospel converged; by it was shaped the life of the Church. Rebirth was nothing other than this very justification. In Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus, said Luther, He imposed no new law upon men—his concern was that man should become new.
Fundamentally the various Lutheran creeds rest upon these insights of Luther. It is notable, however, that the Formula of Concord admits another view which extends rebirth beyond justification to include the renewal subsequently worked by the Holy Spirit in those justified by faith. Thus rebirth is conceived as a consequence of justification.
That brings with it the danger of subjectivizing the concept of rebirth until it no longer describes the act of God upon man, but rather what happens in man. The question then rises whether one can take seriously the close relation of rebirth and justification in Titus 3:5 f. Some scholars, considering that the grace in baptism must be something other than the grace in justification, seek a way to reinterpret it sacramentally—a dangerous step dictated by practical exigency, but fraught with difficulty. Even those movements which want to help the Church, such as Pietism, shift the main importance from justification to conversion and rebirth—a shift evident also in the theology of Erlangen.
The creeds of the Reformed church are less troubled by these problems. In them the development of faith in man stood from the beginning more In the center of dogmatic consideration. In view of concern, moreover, to make divine election certain, rebirth helps in the understanding of salvation. Further, the justification of Jesus Christ is imparted to an individual. Thus both rebirth and justification are interdependent corollaries. Methodism, with its insistence on an authentic experience of conversion and rebirth, is nearer to the Reformed than to the Lutheran tradition.
However, in nineteenth-century Lutheranism the question of the assurance of faith took on theological urgency. Upon my answer to the question, Have I been born again?, depends the confidence with which I may call myself a Christian. When doubt assails, says Frank, a man can appeal to the experience of his rebirth. His new “ego” finds assurance within his own self.
Again and again voices have registered their misgivings about subjectivizing faith, and have recalled the Church to the objectivity of God’s saving acts in history. But their concept of objectivity often hurried too quickly over unrest arising from re-thought of theological statements, from scientific and philosophical knowledge, and from life’s own problems with faith, and is to be regarded with as much reservation as the struggle of pious people for subjective assurance.
In the apostolic message God’s begetting, rebirth and the new creation were referred hack to a “turning around” and to the gift of the Spirit of God. But these doctrines were largely left out of consideration in the development of dogmatic theology and of church history. Fear of enthusiastic fanaticism was a restraining factor from the outset of the Reformation, and only after revival movements accentuating conversion and the gift of the Holy Spirit let a new sense of reality break forth, were these decisive concepts of the Bible grasped anew.
J. T. Beck of Tubingen renewed interest in such biblical concepts as repentance, conversion, rebirth and justification. He stressed the new creation of man, and spoke of reception of and begetting by the Spirit. A man does not get a new soul in rebirth; his soul is recreated by the Spirit. Philosophical motives dominated for the most part in Beck’s day, but he relied on the Bible and tried to relate its individual themes to the total picture. He knew that a coherent view of biblical grace was represented in every biblical concept.
Emil Brunner, of the dialectical theology school, emphasizes that the picture of the new creation can be understood only in terms of revelation and of faith. Of himself man suffers from “sickness unto death” (Kierkegaard). Sinful nature leads to despair, but sin and despair are in the last analysis the same, for we suffer from an inner contradiction which none but the Creator can overcome.
The different views of Protestant theologians show the confusion of method in which we find ourselves. We see fundamentally that only where biblical statements are acknowledged is rebirth given earnest consideration. Reformation theology has tended to push justification into the foreground and to append rebirth to it, but this distracts from the significance of Johannine theology which speaks deliberately and insistently of God’s begetting. Seldom is the revolutionary power in the contradiction between spirit and flesh, between child of God and child of the devil, even taken seriously.
We should have the courage to separate justification and God’s begetting, as they originally were, and to let each achieve its full significance apart from the other. Their forced and false association has hurt both.
New Reflection of the Present. Rabbinical-Jewish existence is represented by instruction, law and circumcision; primitive-Christian and Johannine existence, on the other hand, was characterized by the action of the Word at the end of time which disclosed itself in “water and spirit.
While justification puts grace and forgiveness in the foreground, the connection of water and spirit expresses the power of God which penetrates into this world of conflicting forces. That occurred primarily in Jesus himself who was declared by the voice of God to be begotten of God (cf. Ps. 2:7; Mark 1:11). Jesus’ begetting by God sustained his life and constituted his messianic mission. The begotten one of God represented the concealed and future Messiah of Israel. For us also, to be called of Jesus assigns us a destiny which we must lay hold of and follow through.
In the process the individual is not left to himself and not merely referred back to the word of the Law of Israel, but is put under the impact of the Word which occurred in the fullness of times.
Of course, God’s begetting makes a historical start. It may pass through the most varied crises and be threatened with death. Yet it is empowered and sustained of God so that it can penetrate through weakness and defeat and everything that would hinder or obstruct its way.
The difficulty within theology lies in the fact that with rebirth one tends to concentrate upon the arrival of life, when the New Testament speaks of the Holy Spirit as the power of God which must make its way. The doctrine of justification cannot, therefore, substitute for the tradition of God’s begetting, but the relation is one of healthy tension rather than of contradiction.
Unfortunately the Christian church has lost the sense of God’s begetting in favor of rebirth as an experience happening arbitrarily and psychologically: that misunderstands the major stress in the biblical concept. Perhaps the idea of sexuality connected with begetting is offensive to many a person, but this is an essential element of the Bible—it takes us back as nothing else can to the ground and process of life.
The concept of God’s begetting stands as a radical rejection of every philosophical devaluation of the idea of God. God creates and effects reality, is not that reality itself, nor is he subordinated to it, as existential theology affirms (Tillich, Fuchs). We should not capitulate to such theology which subordinates the message of the Bible to philosophical theories, but rather examine existential contentions in terms of the Bible.
The Johannine statements concerning God’s begetting are intended to make us as Christians strong over against all that is natural and worldly, and that does not submit itself to the claim of God. They are intended to enlighten us in opposition to those theological streams which no longer live from God, but direct their attention to the existence of pious or impious men. For God is the actual center of theology, upon whom everything depends. He is not a term for that which lies beyond human limitations, or a description of human transcendence (Bultmann).
Here we reach the sorest point in the whole of the present discussion, and one which inevitably confronts us with the question, Do we still believe in a creating and begetting God?
Bibliography: O. Michel, “Von GottGezeugt,” in Festschrift für Joachim Jeremias; K. Barth, Die Lehre von der Versöhnung (Die Kirchliche Dogmatik, IV); J. T. Beck, Vorlesungen über christliche Ethik, I; E. Brunner, Die christliche Lehre von der Kirche vom Glauben und von der Vollendung (Dogmatic, III).
Professor of New Testament
University of Tubingen
Germany
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There is a song, no longer popular, which is titled “Count Your Many Blessings.” It expresses the riches of grace in Jesus Christ, something often forgotten by Christians, who should ponder and give thanks for this blessed gift.
Some time during each year business firms take inventory. Let each Christian begin every day thinking of some of the blessings God has showered upon him, and thanking Him for them, and the entire day can be changed for good.
What are some of the fixed assets of the Christian, real but not always recognized? Constant but often not appropriated? Available but not used?
It is impossible to name these things in a fixed sequence for they are gems of many facets, composite entities consisting of, permeated by, and emanating from Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, the captain of our salvation, the One who is altogether lovely and to be loved.
Certainly we thank God first of all for his Son, the revealer of the Father. We are told that he is the “heir of all things, by whom also he [God] made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, … upholding all things by the word of his power.”
Through faith this Christ is ours, and by him we have become sons of God, members of the household of faith. Our family status has been changed for we are now heirs of God and joint heirs with his Son. Our destination has been changed for once we were without God and without hope but now we know that we have eternal life.
All of these are a part of the Christian’s assets and they are reason for praise to well up in our hearts for the One who has given us all things freely to enjoy. “All this and Heaven too” is more than a trite saying—it is a fact.
Not only do we know God through the revelation of His Son but we have this knowledge and appropriate its blessings through the presence and help of the Holy Spirit.
Our supreme asset therefore is God the Father; His Son, our Saviour; and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter who dwells in our hearts and interprets the things of Christ to us.
The inventory of God’s blessings is so great that it can never be understood in full, much less exhausted. But two assets, open and free to all, are the open Bible and the privilege and power of prayer.
It is through the Bible that we learn spiritual truths to be found in no other place. Only through the Scriptures do we know those intimate details of Christ, His Person and His work. In this connection we must carefully guard this revelation having to do with our Lord lest we be led to follow a false Christ, not the one revealed in His Word.
The Bible is an inexhaustible mine of knowledge, inspiration and blessing. Let it speak to us through its Author, the Holy Spirit, and it becomes a Living Book, relevant to our every need, a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.
The inexhaustible blessings of the Bible are ours to appropriate. Its truths are like gold to be mined, gems to be polished. True wisdom flows from its pages and only in this book is to be found the true perspective of life and death, this world and the next, sin and righteousness, Satan’s malignant work and God’s redemptive love.
Another asset of the Christian is security for now and for eternity. Many do not realize it but even economic security is promised to those who put the Kingdom of God and his righteousness first. Then there is the glorious security which the children of God enjoy—we have eternal life right now and all the demons of hell cannot take this blessed fact from us. We know whose we are, where we stand, and where we are going.
Too few of us have ever learned the grace of thanksgiving as we should. We leave it to some of our supposedly more emotional brethren to shout, “Hallelujah” or “Praise the Lord,” but such should be the attitude of all of our hearts, whether expressed vocally or not.
Companionship is an asset of the Christian, for the living Christ dwells in his heart and the attitude of constant communication should be practiced and enjoyed.
From this relationship there comes the untold privilege of guidance. It is not for nought that the writer of the Proverbs tells us that if we acknowledge God in all of our ways he will direct our paths. We who are Christians have as our Father the God of the past, the present and the future; the God of human history and the God of eternity. That we can turn with confidence to this One who is omnipotent and omniscient, and have Him take over and guide us, is an asset so precious that the very thought of it should thrill us.
Prayer. God has placed in the hands of his children a privilege and a power none of us fully realizes. The Christian can come into the presence of the Sovereign God in and through the name of His Son, and when praying in accordance with His holy will, move the mountains of difficulty, open up the floodgates of blessing and change the course of events in his own life and in the lives of those for whom he prays.
Prayer is probably the Christian’s most neglected asset, for by it we release the power of God himself. It is also a privilege which we may exercise at any time and under any circumstances. Often it is a request for immediate guidance, or it may be offered on behalf of the problems of others.
Proceeding from these assets are other blessings for which we should render thanks to God. The comfort of knowing we are His; the privilege of asking for the wisdom He is so anxious and willing to impart; these and many other things combine to bring us joy and peace.
Who but the Christian can thank God for trials, difficulties and adversities? These disciplines are filled with blessings for His children.
Let a Christian ponder his divinely provided assets and he stands amazed at the love and grace of God. This very love constrains him to pass on the good news to others. Witnessing becomes the imperative of a heart filled to overflowing with a knowledge of what God has done, and continues to do, for those who believe and love.
Only the Christian has salvation, peace in his heart, God’s presence now and assured hope for the future.
Only the Christian can understand the things of the Spirit, whether he speaks through the written Word or the multiplied circumstances of life.
Only the Christian can say to his neighbor, “Let me help you,” and do so with the love of Christ in his heart and the soul’s welfare in view.
Only the Christian can undertake to live for the glory of God and for the advancement of His Kingdom.
Assets? Yes, assets unlimited!
Front And Center
DANGER ON THE LEFT—The real danger to our country in these days of crisis does not come from the right side of the political spectrum, but from a direction more closely aligned with Communist objectives. It does not come from military commanders … who want to make sure their troops and the American people are informed of the true nature of our enemy, but from forces which would deny such instruction. It does not come from patriotic Americans who wish to remain vigilant to the threat of internal Communism and to socialist trends, but from people who would blunt that vigilance.—Senator BARRY GOLDWATER, in The Saturday Evening Post, Jan. 20, 1962.
THE TRUTH ABOUT COMMUNISM—Telling the stark truth about Communism is the best way to make our own citizenry and other peoples appreciate the blessings of liberty. We should encourage all individuals who are well informed on Communist tactics and strategy to expound freely and often on this subject.… Unless the Nation’s leaders move with wisdom and restraint the fanatics of both the right and left so belabor each other as almost to monopolize the issue, leading the Nation to preoccupy itself with the evils of extremists instead of the evils of communism.… In a half century of national service I have yet to meet the American military officer who viewed himself as a budding Napoleon, or even a Rasputin, and I suggest it is worthy of note that in recent world history the three major dictators, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, came from civil life.—Former President DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER.
THE FINAL ARBITER—We are tired of hearing prominent ecclestiastics talking like superannuated members of the French Foreign Legion; we are dismayed to find that in the minds of most Christians the State, and not the Church, has become the final arbiter of public morality.—RICHARD HOLLOWAY, in a letter to The Observer, London.
THE CHURCH AND COMMUNISM-If the Christian Church is not to fight communism, then who on earth is left to resist this evil which is determined to destroy all virtue, decency, thrift, love, friendship and the dignity of the individual?—Senator BARRY GOLDWATER, quoted in The Los Angeles Times.
THE DEEPENING DARKNESS—It would be a travesty of the truth to suggest that the darkness which broods over human life in this country of ours, the darkness which results from rejecting the light, is any less than the darkness of ignorance which broods over India and the other so-called non-Christian lands—The Right Rev. FALKNER ALLISON, after his recent enthronement as Bishop of Winchester, England.
WHAT A RESOLUTION CAN DO—New Delhi added a whole new dimension to the ecumenical movement-mission. This came with the integration of the International Missionary Conference and the World Council.…—President JAMES I. MCCORD of Princeton Seminary, in The Seminarian.
MINISTERS AND PRIME MINISTERS—Ministers, even Prime Ministers, are happily but transient figures, like phantoms they flit across the stage and, with few exceptions, are soon forgotten.—Prime Minister HAROLD MACMILLAN in a talk to Commonwealth Parliamentary delegates.
PROGRESSIVE REVELATION—The Church of England does not claim to be infallible, and it may err. But it does believe in progressive revelation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.… We are prepared tentatively to express the opinion that there are circumstances in which an operation for sterilization may be legally employed.—Report of Church Assembly committee.
CHRISTIANITY IN GOA-Much has been said about Portugal remaining in Goa to protect Christianity. But Christians in India, Roman Catholics and Protestants alike, indignantly repudiate that claim. The government of India guarantees full religious liberty. The Portuguese regime allowed no liberty to non-Roman Catholic Christians to build churches or undertake missionary work.—Methodist Bishop J. WASKOM PICKETT, veteran missionary to India.
RED SPY PLANES—The crash of a Russian-built Communist Bulgarian spy plane in Italy after taking photographs of a secret North Atlantic Treaty Organization base should surprise no one. But it exposes for what it really is all the phony moralizing that has gone on both east and west of the Iron Curtain since the U-2 incident of May, 1960. Every nation of military substance spies on its real and potential enemies in war and in peace.… The U-2 incident was used by Khrushchev as a pretext for breaking up the 1960 Summit meting and was the focal point of worldwide criticism of the United States. The Red spy-in-the-sky incident is conclusive proof, if such proof is needed, that the only crime of the United States was the ineptitude with which the U-2 matter was handled after Francis Gary Powers was shot down in Russia.—The Telegram, Toronto, in an editorial titled, “You Too, Mr. K!”
RELIGION IN THE SCHOOLS—I don’t think you can separate goodness and badness from teaching and have it make sense. But if it is our intention to keep God out of the schools, then keep those atheist professors from promoting their godless religion too.—PAUL HARVEY, in the St. Petersburg (Florida) Evening Independent.
THE STATE AND GAMBLING—The only wise government attitude toward gambling is one of hostility. Licensed or unlicensed gambling exerts a corrupting influence upon everything it touches. It corrupts those engaged in it commercially. It corrupts those who are supposed to regulate it. It corrupts the public itself by spreading, like an infection, the passion to get something for nothing. Perhaps the State cannot stop it altogether; but at least it does not have to join the gamblers in a conspiracy to subvert citizens and government alike.—The Washington Post, January 16, 1962, in an editorial commenting on New York’s bingo law.
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Conversation
Thank you for the transcript of the air-home conversation of Drs. Henry, Wirt, and Wilson (Jan. 19 issue). I am fascinated at the picture of these busy men settling down with a tape recorder for a good, old-fashioned chat. To be sure, they settled down at a supersonic speed, but that is the minor accommodation to our age. People used to sit and talk around firesides. Now they can sit and talk around the world. You have blazed a contrail for conversation.
As a matter of fact, I belong to a conversational circle too. We haven’t tried a tape recorder yet; I’m afraid of a short circuit. Our group is called the Society of Ageing Killjoys (SOAK) and we meet weekly, after prayer meeting, in the YMCA pool. We have a corner at the shallow end that is most conducive to quiet reflection.
It isn’t the place that is important. In the startosphere or at pool level, what counts is concentration on the lost art of conversation. We must recapture the atmosphere of the ancient Hebrew Sod. Ludwig Kohler described it in his book, Hebrew Man. In the evening, while the women washed the dinner pots, the men would gather in their circle. The Sod was informal, but the elders sat in the center and the teen-age boys listened respectfully on the outskirts. Conversation ranged over the past day and back to the beginnings of creation and redemption. It stretched forward to the plans of tomorrow and beyond to the hope of the ages.
Songs were sung; great events recalled. At times a proverb would be interjected, or a riddle propounded. Someone might begin: “The door turns upon its hinges,” and another respond, “And the sluggard upon his bed.” Humor had its place: “He that blesses his friend in a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him!”
The key to good Sod conversation is not leisure, or The New York Times, or Dale Carnegie training. There are two requirements: respect and wisdom. The first makes a man a good listener, the second a good speaker. Conversation is a Christian art.
Our poolside Sod lacks the polish of the flying doctors. But we mean to keep talking—and venture toward the deep end.
EUTYCHUS
Distinction Is Pre-Barth
May I express … appreciation for “Barth’s Critique of Modernism” (Jan. 5 issue)?
Then may I add a word to the discussion on Barth’s use of Geschichte and Histone. In my opinion, this distinction is not original with Barth but is part of the German language. For example, in 1892 Prof. Martin Kaehler published his Der sogenannte historische Jesu und der geschichtliche biblische Christus, or the so-called historical Jesus (that is, the Jesus of the positivist historians) and the actual biblical Christ of historical events. The word Historie is of Greek origin and means inquiry, learning by research, narrating what one has learned, and thus brings in the subjective point of view of the historian who institutes the inquiry and narrates his results. Geschichte seems to be of German origin and refers to events, things that have objectively occurred.
In Philip Schalf’s History of the Christian Church, vol. 1, p. 2 f., we seem to have the same distinction.… And this was in 1890 according to my third edition, that is, long before Barth began to stir the theological world.
WILLIAM CHILDS ROBINSON
Professor of Historical Theology
Columbia Theological Seminary
Decatur, Ga.
Room For Pious Opinion
In the article “Evangelicals and Anglo-Catholics” (Jan. 5 issue), Fr. Read makes the statement: “… it is the basic Anglican position that nothing is to be held or taught except what is believed to be ‘concluded and proved by the Scriptures.’” Page 542 of the Book of Common Prayer is quoted to support this statement.…
Fr. Read’s unwarranted conclusion is drawn from a question the bishop asks of the person to be ordered priest: “Are you persuaded that the Holy Scriptures contain all Doctrine required as necessary for eternal salvation through faith in Jesus Christ? And are you determined, out of the said Scriptures to instruct the people committed to your charge; and to teach nothing, as necessary to eternal salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scripture?”
I submit that there are serious differences between “… nothing is to be held or taught …” as interpreted by Fr. Read, and “… to teach nothing, as necessary to eternal salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by Scripture?”
In several places the Anglican Communion makes clear its belief that nothing may be taught as necessary to salvation except what can be proved by Scripture. However, there is clearly room left for pious opinion and speculation and for the difficulties and blessings of the personal, since the bishop’s question is “… that which you shall be persuaded.…”
CHARLES I. KRATZ, JR.
St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church
Baltimore, Md.
At Sea Of Reeds: Mystery
I am very glad that Professor Muilenburg insists that Israel was truly chosen by God to be his people (Eutychus, Feb. 2 issue), and I apologize to him if I misrepresented his position in this respect. The conclusions in my review were based upon the following statements in his book, “If one is tempted to raise the legitimate and necessary question, ‘What was it that happened at the Sea of Reeds?’ then there is the equivocal answer that the historian is forced to give because he really does not know. There is also the answer that faith gives: ‘Our God delivered us from bondage.’”
To me, this shows the influence of Kant’s distinction between the noumenal and the phenomenal.
EDWARD J. YOUNG
Westminster Theological Seminary
Philadelphia, Pa.
Boston Bookies: Unbanned
One item (“The Bookies of Boston,” News, Dec. 22 issue) reminded me again that there are matters of greater consequence challenging the Christian church today than interfaith relations.…
I firmly believe that if America goes down, it will not be under the impact of megaton missiles, but due to the final collapse of that inner moral structure that makes a nation great.…
There should be no mistaking what is at stake. William Blake (Auguries of Innocence) knew; so should we:
The whore and gambler, by the state
Licensed, build that nation’s fate.
The harlot’s cry from street to street
Shall weave Old England’s winding sheet.
The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,
Dance before dead England’s hearse.
RAYMOND B. WILBUR
First Congregational Church
Brewer, Me.
Liberal Label Liable To Libel
“Evangelicals and the Right-Wing Renascence” (News, Dec. 22 issue) carried some weak features along with its rather timid critique of the extreme right-wing anti-communist movements. May an otherwise appreciative reader voice his dissent?
The first weakness of the piece was its undiscriminating use of the term “liberal.” … I found it strange that a writer who rebuked “liberal” news reporters for “lumping all (conservatives) under the same umbrella and assigning them a common identification” failed to suggest that there may be responsible as well as irresponsible liberals. Would it not be useful if a responsible journal such as CHRISTIANITY TODAY junked labels once and for all?
A second weakness was the article’s implicit assumption that “responsible evangelicals” are naturally anti-liberal, whatever the term “liberal” may mean. It may be true that evangelical conservatives, for a variety of reasons, do tend toward political conservatism. But I do not believe that an evangelical commitment logically or necessarily involves a given political conviction. In this regard, I am delighted when you speak courageously and clearly on the specific issues confronting our society, but I would prefer that you speak to me rather than pretending to speak for me.…
LEWIS B. SMEDES
Professor of Bible
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, Mich.
• Language has shortcomings, and we note that even reader Smedes is obliged to toss about a few “labels.”—ED.
CHRISTIANITY TODAY must realize that any group (repeat: any group) which effectively and resultfully opposes Marxist infiltration in America is marked for destruction by the left-wingers. The Left recognizes no “moderate”; to them, all opposition represents a danger and must be destroyed. No matter how circumspect your walk, no matter how correct your procedure, or how impeccably documented your accusations, you are a target for Marxist calumniation if they judge that you are jeopardizing their subversive plans.…
G. WEISS
Sea Cliff, N. Y.
Your recent article and comments on the New Delhi meeting (Dec. 22 issue) puzzled me. I must confess myself a liberal, but one who is unalterably an evangelical.…
These names … we apply to one another are often invidious.… How I wish we could all quit carping at one another, and see that we have our shortcomings regardless of our theological positions, and help and pray for one another in Christian brotherhood.
HENRY H. ROWLAND
Berkeley Springs, W. Va.
Prophetic Porter
W. Edwin Collier of Philadelphia (Eutychus, Dec. 22 issue) is correct. A. P. Herbert, the English M.P. did try to disassociate Dr. Buchman’s Oxford Group from Oxford University without success. It seems the English courts didn’t follow Herbert’s (and Collier’s) line of reasoning; so the international legal name today remains The Oxford Group, Moral ReArmament, MRA, Incorporated.
Oxford Group was the name casually scawled by the South African pullman porter to identify the railroad car carrying the “group from Oxford” in 1929.
ROBERT W. YOUNG
North Presbyterian Church
Pittsburgh, Pa.
How High The Wall?
How high should the wall be which separates the “state” from the “church”?… If, as all our leading churchmen admit to be true, our land is blighted with statism, materialism, and nihilism, is it not the result of the novel American “state” system of education of the last thirty-five years? (it being held in mind that we are the only land, apart from Russia, where state education taboos the basic principles of righteousness as espoused by the “church.”) How much longer will our people remain blind?…
I would seek to change at the earliest possible moment every so-called Protestant educational building into a five-day-in-the-week actual school.…
There are enough such buildings in our churches … to care for every child in every Protestant home without spending one cent more for buildings.… This multi-billion dollar investment is not being used more than thirty minutes per week.
G. A. WOODS
Vidor, Texas
No Pharisee He
Judging from the article captioned “Clergy Dispute Value of Religious Statistics” (News, Jan. 5 issue), the customary thing is to belittle the work of faster-growing denominations by claiming their work is superficial while that of the non-growing or slow-growing bodies is more thorough and genuine. I have heard pastors in my own denomination make that claim in comparing our work with that of the Southern Baptists. This sort of thing reminds me of the Pharisee … who thanked God he was not like other men for he thought himself better than they. “Go ahead, Southern Baptists and Lutherans,” I say; “Make up by your success for the failures of the rest of us.”
FREDERIC I. DREXLER
Mill Valley, Calif.
Theology And Worship
Your report on a recent poll of America’s favorite hymns causes me some distress (News, Dec. 22 issue). The top six mentioned include only two or three worthy hymns. Taken as a whole the list presents a picture of sentimentality and overemphasis on human experience.
It is a paradox that gushy, egocentric hymns seem more popular among the theologically conservative than among the liberals, whose theology would be more in keeping with this froth.
The same situation prevails in the visual arts. How many evangelical churches are decorated with sentimental portraits of some effeminate young man who is supposed to look like Jesus?
All this seems to indicate that many Christians, conservative in their creedal affirmations, have let their imaginations and emotions be captured by the equivalent of nineteenth-century liberalism.
HOWARD WALL
Buckingham, Va.
Footnote On Lambarene
I note the review of Bowie’s book (lead review, Jan. 5 issue), in which is mentioned the learned theologian’s treatment of Schweitzer.
One word of caution: … Schweitzer has said, “In the earliest Christian period writings were allowed to appear bearing quite falsely the names of apostles.” … And elsewhere: “His (Christ’s) announcement was shown to be wrong.”
Erroneous Messiahs and unauthentic books should not be too highly recommended, should they?
LEROY V. CLEVELAND
Westminster Congregational Church
Canterbury, Conn.
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We have long looked upon the minister as a priest, prophet, a teacher, counselor, and even a business administrator. Each generation has added to his duties, and the end is not yet. His work becomes more fatiguing as it becomes more complex; and small wonder it is that we read of an occasional breakdown.
But seldom has anyone ever viewed the minister as artist, either in his work or in his life. He is too busy raising money, counseling the distressed, serving as chairman of the community fund, or preoccupied with denominational matters. Yet precisely in this area is he the weakest and needs to do the most thinking.
The purpose of this article is to consider him as artist in both sermon preparation and delivery: areas in which he certainly needs improvement.
The word artist comes from the Latin ars artis, meaning: “to join, to fit together.” Art may be partially defined as “creative work generally, or its principles; making or doing of things that have form and beauty.” And an artist may be thought of as “a person who does anything very well, with a feeling for form and effect.” Though only partial definitions, they do provide something for the minister to think about as he prepares his sermons. Seminaries do not adequately provide one thing a minister badly needs, namely, training in standing in front of a congregation and delivering the Word of God in an effective manner. Most sermons are shallow, confused, like the babbling brook that wanders willy-nilly where the land leads. Stories, illustrations, and irrelevant thoughts are all thrown together without sense of direction.
Were a carpenter to demonstrate the same skill in erecting a house that some ministers do in preparing their sermons, he would be fired after building his first birdcage. But because the need for ministers is great and churches are not demanding, he goes on year after year—a workman who needeth to be ashamed.
I should like to present the minister, therefore, as artist first in the matter of sermon preparation, although perhaps in time he will want to make his whole life possessed of “form and beauty.” This is the ideal.
The Minister As Architect
A minister engaged in any kind of building program must learn to read a blueprint. An architect lays the basic plans, but the minister needs to know and understand these drawings in which there seem to be hundreds of meaningless lines and numbers, figures and letters that go in all directions. Only after the building is finished does he begin to realize that not even a nail is driven which is not anticipated in the blueprint. In the greatest cathedral one small brick out of place will mar the total effect. Many errors will cause it to tumble down in ruins. It is beautiful and enduring, because someone planned it that way. Someone had a vision, another put it on paper, and others caused it to assume reality. Weakness or error anywhere would have the effect of distorting the entire edifice.
If only the minister could and would use some of this technique in sermon preparation! First, he would visualize the kind of structure he wishes to build, whether the emphasis be placed on beauty or utility, largeness or smallness, or whether it is to be used primarily by young people or old. A great building used for the wrong purposes can be destructive. A great sermon addressed to the wrong people can be futile. The kind of building, therefore, and its purpose, should be uppermost in the minister’s mind as he sits down to prepare his Sunday sermon.
He needs to consider his materials according to proportion—the story, quotation, parable, illustration, and sublime and holy thought. He needs to consider the foundation, girder, lights, and windows. None of these in itself is good or bad, effective or ineffective, except as it contributes to the desired goal.
Certainly a minister demands the best of his architect and builder, and will condemn with the heart of a muleskinner any deflection from duty. But he can throw together weak, irrelevant, and incompetent sermon material without prior planning. Instead of blueprinting his thoughts and then ordering his material, he amasses words from every copybook he can lay hands on, and then hopelessly tries to prepare a sermon. Wood is nailed to brick, windows are upside down, plumbing runs in all directions. It is a chamber of horrors. Small wonder that it collapses at the first breath of criticism uttered by a thoughtful layman.
As the builder must blend the various parts that a spectator sees only as a whole, so the minister must plan every brick and bolt and bring them together in such a way that one sees only the beauty of the finished product. This is difficult; it demands a price—about the same price demanded of an architect as he approaches his task. Should the minister demand any less of himself than of his workmen?
The Minister As Sculptor
No sermon can fulfill its obligation unless it has a solid core of quality material—of deep and abiding thought. Not the verbal froth that vanishes instantly; not the irrelevant humor which brings a smile but leaves a frown; not the witty saying which may be remembered to the detriment of a great and important idea.
A sermon is nothing without deep and abiding thought. No longer will the intelligent, educated, experienced church member of our age accept the disjointed half-truths, the bland assertions, the unsupported statements so characteristic of sermons of an earlier day, and, unhappily, so prevalent today. Today, the minister must appeal to reason as well as to emotion, and he must show himself as ruthless with his ideas as the sculptor with his hammer and chisel.
Gutzon Borglum was the sculptor who created the four Presidents at Mt. Rushmore. Massive, yet beautiful, they grip the heart and imagination of every viewer. When praised for his work, Mr. Borglum replied: “The heads were there all the time; all I did was chisel away the irrelevant.”
Let the minister remember these words. He needs a heavy hammer and a sharp chisel to trim away the irrelevant, the irreverent, and the immaterial. It may be a clever idea, but if it contributes nothing to the finished product, it must be chiseled away.
The Minister As Musician
Music is the heartbeat of the universe. It reaches into the outer ramparts of eternity where time and space are nonexistent; it touches the stars and is reflected in the beauty of the galaxy. It is exemplified in the mathematical precision found in the largest star and the tiniest molecule.
Music is emotional. It touches the heart and creates a response within the listener without his being aware of the technique.
The minister must have music in his soul, a sense of rhythm and of beauty. He must be able to reach to the heart of his congregation, and this goes beyond mere intellect. Ministers have simply failed to come to terms with emotion in their preaching. They are either afraid of it or scornful of it. Both attitudes are wrong. A religion without emotion is not religion; a religion that fails to touch the heart is not religion.
Ministers tend to extremes. Either “hearts and flowers” all the way—weepy, even soapy—or cold in tellect that bounces off the heart. Through story, illustration, and parable, the minister can play upon the heartstrings of his listener, and lift him out of the humdrum of life to the dawn of a new day.
The Minister As Painter
It may seem strange to regard a minister as painter, yet he is just that—or he fails in his responsibility, at least so far as sermon preparation is concerned. Here his artistic training and experience must shine forth if he is to truly reach his congregation.
The painter first discovers or visualizes a scene: a sunset over the desert, a child at play, a church spire seen against a cloudless sky, a mother’s smile, a home’s front door. Whatever it is, he knows precisely what it is he wishes to capture. Everything is focused on the central theme. All that will enhance it is placed in proper proportion; all that is extraneous will be left out. A mother’s smile, for instance, would be lost in the woods or at the zoo. Proportion is the key word.
So with a minister and his sermon. He first discovers or visualizes a scene. It may be Paul on the road to Damascus, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, the Resurrection. It may be Forgiveness, Mercy, or Love. Whatever it is, all his preparation, his every thought and word, his research, his imagery and illustration must be directed toward this goal. All extraneous things must be left out no matter how interesting.
Obviously both painter and minister must have the proper materials with which to work: the painter—sunset, cloud, earth, tree, bird, home; the minister—Scripture, theme, illustration, parable, story.
Each must rigidly limit his material. The painter cannot encompass the whole universe, or even try. It may be only an insect on a flower, or a smudge on a child’s face. The artist knows just what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. Better to have a leaf well done than the whole woods poorly accomplished.
So the minister visualizes his theme. It may be Faith or Hope; it may be sacrifice for the common good, or trust in the hour of suffering. A minister cannot embrace the entire Christian faith in every sermon. It is fatal to try. Better to take one small facet, one verse (such as “therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new”). Perhaps just two words: “Jesus wept.” A single scene: Jesus in the Garden.
Each sermon should contain something of purest beauty. Most ministers may regard the purple passages as old fashioned; they shy away from beautiful phrases or exultant sentences. Such is our harsh and utilitarian world. But I think there is still room for them occasionally. We need passages which, by their beauty alone, will lift people out of the humdrum, the routine, the ordinary, and carry them on to the hills from which they may gain entrance into the Kingdom of heaven.
The Minister As Dramatist
There is no more difficult form in which to write than the drama; ask any vanquished Broadway playwright! A thousand fail where one succeeds. Yet we keep trying; we must.
A drama is a symphony of words and people. It is a painting with actors instead of colors. It is a statue into which has been breathed the breath of life. The play is a slice of life—honest, real, vital.
Can the minister measure up? Can he demand of himself the same training and skill required of the dramatist? Will the Church be as critical of the minister as the reviewer the play? It might be hard on him for a while, but he would ultimately become a better preacher, or he would retire to the farm.
Can the minister measure up? He can and will if he makes the proper use of his material. Certainly his subject is sufficient. It is there ready to be used; he needs only the self-discipline required to bring it alive.
Think, for instance, of Ruth and Naomi: whither thou goest I will go. Of Gideon with his trumpets and torches and vases. Of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Of Luke’s story of the birth of Christ.
Yes, the drama is there in all its wonder and glory, but few ministers are able to lift the events out of the pages of Holy Writ so that they will live again in the hearts of the people. So much of beauty, yet so few people see the reality of their faith. This is the minister’s responsibility: to translate words and events into the living reality of Faith.
Obviously, the minister should study the basic principles of the drama; a good course in playwriting would be as helpful as one in homiletics. He should know much of the Prologue and Epilogue, of character development and costuming. He should understand the creating of a scene, the denouement. A sermon has a climax even as a play. Does the minister appreciate this?
The congregation must not only hear the sermon; they must be able to see it, feel it. Their hearts must be lifted, their lives transformed.
Too many ministers fail utterly, not apprehending that the ground on which they walk is holy ground. When the minister walks into the chancel on Sunday morning, it should be with the same devotion to his calling, aye, more so, as the writer and actor.
Some will accuse me of placing technique above inspiration, of denying the power of the Holy Spirit. Nothing could be further from my aim. The minister is first, last, and always God’s man. Apart from God, he is sounding brass and tinkling cymbal.
But the minister must also be a skilled craftsman. He must understand the principles and techniques of the craft through which he seeks expression. The minister is an artist as he stands in the pulpit, or he fails to make the most of his opportunity.
Ministers seem to have lost the art of what might be called magnificent persuasion. Some do not think it important, apparently, that people be stirred deeply. Or they are not willing to pay the price of preparation. Or they simply do not understand the principles of their craft.
To be sure, the minister will always be priest and prophet; teacher, counselor and business administrator. Let us add to his varied career one more category that will bring him the most personal satisfaction, as well as the greatest achievement. Let him be an artist as he stands in the pulpit. Surely God has the right to expect the best of his spokesmen. Surely, the One who created the universe—the trees and flowers in all their beauty—would expect the minister to follow this splendid example. There is much of the artist in God’s wonderful world. The same should be found in the minister as he brings to his people the story of God’s love.
Christianity TodayFebruary 16, 1962
WILLIAM W. JELLEMA1William W. Jellema is a member of the faculty of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Michigan. He holds the Ph.D. degree from University of Edinburgh. Prior to his new appointment he taught in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Alma College, Michigan.
Almost everyone in our American colleges claims to be either a Protestant, a Roman Catholic, or a Jew. Professed adherence to one of these groups now seems to be part of the American way of life. To accept such religious nomenclature may have little to do with one’s morals, however, and nothing at all to do with one’s religion.
Two gods govern the lives of most dormitory denizens on our campuses. Since their names are not recorded in either the Old or the New Testament (although in Bible times they may have masqueraded under other names) neither appears to be the Deity of Christianity or Judaism. Yet from those gods issue the commandments which regulate many moderns both on and off the college campus.
The first god is The Crowd, its religion, that of conformity. From the brand of lotion for our sunburn to the salve recommended for conscience, we are urged to conform, to be like, to be just like, everyone else. Even worse, to be like everyone else simply for the sake of being like everyone else. No matter where the crowd stands or why it stands there, the important thing is to stand with the crowd, to become part of the standing army because the army is standing.
Cult Of Conformity
In his book, The Lonely Crowd, David Riesman pictures the adherents of what might be called the “Cult of Conformity” as having built-in radar sets which constantly swivel to pick up opinion signals from the crowd. Their radar mechanism senses subtle shifts of thought to which the conformists quickly adjust. According to Riesman, the old rhyme
This little piggy went to market
This little piggy stayed home
This little piggy had roast beef
This little piggy had none
This little piggy went “wee, wee, wee” all the way home
is no longer valid. Today, if one little piggy goes to market no little piggies stay home. All little piggies have roast beef if any little piggies do, and they all chorus together “wee, wee, wee.”
Conformity is not the only American college religion; The Crowd, not the only modern god. The god of conformity has a consort who, though opposite in sex, is similar in species. Younger than the god of conformity, more attractive and, typical of the sex, more subtle in her ways—and therefore more dangerous—this is the goddess of nonconformity.
Conformity And Nonconformity
While the god of conformity is found almost anywhere today, the co-ed goddess of nonconformity is more selective of her worshipers. She generally confines her activity among the intelligentsia, among those who recognize the destructive powers of the god of conformity and therefore resolve to avoid him as much as possible.
But nonconformity sets up its own rigid standards, too, and thus becomes just another brand of conformity. The man who stands up and says “no!” for the sake of saying “no” is simply the yes-man seen from behind. The story is told of the man who was so eager to avoid being a conformist that instead of combing his hair from front to back, he combed it from side to side—and suffered the embarrassment of having people whisper in his nose.
The Call For Transformity
The biblical ideal is “transformity.” “Be not conformed to this world,” said the Apostle Paul, “but be ye transformed.…”
One of the frustrations in describing transformity is that no standards of this world apply. The standards of conformity as well as those of nonconformity become meaningless. As the world judges things, the transformed man is now and again a conformist, at other times a nonconformist. In reality, however, the standard of the transformed person transcends this apparent vacillation. For him conformity is not inherently evil, and nonconformity necessarily virtuous—or vica versa. The transformed man has status with God. In Him he finds that profound acceptance which rescues him from the misery of seeking status and security in the crowd either as a fidgety chameleon or as a sore thumb.
While the conformist sees the importance of his relationship to his fellows, he sees it only vaguely and in such a way that he ultimately destroys both himself and the group. When the group becomes a mob it refuses to take responsibility for itself and yet devours the responsibility of each individual participant. In the words of Glenn A. Olds, a man lost in the crowd becomes “a cipher with the rim knocked off.” According to Waldo Beach, the chief doctrine of this religion is justification by adjustment; and the prayer of the adherent is … that I may be acceptable in thy sight, O gang, my strength and my redeemer.”
The Kinsey report’s great impact on the conforming public was its reassurance of conformists that their sexual behavior was not abnormal. Guilt feelings for many had not involved a righteous God in whose eyes their action might be wrong, but rather the fear of being abnormal or atypical. With relief these persons now discovered that they had in fact been worshiping their god, conformity, and he even condoned this particular liturgy.
Nonconformity is just as powerless to discover real values as conformity, because it depends for its existence upon a conforming majority and is simply “different.” Even Riesman falls into this trap when, in defining autonomy (his answer to conformity), he states that it “must always to some degree be relative to the prevailing modes of conformity in a given society.…” The nonconformist, no less than the conformist, is struggling for prestige and security. The only variation between them is that the nonconformist seeks status through difference from, rather than likeness with others.
Nonconformity, it is true, may discover the existence of the self. But self, like fire, while one of man’s most valuable discoveries, has the power of destruction if its true meaning and proper limits are not also discovered. It is wonderful to be able to say “I” and so to distinguish oneself from the rest of the universe, but sin, too, focuses most sharply in the “I’s.”
The nonconformist concept of the individual is that only by challenging the beliefs or mores of his society can the individual discover himself. This is a distortion of the Christian view. The individual, as emphasized by Christianity, may indeed challenge his society’s values; but he may also support those values or carry them into a “new frontier” without jeopardizing his individuality. Individuality is not so much a treasure to be stolen or pried from the clutches of a conformist-conscious society; rather it is a stature given by God and recognized by one’s fellowman.
The real question is: What will you conform to? For a person inevitably conforms to something, if only to his own image of what he considers true nonconformity. (Some who have done this have been more bound to their eccentricities than the average man to his conventions.)
“Be ye transformed,” said Paul, “by the renewing of your minds.” It is tempting to suggest that the reference here is to the liberating influence of education. Paul, however, was thinking of something else. He was thinking of a mind so renewed that it seeks and follows the will of God. “Let this mind be in you,” he said elsewhere, “which was also in Christ Jesus.” The mind of Christ was a mind supremely conformed—not to this world and this world’s conception of conformity or nonconformity to the ways of men, but conformed, rather, to the will of God the Father.
To profess adherence to God’s will is sometimes popular, sometimes unpopular. But such evaluation is not important. God’s will is not a matter to be accepted or rejected because it is either popular or unpopular. The real question is: Will you be conformed to this world (as either a conformist or a nonconformist) or will you be “transformed, by the renewing of your mind” in order to discover and follow the will of God?
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One who accepts the saving grace of Christ in his life inherits large Christian responsibilities. Perhaps foremost among them is concern for the souls of men whom he encounters daily. But too easily are we caught up in our own little cosmos and daily problems that we forget how specific the Word is in its commandments to all believers to be ambassadors for Christ and workers together with him. The responsibilities of the minister, teacher, admonisher, and evangelist, so clearly evident in Scripture, are not limited only to those who stand in pulpits.
The University Mold
A university community presents in many ways a paradoxical situation. There are students who come there because it is all part of a family legacy; others reach for the social atmosphere (a big item on every campus); while still others are driven by the pressure to succeed. Basically, however, the real purpose for attending a university is that the student may get the intellectual, social, and personal growth that will enable him to perform on a professional and responsible level his duties in occupational and family life. Idealistic as it may appear, then, there seems to be a central objective for all university students which, although they may not realize it at first, is what the university desires them to get—namely, these three types of growth.
In another way, of course, students are grossly different. Widely variant are their family and community situations, levels of maturity, likes and dislikes, major areas of interest, spiritual training and vulnerability, and mental, emotional, and spiritual needs. Thus, the paradox becomes obvious—the student fitting into the mold of university objectives versus the student’s extreme heterogeneity of personal background and needs.
Further complicating the student’s life are the classroom requirements. Often the intellectual rigors of academic life are used, through certain pressure techniques, to attack a student’s vulnerable spots. One who is not well-grounded in his beliefs will find rough sledding when he comes to grips with the many unbiblical concepts taught in so many university classrooms. The damage done inevitably spreads like cancer to other areas of the student’s life, to the point where complete spiritual and moral decay may set in, and an intellectual self-vindication begins to take precedence over the thin thread of belief. Soon a defensive and negative attitude with respect to the things of the Lord becomes evident.
The responsibilities of Christian students and ministers of the Gospel in a university setting are indeed tremendous. Not only must they meet intellectual challenges but they must take the offensive in winning those around them to Christ.
What Of The Gospel?
One finds a rather distressing situation, however, in the churches of university towns. The intense liberalism of the universities appears to have permeated many of them, so that these churches, with few exceptions, fail in preaching the Word of God. Let me illustrate: sermon topics such as “Love and Marriage,” “Research in Marital Integration,” “A Trip to South America,” “People I have Known,” “What Education Says to Religion,” “Let’s Resolve the Cold War with the Catholics,” and “Integrating the University Barber Shops” point to an orientation of preaching that is adrift from the Word.
Too often one finds that the only hint of a real church service on Sunday morning (evening services are unthinkable) is the hymn singing and traditional routine-like reading of the Bible. As the sermon develops, one feels as though a study of the Scriptures is almost passé, for illustrations are usually taken from the latest Broadway show or the most controversial novel of the time. Pastors in many campus pulpits direct their approach strictly to the intellect, and rarely show concern for the spiritual condition of souls.
Thus, as one might suspect from this description, any semblance of evangelism in the majority of university churches is nonexistent. This does not seem to them to be their responsibility; rather they assume as their primary obligation the development of cognitive functioning in students. “Don’t rock the boat” seems to govern any outreach to students’ spiritual needs.
The university student is a curious and easily influenced individual. In fact, the very structure of university life presupposes that he will be pliable and submissive to what is being said, whether fact or fiction, by those with whom he associates. Since attending church on Sunday is what certain well-organized campus groups consider to be the correct thing, students easily form impressions from what is being expounded in the pulpit. If the student hears how fortunate he is to be in college, how basically good he is, that all he needs to do is develop his cognitive abilities to as high a degree as possible for the later business world, and that he should go out and do good—then surely this is the concept of Christianity he will adopt.
The Neglected Majority
On the other hand, if he is made aware of his sinful ways and is led to accept the saving grace of Christ in his life, then this is what becomes meaningful to him. The fact that the latter is the exception rather than the rule attests to the lack of such an emphasis on university campuses. Thus, the needs of the soul are whitewashed with deeply intellectual or philosophical “lectures” without scriptural orientation.
Certainly we know that today’s university students are tomorrow’s national leaders. Thus the probability of social and moral decay is going to arise unless Christian workers begin now to preach Christ crucified in the churches of our nation’s campuses.
The transient type of congregation characteristic of a university setting does not negate or alter the basic message of the Church. Boards of churches should express deep concern with respect to qualifications for those people interested in church work in a university community. Evangelical boards need to become more interested in Christian work on campuses, for these are in themselves becoming well-defined mission fields. Home churches ought to be continually in prayer for the evangelism and Christian growth of students. And Christian students themselves need greater awareness of the acute need for Christian witness in classrooms and among fellow students.
The problem presented here is a critical one. While the emphasis has been placed on the type and caliber of preaching in the pulpits of university churches, the problem itself is really relevant to all Christians who are concerned for those who do not know Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.
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Today Christian students in increasing numbers are turning to state-supported schools for their higher education. This trend can be attributed to a number of factors, none of which is particularly germaine to the subject at hand, namely, what is being done, and what can be done, by Christian professors on a non-Christian campus.
Suppose a student decides to enter a state university; what will he find?
If he perchance comes from a local church whose pastor opposes secular education, he has likely been warned against the evils of state university.
He knows that there he will be indoctrinated in evolution—a word that has been used to stir the faithful to militant reaction for many years.
He has been told that there his faith in the Bible will likely be shaken by philosophy professors who not only disbelieve the Bible to be the Word of God but who sometimes ridicule those who do believe.
He is warned that his associations with non-Christians there will likely destroy interest in the things of God and drive him into prodigality.
In spite of these deterrents—not all of which are necessarily true to the facts—he knows that because of the family’s financial limitations he must get his higher education at the state school if at all.
A Christian On Campus
Now take a look at Christian faculty members on the state university campus. They are present on non-Christian campuses in increasing numbers. What place can and ought they to fill?
Essentially, the faculty member has three areas of influence. The first is in the classroom; the second is on campus; and the third is in the professor’s off-campus activities.
Classroom Competence
In regard to the first area, there is no excuse for incompetence on the part of the Christian teacher. A teacher incompetent in the classroom can never expect to influence those who meet him there. Assuming then that he is competent, we maintain that he has opportunity for positive classroom influence. Many students have been subjected to the opinions of an agnostic professor who has gone out of his way to attack the Bible and Christianity. A Christian teacher should be just as definite in his stand for the validity of Scripture and the saneness of Christianity. This is not to imply that he has any right to make his classroom an evangelistic service, but a definite stand for Christ will be respected by nearly every student and appreciated by some who are in need of help. If the “aid-station” has been identified, the wounded may find their way more easily.
Counseling On Campus
The second, and perhaps most fruitful, area of influence is the college teacher’s on-campus, extra-classroom activities. The Christian professor is not a minister, nor is he a personal counselor in the strictest professional sense of those terms. Yet he may virtually become both to needy students. If the student has the feeling that no one in the academic world is of the same persuasion as he, or if he feels that there is nowhere he can turn for spiritual help, he may decide to suppress his doubts and suddenly or gradually turn from the Lord and the Church and write it all off as childish emotion. But, if there is a Christian professor to whom this student may go and talk over his problems, and if this professor has found a vital experience with Christ in his own life, a whole life of devotion may be saved for God.
Furthermore, the Christian professor is always on the lookout for students who are needing help and who may not realize that the help they need is to be found in Christ. Not everyone on a non-Christian campus is antagonistic to the things of God. Some of these students are facing reality and problems for the first time. They have come from sheltered homes, from church backgrounds where they hear merely a “do-goodism” but nothing of the power of God. Perplexed by what they see, they now no longer attend services; they no longer say prayers at night. Then suddenly a great need arises in their lives, and their world begins to collapse. Often other Christian students will know that there is a professor who may be able to help such a student.
The Christian professor’s influence on other faculty members may be more limited than on students, for faculty members tend to crystallize their thinking about “religion” before they arrive at the point of being faculty members. Nevertheless, a Christian teacher is concerned with having a vital witness among his colleagues.
Off-Campus Activities
The third area of influence involves the man and his church, the man and his recreation, the man and his community activities.
Many Christian professors and teachers engaged on secular campuses have found opportunity to serve the Lord by inviting students into their homes. The congenial atmosphere of the home and the need that the students have to get away from dormitory and dining room combine to provide informal opportunity to exchange points of view. This certainly does not always result in a conversion experience. It does, however, provide an opportunity to present God’s claims on young people’s lives, and it gives students, perhaps for the first time, a chance to talk back to someone who is trying to win them for Christ.
There is one other important contribution which the Christian faculty person, on Christian or non-Christian campus, can make. The need for Christian textbooks in some areas of academic discipline has long been noted. Christians should at least be writing smaller works—pamphlets or booklets—presenting the Christian point of view in certain problem areas. This is a contribution which the Christian faculty member on a non-Christian campus can make to those beyond the reaches of his own campus activities. The printed page reaches far beyond the spoken word in its witness.
The place of the Christian professor on a secular campus is an important one. The evangelical witness and work of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, Christian Medical Society, Campus Crusade for Christ, and similar organizations has been materially enhanced by the presence of men of academic rank and deep Christian fervor on such campuses. Through the faithful witness of a Christian professor, many searching students have found the One without whom nothing is complete.
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Is education in the liberal arts a bane or a blessing, a liability to the faith or an asset? Why should evangelicals invest time, money, and effort in non-theological learning? Traditional answers have ranged all the way from an unqualifiedly humanistic optimism about the educability of man to a fearful and cynical pessimism about the results. The present generation wants neither extreme. Unqualified optimisms may have flourished in the theological and political climate of several decades ago, but we have learned the hard way that education is no panacea for the ideological fevers and the cultural crisis of today. Anti-intellectual pessimisms may have seemed feasible once upon a time, but we learn increasingly that delight in ignorance yields only evil and grief, even within culturally isolationist segments of the church. In an age of unprecedented educational opportunity, in a culture dominated by scientific technology and peopled by organization men, education inevitably assumes a place of strategic priority.
In this context the Christian—student, teacher or administrator, parent or pastor—must surely face his responsibilities. It is not enough to verbalize about dependence on the Spirit of God. We must remember that the Spirit of God uses men of God, that men of God must meet their God-given vision with God-given initiative. Moreover, we do well to remind ourselves both of the meaning of education and of those biblical concepts which provide the guiding image for our educational activity. Such is the purpose of this article.
Nature Of Education
Two things stand out about the nature of education. First, it is a crucial means for propagating a civilization, culture, ideology, or religion. This fact is a truism, to be sure, but a statement of the highest importance nonetheless, one which in recent years has been forced anew upon our consciousness. The Nazis propagated their ideology by controlling schools and universities, suppressing the free interchange of ideas, and indoctrinating the German mind. Russia pursues similar practices, adopting and utilizing curricula for the dissemination of Marxist views in history, politics, science, and the arts. The same strategy is now apparent in Castro’s control of Cuba’s schools. Even American education, though in a different way, exhibits the same underlying awareness. Current debates over federal aid to education, over school integration, and over the bearing of loyalty oaths on academic freedom, all reflect the desire to transmit the American heritage. Personal liberty under law with equal opportunity for all can brook favoritism to no one political, economic, racial, or religious group. The evangelical conscience is often far more defensive over these specifics than it is alert to the far-reaching implications of the underlying principle. There is a stewardship of opportunity to be faced. Effective strategy requires renewed and constructive efforts in education.
Second, to avoid the pitfalls of zeal-without-wisdom, we must distinguish education from both indoctrination and training. Indoctrination, as we use the term, imposes dogma, “the truth,” upon individuals. It has a ready-made set of “answers” for every question. It mass-produces organization men who, given the right stimuli, always recite appropriate sentences and respond with appropriate behavior patterns. But when they meet the unpredictable, or perchance start to think for themselves, they have neither answers to troublesome questions nor the mental keenness to seek them. The result of such indoctrination is either an obscurantist head stuck in the sands of time, or else an emotional upheaval toward skepticism. These outcomes are not infrequent. Responsible and purposeful education must recognize the proper highway from which such indoctrination has strayed, namely, the pursuit of affirmative thinking, thorough discussion and evaluation of every alternative in order to construct a positive Christian view. Among those interested in education the Christian especially must respect the individual, must develop his God-given critical powers, and must press on to the frontiers of learning. Proper education helps liberate the mind from passionate and prejudiced bigotry and equips the free man to choose wisely and well for himself—under some conditions, even to withhold judgment. Honesty is a Christian virtue. As the student comes to grips with ideas and interpretations, with answers to questions and even with unanswered problems, intellectual honesty must figure large.
Training, in contrast to education, develops skills and techniques for handling given materials and facts. Education admittedly includes training, but operates primarily in the earlier stages of learning. The educated man shows independence and creativity of mind to fashion new skills and techniques, new patterns of thought. He will have acquired research ability, the power to gather, to sift, and to manipulate new facts and materials. The educated Christian exercises critical judgment, manifests the ability to interpret and to evaluate, particularly in terms of the Christian revelation. In a word, if he is to speak with ease, cogency, and clarity to the minds of his fellows, the educated Christian must be at home in the world of ideas and of men. Christians, unfortunately, often talk to themselves. We think in ruts, and express ourselves in a familiar kind of family jargon. Unless we understand the thought and value-patterns of our day, as well as those of biblical revelation and the Christian community, and unless we speak fluently the language of our contemporaries, we tragically limit our effectiveness. Again we sense the strategic importance of education properly defined.
A Sense Of Direction
If the Christian is to communicate conscientiously and intelligently, he needs a biblically-rooted sense of direction. What doctrines compose this core of perspective? We suggest five in particular.
First, the biblical concepts of creation and providence impart sanctity to all realms of nature and to the whole history of man. This is my Father’s world. To Him it owes its existence and order, its developing structures and exciting possibilities. Every event in nature and in history plays its part in carrying out his purposes and in manifesting his glory. For the Christian neither nature nor history is self-originating, self-operating, self-sustaining, or self-explanatory. We therefore approach the works of God, probe their mysteries, and harness their potentialities with humility but with boldness as well. Both the natural and the social sciences lay before our inquiring minds old vistas and new horizons. In the humanities we grapple to express our reflections with a precision and beauty becoming the sanctity of the materials. To neglect this educational enterprise betrays either shallow understanding or fearful disbelief, for surely the doctrines of creation and providence inspire, elevate, and sanctify the responsibility.
Second, the doctrine of the imago Dei reminds us that in this vast universe that reflects God’s glory, man is uniquely “crowned with glory and honor.” He is a person equipped by God with rational, moral, and artistic powers to rule nature and its resources for God. He is a sinner also, it is true, whose original image of God and personal powers are corrupted, so that “we see not yet all things put under him.” He is nonetheless the object of a divine providence that limits evil and preserves man’s personality. He is the object of a divine grace that restores God’s image and sanctifies human powers for His glory.
In other words, man has a God-given, God-preserved, God-restorable potential, a potential to be developed, disciplined, and directed. Such development, discipline, and direction are the Christian’s responsibility and stewardship. To educate the whole person, to encourage the zest for learning and the quest for excellence is a sacred trust. The Christian gives himself contagiously to critical thinking and creative expression, to the exploration of nature and to the transmission of cultural heritage, as well as to the impartation of Christian values and beliefs. The educator’s task is not to dictate people’s deeds, thoughts, and decisions; rather to inspire and equip individuals to think and act for themselves in the dignity of men created in God’s image.
Third, the biblical relationship of faith and reason establishes a sound pattern in education for the Christian. The Scriptures nowhere consider faith and reason antithetical; believing does not exclude thinking, nor does becoming an intellectual automatically exclude one from the community of faith. It may still seem, comparatively speaking, that not many wise are called. But some are. And certainly every educated believer is called upon to “give a reason,” to ponder that philosophy which is “after Christ.” Faith, we are reminded, is a conscious commitment of oneself to God in Christ—an unreserved commitment of all we are and have to his redemptive grace for the manifestation of his glory. Faith does not cancel out normal human activities; rather it motivates, purges, and guides them. It devotes “all my being’s ransomed powers,” including reason, to God. Like any gift, the intellect can be misused. It is still God’s gift, however, intended by him to be fully enjoyed and rightly appropriated within the context of a living faith.
For the evangelical in education, therefore, Christian commitment, values, and beliefs do not restrict intellectual opportunity and endeavor, but rather fire and inspire him to purpose and action. Evangelical strategy has always needed not only committed believers, not only educated believers, but also Christian intellectuals to wage zealously for truth and righteousness in the ideological conflicts of the day. God summons such men to stand in the gap. To implement this warfare personally and through others is the constant vision and burden of the evangelical educator.
Fourth, the Christian concept of freedom implies responsibility. Scripture speaks of it in three ways: freedom from condemnation, freedom from sin’s bondage, and freedom from man-made legalisms. Together these interrelated concepts chart a path between the extremes of irresponsible license and Pharisaic legalism. Liberty should be exercised in loving concern for others, not as “an occasion to the flesh.” Men is to worship and serve God freely and for conscience sake, not out of legalistic bondage.
A Christian’s education accordingly should not blindfold his eyes. Rather it should enlarge his horizons, deepen his insight, sharpen his powers of choice, and open new and welcome areas of responsibility in life and service. For both student and teacher academic freedom and its problems require similar understanding. It allows him ample room to move about in his thinking and expression, to confront problems and even unbelief honestly because he knows him in whom are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Christian freedom releases the believer from the bondage of fear. Frequent, unwarranted cries of “wolf” only harden the ear. Or they may hinder constructive progress by their apprehension over new horizons of thought or honest scouting of assumptions. Personal fears imposed on others produce new legalisms. If the evangelical voice is to be heard it must ring with integrity and confidence, not with fear of the unknown, fear of problems to be met, fear of honest inquiry. Not freedom and commitment but rather freedom and fear are incompatible. Freedom flourishes in the presence of law, but not under the reign of fear.
Finally, we include the Christian doctrine of vocation. Closely allied to the doctrine of freedom it invites us to the educational enterprise. Today the Judaeo-Christian concept of the sanctity of work is seldom enunciated. We overlook the mandate to stewardship in all things for the glory of God. Doing everything with all our might includes the quest for excellence in education, too; it forbids us to bifurcate sacred and secular work to downgrade the arts and sciences. God calls a Christian’s investment in “secular” teaching, studying, research, and scholarship as much a divine service as preaching and missions.
Both Marxists and existentialists agree that modern man has lost the meaning of life; he merely sees himself as an automaton enslaved by mass society. The Christian Gospel, on the other hand, gives perspective to life; it imparts dignity to man, and value to his labors. This conviction the Christian in education is uniquely privileged to exemplify in his own life, and to help others discover for themselves. Christian strategy in education therefore calls for alert, purposeful students, and creative, scholarly teachers and administrators to colabor in fulfilling God’s commission.