Page 5768 – Christianity Today (2024)

A Now And Future Hymnody

The hymnal is at once historical and prophetic. It makes available the riches of the past, adds new resources for the present, and helps shape the future by selecting hymns for a new generation.

It is the second most important book in the life of the Christian. Martin Luther recognized this when he said he would translate the Bible into German so God could speak to the people and the hymnbook into German so they could speak back to God. Yet few of us do more than begin to tap this rich resource of Christian poetry, spiritual insight, and music.

The hymnal publisher may be genuinely interested in aiding the churches in their spiritual ministry, but he still must sell enough copies to stay in business. The interdenominational publisher in particular must produce a book that is attractive to a cross section of the Christian public if he is to survive.

The lifespan of a hymnal has been steadily decreasing, from an average of a quarter of a century to barely a decade. The publisher invests three to five years in preparing a hymnal, only to find it outdated within roughly the same period after publication.

Language may date a hymn. In an age that is increasingly city-centered, we still sing songs rooted in a predominantly rural culture. Our reaction when we first read a text praising the “God of piston, God of wheel” may betray insensitivity to our age. We need songs that use fresh, specific, singable language.

This does not mean that the “great old hymns of the faith” are no longer useful. They often speak more directly to needs today than our modern hymns. But we must not define the “great hymns” simply as those we sang in our youth. A new generation may find such hymns inappropriate. And some of the old hymns may be theologically or musically unworthy of preservation.

Rhythms, too, can pose difficulties. The songs of the first half of this century were influenced by the popularity of the waltz and foxtrot with their simple, repeated rhythmical patterns. Now we have syncopation in many songs, but often of a simplistic type whose predictability becomes boring. Syncopation is difficult for congregations to handle, and the more difficult types should be reserved for smaller groups or soloists.

In recent years we have developed what I call the “process of progressive reduction.” In this familiar syndrome, we select the hymns we like the best and then sing them the most. Soon these are all we know. Then we select a smaller group that we sing the best. The process of reduction continues until we know very few hymns. When the songleader selects several hymns and songs and we sing out on the familiar ones, he or the pastor may say, “You sang that as if you really meant it.” Perhaps. More often the correct comment would be, “You sang that as if you really knew it.”

Here are some general qualities to look for in a hymn book: (1) A good hymnal should have variety, literary and musical quality, and originality, and be representative of many cultures and periods. (2) It should show faithfulness to the “whole counsel of God,” not just a few selected theological concepts. (3) The organization should be logical, perhaps beginning with God and worship, then moving on to the Scriptures, the Church and its mission, the life of the believer, and our ultimate eternal destiny—in other words, the same kind of progression we find in the great creedal statements of the Church.

A hymnal, then, should demonstrate many kinds of balance. The most important of these is the threefold biblical categorization of “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” Hymns and spiritual songs are not the same thing: a hymn is a song of praise or thanksgiving to God.

Among the current hymnals I surveyed, the most recent is Hymns For the Living Church (Hope Publishing Company, 1974), edited by Donald Hustad of Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, and a committee of church-music leaders. This hymnal, a new standard in interdenominational hymnals, was five years in preparation, and shows it. It is a complete revision of the Worship and Service Hymnal (1957), which was something of a landmark in American hymnals. There are nearly 600 hymns and gospel songs, set in a readable text and music type. Within each category there are many new hymns, and the categories are logically arranged. The enlarged sections on the Nativity, Suffering and Death, and Resurrection are particularly welcome.

The scholarship here is exciting. Each hymn has been thoroughly researched for accuracy, and sometimes traditional credits have been altered. A unique feature is the listing of the year of authorship or first appearance for each text and tune. One is surprised to discover how old many of our “new” gospel songs are!

Some new tunes appear with familiar hymns (only the text is the “hymn”; the music is the hymn-tune), e.g., Aubrey Butler’s 1966 tune for “Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It.” Many traditional American hymns have been added, such as the increasingly familiar “When I Can Read My Title Clear.” Omitted stanzas of some hymns have been restored, e.g., the second verse of “The Church’s One Foundation,” which refers to church tensions.

Not all changes seem right. Diademata does not fit George Matheson’s “Make Me a Captive, Lord”; Hustad’s own tune for this hymn, Paradoxy, is clearly superior. “The Sending, Lord” is a superb missionary text, but probably should be set to another tune than Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Sine Nomine, best reserved for “For All the Saints.”

There are a number of hymns and gospel songs from the second half of this century, e.g., “God of Concrete, God of Steel” (Richard Jones) and “God of Everlasting Glory” (John W. Peterson). I was delighted to see Avis Christiansen’s version of “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” Ralph Vaughan Williams’s tune for “At the Name of Jesus,” Anne Ortlund’s “The Vision of a Dying World,” and one of the best invitational songs of recent years, Ralph Carmichael’s “The Saviour Is Waiting.”

Titles are first lines, and all the tunes, including gospel song tunes, are named. Scripture references are given for each hymn. A new feature is a Scripture allusion index in which the editors have tried to locate all scriptural references in the hymns. If the pastor wants a hymn to go with his sermon text, he now has a resource available.

Following a recent fashion, many hymns have been put in a lower key—in fact, too many, and too much lower. There is no reason to lower a tune so that it doesn’t go as high as E flat in the octave above middle C. Brightness is lost, the harmonies become muddy, and the lower melody notes are too low for the average voice. Some tunes may benefit from lowering, but it should be done with great restraint.

The book reflects quality in every way, including printing, paper, and binding. This is an outstanding hymnal.

Hymns of Truth and Praise (Gospel Perpetuating Publishers, 1971) has about 675 selections. It is well organized, with strong sections on the Suffering of Christ and on Communion. There are a number of fine hymns not usually encountered. There are also some courageous deletions, e.g., “In the Garden” and “The Old Rugged Cross.” Thirteen hymns by the great Scottish preacher Horatius Bonar are included. The largest representation is of Fanny Crosby (twenty-three), then Issac Watts (seventeen) and Alfred P. Gibbs (sixteen). The emphasis is on eighteenth-and nineteenth-century materials, with a few selections from the past two decades.

Some decisions were intriguing. I missed the first verse of “The Sands of Time Are Sinking,” and was surprised to discover “Happy Birthday to You.” I noticed Dr. Hustad’s rhythmic alterations of “In Tenderness He Sought Me,” which originally appeared in Worship and Service. In fact, this book shows many influences of Worship and Service. It is an attractive hymnal, worthy of serious consideration.

Great Hymns of the Faith (Zondervan, 1968) was edited by John W. Peterson, Norman Johnson, and several other members of the Singspiration staff. This hymnal established much of the precedent for the lowering of keys. In other areas, it shows influences of Worship and Service. There are about 540 selections, properly organized. Hymns of worship number over eighty, though over 60 per cent of the total material dwells on Christian experience. There are two hymns of thanksgiving, and one on social concern. Twenty-three selections are by Fanny Crosby, sixteen by William Kirkpatrick, and forty-seven (!) by John Peterson. This would certainly be included in the top half-dozen nondenominational hymnals.

A somewhat curious publication is The Book of Psalms (Reformed Church of North America, 1973), a setting of Old Testament Psalms. Many of the Psalms appear in several settings. The texts are given in paraphrase, with meter and rhyme, so that the different verses can be set to one tune. Credits for these settings are indexed at the back.

Although we are now seeing a much needed emphasis on worship and a renewed interest in singing the Scriptures, this book cannot stand alone. We need to sing more than the Old Testament Psalms; we need specific hymns on Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Church.

The book is published in large, open-space type. Surprisingly, it is tiring to read. There is too much space, and the printing lacks quality of appearance.

Old books continue to be reprinted. Two books from the Rodeheaver Company (a division of Word, now itself a subsidiary of ABC) are in this category. Hymns For Praise and Service (1956) was compiled by Homer Rodeheaver and George W. Sanville, with B. D. Ackley as music editor. This is a songbook, not a hymnal. Fewer than half of its selections are hymns. There is no organization, and there are only two indexes, topical and title. One-fifth of the entire book is the product of three men—B. D. Ackley, A. H. Ackley, and Charles Gabriel. There are a number of choruses and only a handful of seasonal hymns. There is a strong late-nineteenth/early-twentieth-century orientation. This book is a revision of the much older Christian Service Songs (1939, reprinted 1967), which even looks old. One wonders why it should be reprinted. Nostalgia can be deadly in church hymnody.

Once you have chosen your hymnal, treat it with respect. It is not a piano leveler, lid lifter, door jam, flowerpot support, or toy. Use the hymnal to enrich your spiritual life.

RICHARD D. DINWIDDIE¹Richard D. Dinwiddie is director of the Sacred Music Department at Moody Bible Institute, Chicago, Illinois.

The Anchor Bible is different from any Bible you have ever read or used. Different because it is still being written, incorporating up-to-the-minute advances in our knowledge of the Bible and its soutces. Different because its notes and comments fully explain its changes from the traditional text. And different because each book is accompanied by its own introduction, giving you more background information than any other Bible.

Not Just Today’S Scholarship—But Tomorrow’S As Well

Twenty-four volumes have been published to date, and thirty-five more (including the Apocrypha) will complete The Anchor Bible during the next decade. As you read this, contributors to forthcoming Anchor Bible volumes are engaged in new archaeological digs in the Near East. Others are studying and deciphering scrolls and texts that will add to the sum of our knowledge about the Bible and the civilization that produced it. Anchor Bible subscribers are participating in an ongoing project of enormous scope, one that will continue to shed new light on previously misunderstood passages and biblical episodes.

Above All, A Bible To Be Read

The Anchor Bible is an unprecedented opportunity for the modern reader to appreciate fully, perhaps for the first time, the central book of Western civilization. Each AnchorBible volume includes literary, historical, and archaeological insights in the translator’s notes and comments, as well as fascinating introductions which often are books in themselves. This brings you as close as any reader can come today to the actual message of each book of the Bible … to what it says and how it emerged from its historical background.

The Anchor Bible translators also introduce you to the remarkably varied beauty of biblical language. You know that, through the centuries, the Bible has served as inspiration for our greatest poets. Now, by reproducing the original literary flavor and spontaneity of each book of the Bible, The Anchor Bible translations show how many of the ancient authors were poets in their own right.

Free Of Creeds

In choosing contributors, general editors William Foxwell Albright and David Noel Freedman have sought the scholar best qualified to translate and introduce each particular book of the Bible. This means that each volume of the Anchor Bible is translated by an individual, not a committee. It also means that Anchor Bible translators come from many nations and faiths—Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish. All are concerned exclusively with what the Bible says, not with any one sectarian interpretation of “what it means.”

Continuing Acclaim

The Anchor Bible has already been awarded the highest honor of the American publishing industry, the Carey-Thomas Award for Creative Publishing. About the project as a whole there is general agreement: “The Anchor Bible constitutes the outstanding biblical commentary of our generation,” says Professor Cyrus Gordon of Brandeis University. “The best English Bible yet,” writes the Baltimore Sun. And, for critic David Daiches, The Anchor Bible is “the most exciting development in biblical studies in the English speaking world.”

The range of comments on each new volume is just as extraordinary. GENESIS was described by literary critic Edmund Wilson as “the best commentary I have seen … The introduction is fascinating. Together they throw new light in many dark places.” Frederick L. Moriarty, S.J., of Weston College, writes that the PSALMS represents “the most significant work on the Psalter in the last hundred years.” William H. Brownlee calls JOB “a great adventure with a great scholar who really knows how to translate ancient Hebrew poetry into beautiful and accurate English.” And Christian Century hails the second volume of THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN as “the best commentary on John available in English.” Truly, every volume of The Anchor Bible reflects the richness and variety of each individual book of the Old or New Testament.

A Family Investment

The Anchor Bible is a family investment of lifelong significance and value. The postage-paid reply card bound into this magazine explains in full detail a subscription plan which guarantees you substantial savings during the duration of the publishing project, without committing you in any way to buy any volumes you do not wish to keep. Because of rising costs of printing and preparation, this subscription plan may have to be withdrawn in the near future, so mail the card today. Doubleday & Company, Inc., Dept. 5-CZ-5S Garden City, New York 11530

Last year Baker Book House issued a book whose introductory words are fitting for this survey:

Our age is distinguished for its earnestness of study in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The last quarter of a century has been remarkable for the productiveness of books on this great subject. Naturally, there is considerable diversity as to the relative value of works on the person and functions of the Spirit.… In all, however, there is apparent the desire to be true to the Scripture.… There is manifest likewise the honest effort to be helpful to Christians who long to know more of the gracious Spirit.

What is especially interesting is that these words were written in 1903 by William Biederwolf, introducing A Help to the Study of the Holy Spirit, which Baker has just reprinted. If Biederwolf found the number of books on the Spirit published in the quarter-century leading up to 1903 “remarkable,” what would he have said after the Azusa Street meetings in 1906, which led to the wide-scale Pentecostal movement? And how would he respond to the literature of the neo-Pentecostal or charismatic movement that was launched among non-Pentecostal Protestants in 1960 and among Roman Catholics in 1967? Would “inundating” be an appropriate term for a literature that treatsa baptism so prominently?

The analogy of the debates over water-baptism and Spirit-baptism is worth noting. Throughout the whole history of Protestantism, Bible-believers have been divided over who is to be baptized and how and why. Those opposed to infant baptism, like those after them who favored speaking in tongues, were accused of divisiveness and of failing to recognize the transitional nature of much of primitive Christian practice. They were hounded out of their churches and then blamed for starting new ones. All sides continue steadfastly to maintain and improve upon their exegetical, theological, and historical arguments, but no winner is in sight. Steady streams of converts from one viewpoint to another continue to pass each other in opposite directions. Although it took a while, Christians who take part in any trans-denominational ventures do so across the still unresolved debates over infant and believer’s baptism and the varying interpretations of each. Baptistic congregations know, contrary to some of the polemic hurled at them, they do not talk only about baptism, that they do not leave their children at home when they go to church, and that they do not deny the divine initiative in salvation. Baptists and others who take exception to tongues-speaking congregations should likewise be careful not to misrepresent what actually goes on in them.

This survey of recent books on the Holy Spirit is, despite appearances, quite selective. No doubt some worthy books were unintentionally overlooked. Some of the reasons for intentional omissions are that the books are (1) not readily available through normal bookstore or library channels, (2) almost wholly repetitive of what is said in books that are mentioned, (3) autobiographies and testimonies concerning an improved relationship with God.

Some of the books in category three are “best-sellers”; their omission from this survey is not meant to suggest that they are unimportant. Indeed, the relationship of individuals to God is the primary concern; books of doctrine and exegesis and historical surveys are not ends in themselves but means to promote a closer walk with God. However, it would be difficult to select from among the scores of personal testimonies, and the tendency would be to include the most prominent persons, which is not exactly the criterion that Scripture promotes. Moreover, a focus upon doctrine and general surveys is likely to be more helpful. In any case, the personal experiences of the authors of doctrinal works play a very great role in their stance and presentation. Also omitted are large areas of doctrine and practice in which the Holy Spirit has a determinative role, such as the inspiration and interpretation of the Bible, physical healing, “congregational renewal,” evangelism, counseling, and the other topics usually included under “practical theology.”

Although the categories are at best approximate, a classified list, though faulty, seemed preferable to a merely alphabetized list. Almost every book could easily be put into one or two categories other than the one it is in. I hope I have read enough of each book to avoid grossly misrepresenting its author’s position. Readers should remember that authors generally, but especially on this subject, dislike having their views briefly summarized and dislike having their books classified with those by authors whom they feel to be inferior in scholarship or spirituality or churchmanship or incorrect in some area of doctrine. Were I preparing this survey for the authors, I would probably have given up!

HISTORY OF PENTECOSTALISM The outpouring of books on the Holy Spirit in the last quarter of the last century, to which Biederwolf referred, preceded the rise of the Pentecostal movement. However, the histories of the latter movement necessarily deal with one of its principal precursors, the holiness movement. Perhaps one should say holiness movements, because its expressions were varied especially in moving across Arminian, Calvinistic, and Lutheran traditions. A reasonably objective “insider’s” presentation that is fairly short, comprehensive, and filled with reference to primary sources is The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement in the United States by Vinson Synan (1971, Eerdmans). A similar inside work, but global in scope, is Pentecostalism by John Nichol (1966, Harper & Row; now published by Logos). Bright Wind of the Spirit by Steve Durasoff (1972, Prentice-Hall) adds little except for more on Oral Roberts and on the movement in Eastern Europe. The person usually considered to be the world’s leading authority is Walter Hollenweger, a Swiss, who was a Pentecostal evangelist for a decade before departing and eventually holding a high post in the World Council of Churches. He now is a professor of missions in a British university. He has written and compiled many important volumes in German; English readers have available The Pentecostals (1972, Augsburg), a translation of a heavily documented survey published in 1969.

A different sort of historical overview is provided in The Holy Spirit in Today’s Church edited by Erling Jorstad (1973, Abingdon). The editor briefly gives the historical background and then presents numerous excerpts from contemporary writers representing quite varying stances and grouped under practical, doctrinal, and ecclesiastical topics. Jorstad focuses on his own Lutheran tradition in Bold in the Spirit (1974, Augsburg). He is a sympathetic observer rather than a partisan advocate of “charismatic renewal,” treating many of the questions that outsiders are asking.

Many of the books to be mentioned in following sections include historical material that summarizes with varying degrees of skill the information in the above books.

MAJOR SCHOLARLY STUDIES Besides the historical scholarship just surveyed, four books deserve special mention because they are repeatedly referred to by later studies. Unlike the more or less favorable treatments by the historians, these works are rather more critical of various expressions, claims, and exegetical studies of the older and newer Pentecostal movements. Frederick Dale Brunner records the results of his diligent study of a wide range of contemporary Pentecostalism and also of the New Testament experience of and teaching about the Holy Spirit in A Theology of the Holy Spirit (1970, Eerdmans). His thorough documentation, bibliography, and indexes make this an essential book. An equally significant study, concentrating on the New Testament, is Baptism in the Holy Spirit by James Dunn (1970, Allenson). A Christian psychologist, John Kildahl, reports on a long-term study in The Psychology of Speaking in Tongues (1972, Harper & Row). A Christian linguist, William Samarin, after thorough and widespread investigation, concludes that “in spite of superficial similarities, glossolalia [tongues-speaking] is fundamentally not language.” In Tongues of Men and Angels (1972, Macmillan), Samarin is respectful of the sacred aspects of tongues-speaking, but he rejects the speakers’ ascription of the phenomenon to the supernatural intervention of the Holy Spirit. These four books can not be ignored by anyone who wishes to be a responsible advocate or critic of the charismatic movement.

GENERAL SURVEYS The books mentioned so far, though not easy, will not be too difficult for general readers willing to take time with them. Most of the remaining books are easier going. The Charismatic Movement edited by Michael Hamilton (1975, Eerdmans) contains ten essays, some by advocates, others by detractors, and even includes a small phonograph record of tongues-speaking. As with the other books in this section, the scope ranges from the New Testament through church history to the various twentieth-century expressions. Don Hillis has collected articles originally prepared for four well-known evangelical periodicals and two major radio series in Is the Whole Body a Tongue? (1974, Baker). Rapping About the Spirit by Bernard Ramm (1974, Word) is more informal than most of Ramm’s books. Watson Mills has gathered ten original articles, some by Pentecostals, and included a useful annotated bibliography in Speaking in Tongues: Let’s Talk About It (1973, Word). A similar collection by J. Elmo Agrimson, Gifts of the Spirit and the Body of Christ (1974, Augsburg), is written from Lutheran perspectives but with far wider applications. From Mennonite writers comes Encounter With the Holy Spirit edited by George Brunk II (1972, Herald Press). The Holy Spirit edited by Dow Kirkpatrick (1974, Tidings) contains eleven addresses from a Methodist-sponsored conference in Oxford, England; they deal not only with the usual questions but also with broader ones about the Spirit’s role outside the Church. It is useful as an expression of views not usually encountered in intra-evangelical discussions. The same purpose is served by another book entitled The Holy Spirit, this one by the well-known theologian Norman Pittenger (1974, Pilgrim).

DOCTRINAL SURVEYS The books in the previous section include considerable information and reflection on contemporary Pentecostalism. The books in this section, though they occasionally refer to the present, are primarily concerned with systematically presenting the whole range of biblical teaching about the Holy Spirit. Tongues, healings, or other such manifestations are presented only in the context of the totality of the Spirit’s person and ministry. A Contemporary Study of the Holy Spirit by Bennie Triplett (1970, Pathway) and The Spirit: God in Action by Anthony Palma (1974, Gospel Publishing House) are quasi-official summaries by two of the larger, worldwide, Pentecostal bodies, respectively the Church of God with headquarters in Cleveland, Tennessee, and the Assemblies of God, headquartered in Springfield, Missouri. The former group also stresses a kind of instantaneous “entire sanctification” (by faith) while the latter simply teaches, as most Christians do, a gradual sanctification in which sin is still present.

Many advocates of “entire sanctification” oppose the teaching that tongues is the sign of this experience; probably the best known of these are the Salvation Army, the Church of the Nazarene, and the Free Methodist and Wesleyan Churches. Moreover, believers in “entire sanctification” do not mean by the term the kind of self-deluding “sinless perfectionism” that opponents charge them with. Probably most of the literature on the Holy Spirit in the nineteenth century was either expounding, modifying, or opposing this holiness movement. The best contemporary expression of this older viewpoint is The Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit: A Wesleyan Perspective by Charles Carter (1974, Baker). It comes officially endorsed by the Christian Holiness Association, whose members include most of the non-tongues holiness bodies. A simple presentation from the Church of the Nazarene’s publishing house is God in the Present Tense by D. Shelby Corlett (1974, Beacon Hill). The leading holiness seminary is Asbury, whose church-history professor, Kenneth Kinghorn, wrote Fresh Wind of the Spirit (1975, Abingdon), a refreshing book. Non-holiness Christians (not to be confused with non-holy Christians) would probably make only a few changes here and there. The most prominent non-holiness heirs of Wesley express themselves through messages by eight bishops of the United Methodist Church, Storms and Starlight edited by Earl Hunt, Jr. (1975, Tidings). It should be noted that the contemporary holiness movement firmly disclaims responsibility for Pentecostalism which historians generally credit it with spawning.

The following titles (listed in alphabetical order by author) are written, with one exception, from somewhere on the spectrum of Reformed or Calvinistic theology (which includes most Baptists). Their purpose is a positive statement, often with sermonic origin, of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Many admit that some believers may have a gift of tongues today, but all of them oppose the teaching that all Christians should seek it. They are: The Ministry of the Holy Spirit by William Fitch (1974, Zondervan), Plain Talk About the Holy Spirit by Manford Gutzke (1974, Baker), The Holy Spirit in Today’s World by David Hubbard (1973, Word), God’s Spirit in the Church by Richard Keach (1974, Judson), Heaven Help Us: The Holy Spirit in Your Life by W. Carl Ketcherside (1974, Standard) (Ketcherside writes from within the restoration or Campbellite movement, which is neither Calvinistic nor Wesleyan), God’s Spirit in You by Landrum Leavell (1974, Broadman), The Person and Ministry of the Holy Spirit: The Traditional Calvinistic Perspective by Edwin Palmer (1975, Baker), and The Holy Spirit at Work Today by John F. Walvoord (1973, Moody) (this supplements his 1958 text, The Holy Spirit, published by Zondervan). Books such as these make it apparent that talk about the Holy Spirit is not limited to those who are associated in some way with Pentecostalism.

CHARISMATIC ADVOCACY Naturally, both older and newer participants in the Pentecostal-charismatic movement seek to convince other Christians to join them in this experience. Perhaps the best of the traditional appeals is What Meaneth This? by Carl Brumback (1947, Gospel Publishing House). More recent additions to this style, in alphabetical order, include the widely circulated The Holy Spirit and You by Dennis and Rita Bennett (1971, Logos). He is the Episcopal minister whose public announcement that he had received the gift of tongues in 1960 is generally credited with launching the Pentecostal movement within non-Pentecostal churches (although such neo-Pentecostalism had long been smoldering, especially in Europe). Arnold Bittlinger is a prominent German neo-Pentecostal whose Gifts and Ministries (1973, Eerdmans) collects six excerpts from three German books. The Spirit Is A-Movin’ contains sixteen messages given at the 1973 Pittsburgh Charismatic Conference; it is edited by R. Russell Bixler (1974, Creation). James Jones is an Episcopal minister and religion professor at Rutgers who tells of being Filled With New Wine (1974, Harper & Row); the book is based upon talks before Roman Catholic, Episcopal, and Reformed audiences. Pentecost Is Dynamite (1972, Abingdon), affirms W. T. H. Richards, pastor of one of Britain’s largest Pentecostal congregations. A Living, Loving Way by Herman Riffel (1973, Bethany Fellowship) seeks to promote the use of the whole range of charismatic gifts and includes a long chapter on God’s use of dreams. Robert Tuttle, Jr., speaks in tongues but does not see it as the sign of the filling of the Spirit. He stresses the whole range of gifts in The Partakers (1974, Abingdon). One of the best-known Pentecostal theologians, J. Rodman Williams, president of Melodyland School of Theology (and formerly professor of theology at Austin Presbyterian Seminary), tells us the views on the Holy Spirit held by Barth, Brunner, Tillich, and Bultmann in The Era of the Spirit (1971, Logos). Of wider interest is The Pentecostal Reality (1972, Logos), which contains six of Williams’s articles and addresses. Jesus, Where Are You Taking Us? edited by Norris Wogen (1973, Creation) contains ten messages given to the Lutheran Conference on the Holy Spirit, Minneapolis, 1972. As in the Pittsburgh conference mentioned above, the speakers came from a wide range of denominations.

OBJECTIONS TO THE CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT There are, no doubt, raving polemicists against Pentecostalism and any aspects of it, but these books are not of that sort. They are primarily aimed at Christians who might be considering the biblical bases for the movement. Some of them might be used to strengthen doubts of those already in it. They are not likely to attract wholehearted enthusiasts. Signs of the Apostles by Walter Chantry (1973, Banner of Truth) is on the strong side. The Corinthian Catastrophe (1974, Kregel) is by George Gardiner, a onetime Pentecostal minister who now takes the position that “tongues have ceased.” He is familiar with the Pentecostal refutation of the older attacks and so tries to present arguments from Scripture that are less easily answered. The Modern Tongues Movement by Robert Gromacki (1967, Presbyterian and Reformed or Baker) takes a similarly strong stand. Cure For Charismatics by Donald Hall (1973, B/P Publications) is a small book that tries to be especially winsome for those who are impressed by Pentecostal fervor. The Spirit-Filled Trauma by Robert Hamblin (1975, Broadman) is particularly good for pastors. Tongues, Healing, and You by Don Hillis (1969, Baker) is also a mild-mannered approach. Andrew Hoekema, professor of theology at Calvin Seminary, has made two strong exegetical refutations based upon examination of older and newer Pentecostal writings: What AboutTongue Speaking? (1966, Eerdmans) and Holy Spirit Baptism (1972, Eerdmans). The restoration movement (often called Campbellism by outsiders) has traditionally stressed the working of the Holy Spirit through the Scriptures so as to minimize emotionalism. The largest branch of the movement, the Churches of Christ, is the group from which charismatic entertainer Pat Boone was excluded. An example of their comparatively strong stand is Glossolalia: From God or Man? by Jimmy Jividen (1971, Star Bible Publications). Merle Johnson, in what he admits is a forthright attack, pastorally motivated, warns against Religious Roulette and Other Dangerous Games Christians Play (1975, Abingdon). He feels that the kind of prayer encouraged by the charismatic movement is a throwback to paganism. His low view of certain passages of Scripture will limit the usefulness his book might have had, but some of his insights are worth pondering.

Although the Seventh-day Adventists believe very strongly in the gift of prophecy, especially as manifested through Ellen White, they have not been charismatically inclined in our century. Charisma of the Spirit by Rene Noorbergen (1973, Pacific Press) is written from within that tradition. Wayne Robinson, who like Gardiner is an ex-Pentecostal, has written an especially gripping book, I Once Spoke in Tongues (1973, Tyndale or Forum). The son of a Pentecostal pastor, Robinson was once a widely traveled evangelist, then an associate of Oral Roberts. This book includes more personal testimony than most but also deals with the exegetical, practical, and theological dimensions. Robinson develops in the reader a sensitivity to Pentecostals as persons and as brethren in Christ that harsher polemical works do not. Tongues in Biblical Perspective by Charles R. Smith (1972, BMH Books) takes a staunch position. Harder to classify is The Holy Spirit Today by Frank Stagg (1973, Broadman). The author deals with the biblical data, stresses positively the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and at the same time makes a case against Pentecostal interpretations. In The Baptism and Gifts of the Holy Spirit (1974, Moody), Merrill Unger makes an exegetical case against Pentecostal distinctives.

PEACEMAKERS Some books on the Holy Spirit are not trying to build a case for or against the Pentecostal movement but are not detached surveys either; instead, they are trying to promote peace and unity among Christians who differ on this issue. Some are by charismatics, others are not. Pat Boone tries in Dr. Balaam’s Talking Mule (1974, Bible Voice) to promote unity through random reflections. So Your Wife Came Home Speaking in Tongues? So Did Mine! (1973, Revell) is the engaging title used by Robert Branch for a discussion that can really help divided households—and not by getting one side to capitulate. Peter Gilquist, a well-known author and speaker, says Let’s Quit Fighting About the Holy Spirit (1974, Zondervan). Not himself a tongues-speaker, he accepts the validity of the gift. His problem, and that of the other peacemakers, is to convince tongues-speakers who believe that it is the sign of the baptism and fullness of the Spirit to set aside that view and to see tongues as a gift that only certain Christians have. Peace among Christians who differ over water-baptism, is possible to the degree that the significance of the ordinance, while not abandoned, is deemphasized. Those who believe that infant baptism or adult baptism is essential for salvation do have problems engaging in cooperative ventures. Fights about the Holy Spirit are bound to continue whenever some feel called to share vigorously their views that only through an experience somewhat like their own can a Christian be a good disciple.

David Howard, missions head of Inter-Varsity, has written a book that may be more in the exegetical category than the mediating: By the Power of the Holy Spirit (1973, InterVarsity). He recognizes the gift of tongues, but, like many of the authors mentioned in earlier sections, he stresses elements of the Spirit’s ministry that are generally recognized as common to all Christians. His is one of the better books expressing this viewpoint. The Fire Flares Anew by John Kerr (1974, Fortress) is a Lutheran perspective on the new Pentecostalism. The Unpredictable Wind by C. Brandon Rimmer and Bill Brown (1972, Nelson) is a very elementary presentation from a position much the same as David Howard’s. In After the Spirit Comes (1975, Broadman), Jack Taylor, a pastor active in leading and writing on congregational renewal, shares his thoughts on the filling of the Spirit and everyday life.

Two other books are intended not so much to make peace between two sides as to stress the role of the Holy Spirit in promoting the demonstration of the unity that is a reality in Christ: Becoming One in the Spirit by Larry Richards (1973, Victor) and One of the Spirit by David Watson (1973, Revell). The work of unifying, together with other aspects of the Spirit’s ministry that Christ foretold in John 13–17, is expounded by Ray Stedman in Secrets of the Spirit (1975, Revell).

PARTICULAR ASPECTS OF THE SPIRIT’S MINISTRY Although some of the books mentioned earlier focus on a particular aspect, they have wider implications. These books tend to concentrate well on the subject of their titles. Spiritual Gifts and the Churchby Donald Bridge and David Phypers (1974, InterVarsity) is one of the very best books on its subject. It discusses the baptism of the Spirit in relation to his gifts. The Baptism, Filling, and Gifts of the Holy Spirit by W. A. Criswell (1973, Zondervan) represents the views of one of the better-known preachers of our day. Spirit Fruit by John Drescher (1974, Herald Press) focuses devotionally on the ninefold fruit of Galatians 5:22, 23. More works on the fruit of the Spirit are needed. There Are Other Gifts Than Tongues by Siegfried Grossmann (1971, Tyndale) discusses nineteen of them. Leslie Flynn likewise writes on Nineteen Gifts of the Spirit (1974, Victor). A careful exposition of First Corinthians 12–14 is undertaken by Jack MacGorman in The Gifts of the Spirit (1974, Broadman). Watson Mills focuses on tongues in Acts and First Corinthians in Understanding Speaking in Tongues (1972, Eerdmans). George Montague, a noted Catholic biblical scholar, writes briefly on The Spirit and His Gifts (1974, Paulist). The notes give a good bibliography. A classic presentation of a non-charismatic viewpoint is John Stott’s The Baptism and Fullness of the Holy Spirit (1964, InterVarsity). Rick Yohn exhorts us to Discover Your Spiritual Gift and Use It (1974, Tyndale).

SPECIALIZED TOPICS BY CHARISMATIC AUTHORS Larry Christenson, Lutheran pastor and author of the best-seller The Christian Family, addresses A Message to the Charismatic Movement (1972, Bethany Fellowship) in which he informs his readers about the Catholic Apostolic Church, founded in 1830, which incorporated the whole range of New Testament gifts and offices but has almost died out. Christenson also wrote A Charismatic Approach to Social Action (1974, Bethany Fellowship). This “approach” differs very little from common evangelical practice, although the book is rather different from much of the recent non-charismatic writing on the subject, writing that is trying to change the practice. Gillies’ Guide to Home Prayer Meetings by George and Harriet Gillies (1973, Whitaker) is an interesting “how-to” guide. Spoken by the Spirit by Ralph Harris (1973, Gospel Publishing House) gives specific accounts of people speaking in about fifty languages that they had not learned. The accounts are not likely to change any minds and do not seem to have been scrutinized for accuracy by trained linguists. If true, they do support the continued presence of a gift of languages but say nothing about its appropriateness for all Christians. The Charismatic Church by William Olson (1974, Bethany Fellowship) tries to show how the individualistic elements in charismatic emphasis can be wedded to the collective nature of the body of Christ. The Spirit-Led Family by Grace and Wendell Robley (1974, Whitaker) does the same task for the home.

CATHOLIC CHARISMATIC MOVEMENT Although Roman Catholicism has always made room for supernatural interruptions in the routine, as shrines around the world testify, or for a relatively few “saints” to have special mystical relations with the divine on a regular basis, the widespread participation in the extraordinary that Pentecostalism fosters is a recent development. The start of its expression in the Western church is usually traced to Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, in 1967, from which it quickly spread to Notre Dame. Catholic Pentecostals by Kevin and Dorothy Ranaghan (1969, Paulist) is an early account; The Pentecostal Movement in the Catholic Church by Edward O’Connor (1971, Ave Maria) is slightly later. In God’s Providence by John Randall (1973, Logos) is an account of a charismatic parish in, of all places, Providence, Rhode Island.

The Catholic Cult of the Paraclete by Joseph Fichter (1975, Sheed and Ward) is a sociologist’s report based on responses from participants in more than 150 prayer groups. Much of what it reveals about Catholic Charismatics is not what one would have predicted based on older Protestant stereotypes. Catholic Charismatics: Are They For Real? by R. Douglas Wead (1972, Creation) records one old-line Pentecostal’s pleasant surprise after widesspread encounters.

The leader of the Priests’ Charismatic Prayer Group, Vincent Walsh, presents A Key to Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church (1974, Abbey), in which he deals with both biblical foundations and practical guidelines. The Conspiracy of God by John Haughey (1973, Doubleday) is a brief overview of the Holy Spirit and his relationships from Jesus to the present. The best-known charismatic archbishop, Leon Suenens of Belgium, asks if there is A New Pentecost? (1975, Seabury). The book is important in showing both sensitivity to the need for Christians to be genuine, not merely nominal, and Catholic concern for reinvigorating traditional structures and beliefs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY The American Holiness Movement by D. W. Faupel and The American Pentecostal Movement by Donald Dayton are to appear soon, updated, from Asbury Seminary Library. Charles Jones’s 918 page A Guide to the Study of the Holiness Movement (1974, Scarecrow) is indispensable for scholars.

After a recent sermon series in which I carefully identified, analyzed, and categorized the biblical gifts of the Spirit, a friend stopped my self-satisfaction with the complaint, “I still don’t know what my gift is!” I got his point. Much of what is said about spiritual gifts is like a Bible commentary that provides reams of detailed helps on Scriptures already understood but skips with little more than obscure mumblings over the hard passages.

A morning recently spent browsing the shelves of a large Christian bookseller confirmed my suspicions. Books and pamphlets concerned with a new understanding of spiritual gifts are rolling off the presses. The various gifts are explored and explained, their value to the Church magnified, their sovereign bestowal assured. But few if any of these same publications are giving concrete, understandable guidelines for discovering the gifts so glowingly described. Perhaps, as with true love, it is to be understood that “when you have it, you’ll know it.” But more and more believers are being taught that they have spiritual gifts, and, realizing they don’t know what theirs is, are asking how they can find out.

Charismatic sources give plentiful instruction in almost clinical detail for the discovery of one of the gifts in particular. While purporting to value all the gifts, most of these sources leave the reader to his own devices if he is to discover his gift among those other than tongues-speaking. So the problem of discovering spiritual gifts is not limited to non-charismatics. It extends across the breadth of the evangelical spectrum.

Fortunately, something is being done about it. Conferences attracting thousands are now proposing to delve into the practical questions of discovering one’s gift. Individual churches are awaking to the fact that their members can be more effective and work more harmoniously if their assignments utilize their spiritual gifts. Many conflicts and much unhappiness have resultedthrough the years from the insistence that all Christians have approximately the same capacity to serve, and from the practice of shoe-horning people into positions for which they have no spiritual aptitude. For example, if a church insists that a man who manages a large office during the week sit on all boards and committees that discuss budgets and buildings when his spiritual gift is that of showing mercy, both the man and the church will suffer. Insisting that all ought to be winning souls (as opposed to witnessing) instead of recognizing that not all have gifts that especially fit them for such personal evangelism is to produce frustrated, defeated believers. And usually a person frustrated in this way will be thwarted in ever finding out what his true ministry in the Body really is.

In some churches, pulpit instruction on the gifts is being accompanied by personal counseling to help people find their own gift. A conference of this sort sometimes results in an about-face in a person’s church responsibility. Other churches have prepared questionnaires to guide members in discovering their gifts.

One of the immediate results of such efforts is to identify areas where one does not have gifts. For example, one may like to think he has the gift of administration. But if in honest soul-searching he admits to himself that no one has ever asked him to chair a committee and that those few responsibilities assigned to him have often gone uncompleted, he can clearly see that administration is not his gift. Often it is easier to decide which gifts we do not possess than which ones we do.

Certain gifts are thought to be more glamorous than others, and it is very easy for Christians to fall into the snare of thinking they have those gifts without evidence to back up this belief. Several months ago I was asked whether I thought I had a certain gift. Thinking that a pastor “ought” to have that particular gift I answered in the affirmative. I gave my answer with a display of assurance in the hope that the questioner would not ask any more questions and expose my own uncertainty. But when he began to query me, I quickly saw that here was a gift I did not possess and never had. Fifteen years of stumbling about came into focus, and with relief I admitted to myself that I did not have to have this gift to be a pastor.

Nowhere does the Bible give a prescription to be followed in finding one’s spiritual gift. But lest any conclude that such discovery is irrelevant to a healthy Christian life or that individual initiative is unnecessary, St. Paul begins First Corinthians 12:1 with the explanation, “Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant.” He concludes that watershed chapter with the injunction to “eagerly desire the greater gifts” and picks up the same theme in chapter 14: “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts” (v. 1). In writing to Timothy he warns him not to neglect his gifts.

Clearly, the recognition of spiritual gifts is foundational to the operation of the Church as a Body. In fact, these two thoughts (the Church is a Body made up of dissimilar parts, and each part has received a special gift of the Spirit) are always linked. In every extended treatment of either thought, the other is present also. This linking of ideas is found in Romans 12, in chapters 12 and 14 of First Corinthians, and in Ephesians 4.

If our local churches are ever to be more than collections of believers who congregate once a week to listen to one member (always the same one) speak, then we must discover how God has uniquely gifted each one to contribute to the whole. The goal of the Body of Christ is to “be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining the full measure of perfection found in Christ” (Eph. 4:12, 13). The context says that certain gifts of ministry, such as the gifts of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, are given, not to accomplish this goal for the Church, but to equip God’s people for works of service so that all may share in reaching the goal of maturity. For much of two thousand years, clergymen have been trying to induce maturity from the pulpit. Now they are discovering that they can help lay people discover their gifts so that all together can do what they alone cannot.

The place to begin in the discovery of spiritual gifts is one’s own desires and aspirations. What spiritual gift do you want? It is important that the answer not be cast in terms of what you feel others expect of you. What gift or gifts may currently be in vogue among your friends is not at all important. What spiritual gift do you desire to have? It may well be that your personality characteristics, background, training, and present circ*mstances have all converged to create in you some burning desire that will find fulfillment in the sovereign bestowal of a particular gift. But it is far more likely that God has already given you a spiritual gift, which has been lying dormant. The desires and aspirations you feel are caused by the very gift within you, pressing to be released in loving service.

Regrettably, there is a kind of preaching that creates in the minds of many people the idea that God’s will must always run counter to man’s will, that surrender always calls for the relinquishment of what we hold dearest. This may sometimes be so, but more often God will lead us in paths and directions we would choose for ourselves.

We are often held back from spiritual ministries we would enjoy by the fear that we are not properly equipped. What we find is that in the doing we discover the needed gifts. The internal desire signals the gift.

In examining what our desires are we might well consider the church of which we are a part. A series of questions may help to focus our true concern and avoid excessive introspection.

“What is my greatest concern for my church?”

“What do I think is very important in other churches I visit?”

“What is lacking in the life of my church?”

“If I could be assured of success, what would I most like to contribute to my church fellowship?”

Out of such heartsearching will often come the conviction that some spiritual gift is not in evidence. And if it is needed and not evident, perhaps it has been given but is being repressed. When this kind of concern is vented in prayer it can be the fulfillment of Paul’s injunction to “earnestly desire spiritual gifts.” Understanding what you would wish in the way of spiritual gifts is not a foolproof guide, but it is a valuable starting point.

If you have honestly faced up to your own desires, giving them content by thoroughly understanding the nature of spiritual gifts and by soaking those desires in prayer, then you have no doubt narrowed your field of vision. Certain gifts hold no appeal for you. There may be several that seem desirable. Now you are ready to move to the second consideration: What spiritual abilities do others see in you?

The Apostle Paul obviously saw in Timothy gifts and abilities of which Timothy himself was not aware. Paul’s letters to Timothy are loaded with encouragement, reminders, and instructions. So too with us. We do not always possess a clear self-vision. There often seems to be some corner clouded by fog. Occasionally our self-appraisal is inflated; more often it is depressed. Well, then, how can we tell what others see in us? How can we examine those areas of our personality hidden to self-view? As with the examination of our own desires, a series of questions may help.

“Have spiritually mature people told me of certain abilities I possess?”

“What am I often asked to do in the way of spiritual ministry?”

“Do others express appreciation more often for one ministry I have, rather than another?”

“Are there certain things I am never asked to do?”

To be most helpful, these questions are to be asked within the framework of a genuinely caring fellowship. The congregation where people are identified by name but not really known to one another will prove a limited source for answers. But even so, by combining what others see in us with what we already know about ourselves, it ought to be possible to narrow the field of potential spiritual gifts even further.

Usually it is at this point that people drop out. For the third step is to begin to minister. There is to be no hanging back, no waiting until all the answers are in and the picture is complete. Do you really want the gift of teaching and is the opportunity present? Then apply yourself to the Word of God for however much study it takes to make the Scriptures plain. Do you want the gift of administration and is there a committee in your church lacking direction? Volunteer, and then throw yourself into the project. The reward comes, not in a testimonial dinner, but in the sense of seeing a job through to completion. Do you long for the gift of mercy? Visit patients in a nursing home or hospital and pray for God’s love to be expressed through you.

Now all of this is work! And here is the most fundamental misapprehension of the whole subject of spiritual gifts. The gifts are not ornaments to be hung on invisible pendants for display. Every gift named in the New Testament is given for the purpose of service. And unless one has a servant’s heart and is willing to acquire a servant’s hands, he will wait in vain for the gift to be conveyed. The whole idea is expressed in Ecclesiastes 9:10, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.”

In the final analysis, the presence or absence of a particular gift is confirmed by experience. Use whatever gift you think you may have in the service of Christ’s people. If it is genuine, there will be visible results to that service. Confirmation will come, not because we feel good about our teaching or committee work or whatever, but because lives are being rearranged and problems solved and heartaches mended. And when that begins to happen you can be sure that others will sense a new dynamic at work in your ministry. God will be glorified and your gift will be affirmed by others.

In a sense this third step is a matter of trial and error. Some ministries you try may not have discernible results. You may long to have the gift of encouragement, to be able to counsel confused believers and point them to effective solutions. But no one comes to you for help. You are rebuffed when you volunteer your assistance. You begin to guess that your gift lies elsewhere, at least for now. But while the process of discovery may seem tedious, if you have listened closely to what your desires dictate and what others think, more often than not the trial will turn to triumph.

You will discover the freedom there is in knowing how you may best minister to the Body. There is release from the fear of failure. You need not measure up to anyone else. You will revel in the liberty to do what God has equipped you to do, knowing that others are prepared to minister according to their gifts, making the whole complete. Learning your gift will take time. Using your gift will take the rest of your life.

When I use a word,” said Humpty Dumpty to Alice on her journey through Wonderland, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” Some of us take that sort of approach to the meaning of Christian fellowship. Is it the same as going to church? Is it what goes in the “fellowship hour” after the worship service? Is it something we have when we go out for Sunday supper with fellow Christians? Is it something that we have in our house Bible-study groups but that is remote and even irrelevant in church on Sundays? Or is it perhaps not really definable at all—something that we have in our house Bible-study groups speak about it?

It’s right at the point of definition that we meet our first problem, for we generally use the word to mean what we choose it to mean. Rarely do we stop to ask if we have any biblical guidelines for understanding what “fellowship” really is. Before you go to the bookshelf for your English dictionary, or for the theological dictionary that will tell you what the experts say, take your Bible out and read the first page or two. There, in the account of the creation of the world and its inhabitants, we have the most comprehensive explanation of “fellowship” that we could hope for.

Adam was made like God (Gen. 1:26 ff.), and as we read the idyllic description of his perfect life in the Garden of Eden we can see what the Bible means when it speaks about “fellowship.” At the beginning of time, Adam was uniquely privileged to share his life with God and to know God’s intimate friendship and presence. God shared himself with Adam as a friend, and Adam held no secrets from his Maker. You’ll remember that when Adam sinned, the first thing to go was his sharing with God (Gen. 3:8 ff.). When God arrived in the garden one evening, Adam was no longer waiting eagerly to share his life with God, for he knew that the true happiness, friendship, and fellowship with his Maker had now gone forever. Sin had come in, and from that point onward in human history men and women could no longer have the thrilling privilege of living in fellowship with God as Adam had done (Gen. 3:22 ff.).

As we read the rest of the Old Testament we learn how man for his part tried in vain to reach out toward God, in the effort to re-establish this fellowship, and how God attempted from his side to win back the friendship and obedience of man that had been lost through Adam’s fall. We all know how man’s efforts and God’s love ended in failure time and again, as sin tightened its grip on humanity. Then God gave his Son Jesús Christ for the sin of the world, so that this perfect fellowship between man and God could be restored. In order that we might share the life of heaven, God had first to share himself with us. And so we find, first of all, that at the heart of “fellowship” is something that God has done for us—and if in our own experience God has done nothing for us, then we can have no fellowship.

God’s great act of sharing leads to two great blessings for those who are willing to accept the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and his rule over their lives. We find them in First John 1:1–10.

1. Because of what Jesus has done, “our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (v. 3). Through Christ’s work we are brought again into a position of “sharing” with God, and as Christians we have “fellowship” with him. “Of course,” you say, “we all know that”—and so we do. But what does it actually mean to say that we have “fellowship with God”?

Having fellowship with God implies that two things have taken place in our lives. It suggests for one thing that our lives are devoted to the service of God. Exclusive devotion is involved because whereas we were once the servants of evil, we are now the servants of God, and the two things are incompatible: “What fellowship has light with darkness?” (2 Cor. 6:14).

But fellowship with God also involves self-denial, related to a desire for a close personal relationship with our Lord himself. Paul spoke of fellowship with his risen Master as a sharing in the sufferings of Jesus Christ (Gal. 2:19, f.; Phil. 3:10). He did not need to be crucified physically as Christ was. But as he thought of what the crucifixion meant for Christ, he realized that for this to happen to the Son of God meant a fundamental denial of who he was (Phil. 2:5–11). And if Christians are to be closely linked to him, that relationship must mean self-denial for them, too. This is specifically what Jesus himself said: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). And this is what fellowship with Godmust involve for us today: separation from evil, and the denial of ourselves so that Christ can live in us.

2. We are also reminded in First John 1:9 that because of what Jesus has done for us, “we have fellowship with one another.” Because as individual Christians we are living a life of fellowship, or sharing, with God, we are also linked with one another, for we all share the common life that God has given us through the Holy Spirit. This is what most of us think of when we speak of “having fellowship.” But the Bible never speaks of our fellowship with one another in isolation from our fellowship with God. This means that to understand our fellowship together as Christians, we have to take our starting point from the love that God has shown us in Christ.

When we do that, we can see the great importance of the fellowship we have in our Christian congregations. To “have fellowship” with one another is not merely to have a social meeting. Rather, what we do and the way we do it, the character and the quality of our fellowship—these things are demonstrations of what God is really like. As non-Christians see us, and as they inspect the kind of fellowship we have with one another, they ought to see there a reflection of the Lord whom we serve. This means that the way we express our fellowship is a very serious matter. It isn’t just a matter of a committee’s discussing the best way to do things. Instead, it is a matter of understanding the kind of fellowship that God has already given to us as Christian believers.

Fortunately, we are not left in the dark to find our own ways of expressing our fellowship with God and with one another. In the writings of Paul we have a striking picture of how our fellowship should operate to God’s glory. In several places Paul speaks of Christians, in the context of both local and universal church, as “the body of Christ” (Rom. 12:3–8; 1 Cor. 12:12–31; Eph. 4:1–16), and the picture he has in mind is that of an ordinary human body like yours and mine. He looks at the body as a collection of individual faculties and organs, each one performing its own distinctive function. Even those that seem relatively unimportant are necessary for the smooth operation of our physical bodies. By applying this picture in the spiritual realm, Paul shows that God wants to teach us some very important lessons about our Christian fellowship.

For a start, we learn that although members of the body (or Christian church fellowship) perform quite different jobs, they are all of equal importance to God and to the fellowship itself. It would be very foolish for me to suppose that because certain organs in my body are hidden from view, they must be unnecessary or of secondary importance. Common sense tells me that the organs hidden from view are the most important of all. Just so in the Christian fellowship. Whoever we are and whatever our sphere of service may be, we are all of equal value. Male or female, rich or poor, educated or uneducated, we are all equal, and none of us is indispensable.

But we can take the argument a stage further. Because we are all of equal importance in our own Christian fellowship, each one of us has an effect on the life of the whole group. Think of your own body again. If your hand is seriously wounded and you don’t bother to have it treated, what will be the result? Gradually the wound will fester, poison will enter your bloodstream, your whole body will be affected by that one small injury. It’s just like that in the Christian fellowship. The Christian who habitually sins will be like a wound, having an effect on the life of the whole body. On the other hand, if we are living a life in close fellowship with God himself, we will be releasing not spiritual poison but spiritual nourishment into the fellowship, for the benefit of the whole body. Since we are part of a “body,” we cannot cut ourselves off from the local congregation to which we belong; everything we do in whatever context must have its inevitable effect on the quality and character of our fellowship. What a great responsibility it is to belong to the Christian church fellowship!

But there is an even more serious consideration. Because our church is not just any old body but is “the body of Christ,” everything that goes on there will have its effect also on the work of God himself. The kind of fellowship that people see is going to affect their impression of Christ, and so we must be very careful.

This leads us on to the final point about fellowship. We can now see clearly that as Christians we do not have fellowship together merely to fulfill some socialinstinct. We are not a group meeting for purely social purposes, though that aspect can play its proper part. The main purpose of Christian fellowship is spiritual, and can be divided into two areas.

First, and most obvious, is the fact that our Christian fellowship should be directed toward building us up as Christians. Look at what Paul says in Ephesians 4:12–16: the body of Christ is planned to ensure that “we all attain … to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ … to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.” It is therefore our responsibility, as members of the body, to make sure that our fellowship activities are of such a character that they will promote these objectives, and that those who have been given to us as “pastors and teachers” have every facility to perform their God-given task.

There is something else, too. Jesus himself made a firm connection between the character of our fellowship and the effectiveness of our witness to non-Christians: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

One of the dire effects of Adam’s fall was that not only was fellowship between man and God destroyed but fellowship between man and man disappeared also—and Cain killed his brother Abel. In the fellowship that Christians have with one another, God wants to create a loving community that will be a witness to the non-Christian world. We are all asking ourselves how we can witness to God’s working in a modern scientific age. We can never give objective proof that Christians are “living in fellowship with God.” There is no mathematical formula to prove that God is our Father. But we can give to the world conclusive proof of God’s operation in our lives if our fellowship together is marked by that loving, sharing quality which is markedly absent in the world at large.

One of the reasons why we fail to communicate effectively with modern man is the simple one that we do not practice what we preach. We proclaim that God will reconcile men to himself, but are we always reconciled to one another? We speak of the love of God, but so often we do not reflect that love in our dealings with one another. We claim that God can change lives, but have we allowed him to change ours? This is a time for frankness and honesty, for Christians are faced today with unparalleled opportunities for witness to non-Christians. One of the things we need to learn again is that biblical evangelism is not something we pay evangelists to do. It is essentially a fellowship activity. God has raised up his Church so that men and women can see what “fellowship” means in its truest sense—and if our fellowship is working as it ought to be, that means they will see God at work in our midst.

As Christians we have so often missed the way in the past, but today God is giving us yet another opportunity to put our house in order. One of the things he is asking us to do is to examine our fellowship with him and our fellowship with one another, so that the body of Christ might work to his glory.

PARADOX

Fond of fetters?

I admit it;

Fond of those I chose to wear.

The chain is light, though strong-molded;

There is no key—

But should I care?

Take your freedom! Its kind only

Leaves you falling backward down

The mountain.

But when Iam weary,

Fetters hoist me, summitbound.

SUSAN M. WOODco*ck

Rachael weeping for her children—slain, tortured, or lost: the anguished mother is the continuing image throughout Scripture. From Eve, the mother of our sin, to Mary, the mother of our salvation, we follow the trail of tears. Eve’s punishment for her transgression was the curse/blessing of childbirth. In the paired image of Cain and Abel we see the fruition of this prophecy, not only in the travail of physical birth but also in the greater pain of spiritual birth. The triumph of an evil man over a good one in that scene of fratricide echoes through the history of the patriarchs. The angry quarrels of brothers must have wrenched mothers’ hearts asunder. In some of the scriptural families, the mother’s love itself proved to be a malign influence on the children, in the case of Rebekah encouraging one brother to steal another’s birthright.

The women of the Old Testament, who, with certain notable exceptions, are generally noted only for the romance of their selection as wives to patriarchs, are judged primarily for their fecundity. Apparently, long barren women (Sarah and Rachel), though perhaps beloved while childless, are triumphant only when they bear children. Such long awaited children were especially prized. When women so clearly live through their children as many Old Testament women do, they focus their attention on these projections of self, especially on the males, who can perhaps achieve the impossible goals of the mothers. Thus the mothers’ influence for good or evil on their children is a significant reflection of their own values. The evil woman may pervert the young Jezebel, the devoted mother may dedicate to God her tiny Samuel. In either case, the mother’s faith finds expression through the child’s life.

Mary, far more fully described than these consorts to patriarchs, echoes the Jewish traditions as she travelsthe archetypal path of motherhood. From the anguish and joy of the annunciation to the numbing pain of the crucifixion, she lived out the traditional role of the good mother: the blessedness of birth (and its myriad complications), the responsibilities of nurturing (the flight into Egypt), the pride and pain of adolescent independence (the separation at the Temple), the mature youth’s assumption of manhood (during the wedding at Cana). We perceive Mary’s as the universal maternal experience: loving the child, cherishing him, and finally releasing him to be an independent person with his own calling. At Cana and later, we see Mary willing to learn from the son and to accept his leadership, able to follow to the cross, to participate in the joy of the Resurrection, and to unite with other Christians in the blessedness of the Pentecostal fire.

In this portrait, we see that motherhood is but one role of the woman. Mary accepted it as God’s will (with Elizabeth’s help perceiving her “blessedness”). She brought Jesus up in her faith, observing the holy days like a good Jewish mother; yet apparently she was able to understand that he “must be about his father’s business.” What a moment for a mother: when the child moves outside the home, no longer reliant on her for guidance. Mary seems to have adapted to this new relationship with her son over the years, and she seems to have found in his leadership a new sense of herself. As a child of God, one of the saints, she found a new “blessedness” that provided comfort in the face of her son’s death, and faith that would carry her beyond the cross to the Easter experience and then to the upper room.

No longer do we women see the child-bearing function as absolutely and unquestionably primary; no longer are we burdened and blessed with the large families and unending household chores of our ancestors. We are free as never before in history, free to make choices that Mary and Sarah and Rebekah never contemplated. Most women even today apparently still believe from the moment they cuddle their first dolls that their greatest joy will be in motherhood. Yet without the tidy tyranny of the arranged marriage and polygamous households, many women share Sarah’s early barrenness without the joy of her unexpected late gift from God. Others choose barrenness on ethical or personal grounds.

While Mary would have given her day to her role as wife and mother, nurturing the body, mind, and spirit of the child in her home, many of us—with mixed results—leave the child’s body in the hands of daycare centers, the mind to the schools, and the spirit to the Church. (I for one want to express my gratitude to the loving teachers, babysitters, and friends who have served as an extended family to my youngsters, who had patience when I lost mine and advice when I was at wits’ end. For me, these people have been enormously supportive.) Thus, for good or bad, today’s mother often has less influence on her children than her counterparts in previous generations had on theirs. The woman is liberated from the child to pursue her own education, career, or other activities. In short, for good or ill, motherhood is no longer an obligatory, single, central role and purpose of life for women.

Many women feel that this freedom to choose motherhood rather than having it thrust upon them gives a new richness to the experience. The alternatives to housekeeping and babysitting can make child-rearing less confining, more interesting, and more fun. For many of us, barrenness is no catastrophe when adoption is possible. Even for unmarried women with a calling to maternity, adoption is increasingly a possibility, along with the more traditional nurturing patterns of nursing and teaching. More and more we are discovering that blood ties are by no means essential to the maternal response, and we are redefining our child-mother relations to echo Paul, who spoke of us as those whom God adopted, and Christ, who assigned his beloved comrade to his mother at the cross.

Such realignments of families and reassessments of values have been important means toward the redefinitions of roles. As Carl F. H. Henry said recently in his “Footnotes” column in this magazine (January 3, issue), many Christian women who continue to find their calling in traditional forms of homemaking also need to reassess their values. Rather than providing only good meals and clean houses, such women have a larger calling: to raise “sons and daughters strong in faith and piety.” And no Sunday school can substitute for the nurturing in the faith available daily in the Christian home. But increasingly, we realize that we are responsible for children beyond those who carry our own genes.

When we participate in infant baptism or dedication, we vow to become participants in the nurture of the child. How often do we accept the responsibility to serve as godparents to the children of our church and community? As Henry said, “Instead of merely deploring communal child-care centers, can we probe new possibilities of the extended evangelical family? Jesus once asked, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’” As Jesus (and consequently Mary) realized, we arerelated to all people because of our unity as children of God and brothers in Christ. We need to look beyond our cozy but perhaps selfish family circle.

We can discover a number of helpful household hints in the Bible:

1. From Mary and Jesus, we find that motherhood first of all demands the preservation of the child from danger and from evil.

2. From them we also learn the responsibility to help a child move from pabulum to solid food of the faith, and to experience outside the home, into a world apart from parents. To fail to feed the child spiritually is to create spiritual cripples, unable to walk in the Spirit as free men and women in Christ, unable to stand straight in the outside world.

3. Although Scripture tells us that discipline is the responsibility of the good parent, it also teaches us that the sensitive parent listens to the child and learns from him as well (as did Mary at Cana).

4. From Mary’s example, we see that the greatest pain and the greatest joy are not necessarily at birth; they may come at maturity, when the child grows into selfhood that demands independence of the parent, a second cutting of the umbilical cord.

5. In Mary’s ability to follow Jesus, when he became an adult, we see that truth may on occasion be the possession of youth, and that the wise person follows wisdom’s call without embarrassment—even if it comes from the mouths of babes.

Mary learned to accept Jesus as the Son of God—not as a psychological or physical extension of herself, not as an inferior creature whom she could pervert or dominate, not as an animal needing nothing but nourishment, not as a tool having no will. She came to know him as a separate, free, precious being.

For other mothers, such as us, living in a fallen world among fallen children, there are other scriptural lessons as well: that we have tremendous power to enrich or to corrupt the small child; that our love, like God’s, must mix discipline with regard. Proverbs repeatedly admonishes parents to take the rod to the foolish child, and children to obey and respect their parents.

The child will learn from his parents how he is to respond to others—whether with superiority and insensitivity, with suspicion and hostility, or with love. Again, Scripture points the way to rearing a child in the way he should go: he will learn about God first from us, from our explicit and implicit attitudes toward Scripture, worship, and fellow Christians.

Human efforts sometimes backfire: the loving mother can create the rebellious spirit. If the mother sacrifices herself eagerly, the child may treat her as a doormat or as a tiresome domestic saint. Some scriptural guidelines about respect, anger, and discipline are helpful to the parent, but few rules hold in every case; balance and sensitivity to individual relationships are more important than fixed rules. As God sees each of us as an individual, so we must know our children. One child needs a spanking; another needs the more positive reinforcement of the forgiving hug. The parent must discern which is which. “Train up a child in the way he should go,” says Solomon, and the good parents must discern “the way he should go” and the means to “train him up”—both demanding love and prayer. The ideal wife/mother furnishes the climactic encomium for the writer of Proverbs, for she is the good woman described in chapter 31:

Strength and dignity are her clothing,

and she laughs at the time to come.

She opens her mouth with wisdom,

and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue.

She looks well to the ways of her household,

and does not eat the bread of idleness.

Her children rise up and call her blessed;

her husband also, and he praises her:

“Many women have done excellently,

but you surpass them all.”

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,

but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

Give her of the fruit of her hands,

and let her works praise her in the gates.

No one but Mary has ever known the miracle of Christ’s growing within her body. But countless have known the miracle of birth and the greater miracle of love. God in his infinite wisdom has provided mankind the means to multiply without his constant intervention. The regularity of the creation of new life has deadened our awareness of this recurrent miracle. That God also established the infant as a creature demanding nurture forces us to accept responsibility for our young. We need no psychologists to educate us on the wearying and rewarding role of motherhood. The greater responsibility of the role is reflected in the image of Christ, weeping over Jerusalem as a mother over her children.

Both men and women are called to help bring children of God into a relationship with Christ. The mother role is not just for women of child-bearing age; it is the responsibility for love and nurture in the faith that every Christian woman and man, single or married, with or without physical descendants, must assume.

Mary first appears in Scripture as a mother-to-be, concerned with the physical experience of birth. By Pentecost, she has become the mother to the larger community of Christians—“Woman, behold thy son,” says Christ from the Cross. Apparently Mary was able to walk through the valley of the shadow of death into the blessedness of God’s transcendent love by faith and trust and love. So may we all.

Eleven years ago I covered (not uncritically) for this journal the Second All-Christian Peace Assembly in Prague. Since then, perhaps because I was erroneously listed as a participant, I have received regular communiques that augment my collection of Czechoslovak stamps, make me an enigma to our local post office, and give me an intimate though selective account of Christian activity behind the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Albania; not many Western Christians could name all nine easily; fewer could cite individual features that distinguish them; some have merely a shrewd suspicion that there are such places.

At last, however, we have a paperback that brings together information in concise form. An Anglican clergyman has written it, instigated and assisted by a British Council of Churches working party with “multiple expertise.” The group does not agree that in Eastern Europe “the only authentic Christianity is underground,” indicates that the range of conditions in this area is enormous, and holds that some parts have “more freedom than in some countries of what used to be called the mission field.”

The book, Discretion and Valour: Religious Conditions in Russia and Eastern Europe, by Trevor Beeson (Collins Fontana, 348 pp., 60p), deals with developments up to January 1, 1974, taking each of the countries in turn, from 110 pages on the U.S.S.R. to less than five on Albania (“the bleakest place in Europe”). Beeson is good at putting things in perspective. Thus, “The Russian people as a whole have never become Marxist, and … there are more convinced Marxists in Western Europe than in the East.” Or (of Poland), the British and Foreign Bible Society has “found it much easier to function under a Communist regime than under the Catholic-dominated government of pre-war days.”

All kinds of fascinating details are given: only East Germany recognizes a form of legal conscientious objection to military service; the heads of the Reformed and Lutheran churches in Hungary serve in their country’s parliament, and both are on the WCC Central Committee; the (Orthodox) Holy Synod in Bulgaria “urged the clergy to hold special services in honor of Stalin’s seventieth birthday,” and many priests who objected were arrested and sent to labor camps; the U.S.S.R., which had fifty-seven seminaries in 1914, now has only three; in Poland ordinations to the priesthood are double the pre-war figure and attendance at Sunday Mass in urban areas is 77 per cent, in rural areas 87 per cent. Yet about the latter, Beeson adds that “the level of personal and social morality is falling quite dramatically.” With a much smaller percentage of church attendance, East German ecclesiastics also are realizing that “Leninist ideology is not the Church’s chief enemy,” which is rather that growing secularism which afflicts any industrial society.

The degree of oppression varies from country to country and time to time. In an open letter circulated clandestinely, two Moscow priests are quoted:

During the period 1957–64 the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church radically changed its function, becoming instead of a department of arbitration an organ of unofficial and illegal control over the Moscow Patriarchate.… Such a situation in the Church could occur only with the connivance of the supreme ecclesiastical authorities, who have deviated from their sacred duty before Christ and the Church.

The jovial Metropolitan Nikodim, without whom no WCC Central Committee meeting would seem complete, comes in for a bit of stick. It is remarked too that the four years following his appointment as head of the Foreign Department of the Moscow Patriarchate saw “a massive increase in atheistic propaganda and very severe repression of religious institutions.” Beeson quotes Anatoli Levitin, a Russian writer who sharply criticizes Nikodim’s overseas travels and holds that he is evidently “still influenced by the Stalinist atmosphere in which he was brought up, allowing his admiration for the all-embracing invincible State to serve as the criterion for all the deeds of the Church and people.”

The book repeatedly warns against the assumption that the Church’s problems in Eastern Europe can be blamed entirely on Communism. No one will quarrel with this so long as no attempt is made to dissociate Communism from the Church’s plight.

Similarly, one will be careful of Beeson’s statement that barriers between Eastern European and other Christians were there long before the Communists came; it is true, but one must then go on to ask what Communism has done to pull down those barriers, or whether it has not reinforced them by manipulating different traditions and reviving old antagonisms for its own ends.

The concluding chapter, in discussing East European churches and the WCC, says candidly that “for more than a decade the WCC, while being acutely critical of many unjust regimes in different parts of the world, has found it difficult to make any public criticism of what has been happening in Eastern Europe,” as though Eastern European membership were dependent on reticence about “the negative aspects of Soviet policy.” Thus arose, says Beeson, the charge of “selective indignation.”

He is of the opinion that Soviet policy is being faced up to at last, now that “the subject of human rights has been placed on the agenda of the WCC.” But on this question the WCC had committed itself—on paper—much earlier than Beeson seems to think. The Hague Consultation report in 1967 urged that the Church should be prepared to say a “costly word,” declaring the truth even when “men will not dare to utter it.” A world body that goes for valor in attacking South Africa, Rhodesia, and Chile must have good reason if it opts for discretion in approaching other areas where there is an Orthodox Church and even more serious violation of human rights.

Perhaps a good place to start would be to take action on the sort of cri de coeur that came in 1972 from a number of Catholic priests in (Soviet) Lithuania:

Help us with your prayers and tell the world that we want at the present time only as much freedom of conscience as is permitted by the Constitution of the Soviet Union. We are full of determination, for God is with us.

Beeson quotes this reasonable plea, which surely calls for a word that would not be too costly even for the discreet. Not the least valuable feature of his book is the way it frankly raises problems that, had they been mentioned in past WCC press conferences, would have been regarded as very hot potatoes indeed. The British Council of Churches has fathered some odd publications that I’ve disliked intensely, but for this one I have nothing but praise.

I had the privilege recently of previewing the film The Hiding Place, the story of Corrie ten Boom and her family during World War II. This Dutch family sheltered Jews in their home until they were seized, and all except Corrie died at the hands of the Nazis. Although a film cannot portray all the horrors of the concentration camp, what is presented is sufficient to give anyone a good idea of that bestial institution. The film witnesses solidly to the saving and keeping power of Jesus Christ. I urge everyone to see it.

My heart was touched a few weeks ago when one of my nephews sent $25 of his tithe to CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Soon after, one of my daughters and her husband sent $50. Then my son and his wife sent $350. My son wrote: “We believe in the magazine and its ministry.… It is a small gift. However, I imagine every little bit helps.” As a father and uncle I’m particularly pleased by these three gifts, while as an editor I’m grateful for these and all other gifts to this ministry. Every little bit does indeed help.

Soviet Baptist leader Georgi Vins was recently sentenced to five years in prison and five years in exile on charges stemming from his religious activities (February 28 issue, page 41). The date of the trial in Kiev was kept secret, but family members and other believers showed up nevertheless and maintained a vigil outside. The trial was held nearly a year after Vins’s arrest. Only persons with special passes, apparently persons hostile to Vins and evangelical Christianity, were to be admitted to the courtroom. Several family members, however, managed to get inside. Among these was Lydia Vins, Georgi’s mother, who like her son had spent time previously in Soviet jails for her faith. She tape-recorded her comments on the five-day trial, and aCHRISTIANITY TODAYcorrespondent in frequent touch with key Soviet believers sent the magazine a translated transcript. The following is an edited condensation of Mrs. Vin’s eyewitness account:

When I entered the courtroom and saw Georgi’s exhausted, sunken eyes, his pale face, I thought that he had not slept for nights. During a visit with him in prison in October, the first I had seen him since my own release more than four years earlier, we were not permitted to discuss what he had suffered. But during the trial he did say that only for the last two months of ten was he on his feet.

We had obtained Alf Haerem, a Norwegian Christian, to be Georgi’s defense lawyer. When the authorities found out, they sent for me. Although they had been very rough with me the week before, now they were polite and tried to persuade us to take an atheist as a defender, but we refused. They in turn refused to give Mr. Haerem an entry visa, and I so informed the court. At this, Georgi announced he was rejecting the composition of the court.

“The first reason,” he declared, “is that the court is one-sided, consisting of atheists, and they are not judging me, but they are judging the confession of faith of the Evangelical Christian Baptists, they are judging the Bible and the Gospel, they are judging the whole movement of our Christianity.

“The second reason is that the entire investigation was conducted with much violence, with psychological and physical terrorism, and that the investigation was not conducted by the proper authority but by the Committee of Government Security [KGB]. For two months an agent of the KGB threatened and menaced me, and now he is sitting here in this courtroom. I had been put into a cell with him and other agents who threatened to strangle and kill me.”

My son presented an eighteen-point petition to the court. In it, he asked that Christian lawyers be allowed to participate (“since we do not have any in this country, it is necessary to have them from other countries”). The petition asked for the creation of a commission composed of representatives of the government and of the churches to determine whether there is slander in the accusations against Georgi, which are really accusations against our entire brotherhood.

The petition asked the court to obtain from special organizations in Moscow information as to how many believers were arrested from 1929 to 1945 and how many of them died. And also from 1945 to 1974. Further, how many pieces of religious literature, including Bibles, Gospels, and songbooks were confiscated. Next, how many believers were excluded from higher institutes of education for Christian reasons but under various pretexts, how many prayer houses were demolished from 1929 to 1974, how many believers were deprived of parental rights, how many Christian children deprived of their parental rights, and other questions throwing light on the activities of believers during those years.

His petition was rejected.

The presiding judge did not conduct himself objectively. All the witnesses that my son requested were refused. Georgi declined to defend himself in the absence of Mr. Haerem. At one point he said:

“I insist that in our country there is a physical destruction of believers. If you refuse to answer and get facts, then I will state that from 1929 to 1945 25,000 believers were arrested and 22,000 died in camps. From 1945 to 1974 20,000 Christians were arrested, and 6.000 were excluded from higher institutes of learning. Since 1929, ten million pieces of literature have been confiscated. Christians right now are being physically destroyed in camps and prisons.

“I could be at home today. During the first month of my arrest I was offered a position as a coworker with the KGB. I would be allowed to remain in the Council of Churches and to live at home with my wife and children, but this I refused.

“I know now that the Lord appointed this [trial], and I accept from his hands what he appoints.”

The experts then took their turn. They accused my son first of all of slander against Soviet reality. In the Soviet Union, they said, is no persecution whatsoever. Yet, they claimed, various reports of the Christians contain antigovernmental, criminal, and slanderous statements by Georgi. (He had included in the reports biographies of Baptist leaders of the past, their messages and letters. He had also written a family chronicle of the fates of his father [who allegedly died of torture in a prison camp], mother, and others.)

Before the verdict was announced, my son was offered a final word. He declined, saying, “My Lord will say the last word, he who said ‘I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.’” After the verdict was given they asked if he understood. He replied, “I understand. Praise be to Jesus Christ. Praise be to Jesus Christ.”

Suddenly relatives began throwing him flowers. They had carried the flowers into the courtroom under their clothing from the believers outside. My grandson, throwing flowers, said, “Daddy, this is for your courage.” His wife cried out as she cast flowers: “You have won this trial.” His little daughter Natasha stood on a chair and declared: “Daddy, the works of the church will not die, just like the love of Christ will not die. With Christ in prison it is freedom, but without Christ in freedom it is prison.”

He gathered the flowers, and they led him out. “Greet all my friends,” he called.

Nearly 500 believers were gathered outside. They had stood for days in the freezing temperatures. Now they took off their hats and began to sing: “To live with Christ and to die with him, can you find a better part? It pays to work, it pays to humble yourself, it pays to give your whole life for this.” They sang on: “Fruitless land, empty plains, grim region, cold Vorkuta, you received in iron shackles the witnesses of Christ who were driven out of the south.”

They were singing in the street. The traffic was paralyzed. Nobody moved. Then I started to walk with my grandson, who took me by the arm and took off his hat. It was just like at a funeral procession. Everybody stepped aside, and we walked through them.

Instead of bringing Georgi out the front entrance as before, they took him out the back, where a prison car was waiting. The young people broke through the cordon of police and rushed to the rear. Georgi listened as they sang: “For the evangelical faith, for Christ we will stand.” A crowd of policemen threw themselves against the young people, but they did not move until Georgi was led away.

His wife was allowed a brief meeting with him a few days later. Separated by a glass partition, they spoke to each other on a telephone. Georgi asked for very warm clothes. Apparently they gave him a hint that he would be sent into deep Siberia. But we do not know what the Lord will do in this.

The hardest thing in all these experiences, especially when you are in the camps and prisons, is to recognize that you are alone, that everybody in the whole world has forgotten you. Then it is that the Lord alone is with you as your truest friend.

The realization that God’s children are praying for you always revived us and gave us new strength. According to the testimonies of many who have served in these prisons, the prayers of God’s people are felt. The greatest thine that Christians throughout the world can do now is to pray. Pray that Christians living here can breathe freely, if such is the wish of our heavenly Father.

SUBDUED

As the Greyhound bus approached Daytona Beach, Florida, last month, a passenger pulled a gun and ordered the driver to “take me to Tampa or I’ll shoot you.”

A fellow passenger, Ena Cuff, a member of the Baptist Church of the Good Shepherd in Miami, knew just what to do. She began preaching. Within minutes the man dropped his gun and was subdued and led off to jail. The bus went on its way.

“The teachings of the word of Jesus Christ were enough to make his hand go limp,” explained Ms. Cuff.

Pressing On

Four women and three men were tried and sentenced in the Soviet Union last month for their part in operating a clandestine publishing house for the outlawed Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (CCECB). They had been seized in a farmhouse in Latvia in October and their equipment and supplies confiscated (see December 20, 1974, issue, page 27). Soviet agents reportedly had planted radioactive paper supplies in several stores, then used helicopters and special detection equipment to locate the paper after it was purchased.

A few days after the trial was over it was evident that a second secret printing press was at work. One of the first publications was a report of the trial, naming the seven defendants, their ages, and the sentences they received (from 2½ to four years in prison).

An appeal to the Soviet heads of state appeared in the latest issue of the Fraternal Herald, a CCECB publication. It claimed the arrest of the seven was a violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which upholds the right to freedom of opinion and expression and the right to receive and impart information. It asked for the release of the workers and the return of the printing press, 15,000 copies of the New Testament, tons of paper stock, and other materials.

According to sources at Michael Bordeaux’s Keston College research center in England, the owner of the Latvian farmhouse and his wife were interrogated at length. His wife was apparently tortured and had to be hospitalized as a result.

Unrelatedly, Baptist evangelist Sammy Tippit of San Antonio and Illinois layman Fred Starkweather were deported from the Soviet Union on the day before Easter after preaching and handling out tracts to university students in Leningrad. Tippit had intended to preach on Easter Sunday at the tomb of Lenin in Moscow’s Red Square.

War Wounds

As of mid-month there still was no word about the seven missionaries and child missing after the fall of Ban Me Thuot in South Viet Nam (see April 11 issue, page 31). Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) officials drew a blank from official Viet Cong representatives they contacted in Saigon.

Meanwhile, all but a handful of missionaries were evacuated from the country. Those who stayed behind were helping with medical needs or huddling with national church leaders and tending to last-minute administrative details.

Churches and relief agencies were funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food, medicines, and other goods into the stricken country.

One of the last Americans to leave Da Nang was Dr. Robert Long, 38, director of the 100-bed Hoa Khanh children’s hospital, a well-equipped and stocked facility built by American GIs in the 1960s and operated by the World Relief Commission of the National Association of Evangelicals. Before leaving, Long discharged most of the children and gathered many of his 105 national staffers for a final farewell. Amid tears and prayers Long was told that twelve staff persons had just received Christ, mostly because of the witness of Nguyen Thai Kahnh, the head nurse. Long offered to try to get her aboard a rescue flight, but she waved him away.

“I’ll stay,” she said quietly. “The Viet Cong need Jesus too.”

An estimated 30,000 or more persons affiliated with the CMA churches and more than fifty pastors reportedly came to the Da Nang area as refugees. Their fate is unknown. The bodies of Catholics and Protestants alike were among the thousands of dead strewn along the routes out of the highlands. Despite Hanoi’s announcement guaranteeing “freedom of worship” in the Communist-held areas of South Viet Nam, leaders of the churches say they expect to be executed in a Communist takeover.

World Vision was to have dedicated a 100-bed children’s hospital in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, this month. Instead, it was turned over to World Vision, CMA, and Catholic Relief Services national workers for use as a general hospital, treating mostly wounded war victims.

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

CHURCH ANNOUNCEMENT

The United Church of Canada congregation in Grenfell, Saskatchewan, is getting good readership by placing notices in the classified ad section of the newspaper. A sample:

Even in this age of inflation,

The wages of sin remain the same.

The United Church of Canada,

Sunday, 11:30 a.m.

Canons And Conscience

The four Episcopal bishops who last year participated in the irregular ordination of eleven women to the priesthood are off the hook. Four other bishops had charged the prelates with violating church policy. A ten-member denominational lay-clergy board of inquiry ruled in late March that “the core of the controversy is doctrinal” rather than a question of canonical law or polity. Doctrinal charges must be considered by the full House of Bishops, and only upon the accusations of at least ten bishops. The house can then proceed with a heresy trial, but only if two-thirds of the bishops agree. It is highly unlikely that the bishops would approve such a move regarding the controversial ordination issue.

In its 8–2 decision, the inquiry panel said the “basic doctrinal question is not simply whether women should be ordained” but “whether this church’s understanding of the nature of the church and the authority of the episcopate permits individual bishops, by appealing solely to their consciences, to usurp the proper functions of other duly constituted authorities” of the church.

This month, Rector William Wendt of the Church of St. Stephen and the Incarnation in Washington, D. C., is scheduled to go on trial for permitting one of the eleven women, Alison Cheek, to celebrate communion. He is accused of violating church law rather than doctrine.

Wendt’s diocesan bishop, William F. Creighton, announced this month in a letter to his fellow bishops that he will not ordain any more men to the priesthood until he can also ordain qualified women. Said he: “To ordain men who are deacons while being compelled to refuse ordination to women who are deacons has become conscientiously impossible and a form of injustice of which I can no longer be a part.”

The denomination, having failed to approve women’s ordination in 1973, is scheduled to vote again on the issue next year.

Meanwhile, it was learned that an official Episcopal-Catholic consultation to discuss theological issues involved in the ordination of women is being planned.

The woman-priesthood issue is surfacing as a major concern in Catholic circles. A convocation on the topic has been called by a task force representing the national organizations of nuns, a number of laywomen, and some priests. The meeting is to be held in Detroit in November.

Mormon Monopoly

The Justice Department has urged the Federal Communications Commission to reject the license renewal applications of KSL, Salt Lake City, which operates AM and FM radio stations and the city’s largest television station. The licenses are owned by a corporation of the Mormon church. Also owned by the unit is Deseret News, Utah’s largest daily, and the Newspaper Agency Corporation. The latter, under a joint agreement, prints and handles business functions of the Salt Lake City Tribune, the only other daily in town.

The church corporation also owns the city’s cable television service and fourteen other cable TV services in the state.

The government contends that such a semi-monopolistic ownership and control of the news media violates the principle of free enterprise and competition in the media.

GLENN EVERETT

Religion In Transit

Catholic bishop Leo Maher of San Diego ordered the barring of elective office and the sacraments, including communion, to any Catholic who “admits publicly” to membership in the National Organization for Women or other pro-abortion groups.

Logos International, the charismatic-oriented publishing firm based in Plain-field, New Jersey, plans to launch a national Christian tabloid this summer. Logos, which recently purchased a newspaper plant and press in Plainfield, hopes to publish it weekly, although it may appear less frequently at the outset.

Resigned: George H. Williams, as president of the 13,900-student American University, a United Methodist-related school in Washington, D. C. He was under pressure from students and faculty over questions of academic leadership and fund-raising ability. The school has an annual budget of about $30 million, of which $175,000 is contributed by the denomination. The ties to the denomination are under review.

Dissension between the administration and the majority of the twenty-three faculty members at the 750-student North Greenville College, a Southern Baptist school in South Carolina, led to the resignation of Harold E. Lindsey as president. The teachers, backed by a student boycott, were upset over salaries, policies, and the way Lindsey treated them. Trustees have asked all parties to cool it while they try to work things out.

Lack of financing has led to the dissolution of the three-year-old Fund for the Reinhold Niebuhr Award. The recipients of the $5,000 awards were Notre Dame president Theodore Hesburgh, West German’s Willy Brandt, United Farm Workers head Cesar Chavez, South African theologian C. F. Beyers Naude, and Andrei Sakharov, the dissident Soviet physicist.

Gulf Oil nominated a Catholic nun to become the thirteenth member of its board of directors. She is President Jane Scully of Carlow College, a women’s school operated by the Sisters of Mercy in Pittsburgh. Gulf has been under pressure from nuns opposed to its strip-mining policies.

Romanian Orthodox bishop Valerian Trifa of Detroit is the target of Jewish efforts aimed at getting the U. S. government to revoke his citizenship. They say Trifa took part in Nazi atrocities in the 1940s in Bucharest and misrepresented his past when he was naturalized in 1950. A government attorney last month said a federal suit would be filed against Trifa soon.

Mormon legal sources confirm that the U. S. Justice Department warned the Mormon church last year about illegal use of tape recordings and wiretaps in church-court excommunication proceedings. A tape recorder was used to get evidence in an adultery case, and a wiretap was used in a polygamy case.

Pastor Robert K. Nace of Greenville, Pennsylvania, is the official nominee for Moderator, the top elected post in the 1.9-million-member United Church of Christ. He will be voted on at the biennial synod in June.

Moderator Lawrence W. Bottoms of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern) predicts the long-discussed reunion between his denomination and the United Presbyterian Church will not come to pass. It might be approved at the general assembly or national level but not at the local level, he said. Too many people have too many fears about the merger idea, he said.

“Have a Good Day,” the monthly four-page “non-tract tract” has reached the million circulation mark. The soft-sell witness tool, published by Tyndale House, is distributed through 7,000 churches, 3,000 individuals, and more than 700 bookstores.

The 1975 National Religious Broadcasters Directory lists 634 religious radio stations in the United States, both commercial and non-commercial, eight religious TV stations, and 289 program producers.

DEATHS

LEVI T. PENNINGTON, 99, long-time Quaker leader and president emeritus of George Fox College; in Newberg, Oregon.

JOHN REBLE, 87, first full-time president of the Canadian synod of the Lutheran Church in America; in Kitchener, Ontario.

Personalia

“Deprogrammer” Ted Patrick of San Diego has been banned from Canada by immigration officials. No reasons were given. Patrick had attempted to deprogram a 19-year-old girl away from a Krishna Consciousness Group and a 21-year-old away from a Catholic commune in Ontario. He called on the government to investigate his activities, alleging that 500,000 Canadians are entrapped in cults that have brainwashed them.

Leslie Parrott, president of Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts, since 1970, has been elected to a similar post at 1,800-student Olivet Nazarene College in Kankakee, Illinois, succeeding Harold Reed who is retiring after twenty-six years at Olivet.

Rabbi Bertram W. Korn of Philadelphia was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in the Naval Reserve, the first flag officer of Jewish faith in the 200-year history of the chaplain corps.

Basketball pro Elvin Hayes, long known as a troublemaker around the National Basketball Association, was traded to the Washington, D. C., team and helped make it a top winner in the NBA. He attributes his new attitude to “a complete change [that] came into my life when I accepted Christ as my Saviour a year and a half ago.” He told reporter Roy Wolfe he’ll “probably become a minister” after his playing days are over.

World Scene

More than 100 members of Parliament and thirty-seven ambassadors turned out last month for the eleventh annual Canadian Parliament prayer breakfast in Ottawa. Former Iowa senator Harold Hughes was the main speaker. About twenty politicians attend a weekly prayer breakfast.

The Central Armenian Communist party newspaper, pointing out that several dozen unregistered evangelical groups in the Caucasian republic are converting numbers of young people, called for a decisive struggle against religion and the Church.

The Vatican’s investments around the world are worth less than $120 million, none of it in companies that make munitions or contraceptives, according to the Vatican’s chief financial officer.

Penetration ’75, an evangelism campaign in Panama by the Central American Mission, registered more than 500professions of faith. Prior to Penetration, the thirteen CAM churches in Panama had fewer than 150 baptized members. More than 90 per cent of the nation’s 1.5 million population is Catholic. Baptists and Episcopalians are the largest Protestant groups.

Archbishop Stuart Blanch of York and his diocesan synod, second in status in the Church of England after Canterbury, voted in favor of the ordination of women priests. The voting in the other forty-two Anglican dioceses has been fairly even so far. Final results of the poll will be presented to the General Synod of the church, at which time official action may be taken.

The 300,000-member Methodist Church in South Korea split early this year over several issues. A United Methodist team from America found at least five factions. The team devised a plan to channel funds to designated projects and programs, eliminating support of the headquarters administration in Seoul. This, it is hoped, will buy time to work for reform and reconciliation.

After two years of controversy, the Church of England has sold for about $240,000 half its 70,000 shares in a British firm with gold-mine interests in South Africa. The firm was accused of practicing segregation and underpaying its black workers. Other shares will be sold when the price is right, says an Anglican finance officer.

A high Mexican award for research in anthropology was conferred upon Phillip Baer and William R. Merrifield, Americans who work for Wycliffe Bible Translators and the Summer Institute of Linguistics, for their study of the Lacandon people. Baer has been doing linguistic and translation work with the tribe since 1941.

For the third time, the Evangelical Bookstore in Belfast, Northern Ireland, was damaged by a bomb blast. A bomb went off inside the building, destroying many Bibles and books and causing extensive damage.

Everything is in short supply in Burma, from food and medicines to Bibles, according to a recent visitor. The government has neither sufficient paper nor will it grant import permits for Burmese Scriptures, and the Burmese Christians—who are growing in number—say the need is urgent.

Swedish publisher Lars Dunberg announced a near sell-out of the 50,000 first-edition copies of the Swedish-version Living New Testamentwithin a week of publication.

Quiet changes are taking place in black church circles. For example, there is less emphasis on issues of race, more on evangelism and higher education.

To get a closer look at what is happening, CHRISTIANITY TODAYsent correspondent James C. Hefley to study a bustling congregation in Charlotte, North Carolina, and stringer James S. Tinney to cover the annual meeting of the National Black Evangelical Association in New York City. News editor Edward E. Plowman culled files for an update on denominational groups. Their reports follow:

Infiltration, not confrontation, is the watchword at the black Friendship Baptist Church in Charlotte, an evangelical congregation whose active membership is approaching 1,400. One result: Friendship holds a list of civic, community, and political firsts perhaps unequaled by any other black church in America.

Pastor Coleman Kerry, Jr., 52, was the first black member of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education. Member Fred Alexander was Charlotte’s first black councilman; last November he was elected the first black state senator from Mecklenburg County. Charlotte’s second black councilman is architect Harvey Gantt, also from Friendship Church. A senior high Sunday-school teacher and deacon at the church, Gantt holds a master’s degree in city planning from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before that he was the first black graduate of Clemson University.

From Friendship have come Charlotte’s first black fireman, policewoman, police public-relations officer, United States commissioner, graduate of an integrated high school, and student-body president at the local junior college. Also from Friendship: the first black chief district judge for Mecklenburg County, the first black executive director of the area Manpower, Inc., agency, and the first black director of the Neighborhood Center system of community-help programs.

“We say at Friendship that Christian citizens have a responsibility to get into decision-making organizations,” explains Pastor Kerry. Adds Councilman Gantt: “I think many of the problems in our country have come because we Christians haven’t taken an active role in community leadership as we should.”

The church is involved in a number of educational and youth concerns.

Attorney Julius Chambers, a church trustee, filed, fought, and won the successful Supreme Court suit that opened the door for equal education in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg public school system. A senior partner in a prominent Charlotte law firm, Chambers also serves as legal aid director for the national NAACP.

A delegation of students from South Boston’s embattled public high school last fall came to see how Charlotte students made integration work. Two Friendship students were in a Charlotte delegation that returned the visit.

Four nights a week at the church, adult church members—many of them public school teachers—tutor students needing help. Over 90 per cent of Friendship’s forty-six high school seniors this year expect to go on to college. Currently, ninety-seven of Friendship’s young people are in colleges and universities.

Black college students unable to afford textbooks can draw from a book bank at the church. When they finish, the books are returned for others to use.

Kerry heads up an informal program called “Careers Unlimited” that has helped 367 blacks go to college who might not otherwise have gone. If he spots a youth who really wants an education but needs financial aid, he often lines up someone in the church or community to send a check for the student to the college finance office.

A day-care center with an enrollment of seventy is operated under a separate board.

Adults are not forgotten. Whether it’s home ownership (most Friendship families now own their homes), borrowing money (the church is considering a credit union), starting a new business, or cutting red tape at the welfare office, members stand ready to help. (Kerry encourages people to make appointments by telephone with welfare officials; that way, he says, they don’t have to suffer the indignity of taking a number and waiting—and wasting time.)

Prior to each election, all Friendship members are polled to see if they are properly registered. During the last two elections the church led registration drives that put more than 5,000 blacks on voter rolls. “The politicians have found they need us more than we need them,” quips Kerry.

Beyond all this, the church operates much as any other evangelical church would. Kerry’s sermons are strong in Bible content. He applies the Bible to social issues. He gives a revivalistic altar call. New members are welcomed “to all the privileges and responsibilities” of the church, then shuttled off immediately to meet with an enlistment committee. Membership has been increasing at the rate of more than 150 each year.

There were only forty members when Kerry became pastor in 1948 (the church was organized in 1892). The son of a traveling evangelist active in educational leadership circles in the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Kerry preached his first sermon at age 9. He graduated from Morehouse College, where one of his classmates was Martin Luther King, Jr., and from the American Baptist Seminary in Nashville, which like Friendship is affiliated with the NBCUSA.

Friendship’s Sunday school has a leadership-training course going year round. David C. Cook materials are used under the imprint of the Progressive National Baptist Convention (see box, page 41). “This is the best literature we’ve found that relates to what we’re trying to do,” Kerry says.

Tithing is emphasized, and the budget has doubled to $210,000 during the past five years. When the church applied for a building loan, the white banker reportedly was so impressed by Friendship’s plan of organization that he recommended it to four white pastors. All major church departments are interlinked so that, for example, the chairmen of enlistment committees in all the departments make up the church-wide enlistment committee.

The major outreach of the church is conducted through the men’s Brotherhood and the Women’s Missionary Union (WMU). The WMU has divided the city into area “sheepfolds” named after the apostles and other Bible personalities. Women in sheepfolds provide a variety of services that run from arranging rides to church to providing food and child care for a family when the mother is sick. All organizations of the church participate in an “adoption” program for both black and white residents of nursing homes who have no relatives in the area.

“Black Christians are a love-oriented people,” Kerry declares. “We believe both in getting folks saved and in helping them find a whole life on earth.”

No black separatist, Kerry thinks churches should work together on what they can’t do separately. He is one of the pillars in Metro-Ministries, a coalition of twenty black and white Baptist churches in Charlotte. The churches join hands in mental-health and prison ministries. They also exchange pulpits, choirs, and home visitation. According to Kerry, this is not a “do-for” but a “do-with” relationship among black and white churches.

Still, except for the exchanges, few whites have visited Friendship. Only one white belongs, a partner in an interracial marriage. Leighton Ford, associate to Billy Graham, has preached from the pulpit. Cameron Townsend, the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators, who lives at the Wycliffe air base about thirty miles away, has dropped in a couple of times. (Townsend and his wife Elaine belong to a small predominantly black Presbyterian church near the base.)

But word is getting around. Says James C. Peters, a regional executive of the United Methodist Church: “Friendship has something going that ought to make all of us sit up and take notice.” JAMES C. HEFLEY

A BLACK MAN’S VIEW OF THE BLACK CHURCH

Colemon Kerry, Jr., pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Charlotte (see story this page), is a black evangelical who preaches—and practices—the Gospel’s relevance to all of life. He underscores that precept and offers his views on black-and-white church topics in this interview with correspondent James C. Hefley.

Question. How does the black evangelical church differ from its white counterpart?

Answer. Not in theology, insofar as we both preach from the same Bible. I think this idea of a black theology is a myth. But I do see us differing in two ways. First, we have a different background. At one time in America blacks and whites worshiped together. But we were never fully integrated. Even after emancipation our people could not participate on the same level as their slave masters. Friendship Church, incidentally, was formed by blacks who left the old First Baptist Church of Charlotte. They had been forced to sit in the balcony.

Second, our worship experience is not the same as whites. It’s a lot more overt, God-centered, and personal—the same as any oppressed people who have been exposed to the love of Christ and God’s delivering power.

Q. Where do you see the civil-rights movement in relation to the black church?

A. The black church was here before the civil-rights movement was born. It gave the movement its leadership. The emphasis on civil rights now has declined, but the black church is still here championing the causes of black people. The church is always bigger and more enduring than any movement or agency.

Q. What did the civil-rights push accomplish?

A. Much. The laws that were passed as a result opened the doors for the masses to claim their citizenship rights. Voting rights, for example. What happened in Alabama has produced benefits here. Whether we go on and claim all these rights is another question.

Q. There’s been a lot of writing and speaking about weaknesses of white evangelicals. What have been some shortcomings of the black church?

A. The black church has had a structural problem with lack of unity at the congregational level. Friendship once had a lot of little clubs that did little else than raise funds. Everybody was doing his own thing. What we did—and it took five years—was to bring the church under one policy and program. Then I think the black church in the past has talked too much about walking the golden streets, and too little about God’s promises for the here and now; too much about Hallelujah Boulevard and not enough about rundown housing. I’m not faulting this, for it was done when blacks had little else to hope for besides heaven. What we need to do now is preach a whole Gospel for the whole man.

Q. What can the black church do for America?

A. I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, but I believe the black church—if it doesn’t build a wall around itself—can help bring this nation back to a sense of maturity and responsibility. The black church can show other churches the way by reaching into the total community, by relating Christianity to every facet of life.

Black Evangelicals: Expanding The Fold

The past year has been a good one for the National Black Evangelical Association, the some 500 participants were told at this month’s annual NBEA convention in New York City. During the year, NBEA members completed a leadership-training course manual, set up a training center in Los Angeles that prepared sixty-five persons for street and church ministries, began sponsoring Operation LIVE—a street-level counseling ministry in the Palo Alto, California, area—and helped to recruit eighty clergymen in New York City for a government-funded community chaplaincy program.

“We are rewriting the meaning of prison ministries,” declared George M. Perry, pastor of Bethany Church in the Bronx and a supervisor of the chaplaincy program. The program enlists local clergymen to work with families of prison inmates. These clergy act as an arm of the resident prison chaplains at more than two dozen prisons and jails.

Also, the NBEA last fall held its first Black Christian Student Conference, an event considered a success by its organizers. The conference in Chicago resulted in an NBEA-published book called How To Survive on a White Campus, and accounted for the large youth attendance at this month’s convention. Blacks financed the Chicago meeting without outside help, an official noted proudly.

Finances was a topic at the NBEA convention, with leaders stressing the need for black evangelicals to give greater support to the NBEA (budget goal: $24,000). Funds from whites are accepted “if no strings are attached.” The Northwestern Meeting of Friends, predominantly white, pays the salary of NBEA field director Aaron Hamlin. Said one NBEA official, “If black folks don’t want to pay for liberation, then they don’t deserve it.”

Membership statistics are difficult to assess. Hundreds of persons are associated with the NBEA, some through individual membership, others through their work for an organization or institution that is a member.

The convention program revolved around four themes: an evangelical pan-Africanism, black youth, black unity, and increased involvement in social-action projects.

More input is being solicited from Caribbean and African sources. Speaker Ithiel Clemmons, pastor of Brooklyn’s First Church of God in Christ, urged evangelicals to view the Kimbanguist movement of Zaire, Africa, as an appropriate symbol for a developing theology. Calypso gospel music was provided by New Yorkers from the Caribbean, and the West Indian-oriented National Young Peoples Christian Association, representing scores of churches, had a display booth.

F. Kefa-Sempangi, former pastor of the largest Protestant church in Uganda, who fled to the United States in 1973 to escape the wrath of President Idi Amin, attended but was not on the program. His evangelical Anglican congregation in Kampala had grown to 12,000. “Idi Amin doesn’t trust anyone who can attract a large following,” explained a family member.

Within the next five years, the NBEA plans to hold its annual convention once in the Caribbean and once in Africa, commented NBEA president William H. Bentley, pastor of Calvary Bible Church in Chicago.

Black young people under 30 made up nearly half the attendance of some sessions. Observers viewed this as a sign of NBEA vitality and said it was important for young blacks to “celebrate” their blackness in such a fellowship setting. Paul Gibson, 28, an Inter-Varsity campus minister and the youngest member of NBEA’s board of directors, said the NBEA hopes to initiate an umbrella fellowship of the thirty-plus black Christian campus workers affiliated with the fledgling National Black Student Association, Tom Skinner Associates, Inter-Varsity, and other Christians groups. Black students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have all but “taken over” the campus radio station as a result of a planned Christian concentration in media studies, he also reported.

Evangelist Tom Skinner noted that the NBEA, like the black church generally, had never accepted a dichotomy between belief and social action. Bentley asserted that NBEA membership will always include those “from the far left to the far right, as long as Jesus is central.” Over the next year the NBEA will engage in a concentrated effort to “draw back into our fellowship those once in our number.”

Despite the inclusiveness, however, there will be no toning down of the emphasis on black modes, on the biblical definition of evangelism, or on social action, said Bentley. He warned: “To lose the emphasis God has given us will alienate us from our own people and by that very fact reduce our credibility among our white brethren. If we have no special reason for being, then we might as well disband and join those who proclaim they are blind to a man’s color so long as he is a Christian.”

The black evangelical’s “uniqueness is his black experience,” explained Bentley in an interview. “If we cease to interpret from a black perspective, we might as well cease to exist organizationally.”

Bentley lamented that “the one area in which we have made little headway is in the ranks of those black groups within white mainstream Christianity called ‘black caucuses’” (see following story). He also cautioned against complacency. Some change for the better has occurred, he acknowledged, “but we must not allow this to lull us into inactivity. Much remains to be done.”

Ann Douglas, the new executive director of the Inter-religious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), was a workshop participant, as was exdirector Lucius Walker. Special thanks was expressed to Walker for helping the NBEA secure free office space at the National Council of Churches headquarters building, located at 475 Riverside Drive in New York City.

Special criticism was aimed from the platform against such things as urban renewal (“there are moral problems involved when we pick a man up and move him somewhere”), white Christians in general (“all they want to do is preach the Gospel and let the world go to hell”), and the planning of the Lausanne meeting (“all the blacks there were handpicked by whites”).

But there was also time for self-criticism. Federal Communications Commissioner Benjamin Hooks, a Baptist minister, observed that black Christians “couldn’t stop the riots because we didn’t know the folk who were rioting. We have been too concerned about being a respectable, middle-class church.”

NBEA members say they are determined to change all this. As one speaker put it, “In these days people ought not to talk at all without feeding someone.”

JAMES S. TINNEY

COOK’S RECIPE FOR BLACK TASTES

For several years independent evangelical Sunday-school publishers have been imprinting curriculum materials for certain—usually small—denominations that for various reasons have not had the resources to publish their own. The arrangement usually calls for the publisher to supply the content for a royalty fee. The denomination’s name is stamped on the front cover of each booklet, and denominational promotion material is carried on the back cover and sometimes on the inside covers.

However, the arrangement between David C. Cook of Elgin, Illinois and the 600,000-member black Progressive National Baptist Convention goes beyond this. Members of the Progressive Baptist publishing board meet with Cook representatives four times a year to discuss ideas and to decide on changes that the black group wants. James W. English, Cook’s denominational sales manager, explains that biblical cover art remains intact, while contemporary cover art is altered to provide black identity. Cook content in adult and youth material is generally allowed to stand. But handwork for younger age groups and visual aids showing a family situation are revised to reflect black identity.

Cook assignments have gone to several black Christian writers. One is Dr. S. H. James, pastor of Second Baptist Church, San Antonio, who holds earned doctorates in both theology and law. James writes lessons for Cook’s adult quarterlies and material for Cook’s popular devotional magazine, Quiet Hour.

The arrangement has increased Cook’s circulation, says English, and has exposed Cook’s white readers to “some fine black thinking and writing.”

JAMES C. HEFLEY

Black Revival

In the late 1960s, black leaders in the predominantly white mainline denominations formed black caucus groups to plead—and push—black causes. Among the goals: more executive church jobs for blacks, money for black development projects, official statements voicing black concerns. Church bodies and boards slow to respond were usually visited by caucus leaders. Sometimes things were worked out quietly and cool-headedly; sometimes there were demonstrations, shouting, and near-physical confrontations.

For the most part, times have changed. Many of the most capable—and often most vocal—blacks accepted well-paying denominational and agency posts, and now they are a part of the establishment that years ago they knocked. A lot of white money has gone into black work, defusing explosive situations. Leadership at the national level is fragmented. Black separatism has many blacks feeling that they don’t need whites or what whites have. Other issues are occupying the time of thinned-out social-action staffs in the big denominations, and students these days are more inclined to be in books rather than streets. Thus key support is absent.

The caucuses themselves seem to be undergoing changes in direction. For example, at last month’s annual meeting of Black Methodists for Church Renewal, BMCR president Clayton E. Hammond said the caucus will continue to help the church overcome racism and injustice. “But from this moment in our history,” he declared, “our priority has moved from church renewal to black revival.” From this moment on, he exhorted, “let us … set our church aflame with black Christian righteousness and black Christian discipleship.”

Black people, he said, have learned “the bitter lesson” that they cannot solve the race problem; they must leave it to the whites who created it.

Much of the political tone of former years was gone. In a revivalistic atmosphere, the nearly 400 registrants gave major attention to outreach, Christian nurture, theological education and recruitment, and the like. (There are about 400,000 blacks among the ten million United Methodists; the number of black ministers—1,200-plus presently—is declining. As is the case with the caucuses of other denominations, it is unclear how many of the rank-and-file blacks really identify with the officially recognized black caucus.)

The bulk of black Christians are members of black denominations, and these bodies are much more conservative than the caucuses. Indeed, President Joseph H. Jackson of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., at last fall’s annual convention said black people should reject “black caucuses and black political conventions if they exclude other American citizens.” Jackson, elected by some 20,000 delegates to a twenty-second term as NBCUSA president, called on his people to “reject members of our race who advocate a return to segregation and discrimination and have taken a stand against integration.”

(The NBCUSA lists 6.3 million members in some 30,000 congregations—one-fourth of America’s entire black population, Jackson points out. The National Baptist Convention of America lists 3.5 million, the African Methodist Episcopal Church 1.1 million, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church 940,000, the Progressive National Baptist Convention 600,000, the Church of God in Christ 500,000, and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church 466,000. These figures, however, are only estimates. The denominations do not have systems for maintaining national statistics, and some leaders confide privately that many local churches’ records are inaccurate.)

Nearly 10,000 persons at last year’s annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention of America heard President James Carl Sams plead for moderation on the issue of race. “Black is not more beautiful than brown or white,” he said. “If you buy a car you don’t sweat over the color. You raise the hood to see if a motor is there, and if it is working you can ride. Likewise, if you have education, intelligence, and a pure heart you can ride over prejudice, evil, and jealousy.”

In short, the tides of conservatism are flowing among blacks in both black and white denominations.

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Lausanne Leader

Pastor Gottfried B. Osei-Mensah, 41, of the Nairobi (Kenya) Baptist Church will assume duties September 1 as executive secretary of the Lausanne Continuation Committee for World Evangelization.

The Ghana-born cleric was educated in England, headed an African evangelical student movement, and is considered one of the most able evangelicals in Africa.