Page 6413 – Christianity Today (2024)

What is meant by the American heritage? What distinctive ideals and goals define our national perspective?

At a time when our purposes are in doubt, the urgency and relevance of these questions are inescapable.

Foreign nations are unsure of American objectives. For this confusion communist propaganda is somewhat to blame. But fault accrues also to our own diplomatic ambiguity. Even the unparalleled contributions of foreign aid domestically promoted as concrete expressions of the Golden Rule are interpreted by some powers simply as global investments of American self-interest. Material and mercenary motives have assumed prominent status both abroad and at home in rationalizing American policies. When moral motivations follow this primary appeal to private interest, their impact crumbles under the Marxist calumny that in the free world morality and self-interest are simple synonyms. We are failing to clarify adequately the relatedness of national and international good. We are failing to clarify convincingly egoistic and altruistic motivations. Moreover, the rival interests that jeopardize international understanding gnaw devastatingly in smaller scale at home in the party-spirit and sectional conflicts of the day.

Overdue, therefore, is an awareness that naturalistic and materialistic forces have dissolved many venerable elements of American idealism. Rediscovery that the American perspective was once basically spiritual, that national unity and purpose are historically related to that perspective, could be a propitious restorative. At times of ideological vagrancy a nation is particularly subject to the lure of alien ideals and may perhaps irrevocably yield its resources to delusive and deceptive promises. Mounting interest in those American purposes that specifically portray our true national traditions is consequently a happy note in our day. It involves a turning aside from the experimental novelties of twentieth century social scientists to the firmly fixed perspectives of the founding fathers.

Obviously, risk and hazard may shadow this development, especially as the American perspective is discovered to be a religious one.

A major problem adheres in the growing veneration of this religious heritage for its dynamism as a cultural force. To value religion for its indispensable contribution to “the democratic way of life,” or because it vitalizes those virtues necessary to the success of “free enterprise,” makes of religion little more than a mechanical catalyst for other interests.

Any proper religion has and must preserve its inherent sense of priority. It dare not demean itself by becoming a tool for welding nationalistic or commercial enterprises. Such warning was voiced nowhere more eloquently than by representatives of all three major Western traditions at the recent Fund for the Republic seminar on “Religion in a Free Society.” Spokesmen Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Father Gustave Weigel and Professor Paul Tillich all cautioned against reverencing religion primarily as a protective shoring for the sagging foundations of our national and social life.

Rabbi Heschel warned against invoking religion as “a way of satisfying human needs.… Values and needs have become modern idols.” “Tragic is the role of religion in contemporary society,” he added. “The voice of the Lord is powerful … is full of majesty. Where is its power? Where is its majesty?”

Father Weigel granted that “religion can help society—but should it? That can be its consequent, but it is not its proper goal.… Religion is now invited to become an active dynamism in the commonwealth—something that can be used.… Beware of this kindness!” admonished Father Weigel. He stressed that religion can best help the community by “being itself” instead of existing for the sake of something else.

Professor Tillich, too, warned of misgauging the function of religion. Dare religion be used as a tool for something else? Dr. Tillich took special note of the enlarging American emphasis that “we must undergird our democracy by religion.” If religion is ultimately concerned, noted Professor Tillich, it cannot become simply a means to the non-ultimate.

As the “use of religion” is practiced, its peril worsens increasingly. It may be invoked to bolster venerable traditions, or to salvage a sagging republic. Religion may be “used” because Madison Avenue public relations experts think it strategic, or helpful to a “good press.” The full measure of exploitation comes from communist leaders who discover that even this “opiate of the people” may serve the monster-state. To guard against such abuse, such perversion of the holy, requires prizing religion for its one purpose and message, namely, the exclusive centrality and pre-eminence of the living God.

Something greater than American ideology and purpose motivated the founding fathers. They themselves confessed a sense of national mission. And to them the United States was not only under divine protection but under divine obligation as well.

This spiritual priority they guarded in two conspicuous ways: They projected a limited government, specifically depriving rulers of absolute authority over human life. Thereby they reserved a right to discredit civil government (as witness their rebellion against the English sovereign) as arbitrary and tyrannical. As safeguards against centralized federal power, the founding fathers established three branches of government, a two-party system, states’ rights, and a Bill of Rights to protect individual liberties. Moreover, as the very First Amendment, they prohibited an established or state religion, thereby inaugurating a form of separation of Church and State to preserve religious freedom.

By these policies they did not intend to exclude religion from significant social and political influence. Rather, they hoped to assure both the responsibility of government to the Ultimate and the prevention of sectarian monopoly of the political order. They were guarding against both political and ecclesiastical arbitrariness. They prized limited government and religious freedom because they themselves had experienced that earthly totalitarianism which exercises a compulsive power over human conscience, jeopardizes the dignity and responsibility of the individual and nullifies man’s opportunity to serve conscientiously both God and the governing powers he has ordained.

This does not mean that they minimized therefore the importance of supernatural religion and morality. The Declaration of Independence spoke of endowment “by their Creator” with certain unalienable rights, and of a “firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.” While some were Deists rather than biblical supernaturalists, all of the founding fathers believed in a transcendent God and in supernatural and unchanging norms of truth and morality. In his Farewell Address, President Washington stressed morality as vital to the success of the American form of government, and noted that morality is not long observed in the absence of religion.

Supernatural religion and morality were recognized not only as indirect but as indispensable supports of the Republic. Only within this spiritual and moral framework, from which confidence in limited civil government and religious freedom derived, could the American mission and the national purpose be comprehended.

Theistic religion (even the Deists were theists of sorts) produced not simply national slogans or formulas such as “In God we trust,” or “under God,” but was a vital force in community and family life as well. Confidence in the divine endowment of human rights furnished the dynamic to rebuke the kings of earth. Reliance on divine Providence made these forebears adequate to pledge their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor in a cause where both ruler and ruled answered to the rights and duties derived from the Ruler of all.

Whatever may be said of other religious traditions, the decisive significance of Judaeo-Christian revealed religion in shaping American outlook is indisputable. Unfortunately, the importance of Judaeo-Christian conviction in forging the American outlook has paled in our generation because theistic philosophy has defected from biblical supernaturalism and has joined humanistic philosophy in identifying the decisive roots of “the democratic vision” with Graeco-Roman thought. By doing this, the essence of the American heritage is interpreted in such broad emphases as respect for the dignity of the individual and freedom to develop intuitive intellectual and spiritual faculties to the maximum of his abilities. It is often added that concern for the individual is a direct heritage of Christ’s teaching, an incentive to the doctrine of the brotherhood of man. To thus state the case places the mainsprings of American beginnings rather one-sidedly in Graeco-Roman speculations rather than in Judaeo-Christian sanctions, in Renaissance rather than in Reformation traditions. Consequently, the American perspective becomes secular and hides those spiritual elements that belong rightly and ineradicably in the forefront.

The beliefs that sustain the Western world today are doubtless a classical and biblical conglomerate. Europe once had its Dark Ages, when revealed religion lost its social significance, and the speculative traditions of ancient philosophy shaped the cultural climate of the day. More than one scholar has noted the similar tendency in the early twentieth century to deprecate Christian traditions or to prize them only for their affinity to Graeco-Roman learning. Such an assessment, however, inverts the historical situation in respect to early American traditions. Documentation of a genuinely American ideology recognizes the essentially Christian outlook not only of the Pilgrims and Puritans, but of the masses generally. Even where the people lacked dedication to it, they acknowledged the validity of the Christian view and permitted its presuppositions to shape the accepted virtues of the times. Deists remained a sophisticate minority, however influential in intellectual affairs. At that, they often viewed Providence, and the connection between Deity and man’s dignity and destiny, with a warmth unwittingly reflective of the inherited religious tradition. In earlier centuries, the center of community life was not the philosopher and his podium, but the clergyman and his church. Churches, in turn, inspired schools and colleges, and the religious awakenings among the populace lifted the political morality of the day.

America’s special indebtedness to the religion of the Bible is indelibly written into her past traditions. The divine Creator of responsible creatures, the value of the individual endowed in the plan of God with inalienable rights, are facets of this heritage. The sense of a living community wherein spiritual purposes are realized reflects the influence of a biblical view of history. The principle of religious freedom and the rejection of state religion were advanced by Roger Williams and others by appeal to the New Testament. The virtue of neighbor-love, essential to the spirit of a democratic society, is most precisely defined by revealed religion. Anyone who has ever recognized the gulf separating Greek and Christian views of God and man; of the state and man; of man in history; and of man’s responsibility to his fellow man, will comprehend that the American spirit has inherited a generous debt to revealed religion. Classic philosophies of antiquity furnish no adequate explanation of these attitudes. While its religious traditions were diverse, the incontrovertible fact is that America’s beginnings were steeped in biblical Christianity, especially in that of the Protestant Reformation. This tradition not only shaped many of the profoundest ideals of the American Republic but also supplied the enthusiasm and loyalty for implementing these ideals in community life.

Twentieth century secularism has posed a serious threat to these influences. For one thing, Protestantism, the dominant American religious tradition, revolted against its own supernaturalistic traditions and thereby impugned the religion of redemptive revelation. Then, too—and no doubt encouraged by this internal Protestant defection—the intellectuals progressively located the roots of the American heritage in Greek and Enlightenment influences. Consequently, democracy in America as elsewhere has tumbled into trouble. The spiritual orientation that once inspired the dedication of the masses has withered, and the moral vitality necessary to its well-being has long been on the wane.

Curiously enough, the men who risked life and property to found the Republic shared a virile faith that divine Providence participated in the birth of this nation. On the other hand, many contemporary Americans, in the midst of military and materialistic security, are skeptical of any divine significance in our country’s mission. The recent warning of Charles M. White, chairman of Republic Steel Corporation, scores its point that “perhaps the most dangerous illusion of all is the concept of ‘The Great American Destiny’” or the “doctrine … that we cannot fail because we are Americans.” But more devastating is the absence from individual life of “a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence.” It is therefore no surprise that confidence in that protection is absent also in contemplating the nation’s destiny. How different from current attitude is the spirit of Samuel West’s 1776 election day sermon in Dartmouth:

For my part, when I consider the dispensations of Providence toward this land, ever since our fathers first settled in Plymouth, I find abundant reason to conclude that the great Sovereign of the universe has planted a vine in this American wilderness which he has caused to take deep root … and that he will never suffer it to be plucked up or destroyed.

The role of Providence in American ideology has taken a tragic turn. While the founding fathers clearly believed in the providential origin and special mission of the United States, they did not confuse or identify this nation as a kind of redemptive historical center. Their knowledge of biblical truth maintained the decisive pivot-point of human history to be a Person. For them special redemptive history climaxed in the life, suffering and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The American destiny was to radiate a borrowed glow; it had no self-sufficient glory of its own. Modern notions of evolution and progress, however, together with America’s rise as a world power, erased much of this mood. For a season the notion of a “great American destiny” arose. Wholly apart from spiritual dependence on the past, twentieth century America was to shape the world spirit—inaugurating a new and permanent era of peace and plenty. The biblical sense of divine dependence thereby vanished from America’s idea of national providence; the conscious relationship of tenets of the Gospel to the nation’s mission disappeared. Then came the detachment of the national interest from any transcendent realities whatever. The American political spirit has little except natural and military strength on which to anchor its present expectation of permanent survival.

The New England clergy have been called “the forgotten heroes” of the American Revolution. This is not because of their military exploits but because they recognized the political importance of Christianity. They preached liberty, as Franklin P. Cole reminds us in a volume by that title (Fleming H. Revell Company, 1941) in an age when freedom was under fire. They were guardians of liberty not in addition to their proclamation of the biblical revelation but rather because of it; to them the Bible was “the cornerstone of liberty’s wall.” Among their favorite texts was “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

During the Revolutionary period, many New England ministers preached sermons on political subjects at least twice annually, besides at Thanksgiving and at other special observances. Their preaching underscored the spiritual source, the nature and the cost of liberty. They found the source of freedom in biblical rather than in secular traditions. The passion for liberty they traced to the divinely escorted Hebrew exodus from Egyptian bondage and Pharaoh’s tyranny, and they stressed a heritage of freedom that reached far beyond Anglo-Saxon roots to the Sinai wilderness. To them liberty shone as the Creator’s gift, and in its nurture they extolled the divine plan and providence of “the invisible hand that rules the world.” They spoke of God and freedom in one and the selfsame breath.

In delineating the nature of freedom, these clergy reiterated certain basic truths: Civil government is a divine institution. Since rulers derive their power from God, anarchy and chronic revolution are disapproved. The law is not to be taken into one’s own hands; hence compact and constitution are important in communal life. Rulers are ordained to minister for good. Thus the aim of government is linked to the divine moral order, and not simply to common utility and safety, that is, to man’s need as a social being. Government, said Ebenezer Bridge in 1767, is “for advancing his [God’s] own glory and for promoting the good of his rational intelligent creatures.” But the specific form of civil government is not absolutely fixed. Its form depends on matters of temper, genius, situation and advantage; no perfect model exists for all nations. While government does not have its source in the people, it requires the consent of the governed, who retain the right to challenge it. Only government for the good of mankind is of God’s ordination.

Too many Pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzars and Caesars, too much absolute “divine right” of kings and magistrates, had shadowed pre-American history. This awareness of arbitrary and capricious rulership is eloquently expressed in Thomas Jefferson’s reference to “a long train of abuses and usurpations,” a design of despotism that conferred the right and duty to throw off such government. The people have a right to expect and to require the performance of acts for their own good not as a special work of grace but as their due. The ruler who cannot fulfill this expectation should resign office for the common good.

Clergy of the Revolutionary era proclaimed the obligation of freedom as well as its source and nature. Bounded by God’s sovereignty and his unchanging moral purpose, man’s freedom rested on the stable foundation of justice and righteousness. Anything offensive to God and injurious to man was considered detrimental to piety and virtue, to neighborliness and good will. Tyranny was the act of exalting oneself above all that is godly. Hence immorality and licentiousness were to be feared more than the military threat of external foes, for in the absence of a sound morality liberty could survive in neither peace nor war. Clergymen warned colonial merchants that if they treasured liberty only when their prosperity and security were threatened (thereby making freedom an irrelevant concern in “good times”), they were already guilty of jeopardizing freedom, for the guarantees of liberty can be found only in a good ruler, in a good constitution and in a good people. Reminding the citizenry of the Scriptures “ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.… If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed” (John 8:32, 36), these clergymen preached the Gospel of redemption. In this context they spoke of public spirit, of civil happiness, and of the enjoyment of government.

It was Samuel Langdon, president of Harvard College, who cried out in an election sermon in 1775: “O, may our camp be free from every accursed thing! May our land be purged from all its sins. May we be truly a holy people, and all our towns cities of righteousness.

Where in American life today is this sense of ultimate mission and purpose? Our reliance on Providence in matters of state is broken. Indeed, even the very concept of Providence is vanishing from the political scene. The thesis of separation of Church and State is parroted to provide a patriotic halo for secular and naturalistic theories of national life. Even some religious leaders fearful of sectarian exploitation of the political order seem complacent over its corrosion by secular agencies and influences.

No matter what its phrasing—the need to awaken slumbering Puritan convictions in our heritage, or the need to arouse American conscience to fresh awareness of its debt to the Gospel, or the need to bestir freedom’s taproots in the Judaeo-Christian tradition—however the need is expressed, a great responsibility rests on the clergy and on the churches of our day. The majority of Americans, and therefore the largest bloc of public opinion in American life, is registered on the church rolls. A unique opportunity exists to rebuild our national reliance on Providence. If this resurgence is not forthcoming, it may well reflect the churches’ own spiritual impotency and their lost sense of needed revival.

Fortunes Of Democracy Quaver In France

The decline of France—one of the three world powers at the peace table of Versailles—holds somber warning for the Western democracies. Will they learn a lesson from the drift of the fourth republic?

The instability of French government became the subject of satire and skit. The fate of the third republic did not discourage the masses from a transference of state affairs to politicians with partisan goals. The fourth republic sagged from its outset with interparty rivalry. Since World War II, the republic witnessed the collapse of 25 governments in 13 years, while the people trusted in bureaucratic efficiency. But lack of common dedication increasingly sapped the nation’s energies.

Then came a fateful moment. The army, escaping civilian control, virtually dictated a national leader. The alternatives were civil war (anarchy) or entrustment of all the executive power wielded for 91 years by the National Assembly to General de Gaulle.

To his credit, General de Gaulle not only is anticommunist, but he hesitated to take power by direct force—however artificial his “mandate.” What scope his leadership will allow to democratic processes is left unsure by ambiguous commitments. But even if democratic safeguards are erected, the fourth republic very likely slipped into its death coma the day the National Assembly, threatened with civil war, reluctantly surrendered its powers while the French people thumbed newspapers. To bring about suspension of the republic did not require majority action by the French people; it took only majority inaction. Nobody desired dictatorship, even in modified form; no majority even approved suppression of the National Assembly for a single hour. But, after long indifference, the people no longer counted in the crisis.

Representative government carries a high price: the citizenry’s watchful participation. Whoever evades political responsibilities, entrusting state affairs wholly to professional politicians, hastens its doom. Every neglected democracy faces inevitable crisis. If the mere gloss of legality is preserved, the people will then allow the powers of state to pass (presumably for the moment) from appointed leaders to a strong (and perhaps benevolent) man waiting for the void. A precedent then exists for a man on horseback to assume quasi-dictatorial powers. The next “savior” (shades of Napoleon Bonaparte), unconcerned with constitutional forms, may not scruple over democratic safeguards.

Human government swerves uneasily between anarchy and dictatorship; happy is that land whose dedicated majority is aware that government is limited by God and subverted by men—by irresponsible citizens as well as by tyrannical rulers.

Believing in the sovereign God of the universe, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of his own, and that men and nations are responsible to him, their immediate and ultimate welfare being determined by their attitude to him, it therefore becomes imperative that the people of America recognize this responsibility to God and accord to him the honor and glory due his Name and the obedience to his holy will, without which men and nations decline and perish.

History records that many nations have been destroyed, not by an enemy from without, but through moral and spiritual deterioration from within.

A candid study of contemporary American life reveals the sobering fact that we have flourishing within our midst those seeds of decay which, if left unchecked, will lead inevitably to national destruction. That the incidence of immorality and crime is greater and that it is increasing at an alarming rate certainly adds to the urgency for remedial means.

We both recognize and approve of the inherent guarantee of our Constitution that all men be accorded the right of religious freedom and it would be a grave error to contemplate in any way a change in either the fact or implications in this doctrine. But freedom of religion and freedom from religion are not synonymous. While no man or government can or should dictate to any on matters of religion (each individual stands or falls before his Maker), the peoples of our nation do need again to be confronted with the claims of the sovereign God and their responsibility to him. Furthermore, we all need to be reminded of the part which faith in God has played in our national life from the very beginning of our existence as a nation.

America was founded by men and women who unashamedly worshipped God and accorded him priority in worship and in service. Many of our founding fathers came to these shores because of their determination to know and do the will of God and because of restraints which had been placed upon them in the countries of their origin. While at no time has our government undertaken to legislate on religion, there have been repeated evidences of official recognition of our duty and allegiance to Almighty God. Prayer was requested by Benjamin Franklin during the Constitutional Convention. Our currency carries the inscription, “In God We Trust.” There is a Bible in every courtroom in America on which men are expected to affirm the truthfulness of the witness they engage to make. Most of our great educational and humanitarian institutions owe their inception directly or indirectly to men and women dominated by faith in God.

With multiplied precedents it is therefore highly relevant, as well as obviously imperative, that Americans be called back to a realization of the strong faith of our fathers, the clear warnings of history, the moral and spiritual declensions of our day, and the vital need for a return to faith in, worship of and obedience to Almighty God, not only for personal redemption, but also for national preservation. For years we have been running on the momentum of a godly ancestry and this momentum is now far spent.

As convinced Christians we believe that the foundation of individual and national life is to be had in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, as revealed in the Scriptures, and experienced through personal faith in him.

We are not so naive as to believe that all personal and national problems would be resolved should all men become Christians. But, we do believe that in him is found the immediate answer to life now and hereafter and the ultimate answer to those complicated social and political problems which are the extension of man’s estrangement from God.

It is obvious to all that in many areas of American life today those disciplines which are translated into moral and spiritual values are lacking. Right and wrong have become relative terms, no longer related to revealed religion but rather predicated on choice or expediency. No longer is there recognition of the biblical affirmation that “righteousness exalteth a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.” Grudgingly, or otherwise, we have rendered unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, but too often we have failed to render unto God the things that are God’s.

It is obvious that there is need for an unequivocal assertion of an ideology stemming from the divine concept of righteousness. We need to face the deficiencies of contemporary American thinking and life and to take steps to turn the minds of the people back to God from whom all blessings flow, and who is also a God of righteousness and judgment.

We need to be reminded anew of the spiritual heritage which is ours, of its profound effect on the development of our nation, and of the inevitable consequences of a way of life which leaves God out of perspective, or, at best, renders but lip service to him.

It is imperative that Christians exercise a rightful concern for the spiritual and moral welfare of the nation. For only as the Christian faith is reflected in the daily life of the nation does it become the preserving and illuminating influence God wills that it should be. Love of country is itself a worthy emotion; the trend away from an emphasis on patriotism has been one of the ominous developments of recent years.

We need to be reminded that those convictions which resulted in the Constitution of the United States, one of the greatest instruments for the freedom of man ever devised, and those other virtues which in the early days of our nation found expression in integrity, respect for law and concern for the rights of others, all had their roots in the laws of God and are themselves the fruits of faith and not the cause. For that reason it is imperative that we return to the divine Source of these fruits.

The inexorable laws of God can be broken, but at a cost no man or nation can afford. As recipients of divine favor, of a love displayed in prodigal provisions for our needs and comforts, and of freedoms which in large measure stem from our Judaeo-Christian heritage, we owe it to a loving Heavenly Father to return to him while there is time.

“For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard,

“All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding, calls not Thee to guard,

For frantic boast and foolish word—

Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!”

“Lord God of hosts, be with us yet!

Lest we forget—lest we forget!”

The conception of history in the Bible can be described as linear, not cyclical. Things come to a conclusion. History does not repeat itself. Here is the difference between the conception of nature, life and history from the immanence point of view and the conception that goes forth from the belief in God and from the revelation of God. From our human point of view within history, we can never transcend our human, i.e., historical limits. No ballistic instrument can bring us beyond the borders of history and time. Therefore the human philosophy of history is always bound to history itself. It seeks the absolute in the relative, eternity in time, God in man. And only in a very modest way can it succeed. Centuries of history are only waves in the sea of eternity, human life is only an infinite little lake of foam in the breaking waves. But all is involved in the eternal motion of going and returning. Nothing seems really to hold its place, nothing comes to a definite end and goal; there is an eternal change, and the change is eternal.

The Biblical Contrast

In the Bible, the conception of history is a different one. The biblical viewpoint is not closed up in history itself but surpasses the waves of time. It sees history and the world in their relation to God. In the Bible, therefore, history has not lost its beginning, nor does it lack its end. The pattern in which the Bible describes history is not that of a circle or circumference without; it is rather that of a path of time which God has made and still is making, from the point when he created the world towards the ends and goals he is leading it.

This conception of the Bible means on the one hand an infinite relativity of world and history. There is not even a spark of the eternal light within the boundaries of nature. All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass (Isa. 40:6). It is God who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16).

But on the other hand, nowhere does such a brilliant perspective for man and the world and history appear as in the biblical conception of the future. This perishable nature, it is said, must put on the imperishable; this mortal nature must put on immortality (1 Cor. 15:53). It does not have this naturally. It is not the wave of eternity which moves it toward the coasts of immortality. But it will receive it as a gift from out of the hands of the eternal and immortal God. It will bear the clothes of immortality in God’s final triumph and in his eternal Kingdom, not because of its own nature, but because of the glory of his holy Name.

Let God Be God

The final triumph, the eternal Kingdom, in the biblical representation is an undeniable certainty because God is God.

When the Sadducees, who said that there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with their unbelieving questions, Jesus answered them: “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God … have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt. 22:29–32 RSV).

“He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” This is the biblical proof of resurrection and of God’s final triumph. It is not the conception of man and nature; it is the conception of God which forms the formation of the Christian belief in eternal life. Because God has created the world and because he has redeemed men out of the power of sin and death, the Bible displays a great and mighty light shining at the end of all God’s ways in history. Belief in the eternal Kingdom is belief in God. You cannot believe in God without believing in the final immortality of the world and man. For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living.

Therefore in his eternal Kingdom there is not only place for heavens but also for the earth; not only for angels, but also for men; not only is there eternal life for soul and spirit, but also for the body.

The Bible contains not the slightest trace of spiritualism, either in the description of the end or in that of the beginning. Therefore, the Bible can depict the glory of eternal life in the colors of the earthly. For the triumph of God in all the works of his hands fills his eternal Kingdom with glory. God does not save the heavens and leave the earth in the power of his enemy; nor does he save the soul alone from the horror of death. The new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven upon earth and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory and the honor of nations into it. And “Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For thy dew is a dew of light, and on the land of the shades thou wilt let it fall” (Isa. 26:19). This all-embracing glorification forms the content of the biblical conception of the kingdom of God. The Gospel of the Kingdom, as it has found provisional realization in the first coming of Christ, is the Gospel of the redemption of the earth. The Kingdom of heaven consists for the poor in spirit in the inheritance of the earth (Matt. 5:3, 5). And the signs of the Kingdom are in the blind men who receive sight, in the lame that walk, in the lepers that are cleansed, in the deaf that hear, and in the dead who are raised up (Matt. 11:5). Yea, the storms become still and the towering seas lay calm and flat and waveless before his feet, as a sign and guarantee of the new world of God. Therefore, the New Testament speaks of the reconciliation of all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by the blood of the Cross. For Christ brings the kingdom of God in its full and cosmic sense. He, the first-born of all creation, is not only the head of the body, the Church; but in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Col. 1:15–19). For God has put all things in subjection and he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet (1 Cor. 15:25).

In this conception of God and of the kingdom of God lies the nature and the strength of the biblical belief in immortal life and the eternal world to come. This faith is not built upon human imagination. It is no mere projection of a perfect future in an imperfect world, for the biblical belief is not under the delusion of human dignity. It does not underrate the power of sin and death, neither does it borrow its strength from spiritual dreams. It is belief in the future only because and insofar as it is belief in God and in his Kingdom.

The same holds good for the content of this belief. The picture of the future world is only a picture of the glory of God. It is not this world of sin and death, it is not this flesh and blood, that can inherit immortality. All things will be saved, but only as through fire. In this sense the holy Scripture says that heaven and earth will pass away (Matt. 5:18; 24:35); that they will perish and grow old like a garment (Ps. 102:26; Heb. 1:11); that the heavens will pass away with a loud noise and the elements will be dissolved with fire and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up (2 Pet. 3:10). (It is not certain that these words “burned up” express the original meaning of the text. Some manuscripts say “will be found,” or “will not be found,” or “will vanish.” The original text cannot be fixed with certainty.)

This all means the judgment of the holy God on a sinful and unholy world. But it does not mean an annihilation of the world. The apostle Paul says very clearly that the form of this world is passing away (1 Cor. 7:31). The same creation that now is subjected to futility, in the final triumph will be set free from its bondage to decay unto the liberty and glory of the children of God (Rom. 8:21). It is a passing away of the world of sin and iniquity; it is the appearance of new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells (2 Pet. 3:13). For God “will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself will be with them; and he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:3–4). All the figures and pictures in the Bible stress in principle only one thing: the glory of God will be the salvation of men and the salvation of men will consist in the glorification of God.

That does not mean an eternal standstill. Revealed in these symbols and figures is the new and great rule of life, the order of the new world. Revelation enables us to turn our hearts to the future. Biblical apocalypse has another scope than to feed our fantasy: its scope and purpose are to strengthen our faith, and hope and love. God will be glorified in all the works of his hands; that is the final triumph. And all men, who in their waiting for the unveiled revelation of all his virtues have received the Spirit of sonship, will enter into the 12 gates of the new and imperishable city of God, to live the life of men in the light of God. That is the eternal Kingdom.

Herman N. Ridderbos has been Professor of New Testament at Kampen Seminary in The Netherlands since 1942. He received the Th.D. degree from Free University, Amsterdam, in 1936, and served as a minister of the Reformed Church before his seminary appointment. He is Editor-in-chief of Gereformeerd Weekblad and is author of numerous books.

Whatever problems the evangelical view may create, it commendably upholds the inspiration and revelation-status of Scripture. This recognition keeps faith with the witness of Scripture itself, and with the historic Christian confidence in the Bible.

A Fairer Hearing

For many years misunderstood and often misrepresented, the evangelical view today seems to be evaluated more objectively and temperately. No doubt the evangelical position is still deplored in some circles as anti-intellectual, in much the same spirit as a generation ago some groups disparaged and dismissed original sin, the atonement and other realities that now once again are lively centers of theological interest. The recent volume Fundamentalism and the Church by Gabriel Hebert reveals that the old innuendos about “bibliolatry” and “mechanical dictation” are not gone, but failure to stigmatize fundamentalism with a mechanical and naive literalist view of inspiration is increasingly evident. Fundamentalists have long been unable to recognize their own view in such attacks, since they themselves reject the formulas so frequently ascribed to them. One of their British theologians, J. I. Packer, recently commented that the “dictation theory” of the psychology of inspiration is “a complete hoax.” He insists that evangelical and Protestant theologians have never held it; that there is no evidence to think that even the Church Fathers used the “dictation” metaphor to explain the mode of inspiration (The Christian News Letter, July, 1957, p. 37). Even its larger outlines should dissolve complaints that the evangelical view narrows revelation to the Bible, that it is anti-intellectual, or that it is wholly disinterested in the bearing of the actual textual phenomena on the doctrine of Scripture.

Pivotal points of the evangelical view of revelation are:

1. The evangelical view distinguishes the personal Word of God, the Logos Theou, from the Word of God written, or the Hrema Theou. It affirms the priority of the personal or speaking Word over the spoken or written Word.

2. All revelation of God is revelation by the Logos.

3. This revelation is both general and special. God is revealed in nature, history and conscience, as well as in Scripture. The Bible witnesses to the reality of this general revelation (Ps. 19, Rom. 1:19 ff., 2:15 ff.).

4. Special revelation is itself broader than Scripture. While the Bible states all the essentials for salvation and spiritual maturity, the written record has not always existed. Abraham received special revelation but we have no reason to think he had scriptures. While our Lord’s spoken word was revelation, not all his teaching is recorded. Moreover, there is an eschatological fulfillment yet to come. For another reason special revelation must be considered broader than the Bible, which is shaped for a fallen race in need of salvation. Even by creation and before the fall, God specially revealed his will to man (Gen. 2:16). This fact indicates that even man’s creatureliness, and not his subsequent sinfulness alone, involved this special dependency on God.

5. Special revelation includes God’s redemptive events climaxed by the incarnation of the Logos, his atonement and resurrection. Without these great realities, special revelation is reduced to an inspired literature. What lifts Hebrew-Christian religion head and shoulders above the pagan religions is not simply its possession of “the oracles of God,” but the dynamic related plot these writings record. The living climax of that plot is the Logos who makes all things, illumines man in the divine image, discloses himself as the secret center of nature and history, and by his triumph over sin and death rescues a doomed race.

6. These redemptive events do not stand before us without interpretation. Scripture gives the authentic sense or meaning of the divine saving acts. While the Bible mirrors both general and special revelation, and affirms that the incarnate Logos translates God into the world of flesh, the Bible also captures that revelation in intelligible language. Revelation is dynamically broader than the Bible, but epistemologically Scripture gives us more of the revelation of the Logos than we would have without the Bible.

7. What then is the connection of the Bible and special revelation? According to the evangelical view, the Bible is a record of special revelation, and a witness to special revelation, if by the terms “record” and “witness” we do not mean the Bible is only a record and witness. Even to affirm that the Bible “contains” special revelation is quite acceptable if one intends no distinction between essence and content, but implies thereby, as does the Westminster Catechism, the unique inspiration of the whole of Scripture. For the evangelical view affirms that alongside the special divine revelation in saving acts, God’s disclosure has taken the form also of truths and words. This revelation is communicated in a restricted canon of trustworthy writings, deeding fallen man an authentic exposition of God and his purposes. Scripture itself therefore is an integral part of God’s redemptive activity, a special form of revelation, a unique mode of divine disclosure. It is, in truth, a decisive factor in God’s redemptive activity, interpreting and unifying the whole series of redemptive deeds, and exhibiting their divine meaning and significance.

Whether one appeals to Augustine or Aquinas, to Luther or Calvin, he finds the selfsame confidence in this revelatory character of the Word written as characterized the biblical writers. The Bible is for them, as for evangelical theology generally, special revelation in a normative and trustworthy form. Its difference from other sacred books of the world religions is no mere matter of degree. Rather, a special activity of divine inspiration differentiates it in kind from every other literature. This explains why the Hebrew-Christion religion has characteristically identified itself with a canon of unique writings that fulfill a divine intention of communicating special revelation. This idea of a canon did not originate suddenly in the early Christian centuries, as if by accident or by human impulse; it was a conviction already cherished by Hebrew religion, and accredited to the Christian conscience by Jesus of Nazareth. What the spirit says to the churches is, for evangelical Christianity, what is written in the inspired books. The content of this special divine revelation is to be found by historical-grammatical exegesis.

Evangelical Landmarks

While a generation ago it was customary to disparage this view as anti-intellectualistic, today it is popular to despise it as rationalistic. This remarkable change in the militant mood of apologetics reflects, of course, some important facts about recent Protestant theology. One is its basic philosophic instability that lodged first in the mires of Hegelian rationalism, and then in the muck of post-Hegelian irrationalism. Another feature is its persistent failure to rise above the fictitious disjunction that Schleiermacher first impressed upon the history of Christian thought, namely, that divine revelation consists in impartation of life, not of doctrine. The Protestant Reformers were careful to guard the Christian heritage against such errors of rationalism, irrationalism and mysticism. To prevent Christianity’s decline to mere metaphysics, they indeed stressed that the Holy Spirit alone gives life. But to prevent debasem*nt of the Christian religion to formless mysticism or to speculative rationalism, the Reformers emphasized the Scriptures as the only trustworthy source of the knowledge of God and his purposes. These historic positions are still landmarks of the evangelical view.

Every exposition of revelation and inspiration stands in some larger context. The doctrine of Scripture necessarily implies a compatible and congenial doctrine of God; it cannot be isolated from actual dependence upon the nature and manifestation of God. Overarching the evangelical view is the cardinal fact of God’s sovereignty in his being and activity, in his goodness and truth, and especially in his supremacy in the realm of truth as God of the Covenant. Unlike the irrationalistic metaphysics that surcharges the theology of Kierkegaard, Barth and Brunner, the evangelical doctrine postulates a view of God, of his image in man, of the divine renewal of that image coherent with the biblical representations of revelation.

God And His Image

The biblical delineation of revelation and reason does not hesitate to lodge the Logos unreservedly in the Godhead. Truth and goodness are not external criteria to which the Deity is answerable. Rather, truth and goodness are God’s essence, so that his very nature itself defines rationality and morality. This concept we know to be basic in the Hebrew-Christian doctrine of God.

A rational God has ordered a rational universe in which rational creatures created in his image are to think his thoughts after him and to do them. This fact of a rational Creator maintains the unity of the general divine revelation in nature, history and man. That man bears the image of God by creation (Gen. 1:26), that he is uniquely lighted by the Logos (John 1:9), is one of Scripture’s profoundest teachings about him. It supplies the setting also for some of the most intricate controversies in contemporary theology. Barth has had at least two theories of the imago Dei thus far, and Brunner at least three. It may be fruitful, by way of contrast, to consider a view currently advocated in evangelical circles as an alternative, since it transcends the tensions tearing many of the newer theories. The image of God in man constitutes man a spiritual-rational-moral agent. It includes therefore, at very least, the forms of reason and conscience, and the idea of God. What man knows, he knows through the law of contradiction, or he does not know. The laws of logic therefore belong to the imago Dei. This propels us directly into the analysis of the form and the content of reason. Recent generations largely accepted the view of Kant or of the evolutionists. Kant said that the form of reason is innate, but that experience supplies its content; the evolutionists said that experience supplies both form and content. The scriptural view requires a reference to the imago Dei for both the form and content of reason. Moreover, the Scriptures do not separate reason, conscience and worship as if these were independent considerations.

The imago Dei does include man’s formal realization that truth and error, right and wrong, God and not-God are genuine distinctions. But the imago Dei is more than formal; it is material as well. The very forms of the imago (including the laws of logic; the essential unity of the ideas of truth and goodness and God) belong to its content. Man as sinner no doubt crowds the imago with a distorted and perverse content; he falsifies the truth and dignifies the lie; he misjudges the right and consecrates the wrong; he revolts against the one true God and worships false gods. But he is not wholly lacking, on that account, of a transcendent imago-content that confronts him throughout this perversion and judges him. Even in his rebellion, man is confronted moment-by-moment in his experience by knowledge of the one true God—disclosed in nature and history around him and in conscience within. He is unable wholly to destroy this knowledge in his very corruption of it. Therefore conscience, like a sheriff, marshals him constantly before the judgment throne of God. You will discern here the familiar outlines of the Bible doctrine of general revelation, pieced together from Psalm 19 and Romans 1 and 2.

From the outset this exposition sets human experience in the context of revelation and faith. But it does not devalue the intellect, as does contemporary theology. Nor does it exaggerate the role of reason, as does Thomistic philosophy. Before the Fall, man’s reason was subject to God and his will subject to reason; therefore, his voluntary actions were conformed to truth. After the Fall, man’s reason was in the service of a will in revolt against God. Yet man is not on that account without some knowledge of God and the truth and the right, however much he may distort them.

Redemption aims not simply at man’s restoration to obedience, but to truth as well. It seeks his return both to the service and to the knowledge of God. The immediate end of redemption is renewal of man’s knowledge of God for the ultimate end of man’s total conformity to the image of Jesus Christ. Redemptive revelation and regeneration, therefore, encompass the predicament of the whole man, who was fashioned by creation for the knowledge and service of God. Redemptive revelation and regeneration seek reinstatement of intellect, no less than of volition and emotion, to the fellowship of divine conversation. If it were not so, theologians and seminarians could proclaim the great fact of special divine revelation, and yet would be free to stuff this form with a thought-content and a word-content of their own. But God wishes man both to walk in his ways and to think his thoughts after him; hence the language of revelation, like the language of prayer, takes the form of concepts and words.

Editor Carl F. H. Henry’s address was delivered at Union Theological Seminary in New York City recently under auspices of the Student Forum Committee. An evangelical symposium on the same theme will be published later this year by Baker Book House. Dr. Henry is serving as general editor of the project, which will include chapters by distinguished evangelical scholars from many denominations in many lands.

Christianity has been the greatest influence in building the American concept of democracy. Both Christianity and democracy begin with the individual, and they stress the infinite worth of individual man.

Without Christian laymen who applied their religious philosophy to governmental decisions, there would have been no American Declaration of Independence or Constitution of the United States as we know them today. Without the application of moral and religious concepts in the laws of our land, we would be no better off than other countries of the world today.

We believe in separation of Church and State in this land, but never have we believed in separation of Church and statesmen. As Christian laymen in the early days of this country worked not only for their churches and their God, but also for application of moral and religious principles in the political and governmental decisions of the nation, so must we carry on that same important responsibility. This is especially true in this day of materialism and science when so many people are losing sight of important spiritual considerations and opportunities.

Someone has said that in our day we have learned to fly through the air like the birds of the sky and to glide through the waters like the fish of the sea, but we have not learned to live on this earth like human beings.

Detraction From The Spiritual

And now, before learning to live like brothers on this earth, we have upon us a great rush into outer space—a competitive race of science and material progress in attempt to place and control satellites in outer space.

Man’s attention is being drawn away from the spiritual essentials into the material stratosphere. Satellites are circling the earth once every 96 minutes. This is a fantastic speed for earthbound mortals to comprehend—nearly five miles per second. The Soviet Union has beaten us in the race of physical objects in outer space. There is much excitement in America for a full-scale scientific crusade to assure our country of every possible achievement for progress and adequate defense in the world in which we live.

On the other hand, when people talk about putting all the resources of their country behind a better sputnik in outer space, I cannot help but think of the need for placing more of our resources into a closer contact with the power in outer space which is greater than any man-made ball or ballistic—the power which has dominion over outer and inner space, yea over our very lives and destinies—our God in Heaven.

We are ahead of the Russian communists in that we have contact with God, and unless they are converted from their atheistic beliefs, they will never catch up with us. But this will be true only if we do not fail in our duty to emphasize and thus follow the way of Christianity.

Our destiny does not lie in our drive to be the first to set foot on the moon, or to have a space station for future conquests in our solar system. Our true destiny lies in an understanding of Him who is the power that governs outer space and the destinies of nations and men on this world.

In all this excitement over the satellites, I have heard not one speech concerning the urgent need for our people to expand and develop the philosophy and ideals which truly put us in touch with the God of the universe and assure us of his help. Our forefathers, perhaps, had a stronger grasp of this urgency than we do in this age of materialism and great technological progress. You have been reminded many times of the South American visitor who was asked to explain why the material progress of North America had so far outstripped that of South America. His reply was: “The people who settled North America came here seeking God. Those who came to South America were in search of gold.”

It will do us all good to recall the religious background of the settlers of these United States. Through all American history there runs a golden thread of deep religious conviction. The spirit of religion guided the pilgrims to the New England coast. In framing the Mayflower Compact they started with the words: “In the name of God. Amen.” The illustrious founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, once said in an address: “If we are not ruled by God, we will be ruled by tyrants.” And the Declaration of Independence makes this statement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It is significant also that when material considerations were about to fail in the convention called at Philadelphia to write the United States Constitution, the men turned their attentions to the spiritual. Benjamin Franklin suggested humble prayer to God for assistance, and you know the result. The coins of this nation were stamped “In God We Trust.”

These examples should chart the course for us as Americans—and as children of God.

Christianity And Liberty

The Christian faith, when it is fully understood, has always promoted the liberty of the individual and the dignity of mankind. These same principles of Christianity offer us the best course toward the achievement of international understanding and peace. These Christian ideals and the reliance upon the strong hand of God give us also the answer to the spread of Communism.

We in this nation have something the communists do not have, and that is the deep, ingrown faith in a God which enables men to rise above the struggles of the materialistic world and seek the heavens in their true perspective. This is our opponents’ greatest weakness. They are professed materialists and enemies of religion. Karl Marx wrote: “Religion is the sign of the oppressed creature, the feelings of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people.” And Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev took up the Marxist mantle and spread the same false doctrine over the world.

The Communist Surge

Today, Communism rules by force nearly one billion people—a third of the world’s population. Ironically, this surge of Communism compares in history only with the advances of Christianity. Two thousand years ago, when Christ brought his message to earth, he gathered about him 12 men, and from the lips of those men Christianity spread like wildfire throughout the Western world.

Are we to concede that Christianity offers less than Communism, and thereby “write off” the latter’s conquests as philosophical victories which we failed to match? Christians know this is not true. They know that the atheists who preach the communist doctrine are attempting the impossible when they seek to stamp out mankind’s spiritual heritage and replace it with a new set of values based on utility and materialism.

Love of country and love of God are inseparable ingredients. Democracy, a by-product of the teachings of Christ, emphasizes that government should be a servant and not a master. It was Lenin who admitted: “When religion is strong, Communism is weak.” And that is an admission by the communist world that they can hope to succeed only by controlling the minds of men and stamping out all religious beliefs that stand in the way.

It disturbs me that the communists have been preaching to more people in recent years than have the Christians. I regret that some people in this country believe that we should become a material fortress as the best means of fighting Communism. They seem to say there is no time for God in the struggle for armed superiority. But if we yield to this temptation, someday we shall find that we have assumed the likeness of that which threatens us and which will be our own destruction.

We must arm, certainly. We cannot allow ourselves to be engulfed by the dictatorship of the Soviet Union. At the same time, we must never take our eyes away from the God of the universe. Americans believe that the true course is the course that leads to God. The hope of the world lies in men’s willingness to seek this course.

Price Daniel is the Governor of Texas. A Baptist lay leader, he delivered these remarks on November 5, 1957 at the annual State Baptist Brotherhood Convention. Governor Daniel is an alumnus of Baylor University. After a newspaper career he was elected to the Senate. He became Governor of Texas in 1957.

“Imperialism” is a word that has been somewhat prostituted in recent years. The moral splendour of Britain’s service for those whom she had in imperial sway has been too easily forgotten. For, at its best, imperialism in earlier days was not only a fundamentally Christian concept, the devotion of men and women to the welfare of peoples with less advantages than themselves, but it offered a field of deliberate Christian service.

Motives Lifted In India

Nowhere is this shown better than in the story of Britain’s Indian Empire.

Not that Britain entered India with Christian intentions—far from it. In the eighteenth century the East India Company regarded the territory as a source of trade and revenue, and had no concern whatever for the souls of its people. But in 1773 a Scotsman in the Company’s service, Charles Grant, after leave in Britain landed in Calcutta “under deep concern for the state of my soul.… There was no person then living in Calcutta from whom I could obtain any information as to the way of a sinner’s salvation.” In one of the foreign enclaves nearby the Swedish evangelist Kiernander showed it to him. Thenceforth, as a younger contemporary said, “A new principle of action governed him, a profound and abiding sense of his obligation as a Christian, and grateful and affecting remembrance of the mercies of God in Jesus Christ.”

Grant spent much of his last years attempting to persuade the East India Company to introduce Christian missions to India under official patronage. Dutch governments supported missions in their colonies but the British East India Company not only refused, it would not even allow missionaries to enter India (though some did come in the guise of chaplains to the European community) until forced to do so in 1813 by the efforts of Grant and his fellow members of the “Clapham Sect.”

In his attitude to those he ruled, Charles Grant was the prototype of the nineteenth century civil official in India; but it was James Thomason of the next generation, son of an early evangelical chaplain in Calcutta, who, as a trainer of men in the North West Province, imbued the service with his own Christian approach.

Transforming The Punjab

In the Punjab, which in the late 1840s and early ’50s was transformed from a blood-drenched independent land of misery into a flourishing British province, a remarkable set of Thomason’s Christians were at the helm, the best remembered being the two Lawrences, Henry and John, differing in personality but one in faith. When John was promoted over Henry’s head, it was to prayer that they resorted, the one in his hopes and the other in his acute disappointment; and Henry committed John to the Lord. Another was Reynell Taylor, one of the pacifiers of the frontier. “A saint on earth,” he was described by his assistant, Sir Richard Pollock, a great-uncle of the present writer; “duty and religion were stamped on all he did.” Young John Nicholson, later the “hero of Delhi,” made such an impact on the tribesmen that they founded a sect to worship “Nikalsain,” despite his wrath (and he flogged each devotee). When the tribesmen heard of his death in action at 35, a leader of the sect committed suicide, but another said “that was not the way to serve their great master; if they ever hoped to see him again they must learn to worship Nicholson’s God.”

Nicholson’s great friend, and perhaps the most attractive of all these Christian leaders in the Punjab, was Sir Herbert Edwardes. “This great country India,” he said, “has been put into our hands that we might give it light.” He fervently believed that if the British administration itself (and not merely individual administrators) had been more openly Christian, the Indian Mutiny would not have occurred; for undoubtedly one of its causes had been a false understanding of the nature of Christianity, and a fear that the government intended forcible conversion to Christianity. “An open Bible,” Edwardes pleaded, “put it in your schools, stand avowedly as a Christian government.” Only then would India be truly fitted for freedom, “leavened with Christianity.”

Sir Bartle Frere, Governor of Sind, a strong supporter personally of missions, who “felt convinced that the conversion of the natives to Christianity was the greatest blessing our rulers could confer on them,” differed from Edwardes in deprecating the teaching of the Bible in state schools except to such as freely asked for it. He believed that to link in any way mission work with government would be disastrous.

Should Christianity Be Imposed?

These opposing views show up the greatest problem in the matter of Christian imperialism. As may be seen in the Philippines or (on a smaller scale) in Goa, the Spanish and Portuguese imposed their form of Christianity on those they ruled. Should the British have attempted to have done so in India? What would have been the result? In New Delhi not long ago I discussed this point with Prime Minister Nehru. He was emphatic that such a policy would have bred the strongest resistance from Hindus and Mohammedans and would have made government impossible. But it was not the Protestant way to cast a thin veneer of Christianity over peoples still at heart non-Christian. Protestant nations could not approach these races as the sixteenth century Jesuit Ricci approached China. It had been Ricci’s belief that if only he could convert the Emperor and persuade him to sign the appropriate decree, four hundred million people would thereby enter the Roman Catholic fold.

The most that the British official could do was to give his personal encouragement to missions; as in the example of Edwardes who presided at the launching of the frontier mission at Peshawar, or Sir Robert Montgomery (grandfather of the World War II leader) who took steps to install the Church Missionary Society at Lucknow in 1858 almost before the dust had settled from the siege, or Sir William Muir, who founded the North India Tract Society, and after retirement was a missionary treasurer.

Officials could and did support the social ameliorations brought about by missionaries, and Christianity in some sense did creep onto the Indian statute book—as in the example of its concept of the sacredness of life (widow-burning and infanticide being abolished), the freedom of the individual conscience (stoning or mutilation of converts from Islam being forbidden), and the equality of sexes (Hindu widows being permitted to marry, the zenanas opened). Despite these efforts, however, many of the reforming laws did long remain dead letters.

Administrator A Civil Father

Above all else such men served Christ by impregnating the civil service with the attitude that the administrator, at each level, was to be father of his people. So many British Christians made Indian government their life work that it became one of the noblest professions, in which Christian values normally were upheld even by those who lacked personal faith.

As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth the number of strong Christians in civil services decreased, though there were always some right down to the end of 1947; but the British in India were by this time reflecting the British at home where the climate of secular reaction was taking its toll. In Britain the post-Victorian generation, which maintained Christian values while rejecting individual commitment, failed to solve the national and international problems of its age, and thus bequeathed to its successors a morally chaotic world. So in India—the British could not find a way whereby independence, towards which the imperial government had long worked, would keep the sub-continent undivided, its races and religions living together in the harmony which characterized the British power at its zenith. Whether a way would have been found had there remained many vigorously spiritual men in the administration, and the Christian theory of government had still been matched by the faith of its leaders, is one of the “ifs” of history.

Could India have become Christian while under the British? “If India were converted the gain would be cheaply purchased by the loss of our Empire in India,” wrote a mid-nineteenth century governor. The Empire is now handed over (not lost); yet whereas the religions of India in early British days were moribund, they are now vigorous, and the national churches a small minority.

Flaws In Christian Approach

Part of the trouble developed from the naive view of many distinguished missionaries and men of affairs that India could be won to Christ by education. Vast numbers of Indians, men and later women, passed through Christian schools; but both to them and to their teachers education implied Western education, and thus imperceptibly the religious faith became identified with Western civilization. When Indian nationalism emerged, it revived Hinduism and the other religions as expression of the national spirit, while forgetting (as Prime Minister Nehru does not forget today) that Christianity is itself one of the ancient religions of India with an unbroken history on the Malabar coast from at least the fourth century. But once Christianity was identified with the West, its progress was severely hindered.

More tragic, however, was the failure of so many “Christian” British, especially in the military services, to commend their faith by their lives. “Let us set our own house in order,” said Sir Bartle Frere in 1859, “and remove the reproach cast against us by all native opponents: ‘You spend thousands of pounds to convert one low caste Hindu, but you do not move a finger to prevent your sailors and soldiers from being examples of the grossest vices in every bazaar they frequent.’” As the century wore on much improvement could be noted, but never up to the end were the military or business communities, as a whole, positive advertisem*nts for Christ.

In the memory of this particular failure, even more than in the record of the Christian intentions and attitude of the administrators, lies the practical lesson for today, not only for the British but for all the English-speaking peoples. Empires have gone, but business and travel have increased. All over the East there are thousands of men and women of Western countries at work or passing through, whose religion is listed as Christian. It is they who can commend Him whose name they bear. They, sometimes more than the missionaries, can declare Christ to be Lord of all the earth by showing him to be Lord of their lives, and by active support of local Christian effort.

The British had high claim to be called Christian imperialists, but we failed because of our spiritual recession at home to fulfill the dreams of the Christian administrators of a hundred years ago. In the different circ*mstances of today all Christian nations have renewed opportunity to manifest His name to those who know not Christ as Saviour nor worship him as King.

J. C. Pollock is Editor of The Churchman, quarterly journal of Anglican theology, and is Rector of Horsington, Somerset.

In 1909 Arthur James Balfour, the former Prime Minister of England, was speaking at the University of Edinburgh on “The Moral Values Which Unite Nations.” In his address, he discussed different ties that bind together the peoples of the world—ties of common knowledge, commerce, diplomatic relationships, and bonds of human friendship. When he was done, a Japanese student studying at the Scottish university got up and asked this question. “But, Mr. Balfour, what about Jesus Christ?” According to an American professor who was there, you could have heard a pin drop. There was dead silence, as those present felt the justice of the rebuke. A leading statesman of a Christian nation had been dealing with ties that are to unite men and had left out the one essential bond. And the reminder of his forgetfulness came from a student from a far off non-Christian land.

“What about Jesus Christ?” Today, when human problems are of a complexity and seriousness undreamed of in 1909, the question is still relevant. More than ever before, it needs to be asked. And it is wholly in keeping with this service in which in a special way the Bible is before our thoughts that we consider it, for to do so is to go to the very heart of the Bible’s message.

Our text is in John’s Gospel, the fourteenth chapter and the sixth verse, where Jesus says to Thomas: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.”

Have you ever been talking to a friend in regard to some book you have been reading—one that you have found especially interesting or significant? If so, you know that it was not long before your friend said to you something like this: “But what’s it about?” Or, he may have put it more pointedly and said: “What’s it all about?” So it is with the Bible. “What’s it about?” is a question that we not only have a right to ask, but also one that we are obligated to consider, if we think at all seriously regarding life.

Now there are many answers to the question as to what the Bible is about. From one point of view this Book is like a great tapestry into which are woven many symbols, many pictures, many precepts. The Bible is about history and morality, about human nature and sin. It tells not only about the past but also about the future, about heaven and hell. It is about God and his greatness and righteousness, his justice and his love, and what he requires of us men. The Bible is “about” these things. But when we come to the more particular question, “What is the Bible all about?” there is just one chief answer. It is this: above everything else, the Bible is all about Jesus Christ. In the deepest and most living way, its purpose is to tell us about him who, as our text says, is “the way, the truth, and the life.”

There is a tendency today to speak of this atomic age as the most important time in the history of the world. It is nothing of the kind. The most significant time in human history was the span of some 30 years that covered the life of one man in first-century Palestine. On a road in the Canadian West between Alberta and British Columbia there is a massive wooden arch on which is written in large letters, “The Great Divide.” It reminds travellers of the nearby Continental Divide, the place from which water flows west into the Pacific and east into Hudson Bay. But the dividing point of the ages is not a wooden arch; it is a wooden cross set up on a hill outside the city of Jerusalem nearly two thousand years ago. And the plain facts about Jesus Christ, such as the long preparation for his coming in the Old Testament, and the New Testament facts of his wonderful birth, his perfect life, his marvelous teaching, his atoning death in which he shed blood for our redemption, and his glorious resurrection—these are vastly more significant for mankind than anything else that has ever happened in the history of the world.

These are the things that the Bible is all about. Let us go on, then, to look at them through the lens, as it were, of our text. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” It is significant that these words have recently been before the eyes of more people than have ever before looked at any Scripture text. For fifteen and a half weeks of the New York Crusade, this Scripture verse was on a great banner behind the platform, over the choir at Madison Square Garden, and facing crowds totaling two million. So also it was seen by multitudes in London, Glasgow, and other great cities here and abroad. But though the words are not emblazoned on a banner before us this morning, we may see them in our mind’s eye and hear them in our hearts.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Notice that this is not what some prophet or apostle or saint of old said about Christ. It is Jesus’ own words regarding himself, his own considered estimate of himself, a great declaration of self-witness. And it sets him apart from all other religious leaders with an awesome exclusiveness, as the second clause of our verse shows: “no man cometh unto the Father but by me.” It is plain, therefore, that he is not merely one of a number of equally good ways, but that he is in full reality the only way; and that those who would know the truth that makes men free and find the life more abundant, must do so through him.

‘Like Sheep Gone Astray’

Have you ever lost your way in the hills, on a desert, or in the dense bush of some forest? If you have, you know how terrifying an experience it may be with panic just around the corner. It’s not a pleasant feeling to be lost—if only for a few hours.

But there’s another kind of lostness. A few weeks ago a young man, referred to me by another headmaster, came to my office. He had gone to the University of Chicago, but had given up. He was all at sea emotionally. And the reason, in his own words, was simply this: “I have no purpose in life. There’s nothing to live for. What’s the use of going on?” That young man was really lost. What he needed was not to be told where to go to school and what to study. He needed to find the way; he needed to find it inside his heart and life, so that he might have a purpose. Every atheist knows the importance of having a purpose. Said Jean Paul Satré, the French existentialist: “There is no God, but everybody needs something to commit his life to, some philosophy. Find the philosophy, find the cause, find the movement and commit your life to it.” But philosophies, causes, movements, will never really find the lost.

The Bible makes it plain that we have all missed our way. In the fifty-third chapter of his prophecy which points so clearly to the Saviour, Isaiah says: “All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned everyone to his own way.” But Christ is the true and living way, because he died to bring us back to God.

Again, he is the truth. In the words of the text, Jesus said, “I am the truth.” Nothing shows more clearly his uniqueness than this declaration. Philosophy goes so far and no farther. Even the greatest thinkers can only point men to what they assume to be the truth. They can only say: “This seems to be the best explanation of the universe,” or, “This appears to be the right frame reference for life.” But no philosopher would dare point to himself and say, as Christ said with absolute and complete assurance: “I am the truth.”

“But wait a moment,” someone says. “How can one person be big enough to be the truth?” The answer is the great reality of the deity of Christ, the stupendous fact that, though fully man, he is at the same time God. Therefore, to ask whether Christ is big enough to be the truth is the same thing as to ask whether God is big enough to be the truth, a question that answers itself. A recent book by J. B. Phillips bears the title, Your God is Too Small. After showing the inadequacy of a dozen or so commonly held ideas of God, the author proves that God in Christ is alone big enough for the great issues of life and death and eternity.

Christ Is The Answer

But our text goes on to declare that Christ is also the life, for Jesus said: “I am … the life.” In his letter to the Colossians, St. Paul uses this phrase, “Christ who is our life.” There are many today who confuse Christianity, which is the faith of the Bible, with certain related things. But Christianity is not the church, a vital part of it though the church is; it is not theology, essential though theology is; it is not worship, though worship is obligatory. Nor is it even doing good and loving one’s neighbor, although there is no true practice of Christianity without this. All these belong to Christianity and are indispensable to it, but they are not its very heart. Christianity is Christ. Like the hub of a wheel, he is its center. For without the life that is in him, there is no hope. Said St. Paul, in voicing his highest aspiration, “That I may know him.” And in his last letter he bore this witness: “I know whom I have believed.”

Summer before last I spent some time at Mount Robson, British Columbia, where I camped and climbed with fellow mountaineers of the Alpine Club of Canada. On a rainy day, a group of us were drinking tea in a tent. A discussion began and, as bull sessions so often do, it turned to religion. Not only that, but it became highly skeptical in tone. Finally the talk veered to Christ. At this point a young scientist turned to me with a rather patronizing air and said: “But you don’t really believe, do you, that Jesus is the Son of God?”

“Yes,” I replied, “I do.”

“But how can you prove it?” he said. “How do you know it is true?”

I shall never forget what followed. I simply did what any other convinced Christian would have done; I looked him straight in the eye and said: “How do I know that Jesus is the Son of God? I know it, because I know him personally.” For at least a half minute our eyes locked. Then he turned away. The argument was over. So it is that when Christ is really our life, we know him with an immediacy of personal knowledge that is unmistakable.

Long before the Japanese student asked that question of Lord Balfour, Jesus had asked it of the Pharisees when he said to them in public debate two days before his crucifixion, “What think you of Christ? Whose son is he?” He asked it for a decision, just as the Bible keeps on asking it for a decision of everyone who reads it. As A. M. Chirgwin said in discussing the origin of the New Testament, “The New Testament writers were not just writing history; they were writing for a verdict.” And that verdict is given in one way only—through believing in Him whom the Bible is all about.

In the words of St. John that are printed on the frontispiece of the Bibles presented this morning: “These are written, that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you might have life through his name.”

Dr. J. G. Paton, the great Scottish missionary to the New Hebrides in the South Pacific, was translating the New Testament into the dialect of the islanders. He was working on the sixteenth chapter of Acts which tells how, after Paul and Silas were released from prison in Philippi through an earthquake, the jailer asked how to be saved. Paton was hard put to find the precise translation of the all-important word “believe.” He overheard a native who was working on a ladder use a certain expression, and knew then and there that his problem was solved. Whereupon, Paton rendered the reply to the question of the Philippian jailer, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” with: “Lean your whole weight on the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.”

The whole message of the Word of God, what it is all about, all its helpfulness and power, comes alive in us when we lean our whole weight—our sin, our need, our ability, our weakness and our strength, our hopes, the entire weight of our lives—upon Jesus Christ. Gentlemen, along with these Bibles goes the challenge to you who receive them and to all of us in this chapel to read the Scriptures regularly, daily, prayerfully that through them you may know more and more fully him who is “the way, the truth, and the life.”

E=Mc2

This is the theory of Relativity,

The most profound pronouncement of the human mind.

In South America birds can be taught to say

“Energy equals mass times squared velocity.”

What does it mean to them? To you and me?

To human kind?

Out of this net

We dropped a bomb on Hiroshima.

The Nations walk in fear of it today.

No man, no home, no city can forget.

Is this a formula to sum and doom

All science, progress, life, humanity?

This is the dead-end street of merely human plan.

This is the towering granite of a wall,

A flaming sword is turning every way

To guard a secret from the will of Man

Until in faith, humility, intelligence he comes to pray,

Drawn to a statement of sublime simplicity:

“Let not your hearts be troubled;

Ye believe in God,

Believe in Me.”

CATHERINE ALLER

A sermon preached on 15 September, 1957, in the chapel of the United States Military Academy, West Point, N. Y., at the annual presentation of Bibles by American Tract Society.

One of our supposedly great experts on Communism said a year and a half ago, “There is a finality, for better or worse,” about the communist conquest of Eastern Europe. And some of our people believed it, saying “Well, we must be practical and realistic. We must accept facts.” But was it a fact? Fortunately, within a few weeks a lot of common people marched down a street in Poznan, Poland, crying, “Give us bread—and freedom too!” They proved that the man wasn’t really a great expert or a realist. He was just a defeatist, and completely unrealistic. He had lost faith both in man and in God. He didn’t believe, and many others of us haven’t really believed that the urge of man to be free can be and will be stronger than the tyrant’s sword, or even his police state—that is, if only we don’t betray that urge by building up the tyrant in the vain notion that somehow he may give us freedom and peace and security in our time.

The growing surge to be free came to a climax a year ago last fall in Hungary. Foolish? Yes, just as foolish as the country farmers on a green at Lexington who stood up against the finest professional soldiers of the eighteenth century—but it was those farmers on the green and “by the rude bridge that arched the flood” at Concord who fired “the shot heard ‘round the world” and made possible this freedom which we today enjoy without realizing how great a price was paid for it, or what discipline and dedication and willingness to work for it are necessary if our heritage is to be preserved, fulfilled, strengthened, and shared around the world.

The communists understood the significance of what happened in Hungary better than we did. They were scared into near panic, as we’ve learned from several sources since. They cringed and pulled back. And then, in certainly one of the most tragic coincidences of history, at the very moment when Communism was revealed to be losing in Europe—much weaker than realized—three nations of the West, by starting the adventure at Suez, took it upon themselves to demonstrate that the free world too was much weaker than realized. They repudiated at Suez their pledges in the United Nations Charter that they would not use such non-peaceful methods to try to resolve disputes. The whole episode revealed to the communists how weak and divided the West was. It too was beginning to splinter. And the communists promptly moved back into Hungary.

Parallel Disintegration

That brought us to the showdown. The communists were losing in Europe; but the free world was losing in Asia and Africa. The sixty-four thousand dollar question of our time became: Which would disintegrate the faster, the communist world or the free world? Or, to turn it around: Which could pull itself together the faster and more solidly?

Well, we know now. The communists have made more headway since Hungary in pulling themselves together than the free world has. They learned the plain lesson of Hungary. They knew that they had to win the whole world quickly, including the United States, or this growing urge for freedom would cause them to lose the whole world quickly, including the Soviet Union. They went to work for dear life.

But we of the West hesitated; we groped for the familiar, trying to hang onto “business and politics as usual.” We wanted peace so badly that we’re in danger of losing it—and our freedom. We were not quite willing as a people to face up to the threat. And a democratic government cannot get very far ahead of its people.

The present balance is, of course, that we still lead in certain fields: wealth, basic weapons, especially the older weapons, and productive capacity. But the communists are ahead in manpower, in the newer weapons, in the momentum to create still newer ones, and in will. They know that it is now or never for them; and, therefore, they are reckless and dangerous. They intend to win.

What can we do in such a situation? First of all, we have to WAKE UP to the real nature of the threat. Second, we’ve got to find our way through the series of dilemmas in which we’ve been caught, the dilemmas that have kept us almost paralyzed while the communists, untroubled by Christian conscience, have forged ahead.

They are real dilemmas. How do Christian people deal successfully with unprincipled persons without becoming like them? The Chinese say that in wars adversaries tend to exchange vices. In order to defeat the enemy, we’re tempted to adopt his methods and become just like him. But, why resist him if we’re going to become like him?

Here’s a concrete example: How do we deal successfully with lying words? Take the term “peaceful coexistence.” To us that means peace; but that isn’t what it means to them. They seldom talk about peace—that would mean a genuine settlement. They talk about peaceful coexistence. Why? Because we’re still stronger than they are. They want us to be willing to coexist peacefully until they can become stronger than we—and then they’ll really put the screws on. Peaceful coexistence means peaceful coexistence by us as long as we are stronger; when they can become stronger, it means peaceful submission. How does a tennis team play according to tennis rules with a team that’s playing according to football rules?

Another dilemma is: How do we help our traditional allies in Europe without appearing to approve their old colonial policies and thereby alienating the peoples of Asia? How do we support the West without losing the East? There isn’t any easy answer. We need, for obvious reasons, to stand with England, France, and so on, in Europe; but we cannot support some of their historic policies in Asia without losing the people of Asia who are infected with our own virus of 1776—the determination to be free.

We can go down the list. The former colonial possessions which we’ve helped to gain political independence cannot preserve that freedom unless there be improvement in the living conditions of the people. But how can we give them the economic help they need and still spend all we must for weapons to defend our own independence—and theirs? If we don’t spend more for arms, we invite insecurity—and disaster; if we do spend more, we invite inflation—and disaster. Either way, disaster. What are we to do?

Freedom And Slavery

Again, we say we want nothing but liberty and justice for all—and that’s true. But some say we must not advocate liberty and justice for all, because that would be interfering in the internal affairs of communist-controlled countries; it would “increase tensions” and might provoke them into the very war which we want to prevent—a war that might not win liberty and justice for the oppressed peoples and might instead destroy our own. Yet, if we don’t stand unwaveringly for liberty and justice for others, how can we ask or expect God to help us preserve ours?

How can we hope to remain free with a third of God’s children enslaved? Yet how can we help them become free if we weaken ourselves here at home?

It is certain that we will have to work under self-discipline if we’re going to recover our superiority in weapons without breaking our economy. I am sure we can do this, if we will.

Two Essential Tests

Also, we are going to have to prevent the communists from winning any more victories. No one fails when he is winning. I would urge that we examine every proposal from whatever source it comes by two main tests: If we were to adopt this, would it make stronger or weaker the oppressors? And, the other side of the coin, if we were to follow the suggested course, would it make stronger or weaker the oppressed? Anything that builds up the oppressors or weakens the will to resist of the oppressed, will never bring lasting peace.

This is why we cannot increase trade with communist China, or any of the communist countries. It makes stronger the oppressors. It is why we cannot support the admission of communist China, to the United Nations. That would be a smashing diplomatic victory for the oppressors. The tyrant is strengthened enormously if he is accepted into respectable society. How can the oppressed resist him if the strong accept him? It breaks hearts behind the Iron Curtain whenever the strong free nations do anything that increases the prestige, influence, power of the tyrants whom the oppressed peoples are doing their best to weaken and pull down from within.

These steps are essential, but they are not enough. We must also find more effective ways positively to strengthen and aid all who are striving to remain free or become free. Our government can and must help other governments. But we’ve also got to reach the people. It’s what people think that counts in the end. And that’s why, in addition to better-managed government aid programs, we have to continue, yes, expand in other countries the efforts of private charitable agencies and missionary programs of the church. They give meaning to, and put heart and soul into the government programs, which, by their very nature and government regulations, have to be somewhat rigid and impersonal. Governments impress people with their power, but seldom do they win people’s hearts. All around the world we have agencies like International Cooperation Administration. They administer, but rarely do they minister. What the peoples of the world need most is ministry. That has to come through persons who go not because our government sends them, but because they care about human beings who are in need and who are also God’s children.

As citizens we must support the government programs while trying always to make them more effective—not bigger, but better. But in addition, we must, as Christians, be willing to support more generously the voluntary programs which minister to others for no other reason than human sympathy.

Maybe we will have to sacrifice some minks in order to get more missiles, and give up a little rock-and-roll in order to make more rockets. But these alone won’t do the job. It is the Christian church and Christian people that must be the leaven working in the world to change its character and to transform it.

This is the most important part of our task. I see no way really to resolve the dilemmas with which honest men wrestle, or to solve today’s crushing problems save by going back to the fundamental source of men’s actions—the desires of the human heart. Our basic problem is not missiles, it is men. It is the character of the men who control the missiles, men who deny moral principles and values, men who reject moral judgments, men who scorn moral restraints.

What deals with the human heart? Religion. In short, our greatest need is to recapture a faith in our faith, like the faith the communists have in theirs. Do we really believe in the leaven process? Do we really believe that the Christian gospel presented to men will change their hearts? If so, we’d better work in earnest.

We are never again going to be able to relax until the communist conspiracy gives up its program of world conquest. And it can never give that up until it ceases to be communist. And it cannot cease to be communist until those who belong to it cease to be communists. The way to change Communism is to change communists, that is, to change men through the Gospel.

Surely God did not bring our beloved country to its position of unprecedented power and influence in the world for no great purpose. Surely he expects us and has a right to call on us in this hour of crisis to rise to the occasion and prove ourselves worthy instruments of his will that all men shall be free.

Walter H. Judd’s listing in Who’s Who in America identifies him as “congressman, physician, missionary.” He served as medical missionary in China from 1925–1938, after which he lectured throughout the United States on American foreign policy. He has been a member of the 78th to the 85th Congresses with a vigilant eye on the world strategy of Communism.

Some years ago there was borne in upon me with great conviction an awareness of the inseparable connection of the freedom which we enjoy in the West and the Christian faith. With this came a deepened sense that God is concerned, not alone with man’s soul and his eternal destiny, but with his life here and what happens to him in this world. I suppose I had known these things before, but one day they hit me with tremendous force. I may say that I think this theologically sound, and a natural inference from the Incarnation, when God took upon him our flesh “and was made man.” This means that fields like business and politics are not outside the Church, not parallel to the Church, not enemies of the Church: but that unless religion gets into these fields, two things happen. Business and politics get rottener and rottener; but religion itself gets rarer and rarer. I don’t know which suffers more. They were meant to go together, like soul and body.

Let me give you a few quotations from men who are wiser than I, that enforce this point. Dr. Jacques Maritain, the great French philosopher and statesman, says, “The consciousness of the rights of the person has its origin in the conception of man and of the natural law established by centuries of Christian philosophy.” Prof. William A. Orton of Yale said, “It is only in the Christian doctrine of man that we can find a firm and reasoned ground for the American affirmation.” Said G. K. Chesterton, “There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.” And T. S. Eliot points the issue that is before us in his words, “The term democracy does not contain enough positive content to stand alone against the forces that you dislike—it can easily be transformed by them. If you will not have God (and he is a jealous God) you should pay your respects to Hitler or Stalin.”

Before we look for an alternative to Christianity which is to give us our world-view and basic life-concepts, we had better take stock of what are the forces that have brought us even so far as we have come. We forget that the fundamental liberality of mind that searches for better ways, and the values by which we must judge of what constitutes a ‘better way,’ are due to the Christian heritage. Dr. Theodore O. Wedel has said that “man, as the secular world know’s him, is still Christian man, the product of two thousand years of Christian nurture. He is man with the moral conscience of the Christian centuries in his heart. Modern education … frequently continues to take this background for granted.”

Perhaps the finest statement of the dependence of civilization as we know it upon the Christian faith is in a quotation which I am told comes from Ralph Waldo Emerson—I cut it years ago from a magazine called The Continent, before I had learned to mark page and author! It goes this way:

The worst kind of religion is no religion at all, and these men, living in ease and luxury, indulging themselves in the amusem*nt of going without a religion, may be thankful that they live in lands where the gospel they neglect has tamed the beastiliness and ferocity of the men who, but for Christianity, might long ago have eaten their carcasses like the South Sea Islanders, or cut off their heads, and tanned their hides, like the monsters of the French Revolution. When the microscopic search of skepticism, which has hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society, and has found a place on this planet ten miles square where a man may live in decency, comfort and security, supporting and educating his children unspoiled and unpolluted—a place where age is reverenced, infancy respected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard—when skeptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe where the gospel has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundations and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for the skeptical literati to move thither and ventilate their views.

Christianity And The Nation

We have a problem, however, in forcing this obvious truth and its consequences on anybody. James Bryce said of America that “Christianity is in fact understood to be, though not the legally established religion, yet the national religion.” And Supreme Court Justice Douglas said, “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.” Yet we have wisely resisted the temptation to pass any statutes which make all this too binding. We believe in the separation of Church and State, not because the State is sufficient of itself to produce good citizens, and not because it does not need the constant infusion into its corporate life of sound, informed, God-fearing people, but because this need is better served by a church and government that function separately.

Not long ago a man wrote me saying he thought there should be an article in the Constitution saying that this is a Christian nation. I wrote him that I thought this would lead to very grave and serious divisions and difficulties in our midst. Part of Christianity is an extraordinary liberalism which lets other people think and believe as they will. I think this reflects the liberalism of God himself, who “sends his rain on the just and on the unjust,” and who lets the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest. The only way for America to become Christian is by the conversion of many more millions of its people to Christ, rather than by saying that it is Christian by an act of Congress, which would at best be only a projection of an intention, not the description of a fact. Only a true and free Christianity dares to encourage genuine freedom of uncoerced thought.

The Peril Of Lethargy

There is another reason for the separation of Church and State. Power corrupts; no power corrupts more quickly than political power. States have to act very often in behalf of the people, and their very size gives them a terrible advantage over individuals or even great aggregates of them combined together. Says Barbara Ward, in Faith and Freedom (p. 265), “The state is by nature so powerful and compelling and voracious an institution that the citizen, standing alone against it, is all but powerless. He needs counter-institutions, above all the counter-institution of the Church, which of all organized bodies alone can look Caesar in the face and claim a higher loyalty.”

Now it seems to me that freedom, like faith, requires a kind of passion. Indeed, it almost is a form of passion. Whenever you say the word, there lies before your mind, not only the picture of the relatively few in the course of human history who have enjoyed freedom, but the many, many millions more who have not enjoyed it, and do not enjoy it today. We say the word, not alone in thanks for what we know, but in prayer for what they ought to have. And if we are any good, we are willing to ‘hurl our lives after our prayers.’ It seems to me that the free world today is in danger, not only through hostility from without, but from a kind of thanklessness and lethargy within. We have seen irresponsible freedom turn men soggy. So some turn to governmental or other clamps upon them to restrain them, forgetful that the real effect of freedom will be towards a responsible use of it, when you value that freedom and know how easily it can be lost by abuse.

John Stuart Mill reminded us that those who inherit a creed without having to pay a price for it never have the fervor nor deep understanding of those who have struggled for what they prize. We need, then, a revival of belief in freedom, not of the French Revolution variety, but of the Christian variety; which, being held as steward under God, demands of us responsible and unselfish use. I do not see how you can ever have much of a revival of faith in freedom unless you precede it by a revival of faith in God. Democracy—we must always remember—has no ideology but faith in God. The Christian religion, aiming primarily at man’s redemption from thralldom to this world, and the salvation of his immortal soul, has done more to lift and purify the common life of this world than all other forces put together. The cultivation of a deep personal spiritual life in our people may yet be the greatest contribution we can make to the life of our nation, provided we keep people mindful that you can never keep a deep personal religion to yourself just for your own comfort.

The Poor And The Pagan

There are two things that burn in my heart in these days. One is the plight of the world’s very poor in countries like India and Africa. The other is the spiritual plight of America’s pagans. The first live in an economic slavery which is unnecessary in the light of modern technology, and which can be removed if we care enough to get to them quickly with adequate assistance in a program of self-help. The second live in a thankless plenty, enjoying a prosperity and a freedom which they owe to God, but for which they think they have nobody to thank; and therefore they use these things selfishly and thus help to destroy them. One wants to say to the American pagan what Helmut Thielicke, one of the rising theologians of West Germany, said to a group of students a few weeks ago when discussing the suppression of the Hungarian revolt: “Are we still worth our freedom, we who do nothing but consume freedom instead of producing it?”

As to the world’s poor, we ought to be behind all decent programs of self-help, whether they be from government, or from foundations, or private sources. It will take all of us working together even to begin to meet the problem. But I believe most in the private effort. That is why I do everything I can to support the movement we call “World Neighbors.” It was founded only six years ago to carry technical self-help to the underdeveloped areas. Under the wise leadership of Dr. John Peters, this movement has already reached approximately 3,000,000 people with the surprisingly economical outlay of only $750,000. This is not relief, it is self-help—better means toward health, food, and education. I’d like to see the enthusiasm for World Neighbors spread like a prairie fire across America, giving all our people a chance to have a direct share in this kind of help. It has always been our Christian duty to do it. Now it is also our urgent responsibility as free men to do it, realizing that desperate people will be lured by the false promises of Communism unless they see the simple, brotherly assistance of a Christian West, poured out in a spirit of humility, mindful of the old civilizations to which we go, yet of the need to adapt our help to the actual conditions today.

But the other group is America’s pagans. I believe that we need to keep our religious institutions going, and functioning as effectively as possible. But the mere multiplication of strong churches will not of itself be enough. As there can be a personal religion which is too ‘personal,’ in that it begins and ends with the individual, so there can be a ‘church’ religion that is too much centered in the organized denominational church, and does not reach out to cooperate with other churches and to take on this task of reaching America’s pagans.

The Role Of The Laity

I believe that this will have to be done largely by laymen. I am not abdicating from my job as a minister. I believe that clergy ought to be like coaches in this game, and laymen like players. The coach ideally knows more about the game and its rules than the players, but the fellows that make the scores are the fellows down on the field. We clergy have often been at fault in trying to draw our men into sharing in implementing our own vision of the Church. What we should be doing is to whet their imaginations and help in implementing their vision of witness for Jesus Christ in and through their jobs. The average layman who loves to sing in church “Like a mighty army moves the Church of God,” when he gets downtown moves more like a mouse or an invalid.

We say that religion is a personal matter, and that ends it. Why can’t we be sufficiently on fire with this contagion of faith to make it seem exciting to other people? Religion was never so much in the current conversation as today. If you can’t get started with people about religion today, you never can. Many of us are either so compromised in our commitment to Christ that we feel hypocritical if we say anything about him; or so unfamiliar with genuine Christian experience that we can only argue. Let us ask God to draw us into the stream of his power. Share events, not viewpoints. Talk about things that have happened to you or to other people. When you care about people, and pray for them, doors swing open where you least expect.

Let me suggest to you three simple imperatives: Get Changed. Get Together. Get Going.

Why do we need to ‘get changed?’ Many of us are decent, hard-working, God-fearing, church-going people. Isn’t that enough? I can only say that if it were enough, and we were all right as we are, we’d be producing far more than we do. The Christian movement is a trickle in the world when it ought to be a torrent. We may have other kinds of sins as well, but surely our biggest sin is spiritual ineffectiveness—we do not get our faith over to other people. We need to get into the stream of God’s power, so that he can use us.

How can we ‘get together?’ There has always been available for us what is coming greatly into focus these days, and that is the small group gathered for the sharing of spiritual experiences, for prayer, and for action. Chad Walsh has called these gatherings the missing link between public worship and the private spiritual life of believers. We need such a link. It is not enough to go to church, and it is not enough to say our private prayers, though we need both. We need small groups where we can learn, not Christian truth only, but the facts and means of Christian experience; where we can air our difficulties and hear the answers others have found; where we can share both our failures and our victories; and where we can grow and find more power.

The ecumenical movement is a fine thing, but thus far it is mostly in the hands of ecclesiastical statesmen. We need a grass-roots ecumenicity. And I suggest that the most available, the most practical kind of grass-roots ecumenicity is a group of men from different churches sitting down together for the exchange of experience, prayer and fellowship. Such cell-groups have one great advantage: if they peter out (as all human things do sometimes), you can discard them when they have served their purpose; which is more than can be said for a dead parish organization! I have seen people grow more in a matter of weeks when exposed to such groups than they have grown in an equal number of years of ordinary churchgoing. The churches need to provide for groups like this, and the seminaries need to teach men how to instigate and lead them till the laymen can take over the leadership themselves.

How do we get going? When you get up in the morning, ask God to use you that day. Keep praying. Keep giving yourself to people. Keep watching for opportunities. It appears to me that wherever one sees awakening today, it is characterized by deeper personal dedication to Christ and an extension of one’s own conversion into deeper areas, by the forming of small groups for the exchange of experience and prayer, and the help to one another of fellowship, and by the witness through life and word of dynamic faith which changes people and situations. Let us remember that God does this, not we. All we have to do is to get connected up with his grace and power.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh and author of numerous books. He has a vigorous interest in Faith at Work, a lay movement which originated in his former parish in New York City, Calvary Church, and publishes a monthly magazine. A book recently published by Hawthorn carries the same title Faith at Work and gathers together significant articles from past issues of the magazine. Dr. Shoemaker’s article above is an abridgment of a recent anniversary address to members of Faith at Work movement.

The well-known communistic leader in France, Maurice Thorez, once summarized his view about communist morale to the effect that it was superior to any other. This morale inspired obedience unto death without any need of reward in heaven (which has no existence for the communist). “This is,” he added, “the most perfect proof of the disinterestedness of this morale. Our heroes know that they fling themselves into the abyss of nothingness.…”

Here we meet a form of heroic that wants to clear morale of all additional factors: no promise of a “fantastic” heavenly reward, only the calling to be executed blindly. This heroic is not new. Often people have preached this “pure” morale, and even declared that only an atheistic morale could be pure. If courageous conduct were connected with belief in God, motivation would be tarnished automatically and good actions would not be performed for their own sake. Many have appealed to Kant and objected against an eudemonistic morale that destroys the ground of morality by means of the motive of salvation.

The question then confronts this atheistic and pure morale as to the ground of its authority—a question that still waits a satisfactory answer. Nevertheless, the expression, “superior” morale, remains in use. The problem of law without lawmaker is transformed into the statement of the pure morale. But how suspicious is this morale where it falls back upon an uncontrollable call! How often we have seen this heroic lead towards destruction of life and on a road of blood and tears. The sources of this morale—if faith is rejected—must be sought elsewhere, and then out of itself an autonomous morality comes into sight. Whether it came from communistic or national socialistic doctrine is not very important. From both parties sacrifices were demanded regardless: blind into the future.

An enormous responsibility reposes on the shoulders of those who preach this heroic morale. Often they themselves do not carry this responsibility to the very end, as illustrated in the final days of the second World War when Hitler withdrew from all responsibility of his actions by committing suicide. In a horrible show, all superiority was buried; nevertheless, many young men went to meet the dark future, singing. And Thorez conveys the idea of the journey to nothingness and to the abyss. Obviously, many find it difficult to see through this “superiority.” They listen to this language that demands their sacrifice for culture, for nation, or for the brotherhood of all people, and under the suggestion of their leaders they sacrifice themselves without any thought of gain.

One must bear in mind that Christian morale is also beset by many dangers. How often something is declared to be Christian morality that turns out to be nothing but pure egoism. He who desires to fight the pure morale of Communism must not do so from the ground of an egoistic morale. Men cannot throw out the devil by the chief of devils. For this reason it is difficult to fight this “pure” morale. If in our obedience we are motivated only by our own welfare and salvation and not the glory of God and his kingdom, then we do not have the right to protest against the “pure” morale. It is not accidental that we are forewarned in the Old Testament by the incident where Satan accuses Job of being obedient and serving God for his own well-being. God thought this accusation serious enough to deliver Job into the hidden hands of Satan. The issue was fought out to the very last breath of Job’s life to see whether he was only after God’s blessing or in this blessing sought God himself. It was Satan who made an egoistic morale out of obedience, and that charge could be denied only by the realism of Job’s life.

In the struggle and trouble of this life we truly recognize something other than selfishness in piety and morality. Our answer to the communistic “pure” morale without prospect of reward can only be a complete surrender to the God of our life, and it will be apparent in this surrender that our obedience shall differ from egoism. The Holy Scripture speaks very clearly about reward and a blessed future. Obviously this need not be concealed and God holds out to us a new heaven and a new earth, lovely beyond description. God provides that we do not become egoists but rather children and manifest our likeness to the Father. He delivers us from the confinement of egoism and relates us to our neighbor that we may learn that he who loves his neighbor fulfills the law. And when nations are assembled before God’s throne (Matt. 25) judgments will be rendered on the basis of one cup of cold water. The Bible is far more charitable than the communistic morale, but just because of this the Word of God is more in earnest. It talks about grace and judgment, about reward and punishment; nevertheless, along this road to the future, life is renewed completely in service to God and neighbor. The commandment of God transcends the contradiction between egoism and disinterested piety and indicates a road on which all life is blessed.

He who fully rejects the communistic pure morale must pay special attention to the principle of “the cup of cold water” and to the commandment, “love your neighbor.” He who cuts the second commandment from the first, or the first from the second, has no real resistance against this heroic morale. He ends up with an inferior morality that is detrimental to the neighbor. It is no accident that one of the longest parables in the New Testament concerns the charitable Samaritan. Not the prospect of reward (the great reward) beclouds the morale but rather the misunderstanding of the command of God that he who seeks life for himself also seeks life for others. Egoism is now once and for all the perfect counterpart of man as the image of God—the man, who resembles the Father, is moved by what Paul terms “love of mankind” (Titus 3:4).

It would truly be sad, if in reaction to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the merit of good works, we would pay scant attention to the teachings of Holy Scripture concerning reward. The Scripture clearly mentions reward and even judgments concerning works. But we must understand reward correctly. We are not allowed to become Christian egoists, and the judgment of God is upon all who forget the second commandment is “like unto the first.”

Herein is the touchstone of the Christian community, its true Christian life on the earth: the imitation of God. Herein only does her light shine before men (Matt. 5:16). Christ does not hesitate to speak about her light. But all misunderstanding is excluded as he warns that community with his unforgettable word: “Let your light so shine before men [there is no hidden Christianity] that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”