by Steve | Oct 2, 1969 | Archive - 1969
Archive: A Witness to all Nations
By Lon Woodrum, Contributing Editor
From his book, “Sign From Outer Space” © 1967
Suddenly, against Jesus’ presagement of the future, breaks a far-reaching light of promise: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations” (Matthew 24: 14).
Clearly we can understand now that Christ is looking far beyond anything that would happen in Palestine 2,000 years ago.
As He speaks of the Gospel’s out-going, it fairly seems we can hear the Word vibrating across the Mediterranean, through Pamphilia, Phrygia, Achaia, Macedonia, Athens, Rome, Spain, Saxony, America, the islands of the sea.
By one prophetic thrust Jesus extends the witness of the Gospel to “all the world.” Long after those first embattled believers are but a misty memory in history their Gospel will go on and on, crossing custom lines, racial borders, and cultural boundaries. Jesus was far too mighty a Prophet not to have understood His evangel would not be contained in the narrow land where He was born.
Recently we heard a missionary who had returned from circling the globe say, “The sun never sets on the Christian flag!” The Word of the long-ago Man from Nazareth has been kept. The Gospel He gave to men has been announced to all the world.
It has not saved the world. Nor did Jesus ever promise that it would!
At this point looms strong error; we imagine because Christ announced His message would sound in all the world that it would redeem the world.
The Gospel has never redeemed but a small fraction of the world. When we were informed by one man that 500 persons daily were being converted to Christ in India—including Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants—we asked how many persons were born daily in India! Another man informed us that 2,500 persons were converted to Christ daily in Africa; but we had read earlier that 25,000 Africans were converted to the Moslem faith every day! And who knows how many Africans embrace Communism every 24 hours?
It is true that nearly all problems today are world problems. Earth is a community now. Most anything we eat, wear, or use may have something of several nations in it. Yet the fact remains that Jesus did not promise that the world would ever become a Christian community.
Christ cannot save the world!
The fault, of course, is not His. It is ours. A doctor’s medicine cannot cure us if we pour it down the drain. The world will not allow Christ to save it; therefore, it cannot be saved by Him.
Jesus knew it would be this way. He knew man’s stubborn urge toward the darkness. He referred to it again and again. Many, He said, would be called, but few chosen. He maintained that the way to life was straight, and few would find it. He saw the seed fall on the ground, and three-fourths of it was lost; so it would be with those who heard the Word. The greater percentage of men will not accept Christ and continue with Him.
Christ is the world’s only Saviour. But all the world will not be saved by Him. No nation, as a whole, has ever accepted Him. Will any nation ever do it? Still, we have His Word for it that the nations must hear of Him. But His Word is a witness to all nations—not a pledge of redemption for all nations. He has kept His Word magnificently. Already the witness has reached the far lands of the planet. “The sun never sets on the Christian flag!” That flag, fluttering over countless countries, shouts that Jesus is not only the Saviour, but the greatest Prophet of all.
The Gospel is a witness. But to what? It is a witness to all His promises, for it is the Gospel of the Kingdom. It proclaims that the world’s Redeemer shall be the world’s Ruler. Was He not suggesting this when He taught His disciples to pray, “Thy Kingdom come”? How can the Kingdom come until the King comes?
With prophetic force He foretold how it would be when He was answering the question, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” He said, “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, he shall sit on the throne of his glory” (Matthew 25:31).
What manner of men are we to reject this prophecy of His, and still claim His promise of redemption? One modern writer in the church has said that this pledge of Jesus’ enthronement is magnificent Hebrew poetry, that nothing finer can be found in the New Testament; but it is poetry. Nothing will come of it in any literal sense. Jesus will never actually sit on such a throne.
Jesus was so right about so many things! He predicted the fall of Jerusalem, the spread of wickedness, the thrust of the Gospel to the world’s ends—but He stumbled and lost His way when He spoke of returning in power and taking His glorious throne!
How odd that we can make Him right or wrong, as we choose!
We are forced to admit that many of the things He prophesied came true—because they happened! Yet men look into the future, wax bold, and cry, “He missed it there!” But how do they know He missed it? Well, science says so. Philosophers say so. Theologians say so. Preachers say so!
Yet, standing over against their claims is the fact that He has been so magnificently right about many things in the past, and the present!
The truth is, one may stand in the midst of the Olivet Discourse[1] and see some things that have already happened; some that are now happening; and some that are yet to happen. Right about some, how can Jesus be wrong about the others?
The Kingdom will come, and the King also.
Again and again the New Testament bears witness to Christ’s Word about the coming realm. Few things, if any, are more emphasized than this. Paul spells it out sharply. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (I Corinthians 15:50). Who then shall possess it (the word “inherit” means “possess”)? Subjects of the Kingdom we may well be who are believers, but how shall we possess it? In our present conditions? But are we not yet “flesh and blood”?
Paul tells us how we shall possess it. Living men shall be changed; dead men shall be transformed into an immortal state. And how does this come about? By educational processes, organizational effort, political and social action? We know better!
It will come, says Paul, when Christ comes, at the sound of the trumpet, to claim His own. It is so simple—from Paul’s viewpoint! But so difficult from the standpoint of modern unbelieving minds.
How fine it is to be so committed to Christ that all He said not only seems possible, but certain, as well as highly desirable!
We talk of “bringing in the Kingdom.” We have tried for centuries to bring it in—and now it almost seems to be going “out”!
Christ will bring in the kingdom. His kingdom it is, bought with the price of his own blood. King was He born, and King shall He be, however long the coronation be delayed.
The Kingdom will come. It will come when the “witness to all nations” is finished. We have His Word on that—”then shall the end come.” The end of this age; the end of the world we have known; the end of man’s rule, the establishment of God’s reign; the end of evil tyranny over human life; the rule of righteousness; the end of wars; the enthronement of the Prince of Peace.
[1] OLIVET DISCOURSE: Jesus’ teachings about “last things”‘ delivered on Mount Olivet and recorded in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.
by Steve | Oct 1, 1969 | Archive - 1969
Archive: Campus Chaos: God’s Opportunity
A great opening for the Gospel has been created by the turmoil which seems to be tearing U.S. colleges apart these days. Are we awake or sleeping?
By Dr. James Engel
Professor of Marketing at Ohio State University, Campus Crusade Leader
“Radicals Take Over at Harvard.” “National Guard Gasses Unruly Berkeley Mob.” “Prexy Resigns at Cornell Under Fire.” “Blacks Riot at Kent State.”
This is just a sample of 1969 headlines that reflect campus chaos. Large members of students are rioting against the “establishment” and are searching for meaning by open experimentation with sex and drugs. Moreover, this is not just a campus problem. The issues being raised cut all across society. Also, this is not just a communist-led minority of trouble makers; the headlines reflect deep-seated campus sentiment.
The radicals, however, have accomplished one positive thing that most people overlook—they have established a type of academic freedom which permits expression of virtually any point of view, including Christianity. As a leading communist student at Berkeley told one Christian group visiting the campus, “Welcome to Berkeley; we made it possible for you to be here.” In short, campus chaos is God’s opportunity.
If you doubt that such an opportunity exists, just listen to the questions these kids are asking: “What am I?” “What is life all about?” “How can I find meaning?” These are the very questions that the Gospel alone can answer. Moreover, experience has shown that students listen when Christians, by their life and words, demonstrate the life-changing power of the Biblical message.
In today’s wide open atmosphere of freedom of expression, there is no excuse for “secret-service Christianity.” The radicals win a hearing because they stand for something. In short, these are not times for “business as usual,” and there are many ways that Christians, individually and collectively, can become a vital part of the solution.
What makes these kids tick?
Let’s face it, this is a concerned generation:
- They have grown up under the constant threat of nuclear holocaust and cannot comprehend the continuation of a war-torn world.
- They have, by and large, not known economic need and hence cannot grasp the materialistic motivation of the majority when so many issues remain unsolved.
- They are in revolt at institutions, including the university, which render the individual as a number without face or name and expect him to behave in a prescribed way.
- They are uneasy at a way of life that prizes neutrality—doing your own thing—in lieu of conquering the world’s problems head on.
It is true that most do not share the sentiment of a minority who intend to tear this country apart. But our way of life is seen as wanting, and a large proportion are not content to sit back without action. It boils down to this: these are your kids challenging your values.
I do not agree with a strategy of revolt, but I share their concerns. Today’s youth sense social ills more keenly than many of their elders. And, most of all, they reject hypocrisy. Their message to the older generation is simply this: “You have not found the answers; why should we listen to you?”
Must this chaos continue?
I believe there is an answer to the issues which are being raised, because these kids are reacting to legitimate weaknesses of a society that has turned its back on God. They know that education alone is not solving the problems they see. Nor is education providing meaning for life. Furthermore, they are keenly aware that materialism is a false god, because they see the emptiness of material achievement without other goals. Many, in turn, will no longer turn to the church. They reject “Sunday morning Christianity” that does not make a difference during the week.
Students may be quite uneasy about the church, but they show a deep-seated interest in Christ. They sense that He was more than a mere man and that He taught a way of life based on genuine love. Large numbers are eager to commit their life to following Him once they see His message cut loose from the institutional trappings they resent.
Let me make one thing clear, however: it just does not work to divorce Christ from His Biblical claims as so many on campus have attempted to do in the vain attempt to make Christianity relevant. Once the Biblical message is tampered with, Christianity loses its powers, and the church loses its students. I could name one church-related campus after another that has closed chapel service for lack of interest. On the other hand, I have spoken on some of these same campuses and on many others to crowds of 300 or more meeting in fraternity houses and in other secular locations to hear about the uniqueness of Jesus.
The conclusion is clear: present Christ and the full Biblical message or do not waste time on campus. A watered-down version of the Gospel comes nowhere near to answering the tough questions this generation is asking. Moreover, they sense in a hurry when the message is “not for real.”
Tell it like it is
If space permitted I could tell you stories of students whose lives changed dramatically because a fellow student or faculty member cared and communicated how they can know Christ in a personal way. In just one of my classes this last year, three marriages were changed as both husband and wife turned their lives over to Christ. Today, these men and women are part of a “spiritual revolution.” Students are eager to know Christ when we “tell it like it is.”
Christianity, however, requires individuals who are willing to enter into battle and reject the comforts of non-involvement. It requires a keen awareness that a way of life is being threatened at its foundations and that Christ must use us, a distinct minority, as His vehicles to present the answer.
Fortunately, on campus after campus, a dynamic witness is emerging as students and faculty members meet in “action groups” for Bible study, prayer, sharing, and joint concern in presenting the Gospel. It is through such groups, much like the First Century Church, that a vital witness is beginning to flourish and make a real impact.
Laymen from all walks of life also can play a vital role, however:
(1.) Build a foundation of Christianity in your family that is reflected in genuine love and deep-rooted values. Children from such a family are not likely to be tomorrow’s irresponsible radicals.
(2.) Live your life in such a way that Christ is glorified and others know the basis of your hope. Show the youth of today the answer to the question I so often am asked: “How can you be a Christian and be in the business world?” Dare to be different and stand up for your faith.
(3.) Open your homes to students. International students in particular are hungering to participate in Christian family life. I have met many students whose lives changed because laymen cared.
(4.) Invite students to attend your church and make them a part of your fellowship. Old ways of worship may need some modification, but this is easily done by being sensitive to the needs of those to whom you are ministering.
(5.) Support campus groups that proclaim Christ. If a group is presenting a non-Biblical message, voice your concern and demand hard answers as to why. A non-authentic Christian program does more harm than good.
(6.) Pray that God, in His sovereignty, will bring about a real campus revival. The workers are too few, and God alone can meet the crisis of today. I am convinced, however, that concentrated prayer will bring results we have not even dreamed of.
My plea is a simple one: Let’s provide hard-hitting spiritual solutions for what basically is a spiritual problem·. The opportunity is there; it’s up to us as Christians to meet the challenge before it is too late.
by Steve | Jul 7, 1969 | Archive - 1969
Archive: What is Evangelicalism?
PART TWO
By Bruce R. Shelley
Condensed by permission from “Evangelicalism in America,” published by
Wm. B. Eerdmans Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan
“One major theme runs through that type of Christianity called evangelicalism: the necessity of personal salvation.” -1st installment.
Look, evangelicals cry, at our whirling world! Notice the frustration, the self-centeredness, the barbarity, and the carnality. How can we account for man’s own misery and his inhumanity to other men? By one overwhelming fact! he is a sinner, a rebel against God and against society.
This pessimistic view of man’s powers explains the popularity of premillennialism among American evangelicals. Beyond man’s innate curiosity about the future, the doctrine of premillennialism accents history’s frustration apart from divine aid. What every man finds personally-emptiness, futility, and purposelessness-history without God also discloses: life has no meaning. It begins at no beginning; it ends with no end.
But, evangelicals insist, add God and all is changed. If man transgresses, he must be under Law. If he sins, he must have a norm. If he rebels, he must have a Lord. Man cannot now be understood apart from what he once was. Man is made in the image of his Creator. His unique freedom granted by God is the presupposition of his misery. Do, know no guilt; ants dread no death. Only man can sin because only man is made for God.
Conversion, then, is the interior turning to God through faith in Jesus Christ. It is the clue to the mystery of man. No greater humanitarian labor can be spent than the energy expended in bringing straying sinners to a glorious God.
If the presupposition of the evangelical experience is the sinfulness of man, the means to its achievement is a revelatory Bibie. Evangelicalism was brought into being by the Bible; it has sustained itself by the Bible. Unlike scholastic Protestantism, however, evangelicalism, when it has lived up to its own best principles, has not considered the Scriptures as a mere code for conduct or as a series of divine decrees. On the contrary, the Scriptures are life-giving because they are life endowed.
One immediate consequence of Whitefield’s conversion was the priority he gave to the Word of God. The Bible leaped to life for Whereas before it seemed obscure and hard to understand, now it was as clear as the sun at noon. “When God was pleased to shine with power on my soul,” he said, “I could no longer be contented to feed on husks or what the swine did eat; the Bible then was my food; there, and there only I took delight.” He read the Scripture as it should be read—upon his knees. He endeavored to pray over every line and word. “I got more true knowledge from reading the Book of God in one month,” he claimed, “than I could ever have acquired from all the writings of men!”
Wesley reflected a similar reverence for the Scriptures when He wrote: “I want to know one thing—the way to heaven; how to land safe on the happy shore. God himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God! I have it: here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri (a man of one book).”
This instrumental use of the Bible never led the eighteenth-century evangelicals to mere subjectivity. We might suppose that their emphasis upon the Spirit’s revealing divine truth, as well as imparting moral power, would have resulted in the surrender of external authority in religion. But this never happened. Their distrust of man was so great, and their hostility to the rationalism of the age so pervasive, that they took exactly the opposite course. They made more of the authority of the Bible than their predecessors had for a long time before. In opposition to the idea of the sufficiency of human reason, they delighted to belittle it, and to denounce its claims as presumptuous. In resisting it, they appealed, not to the Spirit in the hearts of all believers, as the Quakers did, but to the written and infallible Word. Evangelical influence, and not scholasticism or the Protestantism of the Reformation period, carried the authority of the Scriptures to modern English and American Christians.
It is in this light that fundamentalism can best be understood. Any informed evangelical realizes how often Protestant orthodoxy has degenerated into a rabid sectarianism. Individual fundamentalists have not always avoided this danger. “But if America is not adequately represented by the conduct of some irresponsible tourists,” writes Vernon Grounds, president of the Conservative Baptist Seminary, “neither is evangelicalism adequately represented by every snake handler, every holy roller, every bigoted fanatic.”
Aside from its excess—which every doctrinally-oriented movement has difficulty suppressing—fundamentalism sought a genuinely Biblical witness, a witness for the Bible’s unique message of God’s redemptive love in Jesus Christ and a witness against the humanized and secularized gospel of liberalism. In this sense, though perhaps only in this sense, fundamentalism was a genuine expression of evangelicalism.
Two predominant consequences have issued from evangelicalism’s commitment to a redemptive Gospel: first, a controlling and continuing passion to preach the Gospel where it has not been heard. And second, a remarkable stimulus to personal and social betterment. Evangelicalism, in short, has greatly furthered missionary activity and Christian ethics.
The story of modern missions is almost exclusively an evangelical saga. From the landing of Pietists, Ziengenbalg and Plutschau, on the beach at Tranquebar in 1706, to William Carey and his colleagues at Serampore, to the host of voluntary societies circling the globe in the nineteenth century, to the Congress on the Church’s Worldwide Mission in 1966, evangelicals have shouldered a major share of the heavy burden for a non-Christian world. The achievement of evangelical missionaries between the French Revolution and War I is nothing less than a phenomenal. Kenneth Scott Latourette, the foremost American authority on the expansion of Christianity, has written, “Never had any other set of ideas, religious or secular, been propagated over so wide an area by so many prof agents maintained by the unconstrained donations of so many millions of individuals … For sheer magnitude it has been without parallel in human history.”
The motivation behind this surge of foreign mission interest was varied. Unquestionably Biblical imperatives were not always separated from a sense of Western superiority. But, genuine Scriptural motives more often than not impelled these ambassadors of Christ. Perhaps the dominant impulse was found in the authority of the Bible itself. Had not Jesus commanded His apostles, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel every creature” (Mark 16:15)?
Wesley, for example, was a man of far horizons. He looked beyond the confines of his little group to the conversion of his native land. He looked beyond the confines of his native land to the winning of a world for Christ. The Gospel that was for all must be taken to all, irrespective of color or clime. Early in his ministry He uttered his now celebrated Manifesto: “I look upon all the World as my parish; thus far I Mean, that in whatever part of It I am, I judge it meet, right and My bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear the glad tidings of salvation.”
Another belief that appears time and again in the missionary movement is the conviction that the preaching of the Gospel throughout the world is linked to the return of Christ. Many of the early pietists held the idea that a great conversion of Jews and non-Christians was to be among the signs preceding the coming again of the Lord in glory. Similarly, Similarly, A. T. Pierson and A. J. Gordon were among the nineteenth- century premillennialists who believed that global evangelization was a prerequisite to the second coming of Christ. They pointed to Jesus Himself who said, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matthew 24:14).
This link between preaching the Gospel and the return of Christ was evident in one of the popular hymns of the nineteenth century:
Waft, waft, ye winds, his story,
And you, ye waters, roll,
Till, like a sea of glory,
It spreads from pole to pole:
Till o’er our ransomed nature,
The Lamb for sinners slain,
Redeemer, King, Creator,
In bliss returns to reign.
Joined with this missionary fervor has been the evangelical view of Christian living and morality. Doubtlessly, in evangelicalism the Christian life leans toward the otherworldly. Whether in German pietism, English evangelicalism, or American fundamentalism one can detect an ascetic tendency. The evangelical ideal calls for a Christian life set constantly upon the future. Natural human interest in the present world is often condemned as irreligious. Friendship with the world,” Wesley said, is spiritual adultery.” (James 4:4)
This is not to suggest that evangelicals have consistently followed medieval monasticism. They have not, for example, advocated retirement from the world and seclusion in a monastery. But they have denounced many of the ordinary pursuits and pleasures of society, commonly looked upon as indifferent matters. Card-playing, dancing, smoking, horse-racing. Theater-going elaborate dressing, and frivolity of all kinds have come in for vigorous condemnation. To be a Christian has frequently meant to turn one’s back upon “the world.”
But this ethic of self-denial was not the result of any delicious morbidity. It was due, rather, to the conviction that conversion was but the beginning of the Christian life, and salvation to be complete must include the power to overcome sin. That is to say that justification must be followed by sanctification. This, evangelicals believe, is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer.
Many of the more vigorous evangelicals felt that genuine faith must be active in love. “A true faith in Christ Jesus will not suffer us to be idle,” Whitefield once said. And then in a passage reminiscent of Luther’s classic definition of faith, he added, “No: it is an active, lively, restless principle; it fills the heart so that it cannot be easy till it is doing something for Jesus Christ.”
When this mood merged with the American frontiersman’s innate optimism and vigor a whole nation … was energized to repent and reform.
New life in Christ, then, was never intended as a deterrent to social action. The leadership of evangelicals in freeing England of the stigma of slavery and in the scores upon scores of reform movements in nineteenth-century America is abundant evidence that evangelicalism need not be socially sterile.
One of the features of the great missionary movement was the wide variety of humanitarian activities. Evangelical missionaries established schools, built hospitals, trained nurses, reduced complex languages to writing, introduced health measures, taught agricultural techniques, and translated literature into the dialects of the people.
While fundamentalism’s reaction to “the social gospel” may be advanced as evidence to the contrary, even there, social awareness was not entirely lost. For example, the confession of the Fundamentalist Fellowship of the Northern Baptist Convention affirmed firmed that “human betterment and social improvement” are “inevitable by-products” of the Gospel.
No, the testimony from history contradicts the common charge that evangelicalism’s morality is solely individualistic. It is true that its ethic begins with a personal redemptive experience of God’s grace. But evangelicals have often argued that morality—even social morality—necessarily flows out of a heart touched by divine grace. They knew their Bible well enough to recall that Jesus twice over said of those who profess His name, “You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7: 16, 20).
by Steve | Jul 5, 1969 | Archive - 1969
Archive: A Methodist Layman Reacts to Rudolf Bultmann
By Paul H. Wright, Assistant Lay Leader, Zion United Methodist Church, Grand Forks, North Dakota
The name of Rudolf Bultmann, the “demythologizer,” means little to most Methodists. Nevertheless, his influence is extremely great in Methodist pulpits and in our official literature. We can see the influence of Bultmann in the shift from the terminology of evangelical, Biblical Christianity to the terminology of existential philosophy and psychology.
We used to hear about sin, grace, atonement, salvation, eternity and the Holy Spirit. Now we hear about the “whole man,” the “authentic person,” the “becoming individual,” “encounter,” “dialogue” and the “existential crisis.” We can see the influence of Bultmann in the widespread tendency to regard the New Testament as myth, allegory, parable and metaphor rather than actual event. We can see his influence in an over-emphasis upon modern literature and drama … at the expense of Biblical references and exposition. Overall, we see an approach to Christian experience that somehow misses the boat—it overlooks what is really vital in the Gospel and appears to have “a form of Godliness while denying the power thereof.”
Bultmann’s influence in the United Methodist Church is startlingly explicit. The High School quarterly, New Creation for Winter, 1968-69, devotes much space to Biblical criticism and existential theology. New Creation for Spring, 1969, presents several detailed lessons on Biblical criticism and Bultmann’s views. These lessons are attractively packaged, extremely well written and convincingly presented. The materials are not designed to stimulate thought. Nor are they designed to educate young Christians about possible challenges to their faith. The Bultmann-Methodist curriculum is designed to convince.
As a concerned layman and church school teacher, I decided to learn as much as I could about “demythologizing.” I saw the need for a well-founded response from the evangelical point of view. Although untrained in theology, I have two advantages: training in another academic discipline and a tremendously stimulating and supportive Christian wife. Our project has hardly begun and we are theological babes in the woods. But we have pieced together enough of a picture so that we may be able to give some support to other evangelical laymen who, like ourselves, have found themselves confused, exasperated, a little threatened—and not quite knowing how to respond.
A good way to weaken a vaguely-understood threat is to clarify it. So let’s look first at some of Bultmann’s more important views. Then we can consider some answers from the evangelical point of view. Pinning The Great Demythologizer down On specific points is like trying to nail whipped cream to a barn door. But let’s try it anyhow!
Why Demythologize?
Bultmann sets an admirable goal for himself. He emphasizes that “modern man” has a scientific view of the world; he is constantly exposed to the attitudes, as well as the products, of science and technology. Therefore, Bultmann says, we cannot expect people today to take the New Testament seriously as literal truth. Instead, Bultmann teaches, the New Testament actually is eternal truth cloaked in mythological or symbolic language. He claims that modern man rejects mythological language. So the Church must strip away the “mythical elements” of the New Testament and get at the core of essential truth about God.
In other words, Bultmann thinks that if we expect modern men to accept the God of Christianity, we have to translate the “mythological” New Testament language into “non-mythological” language which people today are more likely to accept.
The Demythologizer’s Method
Demythologizing relies mostly on a method of Biblical research called “form criticism.” The form critics claim that there was a long period in the early Church when the stories of Jesus were passed down by word-of-mouth. Eventually, these stories became doctrinal statements. They were written down in the form of gospels, history and/ or letters.
Actually, they say we know almost nothing about “the Jesus of history”—that is the Jesus who actually existed. One form critic says we know “just a whisper.”
These critics make a careful distinction between “the Jesus of History” and “the Christ of Faith” (the object of belief and devotion).
They develop their thinking as follows: the doctrines of Christianity did not originate in the life of Jesus—they say. Instead, the doctrines we find in the New Testament started taking shape after the Church was formed. The Biblical accounts given of the life and ministry of Jesus were those that supported the developing doctrines … those that met the needs of the Church because of need to promote Christianity … and also the Church “life setting” (the technical German term is Sitz im Leben). Thus, say the form critics, our New Testament writings are not about the actual “Jesus of History”—a real man—but the “eternal” in the experiences of those who formed the early Church. The New Testament writings are mythological, say these critics, because words like “Messiah” and “Holy Spirit” were the only way the early Christians could communicate their religious experience. The Biblical writers knew this, and were not bothered by it because such “mythology” was an accepted form of serious communication in those days.
The actual work of “demythologizing” consists of examining the New Testament texts determine 1) when they were written, 2) who wrote them, 3) the purpose they served and 4) what they meant at the time they were written. Critics believe this gives us a more correct picture of the experience of Christ in the lives of the early Christians. Also, the critics think, “demythologizing” reveals to us the nugget of eternal truth to be found in the “Christ event” (since the New Testament as we have it, is not truth but a propaganda document!) Having this core of truth, we are better able to have a “personally meaningful encounter” with “the Christ event” in our own lives today … so the theory goes.
What is the effect on this “encounter” with “the Christ of Faith?”
It is difficult to summarize Bultmann’s stand without making it appear simple-minded. But it boils down to this: Man is in a sinful, fallen condition as long as he seeks his security in the temporary and unreliable aspects of the material world. He is a slave to his fallen condition as long as he refuses to see in himself the possibility of being a free, individual who can rise above his attachment to the security of the material world. Because the material world does not, in reality, provide a secure existence, fallen man is burdened with care and anxiety. A genuine encounter with the “Christ of Faith” literally forces a person to see himself in a different light. Also, Bultmann thinks, this forces him to choose between continuing in his enslavement, or starting on a new path of freedom by means of a completely changed conception of himself. If he chooses the path of freedom after the pattern of Christ, then he is no longer burdened by the anxieties of the material world. He has found salvation … that is true self-hood, purged of such ideas as cleansing of sin through the blood of Christ, and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The Evangelical’s Response
Let’s start with an affirmation. We who are evangelical Christians regard the New Testament as an accurate report of things Jesus did and said—things that really happened to Him during His earthly ministry. Scripture is also an accurate record of the activities of the early Christians in establishing the Church and spreading the Gospel. Further, the New Testament is an account of the way in which the early Christians, guided by the Holy Spirit, explained and expounded God’s eternal truth, revealed supremely in the life, death and resurrection of Christ as accurately reported in the New Testament. It was all written within a fairly short time after the earthly ministry of Jesus. And most (if not all) was written while eyewitnesses to His life and work were still alive. It is impossible to separate the “Jesus of History” from the “Christ of Faith.” They are one and the same! Through our knowledge of actual events connected with the life of Jesus and His followers, we can understand who Jesus is, what God is like and how we can enter into a new and right relationship with Him through a faith decision for Christ. We have this distinct focus and solid foundation for our faith. None of the evidence from Biblical scholarship seems conclusive enough to call this faith-conviction into serious question. Biblical criticism, like any other research, has room for various methods, approaches and differences of opinion. There are many highly trained Biblical scholars who criticize Bultmann’s approach. They believe in the factual reliability of the New Testament.
Now let’s look at some important questions.
- Other than the support of certain Biblical scholars, what reasons can we give for viewing the New Testament as nonmythological?
Read the New Testament for yourself. Does it read like mythology? Or does it have, as J. B. Phillips argues, the “ring of truth?” Capable individuals from different walks of life—literature professors, lawyers and newspaper reporters as well as ministers and theologians—declare their conviction that the New Testament reads like reporting, not mythology.
Did the New Testament writers feel that they were writing mythology? Read Luke 1:1-4 and Acts 1:1-3. Read I John 1:1-4, I Corinthians 15:3-7 and 15:17- 22. Especially noteworthy is II Peter 1: 16 (RSV): “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”
On the testimony of the writers themselves, we have to conclude that they were either reporting actual events, or they thought they were reporting actual events, or they were trying to mislead their readers into thinking they were reporting actual events. I believe they were “telling it like it was.”
- Would calling the New Testament “mythology” offer any real advantages to Christianity today? Would it, as Bultmann feels, make Christianity more acceptable to modern man?
Bultmann has a somewhat mistaken picture of the “scientific world view” of modem man. But that problem need not concern us here. Even if this judgment were valid, calling the New Testament “mythology” would not make it more acceptable. What “scientific man” rejects is not the language of the New Testament, but the idea of a supernatural God. When he rejects the language of the New Testament, he does so because it talks about the activity of a transcendant God; he is not likely to accept the idea of God just because we change language!
- Can we really expect the unconverted to take Christianity seriously if we tell them our faith is based on mythology?
Almost certainly not. In the first place, if we accept the New Testament as myth rather than fact, what makes New Testament mythology better than any other kind of mythology? Why should the mythological truth of the New Testament bring us any closer to God than the mythological truth of the ancient Egyptians or the American Indians or the African snake cults or anyone else?
In the second place, the New Testament writers expressed themselves as if they were reporting events. If we cannot trust them to describe actual events and get the facts straight, we certainly have no reason to trust their judgment about the weightier matters of God and eternity.
In the third place, can we expect the effects of reading mythology to be powerful enough to bring about the dramatic changes in a person’s conception of himself that Bultmann sees as the key to salvation? No. When a person is affected that profoundly, he is affected by something that he feels is real and concrete, not mythological.
- Is it enough to say that Christian conversion brings about a changed conception of one’s self?
While the work of Christ does bring about a change in the individual’s conception of himself, this is not nearly an adequate description of conversion. The results of Christian conversion are much more profound. We see people who are able, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to do things and overcome forces in a way that would be impossible to them “on their own.” We see people who are relieved of the burden of guilt and anxiety—not because they see themselves in a better light, but because they know themselves to be forgiven by God through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. We see people who are free from the cares and insecurity of this world—not because they see themselves as having a wider range of choices, but because they have the hope of eternal life through Christ’s promise of deliverance.
It is tempting to blame and belittle Rudolf Bultmann for troubling us evangelicals with such an unsatisfying approach to Christianity. This would be a mistake. Bultmann is a highly intelligent, well trained and ingenious scholar. As such, he has to go where his mind takes him (although it is unfortunate for him that he could not find his way to a sounder Biblical Christianity).
What we need to blame and belittle is the widespread and uncritical acceptance of his theories by a Church that should be committed to preaching sound Biblical Christianity to a world that is starving for the Gospel of Christ. Let us be committed to “earnestly contending for the faith.” And let us always be willing to say along with the Apostle Paul, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith.” (Romans 1:16a.)
by Steve | Jul 4, 1969 | Archive - 1969
Archive: Curriculum Confrontation: Louisville
By Charles W. Keysor, Editor, Good News
On April 14, 1969, 75 pastors met with Literature Editor Henry Bullock in Louisville, Ky. Discussion centered around a document prepared earlier by Rev. Les Woodson Pastor of Memorial U.M. Church, Elizabethtown, Ky. Most of this paper appears on pages 26-35.
One of the quickest ways to determine any church’s understanding of her mission is by reading her church school materials.
In the case of Methodism however, the materials are only giving the doctrinal slant of the members of the Board of Education and the writers selected by them. One of the most legitimate complaints coming from the people in the churches is that the Board is not speaking for them.
The members of the general boards are usually so far removed from the local parish that they are ill advised as to what the needs really are. While the local church should be served by the boards and agencies, the deplorable condition has developed in which the boards are dictating to the pastors and people. Therefore, the materials create a bad impression for The United Methodist Church when, in reality, they only reveal the views of a few men who have aligned themselves in the interest of a socio-political church.
The Curriculum Committee of The United Methodist Church (then The Methodist Church) Began steps in the mid 1940s to develop theological foundations for the new curriculum. The result was a comprehensive plan printed in 1960 in Foundations of Christian Teaching in Methodist Churches.
Let me begin with a quote From this forty-eight page book. “The Methodist Church is not a creedal, or confessional, Church So any suggestion of conformity On the part of any Methodist body would be inappropriate.” While this may be basically correct, we must remember that we do have a doctrinal statement in the “Articles of Religion” which restricts any individual or agency from crossing certain clearly-marked theological and ethical bounds with impunity.
The Board of Education and its writers in the youth and adult levels of the new curriculum need to come clean theologically with The United Methodist Church. Much of what is written in these materials is blatantly out of keeping with Methodist tradition. The worst evil, however, is the deceptive manner in which enough obvious truth is mixed with malignant error to make the body look healthy. It is a subtle and insidious evil which has been injected far enough beneath the surface as to remain unseen to masses of our dedicated but non-theologically oriented people.
In an attempt to get at the heart of this problem, let me cite some specific weaknesses and/or un-Christian premises taken in the bulk of the curriculum. After having looked carefully at these specifics (and I will limit myself to five sources), I will make a few observations of a more general nature which have grown out of the class-material confrontation itself.
(1.) Howard Grimes, in Real, (winter 1968-9), pg. 9, lesson manual for 11-12 grades, states, “There are answers which help, but there is no final solution to the problem of evil.” For two thousand years the Church of Jesus Christ has been preaching the Good News that Christ is the solution! We have seen far too much evidence of the totally transforming power of conversion to believe anything else.
I refuse to have my young people subjected to any teaching which renders the work of Christ even partially robbed of its final power and efficacy. … This is a fundamental point on which the whole mission of the Christian enterprise rests. If there is no final solution, then the Church is merely bandaging spiritual incurables in a sad rest home where men wait to perish from their terminal disease.
(2.) Newell J. Wert, in Dimensions for Decision (1968) pgs. 90-91, uses an illustration which is in very poor taste for a church school manual. My teachers were so embarrassed that they left it out without comment or dealt with it red-faced. The illustration is obscene in that it is treated without any censure. … The response which the class is asked to make is to be determined on the basis of relative ethics. The story concerns an act of adultery on the part of two married people.
What has happened to the Christian church school curriculum in which men were taught that there are definite moral absolutes and that decisions in such matters are to be related to what Christ and the Bible states? Dr. Wert says of the story, “Frank’s and Lynn’s capacities for eros may or may not help them solve the long-range problems of their respective marriages.” The whole matter of extra-marital experience is left so open-ended that the class is apt to make most any decision without regard to the divine absolute and think that they have responded in a truly Christian fashion.
(3.) Van Bogard Dunn, in God With Us, (1968) makes statements regarding the Bible which come to a head on page 49: “We are studying the Bible, perhaps the most important part of our religious heritage.”
Why this negative and weak approach to the holy Scriptures? It seems obvious that authority rests not in the Bible for this writer. Once again, it is the old story of endorsing subjective authority for one’s life.
Toward the end of the book is this statement, “The authority that the clergy exercise in the church is not the authority of external rules and regulations. It is internal authority, one that grows out of common commitment to a common cause.” (pg. 171) It is interesting that here the pastor is advised to use his own “internal authority ” in preference to the external authority (which must include the holy Scriptures). Neither God nor the bishop of the church has given any pastor that kind of blanket authority. We were ordained to “preach the Word.”
(4.) In discussing the birth of Jesus, Dr. Dunn observes, on pg. 59, “The idea of conception by the Holy Spirit does not commit us to any particular theory of how the life of Jesus began. It does, however, express the fact that in the totality of his earthly existence we see revealed the fullness of God’s power and presence.”
The latter sentence is valid, though Christologically weak. But the first is in complete disagreement with the clear teaching of the New Testament. And, in view of the discussion in scientific circles today about the possibility of human parthenogenesis in the near future, continued negative reaction to the Virgin Birth is unscholarly as well as anti-Biblical. Some of us are sick to our stomachs with the humanistic approach to everything divine.
(5.) In the apparent interest of the excessive Rauschenbuschian Social gospel, Dr. Dunn says, on pg. 165, “In Jesus Christ God had not called men to a private and individual relationship. Instead, he had called them to a community in which they were to receive and reveal that quality of life which characterized God’s relationship to men.”
Such a statement is a glaring example of … “half-truth.” Of course, conversion must issue in a total participation in the life of the community. But let us be especially careful to make it quite clear that regeneration is a “private and individual relationship” between a man and Christ! Without this deeply personal kinship, all other relationships are empty and groundless. …
(6.) Dr. Dunn also talks of the changing forms of ministry. It is obvious that the whole section is an effort to endorse the social gospel to the near exclusion of the preaching ministry. After having made reference to the ministry of preaching, he writes, on pg. 170, “When a particular ministry is no longer needed, it should be discarded to make a place for a new ministry that is needed.”
There are those of us who still believe that the commission of Jesus put preaching high enough on the list that it is never to be neglected for other forms of ministry, valid though those forms may be! Where preaching is done right, it is as effective as ever! I am cognizant of the fact that the author includes other forms of ministry in his discussion, but the important point is that preaching is lumped with the whole gamut of suspect forms.
(7.) Again, Dr. Dunn says, on pg. 174 after a paragraph concerning the “God is Dead” theology which the author is careful not to condone or condemn, “‘The way for us to overcome our childishness is certainly not the way of the closed mind that shuts out every new thought.” This is true—but there is a second statement which needs to be added. Neither does one overcome his childishness by leaving his mind so open that every new thought of man drives out every old thought of God. The author is once more guilty of half-truth.
(8.) Howard Grimes states on pgs. 45 and 50 of Real (winter 1968-9), “The young person—or adult—who is seeking real life, authentic existence, salvation or whatever you want to call genuine human living … etc.”
Five pages earlier, he has made essentially the same vague reference to “whatever you want to call” this high life which the author is not at all sure about himself. This does not have the clear ring of the Good News of the New Testament. If this is Education, it is hardly recognizable as being Christian!
(9.) On numerous occasions, Grimes reflects negatively on the moral demands of the Bible, on pgs. 59, 63: “We have not completely cast out rules in this study, but we have not emphasized them … This is one of the troubles with purely conventional morality: it can make a person respectable but uninteresting. But there is another fault with a moral outlook which is highly structured and inflexible: it can keep a person from responding positively and creatively in new situations.”
This is a completely lopsided view. There is no justification in hinting that moral absolutes make one uninteresting. It depends on what one considers interesting. Hugh Hefner of Playboy magazine and I have divergent views here!
(10.) “Christian truth is therefore not ‘timeless,’ but set in history. God speaks to specific persons, in specific situations, faced with specific decisions,” , writes Littel in Real (winter 1968-9) pg. 94.
This sounds quite out of touch with the Master Himself when He says, “I am the Truth.” The Church which is faithful to Jesus as Lord believes that Christ is timeless truth. A theology or ethic which stems from man’s sinful human situation will be humanistic and sinful. There must be a point of reference in the search for truth. That point is Christ and His teachings.
(11.) Wright, in New Creation (1968) pg. 8, makes reference to death by saying, “A set of answers not supplied by television comedies, Playboy magazine, funeral flowers, or after-life theology is needed.”
If I understand what the writer means by “after-life theology,” it is apparent that he is far afield. I have been through that valley myself and I know that life would have collapsed without my assurance that my “after-life theology ” was valid. This, with emphasis on the personal relationship with Christ which makes such belief legitimate, was the only thing which made any sense to either my wife or me as she lay dying. Furthermore, to class one’s hope of eternal life with Playboy magazine is blasphemous and insensitive.
(12.) In relating the creation account, Wright states on pg. 19, “The physical form of man is said to have been molded by God out of the dust of the earth, and the inner power is said to have been breathed into man by God. ” Later, writing of Enoch and Elijah, the author says, “Both of These men were supposedly taken by God without their dying … ”
Whatever a trained writer may feel about these Old Testament accounts, he has but little to occupy his time if he sows seeds of doubt in the minds of young people who already suspect everything except the world of pure matter. …
(13.) Anyone who can read the fifth lesson in New Creation, entitled “New Method and Renewed Vision” and arrive at some directive or draw some meaningful conclusion is either a genius or an imbecile. There is no meaning at all. And this is what thousands of our 9-10 grade students are subjected to during the one hour out of 168 during the week when they have a fleeting chance to meet the Christ.
(14.) The Board’s theological frame of reference is so openly excessive that no one in the conservative school of thought could possibly consider the Board of Education anything but non-Biblical. Of the 157 footnotes and suggested articles or books listed at the end of each lesson in New Creation, only 10 can be considered to be sources of evangelical or conservative thought. A total of 29 references were made to Tillich, Cox, Boyd, Bultmann, Robinson, and Pike. But only 18 references were made to the Bible in the entire quarter! The overall picture is just a little out of balance. In the Leader‘s Guide for New Creation, there are 19 lessons and only 13 references to Bible readings! Yet, Jesus Himself, in reference to His teachings which are preserved for us in the Bible, says, “If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.” (John 13: 17)
(15.) By far the best adult manual produced in the New Curriculum is In Faith and Love, by Orio Strunk, Jr. This could hardly be otherwise since the entire work is biographical in nature and deals with the lives of selected great men and women. However, the personalities included are disciples of the social action philosophy with three possible exceptions: Rufus Jones, Joseph Gomer, and Simone Weil. These persons were deeply dedicated to a ministry of Good Samaritanism, as every Christian must be. But it is clear that there was something more fundamental than social action to these three people. Unbelievable as it might seem, there is a reference to a God-man encounter with each of these personages, an encounter which looks suspiciously like conversion. However, in the Selected Readings by the same title, Kagawa is quoted as having written of his own Christian work, “This spirit is not one that makes a fuss over religion or doctrine or belief or philosophy. It is not even a method of evangelism.”
While we are aware of the necessity of a social ministry, we believe that Jesus dealt with the whole man and not just his worldly misfortune. There is no Christian ministry deserving of the name which is not basically, unequivocally evangelistic. What the poor and oppressed believe is vitally important and must never be neglected in the interest of temporal support.
It is time that we refuse being swayed by men, living or dead, into an avenue of service which has not the imprint of eternity upon it. Social work without fervent evangelism is not fundamentally Christian. It is good and humanitarian, but it misses the whole point if it is not motivated by conversion to Christ in the life of the worker and for the life of the recipient.
(16.) Horace Bushnell is quoted in the same Selected Readings book, “What is the true idea of Christian education? … That the child is to grow up a Christian and never know himself as being otherwise … not remembering a time when he went through a technical (conversion) experience, but seeming rather to have loved what is good from his earliest years.”
Such a statement is utopian unreality. What is even worse, however, is the glaring discrepancy between this kind of philosophy and the teaching of both the Old and New Testaments concerning man’s being born in sin and standing in need of the new birth. A child may be so trained as to grow up naturally loving what is good, like the Pharisees of Jesus day, and still miss the Kingdom of God by the distance between the head and the heart. As in secular education, so in religious nurture the individual must be born before the process of education can become truly effective. Religious education must either lead one into “a technical (conversion) experience” or proceed from such.
(17.) Toward the end of the above mentioned volume of readings is a quotation from Visser’t Hooft in which he turns cartwheels trying to justify the act of Bonhoeffer’s conscientious objection to war on the one hand and his willing involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler on the other. This sounds a bit like the rationalization of which conservatives so often have been accused! If we are going to deplore war as unchristian, then we cannot logically justify the murder of one even so evil a Hitler!
The inclusion of these readings in the Selected volume indicates general agreement by the editor of the text or some hint would be made to the contrary within the text itself. No one objects to the use of quotations as long as some clarification of position is made concerning them. Methodists would appreciate having quotes like this from Visser’t Hooft clarified in the light of our tradition.
Now, for some general observations. After careful study on an Eighteen-month trial basis, one of the young adult classes at Memorial in Elizabethtown has made the following accusations. The decision has been wholly that of the class itself without any concourse with the pastor.
(a) Not enough emphasis on Bible and its application in the situations presented.
(b) Bible references and application, if any, too elusive for average layman to grasp.
(c) Deals in a biased manner with social situations.
(d) No solutions given for Problems—not even Biblical.
(e) Deflates one’s spirit rather than inspires.
(f) Completely over our heads.
(g) Writers manage to get their kicks and political views, applying pressure toward their prejudices.
Several statements need to be made in response to these obviously serious charges. Our lay people are growing weary with the lambasting attempts to force them into social involvement without the essential motivating fuel which comes from the life of personal piety which is being almost completely neglected. It is all a form of social humanism which no longer feels the need of the historical Jesus, the Holy Spirit, prayer, the Church, or even God! Reconciliation with God must have priority before there can ever be reconciliation with our neighbors. Without this prior, vertical relationship, our social efforts are as futile as putting iodine on a cancer! Thomas Merton, the Roman Catholic, was right when he said, “To reconcile man with man and not with God is to reconcile no one at all.” Secular service without personal conversion is to be “weighed in the balance and found wanting.”
We indirectly brag on our own intellectual ability when we argue that people could grasp the new curriculum if they would apply themselves. This is not so. All one needs to do to recognize this fact is to look at the suggested readings in New Creation. These are 15 year old young people who are being referred to Paul Tillich. Multitudes of seminary graduates find Tillich extremely thick reading. Our people are unprepared for this 220 volt shock which has already blown out the lights for many of our young seminarians. We are asked to plug into a source of knowledge which can be disastrous because it is either too powerful for our small equipment or foreign to our spiritual proton-neutron arrangement.
Who are we trying to impress? Our ninth and tenth grade classes have both requested to use eighth grade materials. One of our Ph.D.’s has quit teaching because the curriculum requires more time than even he can give to it! The United Methodist Church needs to cease trying to be pseudo—intellectual and recapture the “warm heart” which gave it birth and made it great.
Finally, the writers do “get their kicks and political views” into the lessons with strong bias. A quick look at the MYF monthly “Common Life Bulletin” is a perfect example. The content of these papers would be ideal for inclusion in a political journal, especially if it were acclimated to “left field.” It is popular to talk about a Christ who was a social agitator, but there is strange silence about His recognition of the priorities of morality.
It is ironic to me that churchmen today combine “absolute” social and political programs with “relativistic” situational ethics. This is a commentary on Paul’s “natural man” who is quite “double-minded” (to use James’ expression) in all his thinking.
Only the eternal Word of God can show the relative to be truly relative (e.g. political systems) and the absolute to be truly absolute (e.g. God’s moral law). The United Methodist Church has just spent $ 1 00,000 on influencing foreign policy in regard to Viet Nam (a topic the materials writers enjoy exploiting) and called it “a new form of evangelism.” Influencing foreign policy is not evangelism! Such expenditure of money given for the true ministry of Christ is poor stewardship!
We still believe that Christ died to redeem men from sin, that God has given the Church only one Great Commission—to “make disciples of all nations.” The result of genuine conversion to Christ creates a social conscience. The Church was involved in social action long before the radical rebels exploded with their charges of irrelevancy. Of course, the Church was far from perfect. It always will be. But, I will stake my life on the affirmation that the Church did more lasting good in the world before the shifting emphasis of the secular element, which calls itself “the new breed,” than this novel and fashionable substitute will ever do with its weak theology, thin Christology, anti-ecclesiology, relative morality, and self-centered anthropology!
The curriculum content is vague about such “irrelevant” matters as the authority of the Bible, the inspiration of the Scriptures, the necessity of the new birth, the person of Christ, the value of the Church, the evangelistic mission of the Christian community, the integrity of Old and New Testament writers, the moral law, and the eschatological hope of the Kingdom of God. By the same token, the writers of the new curriculum are crystal clear about such concerns as the immoral war in Viet Nam, the brutality of law enforcement officers, the plague within our democratic form of government, the wisdom of secular philosophy, the right to dissent (and often to violent dissent), the irrelevancy of institutions, the harboring of conscientious objectors even though atheists, and the compatibility of communistic philosophy with Christian truth. Under such an umbrella as this, our Church is in danger of helping create a society in which everyone is a “Christian” in name, and no one is a Christian in reality.
The new curriculum of the United Methodist Church (Adult and Youth levels) is guilty of pointing out the problems without offering valid, Christian solutions. This is wholly foreign to the kerygma of the New Testament Church! It is guilty of pessimism in concentrating on the problems of our time rather than on the “final solution to evil” which is found in Christ the Lord. It is further guilty of explaining the life need and expecting some sensible and Christian response without sound Biblical orientation and application. It is hyper-intellectual, super-ecumenical, anti-Reformation, and anti-evangelistic. It is filled with endorsements of the new morality, questions the authority of the Bible, emasculates Christ of His divine powers, questions civil obedience, and encourages the cause of atheistic communism. In “Christian Education” the emphasis belongs on the first word, and this is where the strength is missing in the new curriculum. Any jury in the land, comprised of men and women who love God, Christ, and the Church will reply, “Guilty as charged!”
I rest my case. Here I stand. God help me, I can do no other!
by Steve | Jul 3, 1969 | Archive - 1969
Archive: Curriculum Confrontation: Chicago
By Charles W. Keysor, Editor, Good News
On April 18, 1969, a significant meeting took place at O’Hare Inn, Chicago, Ill. A delegation representing Methodism’s Wesleyan evangelicals met with the Advisory Committee of the General Board of Education’s Division of Curriculum Resources. The invitation was extended by Literature Editor Henry Bullock to Good News Editor Charles W. Keysor. The Good News delegation included one layman, one seminary professor, one pastor and one pastor-editor. In advance of the meeting, these men prepared a “position paper” summarizing theological considerations that make Methodist literature objectionable to many. This paper, minus appendix, appears on pages 23-25.
“There shall be one complete, coordinated system of literature published by the board for the entire United Methodist Church. This literature shall be of such Type and variety as to meet the needs of all groups of our People.”—Paragraph 972, DISCIPLINE, 1968.
The 1968 Book of Discipline clearly states that official curriculum must serve “all groups” within our denomination. We represent a large group of Methodists known variously as “conservative,” “evangelical” and/or “Wesleyan.” It is our deep conviction that our “group” is NOT Being served by Methodist curriculum. On the contrary, there Is a wide and unbridgeable gulf between the theology in Methodist curriculum and the theology that is based upon our understanding of the Bible, Methodist tradition and our personal Christian experience.
More important, Methodist literature generally presents a theology different from the basic Methodist doctrinal standards: Wesley’s Forty-Four Standard Sermons, Wesley’s Explanatory Notes on the New Testament, the Articles of Religion and now the E.U.B. Confession of Faith. Although the Apostles’ Creed is Not formally an official standard or Methodist doctrine, it does play an important function in relating us confessionally to the larger Church of Jesus Christ.
The departure of Methodist literature’s theology from these basic doctrinal standards is the main reason why thousands of Methodist classes refuse to use it. Many of us believe that Methodist literature is Methodist in name only. It becomes increasingly clear that the argument is not whether one approach is a better way to express a common belief. Rather, we are dealing with two increasingly divergent theologies. Sometimes these share a common vocabulary-but your editors repeatedly substitute entirely different meanings.
Such a serious dichotomy exists between your theology and ours that church school material prepared solely from your viewpoint cannot meet the needs of the great group of Methodists which we represent. The implications of this fact (in the light of paragraph 972) should certainly be our major concern at the Chicago meeting on April 18, 1969. It is unthinkable that the solutions to human problems offered by the historic Christian faith should not be made available to Methodist people today.
As you requested, we have supplied a brief appendix of “representative items to which we take exception.” (Not printed due to space limitations—Editor) These are some of the things apparent to faithful teachers and church school leaders. Often they sense the divergence, but can define it only in terms of the most obvious doctrinal deviations. Usually, Methodists merely state that they “don’t like it” (expressed in various parochial terms). You understand, of course, that in dealing with matters of theology, philosophical bias and editorial thrust, the “representative items” are less significant in themselves than the avowed or implied theses of the authors responsible for these statements.
We believe the following analysis summarizes why our denomination’s official curriculum materials are not “complete” and do not meet our needs.
(1) You have substituted various forms of naturalistic humanism for the supernatural theism taught in the Bible and basic to our Reformation heritage of Scriptural Christianity.
(2) You present a form of humanistic “process theology” in place of a theology based upon the ultimate revelation of God’s truth in Jesus Christ and in the Bible.
(3) You have elevated ethical behaviour to a disproportionate level, negating by omission the antecedent requirement of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
(4) You have distorted the balanced, Biblical presentation of Jesus Christ as incarnate deity, whose virgin birth, inspired teaching, vicarious death, physical resurrection and eventual return for judgement are emphasized throughout the New Testament and, likewise, in Wesleyan tradition.
(5) You seek to rationalize miracles, attributing pseudo- scientific explanations and there- by discrediting the supernatural action of a transcendent God.
(6) You present what is predominately a “moral influence” theory of the atonement. You ignore other important interpretations clearly taught or implied in the Bible and understood as valid by great minds of the Church through the ages.
(7) You reject the true ecumenism growing out of universal faith in Jesus Christ. You substitute a parochial denominationalism that is neither Methodist (see Wesley’s “Catholic Spirit”) nor Biblical (see Ephesians 2:8-10).
(8) By omission and distortion you eliminate the important Biblical teaching that there will be an eternal judgment.
(9) With eternal judgment omitted, you teach a syncretistic universalism in which there is no eternal separation as the Bible clearly teaches.
(10) You present an unrealistic view of human nature which accords with neither Scripture, human history or honest admission of human weakness and depravity.
(11) You teach an ethical relativism that makes truth dependent upon the situation. Divinely- revealed absolutes of truth and human behaviour are not accepted as being necessarily consistent with “love,” as you understand it.
(12) You undermine the integrity of canonical Scripture. You teach as absolutes, concepts of Biblical interpretation which ought, honestly, to be presented as theories rather than ultimate truth.
For these and other reasons, the official curriculum material of our denomination represents a critical divergence from the historic doctrines and traditions of Methodists. It is hoped that a Recognition of the divergence and Its implications will provide a Starting place for a plan “to meet the needs” of Methodists who believe that our historic Faith is relevant to contemporary problems without being compromised by humanistic philosophy and moral relativism.
Our position is well summarized by a student in one of our Methodist seminaries. Recently he wrote to “Good News”:
” … Never before in the history of the church has such ‘green’ theology been incorporated into any denominational literature … The ‘hidden Christ’ of the first section of Real, Spring, 1969, is an exposition of the idea of seeing Christ in the needy neighbor. The hippie is portrayed as the Christ who makes others aware of their need, etc. This section is based on an existential interpretation of Matt. 25:45.
“The second half of Real is on the Radical God is Dead theology … To give our youth Cox and Altizer is to give them stones. Why can’t our literature teach our faith instead of our doubts?
“The new youth literature is not something we can ‘live with’ or supplement. Those who shout for freedom might practice what they shout by allowing some leeway on the literature. We aren’t even supposed to read it before we order it. Yet we are supposed to teach our youth the newest, unsystematized theology recent graduates of our seminaries can dream up … “
