,
THE
PRINCETON
SEMINARY
BULLETIN
Speaking in Tongues
David’s First City Sermons:
The True Prophet Thanksgiving
Integrity in Pastoral Care
James N. Lapsley John H. Simpson
Philip C. Hammond
James I. McCord Robert R. Spears
Seward Hiltner
VOLUME LVIII, NUMBER 2 FEBRUARY 1965
PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
James I. McCord President
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Peter K. Emmons, President John M. Templeton, Vice-President
Frederick E. Christian, Secretary William E. Lawder, Treasurer
Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, New York, N.Y., Assistant Treasurer
Clem E. Bininger Eugene Carson Blake Ernest T. Campbell Allan M. Frew John T. Galloway Ralph Cooper Hutchison Miss Eleanor P. Kelly Bryant M. Kirkland Harry G. Kuch Robert J. Lamont Raymond I. Lindquist John S. Linen J. Keith Louden Thomas M. MacMillan John W. Meister
W. Beverly Murphy Luther I. Replogle William H. Scheide H. D. Moore Sherrerd Laird H. Simons, Jr.
W. Sherman Skinner James E. Spivey George E. Sweazey Mrs. Olive W. Switz James N. Tunnell, Jr. Samuel G. Warr David B. Watermulder Irving A. West George S. Young
TRUSTEES EMERITI
John G. Buchanan Richard J. Dearborn Benjamin F. Farber Henry Hird
Weir C. Ketler Mrs. John J. Newberry Albert J. McCartney Mrs. Charles O. Miller
THE PRINCETON SEMINARY BULLETIN Donald Macleod, Editor Edward J. Jurji, Book Review Editor
The Bulletin is published quarterly by the Trustees of the Theological Seminary of the United Presbyterian Church at Princeton, New Jersey. Numbers I, 2, and 3 of each volume are mailed free of charge to all alumni and on an exchange basis with various institutions. Number 4 in the series is the annual academic catalogue of the Seminary and may be obtained by request to the Office of the Registrar.
Second class postage paid at Princeton, NJ.
The Princeton Seminary Bulletin
VOL. LVIII FEBRUARY, 1965 Number 2
Donald Macleod, Editor Edward J. Jurji, Book Review Editor
Speaking in Tongues James N. Lapsley and John H. Simpson 3
David's First City— The Excavation of Biblical Hebron
Philip C. Hammond 19
Sermons :
The True Prophet James I. McCord 29
Thanksgiving Robert R. Spears 34
Integrity in Pastoral Care Seward Hiltner 39
Reminiscences Gwilym 0. Griffith 49
Book Reviews:
Theology
The Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich, by A. J. McKelway James I. McCord 53 Paul Tillich in Catholic Thought, ed. by T. A. O’Meara & C. D. Weisser 54
The Christian Faith, by F. W. Dillistone 54
The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, by H. Berkhof 55
Biblical
The Second Isaiah, by Christopher R. North Charles T. Fritsch 56
The Canaanites, by John Gray 56
The Old Testament, by Robert Davidson James Barr 57
The Pioneer of Our Faith, by S. V. McCashland Otto A. Piper 57
St. John’s Gospel : An Exposition, by W. Luthi 57
Luther’s Works: Lectures on Galatians, Vols. 26 & 27 Edward A. Dowey, Jr. 58
History
The Sufficiency of God, ed. by R. C. Mackie & C. C. West Robert S. Bilheimer 59 The English Reformation, by A. G. Dickens Norman V. Hope 60
The Reformation, by Hans J. Hillerbrand 61
Practical
The Pulpit Speaks on Race, ed. by Alfred T. Davies Donald Macleod 62
Minister’s Annual 1965, by D. A. MacLennan 62
Administering Christian Education, by R. K. Bower D. Campbell Wyckoff 63
Pastoral Care in the Church, by C. W. Brister James N. Lapsley, Jr. 63
Hymns in Christian Worship, by Cecil Northcott Donald Macleod 64
General
Sacred and Profane Beauty, by G. Van Der Leeuw Edward J. Jurji 64
The Trial of Jesus, by James C. McRuer Donald Macleod 65
IN THIS ISSUE
he first article, “Speaking in Tongues” is a careful study of the current
religious phenomenon generally known as glossolalia. The authors at- tempt jointly to explore its origins, character, and implications within an historical perspective and to assess its effect upon individuals and groups involved in the movement. This article appeared initially in Pastoral Psy- chology (Vol. XV, No. 144 and 146) and is reprinted here by permission of the editor. James N. Lapsley, Jr., assistant professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton, is a graduate of Union Theological Seminary (Richmond, Va.) and holds the Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Chicago. John H. Simpson, assistant to the Dean of Field Service, is a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary and is a candidate for the Master’s degree in Christianity and Society.
A very descriptive and informative archaeological report on “David’s First City — The Excavation of Biblical Hebron” by Philip C. Hammond outlines Princeton Seminary’s involvement in an important project in Biblical research. Dr. Hammond has been assistant professor of Old Testament at Princeton since i960. He holds the doctoral degree from Yale University, was on the faculty of Lycoming College, 1957-1960, and is the author of Archaeological Techniques. In 1961 and 1962 he was director of the Ameri- can Expeditions to Petra.
The first of two sermons, “The True Prophet,” was delivered by James I. McCord, the President of the Seminary, at the service of worship in the orientation program for the Junior Class on Sunday evening, September 20, 1964. The second sermon was given at the annual community Thanksgiving Service in Princeton University Chapel by the Reverend Robert R. Spears, rector of Trinity Episcopal Church in Princeton.
The lecture, “Integrity in Pastoral Care,” was delivered by Seward Hilt- ner as part of the sesquicentennial program presented by the Practical Department in June 1963. Dr. Hiltner, one of the nation’s leading authorities in Pastoral Theology and Counselling, is professor of Theology and Per- sonality at Princeton, a doctor of philosophy graduate from Chicago, and author of a dozen books in Practical Theology and related fields.
A short article, “Reminiscences,” consists of quiet reflections upon “old Princeton,” written by a member of the Class of 1909, and sent originally to President McCord. The charm and wistful character of the piece commended it to your editor for publication and to the interest of the wider circle of the alumni. Gwilym O. Griffith, the author of ten books, is retired and is now living in Sutton, Coldfield, England.
D.M.
SPEAKING IN TONGUES
James N. Lapsley and John H. Simpson
I. Token of Group Acceptance and Divine Approval
The outbreak within mainline Protestantism of “speaking in tongues,”1 or glossolalia, and other phe- nomena usually associated with those churches whose heritage may be traced to the Pentecostal movement, has begun to attract widespread attention and to generate strong feelings — positive and negative. Although there are no accu- rate figures as to the size of the recent outbreak, it has gained enough impetus to be the subject of official ecclesiastical concern.2 The movement appears to be particularly strong among certain churches of the Far and Mid-West, and to be gaining in strength on the East Coast. Clergy and laity of the liturgical churches, Lutherans and Episcopalians, appear to be most heav- ily afifected by the movement. Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Re- formed churchmen have also received the “baptism of the Spirit” and spoken in tongues.
It is the intent of this article to throw some light on the nature and function of
1 The term “speaking ivith tongues” has also been often used to refer to the same phe- nomenon. This term may be traced to the King James Version, which translates “with tongues” (plural) and “in a tongue” (singu- lar). The Revised Standard Version uses “in” for both singular and plural references, and we are following that usage.
The original Greek had a prepositionless dative case, and it is not clear whether nuances suggested by "with” or “in” better represent biblical meaning.
2 See “On ‘Speaking With Tongues’ ” Pas- toral Psychology, November, 1963, p. 53.
the small glossolalic groups located in mainline churches and educational insti- tutions, which are the heart of what has been called the neo-Pentecostal move- ment. A second part will attempt to probe the labyrinth of meaning this strange speech has for the individual person.
What Is Glossolalia?
Glossolalia may be defined as speech, which, though unintelligible both to the speaker and to most hearers, is pur- ported to be understandable by those who have the gift of interpreting such speech. Although glossolalia has been a part of many religions, and of non- religious activity such as mediumship, it is best known to Christians in its New Testament manifestations, to which we shall briefly turn.3
There are two principal clusters of references to glossolalia in the New Testament. The first occurs in the Book of the Acts, where it is one of the ac- companiments of the Holy Spirit’s com- ing at Pentecost. It also accompanied subsequent “descents” of the Spirit at Caesaria, Samaria, and at Ephesus. No mention is made of interpretation in these instances ; and in the Pentecost experience, at least, the language was said to be intelligible to Jews of the Diaspora. Whatever else may be the meaning of glossolalia at Pentecost, it
3 For a fuller treatment of the Biblical ma- terial, see Section V of the “Preliminary Report of the Study Commission on Glosso- lalia,” Division of Pastoral Services, Diocese of California.
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appears that the author intended it to have the symbolic meaning of the “un- babbling of tongues,” signifying the end of the era of confusion and ignorance. It also apparently came to have the meaning of the “sign” of the individ- ual’s reception of the Holy Spirit, though evidence from Acts indicates that it was not universally regarded as a necessary sign.
The second principal cluster of refer- ences to glossolalia is found in I Cor- inthians 12-14, where Paul undertakes a lengthy and involved discussion of the relative merits of various spiritual gifts. In Chapter 14, he focuses on speaking in tongues, which, while clear- ly regarded as a gift of the Spirit, is treated with what we would today call a markedly ambivalent attitude. We shall not attempt to treat Paul’s argu- ment in detail. Suffice it to say that he recognized both public and private glos- solalia as legitimate, but the former was to occur only three times in succession without interpretation. Further, he clearly subordinated glossolalia to the gift of prophecy — the intelligible com- munication of messages from God. In 14:20 there is a hint that he regarded glossolalia as childish, and in the pas- sage that follows one almost senses, though it is not clearly stated, that Paul would really like to have told turbulent Corinthians to cut it out altogether, but checked himself because of their in- firmity.
One question which is of interest is whether the phenomenon in Acts and that in I Cor. are the same. In the Acts accounts, the implication that the speech was an “unknown” or foreign tongue is indicated by its having been under- stood by multilingual Jews who re- quired no “interpretation.” Yet Paul
warns against glossolalia without inter- pretation in I Cor., as though it would be wholly unintelligible without this. This has led some responsible scholars to assert that two phenomena are in- volved. However, others hold that the evidence points more in the direction of there being only one.
' Turning now to the manifestations of glossolalia today, we find that the three kinds of glossolalic experience found in the Bible are also the three types iden- tified by the “neo-Pentecostals.” These are the sign-tongue, given at the “bap- tism of the Holy Spirit,” the tongue spoken in a meeting, which is usually interpreted by someone else who is present, and the tongue spoken in pri- vate devotions.4 Understood from with- in the movement, these are all forms of praise to God, though edification of the group may come from interpretation, which is usually a commonplace scrip- tural injunction.
In the “warm-up” stage of a “prayer and praise meeting,” glossolalia sounds like inarticulate “oh’s” and “ah’s” which may be interspersed with ejaculations such as “Oh, Jesus !” The overall effect is not unlike that of an orchestra com- posed of exotic instruments tuning up. When fully articulated, however, glos- solalia does have a speechlike sound and frequently a lyrical quality as though it were alliterative poetry in some lan- guage full of “1,” “r,” and round vowel sounds. This is not a mere babble of sounds ; it has an almost artlike quality.
These two forms, the warm-up and the “singing” glossolalia, appear to be the principal manifestations among neo-
4 “Preliminary Report of the Study Com- mission on Glossolalia,” Division of Pastoral Services, Diocese of California, op. cit., Sec- tion IV.
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Pentecostals.5 It is the latter, or sing- ing variety which has often been claimed to be in reality an unknown foreign tongue. (One leader of the movement avers his to be “Old Basque.”) To our knowledge, no examples of glossolalia during the current outbreak have been so verified by competent linguists, though some have been offered for their study.0
Seen as a form of psychomotor be- havior, glossolalia appears to be like trance states, somnambulism, medium- ship, and automatic writing, in that the conscious centers of the psyche are by- passed in production of these behaviors. It is thus a kind of automatism, and will be further analyzed as such in the second part of this article.
5 With regard to the second type of speech, the articulate “seeming” language which we have called singing glossolalia above, George B. Cutten, in his Speaking with Tongues Historically and Psychologically Considered (Yale University Press, 1927), rather irrev- erently suggests that the children’s counting game : “Enee, menee, minee, mo,” may origi- nally have been a case in point. Cutten, whose work is the most responsible full-length treat- ment of glossolalia in English, further main- tains that there is another form, that of the manufactured or coined word type, in which the speaker employs neologisms, which may be related to foreign words which come to him through a cryptomnestic, or hidden memory, source, to stand for words in his own tongue, or these neologisms may be re- lated to nothing more than syllabification in the speaker’s own tongue (p. 175O.
6 Frank Farrell, “Outburst of Tongues: The New Penetration,” Christianity Today, VII, 24, pp. 3-7. Farrell also states that these linguists were of the opinion that the glosso- lalia they heard did sound like a language structurally. This position has been chal- lenged by W. E. Wilmers, Prof, of African Languages at UCLA, who contends that it cannot be a language, but is related to the native tongue of the speakers (Letter to the Editor, Christianity Today, Nov. 8, 1963).
Historical Background
There have been sporadic manifesta- tions of speaking in tongues throughout Christian history. Notable among these in fairly recent times are the outbreaks among the persecuted Huguenots of the Cevennes at the close of the seven- teenth century and in the Irvingite or Catholic Apostolic Church during the 1830’s.
So far as we can tell, the first speak- ing in tongues in America took place in the early days of Mormonism, where it apparently enjoyed considerable vogue, and became an integral part of worship, being sometimes uttered on direction of the leader.7 However, the traceable his- tory of the Pentecostal movement be- gins with Holiness revivals in the 1870’s. Sporadic outbursts occurred throughout the country from that dec- ade until after the turn of the century. In 1900, students in a Holiness bible school in Topeka, Kansas, spoke in tongues. Three years later the phenom- enon broke out in Galena, Kansas, and from there it was carried to Orchard and Houston, Texas.8
These occasional sparks became a continual and spreading flame as a re- sult of the revival held during 1906 by William J. Seymour, a Negro preacher, in the Asuza Street Mission of Los An- geles. On April 9, 1906, a few days be- fore the disastrous San Francisco earth- quake and fire, the Spirit “fell” upon Seymour and a few followers.9 Soon the
7 Cutten, op. cit., p. 70 ff.
8 See Brumback’s Suddenly from Heaven and Kendrick’s The Promise Fulfilled : A History of the Modern Pentecostal Move- ment, both published by the Gospel Pub. House, Springfield, Mo., 1961.
9 The earthquake is mentioned because of the doctrine among Pentecostals that the gift
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Asuza Street Mission was the site of a continuous demonstration of speaking in tongues. Undoubtedly the occurrence of sustained glossolalia in a large center of transportation and communication facilitated the rapid spread of the movement.
During the period from 1906 to 1914, the initial thrust of the Pentecostal movement took place. It culminated in the United States in the formation dur- ing 1914 of the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination in North America. The movement spread rapidly to other countries, and the World Pentecostal Conference, formed in 1947, is said to have more than 10 million persons affiliated with member churches.
The Perfectionist and Holiness movements, off-shoots of Methodism, provided the milieu from which Pente- costalism sprang.10 The history of the Holiness movement in America during the second half of the nineteenth cen- tury reveals a succession of groups which extracted from the Wesleyan ethos an emphasis upon a crisis experi- ence subsequent to the attainment of salvation. It was believed that during the crisis the Spirit fully dwelt in the believer. There was no necessary motor behavior associated with this experi-
of tongues is a sign of the coming end of the age, which will be attended by like nat- ural and man-made calamities.
10 Wesleyan theology from its inception contained an emphasis on Christian perfec- tion, i.e., the belief that a life free from will- ful sin is possible after a believer experiences sanctification or the “second blessing,” through which the eradication of wayward tendencies is effected. (John Wesley, “A Plain Account of Christian Perfection,” Works, Miscellaneous, II, pp. 483-531.) This emphasis never became firmly entrenched in either British or American Methodism.
ence; the believer knew in his heart when it was accomplished. Believing strongly that God would sanctify, he simply waited for the feeling of assur- ance to come.11 It is important to note that in Holiness religion, crisis experi- ences in the believer’s life usually ter- minated after sanctification. However, this sanctification could be lost, since it was a momentary attainment, and regained again.
In Holiness religion, the proof of having received the full measure of the Spirit was found in the believer’s own testimony to that effect and his pattern of holy living. Thus Holiness religion did not give the believer complete cer- tainty that he had been filled with the Holy Spirit. For life styles were sub- ject to interpretation and inner feelings were elusive.
By the turn of the century, the orig- inal fervor of the Holiness movement was spent and the time was ripe for yet another movement. The craving for religious expression which resulted in Pentecostalism suggests that inherent in the Holiness ethos and its predeces- sors was the need for ever new expres- sions of unmistakable, emotionally re- leasing, religious experience. The groups and individuals who spoke in tongues early in the first decade of the twentieth century were Holiness in background. William J. Seymour was himself a Holiness preacher.
Pentecostalism thus succeeded in doing what the Holiness movement could not do. The gift of tongues which came during the crisis of the “second blessing” provided the believer with a repeatable and unmistakable motor ex-
11 A. M. Hills, Holiness and Pcrwer for the Church attd Ministry, Cincinnati : M. W. Knapp, 1879.
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pression which, in effect, guaranteed his possession of the Spirit. The Pente- costal— whom two recent empirical studies have shown to be more emotion- ally unstable and more anxious than other “non-enthusiastic” religious peo- ple of similar socio-economic situation — needed only to repeat, or point to the initial expression of the gift to be as- sured that he was in the fullest possible relationship with the deity.12 It was a token of group acceptance and the talis- man of divine approval.
Although the phenomenon of speak- ing in tongues was doubtless “caught” from Pentecostalism by the “neo-Pen- tecostals” in mainline churches, it was not a case of organic development as was Pentecostalism’s emergence from the Holiness movement. Sometime in the mid-i95o’s the spark began to strike fire, but the precise time and place are difficult to trace. By i960 the move- ment was firmly established among certain Episcopalians on the West Coast and in the Mid-West and had taken hold among adherents of the Reformed tradition, in both its conti- nental and British branches, on the East Coast.
Why did this happen? Although it must remain for church historians of the future fully to establish the causes, the following factors seem to be defi- nitely involved. ( 1 ) Upward social pres- sure from the Pentecostal groups led to contact with members of mainline churches. This is epitomized in an organization called the Full Gospel
i 12 Vivier, L. M. Van Eetveldt, Glossolcilia (U. of Witwatersrand, unpub. diss., i960), and William W. Wood, Culture and Person- ality Aspects of the Pentecostal Holiness Religion (U. of North Carolina, unpub. diss. 1961).
Business Men’s Fellowship Interna- tional. Founded in 1953 by Pentecostal laymen, it has headquarters in Los Angeles and is now supported by lay- men of all denominations. The FGBM FI attempts to adapt Pentecostalism to the American middle class business ethos through popular speakers at re- gional breakfasts and national conven- tions.
(2) The presence within the main- line churches of many “fringe” people, whose needs for personal security and emotional expression were not being met by these churches, provided a pool of potential adherents. Whether there are more such persons in the churches today than there have been in the past is debatable, but personal observation and objective studies indicate that there are many “seekers” of this kind now.
(3) The increasing discontent and disaffection of some clergymen in the mainline churches is now a well known fact. Though some studies and reports have tended to exaggerate the numbers of men so affected, it appears beyond dispute that significant numbers of Protestant ministers find themselves frustrated and anxious about their function and purpose. Of this group, a small minority has sought and found both personal and professional satisfac- tion in neo-Pentecostalism. They pro- vide the crucial factor of leadership, which had been missing until the last decade.
The Neo-Pentecostal Group
In order to provide a basis for under- standing the function of the small neo- Pentecostal group, a brief description of an actual group meeting will be pre- sented.
This meeting was observed by one of
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the authors in a home on the West Coast. This type of meeting is one of the two principal kinds in the move- ment— the other being the somewhat larger more “open” meeting frequently held in the church school rooms or even the sanctuary. Participants in both kinds of meetings are usually members of one church with which the group is identified, though some may be from other churches.
About 35 people were present in this meeting — half men and half women. Some were teenagers and older youths but the majority were couples in the 35‘55 a£e range. When the leader, a clergyman, arrived, he assumed a prominent position in the room where he was plainly visible to all. He began the meeting talking about the spon- taneity of the group and how he did not want to dominate it. He stressed par- ticularly the necessity for spontaneity when speaking in tongues. He went on to say that what comes from praying in the Spirit, i.e., speaking in tongues, is strength and edification. He said that he did not approve of what had hap- pened recently after one of the “prayer and praise” meetings — a small group after the regular meeting had discussed at some length “intellectual problems.” “But,” he said, “God is not interested in our intellectual problems. We must accentuate the positive.”
Having made the introductory re- marks, the leader asked for some testi- monies of “good experiences” during the past week. There were about ten testimonies. Three persons were con- cerned with economic situations which had been recently improved. Three other testimonies were examples of how the Holy Spirit was working in mysterious ways. They amounted to
explanation of events which were as- sumed to be the workings of the Holy Spirit. More testimonies dealt with how the movement was spreading, the “joy in the Lord” a man had despite his illness, and simply re-telling of commonplace events which had oc- curred during the past week.
After the testimonies the leader in- dicated that there would be a service of prayer. This amounted to the leader reading the appointed lesson for St. Stephen’s Day ( Book of Common Prayer) and the group’s verbal repeti- tion of the Gloria Patri.
Following the evening prayer, hands were laid on for healing. During this exercise the leader, accompanied by at least one other member of the group, laid his hands on the head of a person who said he was in need of healing. A short, audible prayer was spoken over the “patient” asking God to drive out the evil spirit or power of Satan which was causing the malady. Before and after this prayer the healers prayed silently in tongues. After the last prayer in tongues, some indication was awaited as to the efficacy of the treatment. A smile or nod of the head was the ac- cepted sign that something had hap- pened.
After the healing episode the group sang a few chorus-type songs. The leader read a portion of scripture and announced that the group was going to “praise God.” The leader started the praising of God by closing his eyes and repeating scripture quotation with injunctions to “praise God.” During this period of praising God, the entire group closed their eyes and alternated between softly spoken prayers and cer- tain phrases such as “Praise God” and “Alleluia” which were repeated again
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and again by the same person. The leader, himself, was given to repeating “Father, thou art glorious” again and again. The singing of choruses was in- termixed with the praise behavior. Sud- denly during the praise behavior, a man spoke loudly in tongues. Then a hymn and chorus were sung, the latter accompanied by the clapping of hands.
By this time the meeting had been in progress about one hour. After the chorus the leader began a lengthy in- struction period during which he ex- horted the people about their lives. The theme of the talk was that participating in meetings such as the present one and practicing prayer and praise in the devotional life is the real heart of the Christian faith. He concluded with the statement : “Is there anything which is more fun than praising God? We have to go further and deeper — clear away the clutter so we have more time for praising God.”
Upon finishing his talk the leader spoke in tongues. He also prayed for a sick person. Then the praise behavior began to operate once again. Tongues were spoken and choruses were sung. Prayer requests were heard and prayers offered. Another person asked for heal- ing and hands were laid on his head. Then a man who was evidently one of the leader’s lieutenants spoke in tongues after reading a passage of scripture. The leader prayed repeating the phrase “praise the Lord,” again and again. Then the leader gave the closing prayer exhorting the group members to “go forth in power.” He pronounced the benediction and all crossed themselves. The meeting was over.
Though it is not claimed that all groups which practice glossolalia have exactly the same pattern of behavior
as that described above, it is hypothe- sized that despite minor variations in expression depending on locale and leadership, all glossolalic groups have basically the same functions. Likewise, there appears to be a structural uni- formity from one group to the next. Furthermore, by maintaining the regu- lar pattern of church life, and adding to its glossolalic groups, the identifica- tion of the local parish as a part of the denomination is maintained.
At such a meeting as the one de- scribed, there are at least five distinct roles : the charismatic leader, the sec- ondary leadership, the initiates, the highly interested, and the curious.
Group members characterize the leader in various ways. He is described sometimes in semi-messianic terms — a wonderful bearer of assurance of divine favor and liberation from the powers of darkness. Again, he may be thought of as an extraordinary teacher — “he really feeds us.” Or the leader may be seen as the father of a spiritual family. There is no doubt that the leader has a very exalted position in the group, which he readily accepts. Some of the observed ministerial leaders of glosso- lalic groups appear to have a past history of frustrated vocational experi- ence in which they failed to be per- ceived as a spiritual leader or so to per- ceive themselves. There are evidences to suggest that without the devotion of the group, the leader would lack a di- mension of self-fulfillment which is present in his role as charismatic leader.
The secondary leadership partici- pates in the charisma of the leader and may, upon direction of the leader, as- sume his functions. When the glossola- lic groups are operative, the secondary leadership is distinct from the rest of
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the group — they are called upon to per- form such acts as healing and exor- cism. They may serve as the master of ceremonies during “initiation” — i.e., when a person speaks in tongues for the first time, usually after hands have been laid on his head. The second- ary leadership is directly under the con- trol of the charismatic leader.
The initiates include all who have exhibited glossolalia and attached them- selves to the group. They do not assume leadership functions, but may frequent- ly testify in the meeting, and interpret glossolalia for the group. Since they have received the gift of tongues, their claim of the powers of prophecy, inter- cession, and interpretation are thereby recognized by the group.
The highly interested correspond to the “anxious seekers” of yesteryear’s revivals. They attach themselves to the groups, hoping to receive the gift of tongues and become initiates. Some persons in this category appear to de- rive comfort from the group and re- main in it, even though they are unable or unwilling to speak in tongues.
The curious are definitely on the groups’ fringes. After one or two con- tacts with a glossolalic group, they either depart or move into the category of the highly interested. Some of the curious who are verbally hostile toward the movement quickly become initiated after exposure to the phenomenon. Glossolalics, themselves, say that the best “candidates” are persons who come to their meetings with the specific intent of opposing all that is happen- ing and exposing the group. They soon speak in tongues.
The act of speaking in tongues is then a distinctive part of the rite of initiation into a small charismatically
oriented group, and further serves to maintain one in good standing in the group. Once admitted to the inner circle of such a group, one is qualified for certain benefits. First and foremost the speaker in tongues considers him- self to enjoy a superior relationship to God — more intimate and direct than those of persons who have not received the gift. The group itself is conceived to have a better and deeper relationship to God than other religious organiza- tions. Because of this unusual relation- ship, the individual and group possess extraordinary power of healing, exor- cism and speaking directly for God, as did the Old Testament prophets. Thus equipped, the group is felt to be capable of assisting in the solution of a wide variety of personal problems, including especially health and financial difficul- ties (little of what is usually termed social concern is observed).
In the second part of this article, to be published in an early issue, psycho- logical factors involved in the speaking in tongues movement will be examined and assessed in the context of the his- torical and social factors discussed in this issue.
II. Infantile Babble or Song of the Self?
W hat Is the Glossolalic Like?
All the evidence points to the conclu- sion that Pentecostals are uncommonly troubled people. Though differing widely at other points, the two em- pirical investigators of Pentecostalism, Vivier and Wood (to whom we alluded in Part I), agree that Pentecostals who speak in tongues exhibit more anxiety and personality instability than non- Pentecostals of the same socio-eco-
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nomic background. Vivier, working in South Africa, found that they tended to come from much more disturbed home situations than did non-Pente- costals, or even than Pentecostals who did not speak in tongues.1 They are problem oriented people who consume much time and energy in attempting to cope with life, which appears to be a storm-tossed sea in which it is all one can do to keep one’s head above water. Further, they are persons who have enough credulity to be able to reduce all their problems to the one global problem of the battle between good and evil, and to view its solution uniformly in terms of supernatural intervention. In addition to the healing of illness and the solving of personal adjustment problems (which is more common among groups of younger people), everyday events such as the finding of a parking place for one’s car, and be- ing able to ride on an elevator with some “key” person, are often attributed to the direct intervention of the Holy Spirit.
Although the neo-Pentecostal shares the same basic outlook as the Pente- costal, he is likely to be somewhat more
1 Vivier, L. M. Van Eetvelt, Glossolalia, U. of Witwatersrand (unpub. diss., i960), and William W. Wood, Culture and Personality Aspects of the Pentecostal Holiness Religion, (U. of North Carolina, 1961). Vivier, al- though interpreting his findings in such a way as to minimize suggestions that glosso- lalics are “sicker” than other people, never- theless concludes that frequent speakers in tongues are more unstable and anxious, on the basis of their higher scores on the Cat- tell 16 PF Test. The data on the home situa- tions were obtained by Vivier from a ques- tionnaire developed by him. Wood bases his conclusions on a significantly higher “vista” score on the Rorschach Test, which is as- sociated with defense against anxiety.
sophisticated in his interpretation of his experience. For instance, the neo- Pentecostal may see both the problem and the solution in quasi-mental health terms. Moreover, he is likely to attrib- ute healing power to the act of speak- ing in tongues in itself, which is not characteristic of Pentecostalism. One minister has held it to be a catharsis experience far deeper than psychiatry can offer. As such, it has been claimed to be a cure for homosexuality and dope addiction. In the case of the nar- cotics addiction, the claim has been made by a Pentecostal minister, the Rev. David Wilkerson, in his book, The Cross and the Switchblade } It is not clear whether Wilkerson regards glossolalia as the medium of cure, or only an accompaniment, but neo-Pente- costals have hailed his report as a demonstration of its power as a heal- ing agent.
In connection with the mental health emphasis among neo-Pentecostals it may be noted that some of them, in contrast to Pentecostals, have attempt- ed to understand their experience psy- chologically. Some of the ideas of Carl G. Jung provide the basis of what is apparently the most widespread view, that glossolalia is a manifestation of the collective unconscious — that great underground reservoir of common hu- man experience. They point out that Jung has held that it is necessary for each individual in some way to bring his higher centers of consciousness in touch with the collective unconscious for sound mental health, and claim that glossolalia is a fulfillment of that con- ception. This view has also been taken by some sympathetic students and ob-
2 New York: Bernard Geis Associates,
1963.
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servers of glossolalia. Among these are Vivier, whom we have mentioned, and Morton T. Kelsey, who is rector of an Episcopal Church with 30 parishioners who speak in tongues, and who has re- cently published the first full length study of the movement.3 Glossolalia is thus understood as a song of the depths of the self, bursting the barrier of the unconscious. From the foregoing dis- cussion it will have become evident to the reader that a further difference between Pentecostals and neo-Pente- costals is that many persons of intel- ligence and station have become a part of the neo-Pentecostal movement, dis- pelling the idea, formerly taken for granted among students of glossolalia, that it was to be found almost exclu- sively among the ignorant and the poor. The authors recently heard a research chemist employed by a world famous chemical company describe how Jesus had provided the solution to a knotty chemical problem just in time to save the company a lot of money.
Jean Stone, editor of “Logos,” the official organ of The Holy Trinity So- ciety, the neo-Pentecostal organization corresponding to the Full Gospel Busi- ness Men’s Fellowship, has said that neo-Pentecostal meetings tend to be less emotional and that neo-Pentecos- tals tend to use glossolalia more in their private devotional living. On the whole it does appear that neo-Pente- costals are less volatile and more con- trolled than Pentecostals, though there
3 Tongue Speaking : An Experiment in Spiritual Experience, New York: Double- day, 1964. Cited by McCandlish Phillips, “And There Appeared to Them Tongues of Fire,” Saturday Evening Post, May 16, 1964, p. 36.
are many exceptions to this general statement.
The Intra-psychic Function of Glossolalia
We have noted that persons who speak in tongues describe their experi- ence as bringing them joy, peace, and release. It is, as one minister put it, “uttering the unutterable in the power of the Spirit.” We have also discussed the social function of the phenomenon in the first part of this article, that of providing proof of spiritual experience. There too, we briefly noted that from a psychological viewpoint glossolalia appears to be a motor automatism, like automatic writing which is done with- out conscious control of the pen. Now we must attempt to analyze the mean- ing of this automatism in the psychic economy of the individual. In so doing we fully realize the speculative char- acter of such an attempt, and hope that the reader will receive it as a stimulus to his own thinking rather than an at- tempted final word.
A motor automatism is defined by Gardner Murphy as “performance of acts normally requiring attention with- out the apparent supervision, or even knowledge of the performer.4 In his discussion of automatisms, Murphy states that they result from conflict within the personality, and serve as a genuine escape from conflict. An au- tomatism is thus a form of dissociation within the personality, in which a set of voluntary muscles respond to control centers other than those associated with consciousness. In saying that glos- solalia is an automatism, we must note
4 Personality : A Bio-Social Approach to Origins and Structure, New York: Harper, 1947, P- 981.
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that it does not quite fit Murphy’s defi- nition, in the sense that it is not an act normally requiring conscious attention. Rather the reverse is more nearly the case; it appears “normally” to require no conscious attention at first, but later may become partially under conscious control. In this sense it more nearly re- sembles a second form of dissociation — the massive dissociation of all, or nearly all the voluntary muscles from conscious control, as in sleep walking and trance states. In these states just mentioned conscious awareness is in abeyance, but in other massive dissoci- ative states, such as the fugue — in which the individual “forgets” his identity and performs complex actions such as going on a journey or even starting a business, only to “wake up” in astonishment — consciousness is not in abeyance, but altered. Glossolalia is thus like an automatism in that it only involves a specific set of muscles, but like a massive dissociation in that it seems to come from “beneath” without ever having been consciously learned.
At this point it is relevant to recall one of the more striking features of the current glossolalia revival. This is the apparently universal concern with de- mons and demon possession which characterizes the movement. In Part I we described one group meeting in which healing always took the form of the exorcism of a demon held to be responsible for the malady. This prac- tice extended even to relatively minor problems such as an earache. Although probably not all groups go quite this far, our observation indicates that at- tribution of all kinds of difficulties, no matter how trivial they may seem, to the activity of satanic power is quite widespread. This suggests that the em-
phasis on the demonic is not a periph- eral accompaniment of Pentecostalism and neo-Pentecostalism, but is very close to the dynamic center of these movements.
When this fact is contemplated in relation to our observations regarding the conflict reduction function of glos- solalia as automatism, a line of think- ing is suggested which leads to a plau- sible, though partial, explanation of what is going on “inside” the tongues speaker. If we regard the conflict as being due genetically to an unconscious attachment to parental figures charac- terized by strong feelings of both love and hate, neither of which can the in- dividual express directly, thus produc- ing tension, the glossolalia may be viewed as an indirect, though powerful expression of primitive love toward the parent and the demonology a projec- tion of the hate and fear in that child- hood relationship.
The total experience of being in the glossolalia group thus enables the in- dividual to regress sufficiently to ex- press his feelings without ambivalence, and it is to this that the great sense of joy and release is due. For the time be- ing the person is released from the tyranny of the old love-hate relation- ship which colors all his relationships in the present. By “uttering the unut- terable” expression of primitive desire (perhaps even oral incorporative wishes, which would be related to the muscular region employed), displaced onto the deity as praise, the speaker finds peace. Since the hostility normally bound to these wishes is then released also, it must find an object. The de- mons provide this.
The hypothesis that demon posses- sion is the result of unacceptable de-
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sires gaining control of the personality either totally or in part, is, of course, not a new one. The mass witch and devil hunts of the middle ages and of the seventeenth century have been often attributed to “hysteria.” Aldous Hux- ley’s The Devils of Loudun 5 is a su- perbly written narrative of one of the most notorious — the outbreak of pos- session among the nuns of the Ursuline Convent at Loudun, France, early in the seventeenth century. By pains- taking research into the childhood of several of the protagonists, Huxley has shown that possession enabled them to utter through the mouths of the demons blasphemies and lewd phrases spawned by frustration which would otherwise have been entirely unutterable. Jean L’hermitte, the distinguished French Catholic neurologist, in his True and False Possession, reaches the same conclusion.8
As a means of dealing with inner tension, glossolalia has a great advan- tage over classical paroxysmal demon possession, in that it is not painful and exhausting physically. In the glosso- lalia groups the demons are more pursued and attacked by the group members than they are pursuing and possessing them. The demon functions more as deus ex machina (in reverse), who is brought in to absorb the hostil- ity freed by the glossolalia. In this con- nection it may be noted that possession among glossolalia groups is usually a pale phenomenon which would not be noted by an objective observer, though one case of exorcism of a paroxysmal possession of classical proportions is known to the authors.
5 Harper, 1952.
6 Trans. P. J. Hepburne-Scott, New York: Hawthorn, 1963.
In a credulous age it is not so diffi- cult to see how many persons could be- lieve in devils, but in our secular day there must be a powerful inner motiva- tion which leads persons not only to be- lieve in demons, but also to attune their lives to combatting them. Our hypothe- sis is that this motivation is supplied by the need to find a suitable object for the hate released in the unravelling of the ambivalence through glossolalia which occurs in the security of the group. If this hypothesis is correct, glossolalia will seldom, if ever, be found without accompanying demons, though these need not be constantly present.7
To sum up, glossolalia is understood to be a regression “in the service of the ego,” to use Hartmann’s phrase. That is, a regression controlled by the ego and for the purpose of maintaining per- sonality, rather than a disintegration of personality. It is a genuine escape .from inner conflict, but contrary to the position held by William Wood, whose work we have cited, and others ; of it- self it does not bring a further perma- nent integration of personality, which would usually require insight into the roots of the conflict. Neither is it a simple regression to infantilism, as John B. Oman, writing in pastoral psychology (December, 1963, pp. 48- 51) holds. Viewing glossolalia as in- fantile babble expressive of the megalo- mania of infancy, Oman can see no
7 One of the paradoxes of this association is that one of the classical signs of demon possession is the ability to speak in tongues. Glossolalics are aware of this, and listen care- fully to any “unusual” sounds, especially if these have a pained quality, which may indi- cate that the speaker is possessed, not by the Spirit, but by the devil.
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constructive purpose in it. While we disagree with him about the kind of regression, Oman is correct, we think, in noting the self-aggrandizing, narcis- sistic component. We regard this as being of secondary significance to its function of conflict reduction, however. By reducing inner conflict, glossolalia may contribute to the enhancement of the social interaction and productivity of the individual, even though it does not act directly as an integrative agent.
Some Unanswered Questions
Admittedly the foregoing discussion raises many questions, and we can at- tempt to answer only a few of the more important. In the first place, should glossolalics be considered mentally ill? We have said that they are uncom- monly disturbed, and that the intra- psychic function of speaking in tongues probably is to reduce conflict brought on by developmental “fixation” at an early age in their relationships with parental figures. This way of thinking about the problem is obviously related to psychoanalytic concepts developed in clinical settings, beginning with the work of Freud, and the general picture is that associated with hysterical per- sonalities— emotionally labile, easily swayed persons who are prone to bod- ily ills which come and go without ap- parent organic cause. Indeed in this connection, it may be noted that hys- terical conversion symptoms, in which inner psychic tension is “converted” into a bodily dysfunction, such as pa- ralysis of one of the extremities, palpi- tation, breathing difficulties, or vague abdominal pains — which are symbolic of the conflict and an attempt at a solution, are often the objects of the healing in glossolalia groups. Such
IS
symbolic dysfunction represents still another form of dissociation in addition to the automatism and massive dissoci- ative states discussed earlier, and is a third type of solution to developmen- tally generated conflict.
While all this suggests that the dy- namic out of which some mental ill- ness develops is quite similar to that involved in the glossolalia movement, it would not be useful to regard most glossolalics as mentally ill in any clin- ical sense. In some cases the glossolalia experience may be a preventative of mental illness. In recent years dy- namically oriented psychiatrists have been insisting that mental illness is not a discrete “state” that is discontinuous with “normality,” but that there is rather a continuum of function and dysfunction, so that it is difficult to say just when the “threshold” of mental illness is crossed. Viewed with this model in mind, most glossolalics usu- ally manage to stay mainly on the func- tional side, rather than the dysfunc- tional side of that threshold, though they resort to tactics which appear bizarre to most persons in attempting to do so. There is also some evidence that some young persons may pass through a glossolalic episode, which helps them to get through a late ado- lescent developmental crisis. When the crisis is passed, they lose interest in glossolalia.
Another question is that of the re- lation of the interpretation which we have given the phenomenon, which is based primarily on psychoanalytic thought, to the Jungian approach taken by some participants and observers, which we mentioned earlier. In our view there is no necessary incompati- bility between these two, since in
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Jung’s view the collective unconscious is always filtered through the personal. That is, glossolalia may be expressive of “archetypes” from the collective un- conscious, but these are shaped and given added power by the familial re- lationships which give rise to conflict. We do not necessarily hold that this is the case, but only that there is no incompatibility. Further, it may be pointed out that from Jung’s point of view, glossolalia could not be a final solution to the problem of relating con- scious and unconscious regions of the personality, since there is no symbolic integration of the archetypes with the real world, but only projection.
A further question which arises when anything presumed to be beyond conscious control is discussed, is whether the phenomena observed are due to the person’s “faking” them, rather than to any process properly termed unconscious. While undoubted- ly some glossolalia is “fabricated” in this way (Cutten in his Speaking in Tongues makes this point well in con- nection with the early Mormon glos- solalia, p. 74f.), this does not appear to be the case with the fully developed “singing glossolalia” (which we de- scribed in Part I). This musical speech seems beyond the conscious capacity for control, except for the ability to start and stop at will, which is devel- oped by many proficients. While glos- solalia is transmitted from person to person in social settings, it appears more correct to say that it is “caught” rather than learned, if by learning we mean a consciously directed trial and error process.
Finally, the question may be raised regarding possible negative or harm- ful effects which glossolalia may have.
In the strictly psychological sense, as we have indicated, it is likely to be of benefit to emotionally labile, disturbed persons who have internalized their emotional conflicts, in that it provides a unique kind of release. For persons whose conflicts have been partly intel- lectualized, and who are, as a con- sequence, prone to have grandiose ideas concerning themselves and their place in the scheme of things, the ex- perience of the glossolalia group may be so stimulating and exciting that they either seek to impose themselves on the group as leaders or have great diffi- culty in functioning outside the group, or both. Such persons present severe problems for glossolalia groups, as they are frequently attracted to such groups, and are likely to be divisive in the effect they have on the group.
Conclusions
The neo-Pentecostal movement ap- pears to be still spreading and grow- ing among the mainline Protestant Churches, but this growth is not likely to assume such proportions as to threaten the basic outlook and structure of those churches. Both resistance to the disturbing influence of neo-Pente- costalism by the churches and the basic antagonism between the extreme na- ivete characteristic of the movement and the scientific secularism of our age will serve to check it. Further, if our hy- pothesis concerning the connection be- tween glossolalia and dissociative tend- encies is correct, the movement will have an appeal to only a limited, if sizable, group.
For most who are attracted to the movement it has very definite benefits, which we have described as temporary relief from intrapsychic conflict, en-
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hanced by the security of the group and the assurance of divine approval. Many persons who formerly managed barely to cope with inner and outer stress have been enabled to take a more adequate stance toward the inter- personal aspects of life as a result of the glossolalia group experience.
On the negative side, it must be said that in addition to the danger of psy- chopathology for a few, the isolation from the rest of society which is in- volved in participation in the group is a problem for all. For they must still somehow function in the larger social context of mid-century America, and the rigid distinction between the “in- siders” and the “outsiders,” which is characteristic of neo-Pentecostalism, makes it difficult to relate without hostility to those outside. Too, the credulity demanded by the movement is incompatible with modern life and its empirical orientation, which means that the neo-Pentecostal must either compartmentalize his life (which sur- prisingly many persons appear able to do), or constantly expose himself to the pangs of doubt. In either case func- tioning in the world outside the group would be jeopardized, since even in a compartmentalized mind the barriers are apt to break down at crucial mo- ments.
If the movement is not likely to take over Protestantism, neither is it likely to die out in the immediate future. Al- though the experience will probably begin to pall for some, like the potency of a “wonder” drug on the market for several years, there is doubtless a pool of potential adherents which is barely tapped, and adequate leadership seems assured by the continuing uncertainty and frustration experienced by some
ministers. Eventually some groups may become more or less permanently toler- ated within the life of the mainline denominations. Those for whom this entails too much domestication may well move toward spiritualism, with which, as we have indicated in Part I, glossolalia has been associated in the past.
We have indicated that speaking in tongues and its associated behavior, especially the belief in demon posses- sion and exorcism, appear to resemble some aspects of the phenomena called “hysteria” from a clinical point of view. This does not mean that all, or even most, who speak in tongues would be called hysterical in a clinical setting, but we have suggested that their psy- chodynamics may be similar to those of a person with hysterical symptoms. More specifically we have hypothesized that glossolalia represents a temporary undoing of the tangle of love and hate involved in a fixated object relation- ship, with the unconscious positive feelings being expressed in the tongues speaking, and the negative feelings projected outward and displaced onto the devils. Although the evidence is not conclusive, this appears to be the most powerful hypothesis available. This means that the movement, both in its Pentecostal and neo-Pentecostal manifestations, tends to “select” per- sons with a good capacity for dissoci- ation for initiation, from those who came as “seekers.”
Toward the movement, our attitude is then, like St. Paul’s, ambivalent. A sign of changing, and often frustrating and frightening, times for the Church, the movement has brought succor to many in distress who found none in more traditional expressions of Chris-
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tianity. However, if the Church turns to this movement for answers to its pressing questions, it will have given up its task to change the world for that of only coping with it. For glosso- lalia is neither mere infantile babbling nor a song of the inmost self, but is
rather a dissociative expression of truncated personality development. Yet through it, many have found release from inner strife, and some have been able to transcend their former isola- tion and brokenness, at least for the time being.
THE EXPOSITORY TIMES
With the October issue, THE EXPOSITORY TIMES celebrated its 75th birthday Founded by James Hastings, then a young and unknown country minister, this monthly magazine has maintained an unfailing reputation for high scholarship and has done much to enrich the mind and work of countless ministers in the English-speaking world. Each issue features several articles in the Biblical or theological field, reviews of recent publications in England and Scotland, sermons on the seasonal sequences of the Christian year, notes on continental religious books, and up-to-date notices from publishing houses abroad. Few min- isters can afford to be without the informative and educational resources this magazine provides. Order from T. & T. Clark, 38 George Street, Edinburgh 2. Annual subscription, 28s. 6d. (U.S.A. $4.10).
DAVID’S FIRST CITY-THE EXCAVATION OF BIBLICAL HEBRON, 1964
Philip C. Hammond
Princeton Theological Seminary has become part of one of the most important projects in basic Biblical re- search being conducted in the Holy Land — the excavation of Biblical He- bron. Beginning last summer, for the first time, modern scientific archaeo- logical methods have been brought to bear upon this major site in the life of Hebrew religion. For the first time, therefore, data relevant to the inter- cultural background of the Patriarchal Period, to the growth of the Hebrew monarchy, and especially to the entire matter of the theological developments in the earliest days of the Davidic period, have been made possible. No other site played a greater role in the southern Israelite area than Hebron — resting place of the Patriarchs and David’s first capital !
Jericho, possibly the Near East’s most ancient city, was destroyed by Israelite or other conquerors, and not rebuilt until after the disruption of the Kingdom. Shiloh, Israel’s earliest cult center, fell before the monarchy was firmly established. Jerusalem, the place where Israel’s political and religious life reached its zenith, was only heir to that which had gone before, and inno- vator of that which came to be. Hebron alone remains the place where the Da- vidic political and theological perspec- tives were originated and basically formulated.
Biblically, Hebron began its impor- tance with the Patriarch Abraham. It
was in the area of this city that Abra- ham pitched his tent, bought a tomb site for his wife Sarah, and was, him- self, finally buried. Isaac was likewise said to have been buried in the cave of Machpelah by Esau and Jacob, as was Jacob also.
In the days of the Exodus, Hebron again appears in the Biblical account, but as a military objective. The spies sent out to reconnoiter the land of Canaan returned with mixed emotions concerning the agricultural lushness of the “valley of Eshkol” — and the mighty “giants” who inhabited it.
The wandering was punishment for the timidity of the people, and capture of Hebron remained a task for Joshua, who “utterly destroyed it,” and gave it to the venerable Caleb as a legacy. Later on, when the law of blood re- venge was being mitigated by humani- tarian legislation, Hebron became a “city of refuge” and a sinecure of the Aaronic priesthood. Before that time, however, the hero Samson carried thither the gates of the town of Gaza — and set them up on a hill overlooking Hebron.
After Saul’s disastrous defeat at the hands of the Philistines, David sud- denly returned to his people and estab- lished himself as king of Judah, with Hebron as his capital for seven and a half years. The whole course of Isra- elite history was changed there, as well, when Joab somewhat ungraciously took Abner aside “and smote him so
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that he died” at Hebron’s great pool. That act precipitated the downfall of the house of Saul in the north, and en- voys from all the tribes of Israel came to David at Hebron — and anointed him king over Israel. David soon showed his political acumen by moving his po- litical capital to the yet unconquered city of Jerusalem, and Hebron drops from the Biblical record until the abor- tive revolt of Absalom chose the ancient capital of Israel as its rallying point — “as soon as you hear the sound of the trumpet, say: ‘Absalom is king at Hebron !’ ”
Josephus assigns Solomon’s vision to that site, as well, but the Bible knows it again only in the lists of Reho- boam’s fortified towns. Archaeology has long known this period of the city’s existence from the evidence of jar stamps bearing its name found on many sites throughout the land. The book of I Maccabees picks up the historical skein once more, as it records the ouster of the Idumeans and the de- struction of Hebron’s fortifications, about 164 b.c. The New Testament makes no mention of Hebron, but evi- dence of Herodian masonry attests to its continued existence as a religious center in that period. Simon bar-Gioras took the city, during the First Jewish Revolt in a.d. 68, but Vespasian quick- ly regained control through the prompt action of his general Cerealis. Hadrian built a road to Hebron and established a locally famous market at its end.
Not until the Prophet Mohammed ceded the town to the Tamin-ed-Dari in the 7th century a.d. does it again merit the attention of history’s record- keepers, and then only in passing. Is- lam had arrived, and Hebron, with its famous Mosque over the tombs of the
Patriarchs, became once more a reli- gious pilgrimage center. The Crusaders occupied it briefly, as the Castle of St. Abram, but the Horns of Hattin was not far off, Islam repossessed Hebron’s walls, and the fief of Gerhard of Aven- nes once again heard the muazzin’s call to prayer.
So has it been, for almost eight hun- dred years, that Biblical Hebron has remained a Moslem sanctuary — under the far more “Biblical” name of El- Khalil, “The Friend (of God),” in honor of Abraham.
Hebron, too, is a unique site archaeo- logically. Almost every other major Biblical location — Jericho, Shechem, Jerusalem, Megiddo, Lachish, Shiloh, Bethel, among others — was excavated, at least in a preliminary way, before the advent of modern techniques. He- bron, alone, withstood the excavator’s spade because of its location, its sanc- tity for Islam, and the notoriously bad reputation of its inhabitants concerning non-Muslim foreigners. Thus, the archaeological activity begun there is both without the preconceptions of previous excavators — and without their littered dumps.
Still further, Hebron appears to be one of the Holy Land’s earliest cities. The Biblical tradition recognized that fact when it attributed the city’s found- ing to a date “seven years before Zoan” in Egypt. The first extra-Biblical refer- ence to the site is from the 14th cen- tury b.c., when a local prince named Shuwardata ruled there. Mader, who excavated at Mamre, nearby, saw He- bron as flourishing in Hyksos times, but this past summer’s excavations at Hebron have established its existence centuries earlier. Materials recovered in the excavations now firmly date
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habitation at Hebron during the Proto- Urban “C” era (i.e., Late Chalcolithic c. 3,200 b.c.), with further evidence pushing its origin back to the Neolithic period. Strategic location, plentiful water supply, excellent agricultural conditions, and other factors all point to occupation in the area, now con- firmed, archaeologically, at the very dawn of Near Eastern sedentary habi- tation. Although probably not as an- cient as Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) in the Jordan rift, Hebron may well challenge even that historic mound’s claim to antiquity as an occupied site. That, only future excavations will determine.
The Hebron project, however, was more than merely an exercise in bibli- cal archaeology, gathering broken pots and dusty remnants of ancient civiliza- tion. The expedition also served as a field training ground for students and faculty concerned with all facets of Biblical interest and research. Twenty- two American staff members were not only given the rare opportunity of see- ing Biblical history emerge beneath the picks and shovels of their workmen, but were also given the equally rare opportunity of being able to learn how to assess that history. By participating in the work of pottery classification, stratigraphic drawing and surveying, recording, photography, and analysis, the participants of the expedition learned the positive — and the nega- tive— facets of this method of Biblical research. By weekly trips throughout the Holy Land, they became acquainted with the work and techniques of other expeditions, and with the geography of the area through which the great pano- rama of the Judeo-Christian heritage was enacted. In the cities and towns of Jordan, they came to grips with the
sociological life of the Near East to- day— but in the black tents of the Bedouin, they travelled back to the days of Abraham and Isaac, and were given glimpses of Near Eastern culture still preserving resemblances in everyday experiences of life as it was lived five thousand years ago.
The American Expedition to Hebron was an association of five leading American institutions — Princeton Sem- inary, University of Southern Cali- fornia, Southwestern Baptist Theologi- cal Seminary, Luther Theological Seminary, and Virginia Theological Seminary. In addition to those spon- soring bodies, grants were received from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Peter C. Cornell Trust, the American Friends of the Middle East, and private patrons. The twenty- two member staff, directed by the au- thor, was ecumenical both in theologi- cal orientation and in individual back- ground of scholarship and training. Margaret Hammond, who served as Administrative Director, had a public accountancy background and combined it with twenty years of sharing her husband’s archaeological training. This combination brought her the job of maintaining the camp, food supply, financial records, medical treatment and a host of other tasks at Hebron. Dr. John H. Hayes, the director’s as- sistant, had dug at the Theater in Petra in 1962. As a newly graduated Th.D. from Princeton Seminary, his academic interest in the Old Testament was bol- stered by the opportunity to unravel its history. The expedition’s Recorder, Constance B. Sayre, who had also dug at Petra, had just completed one of Columbia University’s top graduate courses in Near Eastern archaeology
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and had been part of the preliminary survey of the site of Hebron in 1963. Her archaeological career was fur- thered by the responsibility of record- ing and drawing the actual materials uncovered by excavation. Dr. Harold Stigers brought the unique qualifica- tions of a graduate Biblical degree from Dropsie College and the professional training of a licensed architect. Miss Joan Van Brunt of Princeton, served as the expedition’s photographer, pro- ducing (and processing) almost fifteen hundred photographs in the sixty-two day season. Two young undergradu- ates, from Mt. Holyoke College and the University of Southern California, Miss Margaret Conkey and Miss Ruth Hindman, served as pottery assistants. Theirs was the task of processing the thousands of potsherds excavated each day. Some twenty-eight packing cases of materials from the expedition attest to their zeal — and the productivity of the site.
Each participating institution was represented, officially, by at least one staff member. The University of South- ern California’s Dr. Gerald Larue had participated in previous excavations in the Near East and brought four stu- dent members to the expedition with him. Dr. Robert Boyd, a graduate of Princeton University’s Oriental Lan- guages Department, represented Lu- ther Theological Seminary. Dr. Robert Coleman (SWBTS) a veteran Ameri- can Indian archaeologist, contributed his anthropological background, along with his Biblical orientation. Virginia Theological Seminary was represented by two senior professors, Dr. Robert Kevin and Dr. Murray Newman. Dr. Kevin’s long-time religious journalistic talents helped publicize the work of the
expedition, and Dr. Newman’s specific interest in Israel’s early history found itself quite at home. Princeton Semi- nary was represented by Mr. Frank Garcia, Instructor in Old Testament, whose command of Arabic and (since removed) handlebar mustaches charmed the local inhabitants, as much as his archaeological talents upheld Prince- ton’s scholarly reputation.
Equally hardworking were the other male participants, including students in every field of endeavor from theology to architecture. Serving with the Insti- tutional Representations as site super- visors, it was the task of these men actually to bring about the removal of the debris of history from the indi- vidual sites. Stephen Orson, Merle Smith, and Timothy Young came from the University of California; James Eyer, Ronald Blom, and Norman Lille- gard were from Luther Seminary ; Ervin Brown was from Virginia Theo- logical, James Herrington from Prince- ton Seminary, and Donald Mott, most recently at Lake Forest.
Prior to the beginning of the exca- vations, a great deal of doubt was ex- pressed, far and wide, by academic colleagues, American governmental of- ficials, and others, as to whether any excavation could be successfully carried out at El-Khalil, the modern name for the site of Biblical Hebron. The pres- ence of the Mosque of Ibrahim, over the traditional site of the Cave of Machpelah, the burial place of the Pa- triarchs, had brought Muslim ortho- doxy to an unusually high pitch in the community. Tales of violence, upris- ings, fanaticism, and the like, had al- ways circulated about Hebron. Even native Jordanians found the city inhos- pitable for trade or residence, unless
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they were of local origin. In addition, the hostilities of 1948 and following had put Hebron at the end of the old road which once led to Gaza and Egypt — somewhat out of touch with the westernizing progress of the rest of Jordan. No large group of foreign- ers had ever lived there — hence suspi- cion, religious and political, was di- rected against those who visited the site.
This concern was put to flight by almost two years of careful planning, however. After formal negotiations had been completed with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, through its Director, Dr. Awni Dajani, and a per- mit secured, “negotiations” began with the local people. The director made a preliminary survey of the area in 1963, during which time, almost a week was spent living in the city with a local family. It was then that the people of El-Khalil disproved all the stories about them — over coffee in the market- place or hot tea sipped beneath olive trees in the fields, and by friendly con- versation. With the assistance of local governmental officials, local land- owners, and the people of the city, specific sites were chosen for excava- tion. Following that, His Majesty, King Hussein, graciously offered the use of a local school building in Hebron for the expedition’s accommodation.
As a result, when the full comple- ment of the expedition arrived, the re- action of the local people was grossly different from that which had been darkly predicted ! Local interruptions did occur in the workday — but by visi- tors coming to proffer invitations to their homes. Altercations did occur — as workmen vied with each other in bringing melons and grapes from their
gardens for their new-found friends overseeing the work. Two local dry- goods merchants assumed the task of procuring any and all of the dig’s neces- sities— from ten-penny nails to recom- mending a tailor. The local barber ar- ranged rental of furniture; the District Governor handled land contracts — while one of his clerks arranged bus transportation for side trips. The mayor’s office gave a party — and the Civil Engineer came to the rescue when the dig’s cisterns ran dry ! This whole- hearted reaction of people to people was one of the most gratifying results of the expedition’s stay on the site — and per- haps one of the most valuable bits of American “ambassadorial” action in Jordan on the part of private citizens thus far achieved.
But what were the results? “What did you find?” is the usual question — and one of the most difficult to answer in a non-technical sense. Pottery, coins, artifacts of daily use, weapons, walls, floors, and all the other things of ar- chaeological and anthropological im- portance were brought to light. No one artifact, no one architectural “find,” no one period of history can be singled out as the most significant discovery, simply because all data secured must be seen as a totality. The only scientific answer which might be given to the query of “What did you find?” is possibly the simple one — “History.”
Here, for the first time, the history of this major Biblical site could be traced without hesitation — based on the thousands of broken bits of pottery, dozens of artifacts, endless drawings and technical photographs, and histori- cal connections drawn from their analysis. For most people, “archaeol- ogy” is the actual excavation, but for
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the professional archaeologist, the work really begins when the digging is over, the staff has returned home, and the “results” begin to be sent to labora- tories, the pottery classified, the strata phased into periods, the historical rela- tions made definite and the reports written. Conclusions are tentatively drawn when this is all done — at a site such as Hebron these will be checked and rechecked as succeeding seasons of excavation contribute further refine- ment to chronology, classifications, and historical relationships.
But a great deal can be said, in an- swer to the question of “What have you found?” — enough as a result of this initial season to justify the view that this site is one of the richest, and one of the most promising ever to be under- taken in the Holy Land.
The American Expedition began its work in three main areas: on Jebel Batraq (a corruption of “Patriarch”), to the north east of the city; in Wadi Tuff ah (“the Valley of Apples”), due west of the city, along the main com- munication line; and on Jebel er- Rumeide, across the valley from the Mosque of Ibrahim. These sites were beyond the thousand metre perimeter of that building agreed upon with the Department of Antiquities to preclude infringement on holy ground.
The first two areas did not produce significant data, and were closed fairly soon, in order to concentrate upon the increasingly productive sites opened on Jebel Rumeide. It was this area which was designated “Area I,” and the site designations described below are in terms of that area.
“Trench I.i” was opened just below the eastern summit of the hill, against the remains of an old wall. Two months
and some 96 strata later, the site re- vealed 19 phases of the area’s history, seven of them structural. On bed-rock rested what appeared to be the rem- nants of a mud-brick wall from the first part of the Early Bronze Age, about 3,100 b.c. Not far above these remains, there appeared a stone-built wall, from the Middle Bronze Age, eleven cen- turies later. Some trace of the inter- vening periods was found, but dis- turbed by the later building operations. After the wall fell into disuse, the area was used for burial and two flexed burials, with the shattered remains of the pottery of their day beside them, were recovered from graves marked with a layer of stones. These burials appear to have been from the latter part of the Middle Bronze Age (MB II), in the period of the Hyksos. The site was abandoned to casual camping, as fire marks upon later surface levels show, until the second half of the Iron Age. In that period sometime after c. 900 b.c., the natural location of the site became the choice of a householder, who built his home with sturdy outer walls, a thick plastered clay floor, and a second story. By now, the Israelites had learned enough about civilized sedentary living to part company with their sheep and goats, leaving them on the ground floor while they, themselves, moved upstairs ! The height of the stubby floor pillar, a monolith, indicates this shift of human residence. Floor jars provided storage space for the an- cient housewife — and one complete jar about a yard high, provided a complete specimen for the excavators. In the debris relating to this house were found typical Iron II sherds — especially the ubiquitous curved-sided bowl, with ex-
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ternal burnishing, which marks the period elsewhere.
But again the site was abandoned, probably for some little time, until a wall was built over and next to the house walls, and some other purpose was served. Once more came abandon- ment, followed again by new walls and new obsolescence, until, in the Byzan- tine or Late Roman period a heavy pavement was laid in the area. Old olive trees in the near vicinity pre- vented further exploration of the struc- ture to which this pavement belonged, but it, also, was eventually no longer used, and the site passed into disuse until “modern” terracing, for agricul- tural purposes, began in the Islamic period. Today gnarled olive trees send down their roots into the age of David’s sons — and their patriarchal ancestors.
Dr. Murray Newman and Dr. Rob- ert Boyd supervised the excavation of this particular site, which provided the clearest Iron Age remains excavated this season.
A few hundred yards to the SE of this site Dr. Gerald Larue began exca- vation next to a massive ancient wall line, showing a great gap patched with terracing fill along its face. But excava- tion only continued a few inches below the surface before another, far more massive, frontal wall appeared. This wall was over 15 feet thick — a defen- sive addition to the more ancient verti- cal wall still visible above the modern surface. Both rested firmly upon bed- rock, as it sloped down and away from their outer surfaces. In this site (“Trench I.3”), a veritable dump of Middle Bronze II pottery, from the Hyksos period, was found in situ. But in the 101 strata which finally com- prised the excavated area, 12 phases of
the sites’ history were recovered. From deep pits in the bed-rock, over seven metres from modern surface, came sherds from the Early Bronze Age once more — and a few earlier than those. The history of this part of the site was mainly that of the walls, however, with periods of use and fall, rebuilding and strengthening, giving mute testimony to the troubled days of the incoming of the Hyksos invaders of Syro-Palestine and Egypt in the 18th century b.c.
Farther down the eastern slope of the mountain, a wide, level, unculti- vated field, overlooking the city and the Mosque in the distance, became “Trench 1.2.” Proton magnetometer readings suggested sub-surface re- mains, while pottery sherds strewn about the surface gave some hint of the period involved.
It was this site which provided the American Expedition with one of the most potent weapons against prejudice that could have been hoped for — a mag- nificent Islamic house from the Omma- yid through Ayyubic periods. Any questions as to “what” the American group was “looking for” now became academic, as the local people realized that all periods of Hebron’s history were treated with equal scientific care.
Local history thus became an item of interest, and spectators gathered to watch Dr. Robert Coleman uncover a maze of house walls, a beautifully tiled bath (which, it was hinted by col- leagues, he, as a Baptist, had unearthed on purpose), ancient plumbing, cook- ing hearths, and a splendid cistern. Over a hundred strata went into the 10 phases of the life of this site, most of them related to the rather long period of use of the house. Series of floors, rearrangement of the interior,
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modification of the cistern top, and other features marked the changing tastes of the inhabitants, and the pass- ing of years. Out of this excavation came a daily bounty of Islamic pottery fragments, painted plaster, carved stone decorations, coins, and articles of common use.
The change of periods within the span of the use of the house could be marked by the pottery changes, and a real contribution to the chronology of Islamic pottery types appears to have been made here. Beneath the floor of one room appeared a burial, probably of Byzantine origin. This was a sec- ondary interment, with the bones of the deceased neatly stacked in a wooden coffin nailed together with huge iron spikes. The coffin had disappeared with the passage of centuries, but its outlines, still bound by the iron nails, was clearly discernible.
Still deeper beneath the floor levels was evidence of the earlier occupation of this wonderful location, with frag- ments of pottery from many periods jumbled together as the builders of the house had sunk their wall lines to bed- rock through the debris of bygone times.
One particularly fine item recovered from this site was a unique triple ves- sel, carefully made and finished on the outside with a rippled decoration. Only two other such vessels have been found in Jordan, both in Amman. Now He- bron’s example rests with those to de- clare that city’s Islamic heritage to those who pass through the national museum in the modern capital city.
Immediately below “Trench I.i,” another, smaller site was opened to at- tempt to trace wall lines further down the slope. James Herrington supervised
the digging there and disclosed n phases in the 48 strata excavated. In an area of about 60 square metres, Herrington uncovered ten separate walls, until he was almost boxed in by their overlapping and interconnection. The main period involved in this site was parallel to the earliest phase of the Islamic house in 1. 2, with later addi- tions paralleling later developments seen there. But beneath this major building phase, below earlier walls, on bed-rock itself, came the sherds of a large vessel from the end of the Chalco- lithic period (Late Proto-Urban “C” — c. 3,200 B.C.).
It cannot be said that Trench 1. 4 did more than hint at such early habitation, however. Rather, another equally com- plex area, one of three opened in a search for tombs, provided in situ evi- dence of Hebron’s early history. Frank Garcia spent most of the season un- scrambling the intricacies of “Tomb Test No. 1,” just across the main track up Jebel er-Rumeide from Robert Cole- man’s “Trench 1.2.” A deep sounding pit was first sunk from the surface of a modern olive grove until the top of a stone-built structure was hit. Then the slope was cut into from the side where modern excavators had dug previously in search of a tomb. Well beyond the limits of their work the actual complex was reached — and was not a tomb at all!
On a wide ledge of bed-rock ap- peared a wall, the remnants of a vault- ing arch, and a domed structure. As the wall area was being excavated, stratum by stratum, it was discovered that the bed-rock ledge dropped sud- denly, letting into two extremely deep tunnel entrances. As work progressed in depth, the area of the excavation
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had to be increased in order to preclude shift and slide of the earth and rock- fill above. But as the tunnel entrances were cleared, more rock fall was en- countered. As this was broken up by hammers, each blow brought a shower of soil from the trench walls fifteen or so feet above. Finally the decision was reached to close the lower area as a safety measure, filling it with loose rubble which could be removed easily in the future for further excavation.
Meanwhile, the wall complex above was being cleared, and beneath the dome at its west end appeared the mouth of a cave, deep in bed-rock. Fall and silt clogged its mouth, but clearing continued until staff and workers could slide down into the cave, itself.
Clearing of the interior debris soon revealed two platform-like ledges. On one, just as it was left over 5,000 years ago, was a complete bowl from the same Late Chalcolithic period as the broken jar in “Trench I.4.” Fire marks on the walls gave further evidence that a residential cave had been found, stem- ming from the dawn of Hebron’s his- tory. Centuries after the cave had ceased to be tenanted, Romans and By- zantines reused the area, building the walls and vault, presumably over the mouth of the two subterranean tunnels. The purpose of this later complex is uncertain, but may be related, finally, to other similar underground tunnels on the site — and perhaps even to the water system leading from Ain Jedide at the foot of the mountain.
Equally thrilling to archaeologists’ hearts was “Tomb Test No. 3,” slightly higher on the mound and toward the south. Proton magnetometer survey disclosed the presence of something be- neath the surface — but the beats of its
accelerated signal could not define what it was that interrupted the earth’s mag- netic force field. Still further, the owner of the field recalled stories of caves his grandfather had once seen. As a result, excavation began with great enthusi- asm, until bed-rock appeared virtually beneath the first shovelfull ! The five metre sector of bed-rock which resulted looked discouraging, although the rock- surface did slope slightly at the far perimeter of the square. A “dog-leg” was opened at an angle to the main line and a single course wall emerged, but it, too, rested solidly on bed-rock. Again, however, science and local lore urged a continuation of the investiga- tion, so another “dog-leg” trench was opened. Some depth was encountered here — but it, too, soon disclosed bed- rock.
The entire area was about to be closed when, near the end of a work- day, a pocket of earth emerged in the bed-rock, and, when removed, broken rock was encountered. Still other pock- ets of soil emerged, in and around “bed-rock.” Now the soil and broken- stone mixture deepened, as actual bed- rock dropped sharply into a vertical face and the higher material became obvious as earthquake debris. The trench was widened against the side of the rock face to allow workmen room to trace its line — and the mouth of a cave emerged. Another day’s work en- larged the opening, badly clogged with large chunks of fallen stone.
When the cave was entered strati- graphic excavation continued, linking the known levels outside with those within. Three floor levels were encoun- tered, with fire marks indicating hearths — and complete pieces of pot- tery on the floors, indicating hasty
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flight — the rumbling of the earthquake which destroyed the “home” of the last residents. Other vessels were found smashed beneath huge pieces which had fallen from the cave’s ledge — supplying the expedition with more evidence.
The pottery forms and decorations were “classic,” and a date for the last use of the cave could be set during the Early Bronze I period, c. 3,100-2,900 e.c. The forms, in particular, suggest the earliest part of the period in ques- tion, close to the end of the Late Chal- colithic period found elsewhere. Con- tinuation of certain decorations, poor quality of ware, crudeness of paint, shapes, and other criteria seem to place this phase of Hebron’s history in close connection with the period before — indicating little, if any, change in the local culture inhabiting the area. Thus another era of the site’s chronology was distinctly established in a closely stratified context.
As in almost every season of archae- ological excavation, however, there was “the one that got away.” About eight months before the expedition arrived, an industrious householder on Jebel er-Rumeide began digging in the base- ment of his new house — and discovered a tomb. Clandestine digging continued, and a rumored 5,000 pieces of pottery, scarabs, metal objects, and other arti- facts passed into the hands of antiqui- ties dealers. The loss of such a prize to scientific knowledge about the site was enormous, yet by excavating the dump and discard heap of the illicit diggers, a large number of pottery
specimens were recovered, and the re- mains of approximately 23 burials. Al- though completely unstratified, and thus of little scientific value, the recov- ered pottery, discarded by the original excavators because of breaks or dam- age, did contribute some knowledge of another period of the site’s history, namely, the Late Bronze Age. Still further, the presence of one tomb, espe- cially one obviously reused over a long period, suggests the probability of a necropolis nearby. A magnetometer grid was laid in the householder’s vege- table garden, and its results promise more tombs for future (controlled) excavation.
Thus in one season, evidence of He- bron’s ancient history led the expedi- tion down through the centuries from the days of the Latin Kingdom, in the 1 2th century a.d. back to the Chalco- lithic period, a span of some forty-four hundred years. If the American Expe- dition to Hebron can be adequately financed in the days ahead, the possi- bility of far greater discoveries may be realized. Potentially, court records of the early Davidic period, business documents from the Hittite period, Canaanite literary remains, new data of every sort on Palestine’s earliest history, and many other comparable glimpses of the past, are all awaiting excavation. The initial season met not only the challenge of excavation, itself, but also made clear the fantastic archae- ological richness of the site for pre- Biblical, Biblical, and post-Biblical history.
THE TRUE PROPHET
James I. McCord
**'T-vake him all in all,” a contempo- JL rary might have said of John the Baptist, “I never saw his fellow; nor can I see any indication of him on the stocks.” John was no reed shaken with the wind, Jesus told the multitude. He was “a prophet . . . and more than a prophet !”
John is the shadowy figure with whom the New Testament opens. For a time he appears out of context, like a mailed knight in the jet age. He seems an Old Testament figure. He is the mouthpiece of Jehovah, at one with Elijah and Amos, demanding repent- ance and justice. Then his unique role begins to emerge. Like a colossus, he bestrides the two Testaments, linking the Old and the New. He is the ap- pointed messenger, the forerunner who cries, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Now it can be seen that John does not exist for himself. He bears witness to another, to the Holy One of Israel. When he saw Jesus coming toward him, John greeted him with these words : “Be- hold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world !”
Today as you begin your formal theological training, let us turn our attention to the nature of the ministry, and examine through the example of John the characteristics of the true prophet. It is through the ministry of men that the word of God has been proclaimed in every age. Armed only with this weapon, men have confronted kings and challenged tyrants, while the same Word has brought comfort to the
weak and courage to the dying. The prophet himself has been nothing. The Word which he speaks is everything. He is not a propagandist, whose me- dium is empty words. He is a prophet, whose word always points to God’s re- deeming love in Jesus Christ.
I
It should be clear, then, in the begin- ning, that a prophet is not a gazer into a crystal ball or a soothsayer. He is, first of all, one who has been confronted by the living presence of God and who has committed himself to his purpose. John, like every prophet, was inter- ested in more than religion in general. He was aware of the long history of God’s interest in man. He knew that God had dealt graciously with his peo- ple, Israel, beginning with their de- liverance from the bondage of Egypt. Moreover, he knew that God’s interest in man had not diminished, that God would act decisively again in his own time, and that he stood on the thresh- old of a new era.
This tells us something about the nature of the God of the Bible. He is not known apart from the world. He does not demand that we withdraw from all relations and deny all responsi- bilities in order to seek him in isolation. The religions of the East have explored this. Nor again is the God of the Bible known to us simply by looking within, as if he could be identified with the reflection of our own ego. Instead, he comes to meet us in the most common situations of life and makes his presence
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known to us in those things which are most human. In Jesus Christ he became man, as we are men, sharing the temp- tations and anxieties that we experi- ence. God stands with us in the midst of time and accepts us as his own. He addresses us, “Son of Man, I have called thee by thy name ; thou art mine.”
But God’s coming into the life of a man is not the end but the beginning. It is not for us to respond neutrally, to remain aloof and uncommitted, to adopt the role of a spectator of history’s cen- tral drama. John understood this. He knew that the God of history requires that men choose for or against his pur- pose. This is why the Danish genius of the last century, Kierkegaard, in- sisted that the individual is truth and the crowd is un-truth. In the moment of decision man stands alone before God. He is the individual, named by God and the object of God’s interest and concern.
The decision to be God’s man is the starting point of a man’s ministry. It furnishes the dominant motif to his life. It gives him his sense of direction and defines the meaning of his witness. In the United Church of South India, an island in the midst of a Hindu culture, this is understood by every Christian. Whenever a convert comes for baptism, at one point in the ceremony he places his hand solemnly on his own head and repeats these words : “Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel.” This is his witness to the Lordship which Jesus Christ now exercises over his life.
II
Consider, for another thing, that John was a true prophet because he made his faith relevant to every di-
mension of life. He understood that faith is not an “aside” or an “above,” something to be professed in private but neglected in the world of human affairs. To those who streamed out of Jerusalem to the banks of the Jordan his meaning was clear. When they asked him, “What then shall we do?” he answered : “He who has two coats, let him share with him who has none ; and he who has food, let him do like- wise.” To the tax collectors he said that justice is required, and to the sol- diers he counselled, “Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
John differed from his contempo- raries in the extension that he gave to faith. He took it out of Jerusalem into the Jordan, out of the temple into the midst of the people. Is it not because we fail to do this, because we shut God up within some narrow area that we call “holy” that the church has so little in- fluence today? Why are sensitive spir- its saying that the West has entered a post-Christian era? They claim that the age begun with Constantine in the fourth century when Christianity was made the official religion of the empire has now ended. From one standpoint this case is difficult to make. Business is good in the church ; statistics have never been better. But in the face of all this, has the church’s witness on the crucial issues facing us as a nation ever accounted for less? Who would claim that the arsenal of democracy in time of war has become the arsenal of spirit- uality in time of peace? Where is the moral robustness, the luminous faith, that should characterize the leader of the free world ?
If these qualities are absent, what is the reason? Is it because Christianity
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is so irrational that sophisticated mod- ern man can no longer believe ? I doubt it. After all, it was the Western nation most advanced technically that in our generation followed Hitler and invented the big lie. I agree with Professor Nie- buhr that the problem is not Christian- ity’s irrationality so much as it is its seeming irrelevance to the common issues of life. We have tried to make out of the Christian faith something other than was intended, and have pro- duced a deep chasm between religion and life. We have given up the Bible’s prophetic concern for the life of men and nations. This is why in Western Europe since the close of World War II an heroic attempt has been made to break down this barrier and to rein- state the centrality of faith. In France pastors and priests have gone from their churches six days a week to work in harvest fields alongside harvest workers, or to labor in industry along- side industrial workers, or to dig in the bowels of the earth alongside coal miners, hoping to take the church to the people on weekdays in order to bring them back into the church on the Lord’s day.
This accounts, too, for the work of George MacLeod and the Iona Com- munity in Scotland. Why has this ex- periment captured the imagination of so many? Iona was born in Glasgow in a slum parish during the heart of the depression. MacLeod found that his church was empty and that congrega- tions were to be found queued up in bread lines, unwanted men for a re- luctant government to feed. Once, he said, as he stood on a curbstone ad- dressing such a group on the text, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these
things shall be added unto you,” a man interrupted and insisted that the preacher was not speaking to their needs. MacLeod met the man later on, now a patient on a cot in a charity ward, dying slowly from malnutrition. This man insisted that he was not anti- clerical. His outburst had been occa- sioned by the grim conclusion that the church was no longer ministering to human need.
Out of this came Iona, an experi- ment in making Christianity relevant to every area of life. In the early his- tory of the church Iona, a tiny island in the Hebrides, had been used by St. Columba of Ireland as a springboard for converting the Druids on the main- land of Scotland to Christianity. Now MacLeod determined to use it to re- convert the mainland, to reintroduce Christianity into Christendom. Each summer he brings young men and women from college campuses, profes- sors from chairs, men from business and professions, laborers from guilds and unions, to live together, work to- gether, and worship together. It is an attempt to show that worship is work and work is worship, that there is a wholeness to the Christian faith.
A true prophet will understand this. He will be interested in nothing less than a whole Gospel for the whole man in his total life situation. And no other Gospel has any chance of playing a significant role in the lives of men to- day. In our own land we must stem the tide of disillusion that has produced a failure of nerve and paralysis of will at the very moment when we face our greatest tasks both at home and abroad. The Church has belatedly entered the struggle for civil rights, to be sure, but this is not enough. We dare not be
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content until human rights are vouch- safed in all lands and men everywhere have the opportunity to grow up into the full potential that God has given them.
Ill
Consider, finally, a third character- istic of the true prophet. John is willing to dare, to pioneer, to do things differ- ently for the kingdom’s sake. Of course, he was unconventional. He appeared suddenly, his dress was different, his diet was different, and human approba- tion meant little to him. He was not intimidated by clergy or political lead- ers. He had a higher loyalty. But John was more than unconventional. He saw in Jesus Christ something new, some- thing that would break out of the old mold and ultimately cover the earth.
It was this quality of “new-ness” that gripped the early Church. A part of my summer’s reading was Hans Lietzmann’s volumes on “The Begin- nings of the Christian Church,” and I was impressed afresh by the way the Church was convinced that something absolutely novel had occurred in Jesus Christ, something that shattered all old forms and unleashed in the world a new power that would transform all life.
The late Dean Sperry of Harvard Divinity School once said that “all progress is made on the opposite side of conformity.” His judgment is sound wherever it is tested. Who is the leader in business? Is he the one who does business as his grandfather did? Is he the man whose firm is in a rut? No, he is the person who is ever seeking new markets, new techniques, and new products, who honestly tries to meet
new needs as they arise. The same is true in the life of the Church. Where there is daring and venturesomeness for the Gospel’s sake something is hap- pening, people are excited, and failure of nerve and paralysis of will are dis- pelled.
The true prophet knows that Jesus Christ is the Lord of history. Because he believes in God he believes in man and is willing to give himself in the service of God and man. This faith will lift him above the petty and the trite, above himself and his own little con- cerns. Brooks Atkinson has written of a shabby season in the theater. But the rest of us, he contended, have reflected the same temper. “If any other groups of people were dealing effectively with the basic problems of the world, the dramatists might be charged with dis- honoring their franchise,” Mr. Atkin- son wrote. “But they are not unique. They are citizens of a world that can- not cope with its troubles, and, accord- ingly, become increasingly morbid, in- grown, and trivial. The little Freudian maladies that preoccupy the play- wrights represent a common state of mind. When a civilization lacks the vigor to deal with big problems, it becomes fascinated with the small.”
But must this be? Are we compelled to become ingrown and morbid, cynical and disillusioned, in the face of the world’s tragedy and the world’s need? The thing that impresses me most about a John or a Paul is that they did not allow themselves the luxury of feeling sorry for themselves. They had another center of reference, God’s pur- pose embodied in Jesus Christ. He claimed their allegiance, gave direction to their lives, and enabled them to be
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pioneers in the work of the Kingdom. He redeemed them from the tyranny of the trivial.
You have come to Princeton to en- gage in theological inquiry in prepara- tion for a life of Christian service. What we covet most from you is that you, like John, will be willing to take
seriously the frontiers of the world’s need and to relate yourselves to God’s purpose to redeem the world in the midst of time. For, make no mistake of it, there is One who has come, who is the Lord of life and of death, and who wills to involve us in his ministry of reconciliation.
THANKSGIVING
Robert R. Spears
Text: And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee and unto thine house. Deuteronomy 26:11
The bread of God is he which came down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. John 6:33
IN speaking to you on this Thanks- giving Day in the year of our Lord 1964, I propose to raise with you the following questions, to which I freely admit having no definitive answers, but to which I am sure God the Holy Spirit does.
Does our annual Thanksgiving Day national celebration have any reality or any necessary relationship to God who was and is and is to be from everlast- ing to everlasting?
Have we so relegated God to the background of our existence that we have in us no longer either the love or the fear of the Lord?
Whose task is it to bear witness to this condition if it exists?
For what then shall such witnesses give thanks, and how shall they sustain their thanksgiving?
In the light of these questions, re- flect for a moment on the traditional scriptural passage read as the Old Testament lesson this morning, at my request, Deuteronomy 26:1-11.
When I stop to think about the im- plications of the whole passage I am intrigued by two things :
First, that its setting, like that of Thanksgiving Day itself, is an agrarian economy where the majority of the people eat and are nourished by pro- duce of the earth which they either
have grown themselves or have seen growing in the fields adjacent to their home or village.
The vision rises in the mind of the farmer who now returns thanks for the grain stored in his barn, for this loaf of bread on his table, made from flour he ground from grain he grew ; of the housewife preparing the banquet meal by visiting her root cellar or opening jars of carefully preserved fruits and vegetables over whose growth she pre- sided ; of the hunter-father who now carves meat from the carcass of the animal he raised or pursued and then killed and dressed for cooking and serving.
The Deuteronomy passage does pre- sume all this as the preamble to a Thankful offering; and Thanksgiving Day still has this colorful background for us.
The trouble with it today in America is that most of us haven’t been near a working farm in years, don’t know wheat from barley, couldn’t grow either of them very successfully in large quantities, and wouldn’t have the nerve to wring a turkey’s neck and clean the beast if one were presented to us. /
Therefore, in a land which is ^iow eight per cent agrarian — with ^'very highly organized scientific food .grow- ing process at that — and 92 per cent
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urban, most of us are several steps away from the ability to produce the food on which we live. The old style concept of Thanksgiving Day as praise of God by the planters and reapers of harvest is just plain nostalgia or irrele- vant nonsense.
If there is a farmer or two present this morning, he is more realistically likely to be giving thanks not for the particular foodstuff on his own table today, but for the fact that the potato market did not sag too badly, or that the federal and state control over the dairy produce industry left him a few dollars after the real estate taxes and trucking and processing and middle- man costs were paid.
For us urban dwellers to bow our heads and thank God for turkey and dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry jelly and pumpkin pie is about as close to reality as would be the sight today of a Pilgrim father chasing a wild turkey through the campus with a flint and steel blunderbuss !
The second thing that interests me is whether in fact God is really being praised by a nation which will sit down to food-laden tables as it enjoys a holiday from work and waits in front of the television for the Thanksgiving Day football classic to begin, or whether in fact the god who is being praised is American pride in the ability to maintain and enlarge the gross na- tional product. To the extent that this latter attitude prevails — and I suspect this is a majority attitude — then Thanksgiving Day is not so much an act of humble gratitude for the order oLa created universe whose Lord cares fc£'i is inhabitants, as it is an exercise in self-preening satisfaction with ac- companying proud back-patting.
Furthermore, because most of us are indeed removed from the agrarian life, it becomes increasingly difficult for us to thank God with much understanding for that which we have not personally witnessed or experienced, and, by parallel reasoning, it becomes increas- ingly easier to substitute a thankful satisfaction in material well-being for a grateful dependence upon the Lord who sustains all life. The further we move from the Pilgrim’s grim struggle for existence, and the Old Testament farmer carrying the first fruits of his land in a basket as a thank offering, the harder we must work to make a national day of thanksgiving mean very much.
Now this is not intended to be a cynical criticism of a national festival which has a great deal to recommend it. Neither is it the ironic commentary of an annoyed parson who sees a mas- sively materialistic apostasy operating at many levels in our supposedly Chris- tian nation. Rather, it is an attempt to be somewhat realistic about a national custom which originates from motives which are good, and is intended to be an act of worship of Almighty God. For if we as a nation were pressed for an explanation of Thanksgiving Day as an observance, we would justify it as a day when we return thanks for God’s benevolence and dedicate ourselves to his service.
The point of raising the question as to what Thanksgiving Day really rep- resents in practice is to help us see whether, in fact, our stated intentions make sense and therefore whether God is thanked or whether he is mocked. We all need to remember that God is not fooled!
There really is a question about the
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religious significance of Thanksgiving Day — and an increasingly sharp con- flict between national purpose and the service of the Lord. We are much bet- ter off to be as honest as human beings can about our national motives with respect to God, if not because we love him and would serve him fully, then at least because we are aware that ulti- mately we are truly dependent upon him.
We are not the first nation or group to make the mistake of equating our purpose with God’s purpose for us and for his world, instead of laboring and praying to know his purpose and moulding our intentions accordingly.
There is the long, hauntingly moving section of the Lamentations of Jere- miah which records the sensitive aware- ness of a nation which looked up from the ashes of its destruction to ask just when it was that God became an enemy.
“How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow has she become, she that was great among the nations ! She that was a princess among the cities has be- come a vassal.” Lamentations 1 :i (RSV)
“The Lord has become like an ene- my, he has destroyed Israel ; he has destroyed all its palaces, laid in ruins its strongholds; and he has multiplied in the daughter of Judah mourning and lamentation.” Lam- entations 2:5 (RSV)
“The Lord has done what he pur- posed, has carried out his threat; as he ordained long ago, he has demolished without pity.” Lamen- tations 2:17a (RSV)
It is not just possible, but inevitable that the Lord become as an enemy to those who so misunderstand him as to make him a ceremonial figurehead, the one to whom we turn and bow for- mally as the banquet begins as though he were the last surviving member of a decadent royalty whose presence is no longer needed when we settle down to get the work done.
There is about so many of the refer- ences to God in our national life just exactly that flavor of the toastmaster turning at the speaker’s rostrum to- wards the location of a familiarly en- throned figure and saying, “We will now have a few words from our friend, God.”
God is indeed our friend, but not in that way or in that context. So often these days it would seem that we turn to God, when it seems to suit our po- litical or national purpose, and ask him to stretch out benevolent hands over his successful children, give them a blessing, and then retire from the scene while we go on our way content to know that he approves of what we do.
But can he approve of our conduct when, as the Thanksgiving Day procla- mation acknowledges, “our storehouses bulge with the bounty of the land,” a bounty which we will store and hoard so that our plenty is increased while around the world there are people whose stomachs bulge not from excess but from the distention of starvation?
There are more than enough signs to indicate a prevailing national tend- ency to turn to God only when he will be useful to us and almost never as a people who would be used by him^.
The broad answer to the first ques- tions I posed as to the relevancy of a national Thanksgiving Day and the
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relegation of God to a place as benev- olent grandfather is that we have indeed exhibited a strong running tide of activity away from granting God any worth — any worth-ship — on Thanks- giving Day or at other times.
At this point it might be said that these conclusions are being addressed to the wrong people, and that those who do assemble in a place of worship are not to be scolded for the sins of their absent fellow citizens.
Obviously, however, if I agreed with that conclusion, I would not be here — or would not speak as I have.
Rather, I prefer to assume that we who are here do indeed understand that God has food for men of value far beyond the material wealth of which this nation is so dangerously proud, and that in his self-giving love he calls us to more than occasional lip service and to rewards of joy and peace which are to be found in areas quite apart from our size or strength as a nation, and to a life in which meaning is dis- covered not in mastery but in serving.
If I am correct in this assumption, then we are exactly the people who need to ponder the unhappy situation of which we are a part in a nation whose apostasy can only result in loss of purpose and place in a world of God’s own making and saving.
We need to relate as closely as we possibly can our thankful response to the purposes for which God’s grace is given.
We need to understand that the true “bread of God is he which came down from heaven and giveth life unto the world” and not waste our energies either straining to get or to give value to the bread which truly does not nourish.
We need to work out a purpose for our life which is a true reflection of the purpose of life as seen in Jesus Christ, “who came not to be ministered unto but to minister.”
We need, in short to be such wit- nesses to God that this point is not overlooked forever and unto destruc- tion by a great nation which is creating God in its own image, and thus run- ning counter to the one thing it most needs, the true purpose and being of the God who is.
This is the task which falls to those who are trying to be thankful to God in terms which he has already shown in the thankful, offered life of Jesus Christ.
If we do understand this and refuse the task of being the light set on the hill, or the little leaven that leaveneth the whole lump or the salt of the earth, then we have indeed lost the savor given us by God and will stumble and fall in thick darkness, and no bread will be brought to perfection.
But if we do understand that real thanksgiving is to be involved in the loving and serving of God by loving and serving those for whom he gave his only begotten Son, and if his love wins ours in return, then we shall be nour- ished by the bread that gives life unto the world.
It may be that you will conclude from what has been said that America’s Thanksgiving Day ought to be a day of fasting rather than feasting. If fasting would serve to inject a note of realism into the observance and help us all see a greater purpose in God than many of those to which our energies are de- voted, then let it be so, since real thanksgiving might then rise from the ashes of our pride.
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But at least let those of us who would give God thanks in fuller aware- ness of the real gifts he offers us — the grace to serve, the strength to share, the power to love one another — let us incorporate into our Thanksgiving Day
observance that note of reality which in turn will make us into persons whom God can use as he will.
And this in turn will be our joy and strength and food, for which we praise and thank God daily.
The image of the Church as the Body of Christ fulfills the meaning of a human body at its best, and fits into the scheme of apostolic thought, when all that the Body is, together with all its attributes, healthful unity, appealing beauty, perfect functioning, proven strength, are subject to the Head and responsive to his command. It is not allegorization to contend that both the natural image of the body and the Biblical use of that image to symbolize the Church as the Body of Christ, rule out the legitimacy of exalting that image into a position where it would become a pure object of admiration or a recognized center of power. The Body of Christ exists for action in some form, for action consonant with its nature for action inspired by the Head.
What form does that action take? How significant and thrilling it is that Paul the Apostle, after he has descanted on the Body of Christ and described its members and the gifts they should “earnestly desire,” exclaims, “And I will show you a still more excellent way” (I Corinthians 12:31), or, as his words might be rendered, “a still higher path” (Moffatt). That path is the way of love. After he has enshrined that “way” in one of the Bible’s most loved and challenging prose poems (I Corinthians 13), he says to the Body, its officers and its members : “Make love your aim.”
John A. Mackay in Ecumenics (Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1964), p. 90.
INTEGRITY IN PASTORAL CARE*
Seward Hiltner
In this discussion I shall consider the integrity of pastoral care, and the threats to that integrity, in two prin- cipal dimensions: first, its skill and technical competence ; and second, its orientation to the Church and its theological basis. I shall then consider newly emerging issues that may prove to make for or against integrity in pastoral care, depending upon how they are dealt with.
I. Levels of Integrity
Some preliminary remarks, however, are needed about the notion of integrity as applied to pastoral care. Of course “integrity” means simply oneness, and thus implies that parts work together, in some kind of harmony, in a whole. But especially in a field like pastoral care, we are immediately reminded that integrity is only as commendable as it is complex. Let me illustrate.
Kurt Lewin told of a very small child who was asked to draw a picture of a man running. The child drew a circle, and then all around the circle drew right angles. When viewed by a sympathetic adult, this drawing con- tains both unity and movement. The fact that the running man has no dis- tinguishable head, arms, or chest does not negate the unity of the drawing, and even contributes to the impression of movement. The analytical adult will say, of course, that the unified im-
* This article was originally presented at the Sesquicentennial Conference of Princeton Seminary’s Department of Practical Theol- ogy in June, 1963.
pression given by the drawing is false since parts necessary to a human being are not depicted. He is thus contending that a unity is proper only if it includes the component or necessary parts.
Some years later the child who made the original, impressionistic drawing may be asked again to make a picture of a man running. He has now become sophisticated. He knows that people have heads and arms as well as bodies and feet. But by the time he draws these parts, the chances are strong that he will be powerless to solve the problem of having the man run. His picture will be fairer to the component parts, separately considered, than the origi- nal. But he will not be able to solve the problem of motion. Give him an- other two years, and a good art teacher, and he may have both unity and move- ment, including head and arms. But from an impressionistic point of view, he may never excel his original draw- ing.
In every kind of development from the biological on and upwards, it would seem that unity or integrity must be viewed in similar fashion. There is a kind of primal unity which, however, achieves its integrity by unconscious neglect of component parts. Then comes differentiation, attentiveness to neces- sary parts ; and, temporarily, either unity or movement, or both, are lost. But then they are regained at a more complex level. The resulting unity is more faithful to more facts, and the resulting movement is a bit more faith- ful to the human pace. Thus the com-
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mendability of integrity is proportional to its dealing with actual complexities.
For the criteria we may use in exam- ining integrity in pastoral care, I draw three conclusions from this parable. First, the significance of integrity is proportional to its uniting of relevant factors. Thus levels of integrity may be distinguished. It is insufficient to inte- grate the obvious if the more significant but less obtrusive factors are ignored. It is not enough to integrate motives while ignoring ineptitude in perform- ance ; and it will not do to integrate skills but be unaware of what one represents as he exercises them.
But second, we may respect an in- tegrity at any level so long as it is prepared to let itself be broken up by new perceptions of differentiation in order that a more complex unity may be achieved. No one comes to the com- plex unity straightaway. He finds a unity at one level ; then, in chagrin, he becomes aware of what his first unity had overlooked, and for a time is “all thumbs.” He integrates at a more com- plex level, and so on. He must be for- ever relinquishing former integrities ; but in doing so he need not be ashamed of them. There is nothing wrong with any level of integrity unless it becomes fixated. But fixation is not the fault of the unity itself.
Third, it is impossible to appraise the significance of any integrity without reference to its movement. Even if unified at a complex level, it is suspect if it is static. In contrast, even if its integrity is at a relatively primitive level, that is not reprehensible if the movement is through more complex differentiations toward a new level of unity.
II. The Integrity of Competence
The first American textbook-like work on the theory of ministry, includ- ing pastoral care, was not published until almost 1850. Such works, with some American novelties of a minor character, tended to follow the outlines of their German predecessors, and reached their peak in the 1880’s. The last one of this type was issued just after the turn of the century. The main thrust of all these works was that a theory of ministry could somehow help actual ministering. Most of them were dull, for they contained no cases and often no illustrations. Their authors knew quite well that novelties and variations would be encountered in actual experience that no amount of classroom teaching could predict. Hence they confined themselves to gen- eral principles, not realizing that cases, rightly analyzed, could lead to prin- ciples. Today the main body of these works seem unutterably dull, for they did not know how to link theory and practice. But their underlying convic- tion— their primitive unity, so to speak — should not be forgotten. They be- lieved that theory was important. They disdained practice without theory. Here they were right.
Before the turn of the century an- other tendency had assumed a com- manding position, what I have called the “hints and helps” school of pastoral care. Such works did contain many lists of do’s and don’ts ; but at their best, their contribution was in convey- ing, as Richard Baxter had done in the seventeenth century, something of the dedication of their authors. Commonly, they included stories of an anecdotal type. They were not cases in our mod-
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ern sense, since they did not provide sufficient data for a reader to make an independent interpretation. Very quick- ly they became “inspirational.” They testified that the wearing out of shoe leather was indispensable in order to preach, thus suggesting indirectly that pastoral calling was a chore not a privi- lege. The stories told were invariable successes, not because the authors were dishonest but because it became the con- vention to tell only what would inspire more pastoral work. The dreadful thing about this period in pastoral care was that it simply threw all theory of all kinds out the window. But the primi- tive unity within it was the beginning of a feeling for concrete situations. It had no idea that there was theoretical gold in the anecdotal hills. Thus this period very nearly swung the pendu- lum on the previous one. Neither period was concerned to relate pastoral care in theory and practice. But each had its own kind of integrity.
The new movement in pastoral care, that began in the 1920’s, would not have been possible without several factors in its background. Time permits me here only to name some of the most prom- inent and not to discuss them. There was the so-called social gospel move- ment discovering and lifting up such things as the breakdown in family life. There was the pioneering work of church sociologists, working in both city and country, who lifted up the re- lationship between types of need, and church structures, that had not previ- ously been clear. There was the re- ligious education movement, with its deep conviction about making religion relevant and a beginning knowledge of developmental stages. And there was so-called liberal theology which, in the
hands of so competent an interpreter, for instance, as Harry Emerson Fos- dick, took the people of the Bible off Mount Olympus (where they had been in a kind of Hellenic captivity), and reminded us that they were real people with problems and resources not so different from ours.
The most important precipitating cause, however, of the new approach to pastoral care was clinical pastoral training. In 1923 William S. Keller, a Cincinnati physician, invited a group of Episcopal theological students to spend the summer with him. By day he sent them two by two to social case work agencies, hospitals, prisons, and other centers of special human need. In the evenings they returned and chinned over their day with Dr. Keller. Two years later Anton T. Boisen, a Congregational minister who had re- covered from a severe mental illness, invited theological students to spend the summer with him at Worcester State Hospital in Massachusetts, where he had become chaplain. Once I asked the hospital superintendent who had been bold enough to take on this ex- patient as chaplain, William A. Bryan, on what ground he had done so. His characteristic reply was, “If I thought a horse doctor could help my patients, I’d invite him into the hospital.”
Keller’s theory of this education was pragmatic — enable green and sheltered theological students to come into con- tact with some of life’s severe suffer- ings, and work as aides to those pro- fessional persons who try to relieve such suffering, and their ministry will be humanized. This was also the theory of Richard C. Cabot, who aided Boisen in the start of his movement despite disagreeing with his theory. Boisen
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really had a theory. He agreed it was a good idea for students to encounter concretely persons in special need. But he argued that these very persons could not only touch compassion but also the understanding. In mental illness, he argued, there is laid bare, for the alert eye to see, the very same forces that motivate all of us, only more so. Boisen argued further (and has subsequently been substantiated) that mental illness is not to be understood as just negative in a simplistic sense. Some forms of such illness, he contended, are akin to the eruptive and transforming types of religious experience such as St. Paul, George Fox, John Bunyan, and many others went through. Students were, therefore, to study not just human suf- fering but also certain forms of religious experience.
How, according to Boisen, could chaplains and students help mentally ill persons ? His answer grew out of his conviction that the root evil of mental illness was isolation and estrangement. Whatever could be done, especially as representative of God and the con- cerned religious community, would help to relieve that isolation, and hence work in the direction of improvement. For that reason the understanding that edu- cated the students was also felt to be the best therapeutic agent for the patients.
I was caught up early in this move- ment and, give or take a point here and there, I still hold and am prepared to defend Boisen’s main thesis. He was not, he said, introducing anything new into the theological curriculum or the pastoral armamentarium, if by new one meant some previously absent content. What was new, he said, was the meth- od, which he described as learning from
“living human documents.” I have often since those early days pondered the paradox that it was concern for men- tally ill persons which set us to re- thinking all our ministry of pastoral care; and that the new pathways to service were corollaries of a concern to understand the depths of religious ex- perience. It was of immense importance that Boisen’s Calvinistic heritage was so pro-intellectual. Service vitalized learning, and learning vitalized service. For the first time concrete instances of pastoral care became interesting in their own right, both as relief of human suf- fering and as revealing the complexities of the human soul. What we study, said Boisen, is “the problem of sin and salvation.”
Boisen’s focus was the person in trouble ; his principal method, the case history. What factors and forces pro- duced his present plight, and what subterranean forces are currently at work in the direction of healing as well as of pathology?
Russell Dicks and others who fol- lowed became interested in another di- mension, the actual relationship be- tween pastor and parishioner. This in- terest gave rise to so-called “verbatim reports,” recollected accounts of what actually took place in any pastoral en- counter, subjected subsequently to critical analysis. From here it was only a step to analysis of the work and atti- tudes of the pastor himself. Did he represent himself to the other person as he intended to do, or did he intend one thing and convey another? The case history was not lost, but it was added to by a kind of professional cross-sectional inspection of the pastor in his encounter with the parishioner.
In the 1930’s teaching of this kind
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began to enter the theological schools. World War II, with its great demands for a ministry of pastoral care both inside and outside the armed forces, saw a great, if improvised, extension of such learning. After World War II there was a great increase in such teaching within the schools, much of it related to clinical training. Perhaps no field has been so much sought after by pas- tors as a form of continuing education. Two journals devoted to this interest have been published for nearly fifteen years, Pastoral Psychology and The Journal of Pastoral Care.
Has all this still-growing activity in- creased competence in pastoral care? The answer is undoubtedly yes to some degree, but still on not much more than a token basis from a quantitative point of view. Certainly less than ten per cent of ministers in active service have had anything which, by any stretch of the imagination, can be called super- vised clinical pastoral training. True, the situation is a bit more favorable for men currently in seminary. At Prince- ton all of our current graduating class have had at least a small taste of criti- cized verbatim interviews, but only about 35 per cent have had anything in this area beyond the bare minimum, and only about ten per cent have had a basic course of supervised clinical train- ing. Our situation is rather better than most seminaries.
During the past two years we have had another program at Princeton which, if it can be extended through proper leadership and financing, prom- ises to do as much for training in pas- toral care as the clinical movement has done. James G. Emerson, Jr., of Bloomfield, New Jersey, had three students in his church this year. Having
had extensive clinical training himself, and with a doctor’s degree in this area, Emerson designed a sixteen-hour a week field education experience for these men along the basic learning prin- ciples evolved in clinical training. He has the skills, and took the time, to give adequate supervision to the work and study of these men, not just in general but in relation to concrete instances of their work and contacts. To say that the students are enthusiastic about this is to put it far too mildly. To be sure, this field education was not confined to pastoral care. It also included preaching and other forms of communication, evangelism, social outreach into the community, the conduct of worship, group leadership, and church adminis- tration. But pastoral care was promi- nent in the student experience, and the necessary knowledge and skills were directly considered and analyzed. Such programs offer great promise for the future. But they require highly compe- tent leadership, and they cost money.
By this time nearly every minister has heard of the finding made in con- nection with the study of the Commis- sion on Mental Health and Illness, that of the random sample of persons que- ried who said they had had personal problems and consulted some one about them, 42 per cent said they went first to their clergyman. But when we re- flect that more than 90 per cent of these clergymen have not had clinical train- ing, that probably about 50 per cent of them have never had courses aimed at improving their competence, and that a very high proportion have never read any modern literature in this field, then it is to be wondered whether “pastoral instincts” have not sometimes done more harm than good with this great
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number of Americans who consult their pastors first.
If you were a candidate for surgery, even of the tonsils, you would surely hesitate if your surgeon had never pre- viously done any cutting under super- vision. If you found he had never had a class in which the ways of snipping were discussed concretely, your hesita- tions would increase. And if you dis- covered he had never read a book on incisions, and indeed thought such data were modern and unnecessary, it is my strong conviction that the tonsils would remain in statu quo. And it would be cool comfort to find that five to ten per cent of surgeons had done cutting under supervision, and nearly half had considered procedures in medical class- rooms.
Seen in terms of extending to all ministers what is now known about competence in pastoral care, therefore, it is quite clear that the incidences of integrity by competence are the excep- tion rather than the rule.
But if we recall that competence, in this modern sense, is a creature of the last generation, then the achievement to date is not inconsiderable. Statisti- cally speaking, the integrity of compe- tence in pastoral care is still a primitive unity. But it is slowly being extended. As with the child’s picture of the man running, we have nothing to be ashamed of provided we are not holding fixedly to the status quo.
III. Theological Integrity
The great excitement in the early modern study of pastoral care lay in the growing conviction that people could be helped because, somehow, their prob- lems could be understood. Sometimes the enthusiasm for understanding and
helping was so great that few questions were asked about the theological con- text or the Christian resources of the helping and understanding.
In those days, a generation ago, a brief case history that had been told by psychiatrist Bernard Hart about 1915 provided a kind of paradigm for many who were concerned with the new movement in pastoral care. A young man in his twenties, reported Hart, came for help to someone (I cannot recall whether he went to a doctor or a minister) because he had lost his be- lief in God and life seemed listless to him. He had been a church school teacher and active in the church. Upon listening to him, and drawing him out, it was soon discovered that his girl had recently thrown him over. Q.E.D., his problem was not atheism but adjust- ment to being jilted. The implication of the story was that dealing with the young man on a theological basis would have been forever fruitless.
There was never a time, in this move- ment, when there was not a serious search for theological dimensions. But it must be admitted that the demon- strable helpfulness of understanding and acceptance did not immediately lend itself to interpretation in theologi- cal terms. If you do not believe this, search the theological literature of that period, whether liberal or conservative ; and you find much talk of what to say to people, but almost nothing about seriously listening to them. Most of the ministers and theological students who became involved in the new pastoral care movement had been exposed to a theology which, whatever its content, did not say much about listening, ac- cepting, and engaging in dialogue as being themselves theological in charac-
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ter. We tend to forget that most of this emphasis, or rediscovery, in Biblical theology, systematic theology, and ethics has emerged since the early 1930’s. It was not initially available to aid the pastoral experimenters to inte- grate their findings with theology in the general sense.
Even when the emerging trends in theology became more clearly rela- tional, as in Brunner, they were not immediately appropriated by the pas- toral frontiersmen. The principal reason for this, I believe, is that ministers who were most influenced, at first, by such theologians as Brunner, noted that no specific instances were included. The important thing seemed, then, to be the abstract statement, not checking up on it through study of concrete instances. They, therefore, looked upon the pas- toral students as mere appliers of some- thing the principles of which were not understood. The pastoral men, in con- trast, regarded such theologizing as removed and remote, and at first failed to see the intimate connection.
Nor was the situation helped in America by the rise to prominence in Europe of persons like Eduard Thur- neysen. His essentially Barthian theol- ogy could have been, give or take a point here and there, of real help to a theological domestication of pastoral care in America if he had not assumed that cases of any kind were irrelevant to the basic principles. In this country we knew that, without cases, we could not understand the principles. Hence this cavalier and one-way conception of method impeded the assimilation of the otherwise interesting theological in- sights. Fortunately this situation is changing. There are growing move- ments in Europe and the British Isles,
even including some clinical training, that are profiting from our American experience but which are more sophis- ticated theologically than we were in the i93o’s.
Meanwhile, we have had some in- digenous leadership in re-examining the theological context and basis of pastoral care. Recent works by Daniel Day Williams, Wayne E. Oates, my- self, and others all attempt seriously to grapple with this subject, supplement- ing earlier attempts by Lewis J. Sher- rill, David E. Roberts, Albert C. Out- ler, and William E. Hulme. But we are not yet out of the woods. Some teaching of pastoral care still proceeds as if it were social case work, for in- stance, with theological questions posed only at the end in terms of special re- ligious resources — and as if the moti- vation to do it, the church context in which it is done, and the evaluation of the persons to be served were not in themselves crucial in theologizing.
There is, furthermore, a sign that some regrettable reaction against pas- toral care in its theological context is taking place. This may be seen, for instance, in a recent work on guilt by David Belgum, a Lutheran minister. In a sophisticated way, Belgum, who should know better, implies that in- sights like those of Freud into mis- placed guilt feelings tend to mislead us and are therefore hardly necessary equipment for the minister in pastoral care. Although several aspects of Bel- gum’s thesis deserve serious considera- tion, his attempt to get theological integrity by over-simplifying modern psychological findings, and thus seem- ing to render them misleading and un- necessary, is a plain step backward.
I believe firmly that the work of
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Biblical, systematic, historical, and moral theologians in the past thirty years has led us closer to a proper un- derstanding of the Christian revelation. But the systematics people would lose part of their motivation if they thought they were only applying what the bibli- cal people found out, and so on. By similar reasoning, I think that pastoral care can understand its proper theolog- ical context only if its practitioners are convinced that their reflection may con- tribute to theological understanding as well as profit from it. I have of course argued this case at book length. I can hardly report that I have been knighted as a result of it. But at least some people seem to be taking it seriously.
Does this man or this school possess a wholly adequate and fully articulated theological context for every aspect of pastoral care ? The answer to that ques- tion is, universally, no. But if my earlier parable is recalled, it can be seen that a different question needs to be asked. Is pastoral care searching open-mindedly for all relevant orders of data that need to be included in a new unity, or is it sitting behind some kind of barricade whether that is seen in theological or psychological terms? Is pastoral care, despite its real indebtedness to the medical and psychological arts and sciences, nevertheless seeking a theol- ogy-based unity that makes its activity part of the work of the church itself? The answer to both questions is, I think, very slightly on the positive side, but only very slightly.
IV. Some Emerging Issues
There are several issues now appear- ing which may make for or against a new level of integrity in pastoral care, depending on how we shall deal with
them. I shall not profess to being ex- haustive in mentioning these, but shall try to deal with those that are most important.
For one thing, questions about pas- toral ethics, including pastoral confi- dentiality, are arising in a new way. So long as the problem of confidentiality was conceived only as in the Roman Catholic confessional, holding secret information received through some con- fessional procedure, the relevant ethical principle was theoretically simple, how- ever difficult it might be always to practice. But just as medicine made progress by de-identifying its cases and then submitting them for wider inspec- tion, so we have found a comparable procedure in pastoral care useful to help these particular people and indis- pensable in improving our principles so as better to help the next person. But the integrity of these procedures is still, at best, in an experimental state. Generally speaking, we believe that no information given confidentially by a person may be revealed to anyone else without the consent of the person. But suppose the person is mentally de- ficient, or is a child, or has paranoid trends? The point is that, even though some basic principles of confidentiality may be clear, they can not have integ- rity unless we continue to try to ap- praise them in the light of the enor- mously complex cases that arise. One sure way to defeat the proper objective is to become legalistic ; but another way to do it is by such immersion in par- ticulars that general questions are never asked.
There are other aspects of profes- sional ethics than confidentiality. What a hospital chaplain could do would be severely limited if he could not consult
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doctors, nurses, social workers, and others; and whether they know it or not, their function is impeded if they cannot consult the chaplain. But on what basis is such interprofessional dis- cussion carried out? Granted that the need for consultation may be more ob- vious in the hospital than in the com- munity generally, the difference is of degree rather than of kind. What are the ground rules for such cooperation?
Closely related to this first issue is the second, which arises from the grow- ing number of “expert laymen,” that is, of Christians who, in the course of their professional work, help people about many kinds of matters that are close to the personality center. It is often deplored that many psychiatrists and psychologists, for instance, are not church members. But how do we con- sider, from a pastoral point of view, those who are? Suppose that, tomor- row, all such persons joined the church- es? Would we in the churches simply put them in the pigeonhole of “lay- man,” wholly ignoring the pastoral dimensions of their work, that which makes them “expert laymen”? We talk a lot about the ministry of the laity, but can we recognize it when we see it? Or do we privately believe that no form of pastoral care is being rendered unless there is a salary check from the church ?
A third issue appears in the fairly rapid emergence of some ministers as special experts in pastoral care and pastoral counseling. So long as such a person joins the staff of a church, or a church agency, and his specialization is simply in terms of function, no new theoretical problems are raised. But if he starts something called a “center,” a “clinic,” or some other designation
taken from a non-church context ; if he gets a privately selected board for his operation ; and if he regards his opera- tion as “pastoral” simply because he is ordained — then he runs risks of not genuinely operating in the representa- tive sense that is necessary for pastoral care. Such a movement is on the in- crease. In appraising and, hopefully, guiding it, we should be extremely careful to distinguish between func- tional specialization, which is desirable, and evading representation of the church, which is not. Skill in helping people is desirable, but in itself it is not sufficient to maintain integrity in pastoral care ; for pastoral care emerges from a concerned community which is explicit that its motive for such con- cern is the Lordship of Christ.
At least in principle, work in home missions, in chaplaincy, and in welfare agencies has demonstrated that true pastoral care by the church cannot be confined to the local parish even though that may be its principal habitat. But the rapidly changing fabric of commu- nity organization demands a good deal more than we have achieved. We are now finding it possible to give pastoral care to persons who are temporarily under care that is primarily medical, in hospitals and similar institutions. But the foci of medical and psychiatric care are going to alter in the years ahead. Can we devise proper ways to continue cooperation, so that we meet persons at the points of special need? We were very slow with hospitals. Can we be less Johnny-Come-Latelies in the situ- ation that is emerging?
I am sure that more than one of you has been thinking that my remarks have thus far been biased in favor of
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one-to-one relationships, and that I have not been explicit about pastoral care through groups. Certainly pastoral care through groups is just as poten- tially important. But the fact is that we are years behind in our study of it, especially in terms of a theory of groups that is indigenous to the churches. There is not yet a single thorough and sound book on group work in the churches, which links theory and prac- tice in integrated fashion. Pastoral care requires such a dimension. Yet I would caution that, just because a group may have ten people and a counseling rela- tionship but two, does not mean that groups can do more. What observation we now have suggests that some func- tions can be performed in one way, and others in another, and that statistics
favor neither the one kind nor the other in general.
Let me, in conclusion, return to my original parable, of the small child who drew the picture of the man running — with a fine primitive unity, and wholly missing details. Every form of the theo- logical enterprise should, I think, for- ever be about the business of breaking up its primitive unity — no matter how nice an impression it makes — in order, first, to include relevant factors it has previously been unaware of, and sec- ond, to bring these into an integrity that is more complex. As some kind of branch of theology, and function of the church, pastoral care should follow this procedure. Integrity is not something that is possessed once for all. It exists only as it is forever being born anew.
REMINISCENCES
(Gwilym O. Griffith, Member of the Class of 1909)
At the age of eighty-two a man is likely to find that time has played odd tricks with his memory. The Princeton section of my own mental album remains, however, fairly clear. More than half-blind so far as physical sight is concerned, I can still finger these leaves of memory and enjoy the mental snapshots of close onto sixty years ago.
As a Britisher — a Welshman — wholly ignorant of the ways of Ameri- can college life, my first impression of the Seminary was startling. I had ex- pected to see, against the background of “grey and reverend walls,” a group or two of meek and studious young men, most of them be-spectacled and attired in becoming “blacks.” But when, with my bags and hat-box (for of course I had brought my silk hat), I hired a horse-carriage at the station and drove up to Alexander Hall, I could see no students on the campus, but only two or three roughly dressed men whom I took to be college porters. I called one of them, handed him my bags, and told him to take them to Room 5. At the door I offered him a tip, but he fled, laughing. He was a student — in fact, a Senior !
How well I deserved to be ragged ! But I was not. I was regarded with amused but friendly curiosity and “shown around.” Seminary students, I found, dressed as they pleased, like business men on holiday, and if their sartorial styles were various, so were their accents and manners of speech. This, too, was surprising, for in the
old country we spoke of “the American accent” as if it were one distinctive phenomenon common to all Americans.
In those days the social life of the Seminary revolved around its elective clubs — the Benham, Friars, and Can- terbury. It was not, perhaps, an ideal system, for the hapless student who was not voted into any club missed much of the rich fellowship which the Seminary had to give. Like most of the old country students of that time — Billy Megaw, Billy Cargin, W. E. Montgomery, Alfie Fee, John C. Greer, and S. J. M. Compton — I gravitated to the Canterbury. But the tone of our club, like that of the others, was of course predominantly and bracingly American — frank, extroversive, and what Bunyan would have called “fel- lowly.”
My first interview with a member of the Faculty was with Dr. William Brenton Green. How well I recall his rather tall spare figure, his guileless blue eyes, his mild countenance elon- gated by a drooping beard, his gentle manner! In those days the Seminary allowed generous grants to students from overseas, and Dr. Green passed me the usual application form for my signature. I noticed that I was required to subscribe a declaration that the grant was necessary to me. Rather priggishly, I objected that, in my own case, the word “necessary” conveyed an over- statement. I like to record Dr. Green’s reply. “Mr. Griffith, the word ‘neces- sary’ has more than one connotation. If you sign this form, we shall not
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understand you to have stated that if you are not allowed the grant you will die.” And this, I recall, was not the only occasion for the Doctor to counter a protest of mine by alluding to my (hypothetical) demise. In my final year I was brought down by scarlet fever and spent some weeks in the iso- lation ward of the hospital. During this period my mother, who had come to Princeton, was not allowed to see me. I thought that, in her case, the general rule might have been relaxed. When, later, I mentioned this to Dr. Green, he replied, “But, Mr. Griffith, if you had died, she would have been allowed to see you.” But I recognize that only those who knew “Brenty” (as his stu- dents affectionately called him), and can recall his bland and rather subtle innocence, can savor the humor of such anecdotes !
“Brenty” held the chair in Apolo- getics. His lectures, apart from their content, were memorable for their ana- lytical divisions, sub-divisions, and sub- sub-divisions. It used to be said that his ordinary gesture was a slight incli- nation of the right forefinger at the top joint. On the rare occasions of more violent emphasis, the finger would be bent at the second joint. But his lec- tures were models of logical coherence and lucidity, and I can still hear that familiar high pitched voice ending a dialectical passage with the satisfying conclusion, “All arguments to the con- trary serve only to strengthen our position.”
A very different lecturer was Dr. Dick Wilson, who held the chair in Hebrew. Certainly no chair could hold him. As he warmed to his subject (say, linguistic clues to the date of the Book of Daniel) he would spring from his
chair, pace up and down, and then, leaving the platform, drive home his points by pounding the desks of one and another of the students who caught his eye. “Dr. Dick’s” linguistic and textual erudition was fabulous, and to watch and hear him pulverizing the Higher Critics was a memorable ex- perience. But he had nothing of the aloofness which sometimes character- izes the scholar and pedagogue. He was (in the British sense of the word) homely and accessible and liked to dine with us at our clubs and regale us with his stories and shrewd counsel.
Undoubtedly our chief “Rabbi” was Dr. Benjamin Warfield, and how well he looked the part ! With his noble head, his impressive profile, his patri- archal beard, he exhaled authority. Perhaps he was more impressive when sitting, for his stature was not com- manding; but, gowned and seated at his lecture-desk, he inspired something akin to awe. His utterance was marked by a slight — very slight — lisp, which was by no means an impediment ; oddly enough, it lent character and distinc- tion to his speech. Obviously, his sub- ject was Systematic Theology: no other subject could have suited him so well. His mind moved within an ambit of fixed ideas formulated and systema- tized in massive congruity. Introverts like myself, whose mental habit was to grope for ideas and certitudes in a maze of unformulated “experience,” sat wist- fully and admiringly at his feet.
I recall now his way of meeting the contention that the inspiration of Holy Scripture and the revelation of divine truth which it contained were condi- tioned and limited by the inspired but human and fallible writers — that in fact the revelation was colored, and some-
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times distorted, by its human media. Warfield replied with the analogy of a pictorial stained-glass window through which the light, as it passed, was col- ored by the pieces of brittle glass of varying tint and shape which embodied the artist’s design. And wasn’t this pre- cisely what the artist had intended? And wasn’t every bit of tinted glass specifically chosen and prepared to ful- fil that design and make up the many- colored picture? When, therefore, God designed his window of revelation through which the eternal light of truth was to pass, were we to suppose that he overlooked the coloring media of the fallible human minds that went to the fashioning of that window? Did he not foreknow and choose each tint and type to subserve his own infallible purpose and make his window perfect and complete ? — This was fairly typical of the way Dr. Warfield reacted to theological liberalism in those days.
But I cannot go on like this. Time would fail me to speak of Professors Vos, Davies, C. W. Hodge, Armstrong, Erdman, “Gimel” Macmillan, Boyd, and Machen (not all of them full- blown professors in my time). But a word about President Patton himself. Tall, lean, clean-shaven, reserved, he “dwelt apart,” and I doubt if any of us exchanged a word with him socially. He devoted an hour a week to lectur- ing to us on Theism, but his lectures were for the most part inaudible solilo- quies. And yet, somehow, he radiated a personal influence that was pervasive. Once in my time he addressed an in- formal gathering of our class. He was still soliloquial, but audible ; he pleased and teased us with pawkily humorous asides, and won our hearts by describ- ing himself as “a hardened old sinner.”
One bit of advice that he gave us I recall. We should not, he said, over- load our sermons with lengthy quota- tions from the poets. A line or two was enough. Among the Swiss Alps the merest bell-tinkle, floating down to the valleys, was signal enough that the herd-leader had been grazing in high pastures.
And now the turning of one more page in this album brings me to the cherished picture of Professor Henry van Dyke. For, like other Seminary students, I took courses in Philosophy and Literature at the University, and Dr. van Dyke was our lecturer on the English Poets. The course was popular, the lecture hall was crowded, and the lectures were superb. The Doctor was a slight, diminutive figure; but, with his erect bearing, his expression of la- tent severity, and his close-cropped moustache and “imperial,” he had an almost military air. But when he was delineating his poet or expounding his message, voice and mood and manner were perfectly adapted to his theme, and his interpretative readings from the lyrics of Keats, Shelley, and Tennyson were memorable. I remember a word of counsel which he once gave me. “Be- ware of becoming too adjectival in your style. Adjectives can give color to what you say, but it is your verbs that give it strength.”
And so, in 1909, we left the Semi- nary to face a world soon to be shaken to its foundation; and today, in 1964, as I write these lines, we are still being alerted by tremors that could portend new earthquaking upheavals. And what of the Faith in which we were in- structed in those relatively carefree Seminary days? It is well for us that it is a faith which, from the very be-
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ginnings of its earthly history, has been conditioned to shock, upheaval, and change — a faith enured to crisis. Some of us, it may be, have had to re- examine some of the peripheral forms and interpretations which we were taught : but even that has been a salu- tary experience and has thrown us back upon central verities and inner
certitudes. And if once more we could meet for a confessional session, what a time we should have ! But, as Harold Gaunt says in his Class letter which I have just received, if we had our choice to make all over again, we should choose the Gospel ministry — and wish, I would add, to be trained at Prince- ton Theological Seminary.
BOOK REVIEWS
Theology
The Systematic Theology of Paul Tillich: A Review and Analysis, by Alexander J. McKelway. John Knox Press, Richmond, Virginia, 1964. Pp. 280. $5.50.
This volume is a revision of Dr. McKel- way’s doctoral dissertation prepared under the direction of Karl Barth. Dr. Barth him- self has supplied an introductory essay, hail- ing this study as “a useful, and perhaps in its way indispensable, means of orientation for all future debate with Tillich,” while Dr. Tillich has called it “a very fair and clear . presentation of my work and an excellent introduction to my theology.” With these verdicts this reviewer agrees. The author has performed his task well, subjecting Tillich’s system to a careful and penetrating analysis, attempting always to be fair to Tillich’s in- tention, and leaving no doubt about areas of disagreement or the nature of the questions that remain to be answered.
Dr. McKelway’s introductory chapter is designed to orient the reader to Tillich’s life and thought. It traces his wide influence in America to the catholicity and depth of Til- lich’s interest and erudition, and to the vac- uum which he filled in the American theo- logical scene which had never experienced the full force of nineteenth century liberal- ism. It goes on to analyze Tillich’s relation to the inceptor of that tradition, Schleier- macher, to point out resemblances between Tillich’s system and that of Biedermann, to compare and contrast Tillich’s thought with that of Bultmann’s, and to show how as early as 1923 it was evident that the positions of Tillich and Barth were antithetical. The author notes the vast influence on Tillich of Schelling and Tillich’s place in the great tradition of German philosophical idealism.
While Tillich has produced a host of books and articles during his long and productive career, the author wisely limits his analysis to the Systematic Theology, now complete in three volumes. His method is to give a detailed exposition of each section, followed
by a summary and analysis. His attitude toward Tillich is always respectful, and he is properly awed by the logic, clarity, beauty, and sheer magnitude of his system of thought.
The first section deals with the nature of theology and the method of correlation. Here theology is seen as having an anthropological starting point, as being apologetic in charac- ter, and as performing an “answering” func- tion, and here Dr. McKelway raises one of his basic questions. “Where finally must Christian theology find its interpretation of man?” he inquires. His answer, developed in detail as the book progresses, is not in philo- sophical analysis of the human situation but in the Gospel message of God’s self-mani- festation in Jesus Christ.
The same question is raised in the second section, reason and revelation, where Tillich is applauded for his “description of the con- flicts of reason and their healing under the impact of revelation,” but questioned con- cerning reason’s ability to initiate the search for revelation and revelation’s being forced to conform to the human question. In the third section, being and God, dealing with the ontological situation, Tillich is accused of being betrayed into a natural theology and of deducing his knowledge of God from an analysis of being rather than receiving it through the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. The next section contains an exposi- tion of existence and the Christ. While the author rejects Dr. ‘Ferre’s attack on Tillich’s Christology, he does deplore “the lack of a consistent focus on the revelation of God in Jesus Christ” and finds a certain docetic quality in his thesis “that the New Being as an eternal principle of salvation somehow exists apart from, even though ‘completely expressed in,’ the Cross of Jesus.” The final sections contain a critique of life and the spirit, and history and the kingdom of God.
While this book is not a substitute for reading Tillich’s own writings, it does pro- vide a compact and clear introduction to and summary of his system. It is to be highly commended for accuracy and fairness.
James I. McCord
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Paul Tillich in Catholic Thought, ed. by Thomas A. O’Meara, O.P., and Celestin D. Weisser, O.P. The Priory Press, Dubuque, Iowa, 1964. Pp. 323. $5-95-
Today the possibilities for ecumenical the- ology are virtually limitless. Eastern Ortho- doxy, whose several constituencies add up to almost one half of the membership of the World Council of Churches, is increasingly a partner in the dialogue among the churches, while Roman Catholicism now displays an interest in and openness to the thought of other traditions that are unparalleled since the Reformation. Each tradition is, to a large extent, busy probing its own past, attempt- ing to recover and re-realize in the present emphases that have been obscured or neg- lected or elements that reflected its thought and life at their purest and best. Hence each tradition is now exhibiting a new willingness to listen to criticisms from outside and to take seriously theologians from other camps in an effort to see more clearly its own image and to comprehend more adequately the nature of the Gospel.
This volume of essays on various aspects of the theology of Paul Tillich grows out of the new climate among the churches. For years now Roman Catholic theologians have followed closely the progress of the ecu- menical movement and have studied the writ- ings of contemporary Protestant leaders. The theology of Karl Barth, for example, has been subjected to careful analysis by such eminent scholars as H. U. von Balthasar and Hans Kueng. Now Tillich’s thought is elicit- ing the same attention. It is highly appropri- ate that he should have been introduced to Catholic America by the late Father Gustave Weigel, a pioneer who did so much to break down barriers of misunderstanding between traditions.
After a short introductory essay in which the course of Tillich’s career is traced, Dr. Weigel attempts in the first chapter to assess the theological significance of Tillich. He is impressed by his originality and by his all- embracing system, calling it “a great syn- thesis of Protestantism, better than anything this reporter knows,” but remains dubious about the role of symbols in Tillich’s theol- ogy and the way his phenomenology is
written theologically. To these charges Til- lich himself has penned a reply, which is printed at the end of the Weigel chapter. George Tavard has furnished three essays dealing with Tillich’s existential philosophy, Christology as symbol, and Christ as the answer to existential anguish. Other signifi- cant chapters are written by Avery Dulles, Erich Przywara, and the editor, Thomas A. O’Meara. O’Meara concludes that “Til- lich and Barth place themselves in the fore- front of Protestantism’s ecumenical approach to Catholicism by their respect for theology as it has been understood by the Western and Catholic tradition over the past cen- turies.” Tillich reappears in the final chap- ter, “An Afterword : Appreciation and
Reply,” in which he answers some of the criticisms of the contributors.
The study of Barth and now the study of Tillich by Roman Catholic theologians have done much to dissipate the false notion that Protestant theology is chaotic and individu- alistic, the product of free-thinkers, and devoid of any continuity with the past. Real dialogue does take place and will continue to take place when theology is taken seri- ously by Protestants, Romans, and Ortho- dox. Only in this way shall we move beyond the level of protocol to mutual understand- ing and mutual edification.
James I. McCord
The Christian Faith, by F. W. Dilli- stone. J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadel- phia, 1964. Pp. 188. $2.95.
This volume is the first in a projected series under the editorship of Professor William Neil of the University of Notting- ham, that will bear the general title of “Knowing Christianity” and that is intended to provide for laymen scholarly but non- technical works on various aspects of the Christian religion. The first author has been wisely chosen, for Dr. Dillistone brings to his assignment a deep understanding of Bib- lical faith and an acute awareness of the contemporary situation.
In an effort to present the Christian faith as a comprehensive whole and to avoid the errors of dogmatism and vague ethical ex- hortations, the author centers his interpreta-
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tion in the Trinity, “God beyond us: God for us : God within us,” which he finds a com- mon element in the Church’s confession in all ages. He then raises the issue of the rele- vance of such a faith to modern man, who is beset by the questions of security, freedom, order, and meaning. He goes on to describe in successive chapters how the four definitive patterns of Biblical imagery, the family of God, the redeemed society, the Heavenly city, and disciples of the truth are related to the needs and hopes with which man has had to struggle in all times and places. The final chapter, “I believe in God,” contains a dis- cussion of the early Church’s creeds and a summary statement of the Christian faith in the classic triadic form.
The author’s style is fresh and provocative. His language is straightforward and clear. And his Christian devotion is evident in all that he writes. The result is both informa- tion and inspiration for the reader.
James I. McCord
The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, by Hendrikus Berkhof. John Knox Press, Richmond, Virginia, 1964. Pp. 128. $3.00.
This volume consists of the Annie Kinkead Warfield Lectures given in Princeton Theo- logical Seminary in February, 1964, by the Professor of Dogmatics and Biblical Theol- ogy in the University of Leiden, Holland. Dr. Berkhof, who is a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches and a leader in the World Alliance of Reformed and Presbyterian Churches, chose to deal with the topic of the Holy Spirit in the year that the Alliance had for its theme, “Come, Creator Spirit.” His con- cern, as the Alliance’s, is the renewal of the Church, her re-creation by the Spirit, and her recovery of a sense of mission within the context of God’s mission to the world.
Like anyone who writes about the Holy Spirit today, Professor Berkhof begins by lamenting the neglect of the Third Article of the Creed. He traces this neglect to two causes, the way the Spirit works, hiding himself by directing attention to Christ, and the Church’s reaction against the chaos caused by enthusiasts and pneumatics in all
ages. However, the author is convinced that the time is now ripe for serious study of the Spirit, not only because of the almost ex- clusive concern for Christology in the past generation but also because of the present theological discussions with Roman Catholi- cism. Older controversial issues between Protestantism and Rome are no longer central ; “the remaining problems, in my opinion, all point to the nature of Christ’s presence here and now, i.e., to the nature of the work of the Holy Spirit.”
Throughout the six chapters of this study the author is interested in reconciling the traditional and the spiritualistic types of pneumatology. He begins by defining the Spirit as “God’s inspiring breath by which he grants life in creation and re-creation,” and goes on to discuss the double relation between the Spirit and Christ, with Christ as the One on whom the Spirit rests and from whom the Spirit goes forth. “The Spirit is the new way of existence and ac- tion by Jesus Christ,” reaching out to the whole of mankind and creation, to conform us to Christ’s image. At this point is intro- duced what is perhaps the most valuable and certainly the most illuminating chapter in the book, “The Spirit and Mission,” in which the whole sweep of the divine drama of re- demption is set forth in terms of the Spirit’s execution of the missionary task.
Subsequent chapters deal with the Spirit and the Church, the individual, the world and the consummation, and with the relation between God, Christ, and the Spirit, but this material is in the main an unfolding of the meaning of the Spirit’s mission in the world.
Much should be said in praise of Dr. Berkhof’s treatise. It is compact, clear, and well reasoned. It deals helpfully with such questions as the nature of the Church, the nature of the Christian life, the Pentecostal movement, and the nature of prophecy. The principal question to be raised is not in any of these areas but in the relation of the Spirit to the Son in Berkhof’s analysis. Has his attempt to go beyond the patent tri-theism of much Christian theology and to fashion a fresh statement of this relationship out of the insights gained from Biblical theology betrayed him into a new modalism?
James I. McCord
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Biblical
The Second Isaiah: Introduction, Translation and Commentary to Chap- ters XL-LV, by Christopher R. North. Oxford Press, London, 1964. Pp. xii + 290. $5.60.
According to Professor North, this “all- purposes” Commentary was written to meet “the needs of the specialist but most of it should be intelligible to preachers and teach- ers who know little or no Hebrew.” It may be considered as a supplementary volume to the author’s very useful work, The Suffering Servant in Deutero-Isaiah (2nd ed., 1956).
The Introduction discusses the literary structure of the prophecy, the theology of Deutero-Isaiah, and the problem of Salvation History. The translation is the author’s own rendition of the Hebrew text in a fairly literal style. Each section of the Commentary proper begins with the discussion of textual problems and the more difficult points of grammar. In the exegetical notes, which fol- low, the Hebrew words are transliterated. The comments are exceedingly full and ju- dicious. Cautious use of the Qumran Isaiah Scrolls is made in the commentary. No mention is made, for instance, of the unique Qumran reading in 52:14, or the light that the Qumran texts throw on the difficult verb “sprinkle” in 52:15. Also the author does not accept the interesting Qumran reading of the difficult Hebrew term, translated “in his deaths,” in 53 :g.
Although nothing new is presented in this volume, it will be found both useful and help- ful by those who desire to understand more adequately this important portion of the Old Testament.
Charles T. Fritsch
The Canaanites, by John Gray. Fred- erick A. Praeger, New York, 1964. Pp. 244. $6.95.
A definitive work on the Canaanites has long been a desideratum in the Old Testa- ment field. The last substantial volume on the subject, Canaan d’apres l’ exploration recente, was written by Pere Louis Hugues Vincent, O.P., in 1907. Since that time
archeological discoveries at Byblos, Megiddo and especially Ras Shamra, with its wealth of epigraphic material dealing with the eco- nomic and religious life of the Canaanites in the Late Bronze Age, have made a synthesis of the evidence imperative.
Professor Gray, of Aberdeen University, who has also written a detailed study of the texts from Ras Shamra — The Legacy of Canaan (2nd ed., 1964) — has now given us a comprehensive treatment of the history, daily and social life, religion, literature and art of the Canaanites during the second and early part of the first millennium B.C. Canaan was the stepping-stone between Egypt, Meso- potamia and Anatolia, as well as the bridge- head of Europe in Asia. The interaction of these diverse ethnic and cultural elements is clearly reflected in the life, literature and art of the Canaanites. Although they never achieved a distinctive art of their own, they imitated new forms and styles, suggested by Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mycenae and other cultures, with a high degree of technical skill. Their interest in trade and commerce, as the middlemen of the ancient Near East, led to their greatest contribution to human progress — the alphabet. The medium of the ledgers of the Canaanite merchant-princes became the script in which the annals of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were written, and which was carried by the Phoenician traders overseas to Greece.
Professor Gray’s book is handsomely il- lustrated with 61 photographs, each one of which is carefully explained, 54 line draw- ings and 3 maps. A selected bibliography is appended in which one fails to find, mirabile dicta, the classic article on the Canaanites by Prof. W. F. Albright, published in Studies in the History of Culture (Menasha, Wis- consin, 1942, pp. 11-50). The author’s dis- cussion of the etymology of the word “Ca- naan,” limited to one sentence, is quite inadequate. One would also wish that his discussion of the various Canaanite alpha- bets had been more detailed, and that more bibliography had been cited in this area.
Despite these objections, this book is a significant contribution to Old Testament scholarship, and is indispensable for our understanding of certain Old Testament texts and the background of Israel’s religion.
Charles T. Fritsch
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The Old Testament, by Robert Da- vidson (Knowing Christianity Series). J. B. Lippincott Co., Philadelphia & New York, 1964. Pp. 236. $2.95.
This is a well-written and well-balanced book to introduce the layman to the history, criticism, and theology of the Old Testa- ment, mixing the various approaches in such a way as to provide something thoroughly interesting. Well related to modern scholar- ship, and arguing little that is particularly new, jt interweaves the contribution of different forms of study in a way which should attract those who have fears of the Old Testament and give them positive rather than negative lines for their thinking. Thor- oughly to be recommended.
James Barr
The Pioneer of Our Faith, by S. Vernon McCashland. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1964. Pp. x -j- 210. $4.95.
Albert Schweitzer’s categorical condemna- tion of the “Lives of Jesus” resulted in a dearth of that literature in Germany, but was little heeded by Anglo-Saxon theolo- gians. Recently, however, the growing inter- est in Bultmann has led to a re-appraisal of the problem in this country. According to the Marburg professor, a distinction has to be made in the Gospels between the kerygma, which is the saving message of God as understood by the early Church, on the one hand, and the historical Jesus, on the other. The Jesus of history, we are told, was a Jewish rabbi, whom his disciples revered, but who neither claimed messianic dignity nor was he originally regarded as the Christ. While Bultmann’s disciples in Germany are reluctant to follow their master the whole way, they retain, nevertheless, his distinction. They reject the kerygma, however, as a secondary work of the Church.
American scholars, while admitting the role which the early Church played in the formation of the Christian tradition, have in the whole held that the text of our Gospels is historically reliable and that the historical Jesus and the Christ of faith are identical. Dr. McCashland sees in the Jesus of the
Gospels, the man who through the depth of his religious insights and his outstanding trust in God has enabled all succeeding gen- erations to believe in God with the same fervor. It is true to say that the way in which the New Testament writers describe the ministry of Jesus sounds alien to us. Rather than following Bultmann in his denial of the reality of the supranatural, we should rather realize that it operates inside of us. The author suggests that more credence be given to the evidences of faith healing and that parapsychology is apt to explain certain strange aspects of Jesus’ mind.
One can heartily agree with the writer’s insistence upon the fact that modern in- tellectualism is unable to comprehend Jesus’ mode of thinking and his way to the knowl- edge of God’s purpose and nature. But one wonders, whether the author really penetrates the depth of the conflict which the evangelists have in mind, when they refer to Jesus’ fight with Satan. Furthermore, while the parallels between events in the Old Testament and similar ones in the ministry of Jesus are very instructive, the author does not succeed in pointing out why the life of Jesus as de- scribed in the Gospels should have a decid- edly higher significance than the Old Testa- ment antecedents. The reader will also gratefully acknowledge Dr. McCashland’s efforts to bring out the extraordinary and strange features in Jesus’ ministry. Yet such characterization is still far from the unique- ness which the evangelists ascribe to Jesus.
Otto A. Piper
St. John's Gospel: An Exposition, by Walter Liithi (Trans, by Kurt Schoenenberger). John Knox Press, Richmond, Virginia. Pp. vii -f- 347. $5.00.
Walter Liithi is one of the best known preachers of the Reformed Church in Swit- zerland. Deeply influenced by Karl Barth, he has created a new type of expository preach- ing, of which this volume is an impressive witness. Preached originally in the early years of World War II, these sermons have not lost their original freshness and rele- vance. In his exposition of the Fourth Gospel, Dr. Liithi continues the work that Barth
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had inaugurated in his Epistle to the Ro- mans. Like his teacher, the author wants to expound the Bible in such a way that the personality of the expositor, far from block- ing the spiritual view of the audience, be- comes the vehicle through which the Holy Spirit does his work in the Church. Conse- quently the congregation will become aware and certain of the divine origin and the spiritual relevance of the text.
Here is strictly expository preaching. The audience is not distracted through more or less irrelevant stories or stirred up to unholy warmth of emotions by brilliant oratory. Rather they are enjoined to follow the text itself and to learn both what it says about Jesus, and how the listener, or the reader, may appropriately react to Jesus’ works. Unlike Barth’s commentary, however, the preacher does not cover every verse of John’s Gospel. Rather, from pericopes which are often of considerable length, the author will select a few points which in his judgment form the most important aspects of the text. Particularly impressive and helpful is the author’s leitmotiv of the positive value of life. Dr. Liithi is a realist, who is familiar with the miseries and weaknesses of the human heart. But in Jesus’ miracles he finds also the guarantee that the present distor- tions and frustrations of life will be over- come by God’s power. This realism adduces a welcome freshness and originality to familiar texts.
In his treatment of the Biblical text the preacher is at a considerable advantage as compared with the exegete. The latter has to follow the argument and the way of reasoning of the Biblical writer. In the case of the Fourth Gospel, that means that the exegete has to confront each passage with the total theme of the Gospel. It is the preacher’s right to deal with each section of the text as a complete entity. This does not mean, how- ever, that Dr. Liithi is completely losing sight of the general theme of John’s Gospel. He emphasizes the Christo-centric character of John’s message. Perhaps, this fact could be stated in a different way, however. Ac- cording to the author, Jesus is the earthly manifestation of the eternal work of the Son of God and thus he is the presence of God himself. Here, as in Barth, this reviewer notices a tendency to transform the trini-
tarian character of the Gospel into a kind of divine monism.
Thus Dr. Liithi can introduce the Baptist as saying that “God bears the sins of the world” (p. 15 ff). Such a statement is cor- rect in a certain sense, but made without qualification, does it exhaust what the Fourth Evangelist wants to proclaim? Does he not continuously stress the fact that it is only in the light of the Incarnation and the historical ministry of Jesus that the meaning of the Old Testament becomes clear? And is not John anxious to show his readers that the ministry of Jesus adds something new and essential to the eternal work of the Son of God? It is only through his earthly life that God is glorified. These critical remarks are not destined in any way to detract from the significance of Dr. Liithi’s exposition. Rather they are made in recognition of the merit of his manly wrestling with the central problem of Johannine exegesis, namely the unity of John’s message.
Otto A. Piper
Luther’s Works, Vol. 26. Lectures on Galatians (1535), Chapters I-IV (Trans, by J. Pelikan). Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, Mo., 1963. Pp. x + 492. $6.00.
Luther’s Works, Vol. 27. Lectures on Galatians (1535), Chapters V-VI (Trans, by J. Pelikan) and Lectures on Galatians (1519), Chapters I-VI (Trans, by R. Jungkuntz). 1964. Pp. x 441. $6.00.
Martin Luther’s Lectures on Galatians (J535) is one of the finest works in the history of Christian exegesis and theology. It issues from Luther’s mature reflection on the Pauline themes that in his earlier years had created the Reformation. These appear in the form most appropriate for Luther’s thought, namely biblical commentary.
Luther is amusingly blunt about the im- portance of the main theme of the epistle. “Whoever knows well how to distinguish the Gospel from the Law should give thanks to God and know that he is a real theolo- gian.” Then he adds at once, “I admit that in time of temptation I myself do not know
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how to do this as I should” (on Gal. 2:14). By Luther’s standard, admitting the exis- tential difficulty, there are few “real theolo- gians” in American pulpits. It is nonetheless a good standard, as well for the twentieth century as for the sixteenth, and there exists no work comparable to this one for exposing a contemporary reader to this crucial issue of theology and ethics.
The commentary contains classic state- ments of Luther on Christ the Lord of Scrip- ture, on being righteous and a sinner at the same time, on the relation of faith and love, on doubt and temptation, on “truly good” works, on Christ the victor, on the “masks” of God, and other important themes. Some major subjects such as the sacraments, the state, or predestination, are either missing or touched only in passing; hence the com- mentary is not a complete presentation of Luther’s thought. The book is repetitious, but is so rich in nuance as major conceptions return again and again that any abridgement is an impoverishment.
Luther’s brilliant imagination illumines Pauline teaching in unforgettable ways. Once one has encountered his distinction between “white” and “black” devils, or between “physical” and “spiritual” witchcraft, or his story of the death of poor Dr. Krause, or how Christ “came once” and “comes every day,” or the meaning of “Abba! Father!” — one may be tempted to borrow his expression for contemporary use in the pulpit. At least this is a common response of seminary stu- dents. It is a temptation to be resisted apart from a firm grasp on Luther’s insights as developed through the entire length of the commentary.
Luther’s exegesis contains practices that should not be followed by others. But when read along with the epistle itself and a modern commentary, his guidance is an in- dispensable help for understanding the Epis- tle to the Galatians. It might be a means for the true reformation today of many theo- logically trained people who are farther from being “real theologians” than they realize.
The new translation of the lectures of 1535 by Professor Pelikan of Yale appears in a two volume set which contains also a translation by Richard Jungkuntz of the much briefer Galatians lectures of 1519. The text of the longer work is made from the first Latin edition, which had Luther’s ap-
proval, although based on notes made by George Rorer as Luther lectured. The trans- lation is excellent, if occasionally bland. One might complain that a facet of meaning was overlooked here and there — for example the difference between “sensus” and “affectus” in 4:6 and in 5:5. But occasions for objection are extremely rare. The indices are elaborate, if sometimes arbitrary and mechanical. Cross references to other works of Luther, unhap- pily, are given only by volume number. They are useful only for those fortunate enough to possess the entire Luther’s Works. While the policy on introduction and notes in the series at large is to be commended, a much larger amount, both historical and analytical, would certainly have been justified for the Lectures on Galatians and for several other key works. Numerous classical and scholastic allusions need fuller attention than they receive.
Edward A. Dowey, Jr.
History
The Sufficiency of God (Essays on the Ecumenical Hope, in honor of W. A. Visser ’t Hooft), ed. by R. C. Mackie and C. C. West. The West- minster Press, Philadelphia, 1963. Pp. 240. $5.50.
One of the most interesting aspects of this festschrift for Dr. W. A. Visser ’t Hooft issued on the occasion of twenty-five years of service in the ecumenical movement is its historical depth. The authors who deal mainly with the history of the ecumenical movement — Josef Hromadka, Suzanne de Dietrich, Bishop Sherrill, Martin Fisher and Kathleen Bliss — are people who do not write academically, but rather from their own long experience. That is, first of all, an experience in their own countries in which the struggles of the churches in the past twenty-five years has been notable. A variety of forms of Christian witness has made up the ecumenical movement. These are as different as the Confessing Church in Germany was from the Christian frontier in England and as the early Christian student movement was from the witness of Professor Hromadka in Czechoslovakia of the present time. The point is that these witnesses within a nation could
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not have been made without a simultaneous witness in the ecumenical movement. Ecu- menical history has depth because it stretches back into the history of the churches which compose it. M. M. Thomas writes an able analysis of ecumenical witness in Asian and African revolutions thereby reminding us that rapidly moving history in these parts of the world contains its own depth. The fact that the ecumenical movement is young does not mean that it is shallow. As writers in this volume testify, it has grown rapidly in part because it rests upon the depth of the church’s witness in their own land and culture.
As might well be expected, the volume reflects theological variety. The most notable theological articles are by Father Florovsky, Father Congar, Nikos Nissiotis, Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans Reudi Weber. Those familiar with ecumenical theological writing will expect from this group of authors con- cern with ecclesiology, with ecumenical social ethics and with the laity in the life of the people of God. The articles, however, are by no means a rehash. They contribute sub- stantially to present discussion. Father Con- gar’s treatment of “ecumenical shock” is a good shock treatment. It is to be noted that the book, to its credit, contains representative contributions from the churches and the continents involved in the ecumenical move- ment.
This reader was especially attracted by the fact that the book is made up of those who have been and still are pioneers. Some have represented their churches in the ecumenical movement ; some either have been or still are staff members of the World Council of Churches. Some of them are Young Turks; some of them were Young Turks and have become older, but are still as “Turkish.” To these and others like them, the ecumenical movement owes its beginning and rise and upon such its future depends. It is eminently fitting that a book in honor of W. A. Visser ’t Hooft should be written by people who have stood way out and yet have been able to lead the churches as well.
The unity of the volume does not consist in style and organization. Who cares about these matters? A symposium that is smoothed down in these ways usually turns out to be a bore. The depth of unity is stated in the
title and is evident in every article. It is supplied by well tested and deeply held Christian faith. The book contains direct tribute to Dr. Visser ’t Hooft in particular in the introduction by Robert Mackie which is sensitive and skillful writing by a life- long friend; and it contains tribute in the thinking that it sets forth on matters of ecumenical interest. The deeper tribute of the book, however, is at its point of unity. Visser ’t Hooft has embodied and proclaimed the faith which underlies in the deepest unity of the ecumenical movement. That faith is in The Sufficiency of God.
Robert S. Bilheimer Central Presbyterian Church Rochester, New York
The English Reformation, by Arthur
G. Dickens. Schocken Books, Inc. New York, N.Y., 1964. Pp. 340. $8.50.
This book by Arthur G. Dickens, who is Professor of History in the University of London, King’s College, is a study of the English Reformation, which the author de- scribes as “a process of Protestantisation among the English people, a process not al- ways favoured by the State, a process exert- ing a mass of direct and indirect influences not only upon English history but upon the whole of western civilisation” (p. 325). Dr. Dickens is, of course, very familiar with the work of previous historians who have dealt with this subject — men like A. F. Pollard,
H. Maynard Smith, T. M. Parker, Philip Hughes and J. E. Neale. But he has also carried out original research in various aspects of the history of this period, and has assimilated the findings of numerous masters’ and doctors’ theses on special problems in the general area. On the basis of such varied and extensive knowledge he has written a careful and authoritative analysis of the Ref- ormation movement in England from Henry VIII’s “National Catholicism” to the more pronounced Protestantism of the Elizabethan Settlement.
In the course of his luminous exposition Professor Dickens brings out certain matters hitherto only imperfectly, if at all, realized and understood. For instance, he presents a careful appraisal of the place of Wycliffian
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Lollardy in preparing the way for the 16th century Protestant movement in England. Again, he gives reasons for assigning a high- ly important place to that “administrative virtuoso,” Thomas Cromwell, who not only headed up the dissolution of the monasteries, but also laid the legal foundations of the National Church during those eight years — 1532-40 — in which he was Henry VIII’s prin- cipal advisor. Again, though Dr. Dickens is not a professional theologian, he acutely points out that the Forty-two Articles of 1552-53 — which, with some modifications, became the Thirty-nine Articles of 1563 — “are in very large part directed against the Anabaptists, the fashionable menace of 1552” (p. 252). “The Forty-two Articles leave no doubt as to the medial position of the ‘new’ Church, yet it is chiefly medial between Rome and the Anabaptists, rather than be- tween Rome and the Calvinists or between Rome and the Lutherans” (ibid.). Once more, he has this to say about the Eliza- bethan Settlement of 1559, “It soon became fashionable to regard the Elizabethan Settle- ment as running a middle course between Rome and Geneva, but so far as concerns the very decisive contest of 1559 both these great powers were non-starters. It would be vastly more accurate to call the Settlement a middle way between the personal prejudices of Queen Elizabeth and those entertained by Dr. Richard Cox and his ebullient friends in the House of Commons” (p. 305).
To the qualities of extensive knowledge and perceptive judgment Dr. Dickens adds the grace of a pleasing literary style. His book therefore is one of the highest value for the study of the critical period in English history with which it deals, and seems cer- tain to take rank as a leading presentation of the subject.
Norman V. Hope
The Reformation: A Narrative His- tory Related by Contemporary Ob- servers and Participants, by Hans J. Hillerbrand. Harper & Row, Inc., New York, 1964. Pp. 482. $7.50.
This volume, as its Preface explains, “un- dertakes to relate the story of the Reforma- tion with the help of contemporary sources.”
Its author, Dr. Hans J. Hillerbrand, of Duke University Divinity School, has organized his materials in the following roughly chron- ological sections : Restlessness Before the Storm, The Gathering Storm, Zwingli and the Reformation in Zurich, Calvin and the Reformation in Geneva, Radical Reform Movements, The Reformation in England and Scotland, The Political and Organizational Consolidation of the Reformation in Ger- many, and Catholic Response and Renewal. Each of these eight sections begins with an introductory essay, short but perceptive and illuminating, by Dr. Hillerbrand; it con- tinues with a selection of contemporary docu- ments illustrating leading features of the movement with which it deals ; and it con- cludes with a bibliography and footnote ref- erences for the sources quoted.
Dr. Hillerbrand in his Preface explains the principles which have governed his selection of documents. He has not thought fit to include the theological treatises au- thored by Reformation leaders — such as Melanchthon’s Loci Communes or Calvin’s Institutes — for these are readily available elsewhere. Because of pressure of space he has confined his selections to strictly ecclesi- astical developments, rather than seeking to cover the general history of the Reformation age. And — again because of limited space — he has concentrated on the leading figures — Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, etc. — omitting men of lesser importance such as Martin Bucer and Jan Laski.
This book inevitably includes selections from such official pronouncements as the laws of the Reformation Parliament of 1529- 36, which cancelled the allegiance of the Church of England to the Roman pope. It also quotes from such public documents as Beza’s Life of Calvin and John Knox’s His- tory of the Reformation. In addition, how- ever, it draws upon less formal documents like the sermons of John Colet and Hugh Latimer, and the letters of Zwingli, Calvin, and Ignatius Loyola. The result is a collec- tion which makes fascinating reading, and which gives the reader the “feel” of the Reformation and Counter Reformation in such a vivid and compelling manner as no textbook, however well-informed and able, can do.
In 1911 Dr. B. J. Kidd published his well-
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known and useful Documents of the Conti- nental Reformation. But valuable as this book is, it suffers from two limitations: it omits all reference to England, and much of it is in Latin and French. This book of Dr. Hillerbrand’s covers all phases of the six- teenth century religious revolution, Roman Catholic as well as Protestant, and all of it is in English. Dr. Roland H. Bainton rightly says that “Hillerbrand has placed all students of the Reformation in his debt by providing, for the first time in the English language, a sourcebook of the movement as a whole.”
Norman V. Hope
Practical
The Pulpit Speaks on Race, ed. by Alfred T. Davies. Abingdon Press, Nashville, Tenn., 1965. Pp. 191. $3.95.
This volume is made up of twenty sermons delivered in the United States on the contro- versial theme of race. They are edited by Alfred T. Davies, a young Presbyterian min- ister in Hilliard, Ohio. Like every symposium the general quality is bound to be uneven and with so many sermons on the same subject the ultimate effect is apt to give the impression of over-exposure. Yet as such compilations go, this particular one rates rather well. Indeed one could scarcely expect its being otherwise with such contributors as Blake, Ferris, Kennedy, King, Marney, and others of equal capacity, although maybe not so well and favorably known.
These sermons are well written, vigor- ously contemporaneous, and marked by a genuinely crusading spirit. To single out any one or two of them would render a reviewer guilty of odious comparisons — whether the authors be named or not — and certainly none of us cares to be homiletical critic turned cutting reptile. On the positive side, this book is of real value mainly as a contribution to the history of preaching ; some future generation of research students will want to know what was said from the pulpits of America during these crucial years. Moreover, these sermons have good sub- stance and represent able writing by men who are competent in a knowledge of theol- ogy and life and who have a sensitive aware- ness of the deep social, political, and religious
under-currents of this mid-century revolu- tion.
There are some ways, on the other hand, in which this collection of sermons and the theme may have been handled more accept- ably and effectively. First, and simply, there are too many contributors — twenty in all. With a theme that has been misrepresented frequently through half-truths and unfounded exaggerations, it would have been better to include maybe fifteen sermons and thereby permit each preacher to develop his ideas more fully. Especially is this true in the use of scripture texts where, with the excep- tion of only several, the Biblical verse serves the sermon. Moreover, one cannot suppress a sharp caveat : why do sermons on race have to be so negative? Even the editor in his foreword deplores the contemporary “pulpit record” on the race issue. Definitely there are also some bright and spectacular pages in the record of these years, yet it is trouble- some to note how consistently they are omitted by the sombre scribe or smothered by the voices of doom. Apart from these few adverse evaluations, this book represents a job that needed to be done and will continue to be a testimony to high truths most cer- tainly believed.
Donald Macleod
Minister’s Annual 1965, by David A. MacLennan. Fleming H. Revell Co., Westwood, N.J., 1965. Pp. 383. $3.95.
Few contemporary ministers have at- tempted more assiduously to enhance the fortunes of preaching than has David A. MacLennan, senior minister of the Brick Presbyterian Church in Rochester, New York. Apart from his books — now ten in number — and his teaching at Yale and Rochester, he has put such qualitative sub- stance and creative thinking into certain types of homiletical aids and helps that he has been able to lift them above the level of “canned goods” into respectable resources. Such is this first volume of Revell’s Minis- ter’s Annual 1965, a compilation of worship, sermonic, and study materials for a full year. Among the extra features in this volume are a Lectionary (adopted from the Church of South India), a Calendar of the Christian Year 1965, 1966, and 1967, a list
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of basic books for the minister’s library, and four indexes.
The major part of this book, however, is devoted to materials — including digests of sermons — for morning and evening services for every Sunday in 1965, with the complete data of scripture lessons, hymns, and full length prayers. These occupy 250 pages ; then follow ten Communion Meditations, four funeral talks, fifty pages of Midweek messages, suggestive excerpts for bulletins, and topics for sermon series. Altogether this is an unusual assembly of materials and among its commendable features is that it comes as the fruit of the ministry of a man whose service to the Church has been marked by constant growth and sober strength. Here one can find germinal ideas, illustrated aptly, and processed through the crucible of a dedicated mind. Moreover, one does not read far in this volume without concluding that the preaching ministry lays a demand upon one’s academic and devotional resources to an extraordinary degree and that even in digest form a year’s output reaches 400 pages. Those who will buy this book and handle it rightly will experience the challenge its quality and substance imply.
Donald Macleod
Administering Christian Education, by Robert K. Bower. Wm. B. Eerd- mans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Mich., 1964. Pp. 227. $3.95.
Most books on the administration of Christian education consist of practical hints and tried and true rules on how to do it, but are rather useless from a theoretical point of view. Bower’s Administering Christian Education provides a startling and welcome contrast. Within his concept of the church and its mission, he has made the results of administration research and theory from the social sciences, business, and education available to the Christian educator. The book exemplifies the principle that reasoned theory provides the basis for considered and sound practice. I am enthusiastic about this ap- proach, and the way Bower has used it. Although clearly written to and within an “evangelical’’ ethos, there are few of the usual limitations of that ethos evident here.
D. Campbell Wyckoff
Pastoral Care in the Church, by C. W. Brister. Harper & Row, New York, 1964. Pp. 262. $5.00.
This is a comprehensive outline of pastoral carq, really the first to appear in the modern era. It is in the best sense of the word a solid book which brings together between two covers much of the best thinking about pastoral care and pastoral theology which has been done in the past three decades. It is literally saturated (perhaps even super- saturated) with references to all sorts of relevant materials, and hence is practically worth the purchase price for the bibliographi- cal material alone.
The author states that “it is designed to serve as a primer in pastoral work.” As such, it succeeds very well, but those who are looking for “new things” in pastoral theol- ogy will not find too much of interest in this volume, except for some pioneering ma- terials on the pastoral ministry of the laity. Although the author has not dealt with this question comprehensively, he can scarcely be held responsible for that, since no one else has dealt with it at all.
There are some matters of taste and per- spective with which I find myself in dis- agreement with Dr. Brister. First, there is the suggestion, particularly in the theological sections of the book, that theologians of all persuasions may serve as compatible re- sources for the pastor. My own thought about this is that the pastor may have to do more choosing among theologians than Brister seems to imply by his multiple ref- erences. It must be said, however, that he is not incapable of offering a critique of a theological position in season. Another point at which the book could have been stronger, I think, is in the use of case material, which as Brister acknowledges, often shows less than optimal pastoral care. Although medi- ocrity does have its illustrative uses, in an avowed primer, perhaps exemplary cases would have been more to the point.
Again let me emphasize the usefulness of this book for pastors who want a sound and knowledgeable guide for pastoral care in their total ministry.
James N. Lapsley, Jr.
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Hymns in Christian Worship, by Cecil Northcott. (Ecumenical Studies in Worship, No. 13). John Knox Press, Richmond, Va., 1965. Pp. 83. Paper, $1.75.
Those familiar with the writings of Cecil Northcott have learned to expect from him material that is definitive, scholarly, and orientated towards good sense. This mono- graph, which is Number 13 in the series “Ecumenical Studies in Worship,” is a high- ly useful contribution to a succession of studies by such distinguished writers as Oscar Cullmann, J. G. Davies, A. S. Herbert, J.-J. von Allmen, and others.
In the short span of some eighty pages Dr. Northcott discusses the place of the Christian hymn in the pattern of the Church’s worship under such chapter headings as “The Nature and Function of Christian Hymns” ; “The Hymn in History”; “The Hymn in Litur- gy” ; and “Hymns in the Life of the Church.” In all these the author attempts to “look more broadly at the place of hymnody in the Christian church, and what its func- tion is in worship, rather than only at the supposed shortcomings of a particular col- lection of hymns” (p. 6). His broad eccle- siastical and liturgical viewpoint and his sensitivity to the proprieties of hymnody equip him admirably for making stringent observations and drawing good conclusions. He deplores the modern tendency to water down the wording of hymns (what John Wesley called “mending of them”) and to confuse the peculiar nature of them with poetry and theology. A hymn, he maintains, is “a salute in song to the events of the Gospel both in the Old and the New Israel” (p. 9). His familiarity with authors and composers adds interest to his accounts of the development of the hymn in Christian worship especially since the Reformation, of the contributions of such pivotal figures as Watts and the Wesleys, and of the original sacred collections that are tributary to the ecumenical hymnals of today. Especially helpful are his comments upon the place and use in the sanctuary of “pop” music, “beat tunes,” and other forms of contemporary music which, he concludes, are not “a break through to a new style of hymnody” (p. 75). He acknowledges the fact that the modern
hymns have not caught on and chiefly because their promoters fail to realize that “we sing because we believe, and hymns enshrine the fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith and convey them to the believer in a personal manner” (p. 77).
In such a compact treatment, naturally it is not possible to deal with every aspect of hymnody or to resolve all contingent prob- lems. However, the author might have en- lightened us regarding how the hymn does become “more integral to the whole wor- ship.” Apart from the relevance of its theme and its setting in the theological shape of the act of worship, what other directives are there? Also, even though we grant the author’s thought of a hymn as “singable praise,” yet the canons of poetic criticism ought not to be ruled out entirely in our es- timate of the total quality of sacred song.
Donald Macleod
General
Sacred and Projane Beauty: The Holy in Art, by Gerardus van der Leeuw (Trans, by David E. Green; preface by Mircea Eliade). Holt, Rine- hart and Winston, New York, 1963. Pp- 357. xx- $6.50.
Gerardus van der Leeuw, who died in 1950 taught at Groningen and was a recog- nized philosopher and theologian. As a young man he studied Oriental languages and wrote a doctoral dissertation on Egyptian religion. Later he published two excellent books on primitive religion and a classic on the phe- nomenology of religion. He was besides a poet, a musician, a man of the church. After the liberation of Holland, for a brief period he served his country as Minister of Edu- cation.
In the study under review, van der Leeuw tried to discover paths and boundaries for anyone who sees a relation between the holy and the beautiful. That is, for anyone who says he understands something of the way God speaks through beauty, anyone who says that God’s word could never be without the highest beauty. He admitted it was a first and very incomplete attempt. No one has dared more than a first step in this field, he
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conceded. Religion and art, the author de- clared (p. 333), are parallel lines which intersect only at infinity, and meet in God. If we continue to speak, however, of a re- newed unity of influences whereby holiness and beauty can meet, at a point at which religion and art meet, in the world, we must really mean a direction, a striving, a recog- nition which ultimately must destroy itself.
The book is so organized that the different arts are treated one after the other in six chapters : the dance, drama, rhetoric, the fine arts, architecture, and music. Each chapter closes with a theological aesthetic. In it, the search is pursued for the connection between what the author considers, on the one hand, to be the essential core of the art in question, and God’s revelation on the other. The last chapter is devoted to a general theological aesthetic.
With Mircea Eliade who contributes an illuminating preface, one is inclined to see in this work the masterpiece of van der Leeuw’s maturity. By the breadth of its learning, by the audacity of its purpose, by the gracefulness of its style, this is a unique and highly significant book for the church- man and educator.
Edward J. Jurjx
The Trial of Jesus, by James C. McRuer. Clarke, Irwin & Company, Toronto, Canada, 1964. Pp. 94. $2.50.
Through the centuries the trial of Jesus has been discussed widely by theologians and explored in depth in an exegetical con- text by New Testament scholars. This latest treatment, however, has the peculiar distinc- tion of being done by a distinguished jurist
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and outstanding Christian layman, the Hon- orable James C. McRuer, the Chief Justice of the Province of Ontario, who is also a ruling elder in Bloor Street United Church, Toronto. In the Foreword a recognized Roman Catholic educator, Father Elliott MacGuigan, writes : “Never have I seen the evidence of injustice in the trial of Jesus so well collated and united, and the cumulative effect of violation after violation of injustice and illegality is most profound” (vii).
This is not, therefore, simply a legalistic essay. It reflects careful reading in back- ground resources and discriminative use of facts from Josephus, Edersheim, Klausner, Schurer, David Smith, Perowne, and others. Without taking time to demythologize the synoptic accounts or to reckon with the form critics, the writer re-presents the dramatic stages of the trial and from his mature grasp of ancient Jewish and Roman law, he evalu- ates the transactions of the courts with skill and clarity. His knowledge of the various individuals and the role of each pressure group in this parody of justice insures an authentic complexion to the whole discussion, while his organization of the materials leads with cumulative effect to the climax of ig- nominy he so well summarizes : “In all the annals of legal history, it would be difficult to find another case in which a prisoner who had been declared not guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction was delivered to the executioner by the judge who had acquitted him” (p. 72).
This book makes good Lenten reading. A competent study group would find in it an unusual amount of discussion materials. Every church should have a copy in its library.
Donald Macleod
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