D01 0010 As a result, although we still make use of this distinction, there is D01 0020 much confusion as to the meaning of the basic terms employed. Just what D01 0030 is meant by "spirit" and by "matter"? The terms are generally D01 0040 taken for granted as though they referred to direct and axiomatic D01 0050 elements in the common experience of all. Yet in the contemporary D01 0060 context this is precisely what one must not do. For in the modern world D01 0070 neither "spirit" nor "matter" refer to any generally agreed-upon D01 0080 elements of experience. We are in a transitional stage in which D01 0090 many of the connotations of former usage have had to be revised or rejected. D01 0100 When the words are used, we are never sure which of the traditional D01 0110 meanings the user may have in mind, or to what extent his revisions D01 0120 and rejections of former understandings correspond to ours. D01 0130 One of the most widespread features of contemporary thought is the D01 0140 almost universal disbelief in the reality of spirit. Just a few centuries D01 0150 ago the world of spirits was as populous and real as the world of D01 0160 material entities. Not only in popular thought but in that of the highly D01 0170 educated as well was this true. Demons, fairies, angels, and a host D01 0180 of other spiritual beings were as much a part of the experiential D01 0190 world of western man as were rocks and trees and stars. In such a world D01 0200 the words "matter" and "spirit" both referred to directly D01 0210 known realities in the common experience of all. In it important elements D01 0220 of Christianity and of the Biblical view of reality in general, D01 0230 which now cause us much difficulty, could be responded to quite naturally D01 0240 and spontaneously. The progress of science over these last D01 0250 few centuries and the gradual replacement of Biblical by scientific D01 0260 categories of reality have to a large extent emptied the spirit world D01 0270 of the entities which previously populated it. In carrying out this D01 0280 program science has undoubtedly performed a very considerable service D01 0290 for which it can claim due credit. The objectification of the world D01 0300 of spirit in popular superstition had certainly gone far beyond what the D01 0310 experience of spirit could justify or support. Science is fully competent D01 0320 to deal with any element of experience which arises from an object D01 0330 in space and time. When, therefore, it turned its attention to the D01 0340 concrete entities with which popular imagination had peopled the world D01 0350 of spirit, these entities soon lost whatever status they had enjoyed D01 0360 as actual elements of external reality. In doing so science has unquestionably D01 0370 cleared up widespread misconceptions, removed extraneous D01 0380 and illusory sources of fear, and dispelled many undesirable popular D01 0390 superstitions. There have been, indeed, many important and valuable gains D01 0400 from the development of our present scientific view of the world D01 0410 for which we may be rightly grateful. All this has not, however, D01 0420 been an unmixed blessing. The scientific debunking of the spirit world D01 0430 has been in a way too successful and too thorough. The house has D01 0440 been swept so clean that contemporary man has been left with no means, D01 0450 or at best with wholly inadequate means, for dealing with his experience D01 0460 of spirit. Although the particular form of conceptualization which D01 0470 popular imagination had made in response to the experience of spirit D01 0480 was undoubtedly defective, the raw experience itself which led to such D01 0490 excesses remains with us as vividly as ever. We simply find ourselves D01 0500 in the position of having no means for inquiring into the structure D01 0510 and meaning of this range of our experience. There is no framework D01 0520 or structure of thought with respect to which we can organize it and D01 0521 no part D01 0530 of reality, as we know and apprehend it, with respect to which we D01 0540 can refer this experience. Science has simply left us helpless and powerless D01 0550 in this important sector of our lives. The situation in D01 0560 which we find ourselves is brought out with dramatic force in Arthur D01 0570 Miller's play which deals with the Salem witch D01 0580 trials. As the play opens the audience is introduced to the community D01 0590 of Salem in Puritan America at the end of the eighteenth century. D01 0600 Aside from a quaint concern with witches and devils which provides D01 0610 the immediate problem in the opening scene, it is a quite normal community. D01 0620 The conversation of the characters creates an atmosphere suggesting D01 0630 the usual mixture of pleasures, foibles, irritations, and concerns D01 0640 which would characterize the common life of a normal village in any D01 0650 age. There is no occasion to feel uneasy or disturbed about these people. D01 0660 Instead, the audience can sit back at ease and, from the perspective D01 0670 of an enlightened time which no longer believes in such things, D01 0680 enjoy the dead seriousness with which the characters in the play take D01 0690 the witches and devils which are under discussion. A teenage girl, Abigail D01 0700 Williams, is being sharply questioned by her minister uncle, D01 0710 the Reverend Samuel Parris, about a wild night affair in the woods D01 0720 in which she and some other girls had seemed to have had contact with D01 0730 these evil beings. For all involved in this discussion the devil is D01 0740 a real entity who can really be confronted in the woods on a dark night, D01 0750 the demon world is populated with real creatures, and witches actually D01 0760 can be seen flying through the air. As the play unfolds, however, D01 0770 the audience is subtly brought into the grip of an awful evil D01 0780 which grows with ominously gathering power and soon engulfs the community. D01 0790 Everyone in Salem, saint and sinner alike, is swept up by it. D01 0800 It is like a mysterious epidemic which, starting first with Abigail D01 0810 and Parris, spreads inexorably with a dreadfully growing virulence through D01 0820 the whole town until all have been infected by it. It grows terribly D01 0830 and unavoidably in power and leaves in its wake a trail of misery, D01 0840 moral disintegration, and destruction. The audience leaves the play D01 0850 under a spell, It is the kind of spell which the exposure to spirit D01 0860 in its living active manifestation always evokes. If one asks D01 0870 about this play, what it is that comes upon this community and works D01 0880 within it with such terrible power, there is no better answer to give D01 0890 than "spirit". This is not to attempt to say what spirit is, but D01 0900 only to employ a commonly used word to designate or simply identify a D01 0910 common experience. In the end the good man, John Proctor, expresses D01 0920 what the audience has already come to feel when he says, "A fire, D01 0930 a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy D01 0940 face"! The tragic irony of the play is that the very belief in and D01 0950 concern with a devil who could be met in the woods and combatted with D01 0960 formulae set out in books was the very thing that prevented them from D01 0970 detecting the real devil when he came among them. We marvel at their D01 0980 blindness for not seeing this. Yet are not we of the mid-twentieth D01 0990 century, who rightly do not believe there is any such "thing" as the D01 1000 devil, just as bad off as they- only in a different way? In our D01 1010 disbelief we think that we can no longer even use the word and so are D01 1020 unable to even name the elemental power which is so vividly real in D01 1030 this play. We are left helpless to cope with it because we do not dare D01 1040 speak of it as anything real for fear that to do so would imply a commitment D01 1050 to that which has already been discredited and proved false. D01 1060 Even Mr& Miller himself seems uncertain on this score. In D01 1070 a long commentary which he has inserted in the published text of the D01 1080 first act of the play, he says at one point: "However, that experience D01 1090 never raised a doubt in his mind as to the reality of the underworld D01 1100 or the existence of Lucifer's many-faced lieutenants. And his D01 1110 belief is not to his discredit. Better minds than Hale's were- D01 1120 and still are- convinced that there is a society of spirits beyond D01 1130 our ken". (page 33) On the other hand, a little later on he says: D01 1140 "Since 1692 a great but superficial change has wiped out God's D01 1150 beard and the Devil's horns, but the world is still gripped between D01 1160 two diametrically opposed absolutes. The concept of unity, in which D01 1170 positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good D01 1180 and evil are relative, ever-changing, and always joined to the same phenomenon- D01 1190 such a concept is still reserved to the physical sciences D01 1200 and to the few who have grasped the history of ideas **h. When we see D01 1210 the steady and methodical inculcation into humanity of the idea of man's D01 1220 worthlessness- until redeemed- the necessity of the Devil may D01 1230 become evident as a weapon, a weapon designed and used time and time D01 1240 again in every age to whip men into a surrender to a particular church D01 1250 or church-state". (page 34) Apparently he does not intend D01 1260 that those who read or view this play should think of the devil as being D01 1270 actually real. Yet such is the dramatic power of his writing that D01 1280 the audience is nevertheless left in the grip of the terrible power and D01 1290 potency of that which came over Salem. It casts a spell upon them D01 1300 so that they leave with a feeling of having been in the mysterious presence D01 1310 of an evil power. It is not enough in accounting for this feeling D01 1320 to analyze it into the wickedness of individual people added together D01 1330 to produce a cumulative effect. For this does not account for the D01 1340 integral, elemental power of that which grows with abounding vigor as D01 1350 the play unfolds, nor does it explain the strange numinous sense of presentness D01 1360 which comes over those who watch the play like a spell. The D01 1370 reality of spirit emerges in this play in spite of the author's convictions D01 1380 to the contrary. #SPIRIT AND COMMUNITY# There is D01 1390 nothing in the whole range of human experience more widely known and D01 1400 universally felt than spirit. Apart from spirit there could be no community, D01 1410 for it is spirit which draws men into community and gives to any D01 1420 community its unity, cohesiveness, and permanence. Think, for example, D01 1430 of the spirit of the Marine Corps. Surely this is a reality we D01 1440 all acknowledge. We cannot, of course, assign it any substance. It D01 1450 is not material and is not a "thing" occupying space and time. Yet D01 1460 it exists and has an objective reality which can be experienced and D01 1470 known. So it is too with many other spirits which we all know: the D01 1480 spirit of Nazism or Communism, school spirit, the spirit of a street D01 1490 corner gang or a football team, the spirit of Rotary or the Ku Klux D01 1500 Klan. Every community, if it is alive has a spirit, and that spirit D01 1510 is the center of its unity and identity. In searching for clues D01 1520 which might lead us to a fresh apprehension of the reality of spirit, D01 1530 the close connection between spirit and community is likely to prove D01 1540 the most fruitful. For it is primarily in community that we know and D01 1550 experience spirit. It is spirit which gives life to a community and D01 1560 causes it to cohere. It is the spirit which is the source of a community's D01 1570 drawing power by means of which others are drawn into it from D01 1580 the world outside so that the community grows and prospers. Yet the D01 1590 spirit which lives in community is not identical with the community. D01 1600 The idea of community and the idea of spirit are two distinct and separable D01 1610 ideas. One characteristic of the spirit in community is D01 1620 its givenness. The members of the community do not create the spirit D01 1630 but rather find it present and waiting for them. It is for them a given D01 1640 which they and they alone possess. The spirit of the Marine Corps D01 1650 was present and operative before any of the present members of it came D01 1660 into it. It is they, of course, who keep it alive and preserve it D01 1670 so the same spirit will continue to be present in the Corps for future D01 1680 recruits to find as they come into it. D02 0010 If the content of faith is to be presented today in a form that can be D02 0020 "understanded of the people"- and this, it must not be forgotten, D02 0030 is one of the goals of the perennial theological task- there is D02 0040 no other choice but to abandon completely a mythological manner of D02 0045 representation. D02 0050 This does not mean that mythological language as D02 0060 such can no longer be used in theology and preaching. The absurd notion D02 0070 that demythologization entails the expurgation of all mythological D02 0080 concepts completely misrepresents Bultmann's intention. His point D02 0090 is not that mythology may not be used, but that it may no longer be regarded D02 0100 as the only or even the most appropriate conceptuality for expressing D02 0110 the Christian kerygma. When we say that a mythological mode D02 0120 of thought must be completely abandoned, we mean it must be abandoned D02 0130 as the sole or proper means for presenting the Christian understanding D02 0140 of existence. Mythological concepts may by all means still be used, D02 0150 but they can be used responsibly only as "symbols" or "ciphers", D02 0160 that is, only if they are also constantly in nonmythological D02 0170 (or existential) terms. The statement is often made D02 0180 that when Bultmann argues in this way, he "overestimates the intellectual D02 0190 stumbling-block which myth is supposed to put in the way of accepting D02 0200 the Christian faith". But this statement is completely unconvincing. D02 0210 If Bultmann's own definition of myth is strictly adhered D02 0220 to (and it is interesting that this is almost never done by those who D02 0230 make such pronouncements), the evidence is overwhelming that he does D02 0240 not at all exaggerate the extent to which the mythological concepts of D02 0250 traditional theology have become incredible and irrelevant. Nor is D02 0260 it necessary to look for such evidence in the great urban centers of our D02 0270 culture that are admittedly almost entirely secularized and so profoundly D02 0280 estranged from the conventional forms in which the gospel has been D02 0290 communicated. On the contrary, even in the heart of "the Bible D02 0300 belt" itself, as can be attested by any one who is called to work there, D02 0310 the industrial and technological revolutions have long been under D02 0320 way, together with the corresponding changes in man's picture of himself D02 0330 and his world. In fact, it is in just such a situation D02 0340 that the profundity of Bultmann's argument is disclosed. Although D02 0350 the theological forms of the past continue to exist in a way they do D02 0360 not in a more secularized situation, the striking thing is the rapidity D02 0370 with which they are being reduced to a marginal existence. This is D02 0380 especially in evidence among the present generation of the suburban middle D02 0390 class. Time and again in counseling and teaching, one encounters D02 0400 members of this group whose attempts to bring into some kind of unity D02 0410 the insubstantial mythologies of their "fundamentalist" heritage D02 0420 and the stubborn reality of the modern world are only too painfully obvious. D02 0430 The same thing is also evidenced by the extreme "culture-Protestantism" D02 0440 so often observed to characterize the preaching D02 0450 and teaching of the American churches. In the absence of a truly adequate D02 0460 conceptuality in which the gospel can be expressed, the unavoidable D02 0470 need to demythologize it makes use of whatever resources are at D02 0480 hand- and this usually means one or another of the various forms of D02 0490 "folk religion" current in the situation. This is not to say that D02 0500 the explanation of the present infatuation with Norman Vincent D02 0510 Peale's "cult of reassurance" or the other types of a purely D02 0520 cultural Christianity is the ever-present need for a demythologized D02 0530 gospel. But it is to say that this need is far more important for such D02 0540 infatuation than most of the pundits seem to have suspected. D02 0550 However, even if the latent demand for demythologization is not nearly D02 0560 as widespread as we are claiming, at least among the cultured elements D02 0570 of the population there tends to be an almost complete indifference D02 0580 to the church and its traditional message of sin and grace. To be D02 0590 sure, when this is pointed out, a common response among certain churchmen D02 0600 is to fulminate about "the little flock" and "the great crowd" D02 0610 and to take solace from Paul's castigation of the "wisdom of D02 0620 the wise" in the opening chapter of First Corinthians. But can D02 0630 we any longer afford the luxury of such smug indigation? Can the church D02 0640 risk assuming that the "folly" of men is as dear to God as their D02 0650 "wisdom", or, as is also commonly implied, that "the foolishness D02 0660 of God" and "the foolishness of men" are simply two ways D02 0670 of talking about the same thing? Can we continue to alienate precisely D02 0680 those whose gifts we so desperately need and apart from whose co-operation D02 0690 our mission in the world must become increasingly precarious? D02 0700 There is an ancient and venerable tradition in the church (which D02 0710 derives, however, from the heritage of the Greeks rather than from D02 0720 the Bible) that God is completely independent of his creation and D02 0730 so has no need of men for accomplishing his work in the world. by analogy, D02 0740 the church also has been regarded as entirely independent of the D02 0750 "world" in the sense of requiring nothing from it in order to be D02 0760 the church. But, as Scripture everywhere reminds us, God D02 0770 have need of his creatures, and the church, , can ill afford D02 0780 to do without the talents with which the world, by God's providence, D02 0790 presents it. And yet this is exactly the risk we run when D02 0800 we assume, as we too often do, that we can continue to preach the gospel D02 0810 in a form that makes it seem incredible and irrelevant to cultured D02 0820 men. Until we translate this gospel into a language that enlightened D02 0830 men today can understand, we are depriving ourselves of the very resources D02 0840 on which the continued success of our witness most certainly depends. D02 0850 In arguing in this way, we are obviously taking for granted D02 0860 that a demythologized restatement of the kerygma can be achieved; D02 0870 and that we firmly believe this will presently become evident when D02 0880 we set forth reasons to justify such a conviction. But the main point D02 0890 here is that even if such a restatement were possible, the D02 0900 demand to demythologize the kerygma would still be unavoidable. D02 0910 This is what we mean when we say this demand must be accepted without D02 0920 condition. If to be a Christian means to say yes where I otherwise D02 0930 say no, or where I do not have the right to say anything at all, then D02 0940 my only choice is to refuse to be a Christian. Expressed differently: D02 0950 if the price for becoming a faithful follower of Jesus Christ D02 0960 is some form of self-destruction, whether of the body or of the mind- D02 0970 - then there is D02 0980 no alternative but that the price remain unpaid. This must be D02 0990 stressed because it is absolutely essential to the argument of this concluding D02 1000 chapter. Modern man, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer has told us, has D02 1010 "come of age"; and though this process by no means represents D02 1020 an unambiguous gain and is, in fact, marked by the estrangement from D02 1030 the depths that seems to be the cost of human maturation, it is still D02 1040 a positive step forward; and those of us who so richly benefit from D02 1050 it should be the last to despise it. In any event, it is an irreversible D02 1060 step, and if we are at all honest with ourselves, we will know we D02 1070 have no other alternative than to live in the world in which God has D02 1080 seen fit to place us. To say this, of course, is to take up a D02 1090 position on one side of a controversy going on now for some two hundred D02 1100 years, or, at any rate, since the beginning of the distinctively modern D02 1110 period in theological thought. We have aligned ourselves with that D02 1120 "liberal" tradition in Protestant Christianity that counts among D02 1130 the great names in its history those of Schleiermacher, Ritschl, D02 1140 Herrmann, Harnack, and Troeltsch, and more recently, Schweitzer and D02 1150 the early Barth and, in part at least, Bultmann. It is to this same D02 1160 tradition that most of the creative figures in the last century and D02 1170 a half of American theology also belong. For we must number here not D02 1180 only the names of Bushnell, Clarke, and Rauschenbusch, not to mention D02 1190 those of "the Chicago School" and Macintosh, but those of D02 1200 the brothers Niebuhr and (if America may claim him!) Tillich as D02 1210 well. Finally, we may also mention the several members of the self-consciously D02 1220 "neoliberal" movement that developed at the University D02 1230 of Chicago and is heavily indebted philosophically to the creative work D02 1240 of Alfred North Whitehead. What makes this long and diverse D02 1250 tradition essentially is that those who have belonged to it D02 1260 have been profoundly in earnest about being modern men in a distinctively D02 1270 modern world. Although they have also been concerned to stand squarely D02 1280 within the tradition of the apostolic church, they have exhibited D02 1290 no willingness whatever to sacrifice their modernity to their Christianity. D02 1300 They have insisted, rather, on living fully and completely D02 1310 within modern culture and, so far from considering this treason to God, D02 1320 have looked upon it as the only way they could be faithful to him. D02 1330 When we say, then, that today, in our situation, the demand for D02 1340 demythologization must be accepted without condition, we are simply D02 1350 saying that at least this much of the liberal tradition is an enduring D02 1360 achievement. However much we may have to criticize liberal theology's D02 1370 constructive formulations, the theology we ourselves must strive D02 1380 to formulate can only go liberalism, not it. D02 1390 In affirming this we have already taken the decisive step in breaking D02 1400 the deadlock into which Bultmann's attempt to formulate such a D02 1410 theology has led. For we have said, in effect, that of the two alternatives D02 1420 to his position variously represented by the other participants D02 1430 in the demythologizing discussion, only one is really an alternative. D02 1440 If the demand for demythologization is unavoidable and so must be D02 1450 accepted D02 1460 by theology unconditionally, the position of the "right" is D02 1470 clearly untenable. Whereas Bultmann's "center" position is structurally D02 1480 inconsistent and is therefore indefensible on formal grounds D02 1490 alone, the general position of the "right", as represented, say, D02 1500 by Karl Barth, involves the rejection or at least qualification of D02 1510 the demand for demythologization and so is invalidated on the material D02 1520 grounds we have just considered. It follows, then, provided D02 1530 the possibilities have been exhausted, that the only alternative D02 1540 is the general viewpoint of the "left", which has been represented D02 1550 on the Continent by Fritz Buri and, to some extent at least, D02 1560 is found in much that is significant in American and English theology. D02 1570 In order to make the implications of our position as clear D02 1580 as possible, we may develop this argument at greater length. We D02 1590 may show, first, that there cannot possibly be an alternative other D02 1600 than the three typically represented by Bultmann, Barth, and Buri. D02 1610 To do this, it is sufficient to point out that if the principle in terms D02 1620 of which alternatives are to be conceived is such as to exclude more D02 1630 than two, then the question of a "third" possibility is a meaningless D02 1640 question. Thus, if what is at issue is whether "All ~S D02 1650 is ~P", it is indifferent whether "Some ~S is not ~P" D02 1660 or "No ~S is ~P", since in either case the judgment in question D02 1670 is false. Hence, if what is in question is whether in a given theology D02 1680 myth is or is not completely rejected, it is unimportant whether D02 1690 only a little bit of myth or a considerable quantity is accepted; D02 1700 for, in either event, the first possibility is excluded. Therefore, D02 1710 the only conceivable alternatives are those represented, on the one hand, D02 1720 by the two at least apparently self-consistent but mutually exclusive D02 1730 positions of Buri and Barth and, on the other hand, by the third D02 1740 but really pseudo position (analogous to a round square) of Bultmann. D02 1750 A second point requires more extended comment. It will be recalled D02 1760 from the discussion in Section 7 that the position of the "right", D02 1770 as represented by Barth, rests on the following thesis: The D02 1780 only tenable alternative to Bultmann's position is a theology that D02 1790 (1) rejects or at least qualifies his unconditioned demand for demythologization D02 1800 and existential interpretation; (2) accepts instead a D02 1810 special biblical hermeneutics or method of interpretation; and (3) D02 1820 in so doing, frees itself to give appropriate emphasis to the event Jesus D02 1830 Christ by means of statements that, from Bultmann's point of D02 1840 view, are mythological. D03 0010 ONE HUNDRED years ago there existed in England the Association D03 0020 for the Promotion of the Unity of Christendom. Representing D03 0030 as it did the efforts of only unauthorized individuals of the Roman D03 0040 and Anglican Churches, and urging a communion of prayer unacceptable D03 0050 to Rome, this association produced little fruit, and, in fact, was D03 0060 condemned by the Holy Office in 1864. Now again in 1961, in D03 0070 England, there is perhaps nothing in the religious sphere so popularly D03 0080 discussed as Christian unity. The Church Unity Octave, January D03 0090 18-25, was enthusiastically devoted to prayer and discussion by the various D03 0100 churches. Many people seem hopeful, yet it is difficult to predict D03 0110 whether or not there will be any more real attainment of Christian D03 0120 unity in 1961 than there was in 1861. But it must be readily seen D03 0130 that the religious picture in England has so greatly changed during these D03 0140 hundred years as to engender hope, at least on the Catholic side. D03 0150 For the "tide is well on the turn", as the London Catholic weekly D03 0160 has written. I came to England last summer to D03 0170 do research on the unpublished letters of Cardinal Newman. As an D03 0180 American Catholic of Irish ancestry, I came with certain preconceptions D03 0190 and expectations; being intellectually influenced by Newman D03 0200 and the general 19th-century literature of England, I knew only a D03 0205 Protestant-dominated D03 0210 country. Since arriving here, however, I have formed D03 0220 a far different religious picture of present-day England. In representing D03 0230 part of this new picture, I will be recounting some of my D03 0240 own personal experiences, reactions and judgments; but my primary aim D03 0250 is to transcribe what Englishmen themselves are saying and writing D03 0260 and implying about the Roman and Anglican Churches and about the D03 0261 present religious D03 0270 state of England. Since the Protestant clergy for the D03 0280 most part wear gray or some variant from the wholly black suit, my Roman D03 0290 collar and black garb usually identify me in England as a Roman D03 0300 Catholic cleric. In any case, I have always been treated with the D03 0310 utmost courtesy by Englishmen, even in Devonshire and Cornwall, where D03 0320 anti-Catholic feeling has supposedly existed the strongest and longest. D03 0330 Nowhere have I seen public expression of anti-Catholicism. D03 0340 On my first Guy Fawkes Day here, I found Catholics as well D03 0350 as non-Catholics celebrating with the traditional fireworks and bonfires, D03 0360 and was told that most Englishmen either do not know or are not D03 0370 concerned with the historical significance of the day. A Birmingham D03 0380 newspaper printed in a column for children an article entitled "The D03 0390 True Story of Guy Fawkes", which began: "When you D03 0400 pile your D03 0410 "guy" on the bonfire tomorrow night, I wonder how much of the D03 0420 true story of Guy Fawkes you will remember? In the 355 years since D03 0430 the first Guy Fawkes Night, much of the story has been forgotten, D03 0440 so here is a reminder". The article proceeded to give an inaccurate D03 0450 account of a catholic plot to kill King James /1,. ## IN D03 0460 SPITE OF the increase in numbers and prestige brought about by the D03 0470 conversions of Newman and other Tractarians of the 1840's and 1850's, D03 0480 the Catholic segment of England one hundred years ago was a very D03 0490 small one (four per cent, or 800,000) which did not enjoy a gracious D03 0500 hearing from the general public. The return of the Catholic hierarchy D03 0510 in 1850 was looked upon with indignant disapprobation and, in fact, D03 0520 was charged with being a gesture of disloyalty. In 1864 Newman professedly D03 0530 had to write his with his keenest feelings in D03 0540 order to be believed and to command a fair hearing from English readers. D03 0560 Now, in 1961, the Catholic population of England is still D03 0570 quite small (ten per cent, or 5 million); yet it represents a very D03 0580 considerable percentage of the churchgoing population. A Protestant D03 0590 woman marveled to me over the large crowds going in and out of the Birmingham D03 0600 Oratory (Catholic) Church on Sunday mornings. She found D03 0610 this a marvel because, as she said, only six per cent of English people D03 0620 are churchgoers. She may not have been exact on this number, but D03 0630 others here feel quite certain that the percentage would be less than D03 0640 ten. From many sides come remarks that Protestant churches are badly D03 0650 attended and the large medieval cathedrals look all but empty during D03 0660 services. A Catholic priest recently recounted how in the chapel of D03 0670 a large city university, following Anglican evensong, at which there D03 0680 was a congregation of twelve, he celebrated Mass before more than a D03 0690 hundred. The Protestants themselves are the first to admit the D03 0700 great falling off in effective membership in their churches. According D03 0710 to a newspaper report of the 1961 statistics of the Church of England, D03 0720 the "total of confirmed members is 9,748,000, but only 2,887,671 D03 0730 are registered on the parochial church rolls", and "over 27 million D03 0740 people in England are baptized into the Church of England, but D03 0750 roughly only a tenth of them continue". An amazing article in the D03 0760 of last November, entitled "Fate of Redundant D03 0770 Churches", states than an Archbishops' Commission "reported D03 0780 last month that in the Church of England alone there are 790 D03 0790 churches which are redundant now, or will be in 20 years' time. A further D03 0800 260 Anglican churches have been demolished since 1948". And D03 0810 in the last five years, the "Methodist chapel committee has D03 0811 authorized D03 0820 the demolition or, more often, the sale of 764 chapels". Most of D03 0830 these former churches are now used as warehouses, but "neither Anglicans D03 0831 nor D03 0840 Nonconformists object to selling churches to Roman Catholics", D03 0850 and have done so. While it must be said that these same D03 0860 Protestants have built some new churches during this period, and that D03 0870 religious population shifts have emptied churches, a principal reason D03 0880 for this phenomenon of redundancy is that fewer Protestants are D03 0890 going to church. It should be admitted, too, that there is a good D03 0900 percentage of lapsed or nonchurchgoing Catholics (one paper writes 50 D03 0910 per cent). Still, it is clear from such reports, and apparently clear D03 0920 from the remarks of many people, that Protestants are decreasing and D03 0930 Catholics increasing. An Anglican clergyman in Oxford sadly D03 0940 but frankly acknowledged to me that this is true. A century ago, D03 0950 Newman saw that liberalism (what we now might call secularism) would D03 0960 gradually but definitely make its mark on English Protestantism, and D03 0970 that even high Anglicanism would someday no longer be a "serviceable D03 0980 breakwater against doctrinal errors more fundamental than its own". D03 0990 That day is perhaps today, 1961, and it seems no longer very meaningful D03 1000 to call England a "Protestant country". One of the ironies D03 1010 of the present crusade for Christian unity is that there are not, relatively D03 1020 speaking, many real Christians to unite. Many English D03 1030 Catholics are proud of their Catholicism and know that they are D03 1040 in a new ascendancy. The London devoted its centenary D03 1041 issue D03 1050 last December 8 to mapping out various aspects of Catholic progress D03 1060 during the last one hundred years. With traditional nationalistic spirit, D03 1070 some Englishmen claim that English Catholicism is Catholicism D03 1080 at its best. I have found myself saying with other foreigners here D03 1090 that English Catholics good Catholics. It has been my experience D03 1100 to find as many men as women in church, and to hear almost everyone D03 1110 in church congregations reciting the Latin prayers and responses D03 1120 at Mass. They hope, of course, to reclaim the non-Catholic D03 1130 population to the Catholic faith, and at every Sunday Benediction D03 1140 they recite by heart the "Prayer for England": "O Blessed D03 1150 Virgin Mary, Mother of God and our most gentle queen and mother, D03 1160 look down in mercy upon England, thy "dowry", and upon us D03 1170 all who greatly hope and trust in thee **h. Intercede for our separated D03 1180 brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the D03 1190 chief Shepherd, the vicar of thy Son **h". A hymn often to be D03 1200 heard in Catholic churches is "Faith of our Fathers", which glories D03 1210 in England's ancient faith that endured persecution, and which D03 1220 proclaims: "Faith of our Fathers: Mary's prayers/Shall win D03 1230 our country back to thee". The English saints are widely venerated, D03 1240 quite naturally, and now there is great hope that the Forty Martyrs D03 1250 and Cardinal Newman will soon be canonized. Because they D03 1260 have kept the faith of their medieval fathers, English Catholics have D03 1270 always strongly resented the charge of being "un-English". I D03 1280 have not seen this charge made during my stay here, but apparently it D03 1290 is still in the air. For example, a writer in a recent number of hyperbolically states that "of the myriad imprecations the D03 1310 only one which the English Catholics really resent is the suggestion D03 1320 that they are 'un-English'". In this connection, it has been D03 1330 observed that the increasing number of Irish Catholics, priests and D03 1340 laity, in England, while certainly seen as good for Catholicism, D03 1350 is nevertheless a source of embarrassment for some of the more nationalistic D03 1360 English Catholics, especially when these Irishmen offer to remind D03 1370 their Christian brethren of this good. ## ONE OF THE D03 1380 more noteworthy changes that have taken place since the mid-19th century D03 1390 is the situation of Catholics at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. D03 1400 At Oxford one hundred years ago there were very few Catholics, D03 1410 partly because religious tests were removed only in 1854. Moreover, D03 1420 for those few there was almost no ecclesiastical representation in the D03 1430 city to care for their religious needs. Now, not only are there considerably D03 1440 more laity as students and professors at Oxford, but there D03 1450 are also numerous houses of religious orders existing in respectable D03 1460 and friendly relations with the non-Catholic members of the University. D03 1470 Some Catholic priests lecture there; Catholic seminarians attend D03 1480 tutorials and row on the Cherwell with non-Catholic students. D03 1490 Further evidence that Roman Catholicism enjoys a more favorable D03 1500 position today than in 1861 is the respectful attention given to it D03 1510 in the mass media of England. The general tone of articles appearing D03 1520 in such important newspapers as the Manchester and the D03 1530 Sunday implies a kindly recognition that the Catholic D03 1540 Church is now at least of equal stature in England with the Protestant D03 1550 churches. On successive Sundays during October, 1960, Paul Ferris D03 1560 (a non-Catholic) wrote articles in the depicting D03 1570 clergymen of the Church of England, the Church of Rome and the Nonconformist D03 1580 Church. The Catholic priest, though somewhat superficially D03 1590 drawn, easily came out the best. There were many letters of strong D03 1600 protest against the portrait of the Anglican clergyman, who was indeed D03 1610 portrayed as a man not particularly concerned with religious matters D03 1620 and without really very much to do as clergyman. Such a series of D03 1630 articles was certainly never printed in the public press of mid-Victorian D03 1640 England. There was so much interest shown in this present-day D03 1650 venture that it was continued on B&B&C&, where comments were D03 1660 equally made by an Anglican parson, a Free Church minister and a Catholic D03 1670 priest. Catholic priests have frequently appeared on D03 1680 television programs, sometimes discussing the Christian faith on an equal D03 1690 footing with Protestant clergymen. A notable example of this was D03 1700 the discussion of Christian unity by the Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, D03 1710 Dr& Heenan, and the Anglican Archbishop of York, Dr& D03 1720 Ramsey, recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. The good D03 1730 feeling which exists between these two important church figures is now D03 1740 well known in England. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with commentary D03 1750 has been televised several times in recent months. And it was D03 1760 interesting to observe that B&B&C&'s television film on Christmas D03 1770 Eve was . Of course, D03 1780 the crowning event that has dramatically upset the traditional pattern D03 1790 of English religious history was the friendly visit paid by Dr& D03 1800 Fisher, then Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, to the Vatican D03 1810 last December. It was the first time an English Primate has done D03 1820 this since the 14th century. English Catholics reacted to this event D03 1830 with moderate but real hope. Almost daily something is reported D03 1840 which feeds this Catholic hope in England: statistics of the increasing D03 1850 numbers of converts and Irish Catholic immigrants; news of D03 1860 a Protestant minister in Leamington who has offered to allow a Catholic D03 1870 priest to preach from his pulpit; a report that a Catholic nun D03 1880 had been requested to teach in a non-Catholic secondary school during D03 1890 the sickness of one of its masters; the startling statement in a D03 1900 respectable periodical that "Catholics, if the present system is still D03 1910 in operation, will constitute almost one-third of the House of Lords D03 1920 in the next generation"; a report that 200 Protestant clergymen D03 1930 and laity attended a votive Mass offered for Christian unity at D03 1940 a Catholic church in Slough during the Church Unity Octave. D04 0010 The death of a man is unique, and yet it is universal. The straight D04 0020 line would symbolize its uniqueness, the circle its universality. But D04 0030 how can one figure symbolize both? Christianity declares that D04 0040 in the life and death of Jesus Christ the unique and the universal D04 0050 concur. Perhaps no church father saw this concurrence of the unique D04 0060 and the universal as clearly, or formulated it as precisely, as Irenaeus. D04 0070 To be the Savior and the Lord, Jesus Christ has to be a historical D04 0080 individual with a biography all his own; he dare not be a cosmic D04 0090 aeon that swoops to earth for a while but never identifies itself D04 0100 with man's history. Yet this utterly individual historical person D04 0110 must also contain within himself the common history of mankind. His D04 0120 history is his alone, yet each man must recognize his own history in D04 0130 it. His death is his alone, yet each man can see his own death in the D04 0140 crucifixion of Jesus. Each man can identify himself with the history D04 0150 and the death of Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ has identified D04 0160 himself with human history and human death, coming as the head of a D04 0170 new humanity. Not a circle, then, nor a straight line, but a spiral D04 0180 represents the shape of death as Irenaeus sees it; for a spiral has D04 0190 motion as well as recurrence. As represented by a spiral, history may, D04 0200 in some sense, be said to repeat itself; yet each historical event D04 0210 remains unique. Christ is both unique and universal. The first D04 0220 turn of the spiral is the primeval history of humanity in Adam. As D04 0230 Origen interprets the end of history on the basis of its beginning, D04 0240 so Irenaeus portrays the story of Adam on the basis of the story of D04 0250 Christ. "Whence, then, comes the substance of the first man? From D04 0260 God's Will and Wisdom, and from virgin earth. For 'God had D04 0270 not rained', says the Scripture, before man was made, 'and there D04 0280 was no man to till the earth'. From this earth, then, while it was D04 0290 still virgin God took dust and fashioned the man, the beginning of humanity". D04 0300 Irenaeus does not regard Adam and Eve merely as private D04 0310 individuals, but as universal human beings, who were and are all of humanity. D04 0320 Adam and Eve were perfect, not in the sense that they possessed D04 0330 perfection, but in the sense that they were capable of development D04 0340 toward perfection. They were, in fact, children. Irenaeus does not D04 0350 claim pre-existence for the human soul; therefore there is no need for D04 0360 him, as there is for Origen, to identify existence itself with the D04 0370 fall. Existence is created and willed by God and is not the consequence D04 0380 of a pre-existent rebellion or of a cosmic descent from eternity D04 0390 into history. Historical existence is a created good. The biblical D04 0400 symbol for this affirmation is expressed in the words: "So D04 0410 God created man in his own image; in the similitude of God he created D04 0420 him". There are some passages in the writings of Irenaeus where D04 0430 the image of God and the similitude are sharply distinguished, so D04 0440 most notably in the statement: "If the [Holy] Spirit is absent D04 0450 from the soul, such a man is indeed of an animal nature; and, being D04 0460 left carnal, he will be an imperfect being, possessing the image D04 0461 [of D04 0470 God] in his formation, but not receiving the similitude [of God] D04 0480 through the Spirit". Thus the image of God is that which makes D04 0490 a man a man and not an oyster; the similitude of God, by contrast, D04 0500 is that which makes a man a child of God and not merely a rational creature. D04 0510 Recent research on Irenaeus, however, makes it evident that D04 0520 he does not consistently maintain this distinction. He does not mean D04 0530 to say that Adam lost the similitude of God and his immortality through D04 0540 the fall; for he was created not exactly immortal, nor yet exactly D04 0550 mortal, but capable of immortality as well as of mortality. D04 0560 Therefore Irenaeus describes man's creation as follows: D04 0570 "So that the man should not have thoughts of grandeur, and become lifted D04 0580 up, as if he had no lord, because of the dominion that had been D04 0590 given to him, and the freedom, fall into sin against God his Creator, D04 0600 overstepping his bounds, and take up an attitude of self-conceited arrogance D04 0610 towards God, a law was given him by God, that he might know D04 0620 that he had for lord the lord of all. And He laid down for him certain D04 0630 conditions: so that, if he kept the command of God, then he would D04 0640 always remain as he was, that is, immortal; but if he did not, he D04 0650 would become mortal, melting into earth, whence his frame had been taken". D04 0660 These conditions man did not keep, and thus he became mortal; D04 0670 yet he did not stop being human as a result. There is no justification D04 0680 for systematizing the random statements of Irenaeus about the image D04 0690 of God beyond this, nor for reading into his imprecise usage the D04 0700 later theological distinction between the image of God (humanity) and D04 0710 the similitude of God (immortality). Man was created with the D04 0720 capacity for immortality, but the devil's promise of immortality D04 0730 in exchange for disobedience cost Adam his immortality. He was, in the D04 0740 words of Irenaeus, "beguiled by another under the pretext of immortality". D04 0750 The true way to immortality lay through obedience, but man D04 0760 did not believe this. "Eve was disobedient; for she did D04 0770 not obey when as yet she was a virgin. And even as she, having indeed D04 0780 a husband, Adam, but being nevertheless as yet a virgin **h, having D04 0790 become disobedient, was made the cause of death, both to herself and D04 0800 to the entire human race; so also did Mary, having a man betrothed D04 0810 [to her], and being nevertheless a virgin, by yielding obedience, become D04 0820 the cause of salvation, both to herself and the whole human race". D04 0830 Because he interprets the primitive state of man as one of mere D04 0840 potentiality or capacity and believes that Adam and Eve were created D04 0850 as children, Irenaeus often seems inclined to extenuate their disobedience D04 0860 as being "due, no doubt, to carelessness, but still wicked". D04 0870 His interpretation of the beginning on the basis of the end prompts D04 0880 him to draw these parallels between the Virgin Eve and the Virgin D04 0890 Mary. That parallelism affects his picture of man's disobedience too; D04 0900 for as it was Christ, the Word of God, who came to rescue man, D04 0910 so it was disobedience to the word of God in the beginning that brought D04 0920 death into the world, and all our woe. With this act of disobedience, D04 0930 and not with the inception of his individual existence, man D04 0940 began the downward circuit on the spiral of history, descending from D04 0950 the created capacity for immortality to an inescapable mortality. At D04 0960 the nadir of that circuit is death. "Along with the fruit they did D04 0970 also fall under the power of death, because they did eat in disobedience; D04 0980 and disobedience to God entails death. Wherefore, as they became D04 0990 forfeit to death, from that [moment] they were handed over to it". D04 1000 This leads Irenaeus to the somewhat startling notion that Adam D04 1010 and Eve died on the same day that they disobeyed, namely, on a Friday, D04 1020 as a parallel to the death of Christ on Good Friday; he sees D04 1030 a parallel also to the Jewish day of preparation for the Sabbath. In D04 1040 any case, though they had been promised immortality if they ate of D04 1050 the tree, they obtained mortality instead. The wages of sin is death. D04 1060 Man's life, originally shaped for immortality and for communion with D04 1070 God, must now be conformed to the shape of death. Nevertheless, D04 1080 even at the nadir of the circuit the spiral of history belongs D04 1090 to God, and he still rules. Even death, therefore, has a providential D04 1100 as well as a punitive function. "Wherefore also He [God] D04 1110 drove him [man] out of Paradise, and removed him far from the tree D04 1120 of life, not because He envied him the tree of life, as some venture D04 1130 to assert, but because He pitied him, [and did not desire] that D04 1140 he should continue a sinner for ever, nor that the sin which surrounded D04 1150 him should be immortal, and evil interminable and irremediable. But D04 1160 He set a bound to his [state of] sin, by interposing death, and thus D04 1170 causing sin to cease, putting an end to it by the dissolution of the D04 1180 flesh, which should take place in the earth, so that man, ceasing at D04 1190 length to live in sin, and dying to it, might live to God". This D04 1200 idea, which occurs in both Tatian and Cyprian, fits especially well D04 1210 into the scheme of Irenaeus' theology; for it prepares the way for D04 1220 the passage from life through death to life that is achieved in Christ. D04 1230 As man can live only by dying, so it was only by his dying that D04 1240 Christ could bring many to life. It is probably fair to say D04 1250 that the idea of death is more profound in Irenaeus than the idea of D04 1260 sin is. This applies to his picture of Adam. It is borne out also D04 1270 by the absence of any developed theory about how sin passes from one generation D04 1280 to the next. It becomes most evident in his description of D04 1290 Christ as the second Adam, who does indeed come to destroy sin, but D04 1300 whose work culminates in the achievement of immortality. This emphasis D04 1310 upon death rather than sin as man's fundamental problem Irenaeus D04 1320 shares with many early theologians, especially the Greek-speaking ones. D04 1330 They speak of the work of Christ as the bestowal of incorruptibility, D04 1340 which can mean (though it does not have to mean) deliverance from D04 1350 time and history. Death reminds man of his sin, but it reminds D04 1360 him also of his transience. It represents a punishment that he knows D04 1370 he deserves, but it also symbolizes most dramatically that he lives D04 1380 his life within the process of time. These two aspects of death cannot D04 1390 be successfully separated, but they dare not be confused or identified. D04 1400 The repeated efforts in Christian history to describe death as D04 1410 altogether the consequence of human sin show that these two aspects of D04 1420 death cannot be separated. Such efforts almost always find themselves D04 1430 compelled to ask whether Adam was created capable of growing old and D04 1440 then older and then still older, in short, whether Adam's life was D04 1450 intended to be part of the process of time. If it was, then it must D04 1460 have been God's intention to translate him at a certain point from D04 1470 time to eternity. One night, so some of these theories run, Adam would D04 1480 have fallen asleep, much as he fell asleep for the creation of Eve; D04 1490 and thus he would have been carried over into the life eternal. The D04 1500 embarrassment of these theories over the naturalness of death is an D04 1510 illustration of the thesis that death cannot be only a punishment, for D04 1520 some termination seems necessary in a life that is lived within the D04 1530 natural order of time and change. On the other hand, Christian D04 1540 faith knows that death is more than the natural termination of temporal D04 1550 existence. It is the wages of sin, and its sting is the law. D04 1560 If D04 1570 this aspect of death as punishment is not distinguished from the idea D04 1580 of death as natural termination, the conclusion seems inevitable that D04 1590 temporal existence itself is a form of punishment rather than the state D04 1600 into which man is put by the will of the Creator. This seems to have D04 1610 been the conclusion to which Origen was forced. If death receives D04 1620 more than its share of attention from the theologian and if sin receives D04 1630 less than its share, the gift of the life eternal through Christ D04 1640 begins to look like the divinely appointed means of rescue from temporal, D04 1650 i&e&, created, existence. Such an interpretation of death radically D04 1660 alters the Christian view of creation; for it teaches salvation D04 1670 from, not salvation in, time and history. Because Christianity D04 1680 teaches not only salvation in history, but salvation by the history of D04 1690 Christ, such an interpretation of death would require a drastic revision D04 1700 of the Christian understanding of the work of Christ. D05 0010 Furthermore, as an encouragement to revisionist thinking, it manifestly D05 0020 is fair to admit that any fraternity has a constitutional right D05 0030 to refuse to accept persons it dislikes. The Unitarian clergy were D05 0040 an exclusive club of cultivated gentlemen- as the term was then understood D05 0050 in the Back Bay- and Parker was definitely not a gentleman, D05 0060 either in theology or in manners. Ezra Stiles Gannett, an honorable D05 0070 representative of the sanhedrin, addressed himself frankly to the D05 0080 issue in 1845, insisting that Parker should not be persecuted or calumniated D05 0090 and that in this republic no power to restrain him by force D05 0100 could exist. Even so, Gannett judiciously argued, the Association could D05 0110 legitimately decide that Parker "should not be encouraged nor D05 0120 assisted in diffusing his opinions by those who differ from him in regard D05 0130 to their correctness". We today are not entitled to excoriate D05 0140 honest men who believed Parker to be downright pernicious and who D05 0150 barred their pulpits against his demand to poison the minds of their D05 0155 congregations. D05 0160 One can even argue- though this is a delicate matter- D05 0170 that every justification existed for their returning the Public Lecture D05 0180 to the First Church, and so to suppress it, rather than let Parker D05 0190 use it as a sounding board for his propaganda when his turn should D05 0200 come to occupy it. Finally, it did seem clear as day to these clergymen, D05 0210 as Gannett's son explained in the biography of his father, D05 0220 they had always contended for the propriety of their claim to the title D05 0230 of Christians. Their demand against the Calvinist Orthodoxy for D05 0240 intellectual liberty had never meant that they would follow "free inquiry" D05 0250 to the extreme of proclaiming Christianity a "natural" religion. D05 0260 Grant all this- still, when modern Unitarianism and D05 0270 the Harvard Divinity School recall with humorous affection the insults D05 0280 Parker lavished upon them, or else argue that after all Parker D05 0290 received the treatment he invited, they betray an uneasy conscience. D05 0300 Whenever New England liberalism is reminded of the dramatic confrontation D05 0310 of Parker and the fraternity on January 23, 1843- while it D05 0320 may defend the privilege of Chandler Robbins to demand that Parker D05 0330 leave the Association, while it may plead that Dr& N& L& Frothingham D05 0340 had every warrant for stating, "The difference between Trinitarians D05 0350 and Unitarians is a difference in Christianity; the difference D05 0360 between Mr& Parker and the Association is a difference D05 0370 between no Christianity and Christianity"- despite these supposed D05 0380 conclusive assurances, the modern liberal heaves repeatedly a sigh D05 0390 of relief, of positive thanksgiving, that the Association never quite D05 0400 brought itself officially to expel Parker. Had it done so, the blot D05 0410 on its escutcheon would have remained indelible, nor could the Harvard D05 0420 Divinity School assemble today to honor Parker's insurgence other D05 0430 than by getting down on its collective knees and crying "peccavi". D05 0440 Happily for posterity, then, the Boston Association did D05 0450 not actually command Parker to leave the room, though it came too close D05 0460 for comfort to what would have been an unforgivable brutality. Fortunately, D05 0470 the honor of the denomination can attest that Cyrus Bartol D05 0480 defended Parker's sincerity, as did also Gannett and Chandler D05 0490 Robbins; whereupon Parker broke down into convulsions of weeping and D05 0500 rushed out of the room, though not out of the Fellowship. In the D05 0510 hall, after adjournment, Dr& Frothingham took him warmly by the D05 0511 hand D05 0520 and requested Parker to visit him- whereupon our burly Theodore D05 0530 again burst into tears. All this near tragedy, which to us borders D05 0540 on comedy, enables us to tell the story over and over again, always D05 0550 warming ourselves with a glow of complacency. It was indeed a near D05 0560 thing, but somehow the inherent decency of New England (which we inherit) D05 0570 did triumph. Parker was never excommunicated. To the extent D05 0580 that he was ostracized or even reviled, we solace ourselves by saying D05 0590 he asked for it. Yet, even after all these stratagems, the conscience D05 0600 of Christian liberality is still not laid to rest, any more than is D05 0610 the conscience of Harvard University for having done the abject penance D05 0620 for its rejection of Ralph Waldo Emerson's The Divinity School D05 0630 Address of naming its hall of philosophy after him. In both cases D05 0640 the stubborn fact remains: liberalism gave birth to two brilliant D05 0650 apostates, both legitimate offspring of its loins, and when brought D05 0660 to the test, it behaved shabbily. Suppose they both had ventured into D05 0670 realms which their colleagues thought infidel: is this the way gentlemen D05 0680 settle frank differences of opinion? Is it after all possible D05 0690 that no matter how the liberals trumpet their confidence in human dignity D05 0700 they are exposed to a contagion of fear more insidious than any D05 0710 conservative has ever to worry about? However, there is a crucial D05 0720 difference between the two histories. Emerson evaded the problem D05 0730 by shoving it aside, or rather by leaving it behind him: he walked D05 0740 out of the Unitarian communion, so that it could lick the wound of his D05 0750 departure, preserve its self-respect and eventually accord him pious D05 0760 veneration. Parker insisted upon resigning, even when the majority D05 0770 wanted him to depart, upon daring the Fellowship to throw him D05 0780 out. Hence he was in his lifetime, as is the memory of him afterwards, D05 0790 a canker within the liberal sensitivity. He still points an accusing D05 0800 finger at all of us, telling us we have neither the courage to support D05 0810 him nor the energy to cut his throat. Actually, the dispute D05 0820 between Parker and the society of his time, both ecclesiastical and D05 0830 social, was a real one, a bitter one. It cannot be smoothed over by D05 0840 now cherishing his sarcasms as delightful bits of self-deprecation or D05 0850 by solemnly calling for a reconsideration of the justice of the objections D05 0860 to him. The fact is incontestable: that liberal world of Unitarian D05 0870 Boston narrow-minded, intellectually sterile, smug, afraid D05 0880 of the logical consequences of its own mild ventures into iconoclasm, D05 0890 and quite prepared to resort to hysterical repressions when its brittle D05 0900 foundations were threatened. Parker, along with Garrison and D05 0910 Charles Sumner, showed a magnificent moral bravery when facing mobs D05 0920 mobilized in defense of the Mexican War and slavery. Nevertheless, D05 0930 we can find reasons for respecting even the bigotry of the populace; D05 0940 their passions were genuine, and the division between them and the abolitionists D05 0950 is clear-cut. But Parker as the ultra-liberal minister within D05 0960 the pale of a church which had proclaimed itself the repository D05 0970 of liberality poses a different problem, which is not to be resolved by D05 0980 holding him up as the champion of freedom. Even though his theological D05 0990 theses have become, to us, commonplaces, the fundamental interrogation D05 1000 he phrased is very much with us. It has been endlessly rephrased, D05 1010 but I may here put it thus: at what point do the tolerant find themselves D05 1020 obliged to become intolerant? And then, as they become aware D05 1030 that they have reached the end of their patience, what do they, to D05 1040 their dismay, learn for the first time about themselves? There D05 1050 can be no doubt, the Boston of that era could be exquisitely cruel D05 1060 in enforcing its canons of behavior. The gentle Channing, revered D05 1070 by all Bostonians, orthodox or Unitarian, wrote to a friend in Louisville D05 1080 that among its many virtues Boston did not abound in a tolerant D05 1090 spirit, that the yoke of opinion crushed individuality of judgment and D05 1100 action: "No city in the world is governed so little by a police, D05 1110 and so much by mutual inspections and what is called public sentiment. D05 1120 We stand more in awe of one another than most people. Opinion is D05 1130 less individual or runs more into masses, and often rules with a rod D05 1140 of iron". Even more poignantly, and with the insight of a genius, D05 1150 Channing added- remember, this is Channing, not Parker!- D05 1160 that should a minister in Boston trust himself to his heart, should D05 1170 he "speak without book, and consequently break some law of speech, D05 1180 or be hurried into some daring hyperbole, he should find little mercy". D05 1190 Channing wrote this- in a letter! I think it fair to D05 1200 say that he never quite reached such candor in his sermons. But Theodore D05 1210 Parker, commencing his mission to the world-at-large, disguised D05 1220 as the minister of a "twenty-eighth Congregational Church" which D05 1230 bore no resemblance to the Congregational polities descended from the D05 1240 founders (among which were still the Unitarian churches), made explicit D05 1250 from the beginning that the conflict between him and the Hunkerish D05 1260 society was not something which could be evaporated into a genteel D05 1270 difference about clerical decorum. Because he spoke openly with what D05 1280 Channing had prophesied someone might- with daring hyperbole- Parker D05 1290 vindicated Channing's further prophecy that he who committed D05 1300 this infraction of taste would promptly discover how little mercy liberals D05 1310 were disposed to allow to libertarians who appeared to them libertines. D05 1320 An institutionalized liberalism proved itself fundamentally an D05 1330 institution, and only within those defined limits a license. D05 1340 By reminding ourselves of these factors in the situation, we should, D05 1350 I am sure, come to a fresh realization, however painful it be, that the D05 1360 battle between Parker and his neighbors was fought in earnest. He D05 1370 arraigned the citizens in language of so little courtesy that they had D05 1380 to respond with, at the least, resentment. What otherwise could "the D05 1390 lawyer, doctor, minister, the men of science and letters" do when D05 1400 told that they had "become the cherubim and seraphim and the three D05 1410 archangels who stood before the golden throne of the merchant, and continually D05 1420 cried, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Almighty D05 1430 Dollar'"? D05 1440 Nor, when we recollect how sensitive were the emotions of the old Puritan D05 1450 stock in regard to the recent tides of immigration, should we be D05 1460 astonished that their thin lips were compressed into a white line of D05 1470 rage as Parker snarled at them thus: "Talk about the Catholics D05 1480 voting as the bishop tells! reproach the Catholics for it! You D05 1490 and I do the same thing. There are a great many bishops who have never D05 1500 had a cross on their bosom, nor a mitre on their head, who appeal not D05 1510 to the authority of the Pope at Rome, but to the Almighty Dollar, D05 1530 a pope much nearer home. Boston has been controlled by a few capitalists, D05 1540 lawyers and other managers, who told the editors what to say and D05 1550 the preachers what to think". This was war. Parker meant business. D05 1560 And he took repeated care to let his colleagues know that he intended D05 1570 them: "Even the Unitarian churches have caught the malaria, D05 1580 and are worse than those who deceived them"- which implied that they D05 1590 were very bad indeed. It was "" he said that his parents D05 1600 had given him as a rule- beyond even the love that suffused his D05 1610 being and the sense of humor with which he was largely supplied- and D05 1620 it was duty he would perform, though it cost him acute pain and exhausted D05 1630 him by the age of fifty. Parker could weep- and he wept astonishingly D05 1640 often and on the slightest provocation- but the psychology of D05 1650 those tears was entirely compatible with a remorseless readiness to D05 1660 massacre his opponents. "If it gave me pleasure to say hard things", D05 1670 he wrote, "I would shut up forever". We have to tell ourselves D05 1680 that when Parker spoke in this vein, he believed what he said, because D05 1690 he could continue, "But the TRUTH, which cost me bitter D05 1700 tears to say, I must speak, though it cost other tears hotter than D05 1710 fire". Because he copiously shed his own tears, and yielded himself D05 1720 up as a living sacrifice to the impersonalized conscience of New England, D05 1730 he was not disturbed by the havoc he worked in other people's D05 1740 consciences. Our endeavor to capture even a faint sense of how D05 1750 strenuous was the fight is muffled by our indifference to the very D05 1760 issue which in the Boston of 1848 seemed to be the central hope of its D05 1770 Christian survival, that of the literal, factual historicity of the D05 1780 miracles as reported in the Four Gospels. It is idle to ask why we D05 1790 are no longer disturbed if somebody, professing the deepest piety, D05 1791 decides anew D05 1800 that it is of no importance whether or not Christ transformed the D05 1810 water into wine at eleven A& M& on the third of August, A& D05 1820 D& 32. We have no answer as to why we are not alarmed. So we are D05 1830 the more prepared to give Parker the credit for having taken the right D05 1840 side in an unnecessary controversy, to salute his courage, and to pass D05 1850 on, happily forgetting both him and the entire episode. We have not D05 1860 the leisure, or the patience, or the skill, to comprehend what was working D05 1870 in the mind and heart of a then recent graduate from the Harvard D05 1880 Divinity School who would muster the audacity to contradict his most D05 1890 formidable instructor, the majesterial Andrews Norton, by saying D05 1900 that, while he believed Jesus "like other religious teachers", worked D05 1910 miracles, "I see not how a miracle proves a doctrine". D06 0010 I have, within the past fifty years, come out of all uncertainty D06 0020 into a faith which is a dominating conviction of the Truth and about D06 0030 which I have not a shadow of doubt. It has been my lot all through D06 0040 life to associate with eminent scientists and at times to discuss with D06 0050 them the deepest and most vital of all questions, the nature of the D06 0060 hope of a life beyond this. I have also constantly engaged in scientific D06 0070 work and am fully aware of the value of opinions formed in science D06 0080 as well as in the religions in the world. In an amateurish, yet in D06 0090 a very real sense, I have followed the developments of archaeology, geology, D06 0100 astronomy, herpetology, and mycology with a hearty appreciation D06 0110 of the advances being made in these fields. At one time I became D06 0120 disturbed in the faith in which I had grown up by the apparent D06 0130 inroads being made upon both Old and New Testaments by a "Higher D06 0140 Criticism" of the Bible, to refute which I felt the need of a better D06 0150 knowledge of Hebrew and of archaeology, for it seemed to me that D06 0160 to pull out some of the props of our faith was to weaken the entire structure. D06 0170 Doubts thus inculcated left me floundering for a while D06 0180 and, like some higher critical friends, trying to continue to use the D06 0190 Bible as the Word of God while at the same time holding it to have D06 0200 been subjected to a vast number of redactions and interpolations: D06 0210 attempting to bridge the chasm between an older, reverent, Bible-loving D06 0220 generation and a critical, doubting, Bible-emancipated race. Although D06 0230 still aware of a great light and glow of warmth in the Book, I D06 0240 stood outside shivering in the cold. In one thing the higher D06 0250 critics, like the modernists, however, overreached themselves, in claiming D06 0260 that the Gospel of John was not written in John's time but D06 0270 well after the first century, perhaps as late as 150 A&D&. Now, D06 0280 if any part of the Bible is assuredly the very Word of God speaking D06 0290 through His servant, it is John's Gospel. To ask me to believe D06 0300 that so inexpressibly marvelous a book was written long after all the D06 0310 events by some admiring follower, and was not inspired directly by the D06 0320 Spirit of God, is asking me to accept a miracle far greater than any D06 0330 of those recorded in the Bible. Here I took my leave of my learned D06 0340 friends to step out on another path, to which we might give the modern D06 0350 name of Pragmatism, or the thing that works. Test it, try it, and D06 0360 if it works, accept it as a guiding principle. So, I put my D06 0370 Bible to the practical test of noting what it says about itself, and D06 0380 then tested it to see how it worked. As a short, possibly not the best D06 0390 method, I looked up "Word" in the Concordance and noted that D06 0400 the Bible claims from Genesis 1 to Revelation 22 to be God's personal D06 0410 message to man. The next traditional step then was to accept it D06 0420 as the authoritative textbook of the Christian faith just as one would D06 0430 accept a treatise on any earthly "science", and I submitted to D06 0440 its conditions according to Christ's invitation and promise that, D06 0450 <"If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether D06 0460 it be of God, or whether I speak of myself"> (John 7:17). D06 0470 The outcome of such an experiment has been in due time the acceptance D06 0480 of the Bible as the Word of God inspired in a sense utterly D06 0490 different from any merely human book, and with it the acceptance of D06 0500 our Lord Jesus Christ as the only begotten Son of God, Son of Man D06 0510 by the Virgin Mary, the Saviour of the world. I believe, D06 0520 therefore, that we are without exception sinners, by nature alienated D06 0530 from God, and that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth, D06 0540 the representative Head of a new race, to die upon the cross and pay D06 0550 the penalty of the sin of the world, and that he who thus receives Christ D06 0560 as his personal Saviour is "born again" spiritually, with new D06 0570 privileges, appetites, and affections, destined to live and grow in D06 0580 His likeness forever. Nor can any man save himself by good works or D06 0590 by a commendable "moral life", although such works are the natural D06 0600 fruits and evidences of a saving faith already received and naturally D06 0610 expressing itself through such avenues. I now ever look for D06 0620 Christ acording to His promises and those of the Old Testament as D06 0630 well, to appear again in glory to put away all sin and to reign in righteousness D06 0640 over the whole earth. To state fully what the Bible D06 0650 means as my daily spiritual food is as intimate and difficult as to D06 0660 formulate the reasons for loving my nearest and dearest relatives and D06 0670 friends. The Bible is as obviously and truly food for the spirit as D06 0680 bread is food for the body. Again, as faith reveals God my Father D06 0690 and Christ my Saviour, I follow without question where He leads me D06 0710 daily by His Spirit of love, wisdom, power and prayer. I place His D06 0720 precepts and His leadings above every seeming probability, dismissing D06 0730 cherished convictions and holding the wisdom of man as folly when opposed D06 0740 to Him. I discern no limits to a faith vested in God and Christ, D06 0750 who is the sum of all wisdom and knowledge, and daring to trust Him D06 0760 even though called to stand alone before the world. Our Lord's D06 0770 invitation with its implied promise to all is, "Come and see". D06 0785 I STOOD at the bedside of my patient one day and beheld D06 0790 a very sick man in terrible pain. As I ministered to his needs, D06 0800 I noticed that his face was radiant in spite of his suffering and I D06 0810 learned that he was trusting not only in the skill of his doctor and D06 0820 nurse but also the Lord. In his heart he had that peace of which D06 0830 the Lord spoke when He said, <"Peace I leave with you, my peace D06 0840 I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let D06 0850 not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid">. What D06 0860 a joy to realize that we, too, can claim this promise tendered by D06 0870 the Lord during His earthly ministry to a group of men who were very D06 0880 dear to Him. He was about to leave them, to depart from this world, D06 0890 and return to His Father in Heaven. Before He left them He promised D06 0900 that His peace would be their portion to abide in their hearts D06 0910 and minds. I praise God for the privilege of being a nurse who D06 0920 has that peace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It makes D06 0930 my work a great deal easier to be able to pray for the Lord's guidance D06 0940 while ministering to the physical needs of my patients. How D06 0950 often have I looked to Jesus when entering the sick room, asking D06 0960 for His presence and help in my professional duties as I give my talents D06 0970 not only as the world giveth but as one who loves the Saviour and D06 0980 His creatures. Looking unto God, the Prophet Isaiah wrote D06 0990 these blessed words almost three thousand years ago: <"Thou wilt D06 1000 keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because D06 1010 he trusteth in thee">. Are you longing for peace in your heart? D06 1020 Such a calm and assuring peace can be yours. As only a member D06 1030 of the family can share in the innermost joys of the family, likewise D06 1040 one must belong to the family of God in order to receive the benefits D06 1050 that are promised to those who are His own. Perhaps you are D06 1060 not His child. Perhaps you do not know if you belong to Him. You D06 1070 may know that you are in God's family and be just as sure of it as D06 1080 you are that you belong to the family of your earthly father. D06 1090 <"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that D06 1100 whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life",> D06 1110 and <"as many as received him, to them gave he power to become D06 1120 the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name">. D06 1130 It is to those who believe on His name and belong to Him that D06 1140 He gives His peace; not that empty peace the world offers, but a deep, D06 1150 abiding peace which nothing can destroy. Why not open your D06 1160 heart to the Lord Jesus Christ now, accept Him as your Saviour D06 1161 and D06 1170 let Him fill you with peace that only He can give. Then, D06 1180 with the hymn writer of old, you can say: "I am resting today D06 1190 in His wonderful peace, Resting sweetly in Jesus' control. D06 1200 I am kept from all danger by night and by day, And D06 1210 His glory is flooding my soul". D06 1215 SATELLITES, SPUTNIKS, ROCKETS, D06 1220 BALLOONS; what next? Our necks are stiff from gazing at D06 1230 the wonders of outer space, which have captured the imagination of the D06 1240 American public. Cape Canaveral's achievements thunder forth from D06 1250 the radio, television, and newspaper. While we are filling D06 1260 outer space with scientific successes, for many the "inner" space D06 1270 of their soul is an aching void. Proof? An average of 50 suicides D06 1280 are reported in America each day! One out of every three or D06 1290 four marriages end in divorce! Over $200,000,000 is paid yearly to D06 1300 the 80,000 full-time fortune-tellers in the United States by fearful D06 1310 mankind who want to "know" what the future holds! Delinquency, D06 1320 juvenile and adult, is at an all-time high! Further proof? Read D06 1330 your daily newspaper! Unfortunately, in our rush to beat D06 1340 the Russians, we have forgotten these truth-packed words of Jesus Christ: D06 1351 <"What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world> D06 1360 [that includes outer space], (Mark 8:36, 37). D06 1380 Gaining outer space and losing "inner" space is bad business D06 1390 according to God's standards. It is true that we must D06 1400 keep up our national defenses and scientific accomplishments; only D06 1410 a fool would think otherwise. But we must not forget man's soul. D06 1420 Is putting a rocket in orbit half so significant as the good news D06 1430 that God put His Son, D06 1440 Jesus Christ, on earth to live and die to D06 1450 save our hell-bound souls? <"For God so loved the world, that D06 1460 he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should D06 1470 not perish, but have everlasting life"> (John 3:16). Never D06 1480 forget that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Your spiritual D06 1490 "inner" space helps determine the spirituality of America D06 1500 as a nation. We trust you are not one of the 70,000,000 Americans D06 1510 who do not attend church, but who feel that various forms of recreation D06 1520 are more important than worshipping the God who made our country great. D06 1530 Is forgiveness of past sins, assurance of present help, and D06 1540 hope of future bliss in your orbit? Or are you trying the devil's D06 1550 substitutes to relieve that spiritual hunger you feel within? Pleasure, D06 1560 fame and fortune, drowning your troubles with a drink, and "living D06 1570 it up" with the gang are like candy bars when you're hungry: D06 1580 they may ease your hunger temporarily, but they'll never take the D06 1590 place of a satisfying, mouth-watering steak. So it is spiritually. D06 1600 No amount of religious ceremonies or even joining a church will D06 1610 relieve the gnawing of your "inner" space. Why? Because your D06 1620 soul was made to be filled with God Himself, not religious functions D06 1630 "about" Him. Only He can satisfy the deepest longings. That D06 1640 is why the Bible commands you to <"Taste and see that the Lord D06 1650 is good: blessed> [happy] D06 1660 (Psalm 34:8). You can receive God into your heart and life D06 1670 by a step of personal faith. Accept the sinless Son of God, Jesus D06 1680 Christ, as your own personal Saviour. <"As many as received him> D06 1690 [Jesus], D07 0010 <"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? D07 0020 the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be D07 0030 afraid"?> D07 0040 Psalm 27:1 A certain teacher scheduled a "Fear Party" D07 0050 for her fourth grade pupils. It was a session at which all the youngsters D07 0060 were told to express their fears, to get them out in the open D07 0070 where they could talk about them freely. The teacher thought it was D07 0080 so successful that she asks: "Wouldn't it be helpful to all age D07 0090 groups if they could participate in a similar confessional of their D07 0100 fears and worries"? Dr& George W& Crane, a medical D07 0110 columnist, thinks it would. He says: "That would reduce neurotic D07 0120 ailments tremendously. Each week an estimated 20 million patients call D07 0130 upon us doctors. Of this number, 50%, or 10 million patients have D07 0140 no diagnosable physical ailments whatever. They are 'worry warts'. D07 0150 Yet they keep running from one physician to another, largely to get D07 0160 a willing ear who will listen to their parade of troubles. One of D07 0170 the most wholesome things you could schedule in your church would thus D07 0180 be a group confessional where people could admit of their inner tensions". D07 0190 We are evidently trying hard to think of new ways to D07 0200 deal with the problem of fear these days. It must be getting more serious. D07 0210 People are giving their doctors a hard time. One doctor made D07 0220 a careful survey of his patients and the reasons for their troubles, and D07 0230 he reported that 40% of them worried about things that never happened; D07 0240 30% of them worried about past happenings which were completely D07 0250 beyond their control; 12% of them worried about their health, D07 0260 although their ailments were imaginary; 10% of them worried about D07 0270 their friends, neighbors, and relatives, most of whom were quite capable D07 0280 of taking care of themselves. Only 8% of the worries had behind D07 0290 them real causes which demanded attention. Well, most of our D07 0300 fears may be unfounded, but after you discover that fact, you have something D07 0310 else to worry about: Why then do we have these fears? What D07 0320 is the real cause of them? What is there about us that makes us so D07 0330 anxious? Look at the things we do to escape our fears and D07 0340 to forget our worries. We spend millions of dollars every year on fortune D07 0350 tellers and soothsayers. We spend billions of dollars at the race D07 0360 tracks, and more billions on other forms of gambling. We spend billions D07 0370 of dollars on liquor, and many more billions on various forms of D07 0380 escapist entertainment. We consume tons of aspirin and tranquilizers D07 0390 and sleeping pills in order to get a moment's relief from the tensions D07 0400 that are tearing us apart. A visitor from a more peaceful D07 0410 country across the sea was taken to one of our amusement parks, and after D07 0420 he had seen it all, he said to a friend: "You must be a very D07 0430 sad people". "Sad" was not the right word, of course. He should D07 0440 have said "jittery", for that's what we are. And that's worse D07 0450 than sad. Watch people flock to amusement houses, cocktail lounges, D07 0460 and night clubs that advertise continuous entertainment, which means D07 0470 an endless flow of noise and frivolity by paid entertainers who are supposed D07 0480 to perform in those incredible ways which are designed to give D07 0490 men a few hours of dubious relaxation- watch them and you can tell D07 0500 that many of them are running away from something. In one of D07 0510 his writings Pascal speaks of this mania for diversion as being a sign D07 0520 of misery and fear which man cannot endure without such opiates. Yes, D07 0530 and as tension mounts in this world, fear is increasing. Does that D07 0540 explain why there is now such a big boom in the bomb shelter business? D07 0550 We have so many new things to fear in this age of nuclear weapons, D07 0560 dreadful things which are too horrible to contemplate. I doubt that D07 0570 "fear parties" and "group confessionals" will help very much. D07 0580 Suppose we do get our fears out in the open, what then? Isn't that D07 0590 where most of them are already- right out on the front page of our D07 0600 newspapers? Maybe we are talking about them too much. The question D07 0610 is: what are we going to do about them? Meanwhile, the D07 0620 enemy will capitalize on our fears, if he can. Hitler did just that D07 0630 23 years ago, building up tensions that first led to a Munich and then D07 0640 to a world war. The fear of war can make us either too weak to stand D07 0650 and too willing to compromise, or too reckless and too nervous to negotiate D07 0660 for peace as long as there is any chance to negotiate. It is D07 0670 said that fear in human beings produces an odor that provokes animals D07 0680 to attack. It could have the same effect on Communists. The President D07 0690 of the United States has said: "We will never negotiate out D07 0700 of fear, and we will never fear to negotiate". That is a sound position, D07 0710 but it is important that Moscow shall recognize it not merely D07 0720 as the word of a president but as the mind of a free people who are not D07 0730 afraid. And that's another reason why it is imperative for us these D07 0740 days to conquer our fears, to develop the poise that promotes peace. D07 0750 Turning to the Word of God, we find the only sure way to do D07 0760 that. In Psalm 27:1 you read those beautiful words which you must D07 0770 have in your heart if you are to master the fears that surround you, D07 0780 or to drive them out if they have you in their grip: "The Lord D07 0790 is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the D07 0800 strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid"? Well, D07 0810 you say, those are beautiful words all right, but it was easy for the D07 0820 psalmist to sing them in his day. He didn't live in a world of perpetual D07 0830 peril like ours. He didn't know anything about the problems D07 0840 we face today. No? Read the next two verses: "When the D07 0850 wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, D07 0860 they stumbled and fell. Though an host should encamp against me, my D07 0870 heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will D07 0880 I be confident". That is almost a perfect description of D07 0890 the predicament in which we find ourselves today, isn't it? Our D07 0900 enemy is also threatening to devour us. He has already devoured huge D07 0910 areas of the world, putting men behind concrete walls and iron curtains D07 0920 and barbed wire, reducing them to slavery, systematically crushing D07 0930 not only their bodies but their souls, and shooting them to death if they D07 0940 try to escape their prison. Yes indeed, we too can see a warlike D07 0950 host of infidels encamped against us. What a terrible thing, that D07 0960 "wailing wall" in Berlin! A man with a baby in his arms stood D07 0970 there pleading for his wife who is on the other side with the rest D07 0980 of the family. Another man tried to swim across the river from the East D07 0990 to the West, but was shot and killed. A middle aged woman opened D07 1000 a window on the third floor of her house which was behind the wall, D07 1010 she threw out a few belongings and then jumped; she was fatally injured. D07 1020 The entrance to a church has been walled up, so that the congregation, D07 1030 most of which is in the western sector, cannot worship God there D07 1040 anymore. Practically everybody in Berlin has relatives and friends D07 1050 that live in the opposite part of the city. People stand at the wall D07 1060 giving vent to their feelings, weeping, pounding it with their fists, D07 1070 pleading for loved ones. But the enemy answers them from loudspeakers D07 1080 that pour out Communist propaganda with a generous mixture of terrible D07 1090 profanity. There is only one escape left, a tragic one, and too D07 1100 many people are taking it: suicide. The normal rate of suicides in D07 1110 East Berlin was one a day, but since the border was closed on August D07 1120 13 it has jumped to 25 a day! These things may be happening D07 1130 many miles away from us but really they are right next door. We are D07 1140 all involved in them, deeply involved. And nobody knows what comes next. D07 1150 We live from crisis to crisis. And there is only one way for a D07 1160 man to conquer his fears in such a world. He must learn to say with D07 1170 true faith what the psalmist said in a similar world: "The Lord D07 1180 is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the D07 1190 strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid"? D07 1200 Notice D07 1210 that this man had a threefold conception of God which is the secret D07 1220 of his faith. First, "the Lord is my ". He lived in a D07 1230 very dark world, but he was not in the dark. The same God who called D07 1240 this world into being when He said: "Let there be light"!- D07 1250 those were His very first creative words- He began the world with D07 1260 light- this God still gives light to a world which man has plunged D07 1270 into darkness. For those who put their trust in Him He still says D07 1280 every day again: "Let there be light"! And there is light! D07 1290 In fact, He came into this world Himself, in the person of D07 1300 His Son, Jesus Christ, who stood here amid the darkness of human D07 1310 sin and said: "I am the light of the world: he that followeth D07 1320 me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life". The D07 1330 psalmist could say that God was his light even though he could only D07 1340 anticipate the coming of Christ. He lived in the dawn; he could D07 1350 only see the light coming over the horizon. We live in the bright daylight D07 1360 of that great event; for us it is a fact in history. Why should D07 1370 we not have the same faith, and an even greater experience of the light D07 1380 which it gives? This is the faith that moved the psalmist D07 1390 to add his second conception of God: "The Lord is **h my ". D07 1400 He knew that his God would save him from his enemies D07 1410 because He had saved him from his sins. If God could do that, He could D07 1420 do anything. The enemies at his gate, threatening to eat up his D07 1430 flesh, were nothing compared with the enemy of sin within his own soul. D07 1440 And God had conquered that one by His grace! So why worry about D07 1450 all the others? The apostle Paul said the same thing in the D07 1460 language and faith of the New Testament: "He that spared not D07 1470 His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with D07 1480 Him freely give us all things? **h If God be for us, who can be D07 1490 against us? **h Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? D07 1500 shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, D07 1510 or peril, or sword"? (Romans 8:31, 32, 35) Salvation! D07 1515 This is the key to D07 1520 the conquest of fear. This gets down to the heart of our problem, for D07 1530 it reconciles us with God, whom we fear most of all because we have D07 1540 sinned against Him. When that fear has been removed by faith in Jesus D07 1550 Christ, when we know that He is our Savior, that He has paid our D07 1560 debt with His blood, that He has met the demands of God's justice D07 1570 and thus has turned His wrath away- when we know that, we have peace D07 1580 with God in our hearts; and then, with this God on our side, D07 1590 we can face the whole world without fear. And so the psalmist D07 1600 gives us one more picture of God: "The Lord is the D07 1610 of my life". The word is really "stronghold". It recalls those D07 1620 words of another psalm: "God is our refuge and strength, a very D07 1630 present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth D07 1640 be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the D07 1650 sea **h Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations He D07 1660 hath made in the earth. D08 0010 But, again, we have no real evidence on this from that quarter until D08 0020 the close of the ninth century A&D&, when an Arabic scholar, Tabit D08 0030 ibn Korra (836-901) is said to have discussed the magic square of D08 0040 three. Thus, while it remains possible that the Babylonians and/or D08 0050 the Pythagoreans may perhaps have had the magic square of three before D08 0060 the Chinese did, more definite evidence will have to turn up from D08 0070 the Middle East or the Classical World before China can lose her D08 0080 claim to the earliest known magic square by more than a thousand years. D08 0090 #2. THE "LO SHU" SQUARE AS AN EXPRESSION OF CENTRALITY# D08 0100 The D08 0110 concept of the Middle Kingdom at peace, strong and united under a D08 0120 forceful ruler, which had been only a longed-for ideal in the time of D08 0125 the D08 0130 Warring States, was finally realized by the establishment of a Chinese D08 0140 Empire under the Ch'in dynasty (221-207 B&C&). But this D08 0150 was only accomplished by excessive cruelty and extremes of totalitarian D08 0160 despotism. Among the many severe measures taken by the First Emperor, D08 0170 Shih Huang-ti, in his efforts to insure the continuation of D08 0180 this hard-won national unity, was the burning of the books in 213 B&C&, D08 0190 with the expressed intention of removing possible sources for D08 0200 divergent thinking; but, as he had a special fondness for magic and D08 0210 divination, he ordered that books on these subjects should be spared. D08 0220 Many of the latter were destroyed in their turn, during the burning D08 0230 of the vast Ch'in palace some ten years later; yet some must have D08 0240 survived, because the old interest in number symbolism, divination, D08 0250 and magic persisted on into the Han dynasty, which succeeded in reuniting D08 0260 China and keeping it together for a longer period (from 202 B&C& D08 0270 to A&D& 220). In fact, during D08 0280 the first century B&C&, an extensive literature sprang up devoted D08 0290 to these subjects, finding its typical expression in the so-called D08 0300 " books", a number of which were specifically devoted to D08 0310 the and related numerical diagrams, especially in connection D08 0320 with divination. However, the books were also destroyed D08 0330 in a series of Orthodox Confucian purges which culminated in a final D08 0340 proscription in 605. After all this destruction of old literature, D08 0350 it should be obvious why we have so little information about the D08 0360 early history and development of the , which was already D08 0370 semisecret anyhow. But, in spite of all this, enough evidence remains D08 0380 to show that the magic square of three must indeed have been the object D08 0390 of a rather extensive cult- or series of cults- reaching fullest D08 0400 expression in the Han period. Although modern scholars have D08 0410 expressed surprise that "the simple magic square of three", a mere D08 0420 "mathematical puzzle", was able to exert a considerable influence D08 0430 on the minds and imaginations of the cultured Chinese for so many centuries, D08 0440 they could have found most of the answers right within the square D08 0460 itself. But, up to now, no one has attempted to analyze its inherent D08 0470 mathematical properties, or the numerical significance of its numbers- D08 0480 singly or in combination- and then tried to consider these in D08 0490 the light of Old Chinese cosmological concepts. Such an analysis D08 0500 speedily reveals why the middle number of the , 5, D08 0510 was so vitally significant for the Chinese ever since the earliest hints D08 0520 that they had a knowledge of this diagram. The importance of this D08 0530 5 can largely be explained by the natural mathematical properties of D08 0540 the middle number and its special relationship to all the rest of the D08 0550 numbers- quite apart from any numerological considerations, which is D08 0560 to say, any symbolic meaning arbitrarily assigned to it. Indeed, mathematically D08 0570 speaking, it was both functionally and symbolically the most D08 0580 important number in the entire diagram. If one takes the middle D08 0590 number, 5, and multiplies it by 3 (the base number of the magic D08 0600 square of three), the result is 15, which is also the constant sum of D08 0610 all the rows, columns, and two main diagonals. Then, if the middle number D08 0620 is activated to its greatest potential in terms of this square, through D08 0630 multiplying it by the highest number, 9 (which is the square of D08 0640 the base number), the result is 45; and the latter is the total sum D08 0650 of all the numbers in the square, by which all the other numbers are D08 0660 overshadowed and in which they may be said to be absorbed. Furthermore, D08 0670 the middle number of the is not only the physical D08 0680 mean between every opposing pair of the other numbers, by reason of D08 0690 its central position; it is also their mathematical mean, since it D08 0700 is equal to half the sum of every opposing pair, all of which equal 10. D08 0710 In fact, the neat balance of these pairs, and their subtle equilibrium, D08 0720 would have had special meaning in the minds of the Old Chinese. D08 0730 For they considered the odd numbers as male and the even ones as female, D08 0740 equating the two groups with the Yang and Yin principles in Nature; D08 0750 and in this square, the respective pairs made up of large and D08 0760 small odd (Yang) numbers, and those composed of large and small even D08 0770 (Yin) numbers, were all equal to each other. Thus all differences were D08 0780 leveled, and all contrasts erased, in a realm of no distinction, and D08 0790 the harmonious balance of the square could effectively D08 0800 symbolize the world in balanced harmony around a powerful central axis. D08 0810 The tremendous emphasis on the 5 in the square- D08 0820 for purely mathematical reasons- and the fact that this number so D08 0830 neatly symbolized the heart and center of the universe, could well explain D08 0840 why the Old Chinese seem to have so revered the number 5, and D08 0850 why they put so much stress on the concept of Centrality. These twin D08 0860 tendencies seem to have reached their height in the Han dynasty. D08 0870 The existing reverence for Centrality must have been still further D08 0880 stimulated toward the close of the second century B&C&, when D08 0890 the Han Emperor Wu Ti ordered the dynastic color changed to yellow- D08 0900 which symbolized the Center among the traditional Five Directions- D08 0910 and took 5 as the dynastic number, believing that he would thus D08 0920 place himself, his imperial family, and the nation under the most auspicious D08 0930 influences. His immediate motive for doing this may not have D08 0940 been directly inspired by the , but this measure must inevitably D08 0950 have increased the existing beliefs in the latter's efficacy. D08 0960 After this time, inscriptions on the Han bronze mirrors, as well D08 0970 as other writings, emphasized the desirability of keeping one's D08 0980 self at the center of the universe, where cosmic forces were strongest. D08 0990 Later, we shall see what happened when an emperor took this idea too D08 1000 literally. All this emphasis on Centrality and on the number D08 1010 5 as a symbolic expression of the Center, which seems to have begun D08 1020 as far back as 400 B&C&, also may conceivably have led to the development D08 1030 of the Five-Elements School and the subsequent efforts to D08 1040 fit everything into numerical categories of five. We find, for example, D08 1050 such groupings as the Five Ancient Rulers, the Five Sacred Mountains, D08 1060 the Five Directions (with Center), the Five Metals, Five D08 1070 Colors, Five Tastes, Five Odors, Five Musical Notes, Five D08 1080 Bodily Functions, Five Viscera, and many others. This trend has D08 1090 often been ascribed to the cult of the Five Elements itself, as though D08 1100 they had served as the base for all the rest; but why did the Old D08 1110 Chinese postulate elements, when the Ancient Near East- D08 1120 which may have initiated the idea that natural elements exerted influence D08 1130 in human life and activities- recognized only four? And why D08 1140 did the Chinese suddenly begin to talk about the Five Directions, D08 1150 when the animals they used as symbols of the directions designated only D08 1160 the usual four? Obviously, something suddenly caused them to start D08 1170 thinking in terms of fives, and that may have been the workings of D08 1190 the . This whole tendency had an unfortunate effect D08 1200 on Chinese thinking. Whereas the primary meanings of the D08 1210 diagram seemed to have been based on its inner mathematical properties- D08 1220 and we shall see that even its secondary meanings rested on D08 1230 some mathematical bases- the urgent desire to place everything into D08 1240 categories of fives led to other groupings based on other numbers, until D08 1250 an exaggerated emphasis on mere numerology pervaded Chinese thought. D08 1260 Scholars made numbered sets of as many things as possible in Nature, D08 1270 or assigned arbitrary numbers to individual things, in a fashion that D08 1280 seems to the modern scientific mind as downright nonsensical, and D08 1290 philosophical ideas based upon all this tended to stifle speculative thought D08 1300 in China for many centuries. #3. YIN AND YANG IN THE "LO SHU" D08 1310 SQUARE# Although the primary mathematical properties of the middle D08 1320 number at the center of the , and the interrelation D08 1330 of all the other numbers to it, might seem enough to account for the deep D08 1340 fascination which the held for the Old Chinese philosophers, D08 1350 this was actually only a beginning of wonders. For the square was a remarkably complete compendium of most of the chief D08 1370 religious and philosophical ideas of its time. As such, one cannot D08 1380 fully understand the thought of the pre-Han and Han periods without D08 1390 knowing the meanings inherent in the ; but, conversely, D08 1400 one cannot begin to understand the without knowing something D08 1410 about the world view of the Old Chinese, which they felt they D08 1420 saw expressed in it. The Chinese world view during the Han dynasty, D08 1430 when the seems to have been at the height of its D08 1440 popularity, was based in large part on the teachings of the Yin-Yang D08 1450 and Five-Elements School, which was traditionally founded by Tsou D08 1460 Yen. According to this doctrine, the universe was ruled by Heaven, D08 1470 - as a natural force, or in the personification of a Supreme D08 1480 Sky-god- governing all things by means of a process called the D08 1490 , D08 1500 which can be roughly interpreted as "the Order of the Universe" D08 1510 or "the Universal Way". Heaven, acting through the Tao, D08 1520 expressed itself by means of the workings of two basic principles, D08 1530 the Yin and the Yang. The Yang, or male principle, was the source D08 1540 of light, heat, and dynamic vitality, associated with the Sun; while D08 1550 the Yin, or female principle, flourished in darkness, cold, and quiet D08 1560 inactivity, and was associated with the Moon. Together these two D08 1570 principles influenced all things, and in varying combinations they were D08 1580 present in everything. We have already seen that odd numbers D08 1590 were considered as being Yang, while the even numbers were Yin, so D08 1600 that the eight outer numbers of the represented these two D08 1610 principles in balanced equilibrium around the axial center. During D08 1620 the Han dynasty, another Yin-Yang conception was applied to the , considering the latter as a plan of Ancient China. Instead D08 1640 of linking the nine numbers of this diagram with the traditional Nine D08 1645 Provinces, as was usually D08 1650 done, this equated the odd, Yang numbers D08 1660 with mountains (firm and resistant, hence Yang) and the even numbers D08 1670 with rivers (sinuous and yielding, hence Yin); taking the former D08 1680 from the Five Sacred Mountains of the Han period and the latter from D08 1690 the principal river systems of Old China. Thus the middle D08 1700 number, 5, represented Sung-Shan in Honan, Central China; the D08 1710 3, T'ai-Shan in Shantung, East China; the 7, Hwa-Shan in Shensi, D08 1720 West China; the 1, Heng-Shan in Hopei, North China (or D08 1730 the mountain with the same name in neighboring Shansi); and the D08 1740 9, Huo-Shan in Anhwei, which was then the South Sacred Mountain. D08 1750 For the rivers, the 4 represented the Huai, to the (then) Southeast; D08 1760 the 2, the San Kiang (three rivers) in the (then) Southwest; D08 1770 the 8, the Chi in the Northeast; and the 6, the (upper) Yellow River D08 1780 in the Northwest. Note that by Western standards this D08 1790 plan was "upside down", as it put North at the bottom and South D08 1800 at the top, with the other directions correspondingly altered; but in D08 1810 this respect it was merely following the accepted Chinese convention D08 1820 for all maps. The same arrangement was used when the was D08 1830 equated with the Nine Provinces; and whenever the D08 1840 involved directional symbolism, it was oriented in this same fashion. D09 0010 Few persons who join the Church are insincere. They earnestly desire D09 0020 to do the will of God. When they fall by the wayside and fail to achieve D09 0030 Christian stature, it is an . These D09 0040 fatalities are dramatic evidence of "halfway evangelism", a failure D09 0050 to follow through. A program of Lay Visitation Evangelism can D09 0060 end in dismal defeat with half the new members drifting away unless D09 0070 practical plans and strenuous efforts are made to keep them in the active D09 0080 fellowship. The work of Lay Visitation Evangelism is not D09 0090 completed when all of the persons on the Responsibility List have D09 0100 been interviewed. In the average situation about one-third of those visited D09 0110 make commitments to Christ and the Church. The pastor and the D09 0120 Membership Preparation and Assimilation Committee immediately with a carefully planned program. The first thirty D09 0140 to sixty days after individuals make their decision will determine D09 0150 their interest and participation in the life of the Church. Neglect D09 0160 means spiritual paralysis or death. #PREPARATION FOR MEMBERSHIP# D09 0170 CHURCHES THAT HAVE a carefully planned program of membership preparation D09 0180 and assimilation often keep 85 to 90 per cent of their new members D09 0190 loyal and active. This is the answer to the problem of "membership D09 0200 delinquency". It is important that persons desiring to D09 0210 unite with the Church be for this experience so that it D09 0220 may be meaningful and spiritually significant. It is unfair and unchristian D09 0230 to ask a person to take the sacred vows of Church membership D09 0240 before he has been carefully instructed concerning their implications. D09 0250 Preparation for Church membership begins immediately after D09 0260 the commitment is received. _1)_ The pastor D09 0270 to each individual, expressing his joy over the decision, assuring D09 0280 him of a pastoral call at the earliest convenient time, and outlining D09 0290 the plan for membership preparation classes and Membership Sunday. D09 0300 Some pastors write a letter the same night the decision is reported D09 0310 by the visitors. It should not be postponed later than the next day. D09 0320 A helpful leaflet may be enclosed in the letter. _2)_ The pastor D09 0330 calls in the home of each individual or family for a . If possible, he should make an appointment in order D09 0350 that all persons involved may be present. This is a social D09 0360 call. It is definitely a "spiritual guidance conference". He D09 0370 will discuss the significance of Christian commitment, the necessity D09 0380 of family religion and private devotions, and the importance of the D09 0390 membership preparation sessions. There may be problems of conduct or D09 0400 questions of belief which will require his counsel. Each conference D09 0410 should be concluded naturally with prayer. A piece of devotional material, D09 0420 such as , may be left in each home. _3)_ D09 0430 A minimum of is necessary D09 0440 for adults. Some churches require more. None should ask less. D09 0450 Those who join the Church need to be instructed in the faith and the D09 0460 meaning of Christian discipleship they take the sacred D09 0470 vows. They will have a greater appreciation for the Church and a deeper D09 0480 devotion to it if membership requires something of them. Many D09 0490 churches find the Sunday school hour to be the most practical time D09 0500 for adult preparation classes. Others meet on Sunday night, at the D09 0510 mid-week service, or for a series of four nights. Some pastors have D09 0520 two sessions in one evening, with a refreshment period between. D09 0530 The sessions should cover four major areas: _A_- The Christian D09 0540 Faith _B_- History of the Church _C_- Duties of Church D09 0550 Membership _D_- The Local Church and Its Program D09 0560 Following each instruction period a piece of literature dealing D09 0570 with the topic should be handed each one for further reading during the D09 0580 week. This procedure is much more effective than giving out a membership D09 0590 packet. #FOURTH SESSION IMPORTANT# MOST PASTORS FIND D09 0600 that the fourth session should take at least two hours and therefore D09 0610 hold it on a week night prior to Reception Sunday. In this session D09 0620 the persons seeking membership are provided information concerning the D09 0630 work of the denomination as well as the program and activities of the D09 0640 local church. The lay leadership of the church may be invited to speak D09 0650 on the various phases of church life, service opportunities, the church D09 0660 school, missions, men's work, women's work, youth program, social D09 0670 activities, and finances. The budget of the church may be presented D09 0680 and pledges solicited at this session. An "interest finder" or D09 0690 "talent sheet" may be filled out by each person. (See sample on D09 0700 pp& 78-79.) The fourth session may be concluded with a tour of the D09 0710 church facilities and refreshments. The social time gives an opportunity D09 0720 for church leaders to become acquainted with the new members. #ADDITIONAL D09 0730 SUGGESTIONS FOR MEMBERSHIP PREPARATION# IN CONDUCTING D09 0740 the Membership Preparation-Inquirers' Class, the pastor should D09 0750 plan a variety of teaching techniques in order to develop greater interest D09 0760 on the part of the class. The following have been found effective. D09 0770 _1)_ . Some churches have D09 0780 six or more training sessions of two hours each, generally held on Sunday D09 0790 night or during the week. This gives greater opportunity for the D09 0800 learning process. _2)_ - for example, in D09 0810 discussing the Lord's Supper or church symbolism. _3)_ . Some excellent filmstrips with recordings and motion D09 0830 pictures may be secured from your denominational headquarters to D09 0840 enrich the class session. _4)_ ". D09 0850 Some new members will hesitate to ask questions audibly. Urge them D09 0860 to write out their questions for the box. _5)_ D09 0870 with assigned readings each week. _6)_