t I I .. i ,otltorbtu __ IJ K Luthn !33 m4tulngtral AtntlJ1u Continuing LEHRE UNO WEHRE MAGAZIN PUER Ev.-LUTH. HOMILE11K THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLy-THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY Vol. XIV March, 1943 No.3 CONTENTS Pap The Soelal Ethic of Martin Luther. Carl Walter Bemel' _ ____ 181 Sermon Study on 1 Cor. 15:12-20. Th. Laetsch 1'19 Luther: A messing to the Euglisb. Wm. Dallmann 191 Die Taufe J'ohannis des Taeufers in ihrem Verhaeltuis ZD Christi Taufe. M. Lelmel' _ ______.___ __ 117 Outlines on Old Testament Texts (SynodieaI Conference) __ Z07 Miscellanea -.:---______ __ __ _ ___ __ _____ __ 214 TheologieaI Observer ----______ ___ ___ m Book Review ---:..- ---_ EIn PrecIIger mUll Dleht aIleIn loOei Ba 1st kela om,. du die H lAute dell. aIIo daa8 er die Schafe unter mehr bel dar Xlrche behaelt clenn weI8e. wle Ide rechte CbrIaten sollen die gute PrecUgt. - Apoæ. Art. 24 seJn, BODclem aach daneben den Woel fen weJam. daII lie die Schafe Dleht aqreIfeD und mit falIcher Lebre ver If the trumpet live. an uncenam fuebrea und Jrrtum eJnfuehren. sound, who Ihall prepare hlmIe1f to the battle? -1 Cor.l4:' PuhUsbed for the Bv. Luth. Synod of MIssouri, Ohio, anel Other States CONCORDIA PUBLISHING BOUSE, St. Louis, Mo. Theological Observer 219 ~================================== Theological Observer The Matter of Lutheran Church Union. - One of the most impor- tant numbers of the Journal of Theology of the American Lutheran Conference ever published is the "convention number" (January, 1943), containing a complete record of the proceedings of the sixth biennial convention of the American Lutheran Conference, held in Rock Island, Ill., Nov. 11-13, 1942. Since reports had to be made to the constituent synods of the American Lutheran Conference concerning the progress made in the Luthej:an church union movement, practically everything was made a matter of record that has occurred since the last convention of the Conference two years ago. But at times the official reports go back still farther. In the major reports the union movement is traced back to its beginning and this gives the reader a survey of the entire activity in the Lutheran Church in America on behalf of church union. In addition to being complete, the reports aim to be fair, objective, and conducive to a better understanding among the various Lutheran synods in our country. The number should be studied by all our pastors and intelligent laymen. It costs 50 cents and is published by the American Lutheran Confe"-cnce at 200 Front Street, Blair, Nebr. Nowhere in the "convention number" is emphasis laid on the fact that in considerable areas of the U. L. C. A. and the A. L. Cf. there are still differences in doctrine and practice and that therefore the necessary inward unity is lacking to cement these bodies into really united churches, though the Mendota Resolutions speak of existing obstacles which, it is hoped, may be removed. An instance of such obstacles has appeared in a review of H. C. Leupold's Exposition of Genesis (published by the Wartburg Press last year), which is offered in The Lutheran Church Quarterly (January, 1943). The review, which in genera] is favorable, criticizes in nearly forty lines Leupold's defense of the Mosaic authorship of Genesis "by citing the grounds for positive argument and omitting those for the negative," and the reviewer, Charles IV!. Cooper, writes: "This is not the kind of proof for which the Reformer called. On the contrary, it substitutes Jewish tradition (which is found also in the New Testament) for the Word of God and dogmatic assertion for sound argumen~s." Then, after having given some very interesting comments on the Baltimore Declaration and the Pittsburgh Agreement and their implications, he goes on to say: "The supposition that Moses wrote Genesis is now, in the Lutheran view of the Scriptures as well as in the modern vievv of historiography, not only ridiculous but terribly wrong .... To compress all this history into Moses' lifetime, as a Papal commission requires Catholic scholars to do, simply makes impossible an adequate and a Lutheran treatment of the Bible as the Word of God." Here is Gettysburg's fight on behalf of the long- discarded theories of destructive higher criticisrIL Here are dyed-in- the-wool, hard-shell modernistic reactionaries that vehemently oppose Christian conservatism in the U. L. C. A. and the A. L. Cf. These liberal 220 Theological Observer leaners-back caused trouble in Omaha, where conservative theological sentiment prevailed, and they are causing trouble today. Nevertheless, a careful study of the events described in the "convention number" show that considerable progress has been made along the lines of Lutheran conservatism. The testimony of God's Word has not proved in vain. In his address "Charting the Future Course of American Lutheranism" Dr. R. H. Long, executive director of the National Lu- theran Council, says a number of things which not every Lutheran in our country may accept. But he emphasizes also such things: "There must be no let-down in our adherence to the Scriptures, no compromise on the fundamental [?] doctrines of our faith [the question mark is to call attention to a problem involved], no temporizing with the world and no compromising of the truth. If this course is pursued, the pattern and form of our external organization, no matter how it develops, will succeed." Again: "We must not forget that with the opportunities that present themselves to our Lutheran Zion in the future, there will be correspondingly great dangers. The only sure safeguard against them is to be faithful to the Lord and to the truth. The Lutheran Church of tomorrow, in order to assure her safety and success, must continue to be a confessional Church as well as a co-operating Church." If such statements are meant sincerely - and we have no reason to assume that this is sheer hypocrisy-then by God's grace there is yet hope, not merely for an outward church union, but for true church unity. J. T. M. Dr. Reu on the Louisville Fellowship Resolution. - In the Kirchliche Zeitschrift of December, 1942, Dr. Reu publishes his opinion on the resolution of the U. L. C. A. concerning fellowship with the A. L. C. We reprint the whole important editorial, in which there is likewise a ref- erence to the refusal of the U. L. C. A. to enter the Federal Council of Churches. "The United Lutheran Church in America held her convention at Louisville, Ky., during the second half of October. We today mention only two resolutions passed by this body. With a great majority it refused to enter the Federal Council of Churches. This is good news; it shows that there is still a goodly number of sound'Lutherans in that Church who are not ready to endanger their own stand and that of their Church by entrance into a non-Lutheran and outspokenly liberal organization. "The second resolution refers to the relation of the U. L. C. A. to our Church. It reads: 'Resolved, That (1) We receive with appreciation ana deep gratitude to God the resolution of the American Lutheran Church in convention assembled at Mendota, Ill., which recognizes our fundamental agreement and proclaims their readiness to establish full pulpit and altar fellowship with the United Lutheran Church. (2) We instruct the president of our Church, in conjunction with the president of the American Lutheran Church, to consummate and declare at the earliest possible date the establishment of pulpit and altar fellowship." "We cannot understand how such a resolution could be proposed and passed. Did the United Lutheran Church not see that according 1heological Observer 221 to our Mendota resolution it is the convention of the Church and not its president that is to decide whether church fellowship can be de- clared or not? Does the United Lutheran Church really believe that the two presidents can remove the still 'existing obstacles' that made the establishment of church fellowship impossible in the past? Can they convince those of the pastors of the U. L. C. A. who belong to lodges that they must leave the lodge and begin earnestly to testify against it? Can they stop 'indiscriminate fellowship' with the Reformed churches? Can they bring it about that the publica doctrina of the U. L. C. A. is brought into full harmony with the third point of the Pittsburgh Agreement ('errorless Scripture')? These are the 'existing obstacles' that must be removed, and without their removal there can be no 'full and wholehearted acceptance of and adherence to the docu- ments' mentioned in the resolutions of the American Lutheran Church and no establishment of church fellowship." A. A Strong Blast in the A. L. C. Against Unionism. - In the Lutheran Standard for January 16, 1943, the page called the Question Box, con- ducted by Rev. Wm. N. Emch, Groveport, Ohio, voices sentiments against unionism which we are happy to bring to the attention of our readers. Somebody had asked three questions: 1. Is it in accord with Lutheran doctrine and practice when a local Lutheran congregation participates in a community Thanksgiving or Christmas service? 2. Will such practice be a hindrance to the merging of the Lutheran Church in America? 3. Is it proper for a community-minded member of the Lutheran Church to urge the members of his church to attend the union Thanksgiving service in the church of another denomination when there is a Thanksgiving service conducted in his own church? We herewith print the reply of Pastor Emch. 1. This is not in accord with the doctrine and practice of our Church. These union services are of evil, and we warn against them. In the first place, these union services on special occasions are detrimental rather than helpful in getting people to attend church. Let us suppose that in a certain community there are four small con- gregations of various denominations. If the four unite in a union service, the attendance will, of course, be considerably larger than each church would have for its own individual service. But the result, as a rule, would be about as follows: Attendance at the union service between two and three hundred. Average attendance of the four churches if each had its own service, about one hundred. Thus the four separate services would, as a rule, bring at least one fourth to one half more people to the house of God than one union service. But the chief objection to these union services is this: they ignore and belittle doctrinal differences. They encourage error and compromise truth. If the Lutheran Church has anything distinctive to which it is in duty bound to cling, and if the neighboring churches teach error which we cannot conscientiously endorse or encourage, then fidelity to the truth as we understand it compels us to remain separate. Why pretend that we are united in our faith when it is not true? And if we are united, why keep up separate denominations? If, without 222 Theological Observer compromlsmg truth or encouraging error, we can worship together on festival occasions, why can we not do so Sunday after Sunday? If faithfulness to God's Word does not compel us to remain separate, then it is a sin to continue as a separate denomination. What right have we to cause or to continue divisions in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ if faithfulness to Him and to the truth as He has given it to us does not compel us to do so? The moment the Lutheran denomination or any denomination ceases to have anything distinct, for which it must conscientiously contend, it forfeits its right to exist as a separate denomination. 2. Yes, indeed, this practice of unionism on the part of some Lu- therans is a serious obstacle in the way of merging the various Lutheran divisions in America. 3. The answer to this question is obvious. It is strange that I should work to the detriment of my own Church. If my Church is not worthy of existence, then let it die and disband. It is of far greater importance that I be true to my God and faithful to the truth of His Word than that I be a hail fellow well met in the community. A. About Face of Many Pacifists. - On this subject the Watchman- Examiner of December 17, 1942, writes editorially: "During the past two years we have seen a virtual revolution in ecclesiastical ideas con- cerning war. It is a far cry from the declaration of the Oxford Con- ference in 1937 that all war is sin to the pronouncement of the Methodist bishops of the United States in 1942 that 'there has arisen in the world a pagan philosophy driven by unchristian motives and bent upon estab- lishing its will upon mankind. Against this ideology and its supporters the United Nations have set themselves with grim determination. We pledge ourselves to the destruction of this brutal and unwarranted aggression and to the preservation for all mankind of the sacred liberties of free peoples.' Does not this illustrate that man-made resolutions - of which we are inclined, at the time we make them, to be so proud - are so frequently reflections of the temporary mood? The belligerency of the Methodist bishops is very different from their former pacifist conviction. No doubt, they feel as righteous now as they stand by the rivers of blood as they did when they proclaimed green pastures. Both moods may be right. [?] But what can save us from our miscalculations? Only the Word of God. God has not left us in the dark as to the what, why, and wherefore of war. Perhaps we would not be at war if we had heeded that Word." Our readers themselves will give the last thought a more correct form. A. A Wen-deserved Rebuke of Social Gospelites. - A professor of Christian Education at the Episcopal theological school at Cambridge, Mass., Dr. Adelaide T. Case, at a large meeting made the statement "Empty churches have resulted from the failure of Christian churches to capture the imagination of youth." The Watchman-Examiner presents some good comments on this charge. "This sort of statement has been made repeatedly in recent years, and it needs correction. Our Lord had nothing to say about capturing the imagination of youth. It cannot Theological Observer 223 be said that denominational leaders have not made the attempt. Fol- lowing the last World War, the imagination of youth was appealed to in passionate terms that they 'should go out and make a new world.' Dr. Case wishes Christianity to be a greater revolutionary force. Could there be anything more revolutionary than the social gospel, which has been emphasized in the generation now coming to a close? Was not an appeal made to youth to undertake the reform of politics, industry, labor, capital, public housing, and tC' promote every variety of social reconstruction? Were they not appealed to to become fanatical pacifists, demanding in those nations where they could exert their influence under their national freedom a complete disarmament and an entirely negative attitude toward war? To what avail? After twenty-two years of this intense form of agitation, where are we now? Shall we again carry this kind of program to our youth in the reconstruction period that will follow this war? How shall we 'capture the imagination of youth'? It is our judgment, with ancient history behind us and con- temporary history before us, that the function of the Church is to capture the heart of youth that God may dwell therein and inspire each one spiritually." This is well said. And the hearts, let us re- member, must be captured by the Holy Spirit Himself, working through the blessed Gospel of Jesus Christ. A. Catechetical Instruction Advocated. - A correspondent of the Lu- theran breaks a strong lance for old-fashioned catechetical instruction. Speaking of the Christian faith, the writer says: "Only when one knows and thoroughly understands, can one fully believe and support it wholeheartedly. The idea has been recognized throughout the whole history of the Lutheran Church. Our Church has always aimed at a congregation of believers, well versed in the doctrines to which they subscribe and filled with knowledge sufficient to defend this same faith against all who would destroy it. From the time of the Catechumenate, throughout the work of Martin Luther, throughout the work of Muhlen- berg, and on through our history the Lutheran Church has always felt the responsibility of catechetical instruction and has urged that the Church labor consistently in this field of endeavor." We are glad that this note is sounded. All sections of the Lutheran Church need it. A. Obstacles to Union of Presbyterians and Episcopalians. - Writing on the subject "Not a Union of Equals," a writer in the Presbyterian discusses the attempts that are being made at present to unite the two church bodies mentioned. He says, "The Presbyterian advocates of union with the Episcopal Church are working hard to convince the members of our Church that the union is to be that of two equals." He continues, "There is a good reason why they must work so hard to do this, and that reason is that the facts are against them." The facts which he mentions are the following: "No priest of the Protestant Episcopal Church has authority to give a letter of dismission to one of his parishioners who wishes to unite with the Presbyterian Church."- "Letters of dismission from Presbyterian churches are not received by Episcopal churches as sufficient evidence that the persons named in 224 Theological Observer thoL_ letters are worthy of being received as members of the Episcopal Church." - "There seems to be sOme difference of opinion among Epis- copalian clergymen as to whether or not Presbyterians or any other Protestants should be permitted to partake of the elements of the Lord's Supper in the Episcopal Church. The Commission of the Protestant Episcopal Church on Church Union apparently is not of the opinion that the present position of the Episcopal Church makes Presbyterians welcome." - "While the Protestant Episcopal Church recognizes Roman Catholic clergymen to be true priests or ministers of Christ, inasmuch as they have received episcopal ordination, it does not recognize Pres- byterian clergymen as true ministers, inasmuch as they have not been episcopally ordained." The writer reaches this conclusion:. "The more I have considered the facts which are given above, the more convinced I have become that, if the union takes place, the Episcopal Church will be welcoming back home the wayward child, who like the prodigal left the father's house and for a period of four hundred years dwelt in a far country." The principle upon which the Episcopal position is based rests on the error that the episcopacy as it is found in the Episcopal Church is divinely ordained. The two church bodies should thresh out this question, and union should not be sought in the easy method of simply ignoring this difference. A. Dr. Truett on Religious Liberty. - In an article which appeared in the Watchman-Examiner on December 10, 1942, the well-known Baptist leader Dr. George W. Truett makes some remarks on religious liberty which deserve being heeded. The heading of his article is "Our Baptist Message to the World." We quote a paragraph: "In illustration of the subtle, but real encroachments upon liberty in America, call to mind the recent agitation in connection with the national Congress to include church employees in Federal Security pensions. To be sure, such pro- posal was defeated by church pressure, but let the ominous fact be remembered that it was also church pressure that introduced the ques- tion into Congress. Again, take the fact of the allocation of public funds to sectarian purposes. That question has long and often been in the public mind, in one form and another. Bills are proposed, in various States, again and again, for taxes to be appropriated for sec- tarian schools. If haply any of our Baptist people ha~e, in an hour of weakness, been in any way enthralled by this encroachment, let them speedily repent of such inconsistent course, and go and sin no more! Nothing in all the world is worth doing wrong for! Right at this point all our people need to be wide awake to danger and faithful to principle, or results will badly plague us later on. Once more, the frank declara- tion is here made that any trend or suggestion of the possible estab- lishment of diplomatic relations between the United States and the Vatican has called forth an immediate and unyielding protest from uncounted millions of our American people. Our doctrine of religious liberty in America is for all our people alike. The Pope is simply the honored head of the Roman Catholic Church, and the plea that his dominion over a few acres of ground, called the Vatican City, gives Theological Observer 225 him the status of a temporal sovereign is essentially unreal. He has, in fact, no better title to receive governmental recognition from the United States than has the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Moderator of the Presbyterian General Assembly of the United States, or the Presiding Bishop of the United Methodist Church of this country. We call God to witness that we do not wish to be petty and inconsistent and unchristian in our frank reference to this matter. But we do wish to be consistent and faithful to priceless principles, profoundly believing that these principles are of indispensable value, alike to Baptists, to Protestants of every name, to Catholics, to Jews, to Quakers, to every- body in our land." That, in view, on the one hand, of Rome's attempt to make the State subservient to its purposes and, on the other, of the efforts of the Federal Council to have itself acknowledged as the official mouthpiece of Protestantism, religious liberty is jeopardized should be evident to all observers. A. The Baptist View of Church Polity. - Three general Baptist bodies of America, the Southern, the Northern, and the National Baptist Con- ventions, have an Associated Committee on Public Relations. Before this committee Dr. Rufus W. Weaver read an essay which is printed in the Watchman-Examiner of November 5, 1942. A section of this essay speaks of Baptist church polity, and for an understanding of Baptist principles it is well to take note of what Dr. Weaver says. "A local Baptist church comes into existence through the action of a group of Christian believers, all having obeyed the command of Christ to be baptized in accordance with the mode the New Testament requires, and the action they collectively take in forming a local Baptist Church is the free and voluntary dedication of each and all of them to the realization of certain common purposes that they hold to be the outline of the Christian way of life. This is called by them 'Our Covenant.' This body mayor may not have a confession of faith. It has no set forms of worship. Each of these churches is sovereign, independent, varying in doctrinal views, free to frame its own program of Christian activities as it pleases. The dominant desire is to live so that others may see in their conduct the meaning of the Christian way of life. . .. There are items in this covenant which cannot be carried out unless there be co-operation of Baptist churches with other Baptist churches. The bodies that are thus formed, made up of these in- dependent Baptist churches, are called Associations and Conventions. The first has to do with the promotion of Christian fellowship among the churches in a given section. The second deals with the raising of funds contributed for the carrying on of a program which no local church can successfully conduct by itself. This program includes evangelism, education, benevolence, and missions." Concerning the large conventions Dr. Weaver says, "Each of these bodies may pass resolutions, but these are binding only upon the persons present at the sessions." Baptists, as is evident from the above, carryon the policies sponsored by the so-called Independents in England in the 17th century. Their conception that conventions are merely advisory bodies is sound. 15 A. 226 Theological Observer The Church in Lati.n America. - Under this heading there appeared in The Catholic Digest (November, 1942) an article by Frans van Cauwelaert (a condensation from the "Tablet," Reading, England, August, 1942) in which the writer deplores the lamentable religious conditions prevailing in Roman Catholic Latin America. The article in part has been sent to various Protestant pastors and religious organizations in our country by the Committee on Co-operation in Latin America as informative material on the activities and attitudes of the Roman Cath- olic Church, together with an "open letter" by the Cuba Council of Evangelical Churches in protest to the "propaganda by a coterie of North American Roman Catholics against the presence in Latin America of missionaries of evangelical churches, on the ground that they are an obstacle to harmonious relations between the two Americas." Careful study of the two documents shows that on the one hand Roman Catholicism grossly neglects the spiritual interests of the people in Latin America and on the other that it opposes Protestant mission work, which endeavors to provide for their spiritual needs. The matter, of course, is not new, but some of the facts deserve re-emphasis. In Cauwelaert's The Church in Latin America we find such revealing statements as the following: "The monasteries are abandoned or occupied by only a few monks, too few to ensure a properly maintained life; the churches, in general, display a dreadful poverty. This deplorable state of affairs is less apparent in the important towns, where the big churches have often kept the external appearances of their former grandeur or have remained the scene of a priestly activity which may give an illusory impression of the state of the Church in general; but as soon as one ventures forth into the countryside, one is everywhere struck by the indisputable signs of a great decay." - "In Peru and in Mexico . . . there is no more than one priest for 6,000 inhabitants. In Argentina there is one priest for 8,571 inhabitants. In Brazil there is one for 9,528 inhabitants. In Guatemala there is one for 25,396 inhabitants; and in this latter country there are districts of 100,000 inhabitants or more where all pastoral care is left to one single priest. Even a Francis Xavier would not be equal to such a task; for it must be remembered that these are no pagan masses [?] but populations vowed to Christ for four centuries and sincerely invoking His holy name. And the material and moral conditions in which the priests must exercise their apostolate are not of a kind to make their superhuman task any easier." As a Protestant reads these distressing facts, recorded by a Roman Catholic, he cannot but ask himself the question why the Roman Catholic Church has so disgracefully neglected these peoples which it claims as its followers. Conditions evidently are similar here to those in Europe when Dr. Martin Luther began the great Church Reformation. Rome has reverted to type. But what a Protestant can understand still less is how Rome, claiming to be a Christian Church, can object to the assistance which evangelical churches are offering to the neglected peoples in Latin America, or how in the name of common sense it can regard them as "obstacles to harmonious relations between the two Theological Observer 227 Americas." The "open letter" of the Cuba Council of Evangelical Churches demonstrates very clearly that the work of the evangelical churches in Latin America has greatly fostered the harmonious relations between the two Americas. The document is far too long to be quoted here, but when Catholic communities time and again have honored Protestant missionaries who devoted their lives to the welfare of Latin American communities as "distinguished citizens" and conferred upon them other titles of distinction and trust, then the obstacles to har- monious relations between the two Americas could not be so very serious. Another fact that must not be forgotten is that the evangelical workers in Cuba are largely natives. Of 193 ministers, for example, 173 are Cuban. Of 20 American missionaries only 2 devote their full time to t...'1.e pastorate of Cuban congregations. As the unbiased reader studies the "open letter" of the evangelical churches, noting its modera- tion and fairness throughout, its closing appeal certainly leaves a deep impression upon his mind: "We look to leaders of American public opinion to investigate carefully and impartially the history and actual conditions of the evangelical churches in Latin America; to judge for themselves as to the estimate set upon American missionaries by the rank and file of the citizens of Latin American countries. We hold no brief for those who imprudently offend the sensibilities of our Latin American friends by improper attitudes, words, and actions - the ma- jority of foreigners who do that are not missionaries - and we are the first to request the recall of such men. We confidently rest the case of our foreign missionaries in Latin America upon the results of their work." Two thoughts flashed across the mind of the writer as he con- sidered the two important documents. In the first place, it seems to him that only those can properly understand the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America who have carefully studied Luther's famous Sma1cald Articles and Melanchthon's equally famous Tract Concerning the Power and Primacy of the Pope. ce ••• that the Pope is the very Antichrist." (Trig lot, p.475.) But in this crisis mere con- demnation does not suffice. The spiritual distress of the neglected peoples in Roman Catholic Latin America is a challenge that we preach to them the precious Gospel of Christ, which Rome has always obscured and opposed. More Gospel preaching in South and Central America should be recognized as one of the many postwar problems by which our Church is faced. The Lutheran Hour has well paved the way for such work in Roman Catholic Latin America. .T. T.M. The Pope's Five Points of Social Reconstruction. - In his Christmas Eve address Pope Pius XII submitted what has been called "Five Points of Social Reconstruction." In briefest summary they are the following: 1. To the human person must be given back the dignity given to it by God from the very beginning. 2. The intrinsic unity of society and the integrity of the family must be worked for. 3. Labor must be honored, a just wage is required, and the rights of private property must be recognized. 228 Theological· Observer 4. There must be a rehabilitation of the juridical order as against juridic utilitarianisIil and positivism. The courts must be of the right kind. 5. The State and its power must be made to serve society, which must be placed upon an ethical basis. These are generalities; there is nothing new in them. We are submitting this summary to place into the hands of our readers a con- venient list of the topics that are in the forefront in sociological debates. A. Concerning Infant Baptism. - Telling the story of Archibald Alex- ander, the first professor of Princeton Seminary, Dr. Clarence Edward Macartney writes an interesting paragraph on the professor's attitude to infant baptism, which we here reprint: "During the time he was pastor at Briery and president of the college, Alexander, in common with a number of other ministers, fell into doubt respecting the authority of infant baptism. This led him to a careful and systematic study of the whole subject. The two con- siderations, he says, which kept him from joining the Baptists were, first of all, that the universal prevalence of infant baptism as early as the fourth or fifth century was unaccountable on the supposition that no such practice existed in apostolic times. The other consideration was that if the Baptists were right, all other denQminations are out of the Church. As one instance of the universality of infant baptism as early as the beginning of the fifth century, he cites the correspondence between St. Augustine and Pelagius on the subject of original sin. Augustine told Pelagius that the denial of original sin would lead, logically, to the denial of infant baptism. But such a thing Pelagius rejected with horror, declaring that he had never heard of any heretic who denied the validity of infant baptism. If Pelagius could so write to St. Augustine, the in- escapable inference was that infant baptism was no recent or novel practice in the Church, but went far back of the beginning of the fifth century." A. Brief Items. - In Abyssinia Protestants are again able to carryon mission work freely since the Italian domination has ceased. According to a report in the Christian Union Herald Protestant Christians remained loyal to their faith in spite of the difficulties placed in their path by Roman Catholic priests. The most prominent Protestant mission in that country is that of the United Presbyterians. Whoever has to bestow some thought and study on eugenics may well read an article in the January 16 issue of America (R. C.), in which sterilization of criminals and certain unfortunates is strongly opposed. The writer quotes Dr. J. B. S. Hildene, the eminent professor of biology of the University of London, as saying: "1 personally regard compulsory sterilization as a piece of crude Americanism like the complete prohi- bition of alcoholic beverages. But I look to the common sense of the American people to realize that here, as with prohibition, a mistake has been made." It is reported in the press that in Rumania all church bodies except the established Church, which is the Greek Orthodox, have by a special Theological Observer 229 decree been declared dissolved. The church body which is affected most vitally are the Baptists, who have quite many adherents in Rumania. The plea is that national unity demands such a drastic measure. The skies look threatening for the cause of religious liberty. Northwestern University at Evanston, Ill., received a gift of twenty million dollars, which is to be added to a previous gift of $6,735,000 for the establishment of a technological institute. The donor is the late Walter Patton Murphy, who made this gift in his will. What tremendous sums people are '?lilling to bestow on projects that have merely tem- poral significance! In the International Missionary Council the place of Dr. Warnhuis has been taken by Dr. John W. Decker. His headquarters are in New York. His colleague in England, whose headquarters are in London, is Dr. William Paton. This International Missionary Council endeavors to represent, generally speaking, the Protestant churches of the world as far as they are engaged in foreign mission work. It is one of the agencies which the Federal Council is trying to unite in a new organ- ization, for which the name North American Council of Churches has been proposed. The Church of the Brethren, according to an announcement before us, is collecting $500,000 for special Christian work in war time. All this is in addition to the regular work of the Church. Considering that the denomination has but 175,000 members, the effort is most remarkable. The general, that is, the chief officer of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, died in Rome, December 13, 1942. His name is but little known. It was Vladimir Ledochowski. In 1915 he became the head of the order. After the war a meeting of 150 "fathers superior" assembling from all parts of the world will be held, and a successor will be chosen. The Church press draws attention to the ruling of the Supreme Court according to which every State of the Union has to recognize divorces granted in Nevada as valid. In South Carolina a couple was prosecuted for bigamy because according to the laws of that State the divorces obtained in Reno which preceded the marriage were not legally justified. Technically the Supreme Court appears to be right because the Constitution provides that "full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State." It seems that a change of law, that is, a con- stitutional amendment, is imperative. Information from Great Britain is to the effect that the dispersion of London children to smaller towns and to villages and hamlets in England has brought to light that many of these children are totally ignorant of the very first principles of the Christian religion. Religious training in the schools of the country is strongly urged now. The situation can hardly be worse than it is in our own country. Southern Baptists, so an exchange informs us, are objecting to the Victory Tax of the Government, asserting that the system which de- mands that a Church deduct 5 per cent from the salary of its pastor and other employees and hand that money to the Government as a 230 Theological Observer specIal teL'\{ is a "clear violation of the separation of the Church and State in the Bill of Rights." They protest against the plan that the Church act as the agent of the Goverment in this matter. Perhaps some judicial tribunal will be asked to render an opinion on the question of law involved. At the recent Federal Council of Churches meeting in Cleveland a five-minute speech was heard that was clifferent from the vast majority of speeches delivered there. The Rev. Carl McIntire of the Bible Pres- byterian Church was the speaker. In his account of what he said occur these words: "I told them that we could not get along with their plan for a new social order, that we believed that the emphasis of God's Word and the remedy for the world was not a new social order, but a new man, and that this new man came only through the new birth as Jesus proclaimed it and a belief in the precious blood of the Son of God which could cleanse white as snow." We hope that God blessed this testimony. Commenting on the exemption of theological students from the war draft the Watchman-Examiner says: "Theological students in our country are exempt from war service on the ground that the churches must be kept strong and active or else the morale of our people will go to pieces. . .. They are exempt also because they are preparing to serve as chaplains or else to take the places of pastors who become chaplains. Let it always be remembered that the theological student owes as much to his country as his brother who is bearing arms." The views of the Archbishop of Canterbury on disestablishment of the Church have received prominent mention. We can now quote his very words, reported in the Christian Century of December 16, 1942, which show that, after all, he is not in favor of disestablishment. "We have our divine commission, let us set ourselves to fulfill it. If as a result, or for any other reason, the State wishes to separate itself from us, let it do so. As a citizen, I should on the whole regret it, because I think that the establishment carries with it certain values for the life of the State and the nation that could not be replaced. But it is a question for the State and for ourselves as citizens. It is not a question for the Church or for the members of the Church." He forgets that is is the duty of the Church to set forth what the Word of God has to say with respect to this point. Churches here are being urged to meet the home defense challenge of larger juvenile delinquency. Thomas A. Meriweather, executive di- rector of the Crime Prevention Association, has called the increase alarming. It is spreading like an epidemic, owing to warring conditions, among them absence of parents and inflated wages for youth. Judge N. S. Winnet is asking police captains to call together ministers of all faiths within their precincts for conference. The Philadelphia Council of Christian Education brought together workers from 33 churches at the Tioga Presbyterian Church to discuss needed and adequate action. - Correspondence in the Christian Century from Philadelphia. Theological Observer 231 This statement of President Robert M. Hutchins of the University of Chicago deserves to be pondered: "We need technology to win the war" but technology will not win it. And technology alone will not establish a just and lasting peace. What will win the war and establish a just. and lasting peace are educated citizens .... I reject in the strongest terms Mr. McNutt's assertion that non-essential courses must be re- placed by subjects of immediate utility in winning the war. The courses which will be of greatest value in winning the war are not those of immediate practicCll utility, but those which will teach you as citizens to think." This blast against utilitarianism in education is certainly much needed. While German missionaries have been interned in India and South Africa, German missions continue to function in Japan and China, ac- cording to the Religious News Service. No information is available concerning the former German missions in the Netherlands East Indies. A number of missionaries from this area were on a ship which was sunk during the evacuation when the Japanese were advancing.- Christian Century. At the Chicago Lutheran Seminary, located at Maywood, one of the suburbs of Chicago, recently new professors were inducted: Charles Foelsch as president of the Seminary, H. Grady Davis as professor of practical theology, E. Theodore Bachma.'ln as assistant professor of church history, and J. Roy Strock as professor of English Bible and missions. The Seminary belongs to the U. L. C. A. When in his installation ad- dress Dr. Gould Wickey of Washington, D. C., stated that Lutherans will continue to be characterized by the words "only Christ, only faith, only grace, and only Scripture," which are to be applied "in a creative sense" (correspondence in the Christian Century), we wonder what the meaning is. Is there to be an evolution of doctrine? According to the religious press a Methodist clergyman of promi- nence, John Heston Willey, known as the founder of the Lord's Day Alliance and president of it since 1930, died recently. He had attained the ripe age of 88 years. A correspondence in the Christian Century reports, "All churches of British Columbia have joined in an appeal to the Government for a cut in hours of sale of liquor." Inasmuch as the churches consist of citizens, we suppose such an appeal cannot outrightly be condemned as mvolving a disregard of the Church's true function, that of preaching the Word of God. The Church as such has but one task, that of spreading the Word. In South Carolina some Methodists have refused to join the large Methodist merger and are attempting to continue separately the Methodist Episcopal Church South. According to an exchange, a group of such people, using the name Methodist Episcopal Church South, when some property by deed was conveyed to them, was declared by a court not entitled to this property; but the same court decision stated that the merger has no exclusive right to the name Methodist Episcopal Church South. 232 Theological Observer An alarming news item states that 225,000 young men who .were physically able for military service had to be sent back home because they had less than a fourth-grade education. The same item reports that "in the thirteen South States more than one million youths under twenty- five years of age have not had so much as one year's schooling and three million less than four years'." One would like to know to what extent discrimination against the colored people is responsible for such conditions. That in the mountain regions of the South, where on account of the poverty of the people the county and State appropriations for school purposes are necessarily low, many of the white boys and girls receive little, if any, schooling, is notorious. In Detroit a man by the name of Weinzierl, who broadcasts fre- quently and advertises his church prominently in the religious pages of the press, is said to anoint handkerchiefs for the sick and to issue special invitations to the ailing and the afflicted. One service a week he has termed "the miracle meeting," when so-called divine healing is the chief attraction. Evidently he endeavors to imitate St. Paul. The true understanding of 1 Cor. 12-14 has evidently not yet dawned on him. In the Congregational Unitarian Pilgrim Ghurch of E1 Paso, Texas, three infants were "welcomed into the fellowship of all the good souls and dedicated to the service of. righteousness and lpve," according to a report before us. To make matters still more horrible, the Jewish Rabbi of E1 Paso read the vows that were to be taken by the parents. What depths of indifference and unbelief one witnesses here! A total of 2,549,919 students attended Catholic educational institu- tions in the U. S. last year, according to the ReligiOUS News Service. Of this number 18,969 attended seminaries, 143,279 colleges, 372,339 high schools, and the remainder parochial. - Christian Century. A correspondent of the Christian Century, writing from Mexico City, Mex., remarks on the activities of an organization called Sinar- quistas. He describes it as a "hand-raising, flag-waving Fascist" body, opposed to "pro-democratic" Catholics and Protestants. These people, when they speak of "national unity," have in mind, so the correspondent avers, "Roman Catholic uniformity," and Protestants are accused of being "traitors of the nation." Among the charges which they raise against Protestants is the assertion that "the Protestants pay people money to attend their services, and this accounts for their large con- gregations." The writer maintains that there is a strong campaign on foot having in view the "complete extirpation of freedom of worship in Mexico and other countries south of the Rio Grande." He states that many Protestants in the United States unwittingly play into the hands of the Sinarquistas. The Augustana Book Concern, Rock Island, Ill., has published a book containing tributes to Gustave Albert Andreen, written by "asso- ciates, family, and friends." The price is $1.00. Andreen played an important role in the history of the Augustana Synod. From 1901 to 1935, the year in which he retired, he was president of Augustana Col- lege and Theological Seminary. A.