At the age of forty-six, the renowned French chemist and bacteriologist, Louis Pasteur, was stricken with paralysis. Obviously expecting that death was imminent, he who had already accomplished so much for the welfare of mankind is reported to have said: “I am sorry to die; I wanted to do much more for my country.”

An example like that should do much to put to shame all those cop-outs in America who, although they owe this nation so much, refuse to be bothered even to vote in a national election. And the more shame if professing Christians, supposed to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, arc derelict in this important matter.

No, it is not the purpose or intention of THE OUTLOOK to campaign either for one presidential candidate or another. However, it is by no means amiss to call attention to the importance of electing the right man to be President of the United States and who as such is to wield the tremendous prestige and power of that office as chief of state, chief executive, chief legislator, party leader, chief diplomat, and commander in chief of the armed forces. In America with our freedom of speech, we are at liberty, before the law, to criticize even the chief executive, often said to be the most powerful man in the world; but, before God, we have no right to say a word if we refuse even to go to the polls to have our say as to whom that man shall be.

The following from an editorial in The Grand Rapids‘ Press (Sept. 8, 1976) is significant: “A year–long survey on non-voters and political alienation, reported last week by the University of Denver and the Committee for the study of the American Electorate, is a depressing document . . .

“The Denver group’s projection is that 10 million voters have dropped out of the political system since 1968 and that for the first time in 52 years, a presidential race may be decided this November by less than a majority of voting—age Americans. The turnout is expected to fall between 48 and 57 per cent depending upon the dramatics of the campaign. Voter participation has been declining over the past 20 years.”

A recent poll shows that 46% of those who do not vote use the excuse that one person‘s vote won’t really make any difference. To this someone has called attention to the following: “Mr. Truman carried California and Ohio (in the election of 1948) by a margin of less than one vote a precinct. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson (D) of Texas won his first election to the Senate by 87 votes; Senator Hobert A. Taft (R) of Ohio was reelected in 1944 by a majority averaging one vote a precinct” (Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 12, 1960).

Tuesday, November 2, will be Election Day as the United States is still thinking Bicentennial thoughts. At this particular time we do well to recall once again what Benjamin Franklin replied two hundred years ago when a woman stopped him on the steps of Independence Hall to ask what kind of government was being planned. “A republic, madam,” said Franklin—and to this he added the warning, “if you can keep it.”

So let’s vote—yes, by all means, let’s vote! To say that we are uninformed and too much in the dark to know how to vote wisely is not as good an excuse as one may think. The question is: how much are we doing to become informed, to know the issues and the candidates? In distinction from our forebearers, we today have all the modern means of mass communication—radio, television, and the printed page—to become informed. The real cause of being uninformed could very well be apathy rather than a lack of opportunity. To vote knowledgeably as Christians will be no easy task. But, lest we forget!—the liberty we enjoy, in distinction from millions who suffer as slaves under cruel dictators, did not come cheap to those who won it for us. And neither will it continue to be ours unless we too are willing to pay the price, no matter how demanding it may prove to be.

   

A Library Allowance for the Minister

No longer personally involved and concerned about the setting and adoption of the salary and allowances for the minister by the consistory and at the annual congregational meeting, I am free to suggest that inclusion of an allowance for the minister‘s library also be given serious consideration.

Yes, I am well aware that today there are a number of allowances for the minister of which those of us who entered the ministry years ago knew little or nothing. However, we know that the same is true also for many who are engaged in other kinds of work. With this in mind, the consistory and the congregation may find it to be not unreasonable to include a library allowance. And with good reason, I would urge that the idea be not too readily dismissed as expendable or something that ought to be placed at the bottom of the list.

A minister without good books is like a carpenter without the tools he needs to build or a soldier without the arms he needs to fight. In preaching, Paul was a giant, but even he also felt the need of books and study—mind you, even when he was a prisoner in Rome. To Timothy he writes: “The cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, bring when thou comest, and the books, especially the parchments” (II Tim. 4: 13). Shame then on those far lesser lights unable to touch Paul’s kind of preaching with a ten foot pole but apparently brazen enough to think they can bluff their way on the pulpit when they are supposed to be proclaiming what the Spirit has to say to the church.

From the Introduction to a rather recent book, The Minister’s Library, by Cyril J. Barber, the following excerpt deserves the careful attention of the minister and also of the congregation. Barber writes:

“Speaking at a chapel service at Seminary one day, a District Superintendent of long standing mentioned a rather startling fact. He said: ‘The length of a man’s stay in anyone pastorate is frequently determined by the size of his library.’ He went on to explain that as he traveled lip and down the country visiting men in the ministry he had come to the conclusion that a man‘s personal library has a very direct bearing upon (1) the quality of his ministry and (2) the length of his pastorates. He illustrated his point by showing that great men of the past invariably had large personal libraries. H. A. Ironside, W. Graham Scroggie, George W. Truett, Alexander Whyte, Jonathan Edwards, A. T. Pierson, Charles H. Spurgeon, Andrew Bonar, Clarence Edward Macartney, Alexander Maclaren, T. T. Shields, Henry Ward Beecher, F. B. Meyer, and others were reviewed in turn. They were well read and could pass on to their congregations the fruits of their study.”

Like everything else in our day of inflation, books have become expensive. The costly volumes (cheap paperbacks won’t do the job! ) that are must books for a minister‘s well-stocked library may unfortunately be out of reach at a time when other demands on the budget of a growing family in the parsonage simply cannot be neglected. The young minister just starting out and expected to produce at least two sermons every week must invest in a library the cost of which he may find to he prohibitive. Moreover, book buying for the minister who wants to remain informed and fresh is not a one-time matter hut it continues as an annual expense. The report is that in just one year recently no less than 1,720 religious books appeared on the market.

Of course, it should be definitely understood that if such an annual allowance should be made for the minister‘s library it is to be used only for that purpose. Consistories and congregations who decide to act favorably on this matter may well experience in their minister‘s preaching and teaching that they are making a wise and profitable investment.

   

To Help the Minister to Build his Library

(A review of The Ministers Library by Cyril J. Barber. 376 pages, Baker Book House, $9.95).

Reasons for including this brief review The Minister’s Library with this month‘s editorials are the following. First, the importance and practical value to which this book may be put merits this. Next, the close relation between this review and the preceding editorial gives warrant for doing this.

For most ministers there is only a limited amount of money to buy books for a library, limited space to keep them, and a limited amount of time to become familiar with their contents. Therefore it is of the essence that a minister (or anyone else as well) will exercise careful selection in his book buying, and that he will know how to place and classify his books so as to be able to use them to the best possible advantage.

Cyril J. Barber, author of The Minister‘s Library, is well-qualified for the task he has undertaken in this volume. Having the D. Lit. degree from the University of London (in addition to an M.A. and Th.M.), Dr. Barber has served as librarian at Winnipeg Bible College and at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and is now Associate Professor and Director of the Library at the Rosemead Graduate School of Psychology.

Obviously, Barber is an evangelical and a conservative. His special interest in this volume is to guide ministers and students for the ministry to an acquaintance with the best books of that kind by marking them with an asterisk (*). On the other hand says Barber: “Books espousing a theological viewpoint which is not in keeping with a conservative, evangelical position have been identified with a dagger (t). This does not necessarily mean that they are not worthy of consultation or acquisition. It does avoid repetition of annotations in regard to this point” (p. 39).

Books by writers familiar to our readers and favorably marked with the asterisk (*) are, for example:

“Berkhof, Louis, Systematic Theology, 2nd revised ed. Grand Rapids; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1941.

“This particularly capable treatment is perhaps the best one-volume work available. Calvinistic, pedo-baptist, evangelical . . . 1941.”

(Note: Barber was apparently not familiar with the Third Revised and Enlarged Edition, 1946).

“*Hendriksen, William. Exposition of the Pastoral Epistles. New Testament Commentary: Baker Book House, 1968.

“Firmly establishes the credibility of the Pauline authorship of the epistles, ably refutes the critical theories of men like P. N. Harrison, and provides a satisfying exposition of the texts.”

“Hoekema, Anthony A. The Four Major Cults. Grand Rapids; Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1963.

“A very thorough evaluation of the doctrinal teachings of Mormonism, Seventh–Day Adventism, Christian Science, and Jehovah‘s Witnesses. Particularly helpful to students . . .”

Books by other familiar writers marked by the unfavorable dagger (t) are, for example, the following:

“Barth, Karl. Church Dogmatics. Edited by G. W. Bromley and F. F. Torrance. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1936.

“This epochal theology by a great Neo-orthodox theologian records the stages through which Barth’s theology went during his long and fruitful lifetime . . . .”

“Bultmann, Rudolf Karl. Existence and Faith. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1961.

“A selection of sermons providing some insight into Bultmann‘s polemical methodology . . .

(Note: Bultmann died in West Germany on July 30, 1976).

The above are just a few samples of the thousands of religious books listed under different headings and briefly evaluated in this remarkable volume. Barber‘s acquaintance with this very wide range of all these publications together with his ability to summarize the contents and quality of them strikes me as a phenomenal achievement. Possibly the writer may have erred in his judgments in some instances but so far I have not found this to be true.

The Minister’s Library consists of two parts: 1. How to Set Up Your Library. 2. A Guide to Books for Your Library. Methods proposed for classifying one’s books include an explanation of how to use the Dewey Decimal Classification Scheme.

“Henry Ward Beecher,” according to Barber, “is one of the great names in the annals of the American pulpit. He said: ‘It is a man’s duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessities of life.’”

Items in the Offing

Following are a couple of items to which, the Lord willing, further editorial attention will be given in the near future.

1. The Battle for the Bible – Those who read both The Banner and THE OUTLOOK will have noticed a sharp contrast in the editorial evaluation of Harold Lindsell‘s recent book, The Battle for the Bible, in these publications.

In our June issue I wrote about Lindsell‘s book as follows: “If I were asked what one book should be in the hands of every delegate to Synod, every CRC minister, everyone studying for the ministry, and every Bible teacher right now, I would not hesitate for a moment in answering: Harold Lindsell‘s book, The Battle for the Bible, just published by Zondervan.”

Then, in the August 20 issue of The Banner, Editor De Koster wrote very disparagingly about this same book, criticizing it severely as follows: “It is a highly incompetent work, at most a reservoir of unseemly gossip [italics mine. JVP]. Unfortunately it has secured some hasty endorsement by Reformed writers who, on reflection, will have occasion to reconsider, I think, their enthusiasm. 1 refer to Dr. Harold Lindsell’s The Battle for the Bible (Zondervan, 1976). The closer you look, the worse this book looks, as we shall see together sometime soon” (p. 7).

At the time of this writing (Sept. 16), the editorial on the matter promised by Dr. De Koster for September 24 has not yet appeared. Meanwhile, I would urge all who can to purchase and read the book carefully and then to judge for yourself. The matter is important and the reader will agree that we ought to get back to it as soon as possible.

2. The Dutton Appeal at Synod – The other matter of sufficient importance to call for further attention pertains to the appeal of the Dutton consistory against the approval for the ordination of Dr. Allen Verhey at Classis Grand Rapids East and the refusal of the 1976 CRC Synod to sustain this appeal. Because the crucial matter of the interpretation of Scripture is involved, this is, in my judgment, something that must bc pursued further.

By this time, all consistory members must have received the 1976 Acts of Synod with its 699 pages. How many are there who will carefully read this entire volume? Bc that as it may, allow me to be so bold as to urgently plead with every consistory member to read most carefully what is recorded about this highly important matter. And then, having read and studied this, consistories should take time, preferably at a special meeting for this, to thoroughly discuss that which has taken place.

Those who share Dutton’s conviction, after conscientious and deliberate discussion of the matter, should seriously ask themselves if they are free before the Lord to let the matter rest now or whether they too should take a stand by way of a protest or appeal and call upon the next Synod to remove the cloud that is hanging over the CRC with respect to our view of the Bible.

Let’s face it: as a CRC we also are losing “the battle for the Bible” and there can be no future for us if we arc unwilling to be aroused. Especially our consistories will be called to account if they refuse to act and this battle should be lost by default. Before God, we dare not let this matter rest.