“RENDER UNTO CAESAR”
When we pay our taxes we are doing what Jesus bids us do and we ought to do it as in His sight and service. But this is only a token payment of much more which we owe to our state and nation. The Bible tells us to become very involved in self-government, doubtless the more so in our governments “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
I Timothy 2:1f. is eloquent in this, asking our “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks,…for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”
We trust that a mighty stream of prayers for our governments arises from our hearts, homes, and churches; but we much fear that the volume is far from what it ought to be.
There should be manifest a more vast involvement in the great work of self-government! Too often a detached, passive majority permits an evil minority to work its sinister will and sad erosions. Dedicated Communists push their “no holds barred” program while complacent prosperity lovers “go to the ball game.” Bitter racists press their fierce way while better citizens seek comfort in their uninvolvement.
Civic peace, more than prosperity or comfort, is the noble good we all must pray and strive for in these days of ominously mounting crime and darkly looming street war. Storm clouds lower fast, and hard by!
How best to work for peace? By working for righteousness! “The work of righteousness shall be peace” (Isa. 32:17): here lies more promise than in legislation or vast appropriations, needful though they be.
The civil rights issue points this up keenly. Are we, as Christian citizens, concerned, ready and eager to become involved so that minority groups, whose boys fight and die alongside our sons, may have their rights? Can we rise above the prejudices and the economics involved?
Is it right that merely one’s skin color should prevent his buying a home he can afford? Or holding a job he can qualify for? Is not the way of seeking right for all the true way of having peace for all?
But the civil rights issue also involves Christian love; “love thy neighbor as thyself.” If I were in his place, how would I like to be treated? Is it not the duty of each Christian citizen to face that squarely without shifting or subterfuge?
Is it not keenly urgent that the Christian press, pulpit, and witness in all ways should sound a clarion call on this crucial issue?
CORNEAL HOLTROP
OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHRISTIAN REFORMED MINISTERS’ INSTITUTE
The Christian Reformed Ministers’ Institute was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on June 4, 5, and 6 at which time Dr. H. M. Kuitert of the Free University of Amsterdam was one of the featured speakers. Dr. Kuitert is a member of the theological faculty at the university. The Grand Rapids Press on Monday, June 10, ran an article headlined with the caption, “Netherlands Pastor Accepts Evolution.” The report written by Donna Wills, staff writer for the Grand Rapids Press goes on to say that Dr. Kuitert does not believe that his views are controversial in the hearts of many Christian Reformed ministers although his views on the Genesis issue have created something of a stir. Dr. Kuitert is quoted as saying, “I don’t think that Adam and Eve ever lived. it was the way the Bible writers wrote. They used them as teaching models to discuss creation. Why do I start this whole fuss? Because I believe the Bible is not ‘Adam and Eve’ but ‘Who is Christ’ and what Christianity is.”
This quotation rather well points up what Dr. Kuitert and others are doing with the Bible and its interpretation when they make use of the historical critical method and the new exegesis. It has always been maintained that the Word of Cod is to be interpreted in the light of the life and times of those who were used by the Spirit for the writing of sacred Scriptures. Now, however, the approach to the Scripture has radically changed. Dr. Kuitert, et al, seem now to sav that what the Bible contains is simply the view of a man who wrote as he saw it and as he understood it at a given time. The writer of the Book of Genesis then used a teaching model which was generally understood in his day which bore little, if any, relationship to what actually happened. Dr. Kuitert says, “I don’t think that Adam and Eve ever lived…I believe the Bible is…Who is Christ.’” This it seems is precisely the point.
What happens to the Word of God and to the revelation in Christ upon this basis? Paul apparently then was also quite misinformed in Romans 5. Here he bases the whole argument for our salvation on the contrast between the first and second Adam when in fact the first Adam never even existed and was simply a teaching model conjured up in the mind of some scribe. The precise point in Genesis and in Romans and everywhere is exactly the question “Who is Christ?” By this same method of interpretation one could just as well say that Paul’s whole concern with the second Adam was also unwarranted because it too is a teaching model developed by someone’s fertile imagination. Then Paul in I Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all died, so also in Christ shall all be made alive,” has combined fact and fiction. Who is then to say where the fiction stops and the fact begins. What is simply a teaching model and what is not? “Who is Christ?” is exactly the question to be answered and the issue at stake.
“Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness; that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.” Somewhere along the line we will have to decide whether we can hold up the Bible and say, “Thus saith the Lord” or “this is the way Paul saw it, or Moses, or Isaiah, or someone else,…or Jesus.”
The report of the Grand Rapids Press expressed the opinion that the views of Dr. Kuitert were not controversial among the ministers of the Christian Reformed Church. This, I am sure, is not true. 1 am sure that among many these views will be rejected and the people of God have the right to hear their ministers reject these views in language which is clear and unequivocal. At the same time I am also sure that there are too many who are too much intrigued by and have too much sympathy for this unprofitable nonsense which is destructive to the faith of God’s people.
R. LEESTMA
When we pay our taxes we are doing what Jesus bids us do and we ought to do it as in His sight and service. But this is only a token payment of much more which we owe to our state and nation. The Bible tells us to become very involved in self-government, doubtless the more so in our governments “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
I Timothy 2:1f. is eloquent in this, asking our “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks,…for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.”
We trust that a mighty stream of prayers for our governments arises from our hearts, homes, and churches; but we much fear that the volume is far from what it ought to be.
There should be manifest a more vast involvement in the great work of self-government! Too often a detached, passive majority permits an evil minority to work its sinister will and sad erosions. Dedicated Communists push their “no holds barred” program while complacent prosperity lovers “go to the ball game.” Bitter racists press their fierce way while better citizens seek comfort in their uninvolvement.
Civic peace, more than prosperity or comfort, is the noble good we all must pray and strive for in these days of ominously mounting crime and darkly looming street war. Storm clouds lower fast, and hard by!
How best to work for peace? By working for righteousness! “The work of righteousness shall be peace” (Isa. 32:17): here lies more promise than in legislation or vast appropriations, needful though they be.
The civil rights issue points this up keenly. Are we, as Christian citizens, concerned, ready and eager to become involved so that minority groups, whose boys fight and die alongside our sons, may have their rights? Can we rise above the prejudices and the economics involved?
Is it right that merely one’s skin color should prevent his buying a home he can afford? Or holding a job he can qualify for? Is not the way of seeking right for all the true way of having peace for all?
But the civil rights issue also involves Christian love; “love thy neighbor as thyself.” If I were in his place, how would I like to be treated? Is it not the duty of each Christian citizen to face that squarely without shifting or subterfuge?
Is it not keenly urgent that the Christian press, pulpit, and witness in all ways should sound a clarion call on this crucial issue?
CORNEAL HOLTROP
OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHRISTIAN REFORMED MINISTERS’ INSTITUTE
The Christian Reformed Ministers’ Institute was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on June 4, 5, and 6 at which time Dr. H. M. Kuitert of the Free University of Amsterdam was one of the featured speakers. Dr. Kuitert is a member of the theological faculty at the university. The Grand Rapids Press on Monday, June 10, ran an article headlined with the caption, “Netherlands Pastor Accepts Evolution.” The report written by Donna Wills, staff writer for the Grand Rapids Press goes on to say that Dr. Kuitert does not believe that his views are controversial in the hearts of many Christian Reformed ministers although his views on the Genesis issue have created something of a stir. Dr. Kuitert is quoted as saying, “I don’t think that Adam and Eve ever lived. it was the way the Bible writers wrote. They used them as teaching models to discuss creation. Why do I start this whole fuss? Because I believe the Bible is not ‘Adam and Eve’ but ‘Who is Christ’ and what Christianity is.”
This quotation rather well points up what Dr. Kuitert and others are doing with the Bible and its interpretation when they make use of the historical critical method and the new exegesis. It has always been maintained that the Word of Cod is to be interpreted in the light of the life and times of those who were used by the Spirit for the writing of sacred Scriptures. Now, however, the approach to the Scripture has radically changed. Dr. Kuitert, et al, seem now to sav that what the Bible contains is simply the view of a man who wrote as he saw it and as he understood it at a given time. The writer of the Book of Genesis then used a teaching model which was generally understood in his day which bore little, if any, relationship to what actually happened. Dr. Kuitert says, “I don’t think that Adam and Eve ever lived…I believe the Bible is…Who is Christ.’” This it seems is precisely the point.
What happens to the Word of God and to the revelation in Christ upon this basis? Paul apparently then was also quite misinformed in Romans 5. Here he bases the whole argument for our salvation on the contrast between the first and second Adam when in fact the first Adam never even existed and was simply a teaching model conjured up in the mind of some scribe. The precise point in Genesis and in Romans and everywhere is exactly the question “Who is Christ?” By this same method of interpretation one could just as well say that Paul’s whole concern with the second Adam was also unwarranted because it too is a teaching model developed by someone’s fertile imagination. Then Paul in I Corinthians 15:22, “For as in Adam all died, so also in Christ shall all be made alive,” has combined fact and fiction. Who is then to say where the fiction stops and the fact begins. What is simply a teaching model and what is not? “Who is Christ?” is exactly the question to be answered and the issue at stake.
“Every Scripture inspired of God is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness; that the man of God may be complete, furnished completely unto every good work.” Somewhere along the line we will have to decide whether we can hold up the Bible and say, “Thus saith the Lord” or “this is the way Paul saw it, or Moses, or Isaiah, or someone else,…or Jesus.”
The report of the Grand Rapids Press expressed the opinion that the views of Dr. Kuitert were not controversial among the ministers of the Christian Reformed Church. This, I am sure, is not true. 1 am sure that among many these views will be rejected and the people of God have the right to hear their ministers reject these views in language which is clear and unequivocal. At the same time I am also sure that there are too many who are too much intrigued by and have too much sympathy for this unprofitable nonsense which is destructive to the faith of God’s people.
R. LEESTMA