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Renewal Through Reappraisal
By James F. Armstrong

IT is an ineluctable fact that where we go is profoundly influenced by where we have already been. Whether the instance be individual or corporate, the constellation of events and responses called the "past" both shapes our awareness of present options and regulates our ability to choose among them. It is this debt owed to the past that prevents much good advice and many wise suggestions from being translated into appropriate action. Our worthy goals seldom are blurred beyond recognition, but the paths ostensibly open to us so often lead in quite different directions.

If a clue may be taken from psychotherapeutic technique, one of the purposes of reappraisal, both for individuals and for institutions, is to bring to light the relics of the past, to see them for what they were and are, and to inhibit the effect of those that have become dysfunctional. Thus the way to tomorrow leads through yesterday, both appreciatively and critically; renewal is predicated upon a backward as well as a forward look; and "freedom for" without "freedom from" cannot long endure.

The opening article in this issue, "The Confession of 1967," represents a major effort on the part of a large segment of American Presbyterianism to prepare itself for the future by a reappraisal of its past. As Lefferts Loetscher has so well pointed out in The Broadening Church, the definitive authority of a confession, in this case the Westminster Confession, has long been a point of controversy for Presbyterians in this country. At the present time candidates for ordination in The United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., are required to subscribe to the Westminster Confession "as containing the system of doctrine taught in the Holy Scriptures." Since the Confession of 1967 both redefines the authority of such documents in the church and also seeks to bring the Reformed heritage to bear on modern life in a fresh way, no one should be surprised by the strong feelings that its introduction has aroused. At the present time a special committee of fifteen ministers and elders is reviewing the new statement, and this committee will make its recommendations to the General Assembly in May, 1966. In order for the Confession of 1967 to become a part of the constitution of

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the denomination, it must be approved by the 1966 General Assembly, receive the endorsement of two-thirds of the constitutive presbyteries of the church, and be ratified by the General Assembly of 1967.

One of the thorniest problems for Protestants has to do with the nature of biblical authority. If the Bible is not 'just another religious book," and no responsible Protestant theologian would venture such an assertion, wherein does its uniqueness reside? In his article, "Scripture and the Confession of 1967," James D. Smart argues that the place given to the Bible in the new document (it is discussed under the section on the Holy Spirit) is essentially in accord with the teaching of the Reformers. "That the one sufficient revelation of God is Jesus Christ," he writes, "and that the Old and New Testaments are the normative witness to this revelation emphasizes the uniqueness of the revelation of the Scriptures and negates the generalizing of revelation which has been so widespread during the past century in Protestantism." It would be difficult to assess how many opportunities for effective Christian witness have been lost to the Protestant churches because of their pre-occupation with the problem of biblical authority; perhaps the present discussions are harbingers of a new freedom.

For several years the editor in chief of curriculum for the Board of Christian Education of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., James D. Smart currently is Jesup Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Union Theological Seminary, New York. He is the author of several volumes, including the provocative work on hermeneutics, The Interpretation of Scripture (1961), and a new commentary, History and Theology in Second Isaiah (1965).

One of the principal tasks of "practical theology" is to inform theological reflection on man and his relationships with understandings derived from the sciences of human behavior. "Reconciliation, Forgiveness, Lost Contracts," by James N. Lapsley, Jr., is an example of how this function can be performed. Reconciliation, Lapsley notes, is an idea very much in vogue at the present time, and it is widely accepted as the dominant theme of Christian theology. Indeed, it has been accepted by the Confession of 1967 as the motif most in need of emphasis today. The article cautions us, however,

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that "there is a distinct danger that in our haste to emphasize the word reconciliation, we shall overlook its indispensable predecessor-forgiveness. " There then is developed, on the basis of psychological studies, an understanding of forgiveness that takes into account the formation and effect of felt-obligations ("contracts"), many of which must be cancelled before meaningful reconciliation can take place. The kind of doctrinal reappraisal that Lapsley here supplies is an ever-present necessity for a church that wishes to speak a helpful message to real people.

James N. Lapsley, Jr., is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary. Before assuming his present position, he studied at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, the University of Chicago, and the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, and has spent two years as minister in a local congregation.

In "Conscience and the Draft," Lawrence Minear attempts to reexamine a problem that has been especially acute for the church in this country: the conscientious objection to military service. The author surveys briefly the evolution of exemption from military service, beginning with the special consideration extended to Quakers (1757) and concluding with the Supreme Court decision (1965) that conferred the possibility of exemption upon agnostics and atheists as well as those whose scruples are derived from belief in a Supreme Being. In our "secularized" society, where religious and political and humanitarian concerns overlap in so many ways, we are urged to consider whether courts can much longer be burdened with the responsibility for assessing the basis for a man's aversion to bearing arms. Although Minear does not make the point, it might be added that the church, for the sake of its own health, may have to give more sophisticated consideration to this question than it has in the past.

Lawrence Minear, the son of Yale's Paul S. Minear, is a graduate of the Yale University Divinity School and currently is teaching American history at New Trier High School in suburban Chicago. The present article is based on research for a new high school curriculum in American history. The research program was sponsored by the Committee on the Study of History at Amherst College and was supported by a government grant under the National Defense Education Act.

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It has been observed that two statisticians, given the same set of figures, can produce marvelously different interpretations. To some extent, this observation is borne out in the two articles on Christianity in Japan. The raw datum seems simple enough: today, slightly over a century after the introduction of Protestantism to Japan, the number of Christians in that country is about one per cent of the population. To Robert Lee, this figure is uncomfortably small, and his article entitled "Obstacles to Church Growth" represents an attempt to explain why Christianity has made so few gains in Japan. The reasons he adduces are grouped under two main heads, internal characteristics of the Gospel and external characteristics related to the mental makeup of the society. Although he suggests, on the basis of his analysis, no new approach to the problem that gave rise to the investigation, future strategy certainly will have to take into account the factors that he has exposed.

John F. Howes, in contrast to Lee, is not disturbed by the one per cent figure. In "Two Types: Kagawa and Uchimura" he writes: "Christianity has succeeded there [in Japan] to an extent unparalleled in East Asia, perhaps unparalleled in any of the lands to which the missionary push of the nineteenth century carried it…. Individuals in Japan have not affiliated themselves with organized Christianity, yet they have familiarized themselves with its teachings and view it with respect." Clearly two sets of criteria for "success" are in operation, and the reader is encouraged to put them together in the best way he can. It should be noted, in fairness, that the comments made by Howes stand in preface to the principal concern of his article, namely, an explanation of the divergent Japanese reactions to the reformer, Kagawa, and the intellectual, Uchimura.

Immediately following the two articles on Christianity in Japan the reader will find a brief critique entitled "A Reply from Within," by Yasuo C. Furuya. While approving much that each author says, he is critical of certain assessments of the religious and social outlook of Japan after World War II.

Robert Lee is Professor of Christian Social Ethics and Director of the Institute of Ethics and Society at San Francisco Theological Seminary. John F. Howes is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of the chapter, "Japanese Christians and American Missionaries," in the volume entitled Changing Japanese Attitudes Toward

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Modernization (I 965). An alumnus of Princeton Theological Seminary, Yasuo C. Furuya is Director of the Religious Center and Instructor in the Division of Humanities at the International Christian University, Tokyo. During the academic year 1965-1966 he is Visiting Lecturer in Ecumenics at his alma mater in Princeton.

"How Adequate is the New Hermeneutic?" by Paul J. Achtemeier seeks to deal in an expository and critical manner with one of the foremost attempts at theological reappraisal in the modern church. Although most readers of THEOLOGY TODAY will be acquainted, at least in general, with the movement to which reference is made, Achtemeier presents a brief sketch of its foundations and principal concerns. The bulk of the article, however, is devoted to an analysis of the contributions of Ernst Fuchs to the discussion of the hermeneutical problem, and to a critique of Fuchs's determination of the hermeneutical principle appropriate to the New Testament. Even if, as the present reviewer himself anticipates, much of the current discussion of hermeneutics turns out to be a theological parenthesis, the movement itself should leave a deposit of lasting value for the modern understanding and communication of the Gospel.

Paul J. Achtemeier is Professor of New Testament Literature at Lancaster Theological Seminary, Pennsylvania. He turned to this journal for the publication of the article because "a most enlightening and informed discussion of the 'new' hermeneutic has appeared in [its] pages," allowing him to presuppose both interest and understanding on the part of the readers. We welcome the current exposition as we did his "Is the New Quest Docetic?" in October, 1962.

Of special interest in this issue is the report, in "The Church in the World," on Latin America, prepared by E. G. Homrighausen. This is the first of such reports which the author has undertaken during an academic leave; the second, on Asia and Africa, will appear in a later issue.