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A Thesaurus of Tributes

MY first memory of John Mackay is of a quiet and somewhat diffident small boy, but with a wistful and meditative looking in his face, who came to our school in Inverness, Scotland when I had already been there for several years. But when I think' of him now, it is of one who has proved himself to be a great gift of God to the Church in our time. In each succeeding sphere of activity to which he has been called he has made a difference, seeming to be just the man we needed at that juncture. How great was his; contribution to the Protestant Churches in South America, and how much he continues to contribute to our understanding of the spiritual condition of that vast continent! How much has he counted for in the understanding of the world-wide missionary task and in the development of missionary strategy during the past thirty years! How much Princeton Seminary owes to him, coming as he did at the most critical moment of its history and proving himself at once to be the' man for that moment! How alert he has been to the changing theological situation, always ready to derive valuable insight from each' new-developing trend of thought, but never allowing himself to be carried away by its excesses! How much ripe wisdom has he brought to our recent ecumenical discussions, knowing well how to combine loyalty to his own Presbyterian tradition with an unflagging zeal for the restoration of Christian unity throughout the world! And finally, how much he has helped to compose party differences within' his own tradition, through his having to a remarkable degree won the confidence of all parties! In all these ways my old schoolfellow has indeed "made a difference," and I welcome this opportunity to, express my gratitude. JOHN BAILLIE. Principal, Emeritus, New College, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland.

I welcome the opportunity of expressing my admiration for John A. Mackay. Though I know him not so well as many who have worked with him, I have known him longer-longer than anyone in Princeton, for I knew him before he came to the United States. I knew him in Mexico when he was under the YMCA, after his pro-

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pitious work in South America. Just before my first visit to Mexico I chanced to be in New York, and as a matter of course I called on John R. Mott who through the YMCA had helped my Wartime Work in Italy. He said, "When you reach Mexico City you must see John Mackay; he is well worth knowing." Equally as a matter of course called on Robert E. Speer who besides being my classmate in Prince Theological Seminary was Secretary of the Presbyterian Board Foreign Missions, founded by my grandfather's uncle the Hon. Walter Lowrie who was brought as a boy from Scotland and who had founded this Board after he retired from the Senate. He gave me same injunction as Speer, without intimating that Mackay was about to be associated with the work of the Board. When I reached Mexico City I called on John Mackay and found that "he was well worth knowing." How well I learned later, for soon he came Lo New York, and I advised him to live in Princeton and commute to work-without suspecting that soon he would be called to preover my Seminary and greatly magnify its importance, would as I do in a house built more than a century ago by Commodore Stockton, would found my favorite theological quarterly, and would become a sort of ecumenical bishop.-WALTER LOWRIE. Author and English translator of Kierkegaard, Princeton, N. J.

I met John Mackay for the first time when he visited me on his way back from Bonn, where he had been studying with Karl Barth. Pat seems to me characteristic of him! Although there was as yet peace between the theology of Barth and my own, my visitor sensed that we were moving on different tracks. John Mackay, however, did not want to play one against the other. He wanted to take the good from each and leave the rest aside. The second time we met at Oxford as we took part in that now historic ecumenical aspect. It was then that Mackay urgently invited me to come to Princeton as professor of systematic theology. I accepted his call, quite as he wished. Hitler came in between. I had to go my own country after only one year of teaching at Princeton. It was during that year, however, that we became good friends. I have admired and even envied one thing particularly in John Mackay, namely, his great wisdom in handling men and in solving situations that seemed insoluble. After Princeton, I met John

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Mackay twice. The first time was in Tokyo, where he had just returned from a visit to Korea, as I was just preparing to make a similar journey. I was pleased by his realism of faith and his courage as a missionary strategist, seeing reality without illusions but never letting his love for the people and the great cause become cooled by disappointments. It was only, for a very short time that have could exchange experiences, but to be with him even a short while always gave me courage and joy. The last time we met was in Germany at one of the many ecumenical study groups which both, of us attended. If there is any man who in his person represents Oekumene, it is John Mackay. The unity of the Church of Christ has been his greatest passion, and the disunity of the Churches have been to him, the man of missions, the greatest pain. Nothing, however, turned him away from the great certainty: that above all our problems stands Jesus Christ. One day His victory will appear. It this certainty I feel myself at one with this man as also in his zeal for a free, live, Biblical theology which can serve the Church of Christ in our time.-EMIL BRUNNER. Professor, Emeritus, of Theology University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.

The Princeton community takes pardonable pride in the proportion of its citizens who are listed in Who's Who, which is only natural in the locality which was once described to me by a professor in another university as "the coming Athens of America." Yet most of us whose names are recorded between the red covers of this book in language which does us no harm, are but local figures in comparsion with John A. Mackay. His fame extends throughout the whole world, His position is due not solely to the quality of his mind, of even to his success as the head of a great institution and eminent leader in his Church. His great personal courage in denouncing evil in high places, against pressures to remain silent, has been a quality that the Princeton community has noted as well. But should like to speak more intimately of John Mackay as a eminent residential colleague. For twenty-one years we worked together as head of two neighbor institutions, each with its own corporate entity, it own individuality, and its own aims and commitments. Over the years this relationship had not always been easy. It was somewhat strained just before President Mackay took office. However, his ambitions for the Seminary and his regard for learning immediately

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elicited our respect. On the other hand, his understanding of the university-point-of-view won our hearts, and the two institutions, Seminary and University, entered upon a new period of cooperation and faculty fraternization. The University faculty observed the growth of the Seminary in size and stature with gratification. The it they attributed to its President, and they were right.-HAROLD DODDS. President, Emeritus, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ.

"This man is a Christian." It was a Communist official who used these words to describe John Mackay after a visit he had paid to one of the People's Republics as President of the World Presbyterian Alliance. It is surely one of the proudest titles that any man could bear. But John Mackay is indeed a Christian. Before everything he is a Christian; a man who has been guided by his convictions, who has had the courage to act upon them, cost what it might. As President of the Alliance, he has not tried to work for its advancement, but to ensure that the Alliance was advancing the cause of Christ's kingdom. During his presidency, and throughout his whole the Alliance, he has been acutely conscious of two possibilities-the positive contribution that confessional bring to the ecumenical movement, and also the threatening represented by them. There has never been any question where Dr. Mackay stood on this issue. In his own words, he has sought through the Alliance, "to propagate the one Holy Faith throughout the world and to seek the unity of the one Church of Jesus Christ." It was out of these same strong convictions that Mackay proposed, as the theme for the Alliance's Eighteenth General Council, meeting in Sao Paulo in the summer of 1959, "The covenant Lord and His Servant People." He is a man who is out of thy with those who would magnify the Church as an institution. He knows too well that the Church's Lord is our supreme of the servant, and he demands of the Church and of her members that they should follow their Master in this way of service. my belief that in making this emphasis, John Mackay has rendered service, certainly to the Alliance, but also to the whole Christian Church-MARCEL PRADERVAND. General Secretary, World of Reformed Churches, Geneva, Switzerland.

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One of the most persistent problems of the Christian minister is how to use theology not only in his preaching and writing, but also in his administrative decisions. It is very easy to let theology be come academic, which is to say that the framework of Christian belief is kept in isolated irrelevance from the emotions, thoughts, and decisions of daily life. Theology in this case may be reasonable, orthodox, and contemporary, but its only usefulness is to enable you to feel identified intellectually with a school or movement and to en able others properly to classify or label you. At the other extreme is the substitution of one's system of theology for one's Christian faith. Theological students and some able young ministers let their academic interest in theological questions obscure the simplicity in the Gospel message, which should be the chief substance of Christian Sermons and Christian teaching. Theology is at best a framework Unless a -roof and sidings are put upon it and it is painted up, it make a most inadequate dwelling for the human spirit. Theology is skeleton, important to the body, but dead and useless unless clothes in vibrant flesh. John Mackay has not fallen into either of the errors. Although he is a theologian and an academician, he has al ways kept his theology from usurping the place of Christ. On the other hand, there is always a structure of a developed theology evident in sermon, political article, or even in the rationale of administrative decision. He has sometimes been teased by younger an irreverent students and colleagues on the ground that he could never say, "Let's go to lunch," but rather, "It is now time for us to meet about the tables to refresh our bodies and express our Christian fellowship." But it is just because he attempted to place all of life a Christian context that John Mackay's theology has been so influential in our Church and nation. As much as any man in our tin lie cherished theology for what it should be-not a master, but a se ant. EUGENE CARSON BLAKE. Stated Clerk, The United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., Office of the General Assembly, Philadelphia, Pa.

It is a source of regret to me that I did not come to know John Mackay much earlier, for since our first acquaintance I have four in him both a warm friend and a source of inspiration. Our appreciations have usually occurred in formal committee meetings.

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does not ordinarily go to these expecting inspiration. And yet in, such circumstances, where a number have been gathered to wrestle with some urgent, practical problem, his wisdom has made its deep impression on me. Always in these deliberations he has exhibited deep concern for people together with unswerving determination never to sacrifice essential considerations to convenience. What one senses in him then-and is grateful for-is a man of the Spirit who is staunchly set against making debilitating concessions to unworthy demands from the world, a kindly soul confident in the Lord, and a man of character. It is an honor to join with others to wish him well on his seventieth birthday. Many have occasion to be grateful, for something he has said or done. Those who do will hold the man in memory and long continue to learn from and admire him. -NATHAN M. PUSEY. President of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

Sir Walter Scott once remarked to a friend, "I always laugh when I, hear people say, 'Do one thing at once. I have done a dozen things at once all my life." This exactly describes John Mackay. In his own way his ministry has had the range and scope of that of William Temple. All his life long he has been a tireless worker, and his interests and activities, directed towards the service of God and men, have been multifarious. If he writes an autobiography, he should share with younger men the secret of his industry and vitality. "Jack of all trades and master of none," could never be aid of him. He has excelled in the roles of preacher, pastor, preacher, missionary, author, churchman, and seminary president. He has given as much attention to practical urgencies as to eternal verities, a case in point being the fearlessness with which he denounced Joseph McCarthy when other leaders were strangely tongue-picked. There has never been any suggestion of aridity or remoteness in his scholarship. Thanks no doubt to his Highland heritage, light and warmth have been features of all his work. One could wish that more men the evangelical and prophetic tempers were so wedded.

What undertakings lie ahead of him now that rich in "love, honor, troops of friends" he has retired from Princeton we do not know, but one thing we are certain. The life of inaction will never have

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any appeal for him. He has been learning and leading all his days and will be as quick to learn and lead as ever.-ROBERT J. MCCRACKEN. Minister, The Riverside Church, New York, N.Y.

I am greatly privileged to be included among those permitted to pay tribute, in the pages of THEOLOGY TODAY, to a great person I have admired all the years of my ministry, John A. Mackay. His career has been such that he has been called upon to fill a number of important roles simultaneously: teacher, author, administrator, prophet. It is the latter about which I wish to comment, because it is the role that so easily can become suppressed by the pressures of other roles and particularly that of administration. Too many clergymen, including some much less burdened by responsibilities than Dr. Mackay has been, have permitted this aspect of their calling to lapse because of a lack of zeal for this responsibility, fear of "rocking boats," or preoccupation with immediacies involved in the administration of his local cure. With John Mackay nothing his stood in the way of his speaking out forthrightly where the interests of the Kingdom were at stake. And the reasons why his words have always been listened to and have had wide influence on others is that he has quite obviously found the time for adequate preparation and thought before speaking of a situation or supporting a cause. This fact has given many of the rest of us confidence; while I have always tried to give some care to such decisions myself, I always recognized that the fact that Dr. Mackay had already "signed up" was a strong plus in favor of my doing the same. I am sure that over the year countless students at seminary have had built into them a measured of his prophetic spirit, reflecting in their ministry his intellectual honesty, integrity, and independence of judgment. From time to time we hear the compliment, "he is a preacher's preacher." In Di Mackay we can say, "he is a prophet's prophet." May God bless hi days of well earned retirement.-JAMES A. PIKE. Bishop, Diocese of, California, San Francisco, Calif.

Four adjectives gather up the main impressions that John A Mackay has made upon me during the last thirty years. The first in missionary. For our generation of American Christians he is the

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personal embodiment of the missionary spirit and the persona symbol of the missionary movement. To be a Christian and to have an evangelistic ardor to make Christ known, loved, and obeyed everywhere have meant to him the same thing. The second adjective is ecumenical. He has steadily seen, and helped others to see, the Church as essentially one and universal because of its origin in one universal Lord. He has felt intensely that it fails to realize its own destiny in so far as it is divided or limited to any community, nation, race, or culture. He is chiefly responsible, too, for bringing the word "ecumenical" into circulation in its current connotation, for it was in his report as Chairman of the section on "The Universal Church and the World of Nations" at the Oxford Conference in 1937 that the distinction between "international" and "ecumenical" was most clearly pointed out. The third adjective is prophetic. John Mackay has never wavered in his conviction that every sphere of life, including our social and political relations, must be brought under the sovereignty of Christ. He has accordingly had the spiritual independence and moral courage to take stands that he knew would not be popular. As a single vivid illustration, he initiated the memorable letter of the Presbyterian General Council to the Churches at the height of the furor stirred up by Senator McCarthy. That letter came like a breath of fresh highland air into a miasma of suspicion and distrust. The final adjective is saintly. One almost hesitates to use the word because of its frequent association with a narrow pietism that implied a mystical withdrawal from social responsibility and from intellectual wrestling with great issues of thought. But John Mackay has given a more dynamic content to our understanding of piety. In him it has meant a fellowship with Christ that begins in the depth of the soul and extends to the farthest outreaches of life. No one who knows him well can doubt that it is personal devotion to Christ which is the very core of his being; and which explains all the other aspects of his service for which we are so grateful.-SAMUEL MCCREA CAVERT. General Secretary, Emeritus, National Council of Churches, New York, N. Y.

One word beyond all others seems to characterize John A. Mackay and that word is "Churchman." His adult years span a simultaneous a half-century as the besieged race has known. During such a time

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his discerning concept of the nature, measure, duty, and destiny of the Household of Faith has been the integrating principle of his vigorous discipleship. He has insisted upon and exalted the conviction that the word of the Church in this fractured age is that substantial, eternal word of God's self-revelation which constitutes the Christian Gospel. He has embodied and proclaimed the idea that the people of God perform their ministry of reconciliation by being the reconciled community. Sensitive to and audacious in the face of the dark powers which always plague the ongoing of righteousness in the affairs of men, he has recalled the militant Church to the urgency of its ecumenical mission, precisely at those points in our culture where the spiritual battles are most severely joined. And he has reminded the Church of its confident hope in the invulnerable resources of the Lord's presence and power. Indefatigable in labor, unimpaired by trivial concerns, catholic in friendships and vision, Dr. Mackay has had and continues to have a notable ministry as preacher, educator, scholar, counselor, and denominationalist. But above all he has assisted the Church in its discernment of what forth. rightly it is to say to the world and of what in loyalty to its Head it is to be in the world. JAMES A. JONES. President, Union Theological Seminary, Richmond, Va.

The diversity of Dr. Mackay's gifts is manifest in the amplitude of his ministry. But all these gifts are held captive by one central purpose and passion. John Mackay is, first and last, a missionary There is fitness in the fact that his richly varied service to the ecumenical movement was crowned by the Chairmanship of the International Missionary Council. He was elected to this office in absentia; and a deputation was appointed by the Whitby Conference to wait upon him. Behari Lal Rallia. Ram, Professor Westinan of Uppsala, and I traveled to Princeton from Canada. Dr. Mackay was surprised and visibly moved by the message we brought. He spoke of his early training in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scot land, of his service in South America, and of the missionary purpose which had been the lodestar of his ministry. He then said: "I regard this as the highest honor that could come to me." It was clear that this was not just a polite form of words. Dr. Mackay took his duties as Chairman with immense seriousness, and fulfilled the prophetic

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functions of this office with great power. During a critical decade, 'he has re-affirmed the missionary calling of the Church in terms at once profound and compelling. He maintained the wholeness of the ecumenical task and prepared the way for the union of the IMC and I his missionary advocacy and ecumenical burning conviction that Jesus Christ is Lord and the life of the individual Christian. CHARLES W. RANSON. Director, The Theological Education Fund of the International Missionary Council, New York, N.Y.

I am sure I speak for many of John Mackay's friends and admirers when I say that what we most love and value in him is his great warmth, his unfailing kindliness and patience, his keen mind and lively creative imagination, his rare ability to get things done, his wide knowledge and experience and, not least, his stalwart Christian faith coupled with a precious irenic approach to vexed problems. While I was in Princeton, in the University, at the time when Dr.

to the Seminary, he took the lead in organizing a small university discussion group which met regularly, often at throughout the academic year. This was one of the most ups to which I have been privileged to belong. We discussed a great variety of topics, theological and cultural, always frankly, often with genuine fervor, and always in a spirit of complete mutual respect and affection. I still remember the vivid intuitions and incisive arguments of Professors Hromadka, Brunner, Piper, Homighausen, Harbison, Oates, and Dean Wicks, to mention but a few as well as Dr. Walter Lowrie, who also often acted as our host. But, above all, I remember Dr. Mackay's heart-warming smile, his unfailing personal interest, and his unflagging enthusiasm. He was our acknowledged leader and guide. Our lively meetings, over several years, proved once again that profound conviction and honest inquiry need not be antithetical; indeed, that faith grows deeper as reason probes and that reason is enriched and guided by a sincere enlightened faith. Many of us in the University welcomed Dr. Mackay's appointment as President of the Seminary and rejoiced as, year after year, be strengthened the Seminary faculty with distinguished new appointments and as he strove, successfully, to raise the academic standards of theological study. We became increasingly

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proud of our sister institution tinder his brilliant leadership. He also did Protestantism a great service by founding and by so ably directing THEOLOGY TODAY, which quickly became the best Protestant journal of its kind in America. Its strong editorials, its excellent articles, and its careful book reviews, have put many of us deeply in its debt. I join a large and happy company in hearty good wishes to Dr. Mackay on his seventieth birthday and on his retirement from the Presidency of the Seminary. May he continue to inform us, lead us, inspire us, and love us for many years.-THEODORE M. GREENE, Professor in the Humanities, Scripps College, Claremont, Calif.

Protestants have only one Master, but now and again they are given models in Christian mastery, Such is John Mackay, who lives among ministers as a sign of what can happen in and through a man in whom grace and diligence coincide. Few in the Church can miss having their measure taken by his accomplishments. Among scholars he is remarkable for his knowledge of the mainstream and the tributaries of philosophic and theological thought-and for the precision and the elegance with which he guides his hearers and readers through the braided channels of influence and implication. Among preachers hi will always stand as a special sign of how compellingly eloquence and wisdom can serve the Word. To evangelists in far places he showing the way to link a Christian's sympathy with kindred peoples' darkness and a Christian's witness to the Light. To the Church's statesmen he points a path through loyalty-to-a-tradition toward community-in-the Truth. For educators and administrators he will always be that impossible possibility, a facer of hard fact, an espouser of unpopular causes who inexplicably attracted popular support to a great institution inestimably enhanced by his unyieldingly conscientious care (is not accidental that my wonder shows plainest here). For all mere everywhere he remains a superb example of redeemed humanity intelligence, and passion under orders, humble person, commanding presence, noble servant of his Servant Lord.-THEODORE A. GILL President, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, California.

How well I remember my first meeting with John Mackay. I had already made an eager response to some of his writings for I had fount

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in them the combination of warm evangelical faith with bold theological reasoning for which I was looking. Then came a gracious reception at Princeton and the beginning of a friendship which was to prove of the utmost significance in my own life during the years immediately ahead. There were memorable meetings in connection with the Westminster Study Bible; there was the thrill of launching and watching the progress of THEOLOGY TODAY; there was the constant stimulus and enrichment to an Anglican of being welcomed so whole-heartedly into one of the historic strongholds of Presbyterianism. And at the center of all was Dr. Mackay himself, inspiring us by the intensity of his devotion, extending us by the breadth of his imagination, guiding us by the authority of his own experience and wisdom. My memory also goes back to days when packages of books were sent out to ministers in some of the lonelier parts of Canada and how often word would come back of deep appreciation for A Preface to Christian Theology. I think, too, of God's Order-surely a unique commentary of the Epistle to the Ephesians. I find it hard (to think that we shall ever have an exposition which has grown out of a deeper penetration into its character and meaning. Imagination, artistry, passionate thinking, fearless dedication-all these I associate with Dr. Mackay. From another country and from another tradition I send this heartfelt expression of admiration for and gratitude to one who has been an inspiring leader and gracious friend for pore than twenty years.-F. W. DILLISTONE. Dean of the Cathedral, Liverpool, England.

I am writing this from Tiruvalla, in the heart of the troubled State of Kerala in South India. The people of Kerala have been [engaged in a life and death struggle. The Communists have been [posing as champions of the have-nots, but the people of Kerala have come to realize that a Communist government is essentially totalitarian and that its methods are directed toward the negation of personal liberty and the democratic procedure. Christians form about one third of the total population of fifteen millions in the State, and they have been hard hit, particularly by an education act of the Government in favor of Communist ideology. Many members of the Christian Church realize that Communism in Kerala is a judgment of God upon the Church for her many sins of commission and omis-

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sion. They are beginning to see that the Christian religion has an relevant message for the needs of society as well as for the individual, and that Christ alone is the hope of the world. It is this message, the relevancy of Christ to social, national, and international problems, that I have learned to associate with the name of John A, Mackay. It is this message that some of his former students in Kerala are engaged in passing on to others. It was my privilege to welcome Dr. Mackay to Serampore when I was Principal of the University and Lo be welcomed by him to Princeton during a memorable sojourn on the Seminary campus. It was an inspiration to listen Le his expositions of the Christian message because one felt that the speaker was one whom the message had gripped completely. Seram pore University honored itself by conferring an honorary degree upon Dr. Mackay when he was serving as Chairman of the Inter national Missionary Council. Few men that I know come so close to Carey, the founder of Serampore, in the wide horizons of their vision as well as in the intensity of their passion for the missionary task of the Church. I salute John Mackay from distant India and would, on behalf of my countrymen who have benefited by his counsel and sympathy, thank him sincerely and sing praises to God for at that has been accomplished through him over the years in Princeton and far beyond.-C. E. ABRAHAM. General Secretary, Youth Department, Mar Thoma Church, India.