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The Clergy and the Book

“JUSTICE is turned back, and righteousness stands afar off; for truth has fallen in the public squares, and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking.” Thus God’s Word shows a direct relationship between delinquency and a lack of appreciation of the truth, which Jesus defined as the Word of his Father, Jehovah God.—Isa. 59:14, 15, RS; John 17:17.

And the facts bear out the position of the Bible. Never have there been so much immorality and corruption and crime and never has there been so little appreciation for the Word of God. Oh yes, the Bible continues as a best seller, but its contents are seldom searched out, and much less its lessons applied to daily living. Thus a survey made in 1954 showed that 65 percent of Jews, 56 percent of Roman Catholics and 32 percent of Protestants never or practically never read the Bible. And another, published in 1955, showed that more than half the people of the United States could not even name one of the four Gospels.

But is it at all surprising that people should pay ever less and less attention to the contents of the Bible, in view of the lowly opinion the clergy have of it? Although Paul wrote that “all Scripture is inspired of God,” yet according to a recent survey only 38 percent of all ministers believe the Bible to be “wholly free from legend or myth,” and only 4 percent of students in theological seminaries have such implicit faith.—A Guide to the Religions of America, page 236, by Rosten.

Nor need we wonder that seminary students have such little faith in the Bible’s being free from legend or myth, in view of the position taken by their professors. Thus in a letter to The Christian Century, one R. T. Stamm, Ph.D., D.D., professor of Greek and the New Testament at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, had the following comments to make regarding the “blind destructive agony” and the “reckless career” of Samson, whom he placed in the same category with modern militarists, East and West: “Like all other men driven by hate in their hearts, he could work miracles with the materiel he had—jaw-bones, foxtorches and sheer brute strength. The people he killed were just as dead as the 60,000 inhabitants of Hiroshima.” “Samson was a genius at picking quarrels, born to stir up trouble as the sparks fly upward, and the time was ripe for his exploits. . . . Some patriots actually said that Samson’s doings were inspired by the Lord God himself for the purpose of starting a war of extermination against these enemies of his ‘chosen people.’”

However, it was not fanatical Israelite patriots but none other than Jehovah’s angel who had said: “He it is who will take the lead in saving Israel out of the hand of the Philistines.” And note also that the apostle Paul mentions Samson with approval: “For the time will fail me if I go on to relate about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David as well as Samuel and the other prophets, who through faith defeated kingdoms in conflict, effected righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions.” When the inspired apostle records Jehovah’s approval, who is this Stamm that he should thus deprecate? Like professor, like seminary students, like laity.—Heb. 11:32, 33, NW.

And like modern rabbi. Thus Jakob J. Petuchowski, writing in the Jewish religious monthly Commentary, argues that Jews should also do missionary work, and among the advantages he claims that Judaism has over Christianity he lists his view regarding sin: “Nor, again, is sin . . . something transmitted through the generations from a mythical ‘Fall.’ A man is responsible only for his own acts . . . Confession to God . . . remorse, and avoidance of the same sin when temptation arises again, are the sole means of restoring his harmonious relation with God.” He thereby not only discredits the Genesis account of original sin but all the many references to it in the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures as well as all that they have to say about the need of an atoning sacrifice. How much of the Bible has Rabbi Petuchowski left? Is it any wonder that nearly two thirds of the Jews never read the Bible even though it contains the history of their race?

Typical of the faith-destroying propaganda of Protestants is the editorial in The Christian Century relative to the raising of Lazarus. It asks: “Did Jesus really raise the dead?” Answering its question it states: “It seems pretty clear that the men who wrote the Gospels thought he did. They lived in an entirely different [intellectual] climate from ours. They had been brought up on the story of Elisha and they remembered how he brought the son of the Shunammite woman back to life. We live in a different world. We know that things beyond our comprehension happen. . . . Nevertheless, we have a high regard for the regularity and orderliness by which God operates the universe and it is not easy for us to imagine that God would arbitrarily set aside all his laws to bring the dead to life, not even to demonstrate his power or to show forth his glory.” Then as a sop to those who might disagree, the editorial goes on to say: “We would be wise, however, to reserve our judgment on such matters. These are matters beyond our immediate experience about which we have not factual evidence.”

And again we ask, Is it any wonder that people neglect reading the Bible when a professed Christian weekly takes such a dim view of Jesus’ ministry and miracles? The very purpose of the miracles was to provide something “beyond our immediate experience,” and to those who believe the Bible to be the Word of God its testimony is “factual evidence.” Jesus himself stressed the point that his miracles were his credentials: “The works themselves that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father dispatched me.”—John 5:36, NW.

Jesus answered them: “I told you and yet you do not believe. The works which I am doing in the name of my Father, these bear witness about me. But you do not believe, because you are none of my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”—John 10:25-27, NW.