The Social Struggle • Indonesia Philosophy of History Red
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\' '.' the Ill AL\/IN ,()t•u The Social Struggle • Christian Witness Indonesia and Holland Philosophy of History Christian Lines Red Communism World Menace Amsterdam Assembly World Council of ,Churches Voices Letters Reviews Verse TWO DOLLARS VOL. XIV, NO. 11·12 A YEAR J'UNE-JULY, 1949 The CALVIN FORUM THE CALVIN FORUM Published by the Calvin Forum Board of Publication EDITORIAL COMMITTEE Editor-in-Chief ........................ CLARENCE BOUMA VOLUME XIV, NO. 11-12 JUNE-JULY, 1949 Associate Editors................ WlLLIAM T. RADIUS HENRY J. RYSKAMP HENRY SCHULT'LE GEORGE STOB Contents Book Editor.................................. HENRY ZYLSTRA Articles • Christian Witness in the Social Struggle....................... CALVIN FORUM CORRESPONDENTS .............................................................. Clarence Bouma 227 ARTHUR ALLEN ••..•...................•.....•.... :.. Australia Th,e Netherlands and Indonesia...... Amry VandenBosch 231 HARRY R. BOER .......................................... Nigeria Concerning a Philosophy of History.......... James 234 HENRY BRUINOOGE .................................•...... China Daane CALVIN CHAO .......................................... Shangliai ·The Communistic Menace ---·····------------Endre Sebestyen 237 J. CHR. COETZEE ................................ South Africa SAMUEL G. CRAIG .............. Presb. Church, U.S.A. PAUL DE KOEKKOEK •.........••.•Edmonton, Canada • E. C. DE KRETZER ........................................ Ceylon F. W. DEN DuLK ...................................... Ethiopia The Voice of Our Readers .MARK FAKKEMA ............ Nat. Assn. Chr. Schools Appreciation .......................................................................... 240 A. G. FOENANDER ........................................ Ceylon BURTON L. GODDARD .................................... Boston Of Necessity Calvinists........................................................ 240 EDWARD HEEREMA •..•.... O·rthodox Presb. Clturch Need for Apologetics .............................................................. 240 JACOB T. HooGSTRA .•......Ecumenical Calvinism HERMAN J. KREGEL .......................... Tokyo, Japan . As to Fighting Totalitarianism.............. ,............................. 241 FRED s. LEAHY ................................Nortli Ireland J. MOODY McDILL................ Jackson, Mississippi TAKESHI MATSUO .......................................... Japan • J. GRAHAM MILLER ........................ New Hebrides From .Our Correspondents Pil!l'l'ER PRINS ...................................•Netherlanda ARTHUR v. RAMlAH.....................•.•.. South India Natural Science and the Faith............................................ 242 w. STANFORD REID•.....••..••..•••• Montreal, Canada WM. C. ROBINSON .... Presb. Church in .the U. S. From the Union of South Africa........................................ 243 JENO SEBESTYEN.•...•...•.•...••... Budapest, Hungary Hungarian Letter .................................................................. 243 JOHN N. SMITH .................................. New Zealand WILLIAM A. SWETS ....•. Ref. Church in America The Dutch and the East Indies............................................ 245 LEONARD VERDUIN ............ Ann Arbor, Michigan What Happened on Java? .................................................... 245 CHARLES VINCZE ••.•••••........ Hungarian Reformed JOHN w. WEVERS ..................................Princeton Religion and Superstition in Ethiopia.............................. 247 CORNELIUS ZYLSTRA ....•.......Christian Education • • Book Reviews Address all editorial correspondence to Dr.·: The ·.Amsterdam Assembly Series...................................... 249 Clarence Bouma, Editor THE CALVIN FORUM, Calvin College and Seminary, Grand Rapids 6, Christianity and Modern Culture...................................... 250 Michigan. Address all subscription and cir culation correspondence to: THE CALVIN A Gift Volume ........................................................................ 251 FonuM, Calvin College and Seminary, Grand Worship and Work ................................................................ 251 Rapids 6, Michigan. International Drama: 1941-1945 .......................................... 252 • The Mistress of the Manse.................................................... 253 THE CALvrn'FoRUM is published monthly, ex Sentimental Fiction 254 cept from June to September, when it appears bi-monthly. Subscription price: Two Dollars • per year. Verse • Grandfather 236 Entered as second-class matter October 3, • 1935, at the Post Office at Grand Rapids, Michigan, under the Act of March 3, 1879. INDEX to Volume XIV........................................................ 255 , '! 226 THE CALVIN FORUM * * * JUNE· JULY, 1949 Christian Witness in the Social Struggle Clarence Bouma Professor of Ethics Calvin Seminary Editor The Calv.in Forum N outstanding characteristic of the Calvin intense and intensified struggle in the social realm istic form of Christianity is that it is full today. cA orbed Christianity. It rides no hobbies. This unusual intensification of the social struggle It wants to see the total picture of the is caused by a number of factors, all of them char Christian Faith as revealed in Scripture. Though it acteristic of the modern structure of human society. recognizes that soteriology is of the very heart of 1. There is first of all the growing interdepend the Christian Faith, that Christian Faith in its Cal ence of all social agencies and forces. Government, vinistic form of expression is not exclusively or finance, business, industry, education, and world one-sidedly soteriological, as so much of current relations--all are more interrelated and interde Fundamentalism is. Neither is it one-sidedly es pendent than ever before. Touch one, and you chatological, though it recognizes the biblical es touch them all. Dislocate the one, and the effects chatology as an essential e 1 em en t in the total will be seen throughout the whole structure. For picture. the whole social structure-and I am here using the To the Calvinist the Christian Faith is a matter term "social" in the widest possible sense-is one. of doctrine, but no less of life. It involves salvation All social agents, agencies, and forces are interde from sin, but is also a matter of Christian living. pendent. This greatly enhances the intensification He believes in sanctification as no less essential of the social struggle which we witness today. than justification. The Faith has the promises both 2. This intensification of the social struggle is for this life and for the life to come. further promoted by the growing interdependence This is also the reason why we preach the law as of all nations throughout the world. In a deeper sense than ever before, the world in which we live well as the gospel. In Reformed church worship is "One World." What happens to Shanghai and the reading of the law is an integral part of the Southeastern Asia today concerns us deeply tomor sacred program. Many of our Fundamentalist fel row. Decisions made in Moscow, London, and low-Christians know the law in only one relation, Washington concern not only the nations whose viz., that of sin and salvation. Hence they glory in capitals they are, but will promptly have their far the hymn: ''Free from the law, 0 happy condition!" reaching effects on every continent. All this has But they have no appreciation of the psalm: "O greatly heightened the intensification of the social how love I Thy law, it is my meditation all the struggle of our day. day!" The Heidelberg Catechism recognizes the sig 3. And a third factor accomplishing this same nificance of the law both as a teacher of sin and as end is found in the radical nature of the social ideals a norm for the Christian's life of gratitude. that are today championed and propagated. I here This calls for a Christian witness in every realm mean to use "radical" in the original sense of the of life. A witness in our personal life, in the home, word. The social, economic, and political ideals in the ·church, in the school, in the state, and in championed today are radical in the sense that they every social sphere. Calvinists have always been go to the roots of things. The political issues are deeply aware of an ethical task. Our subject speaks not controlled by the distinction between conserva of that Christian witness in the social sphere. tives and progressives, or Republicans and Demo crats, but by the conflict between democracy and The Social Struggle: totalitarianism, between a free republic and an oligarchic, autocratic, almighty state. It is "Mein Its Intensity Kampf" and the autocratic deliverances of the More specifically our subject speaks of the social Kremlin against the Declaration of Independence struggle. And well it may. Life in all its social and the Bill of Rights. Governmental ideologies ramifications is a genuine battle, a struggle, a war today are born not from the alternative between a fare. Great and powerful forces are operative in Hamilton and a Jefferson, a Churchill and a Lloyd the industrial, the economic, the political, and the George, a Taft ·and a Theodore Roosevelt, but· by international realms. In fact, we are witnessing an the revolutionary principles of a Karl Marx, a T:BFJ CALVIN FORUM * * * JUNE- JULY, 1949 227 Friedrich Nietzsche, an Adolf Hitler, and the like. God, the Scriptures, more particularly the Deca It is autocracy and statism versus democracy, com logue and