BULLY FOR BILLY!

I read the news releases on Billy Graham's recent visit to Hungary with a great deal of satisfaction, not only for what he did for the Hungarians but also for what the Hungarians did for him.

It is first of all noteworthy that any evangelist would be allowed to enter an Iron Curtain country to preach Christ. The communist government permitted the Council of Free Churches to extend the invitation, and though he was restricted to church facilities and grounds, he was still able to address as many as 12,000 at a Baptist campground and as many as 2,000 in Baptist churches. One of his sermons was on the love of God in John 3:16 and all of his addresses were Christ-centered.

He conferred with the Roman Catholic bishop, who told him that only half of Hungary's Roman Catholics practice their faith and that two million of the seven million cannot even be accounted for. He talked also with leaders of Hungary's Jewish community. In sitting with communist leaders who oversee religious affairs, he shared in a frank Marxist-Christian dialogue. The head of the religious affairs office attended some of his meetings. While the Reformed and Lutheran churches did not sharp in the invitation to Graham, he nonetheless had conferences with their leaders and the Reformed Church bishop introduced him at one service, saying that "a new reformation is stirring in the churches."

Graham revealed while in Hungary that he himself has been changing. He said that his outlook now encompasses the entire world and that his attitude toward Eastern Europe had changed. The Hungarian officials, who at first took the hard line toward the whole affair, grew more congenial toward Graham during the week he was there. They were impressed with his sincerity and warmth, his genuine interest in Hungary, and his concern for the total man in his preaching. He stated while he was there that he now places more emphasis on the Christian's social responsibility than he used to. He kept saying, "I'll never forget Hungary." The experience apparently did something to Graham as well as Graham doing something for Hungary. It is significant that "evangelical" leaders like Graham are talking more about social responsibility and the total man. This has long been the quarrel that liberal Protestants have had with what they prefer to call "Fundamentalism." This came to a head at the recent Lausanne conference on world evangelism when John R. W. Stott accepted the criticism that evangelicals had neglected the total man and vowed that they would give more attention to the social responsibilities of the church. He urged at the same time that liberal Protestants give more concern to the saving of the souls of men. Graham appears to be doing his part as an evangelical.

Graham's rise to a world figure and something of a clerical statesman in our time is phenomenal. An obscure Baptist preacher, who knew no larger world than that encompassed by Bob Jones University and Southern Baptist theology, he now walks with kings and dignitaries the world over. He is barely a "Baptist" any longer, one would suppose, in no real sectarian sense at least, for he is fast becoming a very effective ecumenist. After all, how could one have the experiences he has had and not become truly catholic in his outlook? One cannot travel to the four corners of the earth and walk the streets of its great cities and converse with its leaders of every tribe, tongue and nation, and remain parochial and provincial.

We must all hand it to Graham for one thing in particular, and that is the urgency with which he preaches Christ. Put him where you will, on a late night talk show, in the White House, or behind closed doors with communist officials inside the Iron Curtain, as well as every platform he can get his feet on, that cat is going to talk about Jesus. The report from Hungary says he proclaimed the risen Christ everywhere he appeared. I say bully for Billy! He is a man that can grow and change and stand taller with the years and become more "catholic" and less "Baptist." Again I say bully for Billy!

This kind of growth and change is absolutely imperative for me and my own special people in Christian

Churches-Churches of Christ. We are far too circumscribed by both our experiences and theology. We act as if we have a special franchise on God and truth and the church. Why, it is only in recent years that many of our folk have dared even to read the likes of Elton Trueblood and William Barclay and admit it. We still let that old bromide that we're "fellowshipping the denominations" deny us of many mind-expanding, soul-liberating experiences. We are changing, thank God for that, but we still have far to go, and this is especially evident in reading such reports as Graham's visit to Hungary. We are still within the sectarian confines of supposing that the first thing our missionaries are to do in these foreign countries is to convert other missionaries to "the true church."

It is vital that we come to appreciate the catholicity of the church. I often think of the experience I had in Taichung, Taiwan one Sunday morning. Having failed to find a band of our folk who were supposed to be meeting at an army captain's home, I walked down one of the main streets in hopes of coming upon an assembly of believers in that Buddhist country. From a store front came the sound of that old hymn "All for Jesus, all for Jesus," in Chinese, of course. Upon entering I was at once part of a loving fellowship. It was the Body of Christ in assembly, though different in many ways from what I was familiar with. They did an unusual thing. After preaching the gospel to the public that had gathered, they afterward met apart as a circle of baptized believers and broke bread in the name of Him who died for them. Being a baptized believer, that being ascertained by a bilingual brother, I was invited to sit with them around the table—in far away China. I often think of them, singing "All for Jesus, all for Jesus." The catholic Church of Christ! We must come to grasp the universal scope of the Body of Christ or we will be forever lost in our sectarianism.

It is equally imperative that we see the Body of Christ ministering to the total man. Too long have we put down the "social gospel," presuming that our only task is to save souls. Our call as His Body is to be doing for suffering humanity what He did when He was among men. Who can believe that He ministered to lepers, harlots and the poor so that He could make church members of them? He showed by what He did that the kingdom of God consists of spending ourselves for others. It is a false claim for us to boast of being His people when we are so indifferent to the suffering of multiplied millions of people.

My complaint is not so much that we are bent on heavy expenditures in land and edifices, however much this might be questioned. It is that we spend so much on these things and so little to lift up the unfortunate. It should be embarrassing for our leaders to present their annual budget to the church and to the public, for more often than not it reflects a lopsided prejudice for our own sectarian programs and purposes and our own comforts and preferences and but a pittance for anything that could be called charity.

If Jesus was crucified for us, we should be crucified for the world, giving ourselves and losing ourselves so as to alleviate injustices and deprivation. Each of our congregations should be a real Salvation Army in that it ministers peace to the soul and comfort to the body. The church must open its ears to hear the Lord's doleful cry, "Inasmuch as you did it not unto one of these . .. you did it not unto me."

If Billy Graham has come to see the need of the church ministering to the total man, so can we, whether we go to Hungary or not. J. W. Sire's new book, The Universe Next Door, suggests that a vast new world is closer to us than we suppose. He says, "To think intelligently is to think world-viewishly." We can add, to think spiritually is to think world-viewishly.   —the Editor