terrible curse, and the predicament of modern man is that he has built up a complex civilization, but he may lose it, because in his proud hour of achievement he has so largely lost, or never developed, the inner resources that are needed to keep a possible boon from becoming a calamity.” Then this distinguished scholar makes the obvious point that the problem with man today is spiritual, and he says, “Unless the spiritual problem is solved, civiliza tion will fail. . . . The truth is that man’s inherent sel fishness and propensity to evil is such that he will use instruments of power for evil ends, unless there is something to instruct him in their beneficent uses.” This is what former President Eisenhower meant when he said, “Unless our generation experiences a moral regeneration, we are about to disappear in the dust of a thermonuclear explosion.” Such moral regeneration is the exclusive promise of the Christian concept, and peculiarly the end which Christianity purports to accomplish. Apart from this possibility, the situation does appear to be absolutely hopeless. This is precisely what General MacArthur referred to when, on several occasions, he stated, “ Basically, the problem is theological. Unless we experience a spirit ual recrudescence to meet our almost matchless ability in science, we are going to destroy ourselves. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.” To put it tersely, the predicament of modern man is that he is smart and wicked, and if left to his own resources, might well destroy himself and his world. He is totally lacking in moral absolutes, and morality has become relative. The problem is not our physical world; the problem is man, and man is increasingly demonstrating himself to be, in the prostitution of his genius, both depraved and ruthless. The Scriptural diagnosis of man’s sinful nature is historically accurate. The heart of man is desperately wicked. Many are of the opinion that man has taken his final examination and failed; that Western civilization is over the hill, and the pall of pessimism is settling over a submerged and helpless humanity. We frankly admit that we cannot depend upon the academic atmosphere of our secular institutions to pro mote the moral climate that is essential to the salva tion of Western civilization. Christianity has been the basis of Western culture, and it is the spiritual heritage of our civilization and particularly and peculiarly of our own nation. President Coolidge avowed that “ America was born in a revival of religion—back of that revival were John Wesley, George Whitefield, and Francis Asbury.” This fact, however much ignored or obscured by secular historians, will stand the test of patient, accu rate research. In the conclusion of his excellent documentary en titled, “ This Freedom Whence?” J. Wesley Bready says, “Our own generation, amid prevailing skeptism and materialism, has little appreciated the glorious leg acy of spiritual attainment which, under God, be queathed its freedom.” The only institutions that are left in our culture to give a proper interpretation of our heritage and ex pression of it, and to give to man any semblance of hope as he looks into his uncertain future, are those that are distinctively Christian in character and pur pose. If we are going to challenge our rapid spiritual decline, our appalling moral disintegration, our ever growing sense of futility and despair, undoubtedly the most basic effort must be made in the area of Christian education.
The emphasis on technology desperately demands an educational effort that is basically Christian. There are those who are telling us that if we would save the world we must have a new emphasis upon scientific and technological education. They feel that the true answer to the catastrophe that faces us is more scientists who can build better missiles and bigger bombs. This is the Russian passion in education. Hence, once again, we are putting the emphasis on technological ability with out regard for the morality which determines how that ability shall be used. As Dr. Trueblood says, “ The paradox of failure at the moment of success is by no means a condemnation of technological progress, for such progress is morally neutral. It gives us the surgeon’s knife, but it also gives us the gangster’s weapon. Man . . . is peculiarly in need of something to buttress and guide his spiritual life. . . . The beasts do not need a philosophy or religion, but man does, and at this strategic moment it becomes nec essary that we put our best thought into the elabora tion and promulgation of an adequate faith, and this brings us to the incontrovertible fact that our public education system has become completely secularized, and I might add that secular education is the handmaid of the Communist philosophy.” J. Edgar Hoover warns, “ Communism, like crime, advances and takes hold because men ignore God.” I believe that much of the effort of education today is, first of all, to propagandize and then systematically to demoralize, and finally, to paganize utterly our youth. True, the technological progress of science in recent decades has been indeed staggering. But even scientists despair of the future, and grimly warn men of science’s monstrous power to wipe humanity from the earth. Not through politics, secular education or science, but only through spiritual renewal can a nation’s soundness and wholesomeness be established. Righteousness alone ex- alteth a nation. Vitally Christian institutions can give young people the living knowledge of the spiritual sources of our civil ization, and a personal faith that gives to life meaning, direction, purpose and fulfillment. The sheer emptiness of modern man demands an educational effort that is basically Christian. A college girl, robbed of her faith in God, and of her spiritual heritage, finally came to the place where her life was no longer worth living. When dying, a suicide left this testimonial to the world, “ My professor took God out of my heart; that is why my life is no longer worth living.” By the way, one hundred thousand people in the United States attempted suicide last year. Nearly twenty thousand succeeded in severing the cord that plunged them into eternity. Of particular note is the fantastic increase in suicides among students in Japan. Much of the teaching in many of our modem and secular institutions is not only non-Christian; it is anti-Christian, and sometimes venomously so. The cry of the hour in education is “ Liberty!” but the peril of the hour is “ License.” We hear much today about deep educational currents, but we have an intellectual- ism that is entirely superficial if, in its view of the universe and man, it does not find God, does not reveal God, and does not in any way relate man to God and God to man. Education is priceless in its value and no one wants its benefits abused or its values vitiated. But an edu cation that is hot Christian in content fills the head but misses the heart, and morality and spiritual direction, personal relevance and true adequacy for life are deter mined by the heart. The Holy Book says, “ As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” We who believe the
NOVEMBER, 1964
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