The ‘themes’ of church conferences are often no more than umbrellas which, if they conveniently gather together the business to be discussed, also tend to shelter the discussions too effectively from sunlight and storms. Fortunately, the more cloying slogans are generally short-lived, and therefore harmless. Truth will out in the long run even if it does not appear at a given ecumenical meeting. On the other hand, if a conference theme does express a biblical truth uncommonly well, the fact that the meeting is soon over may render that insight quite prematurely out of fashion. Perhaps it is no service to a really good idea for it to be made the watchword of an international conference. Yet there is the possibility that time, place and thinking may coalesce in such a way that the insights of a congress may become a permanent gain for Christian thought.

The question stated in the title of this paper may seem absurd to many who are unacquainted with the concerns of contemporary philosophy. ‘Is language about God fraudulent?’ How strange (they may say) that anyone should be silly enough to raise the question! Because, therefore, the seriousness of the issue and the genuineness of its challenge may not be immediately apparent to everyone, it will not be amiss to sample some of the ways in which innocent-seeming language is liable to mislead. The failure of philosophers to make such preliminary points—which to them are platitudes too familiar to require repetition—may account for the sense of unreality which many non-philosophers find in modern critiques.

One of the major discoveries—it may be only a rediscovery—of recent theology has been the central place which analogy occupies in theological inquiry of all kinds. Our present task falls into three parts: (1) to indicate the different areas to which the problem of analogy seems to be relevant; (2) to discuss the origin of the interpretations of the nature of analogy which are gaining a certain acceptance today; and (3) finally, to estimate the use that may validly be made of the traditional analyses of analogy.

All Christian love has its source and exemplar in the love of God. ‘Beloved,’ wrote St. John, ‘if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another’, or again, ‘God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.’ St. Paul was equally clear; it is God's love which ‘has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’, and it is the love of Christ (which is, of course, the love of God revealed in Christ) that constrains us to live no longer for ourselves—the usual way in which our human love is evidenced. Dietrich Bonhoeffer echoed this from his German prison, ‘No one knows what love is except in the self-revelation of God… It is only the concrete action and suffering of Jesus Christ which will make it possible to understand what love is.’ So we must begin with the love of God; and yet our understanding of God's love comes to us through the experience of human love. It was with a picture of an earthly father, surrounded by the human things of home and field, calves and kids, robes and rings, sons and servants, that Jesus made His most vivid portrait of the love of God; and it was not only in dying on Calvary, but also in living in human fellowship with Peter and John, Martha and Mary that Jesus Himself exhibited the Father's love to men.

In discussions on the ministry those who claim to belong to the more ‘catholic’ branch of the Church, often say that their ministry is priestly whereas that of the ‘reformed’ tradition is prophetic. The representatives of the latter are usually happy to accept this as an accurate description of their own ministry, but go on to point out that the ‘catholic’ ministry is not really priestly, arguing that, since there is one priest, Jesus Christ, who has already offered the one necessary sacrifice, there is no longer need of other sacrifices, or priests to offer them. With the validity of that argument we are not at present concerned; we are concerned, though, to inquire in what sense the Reformed minister may be described as a successor to the prophets, or, to put it another way, what is prophetic preaching? Since the word ‘prophet’ occurs in Scripture and since we claim that our faith is biblical, it is incumbent on us to examine the conception of the prophetic office as found in Scripture. Since the prophets of the Old Covenant and those of the New are not necessarily the same it is necessary to divide our inquiry; we consider first the prophets of the Old Testament.

Reflection on Divine Service from the ecumenical point of view has brought us to the realisation that the question of reform of the Order of Service is not a matter of what is effective, or beautiful or reverend within that Service. These traditional standards originating from psychology, aesthetics and history may be considered as outdated. It is rather a question of what is right and fitting as to the details pertaining to the Service. The standard for the ritual ordering of Church Service is the testimony in the Holy Scriptures to the truth of Christ and to His reality. Hence we shall examine, firstly, the essence of the Service as we find it in the Scriptures, and above all in the New Testament. Then, secondly, we shall inquire into the nature of music as we encounter it in the performance of its own special function. And finally, in a third section, we shall clarify the task which faces music in its performance in the Services of the Church. By these means we shall attempt to define the contents of the Lutheran liturgy, and the responsibilities which present themselves to the choir, the organ and the ensemble of brass instruments.

There is an old tradition which can be traced back to the Middle Ages that the moon is made of green cheese. If we are to take as authentic all the traditions in all the old inns of England to the effect that Queen Elizabeth I slept a night in them, then we shall have to envisage that queen as spending most of her reign in bed. In other words, the word tradition is today used very loosely and vaguely, and there is such a thing as unreliable tradition as well as authentic tradition. These facts apply to tradition in the early Church as well as to other sorts of tradition. Indeed, we are sometimes tempted to ask whether there was such a thing as a consistent tradition of doctrine in the early Christian centuries, for some evidence suggests that there was not, or at any rate that ‘the tradition of the Church’, is not an easy phenomenon to identify in the early centuries. Justin Martyr, for instance, says that all orthodox Christians believe in a literal Kingdom of Christ which is to last on this earth in a restored Jerusalem for a thousand years. Origen says that it was part of the Apostles' teaching that accounts of such a Kingdom should be allegorised. Which of them is reproducing the tradition of the Church? Or (as seems to me most likely) are they both either exaggerating or mistaken and is neither reproducing it? Again, both Clement of Alexandria and Origen claim that the necessity of allegorising the Scriptures is part of the rule of faith.

To proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord over the world is to make a paradoxical statement. First, in the original sense of the word ‘paradox’, His lordship over the world is contrary to doxa, that is, received opinion, reason and experience. His sovereignty seems to the ordinary mind not less paradoxical than His mighty wonder of healing the man of the palsy which called forth the amazed exclamation: ‘We have seen strange things [paradoxa] today.’ We cannot see, neither can we prove the reality of His kingship. This is meant by the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews: ‘Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. … But now we see not yet all things put under him.’ Then another sense of the word is suggested—though probably to non—Greeks only—by the New Testament meaning of the word doxa, glory—‘paradoxical’ being something that is contrary to glory—not simply devoid of it, but appearing as the very opposite of royal splendour and might, as weakness, helplessness, shame and mortality. Also in this second sense the lordship of Christ is highly paradoxical. The visions of the Apocalypse assign power and glory to the Lamb that was slain. And thirdly, in modern usage, the word ‘paradox’ means an apparently self-contradictory statement in which the truth is expressed by two contradictory but necessary propositions. In this sharpened sense of the paradox one would express the lordship of Christ only in terms of those features which indicate His lowly service, weakness, humiliation and shame.

The subject of relations between the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches exercises a peculiarly urgent claim upon the attention of contemporary students of theology. Nevertheless many may be reluctant to allow that the task of dealing with it can profitably be undertaken by a historian–even if he be a church historian; and I suspect that some will read the words ‘a Retrospect’ with depression or alarm. Is this not a time for looking forward rather than back? Did we not read with approval the signatories' declaration in the Joint Report on Relations between Anglican and Presbyterian Churches: ‘We have renounced, and believe that the Churches concerned should renounce, the method of selecting and measuring such faults and errors in the past history of the Churches now conferring as might be judged to be responsible for our present divisions. These matters have been investigated frequently, and complete agreement on them is not to be expected at this stage in history… The time has come when the voice of mutual recrimination should be silent'? And has Bishop How not reminded us that ‘Scotland needs a purged memory’?

In criticising the Protestantism of the Reformation period, F. R. Barry traces part of its weakness to what he calls ‘the still uncritical attitude of the reforming leaders to Scripture’ which ‘elevated the Jewish sacred books to the same level of status and inspiration as that of the Gospels and Epistles’. There is, he claims, ‘little trace in Calvin … that the Scripture to which he appeals as authoritative embraces the Sermon on the Mount’.

Baptism is confronted with evangelism in 1 Cor. 1.17: ‘Christ did not send me to baptise but to evangelise.’ This text seems to contradict the close connexion between both in Matt. 28.19: ‘Make all gentiles disciples, baptising … and teaching them.’ But certainly, both passages tend to say, like other baptism texts of the New Testament, that baptism is inferior to evangelism, serves evangelism, and will be performed wherever the Gospel is preached in obedience to Jesus Christ. Baptism is related to mission work and preaching as John the Baptist to Jesus Christ, or as the servant to the master. After Jesus Christ has come, the position of the servant is always and only behind and after the master. So baptism cannot rule, begin or replace evangelism, but it has a necessary function in its service.

The Report on ‘Relations between the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches’ has given rise to much discussion of the Episcopate; but it may not be unprofitable if some study were to be given, in the churches of both traditions, to the true nature of the diaconate, especially as the Report invites the Anglican churches to consider setting apart lay persons for some measure of pastoral responsibility for their fellow-Christians, ‘possibly through a reform of the diaconate’.

From the time of their first discovery the Dead Sea Scrolls have aroused keen interest in the world of scholarship, while the publication of certain sensational theories regarding the relation of these documents to the origins of Christianity has brought them to the notice of the general public also. The result has been a consistent flow of books and articles, ranging from detailed scholarly analyses based on minute study of the texts to more or less popular presentations. The whole area in which the Scrolls were found has been thoroughly explored, and yet more documents discovered. The texts themselves have been subjected to the closest scrutiny by workers in many fields of learning. Answers have been found for some old problems, and new questions have been raised for investigation; and still the study continues. It has been reckoned that the number of publications relating to the Scrolls is now in excess of three thousand, and still the end is not in sight, for not all the texts have yet been published.

The Orthodox Church within the Soviet Union has so far made no direct contribution to the ecumenical work which has been done in the World Council of Churches since its constitution in 1948 and before that in the ecumenical movement which led up to its constitution. The political situation has so far prevented this—just as the autocephalous Orthodox Churches of the Balkans, which shared in the ecumenical work before the Second World War, have found it impossible to do so since they have been in the Communist sphere of influence. There is, to be sure, a negative contribution from the Moscow Patriarchate, namely the ‘Resolution on the question of “The Ecumenical Movement and the Orthodox Church”’, passed in July 1948 in connexion with the jubilee celebrations of the Russian Orthodox Church on the occasion of the fifth centenary of its independence, and in accordance with this the refusal on 1st August 1948 of the invitation from the general secretariat of the World Council of Churches to participate in the Conference of Churches in Amsterdam. In this connexion, however, it must be borne in mind that at that time and as a result of many years of isolation it was hardly possible for the Russian Orthodox Church to take an objective view of the World Council, inasmuch as the Council's understanding of itself before the Amsterdam Conference could in fact only be discerned imperfectly from written documents alone, and in particular the important Toronto declaration clarifying this understanding was not made until 1949.

It is true that the theology of Tertullian and Novatian has linfluenced later trinitarian conceptions much more than Hippolytus has. His ecclesiology and soteriology, however, are an important point of transition from Irenaeus' doctrine of the Church and of Union with Christ towards the later conceptions of a mystical sacramental understanding of Union with Christ. Hippolytus is in many ways responsible for the development of a doctrine of participation in Christ expressed as deification or mystical union. His theological interest is limited to a part of Trenaeus' doctrine of participation: to the καινòς ἂνθρωπος, and hence to the Church as the assembly of the saints, the baptised, the just, who possess the Holy Spirit, and are connected with the apostles through the hierarchical episcopate.

It is very dangerous to make a single word or paragraph the central theme of a doctrine or dogma, even when due considerations are given to content and context; but in the case of lutron, in Mark 10.45, it becomes inevitable, for it expresses the essence of the mission of our Lord. ‘For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and give His life a Lutron on behalf of many.’

The Second Coming (otherwise called the Parousia)1 of Christ constituted a serious problem for the apostolic Church. One of the earliest of Paul's Epistles (1 Thessalonians) shows how quickly his converts became discouraged when some of their number died before the Lord's appearing. In reply Paul repeats his promise that the Lord will soon return, although in his second epistle he has to give a reminder that Antichrist must first make a final bid for power (1 Thess. 4.15–18, 2 Thess. 2). Similarly the author of Hebrews, writing to a disillusioned and apathetic group of Christians some decades later in the first century, recalls the words of Habakkuk that ‘the Lord will come and not be slow’ (10.37). Finally 2 Peter, the latest book of the New Testament (written, perhaps, as late as the middle of the second century), continues to offer the hope of an imminent Parousia to be accompanied by the world's destruction and renewal (ch. 3). If Christians are tempted to despair they must remember that the word of prophets and Apostles is sure (v. 2) and that with God ‘a thousand years are as one day’ (v. 8).

The revised orders for the ordination of deacons and presbyters and the consecration of bishops were approved by the C.S.I. Synod in January 1958. The author must confess to some delay in writing this account of them; but this tardiness has at least given opportunity to begin with some comment on the essays Apostolic Succession, by Bishop Noel Hall, and ‘Episcopate’ and ‘Presbyterate’ in the Anglican Ordinal, by Professor J. M. Barkley, which appeared in Vol. 11, No. 2 (June 1958) of SJT.It may be a fruitful line of approach to this liturgical product of C.S.I, to set it beside the Anglican and Presbyterian standpoints concerning ordination, as stated in these essays, and to try and estimate what contribution it makes to the debate.

It has long been a matter of debate whether the prophetic strictures upon sacrifice implied total repudiation of the cult, or only condemnation of its abuses and perversions. An attempt will be made in this article to summarise the scholarly judgments on one aspect of this problem, and to assess their value. The thesis to be considered is that Deuteronomy preserves a true or reliable deposit of prophetic religion, and therefore a dependable interpretation of the prophetic attitude to sacrifice.

Four main arguments have been employed in defence of the argument that Deuteronomy demonstrates prophetic moderatism.

The first argument is to the effect that Deuteronomy did not regard the prophets as inflexibly opposed to the sacrifical cult. Piepenbring contends that prophecy before the exile ascribed some value to external worship.1 Guillaume argues that ‘Deuteronomy was promulagated to put the ideals of the prophets into practice…. It is all but incredible that the Deuteronomic generation should have so misunderstood the meaning of the prophets whose teaching they endeavoured to carry into effect.’2 Rowley writes: ‘If ex hypothesi the Book of Deuteronomy reflects the teachings of the eighth-century prophets, it might be supposed that its authors would have understood those teachings, and that therefore its recognition of the legitimate place of a purified and regulated sacrificial cultus … reflects the like recognition of the eighth-century prophets.’3

This claim, however, is not above suspicion.