"The Ministry's Editorial Policy"
This journal is edited primarily for the man on the firing line, not for him who is advantageously placed, who is gorged with information, has ready access to fine libraries, travels widely, frequently attends Autumn Councils, institutes, boards, or committees, and thus is surfeited with information, ideas, and inspiration. The Ministry is particularly for the man who stays at home, toiling endlessly for his church, district, or mission station, or on some other immediate responsibility and problem, week in and week out, year in and year out. It is especially for those who are climbing, not for those who have arrived; for those who are inexperienced, not for those of influence and position who are the instructors of their brethren. Many of our workers are isolated, and the majority lack the frequent contact with fellow workers . that brings enlargement of vision, and modification of weakness or eccentricity.
The magazine is for such workers because we believe that here is the place of greatest need and service, as well as of keenest appreciation for the effort put forth. It is so edited because we ardently believe in the rank and file of our workers. They are the mainstay of this movement. They are the ones who make effective the plans of our appointed leaders, "putting over" the campaigns, winning and baptizing the new members that swell our accession list, and thus producing the records that our leaders report. We believe in this great group, believe that with the load they carry they deserve every possible help from those more advantageously placed.
The Ministry is not edited for any single group of workers, but for all groups—field and institutional. It is for pastors, evangelists, Bible and history teachers, Bible workers, theological students, gospel missionaries, and medical missionary workers, as well as for administrative and departmental groups. Therefore its content is diversified. It is not expected that all, especially experienced, busy men, will read The Ministry entirely through. Rather, they will choose that which applies and appeals to them, and that which reveals what other groups are interested in. Not all tastes are alike. A family or a group may choose to eat the same dietary. But in a restaurant or cafeteria supplying food for persons of all ages, appetites, and inclinations, there must be a varied menu. Most of us have vivid memories of boarding-house or dormitory sameness, or monotonous lack of variety. The parallel and the figure are not farfetched.
The Ministry is not edited for those of just one nationality or race, but for English-reading workers of all nations and sections, in Old World and New, Occident and Orient, established home base and mission land, for our workers in every country, be it predominately Protestant, Catholic, or pagan. Half of our readers are now overseas. Increasingly, we are seeking to deal with their very real and diversified problems. And their gratitude and support are most heartening.
We repeat, we are particularly interested in those who carry the local load, in the isolated —those who have few contacts with associate workers, and meager library facilities, and who can afford but few magazines to watch the pulse of the world situation and to note how it is fulfilling the prophetic forecast. Such are constantly before us as we write, and as we gather materials. We seek to make this journal eminently practical, avoiding the sensational and the unworthy, the questionable and the speculative. While it is devoted to the ordinary problems of worker life and activity, The Ministry senses its solemn obligation to lift the intellectual standard among us, and to extend the mental horizon line. To this end the finest talent in the movement is employed.
We believe that wisdom resides not with a few. From many experienced workers in various lines of endeavor and responsibility, scattered all over the world field, we seek to gather that which will enlarge our vision, spur our effort, strengthen our faith, correct our weakness, deepen our spiritual experience, provide us with an arsenal of facts, and through discussion of various methods of labor, make us all better workmen. THE MINISTRY could be edited much less laboriously, but it would serve the field less efficiently and acceptably. We seek to make it a truly unifying, stimulative, informative, spiritualizing counselor, and a cautionary medium. Therefore we find joy in the toil involved. We keep in close touch with a large cross section of our worker group, so as to study their special and varied interests and needs and the changing conditions throughout the world field. Our leaders speak through the pages of The Ministry, and our workers everywhere exchange methods, experiences, and convictions therein. It is truly the worker's own paper. Even our incoming theological student-preachers are embraced in its scope and interests.
Pressure is put upon us periodically to open this unique medium of direct access to all workers for propaganda. We could very easily—and fatally—fill its pages with plans and urges for this campaign and that, various worthy enterprises and programs. But from the outset the editor has steadfastly maintained that this worker's journal is not to be made a propaganda vehicle. It aids all campaigns and projects indirectly, and thereby more effectively. There are local organs, departmental and institutional mediums, that give all the specific plans and direct urges necessary. This stand of The Ministry has had the overwhelming support of our workers.
We welcome your letters, suggestions, requests, and counsel. We desire that this journal, under God, shall grow in strength, usefulness, and effectiveness in its allotted field.
L. E. F.
Teaching Principles and Limitations
Recent request and limitations was made for an editorial answer to the following question of general concern:
Should a minister teach what he believes personally, or should he teach what is generally taught by the majority of our Bible exponents, when some point of exposition conflicts with his own personal findings and convictions?
In approaching this very real and practical question, we should first draw a clear line between basic or fundamental truths upon which, in the very nature of the case, there is and must be essential unity (such as the inspiration of the Word, the virgin birth and deity of Christ, His vicarious atoning death, the law, the seventh-day Sabbath, the heavenly sanctuary and priesthood, righteousness only in Christ, the imminent second advent, conditional immortality, tithing, the Spirit of prophecy, the key outline prophecies, and the like), and secondary or supplemental matters not of key importance (such as details in interpretation of outline prophecies, or the exposition of some verse, phrase, or word).
All thoughtful men will agree that unity of utterance must characterize the presentations of our full worker body on the key truths of our message, else disruption and chaos would ensue. Surely no minister with a high sense of honor and loyalty could continue to accept credential papers and financial support from an organization from whose fundamental principles he dissents. Where there is lack of consent to and support of this unity and the basic, unified positions of the movement, one should surely cease his labors as a public representative thereof, and possibly as a private member as well, for it is self-evident that a "house divided against itself cannot stand."
But on details of exposition and interpretation, our principles and practice through the years give to the individual the privilege and imply the obligation of teaching in accordance with his own personal conviction. Take, for example, the precise periods characterized by the seven churches, including the exact scope of Laodicea, or the identity of the seven heads of the leopard beast of Revelation 53 or of the beast of chapter 17. Throughout our years there has been difference of opinion on the second beast of Revelation 13. The majority confine the symbol to the United States. Others, particularly abroad, extend it to include Protestantism of the Old and New Worlds, though probably centering and climaxing in the New. Other matters upon which there is difference of opinion are, the meaning and time of duration of "this generation," the personnel of the one hundred forty-four thousand, whether the Huns were among the three horns plucked up to make way for, the papal "little horn," the meaning of "the daily," the identity of the power symbolized in Daniel 11:36 onward. Upon these and other points of Biblical interpretation there has been difference of opinion, both oral and written.
Unity even on these points is highly desirable, but it should come by conviction and not by compulsion. It should result from indisputable, factual evidence and irrefutable reasoning. To assent to and teach a position in this secondary field merely on the basis of conformity to arbitrary authority or the pres-, sure of majority opinion, contrary to sincere personal conviction, is to foster a species of hypocrisy; it constitutes a travesty on the very nature and spirit of truth utterly contrary to the genius of the Christian faith in general and of our message in particular.
If a man cannot speak in harmony with conviction here, he had better be silent. In, fact, in certain of these difficult or obscure points "silence is golden," and any and all expressions should be qualified with recognition, of human limitations. If a minister begins to question any point of doctrine which we-recognize as fundamental, he should cease to preach on that subject and hasten to study the question thoroughly and prayerfully from the• Bible and the Spirit of prophecy, perhaps joining in such study and prayer with some outstanding Bible student. Surely at no time should a minister preach what he does not, believe. This would stultify the mind and foster dishonesty, which God hates. But again, this should not be a forced silence. And on the other hand, personal dogmatism on such points, in cases in which fully qualified and experienced brethren, often in the majority, hold a different view, evinces a species of egotism or intolerance that is likewise totally foreign to the spirit of this message.
There is this very, real distinction and difficulty, however, between the problem which confronts the minister in the church and that which confronts the Bible teacher in the schoolroom. The pastor can properly avoid moot points, for example, in details of prophetic interpretation, where it is manifestly both unwise and unnecessary to inject them. In response to inquiry, a satisfactory answer-can usually be given that will not provoke controversy or arouse unwholesome curiosity. But the Bible teacher with verse-by-verse, expositional study of the books of Daniel and Revelation, cannot escape definite discussion and expression of conviction on integral parts of the allotted study field. Here the principles, just enunciated surely apply. But in the presentation of such points, fairness would demand an impartial statement of the different positions held, and modesty would dictate a tentative, rather than an arbitrary, presentation.
We as minigters are not set to defend a. position, but to find and teach truth. We are to credit one another with honesty and intelligence, and we should press together most earnestly and sincerely. Thus there will be unity on essentials, liberty on nonessentials, and love and respect in all.
L. E. F.
