Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 137:547 (Jul 1980)
Article: Periodical Reviews
Author: Anonymous

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BSac 137:547 (Jul 80) p. 274

Periodical Reviews

“America at the Crossroads of History,” Charles Malik, Worldwide Challenge, January 1980, pp. 5-7.

The turn of a new year, and especially the turn of a new decade, is the time when periodicals run “Janus” articles. These are articles that project the prospects for the future against the backdrop of the past and present. Malik’s article falls into that category, and perhaps no one is better qualified to analyze from a Christian perspective where the world is and where it is going. He is a world citizen who has served as president of the United Nations General Assembly, and he is also a citizen of heaven as a Christian.

He challenges Christians to look at the world realistically, to entertain “no illusions about the world we live in.” This includes the positive notes that English “is now the most important language in history” an that “freedom is the ultimate psychological weapon” as well as the negative realities that all life can be vaporized from any spot on earth within fifteen minutes and that alien ideas maintain a constant intellectual an psychological attack.

Malik acknowledges the harsh fact that “America does not have the respect and appreciation she deserves in many parts of the world,” a fact he attributes partly to envy and resentment, partly to “specific political mistakes,” and “principally because America has not bothered to share enough of its deepest human and spiritual values with the rest of the world.” He challenges American Christians to evangelize the universities and the media.

His closing challenge is this: “It is given to a great people only once in history to help decisively in saving the world. The American Christians have clearly been given this historic opportunity today. If missed now, it

BSac 137:547 (Jul 80) p. 275

may never be given them again.” May Christians in America respond to that challenge.

“Evangelicals: Out of the Closet but Going Nowhere?” Carl F. H. Henry, Christianity Today, January 4, 1980, pp. 16-22.

“An Agenda for the 1980s,” Billy Graham, Christianity Today, January 4, 1980, pp. 23-27.

This is Christianity Today’s “State of the Union” issue, which includes not only these two articles but also Editor Kantzer’s lead editorial “Gaining Perspective after a Decade of Change.” These writers discuss where American evangelicalism stands at the turn of the decade. Henry sounds a rather pessimistic note; Kantzer is biblically optimistic; and Graham is characteristically activistic.

Henry’s thesis is that American evangelicals have failed t...

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