MOST IMPORTANT BOOK

Recently, the American Bible Society has made known the following facts: “The complete Bible is now available in 286 languages. An additional 594 languages have the New Testament only; that’s an increase of 22 during 1984. And in addition to language groups that have the whole Bible and groups that have the New Testament alone, there are 928 languages in which at least one Bible book is now available. Thus, at least a small part of the Bible can be read in 1,808 languages.”

May God continue to bless the translation of His Word and grant that it may be utilized to the salvation of an innumerable multitude as He has promised (cf. Rom. 10:13-17; Rev. 7:4). There are encouraging signs. For the fifth consecutive year the number of Scriptures distributed among the heathen has increased. In 1984 the United Bible Society distributed 15,549,546 Scriptures in 31 Arrician countries. The number of professing Christians in Africa alone is increasing on an average of 20,000 each day.

THE DEATH OF GORDON CLARK

One of evangelical America’s most noted Christian scholars and philosophers, Dr. Gordon H. Clark, passed away in Westcliffe, Colorado at the age of 82. After obtaining his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Clark taught briefly there and at Wheaton College, before his longer tenures at Butler University in Indianapolis (1945-73) and Covenant College (1975-84).

Dr. Clark was an ordained minister in the RPCES (Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod). He authored 32 books, many of which God used in substantial measure to lead students away from humanistic liberalism into Reformed truth. Throughout his works, Dr. Clark stressed the need for careful doctrine based on infallible Scripture. Rightly, he claimed: “Non-doctrinal Christianity is the opposite of Christianity.” His most famous works include: A Christian View of Men and Things (1952), Thaïes to Dewey (1957), Religion, Reason, and Revelation (1964), Three Types of Religious Philosophy (1973), and God’s Hammer: The Bible and Its Critics (1982).

SUNDAY CLOSING: A THREAT TO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Religious News Service (RNS) reports the following: Until recently a Canadian federal law, the Lord’s Day Act, governed retailing on Sundays. The Supreme Court of Canada recently struck down this law because it infringes on the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights. Retail stores in Canada as well as other commercial enterprises are thus now assured of their religious freedom to do business seven days a week.

The decision does not (yet) affect provincial and municipal Sunday-closing laws. These will have to be tested separately in the courts.

SUPREME COURT RULES ON SCHOOL PRAYER

By a 6-3 majority, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on June 4, 1985 that public school teachers are not allowed to set aside brief periods of time for “silent prayer.” This was a major blow for the public school prayer movement which had hoped to first obtain approval for silent classroom prayer prior to seeking approval for the restoration of vocal prayer.

In so ruling, the Supreme Court struck down 23 state rulings that a moment for silent prayer to the Supreme Being of the student’s own choice is constitutional. The Court declared that, at most, a teacher may mandate silence in the classroom, but may never imply that such silence is for prayer for this would be a “violation of church-state separation.” Rather, the Court’s majority concluded, the government must maintain “complete neutrality” toward all religion.

Thus, the Supreme Court has banned prayer from the classroom in a more radical sense than its historic Wade vs. Roe prohibition 23 years ago. Certainly, none of the founding fathers of this nation would ever have imagined the banning of God from the American classroom vocally — much less in silence! Rightly, the Court’s minority report states that this decision does not uphold religious “neutrality” (the express goal for advocating silent prayer), but will certainly foster “hostility to religion” (by advocating the total dichotomization of religion and education).

The bottom-line of the Court’s ruling is this: Implicitly by its prohibition and explicitly by default, public education is now compelled to promote state-sponsored, practical atheism.

The irony of this ruling is very sober: The same nation that commenced public education with one of its prime goals to foster Bible-reading and Divine invocation, now declares via its highest Court that Scripture and God are taboo in the classroom.

“O Lord … in wrath remember mercy” (Hab. 3:2b).

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