We live in a day and age when Creeds and Confessions are ‘under fire’ from different quarters. The reasons for this are varied, but undoubtedly one of the main exceptions which is taken to them is that their content cannot be justified in the light of modern biblical scholarship.

The question whether or not Fletcher's situationism is truly a Christian ethics has been raised before. Fletcher himself tells us so at the beginning of his book Situation Ethics. According to him the accusation is that he fails to treat situation ethics within a theological framework. Fletcher's answer is that he does so on purpose, since the challenge of situationism does not ultimately depend upon one's theological or non-theological commitments.

In his posthumously published work, The Responsible Self, H. Niebuhr raises certain objections against the ethics of Karl Barth. Without holding any particular brief for Barth's formulations, I wish to examine those objections with some care, for I believe that one of the crucial points in Barth's thought that is criticised, the relation between Gospel and Law (and the understanding of Law that emerges from it), actually displays a striking congeniality to Niebuhr's own development of the concept of responsibility. The clue to this congeniality lies in seeing that Barth's understanding of the relation of Gospel and Law to man's moral life necessitates the formulation of an act-rather than a rule-deontology. When this important distinction is observed and applied to Barth's position, it results in precisely the same emphasis on response that Niebuhr sets forth in his later ethical thought.

From an ecumenical point of view the theological examination of marriage and its indissolubility is one of the most urgent tasks to be undertaken by the Churches of the Reformation. It has been repeatedly stated by them that as long as the Roman Church makes the validity of so-called mixed marriages between Protestants and Roman Catholics depend on the observance of the ‘canonical form’ and refuses to grant freedom to the partners of a mixed marriage in the education of their children the ecumenism of Rome—to say the least of it—will remain suspect. The Instructio Matrimonii Sacramentum of 1966 which for all practical purposes reiterates the legislation laid down by the Codex Iuris Canonici of 1918 shows that in spite of Vatican II the official attitude of the Holy See has remained intransigent. Nevertheless although the Roman Church has arbitrarily erected canonical barriers which interfere with or even (from a Roman Catholic point of view) invalidate the most intimate human relationship, we have no intention of doubting the ecumenical honesty and sincerity of Roman Catholics. It should be remembered that the Instructio is as unsatisfactory to many leading Roman Catholics as it is to the Churches of the Reformation. This can be deduced from the fact that at the First International Synod of Bishops (1967) 31 per cent of its members voted in favour of the removal of the present impediment of mixta religio including the promise to educate the children of a mixed marriage in the Roman Catholic faith.

St. Cyprian presided over the church of Carthage in one of the most decisive moments of her history. Persecution by the Roman imperial authorities, mass apostasy, formal schism, and the conflict of authority between bishop and confessors on the one hand, and bishop and clergy on the other, threatened the very existence of his community. He was a passionate believer in the unity of the Church and in the midst of disunity, declared that it was axiomatic, biblically and divinely guaranteed that the Church is visibly indivisible. Moreover, Cyprian has been described as the ‘Father of Western Christianity’, since his teaching belongs to so early a period in the life of the Church, that it has consciously and unconsciously influenced the theological presupposition of Western Christianity.

Recent study of the Gospels has concentrated on the contribution which the individual evangelists have made to the material they received. Here, and in such matters as their selection and arrangement of material, we can discern the particular point of view of each writer. Admittedly this is relatively easy when we see the way in which Matthew and Luke have varied the material they took from Mark, less easy when we examine the material they have in common from Q, and most difficult when they use material from their special sources. In the case of Mark it all, as we might say, comes from his special source and so it is extremely difficult to determine what he is trying to say to us. But, like going to the moon, the greater the difficulty, the greater the challenge. We take up this challenge in respect of one theme in Mark, viz. discipleship. This means we are not attempting to answer questions as ‘Was Jesus a Rabbi who instructed scholars with his own particular teaching?’; ‘Did Jesus attempt to weld his followers into a community to continue after his death?’ Indeed no attempt will be made to answer any of the questions about the historical relationship of Jesus to the actual disciples he had on earth; our concern lies with what Mark thinks a disciple ought to be.

The purpose of this paper is to take account of the contribution to religious thought of Professor Nels F. S. Ferré with special reference to two fairly recent books, Reason in Religion and The Living God of Nowhere and Nothing. For more than a quarter of a century Dr Ferré has occupied a prominent place in the field of theological education in the United States, first at Andover Newton Theological School and for the last few years at Parsons College; and by articles and books he has proved himself a most prolific writer. By and large, moreover, he has persistently evinced an evangelical concern to be faithful to the fulness of the Christian Gospel, so that if by chance, at this point or that, he is deemed to have fallen short, that has certainly happened, not by intention, but in spite of it, by the logical development of his presuppositions. In a much earlier book he offered his readers a choice, ‘either a staggering faith beyond our wildest imagination, centred in God, or else the darkness of description, explaining nothing’ and there is no doubt which alternative he himself preferred. ‘Feeding back modern man his own thoughts and feelings will not nourish him. He must be helped to see and to accept the truth that saves.’ ‘Unless “God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself” in a historically factual way, without all cavil or equivocation, I know no Gospel for mankind.’