theologians of rank to recognize this dogma of the total extinction of man at death, a view which, within the Christian Church, has been emphatically propagated only by the Bible Students [Jehovah’s witnesses]?

“Theological considerations tend in the following direction. Evil, the power of sin, is always rooted in the mind. Our body, our natural disposition, is not to blame for the severance from God. It is our pride of heart, our defiance of soul, that we do not want God to extend his love to us and that we prefer to go our own way of self-assertion. Hence, if death is the wages of sin as punishment for our rebellion against God, then the part actually to blame should also be included in the death sentence; but that is our mind, our soul, and not our body, which has only been drawn into this deplorable condition with the soul, active to be sure, but nevertheless bearing the least share of blame. So only does death take on its real character of judgment, while the judgment of death seems to be made light of if the immortal soul delivers itself more or less effortlessly out of the disintegration that only the body remains subjected to. But at the same time present-day theology is fully convinced that it is only this new view which allows the Christian resurrection hope to stand out in its full magnitude and grandeur, the fact that God at the end of all days will awaken or restore to new life out of absolute nothingness the dead who are recorded by name in his memory.

“It is not perchance that it is precisely Lutheran theologians who are taking such a determined stand for the conviction of the destruction of the soul in death. The Lutheran doctrine of justification says, man himself has nothing to offer by which he could claim God’s forgiveness and love . . . God, who alone has immortality, can give us life again by a resurrection as a consequence of an act of redemption.

“Our church people are deeply disturbed by this new understanding and teaching. The simple churchgoer gets the impression when hearing such a message at the graveside: Well, then the materialists are right when they maintain that all is out at death. The clergy say it themselves now too! That we go beyond this and point to the hope held out at the day of resurrection of the dead, this is not always so readily accepted. The congregation stand solely under the devastating impression that it is nothing with the survival of the soul after death . . . as far as man is concerned, the immortality of the soul can certainly not be maintained or proved.”

The above is confirmed by another well-known professor of theology, O. Cullmann, who teaches at the Basle and Paris universities. He says in a publication entitled “Immortality of the Soul or the Resurrection of the Dead?”: “The Jewish and Christian concept of creation excludes any Greek dualism between body and soul.”

It is interesting to note that after Jehovah’s witnesses have preached the grand Biblical truth of the resurrection for the past eighty years, some of the Protestant theologians now begin to see a little clearer on this subject. Yes, it is sinking in!

“Convert the Christians”

George Lansbury, one-time British Labor party leader and politician, told this experience: “I once discussed my faith as a Christian with Lenin and Trotsky. Both repudiated my reliance on Christian ethics, and Lenin said, ‘Go back home and convert the Christians; get a world of justice by Christian teaching. No one wants bloodshed, but Christians slaughter each other as readily as others for material gain.’”