Page 5704 – Christianity Today (2024)

Philip Yancey

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Once Clyde Kilby of Wheaton College was asked one of those inevitable questions about literature: “Dr. Kilby, I just can’t understand why you spend so much time and attention on these fantasies by Tolkien and Lewis and Williams. What good do they do? They’re about an imaginary world; they don’t tell us how to cope better with this one. Why read them?”

With the longsuffering smile of a teacher speaking to one who had not seen the light, Dr. Kilby replied, “If I went down the street to a magazine rack, I could probably find two hundred articles on how to live better. How to improve my marriage, how to lose weight, how to attract a lover, how to succeed in business, how to banish guilt, how to get rich, how to love myself. People gobble up those articles. But does anyone really change? Another magazine will print the same advice next month, and people will still writhe with the same problems. These books by Tolkien and Lewis and Williams bypass all that good advice. They don’t tell me how to do something; they tell me what to be.”

I have almost (but not quite) come to the same conclusion about advice on marriage. I spent a year studying the first five years of marriage, the period when the divorce rate is highest. I began by interviewing nine couples who revealed to me the struggles of their first five years. Then I read every marriage book I could find, Christian and secular. The advice contained in most of them was compact and well-blended, a convenient pill I could offer to each couple. But the best advice cannot solve a problem without the cooperation of the people whose problem it is.

I remember well the long interviews my wife and I had with the nine couples. Most started at a restaurant with polite chatter about how they met and what attracted them and where their inlaws live. By midnight, however, back in our living room, the conversation had changed. Unresolved conflicts oozed open. Often a session intended to gather helpful information for others turned into a plea for help.

Listening to them, I sometimes questioned the whole notion of marriage. We have placed greater demands on marriage now than in previous generations. Besides satisfying the need for asexual relationship, marriage is now being asked to supply needs for comradeship and partnership as well. Added to this is the weight of ideals our romanticizing culture excites in us. It’s no wonder many marriages cannot bear the strain.

Some marriages seem cursed with a time bomb of impossible expectations that must soon explode. As I encountered these time bombs, both in the couples I interviewed and in written accounts, my first reaction was to lower the ideals. There must be, I thought, some way to disassemble marriage and put back only certain pieces of it—say, sexual release and companionship—without insisting that marriage bear all the pressure of two souls becoming one.

But a strange thing is happening. G. K. Chesterton, in Orthodoxy, described his spiritual journey as a long, romantic, tempestuous sea voyage. When he finally sighted land, however, he discovered he had ended up exactly where he started—in cozy England. Something similar is occurring among observers of the marriage scene. Counselors who were once offering new visions of open marriage and sexual license are starting to use words like “fidelity” and “commitment.”

As I talked to the nine couples with their varying degrees of conflict, I discovered that the ones whose marriages were in severe trouble were not those who expected the most from marriage but those who expected the least. Those with the highest ideals seemed to have the closest relationships, and after a year’s study I have come to the conclusion that our marriage ideals have been set not too high but too low.

The Bible at first reading seems to say little about marriage, but I found that God does show us what marriage requires and how we are to exercise the principles that build sound marriages. God himself embodies the ideal in three areas that encompass most of the marital conflicts of the nine couples I interviewed.

1. Ego sacrifice. The fundamental human need, says John Powell, is “a true and deep love of self, a genuine and joyful self-acceptance.” But marriage calls us to transcend that fundamental human need. The beloved’s needs and pleasures must take equal if not superior status to our own.

From our toddler years we learn to protect ourselves. A child grabs a toy and clutches it to his chest, yelling “Mine!” As we grow older, if someone criticizes us we want to lash out in revenge, or perhaps we begin to doubt ourselves. Our egos must be protected.

We go through life like so many clenched fists, striving to prove ourselves to one another, striking out when thwarted. As children we learned not to expose our deepest secrets even to a best friend, for they might be broadcast all over school the next day. Marriage, however, calls us to unclench the fist and allow someone to see what lies inside. We must expose our nakedness, physical and emotional, to another person. The secrets are out. Marriage calls for utter transparency and trust in a world where we have learned that these are a sure path to pain.

The ego sacrifice required by marriage does not, of course, entail a forfeiting of ego. I do not lower my self-esteem and think less of myself for the sake of my wife. Rather, I should raise my esteem of her so that in a thousand areas—squeezing toothpaste, picking up socks, buying records, tolerating dripping pantyhose, eating out, selecting TV shows—I sometimes consciously opt for her convenience or pleasure above my own. My will bends as I sublimate my own needs and desires for her sake, or the sake of the relationship.

The absence of this ego sacrifice manifests itself in great power struggles between husband and wife. Each fights for his own territory. Each insists on being “right,” with the result of devaluing the other. One couple I talked with, Brad and Maria Steffan (these names and the names given to the other couples I interviewed are fictitious) periodically fought emotional wars that could last a week. Says Maria, “It’s as if I’ve built a protective shell around myself I can’t let Brad enter. I have always been competitive. I can’t stand the image of the submissive, boot-licking wife. I despise the seductive, baby-doll wife taught in books like The Total Woman. I want my independence, yet I want to lean on Brad. Marriage is so confusing.”

She continues, “We read books on marriage which say the key is the self-sacrificing giving of each partner. But in our relationship, that’s dangerous. It’s like there’s a giant power struggle going on and we’ve both only got so much ammunition. If I take the peace initiative and let Brad through my defenses, he might hurt me. I might lose.”

In contrast, the biblical ideal shows God, the All-powerful, creating human beings almost as parasites who would require attention and a constant giving of himself with little in return. You can see the awesome figure of a sacrificial God in the Old Testament prophets’ description of him as the Wounded Lover. “How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel?… Mine heart recoils within me …” (Hosea 11:8).

The best example of God’s self-sacrifice on behalf of his beloved creation is found in a New Testament passage that gives a profound insight into the Incarnation: “Have this mind among yourselves, which you have in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5–8). God took a risk, exposing himself, becoming vulnerable, to the point of joining the human race to show us how it’s to be done!

One couple I talked to described a horrible two-year period of angry quarrels, temper tantrums, and walkouts. The wife, Beth Pestano, had come from a troubled family. Her father had left and her mother had died. Beth used the first few years of marriage to unleash her pentup anxieties. She would fly into irrational rages over insignificant details. Somehow Peter rode out the violence of those first few years and continued to show her love. Today they have one of the happiest marriages I know of.

I asked him, “Peter, how did you do it? What kept you from cracking in those long months of giving a lot and getting very little in return?” He then told me the story of his conversion, when God had tracked him down after months of angry rebellion.

“The most powerful motivating force in my life,” he concluded, “was the grace of God in loving me and giving himself for me. When I hated coming home to face Beth, I would stop for a moment, think of God’s sacrifice on my behalf, and ask him for strength to duplicate it.”

Marriage, as taught by God’s good example, challenges our lust for power and ego gratification. It requires sacrifice. The well-known prayer of St. Francis could be directed toward this aspect of marriage: “Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; not so much to be loved, as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.”

2. Acceptance. The world teaches us that worth is a quality to be earned. In school you earn a grade, or perhaps a starting position on the varsity team. In business you work your way up to a plush office and a good salary. In the army you earn stripes on the sleeve; those with few stripes take orders and those with many stripes give orders. Everyone understands the system and his own ranking within it.

Against this background, God carves out a unit, the family, where worth is not earned but given, determined by the mere fact of birth. A moronic son has as much worth as a genius—he deserves love simply because he was born into the family. At least that’s the theory of the family. The prodigal son who squanders his father’s riches is welcomed as eagerly as his older brother who followed all the rules. (And the lesson of the older brother is the lesson of one who tries to inject the world’s value system into the family, demanding that behavior determine worth.)

What does this have to do with a couple groping their way through their first few years together? Everything. The principle of assumed worth begins with marriage. If it is not present there, it cannot be passed down to the children. The sense of worth in marriage is set squarely within God’s value system, not the world’s. I should accept my wife totally. I should love her because she is my wife. Nothing is unforgivable. Nothing can sever the love—she can count on that. This is the bedrock ideal on which God built the structure of marriage.

A devout young Christian husband, Mark Parsons, told me how he almost pushed his wife away by jabbing at traits in her that he disliked. “You chit-chat too much; you’re not serious about things that are important to me; you don’t always make sense when you talk.”

Cynthia felt trapped. “When a problem came up,” she recalls, “Mark would want to talk about the causes immediately, just like an instant replay on TV. I couldn’t talk about it—I would lash out, attacking him personally, anything to avoid the issue. He would bring up the comment I made in anger and ask for an explanation. How could I explain my anger without showing more anger? So I would clamp shut and be silent. Then he’d want to talk about why I was so silent. I felt smothered, hounded, attacked, as if I was in a wind tunnel with hurricane-force winds coming from every direction.”

Just in time Mark realized that his pressure on Cynthia would never help her change. She needed to feel accepted and loved before she could make adjustments. He saw this by considering how Christ brings about changes in us. “Naturally Christ wants the church sinless and perfect. But how does he accomplish that? Not by pressuring us and berating us and sternly rebuking us. He is loving and forgiving toward us. He wants our growth, but he refuses to reach in with a magic wand and drive out all imperfections. He allows us the freedom we need to turn to him voluntarily.”

The Christian Gospel offers unearned acceptance, but many Christians seem to demonstrate that quality very poorly in their marriages. Husband and wife become self-righteous judges of each other’s behavior and attitudes. I know of a man who is completely turned off by the church because his Christian wife complains so relentlessly about his smoking habits. Another husband inspires unimaginable guilt in his wife. After the wedding he discovered she had had sexual relations with other men. Refusing to forgive her, he uses the fact as a dagger in arguments.

We forget that though Christianity sets our ideals high, it sets our forgiveness quotient even higher. There is no limit to God’s grace in accepting our failures.

I think of a married couple in their mid-fifties who have endured twenty-five years of difficulty in marriage. They are of opposite temperaments; they moved overseas unprepared for a new culture and suffered tearing family tragedies. Yet their marriage today exudes open, accepting love. Once the wife told me, “I used to think I loved Jack because of certain things about him—his good looks, his winsome personality, his dedication. But it didn’t take long to see through all that. I found out over the years there can be only one reason to make me love him. That reason is because I want to. We’re together, I believe, because God put us together, and I’m going to make it work. I will to love him and accept him regardless.”

Somehow a husband and wife have to learn to communicate love, a love that stretches around any bulges of failure and disappointment. Love and acceptance are not like rubber bands that weaken as they are stretched; they become stronger as they are tested and the partner perceives trust and faithful love.

In the book of Hosea, God showed that his fidelity was so great it could forgive gross adultery. Does God’s love seem weaker for forgiving such behavior? No, it is unfathomably greater. Similarly, active, accepting love within marriage can build unbreakable bonds of trust.

In my interviews, I encountered one beautiful example of this kind of acceptance. John and Claudia Claxton, a couple in their early twenties, were faced with the specter of cancer after just one year of marriage.

Claudia’s body quickly began to deteriorate. Surgeons removed her spleen and some lymph nodes. Even more draining than surgery were the radiation treatments that followed. Claudia was exhausted by the daily regimen. She would go to bed at 10 P.M. and sleep till noon the next day. The radiation damaged good cells as well as killing the diseased cells, so her energy was sapped. Her throat was raw and so swollen she could barely swallow. Areas of her skin turned dark, and the hair at the back of her head began falling out.

I talked with John and Claudia about the inevitable pressures. Claudia experienced waves of self-pity, questioning her worth because she was a constant concern to everyone around her. Yet somehow John managed to communicate an overpowering love. He would come and sit for hours on her hospital bed, holding her hand, touching her face, telling her he loved her. (She ultimately responded to treatment and now seems cured.)

John said the love was not an effort, merely a natural outgrowth of patterns that had been set even before their marriage. “When a couple meet a crisis,” he told me, “it’s a caricature of their relationship and what’s already there. We love each other deeply. We had always insisted on open communication; when something bothered us, we would talk it out. We trusted each other. Therefore when the Hodgkin’s disease came, there were no lingering fears and grudges to undermine our relationship. My love for Claudia would continue regardless of what happened to her body.”

3. Freedom. This third battlefield was the most common one among the couples I interviewed. A newlywed daily discovers something about his spouse he doesn’t like. Our natural human tendency is to want to control the other person, to squeeze him into our mold. We want to seize his freedom.

Here are some areas of skirmish that the nine couples brought up:

• frequency of sex (in most cases the husbands wanted their wives to change by wanting sex more often);

• moodiness;

• sloppy habits of dress and housekeeping;

• a desire to have “old” friends without involving the spouse in the activities;

• physical appearance, especially weight;

• verbal attack of the spouse in public;

• styles of settling conflicts;

• irritating hobbies or avocations;

• a complaining attitude;

• failure to talk things over.

I was amused to read of the adjustments Paul and Nellie Tournier worked through in their first years of marriage. “I’m an optimist and she a pessimist,” Paul Tournier reported in Faith at Work magazine (April, 1972). “She thinks of every difficulty, misfortune, and catastrophe that might happen, and I cannot promise her that such things will not happen. But God is neither optimist nor pessimist. The search for him leads one beyond his own personality and temperament to a path that is neither optimism nor pessimism.

“Little by little I have learned that God speaks to everybody—men and women, adults and children, blacks and whites, the rich and the poor. To discover the will of God, you must listen to him in all men. Of course, I prefer to have God speak directly to me, rather than through my wife, and yet in truly seeking his will I must be persuaded that he speaks as much through her as through me; to her as much as to me.”

Most of the problems about Christianity that puzzle so many people pertain to this issue of human freedom. How can God allow sin? How can he allow unjust rulers? What about pain and suffering? How can God allow people to go to hell? We want God to reach down with a wrench and forcibly fix things.

There is no adequate way to describe the premium God places on human freedom. But the Bible does contain some glimpses of the freedom ideal. One is in the analogy I already spoke about: the faithful, persistent wooing of an adulterous lover in Hosea. God respects freedom so much that through all of human history he has allowed human beings to play the harlot against him.

Another glimmer of God’s respect for freedom is captured in the scene of Jesus weeping as he contemplates the people of Jerusalem who have rejected him. “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem …,” he explained. “How often would I have gathered your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not” (Matt. 23:37). Reading that, we may forget that the speaker is the all-powerful God. He could have charged into Jerusalem on a stallion of fire, streaking the skies with lightning, causing earthquakes with the resonance of his voice. He could have demanded their allegiance. But Jesus chose not to. He respected human freedom so much that he allowed himself to be rejected.

The final, most compelling glimpse of all comes in the image of the cross. God, eternal and omniscient, could see from the beginning the ultimate sacrifice our redemption would require. The lamb was slain before the foundation of the world. He could feel the sharp slap on his cheek and the crusted blood on his back and brow. He could hear the hooting and jeering as the world voted to murder him. And yet, knowing all that, he sacrificed all, spilling his own blood, to allow man the choice of responding freely to the love he offers.

Does it do any good to spiritualize about how marriage is like the Christian life and how true love is God’s love? Does it do any good to enlarge the ideals of love to divine proportions? Only if you believe marriage can be a crucial settlement in God’s Kingdom. It is exalted, not because it is so different from the rest of life, but because it allows us a frontier to practice God’s value system of ego sacrifice, acceptance, and freedom, so that we derive strength to present that system to the rest of the world.

The exalted nature of marriage assures us that it will involve strife and conflict. In marriage we are tiptoeing through a field of land mines on the way to paradise.

- More fromPhilip Yancey

Philip Yancey

Cheryl Forbes

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Henry james once said that America was too young a country to have any good stories in it. Perhaps he knew too little of New England (except for Boston). The rocks and walls, the steep mountains and hard winters alone make New England a natural setting for novels. Add to that people with high-pitched, clipped speech and sturdy—some might say rigid—religion. Complex characters rooted in rock and ground.

John Gardner, who lives in Vermont, takes us to this stubborn land and its people in October Light (Knopf, $10). Despite its mixed reviews, the novel was named by all publications that compile such lists one of last year’s most significant books (it was published in December). As its title suggests, the book hovers between seasons, not quite winter but no longer autumn. Not quite the future but no longer the past. A present unequally mixed of both. Eerie. Shadowed. A New England light in October is hard to see by; much of the action of the book takes place at dusk or evening.

Sally Page Abbott, eighty, lives with her seventy-two-year-old brother James, a crotchety beekeeper and farmer. He hates television—it spews immorality—and he shoots a hole in his sister’s set. That starts the quarrel. A few days later he chases her to her room with a log from the fireplace and locks the door behind her. At first he won’t let her out; then she refuses to leave her room.

Sally’s niece, her niece’s husband, her old friends, and her minister all try to talk her into what she considers surrender. To Sally the issue is not just a silly quarrel but a moral matter. James must recognize his sins, how he destroyed his son, his wife, and now his sister. Sally is the instrument of healing for James and his family.

While Sally stays in her room she reads a trashy novel about marijuana smugglers. And we read it along with her. Fortunately many of its pages are missing. As a satire on the pseudo-philosophical potboiler, it is nearly successful. But as a trigger for Sally’s memories of the past, it is farfetched. The everyday scenes and atmosphere that evoke James’s memories work much better.

The limbo-like quality disappears as the novel moves toward its close. Sally leaves her room; her niece Ginny undergoes a profound change; and James’s pain at his son’s suicide and his wife’s bitter death finds release. He too experiences a conversion of sorts. Winter rises, the past disappears. The novelist’s images of earth, the seasons, and farming unify and focus the story.

Gardner writes lovingly about New England and its people. His descriptions capture the country, his felicitous use of dialect, the people. Out of the decay of characters and country come repentance and forgiveness. Christianity is their anchor. Gardner understands what is true in life, and therefore what is holy. A dying man’s reflections on life near the end of the novel are worth the price of the book:

“I’ll miss that, this year, or ennaway take pot in it in a way I never did before. But I can’t complain.…

“James, how come you’re listening to all this?”

James thought about it. “Becauth,” he said at last, “ith true.”

Ed’s smile widened. “That’s what I tell my Ruth,” he said. “She’s got good poems and bad poems.… I explain to her only the good poems are exactly true.”

“Like a good window-thash,” James said, “or horth.”

By striving for truth, by doing good work, Ed and James and the others try to minimize the decay, which, says a painter, “most people hadn’t yet glimpsed.” As Catharine Marshall explained in a quite different way in Beyond Our Selves, Gardner shows how God releases the memories of the past to heal the present for the future. Or, in the words of Scripture, we must die to live.

The ‘Key’ Of Stevie Wonder

It took nearly two years of studio work to produce Songs in the Key of Life (Tamla, T13-340C2 $13.98), Stevie Wonder’s ambitious two-record set with an additional seven-inch extended-play disc. Many contemporary records suffer when producers spend excessive studio time working and reworking arrangements, but Stevie Wonder instills all twenty-one songs with color, variety, and a sense of spontaneity. The album is Wonder’s masterpiece, the apex of the maturation that began with Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Inversion, and Fulfillingness First Finale.

Songs is a “concept album” loosely based on Wonder’s life history. “I Wish” finds the superstar longing for the carefree days of childhood. In “Sir Duke” he pays tribute to his musical roots and proclaims music the universal language. “Knocks Me Off My Feet” tells of the joys of first love, “Summer Soft” bemoans love lost, and “Ordinary Pain” recalls the hurt of love gone bad. The ecstasy of fatherhood is celebrated in “Isn’t She Lovely,” in which he rejoices in what God has made through love.

We hear Wonder’s philosophy of life from the first cut, “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” in which he warns that hate is destroying everything: “The force of evil plans/To make you its possession/And it will if you let it/Destroy everybody.” He calls on everyone to combat hate with love.

“Pastime Paradise” divides humanity into those who live for the past by “conformation to the evils of the world” and those who live for the future by “conformation to the peace of the world,” always looking to “when the Saviour of love will come to stay.” Although life is filled with troubles, he proposes in “As” that “God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed.”

Synthesized strings provide the background for “Village Ghetto Land,” a picture of grim ghetto life. The singer asks, “Tell me, would you be happy in Village Ghetto Land?” God is the world’s “only free psychiatrist,” according to “Have a Talk With God.” Aided by a classroom of children he chronicles the contribution made by non-white people in building America in “Black Man.”

The upbeat Songs in the Key of Life shows that purpose and meaning in life are found in living for the future. Although a few of the songs have excessive refrains or some awkward phrases and rhymes, Wonder’s performance overcomes these flaws. This album is a tour de force.

DANIEL J. EVEARITT

Daniel J. Evearitt is the assistant pastor of Tappan Alliance Church, Tappan, New York.

Convincing Case For a Pardon

Eldridge Cleaver, convicted criminal and revolutionary, is much in the news these days. By the time he was thirty he had spent half of his lifetime in jail. Later he spent seven years in exile, part of the time in Communist countries, after fleeing prosecution for serious charges leveled against him in California. This former key figure in the Black Panther party returned voluntarily to face trial. He now bears witness to a radical transformation of heart and life rising from his religious experience.

Cleaver’s most immediate legal challenge is a trial set to begin May 9 on three counts of assault with intent to kill and three counts of assault on Oakland, California, policemen. He has pled not guilty. Meanwhile newfound friends are seeking the large sum of money needed for his legal defense.

Perhaps the changed circ*mstances are such that the prosecution should drop the charges or the governor of California should issue a pardon. Other pardons have been granted recently that seem to have been based on less convincing circ*mstances. We see in Eldridge Cleaver a repentant man who now intends to devote his life to serving the best interests of the nation. We see a man who has encountered Communism firsthand and found it wanting. And we see a member of a minority group that long felt the keen edge of the law against it for reasons of color.

We hope that Christians will write the governor of California intervening on behalf of Eldridge Cleaver. The appeal is for mercy for a man who is willing to go to jail if convicted but for whom a jail sentence would serve no useful purpose. A withdrawal of the charges or a pardon would better serve the spirit if not the letter of the law.

Knowing About A Powerful Name

Kunta Kinte—a now familiar name to millions of Americans who watched the ABC network’s eight-part adaptation of Alex Haley’s best-selling book, Roots. (On one evening the network captured 70 per cent of the television audience.) Although some of the episodes were quite moving, the film could not adequately convey the rich culture of Kunta’s African tribe or the strength of his belief in Allah and the corresponding strength of belief his wife and fellow slaves held in Jesus. Haley, recognizing that our society no longer reads books as it once did, wanted the films to take his story to a broader audience than print could do. The plot was there, but not the theme in all its complexities.

The producers relied on stereotype to convey tribal life in the initial episode. Missing was the intellectual education Kunta received. He read the Koran in Arabic and knew how to write. The film showed him only hunting and tracking. Although some of the importance of his and his child’s names was included, the ritual was changed. The name of a person symbolizes who he is and where he belongs. That is why Kunta refused to answer to his slave name, Toby. It helped him survive slavery. His insistence that his child know her roots, a tradition she maintains with her child and grandchildren, helped keep the family together.

That is the physical heritage of Kunta Kinte’s family. Kunta remained a Muslim, his spiritual heritage. But he married a Christian, who raised their daughter, Kizzy, to be a Christian. In a sense the African ritual of naming Kizzy corresponded to her Christian baptism, where she voluntarily took on the name of Jesus. Her faith in Jesus and that of her offspring united the family spiritually, just as the tale of Kunta united them physically.

Roots is the story of one black family. But it speaks to blacks and whites alike. Know who you are, where you came from, and why you exist. Western culture does not emphasize the importance of names in answering those questions. Christianity does. “At the name of Jesus,” that phrase of Paul’s, eloquently tells us to whom we are bound and what name we bear. Just as Kunta tried to live out the meaning of his name, we should live out the meaning of Jesus’ name.

For the full impact of this theme one should read the book; the films are only a good second best. There’s much more in Jesus’ name than we often show to others. Roots is a powerful reminder both of the evil that was done by those who bore his name (slaveholders who called themselves Christians) and of the power that name has to heal those wounds.

The Whole Counsel And Crisis Counsel

The Bible is always good in a time of crisis. Notice, for instance, how churches turn to the Word of God when they are having trouble paying their bills. Pastors and lay leaders who pay little attention to the whole counsel of God in easier times suddenly find the Bible to be their “only infallible rule” when they want to urge more generous financial support of the church. Somebody at the deacons’ meeting asks, “Where’s that passage about tithing?” With great seriousness the next Sunday, one of the officers challenges the parishioners to test God’s promises (the ones about money).

Sometimes the crisis appeal from Scripture works, and the offerings increase for a while. Seldom does the giving continue at an acceptable level, however, if the Church does not have a consistent teaching and preaching ministry based on the Scriptures. When God’s Word is not presented throughout the year as truth, members will have difficulty accepting and practicing the biblical teaching on stewardship.

Christians who love the Bible and who want to see it applied to all of life should rejoice whenever it is presented as the Church’s rule of faith and practice—even when it is cited only as a stimulus to giving during a financial crisis. God honors his Word, and blessings will accompany its use.

A new crisis in major American denominations has now sent some prominent church leaders back to the Bible. We are glad, not that they are confronted by this new situation, the demand for ordination of practicing hom*osexuals, but that it gives an opportunity to quote Scripture. The people of God are being reminded again that God has spoken for their guidance. His Church is expected to follow the teachings in his Book. If nothing else, the Bible’s clear prohibition against hom*osexual activity acts as a brake on those who would sanction open immorality among the ordained leadership.

New York Episcopal bishop Paul Moore’s ordination of an acknowledged lesbian has set off a storm of protest throughout his denomination.

The United Presbyterian Church is still studying the possibility of ordaining hom*osexuals. But when the denomination’s top executive, Stated Clerk William P. Thompson, addressed the independent Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns last month, he made his position clear: “I would not ordain a hom*osexual.” He explained, “As I read the Bible, hom*osexuality is a sin.”

Thompson is a lawyer, but one does not need legal or pastoral training to be able to understand the clear teaching of Scripture on this matter. But the Church will continue to be in crises until the whole counsel is taught as a matter of course, not just of crisis.

Blind and Loud, Then Grateful

Mark’s account of the healing of blind Bartimaeus (10:46–52) shows that the beggar not only wanted Christ’s help but also took initiative to get it. Jesus was passing through Jericho on the way to his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and subsequently to his crucifixion. The disciples were not ready to accept the fact that he was about to die. Bartimaeus, however, seemed to sense the urgency of the hour. Perhaps with the keen perception that God often gives to blind people, he realized that Jesus would not pass his way again.

The beggar was a determined kind of man, and he began to shout (v. 47). He wanted to be sure he got the attention of the man he recognized as the messiah (v. 48). His efforts met with rebukes from those around him (v. 48), but he would not be silenced. Bartimaeus was probably a demonstrative, perhaps even somewhat offensive person who would not “fit” in today’s conventional church services.

Christ, who hears silent prayers as well as shouted appeals, did take notice (v. 49). He called for the blind man to come forward, and Bartimaeus “sprang up” (v. 50) and went to him. Even then, his sight was not restored. Bartimaeus was required by the Lord to state his request, which he gladly did (v. 51).

It took only a word from Jesus to remove the blindness and make Bartimaeus a seeing man. “Your faith has made you well,” Bartimaeus was told (v. 52), and this recipient of God’s grace went forth a grateful follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.

On The Move

After more than twenty years of operation in rented quarters, Christianity Today is purchasing its own property. The magazine’s board of directors voted last month to buy an attractive, seven-year-old building in a suburb of Chicago. Editorial offices, now located in downtown Washington, will probably be moved to the new location this summer.

The announcement of the impending move made by CT board chairman Dr. Harold John Ockenga cited several reasons underlying the decision. Among these is the fact that the Chicago area has the largest number of theological seminaries and other academic institutions of any geographical region in the United States, and has academic and personnel resources far beyond those that are available in the Washington area.

Ockenga also noted that the Chicago area is geographically central for travel and outreach and that its publishing resources in terms of graphics, typesetters, second-level labor pool, and overhead are advantageous. He declared, moreover, that it is more representative of the broad U.S. outlook theologically and ecclesiastically.

The board received with appreciation a report that the magazine ended 1976 in the black and is in the best financial shape in its history. The acquisition of a building will make for more efficient operations, allow for expansion, provide additional income from rental property, and help to keep the magazine financially viable.

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First of Two Parts

Filmstrips are a halfway medium between books, with which one can argue, and movies, with which one cannot. This accounts for their innovative vitality, which they are regaining after a period of eclipse. Filmstrips, thoughtfully used, can be informative, entertaining, and conducive to discussion of the subject before, during, and after the presentation.

In this survey of innovative religious filmstrips, I will use the following code letters: c—cassette, r—record, r/c—both record and cassette available, t—text only, and tgx—text, study guide, and extra suggestions. Generally those designated tgx are among the better productions. Filmstrips aimed at the lowest grades are often good up through eighth grade. Very often, animated filmstrips are useful for primary through adult levels.

BIBLE BACKGROUND

ADULTS. How We Got the Bible (c, tgx) was written by Neil R. Lightfoot, professor of Bible at Abilene Christian University. The producer, Gospel Services, is Church of Christ-related. However, except for the a cappella music and one brief reference to Alexander Campbell, Church of Christ distinctives do not enter into this excellent four-part series: “The Bible Comes Into Being,” “The Manuscripts of the Bible,” “The Translations of the Bible,” and “The Bible and Recent Discoveries.” The series is appreciative of conservative evangelical scholarship and the Revised Standard Version.

CHILDREN. How Our Bible Came to Us (r, tgx) comes from the American Bible Society and traces the progress of the Bible from its first writing to the present. Designed for junior high, the four-part series is quite general. Abingdon Audio-Graphics offers a fine, nicely animated Bible Lands and Times (r/c, tgx) for grades three to eight. The filmstrip is divided into four periods: Abraham, Moses, David/Solomon, and Jesus. The only drawback is the accent of the narrator, an Englishman or perhaps an Oxford-educated German. Between the accent and the gutturals, children are bound to miss parts. A sequel with a different narrator is Jesus of Nazareth. A problem with all Abingdon Audio-Graphics records is their paper thinness. If packed wrong, as they sometimes are, they are irretrievably bent.

Concordia Audiovisual Media has two series, The Old Testament Scriptures (fourteen filmstrips, r, t) and The Living Bible (twenty-two filmstrips, r, t), that are biblically solid character studies of Old Testament personalities and the life of Christ. The format is period sets and costumes much in the style of the older and more ambitious Cathedral productions. Unfortunately the record grooves occasionally skip the phonograph arm.

BIBLE BOOKS AND STORIES

ADULTS. Crowning Touch offers a wide selection of Bible filmstrips. Very few of this company’s productions have audio accompaniments. The creative teacher can use the provided aids (sometimes notes are substituted for texts, and sometimes the text appears on the filmstrip) on his own cassette. The Tabernacle in the Wilderness comes with detailed notes on the New Testament fulfillment of the Old Testament symbolism of the Jewish tabernacle: its buildings, furniture, priesthood, and sacrifices. Daniel’s Prophetic Symbols has pictorial representations of Daniel chapters 2, 7, 8. The only text is Scripture, so these pictures lend themselves to every contested prophetic position. By Faith records the eleventh chapter of Hebrews pictorially and verbatim in print. Crowning Touch’s script, virtually always heavily stylized, has the unfortunate effect of making every filmstrip seem as though it were produced in 1929. This company has access to British filmstrips, which is something of a novelty.

CHILDREN (but not strictly). Twenty-Third Productions is to be highly commended for its beautiful series, The Parables (r, tgx). There are fifteen New Testament parables on five filmstrips. About half are for grades one to three and half for grades four to six, but adults will be delighted by them as well. Each parable is a modern setting of the Scripture. Five of them are animated and the rest use contemporary photos. The narration is expert. These beautiful filmstrips belong in every church media library and will be used again and again.

Alba House Communications is also a very creative company. Walter Fish (c, tgx) is the most clever, humorous, and pathetic retelling of the story of the Good Samaritan one is every likely to come across. The Book of Jonah (tgx) is a read-along filmstrip program that is fun. Both Twenty-Third and Alba House are Roman Catholic producers, but their filmstrips are universal in appeal. The author and artist for The Book of Jonah are both members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

BIBLE RELATED

CHILDREN. Twenty-Third Productions has also produced the four-filmstrip series Holydays and Holidays (r, tgx): Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. These are animated stories that children and teachers will love. They are entertaining, yet the smallest child might reflect on the metaphors. I cannot praise Twenty-Third’s quality work enough. The American Bible Society’s Bicentennial contribution is The Bible and the Presidents (r, tgx). On four filmstrips are Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt. The filmstrip on Jefferson is misleading where it has him saying about his editing of the Gospels, “When it’s finished, I’ll have the complete words of Christ as recorded in the Gospels.” In fact, Jefferson eliminated the miracles, including the Resurrection!

CHRISTIAN HISTORY

ADULTS. Two filmstrips, one Roman Catholic and one Protestant, purport to be historical records told straight. Catholics/Americans, released by Paulist Press, is a Bicentennial production. “Never before have so many photos relating to American-Catholic history been assembled in one place” says one blurb. The assembling is a six-unit program on eighteen filmstrips, each approximately ten minutes long. Designed for high schoolers and adults, it will be especially absorbing for persons without a Roman Catholic background.

The pictures that illustrate it are well chosen. They illuminate the American Catholic story from the pre-colonial missionary period of the French and Spanish to the present. Before the viewers’ eyes pass the ups and downs of an ancient church on a new continent.

It is enlightening to learn that American Catholicism, like Protestantism, has had clearly delineated epochs. This is apparent in unit four, the watershed unit, with filmstrips titled “The Americanizers” and “Conservative Reaction.”

There are some errors, strange interpretations, and obvious biases. Lyman Beecher was not a Unitarian minister. It is a misinterpretation to equate early twentieth-century evangelicalism with present-day fortress-like, mind-gate-closed fundamentalism this way: “By 1910, the major denominations had begun to rid themselves of a narrow-minded fundamentalism.…” The date and the designation are incorrect. The filmstrip falls into revisionist history with this rewrite of Revolutionary events: “The Americans were furious at the various taxes imposed on their commerce.… But the crowning blow was the passage of the Quebec Act by Parliament, giving freedom of worship to Canadian Catholics” (italics added). I always knew the Boston Tea Party was a simplification, but this alternative boggles the mind!

These criticisms aside, Catholics/Americans is a grand salute to America by Christians, and Protestant pastors ought to borrow this masterly series for use in their own church education programs.

Roman Catholics, however, may not be so willing to borrow The History of the Church (t), produced by Tabernacle Pictures but distributed by Crowning Touch. The reason is the printed text of this seven filmstrip series. What Roman Catholic is going to accept the designation of his church as “The whor* of Babylon” umpteen times? However, the text is on paper, and the judicious user can edit the text and even record it on his own cassette.

This is an odd redeeming feature, because in general, the history is accurate (though wooden) and the artwork factually satisfying (literalistic). The text has the additional disadvantage of being tediously long, and not even the most zealous anti-papist can stay alert through its reading. With severe editing, shortening, and enlivening through the use of one’s own cassette (or tape recorder), this can be a useful series. Left as it is, it is accuracy pickled in vitriol. It was first introduced in 1956 and tells the story of Christianity up to Plymouth Rock.

CHILDREN. You Shall Be My Witnesses (r/c, tgx), by Abingdon Audio-Graphics, covers church history from the gospel accounts to early North America. The art is Sunday-school “pix.”—DALE SANDERS, Myrtle Creek, Oregon.

ADDRESSES

Abingdon Audio-Graphics, 201 8th Avenue S., Nashville, Tennessee 37202.

Alba House Communications, Canfield, Ohio 44406.

American Bible Society, 1865 Broadway, New York, New York 10023.

Concordia Audiovisual Media, 3558 S. Jefferson Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri 63118.

Crowning Touch, 116 N. Main Street, Perry, Michigan 48872.

Gospel Services, P.O. Box 12302, Houston, Texas 77017.

Paulist Press, 545 Island Road, Ramsey, New Jersey 07446.

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Learning From Other Congregations

Getting a Church Started, by Elmer Towns (Benson, 1975, 185 pp., $4.95), The Exciting Church, by Charles Shedd (three volumes, Word, 1975, 105, 122, and 88 pp., $3.95 each), and All Originality Makes a Dull Church, by Dan Baumann (Vision, 1976, 141 pp., $2.50 pb), are reviewed by William Brindley, pastor, Reston Presbyterian Church, Reston, Virginia.

Those interested in vital growing congregations have an increasing array of “case studies” to ponder. The authors of these three books have attempted to present model American churches from which others can—it is hoped—learn transferable concepts and principles.

Towns’s book is geared to the planter or organizing pastor of a new church. He features ten new, small, and prospering congregations, providing some helpful “how-to’s” on starting a church “in the face of insurmountable odds with limited resources in unlikely circ*mstances,” as the subtitle puts it.

Towns selected his ten churches from varying socio-economic and geographical areas with the hope of increasing the impact of his main point: different formulas may be used in church planting, but the fundamental principles remain the same. Without question the most useful portion of the book is the last four chapters, in which he draws together these principles and adds some practical tips on such matters as finding the right location, advertising, and establishing credibility.

Getting a Church Started is a helpful handbook for church planting and might be used in a college or seminary course. It certainly is a book for pastors of new churches in America to consult. However, there are a number of drawbacks. Minor ones include a penchant for the superfluous, less than the best organization, and abundant photographs of church buildings, as if the building were the church.

A more serious drawback is the American pragmatism that underlies Towns’s view of church expansion. He says, “As the population explodes and another community comes into existence, new churches are needed.” One does not find in Towns’s book the foundational biblical principles for church expansion that so need to be articulated today. Where is the biblical emphasis on the work of God in gathering to himself “a people for his name” (Acts 15:12–14), “a great multitude” (Rev. 7:9, 10)? Similarly, Towns puts too much emphasis on the pastor of the new church. While starting a congregation often does require a person with a vision, stress should be placed on God’s work in giving a vision to whole groups of people (Acts 13:1–3).

A final liability of Getting a Church Started is its limited scope. While many, if not most, new churches in America are started in “fundamentalistic-evangelistic” frameworks, Towns has neglected numerous other evangelical congregations whose style of ministry is radically different from what he described.

Shedd’s trilogy, The Exciting Church, flows from his ministry with the Jekyll Island Presbyterian Community Church in Georgia. As a creative pastor and writer he offers some fresh ideas and modes of expression in the areas of prayer, tithing, and using the Bible. His main thesis is that these are the three keys to opening up an exciting church. In supporting this theme he uses a number of interesting anecdotes and illustrations. Among the most helpful parts of each book are the appendixes, which contain a wealth of practical how-to’s. The three volumes should have been bound into one. Maybe they will be for a paperback edition.

A critical defect in this trilogy is the main thesis itself. Shedd says that “Today’s mod man won’t settle for the dull, the drab. He wants a church which can turn him on.” While his perception is valid, the pastor and his congregation should never be motivated by a simple desire to have a “turned on” church. Love for God and a desire to be obedient to his Word must always come first. That may or may not produce a church that is exciting to the modern man. Shedd would have a difficult time selling his thesis to Christians in Uganda or Czechoslovakia. The building of Christ’s church often means abuse from the unrighteous, not applause; they may be, like Saul of Tarsus, “excitingly turned on” to the demolition of the church.

The third book, All Originality Makes a Dull Church, makes for anything but dull reading. Baumann’s book is far superior in clarity and cogency to the other two.

The first chapter contains some of Baumann’s guiding principles for the pastor or layman who wants to stand on other people’s shoulders, learning from their experiences. The next five chapters give an overview of five types of church: the soul-winning church, the classroom church, the life-situation church, the social-action church, and the general-practitioner church. Each model is illustrated by two relatively well-known churches (for example, Coral Ridge Presbyterian and Peninsula Bible), except for the last model, which is illustrated only by Baumann’s own Whittier Area Baptist Fellowship.

In keeping with Baumann’s awareness of the sociological differences among church situations, he provides a helpful description of each church’s community before he describes its essential programs and draws out some “transferable concepts.” In addition, helpful appendixes greatly enhance the value of the book.

However, the whole classification of a “success” story is extremely subjective. What God may think is successful we may not. Although Baumann gives a balanced presentation of the various models, we must remind ourselves not to oversimplify. We must realize that Coral Ridge, for example, cannot be reduced simply to a “soul-winning” church without some stereotyping. Furthermore, Baumann’s book must be seen as limited to contemporary Western expressions of God’s church. One only hopes that highlighting certain present-day American “successes” does not keep us from learning from other models either from history (for example, the Clapham Sect near London) or from the non-Western world (for example, the mission in Kalimantan Kenyah in Indonesia).

The practical value of this book is great. It provides a handbook of “successful” modern American churches in a format and with a thrust that will be helpful to the pastor as well as the congregation. It is the kind of book that elders, deacons, and church boards should be asked to read. It also should be constantly available on the church book table.

All three of these attempts to expose the modern Western evangelical to case studies in God’s renewing work today have some value. I only hope that our global myopia as well as our penchant to “get the job done no matter what” is not reinforced by reading them.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Too many books on flourishing congregations are appearing for us to review them all. Other recent titles that interested readers should inspect at bookstores and that Bible college and seminary libraries should certainly acquire include: Outreach: God’s Miracle Business by Elvis Marcum (Broadman, 151 pp., n.p., pb), on Graceland Baptist, New Albany, Indiana: God Loves the Dandelions by Roger Fredrikson (Word, 168 pp., $5.95), on First Baptist, Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Handbook For Mission Groups by Gordon Cosby (Word, 179 pp., $5.95) and The New Community by Elizabeth O’Connor (Harper & Row, 121 pp., $3.95 pb), both on the Church of the Saviour, Washington, D.C.; The Church That Takes on Trouble by James and Marti Hefley (Cook, 242 pp., $5.95), on LaSalle Street Church, Chicago; How Churches Grow by Bernard and Marjorie Palmer (Bethany Fellowship, 171 pp., $3.50 pb), on eleven congregations ranging from Dallas’s giant First Baptist to average-size Evangelical Free and Christian and Missionary Alliance congregations; and two by Mr. Palmer, Pattern For a Total Church, on Redwood Chapel, Castro Valley, California, and Peoples: Church on the Go, on Peoples Church, Toronto (both Victor, 135 and 111 pp., $2.50 each pb).

The Emergence Of Pentecostalism

Aspects of Pentecostal-Charismatic Origins, edited by Vinson Synan (Logos, 1975, 252 pp., $3.50 pb), is reviewed by James S. Tinney, Ph.D. candidate in political science, Howard University, Washington, D.C.

Long overdue is a work of Pentecostal history that comes from within the movement, gives adequate attention to its several distinct branches of thought and practice, but does not bear the official stamp of any one of them. This compendium edited by the author of The Holiness-Pentecostal Movement (Eerdmans) is a step in the right direction. It devotes at least one article to each of five branches of Pentecostals, which Synan calls “variations of one Holy Spirit movement”: “holiness,” “finished work,” “oneness,” “neo-pentecostals,” and Catholics. (There are problems with this classification; more precision could result from a classification based on differing concepts of salvation, for instance.)

Eleven writers contributed an article each; these are preceded by Synan’s own much too short introduction. The articles are about equally divided between older and newer branches, with articles by two non-Pentecostals thrown in for good measure. (The most comprehensive article is Martin Marty’s “Pentecostalism in the Context of American Piety and Practice.” On the other hand, the chapter on “The Anti-Pentecostal Argument” is not written by an outsider, and consequently is far from adequate.) A page of background information on each contributor is especially helpful.

In several respects this book attempts to fill gaps in past studies. Wesleyan origins of the tongues movement are re-emphasized, not unexpectedly, since Synan is largely responsible for stressing those still Wesleyan Pentecostals who are generally neglected in the movement’s literature. Charismatics, often criticized by older Pentecostalists, are also given full recognition. Blacks and Jesus-only groups are each given a chapter, although neither segment has members in the Pentecostal Fellowship of North America.

Gaps do remain. The term “aspects” in the book’s title indicates that it does not claim comprehensiveness. “Aspects” calling for more treatment include pre-twentieth-century charismatic movements, cultic groups that countenance tongues, the origins of the many multi-denominational fellowships, and non-Western counterparts. The editor’s introduction also fails to define the term “Pentecostal” for the readers, apparently making the false assumption that everyone means the same thing by the term.

The book neglects the important role of blacks in the movement’s origins despite an article by a black minister, Leonard Lovett. (Its title, “Black Origins of the Pentecostal Movement,” is identical to the title of my own article in Christianity Today, October 8, 1971, which was, as far as I know, the first article on the topic to be published anywhere. Lovett does not refer to it.) David Reed’s piece on “Aspects of the Origins of Oneness Pentecostalism” refers only casually to G. T. Haywood, the black seminal figure in that branch, as if he were a late-comer to the Unitarian doctrine. It is left to Marty, a non-Pentecostal, to raise the issue of African components of Pentecostalism.

Like many Pentecostal histories, this one overemphasizes the role of the white Topeka minister Charles Parham. One suspects that white Pentecostals are more comfortable with a white founder than a black one, but a more conscious reason is apparent here. Parham has become an essential part of the eschatological doctrine that Pentecostalism represents the “latter rain” restoration of biblical faith. The symbolism of January 1, 1901, the day when people at Parham’s Bible school first experienced tongue-speaking, is especially fitting for this interpretation. However, one wishes that scholars doing historical work might be non-doctrinal enough not to approach the subject from this perspective, as several included here do, including Lovett and Thomas F. Zimmerman (“The Reason For the Rise of the Pentecostal Movement”). It is curious to hold up unnecessarily, as a founder, a man such as Parham, who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, was shadowed by rumors of sexual libertinism (and precursor of an often-hushed “free love” Pentecostalism that took root in the midwest for a time), and was so doctrinally unsure of himself as to vacillate repeatedly on questions of the Trinity, the formula for water baptism, and the possibility of “third” and “fourth” works of grace.

In spite of its useful reemphasis on Wesleyan roots, the book (through no fault of its own) inevitably brings awareness of continuing confusion about the origins of the Pentecostal movement. What is seldom realized is that Parham is implicitly a direct rival to the holiness movement as the wellspring of Pentecostalism (even though he also espoused holiness tenets at the beginning). Either Donald Dayton is correct (in his article “From Christian Perfection to the Baptism of the Holy Ghost”) when he says, “One can find in late nineteenth-century holiness thought and life every significant feature of Pentecostalism,” or he is not. If he is, the primacy of Parham, which other contributors assert, is simply not so. Confusion is enhanced by Larry Christenson’s article, which pictures the nineteenth-century Irvingite movement as Pentecostal though it fits neither holiness nor Parhamite categories.

Someday Pentecostal historians must face the inherent contradictions and mutual exclusiveness of some of their claims. The movement has until now attempted to perform intellectual somersaults over these competing events. It has tried to use questionable “proof texts” from history that allege that prominent Christian patriarchs through the centuries have spoken in tongues; it has arbitrarily refused to recognize other more easily validated instances of tongues in non-Christian settings; it has made biblical allowances for “sporadic outpourings” between the “early and latter rains” in order to accommodate “exceptions”; and it has alternated among the holiness movement, Parham, and W. J. Seymour of Azusa Street as points of origin.

This collection of essays is a worthwhile addition to Pentecostal historiography, but it also illustrates the continuing predicament.

Wilderness Insights

A Reason For Hope, by Lane T. Dennis (Revell, 1976, 189 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by Michael H. Macdonald, associate professor of German and philosophy, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington.

Lane Dennis is the son of the late founder (his father) and of the current president (his mother) of Good News Publishers, which is best known for producing gospel tracts. A Reason For Hope might be considered both a modern sequel to Thoreau’s Walden and an answer to Heilbroner’s recent question “Is there a hope for man?” (An Inquiry Into the Human Prospect). Looking for the lost simple pleasures of peace, joy, and inner harmony with God, Dennis and his family left Chicago in 1972 to carve out a new life in a remote area of northern Michigan for two years. (An interesting description of these experiences is given in chapter one.) Away from diversions like television, radio, sports events, and movies, they were able to recapture, to a degree, the deep-rooted family unity often lost in our numerous family-fragmenting activities. Ebeth and Lane learned quickly how narrow their so-called liberal education had been. By building their own home and growing their own food, the family members gained a new perspective on needs.

In chapters two through five Dennis turns to the world of ideas. He traces our modern consciousness back to the Middle Ages and notes the fundamental differences between our modern age and that one. His initial premise is that our present way of life is no longer workable, and his point of reference is “a radical orthodoxy,” an affirmation of historic, biblical Christianity. Dennis points to community, significance, meaning, and wholeness in medieval society and to alienation, meaninglessness, and fragmentation in society today. But although he finds much of value in medieval life, he is careful not to romanticize and certainly does not advocate a return to a thirteenth-century Golden Age.

Dennis subsequently probes the spirit of our age. Noting that “nothing in culture is value neutral,” he attempts to determine our value system and sort out that in it which runs counter to the Christian faith. Among the key “standard measures of well-being” in our society are the number of cars and television sets we own and the level of the GNP. Yet however high we rate according to these criteria, crime and oppression persist and modern technology has not brought us the happiness we expected. Furthermore, a person’s worth is now considered to be chiefly his monetary value; his human qualities and contribution to the community are considered only secondarily. Some may think that a reconstruction of the nature of man through genetic engineering is an answer, but the criteria for human well-being must still be agreed upon.

Of three possible futures. Dennis envisions for us, he rejects “Eco-Apocalypse” and “Techno-Totalitarianism” and chooses “The Birth of a New Spirit.” It is up to the Christian to change the direction society is going. “The Word must once again become flesh, in our lives, in our communities of faith, and in turn carry its transforming power into the whole of human affairs.” Dennis labels it “tragic” that there is no difference between the Christian’s life-style and that of anyone else. “We buy the same things, make the same things, sell the same things.” We have not sought first the Kingdom of God. The material sphere has become the object of our devotion.

Even though the Bible yields no unambiguous solutions at either the private or the institutional level, I would have liked (in chapter six) a more extensive discussion of specific things that the Dennises do differently because of their experiences in the North Woods and subsequent reading. We all will have to learn to get along without many of the things that our society deems essential. (Thoreau said “a man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.”) Specific life-styles that combat waste and excessive consumption need to be discussed. Otherwise the danger is that when all is said and done, much more will have been said than done.

Dennis is not a particularly articulate or sophisticated writer, but he is solid. The book is well documented and brings into proper perspective the current plight of Western civilization. The things he says are important, and we are going to have to deal with them.

Briefly Noted

SPIRITUAL GIFTS What is intended by God “for the common good” of the body of Christ is in our time (as was the Eucharist in an earlier time) one of the major occasions for division. The Dynamics of Spiritual Gifts by William McRae (Zondervan, 141 pp., $1.75 pb) treats the various aspects of the gifts in general (distribution, discovery, development) and comments on and classifies each of them. His distinction between temporary and permanent gifts will not be accepted by many, but he does seek to be biblically based, not just traditional. A similar position is more briefly expressed by W. T. Purkiser in The Gifts of the Spirit (Beacon Hill, 77 pp., $1.50 pb). Kenneth Gangel examines eighteen gifts one by one in You and Your Spiritual Gifts (Moody, 96 pp., $.95 pb) and, with significant qualifications, sees them all available today. Kenneth Kinghorn in Gifts of the Spirit (Abingdon, 126 pp., $3.25) is somewhat more open to the continued operation of all the biblical gifts. Perhaps the most interesting of this batch is Let the Tide Come In! by C. Ernest Tatham (Creation House, 150 pp., $2.95 pb). Tatham is a prominent older Bible teacher who for most of his life expressed the kind of position ably represented by McRae. He even wrote a very widely circulated correspondence course on the subject. But over the past few years he has changed his mind and now embraces much, but not all, that is characteristic of charismatic theology. Even more involved with the movement, yet stopping short of complete identification, is Kurt Koch. The latest of his numerous books, Charismatic Gifts (Kregel, 174 pp., $1.95 pb), treats all of them, not just the “sign” gifts. From within the charismatic movement: Jim McNair gives verse-by-verse comments on First Corinthians 12–14 and numerous related portions in Love and Gifts (Bethany Fellowship, 173 pp., $2.45 pb); R. Douglas Wead focuses on the gift of the “word of knowledge” in Hear His Voice (Creation House, 172 pp., $1.95 pb); and Bruce Yocum discusses Prophecy as a continuing gift (Word of Life, 148 pp., $2.50 pb).

Honor Thy Father and Mother by Gerald Blidstein (KTAV, 234 pp., $15) is a thorough study of the understanding of the fifth commandment in Judaism over the centuries. For seminary libraries.

MISSIONS Crucial Dimensions in World Evangelization by Arthur Glasser and others (William Carey, 466 pp., $6.95 pb) and Christian Missions in Biblical Perspective by J. Herbert Kane (Baker, 328 pp., $9.95) are comprehensive treatments that complement each other. Kane, of Trinity seminary, stresses the biblical and theological underpinnings. Glasser and nine others, many of them his colleagues at Fuller Seminary, combine original and reprinted materials to survey contemporary and potential aspects of missions. Aimed at a broader audience are Everything You Want to Know About the Mission Field But Are Afraid You Won’t Learn Until You Get There by Charles Troutman (InterVarsity, 114 pp., $2.95 pb), which takes the form of letters to a prospective missionary, and A World to Win edited by Roger Greenway (Baker, 135 pp., $3.95 pb), consisting of eleven sermons by six men seeking to promote missions-mindedness among all Christians.

PREACHING Recent offerings on the practice of preaching include A Guide to Biblical Preaching by James Cox (Abingdon. 142 pp., $6.50) of Southern Baptist Seminary; The Sermon in Perspective (Baker, 116 pp., $4.95) by James Earl Massey of Anderson School of Theology; The Ministry of the Word by R. E. C. Brown (Fortress, 128 pp., $3.50 pb), a reprint of a widely commended 1958 work by a recently deceased Anglican rector; and Capers of the Clergy (Baker, 140 pp., $4.95) by DeWitt Matthews of Midwestern Baptist Seminary, which uses a light touch to help preachers in their overail congregational relationships.

HINDUISM is most conspicuous in America through the Transcendental Meditation movement, which disguises its origins, and through the undisguised Hare Krishna devotees one encounters at airports and other public places (Hare Krishna claims 10,000 full-time and five to ten times that many part-time members). An anthropologist reports on them in The American Children of Krsna by Francine Jeanne Daner (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 118 pp., n.p., pb). For those who want to study the sources a handy compendium is available: Hindu Theology: A Reader edited by Jose Pereira (Doubleday, 558 pp., $3.50 pb).

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Only a few non-socialist visitors get a glimpse into Viet Nam these days. Among those who have are three Mennonites who visited the country last month on behalf of the Mennonite Central Committee, which has continued to fund projects there since the end of the war in April, 1975. They were Don Sensenig, a ten-year veteran of Mennonite missions in Viet Nam, Max Ediger, a Mennonite relief worker who stayed on in Viet Nam for more than a year after the war ended, and correspondent Harold Jantz, editor of the Canadian “Mennonite Brethren Herald.” Jantz filed the following report for Christianity Today.

During a two-week visit, spent mostly in Hanoi and Danang and in communities adjacent to these north and central Viet Nam cities, interviews were conducted with evangelical Tin Lanh (Protestant) and Catholic leaders, as well as with spokesmen for Buddhists. The Tin Lanh (“Good News”) church is a product of Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA) work.

The talks strengthened the impression that while the Christian Church is clearly in a new situation under the present government in Viet Nam, many things that had been feared have not materialized. Ma Phuc Minh, who was the pastor of the largest evangelical church in Danang and is now the regional supervisor for about one hundred Tin Lanh churches in central Viet Nam, told the Mennonites their earlier fears had not been fulfilled. “We can function,” he said. Indeed, he reported, four or five churches destroyed by American bombs during the war have been partially rebuilt with money and supplies given by the government. Similar reports of help in rebuilding were given by others, both in the north and in the south.

A number of churches that grew up around refugee camps during the war have closed, Minh said, but the village churches still function. Around Danang, the scene of great confusion and panic during the final days of the war, it was easy for visitors to pick out the Tin Lanh churches; they were in good repair, and their signs showed they were in use. In the old days there were nearly 500 Tin Lanh churches in South Viet Nam, Minh said, and most of these continue, although some of the smaller groups appear to be breaking up. An attempt by a Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) doctor to bring about a unified church among the smaller groups apparently ran out of steam after the death of its originator, Nguyen Thanh Long.

Unification of the Tin Lanh churches in north and south Viet Nam is apparently on the government’s agenda. A government congress in December pressed for greater speed in bringing all mass organizations, including the religious bodies, into unified structures. Bui Hoanh Thu, general secretary of the northern Tin Lanh churches, was in Saigon last month working on unification with southern leaders. Vu dan Chinh, a pastor in Hai Hung province who preached in the Hanoi Tin Lanh church during a visit by several North American Mennonites, conveyed what was described as a very warm evangelical spirit, and he expressed to them his strong hope that the churches could reunite. (Thu has been a controversial figure. Colleagues alleged he was a member of the Communist party as early as 1954, say CMA sources, and he has served as a government functionary.—ed.)

In the south, Pastor Minh seemed to suggest that the road back together, after more than twenty years apart, is fraught with difficulties. The government apparently is using some strong inducements to help it happen. Last year it closed the largest Bible school in the country, the Nha Trang school with around two hundred students. Reopening of the school, which southern church leaders hoped would come this year, has been tied to reunification of the churches, Minh observed. Ong Van Huyen, former head of the school, was elected chairman of the southern association of Tin Lanh churches last June, and the school currently has no appointed head. Both southern and northern church leaders described church programs that seemed very similar to what they had before the new regime. In the north, the Hanoi Tin Lanh church has a Sunday-morning worship service followed by classes for children beginning at 7:30 A.M.; a Wednesday-evening prayer meeting; a Thursday-evening preaching service; and a Saturday-night prayer service for the following day. The main Danang Tin Lanh church begins with Sunday school at 7:00 A.M., holds an hour of worship from 8:00 to 9:00 A.M., and concludes the day with an evening evangelistic service. In the afternoon the church has activities for its children and youth. On Tuesday and Wednesday evenings different groups of the church have prayer meetings, and on Saturday night the young people have their prayer meeting.

In both the north and the south, the church leaders said they had enough pastors. With four or five preaching points for each of the twenty-two Tin Lanh pastors in the north, however, it would appear that the churches would clearly benefit from more Bible-school graduates. In the south, it was reported that some of the eighteen Tin Lanh men who had served as military chaplains were still not back from “re-education camps” to which they had been sent to “reform” their thinking.

The Tin Lanh leaders reported that they still hold church conferences. The northern church has two in a year, one for pastors and one as a general congress for all members. In the south, Pastor Minh spoke of a conference for central Viet Nam to which ninety delegates had come. A conference of Tin Lanh churches of all south Viet Nam was held last June, he said. Both areas also reported continued outreach. The central Tin Lanh church in Danang recorded that thirty persons were baptized last year, for instance, and the church in Hai Hung in the north had baptized fifteen. The Tin Lanh church in Haiphong reportedly baptized a dozen persons just before Christmas.

While Protestants make up only a small segment of Vietnamese society, Roman Catholics, who number about three million in the 50 million population, form a much more significant part. They also appear to have come to terms with Vietnamese-style Communism in a way that the evangelical Protestants still have not. Vu Thanh Trinh, a priest from Can Tho, south of Saigon, for instance, is also a member of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly. Trinh reported to the Mennonite delegation that there are at least a dozen Catholic Christians in the National Assembly, including three priests. Christians are also found in many other areas of public life, he said, and have been honored for their achievements.

Members of the National Catholic Committee of Viet Nam cited a series of specific guarantees for religious belief going back to a 1955 decree signed by Ho Chi Minh. Respect for religion and belief as well as the intention that religious groups should unify were reiterated by party chief Le Duan at the recent government congress, the Catholics said. They also reported that a national bishops’ conference to unify the Catholics of the north and the south is expected within the next year or so.

The Catholics, like the Protestants, reported government help in rebuilding churches. They said that a number of the 500 churches in the north partially or totally destroyed by bombs had been rebuilt with funds and materials provided by the government. Chinh Toa Cathedral, for example, received 300,000 piasters plus wood, cement, and other building materials, they claimed.

A vivid demonstration of the vitality of faith in the new Viet Nam was given the Mennonites at a Catholic mass they attended in the Hanoi Cathedral at the end of their visit in Viet Nam. The large cathedral was filled with worshipers, ranging from little children to old people. In the midst of the drab poverty of post-war, socialist Viet Nam, the Catholic believers entered into “a hauntingly beautiful experience of worship,” as one Mennonite described it. A choir of young and old voices “sang of glories not yet seen,” he said, and the faithful repeated confessions of the church many centuries old. A sermon preached without notes by the cathedral priest conveyed a message that would have warmed the heart of nearly any evangelical. “It is not enough to live ordinary lives,” said the priest. “Just as Jesus changed the water into wine, so he changes men into new men, into a strange, glorious, and shining newness. Through us, we become a sign for everybody, so they too can believe in Jesus.”

The light has not gone out in Viet Nam. Some believe it may be shining brighter than ever.

Graham: Warm-up in Sweden

In some ways it was colder than expected at the Billy Graham crusade last month in Sweden’s second-largest city, Gothenburg (445,000 population). In other ways it was warmer, much warmer.

The weather turned out to be colder than expected in the coastal city, whose temperature is usually moderated by effects of North Atlantic currents. The spiritual temperature of the people, however, turned out to be far above the predicted low. The response he saw there prompted Graham to say the Gothenburg meetings were the “nearest touch to revival I’ve seen in nearly twenty years.”

Campaign chairman Sven Ahdrian, a pastor and medical doctor, commented, “We always think the Swede is a cool and calm one, never one to express his feelings in a public way. But we’ve seen people coming forward weeping as they have come to Jesus Christ.”

Graham said the response to the invitation to receive Christ was so unexpected and so overwhelming that people coming forward initially were unable to get help from the weeping counselors. A total of 867 decisions for Christ were recorded.

Attendance at the Scandinavium set a new record on Saturday, the fourth of five nights of the crusade. The crowd of 14,000 overflowed the auditorium, and hundreds who couldn’t get in stood outside in the snow. The event that drew the largest crowd to the arena previously was a Johnny Cash performance.

State church (Lutheran) leaders who had been cool to the crusade in the early stages warmed up, too. Graham got invitations to hold crusades in other major Scandinavian centers. Among them was Stockholm, where Archbishop Olof Sundby, the nation’s top Lutheran, said he would join the evangelist on the platform if he would preach there. Sundby is one of the six presidents of the World Council of Churches.

Graham also noticed a different kind of reception from the Swedish press. It has been generally hostile to him in the past, but this time he got generous and often sympathetic coverage.

Back in the United States late last month the evangelist told reporters he would put a high priority on an early return to Scandinavia. At the National Religious Broadcasters meeting in Washington he said response to his recent crusades had taught him a lesson. His 1976 crusades had been held in some of America’s largest facilities (the Kingdome in Seattle and the new Pontiac, Michigan, stadium) even though he thought the day had gone when such arenas could be filled for gospel meetings. After the results there and in Gothenburg, he told the broadcasters, he decided “to continue [with the large crusades] as long as I have strength and breath.”

Big Day in Dallas

The 19,000-member First Baptist Church of Dallas set aside one Sunday last month for a fund-raising drive to raise $750,000 in offerings and pledges to match a similar amount offered by member Mary Carter Crowley to dedicate debt-free a nine-story church building. At the close of the evening service on January 16, Pastor W. A. Criswell, using a telephone hook-up to the church’s business office, announced to the 3,000 present that $2.8 million had come in (including Mrs. Crowley’s gift), enough to pay off the $1.5 million balance on the $3 million building and to pay a few other bills besides.

A short time later, the congregation gathered in below-freezing weather to dedicate the Mary C Building, named in Mrs. Crowley’s honor.

The special offering was in addition to First Baptist’s normal Sunday contributions, which average $85,000 from three services and Sunday school.

Out of the Blue, A Vote

Evangelicals in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (Southern) who decided they would rather fight than switch (to the new Presbyterian Church in America) are now confident they made the right choice.

Those who stayed launched a major campaign to defeat a proposed doctrinal change in the denomination, and they now expect to have their victory before the end of this month. Under the church’s constitution, any merger or doctrinal amendment requires the approval of three-fourths of the sixty presbyteries. Only sixteen are needed to kill the proposed confessional package, and thirteen were recorded by February 1.

Opponents of the package (including a new declaration of faith, a book of confessions, and new ordination vows) were counting on votes still to be cast by presbyteries that have conservative voting records. They do not expect a majority of the regional bodies to cast ballots against the proposal, but they do expect to get more than the sixteen needed for defeat. In many of the twenty-one presbyteries favoring the changes as of February 1, the tally was close (such as Atlanta, 124–117, and Southeast Missouri, 35–28).

The opposition forces were mobilized largely by the Covenant Fellowship of Presbyterians, an independent organization that continued to try to work within the denomination after other such groups turned their efforts toward founding the Presbyterian Church in America in 1971. One example of their strategy that got newspaper attention was in the Middle Tennessee presbytery, where a pastor had to conduct a funeral an hour before his presbytery’s vote. A helicopter was hired to whisk him from the funeral in Nashville to the meeting in Shelbyville. His vote was one of the 68 against the proposal, and the number of favorable votes was only 62. In the same presbytery ten sets of tire chains were purchased for drivers in ten counties to assure that no one would miss the meeting if a forecast snowfall caused highway problems.

The fight is not over, however, since the denomination is also moving toward union with the United Presbyterian Church (which has a doctrinal position similar to the one being rejected in the PCUS). Presentation of a plan of union has already been delayed until after the confessional vote, but some observers expect a merger proposal to be sent to the presbyteries by 1979. Union would also require the affirmative vote of three-fourths of the regional units.

Winter, 1977

Weather patterns in January and February prodded people coast to coast to look heavenward. In the West there has been a devastating drought. “Humbly let all ask creator for his gift of rain,” implored a big lighted sign outside St. Boniface Catholic Church in San Francisco. Mountain resort operators were praying for snow. If the snow doesn’t come more than skiers will suffer. Water and power shortages that have plagued the populous coastal region will be worse this summer, warn the experts.

Meanwhile, the brutal winter east of the Rockies plus the resulting energy crisis forced the temporary closing of many churches, church schools, and other buildings. In compliance with state conservation measures, the big Southern Baptist headquarters complex in Nashville, Tennessee, shut down for nearly a week in January, the first such closing in its history. Self-sufficient Amish in Ohio couldn’t get their buggies through the snowstorms and drifts to church, the first time many recalled this had happened.

Ohio governor John Rhodes, a Presbyterian, called for two days of prayer for his stricken state on the last weekend of January. He asked church people to pray “for strength to endure the coldest days of our time.” He and a sparse crowd gathered in the chilly capitol rotunda for a two-minute prayer meeting on Saturday. Among the four who led in prayer was Democratic legislator Phale Hale, a Baptist pastor in Columbus. He asked God to “turn up the thermostats of the world and give us heat.”

Rich Little Church

Hebron Baptist Church near Pheba, Mississippi, is a 125-year-old rural church with 130 members and an annual budget of $8,000. Its pastor is Willard Crawley, 26, a senior majoring in Bible and history at Blue Mountain College. The church recently inherited $2 million from the estate of a former member who is buried in the church cemetery. The will specifies that the money is to be used for the “preservation” of the church, parsonage, and cemetery, with a monthly supplement of $300 to be added to the pastor’s salary. Crawley estimated interest on the money will bring in up to $200,000 a year.

There could be difficulty in figuring out what can be done with all that money. One person may think “preservation” means upkeep only, says Crawley. “Another might think it could include spending for additions and support of missions.”

First in Portugal

Presbyterian clergyman Jose Manuel Leite, a member of the World Council of Churches Central Committee, was elected mayor of Figueria da Foz, a coastal town about ninety miles north of Lisbon, Portugal. It is believed to be the first time a Protestant minister has been elected to public office in predominantly Roman Catholic Portugal.

Retraction

Last fall the National Courier, a biweekly tabloid published by Logos International, launched a testimonial series on miracles. One of the first stories was about faith healer Alice Pattico, who claimed she had been healed in a 1974 Kathryn Kuhlman meeting from breast and brain cancer and addiction to pain-killing drugs. She said her breasts, which had been removed in surgery, were restored, and that God had filled thirteen holes that had been drilled in her head in 1973 to administer laser beam surgery. She and her husband provided the Courier with doctors’ letters to document her claims.

In its first issue this month the Courier forthrightly took it all back.

Unknown to the Courier at the time, a 1975 article in a Bakersfield, California, newspaper quoted doctors cited by Mrs. Pattico as denying they wrote letters presented by her. She left town and took her healing campaigns to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

When several doctors objected to the Courier article, the paper’s editors launched a two-month investigation of its own. The letters turned out to be fraudulent, the editors found, and the purported operations never took place. At last word, noted the paper, the Patticos were rumored to be back in California.

New Church Member In Town

Jimmy Carter’s first visit to the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., was in 1967. He was still smarting from defeat in his first gubernatorial campaign. This year he sat at the head table, a winner.

It was the twenty-fifth annual edition of the breakfast, sponsored on January 27 by the Senate and House prayer groups that meet weekly on Capitol Hill (see February 14, 1975, issue, page 61). More than 4,000 people attended, a record, and 1,000 of them had to be content to listen in from two large rooms adjoining the main ballroom of the Washington Hilton hotel. Among them, as in the past, were many representatives of America’s power structure: most members of Congress, the Supreme Court, the Administration, other top government officials, and many in the private sector of national leadership.

The keynote speaker was House majority leader James Wright of Texas, a Presbyterian. He distinguished between religion and “religiosity,” emphasized God’s forgiveness through Christ, and called for a new beginning in national life.

The crowd gave him an ovation. Carter was the first to stand. He hugged Wright, said he was “proud to be a brother with him” and “a child of God,” and launched into a seventeen-minute sermon without notes on Second Chronicles 7:14 and its call for national humility.

Carter explained that he had wanted to use the verse in his inaugural address but settled on Micah 6:8 instead when his staff members convinced him that he might be misunderstood. The masses, they argued, would think he proudly looked upon himself as Solomon if he used the Chronicles verse, and they would think he was self-righteously calling them wicked.

He appealed to the leaders of the government to heed the exhortation of Jesus: “Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant.” “As those of us who are Christians know,” said the President, “the most constantly repeated admonition from Christ was against pride.”

In closing, he recalled some differences in attitude he had noticed during several White House receptions. Military officers, he said, were usually the ones to say things like “God be with you” and “We are praying for you” despite their being symbols of the nation’s strength.

At the outset of the breakfast a Navy ensemble sang “Amazing Grace,” Carter’s favorite hymn. Republican congresswoman Majorie S. Holt of Maryland, a Presbyterian, presided. Prayers and Scripture readings were led by Kentucky governor Julian M. Carroll, also a Presbyterian; Republican Senator Charles H. Percy of Illinois, a Christian Scientist; Democratic congressman Gunn McKay of Utah, a Mormon; Republican senator Peter V. Domenici of New Mexico, a Roman Catholic; Democratic senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia, a Seventh Day Baptist; General David C. Jones, Air Force Chief of Staff; Burt O. Lance of the Office of Management and Budget; and former Senator Harold E. Hughes, a worker in “the Fellowship” (formerly International Christian Leadership), the behind-the-scenes group that directs much of the spiritual activity among Washington’s leaders.

Hughes had everyone join hands at their tables and pray informally “as led,” then closed the meeting with an eloquent prayer of his own.

At a Christian leadership luncheon sponsored by the Fellowship that day, evangelist Billy Graham remarked that it was the first national prayer breakfast since 1953 where a President of the United States spoke of Jesus Christ in a personal way.

Earlier in the week, Carter and his wife surprised a lot of people when on their first Sunday at First Baptist Church in Washington they presented themselves for church membership. Many had thought they would visit other churches before settling down. Joining with them by promise of a letter of transfer from the Plains (Georgia) Baptist Church were their son Chip and his wife Caron, and Annette, wife of son Jeff, who did not walk forward with the others. Nine-year-old Amy Carter expressed her desire to join on the basis of profession of faith in Christ, and she will be baptized later.

The President took part in the Sunday-school class that preceded the service and indicated his willingness to teach the class sometimes.

At the same time the Carters joined, a black from North Carolina was also voted into membership. About fifty of the church’s 946 members are black. It is dually aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention and the American Baptist Convention. Harry Truman was the last President to worship there regularly.

Pastor Charles A. Trentham, a former seminary professor and university dean, spoke on the theme of “new beginnings” as the Carters themselves experienced a new beginning.

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

J. D. Douglas

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Over the years, the growing National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) organization has grown accustomed to having the president of the United States appear at its annual Washington convention. The 1977 meeting was held the week after Jimmy Carter’s inauguration, and even though the White House staff never confirmed that the President would attend, there were high expectations that he would show up. He didn’t.

Carter’s name was on the program as the special “invited guest” at the Sunday-night opening session. After he did not appear for that, rumors made the rounds that he would be at the final banquet on Wednesday. He ate elsewhere.

NRB members who stayed in Washington long enough to read the following day’s newspapers learned that while they were hearing a written message from the new President, he was at a Washington Press Club party honoring the new Congress.

The President’s greetings, read by fellow Georgian Jimmy Waters, chairman of the Southern Baptist Radio and Television Commission, assured the broadcasters of his “warm support and understanding.” In remarks at the Press Club social across town, Carter joked about his celebrated Playboy magazine interview and about the possibility of sending a copy of it to guide Vice President Walter Mondale during his visit to Paris. Mondale’s wife was also a guest at the party.

The President’s absence from the NRB convention was all the more conspicuous since several prominent broadcasters had taken issue with him over the Playboy interview during the month before he was elected. The NRB had also arranged two September conferences at which President Gerald Ford, Carter’s opponent, gave his views to Christian leaders. Carter was interviewed by three NRB representatives later in the campaign.

Carter’s now famous sister, Ruth Stapleton, did attend the convention. She was there to promote her “inner healing” books and ministry. At the banquet she was seated next to the principal speaker, evangelist Billy Graham. She was also featured at a news conference with Graham earlier the same day.

Reporters grilled the President’s sister on her theological views, focusing on comments about hell she had made earlier on a network television show. She suggested that the context of her disputed denial of eternal punishment was an attempt to show God’s love, but she did not retract the denial. Her ministry does not emphasize the “afterlife,” she said in answer to a question about whether she believed in universal salvation. She revealed that she had conducted “inner healing” sessions for Hindus and members of other non-Christian groups, but she indicated that her “ulterior motive” was to “bring people to Christ.” Asked for her understanding of the term “born again,” Mrs. Stapleton declared that she is constantly born again in new experiences.

Graham, questioned by reporters after Mrs. Stapleton’s session, praised her for “going around the country to exalt the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,” but he stressed that his ministry is concerned with both “this life and the life to come.” This brought applause from scores of NRB participants at the conference.

In both his news conference and his banquet address, Graham made a point of applauding the often maligned Sunday-morning “religious ghetto” broadcasts. He reported that he had recently been listening to the programs and that he disagreed with those who criticized them for delivering poor service or poor quality to their audiences. “I thank God for them,” he told his audience, again evoking applause.

The evangelist also expressed gratitude for the signs of evangelical resurgence in the United States and elsewhere, but he cautioned that “harvest time never lasts long.” He urged the broadcasters to “give yourselves to prayer” while taking advantage of current freedoms to broadcast the Gospel.

Two of the most prominent symbols of the nation’s evangelical awareness, Charles Colson and Eldridge Cleaver, were seen and heard at the convention. They embraced each other at a news conference, and the former Black Panther leader said he had found Colson—the reputed “hatchet man” of the Nixon administration—“to be a very understanding person” because of his prison experience. About Cleaver, Colson commented: “I’m glad the Lord Jesus Christ got him.” Colson announced that he had agreed to let his story, Born Again, be made into a movie by Hollywood promoter Robert L. Munger, described as the originator of The Omen and “a brother” recommended to Colson by singer Pat Boone. The screenplay will be written by veteran television writer Walter Bloch, who identified himself to journalists and broadcasters at the convention as “born again like my dear brothers [Colson and Munger] at this table.” While Colson insisted that the movie will be a true portrayal of his spiritual experience, the producer said it would be a “secular” picture for general theater showing and not a “church film.”

Two lame-duck members of the Federal Communications Commission challenged the broadcasters to continue their fight for good alternative programming. Chairman Richard E. Wiley, whose term expires this year, and commissioner Benjamin L. Hooks, who is leaving to take over the top executive post at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, were both applauded when they spoke of the necessity of presenting broadcast fare that will enhance and not degrade the nation’s moral and spiritual values. Both FCC members emphasized, however, that government censorship was not the way to get more decent programs.

From within their own ranks the broadcasters heard a challenge to speak up as prophets on current issues. In accepting the NRB’s award of excellence in program production, speaker Joel Nederhood of the “Back to God Hour” cited abortion as one pressing issue. He told an overflow crowd at the convention’s congressional breakfast, “Just two days after we installed our President with prayers and hymns, it became our sad duty to recall the date that will live in infamy for the United States, January 22, 1973, the day abortion on demand was legalized. Because of this, we as broadcasters and you as legislators and judges express our callings in an environment of grave moral confusion, expressed in the devaluation of human life itself.”

While last year’s joint NRB—National Association of Evangelicals convention was larger, this year’s NRB meeting had a record attendance of broadcasters and guests. A total of 1,300 registered, compared with 150 ten years ago. The organization added nineteen new members this year to bring the roster up to 769 from 104 on the rolls ten years ago. The NRB membership is made up of station operators and program producers. Ben Armstrong, the executive secretary, was cited for his ten years of work in the organization.

Curses

The whole thing began with a routine sort of curse in the Scottish Hebridean island of Lewis. The local cinema had scandalized Calvinist opinion by showing Jesus Christ Superstar, and the Free Presbyterian minister in Stornoway weighed in with a curse that gave a welcome boost to the sparse attendance. Nevertheless, coincidence or not, the cinema ceased operations thereafter. Rejoicing was premature, however, and the efficacy of the curse is now being questioned, for announcement has been made that the erstwhile cinema is reopening—as a bingo hall.

Thomas F. Zimmerman, Assemblies of God general superintendent and retiring first vice-president of the NRB, was cited for serving twenty-five years as an officer. In a surprise request read at a business session, he asked not to be reelected. He has attended all thirty-four of the organization’s conventions and served several terms as president. In response to a reporter’s question, Zimmerman said his stepping down from NRB office was in no way related to a controversy in the Assemblies of God involving him and aired in a recent Jack Anderson column.

The current president, Abe C. Van Der Puy of the World Missionary Radio Fellowship (HCJB), was named to another one-year term. In accordance with NRB practice, two nominees were presented for each major office, but members chose Van Der Puy over Georgian Jimmy Waters. Waters continues on the board. Zimmerman will also continue to serve on the board and on its executive committee.

For the first time this year, the NRB will be operating on a budget of more than a quarter of a million dollars. Projected expenditures for 1977 total $322,500, compared with a 1976 budget of $244,700 and actual 1976 expenditures of $276,425.

At a board meeting during the convention, the NRB’s backing was given to an ad hoc group of station operators who have put up a war chest of over $10,000 to challenge the current fee system imposed on them by music copyright holders. The group of over 100 stations organized a year ago, but they are operating independently of the NRB. They anticipate a savings of over $1 million for religious stations if they can negotiate a new contract.

Casting For News

Burgeoning interest in evangelical Christianity in 1976 is being followed in 1977 by expanding news coverage of evangelicals—especially on radio.

Broadcasters visiting exhibits at last month’s Washington, D.C., convention of National Religious Broadcasters found more offerings on the news front than ever before. The newest is a daily service being planned by Forrest Boyd, a veteran White House radio-network correspondent who is now communications director of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Details remain to be worked out, but Boyd expects to produce the newscast from BGEA headquarters in Minneapolis even though a separate company might be established as the parent body. He anticipates a staff of five or six journalists, with about half of them working in Washington.

A brochure available to broadcasters at the convention described the new service as offering “not exclusively Christian or religious news, but news that is of special interest to Christians.” Boyd is completing arrangements with United Press International to transmit the programs over its lines. In addition to news feeds five days a week, Boyd also plans a weekend interview feature. Stations will pay about $11 per week for the material and line charges.

Boyd said he began working on the idea long before he went to the BGEA last fall. Station operators at the NRB convention a year ago approached him about the possibility of developing the service.

The NRB itself launched a news service in 1974 in connection with the International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne. The fifteen-minute weekly program, “World Religious News,” continued under NRB sponsorship until the end of 1976. It was not paying its own way, however, and the NRB Board decided to drop it as a nonessential function of the organization.

“World Religious News” is being continued under the auspices of the Walter F. Bennett advertising agency at its Philadelphia office. Bennett handles the production of radio and television programs for a number of Christian organizations, including the BGEA. Robert Straton, account executive with Bennett, is in charge of the new enterprise, but he said that it has been set up as a separate company. The principals in the Bennett agency are the major stockholders of the new company, however.

Kathy Osbeck, who joined “World Religious News” last year, has moved to Philadelphia to be the producer of the program. Broadcaster Denny Milgate, once the producer of the show when it was under NRB auspices, is working with her one day a week. The program is mailed to stations. Bennett is doubling the rates (to $35 per month, air mail) in the hopes of making it pay off. Straton also anticipates expanding the service, possibly offering it to pastors and other Christian leaders for non-broadcast use.

Milgate, meanwhile, as started a new program featuring interviews with prominent Christians. He is working initially with publishers, and the program, “First Hand,” is given to stations without charge. Authors of new books are the principal guests on the two weekly programs.

The newer offerings share a market with a variety of other news-oriented programs. Most of the older ones are produced by missionary organizations to inform supporters of their own work and not to report on a broad spectrum of evangelical activity, however. Boyd and Osbeck assured questioners that their shows will not be pushing the work of any particular organization.

Among the other religious news programs available to Christian and secular stations are “Ecumedia,” produced under the auspices of the National Council of Churches, and “Church World News,” produced jointly by the Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church.

ARTHUR H. MATTHEWS

Only Males Need Apply

The Vatican last month said it again, only this time there were more people listening: the Roman Catholic Church cannot admit women to the priesthood. The tradition of conferring priestly ordination only upon men began with Christ, said a 6,000-word paper approved by the Pope, and the church must remain faithful to Christ’s example.

As expected, the pronouncement has provoked widespread expressions of protest, even demonstrations outside churches by activists who want equal rights for women in the church. U.S. bishops endorsed the paper but said women should have more rights.

Religion in Transit

Despite stiff opposition from church leaders, a new ruling by the Internal Revenue Service went into effect last month. It requires most church-supported colleges, universities, hospitals, and nursing homes, as well as certain other organizations with church ties, to file an informational return known as Form 990. Most secular tax-exempt educational and charitable groups have been subject to the requirement for years. Total income and its sources, expenses, major salaries, and names of officers are among the items on the form. Church leaders claim it amounts to intrusion by the government in religious affairs.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out for the fourth annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., last month. Legislators were among those at a rally outside the Capitol calling for a constitutional amendment to outlaw abortion. Participants then marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and held another rally near the White House, where President Carter was entertaining diplomats.

Southern Baptists in Texas this month launched a four-week $1.5 million media blitz to give “living proof” (the program’s theme slogan) through testimonies of well-known personalities that Christ can change lives. The project is sponsored by the 4,400 Southern Baptist churches in Texas. Coach Grant Teaff of Baylor University and actress Jeanette Clift George (The Hiding Place) are co-chairpersons. A 1975 survey showed that of the 12 million people in Texas, 4.7 million were not members of any Christian group.

Describing himself as “just an everyday Baptist,” Arkansas state legislator Arlo Tyer of Pocahontas has proposed a $1,500 tax on unmarried couples, according to news reports. “God created the home,” said Tyer, 65, “and it’s being broken up by permissiveness.”

Fifteen religious groups last month filed stockholder resolutions with five major U.S. banks in an effort to halt hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to South Africa. The groups (including the United Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian Church in the U.S., United Methodist Church, Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, Union Seminary, and several Catholic bodies) own nearly $10 million in bank stock. The action is in protest against South Africa’s apartheid policies.

Thanks to a generous bequest, a Jesuit high school in Phoenix has found itself the new landlord of a topless dance bar, an X-rated movie theater, a p*rnography shop, and a Salvation Army thrift shop. School officials say they will sell the property “when the price is right.” The deceased willed the properties to Brophy prep shortly before her husband of two years began developing leases for adult entertainment on them.

Personalia

David J. du Plessis, 71, a kind of traveling ambassador for the charismatic movement, is the object of controversy in some circles, but he claims it is the result of misunderstanding and distortion of a remark he made last year about the Pope. During a Canadian newspaper interview, du Plessis was asked what he thought of the doctrine of papal infallibility. He replied that God had used it to bring about rapid renewal in the Catholic Church. “God only had to deal with one man to renew an entire church,” he said. “Papal infallibility is not a problem for me.” Somehow his remarks (repeated in some charismatic meetings) have been twisted by some to indicate he personally believes in papal infallibility (he doesn’t).

World Scene

For a while it appeared that Wycliffe Bible Translators would have to leave Peru because of opposition in some circles, but last month the government authorized Wycliffe’s academic arm, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, to continue its work there for the next five years. The Expreso, a leading daily, editorialized in Wycliffe’s behalf.

Anglican Burgess Carr, general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches, last month called for the countries of Africa to declare war against Rhodesia. Within three days, he said, power could be transferred to the nation’s black majority.

At least ten million Hindu pilgrims sought salvation last month through immersion in the Ganges River at the climax of Kumbh Mela, Hinduism’s holiest ritual bathing festival, according to news dispatches. The ancient festival, which takes place every twelve years, is also a sort of parliament of Hinduism, the faith of most of India’s 600 million people. Held near Allahabad, it is believed to be the largest mass gathering in the world.

Divorce with remarriage is forbidden by the Spanish constitution, but the topic is a growing storm center of public debate. Legislation permitting divorce is being considered by a government commission. Opponents of the ban claim it hurts society and has made adultery—a prison-punishable criminal offense—“rampant.” Government figures show there are some 200,000 persons legally separated but barred from remarrying. Currently, under a 1953 concordat with the Vatican, only ecclesiastical courts can dissolve (annul) marriages, which it does by declaring them non-existent in the first place. Few annulment petitions are successful.

An episode of the American television series “Executive Suite” that dealt with abortion and lesbianism was banned from Irish television because of “sensitive moral and legal issues which are inappropriate for treatment in a program of this type,” according to an Irish TV official. (In the United States, CBS said none of its affiliates had refused to show the controversial episode.)

The World Council of Churches appealed last month to President Jorge Rafael Videla of Argentina to take “urgent steps to find educator Mauricio Lopez, a well-known ecumenical leader and WCC commission member kidnaped from his home in Mendoza on New Year’s Day. Lopez’s family reportedly received a letter from him stating he had not been subjected to any pressure but giving no indication of where he was being held or why.

Baptist work in Angola continues despite renewed fighting and the absence of Baptist missionaries, say Southern Baptist sources. Some churches are packed on Sundays. Several congregations plan to ordain their lay leaders. Bibles, say leaders, are much in demand but in short supply.

Authorities in the Philippines are investigating faith healers who allegedly pay off travel agents abroad to send them patients. The Board of Medicine recently declared faith healing to be “an illegal practice of medicine.” The type of faith healing under scrutiny is practiced by many people, a number of them uneducated entrepreneurs who employ magic, questionable potions, and the like. For the most part, patients have been reluctant to testify.

Executive Paul Hansen of the Lutheran World Federation has announced tentative plans whereby German-speaking Lutheran congregations in the Soviet Union will be provided with Bibles. Officials of the government’s Council of Religious Affairs suggested the possibility, he said.

Eleven pastors for the 350,000-member Evangelical Luthern Church of Latvia in the Soviet Union have been ordained in recent months, according to news sources. All graduated from the Theological Institute in Riga, which has about forty students, most of them over age 30.

During the first year of legalized abortion in France, more than 45,000 abortions were reported.

- More fromJ. D. Douglas

Klaus Bockmuhl

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Last summer’s (third) volume of Kontinent, mouthpiece of Eastern European emigration literature, carried a striking article by Mihajlo Mihajlov, 43, a Yugoslav lecturer in Slavonic literature. Mihajlov is now in jail for the third time for his nonconformist publications, serving a seven-year sentence that began in 1974. The article is entitled “The Mystical Experience of Captivity.” In it Mihajlov describes his experience (also to be found in the Russian writers Solzhenitsyn, Panin, and Abram Terz) that “only he who saves his soul, i.e., remains loyal to the truth, his conscience or his inner voice, and is even willing to die for that end, may actually save both, soul and body, whereas those who compromise with lies and materialism usually lose both.”

Mihajlov goes on to speak of some higher power and authority he experienced in prison that will make a person almost invincible if he listens to that inner voice, which he terms the calling of God. Consequently, for him the whole ideological battle and power struggle of today in the last analysis is not a political but a religious battle. The true battle line runs between good and evil. The peak sentence of this part of Mihajlov’s essay runs, “To follow that inner voice, then, means nothing else than to determine our present actions with a view to eternity.” This is the decisive rule for living in captivity—and that includes everybody, even those who enjoy civil liberty but are subject to lack of freedom in other ways, through illness or other adverse conditions.

This is a weighty and much needed challenge for us in the West who are continually tempted to compromise with materialism in its different and sometimes sublime forms. In his prison cell Mihajlov has struck on the “mystery” that used to animate Christians, that is, vivere sub specie aeternitatis, to live under the perspective of eternity.

A search for this almost proverbial phrase in theological encyclopedias and twentieth-century textbooks of dogmatics and ethics is fruitless. The absence reveals a major lack of conviction in present-day official Christendom. “Eschatology and ethics” is supposed to be an important element of New Testament thinking, but recent textbooks of ethics have nothing on eternity as a major motive and steering force of Christian action. Of course, the “theology of hope” has meant a step forward, but it often seems to be a hope geared to goals of social development designed to be attained in the near future. The biblical ideas that “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil 3:20) and “For here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come” (Heb. 13:14) do not figure in our teaching.

One has to go back to Calvin’s Institutes, in which he describes the Christian life under but two headings, mortification and meditation of the future life, and warns Christians not to give too much attention to earthly things. As often, Calvin here follows in the steps of St. Augustine of Hippo and his recommendation to seek the heavenly Kingdom and let our lives be formed by our desire for life eternal and the vision of God.

This is a call to reconsider our priorities. Ten years after World War II some of us began to study sociology along with theology. We began to take seriously the ideological challenge of Karl Marx—a task unavoidable at a time when Marxism had a curious idealistic appeal. Moreover, this generation began to shake off the dominance of Bultmann, Barth, and others in a quest for the reality of God. Nevertheless, we have been at fault in helping to replace the other-worldliness of former evangelicals with a thorough this-worldliness! This is wrong. For one thing, a completely this-worldly orientation will never do the job of preparing Christians for a time of persecution.

Again and again, the Bible tells us that we need to break the iron grip of this-worldliness. We are not permanently at home on earth. The biblical statement “our citizenship is in heaven” shows there is a contrast of even higher importance than that of rich and poor, free and slave. It means that we are strangers in the land who may quickly become outsiders. We are like pilgrims, migrant workers on a temporary assignment, ambassadors extraordinary and plenipotentiary, or simply persons in exile. There is something of all these characteristics in the life of a Christian.

But there is also a sense of belonging to a land to which we will return soon, and an expectation of splendor and glory that gives color to all our actions. It creates an eagerness to apply the standards of eternity to our present decision-making. During our life on earth we must be sanctified and remade into God’s image in order to be ready—or at least less unfit—for the heritage of eternity. Cleansed and changed and more and more drawn into his light, we need to become what we are meant to be. That wooden old egocentric heart of ours cannot inherit the Kingdom.

The precious privilege of that higher horizon must bring about soberness and a discernment of earthly things. Living in the light of eternity will always create a certain distance between the Christian and the affairs of this world. He must be found in a constant movement of exodus, in order to be with Christ—and perhaps bear Christ’s humiliations with him. If our reference point is in heaven, we will not be trapped in reactions of bitterness or cynicism, nor be controlled by what events and people do to us.

However, meditation on the future life does not teach us to hide and mourn in a remote corner. This may not be our way of thinking, but the Bible links existence “in exile” with the highest possible responsibility for the welfare of the land of our abode. Jeremiah is to write to those in exile in Babylon, “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile” (Jer. 29:7). God commands nothing less than the engagement of the exiled. The believer shall not allow himself to be depressed by conditions but act responsibly to promote the welfare of a city that is not his own and will always take second place only in his hierarchy of values.

This sounds contradictory, and many evangelicals, tempted like other human beings to rationalize, have often voted for their first loyalty without recognizing the Lord’s orders for the second! But, having that higher point of reference and faculty of discernment in mind, who should be better equipped than the evangelical to look after the welfare of people, with a loyalty to his commission that is not diminished by adverse experiences?

The book of Daniel presents us with an admirable example for the Christian to follow during his earthly run of time. Like Daniel, he is to exercise his statesmanlike task and prerogative to help sustain the world even if there are only ten just men in a city. And at the same time, like Daniel, he needs to have “his windows open toward Jerusalem” (Dan. 6:10), to honor his eternal calling in prayer and in everything he does.

- More fromKlaus Bockmuhl

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Next year I will be sixty-five, and I have asked the Board of Directors to find my successor. I hope that he (or she) will join us by next September. We would overlap for some months to make the transition easier. After that I hope to take on a part-time job and to write two or three books that are on the drawing board. Despite recent surgery (removal of an adenoma in the isthmus of the thyroid), I feel great, and I’m looking forward to another decade of hard work.

In the next issue we will run an interview with some former members of the Children of God cult and a picture of the controversial COG founder, David Berg, whose picture has never appeared in print so far as we know. It’s a scoop!