Page 5699 – Christianity Today (2025)

It was the largest convention ever to hit town, announced Kansas City newspapers last month when nearly 40,000 registrants arrived for “The 1977 Conference on Charismatic Renewal in the Christian Churches.”

Almost half of the participants were Roman Catholics. The others came from a variety of denominational and independent backgrounds. For four nights Arrowhead Stadium, the sparkling 79,000-seat home of the Kansas City Chiefs football team in the southeastern section of the city, reverberated with their singing and jubilant praises to Jesus. On three mornings they gathered in denominational and “fellowship” sub-conferences on the Holy Spirit in auditoriums, halls, and churches scattered across town. During the afternoons they congregated in dozens of workshops and seminars. The event concluded on an upbeat note in Sunday morning worship sessions at the sub-conference sites.

Because of it all, many said they will never be the same. Numerous individuals said they had gained for the first time a deep sense of oneness in Christ with Christians from other backgrounds. Some leaders expressed belief that the conference will have wide influence on Christian unity efforts.

The emotional high point of the interdenominational conference probably occurred on Friday night in the stadium. Presiding Bishop James Patterson of the Church of God in Christ pounded home the need for personal renewal. Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens of Belgium, a leading figure at Vatican Council II and in the Catholic charismatic movement, spoke gently but powerfully. “The world is dying because it doesn’t know the name of its saviour, Jesus Christ,” said Suenens. This name, he stated, is one “no one can pronounce without the power and the grace of the Holy Spirit.” The trouble “is not that we are Christian, but that we are not Christian enough,” he declared. “We have to be Christianized again … to be a new creation … so that others will see something of the Lord shining through us.”

Then came Bob Mumford of Cupertino, California, an independent Bible teacher who travels widely in charismatic circles. At one point he challenged Christians to drop their fearfulness and defensive mentality. He held his Bible aloft and said: “If you take a sneak look at the back of the book—glory, hallelujah—Jesus wins!” The crowd began cheering. “Glory to God! Jesus is Lord!” Mumford shouted, setting off the kind of thunderous response the Chiefs get after a touchdown. The lights on the giant score-board flashed repeatedly, “Jesus is Lord” and “Praise the Lord.” Next the scoreboard displayed pictures of the face of Jesus and of a crowd with uplifted arms worshiping him. The exuberant audience loved it.

Speakers on other evenings included General Secretary Vinson Synan of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, Episcopal rector Dennis Bennett of Seattle, Catholic lay leader Kevin Ranaghan of South Bend, Indiana, inner-healing advocate Ruth Carter Stapleton of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Catholic priest Francis MacNutt of St. Louis, Lutheran pastor Larry Christenson of San Pedro, California, and Catholic educator Michael Scanlon of Steubenville College in Ohio.

Bennett said he sees three streams of Christianity that are beginning to flow together: the Catholic stream with its emphasis on history and the continuity of the faith, the evangelical stream with its emphasis on loyalty to Scripture and the importance of personal commitment to Christ, and the Pentecostal stream with its emphasis on the immediate experience of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In the keynote address, Ranaghan, chairman of the conference planning committee, asserted that divisions among the various Christian churches have been a “serious scandal” in the world. “For the world to believe depends on our becoming one,” he said. It is the will of God, he emphasized, “that we be one.”

At a press conference, Mrs. Stapleton said she believes her brother, President Carter, is a “charismatic” Christian in the way that she defines a charismatic—one who has yielded to Jesus. She also stated that she had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and had exercised such spiritual gifts as healing, discernment, and prophecy eighteen months before she received the gift of praying in tongues.

Mrs. Stapleton’s remark underscored a basic difference of opinion among charismatics. Generally, classical Pentecostals and independent charismatics believe that speaking in tongues is the initial, necessary sign of Spirit baptism. Many charismatics in the Catholic Church and main-line Protestant denominations, however, believe that Spirit baptism can occur apart from tongues. The issue was not an agenda item for debate at the conference.

In a press briefing, Scanlon, MacNutt, and other Catholic leaders said that the charismatic movement is helping to return Catholic theology to its biblical moorings.

The conference was directed by a fourteen-member, all-male planning committee, with chief administrative duties carried out by Charismatic Renewal Services, the main service organization of the Catholic charismatic movement. Two-thirds of the $950,000 budget came from registration fees ($20 per head, with special rates for families). The remainder was raised in conference offerings. Hundreds of volunteers helped out (including 300 who supervised activities of the 900 children at the conference under age 12). Scores of buses shuttled conferees between their hotels, the stadium, and other conference sites.

Ten denominational and fellowship groups co-sponsored the main conference and held meetings of their own: Baptists, Pentecostals, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Mennonites, Messianic Jews, independent charismatics, Presbyterians, Catholics, and United Methodists. After Catholics, the next largest groups were the independents, Lutherans, and Methodists.

Southern Baptists and American Baptists discussed the possibility of organizing a pan-Baptist charismatic fellowship (there are an estimated 10,000 charismatics in each of the two Baptist bodies). The 750 or so United Methodists mulled over plans to organize formally within their denomination. Some disunity was noted over a proposal calling for charismatics to link arms with a non-charismatic evangelical caucus in the church. Leaders advised against it.

Two new fellowships were formed at Kansas City, the result of members of the same denomination discovering each other. One was organized by about sixty members of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a liberal denomination. UCC pastor Robert Carlson of Cleveland said there is “real hunger in the United Church of Christ for some renewal of the spirit.” The new group, he said, can be a channel for such renewal.

The other group was formed by about fifty conference participants who came from Wesleyan-Holiness background. These include the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, the Free Methodist Church, and The Church of God (Anderson, Indiana). The Christian and Missionary Alliance was also represented.

Ex-Nazarene clergyman Warren Black of Kansas City said inclusion of Church of the Nazarene members in the fellowship was significant in light of recent history. He alleged that the denomination has expelled about fifty of its ministers who had undergone the charismatic experience.

One denomination apparently wide open to the charismatic movement is the Episcopal Church. Leaders say one-fourth of the church’s active priests are involved in some way with the movement. In a press briefing, rector Everett Fullam of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Darien, Connecticut, predicted that in ten years “there will be only two kinds of Episcopal churches—charismatic or dead.” The church has lost a member every five minutes for the past ten years, he lamented. To fellow Episcopalians in the sub-conference he confided that the typical Episcopal church is not known as a spiritual-power center in the community where it is located. The denomination needs the unleashing of the Spirit’s power in the lives of its members, he said.

One of the most colorful and best-attended of the sub-conferences was the one on “Messianic Judaism and the Holy Spirit.” There was a lot of singing, Jewish folk dancing, and chanting of “Baruch HaShem! Baruch HaShem!” (translation: “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”). The most spirited discussion was not on charismatic issues but on how far Jewish followers of Jesus should go in retaining their Jewish identity. Some leaders warned that culture can become an idol impeding the Holy Spirit’s efforts to bring about unity among believers.

There were other warnings elsewhere. Some leaders said that the unity experienced by charismatics so far has been at the emotional level. Serious doctrinal differences do exist, and they have been passed over too easily, thus posing a threat to future unity efforts, they said. But, replied Ranaghan, he has seen so many barriers and hostilities crumble that he now believes there is a “real possibility of moving together toward some lasting form of Christian unity.”

As for the degree of unity exhibited at Kansas City, Vinson Synan remarked to a reporter: “Of all things God has done in this century, nothing has surprised me more than this.”

Church Roundup

Summer is the time when many denominations hold policy-making sessions. Here are some convention highlights:

Church of the Brethren. Andrew Young, a United Church of Christ clergyman and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, chided delegates to the annual Brethren conference in Richmond, Virginia, for getting “a little too establishment.” The 179,000-member denomination, with its Anabaptist-pacifist roots, should avoid being shaped by forces around it and should seek renewal, he said. (Young once served a stint as a Brethren Service Worker in Austria.)

The conference directed its general board to find ways in which women and other “under-represented groups” can become denominational leaders, but it rejected by a vote of 613 to 381 a proposal to require quotas of females in church leadership roles. Approved was a paper on marriage and divorce that sets the same standards for Brethren clergy and non-clergy. It allows divorce in some circumstances as a forgivable violation of the intent of Christ’s teachings.

Conservative Baptist Association of America. Celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, the 300,000-member CBA learned that for the first time its annual home-missions income has topped $2 million (with 250 missionaries under appointment). The association of 1,200 churches has 500 career personnel overseas, and foreign missions giving totals $6 million per year. Over 1,500 messengers (delegates) attended the Estes Park, Colorado, meeting.

Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Founded on the frontier in the midst of a preacher shortage, the 90,000-member denomination is now becoming more protective of its ministers’ prerogatives. Commissioners (delegates) at the Tampa, Florida, assembly defeated a proposal to allow lay elders and unordained but licensed preachers to officiate at baptism and communion. The governing body of the church also refused to take a stand against homosexuality and expansion of nuclear power.

Reformed Church in America. The appointment of Arie Brouwer, 42, as general secretary was approved by the general synod at Sioux Center, Iowa. He succeeds Marion De Velder, who retires September 1 after sixteen years in the 355,000-member denomination’s top post. In one of its stickiest issues, the synod affirmed that it was neither legally nor morally responsible for the troubled $5 million securities program of its San Dimas church in California. A commission was authorized, however, to find ways of raising money throughout the denomination to help note holders who suffered hardship because of the situation.

Despite a plea that it declare a year’s moratorium on the issue, the synod asked its district bodies to vote again on a constitutional amendment to permit the ordination of women ministers. The matter has been submitted for several years, failing each time to get the necessary two-thirds approval. Also submitted (but for study and not for a constitutional vote) was a proposal to allow children to participate in the Lord’s Supper before making their public professions of faith. A commission was directed to study a paper “affirming the human and civil rights of homosexuals and lesbians.”

Evangelical Free Church of America. Strong positions against abortion and divorce were adopted at the annual EFCA conference, which drew nearly 1,700 participants to Fort Collins, Colorado. The resolutions upheld the biblical norm of marriage as an “indissoluble bond” and called on the state to “guarantee the rights of the unborn child as it would guarantee the rights of any of its citizens.” The 660 congregations of EFCA were urged to develop “meaningful ministries” to single persons.

United Church of Christ. Just before the UCC general synod met in Washington, D.C., 498 of the 704 delegates returned a questionnaire on sex. Among the results: 65 per cent said they believe “many of the assumptions about human sexuality in the Old and New Testaments have been proved inaccurate.” The Bible’s “shortcomings” in this area, they held, should be criticized by current Christian ethics.

When they got down to voting in the synod the result was about the same. A controversial study on sexuality passed 402 to 210. Since 34 per cent were opposed, a minority report was appended in the published version. The majority advocated a view that the Bible alone is not an adequate guide for morality or sexual conduct. The report, which congregations of the 1.8 million-member denomination are being asked to study, looks askance at traditional interpretations of the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual acts. It also takes a liberal view of abortion, contraception, civil liberties for homosexuals, and sex outside of marriage. In a separate action the synod said it deplored the Dade County, Florida, repeal of a homosexual rights ordinance. The resolution denounced the use of the Bible to “generate hatred” in the controversy.

Avery Post, president of the Massachusetts conference of the UCC since 1970, was named president (the top executive post) of the denomination. The synod authorized a two-year study of the possibility of resuming formal merger talks with the Disciples of Christ. In a resolution on Africa the delegates asserted, “We now believe that withdrawal of business and investments from South Africa is the central expression of the gospel witness.”

Baptist General Conference. The 1,300 delegates to the BGC national meeting in Duluth, Minnesota, sent a letter of commendation to singer Anita Bryant, who has become a national symbol of the drive against the homosexual-rights movement. She was thanked for “being willing to become a rallying point for millions of Christian citizens.” The conference, which reported a nationwide membership of 121,000 and a record attendance of 3,100 at the meeting, assured the singer of “our prayerful support” and of its confidence that “you will join us in expressing Christ-like concern for the individuals in the homosexual community.” A proposed amendment to its bylaws, which would have barred employment of divorced persons in conference leadership positions, was defeated. However, an earlier statement upholding the “scriptural ideal” that marriage is “to be broken only by death” was reaffirmed.

Church of God (Anderson). For the first time, the church’s assembly approved a budget of over $5 million for its international endeavors. In addition to the 4,000 pastors and lay leaders composing the assembly at San Diego, more than 20,000 others reportedly participated in the sessions. James Earl Massey was named speaker on the denomination’s radio program, “The Christian Brotherhood Hour,” succeeding R. E. Sterner, speaker since 1968.

Helping Ugandans

Uganda’s president-for-life Idi Amin early last month did what many citizens of his country wish they could do: he left Uganda. Then he returned, after attending the meetings of the Organization of African Unity in Libreville, Gabon.

He was the only black African leader to be cheered at virtually every appearance in Libreville, the Associated Press reported. AP quoted an unidentified black delegate to the conference as saying, “Amin is a disgrace to all of Africa, but he is also the most popular man on this continent. There is a mystique of bigness and arrogance about him that fascinates the average African. If you elected a king of all Africa, Amin would win.”

The Ugandan dictator took the tri, only after getting assurances that the Anglican Church centenary celebrations would not spark a revolt. During preparations for the nationwide festival he had blown hot and cold, but he never told church officials they could not observe the anniversary. However, he found an excuse not to attend the June 30 service in Kampala’s cathedral, the event’s climax.

Amin reportedly ordered the cancellation of all invitations to non-Ugandans two days prior to the service. Outsiders were there, however, in the persons of Dutch Bible smuggler “Brother Andrew” Vander Bihl and two members of his staff. They entered the country as tourists without credentials from the church, and Anglican officials told them they were the only non-Ugandans attending. They were given places of honor at the three-and-one-half hour service at which former archbishop Erica Sabiti preached. Some 3,000 were inside and perhaps 100,000 outside, according to a report by the Dutch visitors.

Amin’s trip spotlighted the plight of some of his citizens who would not vote for him in any office. At least 3,000 of them are in Kenya now as refugees, and many are in other African states or in Europe. Most of them have fled since the murder of Archbishop Janani Luwum in February (see March 18 issue, page 49, and April 15 issue, page 20). Getting an accurate count of the exiled Ugandans is difficult because many have avoided registering for political asylum with host governments for fear of being identified by Amin agents abroad. Many who need material assistance have been reluctant to go to United Nations or Christian relief offices in Kenya.

Spearheading relief efforts is the (Anglican) Church of the Province of Kenya. Also involved in efforts to provide at least subsistence rations to the refugees are the World Council of Churches, the All Africa Conference of Churches, and World Vision. A unique ministry to students, intellectuals, and professionals is being launched by the African Enterprise organization (American address: P.O. Box 988, Pasadena, California 91102). Led by exiled Anglican bishop Festo Kivengere and administered in Kenya by another Anglican minister from Uganda, John Wilson, the program is named RETURN. Kivengere is seeking over $15 million to finance scholarships for students whose educations have been interrupted, to establish professionals (especially doctors) in new work, and to otherwise prepare leaders for the day when they will be able to return to Uganda.

Latin America: Catholics in Conflict

The following news account is based largely on reports filed by correspondent Stephen Sywulka:

Right-wing terrorists in El Salvador gave the forty-seven Jesuits in that Central American country thirty days to clear out or else be assassinated. “The execution of all Jesuits found in El Salvador after July 21 will be systematic and immediate,” warned a message released to the press by the White Warrior Union, a paramilitary anti-Communist organization.

Spiritual Payoff

Does bingo in a church hall pay off? John J. Capuano, a Roman Catholic pastor in Worcester, Massachusetts, said the weekly games at Mount Carmel-St. Ann Church grossed about $8,000 (of which $1,400 was clear profit) per week last year, but he’s not sure about the pay. In a recent parish bulletin he wrote, “Bingo has certainly helped us financially and somewhat socially, but it is no longer helping us morally or spiritually.”

When the parish’s gambling license expires in October the games will stop, the priest announced. Sometimes only 100 of the 500 playing are from the parish. Capuano said, “The people who came to play bingo weren’t coming to help the church or take part in a parish social. They came to make money.” About $5,300 of the weekly gross went to prizes. Deciding that bingo brings out the worst in players, the priest said he would stop the play because it has become too “hard to keep it innocent and charitable.”

The deadline passed without immediate violence. Many sources, however, said the Jesuits now are in jeopardy not only from the right but also from the left. Their theory is that leftists would welcome the opportunity to create a national disturbance that could be pinned on rightists—and thereby imperil the government of General Carlos Humberto Romero, the new president.

There had been speculation that Romero’s ascension (he was formerly minister of defense) might alleviate some of the tension that had built up between the government and the Roman Catholic Church over social-reform issues. But a June meeting between Romero and church leaders ended in an impasse, and Archbishop Oscar A. Romero y Galdámez and the hierarchy boycotted the new president’s inauguration ceremonies early this month. The boycott, said the archbishop, was a protest against government harassment of the church and the seeming lack of desire by authorities for dialogue and conciliation.

El Salvador has a population of about 4.5 million, 90 per cent of whom are identified as Catholic. The vast majority are landless, and there are hundreds of thousands of impoverished, mostly illiterate peasants, according to press sources. Lately, the Catholic Church has been calling for social justice, especially land reform (church leaders claim the government is protecting major landowners at the expense of peasants’ rights), and the Jesuits have been in the forefront of the controversy. Two priests were killed by terrorists earlier this year (the White Warriors claimed responsibility), another disappeared, some were beaten, and others were expelled (see June 17 issue, page 40). A Jesuit-run university has been bombed six times.

Despite the threats, the priests vowed to stay “until we fulfill our duty or are liquidated.” The government dispatched police and troops to protect churches, a seminary, and schools run by the Jesuits. Romero himself met with Jesuit officials and discussed security precautions for the priests, a number of whom shed their black suits and white collars in favor of civilian garb. Many of the country’s other 200-plus Catholic priests took similar precautions.

Romero did not mention the conflict in his inaugural address. He did say, “I will guarantee the free exercise of all religions, but I hope that the image of God is not confused with other kinds of behavior that provoke disharmony.” He also said he was conscious of the social injustice within the country, and he pledged that the government would try to use “the strength of the strongest sectors to help the weak” and to encourage employment and literacy.

In Guatemala, meanwhile, a breach between Cardinal Mario Casariego and the country’s bishops is widening. Casariego, an old-guard prelate with ties to a rightist political party, recently ordered his clergy to avoid political involvement. Earlier, he had disavowed a pastoral letter issued by the bishops in which they called for fairer distribution of land and wealth and for an end to unjust social structures.

The cardinal’s latest directive was in apparent response to another declaration by his ten bishops. They denied that Communism and class warfare are promoted by clergy supporting human rights, and they said that violence and repression grow out of “ongoing abysmal inequalities and the absence of daring and urgent reforms.” The statement was prompted in part by an attack on the church by Guatemala vice president Mario Sandoval Alarcon (who heads the party favored by the cardinal). Alarcon accused the church of helping the cause of Communism by its emphasis on “renovation” (renewal).

The bishops said that “some want to see the church’s mission reduced to preaching the mysteries revealed by God with no reference to human contemporary problems.” But because of the “excessive inequalities” existing among the people of Guatemala, they said, “the church is engaged in a series of activities that are promoting projects and works designed to make men more aware of their Christian … rights and responsibilities.”

Elsewhere in Latin America, Brazil’s congress by a vote of 226 to 159 approved a constitutional amendment providing for legalized divorce for the first time in the history of the country. The measure, stiffly opposed by the Catholic Church, allows for divorce after three years of legal separation or five years of de facto separation. Just before the vote Cardinal Aloisio Lorscheider warned that divorced Catholics will be barred from confession, communion, and last rites.

Graham: Back to the Bloc

Ten years ago Billy Graham boarded a train in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, after two days of rallies there. A large crowd of Christians came to the station to see him off and to beg him to return. He has not been back to Eastern Europe to preach since then, but he may soon return to that part of the world. This time it will be for a longer stay.

His acceptance of an invitation to conduct “a series of religious meetings” in Hungary was announced last month. It will be the evangelist’s first public appearance in any of the Communist countries since 1967 and his first full-scale evangelistic campaign in any of them. He will go to Hungary at the invitation of that nation’s Council of Free Churches, a federation of eight smaller Protestant groups (see April 15 issue, page 48). Although the larger Reformed and Lutheran Churches are not a part of the council, their leaders reportedly have given the plans tacit approval.

Graham’s trip may involve more than one Eastern bloc country. In announcing that he had accepted the Hungarian invitation, Graham also reported that negotiations are proceeding about the possibility of preaching in the Soviet Union. Baptist leaders from Moscow, in Miami last month for the Baptist World Alliance general council meeting, met informally with Walter H. Smyth, director of Graham’s international ministries. In a statement issued after the session, Smyth reported that the Graham organization “and the Russian brethren are ready to join forces to make such a visit a reality.”

The evangelist is known to have invitations from Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia, but he has not indicated that he is prepared to accept them now. (Since “official” invitations can be issued by Eastern-bloc churches only after approval by state authorities, the developments are seen as a thaw in government attitudes toward Graham.) In announcing the acceptance of the bid to preach in Hungary he emphasized that he would be willing to “cancel any engagements” to go. Smyth added that scheduling of the campaign in Hungary would not require cancellation of any crusades already planned.

Death

ERNEST D. DICK, 88, noted Seventh-day Adventist educator who served as general secretary of the SDA denomination from 1936 until 1952; in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Smyth was in Hungary and Romania in April and reported a “warm and hospitable” reception after visiting a variety of churches, church-related institutions, and government officials. A delegation from the Council of Free Churches of Hungary met with him during the Baptist sessions in Miami, and the announcement of Graham’s impending visit was released after that. One member of the delegation, council president Sandor Palotay, stopped on the way home to Hungary to discuss the plans with Graham, who was working on a book and vacationing in Europe.

Religion in Transit

A recently published book that explores the religious life of Abraham Lincoln concludes that he became a Christian after his address at the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg. In A Heart That Yearned for God (Third Century), retired evangelist-scholar Frederick Owen quotes Lincoln as telling friends: “When I buried my son, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated my life to Christ.”

Anita Bryant will be retained as the advertising symbol of Florida orange juice despite her widely publicized campaign against homosexual-rights laws. The Florida Citrus Commission says a study shows she can still sell orange juice. However, she may be forced to change the name of her anti-gay “Save Our Children” group. The Connecticut-based Save the Children Federation, which solicits money for underprivileged children, claims it is losing donations because of the similarity in names. A federal judge last month issued a temporary restraining order against use of the Bryant group’s name.

There are still hard feelings between the Baptists in President Carter’s home town. The congregation of Plains Baptist Church voted to refuse letters of transfer to twenty-six former members who broke away to form a new church, Bottsford Baptist.

A number of church leaders have been pressuring ABC television to dissolve Soap, an “adult comedy” program scheduled to begin this fall. Morally, it’s low, they say. After viewing pilot episodes, a number of ABC’s affiliates publicly criticized the series, and some have declined to run the early programs.

In some arenas of conflict, the best defense is a good offense.

That strategy is apparently being pursued by the Church of Scientology in its latest altercation with the federal government, and it might pay off.

Swarms of FBI agents last month raided church offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and seized cartons of documents that allegedly included material stolen from government files. An FBI affidavit claimed that church spies had infiltrated federal agencies over the past two years, had burglarized government offices, and on at least one occasion had bugged an Internal Revenue Service meeting. The FBI said its information came from a former top official of the church who had turned himself in after escaping from church custody. In defense, the Scientologists:

• Launched legal efforts to have the raids declared illegal, to block grand jury testimony, and to prevent disclosure and circulation of the seized material.

• Filed a $7.8 million damage suit against federal agents who planned and conducted the raids (the church earlier had filed a $750 million suit against the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other government agencies, accusing them of a massive conspiracy against the church).

• Uncorked a media campaign designed to win sympathy for the church (the main theme: the church has stood up against unwarranted government intrusion into its affairs, and the church has exposed corruption on the part of federal officials, so now the government is retaliating against the church.

On July 27 Chief Judge William B. Bryant of the U.S. District Court in Washington quashed the search warrant. He declared it illegal and ordered the government to return all materials taken in the raids. The warrant, he said, was too “general,” allowing the FBI to rummage throughout church property in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Commented a Scientology attorney: “This whole episode bears out the church’s continuing contention that government agencies have been conspiring and acting illegally toward the Church of Scientology.” Government prosecutors said they would appeal Bryant’s ruling. Meanwhile, the documents have been impounded.

The Church of Scientology, founded in Washington, D.C., in 1954 by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, has had a long history of clashes with the government. These conflicts have involved the church’s finances and its tax-exempt status, its use of mechanical devices known as E Meters to help people rid themselves of psychological problems, and its international aspects. The church has filed many Freedom of Information suits to obtain access to material concerning it in government files, and it has tried to force the government to cut its ties to Interpol, the international organization that collects and disseminates information to police agencies.

The FBI identified its informant as Michael Meisner, until a year or so ago one of Scientology’s top five officials and national secretary of the church’s “Guardian Office.” Meisner and another Scientologist, Gerald Bennett Wolfe, were caught using forged Internal Revenue Service credentials to enter the U.S. courthouse in Washington in June, 1976. Wolfe eventually pleaded guilty to using the fake credentials and was sentenced a year later to two years probation. Meisner, however, changed his appearance and remained a fugitive until he surrendered to federal authorities in late June of this year. Meanwhile, Scientology spokesmen had denied that Meisner and Wolfe were still members of the church. They said Meisner was expelled in June, 1976, “after having blown his legally assigned” post in the church.

Lights Out, Clergy On

When the lights went off during New York’s power blackout last month, government officials appealed to clergy to help calm the city’s neighborhoods. More than a dozen clergymen rode with police in patrol cars and used loud speakers to appeal to crowds in trouble zones. Many, though, drove or walked around on their own. They talked to young people, soothed older citizens who were afraid, and comforted people who had lost their businesses. Most of the neighborhoods that were wrecked were in black and Hispanic areas.

Some congregations, said pastor Samuel Simpson of Bronx Baptist Church, quickly organized community meetings to discuss what could be done to keep things peaceful. He said the clergy of the Bronx plan to draft recommendations on how to handle such a situation in the future.

Black Protestant pastors in Harlem appealed to citizens not to purchase goods taken in the looting that occurred during the blackout.

No churches or religious schools were known to be damaged in the violence, said church sources.

(Meisner’s wife Patricia is currently president of the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington. Church press spokesman Hugh Wilhere last month said the couple had split up “about eighteen months ago” because of Meisner’s “personal problems.” Wilhere also denied that Meisner was ever a national official of the organization.)

For two weeks after he turned himself in, Meisner was grilled by the FBI. He told the following story, according to an FBI affidavit:

An international officer of the church issued an order in 1974 calling for an all-out attack against the IRS through the use of lawsuits, public relations campaigns, and infiltration of the agency. Wolfe was recruited to get a job at the IRS, and Meisner and another Scientology officer went to his office and showed him how to gain access to pertinent agency files. In Los Angeles, Scientologists placed a listening device in an IRS conference room to eavesdrop on a discussion of strategy regarding the church (Meisner said he saw a transcript of that meeting). In March, 1975, Meisner took over supervision of “all covert Scientology agents within government agencies.” He supervised break-ins at numerous offices at IRS headquarters, from which government files involving several agencies were stolen, copied, and then returned by Scientology agents. Meisner and Wolfe forged IRS credentials to gain entry to the courthouse office of a U.S. attorney where other files were kept. They stole a key to the office during a secretary’s lunch break and had it copied. At night they went to the courthouse ostensibly to study in the court’s library, but instead they entered the U.S. attorney’s office and copied many Scientology-related documents. It was during one of these expeditions that suspicious building employees called the FBI.

Fighting The Feds

Former Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver and his wife Kathleen filed a $4.2 million damage suit against the FBI, the CIA, and a number of other government and police officials. The suit claims the couple’s constitutional rights were violated as a result of illegal activities directed against them and the Black Panthers by the government. Cleaver became a Christian in 1975 during self-imposed exile in France (see July 8 issue, page 14). Now out of prison on bail awaiting trial, he is making the rounds on the evangelical speaking circuit. Last month he announced the establishment of his own evangelistic organization, Eldridge Cleaver Crusades.

Following the break-in incident, the affidavit says, Meisner was called to Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles to discuss the situation. A cover story was concocted for Wolfe, and it was decided that Meisner should change his appearance and keep out of sight. When Meisner threatened to return to Washington on his own, the affidavit claims, he was placed under “house arrest” by church officials. Meisner said he was gagged and handcuffed during this period. He finally escaped and surrendered to federal authorities, who are keeping him in protective custody. The authorities insist that no immunity has been offered him, and they say he will plead guilty to a felony carrying a five-year sentence.

Federal agents arrived at the Scientology headquarters sites in Los Angeles and Washington early on July 8, using crowbars, sledgehammers, and saws and drills to break into locked offices, cabinets, and safes. They wore rubber gloves to avoid making additional fingerprints on the files, and stenographers itemized the materials removed. These included dossiers on the personal lives of judges, prosecutors, and others involved in Scientology litigation, according to press sources. There were files and comments about reporters with whom the Scientologists have dealt, the sources say. Some of the information on judges and prosecutors came from discarded garbage from their homes, the Washington Post reported.

Among the some 20,000 documents seized by the FBI, as described on its 550-page inventory, are the following: a folder marked “U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Agents Directory”; a folder captioned “U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Employment of Psychiatrists” containing a “raw data” report; a file entitled “Locksmith Course” with manuals and data concerning locks; a folder on “bugging” devices; sheets depicting Justice Department and IRS organization charts; “compliance reports” on judges; an eighty-three-page report dated January 6, 1977, on Bo Hi Pak, the former South Korean military intelligence officer who is now a top aide to founder Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church; material marked “This data very covert cannot be used.”

Two weeks after the raid, the Church of Scientology filed the $7.8 million damage suit against the FBI. The suit charges that agents unnecessarily damaged church property, invaded private sleeping quarters and bath facilities, trespassed in areas not covered by the search warrants, and “violated the confidentiality of priest-penitent confessional folders.” Some of the files, according to the suit, were privileged attorney-client documents containing the church’s legal strategy in upcoming suits against the government.

“This raid is clearly an attempt to silence the church,” said press spokesman Wilhere. He told reporters that some of the documents seized by the agents were obtained through Freedom of Information suits. No official spokesman of the church, however, issued a blanket denial that some documents in Scientology files might have been obtained illegally. Wilhere said the church’s lawyers would allow no comment on that topic. He did suggest that “provocateurs” or FBI agents themselves may have planted such documents, if they exist.

If Judge Bryant’s ruling to quash the search warrant is upheld on appeal, the damage amount the church is asking in its suit against the FBI is expected to rise substantially.

This is not the first time the Church of Scientology has been accused of stealing confidential documents. In November, 1975, investigators hired by the American Medical Association alleged that the Scientologists had infiltrated AMA offices to remove documents and leak them to the press. The files detailed AMA political lobbying efforts and finances. Three secretaries were pinpointed as the persons who copied the documents, but the investigators confided that they lacked the legal evidence to prove the allegations. The church, which has had conflict with the AMA for years, denied having any link to the leaks and promptly filed a $1.6 million libel suit against the AMA for a 1968 article in the AMA’s magazine Today’s Health.

In another development last month, the Scientologists announced a $10 million suit for fraud and libel against the American Broadcasting Company and several of its employees. The charges involve a documentary on Scientology and the Unification Church aired by ABC television in September, 1976. The suit charges that ABC had “no intention of creating a fair, impartial, or even objective view of the religion of Scientology,” as had been promised. It also alleges that the show was aired even after ABC had knowledge that it contained false reports and innuendo.

Children, Go Home

Will members of the Children of God be coming home soon?

Maybe, A press release and a photocopy of a “Mo Letter” purportedly written by COG founder David “Moses” Berg has reporters guessing. The documents surfaced in press circles last month. The author confesses that he has erred in many ways, and he blames much of his sinfulness on an inflated ego. In the beginning, he says, the controversial youth group was right in its purpose and strategy of witness. But, he explains, his followers began regarding him as a special prophet, and he allowed his pride to carry himself and the group off course. He directs members to cease all COG operations and use of COG’s name within three months (apparently by the end of September). As part of his penitence, he implies, he will drop out of sight forever.

COG members contacted by CHRISTIANITY TODAY said they had received no such communication as of late July, and they expressed doubt regarding the authenticity of the documents. The documents bore as a return address the post-office box number of COG’s public relations office in London. A cable seeking verification of the announcement was sent there but was undelivered; telegraph officials said the postal box was cancelled on June 25, and no forwarding address had been left. Berg, who organized COG in California in 1968, moved to Europe in the early 1970s and has managed to elude reporters, detectives, and irate parents ever since. He is thought to be living currently in northern Italy.

The style and language of the “Mo Letter”—described as Berg’s final one—is similar to that found in past letters.

If the announcement turns out to be authentic, it is doubtful that COG’s members will all rush home. A number of the colonies scattered around the world will probably continue to function as before but minus the COG name and under full control of local leadership. (For previous coverage of the Children of God, see the following issues: November 5, 1971, page 38; September 15, 1972, page 45; April 27, 1973, page 35; July 20, 1973, page 14; February 15, 1974, page 49; and February 18, 1977, page 18.)

Tolerance, But Away From Home

Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to having homosexual clergymen in their churches or homosexual teachers in their schools, but they believe homosexuals should have equal job rights. Those apparently contradictory positions are two of the findings in a nationwide Gallup poll released last month. The survey of 1,513 adults was conducted just after voters in Dade County, Florida, repealed an ordinance guaranteeing job rights to homosexuals (see July 8 issue, page 36). The defeat prompted “gay rights” activists to launch a national campaign to seek federal legislation barring discrimination in employment.

Those polled were split evenly, 43 per cent each way, on whether “homosexual relations between consenting adults” should be legalized. However, the percentage of those favoring equal job rights was reported at 56 by the pollsters.

Just over a majority, 53 per cent, told the surveyors that they thought a homosexual could be a good Christian or a good Jew. Negative answers to the same question were given by 33 per cent. Of those saying no, only 34 per cent said they thought homosexuals should have equal job rights.

In reporting the results of the poll, the New York Times quoted its polling consultant, Michael Kagay, who said the data suggested “a familiar pattern of attitudes toward nonconforming groups.” Americans may tolerate the abstract idea of equal rights for homosexuals, he said, but do not want to sanction their behavior legally.

Of those surveyed by Gallup, 66 per cent said they believed that homosexuality is more prevalent today than it was twenty-five years ago. The Times report indicated that “a few” public officials in major American cities have announced that they are homosexuals, but it indicated that relatively few people identify themselves as such elsewhere.

One of the largest percentages—77—to give a negative answer in the poll was the bloc which told pollsters that homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt children. Only 14 per cent said such adoptions should be permitted. Gallup reported no significant difference in answers from men and women.

The Porno Jesus

A British film company has signed a secret deal with the Danish film producer Jens Jorgen Thorsen to publish the script of his proposed film The Sex Life of Jesus Christ (formerly The Many Faces of Jesus Christ).

David Grant, head of Oppidan, a London-based film company that has fought in court on a number of occasions for permission to distribute films with “explicit sexual content,” has obtained international rights on the script and plans to publish it in book form in both French and English. He reportedly was seeking an American distributor for the book.

“Something like 300 people have read the script of Thorsen’s The Sex Life of Jesus Christ in [Britain] and not one of them have found the script to be obscene or blasphemous, and the majority opinion is that it is beautiful and brilliant and surrealistic,” says Grant. “A lot of things have been said about it, but nobody has said that it is pornographic. There’s no sex as such in the book whatsoever.”

Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, an evangelical activist against moral corruption on radio, television, and films, expressed amazement that Grant should claim there was “no sex as such in the book” unless he was talking about a heavily edited version of the script. “The Thorsen film script which we had translated is both extremely blasphemous and extremely pornographic,” she insists. (Thorsen reportedly remains at his apartment in France, having failed to gain permission to produce the film in Britain, Israel, Sweden, Denmark, and other countries.)

On a different front, the West Virginia state senate took action to head off pornographic representations of Christ. Portraying him in a “lewd, obscene, or immoral manner” was condemned in a resolution that received overwhelming approval. Democrat Robert Hatfield of Putnam conceded there might be a constitutional infraction but said he felt compelled to offer the resolution because “this country is slowly falling apart.”

Under the measure, Jesus may be shown only as “expressly presented by the Holy Bible or by the teachings of Christian theology.” This led fellow Democrat David Hanlon of Ritchie, an opponent of the measure, to ask: “Are we to say Muhammadans cannot teach children that Christ was a prophet and not the messiah?”

Democrat Si Galperin of Kanawha, who cited constitutional reasons for his opposition, fumed: “Maybe we ought to go further and require everyone to worship Jesus Christ.”

ROGER DAY

Fines For Sixty-Six Lines

Britain’s first blasphemous libel trial since 1921 ended last month in London when by a 10 to 2 vote a jury brought in guilty verdicts against a homosexual newspaper and its editor.

The indictment had stated that the fortnightly Gay News and its editor, Denis Lemon, 32, “unlawfully and wickedly published a blasphemous libel concerning the Christian religion, namely an obscene poem and illustration vilifying Christ in his life and Crucifixion.”

The sixty-six-line poem by English professor James Kirkup, 54, longtime resident of Japan, was entitled “The Love that Dares to Speak His Name.” It purported to describe the feelings of a homosexual Roman centurion toward Christ after His body had been taken from the Cross.

The defense pleaded that the poem was not intended to harm or hurt, “but to express love for Christ—though it was love not in the normal heterosexual sense but of a homosexual kind.” The piece had been misread, misunderstood, and misquoted by the prosecution, said defense attorney Geoffrey Robertson.

Not so, said prosecutor John Smyth. The poem had been understood all too well. To suggest that the central figure of Christianity had a homosexual relationship with Paul of Tarsus, the apostles, Herod’s guards, and Pontius Pilate was blasphemous. “You are being asked,” Smyth told the jury, which included five women, “to set the standard for the last quarter of this century and beyond. If you decide this is not blasphemy by your verdict, and find these defendants not gulty, that will set the standard and open the floodgates.”

The paper was fined $1,700; the editor was fined $850 and given a suspended nine-month prison sentence. Costs of the seven-day trial were to be met by the defendants. Passing sentence, Judge Alan King-Hamilton called the poem “quite appalling in its content and one of the most scurrilous profanity.”

The prosecution had been initiated by Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, described as “the Birmingham housewife who has become the nation’s conscience about pornography,” but it was eventually taken over by the crown (see preceding story).

The defendants are appealing the verdict.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Bangladesh Update

As the neighboring countries of Thailand, India, and Pakistan experience political and social unrest, Bangladesh remains tranquil. The tight martial law administration of General Ziaur Rahman has brought about positive changes in economics, law enforcement, and the use of foreign aid. The man on the street is openly saying that Bangladesh is now in better shape than at any other time since the 1947 partition.

However, other forces are testing the resilience of the Bengali people. In April unseasonal tornadoes touched down in dozens of villages. More than a thousand people were killed, according to official estimates, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. Standing crops were wiped out. The planting cycle was severely disrupted. A number of Christian missions and relief organizations rushed supplies and medical teams into the affected areas.

In late March, German missionary Hans Werner was attacked and killed by seven hooded thieves in the remote village of Shantikutir. He is the third foreign missionary to be killed while resisting thieves since 1970.

Church-growth theory was applied to the Bangladesh scene by New Zealand Baptist missionary Peter McNee in his book Crucial Issues in Bangladesh, and this has prompted missions throughout Bangladesh to reevaluate their ministries. His well-documented volume won the Donald McGavran award for the most significant book on church growth produced in 1976.

The tribal belt along the India-Bangladesh border continues to be responsive to the Gospel. Sylhet Khasis, Mynensingh Garos, and Dinajpur Santalis are among the most receptive tribes. Norwegian and Danish Lutherans are active in evangelism among them.

New approaches have been tried among low-caste Hindus by the Southern Baptists and International Christian Fellowship. There are signs of positive response from the Namashudras and Muchis.

In Dacca, 100 missionaries met recently to consider new approaches to Muslim evangelism. Stress was laid on minimizing social dislocation; it was strongly felt that the convert should remain in his own habitat. Several Bengali nationals and missionaries reported the formation of small worship groups composed entirely of Muslim converts.

Christian relief and development organizations continue to function in Bangladesh. In HEED (Health, Education and Economic Assistance), one of the largest, 60 foreign workers are teamed up with more than 150 nationals to operate a diverse development program in several areas of the country. Funding (a budget of $1 million last year) and staffing come from eleven evangelical organizations. The North American representatives are World Concern, Medical Assistance Programs (MAP International), and Bible and Medical Missionary Fellowship. Dr. Howard Searle, former director of Emmanuel Hospital Association of India, is the executive secretary.

Twenty-five mission boards are represented in Bangladesh. Of 360 missionaries assigned to the country, 300 are currently on the field. They include 132 Americans, 84 British, and 56 Norwegians.

PHIL PARSHALL

Advance In North Africa

Evangelical work in North Africa is costly. Missionaries cannot operate openly in the predominantly Muslim countries, and mission agencies must therefore restrain publicity about their work back home (a headache to recruiting and development officers). There are comparatively few converts, and those who do follow Christ are often subjected to intense opposition. Under the pressure, some converts turn away. Missionaries are known to withhold baptism for several years—to make sure a convert “lasts.” Still, the Christian community in North Africa is growing.

North Africa Mission (NAM) is quietly developing evangelical leadership in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia through a Theological Education by Extension (TEE) program. A number of TEE students were introduced to the Bible earlier through a correspondence course offered by the mission’s Radio School of the Bible.

Not long ago five young-adult believers were baptized on the coast of Algeria. All have been Christians for five years or longer, all have been enrolled in NAM’s study programs, and all have leadership potential, says a mission worker. One is a second-generation Christian, who chose the faith of her mother over the ancestral religion of her father. One says he wants to become the Billy Graham of his country.

That he is so alone (there are only about 200 Christians in a population of 17 million) does not seem to dampen his spirit.

For the Record

Word Books says its first-print run of 800,000 copies of evangelist Billy Graham’s new book, Born Again, is the largest printing of a hardcover book on record. Word, which is owned by the ABC broadcasting conglomerate, got exclusive rights to Graham’s works (he was formerly with Doubleday) as part of a package arrangement worked out between Graham and ABC last year.

From the tyrranny of the Bysshop of Rome and al hys detestable enormities … good lord, deliver us.” Not a particularly Christian sentiment, one might think! But then it dates from long ago, as the quaint spelling indicates: the Litany of the English Prayer Book of 1552. The full petition contains references to both “tyranny” and “heresy,” which reminds us that at the Reformation English nationalism went hand in hand with the recovery of biblical truth. Then for four long centuries there was virtually no rapproachement, only hostility and polemic.

What, then, should the attitude of evangelicals toward the church of Rome be now, since the astonishing aggiornamento that began with Vatican II, when the call was sounded to “let ‘the word of the Lord run and be glorified’ (2 Th. 3:1), and let the treasure of revelation entrusted to the Church increasingly fill the hearts of men” (Dei Verbum 26)? I have often asked myself this question and have always found it difficult to answer.

For what exactly is the church of Rome that one can relate to it? The old illusion of a monotholic structure has been shattered. Today it appears almost as pluriform as Protestantism. What does it believe and teach? Has it really changed? Or is its old boast of changelessness and irreformability true?

Sometimes still our Protestant consciences are scandalized, as when in his “Credo of the People” Pope Paul described the redeemed as being “gathered round Jesus and Mary” in heaven. At other times a Catholic theologian will make a statement so Bible-based and Christ-centered that one wants to shout three cheers, give him a hug, and call him an evangelical.

But then another Catholic leader comes along with a counter-statement that takes us right back to the old theological liberalism we thought we were growing out of. Thus in his monumental On Being a Christian Hans Küng can assert that “the Scriptures are not themselves divine revelation; they are merely the human testimonies of divine revelation.…” (Haven’t you heard that before somewhere?) Again, the Bible neither is God’s word nor even contains it, he writes, but “the Bible becomes God’s word … for any one who submits trustfully … to its testimony and so to the God revealed in it and to Jesus Christ.” (Is Hans Rung also among the Barthians?)

In this confused condition of the Roman church, we must go on courteously pressing our evangelical questions. Reunion with Rome is inconceivable without the reformation of Rome. I recently signed an open letter (emanating from Latimer House, Oxford, and the Church of England Evangelical Council) that is addressed to the archbishops and bishops of the Anglican communion and that concerns relations between Anglican churches and the Roman and Orthodox churches. It expresses great joy over our common concern “for real and tested theological agreement as a pre-condition of closer churchly relationships.” But it goes on to ask searching questions, e.g., whether the non-Reformed churches are yet ready “to test all their traditions … by Holy Scripture, as we shall seek to test ours, in order to amend what the Bible will not justify,” and whether “justification” is indeed “God’s free gift of acceptance, bestowed on sinners by grace alone, in and through Christ, and received by God-given faith alone.” For if Vatican II was right that there is “a hierarchy of truths,” then the doctrines of scriptural supremacy and free justification have preeminence among them.

This leads me to say that I fear that Archbishop Donald Coggan’s call for Roman-Anglican intercommunion (which the Pope rebuffed) was premature. I know that there are some Roman Catholic communion services in which absolutely nothing is said or done that would offend evangelical consciences. I know too (and rejoice) that the so-called “Agreed Statement on the Eucharist” (though it has no authority in either church) unambiguously asserts that Christ’s death on the cross was “the one, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world,” and that “there can be no repetition of or addition to what was then accomplished once for all by Christ.” Again, I know that the word “transubstantiation” is not in the text of the agreement. Yet it is still there in a footnote as the traditional word Catholics use to indicate the “change in the inner reality of the elements” that is thought to take place. So, speaking personally, I do not think I could bring myself to participate in a Roman Catholic mass, even if it were authorized, until the doctrinal stance of the church has been officially reformed.

Instead, the right way forward seems to be that of personal friendship, joint Bible study, and candid dialogue with Roman Catholics. For this reason I was delighted to be a part of the Evangelical-Roman Catholic Dialogue on Mission, which took place in Venice in April. The eight-member Roman Catholic team had been appointed by the Vatican Secretariat for Christian Unity, while the eight evangelicals were an ad hoc international group, including Bishop Donald Cameron of Sydney, Australia, Professor Peter Beyerhaus of Tübingen, and Dr. David Hubbard, the president of Fuller seminary. We discussed the meaning of the words “mission,” “salvation,” and “conversion” and the possibilities of a common witness. Although we came together with some fears and suspicions of one another, soon the caricatures were discarded, and through patient listening we came to know, respect, and love one another in the Holy Spirit. We spent one evening sharing our personal experiences of Jesus Christ and our testimonies to him, and we rejoiced to recognize God’s grace in one another.

For myself, I was constantly astonished to hear a Roman Catholic brother (or sister, for Joan Chatfield of the Maryknoll Sisters was a member of the Roman Catholic team) cite a biblical text in a discussion, quoting chapter and verse from memory. Nothing surprised me more, I think, than our degree of consensus on baptism. I have always supposed that Roman Catholics had a mechanical view of baptism and regarded all baptized people as ipso facto regenerate Christians. But no! They were in full agreement with this statement: “Baptism must never be isolated, either in theology or in practice, from the context of conversion. It belongs essentially to the whole process of repentance, faith, regeneration by the Holy Spirit, and membership of the covenant community, the church. None of us accepts a mechanical view of baptism.”

We hope to meet again and to tackle in greater depth some of the main issues that still divide us. I find myself hoping and praying that evangelicals worldwide will take more initiatives to develop friendly conversations with Roman Catholics based on common Bible study. It would be tragic indeed if God’s purpose of reformation were frustrated by our evangelical stand-offishness. One of the Nottingham Congress’s final “Declarations of Intent” concerned Roman Catholics and said: “We renew our commitment to seek with them the truth of God and the unity he wills, in obedience to our common Lord on the basis of Scripture.”

In an Eastern European mountain hideaway eight years ago Stephen Olford and I talked frankly and informally with a number of Marxist leaders. Better that Marxists and Christians talk together than that they hate and kill each other

Dale Vree, the author of On Synthesizing Marxism and Christianity (John Wiley & Sons, 1976, 206 pp., $14.95), insists rightly that “no great harm is done to Christianity if Christians collaborate with Marxists in the building of a better society—so long as the Christians are under no illusions that they are engaged in salvific or redemptive activity, so long as they respect the liberty of other Christians to come to different political conclusions, so long as they do not turn Marxist claims into articles of the Christian faith, and so long as they can be reasonably sure that a government led by Marxists will not persecute Christians or eradicate Christian values” (pp. 178 f.). Christians and Marxists can in fact cooperate at certain points in combatting specific social evils without endorsing each other’s theology or ideology.

Although Vree accepts the legitimacy of Christian-Marxist dialogue, the significance of his book lies rather in its complaint that most such discussants really engage in something quite different—in brief, in obscuring basic differences and in revising their heritage—and that the Communists at least are aware of this and therefore have ejected some Marxist-Christian dialoguers out of the Party.

Vree, a former evangelical Protestant who later became a Marxist atheist, doesn’t here argue for either the Christian view or the Communist view. Disappointed in earlier years by evangelical parochialism, he was confirmed in the Episcopal Church by the late Bishop James Pike. Soon he identified himself with the “broad church” element, parts of which approached Marxism via Christianity. An avid reader of Bultmann and Tillich, he rejected the “God out there,” worked eagerly for neo-Stalinist causes and set out for East Berlin as an atheist, convinced that Protestant modernism was already functionally atheistic. While in East Berlin, then somewhat of a neo-Stalinist mecca, Vree in 1966 happened upon issues of CHRISTIANITY TODAY that helped to make orthodox Christianity credible and to turn him from Marxist-Leninist commitments toward a firm personal faith in salvation by the crucified and risen Jesus. Returning to the United States for graduate studies, Vree and his wife identified with Anglo-Catholics who accord to sacramentalism and tradition a role that evangelical orthodoxy discourages.

Much of the socialist dialogue promoted by the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches, as Vree sees it, is an effort to turn Marxists into Christians by first turning Christians into Marxists. At Eastern European conferences, papers presented by American participants—professing evangelicals among them—frequently take the line that Luther frustrated the ideal social consequences of the Protestant Reformation, that the radical revolutionary Thomas Munzer was the real hero of the Reformation, and that socialism is its rightful historical fruitage. If Christians are surprised that Marxists under these circumstances are eager for dialogue, they must be incredibly naïve. As Vree asks: why should Marxists take umbrage if Christians want to attribute the socialist society that Marx advocates to the inspiration of an immanental God?

The increasingly active dialogue going on internationally for more than fifteen years between ecumenical Christians and Marxist scholars has presumed to identify a common ground between the two outlooks. By careful analysis of the Christian and the Communist belief-systems based on their own historic principles, Vree shows that those who seek to synthesize Christianity and Marxism inevitably champion heretical versions of both. Participants in the dialogue, Vree says, achieve a synthesis only by expounding and then reconciling heretical versions of both Christianity and Communism that the orthodox adherents of both views reject.

Vree singles out Harvey Cox and Jürgen Moltman as influential representatives of the ecumenical Christian dialogue with Marxists, and Roger Garaudy as an influential Marxist engaged in synthetic dialogue with Christians. Garaudy, who began his career as a loyal Stalinist, was alienated from and finally expelled by the French Communist party after his heavy involvement in Marxist-Christian discussions in which he accommodatingly diluted Marxist positions (e.g., declaring economic determinism to be merely suppositional) and criticized the Party bureaucracy as fallible.

The Marxist excommunication of Garaudy contrasts, Vree notes, with the neo-Protestant tolerance of any and every form of deviation from historic Christian commitments in the pursuit of synthetic agreement. Vree does not question the good will of dialogic Christians and of dialogic Marxists who strive together for an earthly New Jerusalem. But he thinks that participating Christians readily forget that the universe is flawed by original sin, that they lack confidence in divine providence, and that they “want to leap out of their creaturely condition before the appointed time” (ibid., p. 180).

“I have had to conclude,” says Vree, looking at Marxist-Christian dialogue from both sides of the fence, “that Marxism and Christianity are disjunctive belief systems that cannot be fused without doing violence to the integrity of both” (ibid., p. 178). This verdict, reached by dispassionate analysis, will shock only those who have forgotten how large a role is played by semantic subtleties and doctrinal concessiveness in the modern pursuit of a common cause. Vree’s analysis of the shifting positions of Christian and Marxist participants in the synthesizing process is worthy of wide reading.

Given the concessive spirit of much neo-Protestant theology, nobody should be much surprised that a professor of atheism in a Russian university recently visited the United States to gather information for a doctoral dissertation he is completing in the Soviet Union on contemporary Western theological perspectives.

Christian activists governed by the assumptions of liberation theology so tendentiously interpret the Gospels that they inevitably invite a counter-reaction that may fully veil the Son of Man rather than truly mirror his claim upon man in society. Where does liberation theology frankly tell us that Jesus did not belong to a poor family, that forced redistribution of wealth was not a part of his ethic, that until his public ministry he worked contentedly in the carpenter shop, a family business? The next generation of “Marxist Christians” may conceivably declare the Nazarene on this account a partisan of business rather than of labor, perhaps even a champion of child labor, or one who was insensitive to labor and a champion of the wealthy. They will, of course, be no less wrong and no less confused than those who now search the Gospels for the shadow of Karl Marx.

What Next?

Dreams, Visions and Oracles, by Carl E. Armerding and W. Ward Gasque (Baker, 1977, 263 pp., $9.95), is reviewed by John V. Dahms, professor of New Testament, Canadian Theological College, Regina, Saskatchewan.

The title of this book might suggest another of the many volumes that claim to provide a detailed blueprint of the end of the age, set in a framework of dispensationalist premillennialism and perhaps interpreting current events as sure evidence that the rapture of the Church is not far off. The facts are quite otherwise. As stated in the preface, the editors’ purpose is to deal with Bible prophecy in a way that is “less sensational and essentially more biblical” than the treatment in The Late Great Planet Earth and other recent popular books on the subject.

Seventeen respected scholars contribute chapters, with a foreword by F. F. Bruce. There is, not surprisingly, some lack of continuity between the chapters and some unevenness in the level of understanding required of the readers. (According to the subtitle, the book is intended as “The Layman’s Guide to Biblical Prophecy”; it is for “the ordinary, intelligent reader.”) On the other hand, by choosing the symposium method the editors are able to present the book as representative of an evangelical consensus, an important consideration at a time when the popular books on Bible prophecy do not “represent the convictions of any of the historic confessions or of most evangelical theologians.”

However, the primary purpose of the book is not to put down popular literature that prompted it. Although the first three articles do deal with the rise of dispensationalist premillennialism and the tendency to fix times for prophetic events, the rest of the volume is almost entirely positive in its approach. Several chapters set forth background considerations and important guidelines for interpreting prophecy. A major section of the book is devoted to such themes as the Kingdom of God, the return of Christ, the millenium, the last judgment, and Israel’s relationship to the church.

Two features of the book are especially helpful. First, historical influences on matters relating to biblical prophecy are set forth; for example, W. Dyrness points out that Hal Lindsey’s first book gained appeal by appearing at a time when astrology was having its greatest revival in three hundred years, and J. W. Montgomery describes the circumstances that encouraged some early Christians to reject a literal millennium. Second, a number of writers take pains to show how biblical statements concerning the future accord with other teachings of Scripture; for example, R. Longenecker discusses how the return of Christ is “rooted in the covenant promise of God.” and J. P. Martin relates judgment as a future event to the emphasis in the Johannine Gospel and Epistles on “the present as the decisive time of judgment.” I think it is important to perceive the unity between the various items of eschatological expectation and other doctrines of the Christian faith.

Even those who heartily agree with the general view of prophecy in this volume may demur at some minor points. And some will question whether certain parts of it are written in a popular enough vein for a “Layman’s Guide.” Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book. May it be but the first of many volumes bringing to the attention of evangelical persons the historic and mainline understanding of biblical prophecy. Such books can never hope to gain the popularity of The Late Great Planet Earth and similar works, because they cannot excite the reader with the promise that we are in the last decades, cannot satisfy the desire to know in detail what is to happen, and cannot assure escape from the worst of tribulations. But they can serve as a constant reminder that there is another understanding of biblical prophecy whose advocates are just as devoted to the truth of God’s Word and just as eager for Christ’s return.

Has God Said?

I Believe in Revelation, by Leon Morris (Eerdmans, 1976, 159 pp., $2.95 pb), is reviewed by George W. Knight III, associate professor of New Testament, Covenant Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.

Revelation-the doctrine that God makes himself known through the beauty and order of his creation, the message of the Bible, and climactically, through his Son—has been attacked by many theologians in recent years. Leon Morris’s aim in these pages is to counter that trend and lead us to a firm understanding of revelation and its manifestations.” So begins the description of this book on its cover, and apt and accurate words they are.

Written for the general reader as part of an “I Believe” series of books, this paperback volume serves as a current statement of evangelical thought on a controversial area of the Christian faith. It is not a technical monograph or an in-depth study, like the classic essays of B. B. Warfield. It is not a treatise dealing with difficult passages, like parts of the well-known works of William Arndt or E. J. Young. It is not another symposium of evangelicals, like The Infallible Word by the Westminster faculty or the volumes edited by Carl Henry. Nor is it an exposé like The Battle for the Bible, done so ably by Harold Lindsell. What then is this delightfully and carefully written book? It is an encyclopedic overview of the central question, Has God revealed himself to man? Morris begins with the broadest perspective, the philosophical and historical questions, and proceeds to the most specific, the question of the Bible itself and more particularly its message of salvation and life in Jesus Christ.

The author is quite abreast of the broad philosophical and theological spectrum. Anyone acquainted with Leon Morris’s academic itinerary both as a student and as a professor will be well satisfied with his breadth of perspective, and his footnotes and references bear out this confidence. Most particularly, Morris’s Cambridge doctoral dissertation on the meaning of Jesus Christ’s death has given him a vantage point from which to look at this larger question of revelation. Moreover, in a study in which the words of Jesus and his apostles have decisive significance, it is good to have a New Testament scholar as the guide.

Two recurring points keep the discussion on track. The first is that Morris continually asks, What does the Bible say? Does it say that God has revealed himself? Does it say that it itself is a vehicle for that revelation? Second, Morris continually exposes those who repudiate the Bible’s claims by showing their prejudicial a prioris. From what other than a “religious” presupposition can they say that revelation or the supernatural cannot exist and cannot be documented in historical writings? At this last point I find Morris is a bit too charitable in his polite request to “historians” to admit that the supernatural is outside their realm; I think instead that he should challenge them to recognize that if God has acted in history and his actions are observable—for example, the resurrection of Lazarus or of Jesus—then for historians to fail to take account of these facts is to be unscholarly and less than accurate. The same must be said for his defense of piety. Rather than concessively saying that piety is needed and is important alongside of scholarship, I think we must say that the word of God calls for a response of piety and that scholars who fail to say that or ridicule it have shown that their own defensiveness will not allow the text to have its say.

But this is not to suggest that Morris avoids the hard questions. Far from it. Take the matter of cultural relativity, for instance. According to this view, the Bible (or parts of it) is conditioned by the culture of its day and cannot be normative in another culture, particularly in ours today. Morris points out that there is not that much isolation for any culture, and that the common ground of human beings in all cultures is far more significant.

Morris clearly affirms his belief that although the word “inerrancy” is not found in Scripture, the concept is a necessary corollary of the fact that it is the God of truth who reveals himself, not a God to whom error is of no consequence. He cites nearly a page of references to Scripture passages that affirm this characteristic of God in his dealing with men.

Particularly in this treatment of inerrancy but also elsewhere in the book I was dismayed that certain relevant passages were not more thoroughly opened up. For example, John 10:35 says the “Scripture [that which is written, not just the message thereof] cannot be broken,” i.e., proved to be in error. And the passage quoted from the Old Testament in verse 34 is not dealing, strictly speaking, with the salvation message but is nevertheless the basis for the a fortiori argument of Jesus about his deity as the Son of God. However, Jesus was willing to build his argument on this small segment of Scripture because he believed that Scripture as a whole and every part of it could not be set aside or found to be in error. For Morris to say nothing about this passage in his discussion of inerrancy seems to me a rather grievous error, in view of Jesus’ value judgment!

In his last chapter, “Revelation Outside Christianity,” Morris skillfully marshalls passages in support of the point that “it is biblical teaching that God ‘did not leave himself without witness’ among the heathen (Acts 14:17).” But at the same time he fails to make it clear that the Bible (in the very passages he refers to and elsewhere) makes these distinctions between the fact that God has made himself known to them, and the fact that they have not really personally known God in a living and transforming relationship; between the fact that God has made himself known to them, and the fact that he has not made himself known through them; between the fact that the revelation among the heathen is natural or general revelation and is corrupted or suppressed when they write or speak of it, and the fact that the special, supernatural, and saving revelation is made known to and through his redeemed people and his chosen vessels of communication. The reader may be left with the impression that both sides of these sets of contrasting positions are true, which I think Morris did not intend and does not believe.

The positive thrust and position of the book, on the one hand, and the direction of its answers to opposing views, especially to those that claim to be within the ranks of Christendom, can be seen in these two quotations:

“The fact is that nobody comes to regard the Bible as the book that gives us God’s word because he has worked through it and come up with acceptable solutions to all the difficulties. He accepts it thankfully and regards it as reliable because that was the view of Christ and the apostles. It is this, and not our ability to explain difficulties, that is the justification for our holding the Bible to be God’s authoritative revelation. Conversely our inability to come up with satisfactory explanations does not compel us to abandon the Bible” (p. 140).

“He fears that the same cannot usually be said about the view of his more radical brother. The latter makes no claim to submitting to Christ or to anyone else in this matter. Rather he works out his concept of revelation according to his best insights. He may take notice of what Christ said or what the apostles said or what his colleagues say. But in the last resort his view of revelation is simply that which commends itself to him. His reasoning seems completely subjective” (p. 120).

Deuteronomy

The Book of Deuteronomy, by Peter C. Craigie (Eerdmans, 1976, 424 pp., $9.95), and Deuteronomy, by J. A. Thompson (InterVarsity, 1974, 320 pp., $7.95), are reviewed by Ronald Youngblood, professor of Old Testament, Bethel Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota.

Although a seventh-century-B.C. date for Deuteronomy is still the reigning hypothesis in Pentateuchal higher criticism, scholars have by no means arrived at an agreement. G. Hölscher dated Deuteronomy (D) after the exile on the basis that a demand for a single sanctuary would have been impracticably idealistic in pre-exilic times. R. H. Kennett also proposed a late date for D since the law of sacrifice in H (the “Holiness” code of Leviticus), which he considered to be closely related to Ezekiel, is earlier than the law of sacrifice found in Deuteronomy 12. On the other hand, A. C. Welch proposed to date many of the laws of D during the Solomonic period or slightly later because of their primitive character, and E. Robertson dated D earlier still, feeling that it was composed under Samuel’s supervision to be used as a lawbook when the Israelite tribes were eventually united under a king. Moreover, G. T. Manley, in The Book of the Law, supported the essentially Mosaic origin of D in a closely reasoned presentation, while M. Kline, in Treaty of the Great King, showed that the outline of D coincides with that of the Hittite suzerainty treaties of the period from c. 1450 to c. 1200 B.C. (i.e., the period of Moses, whether he is dated early or late).

Enter evangelicals P. C. Craigie and J. A. Thompson, both of whom are solidly in the tradition of Manley and Kline. With Manley, both see the hand of Moses throughout D, though they do not deny the possibility—even the likelihood—of a later editorial touch here and there (Deuteronomy 34 being an obvious example). Following Kline’s lead, both are intrigued by the close similarity between the structure of D and the structure of Late Bronze Age political treaties; Craigie even proposes that the treaty form of the Sinaitic covenant has an Egyptian rather than a Hittite background. Both commentators, then, present traditional views about the date and authorship of D. though it is clear that they are thoroughly conversant with competing positions.

Thompson, an Australian, sprinkles archaeological notes throughout his work. Strangely enough, however, he locates Kadesh-barnea at Ain Kadesh rather than at Ain el-Qudeirat. Also, his reference to copper smelters in the Arabah needs revision in the light of recent reassessments of those installations as storehouses. But by and large Thompson is a sure-footed and reliable guide through the highways and byways of the Middle East. And the vast majority of his exegetical comments are eminently sane as well: for example. D’s policy of centralization envisions not Jerusalem but a series of sanctuaries in succession; at the end of the period of wilderness wandering, Moses restated the Decalogue to suit the new circumstances in which the people found themselves; the “thou” and “you” sections of D, instead of proving diversity of authorship, merely reflect difference in emphasis.

Craigie, a Canadian, treats us to numerous philological and lexical notes in his commentary. While agreeing with him at almost every point, I found myself wondering why “back(s)” as a translation for bmt is not so appropriate in the highly poetic context of Deuteronomy 32:13 (p. 381) as it is in 33:29 (pp. 402 f.). I also questioned his judgment that “ailing Aramean” is preferable to “wandering Aramean” in 26:5. His comments on the double inheritance-share received by the firstborn (21:17) would have been strengthened by a cross-reference to Second Kings 2:9, and the “fruit of the womb” (28:4) has a close parallel in Luke 1:42. A passing reference to the possibility that “thousands” in Deuteronomy 5:10 means “thousands of generations” (see 5:9) would have been welcome. But these are insignificant complaints when balanced against the author’s numerous helpful insights.

Both of these books are worthy contributions to their series (Craigie’s to the New International Commentary on the Old Testament and Thompson’s to the Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries) and to evangelical Old Testament scholarship. They should prove useful to clergyman and layman alike. Both commentators wear their scholarship lightly, and their devotion to Jesus Christ shines clearly from the printed page.

Furthermore, a deeply reverent attitude toward Scripture is everywhere evident. Craigie speaks for both when he states that D is ultimately not a human work but the work of God. In view of this, the essentially Mosaic date and authorship that both espouse is only to be expected. As Kline expressed it nearly fifteen years ago, “the Deuteronomic bark” seems once again to be drifting “in the general direction of the Mosaic port.”

May the fresh breezes continue to blow!

An Admirable Life Of Jesus

I Came to Set the Earth on Fire: A Portrayal of Jesus, by R. T. France (InterVarsity, 1976, 190 pp., $2.50 pb), is reviewed by Walter A. Elwell, associate professor of Bible and theology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

In this extremely well-written little book, R. T. France has put forward a sensitive and compelling portrait of Jesus. He begins by pointing out that although the Gospels are not biographical in the modern sense, and no precise chronology of Jesus’ life is possible, this does not mean nothing at all can be said. A broad historical picture of Jesus can be painted, and France draws upon a detailed knowledge of Jesus’ times to make his life understandable in historical terms. Discussions of Roman law. Jewish thought, geography, social problems, politics, and rabbinic teaching are laced throughout the book. It is all so deftly accomplished that one must reread the footnotes to see how much work has gone into the book and how carefully documented everything is.

France acknowledges that what he writes about Jesus is not wholly objective, but this hardly detracts from the book. No one is totally objective in what he writes. What is required is consistency and honesty in the handling of the sources, and here France scores highly. He never skirts a problem, attempts a facile reconciliation of conflicting accounts, falls back upon an artificial a priori theological doctrine, or refuses to acknowledge the difficulty of what he says (e.g., concerning miracles or the virgin birth).

On the debit side, France’s topical approach leads to a lack of integration. The book is advertised in this way: “Who is the real Jesus? Why did he say, ‘I came to set the earth on fire’?” But the answer is not made clear. The idea of setting the world on fire is mentioned just once; it plays no significant role in France’s reconstruction of Jesus. The Jesus France portrays comes from a middle-class family, is conspicuously opposed to violence, has no program for society, is not even remotely in sympathy with Zealot ideals, and is thoroughly apolitical—hardly a firebrand. A more prominent theme is that of Jesus the Ultimate Challenge—one who does not allow objectivity but demands decision; this idea runs throughout the book. Jesus drives men to extremes, making them take sides either for or against him. Another theme, though it is not fully developed, is that of Jesus the Compassionate One, the One Who Cared: “It was people that mattered, people in need, people and their response to God.… Jesus was interested in people, as people.” Other themes that occur are Jesus the New Israel and Jesus the Reconciler. But the various themes are not brought together very well, perhaps because France does not think such integration is possible (see p. 115).

As a brief survey of Jesus’ life, intended for the educated layman, this book is admirable. It is wholly positive and constructively apologetic, saying just enough to answer the questions in the mind of the reader but never overpowering. It confronts the reader with Jesus and lets him decide what responses to make.

The Rise Of Post-Christian Europe

James I (1976, 472 pp., $12.50), and Robespierre, The Voice of Virtue (1974, 266 pp., $9.95), both by Otto J. Scott and published by Mason/Charter, are reviewed by R. J. Rushdoony, president, Chalcedon Foundation, Vallecito, California.

In an effort to escape a confrontation with the living God, says Otto J. Scott, man has followed what Scott calls “holy fools,” leaders of efforts to create an alternative to Christian faith, who have thereby brought disaster to their followers. These leaders have sought either to use Christianity for their own ends or to destroy it in order to establish their own religion, humanism. James I sought to use Christianity and Robespierre to supplant it. A third “holy fool,” John Brown of Harper’s Ferry fame, is the subject of Scott’s third and forthcoming study.

In James I’s day, the Grand Design of the Calvinists was to replace royal sovereignty, with its claim to divine rights, with the sovereignty of God. After Knox, the goal of Calvinism was to combine political and social revolution with a theological revolution and to make the Reformed faith the foundation for the restructuring of society. The immediate goal was to unite Scotland, England, and the Netherlands, aid the Huguenots, help Reform triumph in all of northern Europe, and thereby create a new Christendom. Philip II of Spain had dreamed of restoring the old Catholic Christendom. Most monarchs, however, were thinking of a state-centered rather than a God-centered order.

In infancy, James I had been crowned by men who dreamed of the Grand Design, and he had been tutored in it, although very early his magnificent tutor George Buchanan recognized his reprobate nature. (Very early, too, James developed his homosexual tendencies.) From the beginning, James surrounded himself with pro-Catholic nobles and sought good relations with England’s old enemy, Spain. By exploiting the Catholics he was able to use them, as he used everyone else, to further, not Calvinist or Catholic goals, but royal ones. Scott makes clear what many scholars, misled by James’s sorry appearance and pomposity, have missed: “There had never been anything wrong with James’ intelligence; it was his character that was deficient.” James was a key figure in the shift of the climate of Europe from Christian man to politico-economic man, a shift that undermined the work of both the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation and gave us the modern era.

In Robespierre, the humanism is open and clear. A new world order, a millennium, is to be established on man’s terms. The full slogan of the French Revolution, seldom reproduced in our time, was “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity—or Death,” and the Reign of Terror, the Russian Revolution, and the social upheavals of our day were the result. Robespierre pushed through the legal abolition of Christianity, Catholic and Protestant, but not of the witchcraft and black magic cults. Judaism was banned also, and the death penalty was ordered for “the practice of any form of Christian or Judaic religion.” The goal was to de-Christianize France and to create a truly humanistic religion.

In France, the man in the street had become economic man, no longer Christian man. Earlier, Mirabeau had seen the issue and what revolution had to promise: “In the last analysis, the people will judge the Revolution by one consideration, and one only: will it put more money in their pockets? Will they be able to live more easily?” Anything was permissible for the rulers in their efforts to reach their revolutionary objectives, because man’s morality could be decreed only by man. An edict of d’Herbois and Fouchet began, “All is permitted those who act in the Revolutionary direction.” The fall of Robespierre came when he began to be heralded by an insane little group as the Messiah; Catherine Theot hailed him as the Son of God, and then as God. Robespierre’s enemies used this to overthrow him; the humanistic gods ended by tearing each other apart savagely.

Scott writes with superb ability, as a master of both language and history. Moreover, he writes as a Christian, one who sees all of history in terms of biblical faith. He is a scholar with a solid background in the world of commerce (the oil industry), as his study The Professional (1976) evidences. He does not see Christian faith as alien to that world or to modern history. Rather, he sees it as the critical and inescapable issue. Modern man may pretend to be indifferent to that faith, but behind that indifference a full-scale war is under way, because the challenge is felt; man cannot exist in indifference to the living God. Moreover, Scott sees man’s warfare against God as involving war against man as well, so that James, for example, in opposing the faith, was also renouncing his pledge to work for his kingdom’s welfare. As Scott notes, intellectuals still echo James’s belief that he could govern according to the common weal and not according to the common will. Humanistic intellectuals from James I to the present have assumed that they themselves could define, without reference to the word of God and the will of man, what constitutes the common good.

Both these studies are important, not only for what they say concerning the eras dealt with but for their implications for our times. Scott is aware that there is an implicit theology in all historiography. Instead of a morass of data, he gives us a coherent view, because, if God is the Lord of history, then history is more than a collection of data. For this reason, to read Scott’s studies means that things fall into place for us; our own perspective is clarified.

Briefly Noted: Feelings

Christians can have more difficulty in handling problems than non-Christians. They may feel they are supposed to be leading lives of continuous peace and victory with the strength God supplies, and so to the initial problem are added guilt and a feeling of having let God down. For general treatments see The Whole Christian: How You Can Find Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Health, by Elizabeth Skoglund (Harper & Row, 113 pp., $2.95 pb), The Strong Weak People, by Jay Kesler (Victor, 119 pp., $2.25 pb), Courage to Live: Help From the Bible For Life’s Problems, by John Bishop (Judson, 127 pp., $3.95 pb), and How to Live with Your Feelings, by Phillip Swihart (InterVarsity, 60 pp., $1.25 pb). Several emotions are treated, a chapter for each, in Healing Life’s Sore Spots, by Frank Kostyu (Hawthorn, 156 pp., $6.95), and Your Churning Place: Your Emotions, Turning Stress Into Strength, by Robert Wise (Regal, 142 pp., $2.95 pb). Numerous specific emotions are the subjects of separate books: To Anger, With Love, by Elizabeth Skoglund (Harper & Row, 108 pp., $6.95), Overcoming Anxiety, by Gerald Schomp (St. Anthony Messenger, 124 pp., $1.50 pb), Depression: What Is It? How Do We Cope? by Jack Dominian (Our Sunday Visitor, 224 pp., $3.95 pb), How to Beat the Blahs, by Arnold Prater (Harvest House, 112 pp., $1.75 pb), and Liberation From Guilt, by Harold Warlick, Jr. (Broadman, 128 pp., n.p., pb).

Each of us remembers waking up to a dreary grey morning, when the weather outside matched the weather inside—rainy and foggy. I remember times in Chalet les Melezes when we had to scramble for every available bucket, pan, or bowl to catch the drips of the leaky roof. Yes, leaks in the roof turn a home into a dismal place; tiles and asbestos, tin and slates are not impenetrable. From time to time, each of us experiences an inner leak—much more demoralizing than holes in the roof. The condition of our inner house is threatened as leaks appear. We try to find containers to catch the dirt-stained drips. But what we should do is repair the roof.

The Bible tells us the ingredients of these leaks, and it warns us to seek the materials to repair them. God doesn’t give us sympathy to wallow in any kind of self-pity. We let ourselves feel the cold drip of fear, and streams of dismay, or the ebbing of courage. We huddle in our leaky houses and let the downpour drown out the word do. Does our father in Heaven ever stop telling us to “do?” We are to read, listen, and do.

Remember in the beginning of Deuteronomy how Moses reminded the people that the Lord God had told them to possess the land, to go into it because he had given it to them—to fear not and to not be discouraged. Yet the people listened to men, rather than to God. Their actions were based on believing someone else: “Whither shall we go up? Our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, ‘The people is greater and taller than we; the cities are great and walled up to heaven …’” (Deut. 1:28). But Moses tells the people, “Then said I unto you, Dread not, neither be afraid of them. The LORD your God which goeth before you shall fight for you, according to all that he did for you in Egypt before your eyes; … Yet in this thing ye did not believe the LORD your God” (29 and 32).

Discouragement and fear had leaked through. The holes in the roof were made by their friends, “our brethren.” The Israelites let people spoil the security of trusting the Lord’s promises. The crack in the roof comes when we listen to people who insidiously hint or openly say that God cannot be trusted. God’s strong admonitions to “dread not, neither be afraid” are always accompanied by an action, something we are to go ahead and do to show that we trust his promises.

At the end of Deuteronomy 31:7, 8 Moses says to Joshua, “Be strong and of a good courage: for thou must go with this people into a land which the LORD hath sworn unto their fathers to give them; and thou shalt cause them to inherit it. And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee, he will not fail thee neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be thou dismayed.” God repeats this directly to Joshua in Joshua 1:8, 9: “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then shalt thou make thy way prosperous and then shalt thou have good success. Have I not commanded thee? Be thou strong and of a good courage: be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

God called upon Joshua to begin a project that stretched out impossibly before him; no man could accomplish it in his own strength. Yet God made it clear over and over again that he knew fear, dismay, even cowardice would be natural emotions and would be fostered by his friends. But God pointed Joshua to the law, to the word of God, and told him to read it, think about it, and fill his mind and emotions with what it said.

Joshua could be courageous because God would never fail him. It was not that circumstances would be easy and smooth. Joshua was asked to act on his believing what God had promised. As leaks came in the roof of his inner self, and fear or dismay dripped in, the tar paper and tile to mend the leaks would be found in rereading and meditating on God’s promises. And then—act. Do the next thing that God revealed. Joshua was to cross Jordan. Yours and mine are different. But there is always a next step to take and there is always someone around who will try to discourage us.

In 1 Chronicles 28:9 David says to Solomon, “And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the LORD searcheth all hearts and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off forever. Take heed now; for the LORD hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong and do it. Then David gave to Solomon the pattern.…” David forcefully tells his son to seek the Lord, and then to do what God wants him to do. Each generation needs to seek God on its own to find out what its specific tastes are.

But there is another continuity that seems to be connected with certain types of people. According to the word of God courage is not meant to belong only to certain individuals with a particular set of genes. There is meant to be a special continuity of courage that can be followed through history like a gleaming silver thread. Courage belongs to the people of God. Courage is our heritage. “And David said to Solomon his son, ‘Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the LORD God, even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the LORD. And, behold, the courses of the priests and the Levites, even they shall be with thee for all manner of workmanship every willing skillful man, for thy manner of service …’” (1 Chron. 28:20, 21a).

That is the gift for the people of God. What fantastic mending material is ours for the taking! Is it a grey, dismal, rainy, heavy day? Are you—am I—exhausted, and is there a leak letting in drips? We are meant to be strong and of good courage in order to do what no one else can do, what belongs to us at this particular moment of history. And on top of that, we are to keep this continuity of courage which has been passed down through the ages. People should see, hear, taste, feel, observe in every way that he will not fail us.

Such is the modern mindset that many North Americans summarily refuse to read any kind of religious book. The particular point of view of a given volume does not matter. If the theme seems religious, the book is disqualified. To be worth reading, a book must be void of any significant theological or spiritual content.

Most book stores stock very few religious titles. This has resulted in the emergence over the past few decades of specialized book stores featuring Bibles and religious books. But the recent increase in interest in religions generally and evangelical religion particularly has seen a tremendous surge in the number of religious books, readers, and accordingly, of the stores that bring them together. Throughout the United States and Canada there are now about 3,600 such stores.

The proprietors of these Christian book stores are usually committed church people who want to minister to others. At first, few of them were sufficiently sensitive to or even aware of management and marketing techniques that are needed to make their operations flourish. But with considerable help from the twenty-eight-year-old Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) the picture has changed dramatically in recent years. CBA tabulations show average store volume up from $46,300 in 1970 to $93,900 in 1976. Average increase in gross annual sales climbed from 11.7 per cent to 19.3 per cent in the same period. The CBA held its annual trade exhibit and convention in Kansas City last month and nearly 7,000 people attended with more than 1,000 stores represented. The increase over the previous year’s attendance was the biggest in CBA history.

With the new stores and increased sales, the number and the size of book publishing also has grown. John T. Bass, Executive Vice-President of CBA, says that his industry is second only to electronics in growth. Improvement in production, packaging, and content undoubtedly has contributed to its expansion. Few books, with some best-selling exceptions, are explicitly evangelistic; most are geared to those who are already Christians. Through testimony and instruction they seek to relate biblical principles to flesh-and-blood situations. Religious publishers are quick to address themselves to most issues that concern the general population. Books on homosexuality, the role of women, nutrition, pornography, criminal justice, and drug abuse are abundant. Of course, as with regular publishers, there isn’t necessarily a relationship between quantity and quality. Testimonies abound. Celebrities have books by and about themselves. Ordinary people are more likely to see print if they are severely injured or are captured (then released) while serving as missionaries in a war zone, or if they are converted from heavy involvement in drugs or the occult.

The sophistication of a new breed of Christian book stores is shown in the choice of such names as the Wet Net or the Vine and the Fig Tree. Other techniques are increasingly used to make their stores more appealing so as to draw customers who would be uneasy in a traditionally religious atmosphere. New stores continue to sprout up because of the potential for success; CBA figures show that the rate of failure was only 4.7 per cent last year, far lower than the figure for small businesses in general. Bass says the basic market remains the married woman between the ages of 26 and 48 because she is still the person in the family who can most easily shop during the day. Bass says that with all that growth only one in ten persons in an evangelical church visits a Christian book store. That leaves a huge market to develop.

A Pause For Appreciation

The mid-July power failure in New York City suspended what neither war nor weather nor any other circumstance had ever interrupted: the venerable daily report of Religious News Service. A note to subscribers explained, “With mail deliveries suspended, all electrical equipment dead, transportation, telephone, telex and cable facilities inoperative, it was impossible to produce a service. This is the first time in RNS’s 44-year history that the service was not issued on a scheduled publication day. We regret any inconvenience.”

RNS, operated by the National Conference of Christians and Jews, has become a basic tool for any North American intent on keeping abreast of religious developments. Under the very capable leadership of managing editor Lillian Block a package of stories totalling more than 5,000 words is compiled and distributed each weekday. The reportage is a model of fairness. Highly-charged issues are dealt with sensitively, and the result is better human understanding between people whose fundamental outlooks differ. The service was resumed as soon as power was restored, the break in the action having reminded many a subscriber that the material would be hard to do without.

Prime Time For Evangelicals

Last month CBS provided another example of the increased media attention to evangelicalism in a one-hour prime-time documentary called, simply, “Born Again.” The host, Bill Moyers, testified repeatedly to his own conversion experience, but he never specified whether he still agreed with the Bible teaching that precipitated it. He did make explicit that in this program he was a “neutral” reporter. One ought not to expect a secular network to do the work of an evangelist. What is expected is a fair treatment of the subject, while allowing for the limitations of time and of the medium.

In general, CBS did fairly well. They might have concentrated on the ignorant or the shysters or the flamboyant or on those who blend evangelical rhetoric with ultra-right-wing politics, to the detriment of both. But CBS did none of that. Moyers started with the Campus Crusade-backed Here’s Life America campaigns and Athletes in Action teams. He implied that subtle manipulation was involved. But an articulate spokesman for Campus Crusade defended using any legitimate and modern means to draw people to Christ.

In the middle of the program the cameras focused on deep south revivalism, showing long established methods by which the same basic message is proclaimed as do the “city slicker” Campus Crusaders. Moyers suggested that adolescent vulnerability was being exploited. It is true that there is a fine line, often unwittingly crossed, between doing what one can to call forth permanent decisions for Christ and bringing social and emotional pressure to bear to produce a short-lived profession. But the decade from age fifteen to twenty-five is crucial for making permanent one’s earlier childhood decisions and for reaching out to potential converts. Certainly one should try to lower the number of spurious professions, but not at the expense of being so low-key that even genuine conversions are delayed.

The strongest part of the program, happily, was the last segment where Moyers separately interviewed Eldridge Cleaver and Harold Hughes, who made numerous references to Chuck Colson. Hughes parried the devil’s advocate question about a secular psychological explanation for his mid-life conversion by quoting the blind man of John 9: “Though I was blind, now I see.” When asked why there are political (not to mention theological and other) differences among born-again people Hughes distinguished between conversion and maturity. A baby does not know calculus, he said. He did not point out that most grown-ups don’t know calculus either.

Martin Marty, a media favorite for expert commentary on religion, said he approved of individual conversions, but wasn’t as impressed when they involved large groups. Marty decried an overemphasis on celebrities (even though Luke himself couldn’t resist reporting that “not a few of the leading women” were converted under Paul’s preaching, thereby showing both a classist and a sexist slant in one phrase). Marty revealed his ignorance of Joni, a current leading religious best seller, when he asked, “Where are ‘born again’ books for the crippled?” Joni is a quadriplegic. He rightly suggested that, biblically and historically, conversion to Christ should be a life-shaking experience. Too often, today’s born-againer continues to behave pretty much as before, perhaps dropping a couple of vices, but not really having his life-style inconvenienced. To the extent that this charge is valid it deserves heeding.

For balance Moyers also could have included an intellectual more clearly identified with the born-again emphasis than Marty, an ex-Missouri Lutheran. When CBS reports on the more prestigious forms of Protestantism (and Moyers would be a good candidate to host such a show), they could use an analyst who is from the born-again camp. That would be still another sign of media maturity. Evangelicals would not only be reported on—even as one reports on South Sea islanders—but asked for their opinions.

Rhodesia’s Options

Two Protestant churchmen may hold the key to an orderly transition to black rule in Rhodesia. Christians around the world should pray that they will act responsibly and that black Rhodesians will rally round one or the other or both. Although United Methodist bishop Abel Muzorewa and the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole are political rivals, both are relative moderates.

Prime Minister Ian Smith, who also needs our prayers, is obviously aware that dealing with Muzorewa and Sithole will be far easier than negotiating with militants operating from neighboring countries. Smith has called for a parliamentary election August 31 and has spoken of “a broad-based government incorporating those black Rhodesians who are prepared to work peacefully and constitutionally with the present government in order to establish a base from which we would be able to draw up our future constitution.” This statement was widely interpreted as hinting that Smith would prefer to achieve a settlement with Muzorewa and Sithole.

Muzorewa returned from a six-week tour last month and was hailed by a crowd of 20,000. “That was the largest throng ever to support a black nationalist leader in Rhodesia,” Religious News Service reported, and indicated that Bishop Muzorewa “may be the popular favorite of Rhodesian blacks.”

When Phil Keaggy found Christ as his Saviour in 1970, he began to express his newfound faith in song. He had played the guitar and written tunes from the age of ten and had formed his first band when he was fourteen. As cofounder of Glass Harp, a rock group, he was establishing a name for himself as a guitar virtuoso. When conversion came he began writing songs about his relationship with God. In time he left Glass Harp to devote himself totally to performing for Christ. He now travels singing a new song.

Keaggy’s two solo albums, What a Day (1973) and Love Broke Thru (1976), show him to be a fine singer-songwriter and a masterly guitarist. But more than that they reverberate with the joy he has found in being delivered from guilt, confusion, and drugs by the life-changing Christ.

What a Day was an almost singlehanded effort. Keaggy wrote all the songs, played all the instruments, and did all the vocal work. The effective blending of acoustic and electric guitars gives the album a rich, full texture not unlike that of the secular pop-rock groups The Eagles and America. Keaggy closely ties the musical score to the lyric line; this method, though it has its disadvantages, is the most common one among contemporary singer-songwriters. He handles his writing well, carefully combining biblical language and concepts with imagery that opens up fresh ways of viewing the Christian experience.

“That Is What the Lord Will Do For You” compares the new birth to the seasonal change of winter into spring; the Holy Spirit is a wind blowing fresh life into the heart. The tune and arrangement have the brisk crackle of expectancy, hinting at what this new life will hold. “Walking With Our Lord” is a jubilant song of praise and thanks enhanced by excellent acoustic guitar bridges between verses. God’s care for the sparrow and for his children is expressed in the lively “A Time and a Place.” Dialogue between a sparrow and a robin pictures man as always fretting and worrying as if he had no heavenly Father watching over him. Many of the songs show the saturation of biblical language into Phil Keaggy’s life. Perhaps the best example of this is “Rejoice,” which celebrates the joy of finding the Shepherd and the rejoicing of the angels when a soul is saved. The warmth of God’s presence is the theme of “Now I Can See.” The title cut, “What a Day,” shows the Beatles’ influence on Keaggy’s music; a Paul McCartneyish tune bears the message of the wonders of heaven.

What a Day is a testimony in song in which Keaggy praises God for his mercy and celebrates the joys of life with Christ. Keaggy’s voice is clear and his guitar playing is superb.

After that, he did not make an album for about three years, during which time he continued to tour, was married, and settled in upstate New York’s Love Inn, a Christian community. When he chose to record again, he went to Los Angeles to surround himself with some of the finest studio musicians in the business. The result was Love Broke Thru, a group effort with a broader spectrum of sound.

Love Broke Thru makes use of songs and lyrics by other Christians; yet through it all Keaggy presents his own relationship to Christ. Beatrice Clelland’s “Portrait of a Christian,” the anonymous “Disappointment,” and “As the Ruin Falls” by C. S. Lewis receive musical settings that strengthen their impact. “As the Ruin Falls,” a poem of selfishness broken by love in which a self-sufficient man discovers that God and fellow man do not exist only to serve his pleasure, is given a plush accompaniment of flute, acoustic guitar, and strings that enhances the meaning and mood of the work.

The original songs of the album show a maturation in Keaggy’s song-writing abilities. The standout song in the album is “Time,” a real rocker that warns of time’s end and the coming judgment. The gutsy guitar work is as fine as anything being recorded by Eric Clapton or George Harrison (two early influences on Keaggy). “Just the Same.” another fine electric guitar number, urges Christians to have compassion on the lost and confused; “I can feel your sorrow/ I can share your pain/ I can hear the questions exploding in your brain.” Phil Keaggy’s musical talents, his high standards in choosing material, and his strong faith in Christ enable him to make his music an attractive and effective medium for communicating the gospel message to his music-conscious contemporaries.

Daniel J. Evearitt is a graduate student at Drew University.

By what

anti-miracle are we

laming the man

who leaped for joy,

clutching the

lunch fish until

they rot

in our hands,

losing ninety-nine

sheep,

turning bread

back to stone

and wine

to water?

Jesse Louis Jackson is the founder and national president of PUSH (People United to Save Humanity). From 1967 to 1971 he served as a national director of Operation Breadbasket within the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He attended Chicago Theological Seminary after graduating from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and is an associate minister of Fellowship Baptist Church in Chicago. Now, at age thirty-five, he leads national PUSH campaigns for excellence in city schools and conducts crusades against sex and violence in the media. Glenn Arnold, associate professor of journalism at Wheaton Graduate School, conducted this interview.

Question. Do you recall spiritual experiences from your childhood?

Answer. Well, of course, I remember that the environment was “join the church,” but I was never pressured to do it. But when I made that decision—I was in the third grade—I could sense the delight in my parents. I remember crying as if some burden had lifted.

Q. What do you recall about your early church experience?

A. Sunday school, church attendance, and Baptist Training Union on Sunday afternoons were all part of our life-style then, to be sure. The first stage I ever spoke on was a pulpit during some Christmas or Easter pageant. The church for us was a social, cultural, spiritual matrix around which a lot of our life revolved, a place where we could express our talents, whether playing a piano or organ or singing, and gain acceptance, as it were, in the broader community.

Q. Is it true that you were a delegate to a Sunday-school convention at age nine?

A. Yes. That became a great source of growing up. When you went to these conventions, your mother was waiting to get a report back from the counselor. She would ask, “How was his conduct away from home?”

Q. Do you remember any particular pastor especially well?

A. The Reverend James S. Hall. He was the pastor who first introduced me to social action—Jesus and social change and Mahatma Gandhi. He was a young pastor, twenty-six or twenty-seven, and I was fourteen or fifteen at the time. Jackie Robinson was coming through Greenville. He couldn’t get off the plane to use the restroom or eat at the local airport. So Pastor Hall led a march, over much resistance from the community, because they just couldn’t understand why a preacher would do such things. He began to interpret the Gospel in its broader application.

Q. Would you describe your conversion experience?

A. Well, you know, I’m very sensitive about trying to interpret that, because I think that many people have been driven from the church by seeking some classical form that their conversion took. You know, “I remember the day! I remember the hour! I felt the power!” “I fell off a horse and woke up on a certain street.” I think people have been locked into a certain cataclysmic event, and people who may not have felt that way after trying often have felt that they haven’t been called or that they haven’t been converted. I really think that one can have high moments, but one in my judgment should never associate a convulsion with a conversion.

Q. What happened after you felt called to the ministry?

A. There was some equivocation in my mind about coming to seminary here in Chicago. I was first accepted at law school at Duke. I finally decided to come on a trial basis, because it was within the context of the civil-rights movement, and we would be downtown marching. When I first came here to Chicago, I drove all the way with my wife and baby. I sat down on the side of the bed; it was a fairly dreary day, and I cried. I was leaving one period and going into another. There are two significant periods in a person’s life—that’s to know when you were born and then to know why. It was clear to me why I was born and what my mission was.

Q. Did you feel that this was more like a confirmation of your call?

A. Yes, a real inner confirmation. And then of course during the years since that time, I’ve had other expressions of confirmation. Sometimes I’ve been at particular places at particular times that could not have been planned or predicted, circumstances that only God could have arranged. I was with Dr. King in Memphis when he was killed. That experience—the tragedy and the trauma of it, as well as the opportunity to interpret it—was unique. Other kinds of events also indicate to me that it is possible for man’s feet to be planted by God.

Q. Do you still enjoy preaching?

A. Oh, very much. It is the supreme joy of my life. I’m always humbled by the size of the crowds. I’m acutely aware that people don’t have to come to hear me preach. They don’t come to hear other people preach. I think when I was a little younger, I may have preached for reputation; but the older I get, I preach for edification. And when I see the crowds come in, I don’t feel so much good as I feel obligated. They come from so many walks of life, and they expect so much. A lot of them don’t even come to church ordinarily; and so to have prepared myself as best as possible as a vessel through which the Word of Truth might come is a very obligative state of existence.

Q. What kind of sermons do you preach?

A. Well, first of all, I speak to situations. But I tend to put my situations in biblical contexts. I’ve never experienced a situation where there was not a text that could adequately fit the situation, a biblical text.

When Mayor Daley died, for example, people were searching for profound things to say and searching for ways to interpret it. I remembered the last verse in the last chapter of Judges when there was no king in Israel, “And each man did what was right in his own eyes.” And that’s exactly what happened; all that breaking up into little groups and coalitions—the Jews, the Irish, and the blacks, and the Croatians—“there was no king and each man did what he thought was right in his own eyes.” You can just go on and on, searching for ways to marry the situations.

I think just talking about Ezekiel and describing the circumference of Babylon—describing the geography of Babylon and using some literal interpretation of bones and talking about physiological anatomy without any serious application to the valley in which you now stand—is a misuse of people’s time. That is not good preaching.

Q. Do you consider yourself an evangelical?

A. I consider myself an evangelical, but white evangelicals don’t. They shy away from me because of my social activism.

Q. Do you believe in the virgin birth of Jesus Christ?

A. Yes. It can’t be disproved. God is capable of all things.

Q. What do you believe about the doctrine of original sin?

A. Well, one has to know that Adam and Eve is a myth; I separate myth from a fairy tale. A fairy tale is a story that has no original truth. It was designed to be false. A myth is a way of conveying a message wherein there is a kernel of truth even though certain peripheral elements may not be literal.

Q. Do you believe in the bodily resurrection of Christ?

A. Well, you know, I do. If that tomb was guarded by military soldiers and they were not able to report that they were overthrown by some element and left, something happened. The disciples would not have lied to the point of each of them being destroyed through some violent death. They not only came back to protect themselves; they came back with enough convictions themselves to be crucified.

Q. Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?

A. Oh yes, I do. I don’t believe Jesus is the only son of God. I think God’s world is too big for that.

Choose The High Road

The following is an excerpt from a speech Jesse Jackson gave last month at PUSH headquarters in Chicago. The cover photograph was taken during the speech.

One thing worse than not having life options is to have life options and not take advantage of them.

There was a one-hour presentation on television last night. Young men, some black and some white, somehow chose the wrong road. They became murderers. They did not choose the road of excellence. They chose the road of moral decay.

The low road is deceptive. It tells you that this is a beautiful road because we’ve got big hats and we’ve got high heeled shoes and we’ve got bangles on our arms and we’ve got money in our pockets and you don’t have anything but a book under your arm. Each young man talked about his mother and his father. Some of them said it was a broken home that put them on the low road. Almost always they argued that it was some peculiar circumstance that shoved them from innocence into the chaos of the low road.

There’s also a high road. You don’t walk it by just looking in the mirror. You’ve got to walk the high road by looking out of the window pane. Now I know that the mirror and the window pane are both glass. But in the mirror you see only yourself and begin to engage in a kind of narcissism. You become so wrapped up in self-pride that you think your personality is the center of the universe. You cannot mature by just looking in the mirror; you have to look out the window. Out of the window is the objective world. Out of the window there are four seasons. Out of the window are the sun, the moon, the stars, the grass. There are mountains, meadows, hot days, and electrical storms. There are ups and downs in that real world. So many of us just wallow in self-pity. People will pity us if we can’t type, but they won’t hire us. People will pity us if we don’t go to medical school, but they won’t let us be their doctors. Why complain about your eyes when there is a blind man down the street? Why complain about arthritis in your leg when there is another man walking on a peg? Look out the window.

We believe in inspiration. We believe in the Holy Spirit. Our roots are in the Church. We are able to interpret the Gethsemanes of life. We are able to interpret the Calvarys of life. We are able to celebrate the Easter Sundays of life because we have a religious foundation. We can know where we’re going. We can know that star, which is seen by night. We know who is in charge. Just because it rains, we don’t drown—for we know Somebody.

Q. Would you explain that?

A. I think that God has many sons. There are people all over the world—some who never heard of the Christian faith—who will be saved because they’re God’s children. I don’t think 900 million Chinese today who never heard the word “Jesus” are lost eternally because some white Christian missionary didn’t make it to China. I don’t believe that.

Q. Do you believe that they would have some awareness of God through nature or other means?

A. Through nature and through other people. God is not limited in his use of people and events through which to speak. Sometimes when he tries to speak through a given vehicle that is insufficient, then God will raise up others. But, you know, Jesus went on to define how you get to the Father. And even though we always say that you go through Jesus to get to God, Jesus did not always put on that restriction.

Q. What do you do with Acts 4:12, “There is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved”?

A. I just take that as the evangelism of that day. It’s a good sermon. One might say that there is “no other way under heaven whereby man may be saved except through love.”

Q. Are there major differences between white and black evangelicals?

A. I told somebody one time that the classical difference between Dr. King and Billy Graham—both were evangelicals—was that Billy Graham would have preached to the slaves in Egypt and converted their souls and told them to go back to the fields; then he’d have gone and played golf with Pharaoh. Dr. King would have preached to change their souls and then taken them to Canaan.

See, it’s not enough to change people’s appetites and desire for freedom and then send them back to slavery, while you go play golf with Pharaoh. God wants the mind, body, and soul of his people. God is more likely to manifest himself when you change from the tendency of the oppressor to him as the liberator.

I think evangelicals by and large have been too insensitive to the environment in which God has sent us to evangelize. A part of the mission is the creation of a just world.

Q. What is the relation between your Christian faith and politics?

A. My religion compels me to be concerned about economics and international affairs. I would be violating the tenets of the faith if I were not involved in helping in housing, urban development, HEW, war and peace. How can you be a messenger for the Creator without a concern for the creation, for all the creatures?

Q. When did you first see Christianity functioning in a social context?

A. My mother was a real social servant of sorts. She had graduated from high school, and in our neighborhood in Greenville, South Carolina, she was one of the few people who could read. A lot of old people, when they would try to apply for Social Security, would come by the house, and Mama would fill out the papers for them. If they were sick, she would go to their house and try to make certain they got what was coming to them. A lot of them couldn’t even count well enough to take their money to the store. I appreciate the impression that made upon my own mind.

One experience stands out in my memory. Mr. Dave Robinson used to come by the house all the time. He couldn’t read or write. He got real sick, and Mother used to go down to his house every day and help him with his medicine and his liniment.

Anyhow, this Christmas, Daddy lost his job, and Mama had been ill, and we didn’t have any money. They were debating not going to church because we didn’t have any gifts to share. I remember Mama saying, “We don’t have any gifts to give, but we are members of the choir.” She was a lead singer in the choir. “We aren’t taking any gifts and we don’t expect to have any gifts. It’s okay; we can still participate.” So then we walked to church, three or four miles across town.

Later we came back home and walked up the flight of seventeen stairs. I shall never forget it. There were about six bags of groceries on the porch. They didn’t have any name written on them, and we assumed it was an accident. We saw some meat and we figured we’d at least put the meat in the refrigerator until someone claimed it. We wouldn’t dare touch it.

The next day Mr. Dave came by and said, “I don’t understand. You got the groceries in the living room. Somebody should have put them up.”

But Mama said, “No, nobody can put it up, because they belong to someone else; they were left here by accident.”

He said, “Oh no, it was not an accident. My Social Security check came, and I bought that for you and Charlie and the children for Christmas.”

That was a very spiritual experience, and made an imprint on my mind. The reason there was no writing on the groceries was that Mr. Dave couldn’t write. That was really “bread cast on the water,” returning toasted, with butter on it.

Q. Why don’t white evangelicals have a Jesse Jackson on the front lines of social issues?

A. Racism. I think that one great flaw in the American character is that of race, and the quicker that that cataract of race is pulled off the eye of the evangelicals and the Golden Rule is applied to all of God’s children and a compassion for those that have less is communicated, then the power of the evangelical will expand; his power will be unlimited.

Q. What should be the relationship between Christianity and the government in the United States?

A. One of the great dangers of Christianity in this country is that Christianity is determined by color and limited by culture. And too often we end up with a state religion where the flag flies higher than the cross. We end up respecting the cross but worshiping the flag. If God is the ultimate concern, that is what we will live and die for ultimately. There aren’t many Christians who will die about the cross.

Q. What lies behind your PUSH for excellence in inner-city public schools?

A. Our basic notion is that the death of ethics is the sabotage of excellence. There must be ethical standards. We’ve said in PUSH that the triangle is our symbol. We have economic generation, spiritual regeneration, and discipline. You need all three, because if you’re spiritually regenerated and disciplined you can get economic generation.

Q. Do you think prayer and Bible reading should be reinstated in the public schools?

A. Well, you know, actually they were never taken away. I think that in a pluralistic society that is heterogeneous, you cannot impose your religion on people of other religions. If a child is trained in Islam, you cannot have him standing up and saying the Lord’s Prayer. The court didn’t say that you couldn’t pray; the court said that you couldn’t make me pray. That’s all the law has said. I’ve been to many schools around this country where they still have prayer. And it’s not unconstitutional either.

Q. In your very busy worldwide schedule, what priority do you give to your own family and their needs?

A. I try to share with them a qualitative use of my time, but quantity, too. In summertime, periodically I’ll take my daughter on weekend trips with me so she can say things she’d never say if she wasn’t away from Mama and the boys. Then the next weekend I might take three of my boys with me. We begin to communicate. I have a basketball goal in my back yard, and we play ball together. And I sign my children’s report cards. Obviously their mother sends them off to school more than I do, but they finally got to come back this way before that report card goes back.

Q. If you could get one message across to the readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY or white evangelicals in general, what would it be?

A. When you say “Our Father,” draw the “O” big enough to include all God’s children.