No Good Argument
Thanks for an article that underscores our secure foundation in Christ and complete identity as women. I’ve long believed there is no “pro-choice” argument that can be successfully mounted on intellectual, scientific, emotional, psychological, or spiritual grounds when the debaters are women. Even the legality of abortion appears to rest on a subjective, unsubstantiated foundation. Consequently, “pro-choice” advocates work harder to convince a still-wary society that this overdeveloped sense of entitlement and self-absorption is not wretched, but honorable. The women Ellen Santilli Vaughn chose to showcase in her story “For Women, Against Abortion” [Mar. 7] provide a nearly complete picture of feminine debate.
Although one women does not a study make, I can say from anguished experience that university degrees, jetting around the country, the best hotels, a comfortable six-figure income, a generally high-flying 17-year career in a male-dominated industry, a stable marriage and happy children all still lead back to my home where a teenager is missing: a child aborted by its young mother, who, with her 15-year history of abuse and incest at the hands of “Christian” men, believed in confused immaturity that a baby would stand in the way of her “escape.” There appeared to be no alternative.
How I yet grieve over the life potential I chose to crush. If, as “pro-choice” (even Christian) feminists argue, women are society’s heart, then we must unite to end the promotion of death experiences, much less their practice. Abortion tops the list.
Please give readers details on how we might contact some of the organizations highlighted in Vaughn’s story.
Sheri Castleman
Littleton, Colo.
Americans United for Life: 343 S. Dearborn, Suite 1804, Chicago, Ill. 60604; National Women’s Coalition for Life: P.O. Box 1553, Oak Park, Ill. 60304; Nurturing Network: 910 Main Street, Suite 360, P.O. Box 2050, Boise, Idaho 83701.
—Eds.
Small groups disciple
There is a saying that all politics is local. In the same sense, all Christian growth is in and through small groups. Warren Bird worries that small groups will distract the church from evangelism [“The Great Small-Group Takeover,” Feb. 7]. We focus on evangelistic endeavors because they can be measured. It is easy to count, and ignore the statistics that predict 90 percent will fall away. The important task is contained in the oft-ignored part of the Great Commission that requires us to “teach them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
In practice, large groups divert individual Christians from the one-on-one interaction that produces disciplined, mature Christians. That is only found in the closeness and accountability of small groups and is never present in any effective way in the larger congregational group.
R. T. Carruthers
Hammond, Oreg.
I was a youth director who worked in a community with evangelicals who worked hard to ensure the young people we met had a “personal relationship with Jesus Christ” and continually told the students, “Jesus is your best friend.” But I couldn’t help feeling that in their choice of words, they were somehow diminishing God—bringing him down to our level, so to speak.
Robert Wuthnow [“How Small Groups Are Transforming Our Lives,” Feb. 7] helped me better understand my intuition that we were somehow selling the kids short. I am frightened that we are portraying God as a friend (who is manageable and “user-friendly”) in an attempt to lure new people into the church. I fear for young people who may only view God as a handy, benevolent pal to call on when no one else will listen. God is omnipotent and holy. I can’t really relate to or understand a Being like that.
I hope our good intentions of reaching out to new people will not wane, but I pray that what we offer is not just a glimpse of the living God but the whole Truth. Because Jesus is not my friend. Jesus is Lord.
Karen J. Roles
St. Paul, Minn.
Death, the excruciating event
In the February 7 issue, I read Norwood Anderson’s compelling portrayal of death, “The Enemy,” and a notice reporting that my father [Paul F. Robinson] had died. Neither item was news to me. As we held Dad’s hand during the last week of his life, the words of Dylan Thomas haunted me: “Do not go gentle into that good night, … / Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”
I hated my father’s resignation. I hated my own acceptance of his death. But Dad’s passing was a chronicle of Dr. Anderson’s account. Dad never bought a saccharine view of death. He knew it was unnatural and that death broke God’s heart. But in his final days, it was clear to all of us that Dad knew the Victor awaited him. Thanks to Dr. Anderson for treating death with both realism and hope. I’m sure his article will rescue many Christians who feel guilty about finding death to be the excruciating event that it is.
William P. Robinson, President
Whitworth College
Spokane, Wash.
Did Lewis lose his faith?
My wife and I viewed Shadowlands, the movie about C. S. Lewis and his love affair with [Joy Davidman Gresham], who died of cancer. As portrayed in the movie, Lewis seemed to have been robbed of his faith by the harrowing experience [News, Feb. 7]. I’m sure this was not true, but I would like reassurance that my opinion is correct. Did Lewis write about suffering from a Christian perspective after this incident? If so, what?
Reo M. Christenson
West Carrollton, Ohio
See Lewis’s A Grief Observed, first published in 1961.
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Truth needs to be demonstrated
The evangelical cause is ill served by the atavistic musings of Pope John Paul II and Richard John Neuhaus [“A Voice in the Relativistic Wilderness,” Feb. 7]. Truth is apprehended not by discussion but by demonstration. Christianity is not a philosophical idealism in the Greek mode but a theological pragmatism in the Hebrew mode.
David Hager
Warrenville, Ill.
Please let go of R. J. Neuhaus and his pope. The very word pope should be revolting to you. To a Protestant, it is clear that anyone who is Roman Catholic has misused Scripture. To say, at the head of the Neuhaus article, that you want help from such believers is pathetic. It is also useless.
Mrs. A. D. Fraser
Montreal, Que., Canada
Is it really in a good evangelical tradition to praise the man who calls himself the Vicar of Christ on earth without noting that it was papal claims like his that have contributed to the existence of the evangelical movement to which you and we belong?
Harold O. J. Brown
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
Deerfield, Ill.
The “voice” that Neuhaus writes about definitely has a different agenda and should be viewed with much suspicion.
Charles H. Gillespie
Phoenix, Ariz.
The issue is “trash”
Aren’t we being more than a bit silly when we emote all over the place about sex and violence on TV [“Violence Foes Take Aim,” News, Feb. 7]? After all, the greatest books of our heritage—Iliad, Aeneid, the Books of Kings and Chronicles—recount little else. The Odyssey adds dirty jokes and a scam artist. There’s a trashy way to handle any subject matter and a good way. The issue is trash, not sex-and-violence per se!
A quick and dangerous thought: get rid of pro football (violence) and basketball (and the reputed sex exploits of its superstars), and you’ll purge half the sex and violence on TV.
Douglas J. Stewart
Newton Centre, Mass.
The church impotent
Philip Yancey in his “Breakfast at the White House” [Feb. 7] has provided us with a wonderful explanation of why the church is impotent in its influence on our culture in this post-Christian world. He agonizes over the “alienation that exists between evangelicals and the current administration” and states his purpose in attending this breakfast with the President was to “address our concerns.” He fears our access will be cut off “because of disagreements over these issues,” referring to abortion and homosexual rights, and states that the meeting convicted all present about the need to bring “civility to the dialogue.”
Can Yancey point to a single passage of Scripture in which there is “civil dialogue” between the church and a government ruler? Could he show me one passage concerning believers groveling before earthly magistrates so that our “concerns” would be addressed, then fearing our “access” would be cut off? I see only two forms of dialogue between men of God and government rulers. From the prophets of the Old Testament to John the Baptist to the apostle Paul, God’s ambassadors approach government officials with only two purposes: (1) to confront sin, both personal and national, or (2) to share with the individual the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In either circumstance, they were more likely to lose their heads, as did John the Baptist, than simply to lose access.
Until the church regains its prophetic voice, it will continue to be as influential as a child emptying the ocean with a spoon.
Pastor James M. Harrison
Red Mills Baptist Church
Mahopac Falls, N.Y.
It was heartwarming to see there are still some “Christlike” leaders who realize that civility and prayer for Presidents is the Christians’ calling—not political strong-arming!
Unless my memory fails me, the Roman government, as well as its leaders, was an immoral and anti-God government. Jesus did not cry out to the “Moral Majority,” or the “Christian Coalition,” or to any “Religious Right” action group. Needless to say, these politically astute groups hanged Jesus. His agenda was not in line with theirs.
I pray that God will guide Bill (the sinner) Clinton, his wife, Hillary, and those currently in power. Those loud voices from the mob, to the Left and to the Right, are not practicing what Jesus taught his disciples. Christians, beware of voices who have their own agenda!
Jerry W. Owens
Walton, Ky.
As a long-time admirer of Yancey’s writing, I was stunned at his naïve and esoteric musings regarding Bill Clinton. First, no sane evangelical thinks President Clinton is the Antichrist or that his salvation lies in a political party or its leadership. Second, am I supposed to be impressed with “Clinton’s ability to articulate issues in spiritual terms, as well as his knowledge of the Bible”? What kind of litmus test is that? So can Satan.
Finally, who is Jack Hayford to deliver “an eloquent ‘apology’ for the un-Christlike way in which many Christians had treated the President”? Who is persecuting whom? Hayford does not speak for the millions of Christians who abhor the damage Bill Clinton is doing to their faith, freedom, and families. Speak the truth in love, but for heaven’s sake, take off your blinders and earmuffs and speak the truth.
Michael C. McHardy
St. Louis, Mo.
Over a year of the Clinton presidency has left many Christians wondering if all that “biblical knowledge” will ever have any impact on Clinton’s public policies that negatively impact unborn babies, public-school children, and the overtaxed American family—the future of our country.
Yancey asks, “Have we gotten to the place where it now takes courage to go to the White House and address our concerns?” What would have been really courageous is if Yancey and the rest of those evangelical breakfasters had firmly reminded the President he is supporting policies that are deeply repugnant to Christians all over America, and asked him—with civility, of course—what he intended to do about that.
Pastor John S. Sheldon
First Presbyterian Church
Ocean City, N.J.
Clinton has been judgmental of conservative thinking. He says, “A lot of changes we need in this country have to come from the inside out.” Does he mean that conservative Christian thinking has to change? Christian truth is reality and cannot be changed. To be anti-truth is to be anti-Christ.
Marvin Wahlert
Williams, Iowa
President Clinton has so far appointed 22 gays and lesbians to administration positions. Can you name one evangelical Christian who has been appointed? Since one out of four Americans call themselves “evangelical,” the promise that his cabinet would look like America sounded nice, but all it did was help him get elected so he could then break the promises.
Don Rosenow
Green, Kan.
I agree with Yancey and Hayford when they deplore the un-Christlike way some Christians have responded to Clinton. It also is easy to concur with Richard Mouw’s call for more civility in the dialogue between Christians and the President.
At the same time, one must ask where the civility was when, in his first week in office, Clinton took a direct slap at pro-lifers by announcing five steps that were good news for those favoring abortion and bad news for unborn children. One must ask why “the seasoned listener with an active, responsive mind” repeatedly responds to Christian concerns with appointments such as activist lesbian Roberta Achtenberg (HUD) and by seeking to legitimize the practice of homosexuality via such moves as forcing the military to accept gays. Perhaps such actions might help explain the alienation Yancey perceives between evangelicals and the Clinton administration.
We dare not become so engrossed in maintaining civility and “proper” dialogue that we lose sight of the gravity of the harm done by the Clinton administration’s promulgation of abortion and homosexuality.
Curtis Peck
St. Louis, Mo.
Grow up!
David Holmquist’s article proves once again that bad ideas can be wrapped in good English [“Will There Be Baseball in Heaven?” Jan. 10]. As a lively and engaging essay, it fails to support its claim that sports are beneficial. My research indicates otherwise. While play does promote many useful virtues, most educational literature tends to correctly differentiate between play and competitive sports (like baseball), although the article does not.
The article correctly observes that humans are “drawn to the magic of sports,” but erroneously attributes this to the Creator. Humans are also drawn to commit premarital sex, watch violent fistfights, and cuss out drivers who cut them off in traffic. We hardly want to attribute these passions to the Creator merely because they exist in the human. The article breaks an important rule of apologetics. Actions alone do not justify themselves. Just because something is hardly means that it should be.
Adults can get up every morning and go to work for 20 years, even when the roar of the crowd has long died out. Wow! We can work without all that praise, adrenaline, and coaching; that is growth. We’ve finally grown up!
Duane Covrig
Riverside, Calif.
How scandalous for CT to publish the wrong-headed musings of Dodger fan David Holmquist. As any native-born Californian of the right age can tell you, when the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958, God’s team also relocated in the West and became the San Francisco Giants. The forces of darkness and light have been thus arrayed ever since.
Rev. David J. Glass
Crossroads Baptist Church
Bellevue, Wash.
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