No Limits
Thank you for Colin Chapman’s “The Riddle of Other Religions” [May 14]. I went to Japan as a missionary in 1928 with the then-prevalent idea that Jesus’ words “no one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6) meant that only through the Christian gospel could one be saved. But living among thousands who had no chance to hear it made it increasingly preposterous. Was it possible that God, who loved the world so much that he gave his own Son, would leave them hopelessly condemned?
If Jesus had said the same thing in positive instead of negative words—“Everyone who comes to the Father comes through me”—we would perhaps have remembered that the speaker was the One who also said, “Before Abraham was I am.” He said, without conditions, that “everyone who asks receives, and to him who knocks the door will be opened.” He did not say, “this is the Way,” but, “I am the Way.” There are no limits to him.
Rev. John C. deMaagd
Santa Barbara, Calif.
I cannot agree that there are “Christians” who do not believe in the uniqueness of Jesus Christ. That seems to be a contradiction in terms. Apparently, the author does not believe his own opening statement since he proceeded to refute the statement throughout the article. I wonder what he really believes.
Wanda F. Miller
Ellicott City, Md.
Scripture’s witness is that all persons participate in the saving grace of Christ except those the Bible expressly tells us will be finally lost: only those who throughout their lives willfully and finally reject, or remain indifferent toward, whatever revelation of himself God has given them.
More passages in Scripture speak of all persons coming to new life in Christ than those that speak of all men dying in Adam. These “universalistic” texts are generalizations (not universals), and Scripture alone may and does provide the exceptions to its declarations of universal salvation.
Holding to the uniqueness of Christ with the biblical perspective, we can acknowledge, appreciate, and account for evidences of God’s grace and truth operating in the life and religion of persons who have not been exposed to the Christian gospel. Christians ought to approach those of other religions with: “What you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you” (Acts 17:23, NIV).
Neal Punt
Christian Reformed Church
Evergreen Park, Ill.
We can still stand on our belief that there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we might be saved. But can we not live Christ’s love and accept those of other faiths, speaking to their needs in the same way that Jesus did? Let’s develop a greater understanding of the ways in which other faiths operate.
Bruce Cromwell
Greenville College
Greenville, Ill.
Why is it that so many of God’s children seem finally to come to the conclusion that “We must do more than simply reassert the uniqueness of Christ”? What more can we do?
Clay Belles
Omak, Wash.
Understandably, only selected passages can be referred to in one article. But the passage in 2 Corinthians 4:1–6 deals with truth. Paul says, “… by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.… The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
It seems to me that in a pluralistic society it is imperative that the Christian, by prayer and loving witness in words and deed, communicate the truth.
Rev. Ralph E. Brown
Royalston, Mass.
How can we afford to make the classic mistake, which it appears the author has done, of elevating human reason above divine revelation? The consequences historically are a dangerous distortion of the biblical message and therefore a weakening and perversion of the gospel.
Dave Couric
Duncanville, Tex.
Congratulations for publishing this and other articles that, in my opinion, not only keep a delicate balance between a full gospel faith and intellectual integrity, but also showcase the magazine within good principles of journalism.
Robert R. Schwartz
The International Assoc. of Lions Clubs
Oak Brook, Ill.
Middle-class Blues
Last Saturday morning, Mike Klevner exploded on the way home from our men’s fellowship breakfast. The speaker had just been to war-torn El Salvador and Mike had heard enough:
“Okay, so my Christian life is not perfect,” he began.
When Mike starts out this way, we know we’re in for a doozie.
“So I take material things for granted. So I eat too much while others go hungry. So my faith is not as urgent, as relevant, as it would be in El Salvador.”
The rest of us cleared our throats a lot. Tim Neegus said something about the weather, but that didn’t stop Mike.
“I’m tired of hearing about it. I’m especially tired of all those speakers telling me how pure and real the faith of believers overseas is, how much they enjoy church, how sincere they are in prayer and Bible reading.”
Okay, Mike, feel better now that you got that off your chest?
“Life isn’t so easy here you know.”
Somehow it always comes to this with Mike. “I’d like to see how those Third World people would handle my mortgage payment. Or my boss, for that matter. Every time I turn around I’ve got another insurance bill. And just yesterday my garage door opener quit, two days after the warranty ran out.”
Sometimes I think there’s no problem with our faith that an all-out, no-holds-barred, economy-crushing war couldn’t solve.
EUTYCHUS
A headline [in the Chapman essay] reads “There are now more Muslims than Methodists in the U.S.” The graph on page 19 shows 5 million Muslims listed for 1990. But in the U.S. there are currently 8,940,836 lay members and 38,177 ministerial members of the United Methodist Church.
Rev. Nancy Wheeler Hardlon
Centenary United Methodist Church
Mankato, Minn.
Islam is difficult to track statistically. Muslims keep no official registration records, and reputable estimates vary widely; some are less than the chart’s figure of 5 million, and some double that. The assertion that Muslims outnumber Methodists in the United States is difficult to document, and we regret any confusion.
—Eds.
Confession And Christian Lifestyles
Charles Colson [“From a Moral Majority to a Persecuted Minority,” May 14] makes an important point that Christians have become a persecuted minority in this day. In the same issue in “Reflections” a quote from Karl Rahner agrees with Colson’s premise: “Those who proclaim God with their mouths and deny Him with their lifestyles is what an unbelieving world finds simply unbelievable.”
When the Christian community is chastised by strong voices in both Protestant and Catholic disciplines, it is time to take note. There are multiple biblical references regarding the value of deeds to make faith evident. Have we created our own perception by failing to live Christian lifestyles?
Suzanne D. Schutze
Austin, Tex.
Both of the major phrases in Colson’s title demand serious scrutiny. But the piece’s colossal misguidedness is its equation of his circle’s agenda with the Christian agenda and his interpretation of “bringing moral values back into the mainstream of American life” with the Christian interpretation.
Many of Colson’s fellow churchmen and -women regard the 1980s as a profound low point in our nation’s moral history. Materialism, hardly ever addressed by his company of the devout, was the true besetting sin of the society. And, one is pained to ask, when in American public life has there been so little compassion?
Experience has taught me to hold in higher regard conversion to radical positions under the sovereignty of God than conversion from one form of conservatism to another. I found this column grievously deficient, a condition not offset by the pieties of his historical references.
Samuel S. Hill
Boone, N.C.
At last Colson wrote an article I can agree with. As a Christian radio talk-show host I know it is high time we Christians honestly face the question, “Which came first—the hen or the egg?” For example, a nationally aired Christian columnist sarcastically said recently that National Organization for Women president Molly Yard is “meaner than a junk-yard dog and looks like one, too.” How much “anti-Christian bias” do you suppose that mean statement fomented?
Ken Campbell
Spokane, Wash.
Still Unthinkable
Concerning “Lambs in Actor’s Clothing” [The Arts, May 14]: Lamb’s Players are not the only professional nonprofit theater organization in the U.S. that does not receive government funds. Covenant Players, the oldest, largest, and most prolific Christian drama ministry, receives its only financial support from performing engagements and occasional donations. Neither is long-term commitment to the ministry unusual to Lamb’s. I have been a full-time Covenant Player for seven years, and there are over 100 others who have been at it longer than I have.
Though much progress has been made since 1963, and despite its power and effectiveness in communicating the gospel, Christian theater is still “downright unthinkable” in many circles.
Andy Rice
Covenant Players
Oxnard, Calif.
In Good Company
I absolutely loved the review of my book, God in the Pits, alongside that of Chewning’s book, Biblical Principles and Business [Books, May 14]. It is wonderful to be in such company. Though it was not complimentary of my book, more than any other review it beautifully demonstrates the fundamental flaw in twentieth-century theological inquiry. The issue is succinctly summarized when the reviewer pounds the final nail into the coffin of “all testimonial approaches” by stating, “With anecdotes there is no ‘Thus saith the Lord!’ ” Jesus told one anecdote after another—whether real or fictional didn’t seem to matter—to demonstrate his eternal truth. It was the quintessential “Thus saith the Lord.”
The gospel has lost its power precisely because it has been reduced to “rigorous exegetical” theological proposition. But the real power of the gospel lies in its ability to change lives—a fact that can never be demonstrated by theological propositions, but only by story. No wonder Christ relied so heavily on story. I consider it an unspeakable personal honor to keep up the tradition.
Mark Ritchie
Chicago, Ill.
One Way Or No Way
Terry Muck’s editorial, “Many Mansions?” [May 14], was well thought out, except for his first statement: “There are two kinds of Christians—those who believe in the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and those who don’t.” This is patently false. If one does not believe in the unique Son of God, he/she is not a Christian. Jesus Christ is not merely one way—he is either the only way or no way at all. If Jesus Christ is not the unique Son of God, the only Savior of the world, the entire foundation of Christianity falls apart.
John Sloper
Phoenix, Ariz.
To say that someone could be a Christian and not believe Christ is the only way to salvation is to so dilute the meaning of the name as to make it nonsense. That is the real problem in the church in America. Until we Christians begin to confront unbelief and unchristian behavior in the church, we can expect no true progress.
David C. Crenshaw
Covenant Community Church
Bakersfield, Calif.
Is Ray Bradbury A Prophet?
I began my day by reading a review of Ray Bradbury’s book Zen in the Art of Writing. Noting his desire to teach people to “get rid of the concept that they have to be thinking all the time,” I filed this information away as another example of our culture’s capitulation to non-Christian world views. Imagine my dismay to come across Calvin Miller’s paean of praise for Bradbury—whom he deems a “prophet” and “deliverer” [“Energized by Sister Electrico,” May 14]. If it is not bad enough to call Bradbury’s patent humanistic hubris a “Christian positivism,” Miller begins by pouring contempt on Christian studies. Hermeneutics and apologetics, he tells us, dull the imagination.
The problem is not with apologetics or Calvinism or the Book of Exodus. It is like the way Malachi describes the priests of his day concerning the things of God: “You say ‘What a burden!’ and you sniff at it contemptuously.” I want instead to catch what the psalmist had: “Oh how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long!”
Rev. Richard C. Klueg
Baptist Church
Northville, N.Y.
I was surprised and delighted to read Miller’s article. It is refreshing to find a godly scholar who feels free to step out of the theological section of the library to explore other forms of literature. If Christ himself chose to communicate spiritual truths through the use of fiction, why then are we so reticent to do so as well? Despite the tremendous strides we have made in the past few decades in reclaiming the arts for the church, we still have a long way to go.
Rob Vajko, Jr.
Waukegan, Ill.
SPEAKING OUT
Don’t Crowd Eastern Europe
Having lived and worked in Eastern Europe for years, I often scoffed at the official Soviet justification for erecting the Iron Curtain. While the Soviets claimed they simply wanted to protect Eastern Europe from Western exploitation, keeping undesirables out—not fencing citizens in—I knew better. Now I wonder if they were as wrong as I have always assumed. As we watch doors swing open in Eastern Europe, the West—including the church—must face some challenging questions.
Could it not be that addiction to power (expressed politically, socially, and economically), combined with a feeling of cultural superiority, drive many of those now coming from the West to help Eastern Europeans reconstruct their economic and political systems? The “help” that businesses and political parties bring often appears to be more beneficial to those who offer it than to those who receive it.
Businessmen and politicians are not the only ones rushing to Eastern Europe. Ministry in this part of the world has become quite fashionable among American Christians; more dollars are being spent by missions executives on exploratory trips to Eastern European countries than ever before. Throughout the U.S., visions are shared in four-color brochures and advertisements; plans are discussed at the highest levels of missions leadership; funds are collected; personnel are recruited. The saints are marching in.
But is it not fair to ask what drives these efforts? No doubt the American penchant for seizing every opportunity plays a large role. Could not these activities also arise from a misguided drive for power, camouflaged by spiritual-sounding visions and plans, and nurtured by the belief that “we know better”?
Like those who set out to “save” Europe in conjunction with the Marshall Plan, this new generation of missionaries may be harboring a not-so-subtle triumphalism. Because the West’s politics seem to have prevailed for now, they argue, will not Western missions groups have a better plan for reaching the people? Only God knows true motivations, but one fact is obvious: Much of the ministry being planned now in the West is more for and to Eastern Europeans than it is with Eastern Europeans.
The church in the West should remember that political emancipation was not the only fruit of last year’s revolutions. The events have also freed Eastern Europe’s own consecrated minds and impassioned hearts to envision and implement the ministry that will best serve the kingdom of God. God has blessed the church here with godly men and women who have worked out their salvation in the midst of complex and difficult social forces. They are the ones who should be charting the course of Western missionary involvement in Eastern Europe.
The church of the West does have a role, of course. Believers in Eastern Europe need help in pushing back the borders of spiritual darkness and ignorance. Resources from the West (personnel, literature, equipment, finances, and so on) are important, but they will be most beneficial when they are (1) offered in a spirit of genuine partnership with Eastern Europeans, (2) offered out of a deep respect for the history and culture of each country, and (3) designed to build unity rather than competition between groups of believers.
The opportunities for meaningfully proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ in the midst of the turbulent change in Eastern Europe are staggering. Let’s make ourselves available to help, but not to control, those who know best how to fill the gaping spiritual void left in the ruins of communism, namely, those who have served Christ under its curse.
By Mark Young, academic dean of Biblical Theological Seminary of Poland, Wrocław, Poland.
Speaking Out offers responsible Christians a forum for their views on contemporary issues. It does not necessarily reflect the opinions of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
