Resisting Church Divorce

Richard Mouw

Denominational conflicts may arise from views of God rather than competing worldviews

GODVIEWS: The Convictions that Drive Us and Divide Us
Jack Haberer
Geneva Press, 174 pages, $19.95

In the spring of 1998, it became clear that the traditionalist forces within the Presbyterian Church (USA) had won a significant—if only temporary—battle against the movement to liberalize the denomination’s position on homosexual practice.

The 1997 General Assembly had approved an amendment to its Book of Order that seemed to open the door to the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals. The amendment required ratification by local presbyteries, however, and by the end of March 1998 the tally of votes showed that the proposed changes had failed.

Jack Haberer was elated by this turn of events. As the moderator of the Presbyterian Coalition, an umbrella group for various conservative organizations within the PCUSA, he had campaigned diligently against the liberalizing amendment. But before he allowed himself to celebrate this victory, Haberer phoned to express his sympathy to Scott Anderson, a leader of Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns. In doing so, he wasn’t entertaining second thoughts about the cause he had been espousing.

“I did not doubt that we conservatives were following an understanding of God’s truth regarding sexual ethics that had stood uninterrupted for 3,000 years,” Haberer writes. But he still felt compelled to acknowledge that “my opponents believed themselves to be following an understanding of God’s love and grace that had wrestled against exclusivist trends ever since the days of the Apostles. I surely could feel compassion for the way they felt that the church’s policy shut them out.”

This gesture by Haberer, senior pastor of Houston’s large Clear Lake Presbyterian Church, to one of his ecclesiastical opponents nicely captures the mood of his book about ecclesiastical conflict. He sees the 21st-century church as living in a tension between Carmel, where Elijah confronted false prophets for the sake of the truth, and Caesarea, where Peter encountered Cornelius and learned an important lesson in inclusivity.

And he wants us all to consider the possibility that maybe the Lord “wants us to live in both Carmel and Caesarea at the same time.”

The importance of this tension is highlighted in the pages of his book even before we read a word from the author: the book has two friendly forewords—one by Craig Barnes, the evangelical senior pastor of Washington’s National Presbyterian Church, and the other by John Buchanan, of Fourth Presbyterian in Chicago, a leader in the more Caesarea-leaning movement within the denomination.

Five “Godviews”

While many accounts of mainline church conflict focus on the tension between unchanging revealed truth and a gospel-mandated embrace of differences, Haberer insists that the real arguments are in fact many-sided. Indeed, a basic strategy in his argument is to downplay any simple “two-party” scenario for understanding the present-day debates. A good half of his discussion is devoted to discussing various “GodViews”—a term he prefers in this context to “worldview”—at work in the Christian community. He identifies five, each offering a different understanding of God and “of what God is calling the church to do.”

The Confessionalist emphasizes truth, the Devotionalist a hunger for intimacy with God, the Ecclesiast the centrality of the church and its offices, the Altruist service to the needy, and the Activist the struggle against unjust structures. Each of these GodViews, Haberer argues, is onto something and has an important place in the life of a healthy church.

This is indeed an improvement on simplistic two-party schemes. If anything, we might even want to add a few more. If, for example, Haberer wants to account for differences among Christians in general (and not just Presbyterians), then he probably needs to make room for Sacramentalists—I’m not sure that the folks whose Christian lives focus in a central way on Eucharistic observance would find themselves within his scheme. And perhaps there is a kind of two-party reality manifested within each of the types: there can be orthodox Confessionalists and liberal ones, people committed to biblical devotion and others who are open to goddess spirituality, and so on with each of the types.

But Haberer is to be commended for pushing us to think about theological conflict in more complex terms.

He is right to say we ought not bear false witness against our church neighbors—by, for example, drawing the battle lines in ways that misrepresent our opponents’ motives and convictions.

Nor can we fault Haberer for insisting that dividing denominations often does more harm than good. At one point, he observes that ecclesiastical splits are a lot like the breakup of a marriage. In most cases the so-called “amicable divorce” is a sham. A couple may set out to dissolve their marriage in a friendly manner, but typically things soon turn ugly.

Can we hope for anything better, asks Haberer, when a breakup is “planned and executed for a whole denomination of more than 11,000 congregations and 2 million members”?

The marriage analogy is one that evangelicals especially ought to ponder, since we have typically been tougher on people who break their marital vows than we have on those who dissolve churchly covenants.

Still, a daunting practical challenge must be faced. What do we do if most of our denominational agencies are committed to a cultural agenda that is antithetical to evangelical sensitivities? Suppose the denomination’s educational materials, for example, promote sexual values that violate our deepest convictions? What if local judicatories discriminate against candidates for ministry who unashamedly profess that salvation is possible only through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ? What recourse do we have when we cannot in good conscience support the programs that our denominations offer us under bizarre definitions of “evangelism” or “missions”?

Some mainline evangelicals I talk to regularly worry that such issues are becoming so troublesome that they have no choice but to consider an ecclesiastical divorce. Others simply stay in their denominations while ignoring as much as possible the controversies that are raging in the official assemblies, and maintain their connectedness to the larger body of Christ by associating with parachurch organizations and ad-hoc gatherings of like-minded clergy and laity from other denominations (and “nondenominations”).

Yet these solutions surely fall short of the robust commitment to church unity that Haberer advocates. Indeed, following through on his own analogy, such folks seem to be simply biding their time in what they see as bad ecclesiastical marriages. Perhaps as a next step, Haberer needs to write a practical guidebook for evangelicals who want—or at least ought to want—more fulfillment from their “marital” relations.

For all of that, though, we evangelicals need to confess that theological clarity about churchly “connectedness” has not been one of our strong points. Nor is our record of dealing with conflict—with nonevangelicals or even within the evangelical community—anything to boast about. And while Haberer’s book may not answer all the complex questions about how to improve our ecclesiastical relationships, it is still an excellent practical handbook to what we might think of as ecclesiastical piety.

It is the kind of book that every evangelical who is struggling with ecclesiastical conflict should consider taking along on a personal retreat, to use as a guide to spiritual self-examination.

Richard Mouw is president of Fuller Theological Seminary.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

Godviews can be ordered at Amazon.com and other book retailers.

Clear Lake Presbyterian Church‘s site has more information about its senior pastor—and the author of GodViews—Jack Haberer.

Haberer once led The Presbyterian Coalition.

See today’s Weblog for a wrap-up of the PCUSA’s General Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky, which focused on the uniqueness of Jesus and the ordination of homosexuals. (PresbyWeb also has links to dozens upon dozens of stories about the General Assembly.)

More on denominational battles is available in our church life area, as well as articles in our theology and sexuality areas.

Significance in a Small Package

Mark Galli

The Prayer of Jabez is already one of the best-selling religious books in history. Why?

THE PRAYER OF JABEZ: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life
Bruce H. Wilkinson
Multnomah, 96 pages, $9.99

THE SECRETS OF THE VINE: Breaking Through to Abundance
Bruce H. Wilkinson
Multnomah, 128 pages, $9.99

A book that begins with ten names ("Adam, Seth, Enoch, Kenan") and continues thusly, with rarely a verb, adverb, or adjective for nine chapters (all the way to "Obadiah and Hanan") doesn't appear to be rich homiletical ground. It causes one to doubt Paul's affirmation that all Scripture is profitable for instruction in righteousness.

It is to Bruce Wilkinson's credit to have discerned something God-inspired in a couple of formerly obscure sentences in the first nine mind-numbing chapters of 1 Chronicles. His The Prayer of Jabez has turned out to be not only an exegetical coup but also a spiritual inspiration to millions.

Lest this sound like clichéd sell-copy: The Prayer of Jabez has sold 3 to 4 million copies (and the number is rising as you read this). And this isn't one of those books people buy but don't read; it is no War and Peace. The little hardback is paperback-small and tract-thin, and a bargain to boot: it lists at $9.99, but many stores have offered it at half price. Pastors are buying it by the carton and giving it away to their congregations: Pete Briscoe, senior pastor of Bent Tree Bible Fellowship in Carrollton, Texas, ordered 4,000 copies of the book and audiotape to give to every family for the church's 25th anniversary.

The book's popularity cannot be chalked up to clever marketing. Briscoe's purchase alone would have bought 20 percent of the first print run. Neither was the second run a bold step of Jabez faith: a mere 70,000. Multnomah finally got the picture and started printing in the millions, but by then the publisher was sucking wind to keep up with a phenomenon.

Why one book, and not another seemingly like it, rockets to the top of the charts—and this one has been at the pinnacle of not only Christian Bookseller Association charts but also those of Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and The New York Times—is ultimately a mystery. But, avoiding the cynicism that assumes the masses who buy such books are easily duped by formulaic spirituality, one can hazard an educated guess about the book's success: Content.

The book is a homiletical exposition of the obscure prayer of the obscure Jabez, who is described only as an "honorable man" who received a positive answer to his prayer: "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain" (4:10, NIV). Some discouraged interpreters have likened this prayer to psalms that entreat God to dash the heads of Babylonian babies against the rocks, for the plain meaning seems to be that Jabez is asking for military victory and increased land holdings. Thus one exegete writes, "Jabez's prayer was crude and selfish. His conscience was not troubled by the thought that others would suffer if he gained his wishes. But ours should be."

Author Wilkinson, while acknowledging the original setting, manages to transcend it: "The primary interpretation of the verse is to enlarge your business," he said in one of many interviews he's been asked to give recently. "We've applied it to ministry in the broader sense that every believer is called into serving God and others."

Wilkinson, who has been praying the prayer daily since 1972, when he was a senior at Dallas Theological Seminary, has been preaching its message at conferences for years. He's honed it into a four-point sermon:

1. We should seek to be blessed, "throwing ourselves entirely into the river of his will and power and purposes for us. All our needs become secondary to what we really want—which is to become wholly immersed in what God is trying to do in us, through us, and around us for his glory." In other words, we should desire the blessedness that Jesus assumes, in the Beatitudes, is a reasonable human yearning: the yearning for comfort, righteousness, sonship—the kingdom of heaven.

2. We should seek greater "territory," which Wilkinson renders as "O God and King, please expand my opportunities and my impact in such a way that I touch more lives for your glory. Let me do more for you!" In other words, "Not my will, but thine be done."

3. We should depend on God's power to achieve significant ministry through us: "As God's chosen, blessed sons and daughters, we are expected to attempt something large enough that failure is guaranteed. … unless God steps in." Or, as God told Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."

4. We should flee temptation. "The further along in a life of supernatural service you get," Wilkinson notes, "the more … you're going to become familiar with the enemy's unwelcome barbs—distraction, opposition, and oppression for starters." We should therefore pray not only for the power to resist temptation, but especially "to keep away from temptation," as in "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

In other words, Wilkinson exegetes Jabez's prayer using the larger themes of Scripture that have perennially comforted and encouraged believers.

Wilkinson, good teacher that he is (he is founder of the popular Walk Thru the Bible ministry, which since 1976 has helped over a million people gain a better grasp of the Bible's content and teachings), has also grounded his lessons culturally. The book is imbued with a boundless optimism characteristic of American religious literature, from Puritan John Winthrop's dream that New England would become "a city set on a hill" (that is, an example that would eventually convert the world) to Robert Schuller's possibility thinking. All such literature assumes the inestimable value of the individual and the ennobling idea that God uses ordinary people to do his extraordinary will.

This individualistic optimism pervades Jabez from sentence one ("The little book you're holding is about what happens when ordinary Christians decide to reach for an extraordinary life—which, as it turns out, is exactly the kind God promises") and continues throughout: "How would your day unfold if you believed that God wants your borders expanded at all times with every person and if you were confident that God's powerful hand is directing you even as you minister?"

Fleeting Ministry Moments

Wilkinson is also a decent, though breathless, storyteller. Unfortunately, his stories are all examples of hit-and-run ministry: California college students ministering in Trinidad for a summer; a youth group evangelizing suburban youth on Long Island for six weeks; and Wilkinson counseling a newlywed on the Isle of Patmos for one afternoon.

Throughout the book, there is no example of enduring faithfulness at humble and thankless tasks—like counseling a troubled couple for years, or caring for an elderly parent in one's home, or daily visiting a dying aids patient for weeks, or toughing it out for three decades in Saudi Arabia, where a lifetime of conversions can be counted on two hands.

To put it another way, in Jabez, Wilkinson is long on the individual's existential meaning and on exploiting the chance, short-term encounter for God, but short on the meaning of perseverance and ordinary suffering. Such themes play a larger role in his sequel, The Secrets of the Vine, his effort to teach readers how to cooperate with God in his bringing about the results promised in the prayer of Jabez. Secrets also retains a spiritual optimism and pragmatism that, frankly, is inspiring at times.

But if exaggerations in Jabez can be chalked up to hyperbole, overstatements in Secrets of the Vine often can lead to serious misunderstandings. For example, Wilkinson implies that if there is major sin in our lives, we won't bear fruit for God. But many recent pastoral sex scandals are shocking precisely because the offending minister was, in fact, bearing a great deal of fruit in ministry.

It is easy to critique a book for what it lacks—and in these two brief tracts, naturally a lot is missing. Still a qualifying adjective here, a cautionary sentence there, would have alerted the reader to the more complex and challenging nature of the Christian life. But perhaps this is too much to ask of a writer and speaker who obviously enjoys his role as a motivator.

Nevertheless, Wilkinson has accomplished much, especially in Jabez, for which we can be thankful. He's managed to get millions of Christians to realize afresh their divine significance, reminding them of the ministries God has for them, encouraging them to think big when it comes to helping others. It's not the whole counsel of God, but neither is it a bad start for those who had forgotten, or never knew, that the living God is as near as a prayer.

Mark Galli is managing editor of CT.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

The Prayer of Jabez can be purchased at Christianbook.com along with Secrets of the Vine and a Prayer of Jabez Bible Study.

The New York Times called Wilkinson's book a new view of prosperity gospel, but in an Associated Press article, the author responded to criticism that the book preaches materialism.

Time examined reasons why the book is a best seller.

The book has achieved unbelievable success for "an overtly preachy book," according to The Washington Post. Likewise, The New York Times Book Review attributes the success to the Wilkinson's resurrection of "the once ubiquitous and now mostly forgotten genre of the published Sunday sermon."

Sample chapters, testimonials and Bruce Wilkinson's bio can be found at The Prayer of Jabez Web site.

Epions.com gathers readers' thoughts and reviews on The Prayer of Jabez.

Multnomah Publishers has information on The Prayer of Jabez and Secrets of the Vine, including reader reviews.

In addition to being a chart-topper book, The Washington Post reported The Prayer of Jabez also claims high ranking on MP3.com's Christian Easy Listening chart as a song by Brian Hanson.

In Christianity Today's sister publication, Christian Reader, two missionaries recite Jabez's prayer before stopping a madman on their plane.

Ideas

Resisting Relevancy

Marilyn Chandler McEntyre

Columnist

The church suffers when pastors confuse anecdotes with parables

Jesus said “Feed my sheep,” not “Nurse my lambs.” I recorded this observation on the margin of a bulletin while sitting out a particularly simple-minded sermon in the back pew of a church I no longer attend.

Reformer John Calvin, so I’m told, claimed that stupidity is a sin. By this I assume he meant something like willful ignorance or mental sloth rather than limited native intelligence. Having witnessed for 20 years the squandering of intellectual resources in the dumbing down of school curricula and news media, I am now distressed to see the same trend at work in the church. When I retreat from the educational trenches to the sanctuary on Sunday, I too often find the meat of the Gospels boiled down to mush. Preachers I know to be intelligent human beings who love God and are called to proclaim the Word succumb to the downward pull of media culture by seeking to entertain rather than to challenge or to “re-mind”—to make us mindful. Homely references to daily life certainly have their place in sermons, but the temptation to compete with standup comedians or to indulge in mediaspeak for the sake of a spurious relevancy seems to be almost irresistible to clergy who think their flock comes only for the fun parts.

Amusing anecdotes don’t necessarily function as parables. References to New Yorker cartoons, Dilbert, Seinfeld, or Star Wars might serve to illustrate a point, but too often digress rather than direct our attention to the Word that hangs like a plumb line in a crooked world. Moreover, invoking popular culture can have the dubious effect of endorsing it. A reference to Seinfeld suggests that we all watch it and chuckle together over its variable repertoire of narcissistic preoccupations and flip one-liners. And Seinfeld, from what I can tell by a limited sampling, offers marginally more than most sitcoms, on which typical conversations endure no more than 45 seconds, most transactions are exercises in one-upmanship, and few people are old, poor, sick, or wrestling with the complexities of real moral dilemmas.

Dipping into the familiar fare of film, television, or the Internet is only one form of dumbing down. Others may be worse. Certain ways of sentimentalizing, oversimplifying, or sweetening Jesus amount to blasphemy. In one of her many moments of shocking lucidity, Flannery O’Connor claimed that sentimentality is to Christianity what pornography is to love. There’s not much room for healthy fear of the Lord in a theology that makes Jesus everyone’s best pal.

The outright bafflement of the disciples must itself seem baffling to those who rest comfortable in the belief that they “know” the Lord on such intimate terms that they need only ask themselves “What would Jesus do?” to arrive at an immediate solution to any moral dilemma. How is it, I wonder, that they’re so sure they know what Jesus would do? The very disciples who followed him around appear to have been regularly taken by surprise.

What Jesus did do was most often characterized by counterintuitive, jolting, baffling, puzzling, or unconventional moves that even his closest followers seemed unable to predict or interpret. His parables were riddles. His teaching was always loving, sometimes comforting, often disturbing, and full of paradox. People met him and changed their lives, went home rejoicing or sorrowing, plunged into self-examination or action of kinds they never would have thought to take on.

Sermons (not to mention praise songs and Sunday-school fare) betray their cause when they don’t challenge us to think and act counterculturally; to review and rethink the norms that numb; to look squarely at poverty, injustice, and irresponsible policymaking and recognize our own participatory responsibility; or to work for the Kingdom rather than serving corporate interests. Reinhold Niebuhr’s provocative maxim about the function of sermons—”to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable”—sets a usable standard. Most of us, as Americans, are by definition in the latter group, though we all also live with the various ills that flesh is heir to.

The Walt Disney Company isn’t going to provide the salutary affliction we need. The screens and billboards we look at offer narcotics to conscience. The church has the only antidote that will work against materialism and media addiction. And, like most antidotes, it may have to hurt to heal.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

Christianity Today‘s sister publication Leadership has more discussion on preaching and communicating Christian truth in a relevant way. One such article discusses lessons from a stand-up comedy course.

Previous McEntyre columns for Christianity Today include:

My House, God’s House | Hospitality is not merely good manners but a ministry of healing. (May 9, 2001)

Rx for Moral Fussbudgets | Good guilt entails more than repentance for merely personal sins. (Mar. 19, 2001)

Community, Not Commodity | Let us acknowledge, and even mourn, what we lose when worship meets media. (Jan. 16, 2001)

Nice Is Not the Point | Sometimes love is sharp, hard-edged, confusing, and seemingly unfair. (Nov. 29, 2000)

The Fullness of Time | I’d like life to be a series of pauses like a poem, rather than a fast-paced, page-turner airport novel. (Oct. 12, 2000)

‘I’ve Been Through Things’ | Meditating on “Honor your father and your mother.” (Sept. 6, 2000)

Silence Is to Dwell In | An hour of quiet is a rare gift, hard to come by in an ordinary week, even for those who seek it. (Aug. 10, 2000)

Furthermore: Marilyn Chandler McEntyre has taught at Princeton University, the College of New Jersey, Mills College, Dominican University, and Westmont College, UCSF/UC Berkeley Joint Medical Program and in the University Writing Program at UC Davis. Her column for Christianity Today appeared from 2000 to 2001.

Sudan: No Greater Tragedy

Jeff M. Sellers

What you can do to help persecuted Christians in Sudan

They are Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, and Catholics. They are the black Africans of southern Sudan, and for believing that Jesus is God, they are raped, tortured, enslaved, or burned to death at the hands of their Islamic Arab countrymen.

They are crucified—the infant children nailed to trees with steel spikes—or beheaded. In a campaign of systematic genocide, Sudanese government forces spray them with helicopter gunfire to run them off oil-rich land and bomb their hospitals, schools, relief centers, and marketplaces. This is the testimony that Roger Winter, executive director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees, recently gave to the House subcommittee on Africa.

The northern Arabs pierce the lips of their torture victims, then insert and shut padlocks to keep them from telling of their ordeals. Beyond the political-economic issues in Sudan’s 18-year-old civil war—the south seeks autonomy, inflicting its own military terrors upon Arab civilians—official smothering of religious freedom is part of the government forces’ cruelty, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The government in Khartoum imposed Islamic law nearly 10 years ago, and forced conversions (with accompanying genital mutilation) are common.

The commission’s annual report, which identified Sudan as the world’s most violent infractor of religious rights, noted that the discovery and drilling of oil reserves in the south has led to a “scorched earth” policy, driving civilians from areas around oil facilities. The government uses the facilities (airstrips and roads) for military staging, and oil revenues have enabled it to increase its weaponry and other hardware.

More than 2 million people have lost their lives due to the war or related causes, and more than 4 million of the 5 million southern Sudanese have been displaced from their homes. Says U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, “There is perhaps no greater tragedy on the face of the earth today.”

Suggested Action

The new administration is studying how much priority to give to Sudan. Relief and human-rights agencies say that a halt to Arab persecution of black Christians (and animists) in southern Sudan first requires a political solution.

• Write your two senators and district representative urging the U.S. government to appoint a high-profile special envoy to help bring peace. Advocate the participation of east African and European countries as well as the United States, says Serge Duss, director for public policy at World Vision-U.S.

• Write the same to Colin Powell, Department of State, 2201 C Street, N.W., Suite 7276, Washington, D.C. 20520; or to President Bush at The White House, Washington, D.C. 20500.

• Pray for peace and strength for the southern Sudanese, as well as for the Arab Muslim victims of rebel atrocities.

• Canadian company Talisman Energy Inc., which owns the largest share of the Sudanese oil consortium fueling the government war effort, has tried to be a good corporate citizen—in vain. As the one corporate moral agent with potential to influence events in the region (its Chinese and Malaysian partners are not as conscientious about human rights, and its Swedish partner has little muscle to flex), Talisman has not only attempted “constructive engagement” with the intransigent Sudanese government but has also built hospitals, schools, and water wells for the poor.

Unfortunately, Talisman is yoked with an ogre. This monster has made its movements one with Talisman’s, and the company needs to leave Sudan immediately—an option it has considered more than once. Until it does, churches and Christians with investments in Talisman should divest themselves of those shares. Additionally, investors with Fidelity Investment mutual funds should query the investment house about its Talisman shares and get rid of them.

• See www.csworldwide.org, www.makemeyourvoice.com, www.samaritanspurse.org, and www.persecution.com for information on refugee relief.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

For more on how can you help, see Christian Solidarity Worldwide, Samaritan’s Purse, and Persecution.com.

The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of African Affairs has country information on Sudan.

A Report of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom on Sudan and a related press release are available at the commission’s Web site.

Make Me Your Voice is a worship album dedicated to the massive persecution currently taking place in Sudan.

Talisman Energy Inc. has a 25 percent interest in the Greater Nile Oil Project, covering four blocks in the Muglad Basin.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum site has a page to warn against the current Sudan genocide. The Sudan area includes resources for more information.

The U.S. House of Represenatives recently approved a bill barring foreign companies that do business in Sudan from raising American funds or listing their securities in American financial markets.

For more articles, see Yahoo’s full coverage area, allAfrica.com and Christianity Today’s area on persecution.

Our earlier coverage of the Sudan genocide includes:

Slave Redemption | Americans are becoming instant abolitionists. But is the movement backfiring? (Aug. 9, 1999)

Freedom Panel Alleges Genocide | U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom makes suggestion on Sudan’s worsening abuses. (May 4, 2001)

Turn Off Sudan’s Oil Wells, Say Canadian Church Visitors | Christian leaders say they are “outraged” that a Canadian oil company is paying huge royalties to Sudanese government. (Apr. 20, 2001)

The Maturing of Victimhood | A new exhibit at the Holocaust Museum is a very good sign. (Mar. 29, 2001)

Sudan Loses Election for U.N. Security Council Seat | Sanctions continue to plague the African nation’s bid for international acceptance. (Oct. 12, 2000)

Southern Sudan Bombed Despite Cease-fire Promise | Details sketchy from town of Yei, near Democratic Republic of the Congo. (May 8, 2000)

Editorial: Confronting Sudan’s Evils | Western Christians and governments should press Khartoum on multiple fronts. (Apr. 12, 2000)

Sudan Relief Operations Endangered | Rebel demands cause agencies to curtail efforts. (April 3, 2000)

Bombs Continue to Fall on Ministry Hospitals in Sudan | Samaritan’s Purse hit for fourth time, two killed in Voice of the Martyrs bombing. (March 24, 2000)

Mixing Oil and Blood | Sudan’s ‘slaughter of the innocents’ toughens religious freedom coalition. (Mar. 15, 2000)

Protest Begins as White House Rethinks Policy on Sudan Regime | Religious leaders urge Clinton administration to act against oppression. (Feb. 10, 2000)

Christian Solidarity Loses U.N. Status | Slave-freeing organization’s rebel spokesman violated U.N. rules (Dec. 14, 1999)

Sudan Releases Jailed Catholic Priests | President Resolves Impasse in Contrived Bombing Trial (Dec. 13, 1999)

Jailed Sudanese Priests Reject Presidential Amnesty | Clerics waiting for ‘total acquittal’ by courts. (Dec. 6, 1999)

Oil Exports Draw Protests | Christians urge divestment from Canadian company (Nov. 15, 1999)

Starvation Puts 150,000 at Risk (Sept. 6,1999)

The Price of a Slave | “I was taken by a slave master [who] beat me and shamed me, telling me that I was like a dog.” (Feb. 8, 1999)

Sudanese Christians Bloody, but Unbowed (Aug. 10, 1998)

How Apin Akot Redeemed His Daughter (Mar. 2, 1998)

Muslim-Christian Conflicts May Destabilize East Africa | Christians raped, forced into slavery, and killed. (Apr. 29, 1996)

Conservation: Protecting Bald Eagles and Babies

John E. Silvius

The case for compassionate conservationism

Limited energy supply and impending higher fuel prices have emerged as early tests of George W. Bush’s leadership. His proposal to increase energy supplies by extracting oil from the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge has angered many who want to preserve this beautiful natural area. These plans and Bush’s withdrawal of U.S. support for the Kyoto Accord, which would limit emissions of greenhouse gases, don’t surprise environmentalists, who opposed his election because of what they consider his disregard for the environment. Indeed, political or economic conservatives generally have difficulty gaining the confidence and support of environmentalists, even if conservatives propose resource extraction in an “environmentally friendly manner.”

Many moral conservatives believe the philosophies of free market and limited government have a biblical basis. At the same time, these philosophies have led many industries to act irresponsibly, resulting in unnecessary destruction of landscapes, habitats, water, and air. The problem, however, is not conservative politics and economics per se. Rather, the problem is the conservatives’ failure to articulate and implement an environmental ethic that controls human behavior.

Moral conservatives are successfully articulating a biblical worldview regarding sexual abstinence before marriage, sanctity of life, and the importance of moral teaching in our schools. Consistent with this, they must also articulate the case for a compassionate conservationism, an environmental ethic rooted in a biblical worldview. Such an ethic would redefine environmentalists as those who are concerned about the environment of all of life. Thus they would care about the environment of the bald eagle chick, especially when the egg crushes under the weight of the mother because the eggshell has been weakened by pesticides in the food chain. But they would also seek protection of the unborn baby from all threats, whether they be humanly introduced toxins and abortifacients or environmental pollutants that the baby might encounter through the mother.

A compassionate conservationist would listen carefully to the environmentalist concerned for bald eagles and their habitats, but would also explain that the Creator of heaven and earth is not only concerned for every sparrow that falls (Matt. 10:29) but also every unborn baby: He sees even in the womb (Ps. 139).

Does compassionate conservationism extend to the point of giving “equal rights” to human and nonhuman creatures alike? Genesis says that God gave humans “dominion” over the created world (1:28). This dominion is not license to abuse animals and animals’ habitats but is characterized by “tilling” (or serving) and “keeping” (or preserving the ongoing fruitfulness of) the Earth (2:15). Here, we discover the biblical roots of true conservationism: As we serve creation, creation serves us (i.e. conservation, or “serving with” creation).

Sin in the garden (Gen. 3)—human rejection of God’s authority and abuse of the fruit of the garden—led to God’s judgment. But the responsibility of stewardship remains and can be exercised only by people with servant hearts who recognize that God is the owner and that we are the keepers of creation. People who live as God’s stewards find fulfillment in their Creator and are released from the grip of materialism that for too long has left its footprints on scarred landscapes carelessly ravaged to support the wants and needs of humans whose god is this world. Responsible stewards are freed from endless anxiety and arguments about whether we are running out of resources. Instead, they work to please the Creator by proper stewardship of resources out of love and faithfulness to God. They practice compassionate conservation.

With enlightened support of citizens who understand and practice compassionate conservation, President Bush and other national, state, and local officials can lead in developing environmental policies that are consistent and comprehensive. Such policies would respect both the habitats of God’s creatures and the resource needs of people, because the policies emphasize true stewardship of what belongs not to us but to God. They promote respect and concern for all environments in creation—the habitats of creatures, the environment of our homes and schools, and even the cradle of life, the environment of the womb.

John E. Silvius is professor of biology at Cedarville (Ohio) University and author of Biology: Principles and Perspectives.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

Outside magazine profiled Christian environmentalism past, present, and future, and suggested that religious activists will be extremely important in the Bush administration.

A Christian Century editorial said society can either tell God “we’re in charge of sea level from here on out, or we can throttle back and learn to live a little differently.”

Bush’s environmental policies came under fire after only two months in office, according to the Chicago Tribune.

In TheNew York Times, head of Environmental Protection Agency claimed critics have been too quick to denounce early administration decisions.

President Bush’s nominees for environmental policy jobs were lawyers and lobbyists, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Bush’s clean air proposal was released just as polls said he was weak on the environment, The Boston Globe reported.

America’s Roman Catholic bishops have called for immediate action to find solutions to global climate change saying that fighting it is a moral duty. A Boston Globe editorial looked at global warming’s spiritual cost.

Christian Environmentalism associations include Christian Environmental Council (an offshoot of the Evangelical Environmental Network), the Interfaith Council for Environmental Stewardship, Evangelicals for Social Action and Green Cross.

Amazon.com offers John E. Silvius’s book, Biology: Principles and Perspectives.

For more articles, see Yahoo’s full coverage areas on environment news.

Earlier Christianity Today articles on environmentalism include:

Religious Leaders Rebuke Bush Administration Over Kyoto Protocol | Officials from the National Council of Churches, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Methodist Church, Disciples of Christ, and African Methodist Episcopal Church say U.S. must limit greenhouse gas emissions. (April 6, 2001)

Unholy Harvest? | Evangelicals join protests against genetically modified “frankenfoods.” (May 9, 2000)

U.S. Churches Join Global Warming Debate (Oct. 5, 1998)

God’s Green Acres | How Calvin DeWitt is helping Dunn, Wisconsin, reflect the glory of God’s good creation. (June 15, 1998)

Greening of the Gospel? | Evangelical environmentalists press to add creation care to the church’s mission. (Nov. 11, 1996)

Evangelical Environmentalism Comes of Age (Nov. 11, 1996)

Ideas

Quotations to Stir Mind and Heart

Richard A. Kauffman

Quotations to stir heart and mind on places where God is encountered

God gives all men all earth to love, But, since man’s heart is small, Ordains for each one spot shall prove Beloved over all.Rudyard Kipling, Sussex

When the shell you live in has taken on the savor of your love … then your house is a home.Scott Russell Sanders, Staying Put

A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.Joan Didion, The White Album

Let us not love the roadway rather than the homeland lest we lose our eternal home; for we have such a home that we ought to love it.St. Columbanus, Sancti Columbani Opera, G. S. M. Walker, trans.

Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.Mary Catherine Bateson, quoted at QuoteWorld.org

We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.T. S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets

To be an american is to move on, as if we could outrun change. To attach oneself to place is to surrender to it, and suffer with it.Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.Jane Austen, Persuasion

Space has a spiritual equivalent and can heal what is divided and burdensome in us. … [W]e might also learn how to carry space inside ourselves in the effortless way we carry our skins.Gretel Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces

So jacob called the place Peniel [face of God], saying, “For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.”Genesis 32:30 (NRSV)

In this place of which you say, “It is a waste without human beings or animals,” … there shall once more be heard the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voices of those who sing … Jeremiah 33:10-11 (NRSV)

Desert and mountain places located on the margins of society are locations of choice in luring God’s people to a deeper understanding of who they are.Belden Lane, The Solace of Fierce Landscapes

How filled with awe is this place and we did not know it.Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayer Book

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

Past Reflections columns include:

Wild Child: How Bad Is Child Care for Kids?

Christianity Today Editorial

Is daycare preparing toddlers to become bullies?

Be prepared. Boys and girls of the next generation are going to be bratty but smart, perhaps more so than their older siblings. Problem behavior in children, ranging from rudeness to cruelty and physical attack, is in the media spotlight because of two new research reports from the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). According to this research, these problem behaviors increase as children (age 4.5 to 6) spend more hours in child care, apart from their mothers, regardless of the quality of the care.

“There is a constant dose-response relationship between time in care and problem behavior, especially those involving aggressive behavior,” notes Jay Belsky, a psychologist at Birkbeck College, London, and a lead researcher for the Study of Early Child Care, a research effort tracking 1,300 American children since 1991.

There seems to be no threshold. As hours in child care increase, aggressive behavior increases. On a brighter note, children in center-based care also score higher on language and cognitive tests than their at-home peers.

Researchers also reported that bullying is widespread in American schools, based on a survey of 15,600 students, grades 6 through 10, in all kinds of schools—public, private, and parochial. The consequences of bullying are fateful. “People who were bullied as children are more likely to suffer from depression and low self-esteem, well into adulthood,” says Duane Alexander, NICHD director, “and the bullies themselves are more likely to engage in criminal behavior later in life.”

Much can be gleaned from these studies, and the increase in aggressive behavior in children is not another irreversible reality of contemporary culture. In many communities, churches are leading providers of services to children. But a church-based preschool that graduates a Scripture-quoting bully into kindergarten hasn’t accomplished very much.

Church leaders should honestly ask themselves: If this research about child aggression stands the test of time, how should we balance the needs of working parents for quality child care with the risk that the care provided increases aggression in many young children?

There is no easy answer to that question, and resourceful congregations should creatively approach the child-care concerns in their communities. If church leaders glibly say that moderation in all things now includes child care, they will be sorely out of touch with the acute dilemma faced by many faithful families.

From Mothers to Others

As the American family has been reshaped during the last five decades, child care has become widespread while shortages in child-care have become proverbial.

In 1960, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, 88 percent of American children lived with both parents and fewer than one in five mothers worked outside the home.

But by 1998, nearly four decades later, the percentage of children living with both parents had dropped 20 points to 68 percent, and nearly two out of three mothers were working at least part time.

Nationwide, there are 105,000 licensed centers and 286,000 licensed family child-care homes. But in contemporary America, child-care options are quickly bumping up against their logical limit.

With the growth of weekend employment and night shifts, this summer a Texas entrepreneur hopes to roll out a national chain of for-profit, always-open child-care centers that parents could book for as many as 14 hours a day, including overnights, meals, and transportation to school.

His concept has already been test-marketed to late-night casino workers in Las Vegas, and it’s been a big success for parents and investors.

Public Agenda, a research and public opinion organization, notes that child care as we know it today began with Depression-era nursery schools, created by the Works Progress Administration to employ jobless teachers.

Then, during the 1940s war effort, child care was provided to a generation of mothers who labored in factories and plants nationwide.

After that, some women never returned to full-time child care and homemaking, and more moms in the workplace for longer hours became a reality.

Today, jobs and careers for mothers outside the home are often the norm. For many people, such work pays important economic and psychological dividends. Others have been forced into the workplace as welfare reform has not only given many single mothers job training but required them to earn wages. Career-oriented mothers with young children often maintain part-time employment in their chosen field, hoping it will help their reentry into professional life. Motherhood is becoming a supplement to, not the centerpiece of, the identity of American women. As birthrates have declined and women live longer, the job of raising children is increasingly a season of life.

But one thing seems constant in the public mind: The ideal that a parent should be available to children.

• In a 1999 study by Princeton Survey Research, 75 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, “Too many children are being raised in daycare centers these days.”

• In a June 2000 survey by the Los Angeles Times, 74 percent of respondents agreed that “it is better for children if one parent works outside the home, while the other parent stays home with the children.”

• In a 2000 Public Agenda survey, 70 percent of parents with children age 5 and younger agreed that the best child-care arrangement for preschoolers is “one parent at home.”

This widespread acceptance of the one-parent-at-home ideal clashes sharply with our contemporary experience. In the kindergarten class of 1999, 81 percent had experienced child care before entering school.

Reduce Hours in Child Care?

On the bottom line, what are the public-health consequences to such widespread reliance on child care? According to the NICHD research, 17 percent of kindergarten-age children in nonmaternal care for 30 hours or more weekly are more than assertive; they are aggressive and bully their peers.

In light of these findings on preschooler aggression, psychologist Belsky says, “What do we tell parents? We might suggest that parents limit the number of hours, especially of center-based care, as best they can. We can also say that some center-based care in the early childhood years appears to have advantages in terms of cognitive and language development but some possible disadvantages in terms of behavior problems. And, finally, we can suggest that parents look for high-quality care regardless of the type of care they’re choosing.”

When Belsky first suggested that concerned parents should reduce the number of hours their children are in care, a firestorm of criticism ensued: Belsky was inferring a cause from a mere correlation, some charged.

In rebuttal, Belsky wrote in the Detroit Free Press, “While my collaborators criticize me for drawing causal inferences from a correlational field study, they see no problem with doing exactly the same thing to argue (appropriately) that the government should improve child care.”

While the government may be successful in passing laws and regulations governing services for children, such governmental oversight has many limitations. The state cannot mandate or guarantee loving parents to every child.

A Child’s Prayer

What do kids think about the care they are receiving? Children themselves are quite aware that a healthy start in life is at risk. Recently in Virginia, a group of children was asked to write prayers that were then assembled into a calendar for the commonwealth’s legislators.

According to journalist Melissa Lauber, the prayer of a 9-year-old boy named Graham said, “God, how come some kids don’t have anyone at home to help them with their homework and fix them supper and make them go to bed at 8 o’clock? Please help these kids, and help me and others to help them, too. Amen.”

Parents don’t appear to be part of Graham’s equation for solving the problem of giving kids the best start possible. Only God and other kids were in his catalogue of resources.

No organization is better positioned than the local church to help parents care for their children. By establishing healthy structures, creating positive experiences, and teaching love of God and neighbor, congregations can bring children to Jesus, from whom they can learn the ways of love and kindness. Even bullies are not immune to the love of God.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

The National Institute on Child Health and Humane Development online includes the study on Early Child Care.

Public Agenda Online’s issue guide on Child Care lays out the issue’s facts and policy alternatives, points out particularly noteworthy facts and details the public’s chief concerns.

Most news sources ran articles on the NICHD child care study, including: Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun, San Francisco Chronicle, ABC News, The National Post, The Washington Post, The New York Times

The Wall Street Journal,

Amazon.com offers Charles Siegal’s book, What’s Wrong with Day Care: Freeing Parents to raise their own children

For more articles, see Yahoo’s full coverage area on Child Welfare.

For more articles on parenting, see Christianity Today’s sister publication, Christian Parenting Today.

Letters

CT April 23, 2001 IssueCourtesy of China Aid
CT April 23, 2001 Issue

The Wonders of Myth

Mythical tales are too often denounced and rejected by the Christian establishment [“Myth Matters,” April 23]. Our culture walks a sharp line between the twin chasms of empirical science and spiritual nihilism, with individuals looking for personal truths in both voids. C. S. Lewis knew that mythology is an arrow piercing to the heart of the human need for truth.

Our culture has a deep hunger for mythology. In the midst of mythical films like Star Wars, mythically inspired card games like Magic: The Gathering, and mythically based video games like Diablo 2, we as Christians have a responsibility to respond to this cultural desire on a mythic level. Lewis knew this. Particularly, he and J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, recognized the deep impact of myth. It was the shared love of Norse mythology that sparked a friendship between Tolkien and Lewis and was perhaps one of the most important steps on Lewis’s path to Christianity.

I hope that Christians no longer shun the myriad mythologies throughout history and current culture, but embrace them as the human search for the ultimate factual historical mythology—Christ’s life, death, resurrection.

But let’s enjoy the stories, the heroic journeys, the “subcreation” (as Tolkien put it), without making them Christian allegories.Jonathan A. WatsonArcadia, California

In “Myth Matters,” Louis Markos claims that the central goal of New Age thought is to restore “a spiritual focus to a society that generally resists any serious consideration of the supernatural.”

Basing an analysis of Lewis’s mythos on this assumption leaves out another very spiritual dimension of his program—that is, what he called “macrobes,” or demons, whose program is to transform the human race into the “un-Man.”

To assume that New Ageism merely reflects a hunger for spirituality in a materially obsessed culture is to overlook that it may really be a demonic attempt to chain us to a bondage begun in the Garden of Eden. In Perelandra, Lewis gives a philologist (a wordsmith, no less!) the job of crushing the head of the serpent in the Garden, showing that Christians are commissioned not merely to engage the culture but also to save it from the most dangerous deceptions.Randy BeelerPastor, Chriesman, Liberty, & Milano United Methodist Churches Caldwell, Texas

As Louis Markos says, C. S. Lewis helps us, children of a modernist world, to imagine a world far different from the one given us by modernity; a different world that is alive with its Father’s presence.

Having imagined such a world, which (even if devoid of fauns and witches and talking horses) is still populated by amazing creatures (puffins, humpback whales, red efts!), we can realize this world is much closer to the God-created one that really exists than the reductionistic model presented to us by modernity.

I applaud Markos for challenging contemporary writers and other artists to follow the example Lewis set, pursuing an authentic expression of Christian faith in terms beyond simple, prepackaged meaning and thinly veiled sermon. The revival of our capacity for wonder (“dangerous wonder,” as Mike Yaconelli calls it), is every bit as essential as Markos claims—not only for effective communication of the gospel, but also for our own engagement with the gospel as mere Christians.Brian D. McLarenPastor, Cedar Ridge Community Church Laurel, Maryland

Saving Christian Fiction

As a fan of Vinita Hampton Wright’s since her first novel, Grace at Bender Springs, I was pleased to see CT giving her the credit she deserves [“The Wright Stuff,” April 23]. I do not, however, believe that she is leading Christianity out of the fatal doom that the Christian literary fiction genre has been in for the past several years.

Her novels about redemption in small towns are refreshing but hardly the response Christians need to make against secular culture. If there is ever going to be a Christian writer to head a revival in the literary arts, then they need to speak the language of postmoderns like Don DeLillo and Thomas Pynchon. Christian writers need to start putting their characters into mainstream secular culture, where they are tempted by commercial desires and not small-town life.

If there is hope in the Christian market, then it is in the writer who can perform such a task.Scott La CounteAnaheim, California

Leaving Lawsuits Behind

In “Author LaHaye Sues Left Behind Film Producers” [April 23], Tim LaHaye’s lawyer is quoted as saying, “Dr. LaHaye … wanted to provide a really strong Christian message.”

I wonder how many non-Christians are going to say, “Wow! What a great testimony! I want to be a Christian!”?Margaret E. GoodwinManchester, Missouri

Colson and Culture

I am amazed that in the same issue we can find intelligent discussion of recent missiological works and the blatant cultural imperialism of Charles Colson [“Slouching into Sloth,” April 23].

Through their study of the errors in missions history and through their theological work on culture, missiologists have adequately demonstrated that it is exceedingly dangerous to privilege some forms of style and dress as more godly than others.

To those who do not share Colson’s tastes in musical and fashion styles or his glorification of the armed services, the comments on hairy legs, sandals, and degraded secular musical styles are nothing but outdated and amusing. The classism present in the phrase “society’s bottom-dwellers,” however, is alarming and offensive.

As someone gifted by God with a healthy coat of leg hair and a propensity toward shorts-wearing, I would ask Colson to restrict his critique of culture to spiritual and moral issues, and leave matters of personal preference alone.Stephen BushKansas City, Missouri

I am a 24-year-old youth pastor, and when I read Charles Colson’s “Slouching into Sloth,” I was on an airplane wearing “shorts exposing hairy legs, and toes sprouting out of sandals,” but I was not giving place to a slothful attitude.

I agree with Colson that our society has fallen into a coarseness, neither right nor proper, that is creeping into many spheres of culture. Instead of marginalizing the rest of culture that does not agree with us about what we wear, watch, and listen to, though, let us clothe ourselves in the virtues of humility and love—apart from superficial appearances—and seek to reach people where they are.Jay McCumberHope Church St. Louis, Missouri

If Charles Colson considers oxfords more Christlike than sandals, perhaps he should take a closer look at what footwear was fashionable in A.D. 30.Laurie EdwardsLebanon, New Hampshire

Closing in on Openness

It was bound to happen sooner or later. John Sanders, Clark Pinnock, Greg Boyd, and the other scholars who contributed to “Truth at Risk” [April 23] clearly pointed out your editorial bias. I am not an open theist, but I was glad to read their rebuttal of Royce Gruenler because they called CT (and the Reformed movement as a whole) to account for the uncharitable, misinformed rhetoric which has become all too common in your publication of late.

In addition to the Arminian and Eastern Orthodox traditions mentioned in “Truth at Risk” as affirming human freedom to reject God’s grace, the Roman Catholic tradition—both before and after Augustine—could be added to this list. In fact, even the Lutheran Book of Concord affirms the possibility of rejecting grace after salvation.

I’m not asking you to change your own position on grace and the human will, but you might learn at least this from John Wesley: “In the essentials, unity. In nonessentials, liberty. In all things, charity.”Carey VinzantClinton, Mississippi

The six leading openness theologians have attempted to take cover under the umbrella of “the Eastern Orthodox Church, Wesleyans, and Arminians.”

This cover is demonstrably not available for their claim that God’s omniscience does not include advance knowledge of the future decisions of free agents. In this respect they differ widely from sound Eastern Orthodoxy, Arminius and his close successors, and all true Wesleyans.Roger NicoleOviedo, Florida

Life’s Okay, God’s Okay

Mark Buchanan’s “Life Is Unfair (and That’s Okay)” [April 23] is doubtless helpful to many Christians who have longed for some sympathetic understanding of how life is or at least seems to be. Some might feel it justifies their negative, self-pitying feelings about life.

The author’s perspective, however, describes reality more from the vantage point of observation than of revelation. In facing life’s seeming inequalities, Mark emphasizes faith as doing the right thing. But what is the right focus of faith? It is surely that God is not only sovereign but also good.

The Scriptures appeal to the faith that God “rewards those who seek him.” What kind of God do we seek? One who asks me to accept his seeming fickleness and arbitrariness, otherwise referred to as “sovereignty”? One who appears “to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow”? Or one who wants me to believe that he is good and wants to bless me? For those who doubt, “that person must not suppose. … (he) will receive anything from the Lord.”

Is it not more helpful to know and love God because of his love and goodness? Does it not encourage faith to believe, with the Psalmist, “that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living”?Roy MayfieldCarnation, Washington

When reading Mark Buchanan’s “Life Is Unfair (and That’s Okay”), I was struck, oddly enough, by the words of philosopher John Dewey in The Quest for Certainty: “The thought that the values which are unstable and unwavering in the world in which we live are eternally secure in a higher realm. … and that all the goods which are defeated here are triumphant there, may give consolation to the depressed. But it does not change the situation in the least.”

I, like Buchanan and unlike Dewey, affirm that complete fairness will ultimately be found in heaven. But what of our call to do justice and love mercy (Micah 6:8)? Does not God’s Spirit empower us to fight evil in this lifetime? Should we not be seeking cures for diseases that kill 4-year-old children?

I’m sure that Buchanan agrees. As Christians, however, we need to be wary of any theology that could encourage us, even inadvertently, to be complacent about the evils of this world in the name of our very real hope in God’s future deliverance.Lora WiensJersey City, New Jersey

Missions and Good News

I was on the third chapter of Changing the Mind of Missions: Where Have We Gone Wrong? when I read your review [“Reimagining Missions,” April 23]. It helped explain my growing discomfort, and also helped me get through the rest of the book with a valuable perspective on the strengths and (especially) weaknesses of this book.

I came away from the review with a new awareness and respect for Stan Guthrie’s biblical perspective and practical understanding of the mission task that faces the church today. I look forward to reading more Guthrie and less “dangerously wide” commentary from those who start on the wrong foot.David StraversExecutive Vice President The Bible League South Holland, Illinois

Referring to John chapter 6, Stan Guthrie states in his book review that “Jesus certainly would put evangelism ahead of social ministry, if a choice must be made—and he did.” This is a very strange thing to say when Scripture clearly says something quite different.

Any attempt to separate evangelism from social ministry is like trying to separate body from soul. The two always go together: evangelism without social ministry is not evangelism and vice versa. Both Matthew 25 and John 4 indicate that to separate these two things is to miss the whole point of good news.

What is good news to the poor? To quote John Stott in the April 2 issue [“The Quotable Stott“], “The gospel is good news of mercy to the undeserving” and “social responsibility becomes an aspect not of Christian mission only, but also of Christian conversion. It is impossible to be truly converted to God without being thereby converted to our neighbor.”

Good news to the poor is more than words about the good news; it is the reality of good news expressed in word and deed.M. Laurel GrayEl Cajon, California

Commendable Condiments

When one has given an unrestricted commendation, one cannot then complain of how it is used. So I do not complain that Tyndale House’s eight-page ad for its New Living Translation (NLT) featured me as, in effect, chief salesman. My commendation, given some years ago, still in fact expresses what I think of the NLT, and how I use it. It is certainly the most outstanding dynamic-equivalence (DE) version that has yet appeared, and I appreciate it as such.

But the extended puff for DE translation with which I am set back-to-back implies that this type of paraphrase yields accuracy beyond what the puff calls formal equivalence (FE) and I call essentially literal (EL) renderings, which go word-for-word as far as possible. This is not so. The DE procedure, however skillfully practiced, is limited in what it can do and loses in precision, nuance, and cultural focus as much as it gains in vivid and speedy readability.

As a preacher and teacher of the Bible for half a century, and now as general editor of the soon-to-appear English Standard Version—an FE/EL team job that seems to me as distinguished of its own kind as the NLT is of its—I am very much aware that this is so. I see DE versions as introductory, preparing serious minds for renderings and disciplines of study closer to the very words of God in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, and to the cultural frames within which revelation was given. This is not to denigrate them, but to locate them.

I expect to go on reading the NTL as salt, mustard, vinegar, and pepper for my soul, but for full-scale encounter with what goes under the condiments to continue looking elsewhere. So, I think, should others.J. I. PackerVancouver, British Columbia

CT April 2, 2001 IssueCourtesy of China Aid
CT April 2, 2001 Issue

God’s Truth

I looked forward to reading Tim Stafford’s “Whatever Happened to Christian History?” [April 2] as one whose professional life has involved a related struggle—the challenge to integrate psychology with evangelical Christianity. It seems to me that the critics’ collective voice anticipates, even clamors for, a triumphal documentation of the church’s glorious fulfillment of the Great Commission.

It would be much more appropriate for the church to approach with trepidation the possibility of a Christian history. One of the standards frequently applied to establishing bridges between scientific truth and the Bible has been the standard of truth—all truth is God’s truth. Having been humbled by my share of failed attempts to integrate psychological constructs as truth, I would caution the church that truth in history may provide a mirror that many of us are loathe to examine too closely, as it may require us to recognize numerous shortcomings in our efforts to embody our Lord’s message to the surrounding culture.

With this caution in mind, however, I pray that we can try in humility to read such a history, examine ourselves in that light, and grow in the recognition of our need for his grace—just as I continue in the struggle to apply psychological truth to participate in the healing of broken lives.Philip SmithCortlandt Manor, New York

Contacting CT

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Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Straight Outta Dharamsala

David Neff

Behind James A. Beverley’s report on the Dalai Lama

In 1993, Tyndale Seminary professor James A. Beverley traveled from Toronto to Chicago to attend the Parliament of the World’s Religions. It was natural for him, as a scholar of world and new religions, to attend this spiritual swap meet. That gathering marked the centenary of a watershed event at which Eastern religions first captured the Western imagination and Swami Vivekenanda went from being, in the words of one unsigned Web article, “a sort of holy vagrant. … to an esteemed holy man who established. … Vedanta centers in a number of American cities.”

In 1893, the Parliament’s star personality was an apostle of Hinduism; in 1993, the Parliament’s most mediagenic figure was a Buddhist who oozed charm and charisma: the Dalai Lama, the leader of Tibetan Buddhists, and spiritual leader for many Western seekers.

In a recent telephone conversation, Jim recalled noticing the Dalai Lama’s “incredible drawing power” and his “magnetic personality.” “The press conference was an amazing thing to behold,” Jim told me, “because he held the media spellbound.”

Jim was hooked as an observer and followed the Dalai Lama to New York in 1999. There, in Central Park, he heard the Dalai Lama address 40,000 of the curious and the devoted. “I was fascinated by the way his American teaching was diverse,” Jim says, noting that there were technical lectures for devotees, while the public lectures toned down the specific Buddhist content.

“He was basically conveying ethics and his belief in fundamental human goodness,” Jim says. “He recognized that explicit religious teaching wouldn’t have as much appeal, and his listeners were not ready for it. In the Tibetan Buddhist world, the Dalai Lama speaks with much more focus because he speaks to his own followers.”

Indeed, Buddhism and Hinduism have been watered down in the West as elements of those traditions have been folded into New Age teaching. But where these religions have political power or cultural dominance, they can be more militant.

Thanks to special funding from Christianity Today International’s Excellence Fund, Jim was able to follow his interest in the Dalai Lama all the way to Dharamsala in India. At 6,000 feet higher than his hometown of Toronto and 11 time zones away, Jim found that he overextended himself at first and felt sick for one day. But he soon acclimated. “Buddhism’s Guru,” a summary of his interview with the Dalai Lama and his personal observations of what he saw in India, appears today on our site.

Since he returned to Toronto, Jim has often been asked if the Dalai Lama has any aura, whether he sensed anything supernatural in the religious leader’s presence. “He is a dynamic person,” Jim says, “who has a great sense of humor and a strong will. But I had sensed no magical feeling in his presence.”

Jim is impressed with India’s being “such a rich site for the holy places of major religions.” It was an 18-day dream trip for a student of world religions: En route to visiting the Dalai Lama, Jim was able to visit the Golden Temple of the Sikh faith in Amritsar and take a side trip out of New Delhi to Varanasi, the most sacred Hindu city on the Ganges. In one trip he was able to see the heart of Tibetan Buddhism and Sikhism and traditional Hinduism.

There is something admirably Canadian about Jim’s closing observation: “Exploring the influence of the Dalai Lama in the world, and in the U.S. in particular, is a perfect example of the need for Christians to learn to understand the worldviews of other faiths and also to learn how to live their Christian faith in loving and powerful witness in the midst of religious and cultural pluralism.”

David Neff is Editor of Christianity Today.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

Articles appearing in Beverley’s Buddhism series include:

Buddhism’s Guru | The Dalai Lama, a spiritual hero to millions, works to liberate Tibet, calls on spirits, and believes Jesus lived previous lives. (June 8, 2001)

Basic Buddhism | What the Dalai Lama and his followers believe about God, Buddha, and other teachings. (June 8, 2001)

Weighed Down by Karmic Debt | Aspects of Tibetan spirituality should give Christians pause. (June 8, 2001)

Blood and Tears in Tibet | The Dalai Lama says he appreciates Christian attempts to address persecution in his homeland (June 8, 2001)

James A. Beverley’s other articles for Christianity Today include:

Scholars Dispute Fatima Prophecy | Many question whether attempted assassination of Pope fulfilled prophecy. (Aug. 11, 2000)

The Mormon-Evangelical Divide | Beliefs that set Mormons apart, and evangelicals’ response. (Feb. 9, 2000)

Smorgasbord Spirituality | Evangelicals make a thin showing as the world’s religions gather to make common cause. (Dec. 14, 1999)

Son’s Death Shakes Up Unification Church | Sun Myung Moon calls death ‘providential’ accident, not suicide. (Dec. 15, 1999)

Dental Miracle Reports Draw Criticism (May 24, 1999)

Moon Struck | Church founder’s ex-daughter-in-law pens grim tome about life on the inside. (Nov. 16, 1998)

Putting Faith Back in Public Service

Ronald J. Sider

An interview with John DiIulio, Bush’s charitable-choice point man

Back when his main occupation was political science, John DiIulio once wrote that “the evidence is growing that the only people who are now doing something to make inner-city blacks part of ‘one nation, indivisible,’ are those who seek “one nation, under God, indivisible.'” Now, as the director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, DiIulio is working to aid those who help “the least of these.” Ronald J. Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action, spoke with DiIulio about the recent debate surrounding his new office.

On several occasions you have described yourself as a “born again” or “evangelical” Catholic. What do you mean by that?

I was raised as a Roman Catholic. I attended a Catholic school. I always believed that Jesus Christ was who he said he was. But, from college through graduate school at Harvard and into my 30s, I had little regular prayer life. I attended church only episodically. I was a lapsed Catholic and an indifferent Christian. I didn’t hide my faith, but I didn’t nurture or share it much, either. Then, in the mid-1990s, I began to grow in spiritual awareness through a theologically untidy mix of Pentecostal preaching and Catholic social teaching. The African-American pastors whose social-service work I was studying had inspired me. I began drawing closer to committed prolife Catholic friends. On Palm Sunday in 1996, while sitting in church with my family, I felt that the moment had come for me to strive to live in self-emptying obedience to Christ, and to serve God with gladness. That’s pretty much what I mean by “born-again Catholic.”

The debate about the new White House office has brought the discussion about the role of religion in society into prominence in a new way. How has the debate already changed public views?

I think the change began during the 2000 presidential campaign. Both presidential candidates, plus my good friend Senator Joe Lieberman, engaged in unprecedented amounts of what some in the media derided as “God talk.” President Bush’s inaugural address explicitly welcomed godly people and religious volunteers back into the public square and pledged that churches, synagogues, and mosques would have an honored place in his administration. So they have, and so they shall.

For the first time, I think, most people are hearing that local congregations, community-serving ministries, and other religious groups supply simply enormous amounts of social services to the least, the last, and the lost of our society. They are learning that these groups provide everything from preschools to prison ministries, job training to drug counseling, health clinics to homeless shelters, daycare centers to literacy centers, and much more. They also hear President Bush say that Methodists, Muslims, Mormons, and others should not be discriminated against. And they are hearing that the Constitution does not erect a wall of separation between common sense and social compassion.

What do you hope to accomplish with your office?

We hope to help—I dare say we’re fixin’ to help!—the President realize his vision for faith-based and community initiatives. We want to use tax incentives and other policies to increase giving—both human and financial, both volunteer hours and charitable dollars. We plan to rally the country’s social entrepreneurs, and tug at the conscience of corporate and foundation grant-makers, in support of true community helpers and healers, both sacred and secular. We want to make it possible for the leaders of faith-based and community initiatives to seek government grants or vouchers to administer social services on the same basis as any other nongovernmental or nonprofit provider. Faith-based leaders and volunteers should not have to undergo the organizational equivalent of a strip search (remove all religious iconography) or a bureaucratic reeducation camp (stop all God talk) just to be considered for public support. Likewise, the beneficiaries of federal social-service programs should have a choice of providers, and that choice should include qualified faith-based organizations.

We want to implement laws already on the books that make this beneficiary choice, or, as it is more commonly and officially known, this “charitable choice,” a reality. The laws now apply to many federal social-welfare programs, and we hope that they are extended to juvenile justice and other federal programs.

Are you surprised that some religious conservatives have criticized the President’s plan?

There has been almost no criticism of the President’s actual plan. There has, however, been lots of criticism of ideas that, to my knowledge, nobody has proposed, as well as certain pardonable misunderstandings about the settled character of constitutional law in this area.

Could you give an example?

Take the charge that any government support for faith-based organizations that provide social services is flatly unconstitutional. The support is perfectly constitutional so long as the groups that receive the support honor all relevant federal antidiscrimination policies with respect to both beneficiaries and any paid employees. They must exercise diligence in segregating program funds from other budgets. Government must guarantee secular alternatives. There can be no religious coercion. Charitable-choice laws all expressly forbid any use of funds for “sectarian worship, instruction, or proselytization.” The new charitable-choice law pending in the House repeats this prohibition, and rightly so.

What’s your take on the grants-versus-vouchers debate?

Voucher enthusiasts include some religious conservatives and many secular thinkers. The existing laws, like the relevant provisions of the new House bill, do not really force a choice. They provide for both direct and indirect forms of disbursement, depending on how the programs in question already operate. The case made for vouchers is that they give the widest possible constitutional latitude for religious expression. When government does not select program providers but instead gives the program beneficiary a free choice of where to seek help, the courts generally are satisfied, even if the beneficiary’s voucher goes to a religious program. Likewise, some prefer vouchers by default, believing that direct grants, in due course, will enervate the religious character of participating ministries, breed dependency, and promote secularization.

The vouchers-only approach has several limitations. The vast majority of existing federal social welfare and other domestic programs are not, and have no promise of becoming, voucher-based. Vouchers are fine for big, established organizations but less fine for small, community-based ones, because vouchers cannot defray start-up or core operating costs.

What law permits religious organizations to hire only employees who share their religious commitments?

It’s Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act—not the charitable-choice laws, as some believe. Even with that religious exemption, the groups must still comply with the ban on race, color, gender, disability, or national origin discrimination. In 1972, Congress broadened the exemption to cover all staff of religious organizations, not just those carrying out strictly religious activities. In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 1972 law in a 9-0 decision, stating that religious organizations have a right to foster a “shared religious vision,” not only in religious activities, but also in nonprofit activities that are not pervasively religious in nature or purpose. Nothing in federal law says that a religious organization surrenders its Title VII protection to hire on a religious basis if it accepts federal funds.

What would you say to those who want to force religious organizations to hire nonbelievers as a condition for receiving public funding?

For starters, they need to notice that most of the organizations in question are, alas, volunteer-based organizations, so the issue, as a practical matter, is often moot. They need to recognize, as well, that many secular nonprofit organizations that receive public funds discriminate in hiring on an ideological basis. As Professor Jeffrey Rosen has pointed out, Planned Parenthood doesn’t have to hire prolife Catholics who disagree fundamentally with its proabortion policies and so-called contraceptive technology methods. Why the double standard for faith-based programs whose reasons are rooted in theology, and whose methods might actually prove efficacious in cutting teen pregnancy or whatever the authorized civic goal of the program might be?

Also, they need to be careful of what they wish for. Were they to get it, that could mean defunding countless religious colleges and universities, plus other faith-based organizations and institutions that hire only cobelievers. Federally funded daycare, for example, has had voucher components since 1990. According to one estimate, as much as a third of all daycare in the country is provided via local faith-based organizations, almost half of which take religion into account in making any hiring decisions.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Related Elsewhere

Ron Sider, who conducted this interview, also promotes charitable choice in a related Christianity Today article.

Other recent interviews with John DiIulio are available from Sojourners magazine and the National Institute for Healthcare Research.

Speaking to a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors yesterday, President Bush promised minor concessions in his faith-based initiative.

The official White House site has President Bush’s foreword and executive order forming the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. The Washington Post also has the full transcript of Bush’s public announcement.

The Washington Postprofiled OFBCI head John DiIulio in February. (Christianity Todayprofiled him in 1999.)

The Center for Public Justice Web site offers reams of information on charitable choice plans past and present.

Gospelcom’s Apologetics Index has a site to track news and reactions to the controversial faith-based program.

Christianity Today‘s earlier coverage of DiIulio and Bush’s faith-based initiatives includes:

DiIulio Keeps Explaining, But Is Anyone Listening? | At a media luncheon in Washington about Bush’s faith-based initiatives, answered questions get asked one more time. (Apr. 9, 2001)

DiIulio Pitches Charitable Choice to Cautious NAE Delegates | Meanwhile, group suggests religious broadcasters reconsider severing ties. (Mar. 21, 2001)

Editorial: No More Excuses | Bush’s faith-based initiative should reinvigorate our mission of service. (Mar. 15, 2001)

Charitable Choice Dance Begins | Faith-based organizations cautious but eager for government aid. (Mar. 15, 2001)

Should Charities Take Washington’s Money? | Churches and ministries grapple with the ramifications of accepting federal funding. (Feb. 13, 2001)

The Bush Agenda | Will the White House be user-friendly for religious organizations? (Jan. 8, 2001)

Bush’s Call to Prayer | After Al Gore’s concession, evangelical leaders unify around faith-based initiatives, morality, and prayer as the incoming Bush administration gears up. (Dec. 14, 2000)

A Presidential Hopeful’s Progress | The spiritual journey of George W. Bush starts in hardscrabble west Texas. Will the White House be his next stop? (Sept. 5, 2000)

Bush’s Faith-Based Plans (Oct. 25, 1999)

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