The Bones Cry Out

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey (Zondervan, 1980, 206 pp., $8.95), is reviewed by Stanley Clark, pastor, Huntsville Bible Church, Huntsville, Texas.

Over the millennia, every night sky has declared the glories of God. Voyager’s spectacular photographs have recently enhanced our appreciation of God’s heavenly handiwork in his creation of such things as the rings of Saturn, down, even, to the twisting of some like a finely wrought golden chain. The psalmist says, however, that God’s work in the heavens do not compare to the wonders he has wrought in man. Now physician Paul Brand and writer Philip Yancey have collaborated to illustrate for us the truth that man, more than the stars, is “fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Eighteen years a missionary doctor in India, Brand pioneered in the treatment of leprosy. Presently he is chief of rehabilitation at the leprosy hospital in Carville, Louisiana.

Based on his intimate knowledge of cells, bones, and skin, Brand works with Yancey to draw applications to spiritual truth. The two share with us the discovery that “the human body expresses spiritual reality so authentically that soon the common stuff of matter … appear[s] more and more like a mere shadow.” From Brand the reader also learns that these illustrations of spiritual truth are readily available in the seeming humdrum of life for those willing to observe and meditate.

Occasionally Yancey’s chapters seem to wander and lose focus so that the reader has to backtrack to follow the thought. On the whole, however, this is a homiletician’s gold mine of insights and illustrations about things like the law, obedience, and spiritual gifts.

An effective use of this book would be to recommend individual chapters to people wrestling with issues such as stress, pain, or self-worth. However it is used, the reader comes away in awe of the fearful and wonderful construction of the body God has given to each of us, an appreciation for the spiritual realm it illustrates, and a reverence for the God in whom both find their source.

Bumper-Sticker Aesthetics

Addicted to Mediocrity, by Franky Schaeffer V (Cornerstone, 1981, 127 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by J. W. Whitehead, an attorney in Manassas, Virginia.

In Addicted to Mediocrity, filmmaker Franky Schaeffer brings to bear a good dose of satirical wit in analyzing what he believes to be the superficiality of much of modern Christendom. As writer and director of the controversial five-part film series, Whatever Happened to The Human Race?, Schaeffer attacked abortion on demand, infanticide, and euthanasia. In his new book he attacks what he identifies as the Christian community’s mediocre efforts in the arts (writing, television, recording, movies, etc.).

At the base of a Christian world that Schaeffer says is a sea of combs, toothbrushes, and assorted paraphernalia with Bible verses scribbled on them, is a body of Christian people who have been overspiritualized. It is a world that too often looks for answers in some sort of spiritual experience instead of applying God-given talents in all areas of life. To Schaeffer, modern Christendom has become lost within a spiritual never-never land where the real world is ignored. The color and richness that grew out of earlier periods have been forsaken for a world made up of commercial slogans, jingles, and bumper stickers.

Schaeffer’s solution to the lack of true creativity within Christendom is Christians coming to grips with the fact that God created man to create. As such, Schaeffer notes that art needs no justification; that is, a portrait does not have to have a Bible verse stapled to it in order to qualify as a Christian expression.

To drive his points home, Schaeffer includes in the book some 19 satirical drawings by Chicago artist Kurt Mitchell. Some of the illustrations come off as attacks on certain Christian precepts, but one gets the idea that Schaeffer’s book was written and illustrated with tongue in cheek.

This is a book to pick up and read, even if one is not interested in the arts. Franky Schaeffer has succeeded in writing a book that will stir thought while providing amusing reading.

The Earliest Evangelicals?

The Waldensians: The First Eight Hundred Years (1174–1974), by Giogio Tourn (Friendship Press, 1980, 286 pp., $8.95).

The Waldensians are known only by name to most American Protestants, and that is regrettable. Fortunately, it is now possible to fill in that gap with this readable history.

Tourn’s book shows us why some European church historians have started speaking about the early Waldensian movement as the “First Reformation” in Western Christianity. Three hundred years before Martin Luther, Waldensians were making the Bible available in local dialects, engaging in lay preaching, rejecting feudal oaths, refusing military service, and rediscovering evangelical life in poverty and equality “like the apostles.”

Although mostly clandestine, Waldo’s followers were spread across Europe from northern Spain to Poland, and from Flanders to Bohemia. They were severely persecuted by various popes and militant wings of monastic orders, who used both ecclesiastical and civil power in attempting to exterminate them.

Tourn does not treat Waldensian theology separately, but enough of it shines through to show why the Waldensian church remains a vital element in Italy today, though their numbers are small. One contemporary theologian (Karl Barth) feels they came the nearest of any existing group to the New Testament model. Whether or not that is true is debatable, but the fact remains that the Waldensians are a powerful testimony to what Christians can be, and have been, under very trying circumstances.

Thinking It Through

Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective, by Norman L. Geisler and Paul D. Feinberg (Baker, 1980, 447 pp., $9.95 hb), and With All Your Mind: A Christian Philosophy, by Yandall Woodfin (Abingdon, 1980, 272 pp., $8.95 pb), are reviewed by David Bruce Fletcher, recently appointed to the philosophy department of Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

While there has not always been an enthusiastic, receptive attitude toward philosophy among evangelicals, most Christian liberal arts colleges offer philosophy courses. In the first introductory philosophy textbook written for use in such colleges, Norman L. Geisler and Paul D. Feinberg make the broad field of philosophy accessible to beginning students in Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective. Firmly conservative, the authors are explicit about their evangelical convictions, which they allow to interact critically with philosophical ideas to the point of “refuting those views that are anti-Christian” (p. 6).

Standardly organized, the book introduces first the general subject of philosophy and asserts its place in Christian thought. Varied questions of epistemology, philosophical theology, and ethics are treated. The method is to present a philosophical issue and survey the major positions arrayed on various sides. The authors pay closest attention to positions they find disagreeable to orthodoxy and concisely refute the arguments, but avoid committing themselves to any view when orthodoxy is not at stake.

Geisler and Feinberg show themselves to be current in treating various philosophical topics. Offering a competent survey of major areas of philosophy, they generally steer clear of controversial or starkly original statements of their own. They guide the student through unfamiliar territory, with a friendly warning when wandering too near the precipice. The book will make a fine reference tool in its well-organized presentations of most of the significant philosophical positions and areas of interest.

Unfortunately, the book evidences the authors’ lack of interest in or regard for philosophizing except as it is useful for refuting attacks on the faith. While they grant with some reluctance that “philosophical debate has merit” apart from exposing unbelief (p. 5), missing is the vital sense of wonder giving rise to biblically directed philosophical inquiry as a Christian vocation. As Christians they react to and comment upon the philosophical tradition while giving little evidence of being within it.

Quite different is Yandall Woodfin’s With All Your Mind: A Christian Philosophy. In this introductory text, Woodfin presents a marvelously written treatment of major philosophical questions from a Christian philosophical perspective. He introduces major areas of philosophical interest by surveying and outlining alternative viewpoints and by entering into the dialogue personally as a lover of philosophy and of God and his Word. He leads us through questions of general and religious knowledge, theistic proofs, metaphysics, aesthetics, and philosophy of language. He faces problems posed for Christianity by the conflicting claims of other faiths, and reflects on the crucial relation between philosophy of science and the Christian faith. As all Christian philosophers must, he also wrestles with the problem of evil.

Woodfin evokes the childlike sense of wonder necessary for both faith and philosophy, bidding us follow him into increasingly sophisticated thought. For example, he introduces his discussion of metaphysics with a quotation from Margery Williams’s children’s story, The Velveteen Rabbit, about how toys become real through love. This quickly leads to his view that the incarnate Christ is the center of reality, “the objective ground and rational paradigm for … understanding … the meaningfulness of reality as a whole” (p. 95).

Woodfin not only describes philosophical debates, but he interprets their meaning for faith and life. He judges that theistic proofs are inconclusive, but they enjoy an enduring appeal due to “the religious quality of the insights and experiences that lie at their base” (p. 52). He recognizes the theoretical and personal problems that evil poses for the believer, but insists that it would be “unreasonable to expect anyone to give up his or her Christian faith in the face of evil and suffering until those who deny the faith can account satisfactorily for the presence of value—any value—in the universe!” (p. 212).

Apologetically useful as this may be, Woodfin’s primary task is constructively to interpret reality in light of a God-given reason. He quotes freely from Scripture (almost 200 references), not merely for illustration or prooftexting, but to gain a scriptural understanding of divine and human reality that should direct our thinking.

This book is highly recommended for use as a text, for background reading for philosophy teachers, and indeed for anyone who is tempted to think philosophically.

BRIEFLY NOTED

The church must never forget its God-given task of taking the gospel to the ends of the earth. Numerous books of value continue to appear to remind us of this responsibility.

Mission Theory. Collections of essays from various points of view are: Mission Focus: Current Issues (Herald), edited by W. R. Shenk, a very useful book; Your Kingdom Come: Mission Perspectives (WCC) by Jacques Matthey, et al., more to the left, but containing informed essays; and Mission Trends No. 5 (Paulist/Eerdmans), edited by G. H. Anderson and T. F. Stransky, dealing primarily with interfaith relations and conflicts.

Theological strategies include Mission-Church Dynamics (William Carey), by W. H. Fuller, on biocultural tensions; The Foundation for Missions (Broadman), by M. T. Starkes, which sees the Bible as a “mirror for missions”; Planning Strategies for World Evangelization (Eerdmans), by E. R. Dayton and D. A. Fraser, the best such book I have seen so far; and Witness to the World (John Knox) by D. J. Bosch, a history/theology of missions.

Specific topics are treated in Today’s Tent-makers (Tyndale), by J. C. Wilson, Jr., on self-support; Educating for Christian Missions (Broadman), edited by A. L. Walker, Jr., on support for mission through education; Communicating the Gospel God’s Way (William Carey) by C. H. Kraft, on the “incarnational model” of communication; and A World of Difference (InterVarsity) by Thom Hopler, with perceptive comments on following Christ beyond our cultural walls.

The Work Abroad.The United States and World Development (Praeger), edited by J. W. Sewell, provides valuable factual information as a background for missions. The standard Mission Handbook (MARC), edited by Samuel Wilson, is now in its twelfth edition. Everyone in missions will welcome this. The three-volume From the Files of MCC (Herald), edited by C. J. Dyck, ably covers Mennonite mission work at home and overseas. Unreached Peoples ’81 (David C. Cook), edited by C. Peter Wagner and Edward R. Dayton, is now updated to this year and as helpful as ever.

Specific areas of interest are reflected in the following: Dream Your Way to Success (Logos), by Nell L. Kennedy, the biography of Korea’s Paul Cho; Let the Earth Hear (Nelson), by Paul E. Freed, the marvelous story of Trans World Radio; Love in the Mortar Joints (Association Press/Follett), by Millard Fuller, about housing in Zaïre; Alaska (Radiant/GPH), by Paul Bills, about the regions north of the Yukon; and Unstilled Voices (Christian Herald), by James and Marti Hefley, a follow-up on the Auca massacre of 1956.

Biography. Two pioneers are treated in Henry Martyn (Moody), by Constance E. Padwick, and William Carey (Moody), by F. D. Walker. Wartime testimonies are: Under the Guns in Beirut (Radiant/GPH), by Terry Raburn; Faith Despite the KGB (Christian Herald), by Hermann Hartfeld; Run for the West (David C. Cook), by Bernard Palmer; and Days of Terror (Herald), by B. C. Smucker.

Stories of martyrdom are: Even Unto Death (David C. Cook), by Margaret Ford, about Uganda’s Janani Luwum; A Martyr’s Message of Hope (Celebration), six homilies by Archbishop Oscar Romero; and All for Christ (Oxford Univ.), by Diana Dewar, about 10 modern Christian martyrs.

Born to Lose, Born to Win (Harvest House), by Lorry Lutz, is the life story of Mother Eliza George; God’s Calling (Broadman) is the missionary autobiography of Japan’s Robert H. Culpepper; The Surgeon’s Family (Tyndale), by Carole Page, is about Mexico’s Dr. David Hernandez; Apostle of Sight (Christian Herald), by D. C. Wilson, is Victor Rambo of India’s story; Damien, the Leper Priest (Morrow), by A. E. Niemark, concerns Father Damien de Venster of Hawaii; and Come Up to This Mountain (Tyndale), by Lois Neely, tells of Clarence Jones and HCJB. All of these stories are challenging and helpful.

Islam. With Afghanistan and Iran in the news, attention is shifting to this part of the world. The Unholy War (Nelson), by Marius Baar, argues that the end-time choice will be Christ or Mohammed. Islam (Baker), by C. G. Fry and J. R. King, is a helpful survey of the Muslim faith, suitable for lay people. New Paths in Muslim Evangelism (Baker), by Phil Parshall, is the best book to date on how to reach Muslim people. Blessing in Mosque and Mission (William Carey), by Larry G. Lenning, uses the idea of “blessing” to introduce Christ to Islam. A Christian Approach to Muslims (William Carey), by James P. Dretke, is a collection of reflections from West Africa. William M. Miller has written A Christian’s Response to Islam (Tyndale), a nice, brief introduction to the whole subject.

My fellow countryman, Robert Louis Stevenson, once declared: “For my own part, I could not look but with wonder and respect on the Chinese. Their forefathers watched the stars before mine had begun to keep pigs.”

Another world visionary, W. Stanley Mooneyham, reminds us that “a solidly entrenched sense of place has given the Chinese a deep-seated personal identity”—of being each a member of the “Middle Kingdom,” and not of some vague region dismissed airily by us Westerners as “the Far East.”

If such a cultured people developed xenophobic tendencies, these are partly attributable in modern times to the frightful treatment they suffered at the hands of the British and other Europeans. And this, in turn, might lead us to ask, Who then were the barbarians?

In a different context, T. E. Lawrence suggests that youth is “pitiably weak against age.” I tell myself that China’s 5,000-year history covers a period 10 times the age of my own “ancient” university.

I hope that high-flown opener will be regarded neither as offputting nor irrelevant to what follows about the Chinese of the Dispersion. Some of the latter I met last summer in Singapore during the second Chinese Congress on World Evangelization (CCOWE). There were about 1,200 participants plus 300 mostly young helpers who, with incredible efficiency, greeted, processed, fed, guided, informed, and generally helped us during those eight days in the island republic. I have vivid memories of the first such congress, held five years ago in Hong Kong amid torrential rainstorms. Just as memorable was the statement issued on behalf of a group that had never met together before.

That document identified the need for four bridges to be built: (1) between the generations, with old and young learning from each other; (2) between old and new thinking, so that although basic faith does not change, the strategy and method of gospel proclamation can be adapted to present needs; (3) between East and West, so that the strengths of both may serve a common aim (“the Oriental church tends to stress the deepening of spiritual life, while the Western church emphasizes results”); (4) between denominations, “so that Chinese churches may pool manpower and physical resources to realize their full potential and bring glory to God and benefit to mankind.”

Pooling of resources was coupled with a recommendation to “borrow the technical expertise and experience of Western missions to launch missionary work among other races in order to satisfy the hunger of the world for the gospel.” (I was intrigued to find that not only the secular Chinese had rehabilitated an ancient slogan: “Make foreign things serve China.”)

Now here we were five years later in Singapore, where the 1.7 million Chinese majority includes 75,000 Protestants and 90,000 baptized Roman Catholics—and where long-haired callers at public offices are still liable to be sent to the end of the line (so warns a tourist handbook). Venue of the CCOWE working meetings was the Anglo-Chinese Junior College, a Methodist institution in the corridors of which are prominently displayed exhortations such as: “Be Considerate—Let Them Study in Peace,” and, “Cultivate Good Habits—Talk Softly.” Most thought-provoking of all was a freestanding notice which, evidently brought in after target practice, had been left outside the auditorium, so that latecomers to CCOWE sessions were confronted by the words: “Danger—Firing in Progress.”

There was a lot of eminently sensible stuff at this congress. It was to be no mere talking-shop (“ideas must be turned into solid strategies and actions”). Watching the stars was not discouraged, but it was evidently not going to make participants less aware of the need to negotiate potholes. There was, moreover, acknowledgment that a church which traditionally evinces strong pietistic tendencies has responsibility toward the non-Chinese unevangelized, and toward a suffering as well as a dying world.

While they thus see their mandate as global, their ministry will understandably major on their own race, whose numbers increase annually by some 12.6 million—or as one of them put it to me, “Within the immediate vicinity there is a lot of work still to be done.”

Nonetheless, I was fascinated to find that a favorite CCOWE hymn was James McGranahan’s “Far, far away, in heathen darkness dwelling,” a concept that has fallen into disfavor in some circles today. Genuinely curious, I asked four of my friendly Chinese in turn what “heathen darkness” meant to them. Their respective responses: Africa, Communist countries, Greenland and other cold Atlantic islands, and Papua New Guinea.

My grasp of what went on in working sessions was fitful, for most workshop groups used only Mandarin, and in plenaries I was dependent on simultaneous translations of uneven quality. But some general impressions came through.

First, there was a notably harmonious spirit throughout (and more than a little fun), but I did rather miss the cut-and-thrust of plenary discussion. Then, too, there was confirmation of something said by general secretary Thomas Wang: “God is giving the Chinese churches today a bigger heart.” Not least was this seen in expressed indebtedness to missionaries past and present.

Some of the other points I jotted down at the time seem patronizing, naive, or simplistic, and I make myself vulnerable by even mentioning them, but here they are.

Chinese are not dittoes; tike us, they come in all shapes, sizes, and outlooks. Their problems are our problems, even if some of these were for us more burning issues 50 years ago. Linked with this is the need (and this is recognized) to develop and articulate a theology directed to a Chinese context.

One might add that the declaration on church and state from which they drew back at Hong Kong in 1976 is still not forthcoming. Perhaps it was remembered that the Singapore participants came out of, and some have to return to, some delicate political situations. Or it may have been thought that obtrusions of such a topic into official CCOWE proceedings would have nullified the spiritual impact of the gathering. I was going to make something of the almost complete absence of women in the higher CCOWE echelons, but much the same could be said of the Lausanne Committee.

CCOWE was a Chinese project. There was no Western presence in the wings, keeping a benevolent but watchful eye on the stage, ready to prompt or to take over should things go wrong. That thought was more irrational than my usual. They coped superbly, and did all on a modest $200,000 budget, suggesting that their simpler lifestyle meant more than the difference between a four-and a five-star hotel.

J. D. DOUGLAS¹Dr. Douglas is a writer living in St. Andrews, Scotland, and editor at large for Christianity Today.

Recently, i overheard two members of a local congregation discussing a “church” wedding. One, distressed by the poor attendance of “our” people, asked, “How did Milton and Delores [parents of the bride] feel?” The other replied, “What could they expect? We gave the bride a shower … and she hasn’t been in church in three years except for one Christmas Sunday!” Too often “church” wedding is synonymous with “Christian” wedding. But anyone can have a church wedding; many congregations or ministers will oblige for a fee. A Christian wedding, however, is for two Christians who wish to enter into a covenant relationship.

A Christian wedding necessitates premarital counseling. In research at the University of Oklahoma, Justine Knight discovered in her sample of divorced church members that two-thirds (66 percent) had not had premarital counseling. Of those who had counseling, 11 percent reported it “of no value,” 11 percent questioned the value, and only 11 percent valued the experience.

We plan for vacations, for major purchases, for careers, and for retirement. Surely two Christians who will spend their lives together should plan for the marriage and not just the wedding.

Some approaching marriages will require more than a perfunctory one-hour session with the parties: the young, those from broken homes, the emotionally unstable, those with several previous or “short” engagements. Submerged factors may threaten the marriage; hidden agendas and expectations need to be recognized and discussed. Although issues may not be fully resolved before the ceremony, identifying them is a positive step toward marital success.

What is the policy or procedure in your church in counseling those who wish to be married? Does it accommodate marginal attenders who want the trappings of the church wedding without the spiritual commitment?

Knight identified several factors that contributed to the divorce rate: (1) financial immaturity; (2) emotional immaturity; and (3) spiritual immaturity. But a person can be “spiritual” and financially or emotionally immature.

What shall we say to two individuals who want to begin on an economic level that has taken their parents 25 years to attain? How do young couples develop the discipline necessary to use plastic money (credit) responsibly?

Most congregations assign counseling responsibility to the pastor, who marries as a church official and state representative. The congregation has largely been relegated to spectator status.

Where can we begin?

1. Weddings, particularly those involving children as flower girls or ring bearers, provide an excellent opportunity to teach the significance of marriage and weddings. We need to explain the wedding traditions just as we explain those of the Christmas season. This focus will naturally defuse the myth that equates premarital counseling with a much narrower preceremonial counseling. Too often what we term premarital is more concerned with “who stands where and when” and other ceremonial protocol than with the emergence of a new home!

2. Group counseling during junior high years will provide an opportunity for exposure to preparation for marriage. It is too late to begin instruction in senior high. There should be as much preparation for this “trip down the aisle” as for the other moments at the church altar.

3. Small group activities provide a setting particularly for parents involved in the decision making. This is especially valuable when two families in the church are “merged.” The church must help implement Genesis 1:26, and encourage brides and grooms to see parents in a biblical perspective.

Premarital counseling must be more than a one-shot process or the recommending of good books. It cannot be taken for granted that the counselees will read “chapter 6” at home—whatever the subject. If the church’s commitment in premarital counseling is taken seriously, the couple and their families will accept the instruction as valuable and worth priority of time. But most pastors feel pressure to accommodate:

“If I don’t marry them, someone else will …”

“If I marry them I can keep my foot in the door …”

“I’m not a counselor …”

“They will be sexually active if I don’t marry them …”

Can the church legitimize sexual behavior? Can we provide “shotgun” marriages for couples living together?

Every pastor who assumes the responsibility of performing the ceremony must be equally committed to the responsibility for counseling those he marries. We are either creating homes and undergirding the future of the church, or merely tipping our hats at society. As Christians we have every right to enjoy weddings—after we have done our best to establish the home on a solid foundation.

Church governing bodies need not become bogged down establishing rules—such as “four one-hour sessions or no wedding!” But the congregation must support the pastor who has developed a reasonable policy and consistently follows it.

Counseling is an acute need in marriages of students in Christian colleges. Too easily we assume they will receive counseling at college in a “marriage and family” course (which may be more sociological than practical) or through their advisers. The college assumes the local church will provide it. When hundreds of miles separate the student(s) and the minister who will perform the ceremony, the counseling may be postponed.

The church has given some guidance in the area of second marriages, but said little about first ceremonies. As long as there were no biblical objections, we have had a laissez-faire approach. But the church wedding—in sanctuary or chapel, performed by the minister—is a significant religious moment, an endorsement. Tragically, most know more about getting married than being married.

Although involved in single-adult ministry, I am interested in’ the establishment of solid Christian homes that become witnesses to a world in which lifetime marriage to one mate is viewed skeptically. Counseling provides a stronger possibility that my friends will not return as single-agains, scarred by the trauma of divorce.

Sometimes a couple may need more time. Then, the church must delay a ceremony and, in love, say “no.” Some will react angrily. In time, with counseling, the difficulty may work out, enabling the church to say an enthusiastic “Amen!” to their marriage. Such a decision is always preferable to hoping “it will work out some way.”

We do not take salvation or acceptance into church membership lightly. We must therefore implement premarital counseling rather than mere preceremonial counseling.

HAROLD IVAN SMITH¹Mr. Smith is general director of single adult ministries for the Church of the Nazarene at its international offices in Kansas City, Missouri.

Music has been one of the glories of Christmas celebration ever since God inspired the four songs of the Nativity recorded by Luke in his Gospel. Probably more excellent, exciting music is available for Christmas than for any other season.

The following reviews emphasize compositions for the adult church or school choir, or chorale. The most important consideration in selection was theological integrity, for there is never adequate justification in the ministry of the church to sing something that is not true, no matter how beautiful the music. The ministry of music is a ministry of the Word, and “Thy Word is truth.” These works have original texts that are generally creative and meaningful, not mediocre or silly; a broad appeal to a variety of audiences; contrasts of mood. Cantatas are 35–45 minutes long, and each manifests the following constraints:

• Controlled and discrete use of rhythm sections in the instrumental accompaniment. Vital rhythm is inherent in quality writing and performance. An outstanding example of rhythmic propulsion within the vocal lines is the third movement of Bach’s Christmas cantata 191, Gloria in excelsis Deo.

• Respectful treatment of anything borrowed from the classical literature. Such recently popular excursions into bad taste as the double-time and rhythmically reinforced treatments of Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” or excerpts from Vivaldi’s Gloria are lapses in creative inspiration that only reaffirm the genius of the original.

• Narrations that are not too long and do not cover every bar of instrumental music.

The Many Moods of Christmas, by Robert Shaw and Robert Russell Bennett (Lawson-Gould), are still the ultimate Christmas suites. Master craftsmanship shows throughout these four 11–13 minute settings of familiar and traditional Christmas hymns and carols. Each suite’s mood covers the broad spectrum, as in number 2, which ranges from the tender lullaby “Away in a Manger,” to the fiery farandole “March of the Kings.” Perhaps the most fully satisfying suite is the first one, with the most exciting version of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” one is ever likely to hear. One problem in suite two is the medieval Marian text of the “O Sanctissima” section, which can be overcome by rewriting the Latin text slightly.

Bennett’s 1977 Carol Cantatas (Law-son-Gould) are really suites 5–8 of The Many Moods. Not quite up to the standard of the original series, they are still quite excellent. The setting of “Jesus Loves Me” in cantata one is alone worth the entire suite. One notable aspect of these eight suites is that they have no narration.

A successful recent cantata by Don Wyrtzen, written in collaboration with Phil and Lynne Brower, is An Old-Fashioned Christmas (Zondervan). In a kind of musical Currier and Ives atmosphere, a 12-year-old girl recounts how she celebrated Christmas. Wyrtzen’s music is melodic and singable. The lyrics present a clear message, and the Browers’s original texts are imaginative. Especially effective is “Christmas Praise,” a five-minute medley of familiar Christmas hymns, arranged for congregation with orchestra; it is now available separately. The cantata lends itself well to costuming and dramatic setting.

Ralph Carmichael’s ’Specially For Shepherds (Lexicon) is intriguing and original. The section on Mary and Joseph refreshingly explores the emotional responses of both to their extraordinary situation, and brings a very personal touch to the story. Ten soloists are required (7 men and 3 women), but several of the shorter solos could be taken by voices in the choir.

John W. Peterson’s new Christmas Is Love (Zondervan) shows consistent sensitivity to word rhythms and his ability to write good melodies. It also shows his concern to be contemporary without going to extremes. “Someday There’ll Be Peace on Earth” is a welcome example of treating contemporary problems without writing music that alienates the listener. The fine orchestration is by Don Wyrtzen. Multi-media slides are also available. In the Peterson style is Rodger Strader’s King of Love (Good Life), superbly arranged and orchestrated by Bob Krogstad. One selection, “King of Love,” is adaptable for year-round congregational use.

Festival of Bells by John Wilson (Hope) is a delightful 12-minute suite for choir and handbells extracted from Wilson’s recent Christmas Festival cantata “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” is given an especially graceful setting by Paul Wohlgemuth. Don Hustad’s Candlelight Carols (Hope) may still be new to some. Using a variety of traditional music from around the world, it adapts an idea first developed at Union Theological Seminary’s School of Sacred Music, and lends itself to pageantry.

Alice Parker was arranger for Robert Shaw, who commissioned her to write Seven Carols for Christmas (Carl Fischer). These traditional selections, arranged for chorus and orchestra, can be performed either as a suite or individually. Two cantatas by Joe Parks are easier, but still well written: First Christmas and Come to the Manger (Zondervan). This former music supervisor for the Chattanooga public schools knows how to write for the smaller choir without writing down to it.

In Heaven Rejoices (Good Life) Ken Parker recounts the Nativity from heaven’s viewpoint. Arranged and orchestrated by Bob Krogstad, this new cantata draws a parallel with our personal spiritual nativity, for “every time a soul is born, heaven rejoices.” “Hymn of the Heavenly Gift” is especially lovely. A longer, dramatic version is also available.

Cantatas with time-proven quality should also be considered seriously, particularly Roy Ringwald’s 17-minute The Song of Christmas (Shawnee). It was the forerunner of cantatas with narration.

A number of fine late nineteenth-and twentieth-century composers are well received even by audiences not usually classically oriented. Especially appealing are The Star of Bethlehem by Josef Rhein-berger, Hodie by Ralph Vaughan Williams, and A Christmas Cantata by Arthur Honegger. More recent compositions include the brief, three-movement Christmas Cantata by Daniel Pinkham (King) for double chorus, brass, and organ. An uncompleted cantata by Lara Hoggard will be stunning, if its festive processional on the thirteenth-century Christmas hymn Personent Hodie (“Let Youthful Voices Ring Out Today”) is any indication. Scored for processing adult choir, multiple antiphonal brass, organ, and finger cymbals, this processional would make a dramatic opening to any Christmas concert.

The wealth of excellent material should enable conductors to find something ideally suited to their people’s needs, and help to make this season’s Christmas music truly glorifying to God in the highest.

RICHARD D. DINWIDDIE¹Mr. Dinwiddie is visiting professor of church music at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.

Pasadena campus could be lost for his Carey University.

For four years the U.S. Center for World Mission has held tenuous title to the Pasadena, California, campus it agreed to purchase for $8.5 million. Now it appears that foreclosure proceedings are imminent.

From the initial option-to-buy payment in October 1977 on, each quarterly installment due date has produced another crisis. During all of 1980 the center fell back to meeting overdue payments one day before the next was due. This year it has not kept to even this tardy schedule, failing to meet payment obligations on both March 1 and June 1. A grace period date extending payment of the $300,000 in arrears to July 15 was also missed. As of August 18, only $140,000 of that amount had been assembled, and another $175,000 payment fell due on September 1.

In July of 1980, the U.S. Center borrowed an interest-free amount of $300,000 to exercise its option to purchase and make the down payment on homes adjacent to the campus for an added $3.3 million. This move was defended because income from the rented properties would cover the added payments, and because control of the neighborhood would prevent deterioration and eventually restore balance to the campus (since two former dormitories have been converted to other uses). Because of a “wrap-around” clause in that transaction, loss of the campus would also spell loss of the added housing.

The sellers of the campus—a Nazarene college that moved to more spacious facilities in San Diego, now named Point Loma College—felt obliged to protect its interests. It therefore filed for foreclosure with the State of California last month. From the date notice was served, the U.S. Center has 90 days to cure its payment delinquency. If it fails to do so, a final 15 days will be permitted for coming up with the total outstanding balance. Thereafter the property would be forfeited and offered publicly in a foreclosure sale.

The U.S. Center for World Mission is the brainchild of Ralph D. Winter. He wanted to provide a facility that could be utilized by mission agencies in exploring ways to communicate the gospel message to the more than half of the world’s population now culturally isolated from contact with Christians.

The creative ferment he wanted to stimulate is going on. Forty-two agencies are involved in activities at the center, and have devoted 200 full-time staff to them. These operations are financially self-sustaining.

The fertile mind of the soft-spoken and talkative Winter has spawned an astonishing number of bold new concepts and movements. He has collected degrees from California Institute of Technology, Columbia and Cornell universities, and Princeton Theological Seminary in engineering, teaching English as a second language, structural linguistics, and theology. He served as a missionary to the Mayan Indians of Guatemala for 10 years and as a professor at Fuller Theological Seminary’s School of World Mission for 9.

He helped found the theological education by extension (TEE) movement, and has inspired the formation of the Association of Church Missions Committees, the William Carey Library, the American Society of Missiology, and the Institute of International Studies. He has created such conferences as Edinburgh ’80, which drew mixed reviews (CT, Dec. 12, 1980, p. 62), and the 1979 First Athens Congress on World Missions, which is best forgotten.

Winter’s recent energies have been focused on his William Carey International University for postgraduate extension studies in international development (CT, Nov. 7, 1980, p. 70), but Virgil A. Olson, formerly executive secretary of the Baptist General Conference Board of World Missions, became president this month. Winter is currently concentrating on his Frontier Fellowship, designed to mobilize broad-based action on behalf of the unreached peoples.

Most of Winter’s concepts that were visionary at the time have eventually been vindicated. But conceptualizers do not always make the best administrators. And Winter’s restless mind is prone to move on to new challenges before the last ones have been nailed down.

The disenchanted note that the member agencies of the U.S. Center for World Mission have now been consigned to one building of the campus and that the rest is now earmarked for the William Carey International University. Some loyal to the center concept object to the secularizing of both the WCIU charter and catalog descriptions that has accompanied the school’s drive for accreditation.

The agencies based at the U.S. Center seem mostly unfazed by the latest turn of events. “We’ve been under this for the four-and-a-half years that I’ve been on this campus,” said C. Ray Carlson of International Films, expressing doubt that this crunch is any more serious than those that have preceded it. He noted that member agencies have one-year leases that any new owner must honor—and most likely would be willing to extend for at least the short term.

The director of another agency, however, was concerned that he had heard of no contingency plans from Winter, and has made his own—obtaining promises of space in a Southern California mission agency headquarters and in commercially leased space.

Observers say they feel that valuable interaction fostered at the U.S. Center among, for instance, groups concentrating on the approach to Muslims, Chinese, and animists will continue whether or not they remain physically contiguous, with some shakeout in the groups now clustered there. But loss of the campus would seal off student access to the missions think tank—a tangible loss.

Determinedly optimistic, Winter says the threat of foreclosure is what is needed to reawaken the Christian world. “It’s like we’ve been crying ‘Wolf! Wolf!’ and there’s never been a wolf appear. We really need a wolf about now.” Switching metaphors, he says God has given this “genuine” crisis to “push us out of the eagle’s nest, forcing us to fly” as people realize what God has “been doing on that campus.” That, he contends, will enable them to soar to meet the $6 million payment due in two years. “I think,” he adds, “it would be just hopeless to barely make these payments right up to the doorstep of that ‘balloon’ payment.”

Before the end of the year it should be clear whether Winter’s venture has begun to soar—or crash-landed.

Outcome of ORU Encounter

The Bar Association Does Accreditation About-Face

The outcome seemed uncertain, but in the final David-versus-Goliath encounter between Oral Roberts School of Law and the American Bar Association, the small man won. After hours of heated debate last month in New Orleans, the ABA House of Delegates voted 147 to 127 in favor of amending its standard 211, thereby permitting accreditation of a law school that requires its students and faculty to pledge adherence to the school’s religious precepts. With that, ABA accreditation of ORU followed.

At issue was the question of religious discrimination. Earlier the ABA denied accreditation to ORU’s Coburn School of Law, charging religious discrimination in its exclusive hiring of faculty and admission of students who would sign its code of honor (CT, Sept. 4, p. 73).

But in a June 8 lawsuit, ORU turned the tables on that charge, insisting that the ABA itself discriminated against a religious institution’s First Amendment right to practice its beliefs. And a federal district court judge in Chicago issued a preliminary ruling in favor of the law school, suspending court action against the ABA only until its house of delegates could meet in August to settle the matter.

Delegates to the ABA convention thus faced probable court action plus an unstated but clearly perceived threat to the ABA’s future role in approving and accrediting law schools.

“It was a strong underlying issue that was not stated,” said Detroit lawyer Dennis Archer about that threat. Archer had hotly debated against ORU accreditation, convinced the action would be tantamount to ABA approval of “pronounced discriminatory practice.” He said ORU lawyers by their own admission stated ORU “intended to be discriminatory,” admitting only students or faculty who would sign their pledge.

Archer added, “ORU has a right to do what they want to do even though I object to it. But they have no right to obtain the ABA accreditation. That’s a privilege, not a right. So why should we succumb or else be blackjacked into giving them something just because they want it?”

Robert Skolrood, ORU general counsel, also believes ORU’s pending lawsuit influenced the August decision. “Although the ABA had recognized for a long time that it would have to amend its standard 211,” he said, “they had really dragged their feet on it. The lawsuit obviously had a strong effect on that change.”

Even though Skolrood feels lawsuit action is a “last resort measure,” he said this one was necessary. “Any time you have groups telling religious institutions what they should believe contrary to that religious body’s own beliefs,” he explained, “then on the basis of First Amendment free exercise of religion and a group’s refusal to follow the Constitution you have to resort to the courts.”

He added, “Once you allow any group to tamper with another group’s First Amendment rights, we’re all in trouble.” He said we live in the aftermath of the sixties when freedom from religion was stressed rather than freedom of religion.

ABA accreditation of ORU Coburn did not come without warnings, however. Opponents said the ABA was setting a precedent for future exclusionary practices by other law schools. “Contrary to the whole history of this country,” said Erwin Griswold, former U.S. Solicitor General, “any institution now that wants to will be able to put up a sign that says no Jews admitted or no Catholics admitted.”

But in the final heat of combat, former bar association president Whitney North Seymour, Sr., said it all. “It may be necessary to take a deep gulp,” he advised, “and accept things we might not wish to accept in order to preserve the role of the ABA in approving law schools.”

With that gulp the little ORU law school won the battle against the 200,000-member ABA. For newly accredited ORU law students, that legal battle may be the most significant fight of their careers.

The Pentecostal Holiness Church

Members Send A Message By Electing A New Bishop

The International Pentecostal Holiness Church last month elected as general superintendent a man who had resigned from an administrative position in the denomination only five months earlier.

Leon Stewart succeeds Bishop J. Floyd Williams, who headed the church since 1969. (Bishop is an honorary title conferred for life upon general superintendents of the denomination.) Williams is also the current president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Stewart, the man chosen to succeed Williams, served during the previous four years as vice-chairman, the number two post in the church administration. However, after 16 years of service at the national level of his denomination, most recently as director of evangelism, Stewart resigned in March of this year, partly, at least, in protest “against the leadership of the church.” After a four-month pastorate in Roanoke, Virginia, Stewart made a triumphal return when he won with 55 percent of the votes on the third ballot. But so unexpected was this turn of events that his wife, Donna, was preparing to fly back to Roanoke from Oklahoma City when she learned after being paged on the Dallas-Fort Worth airport public address system that her husband had just been elected bishop.

Almost unnoted by the delegates was the fact that the new bishop is legally blind. Over many years he has done his work so well that his handicap was not an issue. An unsuspecting visitor would not have guessed the presiding officer was unsighted, so efficiently and precisely did he direct the conference business.

During the 12 years of Bishop Williams’s administration, the Pentecostal Holiness Church was transformed from a rural southern denomination to one of international character. A visible sign is relocation of its headquarters from rural Georgia to metropolitan Oklahoma City. Williams personally supervised rewriting of the church’s charter, changing the name to include the word international, and providing means for affiliation with similar churches in other nations.

Known for his ability to deal with tough problems facing his denomination, Williams most recently led in closing the denomination’s Oklahoma Southwestern College, which relieved the church of a long-standing financial burden.

The election of Stewart marked the culmination of several controversies that had simmered beneath the surface in the denomination for several months. One of these concerned the Catholic charismatic renewal, which Williams attacked in several church forums during the summer. “There is no way,” he said, “a person can be saved, sanctified, and baptized with the Holy Ghost and be a devout member of the Catholic church.” He warned against the specter of “Romanism” as a threat to his denomination.

Following what was assumed to be Williams’s lead, newsletters were sent to all the Pentecostal Holiness ministers in the U.S. attacking Vinson Synan, assistant general superintendent of the church. Synan, a well-known historian and activist in the charismatic renewal, is the son of former Bishop J. A. Synan, who was general superintendent for 24 years until replaced by Williams 12 years ago.

Despite these attacks, Synan was returned to office in the number three position in the denomination’s administration, after running third to Stewart and Williams for the office of bishop. Some observers interpreted this action as a middle-of-the-road directive, neither condemning present relationships with the charismatic renewal nor making any greater official recognition of the group. In a later action, the conference condemned the use of church mailing lists to attack church leaders.

Another problem facing Williams related to his activities as one-third owner of Bethany Village Incorporated, a private nursing home at Bethany, Oklahoma, near the denomination’s headquarters building. The nursing home was supposedly begun as a denominationally sponsored project, and irregularities were alleged in its transfer to private ownership.

In July, Williams was tried and acquitted by the General Board of Administration on charges brought by two laymen alleging conflict of interest in the nursing home. Nevertheless, documents circulated in the lobbies of the conference kept the issue alive before the delegates. Williams was also under criticism for allegedly heavy-handed treatment of subordinates who disagreed with his policy.

The nineteenth quadrennial general conference of the Pentecostal Holiness Church was convened in Oklahoma City amid the travel confusion of the air controllers’ strike. Although the strike reduced attendance, the denomination’s 1,400 U.S. churches were still represented by 1,200 voting delegates.

Three smaller Pentecostal denominations loosely affiliated with the IPHC also participated. The major sermons at evening sessions were brought by the leaders of these groups: Herbert Carter of the Pentecostal Freewill Baptist Church (13,500 members); James Martin of the Congregational Holiness Church (6,000 members); and James A. Forbes, Sr., of the predominantly black Original United Holy Church (25,000 members). These three groups are in various stages of a process leading to full merger with the Pentecostal Holiness Church. The conference also adopted a resolution affirming full communion with the Pentecostal Methodist Church of Chile (320,000 members), thereby confirming at the highest official level an affiliation that has existed since 1967.

The Home and Family Life Department brought the most explosive report to the floor in a document pointing out the problems brought by divorce, homosexuality, unmarried couples, single parent families, and abortion. The resolution on abortion was a strongly worded right-to-life document that called abortion on demand “intentional murder of an innocent, unborn child,” usually due to selfishness.

V. ALEX BILLS

Greece

Believers Get A Taste Of Public Evangelism

Laws in Greece against proselytizing have continued to hinder open Christian witness, despite guarantees of such freedom under the country’s new constitution. In previous years, Protestant Christians have been jailed for handing out tracts. A Jehovah’s Witness currently awaits trial for trying to win converts.

Against this background comes news of a successful 12-day gospel campaign organized by the Hellenic Missionary Union in southeastern Greece this summer. Costas Macris, president of the HMU, led “Project Maranatha,” the first of its kind in Greece in recent times.

A 17-year veteran with the Regions Beyond Missionary Union in Irian Jaya, Macris was afflicted with several tropical diseases that forced him to end his ministry there. After a year’s convalescence in the U.S., he returned to his native Greece to take up a new career challenging Greek believers to evangelize both at home and abroad.

Maranatha’s 55-member team, most of whom had no previous such experience, presented the gospel at two beaches, a prison farm, a disco center, and in the main squares of eight villages and cities. Each day’s program included 45 minutes of contemporary Christian music by “Anagennesis” (Regeneration), a group of young Greek Christians. This reporter, a missionary with Greater Europe Mission, gave 15-minute magic shows, presenting the gospel through visual illusions. Apostolos Bliates, director of Campus Crusades AGAPE movement in Greece, preached at the meetings.

Negative responses to the outreach ranged from accusations that it was politically inspired to distrust from people who would have nothing to do with a spiritual movement outside the state (Greek Orthodox) church. A group of political leftists came to harass the team on one evening. On another, a number of Jehovah’s Witnesses came to take advantage of the public interest in the gospel.

But a combined total of more than 7,000 were attracted to the presentations, and at about half of the gatherings local Greek Orthodox priests were not only in attendance but supportive. An inmate at the prison farms in Nafplion remarked, “in the five-and-a-half years that I have been here, no one has ever presented the gospel to me.” Dozens of personal contacts following each meeting resulted in about 250 individuals leaving their names to receive more information or a New Testament.

Maranatha’s success was due primarily to good organization. Before the project started, an exploratory team enlisted the support of local clerics, politicians, and the police. In Corinth, where the evangelistic team had perhaps its most receptive audience, the mayor printed one thousand handbills, and at his own expense placed front-page advertisements announcing the programs in the city’s newspapers.

In each locality the team made a positive impact on its listeners and evoked many inquiries about similar future presentations. The team distributed over one thousand copies of the Gospel of John and the Four Spiritual Laws booklet. Fearlessly sharing the gospel publicly was challenging, especially for team members with no previous experience. As an exhilarated director Macris remarked, “The day of aggressive evangelism in Greece has arrived.”

ROBERT H. HILL

World Scene

The Salvation Army has withdrawn its membership in the World Council of Churches. The denomination, which operates in 86 countries, put its membership in suspension in 1978 after a couple of its workers were killed by guerrilla activity in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia). The WCC helped provide funds for the Zimbabwe Patriotic Front. The Salvation Army said it withdrew last month because it felt the WCC is guided “by politics rather than the gospel,” but stressed that it intended to maintain a “fraternal status” with the ecumenical body.

Sudan Interior Mission (SIM) and the Andes Evangelical Mission (AEM) have decided to merge.SIM general director Ian Hay and AEM head Ronald Wiebe jointly announced the merger in Bolivia last month. The decision ends more than 18 months of study and discussion between the two organizations. Hay stated that both missions are “remarkably compatible” in their church-planting goals, administrative structures, and financial policies, as well as in doctrinal beliefs. AEM ultimately will become part of SIM. Formal integration of the two bodies is scheduled for January 1, 1982.

The Greek Bible Institute and a Christian old people’s home miraculously withstood fires that swept through a dozen suburbs in Athens early last month. The fires only scorched grass and shrubbery in front of the school and blistered paint on front windows and doors. A corner of the roof caught fire briefly before it was put out. The nearby old people’s home did not suffer any damage. The flames came up to the Bible school property line, then stopped. The fire burned down trees on property located on both sides of the school, operated by the Greater Europe Mission. The fires followed a continuing wave of bombings that started last December.

A colored (mixed race) woman withdrew her membership in one of South Africa’s all-white Dutch Reformed churches two weeks after the church accepted her as a full member. Miss Saartjie Pieterse, a 29-year-old live-in servant of a white family, withdrew under pressure from both her congregation and other white Christian supporters of the government’s policy of racial discrimination. Awie Heiberg, minister of the Linden church, said he had advised Miss Pieterse to withdraw to protect “her own interests and her future.”

Availability of Bibles in China is on the increase. A report from North China confirms that an active church ordered and received a shipment of 600 Bibles from Shanghai, where they were printed. The entire shipment sold out in two days.

North American Scene

The Spiritual Counterfeits Project in Berkeley, California, has started a telephone information service for people with questions about new religious groups and cult involvement. The Information and Referral Service was set up to handle more than 500 calls and letters coming into SCP monthly. The IRS number is (415) 527–9212, and is in service from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, Pacific Time. The organization also will refer callers to people in their own areas if they need more help than they can get by phone.

A millionaire Fort Worth businessman, T. Cullen Davis, is offering a $100,000 reward to anyone who can prove that evolution is true. “I feel my money is absolutely safe,” said Davis, who recently became a Christian. He originally offered $2,500, then raised it to $50,000, and then doubled it to make the award attractive.

The Journal of Communication studied 12 television soap operas for sexual content and found “General Hospital” to contain the most. The magazine reported that the social as well as sexual relationships between males and females in the soaps, and the intimacy of conversations, were not typical of real-life patterns. The researchers also found that intimate sexual relationships in the programs were most likely to occur between unmarried partners. They reported that “General Hospital” has gained a “cult-like” following among teen-agers.

Personalia

Dr. Verent J. Mills is stepping down as executive director of the Christian Children’s Fund of Richmond, Virginia. The 68-year-old native of Birmingham, England, who began his missionary career more than 50 years ago, joined the fund in 1947 as regional director for the Far East, and became director of operations in 1958. His successor will be James MacCracken, former executive director of Church World Service.

A raised consciousness to the need for evangelical churches to reach out in social renewal—that’s just part of what motivates Bill Kallio, age 31, as the new executive director of Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA). Kallio was formerly assistant director of Baxter Community Center ministries with the Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Deaths

Morrow Coffey Graham, 89, mother of evangelist Billy Graham; of a heart ailment August 14 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

They want a bigger role, but the attorney general says no.

On March 19, 1981, Arkansas became the first state ever to require the teaching of scientific creationism in public schools where evolution theory is taught. Four months later, its neighbor to the south, Louisiana, passed a similar law.

After about 15 defeats in state legislatures, creationists are celebrating these back-to-back victories. But a trial is scheduled to begin late this month in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which wants the law declared unconstitutional.

The ACLU also has vowed to get the Louisiana law thrown out. The effort there, however, will likely take a back seat until after the Arkansas ruling. “Let Arkansas do it,” was the way a member of a Texas school board put it. That seems to be the motto, for the time being, of those considering sponsoring a creationism law—or preparing to challenge one.

Federal Judge William R. Overton will try the case, which is due to start in Little Rock on October 26. The trial is expected to take about a week.

The Arkansas chapter of the ACLU filed suit in Little Rock on behalf of 23 individuals—including about a dozen clergymen—and organizations. It contends the law violates the Constitutional separation of church and state, and that it abridges academic freedom.

The suit, filed by ACLU attorneys Philip Kaplan and Bob Cearley, alleged that creation, as used in the law, “necessarily encompasses the concept of a supernatural Creator …, an inherently religious belief. Creation-science cannot be taught without reference to that religious belief in a Creator.”

In short, the plaintiffs charged that Act 590 of 1981 is but the first two chapters of Genesis rewritten to sound scientific.

Starting in the fall of 1982, the Balanced Treatment Act, as it is formally known, requires that in public schools from grades 1 through 12, science texts and lectures that espouse evolution theory are to be “balanced” with creation-science theory. (Ironically, several science textbooks used in public schools in the state include creation theory along with evolution, but those books are not mandatory.)

“Monkey Trial II!” skeptics are shouting, a reference to the 1925 trial of John T. Scopes, a Dayton, Tennessee, high school biology teacher who was found guilty of violating a state law banning the teaching of evolution. And a circus atmosphere reminiscent of the Scopes trial is building.

Just as the infamous trial of 56 years ago had the inimitable scoffer H. L. Mencken leading the corps of reporters that telegraphed 175,000 words a day—the equivalent of two novels—out of the small Tennessee town, Little Rock has its own mass media star, albeit of a different nature.

Carl Sagan, host of the “Cosmos” television series and author of the best seller of the same title, is but one of the expert witnesses lined up by the ACLU. Others, including paleontologist Niles Eldredge, are eminently qualified in their own right, but they lack Sagan’s exposure and charisma.

Sagan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning astrophysicist, has been speaking out against the Arkansas law and creationism in general. On a recent “Tonight Show,” he told host Johnny Carson that the law is a thinly disguised reworking of the “Genesis myth.” The only way he would allow the teaching of this notion would be if it were included in a course with other fanciful tales, he told Carson.

Bruce Ennis, national legal director of the ACLU, and Kelly Segraves, director of the Creation Science Institute at San Diego, whetted the national appetite by debating the Arkansas law on the “Phil Donahue Show.” Locally, the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) revived Inherit the Wind, the play based on the famed confrontation between William Jennings Bryan and Clarence Darrow in the Scopes trial.

The law’s detractors in Arkansas have taken the banana as their symbol of protest. Created by George Fisher, political cartoonist for the Arkansas Gazette, “banana buttons” are being sold for $1, with proceeds going to the Zoo of Arkansas. Even Governor Frank White, who inspired Fisher’s campaign by signing the legislation, and who is often satirized by the cartoonist, has good-naturedly sported a button from time to time.

Whatever the similarities in the publicity surrounding the two trials, there appear to be substantial differences in the law and in the legal issues. The Tennessee law forbade teaching of evolution in contradiction of the biblical account of creation. Act 590 strictly prohibits religious instruction or even references to religious writing in requiring the “balancing” of evolutionary theory with creation science.

Scopes was tried simply on whether he had violated the law. The ACLU will attempt to prove that Act 590 violates the Constitutional rights of school children as provided in the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

Scopes was found guilty and fined, but the conviction was overturned in 1927 by the Tennessee Supreme Court, which at the same time upheld the constitutionality of the law. Decades later, the law was thrown out.

In 1929, the Arkansas legislature passed an antievolution law, which stood until 1968 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck it down. The ACLU says it is that case that parallels its current lawsuit.

Defenders of the Tennessee law were avowedly fundamentalist, and there is a strong fundamentalist/evangelical sympathy for the Arkansas statute.

However, 15 persons and four organizations, representing a diverse religious and scientific base, are seeking to intervene as codefendants with the state in favor of the law. About half are members of the scientific and medical communities. These include a group of Orthodox Jews, the Rabbinical Alliance of America, and a Muslim. They also include some of the country’s best-known creationists.

These people feel the state has not shown that it is preparing the best defense it can. They base that opinion mainly on the statements and actions of state Attorney General Steve Clark, whose job it is to defend the law in court. The day the ACLU filed suit, Clark sounded more like counsel for the plaintiffs. He expressed misgivings about the law. “My personal qualms just deal with whether it’s good for the state,” Clark told reporters, “and whether it’s a legitimate state interest. Personally, I think it ought to be changed. Setting the curriculum ought to be left to the Department of Education and local school boards.” He said, however, he would do his best “because that’s my job.”

Whether Clark is doing his best is in question. Since filing day, he has refused an offer of free legal assistance from Wendel R. Bird, Jr., of El Cajon, California, recognized as the foremost legal authority on creation science and general counsel for the Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, and John W. Whitehead of Manassas, Virginia, a lawyer with considerable courtroom experience in creationism cases. The two visited Clark’s offices together.

Clark says he feels he and his staff are qualified to handle the constitutional issue. He has been helped by private law firms in other cases, notably an antitrust suit in which the state incurred a $750,000 legal-services debt.

Clark opposes the intervention, saying it would “muddy the waters” by opening the floodgates to just anyone who had an opinion in the matter, but not a “compelling interest.” Bird and Whitehead, it is worth noting, would represent the interveners.

The attorney general has softened his earlier statements about the law, now calling it “defensible.” Judge Overton ruled against the motion to intervene, although Clark recently said he would let creationists help him line up expert witnesses. The creationists have not decided whether to appeal the ruling.

It would be “simply good education” to include both the evolution model and the creation-science model in the classroom, according to Ed Gran, president of Arkansas Citizens for Balanced Education in Origins, which has spearheaded the creationist movement in the state. A physics professor at UALR, Gran is well aware that creationists are in the extreme minority in the scientific community, and at best are looked on as well-meaning but woefully wrong. Yet he maintains a Pandora’s box of intellectual quackery is being opened by placing creation science in the curricula. All theories of origins fall into either the materialist or the creationist categories: “There are two and only two models,” he says.

Gran willingly admits neither model is testable or falsifiable—the criteria for scientific theory. But, he insists, creation science is “at least as scientific” as the evolution model. Berkeley-trained biochemist Duane Gish, an official of the Institute of Creation Research, put it in a similar fashion. “This is not the stuff of science,” Gish was quoted in BioScience magazine, “but the stuff of assumptions and inferences.”

Evolution Society Digs In Against The Creationists

Two years ago at the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Evolution it was business as usual. Discussions centered on genetic variation, speciation, and natural selection in accord with SSE’s stated purpose of studying evolution.

This year, the summer conference was held at the University of Iowa. There was the usual amount of standard business, but there was also something new—something that two years ago wasn’t even whispered: creation. Two years ago it was not an issue, as if creation were not worthy of thoughtful consideration. Though its presence was by no means ubiquitous this year, it was one of the major topics of private discussions, the subject of a 20-minute contributed paper, and it even filtered into a few of the major hour-long symposium sessions.

It is likely that numbers of evolutionists are still intent on sitting tight, believing creation will go away. A small minority are curious and genuinely interested in discussing the issue. But more and more are taking active steps to stamp out creation. The anticreation movement is gathering steam and sophistication.

The attitude toward creation among those attending the meeting in Iowa City was predominantly derisive. Even attempts at sincere statements were sprinkled with sarcasm. Leading evolutionary spokesmen advised their colleagues to avoid public debates. Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard, in an aside in his symposium lecture on macroevolution (which deals with large-scale evolutionary changes), advised that such debates are not good strategy, but if anyone were to participate, he should not come loaded with examples of microevolution (smaller, observable changes within species) because creationists now accept it (as if they never did).

Gould has emerged as a leader in the anticreation movement because he believes his theory of punctuated equilibrium has been craftily misused by creationists. Punctuated equilibrium seeks to explain the gaps in the fossil record by sudden, rapid evolutionary jumps. During the past year, Gould has been promoting his gospel of evolutionary certainty in such popular magazines as People and Discover, as well as his monthly column in Natural History. He has also appeared on the “Phil Donahue Show” along with Carl Sagan.

One thing that is upsetting to evolutionists is the use of their own statements by creationists to the creationists’ advantage. This appears to be the reason Gould has taken the offensive. When this happens, the usual retort by the evolutionist is that the quote was taken out of context. Another response has been that the evolutionist author quoted by the creationist was misunderstood. But at the SSE meetings a new response to the question was voiced: that the quoted author was simply wrong, and therefore his statement is of no use to creationists.

What this all comes down to, it seems, is that many evolutionists are getting angry and are determined to put an end to the creation business. Though their efforts may occasionally lapse into bad manners and poor logic, they have essentially raised the creation-evolution debate to a new level of sophistication. This is especially apparent by the introduction of a new journal, Creation/Evolution, published by evolutionists. Now in its second year of publication, its goal is to answer creationist arguments and develop strategies to combat the advances of creation theory. The intense level of the controversy is also revealed in the preparedness and persuasiveness of those few evolutionists who do debate.

Though most anticreationists claim their motivation comes from concern as citizens and not as scientists (for study of creation is not science, they say), they nevertheless are paying attention to the challenge and responding. It now remains to be seen if the creation movement will stand up under the scrutiny.

RAYMOND G. BOHLIN

The American Scientific Affiliation

Topics Cover The Universe At Evangelical Symposium

Millions watched the “Cosmos” series on public television. They heard humanistic astronomer Carl Sagan repeatedly assert that earthlings are not the only intelligent beings in the universe. In August, several hundred members of the American Scientific Affiliation heard a more skeptical view. It came from Harvard University astronomer and science history professor Owen Gingerich, a committed Christian and practicing Mennonite.

The ASA is a national organization of evangelicals in scientific and technological work who see science as a legitimate Christian calling. Gingerich, keynote speaker at the thirty-sixth annual ASA meeting held at Eastern College near Philadelphia, said that no other planet is known to be inhabited by any form of life, let alone by intelligent humanoids. Life depends on water, and Mars is the only other planet showing signs of liquid water on its surface. Yet the Viking lander sent back no evidence of life on Mars or even of organic chemicals essential to life. Although the galaxy in which our solar system floats contains at least 50 stars for every person on earth, astronomers have found only a few stars with planets orbiting around them.

In the millions of other galaxies in outer space, of course, another habitable planet might exist; but Gingerich considered that possibility no more likely than “the possibility that the whole universe was created with us in mind. For human life to exist, our earth had to be exactly the right size and right distance from the sun, and probably had to collide with an asteroid at just the right time.” Behind all those factors “going for us,” faith sees an even more significant factor: the Creator’s intention.

Does evangelical theology insist that earthbound human beings must be alone in God’s universe? According to a paper by Paul Fayter, doctoral candidate in the history of science at the University of Toronto, Christians have taken both sides of that question in the past. Strangely enough, the orthodox view among eminent British scientists and theologians in the nineteenth century favored “a plurality of inhabited worlds.” Arguments on both sides were drawn from biblical proof texts, natural theology, and metaphysical speculation.

Fayter’s paper was part of a plenary symposium on theological and scientific explorations of space. Two symposium speakers reviewed the astronomical data that convince scientists the universe must be at least several billion years old.

Neither Kyle Cudworth, associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory, nor Perry Phillips, another symposium speaker, offered any hope to “young earth” creationists that recent developments in astronomy or physics might drastically reduce estimates of the universe’s age. Phillips, who has both a Ph.D. in astrophysics from Cornell and an M.Div. from Biblical Theological Seminary, showed why arguments for a “young” universe based on the 1908 theory of Walter Ritz are not valid. Ritz, who offered an alternative to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, has been proved incorrect, Phillips said. Both special relativity and the cosmic scale of distances remain intact. So does an immense time since the “big bang” creation event.

To the annoyance of some and the satisfaction of others, the ASA takes no official position on the age of the universe, on evolution, or on other issues on which Christian or scientific opinion is divided. Its some 3,000 members are united by a three-part statement of faith. They accept the Bible as God’s inspired Word, Jesus Christ as God’s Son and mediator between God and humanity, and science as a source of reliable information about the natural world created and upheld by God. Accustomed to the give-and-take of scientific interaction, ASA members sometimes argue vigorously with each other at their meetings, but begin each day by joining in prayer and worship.

At Eastern College, the ASA celebrated its fortieth anniversary. In 1979 a fire destroyed its national office in Elgin, Illinois. This year the group has taken a new lease on life by employing a full-time executive director from its own ranks. Robert L. Herrmann, who left the Boston University faculty in 1976 to found the Department of Biochemistry at Oral Roberts University schools of medicine and dentistry, will head the ASA from a new national office in Massachusetts (P.O. Box J, Ipswich, Mass. 01938).

ASA is governed by a five-member executive council. Current president is Chi-Hang Lee, a biochemist and manager of a food-research laboratory at the Del Monte Corporation Research Center in Walnut Creek, California. Lee said he is excited about ASA’s future and about “Bob Herrmann’s vision of witness to the scientific community and service to the Christian community.” Other hopeful signs were a collection of over $2,000 at the meeting to reduce a current deficit, and “lots of young scientists, especially graduate students, attending their first ASA meeting.” The August 1982 meeting is set for Calvin College in Michigan, with a biological theme. The 1981 meeting theme was “The Heavens Declare the Glory of God.”

The Psalm 19:1 theme was evident in an exhibit of paintings by New York artist Sandra Bowden and in two dramatic slide shows put together by research physicist Paul Arveson of the Naval Ship Research and Development Center in Bethesda, Maryland. One featured close-ups of Jupiter taken by the Voyager space probe. The other presented concepts put forth by James Houston of Regent College in I Believe in the Creator (Eerdmans, 1980).

In a “first” for ASA, one paper was delivered by videotape. Harold Hartzler, a retired professor, had made the tape from his Minnesota hospital bed after suffering a heart attack in July. Veteran member Hartzler, who had attended all 35 earlier ASA meetings in person, had a special interest in this one. Years ago, at Goshen College in Indiana, Professor Hartzler taught physics and astronomy to a young student named Owen Gingerich.

WALTER R. HEARN

The ASA Checks It Out

Was Newton A Believer?

At this year’s meeting (see accompanying report) several papers by ASA members dealt with historical figures. One, entitled “Is Newton in Heaven?” was presented by Helen E. Martin, a young mathematics and science teacher at Unionville High School in Unionville, Pennsylvania.

Isaac Newton (1642–1727), one of the world’s greatest mathematicians and the founder of classical physics, was a devout believer in Christ and a practicing Anglican. His religious writings, which he considered more important than his scientific writings, were not made public until 1936, over 200 years after his death. Then they were scattered to several countries because in those depression years no single library or museum could raise enough money to purchase them all.

Martin developed an interest in Newton’s religious faith and began to track down his religious writings. Many books on Newton state that he became a Unitarian in his later years. Newton did have an aversion to the word “Trinity” and to church creeds—because they were not part of Scripture. He loved the Bible and studied it deeply.

Martin described her “discovery” of Newton’s own Bible, bound between a prayer book and a psalter, as one of the most exciting moments of her life. She found it in the Wren Library of Trinity College, Cambridge, England, and was able to photograph it. The well-worn pages contain marginal notes in Newton’s handwriting. Although some of Newton’s views were unorthodox, there is plenty of evidence that his faith in the Savior remained strong to the end. For his own epitaph he wrote: “Here lies that which is mortal of Isaac Newton.”

Helen Martin is convinced that the great mathematician and scientist is now with his beloved Lord.