Evangelism

To Russia, By Ad2000

Delegates to the historic Nations for Christ Congress held in late May expressed enthusiasm for the growing efforts to evangelize the former Soviet Union. The gathering in Riga, Latvia, was spearheaded by leaders of the AD2000 & Beyond Movement, a three-year-old effort to evangelize the world by the end of the century. The movement is led by Third World Christians and represents about 5 million evangelicals.

Almost 1,000 delegates from the 15 republics of the former Soviet Union and the Baltic States were joined by more than 200 church and mission leaders from other parts of the world at the congress.

The group drafted the Riga Declaration, which sets a goal for the year 2000 of planting evangelical churches in each of the 160 ethnic groups of the former Soviet Union; in each village and town; in each district of large cities; and, ultimately, providing a church for every 1,000 people. The group also committed itself to be involved with charitable work. At the meeting’s end, top church leaders from around the world accompanied local leaders to their homes throughout the commonwealth to help plan “saturation evangelism.”

People And Events

Briefly Noted

Elected: Paul Cedar, as chairman of the board of the Lausanne Committee in the United States, succeeding Leighton Ford, who led the board for 17 years and resigned to work more closely with Leighton Ford Ministries. Cedar is president of the Evangelical Free Church of America.

Died: Carlton Booth, on May 20, at age 88. Booth for 35 years was the secretary-treasurer of World Vision. He served as professor of evangelism at Fuller Theological Seminary from 1955 to 1970 and once led crusade singing for Billy Sunday and Billy Graham.

Liu Qing Wun, widow of Chinese house church statesman Wang Ming Dao, in Shanghai, at the age of 83. She and her husband were viewed as symbols of life in the Chinese house-church movement, which thrived amidst persecution.

Named: Andy Lay, as the new executive director of African Enterprise’s U.S. operations. Lay has served as the organization’s vice-president of development.

Moved: HCJB World Radio’s international office from Miami to Colorado Springs, effective June 11.

Persecution

The World’S Martyrs …

Members of the Islamic Jihad massacred 15 Protestant Copts and one Muslim in and around an Egyptian village in early May, the latest in a series of attacks on Christians in that country, according to News Network International.

The massacre is reportedly the worst in Egypt in a decade.

In one incident, three Christians were killed while harvesting in the wheat field of a Muslim who was also killed for hiring them.

China

Hundreds of itinerant evangelists and church workers have been arrested throughout central China since early March, according to Chinese sources. The news comes amid reports that China’s intellectuals are more interested than ever in the gospel.

The Public Security Bureau (PSB) has launched a new campaign against house churches in several provinces, often raiding worship services. And one of China’s top house-church leaders, Xie Wushan, was arrested by the PSB in late April in Shanghai for “illegal itinerant evangelism.”

Nigeria

Two top evangelical leaders were among an estimated 300 people killed in recent Muslim-Christian clashes in northern Nigeria.

Among those killed were Bulus Kaneiyock, the secretary general of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Kaduna State, and Tachio Dunlya, a former vice-president of the Evangelical Church of West Africa, who was killed with elders of his church at a regular Sunday-evening prayer meeting.

Ark Of The Covenant

Still In Search Of The Lost Ark

The Ark of the Covenant is either buried in a forgotten crypt under the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, hidden along with other temple treasures in the Dead Sea Scrolls caves, under 24-hour guard in a chapel in Ethiopia, or none of the above.

According to the program “The Ancient Secrets of the Bible,” broadcast on CBS in May, a trio of rabbis surreptitiously tunneled under Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in 1981 and caught a glimpse of the Ark of the Covenant. The tunnel entrance has since been blocked.

But Vendyl Jones, a Texas researcher, says he is going to find the ark in a cave near Qumran.

Jones has been following clues in the Copper Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which seems to detail how the temple treasures were hidden from invading Roman soldiers during the First Jewish Revolt.

Traditional archaeologists are skeptical of Jones’s quest. But Jones and his volunteers uncovered a deposit of red dust this spring that has been analyzed and found to be almost chemically identical to temple incense.

British journalist Graham Hancock believes the ark has been under the watchful eye of an Ethiopian priest in a sacred chapel in the ancient Ethiopian capital of Axum.

The Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro may or may not go down in history as a turning point in humankind’s treatment of planet Earth. But it quite likely will stand as the first celebration of a new synthesis of world religions.

An article published in the conference newspaper on how to find one’s way around Rio suggested using the giant statue of Christ that stands on a mountain peak above the city as a reference point: “Just remember where you are staying or going in relationship to Christ and you should never get lost.” With the international conference drawn to a close, one of the many questions remaining was, where was the Earth Summit going in relationship to Christ?

Apart from a reference to the Christ statue in the opening remarks by Brazilian President Fernando Collor de Mello and a quotation from Leviticus by the Israeli representative, most religious input came via the conference’s Global Forum, the nongovernmental meeting held on nearby Flamengo Beach. The majority of the talk there, however, sounded more like vague pantheism than Christianity.

An all-night vigil held there on June 4 opened with “invocations of the sacred” by some 30 religions, and concluded with an address by the Dalai Lama and a Hare Krishna mantra. On another occasion, a large contingent from the United Church of Christ joined with members of several other religions in a demonstration, which opened with the singing of the hymn “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord?”—substituting the word Earth for Lord.

Saving Earth’S Souls

Some Christian observers said the forum’s religious smorgasbord illustrated a search for a spiritual center for a “new ethic” of Earth care. In fact, Maurice Strong, the Canadian businessman who organized the summit, said that “any workable decisions made at UNCED [the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development] will have to have deep moral, spiritual, and ethical roots if they are to be successfully implemented.”

Some evangelicals presented a Christian view of environmental issues at meetings during the forum. But many found themselves on the summit’s outskirts, preferring to focus on saving souls rather than caring for creation.

One downtown demonstration by evangelicals startled even its organizers by drawing between 500,000 and a million people, who heard Brazilian evangelist Caio Fábio assert that rejecting God’s truth always leads to disastrous consequences in nature, society, and religion.

But unlike Fábio, many Brazilian evangelicals did not connect saving the environment with the gospel. For instance, the Brazilian Evangelical Fellowship drew crowds to their dance and mime group inside the forum. Dozens professed new faith in Christ, but little was said connecting personal salvation and the environment. Another group representing the rapidly growing Brazilian charismatic community held an all-night prayer vigil at a church outside the forum grounds.

A few church leaders openly opposed the Earth Summit. One Brazilian pastor told his congregation the Sunday following the meeting that the forum had experienced financial problems. Drawing applause, he added, “I hope they have more problems.”

Some Christian groups, however, did go beyond the message of personal salvation to address the environment. Albert Gore, head of the U.S. Senate delegation, spoke to an enthusiastic and well-attended forum gathering, disclaiming any interest in “proselytizing” but asserting that the basis for his own thinking was that the Earth is God’s creation, entrusted to humankind’s care.

Other Christian groups set up display booths or small gatherings at the forum. They included Food for the Hungry, the Christian Environmental Alliance, World Vision of Brazil, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, and the Consortium on Religion and Ecology.

The delegation of the World Council of Churches (WCC), which met during the summit’s first week in a slum community in Rio, issued a letter on Pentecost Sunday. “The Spirit teaches us to go first to those places where community and creation are most obviously languishing.… Here we meet Jesus, who goes before, in solidarity and suffering.”

A New Paradigm

Despite such efforts, the Christian presence at the forum was swamped by a plethora of feminist, universalist, and monist groups, who argued that a new religious paradigm must replace the old one, which was shaped by patriarchy, capitalism, theism, and Christianity. Many blamed the “old paradigm” for the environment’s destruction.

Among those seeking converts were the Baha’is; Ananda Marga, a Hindu sect with mainly Western members; Global Heart, a New Age organization; and Findhorn, a Scottish New Age group.

By Loren Wilkinson in Rio de Janeiro.

When Southern Baptists gathered last month in Indianapolis, they expected little controversy and found even less. After a 13-year struggle over biblical inerrancy and control of the denomination, conservatives strengthened their hold on the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Moderates, many of whom had assembled in Fort Worth the month before for the annual meeting of the year-old Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), were conspicuous by their absence.

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) acted to exclude from its membership churches that condone homosexual practice. Two measures on homosexuality came in response to recent actions by two North Carolina congregations: Binkley Memorial Baptist in Chapel Hill, which had approved the ordination of an openly gay seminarian, and Pullen Memorial Baptist in Raleigh, which approved the blessing of the union of two homosexuals.

Declaring the actions “contrary to the teachings of the Bible,” the resolution stated that these churches were not in “friendly cooperation” with the convention and, therefore, excluded from its fellowship. A second measure amends the SBC constitution to define churches not in “friendly cooperation” as those that act “to affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior.” The constitutional change will require approval by the 1993 convention.

The action is the first ever taken to exclude churches because of doctrinal or moral matters. Critics view it as a threat to historic congregational autonomy. The only previous conditions for SBC membership required churches to be a “bona fide contributor to the Convention’s work” and “sympathetic with its purposes and work.”

Other resolutions passed by the 18,000 messengers oppose distribution of condoms in public schools, fetal-tissue experimentation, and euthanasia and assisted suicide. One resolution supports the use of Father in describing God and calls on Christians to “remain faithful to biblical language concerning God.” “This issue is not about female equality, but the authority of God to name himself,” R. Albert Mohler, chair of the resolutions committee, told CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Convention messengers rejected a widely publicized motion to form an ad hoc committee to investigate Freemasonry. The resolution was instead amended to direct the Home Mission Board to conduct a study.

Larry Holly, a Texas messenger and physician who introduced the motion, said he spent about $8,000 to publish a 58-page booklet condemning Freemasonry, which was distributed to 10,000 SBC leaders and messengers. Holly’s book argues that the lodge’s true nature is satanic and recommends that churches prohibit Masons from serving in leadership positions. A Baptist Sunday School Board poll published last year found 14 percent of Southern Baptist pastors and even more of their laity were or had been Masons.

The convention elected Ed Young, pastor of Houston’s Second Baptist Church, as SBC president. He received 62 percent of the vote, defeating two other conservative candidates. For the second year in a row, moderates offered no candidate for the office.

Amid an uneasy peace, the convention displayed few signs of its past battles. One reminder, however, came in an official report showing that giving from 15 of 40 states to the Cooperative Program (the official budget that supports seminaries, mission work, and SBC agencies and commissions) decreased between 1989–90 and 1990–91 by $500,000. This resulted in a reduction by the same amount in the proposed 1992–93 budget for the denomination’s work.

The moderate-supported CBF has asked its churches to withhold some funds from the Cooperative Program and give to other causes that it supports. However, Harold Bennett, outgoing president of the SBC executive committee, told CT that diverted funds accounted for only a “small portion” of the decline and cited the recession as the major cause. Bennett’s successor to the top administrative post will be Morris Chapman, who has just completed a two-year term as president.

The most visible sign of the lingering controversy came on the last night when R. Keith Parks, retiring president of the Foreign Mission Board, blasted the convention for directing its attention away from missions. He said the controversy had been “a deterrent and a distraction” to proclaiming the gospel, and he cited specific instances on the mission field where worldwide awareness of the Southern Baptist controversy had hurt evangelistic efforts.

“We are not demonstrating love even to the whole Southern Baptist family,” Parks said. “When there is organized control and force by intimidation, we impoverish our riches and lose our biblical balance.… We may be passed by as God finds someone else to do his work.”

Leaders at the Indianapolis convention all seemed anxious to leave past struggles behind. “The Baptists have spoken on the Bible,” said Young. “That’s done. Now it’s time to move ahead and live by its principles.”

By David E. Sumner in Indianapolis.

Personnel overshadowed policy at last month’s General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA). Though commissioners dealt with major issues such as abortion and homosexuality, it was the assembly’s selection of a new moderator and—for a time—a new stated clerk 1o that generated the biggest surprises during the nine-day meeting.

On the second day of the annual meeting, held June 2–10 in Milwaukee, delegates selected John Fife of Tucson as moderator, the presiding officer of the 2.8 million-member denomination. Fife, a founder of the Sanctuary Movement, was convicted in 1986 of harboring undocumented Central American refugees and sentenced to five years’ probation. Fife said he saw his election as an indication that the PCUSA was not ready to abandon its support for liberal social action, in spite of declining membership and a trend toward conservatism.

The most unexpected events of the general assembly came during its final two days. Incumbent stated clerk James Andrews was upset by Clark Chamberlain in a three-way race for the denomination’s top executive office. Many observers saw the selection of the little-known minister and lawyer from Houston as a vote against Andrews, whose outspoken style and actions have angered some church members.

Chamberlain admitted he was “somewhat overwhelmed” by his victory, which he said was “totally unexpected.” He attributed the outcome to a desire in the assembly for change.

Less than 24 hours later, however, Chamberlain shocked the commissioners by announcing that he would not serve. “I am convinced for reasons that are weighty and personal to me, and I think redound to the honor and glory of the church, I am not able to go forward and accept your election to the office of stated clerk.”

The resignation threw the general assembly into a procedural tangle, but eventually the election was restaged. After being voted out of office the day before, Andrews returned to the convention floor as the stated clerk.

“John [Fife] said something about belief in the resurrection,” Andrews joked as he responded to the welcoming applause of the commissioners. “All of us have heard certain things at this assembly. One is that the church is weary of dissension in its leaders and its leading representative bodies. It expressed that by making its first choice [for clerk] a person that avoided any indication of animosity or partisanship, and I intend to follow that model.”

Andrews, 63, was elected the first stated clerk of the PCUSA upon its creation in 1984, when the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. and the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. merged. He was re-elected in 1988 and will now serve his third, and final, four-year term.

The 600 commissioners also approved a change in a third top leadership spot. James Brown, 51, pastor of Saint Peter’s by the Sea Presbyterian Church in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, was elected executive director of the General Assembly Council, the denomination’s programming office.

Prior to the assembly, most attention was focused on a long-awaited report by the denomination’s Special Committee on Problem Pregnancy and Abortion. After nearly four years of study, the committee delivered a majority report that some said represented a significant move away from the strong prochoice position the denomination took in 1983. But prolife groups were far from satisfied with the results. Three of the 14 members of the special committee filed a minority report.

After nearly seven hours of debate, the general assembly voted 434 to 121 to adopt the majority report. Among its conclusions, the report “affirm[s] the ability and responsibility of women, guided by the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit, to make good moral choices in regard to problem pregnancies.” While the report states that a woman’s decision to abort can be “morally acceptable,” it also urges the denomination and congregations to “reduce the overwhelming number of situations in which women choose to abort” and calls abortion as a repeated method of birth control “morally unacceptable.” The minority report was rejected 395 to 165. It called for the PCUSA to “declare its conviction, based on the Scriptures, that abortion is unjustified and a sin before God except in cases of rape and incest, of serious fetal deformity, and of threat to the mother’s life.”

Prolife leaders drew little encouragement from the results. “From a practical standpoint, there is little change,” said Elizabeth Achtemeier, adjunct professor of Bible and homiletics at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, one of the minority report signers. She faulted the majority report for what she characterized as its indecisiveness and failure to take seriously the authority of Scripture.

In other action, the general assembly voted down a measure that would have instructed congregations to expel from their facilities Boy Scout troops that would not include homosexual men and boys. And in a last-minute rush of business, the assembly approved $5.2 million in budget cuts to be completed over the next three years. To balance its budget by 1995, the denomination must trim a total of $12 million. The church plans a special meeting in the fall and a series of “listening events” around the country to determine how to make further cuts.

By Ken Sidey in Milwaukee.

Christian involvement in conservative politics today looks radically different from the activism of the eighties.

The morning after last month’s California primary, Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) founder Louis Sheldon was tired, but exultant. He had stayed up much of the night awaiting election returns, and his assessment was simple: “The Christians won.”

The California primary had indeed been a season of unprecedented grassroots mobilization of conservative Christian activists. TVC combined efforts with a powerful regional chapter of the Virginia-based Christian Coalition (CC) and a bevy of well-informed citizens affiliated with groups that included Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, Operation Rescue (OR), and Citizens for Excellence in Education. They staffed phone banks, walked precincts, distributed tens of thousands of voter’s guides, volunteered in campaigns, and in many cases, ran for office themselves.

Sheldon and other religious activists say the results of their efforts are undeniable: Hundreds of “prolife, profamily” candidates won at all levels, from school boards to Congress. Eleven out of 13 pro-family candidates in targeted California state assembly races were victorious. Ironically, the biggest victory by the conservative Christians came in a race for the U.S. Senate, where Jewish television commentator Bruce Herschensohn narrowly upset moderate Republican Tom Campbell.

What was at work in California was not Jerry Falwell’s Religious Right. Rather, it was a new generation of well-organized, politically sophisticated Christian activism that is rising up across the country. Its emphasis is a grassroots approach that looks radically different from that of the 1980s.

“There has been a strategic reorientation of the Religious Right,” says University of Maine professor Matthew Moen. “These folks have left the Washington scene and headed out into the hinterlands where they are pursuing different kinds of activities.” Moen is author of the newly released book The Transformation of the Christian Right (University of Alabama).

Gone, for the most part, are the large, Washington-focused headquarters, the spots on “Larry King Live,” and the talk of “defeating Satan” at the ballot box. Instead, the Religious Right has become a local phenomenon, applying savvy new techniques to state and local politics. To be sure, most groups still keep a steady eye on Washington, but the philosophy is now activism from the bottom up, rather than top down.

Observers say this new effort is probably best developed in California, where a traditionally strong conservative base has been clashing sharply with a moderate-to-liberal society. Moen believes several other states are not far behind, including Alabama, Alaska, Washington, and Oklahoma. The CC currently has more than 300 local chapters in 40 states. Many states have independent Christian citizens’ groups similar to TVC, which began in California in 1982. TVC itself is branching out, with new chapters recently begun in ten states. But last month, attention was on California, which many considered a test case for future Religious Right success.

Growing Sophistication

On the Monday afternoon before the election, 34 high-school students from Bethel Baptist Christian School in Garden Grove headed deep into their parents’ voting district to canvass for Republican Rep. Bob Dornan. Armed with detailed precinct maps that clearly marked the homes of prolife Republican voters, the students left “get out the vote” literature at the doors of those likely to support Dornan.

In the final week before the election, hundreds of volunteers across the district participated in similar precinct walks, many coordinated by TVC and CC representatives. Local polls had shown Dornan, a conservative, prolife incumbent, in trouble against his prochoice challenger, Judith Ryan. But in the end, Dornan easily won. Sheldon believes Christians provided the margin of victory.

One of the most crucial aspects of the new conservative movement has been new political know-how. And CC executive director Ralph Reed, an experienced political activist, is one of the masters. Under his direction, the CC is implementing a sophisticated set of techniques designed to deliver maximum political impact. Through a massive set of phone surveys, each CC chapter is developing a computer data base of voters categorized by their party, their position on abortion and other “family issues,” their voting patterns, and their particular issue “burdens.” Direct mail and literature can then be tailored for specific voters. Just prior to elections, volunteers run phone banks, reminding constituents in key races to vote. Absentee ballots are sent to those unable to make it to the polls on election day.

Voter’s guides, first used by the Religious Right in the eighties, have also been updated. Last month, for example, the cc distributed about 500,000 guides statewide, mostly to churches. The group produced guides specific to each congressional district, comparing the positions of all the major Senate and House candidates on several issues: abortion, education vouchers, gay rights, capital punishment, a handgun waiting period, pornography, tax increases, a balanced-budget amendment, federally controlled health care, and federally controlled child care. TVC distributed about 300,000 copies of its voter’s guide, which covered the positions of the presidential, U.S. Senate, House, state senate, and state assembly candidates on similar issues.

At first glance, the guides hardly seem sophisticated; they are little more than simple “yes or no” charts, with no room for explanation or nuance of the issues. But with mass distribution in church bulletins, mailboxes, lobbies, and parking lots, conservative activists say the guides are effective, particularly for those voters who may get no other education about the candidates.

Religious Votes Could Swing Presidential Race

Religious Right activists may be shifting their focus from presidential elections to state and local races, but a new survey suggests they could still be pivotal in deciding who will be sitting in the White House come next January.

“This year, the religious nature of American politics has been somewhat subordinated to other concerns … and yet, [religious voting blocs] may well play a very important role in the outcome of this year’s election, especially in view of the developing three-way nature of the race,” says James Guth, codirector of a new study conducted by the University of Akron’s Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

According to the survey, released last month, evangelicals and mainline Protestants could provide the key elements of a Republican coalition that would back the re-election of George Bush over a Democrat. More than 60 percent of all evangelicals and mainline Protestants surveyed said they were likely to vote for Bush in November.

Won By The Gop

Mainline Protestants have traditionally been a core constituency for the Republican party. But Guth says the figures show a significant trend of evangelicals moving away from their Democratic heritage.

“White evangelical Protestants have gone from a group being wooed by the GOP to being one that looks like it has been won by the GOP,” says Guth, chairman of the political science department at Furman University. “In many ways, evangelicals have become much more solidly the base of the Republican vote and Republican identification than mainline Protestants.”

However, the survey also found that the issue of abortion could split the Republican religious voting blocs. More than half of all evangelicals take a prolife stand, while more than half of all mainline Protestants are prochoice. And among highly religious respondents, the differences are even more stark: nearly three-quarters of the “most religious” evangelicals take a strict prolife position, compared to only 44 percent of the most religious mainline Protestants.

On the Democratic side, black Protestants and Jewish voters appear to be firmly committed to their historic partisan roots. Only about 20 percent of each of those groups expressed potential support for Bush.

Catholics could be a swing group in November’s election, says Wheaton College professor Lyman Kellstedt, another survey codirector. Although the majority of Catholics tend to be Democrats, more than half said they were likely to vote for Bush.

A Ross Perot candidacy could make the religious vote even more significant, survey directors say. Although the poll was conducted early this spring, before Perot gained momentum, a surprising 20 percent of all respondents expressed support for an unnamed third candidate, with the strongest interest coming from Catholic voters. Evangelicals were the religious bloc least likely to be interested in an independent candidate.

Still another measure of the movement’s growing political sophistication, according to Sheldon, is its lack of a Christian religious litmus test for those it supports. He points to Christian backing for the Jewish Herschensohn, who is a prolife conservative. “He is much more Christian in his [political] philosophy than many half-baked, so-called Christians,” Sheldon says.

Deeper Involvement

On the night of election Tuesday, Susan Odom formally disbanded the statewide prayer chain she had set up on behalf of U.S. Senate candidate Bill Allen, whose unsuccessful primary challenge of incumbent John Seymour had come to an end. Despite her candidate’s defeat, Odom, a member of First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton, said many good things came out of his campaign, including unprecedented participation by church people.

“Christians are definitely getting more and more involved in the political process behind the scenes,” she says. Odom, who is also an OR veteran, had supported previous campaigns, but she decided to take a full-time position with Allen’s. “I thought, here is something that could have a great impact on our country.”

A key element in the new Religious Right is its ability to mobilize people who are actually willing to get out and work for a candidate. Says Sheldon, “We see the church as one of the ultimate, local grassroots entities.”

Some in the pews are experienced political operatives, first drawn into the fray in the eighties. Others jumped aboard during Pat Robertson’s ill-fated 1988 run for the White House and decided to stay on. But many new recruits continue to pour in as well, spurred on by a deep concern over society’s move away from what Sheldon calls the “Judeo-Christian ethic.”

“There are a lot of people just like me who are getting into the system in a bigger way than they have ever done,” says Terry Cantrell, administrator of the Bethel Baptist Christian school. “We’re trying to say, ‘Our values are just as important as anybody else’s.’ ” Cantrell was elected to the local Republican committee.

The number of OR activists translating their rescue energies into politics is another surprising development. They cite many reasons for their new political involvement, including a desire to effect more lasting change, disenchantment with the rescue tactic, and concern about the harsh sentences courts are imposing on rescuers.

This grassroots commitment could be pivotal for the movement’s future, according to Calvin College professor Corwin Smidt. “Given the sorry state of affairs for party organization right now, candidates welcome any type of involvement they can get.”

Black Conservatives

On Saturday morning, about 120 kids from several black churches gathered at the Compton Civic Center for a rally and neighborhood walk on behalf of Walter Tucker, the underdog candidate in their district’s Democratic congressional race. The rally was organized by members of the Coalition of Pastors for Christian Empowerment and the Coalition for the Restoration of the Black Family and Society (CRBFS), an organization started by TVC. CRBFS spokesperson Marty Stringer says the churches got behind Tucker because of his “good, conservative, moral views on issues.”

According to Stringer, more and more black churches are becoming frustrated with the liberal positions of many of their politicians. And they are willing to do something about it. “I believe the black churches will be a new paradigm for political involvement,” he says. Three days after the rally, Tucker was the upset winner in the race.

While the Religious Right of the 1980s was almost exclusively a white, middle-class movement, an increasing number of black conservative Christians are joining the new battle. Particularly in California, TVC has been successful in forging a network of black churches to help fight gay rights and distribution of condoms in schools.

One emerging spokesperson is Star Parker, who heads a Christian publishing company called Not Forsaking the Assembling and has worked closely with TVC on a number of projects. She has been especially involved in applying conservative principles to inner-city problems.

“Within the church setting where I came from, all that we were being taught was actually conservative politics, but we sure didn’t call it that,” Parker says. She says her promotion of conservative values has touched a nerve in her community. “Whenever I speak, my phone rings off the wall with people saying, ‘Go ahead, girlfriend, we need to hear it.’ “

Many leaders in the black community are skeptical, and even hostile, about suggestions that huge numbers of African-Americans will join the conservatives. Indeed, statistics show that the overwhelming majority of blacks are Democrats and liberal. But Parker agrees with Stringer that black churches are a potentially strong source of conservative constituents. For her and for others, the question of how open Religious Right groups really are to blacks still lingers. “There is a whole lot of healing that still needs to take place” before trust can be built, she admits. Nevertheless, she is confident the process has begun.

Challenges For The Future

The extent to which the Religious Right can weave together these new elements to become a movement with a national impact remains unclear. Certainly California’s successes last month will provide inspiration to fledgling efforts in other places. However, observers say there are several challenges ahead.

James Guth, professor at Furman University in South Carolina, believes the places where such efforts can be successful may be limited. His research has found that Christian political activism is strongest in areas “where modern issues are clashing with traditional values.” Says Guth emphatically, “That is not everywhere.”

Until now, much of the new Religious Right organizing has been done without scrutiny from the news media, who had proclaimed the movement dead years ago. But success will very likely bring more attention and more opposition from outside groups.

In California, the movement has drawn criticism from those within the Christian community as well. Stephen Monsma, a political science professor at Pepperdine University, says that, as an evangelical, he agrees with many of the moral positions of the Religious Right. However, while he applauds their growing political involvement, he says he is “bothered a great deal” by the triumphalistic overtones of their work. Brian Sellers-Peterson, a Fuller Theological Seminary graduate and Bread for the World leader in California, is more pointed. He says he is often embarrassed by the Religious Right’s presumption to speak for all Christians. “Where is their concern for feeding the hungry, proclaiming liberty, and doing justice?” he asks, indicating issues that are important to him yet largely unaddressed by the Religious Right.

Author Moen believes the new Religious Right may find it difficult to sustain Christian interest across the nation. But if they succeed, he says, this new Right could be “much more of a force to be reckoned with” than was its predecessor of the eighties.

The Christian Coalition’s Reed is less restrained about predicting future success. He believes the Christian impact will be felt after this November’s election. By focusing on the number of feminist women running for office this year, Reed says, “the media are missing it. This isn’t the year of the woman; this is the year of the Lord.”

By Kim A. Lawton in Orange County, California.

Classic and contemporary excerpts.

When Words Destroy

Abigail Van Buren once wrote about a woman who listened to a mother verbally destroy her child. The woman told the mother, “I’ll give you a dollar for him.” Only then did the mother realize the value of her child.

—R. J. Thesman in The Christian Leader (Mar. 10, 1992)

Everyday Spirituality

Spiritual experiences are not a matter of finding God, nor are they a matter of waiting till God fairly screams, “Look, here I am!” Spiritual experiences surround us. We fall over them dozens of times a day. We can’t avoid them if we try. A spiritual experience is simply a matter of recognizing and acknowledging our relationship to God in whatever is going on in our lives at the moment. God is involved in all we do and does not pop in and out of our lives. We live surrounded by God. We live and breathe God just as we live and breathe air. To know that either air or God is present, we need only to pause and reflect for an instant to see that we are immersed in them.

—Fr. Gerald Weber in U.S. Catholic (March 1992)

Prayer That Works

The effective prayer of faith comes from a life given up to the will and the love of God. Not as a result of what I try to be when praying, but because of what I am when I’m not praying, is my prayer answered by God.

—Andrew Murray in With Christ in the School of Prayer

Political “Reform”

There is nothing quite like a presidential election year to reveal how empty and dissatisfying our political process has become.… Television has taken over the role in choosing candidates that party bosses once played, but that can hardly be called reform.

—Jim Wallis in an editorial in Sojourners (May 1992)

Classroom On Film

I’ve always tried to be aware of what I say in my films because all of us who make motion pictures are teachers, teachers with very loud voices.

—George Lucas, accepting a lifetime achievement award at Academy Award ceremonies, March 1992 (quoted by Edwin A.

Roberts, Jr., in the Tampa Tribune, April 5,1992)

Friend And Lover

“Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God” commands Paul. Now, only a dear friend can be grieved. Not a stranger: he might be annoyed. Not a chance acquaintance: he might be perplexed. Not a business partner: he might be offended. Only a loved one can be grieved.

—Milton S. Agnew in The Holy Spirit—Friend and Counsellor

Evangelicals are sometimes criticized for a lack of involvement in human-rights issues. Is criticism justified?

Yes. On the one hand, some evangelicals contend that believers should not be concerned for human rights—especially not their own—but only for the gospel of personal regeneration. But the God of the Bible says much about the abuse of rights, especially those of the impoverished and helpless. The apostle Paul did not hesitate to appeal to Caesar when regional authorities withheld his rights as a Roman citizen (Acts 25:11).

On the other hand, some evangelicals have taken concern for their rights too far. In their quite proper concern to defend fellow believers, they have reduced human rights to narrow items of their own cause. Many perceived the early efforts of the Moral Majority in that light. The result of such narrow focus is that others readily conclude that evangelicals are interested only in defending their issues, not in a broad-based commitment to the liberties of all.

Of course, Christians should be prepared to suffer at the hands of the wicked. Instead of promoting revolution, they should be ready to face punishment—as did the Hebrew prophets—because of their protest against injustice.

But whatever the consequences, they should set the pace in condemning injustice. God himself deplores the injustices of individuals and of society. It is interesting to note that the words justice and righteousness in our Old Testament often come from the same Hebrew word; each goes hand in hand with the other.

How does concern for human rights fit in with the church’s mission in the world?

Evangelicals should be devoted to “the whole counsel of God,” which acknowledges that God wills both justice and the repentance and spiritual rebirth of sinners. England’s eighteenth-and nineteenth-century evangelical movement was spiritually and morally vital because it strove for justice and also invited humanity to regeneration, forgiveness, and power for righteousness.

The world in this century is aflame with injustice, so much so that the church could exhaust its energies in decrying it and forgo significant witness to redemption in Christ. That, of course, would be a costly compromise of mission.

How then do we balance the imperatives of evangelism and human rights?

If the church preaches only divine forgiveness and does not affirm justice, she implies that God treats immorality and sin lightly. If the church proclaims only justice, we shall all die in unforgiven sin and without the Spirit’s empowerment for righteousness. We should be equally troubled that we lag in championing justice and in fulfilling our evangelistic mandate.

We should realize that the Great Commission is dwarfed and even maligned if one implies that God is blindly tolerant of social and structural evil, that he forgives sinners independently of a concern for justice.

Furthermore, promoting the human right of religious liberty, because God wills it, can encourage others to hear the evangel as good news. Religious freedom allows the evangelist to invite his hearers to a responsible, as opposed to a coerced, choice. Where response is forced or coerced, the possibility of making a switch from one’s idols to the living God is severely diminished.

Why is religious freedom the “first freedom” and the foundational human right?

Religious liberty is not merely one of numerous important political rights that democratic governments, in contrast to totalitarian states, promote.

Religious freedom is basic. It is religious freedom that fosters democracy, not the other way around. One who is free to worship God in good conscience will not confuse the worldly Caesars and their dictates with the transcendent divine, and will question the supremacy of the powers of evil. Totalitarian governments, in contrast to democratic governments, have been guilty of unthinkable religious repression and persecution.

Civil government has no legitimate authority to force religious or irreligious preferences upon humans. The Christian faith affirms the limits as well as the legitimacy of civil government. It connects religious integrity with divine authority and a good conscience before God, whose image humans bear by creation (and which, despite our sin, we still retain, albeit in a flawed way). Human beings are created with responsible choice; the God of the Bible seeks their conscientious worship.

The case for universal religious freedom need not be based solely on God’s revelation in Christ and Scripture. A case can be made apart from them, based on creation, that obliges Christians and non-Christians alike.

How should Christians respond to rights abuses?

We should pray daily “thy kingdom come,” as Jesus tells us to do. The local church should identify the most grievous injustices—local, regional, and national—and strive to rectify them, in concert with all who seek to right the wrong. This need not call for massive demonstrations unless intermediary engagement achieves nothing. Letters to the editor, requests for editorial comment by the press, support for more sensitive alternative enterprises are all activities in which every churchgoer can and should participate. God wishes to etch his law on every heart, and our efforts advance his cause.

When Father Dominic Tran Dinh Thu was given a life sentence in a Vietnamese prison for holding religious-education classes for adults, a group of Trinitarian Fathers took action. They mounted a postcard campaign with the Catholic-affiliated Puebla Institute. Soon other groups, including the Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD), joined the effort. Tran’s sentence has been commuted to 20 years, and he is allowed occasional visitors and some packages. But the 86-year-old receives no mail and rarely sees a doctor, in spite of his failing health.

The fight for his release has been a frustrating one. Such battles are often hard-fought and only occasionally won. But when people become aware of human-rights abuses and get others to join the fight, they can make an impact. Here are seven strategic tips on how to fight for freedom.

1. Choose Your Battles

“How involved do you want to be?” is the first question Stan De Boe of the IRD asks people who want to get involved. “Human-rights groups range from those that are extremely active, to groups such as ours that do much more work on the U.S. side, to groups that simply ask you to pray or write letters to people in prison.” No one has the time or resources to fight with every weapon.

Nor should we try. “There is so much pain and suffering in the world, the best thing to do is pick one region or one country,” says Congressman Frank Wolf (R-Va.).

2. Get Informed

Once you know your focus, learn all you can. The more a person or group knows about an area’s needs, the more personal, and therefore more effective, the work will be.

Though not all can actually visit their areas of interest, there are several good ways to stay abreast of a region’s needs. Most human-rights organizations (see “Who’s Fighting for Rights?” p. 39) distribute newsletters and reports, and the U.S. State Department annually publishes its comprehensive Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. Patrick Johnstone’s Operation World offers detailed analyses of church persecution in every country of the world. Congressional and Senate staffs also rely on National and International Religion Report and News Network International’s bulletins.

3. Pray For The Persecuted

“We as believers cannot belittle the power of prayer,” says Dorothy Taft, staff member for Congressman Chris Smith (R-N.J.). “All it takes is one member of a congregation to be motivated to get the leadership of a church to commit themselves to pray. That’s the fundamental obligation.”

And prayer can make a tangible difference. “The feeling of abandonment is probably one of the most lonely, discouraging feelings when you’re going through suffering,” explains Steven Snyder, U.S. president of Christian Solidarity International (CSI). “We have received many letters and reports from persecuted Christians who have felt the power and the influence of prayer.”

4. Join Forces With Others

Alone, a person can only fight so long and so hard. And because of the often highly sensitive nature of advocacy, the same approach may not work effectively in every circumstance. For these reasons, joining forces with experienced advocacy groups and legislators is crucial.

One of their most effective weapons against human-rights abuses is publicity. Though attention to abuses in a given region occasionally provokes more persecution, usually the more people know and tell others of that abuse, the more likely it will stop.

Writing senators and representatives about instances of abuse can be valuable as well. A number of legislators on Capitol Hill—namely, Congressmen Smith, Wolf, Tony Hall (D-Ohio), Tom Lantos (D-Calif.), and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.)—stay keenly aware of human-rights concerns around the world. And for those who do not, constituents’ letters can make all the difference. “I did not get very active until a Christian group asked me to go to Romania,” explains Wolf. “Had they never asked, I would never have gone.”

Once a representative or senator is interested, he or she might take a number of approaches. John Hanford of Senator Lugar’s staff explains, “A lot of what goes on in this work happens quietly behind the scenes, with members of Congress writing letters or talking to ambassadors—expressing concern and asking for the redress of a particular incident of persecution.” Over a year ago, three Egyptian converts from Islam (see “Life in the ‘Tribulations Sector,’ ” p. 35) were tortured for their faith. “Several members of Congress intervened, led by Senator Lugar’s office,” recounts Hanford. “Ultimately the Vice-president became involved, and the fellows were released.”

Sometimes it is best to write letters on behalf of the persecuted directly to either heads of state or prison officials, especially when the country does not have diplomatic relations with the U.S., suggests Dorothy Taft. According to Steven Snyder, in pre-1989 Romania, when people in the West urged the Romanian government to ease up on particular prisoners, often those prisoners would get fewer beatings and better food “because many people in the world were watching and awaiting word on these people.”

Many advocacy groups also encourage letters to the persecuted themselves. When “prison officials receive piles and piles of letters from the West, that sends an important, powerful message,” explains Snyder. Congressman Wolf spoke with former Soviet prisoners about their imprisonment. “ ‘What kept you alive?’ we asked. ‘We want to thank you for the letters your people sent—some of them we never saw, but the warden got them,’ they replied. If a lot of letters come in, the warden knows he’d better not rough this guy up.”

5. Cross Denominational Lines

The war on human-rights violations, like the fight against abortion, affords Christians an all-too-rare opportunity to set aside denominational differences.

IRD’s Stan De Boe notes, “I’ve worked with groups from the evangelical wing to very conservative Catholics and find that once you start talking about persecution, it doesn’t matter what denomination the person is. Christians feel moved to do something for him or her.” Still, De Boe does ask people who get involved, “Is denominational interest a factor?” He said he would rather have people work enthusiastically for someone from their own denomination than grow lukewarm over someone from a different one.

Who’S Fighting For Rights?

For information on religious persecution and human-rights abuses, or to find out how you or your church can join the fight, write:

Amnesty International, 322 Eighth Ave., New York, N.Y. 10001.

Christian Solidarity International, P.O. Box 70563, Washington, D.C. 20024.

Human Rights Watch, 1522 K Street, NW, #910, Washington, D.C. 20005.

The Institute on Religion and Democracy, 1331 H St., NW, Suite 900, Washington, D.C. 20005.

Puebla Institute, 1030 15th Street, NW, Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20005.

6. Prepare For The Long Haul

Whatever the approach, “we cannot expect to see results in every situation immediately,” Snyder cautions. “It’s a long, steady, faithful process of prayer, awareness-raising, and intervention.”

Congressman Wolf observes, “If you do it, you really ought to stay with it, because a lot of times these people get their hopes up that people will care about them.” He has spoken with Romanian pastors who have noticed a sharp decrease in Western concern since 1989 (CT, April 27, 1992, p. 47).

7. Plan To Make A Difference

“Sometimes it’s hard to know what impact your intervention has,” explains John Hanford. “But in many of these cases, we are contacted by only one or two people on a problem, and we’ll run with it and maybe see a victory.”

In 1982, a constituent alerted Congressman Smith to the imprisonment of a Christian in the Soviet Union. The congressman traveled to Moscow, met the prisoner, and developed a personal relationship. He raised the issue at every appropriate opportunity—whether in hearings, or in meetings with, or letters to, foreign officials. He sought the support of other members of Congress. It took several years, but eventually the prisoner was released.

“You can’t write a letter and expect that it’s going to change the world,” says Hanford. “But sometimes it can make a difference. It’s worth writing that letter, making the phone call, expressing concern.” And the more people that get involved, he adds, the better.

Like his father and grandfather, Justino Quicaña was a well-respected cacique (community leader) among the Quechua Indians of Ayacucho, Peru. When he became a Christian, he led many of his family members to Christ, and he greatly affected his community for the sake of the gospel.

He was especially effective at reaching youth—an approach that did not sit well with Peru’s terrorist Sendero Luminoso. They didn’t mind Quicaña’s work with older people, but winning the region’s youth is central to their plan for a new society. They told him to stop “indoctrinating” the young.

When he spoke in his church one Sunday in early December 1989, he told the congregation to be strong and to follow Christ closely. That morning he sensed he was near the presence of God, his grandson, Rómulo Sauñe, told cr. He sensed God was going to take him soon. Later that week he was tortured and killed by the Shining Path. He is one of over 400 evangelicals killed by the group since the beginning of its armed rebellion.

Perhaps rather than concentrating only on defense of our own rights, we should labor as advocates on behalf of those whose convictions are very different from ours. Of course, that does not mean a promiscuous endorsement of everything that parades under the banner of religious freedom: we are called to be discerning in our efforts to promote the common good. But to work for conditions in which people are free to live out their basic commitments may be the best way we have to show the world what it is like to live in the security of a Savior’s love.

Do people have a basic human “right” to religious freedom? James Durham, a seventeenth-century Calvinist, did not think so. According to him, the tolerant consider error “no hurtful thing.” To be tolerant, he believed, is to “account little for the destruction of souls.”

He and other Christian forebears had no interest in universal religious freedom. They wanted to practice their own faith without undue interference. But on the question of religious liberty for others, they were quick to insist that “error has no rights.”

Our mood is different today. We cling to notions of pluralism and equality. But in the interest of toleration, has our society become preoccupied with individual rights? A number of contemporary social theorists—especially those who espouse a “communitarian” perspective—insist we have. There is a lot to be said for their point. According to the Bible, our purpose in life is not to do our own will but to serve and glorify God. An obsession with human “entitlements” does not sit well with that view.

Does that mean, then, that from a Christian point of view, talk of a right to religious freedom is off base? And was the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights wrongheaded when it affirmed that our “right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” is so basic that “[n]o one should be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice”? Or do we, in fact, have a legitimate human right to religious freedom?

Putting God’S Rights First

The theologian Jürgen Moltmann has put the issue of human rights in its proper biblical context. In a 1976 position paper on the subject, he insists that we base our Christian understanding of human rights “on God’s right to—that is, his claim on—human beings, their fellowship, their rule over the earth, and their future.”

Moltmann’s point is profound as it applies specifically to religious freedom. In the most fundamental sense, religious freedom is a matter of God’s rights. The Creator has an unassailable “entitlement” to our praise and obedience, “for his name alone is exalted; his glory is above earth and heaven” (Ps. 148:13). This God-centered perspective suggests two principles regarding our right to religious freedom.

First, no human power has the right to prevent or inhibit the worship of the true God. Scripture provides ample evidence for this. Daniel, the young men in the furnace, the apostles in the Book of Acts—all recognized that the call to honor the claims of the true God is far more compelling than the edicts of earthly authorities.

Second, the religious freedom we claim must be extended to people who claim very different religious loyalties. While few would dispute the first principle, the second may generate much debate. Below are three arguments in its defense.

First, it is precisely because God is sovereign that we must leave matters of unbelief to him. We cannot force others to believe in certain ways. God alone calls people to true religion. And it seems clear that he chooses to save people in a manner that respects and preserves the integrity of human choice. Even the Canons of Dort—without question the harshest of Calvinist predestinarian documents—insist that when God draws us to himself, he does so not by violating our wills, but by gently wooing us by the tender ministrations of his grace.

Second, questions of religious freedom, including religious freedom for non-Christians, are often matters of basic justice. The desecration of Jewish synagogues by neo-Nazis is an abomination—as was the harassment and abuse of Muslim schoolchildren in California during our war with Iraq. But the list cannot end there: Christians should cry out against the persecution of Baha’i adherents in Iran, the campaigns against Gypsies in Eastern Europe, the killing of Buddhist monks in Southeast Asia, and so on. To be deaf to these people’s cries is to be insensitive to God’s call for justice.

Third, religious freedom is crucial to society’s good order and health. Religious fervor can pose a genuine threat to social stability. Because religious beliefs stem from the deepest parts of ourselves, religious issues loom large in those divisions that threaten to weaken or destroy the social fabric. The tensions between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland and between Muslims and Jews in the Middle East bear testimony to the disrupting power of religious conviction. But the granting of religious freedoms reduces the threat to public order.

No Bed Of Roses

While we have every reason to expect—even demand—full religious liberty, we know better than to expect the right to exercise our faith without obstacle or opposition. Scripture does not promise that the path of faithfulness will be an easy one. And, we live in a time of widespread rebellion against the will of the Creator. We should, therefore, beware when others, including the powers that be, speak well of us, taking no offense at the cause of the gospel.