Freedom Of Religion For Extremists

Let Our Children Go!, by Ted Patrick (Dutton, 1976, 285 pp., $8.95), is reviewed by Dean M. Kelley, staff associate for religious and civil liberties, National Council of Churches, New York, New York.

Let us recognize, to begin with, that this is a well-written book about an absorbing subject. Ted Patrick comes across clearly as a dedicated crusader, a (black) man on a white horse leading the charge against what he believes to be the hosts of evil. Known to a small but enthusiastic coterie as “Black Lightning,” the “deprogrammer,” he has gained some local notoriety for “liberating” young people who joined religious movements of which their parents disapproved. In less enthusiastic circles, this activity is known as abduction, imprisonment, or kidnapping. If you or I were to do it, we would soon find ourselves in jail. But Ted Patrick seems able to avoid, or at least postpone, that fate.

In this book he tells how he got into the “deprogramming” business, and how he has barely managed to keep up with the myriad demands for his services, scarcely finding time for his family or money to pay their grocery bills. Let us be more gracious to him than he is toward his opponents: I don’t believe he is in this harrowing activity for mercenary reasons, any more than his opponents are. I don’t believe he’s in it for publicity or power per se, any more than his opponents are. I think he really believes he is holding off the hosts of Satan (or, as he puts it, of communism), fighting the fore-battle of Armageddon—or something like that. I only wish he would give his opponents credit for equally principled (ir)rationality.

His targets, in the main, are five: Hare Krishna, the Children of God, Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church, the New Testament Missionary Fellowship, and Brother Julius (whoever he is). In Patrick’s view, they (and many other groups) are not really religious; they are simply clever covers for insidious, power-hungry mass movements attempting to gain followers by methods of thought-control, hypnosis, and “brain-washing.” According to his account (and accounts attributed to former members “liberated” by him), these movements simply sweep up unsuspecting adolescents like a demonic vacuum cleaner. One minute they’re walking innocently along the street/beach/airport concourse, and the next—Zappo!—they’re in the movements, never to return to real life unless he “rescues” them. His simple apologia is the noblest there is: he is setting them free from heinous bondage to unscrupulous exploiters using “religion” as a stalking horse. He reports how often law-enforcement officers assist him and support him; he laments how seldom mainline churches and public prosecutors appreciate his selfless service.

It is a tragedy that Ted Patrick and his supporters (and many, many other people) have so shallow an understanding of what religion—in its purest (or strongest) form—is like. It is not neat or gentle or palsy-walsy or meek or mild; it is intense, driving, insistent, all-or-nothing total-demand stuff. No wonder that people encountering the real thing—or at least its intenser forms—are repelled; it is so much more in earnest than most of us care to be about anything.

When you consider that most of us are ignored most of the time by everybody, including our family and “friends,” what an intoxicating experience it is to be the object of attention, of group-sharing, of “togetherness” for hours and days on end, exhausting and disorienting as that may be. Who can resist that kind of injection of the most precious commodity there is—human attention! The only way

Ted Patrick can counteract it is by an equal expenditure of attention. If half that intensive human concentration and energy had previously been devoted to the adolescents in question, their “conversion” might never have happened. But whom could you pay to lavish that much interest on rather uninteresting adolescents? Teachers, pastors, social workers, and other busy adults can hardly see them, far less give them the interest and interaction they crave. How irresistible it is, then, when total strangers seem solicitous of them—and not just for minutes but for hours and days! This is a dimension few have appreciated, but I think it is the key to why “programming”—or “deprogramming”—works.

I would not undertake to refute what Patrick says about the Children of God or the “Moonies” or Hare Krishna—I simply have no personal information about them or acquaintance with them. But I do know personally several of the members of the New Testament Missionary Fellowship described in the book—they form a house-church centered a few blocks from where I work: Hannah Lowe, John McCandlish Phillips, Calvin Burrowes, and Dan Voll. I can testify (and did so in court, along with President McGill of Columbia University) that they are good citizens, reputable people to whom I would entrust my fate, if need be (though I would not care to join their group). They are entitled to the free exercise of their religion without forcible interference by self-appointed deliverers like Ted Patrick. If Patrick is as far off on the other groups as he is on the NTMF, then his allegations are not worth much.

That is really what they are: allegations. If people are being held in captivity against their will by self-styled “religious” groups, that is an actionable offense, the First Amendment notwithstanding. But I know of no complaints filed—far less proved in court by hard evidence—against the Children of God or the Unification “Church” for abduction or false imprisonment. However, Ted Patrick admits to such offenses, justifying them on the ground that they forestall a worse (but unproved) outcome, captivation by a religious group whose evils are asserted but not evidenced. That has been Patrick’s defense thus far: he is saving young people from a Fate Worse than Death. Though the evidence of that “fate” has thus far been mere allegation, the charge has the effect of putting the religious group on trial instead of Patrick: it must prove its right to exist and attract converts, or Patrick goes free! (President McGill and I were so persuasive in defending the NTMF that Patrick was immediately acquitted!). That is the reverse of religious liberty; it is, instead, “open season” on unpopular religious groups as long as Ted Patrick and others like him are free to oppose them.

The National Council of Churches recently adopted a resolution calling for “Religious Liberty for Young People Too,” which concluded: “The Governing Board of the NCC believes that religious liberty is one of the most precious rights of humankind, which is grossly violated by forcible abduction and protracted efforts to change a person’s religious commitments by duress.”

This book makes the best case possible for “deprogramming.” I look forward to the book that will do as well for the other side—the victims of Patrick’s rough stuff and those who live in constant fear of being seized and having their most precious beliefs and commitments ridiculed, distorted, “refuted” for hour after hour until they capitulate and return to the “normal” life of self-gratification, apathy, indolence, cynicism, and greed. There are worse things in this world than being caught up in a high-demand religious movement, and after reading this book I still believe that deprogramming is one of them.

Acts From Calvin To Bruce

A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles, by W. Ward Gasque, (Eerdmans, 1975, 344 pp., $20), is reviewed by Richard N. Longenecker, professor of New Testament, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario.

New Testament scholarship has been indebted to Albert Schweitzer, Werner Georg Kümmel, Reginald H. Fuller, and Stephen Neill for their histories of various aspects of the discipline. Now to be added to that list, and deserving a similar reception, is the work of W. Ward Gasque, who teaches at Regent College, Vancouver, and is an editor-at-large for CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Gasque’s purpose is to provide “a critical history of Actaforschung comparable to Albert Schweitzer’s histories of Gospel criticism and Pauline research.” And this is what, in large measure, he has done, not only in his perception of issues and his chronicling of movements but also in his provocative challenges and his lively literary style. Gasque covers a broader range of scholarship than Schweitzer, however, and seeks to redress the imbalance of treating only radical critics; while unlike Neill, on the other hand, he depends more on original investigation than on secondary reports. “In short,” as the author himself describes his work, “I have attempted a fresh, independent study of the history of the criticism of the Book of Acts. This has led me to emphasize the work of some scholars whose writings have been largely neglected by some of the subsequent schools of critical thought and to attempt to correct many mistaken assumptions concerning the history of criticism.”

By criticism Gasque means what has traditionally been defined as “higher criticism”: questions regarding the purpose of the author in writing, the occasion for his writing, the theological leitmotiv of his work, the historical veracity of the narrative, the historical authenticity of the speeches, the date of composition, and the identity of the author. Source criticism is treated to some extent (largely through the work of J. Dupont) and textual criticism is touched upon, but these are not Gasque’s main interests.

What Gasque is concerned with is chronicling the history of research on the traditional topics of the purpose, occasion, theological stance, historicity, date, and author of Acts. He does this by highlighting the contribution of individual scholars to the discussion, grouping these contributions into movements, isolating the crucial issues involved, and commenting from the perspective of history and exegesis upon these issues during the course of the presentation. Thus he deals in successive chapters with “Pre-critical Study of the Book of Acts,” “F. C. Baur and the Tübingen School,” “The Critics of the Tübingen Reconstruction,” “Radical Descendants of the Tübingen School,” “German Criticism at the End of the Century,” “Nineteenth Century British Work on Acts,” “Luke the Historian Defended” (focusing on William Ramsay, Theodor Zahn, Adolf Harnack, Alfred Wikenhauser, and Eduard Meyer, whose studies are foundational in Gasque’s own approach), “The American Contribution,” “The Influence of Martin Dibelius,” “Luke the Historian and Theologian in Recent Research” (wherein a variety of modern redactional and historical approaches are presented, with the work of F. F. Bruce held in highest esteem). Then in a brief “epilogue” he sets out five observations about the course of scholarly research on the Acts.

Such a recital may at first glance appear to offer rather difficult reading, and indeed there are necessarily many details of biography, history, exegesis, and theology. However, Gasque writes not only with accuracy and precision but also with verve and grace. The result is an account that is not only informative and evaluative but also rather exciting, provocative, and pleasurable.

In effect, Gasque lays out the history of criticism of Acts along three lines of approach: (1) the more radical and speculative treatments of such men as F. C. Baur, Franz Overbeck, Martin Dibelius, and Ernst Haenchen; (2) the more conservative and historical treatments of such men as J. B. Lightfoot, William Ramsay, Theodor Zahn, Adolf Harnack, and F. F. Bruce; and (3) the more mediating approach embodied in the five-volume Beginnings of Christianity, edited by F. J. Foakes-Jackson and K. Lake, and epitomized particularly in the work of Henry J. Cadbury.

His criticism of the first approach is that it bases its understanding of Acts more on certain alien philosophical presuppositions and a history of interpretation than upon solid historical research and unbiased exegesis, and that it has a tendency to work de novo and in vacuo, ignoring much of the most significant work on the subject under a pretext of redefining the issues. His attitude toward the third is much more favorable, particularly with regard to the care with which historical and exegetical matters were treated and the caution with which pronouncements were made. Nonetheless, he faults Foakes-Jackson, Lake, Cadbury, and company for often giving away too much in the desire to mediate and for at times allowing alien presuppositions to determine their reading of the evidence, and he observes that despite their worthy endeavors “critical orthodoxy” has taken little cognizance of their work. As for the second line of approach, Gasque applauds and advances it, updating it somewhat with a moderate use of redaction criticism.

There is much in this history of Actaforschung that is of great value. Of special importance, I believe, is the repeated demonstration of the fact that source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism are literary tools that have been employed by both conservative and radical scholars (though, of course, with widely differing presuppositions and conclusions) and that it is the task of the biblical scholar not just to glory in his tools but also to check his presuppositions and to relate his methods to the wider world of historiography. “Critical Orthodoxy” and “Theological Orthodoxy,” though far apart in other matters, have in common the need for humility and for openness to the evidence from other areas.

There are also, perhaps inevitably, a few blemishes in the work. I could wish, for example, that Gasque had interacted with the contributions of men like Ethelbert Stauffer, Gregory Dix, Leonhard Goppelt, and David Stanley in his survey of treatments up through 1969, and that pages 296–305 had dealt more adequately with the situation in the seventies (including, for example, the work of A. Ehrhardt, R. F. Zehnle, M. Hengel, and J. D. G. Dunn on Acts and the early Church as well). At times Gasque becomes a bit carried away with his own rhetoric, as when he speaks of “the Stygian darkness of source criticism,” which at best is redundant, at worst is unfair. But the blemishes are minor. A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles is a significant work. It is accurate, perceptive, informative, provocative, and readable. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that it is published not only by Eerdmans in America but also by J. C. B. Mohr in Germany (though in the English language) as Number 17 in the prestigious series Beiträge zur Geschichte der biblischen Exegese.

BRIEFLY NOTED

The New International Commentary series is almost complete on the New Testament, but the Old Testament is just being launched (under the general editorship of R. K. Harrison) with Joel, Obadiah, Jonah and Micah by Leslie Allen (Eerdmans, 427 pp., $9.95), who teaches at London Bible College, and with Deuteronomy by P. C. Craigie (407 pp., $9.95), of the University of Calgary. (The three volumes on Isaiah by Edward Young that were issued 1965–72 originally began the series but are now considered too long for it and will be marketed separately.)

God’s Word and God’s People by Lucien Deiss (Liturgical Press, 347 pp., $9.95) is a refreshingly creative exposition of the highpoints of biblical theology that, as its title indicates, focuses on the close connection between God’s revelation in Scripture and the community he calls into existence. Despite the Roman Catholic orientation of the author, the Word of God clearly takes primacy over church and sacraments. Recommended for Bible teachers and libraries.

The Minor Prophets by Charles L. Feinberg (Moody, 360 pp., $7.95) and Ezekiel by Ralph Alexander (Moody, 160 pp., $1.95 pb) exhibit an admirable combination of learning and devotion in commentaries designed for the general reader. Both are dispensational in orientation, but Bible students of other theological persuasions will find them edifying. Feinberg’s work is a new edition of a series of studies published earlier for a more limited audience.

The latest annual issue of the Wesleyan Theological Journal (Number 11) includes studies by holiness scholars on carnality, perfection in Wesley and Fletcher, the origins of Old Testament ecstasy, and three other topics (96 pp., $1.50 pb; order from Box 2000, Marion, Ind. 46952).

Splendors of Islam by Wilfrid Blunt (Viking, 152 pp., $10.95) and Introduction to Islamic Civilization edited by R. M. Savory (Cambridge, 204 pp., $17.95, $5.95 pb) seek to introduce readers to one of the world’s major civilizations. Blunt’s work lays stress on the art and architecture of Islam and is lavishly illustrated, while the volume edited by Savory is more scholarly and is intended as a handbook for students. A Christian’s Response to Islam by veteran missionary William M. Miller (Presbyterian and Reformed, 178 pp., $3.50 pb) is a needed evangelical counterpart to the other two.

Most books on the person and work of the Holy Spirit fail to offer much solid biblical study. Two recent exceptions are The Holy Spirit; Growth of a Biblical Tradition by George T. Montague (Paulist, 374 pp., $8.50 pb) and The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament by Leon J. Wood (Zondervan, 160 pp., $3.95 pb). Both combine scholarship and devotion, though Montague’s approach, which takes the idea of progressive revelation seriously, seems more satisfactory than Wood’s, which forces the biblical data too much into the categories of later systematic theology.

Shades Of C. S. Lewis

Screwtape Writes Again, by Walter Martin (Vision, 1975, 150 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Michael MacDonald, associate professor of German and philosophy, Seattle Pacific College, Seattle, Washington.

Walter Martin, director of the Christian Research Institute in San Juan Capistrano, California, has long been a student of modern cults and the occult; his book Kingdom of the Cults is now in its twentieth printing. In Screwtape Writes Again he draws upon his considerable knowledge of the satanic, the Bible, and human experience.

Martin deals with a broad spectrum of contemporary topics, ranging from doubt and faith to abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, and the modern charismatic movement. His purpose is to categorize “much new data” that has accumulated since C. S. Lewis’s death. As in Lewis’s Screwtape book, published in 1942, these letters from a senior to a junior devil on how to tempt man to sin show humor and introspection, and one can recognize oneself in the young patient who is the central character.

Martin is quite successful in places. Particularly penetrating is chapter six, in which the devil tries to keep the liberals’ emphasis on “social gospel” from being joined with the fundamentalists’ commitment to evangelism. His distinctions between giving thanks in everything and giving thanks/or everything and reading and studying the Word, as well as his remarks on gluttony, are also perceptive and helpful.

I find him less sensitive and too opinionated in the areas of abortion, “Basic Youth Conflicts,” the charismatic movement, and women’s liberation. Martin distinguishes less well than Lewis between God’s truth and his own opinion.

Martin stands firmly against the “new morality,” for as any devil knows, there’s nothing new under the sun. The devil has convinced many that morality “is to be governed not by the lofty pronouncements of the Enemy’s Training Manual [the Bible] but by the particular situation in which they find themselves!” While I agree that we don’t want “to pursue evil under the guise of good,” we may have to make a choice, in certain situations, between the lesser of two evils (see the lead editorial in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, April 23, 1976).

Moreover, there is a certain tension in Martin that smacks at times of anti-intellectualism. Martin has no kind words for “modern theologians” who thrive because “humans love complexity of thought.” Psychology, sociology, and philosophy have largely become infiltrated by the devil. “There can be no agreement between Athens and Jerusalem.” Yet we do not want to foster the opposition between faith and reason, religion and science, theology and philosophy. There is no need for a polemic against secular learning. No gulf exists between the sacred and the secular; all truth is God’s truth.

Martin uses Screwtape Writes Again to pontificate against the sins of the “now” generation. The book is generally well written and will be of value to persons interested in contemporary issues. However, Martin is more a clever theologian than a first-rate artist. He lacks Lewis’s universality, subtlety, imagination, compassion, and power of language. Lewis’s impact on religious thinking, and indeed on the religious imagination, has been perhaps unequaled by any other twentieth-century writer. Much of Lewis, including The Screwtape Letters, will undoubtedly become a permanent part of our literary and religious heritage. Screwtape Writes Again is worthwhile reading, but measured by the standard of Lewis’s work it falls quite short.

Moral Law And The Founding Fathers

A Nation Built on God, by Edward J. Melvin (Our Sunday Visitor, 1975, 223 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by John A. Tinkham, doctoral student, Department of Politics, Catholic University, Washington, D.C.

What would the American founding fathers say about the abortion issue if they were alive today? Edward J. Melvin, a Roman Catholic historian, philosopher, and theologian, believes they would be outraged by the 1973 Supreme Court decisions that permit abortions and by the recommendations of the 1972 Presidential Commission on Population Control in favor of more liberal abortion-control laws. He sees a big contrast between liberal abortion policies and the beliefs expressed in the Declaration of Independence, that “all men … are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Abortions not only violate the right of the unborn child to life, argues Melvin, but also remove liberty and the pursuit of happiness from the bounds of moral law so that they become excuses for license and pleasure.

The argument is interesting. It uses the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution in place of the Bible to answer a question that has become political and legal as well as moral. Melvin recommends a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to life to all unborn persons. Abortions would thereby be prohibited under all circumstances, without regard to the needs of the mother.

The book is more than an argument against abortion. Melvin delves deeply into just what the founding fathers meant by such expressions—familiar to all but rarely defined—as “unalienable rights,” “endowed by their Creator,” “pursuit of happiness,” and “created equal.” These words were grounded in a faith in God and a belief in natural law. Melvin provides a generous assortment of quotations from the writings and speeches of early Americans to give the reader insight into the attitudes toward their fellow man and government that are expressed in the founding documents. Their religion was a form of deism, which Melvin prefers to call theism. This is a belief in God as Creator and as Providence, who intervenes in the affairs of men and their governments. They accepted the ethical teachings of Jesus but rejected him as the Son of God. Their belief in natural law and natural rights was grounded in their faith in God. God created man along with universal laws of nature that govern his social life and include natural rights to find human fulfillment in life. God enables man to know his laws through the gift of reason. So any government that contradicts these laws and violates human rights is immoral and will fail. One can thus claim the truth of statements about inalienable rights and equality of men on the basis of God’s will and natural law.

Melvin believes that Christians today can and should support the reasoning of the founders because the God of their theism and of Christianity are the same, and because it has provided a Constitution built on Christian ethics. But he argues that arguments for abortion must be rejected because they deny the existence of God and natural rights.

I found this discussion of the thinking of the founding fathers well worth the reading of the book. Some readers may find the description of human nature to be too optimistic; The Federalist Papers, which the author disregards, show a concern about man’s sinful nature and the need to control his “passions” as well as to protect his rights. Nevertheless, it is clear that the concept of human nature shown here does reflect the ideas of a wide cross section of the men whose “faith” brought about a liberal democracy under law that has survived for two hundred years.

Thomas Aquinas Never Washed Socks

I was helping my wife fold the clothes still warm from the dryer. I had piled the socks to one side to sort and match them after the larger stuff was taken care of.

With some diligence I managed to get together seven pairs but was left with five unmatched socks.

“Where’s the rest of the wash?” I asked my wife.

“That’s it,” she replied.

“It can’t be,” I protested. “I’ve got five unmatched socks.”

“Happens all the time,” she responded.

“What’ll I do with them?”

“This,” she said, opening a drawer filled with mateless socks and tossing them in.

“What do you mean it happens all the time?”

“I mean I can put twelve pairs of socks in the washer and get out nine pairs and seven unmatched socks. Happens all the time.”

“That’s physically impossible!” I said. “If that were true it would bring into question the dependability and regularity of the universe.”

“I believe in the regularity of the universe,” she countered. “I regularly put in matched socks and regularly get out unmatched socks.”

“That’s not the kind of regularity I’m talking about. Let me explain it simply.”

“Don’t be patronizing,” she riposted. “If you’re going to become a male chauvinist you can just forget the whole thing. And by the way, what law says that I am charged with the responsibility for the family wash anyhow?”

Refusing to be sidetracked by peripheral matters, I continued, “What I’m trying to say is that the regularity of the universe is one point of the theistic apologetic. If you put in matched socks and get out unmatched socks that means the universe is not dependable, and where does that leave Thomas Aquinas?”

“Thomas Aquinas had his experience and I have mine,” she responded with unassailable accuracy.

“You don’t test theology by experience,” I pointed out. “It’s the other way around.”

“Correct theology doesn’t make matched socks out of unmatched ones,” she said, eyeing me coldly.

Experience, I have concluded, looms large in the formulation of personal belief. And that’s not altogether bad. One fellow, when told that his experience did not conform to orthodox theology, said simply, “One thing I do know: I was blind and now I see.”

EUTYCHUS V

From the December 3, 1971, issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Sermon Time

The editorial “Preparing For The Political Plunge” (Aug. 6) was timely and helpful. There came into my hands a copy of the apparent political newsletter you quoted as leaving a false impression about Jimmy Carter. Yesterday I used your information in my sermon. Today I wrote both the person distributing the report and the editor of that publication protesting the bearing of false witness.… Let me also say a word of appreciation for your July 16 issue on the theme of “How Can We Share?” Thank you for your diligence and good stewardship.

BOBBY J. SCOBEY

St. Andrew’s Community Church

Memphis, Tenn.

To Have And To Have Not

I found the cover of your July 16 issue disgusting, and the articles inside appropriately inane, prejudiced, and misguided. The caricature of the bloated American starving the rest of the emaciated planet has no justification economically, statistically, or in any other way. The closest it comes to fact is that our country, through the blessings of God on its phenomenal efforts, does live better than much of the rest of the nations. But to imply that there is a great welfare plan that guarantees equal shares of everything is to perpetuate a basic Communist fallacy that cannot be justified.

Whether our country should continue its unparalleled generosity to the rest of the world is one question.… Your inflammatory writers imply that we not only do not feed the hungry abroad (in fact we somehow “steal” their food) but we also use up more than our “share” of raw materials. Do they not realize that, when we purchase oil from Arabs, bauxite from Jamaica, iron ore from Venezuela, rubber from Indonesia, etc. etc. etc. we are contributing to the economies of those countries, so that many people can earn their daily bread? If we stopped our consumption, those people would starve.… CHRISTIANITY TODAY should … put the worship of God first, and political, economic, and other matters second. Don’t follow the liberals in their tangential journeys away from the faith.

JOHN A. MCKECHNIE

Broomall, Pa.

Your July 16 issue is one of the best I have ever read. Thank you for the terrific series of articles on hunger and the Christian response. The authors not only were very moving, but did a good job of answering the questions and the criticisms of the hunger crisis.

WINSTON H. TAYLOR

Silver Spring, Md.

I am not a regular reader of CHRISTIANITY TODAY but thought this issue on hunger was very good. The evangelical perspective on the problem tends to have a lot more guts than the liberal one with which I am more familiar!

SARAH BENTLEY

New York, N.Y.

The Morality Of Hell

I found the article by Edward Fudge, “Putting Hell in Its Place” (Aug. 6), to be personally offensive and unworthy of your journal. It is difficult for many Christians to understand how a loving God could consign any of his creation (we never asked to be born) to an eternal punishment (the punishment should fit the crime). After all, Adolf Hitler only killed the bodies of six million Jews. Are some people still so much in love with the literal reading of the Bible that they have had their moral sensibilities virtually destroyed? Like it or not: the notion of an eternal damnation is the denial of the love of God, and represents the admission of the failure of that love—not to mention his power. I will not believe that God’s love is either perverted or limited.

FRANK L. HOSS

First Christian Church

Fort Dodge, Iowa

• Our moral sensibilities must be checked against biblical revelation. Men may not like the assertion that there is a hell, but Scripture witnesses to its existence. We accept the teaching of Scripture on this as on the other doctrines of the Christian faith.—ED.

On Knowledge Of God

The article by Ronald Nash on philosopher David Hume (Aug. 6) serves as another fine example of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S determination to build up in the evangelical community an informed faith. Both the presentation of what Hume really thought (how seldom Christians seem to be careful at this point in their apologetics) and the assessment of where subjectivism has led us deserve commendation.

There is one thing, though, that I think might have been added as well: why Hume was wrong in denying that there can be knowledge of God. The problem, as may be seen in Nash’s exposition of Hume, is an equivocation on the usage of the term “knowledge.” In the sentence, “Therefore, if man cannot know these things (i.e., causality, or the transcendent) by reason and experience, he cannot know them,” the first “know” refers to having sufficient and compelling demonstration of something, while the second “know” refers simply to having information (which may be stated propositionally) about something which may or may not be provable. Yet Hume thinks that because he has proven the one, the other must also be true. This is not so, but is only a supposition about the bounds of reason—a supposition not ever accepted by God’s people. While our pivotal beliefs may “rest on something other than reason and experience” (such as the inward witness of the Holy Spirit), this does not mean that reason and experience can have no input at all into the things of faith.

KEITH COOPER

Beverly, Mass.

The article by Ronald Nash is one of the most enlightening and discerning I have ever read on a philosophical subject. (Philosophers need not be obscure!) I especially appreciated the last few paragraphs in which he gives examples of “the new anti-intellectualism that threatens evangelicalism.” Thanks for alerting us, Professor Nash! Come again!

HENRY PETERSEN

Second Christian Reformed Church

Pella, Iowa

Ronald Nash carefully defends Hume from misconceptions in the first two sections, but then goes on to confuse philosophy with theology.… Philosophers cannot be heretics, only right or wrong. You can only be a heretic when you profess to teach the theology or inner logic of a religion, and Nash reminds us that Hume did not profess to do that.

The opening statement of section III unfortunately fails to define either “rational knowledge” or “objective religious truth.” Having told us that Hume’s idea of rational knowledge is confined to “areas where knowledge is possible, such as mathematics” (surely we all agree that our revealed Christian faith cannot be proved in that kind of way), Nash tells us that Hume was not a skeptic as regards “common sense” and “natural instincts.” He was as sure that the sun would rise tomorrow as we are, but the point was that this certainty was not a philosophic certainty.

Similarly as regards Hume’s supposed rejection of “objective religious truth”: if Nash means truth that can be proved by means of the techniques of modern science, then surely we all agree with Hume. If however “objective” refers to certainty that comes to us from objective Scriptures rather than a process of inner searching or intuition, then I suspect Hume would have been neutral as to these alternatives.

Our task as evangelicals is to clarify that faith in God is not provable by mathematics or logic, or by the constant conjunctions (Hume’s term) of modern science, but by a certainty given by God alone as a result of hearing and studying the Scriptures. And how could we prove that such certainty can be given before receiving it? Hume cannot be faulted for denying that such certainty could come from other avenues of knowing.

ROBERT BROW

Associate Rector

Little Trinity Anglican Church

Toronto, Ontario

Anonymous Poison

I am writing to protest the poison-pen sarcasm of Eutychus VII in the July 2 issue. Eutychus obviously has not taken the time to sample the ministry of the staff or the laity of Scott Memorial Baptist Church of San Diego and El Cajon, California. Interestingly, neither anonymity nor sarcasm were qualities or characteristics of men of God of the Scriptures. If a Christian brother has a difference of opinion with a brother, he is admonished to go to him in love. Eutychus, hiding behind his pen name and speaking with a barbed, sarcastic tongue, does a disservice to your otherwise fine magazine.

RONALD V. JONES

Consultant

Churches Alive!

San Bernardino, Calif.

Errata

The name listed in the erratum item in the September 10 issue should have been Keith Price, not Brian Price.

Dr. Frank E. Gaebelein spent forty-one years at Stony Brook School, not forty-nine as we said in identifying him in the August 27 issue.

Olaf Stapledon, Neglected Titan

To whom do we owe each of the following concepts in science fiction: (a) galactic empires in whose rise and fall the terrestrial history of man is utterly forgotten; (b) a superhuman race on another planet who cannibalize their beloved dead; (c) a Venus covered by water, with humans dwelling on islands of floating vegetation. Many readers would confidently answer (a) Isaac Asimov, (b) Robert A. Heinlein, and (c) C. S. Lewis. They would do so because they have never read the works of one from whom each of these later authors borrowed and who possessed, according to critic Sam Moskowitz, “the most titanic imagination ever brought to science fiction”: William Olaf Stapledon (1886–1950).

Stapledon, a lecturer in English literature, industrial history, psychology, and philosophy at the University of Liverpool, produced, along with several less distinguished books, five influential science-fiction novels. Christians may read these as they do Nietzsche, reveling in the author’s rare beauty of phrase and brightness of imagery, yet troubled by his anti-Christian metaphysics (in Stapledon’s case, an extremely remote and forbidding deism) and his innovative ethics.

Like Nietzsche, Stapledon has influenced millions who have never read his works. In his first novel alone, Last and First Men (1930), hundreds of striking ideas used by later science-fiction writers appear—ideas on eugenics, on behavior modification, on social structure, on new sources of energy, on sex, on psychology, on population control, on ethics, on art, on telepathic communication. Many of these ideas are now being promoted outside science fiction as if they were something new.

Stapledon predicted an energy shortage and the worldwide search for new energy sources: tidal power, wind power, geothermal power, and atomic power. At the same time he predicted, and partly approved, the current sexual revolution, advocating a view of sexuality nearly identical to that of Robert Rimmer in The Harrad Experiment and other popular recent works. Most significant for this review, he also expounded at length the “evolving God” idea, in which man, in his great spiritual quest, hoped to be the germ of a Cosmic Consciousness that could approach and perhaps achieve the omniscience of the mythical God in the old religions. Process theologians, take note.

We could multiply such examples a hundred times without exhausting the contents of Last and First Men, a book so comprehensive that by comparison even Frank Herbert’s Dune and Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy seem trivial in subject, constricted in scope, and parochial in viewpoint. Last and First Men is the chronicle of human evolution, presented by a human descendant living more than two billion years in the future. This superhuman being can inhabit, study, and even influence past minds, imagined as eternally present to minds with the sensitivity to perceive them. Homo sapiens, he tells us, is but the first of eighteen human species inhabiting successively the earth, Venus, and Neptune, where the last and greatest of man’s descendants meet their frightful doom in an inescapable solar storm.

Few individuals appear in this chronicle. The characters are more often whole races or nations, and a lover of the novel of manners may feel alienated beyond any appreciation. Yet for the reader who can accept large and strange generalities as characters, there is a continual fascination in the sweep of the narrative and the eloquence of the style. Amid the final horrors, the Last Man speaks to his dying comrades:

“Great are the stars, and, man is of no account to them. But man is a fair spirit, whom a star conceived and a star kills.… Man himself, at the very least, is music, a brave theme that makes music also of its vast accompaniment, its matrix of storms and stars.… It is very good to have been man.”

Stapledon’s other science-fiction novels are Last Men in London (1932), a study of World War I from the perspective of the Last Men on Neptune; Odd John (1935), the tale of a mental superman in the twentieth century who attempts to start a new humanity and is destroyed by the old humanity; Star Maker (1937), an incredibly ambitious “hawk-flight of imagination” through all of space and time, called by Brian Aldiss “the one great grey holy book of science fiction,” never surpassed or even approached by any book before or since; and Sirius (1944), the tragic biography of a dog given more than human intelligence by a scientist’s experiment. For the new reader of Stapledon, Sirius, the most human of his books, is probably the best place to start. Star Maker, as Brian Aldiss warns, is too “huge and frightening” in its imaginative sweep.

Stapledon’s literary output was modest in size, even if we include all his writing. But within the five most popular of his books can be found most of the philosophical and psychological problems plaguing twentieth-century man, together with most of the solutions that have been suggested. While we may deplore his rejection of the Christian solution, we may yet, as C. S. Lewis did, find much to delight our minds, enlarge our sympathies, and give us insight into the attempt of a brilliant mind to find spiritual consolation in a universe where God has not spoken.

WILLIAM A. HOLT

William A. Holt is assistant professor of English and religion, Tarrant County Junior College, Fort Worth, Texas.

Morality Tales

I tried to read Stapledon’s Odd John several years ago. Our then art/production director John Lawing, who wrote CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S last piece on science fiction (February 27), lent me the book. It’s still sitting on my desk at home, half read.

He claimed back in February that religion had little place in science fiction. Perhaps. But several of its major themes are theological. Creation. God. Heaven. Eschatology. Holt’s discussion of Stapledon bears this out in part.

Why are more and more writers today turning to science fiction in dealing with these questions? Where did science fiction get its start? How does it fit in with the rest of Western literature? All good questions, but few of us have time to ferret out the answers.

Those who are fascinated by these questions—and I’m one—will be glad to hear that their work has been done for them: by Franz Rottensteiner in Science Fiction Book (Seabury, $14.95) or James Gunn in Alternate Worlds (Prentice-Hall, $29.95). Both books are illustrated, hence the high prices. Rottensteiner provides information about science fiction outside the English-speaking world, but Gunn’s book is more comprehensive. The appendixes alone make it worth the price.

Gunn tells us where science fiction came from. Plato, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe. Whether he convinces you or not, it makes an interesting chapter.

But the best part of the book comes at the end. “The Shape of Things to Come” gets into the reasons for theological and philosophical themes in the genre. Gunn, quoting Edmund Crispin, says, “Science fiction is the last refuge of the morality tale.” And I think they’re right.

CHERYL FORBES

What started as an evangelistic effort among college students has turned into one of the more ambitious undertakings in church history. The man behind the movement, Dr. William Rohl Bright, traces its origin to a call from God that came to him while he was studying for a Greek examination at Fuller Seminary. His organization, Campus Crusade for Christ International, is marking its twenty-fifth anniversary this fall by developing strategy to help to evangelize the entire world. Political activities surrounding Bright’s evangelistic endeavors and his association with Arizona congressman John Conlan and other conservative political leaders have attracted the attention of the news media in recent weeks. To get a firsthand account of his political interests and evangelistic vision, CHRISTIANITY TODAYeditors interviewed Bright at the “Christian Embassy” in Washington. Here is an edited version of that interview:

Question. Where are we in America? Would you say things have deteriorated in the last twenty-five years?

Answer. I would use a stronger word: disintegrated. Our nation is in grave trouble.

Q. What do you mean?

A. Well, for one thing, many of our leaders say we are in trouble economically. And politically we have more discord than ever. Morally and spiritually, we have reached the point of bankruptcy. Our entire society is becoming increasingly secular, humanistic, and materialistic. Anti-God forces largely control education, the media, entertainment, and government.

Q. Are you saying that it’s all over for America?

A. What happens in this country this year will in my opinion determine whether or not we remain free. I don’t mean that we will lose our freedom this year, but we’ll reach the point of no return. I think that if we don’t meet the conditions set down in Second Chronicles 7:14, we’re in trouble.

Q. What are you doing about it?

A. Working in cooperation with thousands of pastors, we are seeking to disciple and train millions of Christians in the United States to help to saturate our nation with the Gospel through a movement called Here’s Life America. I canceled all my engagements overseas for 1976. Usually, I visit every continent once or twice a year because we have a staff now of more than 5,000 in more than eighty countries. I arranged for others to do the overseas traveling. As it turned out, however, we had an unusual opportunity to launch Here’s Life in Asia with the potential of ultimately training more than 70,000 Chinese. So I did go to Asia to help to set the wheels in motion to train them, in the hope that one day the door will be open and tens of thousands will go into mainland China. I’ve been praying for China for many years. While there we launched Here’s Life Philippines, Here’s Life Malaysia, Here’s Life Singapore, Here’s Life Republic of China, and Here’s Life Hong Kong.

Q. What is “Here’s Life”?

A. It is a movement of discipleship and evangelism that involves thousands of churches, and we trust there will soon be many, many millions of Christians involved. It is a movement committed to share the claims of Christ with every person in America. We have already launched Here’s Life in many of the major American cities with phenomenal results, and we are praying that soon the rest of the 265 major metropolitan areas and 18,000 smaller communities will become involved. Since Here’s Life emphasizes discipleship along with evangelism, we are confident that the movement will gather momentum and explode throughout the world. Our role is one of servant, to the local church, the pastor, and his people.

Q. What kind of training are you giving?

A. We call it “mediated” training. It’s a new word. The program was developed at Michigan State. Research suggests that it enables a person who retains about 5 per cent from a typical lecture to retain about 80 per cent of the content of this mediated training.

Q. Is it an audiovisual approach?

A. It is that and more. It involves a wide range of special techniques, including the use of motion pictures and slides, writing narrations, testing materials. These are put together in a unique way. They add up to the most advanced form of communication yet developed.

Q. Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future?

A. I believe that we’re going to see the greatest spiritual awakening in the history of the world. I believe it’s already begun. I think that the awakening will forestall many undesirable things that would otherwise happen, militarily, economically, politically, and so on. I believe we are going to meet the conditions of Second Chronicles 7:14, humbling ourselves, praying, turning from our wicked ways. I’m very optimistic about that. But I say that from the divine perspective, not on the basis of what I see. I am optimistic on the basis of faith, the integrity of God, the sovereignty of God, the power of God, and my assurance of his love.

Q. When you speak of a loss of freedom unless there is a spiritual awakening, do you envisage large numbers of people becoming Christian and large numbers of Christians becoming better disciples? Or are you referring to such things as changes in the composition of Congress and other branches of government?

A. I am saying that there will be many millions who will become trained disciples, and through their influence many additional millions will receive Christ as personal Saviour. As this awakening spreads, I am confident that Christians will become more sensitive to their responsibility in education, the media, entertainment, government. I see this happening all the time.

Q. Scripture seems to teach that at the end of the age the world situation will get worse, and love among Christians will grow cold. So it appears that if this great awakening you anticipate does happen, then the coming of the Lord may not be imminent.

A. I do not personally believe that the Lord’s return is imminent. I think the current teaching that it is imminent is leading many, many Christians to fold their hands and disobey what Jesus said to do. Jesus said we should work, for the night is coming when no man can work. According to Scripture, he has delayed his return in order that more people might have a chance to hear.

Q. Can anyone in America possibly say that he or she has never heard the story of salvation?

A. Our surveys—we take hundreds of them—show that about half the church members are not sure of their salvation, that 95 per cent do not understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit, that 98 per cent are not regularly introducing others to Christ. Yet we also find that at least half the people in the free world outside the hard-core Muslim world and the nation of Israel are open to the Gospel and would receive Christ the first time they heard the Gospel presented effectively by a trained disciple who was filled with the Spirit. One of our staff members trained several volunteers who then interviewed 7,400 people on the telephone. Forty-seven per cent of those not already Christians prayed with the caller and received Christ.

Q. Do you think they were really born again?

A. I don’t know. I would not know if they came to the altar of a church and wept for an hour. But at least they said, We want to know the Lord, and our experience through the years would assure us that a good percentage of the decisions were genuine.

Q. When you talk about getting Christians active in government so they can change the situation, what do you have in mind?

A. I really do not say Christians should be in government. I say men and women of God should be elected to public office. There is a difference. You know, frankly, to be a Christian does not guarantee that one is ethical and moral and spiritual. There are people in government who profess faith in Jesus Christ and are just as unscrupulous in some of their dealings as people who are not professing Christians. I am referring to men and women of integrity and principle. For example, the late David Lawrence, who was the editor of U.S. News and World Report, was a Jew. From reading his writings and talking with others who knew him personally, I would say that he was a man who could be trusted in a position of leadership.

Q. Do you think the Church should get involved in politics?

A. No, I am talking about individual Christians. If someone points out that politics is dirty and that Christians open themselves up to temptations and compromises by getting involved in it, I would just reply that Scripture says in Proverbs that when the evil ruled the righteous suffered. Christians should be aggressively involved in politics; their influence should be felt in all parties.

Q. You don’t think that a denomination should endorse a particular candidate?

A. No. Nor do I do it myself. Nor do we in Campus Crusade for Christ endorse a particular person or party.

Q. But you are a Christian leader, and people may be looking to you for guidance. Are you not neglecting your responsibility if you don’t say, Here is someone whom I think we can trust and for whom Christians ought to vote?

A. There are too many unknown factors. There are those who believe that Mr. Nixon is a Christian, though to my knowledge he has never said he is. There are those who believe that Mr. Carter and Mr. Ford are Christians. As far as I know, they are. But as for saying, “I have such confidence in the Christian commitment of this or that candidate that I’m going to recommend your voting for him,” I cannot. I just do not know enough about them. I say, “Learn all you can about the candidates for public office—from the Presidency on down to the school board—and then on your knees ask God whom he would have you support.

Q. Do you think Christians ought to band together for political purposes?

A. I don’t feel this is what God wants me to do. If in local areas there is a reason for doing this, I’d have to defer to the judgment of those involved. God has a right, certainly, to be original with each one of us.

Q. Bill Bright and Campus Crusade have been described as deeply involved in politics. Any truth to that?

A. Those who made the statement have added two and two and come up with one hundred. They have misinterpreted my motives. In twenty-five years we have never spent a penny trying to elect a person or promote a party, and we have no plans to do so. However, I do feel a strong responsibility to encourage Christians to work to elect men and women of God to public office, but I have never encouraged one candidate or party over another.

Q. Social activists in the mainline denominations have said the same thing, at least in recent years. They have declared, perhaps in part for purposes of tax exemption, that they are not pushing a particular candidate or party but are awakening the people to the need for social righteousness. Are you doing basically the same thing?

A. To answer that I would first have to talk to those people. I do not know what their motives are, or how they spend their money. We at Campus Crusade are very transparent in all our financial operations. Our legal staff counsels me on anything that is questionable—even to the wording of a message or article I am writing—because I do not want to violate the rules of our charter. I have operated this way for twenty-five years.

Q. Do you think that those who are truly in touch with God will come out on the same side in an election?

A. I think it is conceivable that the Lord would lead some Spirit-filled people to support one candidate, other Spirit-filled people to support the other. In Campus Crusade policy meetings, one person will make a proposal and someone else will object. But before long everybody is happy over the recommendation that is made. By the time I make the decision I will have had the benefit of the best and most creative thinking of my colleagues, though they might have been at opposite poles to begin with. In Congress, I feel that men of God who differ will be more likely to come to decisions that are in the best interests of our country than if everybody espoused the same view.

Q. If we had, say, 400 people of God in Congress, could we expect things to be any different than they are now?

A. About 1,000 per cent different, because many of the decisions that are made today are not made on the basis of what God would have us to do and what is right for our country.

Q. You are simply saying that with people of God in office there will be more unanimity on issues.

A. That’s right. Communication is the biggest problem. Most people who are part of the ultra-left or the ultra-right don’t listen to what others are saying. With the love relationship we teach each other. We can put our arms around each other and hear each other out.

Q. To turn back to evangelism: many Christians were brought up to think that people reject Christ because they are unwilling to accept the demands of the Gospel, that the cost seems too high.

A. I reject that totally and completely. My experience has been that people do not reject Jesus Christ because they don’t want to surrender control of their life to Christ but because they don’t know what’s involved. I was an agnostic in my youth. The minute I understood who Christ is and what he did, I had no problem responding with my total being. A person would be a fool not to receive Christ if he understood what’s involved.

Q. Now wait a minute. The evidence is all about us that people love to sin. You believe in the fall. Scripture talks about many called and few chosen, the strait gate and narrow way, and so forth. Are you not denying these truths in your estimation of the human hunger for God?

A. I am aware of what you are saying. My answer is that a saving relationship with God is such a wonderful thing that not a single person I have ever talked to regrets his or her decision to come to Christ. People do not reject Christ; they reject a caricature.

Q. When you say your goal is for America to be evangelized by the end of 1976 …

A. Not evangelized but discipled and evangelized.

Q. Okay, but then come January, 1977, when you review the past year to see whether you have reached this goal, what factors will you use as a measurement?

A. Among other things, Jesus Christ should be the topic of interest and concern in the communities of America more than he was at the start of the year. Saturation of the nation is a continuing thing. It does not end in December of 1976. It will accelerate in 1977, and in 1978, and in 1980, because nothing is more exciting than leading another person to Christ and helping him grow and lead others to Christ.

Q. If it does not happen by the end of 1976, will you then conclude that it cannot happen or will not happen?

A. I believe it will happen. But if it does not, I am not going to flagellate myself. I am only doing what God has told me to do. Because we tried, there will be millions of people in the Kingdom who would otherwise not have been in the Kingdom. That makes it worthwhile. I’m only doing what I think God wants me to do.

As recently as 1898, the French dictionary Nouveau Larousse Illustré could say: “Astrology has hardly any adherents other than swindlers who play on public credulity, and even these are fast disappearing.” False hope! Two world wars and economic instability have helped to revive interest in predicting the future. Every day, over 50 million Americans consult readings in 1,200 newspapers. For that day they can find a prediction that is determined solely by the arrangement of planets on the day of their birth. There are now supposed to be 10,000 full-time astrologers in America and 175,000 working part-time.

“Astro-philosophers” claim the stars impel but do not compel. This does not, however, change the fact that astrology propounds a thinly veiled fatalism. People want to know what will happen to them more often to escape responsibility for their behavior—marred as it is with frustration and failure—than to be spurred on to great moral efforts. What will be will be, so let us make the most of it—this is the gospel of astrology.

Prophets forecasting doom and destruction have always abounded. But during the 1960s some were taken seriously and began making the news. In 1965, Ruth Montgomery’s book on seer Jeane Dixon, A Gift of Prophecy, stayed on best-seller lists for months. Mrs. Dixon is most famous for her prediction in 1956 that “a blond Democratic president will be elected in 1960 and will die in office.” Rather unspecific, but not bad as prophecies go. Edgar Cayce, who died in 1945, was another prophet who came to prominence in the 1960s. No fewer than five books were published in that decade on this sleeping prophet, who had been able to diagnose and treat all kinds of illnesses while asleep. His Association for Research and Enlightenment, a hospital and school in Virginia Beach, Virginia, has attracted thousands in recent years. Last but not least, biblical prophets have been given a fresh hearing—and not only by Christians. Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth, published in 1970, has sold more than six million copies in six years.

Is pragmatic, hard-headed America turning into a nation of mystics? Can such a practical people give serious attention to prophets? Do we really believe the astrological creed that “certain vibrations inbreathed by a newly born babe endow the tendencies of character it will manifest” (Llewellyn George) and that a decisive influence on the earth is exerted by the stars? Perhaps this is a part of the current interest in Eastern thought. For in Asia, astrology is a natural corollary of the prevailing world view. There is a feeling for the underlying harmony of all things, a harmony all men wish to share. All of this is attractive to Western man as he tries to pull together the fragmented strands of his existence.

But this Eastern influence does not account for the phenomenal recent interest in predicting the future. To understand this we must look into history, and take the time to reflect on some lessons it suggests. There have been two periods of history before our own when this fascination for astrology has been felt: the late Greek or Hellenistic period, and the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

The first time this essentially Eastern preoccupation came into our Western tradition was in the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece (c. 300 to 200 B.C.). It is instructive to notice the conditions under which this took place. By the time of Plato (d. 347 B.C.), traditional religion in Greece was dying. The people had lost touch with their classical mythology. No longer were there gods to turn to who had struggled and suffered like men and who thereby lent meaning to human striving. Encouraged by the Platonic philosophy, people turned to the worship of heavenly bodies. With the rise of Macedonia, the social structure of the city states disintegrated; and while the empire of Alexander was at its zenith, the social and spiritual vacuum was the most threatening. The Stoics and Epicureans bravely fought against the rise of superstition, but in vain. During the reign of Alexander (336–323 B.C.) the first instruction in astrology took place. Of course, the astral theology of the Platonists had prepared the way, but it was Persian influence that introduced the worship of the seven planets. By the early second century, astrological manuals abounded.

What was happening? As E. R. Dodds explains it, empty thrones were calling out to be filled. Religion in the traditional sense still existed, but, much like Christianity (and Judaism) today, it was routine and without influence on the values of life. And as G. K. Chesterton has said, when a man ceases to believe in God (or gods), he doesn’t believe in nothing—he believes in anything.

Another way of looking at this is to say that the Greeks experienced a failure of nerve, as Gilbert Murray suggests in The Five Stages of Greek Religion. Man saw himself alone in a world in which he had no allies. There were no more gods appreciative of human effort. It was natural that astrology, which is essentially a surrender to chance, should become popular. Murray comments on this in a way relevant to modern America; “It is worth remembering that the best seed-ground for superstition is a society in which the fortunes of men seem to bear practically no relation to their merits and efforts.” Such is the feeling of man standing alone, stripped of the comfort of faith. Dodds concludes that the individual turned tail and bolted from his own freedom.

Early Christianity fought this religion of fate. It is possible that Paul’s reference to the stoicheia (elements) in Colossians 2:8 may refer to the mystic signs of the planets. Some early Christians, however, took more interest in the stars than was healthy, though the early Church Fathers inveighed against the practice. Augustine denounced belief in the influence of the stars as inconsistent with the Christian view of God and man, and his view became official in the Church.

The Church in the Middle Ages did not keep itself completely pure, however. As a result of the barbarian invasions, the Teutonic belief in fate penetrated medieval theology. In a celebrated incident occurring in 1108, the archbishop of York was refused Christian burial because a book of astrology had been found under his pillow. Thomas Aquinas and Dante, while preserving human freedom, allowed the stars some influence over man’s activities. Since much of classical antiquity was rediscovered through Arabic sources, a great deal of astrology was imported along with it. Chairs of astrology were established in all the leading universities, and strange and terrifying prophecies abounded.

That the sixteenth century marked the peak of this second great rise of astrology and prophetic speculation is not without significance. Even the most religious men included the influence of the stars in their creed. It was a day of synthesis when neo-Platonism, Greek mythology, and Christian theology were joined in uneasy alliance. Philip Melanchthon, the famous disciple of Luther, occupied the chair of astrology in Wittenberg. How Christians could allow such superstition can be illustrated by a treatise from the period called Astrology Theologized: The Spiritual Hermeneutics of Astrology and Holy Writ. In this treatise, astrology is equated with the light of nature that belongs to our present earthly life, whereas theology is seen as a spiritual understanding, arising from within by the illumination of the Holy Spirit.

But why should this revival of prophetic interest have occurred in the sixteenth century? Wasn’t that the period of the rebirth of learning and scholarship? The Renaissance was that, but it was more. As in ancient Greece and in our own day, the outward splendor merely concealed a deep-seated spiritual crisis.

Medieval man had sought and found a harmonious hierarchical system in which each part of life and the world had meaning in the grand scheme of salvation. His world view, imaginatively captured in Dante’s Divine Comedy, was like a journey in which all the stages reassuringly fit together. With the Renaissance and the Reformation, the unity was broken: strange new factors called for attention, and man’s place in the scheme of things was no longer secure. Violent social upheavals, manifested in peasant wars and the sack of Rome in 1527, threatened the whole social structure. With the rediscovery of classical form, humanists proclaimed a new day for the individual man, but it was a solitary man facing life without the traditional supports. As in our own day, the Christian faith, while still accepted in principle, ceased for many to be a vital principle of living. In the uncertainty many more began to look to the stars.

The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century heralded the end of astrological speculation. Man was coming of age, comfortable in this world and unconcerned about the next. Strange, then, that in our own highly sophisticated century we should again wish to believe in the influence of stars. Wars and economic collapses have called into question the humanistic ideals of the Enlightenment, and for a third time the question has become insistent: Who am I and what am I to make of myself?

It is the Christian view that history leads somewhere and has an end. The Christian view proposes, moreover, that a personal and loving God directs history’s course, has acted decisively in it in Jesus Christ, and stands at its end. For the believing Christian, then, it is precisely because an all-wise God is directing history that the moral and scientific efforts of man make any sense. Because we live in a moral order that has direction, we can work for truth and goodness. Since Hegel (mediated by Marx and Darwin), our Western view of progress has been secularized. We cannot bring ourselves to believe history is going nowhere (that it is cyclical, for example, as the Greeks believed). Yet, if there is direction, either it must be implicit in the whole process (determined) or it must be provided by ourselves.

Alvin Toffler has predicted a future of ever-increasing change and transience, assuring us with the certainty that only a prophet with credentials would claim: “The nature of what can and will be done exceeds anything that man is yet psychologically and morally prepared to live with.” Whatever the exact shape of the future, it is coming. And Toffler, in true prophetic style, writes to help create the consciousness man will need to guide his evolution. Charles Reich sees the dawning of “consciousness three” as the next (final?) level. George Leonard, in The Transformation, sees man advancing into a state of higher being, of oneness with all existence. The keynote of all these excursions into the future is inevitability. One may join the march or not, but that it has direction is sure. Leonard’s book is significantly subtitled “A Guide to the Inevitable Changes in Mankind.”

It was precisely this point that bothered poet Archibald MacLeish at the beginning of World War II. He felt himself living in a generation of prophets. They were all prophets of doom. But this bothered him far less than their fatalism. “Our generation fled to fate,” he explains, “not by opposing it … but by searching it out in order that we might yield to it … not only our responsibilities but our will.” Then with a perception that recalls the decline of faith in ancient Greece and our own secularism: “We fled to fate—we invented a fate of our own—to escape a world which had grown too large for us, a world too complicated to understand, too huge to know.” No science or education has equipped us to deal with the world’s complexities, and real faith has become inoperative.

Against this background, the revival of interest in biblical prophecy is to be seen. As MacLeish was writing, many Christians were busy identifying Mussolini with the Antichrist of Revelation and the Axis powers with the revived Roman Empire. Charts of biblical events were prepared to show how God was working out his program. It is, of course, a great comfort for the believer to trust in God’s direction. But great comfort can easily become a crutch or even an escape. If it is true that prophecy is concerned only with the actions of God, it can easily follow in our thinking that what we do does not really matter. The biblical view is that what God does is always vitally related to what man does. Prophecy is not merely prediction; it is judgment and it is promise.

We have noticed that the rise of astrology and prophetic speculation has its origin in the feeling of helplessness. Events that occur around the individual seem to bear no relation to his efforts. Astrology offers the perfect ritual for such a “theology.” But the danger is that Christians, experiencing this same sense of helplessness in the face of world events, may replace astrology with biblical prophecy. Unknowingly, they may simply be giving fatalism a Christian veneer.

In 1958, when the current interest in prophecy was growing, a prominent popular magazine ran a series on biblical prophecy written by theologians of different persuasions. The evangelical contribution concluded with this paragraph: “The study of Bible prophecy is difficult but rewarding. God has revealed many facets of His plan. How thrilling it is to watch events as they unfold, and see the working of His mighty hand.” “Watch it coming”—an admonition very different from that of the Apostle Paul: “But as to times and seasons, brethren, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves know that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:1–2).

It is no coincidence that the publication of Hal Lindsey’s first book on prophecy coincided with the greatest revival of astrology in three hundred years. (It is interesting to note how often his book appears in bookstores alongside astrology manuals.) Man can escape as easily into prophecy as into astrology. In either case, he is a pawn and thus relieved of moral responsibility. That this was no part of Lindsey’s purpose is clear from the final pages of his book. Certainly God has used his treatment to lead many to a commitment to Christ, and for this God is to be praised. But we must be careful that our longing for Christ’s return is not motivated by a desire to escape responsibility.

One writer, in castigating all prophetic, optimistic views of the future, makes a statement that Christians would do well to ponder: “Those with a vested interest in … Armageddon, like any devout fundamentalist, find comfort in the thought of an approaching dies irae (day of wrath) on which the faithful will at last be recognized when and where it really counts.” How often one hears: “Praise God, the end is coming soon” with just such an implication.

Once I was approached after a service at which I had preached by a member of the congregation who exclaimed: “What a joy to think Christ is coming soon and the last battle will take place!” “Can you really say that gladly,” I answered, “when you know that battle will send thousands or millions to a Christless eternity?” “Well,” he responded, “it’s inevitable, isn’t it?”

That, I believe, is fatalism and not Christian truth. Indeed the end is certain, and we yearn to see Christ, but we do not long for his judgment. Nor is judgment “inevitable”; one has only to recall the story of Jonah and Nineveh. Above all, the thought of Christ’s coming should motivate us to compassion, to a more diligent gospel proclamation, and to greater righteousness.

It is important to remember that the New Testament was written at a time when belief in fate was widespread. The geocentric view of the world led to a common acceptance of the belief that events were governed by the stars. Ralph P. Martin believes that the great passage Philippians 2:5–11 was addressed to people living in just such an atmosphere. He writes: “It assures us that the character of the God whose will controls the universe is to be spelled out in terms of Jesus Christ. He is no arbitrary power, no capricious force, no pitiless indifferent fate. His nature is love. His title to Lordship can be interpreted only in terms of self-denying service for others.”

This Person is the same today as when Paul wrote these words, and his continued Lordship provides meaning not only for our evangelism but also for our moral, educational, and scientific endeavors, for all of these reflect his glory.

Clearly, the escape into prophecy and astrology reflects the identity crisis brought about by a spiritual vacuum. Never has this vacuum been more evident than today. The proper response is not to offer an escape—even if it is into a quasi-Christian view of the future—but rather to proclaim the Christian view of man. Here, Christianity provides for a vital present relationship with the living Christ, and a day-to-day dependence on him. Only in this context can we sincerely pray the prayer of Revelation: “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” For the Person who offers personal fulfillment is the Lord of the future.

Latin American theology is going through a great period of change. Much of this is due to the emergence of young Latin church leaders and theologians. Once, not very long ago, the Latin American had to adjust to the North American missionary because the missionaries ran the churches, taught in the Bible schools and seminaries, directed the evangelistic campaigns, and controlled the money that came from the north. This day has largely passed. Now the missionary must adjust to the thinking of his Latin brothers.

Despite the new forces that are at work here, the Latin evangelicals aren’t throwing out the old missionary doctrinal standards. But they are thinking and expressing themselves in ways that are at times unfamiliar and even shocking to some missionaries. Decades-old church structures are being revised. Doubts are being raised about imported methods: for example, can student work in Latin America be expected to follow the same pattern as student work in the United States? Evangelicals are wholeheartedly committed to distributing the Scriptures, but what if almost half the population cannot read? The Roman Catholic Church, once a conservative monolith, is changing drastically in Latin America, and evangelicals have to reassess their attitudes toward it. And the charismatic movement is affecting virtually all denominations.

In this changing situation, new theological expressions are emerging. One of these that has received great attention outside Latin America is the so-called theology of liberation. Some of us who work in theological circles in Latin America have been disturbed by North American accounts of Latin American theology that seem to be hurried or superficial treatments of a complex subject. There is a communications problem between North and Latin America today, a problem that is not confined to the theological sphere.

If we who call ourselves evangelicals are unable to communicate across cultural lines, what becomes of our communication with unbelievers? North American and Latin American Christians must make an effort to communicate with each other, and to avoid an unnecessarily divided witness.

To encourage this type of dialogue, we wish to point out three basic Christian doctrines that are of special interest among Latin theologians, both Catholic and Protestant.

1. Incarnation. The doctrine of the Incarnation declares that Christ, the second person of the Trinity, took on human flesh and became fully man so that he could be our saviour (John 1:14). Interest in this doctrine centers on the fact that Christ did not simply appear to be a man but fully became human in every sense except that he was without sin. He who was fully God chose to be born into a carpenter’s family and to open himself to the whole gamut of human suffering.

Many Latins are asking, What implications does this have for us as Christians? Are we not to be as fully a part of the world as Christ was? Western theologians have worked very hard at defining Christ’s divinity, but often they have given little thought to the meaning of his humanity. A number of Latin theologians say that in the midst of the misery and suffering of Latin America it is the human question that demands Christian reflection. This does not mean that belief in Christ’s divinity is in any way de-emphasized. These theologians simply call attention to the prominence in Christ’s ministry of relieving suffering, feeding the hungry, curing the sick.

Peter tells us that Christ was an example for us so “that we should walk in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21). Paul calls us to have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus by taking upon ourselves the role of a servant (Phil. 2:5–8). If we Christians are the Body of Christ, then we must involve ourselves in the world with all its suffering and ambiguity, not view it from a comfortable distance.

There is more to Latin American theology than revolution. Before we criticize, we ought to investigate its rumblings. It expresses doctrines in unfamiliar and sometimes shocking language.

We North American evangelicals can perhaps learn something from the Latins’ struggle with living out this doctrine. We find it hard to think of being servants rather than leaders. We are often more content to discuss theological issues than to become agents of healing in the misery of our world. Yet this is what Christ was throughout his earthly ministry.

2. The Nature of Man. When we North Americans discuss this doctrine, we are often trying to affirm man’s sinful nature over against some humanistic view of man’s innate goodness, or his spiritual character over against a secular view that man is simply a higher form of animal. These discussions are important. But the Latin American theologian is likely to be interested in this doctrine for other reasons as well.

Many Latin Americans live in such devastating poverty and under such inhuman political oppression that most North Americans are hard pressed to comprehend it. What does it mean to live as a Christian in countries where the slightest criticism of the government or the least word spoken on behalf of human rights is met with modern instruments of torture that rival the Inquisition’s? For the Latin American Christians, the questions of who man is and what rights he has are of crucial importance. The Latin Christian generally wants no more to deny man’s spiritual needs than to deny Christ’s divinity. But he wants us to see how integrally related man’s human and spiritual dimensions are. We encounter this in social and psychological studies, but as missionaries and Christian workers we often betray in our theology a subtle desire to separate man’s needs and minister exclusively to his “spiritual” side.

An important point often overlooked by observers of Latin American theology is its strong criticism of certain aspects of Western theology, both Catholic and Protestant. Writers such as José Miguez Bonino, Julio de Santa Ana, and Emilio Castro claim that Western theology has shown a strong Platonic emphasis that separates man into body and soul and then concentrates primarily on his soul. They criticize this separation as not being biblical. Going back to the Hebrew word for soul, “nephesh,” these writers argue that the biblical writers saw man as a unity and did not see his physical dimension as a “lesser” reality.

Latin American theologians are by no means alone in making this criticism. They have, though, been especially concerned with the strong impact this dualistic emphasis has had on the Latin American church. Too often the goal of the church has gone no further than an orthodox confession of faith. What a person believed doctrinally was of sole interest; little thought was given to the poverty and exploitation from which he might be suffering. Many Latins would tell us that this misses the fact of Christ’s linking personal salvation with one’s response to the social and economic realities of life (Matt. 25:31–46; Mark 10:17–27; Luke 10:25–37; 19:1–10). The epistles of James and John do not allow for a faith in God that is not also a commitment to helping to improve the human physical condition (Jas. 1:27; 1 John 3:17, 18).

3. Justice and Righteousness. For many of us, the theme of justice in Scripture has been included under the idea of justification, which has often been given an exclusively individualistic interpretation. We speak of the justification of a person who has accepted Christ as his or her Saviour. And we think of righteousness in the same individual sense, i.e., a righteous person. Certainly we can never deny the central importance of the personal confession of Christ as Saviour and Lord whereby a person is justified and made righteous in God’s sight. Nonetheless, our dialogue with the Latin American Christians may call us to question whether we have fully explored the biblical meanings of justice and righteousness if we understand these terms only in a personal, individualistic sense.

José P. Miranda, a Mexican theologian, has pointed out that “justice and righteousness,” or “justice and judgment” as the word is sometimes translated, is a recurring expression found throughout the Old Testament, and it also found its way into the New. This expression first occurs in Genesis 18:19, where God speaks of Abraham as the father of a great nation that will “keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice.” The practice of—“doing”—justice and righteousness is the mark of God’s people.

When we encounter these terms in the New Testament we are likely to divorce them from their Old Testament context. It is unlikely that Jesus’ hearers or the Apostle Paul’s readers would have understood them that way. This is not to deny that both Jesus and Paul bring additional revelation to the Old Testament message. However, they both stress their continuity with the Old Testament (Matt. 5:17; Rom. 1:1–2). When Jesus says, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” or “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (or justice), what does he mean? Miranda and others want us to go back to the Old Testament and see that these terms deal with such matters as economic exploitation, unjust business practices, and the mistreatment of orphans and widows, as well as with idolatry, fornication, and lying (Prov. 27:2; Isa. 58:2; Jer. 22:15–16; Ezek. 18:5). This is to say that they deal as strongly with social morality as with individual ethical action.

A number of Latin theologians see the loss of the social dimension of justice and righteousness as another consequence of the previously mentioned dualism. They attribute this to Western philosophy’s traditional preoccupation with individualism, which is seen to have penetrated Western theology as well. A related concern is the tendency of some evangelicals to write off the present world as hopeless and to await passively Christ’s return to usher in a just age.

Some Latin American exegetes insist that the present impossibility of a perfectly just social order in no way mitigates the biblical mandate that the people of God work for justice in all areas of life. The danger appears when “doing righteousness and justice” is interpreted to require only personal morality, Bible reading, and faithful church attendance. The Latins remind us of the prophetic emphasis that the worship of God is useless if the poor and the oppressed are not being cared for (Isa. 1:10–17; Amos 5:21–25) and that the knowledge of God is correlated with relieving social oppression (Jer. 22:13–16; Isa. 5:8–16; Hosea 6:4–9; Micah 6:6–16).

We North American evangelicals should not respond uncritically to these theological interpretations. No one group has a corner on biblical truth. The Latin Americans do not. But neither do we. Our attitude has sometimes been that of the mother church supplying missionaries to evangelize non-Christian nations (as though the United States were a Christian one) and to guide “weaker” brothers in the Lord. But often we find in Third World churches a spiritual vitality and a biblical comprehension that are sadly lacking in Europe and North America.

Our concern should be to listen carefully to our brothers in other cultures. We should be pursuing dialogue before we offer criticism of the theology emerging from younger churches. There may be much that Jerusalem can learn from Antioch.

What will the last quarter of the twentieth century be like? How will the Church of Christ fare in it?

Many people today seem to assume that our future will be dominated by Marxism, or even by some form of Communism. They foresee a state of affairs in which, under pressure from economic forces, lives will increasingly be controlled by the state. Not a few think this kind of take-over is inevitable and have been trying to adjust their expectations accordingly. I do not say that this is always deliberate; often they are just caught up half-thinkingly in the prevailing trends.

On the whole the churches seem bent on adapting themselves to the ceaseless onrush of socio-political change, under the naïve impression that this is the progressive or enlightened thing to do, and that neither preaching nor theology can be relevant unless it is politically involved. This outlook seems to reflect a form of the Marxist fallacy that religion is the opiate of the people, namely, the idea that the less people think of the other world, the more they will love their neighbors—which is the exact opposite of the teaching of Jesus.

Furthermore, militant “theologies of liberation” have assimilated the prophetic passion of Jewish messianism, and the revolutionary nature and impetus of the Christian message, to Marxist ideology. These liberation theologians adopt a Marxist interpretation of history according to which class conflicts lead, through an inner necessity, to a future in which all human miseries will be eliminated. They believe that Karl Marx uncovered the fundamental “laws of motion” governing society, and thereby turned the understanding of our social problems the right way up. All this involves a causal interpretation of human affairs and a materialist framework for all human ideals, while the kind of utopia it holds out ultimately relies for its fulfillment on violence.

I believe that such an alliance of Christianity with Marxism is a grave mistake. Any socialization or materialization of the Church’s message along these lines can only empty it of its biblical and evangelical content, as well as undermine the freedoms to which traditional Christianity has given rise. There is no possibility along that road of transmuting human society into a community of love, for Marxism has no gospel of salvation from man’s self-centeredness and greed; it can only clamp down upon human life the enslaving structures of group egoism. But even apart from that, I believe that Marxism has no real future. Let me offer two broad reasons for this conviction.

First, the great advances we have been making in science have steadily been eroding the foundations of Marxism by destroying the obsolete ideas of a closed mechanistic universe and the hard instrumentalism that goes with it. The Marxist conception of the technological society is a product of the old positivist view of science, operating with causal mechanisms that it imposes upon every aspect of natural and human existence. But all this is now collapsing. An enormous revolution is taking place in the foundations of knowledge. What is emerging is a very different outlook upon the universe, an outlook characterized by open structures, in which mechanistic concepts have only a limited and low-level validity. The correlate of this new science is a freer and open society in which personal and social relations are emancipated from the tyranny of impersonal forces.

Even apart from the scientific destruction of Marxist premises, we find everywhere today a vast, instinctive revolt against the imperialism of socio-political institutions. One instance of this is the reaction of the young against social mechanization and establishment structures. But this kind of reaction has nothing constructive to offer, unlike what is now developing out of the new science.

I do not believe that the Christian Church has anything to fear from the advance of science. In fact, the more truly scientific inquiry discloses the structures of the created world, the more at home we Christians ought to be in it, for this creation came into being through the Word of God, and in it that Word was made flesh in Jesus Christ our Lord. The more I engage in dialogue with scientists and understand the implications of their startling discoveries, the more I find that, far from contradicting our fundamental beliefs, they open the way for a deeper grasp of the Christian doctrines of creation, incarnation, reconciliation, resurrection, and, not least, the Holy Trinity. This is an age in which we are being emancipated from the tyranny of a narrow-minded scientism, an age in which true science and theology are thrown closely together in the service of God the Father Almighty.

Fuel the pastoral ministry and you feed a society surfeited by secularism, materialism, and a Marxist interpretation of history.

The other reason why I think Marxism has no real future is that there has arisen an immense hunger for spiritual realities that will not be satisfied with merely technological or social reorganization of human affairs. Even science itself, as Michael Polanyi has shown us for many years, cannot do without transcendent grounds, for it perverts and destroys itself when it cuts itself off from spiritual reality and ultimate beliefs. Science has reached the boundary point where it realizes its own limits; hence it is dangerous to delude ourselves with the idea that through natural science we have the only avenue to a true understanding of the universe. Scientists themselves are everywhere acknowledging the need to probe into a deeper dimension of the spirit.

Human civilization is sick of its diet of materialism and secularism; there is a longing for other-worldly and divine resources. The very fact that the Soviet government has to use secret police and brute force to suppress the distribution of the Bible and the dissemination of the Gospel is a mighty tribute both to the power of Christianity and to a desire for spiritual life that will not be denied. In the Western world, this longing for spirituality sometimes takes bizarre forms, such as involvement in the occult, but behind it all there is surely a desperate hunger for God, a craving for the bread of life. The human spirit has been made for communion with God and will not be stifled by social or institutional substitutes.

The most striking sign of the quest for spiritual experience is the tide of pentecostalism that has broken through the confines of religious and ecclesiastical formalism. It refuses to have anything to do with a distant, inactive deity; it insists that God is alive and dynamically at work through his Spirit in the personal and social life of believers, moving them toward Jesus Christ.

But whether or not the charismatic movement as such breaks out among the churches, undoubtedly a steady spiritual eruption is taking place. Common people, bored and depressed by the incessant moral denunciations they hear all round them and frustrated by sermons lacking evangelical joy, clamor for the sheer, stark simplicity of Jesus, and the good news of the Gospel of salvation he proclaimed. In the last few months many people have written or spoken to me of a deep hunger in human hearts, a cry for spiritual help, a yearning for deeper faith in Christ, and a new desire for prayer. I believe a spiritual awakening is on the way, rising from the grass roots of the Church.

What this all means is that the Church is faced with an unparalleled opportunity. The deep changes going on in our way of life that (despite outward appearances at the moment) are leading to a free and open society, together with the recognition that human thought must be lifted up to a higher level of spiritual reality, even for the progress of science, give us a magnificent chance to hold up Jesus Christ in such a way that the Gospel is allowed to exert its transforming power upon human culture, and thus shape the fundamental pattern of our social order.

To do this, we must reach a deeper understanding of the essential mission of the Church. Let me indicate something of the way in which I envisage this mission by calling to mind the early Church and the Reformation.

Surely the most impressive fact about the early Church was the irrepressible, spontaneous outburst of Good News with which it exploded upon the ancient world in land after land. Its daily life throbbed with mission and expansion in such a way that every believer seemed to be a missionary. At least, every believer was a witness, for to be a Christian and to be a witness to Christ were the same thing. It was the hallmark of a Christian that he was ready to pay the cost of witness and discipleship in martyrdom. There were no missionary societies in those days, and yet the Gospel spread like a forest fire, until within three hundred years the civilized world was claimed for Christianity. There was no attempt to carry through a program of social change, and yet society was profoundly transformed. The Christian Church proved to be most effective in changing the world by being faithful to its missionary mandate.

What was the secret of it all? The early Christians had a divine message, and they really believed in it. I am thinking here not of the great doctrines of the faith to which they gave classical expression in the creeds so much as of belief in the active intervention of God himself in our human life. They could not get over the staggering significance of the Incarnation, God manifest in the flesh, or of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which knocked a gaping hole through all mundane religion and philosophy. This is the Creator himself at work in our life and death, the Saviour of the world. And it was because they really believed in that kind of direct interaction between the living God and this world that meditation, worship, prayer, and intercession occupied such a large place in the life of the early Christians.

Such a Church with such a message was able to penetrate culture and society and reshape them from within, and thus put a Christian stamp upon the foundations of our Western civilization. Because the Church’s message was free from ideological ties, it could create new situations in society and in the world in which the transforming power of the Gospel left such an impact that all subsequent history has been affected.

Why not today? I believe we now have an opportunity such as we have not had for many centuries to carry out the same kind of mission. But to do it, we must learn from the fact that the early Church had a crystal-clear message and really believed in its divine power. We have tried so hard to fit in with the current patterns of society, obsessed with the idea that the message of the Church must be made relevant, that what we actually do is to belittle the Christian message and imprison it in what is merely transient. I believe that whole procedure is now utterly bankrupt. What we need, and need desperately, is a renewal in the very springs of our faith in the living God: not an inert, inactive god, not some vague deity behind the back of Jesus Christ, but the God who has come himself among us in his own mighty eternal Being, and personally has to do with us in Christ, crucified and risen as the Redeemer of the world. God has been using the chaotic forces of the modern world to plow up our culture and civilization, so that they are now ready to receive the seed of the Gospel.

The Reformation was another great period in which there was an irrepressible, spontaneous outburst of the Gospel that proved to be evangelical and social dynamite in country after country. Out of research into the original sources of the Church, its apostolic foundation in Christ, came a great rediscovery of the centrality of Christ. This evoked a movement to bring the Church back into conformity to him, and thus to restore the face of the ancient catholic Church. Somehow the institutional church through its alliance with worldly power had come to usurp the place of Christ, and the voice of the Church seemed louder than the voice of God. In contrast, the great emphasis of the Reformers was upon the mighty, living Word of God, which is no mere word but the Word-Act of God, still operating through his Spirit in saving, transforming power.

I had a vivid experience of what this meant when I was a young student in Greece. I had set out to climb Mount Olympus, and at the end of the first stage I lodged at a small monastery on the lower slopes. That evening as I sat by the stream outside the monastery reading my Greek New Testament, an aged monk, bent with the years, came to sit beside me. When he saw what I was reading he became very excited. Apparently he had never held a New Testament in his hands before; all they had in the chapel was a lectionary. And so I gave him my copy, and he tucked it away in the folds of his cassock like a treasure. On my return from the top I stayed at the monastery again, and down by the stream I found my friend the monk absorbed in the Gospels. Out of his eyes shone a light that I shall never forget. He was so changed that he seemed even physically transfigured.

It was a spiritual renewal of that kind on a vast scale that happened in the sixteenth century when the living Word and Spirit of God transformed the face of Europe. And it is a recovery of that Reformation experience of God’s Word that we need if we are to meet the challenge presented by the opening of the structures of our way of life, and direct the tide of spiritual regeneration now going on.

But such an experience does require a recovery of Bible reading throughout the Church and a renewal of the ministry as a proper instrument of the Gospel. And by that I mean two things: we must recover both genuine preaching of the Word and genuine pastoral visitation.

Far too much of our preaching today seems to do little more than reflect prevailing trends in society. Often we preachers seem no more than servants of public opinion. Because we do not spend sufficient time in the study wrestling with the Word of God, our sermons tend to be boring and trivial, made up of scrappy ideas often suggested by the newspapers or television, and the human heart remains hungry for the bread of life. I do not believe there is any way other than through faithful ministry of God’s Holy Word to inject the creative truth and dynamism of the Gospel into the fabric of our life. If we fail here, we will not match up to the challenge that beckons us so excitingly.

But it is no less important to minister that Word, as Calvin used to say, privati et domatim, privately and from house to house. It is there that we really minister the Gospel to people as persons, and not as just functions of industry, or cogs in the machinery of trade-union power, or pawns of the politicians. Humanity is made up of real people interlocked in personal connections, and it is there, in the midst of birth and death, marriage and family, that the Gospel must be planted. How can we do that except by complementing our proclamation of the Word from the pulpit by personal, pastoral ministry of the same Word in the home?

Genuine pastoral visitation has undergone a disastrous decline, and we seem to be allowing a secular psychology to replace spiritual counseling. I do not want to detract from the valuable help the ministry can derive from good psychologists, psychiatrists, and sociologists; but I do object when all this is allowed to relegate into secondary importance, and even to replace, a distinctively Christian understanding of man, and when some doctrine of self-fulfillment, or what a friend of mine calls “auto-salvation,” replaces justification by the grace of God. I do not believe anything can be a substitute for the evangelical insight into human nature that a minister gains as he prays with people in their homes and directs them to Jesus Christ. Nor do I believe a minister can preach the Gospel from the pulpit in ways relevant to his congregation unless he converses with them about spiritual realities in their homes.

This is not a ministry that can be adequately fulfilled by one person on his own. Pastoral care of this sort must be shared, with the eldership revitalized as a spiritual office. Even so, I believe, it is very difficult for a minister to be a shepherd to more than six hundred souls if he is to engage in pastoral care as he is commissioned to do by the great Shepherd of the Sheep.

Former students of mine in the ministry tell me there is a host of young people in our midst who are largely outside the Church, or often only half within it. They believe in God and are desperate for spiritual guidance and clear convictions, but they recoil from the institutional church because somehow its formalism and legalism get in the way of Christ. Direct personal and pastoral contact of the kind I have been speaking of can contribute much in a situation like this. These are the young people in whose hands the future of Christianity in the last quarter of the twentieth century may lie—and it would be fearful if we lost them.

I believe that from generation to generation the Church relies more on the parish ministry than on anything else. No doubt the concept of the parish needs modification through assimilation to that of the community, while the ministry also needs restructuring to give place to a shared or corporate ministry, and no doubt other forms of ministry have their proper role today. But even so, nothing can replace the parish ministry as the staple ministry of the Church.

I am full of hope for the future. If we can once again develop the parish ministry as a vigorous ministry of the Word, matching a revitalized proclamation of the Gospel, I believe the Church will be able to turn the life of our people in a radically Christian direction.

A Missionary Dying On the Molopo

What shall I do to fill the sense of void?

The night is heavy like a coverlet

Upon this fevered man who cannot move

His feet, his legs, his hands, his giddy head.

The smell of citronella, insects’ whirr,

The slender assagai against the fence,

The aardvark pawing at the rotting stump,

The eerie sheen of moonlight on the veld

Press in upon the vanguard of my life.

In the kraal the intermittent cry

Of Lumba’s baby measures out the hours;

Its swift incision cuts the straining ropes

That hold the bastion of my sanity.

Out of my panicked depths the swell brings up

Two lines I learned from Auden on Yeats’ death:

‘The provinces of his body revolted

The squares of his mind were empty.’

Never shall I return to Oregon

Nor see the gulls by Neah-Kah-Nie Light,

The moist, clean forms of holly, razor-edged,

The fruit trees on the foothills of Mount Hood.

Even when I was only eight my wish

Was to be buried in a country plot

Near Bethany, Damascus or Monroe,

One not well-tended but knee-deep in leaves

Of alder and madroña before the rains.

Not dying, God, but dying in this place,

Dying where there was never from the first

A sense of home, a sense of knowing love,

A sense of unity with smells, with soil,

With flowers, landscapes, birds, familiar sounds,

A sense of sharing one’s most transient life

With those whose eyes understood at once.

Here there was always mystery in their eyes,

Never the light for me but vacant stares

Looking through me as if diaphanous

And what transfixed them were outside of me,

As if I were an interference poised

Between them and their nameless numina.

Until the precipice of this last hour

I believed that You would order life for me

To end the way that You had ordered five

To follow four or be the half of ten.

I would go home. I moved by that sole hope.

Whether to live or die I would go home.

I will not go. The end is destined here.

Thoughts of all man-made consolations, God,

Increase my pain. There now is no pretense.

I go out to this death with no defense.

Lumba’s baby cries my requiem,

My final terror in an ochre land.

George E. McDonough

Little of the overt spirituality that crept into Baptist Sunday-school teacher Jimmy Carter’s campaign found its way into Kemper Arena at the Republican National Convention in Kansas City. Ody Fish, convention manager and Republican National Committee vice-chairman, even sought to control invocations and benedictions by requiring advance texts of the prayers. To keep spontaneous sermons from cropping up, Fish ordered that “all invocations and benedictions will be limited to two minutes with a three-minute absolute maximum.”

To keep any apparent irreverence from television viewers, the rule-makers also decreed that the convention’s delegates bow their heads during all prayers. After the first day, however, a few non-Christian delegates declined to make such a gesture, citing privately the explicit invocation of the name of Jesus Christ or the Trinity in several of the prayers. Among the nine persons who offered opening and closing prayers were Episcopal bishop Arthur A. Vogel of Missouri, Catholic auxiliary bishop George K. Fitzsimmons of Missouri, Pastor Ted Nissen of Colonial Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, and John Erickson of the Kansas City-based Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Several other program participants referred to their personal faith in Christ.

The face of Christianity, however, was consistently visible on the streets. Christians from Kansas City and elsewhere preached, sang, and passed out tracts to the delegates, reporters, protesters, and convention guests who clogged the streets of downtown Kansas City and the stockyards, where Kemper Arena is located.

The most prominent group of young Christians, with several hundred in its ranks, called itself “Christians Care for America.” Originally the group had intended to carry a Christian witness to Yippie demonstrators, but that plan quickly failed. Explained founder Charles B. Childers, 26, of Madison, Wisconsin: “We didn’t reach them very well, because they were so drugged up.” The group then began to concentrate on the delegates and the press. A lot of literature was handed out, but rallies were sparsely attended.

One Christian who persisted in a head-on confrontation with the protesters was Fred Bishop, 36, a Baptist evangelist from DuQuoin, Illinois. Each evening Bishop stationed himself adjacent to the Yippie protest site outside Kemper Arena and preached and sang, imploring the demonstrators to turn to Christ. There were “a few” conversions, reported a colleague of Bishop’s without specifying details.

The threat of disruptive demonstrations by Yippies and other protesters evaporated almost before the convention had begun. “I guess we sort of miss ‘Nam and Nixon,” lamented Yippie Billy Bright. Most attempts at confrontation ended feebly as police used consistent restraint in their handling of demonstrators. Through the entire week, convention-related arrests numbered fewer than two dozen, mainly on misdemeanor trespassing, and disorderly-conduct charges. One youth was arrested for indecent exposure when he took off his clothes in front of a delegate hotel and proclaimed himself the nude candidate for president with the slogan, “What have I got to hide?”

One major contributor to keeping the peace was a group called WATCH. Organized by James O. Leffingwell, executive director of Kansas City’s Metropolitan Inter-Church Agency, WATCH helped keep the city calm by spreading its 460 volunteer observers throughout the convention area to note any extraordinary activities on the part of protesters, police, or others. WATCH issued a daily newsletter summarizing its findings. In one typical case, a rumor spread among the Yippies that police were gathering nearby for an invasion of their campsite; a WATCH observer went to the nearest police station, where he learned that the officers were simply gathering for a reassignment of location. The observer reported the information to the demonstrators and they relaxed over beer, marijuana, and rock music.

The most conspicuous religious event during the convention was a prayer breakfast on Wednesday, attended by well over 1,000 persons, including hundreds of delegates. It was hosted by Governor Christopher Bond of Missouri, emceed by Congressman Bill Armstrong of Colorado, and sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ. The star of the program was Pat Boone, who, between his two songs, affirmed his belief that “God is working in the political process here.” Boone was a Reagan delegate from California. Congressman Albert H. Quie, a Minnesota Lutheran and leader in the Washington prayer movement (he and President Ford have often prayed together), led in prayer, as he did at one session of the convention. In the main address, Crusade’s founder-president Bill Bright surprisingly skirted politics as he made a straight plea for Christian conversion. (In many recent addresses, Bright has emphasized the need for involvement by Christians in the political process, and he has taken a conservative stand publicly on some issues.)

Missing from the dais were two of the most prominent Republican evangelicals, Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon and Representative John Anderson of Illinois. Anderson disagreed with most of the breakfast’s promoters on making abortion a political issue. “I don’t think it belongs in a platform,” he said. “You can’t make a political football out of a very personal human issue.”

In the platform adopted by the GOP, a plank on “Morality in Foreign Policy” set forth as the Republican goal “a just and lasting peace in the world … based upon our deep belief in the rights of man, the rule of law, and guidance by the hand of God.” The section came down hard on the human-rights issue in the Soviet Union, especially in regard to rights of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

On other issues, the platform reaffirmed support for the Equal Rights Amendment, endorsed the adoption of a constitutional amendment “to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children,” asked that non-sectarian prayers be allowed in public schools, favored tax credits for parents of children in non-public schools, and opposed forced busing.

In accepting the nomination, President Ford said he will campaign on his record of having demanded “honesty, decency, and personal integrity” from government officials. “Private morality and public trust must go together” at all levels of government, he asserted. He reminded his audience that he had asked the American people to “confirm me with your prayers,” and he said he has tried to live by the prayer of John Adams that is carved into a marble fireplace in a room in the White House: “May none but the honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

His running mate, Robert Joseph Dole, 53, was raised a Methodist. He still holds membership in Trinity United Methodist Church in Russell, Kansas. In Washington, however, he and his wife attend services regularly at St. John’s Episcopal Church, where the Fords also frequently attend. The Doles were wed in 1975 at the Washington Cathedral (Episcopal) in a service conducted by Senate chaplain Edward L. R. Elson, a United Presbyterian clergyman. (Dole’s first marriage of twenty-four years was dissolved in 1972 on grounds of incompatibility.)

In an interview, Michigan Ford delegate Paul Henry, 34, political-science professor at Calvin College (and son of theologian Carl F. H. Henry), spoke at length on the crucial issue of the impact of evangelicals on politics in 1976. Henry, a member of the convention rules committee, denigrated the idea of an evangelical voting bloc, maintaining that there are at least four very different groups of evangelicals (free-church, confessional, hardshell fundamentalist, and Catholic) who have little in common beyond a conservative approach to biblical and theological issues. “It is naïve to believe that just because there are fifty million of us we have much of an effect in politics,” he asserted. Moreover, there are forbidding logistical problems involved: “How do you take moral principle and implement it politically?”

Henry, author of Politics For Evangelicals, also sees the strong individualistic bent of evangelicals as an obstacle to political influence. “The most enthusiastic evangelicals are the ones who have the least sensitivity to the organizational and bureaucratic aspects of political reality. In politics, you’ve got to be organized.”

Henry characterized many of his fellow evangelicals at the convention as representing “fundamentalism in a polyester suit,” he said. “They have little sense of the real moral issues of this election—economic issues and the like. They have zeal without humility; they don’t recognize how difficult the issues are.” According to Henry, there was a lot of outright “fundamentalist involvement in both the Wallace and Reagan candidacies.” As for abortion as a major moral issue this year: “There’s no doubt in my mind that in some cases abortion is justifiable. Killing is wrong, but in some cases war is justifiable. There is no difference. Our choices are all fallen.”

It is clear that evangelicals are going to be involved on both sides of the political campaign this year. Henry offers counsel: “The interests of God are in both camps. The Providence of God reaches down into all the affairs of men, and not just into one political group.”

TIM MILLER and TONDA RUSH

Jesus Festivals

More than 40,000 registrants showed up on Ralph Watson’s dairy farm outside Mercer in western Pennsylvania last month for the final three-day Jesus ’76 rally in a series of four that were held this year. Earlier, Jesus ’76 in Orlando, Florida, attracted about 15,000, and the ones in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Brantford, Ontario, each drew about 6,000.

Many of the nationally known speakers and musicians involved were at all four events. For the most part, organizers attempted to strike a happy medium in programming that both charismatics and non-charismatics could live with. Thus it was that Campus Crusade’s Bill Bright, for example, could appear on the same program with charismatic broadcaster Pat Robertson.

There were some raised eyebrows at the Mercer rally, though. In several emotion-charged sessions, Robertson encouraged the audience to speak in tongues, and he announced instant healings. A stream of young people flowed to the platform to confirm they had been suddenly healed (of epilepsy, cancer of the uterus, a fracture). Several said their eyesight had been corrected, and they smashed their glasses. One youth said that he had been plagued by lust from age 13 but was now delivered “forever.”

Some leaders privately expressed reservations about Robertson’s conduct, but one said it was calculated. At previous Jesus rallies, he explained, the middle-ground approach pleased neither the charismatics nor the non-charismatics. Hence Robertson’s style was one with which the charismatics could identify fully and feel liberated.

Whatever, the heavy Pentecostal emphasis did not fracture the spirit of fellowship that was so plainly evident. In interviews, many persons said that the sense of love that pervaded the encampment was what impressed them most.

The Mercer organizers, a small band of laymen and ministers who had also sponsored Jesus ’74 in Mercer, announced they were disbanding this year. Money in excess of the $250,000-plus budget will be distributed to several area ministries.

The Jesus camp-meeting festivals began with Jesus ’73 in Morgantown in eastern Pennsylvania. Its leaders have since incorporated as Jesus Ministries, and they helped get the other Jesus rallies going. A permanent camp site for future rallies has been purchased in central Pennsylvania. (Last year’s Jesus ’75 at Morgantown attracted more than 25,000.)

The Jesus festivals emphasize Bible teaching (there were four huge “teaching” tents at Mercer), music “that ministers to the spirit,” and oneness in Christ. The book-store tent is always crowded, and display booths provide opportunities to meet representatives of mission agencies, Christian colleges, and other groups.

Businessman Alex Clattenberg, who directs the Rock House youth ministry at Calvary Assembly of God Church in Winter Park, Florida (sponsor of the Orlando event), thinks the Jesus-festival idea will spread to many other states in coming years.

Choosing A Church

Presidential hopeful Jimmy Carter once said that if elected he would join the Baptist church nearest to the White House. Some Baptists around Washington, D. C., took him seriously and got out their maps and rulers. They quickly discovered a problem. First Baptist Church and Calvary Baptist Church are both six blocks from the White House. Pastor emeritus Edward Hughes Pruden of First Baptist happened to be at the Kiwanis luncheon where Carter made his remark, and Pruden proceeded to give directions, pointing out that Harry Truman frequently walked to worship services at First. Pastor Charles A. Trentham of First followed up Pruden’s contact with several letters.

Pastor George Hill of Calvary Baptist also dropped Carter a friendly letter. He insists his church is a couple of hundred yards closer than First—if the measurement is made from the east gate instead of the front porch.

Both churches are downtown; First is close to the posh neighborhoods of “Embassy Row,” while Calvary sits amid commuter parking lots and deteriorating houses near the red-light district. Both count heavily on older suburbanites as core members. Both are integrated (relatively few blacks attend; black churches abound in the same neighborhoods). And both are dually aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention and the American Baptist Churches. First’s ties are stronger to the SBC; Calvary has firm relationships with the ABC, and its pulpit tends to be somewhat more liberal than First’s. Calvary engages in week-day neighborhood ministries, some of them headed by a black minister on its staff.

Legislator’s Legacy

Congressmen do much more than make speeches and vote on legislation. “Sonlight,” a group of fifteen young people who came to Washington August 3 to proclaim the Gospel, became keenly aware of that just before their first public appearance the next day.

Gary Holder of Tower Grove Baptist Church in St. Louis, Missouri, leader of the group, had met Congressman Jerry Litton a few months earlier and told him of the proposed tour. Litton then arranged permits for Sonlight to sing in capital area parks and at the monuments.

Litton, a Presbyterian, won the Democratic nomination for a U. S. Senate seat August 3. His plane crashed when he was taking off from his hometown of Chillicothe for a victory celebration in Kansas City that night. He and his wife and two children, along with the pilot and his son, died in the crash.

In recognition of the congressman’s death, flags were flying at half staff on the day Sonlight started singing in Washington. At a park concert, Holder concluded the program by telling of Litton’s assistance and asking for prayers for the survivors.

Pulpit Politics

Black clergyman J. L. Richard, president of the Baptist Ministers Union of Oakland, California, told reporters last month he has returned $2,000 to the Jimmy Carter campaign fund. His action came after the Los Angeles Times disclosed that he and three other black ministers in the Oakland area were paid a total of $5,000 to woo support for Carter among black voters in the June presidential primary (which Carter lost to Governor Jerry Brown). Richard said no receipts were available to document how the money was spent but, he added, he turned over a number of $25 and $50 “donations” to fellow ministers who had publicly endorsed Carter.

Richard said he considered the money as payment for services rendered. He told the Times: “When a preacher stands up in his church and talks about Jimmy Carter, he’s working for Jimmy Carter as far as I’m concerned, and he should be paid for it.… I don’t work for no damn politician for nothing.” He returned the money, he said, because of the “questionable implications” raised in press coverage.

There was no indication late last month as to whether the other three ministers will return the $1,000 each they received.

Carter spokesman Jody Powell said there was no need for Richard to return the money “because he’s done nothing wrong.” Giving “walk-around money” to community leaders to drum up votes has long been a political practice in both black and white neighborhoods. The practice is not illegal, Carter reminded reporters. He said he has ordered an investigation, however, to determine if some money was spent improperly, in which case recipients would be liable to income tax. He pledged to report anything illegal and to “take aggressive steps to prevent any reoccurrence.” Irregularities in financial reporting could force the Carter campaign to return part of the federal matching funds it has received.

Graham: Undecided

Evangelist Billy Graham warned last month that Christians should not vote for “born-again” Christian political candidates simply because they agree with the office seekers’ religious views. “I would rather have a man in office who is highly qualified to be President who didn’t make much of a religious profession than to have a man who had no qualifications but who made a religious profession,” he told reporter Russell Chandler of the Los Angeles Times. He indicated that President Ford and challenger Jimmy Carter have similar religious views. He added that he had not yet decided for whom he would vote.

The interview was part of a series of press conferences in connection with the evangelist’s eight-day crusade in San Diego. An average of more than 31,000 persons attended each of the stadium rallies, and some 10,200 decisions for Christ were recorded, about 44 per cent of them first-time professions of faith, according to crusade officials.

The crusade had the backing of 399 churches. Several hundred pastors and other church leaders attended a week-long school of evangelism held in conjunction with the crusade. Also, 1,400 young people, many of them college students, registered for CODE ’76, a three-day training conference held at San Diego State University.

Convicted

Pastor Charles B. Blair of the 6,000-member Calvary Temple church in Denver was convicted last month of seventeen counts of securities fraud. The jury deliberated seven hours. Appeals and sentencing are set for September 24. Each offense carries a prison sentence of from one to three years plus a $5,000 fine, but prosecutors say they will ask for probation for Blair because he is attempting to repay the investors.

Fund-raiser Wendell Nance was convicted last November of eleven counts of fraud in the case. He received a suspended prison sentence and had to pay a $5,000 fine.

The case involves sales of more than $11 million in unregistered time-payment certificates to 3,400 persons from late 1971 to early 1973. When authorities halted sales because the securities were unregistered and failed to contain adequate financial information, a crunch ensued, forcing Calvary, the Charles E. Blair Foundation, and Life Center, a nursing-home project, into bankruptcy (see July 26, 1974, issue, page 36, and January 3, 1975, issue, page 34). Many in the nursing home reportedly lost all or most of their savings in the collapse.

During the trial, Blair contended that Nance was to blame and that he was kept in the dark about the financial operation until it was too late to straighten it out. The prosecution established, however, that Blair had been warned by his own lawyer in 1971 that the church would lose in any civil suit against it because of inadequate information given to prospective investors. Also, he was told in 1972 and 1973 it would be illegal to “continue” in a “Ponzi” scheme (where interest is paid out of principal rather than earnings). Blair acknowledged knowing of the desperate plight in early 1972.

Blair told his congregation on the Sunday after his conviction that he still feels he is innocent. He said he has decided not to resign from the church, which he started in 1947, and will stay on the job until every investor who lost money is repaid. Four payments totaling $1 million have been made under a quarterly repayment plan; a fifth is due September 19.

“The Lord will take this bad situation and bring out of it that which will bring glory to his name,” said Blair. He apologized to those who had lost money in investments and to members who have had to defend him to their friends. Reporter Virginia Culver of the Denver Post said Blair spoke quietly, his voice choked with emotion at times. “The crowd gave him a standing ovation,” she reported, “and many of the worshipers wiped tears from their eyes during his talk.”

The Dead Speak

During a memorial service the day after seven Campus Crusade for Christ women staffers died in the recent Colorado flood (see August 27 issue, page 34), some of their fellow staff members decided to do more than just remember. The some 2,000 attending Crusade’s staff training conference in Colorado at the time of the tragedy chipped in $9,000 outright and got on the phones to ask for more from relatives and friends.

On Sunday, August 15, their idea became reality: a full-page ad containing photos of the women and an evangelistic message appeared in 150 major newspapers throughout the land. Some of the newspapers donated the space, others offered reduced rates.

“These women lost their lives in the Colorado flood,” said the ad. “But they are still alive. They have a message for you.” Accompanying the evangelistic appeal was a reproduction of Crusade’s “Four Spiritual Laws.”

Furor Over Form 990

Opposition is growing among church leaders to a proposal that would disqualify religious schools, hospitals, orphanages, and old-age homes from being classified as “integrated church auxiliaries” by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.

The change in classification would mean that these institutions would have to submit a completed Form 990 to the IRS each year. No taxes would be imposed, but the form asks non-profit organizations with more than $10,000 a year in gross receipts to list the names and addresses of all people who have contributed $5,000 or more in a year. The form also requires a detailed listing of other income, grants and gifts, certain salaries, and the nature of the activities engaged in.

The proposed change was announced in the Federal Register February 11, and a hearing on the issue was held June 7. Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, and Mormons have expressed strong opposition. The Eastern Association of Christian Schools had a lawyer draw up a twenty-two-page brief that was sent to IRS commissioner Donald C. Alexander last month. It charges that the change runs counter to the intent of Congress when it enacted current tax-exemption legislation.

Sunday schools, men’s and women’s clubs, mission societies, and churches themselves would continue to be exempt from filing the information form.

For Sale

Deeply in debt, the Black Muslims have decided to dismantle their commercial holdings, estimated to be worth up to $70 million, according to a New York Times report. The business empire was built up in accord with the self-help philosophy of Elijah Muhammad, who led the Muslims for some forty years. But a lot of the business enterprise was just show, says Wallace Muhammad, who took over after his father died in 1974. The businesses were run poorly, and there was evidence of widespread corruption, he asserts. He acknowledges that the group owes millions of dollars in back taxes.

Latin Ferment

Some forty Catholic churchmen from fifteen nations, including seventeen bishops (four of them Americans), were detained by the Ecuadorian government last month and “invited to leave the country.” Plainclothes military police carrying automatic weapons burst into the conference room at the mountain retreat house in Riobamba where the group was meeting. The churchmen were taken by bus to a military barracks in Quito, 120 miles away, where they were detained for twenty-seven hours. Some were interrogated all night. The thirty-seven foreigners were then expelled.

Minister of the Interior Javier Manrique accused the group of interfering openly in the internal affairs of Ecuador. “The themes being discussed were of subversive character,” said Manrique, claiming that the police had found documents dealing with the unity of Catholics and Marxists, the role of the Catholic leftists, the military coup in Argentina, and the role of the Trotskyist party in Argentina. “There were even criticisms of the present Ecuadorian government by foreigners, which we cannot permit,” said Manrique. He said the participants had entered the country secretly.

The action was criticized sharply by church officials and the press. Political, labor, and student groups in Ecuador also protested the move.

Auxiliary bishop Alfonso López Trujillo, general secretary of the Colombia-based Latin American Episcopal Conference (CELAM), called the incident a “lamentable error” and “a violation of pastoral liberty,” and denounced “the burying of democracy in Latin America.” He said the church will “continue to exercise the right of criticism, in favor of the poor.”

Auxiliary bishop Patricio Flores of San Antonio, Texas, one of those attending the pastoral conference, said the detained churchmen had been treated well (they were allowed to celebrate a midnight mass), but he criticized “the unjustified suspicions of the Ecuadorian government,” and said the only purpose of the meeting was to discuss the propagation of the Catholic faith.

Other Americans involved included Archbishop Roberto Sanchez of Santa Fe, New Mexico, Auxiliary Bishops Juan Arzube of Los Angeles and Gilbert Chavez of San Diego, and Paul Sedillo, the director of U.S. Catholic Spanish-speaking work. They denied that there was anything subversive or even secretive about the meeting.

Three Chilean bishops were the objects of a violent rock-throwing demonstration on their return to Santiago. Catholic officials blamed press hostility, and they charged that secret police participated, an accusation denied by the government. The demonstrators who took part in the violence were declared excommunicated by Cardinal Raoul Silva Henriquez of Santiago.

Another American Catholic priest, James Weeks, 42, was expelled by the military government of Argentina on August 17. He had been arrested August 4 while teaching at a seminary in the Province of Cordoba, accused of subversive activities, and held incommunicado until shortly before his expulsion. The government alleged that the cleric had in his possession “abundant Marxist-Leninist literature and a record with subversive songs.”

Elsewhere in Latin America, Colombian minister of government Cornelio Reyes charged that priests were promoting subversion in areas of the country threatened by guerrillas. Reyes told the Colombian senate that he had a list of 100 priests who are operating with extreme leftist groups in the Uraba region in the northeast of the county.

STEPHEN R. SYWULKA

Blessed are the meek,” said Jesus, “for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). Perhaps Christians these days believe this, but they certainly don’t act as if they do. Much church life is anything but meek. We seem often to have lost sight of the essential meaning of Christ’s teaching as we go about our way of setting forward the best interests of Christ’s Church as we see them.

This was impressed on me when I came to southern California in time for Easter and saw something of the way the central festival of the Christian year was celebrated. It sometimes seems as though we who name the name of Christ are determined to outdo everyone else who names that name, even if in the process we accomplish something that has little or nothing to do with the Christian way.

For example, one service in these parts was billed as “the highest service in the southland” (it was on top of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway at an elevation of 8,516 feet; reduced fares on the tram were another inducement). The lowest service was announced as being on a pier, just a few feet above the Pacific Ocean.

Combined choirs were often presented as an added attraction, and I was interested in the combination of the U.S. Naval Academy Glee Club and the Southern California Mormon Choir. Trumpets were blown everywhere, and sometimes “massed trumpets.” One service was billed to start at 5:14 A.M. because that was “the exact moment of sunrise.” Another was to reach its climax with the release of helium-filled balloons bearing “messages of hope and joy.” Yet another featured a twelve-foot red, white, and blue neon cross.

Perhaps the prize should go to the enterprising souls who organized a sunrise service on horseback, with prizes for the best Easter bonnet—worn by a horse!

I am not insensitive to the good intentions behind these services, and I realize that sometimes it is the unusual that brings people to church, where they may hear the Gospel and be brought into real spiritual blessing. I do, moreover, relish the joy of Easter, and I think a joyful service is appropriate. The service I attended on Easter Day (which was in my parish church, not some exotic setting) had trumpets, an enthusiastic congregation, and a note of high triumph. Indeed I cannot recall a more triumphant Easter service. Easter is a triumphant time, and it is well that the Church observe it with joy.

But when we start seeking out the highest and the lowest geographical points and adding things like helium balloons and horse bonnets, it is time to ask whether we have gone astray. Are we really looking to the meek Christ? Or are we letting the world and the worldly-minded dictate the manner of our observation of the high point of the Christian year?

There is a natural tendency to think that the solution to all our ills, including those that the Church as a whole suffers, is in our own hands. We like to think that if we put forth a determined effort everything will come out all right. And if a normal, conventional effort is unlikely to attain the goal, perhaps something unconventional will do it. So we leap from stunt to stunt, hoping that something we do will draw the crowds.

It might be worth our while to pause and ask whether, in fact, we should be trying to draw crowds. I am not suggesting that we Christians should resign ourselves to perpetual failure and comfort ourselves with the thought that we are not necessarily meant to have success as this world understands it. It is easy to take that attitude and let a cloak of piety cover a basic laziness. If our churches are to do the job to which Christ calls them, a lot of hard work must be done. Let us not close our eyes to that.

God calls us to be his servants, not his stunt artists-despite the crowds we might draw.

But this does not mean that we are to turn ourselves into stunt artists. Being Christ’s servants is much more difficult.

We are to live out the implications of Christ’s cross. He said that if anyone wished to follow him, that one must take up his own cross daily. To be Christ’s means to see life in the light of the cross.

Now the central thing about the cross is that it was God’s way of putting away man’s sin. Because Christ died we live. We no longer live for ourselves; we live for him who died for us and rose again (2 Cor. 5:15). And we no longer rely on ourselves. No one can look at the cross and decide that his own right arm is adequate. The cross means the end of all self-seeking and all self-reliance.

It is true that the cross summons us to an all-out effort. In view of what Christ has done for us, less will not do. But it is also true that the cross leaves no place for complacency. Since my sins put Christ there, I cannot be satisfied with my achievement. And I cannot be satisfied to approach my problems or those I share with the other members of the body of Christ in the spirit of one of the world’s super-salesmen. I must do it in the spirit of Christ.

And that brings us back to the importance of meekness. We do not greatly like that virtue these days, partly, at least, because we confuse it with lack of spirit. We see the meek as those too passive and weak to put up a battle, and we are not surprised if they are downtrodden.

But real meekness is strong. There is nothing of the weakling about the man who could assert himself but chooses not to do so. That is real strength. We should not confuse strength with selfishness. The one who consistently puts forth all his strength in the pursuit of his own selfish aims is not showing himself to be strong in the best sense of that term. He may be able to prevail over many and to secure the things he wants. But he is not really strong.

That is rather the prerogative of the meek. They are those who have looked at life and seen that there are better ways than selfishness. They may or may not live in poverty. But if they do it is not because they cannot earn more. It is because they see better things in life than choosing to be affluent at all costs. In some respects the hippies have come to such a position. But they are not usually meek; many of them are self-assertive about the rightness of their own way and quick to reject other people’s values.

Meekness means a readiness to accept God’s way. The really meek man looks to find God’s will and is humbly obedient to it when he finds it. This means that he constantly looks to God for his way and his means, for his direction and for the strength to take that direction rather than another. There is a need for meekness in today’s world and especially in today’s Church.

LEON MORRIS