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‘Biker Pastor’ Hits Rough Road

Phil Aguilar, the Harley-riding, leather-jacketed, pony-tailed pastor of Orange County’s unconventional but wildly successful Set Free Fellowship, is “just like Jesus on this earth,” enthuses Trinity Broadcasting Network televangelist Jan Crouch.

That opinion, however, is far from unanimous, even among the California church leaders who have known Aguilar for years. In a recently compiled 318-page report, several of the 43-year-old pastor’s ex-supporters and associates charge that Aguilar employs peer pressure, intimidation, and Scripture twisting to ensure obedience from his flock; breaks apart families, separating those who are loyal from anyone who dares to ask questions; and enriches himself at the expense of his followers.

Aguilar’s critics concede that Set Free, where ushers dress like Hell’s Angels and hymns have been supplanted by “Christian rap,” is succeeding where lots of churches are failing or not even trying: presenting the gospel to society’s outcasts. But Ronald Enroth, an evangelical cult watcher and professor of sociology at Westmont College, says that far from being rehabilitated, the people who move into Set Free’s two-dozen group homes or retreats in California, Texas, and Illinois become virtual slave laborers.

In the 318-page report, Aguilar’s critics describe Set Free as a near-dictator-ship. Aguilar’s homes, according to the report, are ruled by “overseers” who tell followers when to eat, what to believe, what to do, and when to do it.

While strict rules are common in programs set up for recovering substance abusers, many of the people in Aguilar’s homes are neither addicts nor ex-convicts, but ordinary Christians attracted to Set Free by the unusual services or Aguilar’s charisma.

Aguilar told CHRISTIANITY TODAY the complaints have been generated by a small group of disgruntled ex-church members. He also blamed some of the controversy on a family dispute (some of his own relatives have joined the critics). ‘We’ve got two disgruntled families … and thousands of people whose lives have been changed by this ministry,” Aguilar told CT. He added that the whole controversy has been stirred, in part, by the fact that “we work with a lot of people that nobody else wants to work with.”

Past And Present

The accusations attracted the attention of the Orange County (Calif.) Register, which accused Aguilar of providing false or misleading information about his wealth and background.

Aguilar allegedly told Register reporters that he has taken a “vow of poverty” and that neither he nor Set Free owns anything of value. However, the paper says, state records show that Aguilar is the registered owner of a $10,000 motorcycle, and that either he or the church is listed as owner of more than 20 other vehicles, including two classic cars and a 1989 Chevrolet with the vanity license plates “BIKERPAS” (for “Biker Pastor”). The Register also raised questions about Aguilar’s expensive home and control of ministry money.

Aguilar has never made a secret of his preconversion days as a down-and-out drag user. But according to the Register, Aguilar’s past is considerably more troubled than he is apparently willing to admit. Aguilar described to the paper a 1976 arrest for “just slapping” a three-year-old child as nothing more than a “misdemeanor.”

According to the Register, the child was hospitalized, and police records show Aguilar was charged with two felonies in the case and was imprisoned after pleading guilty to one count of child abuse. Aguilar told CT the newspaper printed his remarks out of context. He said that in comparison to other more horrible acts he committed in his preconversion days, the incident paled as nothing more than a misdemeanor.

Set Free has been widely promoted by Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). President Paul Crouch has spoken of plans to set up Set Free retreats across the country. Residents of the Set Free ranch in Texas frequently work as manual laborers at Crouch’s country estate near Fort Worth, and church members regularly serve as telephone counselors at TBN.

Crouch portrays the charges as part of an ongoing battle between Christians and the secular media. Yet some of those looking into accusations against Set Free are themselves Christian leaders. Aguilar’s critics first took their complaints to Oden Fong, outreach pastor at the Southern California headquarters of Calvary Chapels, who had been referring drug addicts to Set Free.

Fong compiled the complaints into the report and confronted Aguilar. Fong then sent his report to the Christian Research Institute (CRI), a cult-watching center, which recounted the complaints in its newsletter.

Bob Lyle, vice-president of research at CRI, said he has met with some of the disgruntled ex-members. “It’s quite obvious that something is going on there. How widespread it is, we don’t know,” Lyle said, adding that CRI is refraining from drawing conclusions until more facts are gathered. Lyle said Aguilar has contacted him, and they plan to meet to discuss the complaints.

By Scott Fagerstrom and William Alnor.

Deflating the Gender Myths

Gender and Grace: Love, Work and Parenting in a Changing World, by Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen (InterVarsity, 278 pp.; $9.95, paper). Reviewed by Michael W. Mangis, assistant professor of clinical psychology at Wheaton College Graduate School in Wheaton, Illinois.

In her latest book, Gender and Grace, social psychologist Mary Stewart Van Leeuwen once again proves she is a leading figure in the integration of faith and the social sciences. Concerned that many Christians approach gender roles with little knowledge of the issues, she has prepared a comprehensive introduction. Van Leeuwen argues cogently that Christians should be interested in the knowledge to be gained from natural revelation and suggests ways it can help us build on a scriptural framework.

Many discussions about gender roles begin, and immediately bog down, in battles over interpretation of Pauline passages, leaving other questions unanswered. Saving “headship” until the final chapter, Van Leeuwen begins at the beginning, with the opening chapters of Genesis. She asks, Which gender differences were intended by God? And from there she goes on to explore other questions: How do gender differences come about? Which are genetically inevitable and which are more cultural? What are the costs, to men and women, of the current gender distinctions?

Van Leeuwen grounds her arguments in Scripture. She proposes that Adam and Eve sinned differently, each overstepping the bounds of part of God’s cultural mandate, resulting in a similarly differentiated curse. Our interpretation of gender roles, Van Leeuwen suggests, must begin with an understanding that much of what we consider the “natural” order of things is not what God originally intended. The fallen state of gender roles is part of what Christ came to reverse.

The Problem With Averages

While describing herself as a “Christian feminist” (defined as someone who “sees women and men as equally saved, equally Spirit-filled and equally sent”), she does recognize gender differences. In fact, she suggests that gender complementarity is just as appropriate to the creation design as gender equality.

In her view of the research, the author consistently reveals the human tendency to want to see traits and abilities as lying at one of two poles, male or female. In reality, the stereotypical differences are nothing more than tendencies and averages. When verbal ability is measured, for example, girls typically obtain higher scores than boys. However, when these results are examined, one finds substantial overlap of scores. Similar findings are repeated for most stereotyped gender characteristics. While averages might differ for men and women for a particular trait, many men will score substantially in the “female” range and vice versa.

Even if a clear male/female difference were demonstrated for a trait, Van Leeuwen asks, how would we know whether it was an inherent difference based on sex or a distinction based on the dissimilar effects of environment? At this point she turns to the research related to the nature-versus-nurture question. Based on her intriguing review of the scientific literature, she argues that many of our assumptions about clear differences between men and women are illusions. In reality, males and females, from the womb, are biologically more similar than different. Research demonstrates that the small biological variance that does exist is greatly magnified by environment, parenting, and other factors.

Citing the classic “Baby X” studies, Van Leeuwen illustrates the compounding effects of environment on gender formation. In such studies, small infants are dressed neutrally. They are then given to adults who are told either that the child is a girl or a boy. When the child is labeled as a girl, even if the child is actually a boy, she/he is described as more friendly, sociable, feminine, physically “fragile,” and easily uspet. The opposite masculine stereotypes are applied to boy-labeled babies, again regardless of the child’s actual sex.

In studies of individuals with an extra male or female sex chromosome, a form of genetic anomaly, individuals with an extra X-chromosome do not act more masculine nor do those with an extra Y-chromosome act more feminine. Van Leeuwen demonstrates that even research on normal male/female genetic differences does not support the theory that gender-specific traits can be linked to chromosomal differences between men and women. Such patterns of behavior are simply too complex to be explained so simply.

Similarly, research on the effects of hormonal differences on gender does not support the clear polarity that we expect between masculinity and femininity. While some differences—particularly in perception, thinking, and personality—seem to stem from the disparate effects of male and female hormones on development, Van Leeuwen (and others) assert, with evidence, that these are usually found to be “very small biological differences that are highly magnified by our personal and social histories and by the immediate demands of situations in which we find ourselves.” Even studies of differences in the way men and women use the brain’s hemispheres find small distinctions that are more complex than the simple stereotypes.

Cultural differences in gender roles suggest that there are few universal definitions of what it means to be male or female. One theme does consistently emerge, however: in every culture, what men do is seen as more important than what women do. This is ironic, Van Leeuwen comments, since the New Testament describes becoming a Christian in essentially childlike and feminine terms.

Natural But Fallen

If much of what we believe to be masculinity and femininity is not “built in,” where does it come from? Van Leeuwen argues convincingly that throughout history we have constructed a system that shapes gender roles and perpetuates the effects of the Fall. Differences that God did not intend or, perhaps, distortions of the differences that he did intend, became established, trained, and defined as normal. Ironically, many Christians then refer to these patterns as proof that these roles are what God intended. “Of course men were meant to be the leaders. Just look around and see how much better they are at it.”

The author hopes to deflate a common myth among Christians that the Bible proclaims the family a sacred refuge amidst the storm of an evil world. In this view of the family, where father wins the bread and mother minds the nest, our children see father as largely absent and mother as primarily unvalued by both society and the church. This notion, she concludes, is historically very recent and becomes idolatrous when we value the nuclear family over the family of God. A second myth in the church, according to Van Leeuwen, is the erroneous belief that prior to the sixties and the feminist movement, men and women were content with their stereotypical roles. To further demonstrate that the church does not have the corner on the definition of the healthy family, she points out that, next to alcoholic families, the highest incidence of incest and physical abuse is in highly religious homes.

Challenging us to a new understanding, Van Leeuwen poignantly illustrates the costs of the current societal definitions of gender, to both men and women. The most healthy children, she suggests, are those whose fathers are actively involved in parenting. Boys, especially, develop gender insecurity when they are expected to develop a confident masculinity yet have little contact with the father they are supposed to emulate. She argues that parenting should become the task of both marriage partners. The current prejudice, in society and in the church, against men who put family before career makes this more difficult.

Headship And Servanthood

Ending where many Christians begin, Van Leeuwen suggests that doctrinal positions on headship should never be used as a test of one’s Christianity. While a family centered on the traditional definition of headship can be appropriate, it is not synonymous with the healthy family. There is, unfortunately, much more concern over who can be head of the family and the church than over how we should live out the servanthood to which Christ calls us. Though her hermeneutical position on headship can be inferred, Van Leeuwen does not prescribe a single Christian response to this question.

A limitation of the book follows from its greatest strength. Van Leeuwen’s admirable desire to provide a comprehensive overview of gender roles often requires a cursory discussion of the research and issues. While most of her general assertions seem reasonable, her confident conclusions from studies on “nature versus nurture” may lead the reader to assume that the research is unequivocal. As is often the case, other research exists in support of quite different conclusions.

Van Leeuwen’s presentation of the issues involved in understanding gender is thoughtful and challenging. Many who have done little or no investigation into the issues involved shout loudly and confidently that the Bible has told us everything we need to know about gender roles. Few have thoroughly studied the questions and evidence from several directions, as Van Leeuwen has done. Gender and Grace adds much to the discussion. Those unfamiliar with the debate in which the church is embroiled will find this book an excellent starting point. Those already involved will be challenged by a fresh presentation.

Armageddon: The View from Andromeda

Philip Yancey

I have been thinking about the universe lately. The whole thing. After reading some of astronomer Chet Raymo’s elegiac prose (Starry Nights, The Soul of the Night), I have been craning my neck upward at odd angles when I encounter a rare pool of darkness between Chicago streetlights. Mostly, though, I see the moon, Venus, and the jets’ flight path into O’Hare Field, and must take Raymo’s word for what lies beyond.

Learning about the universe does little for earthly self-esteem. Our sun, powerful enough to turn white skin bronze and to coax oxygen from every plant on earth, ranks fairly low by galactic standards. If the giant star Antares were positioned where our sun is—93 million miles away—Earth would be inside it! And our sun and Antares represent just 2 of 500 billion stars that swim around in the vast, forlorn space of the Milky Way. A dime held out at arm’s length would block 15 million stars from view, if our eyes could see with that power.

Only one other galaxy, Andromeda, lies close enough (a mere 2 million light-years away) to see with the naked eye. It showed up on star charts long before the invention of the telescope, and until recently no one could know that the little blob of light marked the presence of another galaxy, one twice the size of the Milky Way and home to a trillion stars. Or that these next-door neighbors were but two of a hundred billion galaxies likewise swarming with stars.

One reason the night sky stays dark despite the presence of so many luminous bodies is that all the galaxies are hurtling away from each other with astonishing speed. Tomorrow, some galaxies will be 30 million miles farther away. In the time it takes to type this sentence, they’ll have receded another 5,100 miles.

The Diamond Dust Highway

I saw the Milky Way in full glory once, while visiting a refugee camp in Somalia, Africa, just below the equator. Our galaxy stretched across the canopy of darkness like a highway paved with diamond dust. Since that night, when I lay with warm sand at my back far from the nearest streetlight, the sky has never seemed as empty and the earth never as large.

I had spent all day interviewing relief workers about the megadisaster of the moment. Bangladesh, Kurdistan, Armenia, Sudan, Ethiopia—place names change, but the spectacle of suffering has a dreary sameness: mothers with shriveled, milkless breasts, babies crying and dying, fathers foraging for firewood in a treeless terrain.

After three days hearing tales of human misery, I could not lift my sights beyond that refugee camp situated in an obscure corner of an obscure country on the Horn of Africa.

Until I saw the Milky Way. It abruptly reminded me that the present moment was not the whole of life. History would go on. Tribes, governments, whole civilizations may rise and fall, trailing disaster in their wake, but I did not dare confine my field of vision to the scenes of suffering around me. I needed to look up, to the stars.

“Can you bind the beautiful Pleiades? Can you loose the cords of Orion? Can you bring forth the constellations in the seasons or lead out the Bear with its cubs? Do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God’s dominion over the earth?” These questions God asked a man named Job who, obsessed with his own great pain, had confined his vision to the borders of his itchy skin.

Remarkably, God’s reminder seemed to help Job. His skin still itched, but Job got a glimpse of other matters God must attend to in a universe of a hundred billion galaxies.

To me, God’s speech in the book of Job conveys a tone of gruffness. But perhaps that is its most important message: the Lord of the Universe has a right to gruffness when assailed by one tiny human being, notwithstanding the merits of his complaint. We—ministers of the gospel, relief workers in Somalia, descendants of Job—dare not lose sight of The Big Picture, a sight best glimpsed on dark and starry nights.

Looking Up

You can almost mark the advancement of a people by noting their interest in stargazing. Each great civilization of the past—Inca, Mogul, Chinese, Egyptian, Greek, Renaissance European—made major breakthroughs in astronomy. There is an irony at work in human history: One by one, civilizations gain the capacity to fathom their own insignificance, then fail to recognize that fact and fade away.

What about us, we launchers of the Viking and Apollo spacecrafts, we makers of the orbiting Hubble observatory and the Very Large Array radio telescopes strewn over 39 miles of New Mexico desert? Do our achievements make us more, or less, humble? More, or less, worshipful?

About the same time I read Chet Raymo, I went to see a film taken by a space-shuttle crew with a special format Omnimax camera. The lightning storms impressed me most. Viewed from space, lightning flashes on and off in a random pattern of beauty, illuminating cloud cover several hundred miles wide at a burst. It flares, spreads across an expanse, glows, then pales. Most eerily, it makes no sound.

I was struck by the huge difference perspective makes. On Earth, families huddled indoors, cars hid under highway overpasses, animals cowered in the forest, children cried out in the night. Transformers sparked, creeks flooded, dogs howled. But from space we saw only a soft, pleasant glow, enlarging then retreating, an ocean tide of light.

I don’t know the precise scenario for how Armageddon will unfold. But the lightning storm filmed through a porthole of the space shuttle gave me a glimpse of how the end of the world might look from two perspectives. From Earth (as depicted in the Book of Revelation): 100-pound hailstones, earthquakes, a plague like no other, a star named Wormwood falling from the sky. From Andromeda: a tiny flare like a struck match, silence, and then darkness. That is something similar to what Chet Raymo sees through his telescope when a star explodes in space, light-years away.

As Job learned, it takes great effort, and considerable faith, to keep The Big Picture in mind. Maybe I’ll wander away from the streetlights more often, and look up.

Religion, Abortion Key Issues in Court Nomination

Abortion Ad Battle

Advocates and opponents of abortion have launched a wave of dueling political advertisements over the Bush administration’s regulations separating abortion from the nation’s Title X family-planning program, upheld by the Supreme Court last May. According to president Faye Wattleton, Planned Parenthood will be spending between $3 million and $5 million for print, television, and radio ads urging Congress to overturn the regulations, which prohibit any federal money from going to family-planning clinics that counsel or refer clients for abortion.

A broad-based prolife coalition is countering with its own effort based on the theme that “abortion is not a method of family planning.” The coalition, already comprising 17 prolife groups, will spend at least $1 million to produce print and radio spots they hope will dispel the “disinformation abortion advocates are putting forward” on the issue.

Dueling lobbying efforts have also been taking place. Last month the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights sponsored a “Direct Action Day” on Capitol Hill, urging members of Congress to vote against the regulations. Meanwhile, supporters of Focus on the Family and Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition have been tying up phone lines at the White House and the Capitol urging that the rules be retained.

Number-Three Dem Is Prolife

House Democrats last month overwhelmingly elected prolife Rep. David Bonior of Michigan to the number-three slot in the Democratic Caucus (majority whip). Despite the party’s firm platform support for “reproductive rights,” Bonior has accumulated a solid prolife voting record during his 14 years in the House. “If I am called on to express my views, I will express the views of my party … but reserve for myself the ability to vote my conscience,” Bonior said about his position on abortion.

Bonior will replace Rep. William Gray (D-Penn.), who is resigning from Congress to become president of the United Negro College Fund. A Baptist minister, Gray said he wanted to spend more time with his family and his church.

Hatfield Removes Name

Faced with ongoing federal investigations into his financial practices, U.S. Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-Oreg.) is removing his name from official association with several Christian organizations. Christian College Coalition (CCC) vice-president for advancement Rich Gathro confirmed that Hatfield has requested his name be taken off the CCC board of reference to avoid the appearance of any conflict of interest. Several news reports on the investigations have noted that former CCC president John Dellenback forgave about $75,000 in personal loans to Hatfield (CT, June 24, 1991, p. 63).

Hatfield has also asked the Christianity Today Institute to remove his name from its list of resource scholars. “While this is a draconian step, I am convinced it is one I must take to avoid any opportunity for my official actions to be linked to some presumed self-interest of mine,” the senator wrote to Christianity Today, Inc.

Hatfield is also on the advisory board of Evangelicals for Social Action, but at press time, the organization said it had not received information that Hatfield planned to resign.

The New Therapeutic Invasion

Every few years, psychologists come up with a new way to solve everyone’s problems, and Christians find a way to turn the latest psychotherapeutic trend into a ministry. Client-centered therapy, Transactional Analysis, and Freud had their day.

Those systems brought some insights, but none lived up to the promises their advocates made. Now the church is faced with the “recovery movement” and its various “12-Step” or “Anonymous” programs. In one key aspect, the recovery movement is unlike the earlier therapeutic invasions of the church. It is lay-oriented, a free-market triumph that has ridden into the church, not on a sedan chair of professional promises, but on the shoulders of many satisfied “customers,” who share stories of deliverance from alcohol, drugs, eating disorders, and sexual compulsions.

The recovery movement has its critics. Given its history, that is to be expected. In our cover story (see p. 14), Tim Stafford recounts how the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous developed from Christian sources, and how they were secularized to appeal to a broad spectrum of problem drinkers. The Christian group that provided A.A. with its insights was also questionable. For example, that group gave new converts William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience—a book that, Tim says, “guts the content of religion, emphasizing that helpful, life-changing religious experiences come in all sorts of packages.” The group thought James’s book scientifically validated religion. But its pragmatism and subjective approach laid the foundation for the utter secularization of their gospel principles.

As the 12 Steps come back into the church, they are recovering their gospel context. The prodigal has returned. Let the fatted calf beware.

DAVID NEFF, Managing Editor

Letters

Christianity Today July 22, 1991

Ethereal Outlook

Methinks the theologians do protest too loudly (CT Institute, “Heaven and Hell,” May 27). Their certainty about heaven and hell seems plausible only when one assumes, as does Blamires, that “the supreme joy of heaven is the vision of God himself.” This ethereal outlook neglects to take into account the true glory of God, which has to be his people. For me, the wonder of heaven is that we will be taught the art of living in love with all of God’s children. Now that will be heavenly!

Aline Talsma

Kalamazoo, Mich.

Leon Morris [“The Dreadful Harvest”] dismisses without discussion the most reasonable view of the fate of the wicked. The vast majority of references speak of annihilation as the eternal punishment—death, second death, destroy, perish, corruption, etc. A few poetic passages would indicate otherwise, if doctrine should be established by figures of speech. The heresy that God tortures forever those who didn’t know any better is a stumbling block to believers and unbelievers alike.

Howard M. Mesick

Hardy, Del.

The articles were biblically anchored and beautifully written, except for one serious flaw in Leon Morris’s comments on the problem of those who have never heard the gospel, implying that some will possibly be saved apart from hearing the gospel. The example he uses seems to indicate the opposite of what he is trying to say. When God illumined the heart of Cornelius, he sent for Peter. To imply that election works to save apart from the gospel makes the Great Commission meaningless. The grace of election rides on the rails of the gospel and is the magnet by which God chooses some out of the mass of fallen humanity and “draws” them to his Son.

Jack McDaniel

Plainwell, Mich.

I remember as a small boy a minister who began his sermon with a rhetorical, “Where … is … heaven?” To everyone’s surprise, a sweet voice in the congregation volunteered, “Wherever Jesus is.” That memory has served to erase all of my questions about whether heaven is interesting or exciting, whether it is indeed a blessed hope.

Vernon M. Lewis, Ph.D.

Austin, Minn.

No harsh review

Those who have never dealt personally with Norman Geisler may have felt the review of his The Battle for the Resurrection [“Evangelical Fratricide, “Books, May 27] was harsh. Those of us who have dealt personally with Geisler know it was dead-on.

As a former publisher of his, I once erred in an argument with Geisler over finances. I mistakenly identified a fee we paid him as an advance against royalties. When it was pointed out to me, I wrote him, “I concede the error.…” That was wholly unacceptable to Geisler. He wrote back demanding that I use the words, “I was wrong.”

As this was just one in a long series of such missives, I gladly wrote back, “Not only will I admit that I was wrong in this instance, but I will also admit that I was wrong to publish you in the first place and wrong to think about publishing you again.” And I haven’t.

Name withheld by request

John Stackhouse, Jr.’s review is right on the money! It seems as though Geisler jumps from one issue to another in his agenda for doctrinal purity. The problem with this infighting is that it continues to promote a theological ghettoization where each group is battling for its own turf or for all the turf. Doctrinal purity is something we should strive for; but what has Harris published that is so unorthodox?

This recent “battle for the resurrection” is further proof that the new evangelical scholarly agenda that began in the 1940s has never gotten beyond the polemical in-house issues of their fundamentalist predecessors. What a shame!

David L. Russell

Farmington Hills, Mich.

Thank you for focusing on the battle for the Resurrection. Let us hope now that the broader evangelical public will read the relevant books and search the Scriptures on this crucial doctrinal issue. The church can ill afford to allow further doctrinal erosion on another fundamental of the faith.

Norman L. Geisler

Liberty University Lynchburg, Va.

More “sword” than “shalom”

With regard to Charles Colson’s “Peaceniks and Prophecy Mongers” [May 27], peace marches and placards and “Give Peace a Chance” slogans appear wimpy, but they just might be a Christian way of calling a broken, sinful world to debate and arbitrate. War is clearly the world’s way of resolving conflict. It is not only the result of sinful, broken humankind; war itself is sin.

Charles Colson is a persuasive and brilliant writer, but I see more “sword” than “shalom” in his writing.

Harvey Petersen

Bellingham, Wash.

What the doctor ordered

Lyn Cryderman’s editorial [“Weeping Over Baghdad,” Apr. 29] was right on. It was all that I had hoped for—and more; historic, and written with the clarity of a New York Times editorial. In spite of the letters that will come, please hold your ground. Your courage in bringing up the Israel status as a factor in this dilemma was just what the doctor ordered.

Gunnar Hoglund

Mountain View, Calif.

I am still in shock over the editorial on Israelis and Palestinians. Thankfully, the views of CT do not represent the views of Christianity today. Become conveniently critical of Israel, Cryderman suggests, and Arabs will soften to the gospel. How simple!

Christians who are supportive of Israel, despite the anti-Israel propaganda, lies, and prejudice that often even stem from Christian sources, are such precisely because of the demands of a just God who is “pulling the big strings of history.” And, yes, that has political consequences. Moreover, even the most supportive of American Christians are, in fact, regularly critical of Israel when warranted, and continue to wield substantial influence.

Please, brothers, you can’t be both Machiavellian and Christian. Take your pick.

Karin E. Andersen

Encino, Calif.

Cryderman’s thoughts express the problem better than I imagined anyone could. We have a gospel that must also go to the Arab world, and we must show them we serve a God of justice to all mankind: His justice must appear as sound to the Arab Gentile as it does to the Jew and Christian.

Dick White

Alva, Okla.

I’m for Arab evangelism, but Jesus’ focus was “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:16). The gospel is “to the Jew first” (Rom. 1:16).

Jan Markell

Maple Grove, Minn.

Lovelock’s Gaia theory

I read with interest the article on neopaganism, “Drawing Down the Moon,” by Dave Bass [April 29]. As a writer and researcher for the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, I have witnessed firsthand the rapidly growing influence of pagan religions and goddess worship, particularly in the form of Gaia worship. However, Bass’s reference to Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis as “strictly materialist” is not quite accurate. Lovelock’s Gaia theory is steeped in mystical and spiritual concepts and ideas.

Stuart Chevre

Berkeley, Calif.

Like oil and water

The article “We Believe” by Andrew Walker in the April 29 issue presents an important topic—unity among “God’s family.” However, Walker’s highly simplistic solution has totally missed the foundation upon which unity must be anchored. He includes among “God’s family,” to name three, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and evangelicalism. These three go together like oil and water! According to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, one becomes a member of God’s family by faith and works. Evangelicalism believes that one becomes a member of God’s family by God’s grace through faith alone and that works are the evidence and the natural result of God’s transforming grace in a person’s life. How can Walker include Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in God’s family when their belief system contradicts the sure apostolic record?

Stephen J. Celich, Jr.

Wexford, Pa.

After the Gulf War it occurred to me that the church—like the Iraqi army—routinely shoots its own troops, then eagerly surrenders to the enemy. Walker’s article highlights this fact, and seems also to say that heresy consists of a violence committed against the “core of Christian orthodoxy.”

A fellow traveler on that “great viaduct,” who deviates from my views on relatively peripheral concerns such as eschatology, ecclesiology, politics, or even (heaven help us) women’s roles, is not a “heretic,” not my enemy, and therefore not someone I ought to shoot.

Rebecca Groothuis

Eugene, Oreg.

Destroying America’s soul

Philip Yancey’s searching and thoughtful column “How We Became the ‘Great Satan’ ” [April 29] reminded me of the conversation between Malcolm Muggeridge and Graham Greene. As he told it, “Graham Greene talked a lot about how Russian domination would be less terrible than American. [Muggeridge] mentioned the church, and he said Russians only destroy its body, whereas Americans destroy its soul.” As George MacDonald wrote, “A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to being a beast the less he knows of it.”

Ian S. Munday

Victoria, B.C., Canada

LAPD brutality

I take strong exception to certain comments by Los Angeles assistant police chief Robert Vernon [News, April 29]. He plants his feet on a blind submission to government, then makes his exception: when the government orders a direction opposed to what God specifically has told us to do. He is in the right direction here, but fails to understand Calvin and Augustine along this path—or, in fact, Paul. My objection to his reasoning begins when he excuses the brutal treatment of Operation Rescue activists by the L.A. police—which produced no national outcry—for their crime of violating some law of, I assume, trespass, then lying about their names.

It was with such reasoning that Germans produced Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in the 1930s.

Vernon is troubled about the beating of the hapless black beaten by his police. I hope he will examine himself with regard to the brutality encouraged by his police on the people who obeyed the Lord by trying to save innocent life. Or is that not specifically commanded by the Lord?

C. R. Stegall

Jacksonville, Fla.

Vernon misrepresented Operation Rescue. First, rescuers do not resist arrest. They become passively limp. Second, rescuers do not “lie” by occasionally identifying themselves as “Baby Doe.” Authorities usually understand this gesture as part of the rescuers’ identification with nameless slaughtered children. Furthermore, the amount of force employed by L.A. police to remove passive protestors far exceeds the amount necessary.

It is heartbreaking that evangelical prolifers like Vernon and his pastor take a public stand against their brothers and sisters in the rescue movement. The least they can do is get their facts right.

Pastor Ken Langley

Island Baptist Church

Beach Haven, N.J.

Why didn’t Vernon go to the Word of God first, instead of to his church elders? Vernon evidently forgot his belief that when laws are wrong, “we ought to obey God rather than men.”

Mrs. Edith Manchester

Santa Cruz, Calif.

The call came about the time we were sitting down to supper, when most telemarketers stalk their prey. “Knowing your interest in religious matters, Mr. Cuss,” said the pleasant voice on the other end, “we knew you would want to know about our new service, the Personal Church Shopper.”

You’ve heard of a “personal shopper,” the latest convenience for harried yuppies: someone to do your shopping so you don’t have to waste your own time standing in lines or listening to rude salespeople.

“Just think, Mr. Cuss, no more traipsing from church to church to find the right congregation for you. No more grappling with tough theological questions raised by your pastor. The personal church shopper will find a perfect fit: a church where your views mesh exactly with everyone else’s.

“Here’s how it works. Our representative in your area, Toni Nouveau, will meet with you to assess your theological moorings, along with temperament, lifestyle, and the car you drive. Then she will provide you with a handy, personalized colorwheel guide to the churches in your area, detailing the differences between, say, true-blue Southern Baptists and shades-of-gray American Baptists.

“For a nominal extra fee, Ms. Nouveau will tidy up those threadbare notions that are still hanging in your personal-beliefs closet. Still clinging to that dusty old dispensationalism? That bell-bottomed social gospel? Ms. Nouveau will coach you on how to use the word dysfunctional correctly and outfit you with the Bible on computer.”

I must confess, I was almost ready to set an appointment. (My caller told me if I changed my mind I could dial back later—1–800-FIND GOD.) But I decided to stick with my old wardrobe for now. It’s the one Paul tailored for the Colossians, when he advised them to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.”

EUTYCHUS

Speaking out: The Independent Church Myth

Although many churches advertise themselves as “independent,” proudly claiming to be free from the control of ecclesiastical bodies or denominational hierarchies, there is no such thing as an independent church.

Take the congregation I pastor. Because it belongs to no denominational group, it is considered independent. Yet this church’s life and witness would be greatly impoverished without the support and resources of other churches. It has never had a pastor raised in its midst, for example. It operates no school, college, or seminary. We do not print our own Sunday-school literature or write all our own music. Nor do we write or publish books for Bible study. We operate no radio or television station. Even the missionaries we help need support from other churches. We read periodicals, attend conferences and seminars, and even use films, tapes, and computer software produced by others. Every phase of our ministry is dependent upon others—other Christians and other churches.

By contrast, the word independent means “not dependent” or “free from control.” It is an unfortunate choice of words. Of course, no Christian or church would claim to be free from dependence on God or his sovereignty. We depend on him for our life, health, salvation, instruction, growth, and destiny. Our churches rely on him for their power and effectiveness (although sometimes we seem to depend more upon methods, intelligence, and personal charisma). Independent churches are not claiming otherwise, so why use such potentially misleading terminology? Independent is too easily read in our culture as a justification for a myopic “rugged individualism.”

There are other theological problems with independence. Independence is not the opposite of unity, but it works against it. Jesus tried to promote unity among his followers. Before his crucifixion, he prayed that they would become one (John 17:20–23). Luke emphasized in Acts 15 that the apostles were sufficiently concerned about unity to call a church council to bring believers to consensus and to keep factions from developing. And Paul strongly preached unity in his letters (1 Cor. 3:4–7; Eph. 4:7–13). This unity involved interdependence, not independence.

Even with all the disagreements of believers in the New Testament on law and grace, circumcision, eating of meat offered to idols, and qualifications for leadership, splintering into independent groups is never advocated. In fact, one of the few offenses that give us reason to separate from a brother is the offense of causing disunity: “I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions.… Keep away from them” (Rom. 16:17, NIV). Rather than permitting believers to divide into different churches, in 1 Corinthians Paul urged believers to heal the divisions and function as one body. Perhaps Paul would not require us all to be one organizational entity, but the notion of any church in a community being totally independent from the other churches clearly violates his teaching.

Perhaps worst of all, pride in our independence can become an arrogance that makes impossible true fellowship with believers who are not also “independent.” Even as God reminded Elijah that there were 7,000 other obedient believers when the prophet feared he was alone (1 Kings 19:10, 14; Rom. 11:1–4), so today’s independents sometimes fail to see beyond the walls they have constructed. They are thereby unable to find the help and encouragement God would send them through other believers.

True independence is both undesirable and impossible. There are no really independent congregations. As individuals we need one another for survival. And as churches we need to become unapologetic partners with other churches for effectiveness in our ministry.

By Ken McGarvey, pastor of First Baptist Church, Pierceton, Indiana.

Speaking Out offers responsible Christians a forum for their views on contemporary issues. It does not necessarily reflect the opinions of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Missing One of Scotland’s Best

Scotland’s premier preacher and teacher, James Stuart Stewart, died just a year ago on July 1, 1990. Although he eschewed party labels, such as “conservative” and “evangelical,” he was thoroughly orthodox and had a significant impact on evangelicals worldwide.

Stewart’s ministry can be divided into two almost equal parts: 22 years of parish ministry, concluding at the prestigious North Morningside Church of Scotland, Edinburgh; and 20 years as professor of New Testament language, literature, and theology at New College, University of Edinburgh. Interestingly, though renowned as a superlative preacher and fine pastor, it was during his parish phase that Stewart produced his most scholarly writings, translating and coediting (with H. R. MacKintosh) Schleiermacher’s massive The Christian Faith, producing a small textbook on The Life and Teaching of Jesus Christ, and authoring his most enduring monograph, A Man in Christ: The Vital Elements of St. Paul’s Religion. He gained international fame through two books of sermons (The Gates of New Life and The Strong Name) and the Warwick lectures on preaching (Heralds of God).

In his professorial phase, however, he did not give himself to research but was devoted to teaching ministerial students, supervising doctoral candidates, and writing homiletical materials that demonstrated how to bring together a rigorous scholarship, a reverential reading of Scripture, and an effective communication of the gospel. Stewart was not uninterested in what was current in scholarly research, but during this phase he saw his goals carried on in other lives and ministries.

From his World War I experience, Stewart carried a profound consciousness of human depravity and an acute realization of the depths of injustice we can sink to apart from God’s grace. He was quiet, gracious, and humble—frequently, quite shy. Small talk was not his forte. Often his wife, Rosamund, had to come to his aid when he was trapped by someone with more of a gift of gab than a gift of utterance. Yet while unimposing and shy, he was a veritable prince of preachers and teachers. In the pulpit or at the lectern, he became enraptured with his subject.

My most cherished recollections of Professor Stewart are of times he would start expounding on a subject in a pedantic and discreet manner, then get so carried away with his subject that it began to take control of him, so that, without any rise in pitch or volume, there would be an increase in emotional intensity and a crescendo of descriptive detail and lyrical expression, and finally, when he had exhausted his subject, he would drop back to his discreet manner. His hearers often experienced that buildup and drop—sometimes inadvertently expressing their empathy in a gasp. This response sometimes startled Stewart, who seemed for a moment to lose his train of thought.

Anecdotes are legion regarding Stewart’s unfeigned humility. My favorite has to do with his shock at being asked by an overseas admirer to sign his name in the flyleaf of a Bible. “Why?” he asked. “I’m not the author!”

Typical as well was his refusal to join a prominent London preacher in bringing a lawsuit against the estate of a famous American, whose posthumously published sermons appeared to be duplicates of some previously published by Stewart and the London preacher. “The words are God’s and the people’s,” he said, “not mine!”

Stewart had much to be proud of. He was appointed as a royal chaplain by both George VI and Elizabeth II; he was elected moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland; and he was invited to preach and lecture extensively in Scotland, England, the United States, Canada, and Australia. What he spoke of most, however, were his post as chaplain to the local professional soccer team and his frequent opportunities to proclaim the gospel at a rescue mission in an Edinburgh slum.

For nearly half a century, James Stuart Stewart proclaimed the gospel with perception and persuasion, but most notably with grace and humility.

RICHARD LONGENECKER

Ideas

Money Talks (and Squelches)

Money Talks (And Squelches)

The church knows that when government helps pay the bills, it tries to call the shots. Now Planned Parenthood is making the same discovery.

“This clinic does not consider abortion an appropriate method of family planning and therefore does not counsel or refer for abortion.”

In a recent decision, Rust v. Sullivan, the Supreme Court let those words stand. They are part of government regulations of what federally funded family-planning clinics can and what they cannot do. What they can do, says Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, is “provide preventive family-planning services,” the purpose of the program, called Title X.

Abortion advocates have characterized the decision as an assault on the First Amendment. Faye Wattleton, president of the Planned Parenthood Fedderation of America, which receives some $34 million under Title X, called the decision “an unimaginable blow to free speech.” Others said the regulations amounted to a “gag order” that forces clinics to mislead women.

The free-speech hyperbole hides Planned Parenthood’s real agenda: to promote abortion as just another method of birth control. And it obscures what the Court’s decision really means: that if the government hands out funds, it has the right to attach strings. Planned Parenthood cannot promote its ideology and continue to receive federal funds. It must choose.

If that dilemma sounds familiar, it is because religious institutions have faced it for years. Today, for example, a church-run daycare center must remove religious symbols if it receives federal funds. And note the case of the rabbi who used the word God in a brief invocation at a Rhode Island graduation. After a student sued, a federal judge ordered the school district to strike the G-word from all public prayers. The Supreme Court will hear the case in its next session.

The Rust decision is one more step toward the eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion on demand. But it does not clearly signal a change in the high court majority’s views on abortion-related issues. Rather, cases like Rust, Webster (which allowed states latitude in regulating abortion), and Smith (which said states may ban the religious use of peyote) are part of a pattern of high court deference to the other branches of government. That pattern was reinforced last month in Planned Parenthood v. AID, essentially a foreign-aid version of Rust.

Insofar as the government regulations save lives, we welcome the Court’s decisions. Yet the judiciary’s deference to its sister branches may be an unwelcome trend. Following these cases, the venue of the abortion debate is in the state legislatures; religious freedom is at the whim of state lawmakers; free speech may be at the mercy of bureaucrats and regulators. The Court is showing deference to elected officials, those bound to listen to the voters. That is good news for those who want to influence public policy. But it is bad news for anyone concerned about the rights of individuals and minorities. The Bill of Rights was designed to protect small, unpopular groups from the mood of the mob. The court system was given independence from the electorate for the same gloriously undemocratic reason. To preserve freedom, don’t rely on those who will face re-election.

We may take a small satisfaction in seeing “the other side” tripped up by the strings attached to federal funds. But religious programs have been kept from worthwhile goals by similarly formulated regulations. That power to endorse or deny is a dangerous thing to entrust to the caprice of politics.

By Ken Sidey.

Women in the Confidence Gap

The dense smoke rising from the women’s ordination debate may be clouding our view of an important factor—one that should concern us no matter what our position on ordination: there is a woeful lack of self-respect among an entire category of Christian women.

Gary Bredfeldt, chair of the Ontario Bible College Department of Ministry Studies, recently demonstrated that entering women students at nine Canadian Bible colleges were seriously lacking in measures of self-esteem, self-confidence, and a sense of personal competence. In the general population, women of the same age rank about 7 percent behind men on a standard measure of feelings of personal competence. In the Bible college sample, the gap was an appalling 40 percent. The Bible college women rated 20 percent lower than women at secular institutions, while the Bible college men rated 15 percent above their secular counterparts. Although Bredfeldt’s study gives only preliminary results, it ought not to be ignored.

Students of women’s psychology have long noted the confidence gap between men and women. The title of one study seems to say it all: “What’s Skill for the Male Is Luck for the Female” (Deaux and Emswiller, 1974). Or as Rosalind Barnett and Grace Baruch noted in The Competent Woman: “When failure occurs, women are the ones who tend to believe their abilities inadequate, men to believe their efforts insufficient. When success occurs, on the other hand, women tend to think that the task must have been easy, or that luck was with them; men credit their own abilities.”

Granted that this confidence gap exists, we must wonder why it is exacerbated in some Christian circles. What is it about the churches that send their young adults to Bible colleges that widens this gulf?

Churches are often criticized for focusing too much on sin and guilt, as if that created high levels of self-loathing and dangerously low levels of self-esteem. But whatever it is that depresses these women’s self-esteem seems to give men an ego boost.

Perhaps the use (or lack of it) of women’s gifts is the key. In No Time for Silence, Janette Hassey documented the vigorous nature of women’s ministry during the evangelical resurgence between the Civil War and the rise of fundamentalism. During that period, Bible colleges and institutes focused on practical training for young men and women to carry the gospel to meet the needs of the world. Evangelical theology then opened the door for women’s adventures on behalf of the gospel. There were several factors at work: the horrible fate of the unsaved motivated believers to ignore social conventions for the good of the lost; a sense of the nearness of the Second Coming predisposed believers to see women’s gifts as part of the predicted latter-day outpouring of the Spirit. These women received public encouragement from leaders such as D. L. Moody, A. B. Simpson, and A. J. Gordon.

In addition, social factors were at work: the temperance and suffrage movements gave women experience in organization, administration, and public speaking; the social upheaval of the frontier and the desperate needs of the urban areas created the action-oriented atmosphere in which social convention withered and women’s ministries blossomed.

Historically, North America’s Bible colleges trained the women who responded to God’s call to service and mission. But the lack of personal competence today’s Bible college women feel may make that training task much harder. The churches that send young people to Bible colleges today are direct descendants of those that did so back then. Let the churches relearn a concern for the lost that outweighs convention. Let them hold up before their young people the rich history of the women who followed God’s call into high-risk ministries. With these role models, young women will turn to the Bible colleges as ministry training centers rather than as mate markets, and perhaps will rebuild the confidence needed to accept God’s challenges.

By David Neff.

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