The Perils of Harry Potter

Literary device or not, witchcraft is real—and dangerous.

I have an idea for a wonderful series of children’s books. I’m imagining a delightful fantasy world. In my world, there is a secret: tucked away on the upper shelves of every home is a product that, when used the right way, can make children’s dreams come true: common rat poison, when mixed with orange soda, turns into an elixir that’s out of this world. When you drink it in one big gulp, not only does it taste heavenly, it also makes you happy, beautiful—and for 24 hours, it gives you the power to accomplish one wish. One shy, picked-on, but highly intelligent boy has discovered the secret, and he intends to use his new power to help the world. These books will be exciting adventures—easy enough for 8-year-olds but compelling enough to keep teenagers entertained.

What? Parents would worry that this “innocent fantasy” might spill over into the real world? Someone might actually try mixing rat poison and orange soda in real life?

More than sheer fantasy

Though the parallels are hardly exact, this is what we’re talking about regarding the Harry Potter series. We’re taking something deadly from our world and turning it into what some are calling “merely a literary device.” Regardless of how magic is portrayed in the series, we need to remember that witchcraft in real life can and does lead to death—the forever and ever kind.

From about age 10 to my early 20s, the supernatural fascinated me. I devoured stories about wizards and magic, power and adventure. At one point, I was reading three or four such books a week. I craved mystical experiences. On the outside, I was a normal kid. I had been confirmed and attended worship nearly every week. My school report cards held straight A’s. On the inside, however, the supernatural was taking over my thoughts. I couldn’t stop imagining the spirits, power, and goddesses I was reading about. They entered my dreams. One day, they started speaking to me. I cried out to God, and he rescued me. The voices stopped, and I never read another “mystical” novel for fun again.

While I never went beyond reading fantasy books, that’s not true of many today. Our world is exploding with interest in real witchcraft. Type “How can I become a witch?” in Google.com and you’ll get listings for dozens of related sites. The same query in AskJeeves.com brings up many articles—the main one giving a simple eight-step process for becoming a witch on your own.

In just days, my local Barnes & Noble bookstore nearly sold out its floor display of a Teen Witch Kits (complete with paper altars).

Furthermore, author J. K. Rowling admits that some Harry Potter readers have convinced themselves that Harry’s world is real. Rowling has said she gets letters all the time, desperate letters addressed to Hogwarts, begging to be allowed to attend Harry’s school. When fantasy produces that kind of reaction, we are naïve to assume that witchcraft is merely a harmless, fun literary device.

Jacqui Komschlies lives in northeastern Wisconsin with her family. The November-December Lutheran Parent magazine will include a fuller version of this essay.

Related Elsewhere

More on Harry Potter and Christianity is available from the Center for Studies on New Religions ( CESNUR) and the Apologetics Index.

The church of All Saints in Guildford, Surrey, England, had a special “Harry Potter” family service, complete with changes in the Church of England liturgy. “Some clergy from the Church of England’s evangelical wing have protested, saying importing occult symbols into Christian liturgy is a terrible idea that can confuse children,” reported the New York Post’s Rod Dreher. “They’re right—and I say that as someone who adores the Harry Potter books—but the real error here has nothing to do with the misuse of our beloved Harry. The real offense here is the profane notion that sacred liturgy can or should be made a slave of entertainment-driven faddishness.” Meanwhile, evangelicals are protesting the use of Gloucester Cathedral in the upcoming Harry Potter movie. The cathedral will be used as the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Muggles For Harry Potter is an association for people interested in counteracting Potter book banning efforts.

This unofficial fan site boasts children’s illustrations, pictures of the Harry Potter movie cast, and printable paper dolls of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. The official Harry Potter site doesn’t offer as much peripheral information, but if it’s information on the books you want, the official site at Scholastic is a fine place to begin.

Read the transcript of a J.K.Rowling chat online, or read a three-part Rowling interview about writing, parenting, and fame.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire are all available from Amazon.com and other book retailers.

Previous Christianity Today articles about Harry Potter include:

Virtue on a Broomstick | The Harry Potter books, and the controversy surrounding them, bode well for the culture. (Sept. 7, 2000)

Opinion Roundup: Positive About Potter | Despite what you’ve heard, Christian leaders like the children’s books. (Dec. 13, 1999)

Parents Push for Wizard-free Reading | Bestsellers now under fire in some classroom. (Dec. 13, 1999)

Why We Like Harry Potter | The series is a ‘Book of Virtues’ with a preadolescent funny bone. (Dec. 13, 1999)

- More from Jacqui Komschlies

In the Word: The Grim Shepherd

Haddon Robinson

He visits every living thing, but those with understanding need not be afraid

But man, despite his
riches, does not endure;
he is like the beasts that
perish. … But God will
redeem my life from the
grave; he will surely take
me to himself.”
—Psalm 49:12, 15

There is a way in which the king is like the lion, the dowager is like the dog, the Mafia boss is like the pit bull, and the farmer like the cow: they all die. They have that in common. But if the dowager, Mafia boss, or farmer dies with no more understanding than animals, then they are no better than the beasts of the field.

To know that after death there is life, after the darkness there is day—well, it changes your perspective. That insight, the psalmist says, can give you wisdom. It can give you understanding.

In literature (and television) a story is told a number of different ways. It is the story of a man who opens a newspaper and discovers the date on the newspaper is six months in advance of the time he lives.

He begins to read through the newspaper, and he discovers stories about events that have not yet taken place. He turns to the sports page, and there are scores of games not yet played. He turns to the financial page and discovers a report of the rise or fall of different stocks and bonds.

He realizes this can make him a wealthy man. A few large bets on an underdog team that he knows will win can make him wealthy. Investments in stocks that are now low but will rise high can fatten his portfolio. He is delighted.

He turns the page, comes to the obituary column and sees his picture and story. Everything changes. The knowledge of his death changes his view about his wealth.

In the monasteries of one order of Trappist monks, the monks dig a grave. Each day the monks go out to stand and look at the grave. When one of their number dies, he’s put in the grave, and then a new grave is dug. They do it for perspective.

As unhealthy as that might seem to us, it is far more healthy than the way we deal with death in our culture. We avoid it. We disguise it. We talk about it in euphemisms. We go to the cemetery, and the brown dirt is covered by green Astroturf. But the recognition that we will die gives us a different perspective.

We die naked

Acknowledging death may give perspective, but it doesn’t give much comfort. The unrighteous die, but so do the righteous. The atheist dies, but so does the Christian.

One clue to comfort can be found in Psalm 49. The psalmist restates the proverb in 49:12—man, though rich, “does not endure; he is like the beasts that perish”—at the end of the psalm, at verse 20: “A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish” (NIV).

In the Hebrew text, verse 12 and verse 20 are identical except for one word. The word that is translated “endure” in verse 12 and the word that is translated “understanding” in verse 20 are virtually the same word except for one letter. Changing the letter changes the word, and changing the word alters the meaning: we are also like beasts if we go to death without understanding.

What is the understanding he has in mind? When life is over, it’s not over. When the act is finished, the play goes on. And that cuts both ways.

It cuts one way for the wicked. The psalmist says in verses 13–14, “This is the fate of those who trust in themselves, and of their followers, who approve their sayings. Like sheep they are destined for the grave, and death will feed on them.” Psalm 23 says, “The Lord is my shepherd.” But in Psalm 49, death is a shepherd—a shepherd who leads a flock to the slaughterhouse and, after the flock is killed, eats the meat. And after he eats the meat, all that is left is bones. This is clear in the personification of death in the New Revised Standard Version, where “Death will feed on them” (NIV) is translated as “Death shall be their shepherd.”

Death, then, is pictured as a grim shepherd. And for the wicked that is their end: death feeds on them.

That’s why the psalmist says in verse 16, “Do not be overawed when a man grows rich and the splendor of his house increases; for he takes nothing with him when he dies, his splendor will not descend with him.”

When people die, they die naked. They do not take with them their wardrobe. They do not take with them their portfolio. They do not take with them their bank account. They do not take with them their splendor. And when a wealthy person dies, while we admired him when he lived, we do not envy him when he dies: “While he lived, he counted himself blessed—and men praise you when you prosper—he will join the generation of his fathers” (vv. 18–19).

Light ahead

Several years ago, H. L. Hunt, who was then the third-richest man in the world, died. His funeral took place in the First Baptist Church in Dallas. Probably 2,000 people attended. But no one in that audience wanted to be the guest of honor at that funeral. While people envied H. L. Hunt in his life, nobody envied him in his death. He was gone. As the psalm says, “He will not see the light of life” (19).

The last phrase has a story behind it. People in ancient cultures would build large sepulchers, and when a person died, they would take the corpse, open the door of the tomb, go inside, and place the body on a ledge. Then they would close the door of the tomb.

The corpse would be in the darkness. The only time that changed was when someone else died, and for a moment the door opened while the new corpse was placed inside. Even though a shaft of light got into the tomb, those who were dead could not see it.

The wicked, the psalmist says, go into the darkness of the tomb, but they also go into the darkness of eternity. Those who live apart from God live in eternal darkness. They live apart from the light. That’s part of the understanding: when life is over, it is not over. When the act is done, the play continues. They live in eternal darkness forever.

On the other hand, he says in verse 14, “The upright will rule over them in the morning,” and in verse 15, “But God will redeem my life from the grave; he will surely take me to himself.” While the wicked are going out into the night of the soul, out into an eternal darkness, the righteous rule over them in the morning. In the Bible, out of the night comes the day. Out of the darkness there comes the light. For those who are righteous, ahead of them there is light.

“God will redeem my life from the grave. He will surely take me to himself,” the psalmist says. Back in verse 8, he said there is no price a person can pay to be redeemed from death. There’s no amount of money that will keep death from happening. But for the righteous, God can pay the ransom. God is able to deliver the righteous from death into eternal life.

When you put your trust in Jesus Christ, you are putting your trust in the God of resurrection. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is God and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved,” Paul wrote to the Romans (10:9). What is significant about believing that Jesus rose from the dead is trusting that more than 1,900 years ago Jesus came forth from the grave and was a victor over death and darkness. The promise is that what happened to him will happen to us.

To have faith in the God of resurrection is to believe that when we die, out of the darkness of the night we go to the morning. It is to realize that God can pay the ransom, and he will take us home to be with himself.

And that understanding changes everything. For the believer in Jesus Christ, for the righteous person, we do not go out into death and into darkness. Instead, we go home to God.

Haddon Robinson is senior editor of PreachingToday.com and Harold Ockenga Distinguished Professor of Preaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. He is the author of Biblical Preaching.

Related Elsewhere

This biography of Haddon Robinson includes links to all schools he has attended and ministries and boards he is associated with.

Robinson is involved in two radio ministries: Discover the Word and Our Daily Bread.

If you have RealPlayer, you can listen to some of Robinson’s lectures on Culture and Ministry at Bethel Seminary.

Robinson’s paper ” Evangelicals Believe in Preaching” was originally part of a panel address at the Boston Theological Institute

Robinson is senior editor of Christianity Today‘s PreachingToday.com.

Robinson did an interview with CT’s sister magazine, Leadership, on how to keep errors from creeping into Scripture application.

Robinson also contributed to the CT Classic “Sex, Marriage, and Divorce.”

Robinson has authored many books, including Biblical Preaching,Biblical Sermons, What Jesus Said About Successful Living, and Decision-Making by the Book.

- More from Haddon Robinson

Ideas

Your World: Unrighteous Indignation

Frederica Mathewes-Green

Columnist

Righteous anger is often a mask for mere self-righteousness.

Representatives of many faiths and many causes sat around the big table, and directly across from me was a man who burned with zeal for his. He held forth confidently on the urgency of his organization’s mission and concluded by repeating the charge he gives his leaders.

“I tell them to stay angry,” he said.

Has anger become a virtue?

Of the seven deadly sins, anger has long been the one with the best box of costumes. When the guy in the next car rages at you, he’s dangerous. When you rage at him, you’re just. We can usually recognize the results of anger, especially in others, as destructive and evil. But there are times when we think our own anger is justified, say as a kind of fuel to fight injustice. There are times when we think it is holy. It’s not just the world that thinks this way. When I want to have a particularly futile argument with a conservative, I tell him (and, in this case, it will be a him) that I think the movie Braveheart is a revenge fantasy and that, since Christians are supposed to forsake revenge, it’s a variety of pornography. My moviegoing friend will protest that Mel Gibson portrays Christian virtues of courage and self-sacrifice. I don’t have any question about that. But Jesus showed us how to be courageous and sacrificial while we die for our beliefs, not while we kill for them. Perhaps there are time-and-place situations in which war can be just. But there’s never a situation when it’s right to gloat in revenge. There’s never a time to cultivate delicious anger just for the thrill of it. I’ve been thinking about why this kind of anger feels so good. It is, I believe, the mask of self-righteousness, and we desperately hunger to know that we are righteous. All humans suffer from free-floating guilt because, well, we’re guilty. We’re all sinners, and that’s the only kind of person Jesus came to save. But even for us Christians, it can be difficult to dwell in repentance. We, along with everyone else, itch to find some grounds on which to stake our own righteousness. One way to resolve this anxiety is by finding someone else who is worse than us. We can judge them, unload our indignation, and feel assured of our comparative righteousness. I thought of this a few years ago when news broke of church buildings burned in the South. Immediately the public grew hungry to find an evil conspiracy behind these burnings. We didn’t want them to be caused by bad wiring or pranksters or insurance fraud—we wanted to see live, walking, talking evil people. The quantity of anger bubbling under the surface, hungry for a target, was disturbing. It’s the result of guilt misfiring. Should crusaders strive to “stay angry”? It’s a bad idea. Someone once said that staying angry is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. If your cause is just, you would still find the energy to fight for it even without anger. You just wouldn’t be self-righteous about it. The worst effect of self-righteous anger is the inner damage. It distorts your clarity about your own sinfulness and undermines your humility. Jesus told us to love our enemies and demonstrated it by asking his Father to forgive his murderers. Christians’ failure to emulate such forgiveness is one of the clearest examples of G. K. Chesterton’s line that Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried. One way of dealing with our inner sense of guilt is to locate somebody worse than us and to condemn. The alternative is repentance and preferring others above ourselves. Think about the weeping woman who wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair. Her repentance broadened her heart to receive and express much love. She was more whole and blessed than the Pharisee who judged her, or a modern yuppie who judges Southern racists. A Southern racist who repents in tears goes up to his house justified, and a smug guy who says, “Well, it’s about time” but feels vaguely disappointed inside, does not. Self-righteous angry people can’t afford to be humble. Their peace is fragile. But we can love and forgive them all the same. The illusion, I think, is that we have to fight against our enemies. But in reality our opponents are not our enemies. We have an Enemy, who wants to destroy both our opponent and us. He will entice us to hatred and self-righteousness, even in doing what we think is the work of God. There is only one way to defeat him: to love our enemies instead.

Related Elsewhere

For more of Chesterton’s sayings read Christianity Today‘s ” Paradoxical Orthodoxy,” to bone up on pithy phrases from one of Christianity’s masters of irony.Visit Frederica Mathewes-Green’s Web site at www.frederica.comEarlier “Your World” columns by Frederica Mathewes-Green columns include:A Clear and Present Identity (Sept. 5, 2000) Every Day Is Casual Friday (July 18, 2000) Get It? (May 18, 2000) Sex and Saints (Apr. 11, 2000) Psalm 23 and All That (Feb. 15, 2000) The Abortion Debate Is Over (Dec. 28, 1999) The Thrill of Naughtiness, (September 6, 1999) Escape from Fantasy Island, (July 12, 1999) Men Need Church, Too, (May 24, 1999) My Spice Girl Moment, (January 11, 1999) Moms in the Crossfire, (October 26, 1998) Gagging on Shiny, Happy People, (September 7, 1998) Whatever Happened to Middle-Class Hypocrisy? (July 13, 1998) I Didn’t Mean to be Rude, (May 18, 1998)

Your World: A Frederica Mathewes-Green column that ran from 1998 to 2000

- More from Frederica Mathewes-Green

Ideas

Quotations to Contemplate

Quotations to contemplate on dying and eternity.

Mortal Knowledge

Everyone knows they’re going to die … but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently. … [T]here’s a better approach. To know you’re going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That’s better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you’re living.Morrie Schwartz, in Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays with Morrie

The Purpose of Life

Is the object of life to live? No, it is not to live but to die! And not only to hew the cross but to mount it. And to give all that we have, laughing!Paul Claudel in Weavings

Surprises

Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.Vladimir Nabokov, quoted in The Living Pulpit

Final Peace

When the writer of Revelation spoke of the coming of the day of shalom, he did not say that on that day we would live at peace with death. He said that on that day “There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son

Daily Reminder

Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die.The Rule of St. Benedict

Deathbed Ignorance

I have been shocked by the number of Christian men and women who come to their deathbeds knowing nothing about the God of love and mercy. They have known instead the Judge of impossible standards, and they have been, naturally enough, afraid to meet that God.Eve Kavanaugh, “Prayer of the Flesh”

Heavenly Banquet

Whoever does not have some foretaste of the heavenly banquet will never partake of it.Johann Tauler, quoted in Context

Oven-fired Hope

Christian hope for life beyond death is a hope that has passed through the furnace of suffering and death. Christians affirm the good news of Easter only in the wake of the anguish of Good Friday. Our hope for everlasting life permits no evasion of death’s hard reality.Amy Plantinga Pauw, “Dying Well” in Practicing Our Faith

Funeral Wisdom

[B]etter than baptisms or marriages, funerals press the noses of the faithful against the windows of their faith. … The afterlife begins to make the most sense after life—when someone we love is dead on the premises.Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade

Related Elsewhere

Past Reflections columns include:Quotations of Time and Eternity (Oct. 11, 2000) Quotations to Contemplate (Sept. 21, 2000) Christian virtues (Aug. 22, 2000) Beauty, Prayer and Loving God (Aug. 1, 2000) Prayer, Silence and Other Topics (June 31, 2000) Getting, Giving, and Generosity (June 13,2000). Easter Sunday (Apr. 3, 2000) Good Friday (Apr. 3, 2000) Friendships (Mar. 6, 2000) Gratitude: Take One (Feb. 7, 2000) God Will Prevail (Oct. 25, 1999) The Might of a Dandelion (Oct. 4, 1999) Losing Touch with God (Sept. 6,1999) Real Joy (Aug. 9, 1999) Prayer for Today (Mar. 1, 1999)

Is the Stock Market Good Stewardship?

Raymond Albrektson

I see more of our Christian brothers investing in the market. Is this a healthy trend?—Edward Tsui, Toronto

Many Christians associate the term “stewardship” with giving, but it actually includes all aspects of managing the wealth that God puts into our hands—and that includes making wise investments. In today’s go-go climate of speculation, where daytraders and dot-com millionaires are often in the limelight, it’s easy for people to equate prudent investing (for retirement or a child’s college education) with Las Vegas–style gambling.

There’s one huge difference, however, between a biblical perspective on investing and our current cultural infatuation with millionaire-mania, and that’s the issue of ownership. Many of today’s most daring investors take wild risks for one goal—to become rich. Christians, on the other hand, are already rich, but not in material assets—those belong to God.

The bedrock of a biblical understanding of wealth is that it all belongs to God, but he entrusts us to manage it during our lifetime. Our task is to decide how to divide the pie. How much do we give away to help meet the needs of others and expand God’s kingdom? How much do we consume on our own needs? And how much do we set aside for future needs?

We’re basically trustees, and a trustee normally does not take high risks with the owner’s wealth. When you entrust assets to a financial manager, you expect rational plans for putting that money to work, not unreasonable risks in hopes of a quick payoff.

The desire to get rich quickly drowns out the biblical voice that counsels us to set aside from our current abundance against a future need. Proverbs 6:6–8 extols the humble ant, which despite its insectival intelligence has the wit to put aside resources to meet the needs of an uncertain future. It’s reasonable to assume that—after we’ve given to God’s work—if God gives us more than we currently need, then like the ant we should set aside some portion of that surplus.

It’s also sensible for us to invest that surplus and seek the best reasonable return on that investment. Yet the spectrum of financial investing runs from ultrasecure, low-interest bonds to the wild and woolly world of speculating in options and commodity futures. Most people will want to stick to the middle of that spectrum.

Jesus walked the earth long before the modern stock market, but there is no doubt that he was familiar with all the concepts involved. Consider his parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–28). The master in the story followed basic investment principles that still make sense. For example, he diversified. He did not put all his assets in the hands of a single individual. What’s more, over time he eliminated ineffective investment options and switched to those that worked.

Matthew recorded Jesus’ parable of the talents primarily to illustrate that the leaders of Israel would be held accountable to God for their stewardship of the nation. The “wicked, lazy” steward had not even invested his assets with the first-century equivalent of an insured, low-interest savings account. The drastic punishment he received implied that, in the realm of stewardship, doing nothing is as bad as thievery or reckless waste. Yet the master in the parable applauded the other two stewards for their faithfulness.

The principles we can draw from this parable remain applicable in the modern world of the NASDAQ and index funds. God has given us assets for which we will ultimately face an accounting. We should invest those assets wisely, yet the owner of those assets remains God, not us.

Money invested in various chunks spread out along the middle of the spectrum of risk will likely grow over time. But increased wealth brings with it the temptation to assume ownership of those assets. Jesus often cautioned people about the dangers of trusting in riches (Matthew 6:24). We are all too prone to trust God with our finances when young and poor but then to begin to trust in wealth should God multiply our funds.

We must remember that God remains the owner, and he may one day tell us it is time for those investments to be put to work in his kingdom. The temptation to think of God’s assets as “ours” is one that increases with investment success, and we need to periodically remind ourselves of this fact.

From time to time, I’m convinced, God uses financial setbacks to jog our memory about who really owns it all. When there’s a major free-fall in the market, or some particular investment heads south, or there’s some other significant assault on the assets God put into our hands—that’s the time to repeat aloud a few times: “It all belongs to God.”

J. Raymond Albrektson is associate professor of New Testament at the International School of Theology, Rancho Cucamonga, California, and the author of Living Large: How to Live Well—Even on a Little.

Related Elsewhere

Dr. J. Raymond Albrektson is an associate professor at the International School of Theology.

Albrektson also teaches short courses (typically Old Testament Survey, New Testament Survey, Church History Survey, Introduction to Inductive Bible Study) around the world, most recently in the former countries of the USSR.

Click here for listings of articles Albrektson has published.

His book, Living Large: How to Live Well—Even on a Little, is available from Worthy books.

Previous Christianity Today stories about investment and finances include:

We’re in the Money! | How did evangelicals get so wealthy, and what has it done to us? (June 9, 2000)

The Culture of the Market: A Christian Vision | A Coptic bishop explains biblical economics to a Muslim newspaper. (Dec. 6, 1999)

Keeping Up with the Amish | We evangelicals have made a too-easy peace with the inroads of consumer culture. (Oct. 4, 1999)

Pious Profits? | ‘Socially responsible’ investing grows popular. (Sept. 6, 1999)

- More from Raymond Albrektson

Camus the Christian?

James W. Sire

A pastor describes how the great existentialist atheist asked him late in life, Do you perform baptisms?

Albert Camus and the Minister

by Howard Mumma Paraclete, 217 pages, $15.95

When Albert Camus’s The Fall was published in 1956, “numerous pious souls” thought the famous atheist, existentialist novelist, and philosopher was nearing conversion—so says French critic Alain Costes. Methodist pastor Howard Mumma was one of those pious souls and for good reason.

Mumma is no wishful thinker, no pious Christian admirer who imagines reasons to list Camus among the saints. Over several summers, as he served as guest minister at the American Church in Paris, Mumma was sought out by Camus. Sworn to secrecy at the time, Mumma now reconstructs the “irregular and occasional” dialogues that took place before Camus’s tragic death in a car accident on January 4, 1960. These dialogues climaxed with Camus’s request to be baptized privately.

To me and, I imagine, to many not quite so pious readers of Camus, the conversations this book describes come as a stunning revelation—but not one lacking credibility. Still, some readers will surely find this revelation a serious challenge to Camus’s intellectual stature and will refuse to believe it.

There is, of course, little way for readers now to verify whether these dialogues took place, or to verify the accuracy of Mumma’s memory then or now, 40 years later, when he is in his 90s. Still, the details of the setting for the dialogues and the reconstructed interchanges have the ring of truth.

The problem of pain

Camus had long dealt with religious issues: the meaning of life, the problem of evil, the feelings of guilt, the foundation for morality, the longing for eternal life.

Though, as Camus tells Mumma, “The silence of the universe has led me to conclude that the world is without meaning,” he had already confessed in an essay written in 1950 that he had made his whole life an attempt to “transcend nihilism.” His three major novels—The Stranger (1942), The Plague (1947), and The Fall (1956)—deal with profound moral and spiritual issues. Still, none of them—nor any of his short stories, dramas or essays—gives any indication that he was seriously considering conversion to Christianity.

Camus rejected both Marxism, his constant enemy, and Christianity, his frequent sparring partner. His main sticking point was the problem of suffering and evil. Camus refused to believe in the existence of a God who is both omnipotent and good. The world taken on its own is meaningless. If there were a God, then there might be a meaning to the world. But the profound suffering of the innocent is universal. God—if there is a God—does nothing to prevent it or alleviate it. Therefore he either does not exist or he is not omnipotent and not worth believing in. Worse, he may be evil himself.

Camus’s response to this meaningless world is to rebel, to launch an attack on suffering. In the image of his novel, it is to fight the plague.

What attracts all morally sensitive readers to Camus’s philosophy is its honesty, its openness to the reality of suffering, his refusal to accept any cheap answers, but at the same time his passion to act positively, not only to have compassion on the suffering but, as an intellectual with stellar gifts as a writer, to encourage others to do so as well. Without believing in anything “transcendent,” he calls us to “transcend” nihilism by our actions, to make meaning where there is no meaning.

What Mumma shows us, however, is a Camus who had doubts about his own solution and premonitions that genuine meaning did in fact exist in God as understood by traditional Christianity. “I am searching for something I do not have, something I’m not sure I can define,” he tells Mumma in their first encounter. The world is not rational, it does not fit human needs and desire. “In a word, our very existence is absurd.” Suicide seems the only logical response.

Mumma does not hasten to counter Camus’s charge; rather, he sympathizes with Camus’s frustration and confesses his own inability to make sense of the world. This at first seems like strange behavior for a pastor. In fact, however, it mirrors the behavior of Job’s friends—the one thing they got right. They sat with Job for seven days and seven nights without speaking. Camus returns for a second visit and the dialogue resumes.

As the conversations continue, Camus begins to read the Bible, something he confesses not to have done before. In fact he does not even own one; so Mumma gets one for him, and Camus starts with Genesis. This raises the issue of the whether the Bible is to be taken literally, especially the story of Adam and Eve. When Mumma interprets it as a parable of the origin of the conscience, in short, a tale putting the origin of human evil in the attempt of human beings to make themselves gods, Camus finds the story to ring true.

While Mumma’s answers are broadly speaking neo-orthodox, not quite those an evangelical would likely give, the theology is traditional at heart, and it is in line with Camus’s own understanding of human nature.

Sartre the blusterer

Mumma then mentions the well-known relationship between Jean-Paul Sartre and Camus. Mumma has already had two significant encounters with Sartre; these become a springboard for further dialogue with Camus. In his conversation with Mumma, Sartre held that there is no god of any kind. Human beings alone have a nonmaterial dimension; from that, they are able to break free of their material constraints and create their own nature, their own character.

When Mumma asks where this nonmaterial nature comes from, Sartre has no explanation. He merely blusters, “I have no answers to this question, but I emphatically deny any natural or biological origin for the spiritual freedom with which man is cursed or blessed. … Let us drop the subject.” Still, a bit dejected, he asks Mumma to explain the Christian view of the question. When Mumma replies, Sartre says, “I have not heard this reasoning before and will have to think on it further.”

The conversation with Sartre then moves to morality. According to Sartre, free individuals create by their choices both their own character and the moral principles by which they live. They are obligated only to themselves. But if they are obligated to no one else, how can ethics be anything but relative? In short, how can there be a morality—an ought in a world of contrary notions of what is good, none of which has a claim on any other? Mumma has only two encounters with Sartre, neither of which stirs Sartre from his commitment to atheism.

Private baptism?

Mumma is no novelist; he does not try to picture the movement of Camus’s mind. What he does is to shock us as he himself is shocked by what Camus suddenly asks: “Howard, do you perform baptisms?” What does “You must be born again” mean? After being told that “baptism is a symbolic commitment to God” and being born again means “to enter anew or afresh into the process of spiritual growth … to receive forgiveness because you have asked God to forgive you of all your sins,” Camus says, “Howard, I am ready. I want this.”

Then came the dilemma for Mumma. Camus had already been baptized in the Roman Catholic Church. According to Methodist belief and that of many other denominations, once is enough. Moreover, baptism is a public affair. It means becoming a part of the visible community of faith. It is the latter that now becomes the sticking point. Camus is a very public figure.

But Mumma would not agree to a private baptism. Instead, he counseled Camus to continue his study of the faith and to postpone baptism till the two of them could reach the same persuasion. Camus accompanied Mumma to the airport as he prepared to return to the States, expecting to see Camus again the next year. “My friend, mon ché;ri, thank you. … I am going to keep striving for the Faith!” Suddenly Mumma has second thoughts. Should he have baptized and confirmed him?

But it is too late. A few months later, Mumma hears of Camus’s sudden death. Although he wonders if he had made a mistake, Mumma writes:

I had implied that baptism was an event that usually only happens once, and I certainly wasn’t worried for his soul. God had set aside a special place for him, I was sure.

Apologetic questions

For any Christian interested in apologetics, this book raises a host of questions.

What if Mumma had answered Camus’s questions in a more evangelical way, arguing for the historicity of Adam and Eve and a less exclusively theological reading of the Bible? Camus could see the power of the theological understanding of evil, one with which most evangelicals would be in basic agreement. Would he have been so ready to proceed if Mumma insisted that he accept a more literal understanding of the Old Testament?

What if Mumma had directed Camus to the Gospels first? Would that have raised a different set of questions in Camus’s mind? Camus has shown some sympathy with Jesus in his writing. Would his fresh and direct encounter with him in the New Testament have given a different focus to his struggle with the problem of evil?

When a seeker asks for baptism, how much must be believed? Given Camus’s status as a celebrity, how important is the public aspect of baptism? We know, for example, the strain on public figures who are converted. Already in the limelight, they are prone to overconfidence and too often fade from overexposure. Worse, the Christian community often parades them before the public as arguments for the faith.

This book is an important addition to apologetic literature—not because of the details of the argument, for there is nothing new here—but because of who Sartre and Camus were and continue to be in the intellectual world. If Sartre could only bluster when a key weakness of his philosophy is pointed out by an ordinary pastor, how solid is the intellectual foundation of atheism? If Camus, more honest and open than Sartre to the flaws of his own system, could finally see the truth of Christianity, how optimistic could we be about the conversion of honest atheists?

James W. Sire, author of The Universe Next Door, has recently published Habits of the Mind: Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling (InterVarsity Press).

Related Elsewhere

For hundreds of Camus links, click here.

Read a brief Camus biography.

In October’s The New Republic James Wood’s ” The Sickness Unto Life” examines why Camus, and thinkers who question God most rigorously, often arrive at highly orthodox conclusions.

You can purchase Howard E. Mumma’s Albert Camus and the Minister online.

James W. Sire’s The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog is available from Worthy books. Habits of the Mind, his latest work, is available from IVP.

- More from James W. Sire

Machiavelli Marooned

Robert Pyne

The church offers something that transcends the reality of television.

Television viewers have an opportunity this fall and winter to witness two very different sets of games from the land down under. Both will provide tests of mental and physical endurance, and both will provide previously anonymous competitors a few minutes of fame. But the games will be very different: one ancient, the other (post)modern; one about highly trained athletes chosen for their skill, the other about “real people” chosen for group dynamics. One is the Olympics; the other is Survivor II: “Swifter, higher, stronger” vs. “outwit, outplay, outlast.”After establishing itself as the highest-rated summer series in television history, CBS’s Survivor will return this winter with new castaways, this time “stranded” in the Australian outback with a TV crew again taping them at random. As before, one individual will be “voted off” each week, and the final survivor will win $1 million.Thousands of men and women have sent in applications to be a part of the show, and millions will watch the carefully edited program, which is scheduled to begin airing in January.The possibility of fame and fortune has always made people do silly things, so it’s not surprising that self-respecting persons would willingly abandon the comforts of home for a diet of rats and rice in the company of contentious strangers. Others have done worse for less reward.But why do we bother to watch? And what can we possibly learn in the process? In particular, what can we learn about human nature, and what lessons might that provide for the church?

Contrived reality

In Darwinian terms, the “survival of the fittest” is accelerated by competition for resources. When the food supply is limited, some people will go hungry, and when they die, we surmise they must have been less fit for survival. Those who do survive are thought to be more fit, or perhaps just more lucky. Either way, the whole process wouldn’t be much fun to watch. Had CBS been more serious about “reality TV,” with the castaways contending for genuine survival, Survivor might have looked more like Lord of the Flies. We can be thankful that CBS wanted the program’s title to remain metaphorical.There wasn’t much food on Pulau Tiga, but since the network wanted even the less fit to be able to go home, it established some ground rules. Sixteen “castaways” were divided into two equal tribes, competing against each other in organized contests for both “rewards” and “immunity” in each episode.The tribe that won the reward gained some physical or emotional edge over the other tribe. Equipment for spearing fish, for example, made the Tagi tribe “more fit” for survival on a tropical island. Their Pagong rivals continued to eat captured rats. The immunity challenge was even more consequential: the losing tribe had to send one of its members home.All these circumstances were obviously contrived, but the simulated struggle for survival allowed the tribes to demonstrate one of the most basic principles of human nature and politics: driven by the self-interest of their members, groups will always act in their own best interests.Reinhold Niebuhr expressed the point memorably almost 70 years ago in Moral Man and Immoral Society: “As individuals, men believe that they ought to love and serve each other and establish justice between each other. As racial, economic, and national groups they take for themselves whatever their power can command.”Beginning by eliminating the physically weak, the tribes inevitably made decisions that hurt the least. With each vote they did what they thought was best for the group.The rules of the game changed halfway through the series, when the two tribes merged. Individualism would now replace group identity; at least that’s what most viewers thought. But real life doesn’t work that way, and neither did the TV show. As the saying goes, there is safety in numbers. Like Cain, who refused to be a wanderer and sought protection by founding a city, individuals typically form alliances in pursuit of personal gain.That’s why nobody should have been surprised when several members of the old Tagi tribe continued to vote together as a bloc even after the tribal merger. They protected one another’s interests by lining up against each of their competitors, beginning with the strongest. When the others didn’t form a similar pact, believing alliances to be bad form, they had little chance to survive.Of course, you don’t have to be a temporary TV star on a deserted island to find your career path blocked by someone else’s Machiavellian alliance or good-old-boy network. The same dynamics are familiar to those who understand corporate politics. That’s why some were surprised to see B. B., the successful business executive (i.e., the corporate survivor), depart the island so quickly. He actually asked the others to vote him off, but he may have been in trouble even without issuing an invitation, especially given the youthful makeup of his tribe. When B. B. had to leave, one of the younger men mocked, “Arrr! And a good leader ya were, too!”Such attitudes come easily to those who view their leaders through the lens of postmodern cynicism. No longer following the idealistic notion that our leaders are somehow better than us, and moving beyond the modern refrain that anyone can grow up to be president, many today think of leaders and executives as not uncommon men and women who have sold their souls to the devil. Like Richard, the corporate trainer who won Survivor‘s $1 million prize, they are not necessarily more talented than the rest of us, nor are they more virtuous, but they do know how to play the game. In the comic strip, Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss may be an incompetent demon, but he knows how to win.So what is the moral of the story so far? In the real world, whether or not it’s shown on TV, the selfish tend to survive, especially when they are selfish enough to form alliances.That is not to say, of course, that they truly succeed. After all, Jesus said the first will be last and the last first. By seeking a reward that is beyond this life, believers may be defeated until the parousia, but they will ultimately be first. “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or farms for my name’s sake shall receive many times as much, and shall inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29, NASB).

Are we any different?

That kind of promise raises a significant question. Are we who are seeking a better city just as motivated by self-interest as the competitors on Survivor? After all, they were willing to endure difficult circumstances for a short time in the hope that they might become rich. How is that different from our suffering “for a little while” as we anticipate our final salvation (1 Peter 1:5-9)?First, our hope is more relational. Put simply, we do not hope for more stuff; we hope for Christ.Second, our hope is more communal. It is a shared and inclusive hope, not one in which personal survival demands the defeat of others.The church is to be a place where there are no winners or losers, no competition for survival. The weak are not voted off but embraced, strengthened, and encouraged. The strong are not rejected as rivals but freed for ministry. Leaders are trusted, not mocked, and the diversity of gifts is appreciated.Unlike the tribes on Survivor, and unlike other groups in the world, the church is safer when it isn’t trying to win.

Robert Pyneis professor of systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary and author of Humanity and Sin: The Creation, Fall, and Redemption of Humanity.

Related Elsewhere

Time.com’s Lance Morrow wrote a Web essay, ” Why ‘Survivor’ Left Me Feeling Sad and Dirty.”To read about events of the Summer Olympics, or October’s Paralympics in Sydney, visit sydney.olympics.org. Survivorsucks.com is a site for those who love to pontificate and criticize. Currently it displays gossip about the upcoming show and a countdown clock to the premiere of Survivor II.Read Entertainment Weekly‘s predictions for the cast of the original Survivor as they negotiate their newfound fame.For reams of Survivor reports including the latest gossip about the possible site of Survivor II, click here.CBS’s Survivor sites include an ad for Survivor II in Australia and the official Survivor site with interviews and personality profiles from the old cast.Previous Christianity Today stories about Survivor and the Sydney Olympics include:Olympic Chaplains Not Taken Seriously, Christians Claim | Australian Christians say the Olympic committee views chaplains as just another group of volunteers. (Sept. 18, 2000) A Bible for the Likes of Mike | German athletes collaborate on an Olympic “sports Bible” that even Michael Johnson could love. (Sept. 18, 2000) Is Reality TV Beyond Redemption? | CBS hooks viewers with new lowbrow programming. (Aug. 2, 2000) Weblog: Is CBS’s Survivor Pro-Abortion, Pro-Euthanasia, and Pro-Evolution? (June 19, 2000)

- More from Robert Pyne

Ideas

The Back Page | Philip Yancey: Getting a Life

Philip Yancey

Columnist

The most fully alive persons are those who give their lives away.

The glory of God is a person fully alive,” said the second-century theologian Irenaeus. Sadly, that description does not reflect the image many people have of modern Christians. Rightly or wrongly, they see us rather as restrained, uptight, repressed—people less likely to celebrate vitality than to wag our fingers in disapproval.

“What made you so negative against Christianity?” a friend once asked Friedrich Nietzsche. “I never saw the members of my father’s church enjoying themselves,” he replied. Where did Christians get the reputation as life-squelchers instead of life-enhancers? Jesus himself promised, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” What keeps us from realizing that abundant life?

In some believers, unhealthy family or church backgrounds may have a stifling effect. Adult Children of Alcoholics, an organization that works with families afflicted by alcoholism, identifies three coping mechanisms children learn in order to survive a dysfunctional setting: Don’t Talk, Don’t Trust, and Don’t Feel. Christian counselors tell me that troubled Christians tend to operate by the same rules in relating to God. Emerging from a strict upbringing, or feeling disillusioned by some aspect of the Christian life, they squelch passion and fall back on a guarded, cautious faith. Fearful, they find a haven among people who think like they do, in a “safe” environment withdrawn from the world.

Of course, the church also includes a long tradition of mystics and monastics who viewed the world and its pleasures with open suspicion. John of the Cross advised believers to mortify all joy and hope, to turn “Not to what most pleases, but to what disgusts,” and to “Despise yourself, and wish that others should despise you.” St. Bernard covered his eyes to avoid the beauty of Swiss lakes. Madame Guyon urged the faithful to mortify self and move toward a state of total passivity. Strive for “nothingness,” she counseled; achieve “complete indifference to yourself.” Hardly a prescription for feeling fully alive.

After writing two dozen books on a variety of subjects, author Frederick Buechner decided to turn his literary skills to exploring the lives of saints. The first three he chose—Brendan, Godric, and the biblical Jacob—surprised him, for the more he researched them, the more skeletons in the closet he uncovered. What made this unsavory trio saintly? he asked himself. He finally settled on the word “life-giver.” Passionate, risk-taking, courageous, each of the three made those around him feel more alive, not less.

When I heard Buechner give that definition of saintliness, I thought immediately of my friend Bob. His parents worried about his spiritual state, concerned that he was spending too little time “in the Word” and in church. But I have never met anyone more fully alive. He took in stray animals, did carpentry chores for friends, climbed mountains, skydived, learned to cook, built his own house. Although Bob rarely used religious words, I noticed that everyone around him, including me, felt more alive after spending time with him. He radiated the kind of pleasure in the world of matter that God must feel. By Buechner’s definition, at least, Bob was a saint.

I have known other life-giving Christians. A devout Presbyterian named Jack McConnell invented the Tine test for tuberculosis, helped develop Tylenol and MRI imaging, and then devoted his retirement to recruiting retired physicians to provide free medical clinics for the poor. Overseas I have met missionaries who repair their own vehicles, master several languages, study the local flora and fauna, and give shots if no doctor is available. Often these life-givers have difficulty finding a comfortable fit in staid American churches.

Paradoxically, the life-givers I have known seem most abundant with life themselves. Buechner restates the paradox first articulated by Jesus, that the most fully alive persons demonstrate it by giving away that life:

Inspection stickers used to have printed on the back ‘Drive carefully—the life you save may be your own.’ That is the wisdom of men in a nutshell. What God says, on the other hand, is ‘The life you save is the life you lose.’ In other words, the life you clutch, hoard, guard, and play safe with is in the end a life worth little to anybody, including yourself; and only a life given away for love’s sake is a life worth living. To bring his point home, God shows us a man who gave his life away to the extent of dying a national disgrace without a penny in the bank or a friend to his name. In terms of men’s wisdom, he was a perfect fool, and anybody who thinks he can follow him without making something like the same kind of fool of himself is laboring under not a cross but a delusion.

Related Elsewhere

Read more about the life of St. John of the Cross, St. Bernard, or Madame Guyon.

Or study Buechner’s favorites St. Brendan, St. Godric, or the biblical Jacob of Genesis 27-29.

Buechner’s books Godric and Brendan are available from the Christianity Today bookstore.

Other Buechner books include Listening to Your Life, Son of Laughter, and Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale.

To read more about Jack McConnell’s accomplishments link to this short bio from his proud alma mater.

Christianity Today recently ran “Living with Furious Opposites,” from Yancey’s latest book, Reaching for the Invisible God.

Yancey’s columns for Christianity Today include:

To Rise, It Stoops (Aug. 29, 2000)

Lessons from Rock Bottom (July 10, 2000)

Chess Master (May 15, 2000)

Would Jesus Worship Here? (Feb.7, 2000)

Doctor’s Orders (Dec. 2, 1999)

Getting to Know Me (Oct. 25,1999)

The Encyclopedia of Theological Ignorance (Sept. 6, 1999)

Writing the Trinity (July 12, 1999)

Can Good Come Out of This Evil? (June 14, 1999)

The Last Deist (Apr. 5, 1999)

Why I Can Feel Your Pain (Feb. 8, 1999)

What The Prince of Egypt Won’t Tell You (Dec. 7, 1998)

What’s a Heaven For? (Oct. 26,1998)

The Fox and the Writer (Sept. 7,1998)

Philip Yancey: A Philip Yancey column that ran from 1985 to 2009

- More from Philip Yancey

Theology

Gwen Shamblin in the Balance

John W. Kennedy with additional reporting by Todd Starnes

Thomas Nelson cancels book contract with Weigh Down author over her controversial comments rejecting the Trinity.

A weight-loss program that has been criticized for its controversial health practices now is drawing fire for the questionable theological views of its leader, whose publisher has shelved plans for her next book.Christians had earlier found fault with the Weigh Down Diet because it places no restrictions on what types of foods participants may eat (CT, Sept. 4, p. 50). Apologists and church leaders are now asking whether founder Gwen Shamblin holds heretical views of the Trinity, based on her comments on the Weigh Down Web site (see link below). Since 1992, Shamblin has taken her business from a garage start-up to a multimillion-dollar Nashville corporation. Her 1997 book The Weigh Down Diet has sold more than 1 million copies. There are 30,000 Weigh Down Workshop locations meeting weekly around the world, including in thousands of evangelical churches. Shamblin is scheduled to lead a one-day workshop Saturday on the campus of Wheaton College in Illinois. The controversy intensified after Shamblin posted a weekly e-mail communique to her followers on Aug. 10. "As a ministry, we believe in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit," Shamblin wrote. "However, the Bible does not use the word 'trinity' and our feeling is that the word 'trinity' implies equality in leadership, or shared Lordship. It is clear that the scriptures teach that Jesus is the Son of God and that God sends the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not send God anywhere. God is clearly the Head."Since then, Shamblin has been removed from the Women of Faith Web site, several influential evangelical churches have dropped her program, and some key employees have left. On Wednesday, Thomas Nelson canceled publication of Shamblin's new book, Out of Egypt, scheduled to ship to bookstores in late September."Gwen has touched the lives of untold thousands of people," Michael S. Hyatt of Thomas Nelson told Christianity Today. "We had the joy of publishing Rise Above and seeing it appear of the bestseller list. However, because of the recent controversy created by her doctrinal position we do not feel that we can go forward with this project."L.L. "Don" Veinot Jr., president of the apologetics ministry Midwest Christian Outreach in Lombard, Illinois, received more than two dozen inquiries about Shamblin from Weigh Down workers and coordinators after the Aug. 10 e-mail. Veinot phoned Shamblin after reviewing the Web site, but he says the conversation only confirmed Shamblin's stance that the Trinity is unbiblical.

Anti-Trinitarian?

"When I asked about her statement that the Father and Son are two separate beings, her reply was 'absolutely,'" Veinot says. "Her views are closer to that of Jehovah's Witnesses than anything resembling the historic biblical faith."Veinot believes Shamblin's religious beliefs avoided scrutiny for so long because of the subject matter she teaches. "Weight loss is not one of the high priorities in apologetics or counter-cult work," he says."The material on the Web site makes a distinction between the Father and Son that is heretical," Veinot says. "She is clearly anti-Trinitarian."In the same Aug. 10 e-mail—which has since been deleted from the Web site—Shamblin tells followers that Christians grieve Jesus if they adhere to doctrines not found in Scripture. "If God wanted us to refer to Himself, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit as the 'trinity,' He would not have left this word completely out of the Bible.""There are a lot of words that contain biblical concepts that are not in the Bible," Veinot notes. "The word Bible is not in the Bible. "Thomas C. Oden, professor of theology and ethics at Drew University and former senior editor of Christianity Today, agrees that such a literal argument is ridiculous. He notes that the word evangelism is not in the Bible, yet no serious Christian would deny its validity.Shamblin says she does not see what all the fuss is about, and that many ministers—from Baptists to Episcopalians—have called to support her. Those pastors who have closed the program down are ineffective because there are other congregations down the street where it is being held, she says."A few people have been on a witch hunt in the last month," Shamblin told CT. She likens the controversy to Christian authors holding differing views on "once saved, always saved" teachings.

What women want

"People don't care about this," Shamblin told CT. "They don't care about the Trinity. This is going to pass. What the women want is weight loss. They care about their bodies being a temple and their lives turned over to the Lord. That's what my ministry is about."Yet Oden says Shamblin's views mirror teachings on modalism and subordinationism rejected as heretical by the early church. As leaders in the early church debated their doctrine of God, some were drawn into the different extremes of modalism or subordinationism. Oden says there are a dozen key passages in Scripture on which the Trinitarian doctrine is based. Modalism overemphasizes the oneness of the Godhead at the expense of the three persons, while subordinationism overemphasizes the distinctiveness of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the expense of the oneness of their being."In the very early Trinitarian controversies, some people said that God reveals himself first in the form of the Father, second in the form of the Son, and third in the form of the Spirit, so that there are three consecutive modes of God's disclosure. It's a denial of the eternity of the Trinity," Oden says."Subordination was judged to be in error in ancient Christian tradition because it neglected the fact that the eternal God who becomes incarnate in the Son is nothing less than God," Oden says. "In the Incarnation, God submits to our human form without ceasing to be the eternal God."Oden says Shamblin fails to comprehend the basic elements of Trinitarian reasoning: "She just doesn't understand the triune teaching and this puts her in opposition to the ancient teachings shared by Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox."Longtime observers of Shamblin's writings say they are skimpy on theological specifics. "I was concerned that Gwen doesn't talk about Jesus much for a Christian," says Helen Mildenhall, a former Weigh Down Workshop participant in Oak Park, Illinois. "She never talks about Jesus in terms of One with whom she has an ongoing relationship."Marriage and family counselor Lynette Hoy, who is director of LifeCare Ministries at Calvary Memorial Church in Oak Park, kept the Weigh Down Diet from being reintroduced at the church after a four-year run. Some participants complained that the program is legalistic, overemphasizes obedience and does not present the gospel clearly, she says. Hoy examined Weigh Down materials and further found an abundance on experiential feelings and a lack of understanding about Jesus' mission.Shamblin's 12-week "Exodus Out of Egypt" weight-loss seminar, which costs $103 per participant, is being held in 60 denominations in 70 countries. In an earlier interview, Shamblin told CT that Weigh Down is successful because it is being judged by its fruits. Craig Branch, director of Apologetics Resource Center in Birmingham, Alabama, believes the weekly messages that Shamblin has written on the Weigh Down Web site reflect her Church of Christ background, which he says historically has had an ambiguous view of the Trinity. Branch says the writings reflect an extreme view of lordship, a mixing of works and grace, and a "restoration of New Testament Christianity" movement that relegates other beliefs as apostate."My background is Church of Christ and that's where all this came from," Shamblin says, noting that hymnals, for instance, change the words of "Holy, Holy, Holy" from "God in three persons, blessed Trinity" to "God over all and blessed eternally."Shamblin no longer is in a Church of Christ congregation, however. She says her husband, David, who started a new church in the Nashville area last year with another couple, is now her pastor. She says he is the "leading shepherd" of Remnant Fellowship, which has about 80 members, many of them Weigh Down employees.

Weigh Down worker dismissed

In a related development, Weigh Down faces questions about its handling of employees in connection with Shamblin's theological views and membership at Remnant Fellowship.Carney Hawkins, a resident of the Nashville area, says she worked for Shamblin and the Weigh Down Workshop for four years. Her first three years at Weigh Down were spent coordinating classes. At the time of her dismissal, she was director of counseling and supervisor over outreach.Carney said she was fired because of theological differences. "Gwen and I had an ongoing discussion for several months trying to nail down what she believed and what she was saying," Carney said. "To the end, I knew that I couldn't keep my job. She told me I couldn't embrace the message of grace and then she fired me."The problem I had is that I came to her in love with questions about what she was teaching," Carney said. "It was very difficult for me. We had been close friends. Those people were my family."Carney said she wanted to talk to the rest of the staff before leaving Weigh Down, but Shamblin gave orders for no one to associate with Carney."Anyone who leaves is labeled a devil," Carney said. "She orders them not to speak or fellowship with those who leave the ministry. There is a spirit of fear."Carney said the atmosphere at Weigh Down is extremely difficult: "It's very exclusive. There is a lot of fear and there is a lot of redefining of scriptural terms."Carney and another two former Weigh Down employees interviewed by CT express a spirit of love and concern for Shamblin. They are apprehensive about how going public will affect the ministry. "I never wanted to see Gwen or the company destroyed," Carney said. "I wanted her to get back on track. Now, instead of that happening, it looks like God is moving people away from her ministry."At least 40 employees have been either fired or resigned since Jan. 1, according to an anonymous source inside Weigh Down. Carney said employees are urged to leave their churches and join the Remnant Fellowship. "The office is under a lot of pressure to be a part of that church," she said. "And some people have been fired for not joining."As for theology, Carney believes Shamblin is not very clear in what she believes. "I do think that Gwen has some wonderful principles for weight loss. But she teaches that we have to love God first and we have to get God to love us. The Bible teaches that God is the pursuer in the love relationship, not us," Carney said."Gwen believes that you had better get things right or you are going to hell."It wasn't until 1998 that Carney felt Shamblin's message had begun to change from weight loss to condemnation."She started referring to grace as a license to sin," Carney said.Shamblin was traveling on Friday and unavailable for further comment on recent employee terminations and resignations at Weigh Down

Related Elsewhere

Shamblin's statement of theology posted on her Web site once read, "Where I differ on the teaching in the Trinity that there is EQUALITY in power and glory of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit; rather, I believe it is a clear line of AUTHORITY." Shamblin's most recent statement reads, "Our feeling is that the word 'trinity' implies equality in leadership, or shared Lordship. … We feel that we grieve Jesus when we do not watch our words and their meaning—especially a word not found in either the Old or New Testament, writings that span centuries of God's inspired word. If God wanted us to refer to himself, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit as the 'trinity' He would not have left this word completely out of the Bible."Shamblin and Weigh Down have been profiled in The Washington Post,The Abilene Reporter-News, The Holland Sentinel, U.S. News and World Report, Charisma magazine, World magazine (which profiled the diet this year and in 1997), ReligionToday, and Christianity Today sister publication Today's Christian Woman For a brief overview from Shamblin's perspective, read an article she wrote at the Christian Broadcasting Network's site.You can listen to a reading from Shamblin's Rise Above, read her biography, or chat about her diet plan at Ann Online.View the official Weigh Down Diet site.Christopher Hall's Christianity Today article " Adding Up the Trinity | What is stimulating the renewed interest in what many consider the most enigmatic Christian doctrine?" appeared in our April 28, 1997 print issue.Preacher T.D. Jakes was also recently criticized for his view of the Trinity.Britannica.com has an article on " Attempts to define the Trinity."Previous Christianity Today stories about Shamblin and dieting include:The Weigh & the Truth | Christian dieting programs—like Gwen Shamblin's Weigh Down Diet—help believers pray off the pounds. But what deeper messages are they sending about faith and fitness? (Aug. 25, 2000) 'Judge Us by Our Fruits' | The founder of Weigh Down responds to her critics. (Aug. 25, 2000) Rx for Gluttony | Even Christian diet experts rarely talk about it anymore. But the early monks did, and for good reason. (Aug. 28, 2000) Evangelicals Embrace Vegetarian Diet | Christians are flocking toward the Hallelujah Diet as a healthier way of life. (Sept. 6, 1999) Was the Messiah a Vegetarian? | PETA tries to win Christians to a "nonviolent" diet. (Aug. 9, 1999) Hungry for God | Why more and more Christians are fasting for revival. (Apr. 15, 1999) How Healthy Is Fasting? | Physicians and clergy alike say fasting is as good for the body as it is for the soul. (Apr. 15, 1999) The Fatted Faithful | Why the church may be harmful to your waistline. (Jan. 11, 1999) Adventures in Fasting | I tried fasting, and instead of insights I got irritable. (March 2, 1998) To Hell on a Cream Puff | Gluttony makes you soft and lovable. It's the cute sin. (Nov. 13, 1995, posted online Aug. 29, 2000)

This article appeared in the October 23, 2000 issue of Christianity Today as "Gwen in the Balance".

- More from John W. Kennedy with additional reporting by Todd Starnes

SBC Funding Imperiled

Texas Baptists resolved reduce monies for SBC seminaries and programs.

If Texas Baptists follow through with a proposal to reduce funding to Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) seminaries and other selected agencies, the SBC is prepared to appeal directly to the state’s churches in an effort to recoup lost funds. The SBC Executive Committee adopted a resolution in mid-September urging messengers at the Baptist General Convention of Texas, meeting this month, to reject a plan to reallocate about $4.3 million that now goes to the SBC seminaries. The resolution proposes that the monies go instead to three theological schools in Texas (Truett, Logsdon, and Hispanic Baptist). The move by Texas Baptists and the sharp response by SBC leadership is the latest flare-up in the long-standing clash between Southern Baptist moderates and conservatives.The Executive Committee resolution calls the Texas proposal “a unilateral breach of a 75-year partnership agreement” with the SBC’s collecting agent, saying it would “effectively destroy the Cooperative Program process.”In 1925, Southern Baptists launched a unified giving plan called the Cooperative Program to handle ministry financing. The Texas Baptist proposal would virtually cut off Texas funding for five of the six SBC seminaries, eliminate all funds for the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, and include only token funding for the Executive Committee. Texas Baptist convention leaders said that they expected the SBC to launch a campaign such as this and have already begun visiting a campaign in the local churches to bring out the votes for their side. The dispute is likely to climax at the October meeting of the state convention.Copyright © 2000 Associated Baptist Press

Related Elsewhere

The Chicago Tribune also ran a story about the proposed cuts controversy.Visit the homepage of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.Read up on the controversy at the Southern Baptist Convention’s news site, Baptist Press.Previous Christianity Today articles about strife between Texas Baptists and the SBC include:Submission Rejected | State convention counters SBC marriage statement. (Dec. 27, 1999) Texas Baptists Counter Official Southern Baptist Stance on Marriage | Baptist General Conference of Texas goes back to 1963 statement, rejecting 1998 vote. (Dec. 11, 1999) Conservative Texans Form New Group | (Sept. 11, 1999) Split Nearing for Texas Convention | (Feb. 9, 1989)

Share

More than sheer fantasy

Related Elsewhere

Share

Share

We die naked

Light ahead

Related Elsewhere

Share

Share

Related Elsewhere

Share

Share

Mortal Knowledge

The Purpose of Life

Surprises

Final Peace

Daily Reminder

Deathbed Ignorance

Heavenly Banquet

Oven-fired Hope

Funeral Wisdom

Related Elsewhere

Share

Share

Related Elsewhere

Share

Share

Albert Camus and the Minister

The problem of pain

Sartre the blusterer

Private baptism?

Apologetic questions

Related Elsewhere

Share

Share

Contrived reality

Are we any different?

Related Elsewhere

Share

Share

Related Elsewhere

Share

Share

Anti-Trinitarian?

What women want

Weigh Down worker dismissed

Related Elsewhere

Share

Share

Related Elsewhere

Share