I have long been haunted by Dorothy Sayers’s comment about God’s three greatest humiliations. The first humiliation, she said, was the Incarnation, when God took on the confines of a physical body. The second was the Cross, when he suffered the ignominy of death by public execution. The third humiliation, Sayers suggested, is the church.

When I first read her comment, historical images came to mind: the Crusades, pogroms against the Jews, the Wars of Religion, slavery, the Ku Klux Klan. All these movements claimed Christ’s sanction (one slave ship even sailed under the name The Good Ship Jesus). But the humiliation continues unabated today in such places as South Africa, Lebanon, and Northern Ireland, where some of Earth’s meanest conflicts involve Christians. And it continues in the U.S., where every few weeks another Christian leader admits to a moral lapse, confirming the world’s impression that the “Christian West” represents decadence and immorality. Closer to home, I need only examine my own life to see the extent to which God humbles himself by dwelling within ordinary people.

John Stott points out a curious parallel between two passages from the apostle John. The first appears in the prologue to John’s gospel (1:18): “No one has ever seen God, but God the only Son, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” (NIV). The second passage, in his first epistle (4:12), begins the same way: “No one has ever seen God,” but follows that with an astonishing assertion: “but if we love each other, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” Older translations render the phrase, accurately, “his love is perfected in us.” It is a rather staggering notion. In some mysterious way, God has chosen ordinary people as the preferred medium to express his likeness—his love—to the world. Yet the world God loves may never see him; our own faces may get in the way.

Sadly, the watching world judges God himself by the actions of those who bear his name. Charles Swinburne’s poem Before a Crucifix describes the “man-eating beasts” that prowled around the tree of faith and kept him from belief: “Though hearts reach back and memories ache, / We cannot praise thee for their sake.” Nietzsche said bluntly, “His disciples will have to look more saved if I am to believe in their Savior.” The church is indeed God’s humiliation: as one critic said, we “make the world safe for hypocrisy.”

Although we cause God humiliation, we also bring him pride. Such a concept could seem strange to those people who view God as an amorphous, impassive Being radiating his “emotions” equally in all directions. But that is not the biblical picture. Lately I have been noticing a few fascinating phrases that convey God’s sense of pride, even delight, in those people who remain faithful to him. I reviewed those passages, searching for some common characteristics of God’s “favorites.”

The angel Gabriel told the prophet Daniel to his face that he was “highly esteemed” in the heavens. In a speech to Ezekiel (chap. 14), God himself confirmed the judgment, listing Daniel, Noah, and Job as three of his favorites. Those three make for an interesting trio: one survived a flood, one a lion’s den, and one a personal holocaust of suffering.

In fact, I noted that most of God’s favorites underwent a severe test of faith. There was Abraham, called “a friend of God,” who spent most of his life waiting impatiently for God to keep his promises. The Virgin Mary, too, “found favor with God,” but, as Kierkegaard reminds us, “Has any woman been as infringed upon as was Mary, and is it not true here also that the one whom God blesses he curses in the same breath?” In Fear and Trembling, the Danish philosopher expounds on the anxiety, distress, and paradox that marked Mary’s life.

The same pattern of faith under fire surfaces in Hebrews 11, a chapter some have labeled “The Faith Hall of Fame.” Indeed, the people featured there exercised not just a leap of faith, but a long jump or pole vault of faith. Torture, jeers, floggings, chains, stonings, sawings in two—the author records in grim detail the trials that may befall faithful people. “The world was not worthy of them,” Hebrews 11 concludes about its impressive assemblage, having earlier observed: “Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God.”

For me, that phrase puts a reverse spin on Dorothy Sayers’s remark about God’s humiliations—the church has borne God shame, yes, but it has also brought him moments of pride, and the gaunt saints of Hebrews 11 demonstrate how.

Saints become saints by somehow clinging to the stubborn conviction that God deserves our trust, even when it looks as if the world is caving in. And God requires obedience, even if it means forgoing the alluring pleasures of this world. As the author of Hebrews pointedly notes, these saints “did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance.” They placed their hope in a better country, a heavenly one, and for that reason God was not ashamed to be called their God.

God’s favorites, especially God’s favorites, are not immune from times of testing. As Paul Tournier said, “Where there is no longer any opportunity for doubt, there is no longer any opportunity for faith either.” Paradoxically, faith develops best amid uncertainty and confusion. If you doubt that, read for yourself the life stories of the people recorded in Hebrews 11.

When I finished my study of God’s favorites, one fact stood out above all others. Those people hardly resembled the healthy, prosperous, pampered saints I hear described on religious television.

The contrast was striking, and it puzzled me for a time. Perhaps here is the difference: religious television must concern itself with pleasing an audience of thousands, even millions. God’s favorites are singularly devoted to pleasing an audience of just One.

“To be commanded to love God at all, let alone in the wilderness, is like being commanded to be well when we are sick, to sing for joy when we are dying of thirst, to run when our legs are broken. But this is the first and great commandment nonetheless. Even in the wilderness—especially in the wilderness—you shall love him” (Frederick Buechner).

Rendering To Caesar … And Bending His Ear

Representing God in Washington: The Role of Religious Lobbies in the American Polity, by Allen Hertzke (University of Tennessee Press, 260 pp.; $29.50, cloth). Reviewed by Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and nationally syndicated columnist with Copley News Service. He is the author of Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics (Crossway).

“One cannot adequately understand American politics without understanding the dynamics of religious political engagement,” writes Allen Hertzke, a political science professor at the University of Oklahoma. After reviewing America’s various church and nondenominational religious lobbies, he concludes that while the organizations often do not advance the specific opinions of their membership, the lobbies’ values “must be in some sense articulated if the [political] system is to be evaluated as truly representative.”

Representing God in Washington provides a balanced, comprehensive study of organized religious politics. First, Hertzke looks at the different strategies employed by clerical activists. For example, the Religious Right and some liberal groups have been effective in mobilizing constituents at the local level; liberal Protestant denominations, the U.S. Catholic Conference, and Jewish organizations have been better able to influence opinion makers directly. And black churches and some fundamentalist groups have preferred partisan electoral involvement.

Hertzke also analyzes ideological differences between churches. The large Protestant denominations tend toward liberal activism; the fundamentalists tilt conservative on social issues; the U.S. Catholic Conference goes left on economic and foreign policy but right on social matters. Evangelical representation is divided among a moderate-to-conservative mainstream, black churches, and small leftist organizations.

Whose Representatives?

Perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of Hertzke’s work is his comparison of church positions with lay opinions. On issues ranging from foreign policy to budget matters, lobbies on both the Right and the Left represent their members very poorly in Washington, according to Hertzke. The reason: The lay constituency of many groups and denominations is far more fractured politically than the respective clerical hierarchies want to admit. (Some of the differences are surprising. For instance, denominational and independent surveys show Southern Baptists are more supportive of food stamps than are members of any of the liberal Protestant denominations.)

Hertzke’s analysis, however, stumbles at several points. He argues that while particular churches may not accurately reflect their members’ views, “the interactive, collective activities of religious lobbyists” do enhance the representativeness of American politics and do articulate the concerns of many people. Though this is probably true, the claims of some clerical activists to represent millions of believers remain nothing less than fraudulent. And while Hertzke is right to suggest that “religious leaders, as trustees of their faith, have the right, indeed, obligation, to apply their understanding of gospel imperatives in the world,” most church lobbying occurs on issues that have no obvious relation to “gospel imperatives.”

Ideology Or Good News?

Indeed, Hertzke raises, but does not really answer, the question of whether the church’s growing involvement in partisan politics has harmed its Christian witness. Religious leaders, he reports, like to say they are not lobbyists because they represent a general view rather than a narrow special interest. But that distinction is easily lost when church officials line up behind business executives or labor leaders or welfare-rights activists to press their case. Since Scripture does not directly speak to most specific policies, clerical lobbyists usually end up promoting their favorite secular ideology rather than Christ’s Good News.

Their actions then cause people to question the church’s larger purpose. Hertzke quotes one unnamed congressional staff member as saying: “The Lutheran Council, the National Council of Churches, the United Church of Christ, etc., have become the butt of jokes. They are totally secularized people who could give a damn about religion.… Secular liberals would agree with everything they stand for, but the nagging question: Why are they religious at all? Why bother? Does this policy flow out of a profound, transcendental sense—or as a hasty addition to liberal politics?”

Religion has an important role to play in politics, for if Christian values do not predominate in the public square, other principles will. But the denominational divisions explored by Hertzke show how hard it is to create a common Christian legislative agenda. In fact, the church’s most powerful impact on policy, writes Hertzke, comes not through lobbying, but rather from “its indirect, cultural influence, providing the moral restraint essential in a democratic society, educating people in their obligations to each other, and directing the attention of citizens occasionally away from the self-interest, materialism, and hedonism which spring up in a society which celebrates individual freedom.”

Representing God in Washington is an invaluable guide to the activities of the many religious lobbyists who now roam the corridors of Capitol Hill. Hertzke’s generally positive assessment of their involvement in partisan legislative struggles, however, underestimates the erosion in the church’s credibility to speak to more fundamental biblical truths that results from such involvement. For as the church has become just another interest group in a faction-ridden political process, its transcendent message of the risen Christ has grown increasingly faint.

C. S. Lewis As Father And Friend

Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis, by Douglas H. Gresham (Macmillan, 225 pp.; $16.95, hardcover) and Jack: C. S. Lewis and His Times, by George Sayer (Harper & Row, xvii + 278 pp.; $17.95, hardcover). Reviewed by Pat Hargis, assistant professor of writing and literature at Judson College, Elgin, Illinois.

Anyone who returns to the writings of C. S. Lewis time after time finds that each reading reveals more depth than the one before. The same is true of Lewis’s life. Though several biographies and collections of reminiscences have been published already, authors continue to return to the subject to explore new and different aspects. In this twenty-fifth year since Lewis’s death, two complementary views of his life add valuable insights into one of the century’s best-known Christians.

The preface to Lenten Lands notes: “This book is not primarily a book about C. S. Lewis; it is a book about Douglas Gresham.” Nevertheless, Gresham knows that it will mainly be read because he is one of Lewis’s two stepsons, and therefore offers his distinct angle on Lewis and his marriage to Joy Davidman, Gresham’s mother.

Gresham has no ax to grind or theory to put forward; his anecdotal ramblings are relaxing and enjoyable reading. He is a good storyteller, at least as far as particular incidents go, with a wonderful sense of humor. Gresham, now a prosperous farmer living in Tasmania (how he got there is part of his story), occasionally arranges material awkwardly or writes in an affected fashion. But his book gives a splendid impression of what the household was like at the Kilns during the 1950s. It is a welcome addition to the various memoirs of Lewis, and almost as valuable as brother Warnie Lewis’s diaries, Brothers and Friends (Harper & Row, 1982).

Important Relationships

George Sayer, one of Lewis’s students at Oxford who also became a personal friend, follows the approach of a traditional literary biography—and produces a good one. While writing for an audience who may be unfamiliar with Lewis’s life, Sayer manages to offer some important new perspectives that even Lewis fans will find informative. His treatment of Lewis’s childhood, youth, and education is excellent, especially as it explores Lewis’s relationship to his father, which Sayer examines more fully than anyone else to date.

Sayer also offers a significant new evaluation of Lewis’s relationship with Mrs. Moore, the mother of his roommate during officer training in World War I. After Paddy Moore died in action, Lewis fulfilled his promise to look after Mrs. Moore, who has usually been portrayed as an ill-tempered woman who distracted Lewis from more important things with domestic tedium and tyranny. Sayer claims this was probably the case only during and after World War II, when Mrs. Moore was getting old and ill. After World War I and throughout the 1920s and 1930s, Mrs. Moore provided Lewis with emotional support and a domestic environment, which did him good and which he enjoyed.

Sayer’s success in these and other important points comes not only because of his long friendship with Lewis, but also because he is the first biographer to make extensive use of “The Lewis Papers,” a large collection of family letters, diaries, and other papers collected and compiled by Warnie Lewis.

Literary Digressions

As in many literary biographies, the sections on Lewis’s books feel like digressions from the main thrust, rather than integral parts of the whole. Curiously enough, they digress not when too long, but when too short. A substantial chapter on Dymer (Lewis’s second book, a long narrative poem) is outstanding, largely because space has been devoted to its summary and interpretation. On the other hand, the two pages given to Perelandra will say little to anyone who has read the book and will probably not convince those who have not read it to do so.

A Call For Consistency

Completely Pro-Life, by Ronald J. Sider (InterVarsity Press, 240 pp.; $7.95, paper). Reviewed by Myron S. Augsburger, president of the Christian College Coalition and minister at Washington Community Fellowship, Washington, D.C.

To think Christianly about life begins with the recognition that we were all created in the image of God. Life is a divine gift, and we treat it as a sacrament, as an extension of divine love. As evangelical Christians, we are challenged to engage in careful and serious thinking. Completely Pro-Life: Building a Consistent Stance is an expression of this kind of thinking, dealing effectively with the challenge of consistency in our attitudes toward the sacredness of life.

The book, in one respect, is a statement of the position of Evangelicals for Social Action. Ron Sider, president of ESA was assisted by qualified ESA staff, who contributed about one-third of the material. The teamwork itself is a witness to the consensus of thought that does already exist among many evangelicals on the issues of abortion, the family, nuclear weapons, and responsibility to the poor. Where differences remain, Sider urges Christians at all points along the religious and political spectrum to be consistent in their prolife vision. For example, he calls conservatives who condemn abortion to consistency in the area of militarism, and liberals who oppose military spending to consistency on abortion.

A Declaration Of Identity

This book is unashamedly and aggressively evangelical. Sider is a soul winner, a man of compassion for people, and the book expresses this fact. Completely Pro-Life is not simply an academic treatment of issues; it is an exercise in identity declaration, a call to compassionate and creative participation in responsible Christian action.

As a people of God in the world, the Christian community needs to think together on these issues. While we are called to avoid “letting the world squeeze us into its mold,” it seems the church today is merely a reflection of the same differences of thought that characterize society in general. This book should help us to think together more carefully and to engage in dialogue with one another more openly.

As a prophetic word, Completely Pro-Life calls us to be a Christian presence in the social order. As we share the righteousness of Christ, we will share his justice/righteousness with all peoples. Christians can make a difference, not by developing religious structures that confront secular structures, but by being truly Christian wherever we are within the structures. While we may not see alike on every aspect of these issues, we can try to see together as we share the shalom of God.

Weaknesses, however, are certainly minor, and the virtues outweigh them without a doubt. In fact, because it is a more up-to-date, better-researched, and well-documented volume, containing helpful bibliographies and photographs, this book may well displace C. S. Lewis: A Biography, by Roger Lancelyn Green and Walter Hooper (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1974), as the standard biography of Lewis.

Highlighted

Diagnosing Social Llls

In The Death of Ethics in America (Word Books), veteran journalist and syndicated columnist Cal Thomas scrutinizes the moral condition of America. With characteristic bite, Thomas confronts issues such as family disintegration, the upsurge of materialism, the moral descent among teenagers, and the dichotomy between the personal lives and the expressed values of politicians from Warren Harding to Gary Hart.

“We must diagnose our ailment before treatments are prescribed. Unfortunately, social engineers and timid politicians are force-feeding the medicine before the diagnosis has been properly made.

… Men and women who are not afraid to tell the truth must be encouraged to take the lead in our country and say what needs to be said, unafraid of the criticism and name calling from those who seek legitimacy for their immoral lifestyles.

I liked what Pope John Paul II said to reporters aboard his plane on the way to the United States. Asked about opposition from the liberal Catholic community to his stand on marriage, divorce, abortion, and other issues, the pope responded that he is used to criticism and, besides, he is not the first to be so criticized. The first, he said, was Jesus Christ!

… If our nation returns to the basic truths that launched our revolution, undergirded our Constitution, and sustained our country through war, economic upheaval, and other uncertainties, we can prosper again. But if we continue down the path of these last twenty-five years, we will be a footnote in the history books of the tyrants who will occupy this land.”

PROTEST

More than 25,000 Christians gathered last month on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to attend Canada’s largest prolife rally to date.

Organized by Christians For Life (CFL), an interdenominational organization based in Ottawa, the rally featured Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa.

Rally organizers hoped “to encourage Parliament to enact a law to protect the unborn child.” A previous law, struck down by Canada’s Supreme Court last January, restricted abortions to accredited hospitals and only when the mother’s “life or health” was in danger.

Despite Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s promise to deal with the issue, Parliament voted this summer against legislation that would have restricted abortions. (Currently, abortions are not restricted by law in Canada.) In the wake of that decision and the unlikelihood of government action on abortion before a federal election expected later this year, many prolife groups shifted tactics.

“We haven’t been promoting letter-writing campaigns of late,” says James A. Sclater, assistant to the president at Focus on the Family/Canada. Prior antiabortion efforts had relied heavily on letter-writing campaigns aimed at influencing legislators. Now, however, says Sclater, “we want to see who’s elected before we begin writing.”

Consequently, Canadian prolife groups are encouraging voters to fight abortion at the polls. “We have to be single-issue voters,” Alliance for Life director Heather Stilwell told supporters at the Ottawa rally. “If a candidate is not prolife, we cannot and must not vote for him.”

CLF president Jim Hughes agreed, saying a failure to send prolife legislators would make voters “responsible for a continuation of a holocaust.”

Commenting on the massive rally on Parliament Hill, a spokesperson for the Canadian Abortion Rights League said, “Those numbers certainly don’t translate into the ability to put in some sort of regressive legislation—and it doesn’t translate into electoral votes—as I’m sure they hoped it would.”

Given the political realities of an imminent election it is unlikely that Canada’s prolife groups will see Canada enact a new abortion law any time soon.

By John Stanhope.

WAR AND PEACE

Mark Twain once said it was possible to put different kinds of animals in a cage and they would get along. But do the same with a Baptist, a Methodist, a Catholic, and a Hindu, and only pieces of flesh and clothing would remain. When Christian pacifists and just-war theorists met last month in Washington, D.C., some observers expected Twain’s worst scenario. Instead, scholars in the opposing camps inched closer to an understanding of each others’ role in society.

Sponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, the day-and-a-half dialogue brought together scholars from the historic “peace church” tradition as well as those who believe that war is sometimes necessary to preserve the higher good. The agenda: to examine pacifism’s alleged shift from biblical to political moorings and prescribe a new “evangelical” pacifism.

The debate was sparked by interest in the new book Peace and Revolution (Eerdmans, 1988), by Guenter Lewy (reviewed in Books, CT, Sept. 12, 1988, p. 29). Lewy, who attended the conference, contends that pacifism embodied by Christian groups, like the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), has become highly politicized by the New Left. He is especially critical of the tendency of such groups to endorse totalitarian regimes that violate pacifistic goals of nonviolence and human freedom.

This was not the first time evangelicals have seriously considered the best way to pursue peace. Two years ago, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) hammered out guidelines for dealing with “peace, freedom, and security” issues. Many laud that as a first step in articulating a distinctly evangelical statement on matters of war and peace. But the question of pacifism—the rejection of violence in resolving disputes—continues to tug at the evangelical conscience.

More Political Than Biblical?

The discussion settled on two questions: First, Have evangelical pacifists indeed become more political than biblical?; and second, What should evangelical pacifists do about it?

Lewy found support from George Weigel, a Roman Catholic theologian, who accused evangelical pacifists of minimizing “the abiding fact of sin and brokenness in this world.” Like Lewy, Weigel finds it peculiar that groups like the AFSC could be so critical of American foreign policy during the Vietnam era while lending various forms of support to repressive regimes.

Most pacifists point to the war in Vietnam as a turning point in in their relationship to government. Pacifist historian Charles Chatfield said the war was less about Vietnam and more “about Americans and American identity.” It was a time, he said, when the public began to question government more vigorously.

But James Matlak of the AFSC says it is unfair to accuse pacifists of selling out to leftist ideology during the sixties when their choices were so limited. “While mistakes were indeed made during that time, you have to realize our people were out in the field working amidst great pain, anger, and hatred. We felt it was our first responsibility to respond to the conduct of our own government and to speak truthfully.” Matlak, along with AFSC colleague Charles Fager, criticized “cynical leaders” in American government who took the nation into Vietnam. Said Matlak, “I question their commitment to democracy when so much deceit took place regarding our involvement in the Indochina conflict.”

Christian College Coalition president Myron S. Augsburger, a Mennonite, suggested Lewy’s book does not describe evangelical pacifists. “Every caricature of Mennonite theology is too simplistic,” says Augsburger. “For us, you cannot be a disciple of Christ without wrestling seriously with this problem. If Jesus is who he says he is, the Sermon on the Mount is just as important as the Decalogue.”

Questionable Coalitions

Pacifists and just-war theorists generally agree the Vietnam War was a critical time for evangelical pacifism. Veteran pacifist and World Without War Council founder Robert Pickus feels anti-American attitudes crept into the movement at this time. “The movement shifted from being opposed to violence to being opposed to American foreign policy.” He said that shift hurt the credibility of pacifism, and recommended that evangelical pacifists set higher intellectual standards in their efforts to find the truth in difficult situations of oppression.

Others urged pacifists to be more consistent. Theologian Weigel wants pacifists to stay true to their commitment to nonviolence, regardless of whether it is politically relevant. And U.S. Naval War College professor Alberto Coll called on pacifists to “be salt and light, regardless of the cause.”

Most agreed that pacifists represent a needed voice in the dialogue on war and peace. But Augsburger doubted whether evangelicals really want to acknowledge pacifism within their ranks. “I feel I have to apologize when I talk about peace in evangelical circles,” said Augsburger. “I don’t feel the same pressure when the talk is about military buildup.”

By Lyn Cryderman.

WOMEN’S ORDINATION

A 58-year-old black divorcee and former oil company public-relations executive has been chosen by Episcopalians in Boston to become the first female bishop in the history of the worldwide Anglican communion.

Less than two months after the world’s Anglican bishops passed a compromise ruling allowing member churches to name women bishops, clergy and lay leaders in the Diocese of Massachusetts on September 24 elected Barbara Harris of Philadelphia to fill a post as suffragan (assistant) bishop.

Preparing The Way At Lambeth

Earlier this summer, the Anglican community met in Canterbury, England, for its once-a-decade Lambeth Conference. The assembly has no legislative power, relying instead on moral authority and consensus to influence 28 fully autonomous Anglican churches with 70 million members in 164 countries.

This year’s conference became one of the most important in several years because of the emotion-charged question of ordaining women bishops. The U.S.-based Episcopal Church has long been a proponent of female bishops, at times putting it at odds with the more theologically conservative Anglicans in Britain, Africa, and in the Asia-Pacific.

After two weeks of debate, the Anglican leaders crafted a compromise that affirmed the right of national bodies to name women bishops, but recognized that such action would threaten the unity among Anglican dioceses worldwide. Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie called the compromise evidence of “the spirit of unity in Christ that is present among us.”

An Activist Bishop

The choice of Harris as the first woman bishop in the Anglican community, however, further illustrates the gap between the U.S. church and the rest of the communion. The new bishop is known nationally for her association with The Witness, a leading journal of radical opinion in the Episcopal Church that has championed the feminist and gay-rights movements, the Sandinista government of Nicaragua, the antiapartheid struggle, and gender-neutral liturgies. Since 1984, Harris has been executive director of the firm that publishes The Witness and has been a columnist.

She also has a long record as an activist—including work in the South for black rights in the 1960s—and is known as a powerful preacher. Ordained as a priest eight years ago, after leaving Sun Oil Company, she has been a Philadelphia prison chaplain and has served small congregations in Morristown and Philadelphia, where she currently is priest-in-charge at the Church of the Advocate. That parish is where the battle over women priests was dramatized in 1974 with the ordination of eleven women by retired bishops acting in defiance of local and national church canons. Harris took part in that service and was ordained four years after the Episcopal Church legalized women priests.

Harris told her congregation the election to the post of bishop is a sign of “fresh winds blowing across the church,” and she compared the movement for women clergy to Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition because it gives “new hope” to many who feel ignored and alienated from the Episcopal Church.

Rough Sailing?

But a storm is already brewing over the election. Bishop of London Graham Leonard, a leading traditionalist, declared he would consider himself out of communion with Harris and those who consecrate her, and said he would not recognize her power to ordain other clergy or administer the sacrament of confirmation. And the Vatican released a statement saying the election of Harris makes Anglican-Roman Catholic unity even more difficult.

John Throop, director of the conservative group Episcopalians United, said he personally had no problem with the principle of women in the episcopate, but, he declared, “As a bishop, Ms. Harris will make the Episcopal Church more polarized and politicized than it already is. I think she will be a dangerous influence … she is about as far to the Left as they come in the Episcopal Church, and I don’t think it’s wise that people like that are chosen as guardians and shepherds of the faith.”

But Archbishop of Canterbury Runcie appealed for restraint, saying, “It is not for individuals to make declarations about whether they are in or out of communion with her or the Episcopal Church. Such a matter is determined by the processes of the church, not by private judgment.…”

By Richard Walker.

World Scene

DISASTER

Gilbert Slams Salvation Army

The Salvation Army is usually the first group on the scene of national disasters. But during Hurricane Gilbert’s mad dash through the Caribbean, the army’s territorial headquarters in Jamaica was part of the scene of destruction.

The strong winds of Gilbert, which caused $40 billion worth of damage in Jamaica, toppled the Salvation Army headquarters building in Kingston, along with a school for the blind, two children’s homes, and at least one living quarters for officers. Estimates indicate 70 percent of Salvation Army property was leveled.

Lt. Col. Leon R. Ferraez, a spokesman for the army, said several commercial airlines helped fly in emergency supplies from Atlanta and Miami shortly after the Jamaica airport reopened. Despite the loss of facilities, Salvation Army officers and volunteers provided food, medical aid, and building supplies to Jamaicans.

As the hurricane moved westward, more than 20 Salvation Army emergency shelters were activated in the Gulf of Mexico region. In Jamaica alone, more than one-fourth of the population has been left homeless.

WORLD EVANGELIZATION

“Re-Evangelizing” Europe

Most American evangelicals trace their spiritual roots to movements begun in Europe. So it was with a bit of irony that the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) held a conference last month in Stuttgart, West Germany, to plan the “re-evangelization” of Europe.

According to Rolf Scheffbuch, chairman of the European branch of LCWE, re-evangelization’s goal is not new members for existing churches, but a “repentance movement” within the Protestant church. He said the great number of nominal church members in Europe must no longer be “religious actors,” but “active Christians.”

Thomas Wang, international director of LCWE, challenged church leaders to overcome their “euro-pessimism,” and British author John Stott stressed the need for the church in Europe to address social issues such as unemployment and poverty.

Nearly 140 theologians and church leaders from 21 East and West European countries attended the conference.

MEDICAL ETHICS

Home Abortions Approved

China and France recently approved the marketing of a new drug that induces abortion, and an American company may seek permission to market the drug in the U.S.

Family planning experts say the drug, RU 486, is safer and less expensive than surgical abortions. They also predict the use of the drug will replace up to half the surgical abortions in France.

According to Louise B. Tyrer of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the drug will be administered in France at family-planning centers. She stressed it is not a “morning after” type of contraceptive, but is to be used only after pregnancy is confirmed. A woman would take the drug for three consecutive days, after which a miscarriage would take place.

Richard Glasgow, education director of National Right to Life in Washington, D.C., said his group would encourage antiabortion groups in France to protest the marketing of RU 486. Little is known about plans for using it in China.

SOVIET UNION

Pitching Perestroika

The romance between church and state in the Soviet Union produced another surprise last month. Konstantin Karchev, chairman of the government’s Council of Religious Affairs, paid an impromptu visit to the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland. The center is headquarters for the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, and the Conference of European Churches.

Karchev used the occasion to pitch perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness), twin pillars of Communist party chief Gorbachev’s efforts to nudge his country into the twentieth century. He told church leaders new legislation on freedom of religion will eliminate many restrictions imposed on the church, noting that “in many cases,” they have been lifted in practice.

Although Karchev admitted “full communism” means an end to religion, he said such a day is a long way off—echoing sentiments from many Western observers who say Soviet openness to religion is temporary.

VIETNAM

Last Chaplains Released

The last remaining evangelical military chaplains imprisoned by the Communist Vietnamese government in 1975 have been released, according to a report from Keston College, a group monitoring religious freedom in communist countries.

One of the final chaplains to be released, Duong Ky, was the chief evangelical military chaplain of the old pre-1975 Saigon regime. He had been held in a re-education camp since his arrest in 1975, and is reported to be quite ill.

Over the past few years, Vietnamese authorities have released 15 other evangelical pastors. Many of those released had been in custody since 1975.

Nguyen Quang Huy, head of Vietnam’s State Commission for Religious Affairs, told a reporter from a British newspaper, The Independent, that authorities had released all Roman Catholic military chaplains, but have forbidden them to conduct religious services.

INTERVIEW

While the debate about how to dismantle apartheid rages on in the U.S. and around the world, Christians in South Africa continue to struggle with how to minister amidst the growing unrest. During a recent trip to Washington, D.C., Caesar Molebatsi, chairman of the South African group Concerned Evangelicals, and executive director of the Soweto-based Youth Alive Ministries, discussed the situation with CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

How is the chaos in South Africa affecting your work?

Evangelistic rallies and big street marches with banners proclaiming Christian faith are out of the question because of security legislation. Also, we have to deal with issues related to the credibility of the church because the present regime in South Africa does much of its work under the name of Christ. That has had a tremendous effect upon the way we do evangelism. We also have to deal with disunity and name calling within the church. But the gospel is still being preached, and in spite of us, people are still being called into the kingdom of God.

You referred to divisions within the church. What things divide South African evangelicals?

Sanctions, for one thing. A fairly significant number of evangelicals in South Africa have formed an antisanctions movement, and the rest say sanctions are the way forward.

Also, some evangelicals, especially whites, are not willing to move as fast for change and make as many sacrifices as some of us would like. But I really would like to leave a good picture. Two white-initiated and primarily white-led groups—the National Initiative for Reconciliation and Koinonia—have opened a channel of communication between whites and blacks. They are outstanding groups with a really strong evangelical thrust.

What aspects of the current situation do you find most difficult to deal with?

The relentless grinding on of the machine of apartheid sometimes seems unstoppable. A lot of prophets who are trying to stand up for God’s standards of righteousness and justice have become casualties. It is very sad.

What kind of support from American Christians is most helpful to you and other Christians in South Africa?

It would be a great help to us if Americans could take a deeper look at their own politics in terms of their theology. The South African government has very clearly identified itself as a Christian government, and this has unfortunately paralyzed some American evangelicals.

What concrete steps would you like to see taken in this area?

I wish the American evangelical community would very clearly declare its position against apartheid. In South Africa, white American evangelical support for apartheid is quite frankly taken for granted. We are shocked when American Christians come to South Africa and say they don’t believe in what the government is doing. American Christians should help empower people in South Africa who are most capable to bring about change; at this time, I believe those to be the blacks. The South African government has lost the will to change.

Some Christians have criticized you for being involved with some of the liberal church efforts in South Africa. How do you respond to those criticisms?

When other evangelicals and I go to the liberal meetings, we are always standing up saying, “Listen, what about the Bible? What are you saying about Christ and the Cross?” Those of us who are really evangelical and are concerned that the evangelical mission cannot be allowed to be swamped by liberal theology have to make our own clear-cut evangelical statement to show the depth of evangelical understanding.

Yes, people accuse me of being too soft on liberal theology. But I look at my accusers, and I see them fudging on so many things—like their lifestyle, for one thing. In South Africa, if you are an evangelical, you had better know your theology. If not, you cannot withstand the liberal onslaught.

UPDATE

Church groups step up efforts to assist blacks trapped in South Africa’s system of segregation.

Last month, three black antiapartheid activists escaped from political detention in South Africa and took refuge in the U.S. Consulate in Johannesburg. The incident highlights the growing extent to which the U.S. is being drawn into South Africa’s conflict surrounding apartheid. American church groups are also becoming increasingly involved in the conflict, although disagreement exists among the groups over how to address the situation.

Economic Pressure

This week, for example, the National Council of Churches (NCC) is sponsoring a South Africa strategy meeting at its headquarters in New York. Willis Logan, director of the NCC’S Africa office, said the meeting is an effort to “bring the religious community together to think about ways we might respond to the ongoing crisis in South Africa and the persecution of the church there.” Logan said representatives of the evangelical community and of NCC’S constituency will participate in the meeting. According to Logan, top agenda items at the meeting will be strengthening support for tougher economic sanctions against South Africa and the rebuilding of Khotso House, the South African Council of Churches’ antiapartheid headquarters that was bombed in August.

The NCC, however, is not without its critics. The Washington-based Institute for Religion and Democracy (IRD) has charged that the NCC and other mainline groups have channeled money to radical elements in South Africa, including the banned African National Congress, IRD director of economic studies Walter Kansteiner criticizes such activities. In his new book, South Africa: Revolution or Reconciliation, he instead advocates “support of the prodemocratic middle ground.”

To that end, the IRD recently launched “Building a New South Africa” (BANSA), a program that will attempt to empower South African blacks economically, as well as improve their health care and education. Kansteiner said BANSA is an effort to aid those groups that are often “squeezed” by the “far Left and the far Right” in South Africa.

The BANSA program will be administered through nine nonprofit groups within South Africa that IRD is encouraging American churches to support. Included in the nine are an urban foundation involved with housing for blacks, the multiracial Rosebank Bible College, and the National Initiative for Reconciliation led by Africa Enterprise’s Michael Cassidy.

World Vision is also seeking to support indigenous groups within South Africa. The director of government affairs, Tom Getman, said World Vision currently has 280 development projects there that “provide opportunities for self-sufficiency in micro-enterprise, agriculture, and health issues.” World Vision insists all of its projects be nonracial, push reconciliation, and seek to accomplish what the community wants rather than impose something from afar. And according to Getman, World Vision believes strongly that the church must be involved in the justice issue. “Given the fact that apartheid is such a heresy, … we are called biblically to stand against that evil,” he said.

Church denominations are also becoming more vocal. At its general convention this summer, Episcopalians voted to boycott all oil companies operating in South Africa and narrowly defeated a measure calling on the U.S. to break diplomatic ties with South Africa. The United Methodist Church voted to boycott Shell Oil products because of that company’s alleged role in supporting apartheid.

Communism Or Apartheid?

Another group that is stepping up its efforts on behalf of South Africa this fall is Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA). ESA’S executive director, Ron Sider, said his group will attempt to raise awareness about the issue on evangelical college campuses around the nation. Next spring, ESA will sponsor a lecture tour on more than 20 Christian College Coalition campuses for Moss Ntlha, national coordinator of Concerned Evangelicals, a South African black organization working nonviolently for an end to apartheid (see accompanying interview).

In addition, ESA is urging college students to sign the Kabare Declaration, a document put forth by Concerned Evangelicals, which denounces apartheid and expresses solidarity with South African Christians opposing apartheid.

Sider said his group is also “continuing to do research on the Religious Right in connection with South Africa.” ESA has been critical of statements made by evangelists Jerry Falwell and Jimmy Swaggart, as well as representatives of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). “Basically, they go over there and say the choice is between communism and the present government, so they encourage people to be supportive of the present government,” Sider said. “The effect of that is to make black Christians think that American evangelicals don’t care about apartheid.”

NRB executive director Ben Armstrong denies those charges. “The NRB does not interfere in the politics of any country. We are apolitical,” he said. Armstrong said the NRB would encourage “any changes from apartheid to … more participation in their government for blacks.”

Armstrong said NRB members have traveled to South Africa in exchange programs with the NRB of South Africa, but said there is no official connection with the South African religious broadcasters’ group and his own. He noted that last year his group honored Johan Heynes, moderator of the Dutch Reformed Church, for leading his denomination to denounce apartheid.

Pitching More Than A Tent

Peter Holmes, general director of Scripture Union in South Africa, remembers that just a decade ago he had trouble finding campsites where his organization could run its evangelistic youth camps. There were plenty of Christian campsites around, but virtually all were off limits to blacks, and thus were unacceptable to the organization. In addition, many bus companies refused to transport blacks and whites together.

Today, Holmes reports that almost all Christian camps no longer have qualms about mixing races. And bus companies followed suit partly because Scripture Union would not otherwise use them.

According to Holmes, political rhetoric is not helping to end the oppression of blacks in South Africa. He feels Christian youth programs such as Scripture Union model racial integration for the next generation of South Africans.

Active in 35 African countries, Scripture Union is the largest Christian youth organization on the continent. Last year in South Africa, it had a presence in 965 primary (elementary) and high schools, with its Bible study and discipleship programs reaching 31,000 youth. In addition, it coordinated a total of 267 camps (attended by 7,500 youths), many of them integrated.

“Our main goal is to reach kids with the gospel,” says Holmes. “But the Lord has called us especially to demonstrate oneness in him. And we’re consciously doing that wherever possible.” This is not an easy task, partly because over 97 percent of the schools in South Africa are segregated. The times during which both blacks and whites are free to attend camp are also limited, since their school years run through different months.

More than a third of Scripture Union’s 80-person staff (in ten regional offices) are black, including Frank Shayi, director of development. Shayi said that “over 90 percent of white South Africans have never been to a black township” and are thus “unaware of the plight of blacks within their country.” He believes bringing black and white youth together will help bridge this awareness gap.

UPDATE

Columnists, cartoonists, and television newscasters had a heyday with the Rapture last month. The subject of their tongue-in-cheek comments: space-engineer-turned-Bible-scholar Edgar Whisenant’s claim that the Rapture would occur between September 11 and 13.

In his book, On Borrowed Time, Whisenant pegged the date of the Rapture as sometime during Rosh Hashana, the Jewish holiday commemorating the Feast of Tabernacles. With the financial assistance of Christian radio broadcaster Norvell Olive of the World Bible Society in Nashville, Tennessee, over 3.2 million copies of the book were originally distributed, placing it second on the Christian Booksellers Association’s chart of paperback sales for August.

On Borrowed Time asserts that “we know the exact day that the Millennium begins and ends, as well as the dates of the events in between.… Now we’ll just sit down in front of the evening news and watch the events unfold.”

Scared Into The Kingdom?

Whisenant and his supporters are not terribly concerned that September 11 through 13 passed uneventfully. “Even though the Rapture didn’t happen, it has awakened people and their churches and communities, and it has changed their lives,” asserted Olive a week after the expected event. Olive estimates over 100,000 conversions are a direct result of the booklet. He, like Whisenant, believes the Rapture is still likely to take place in 1988.

Last month, Whisenant told CHRISTIANITY TODAY the September date was a mistake, and updated his prediction to October 3. But he insists this is his last foray into prophecy. “The evidence is all over the place that it is going to be in a few weeks anyway,” he said.

Many scholars, however, caution against making predictions of this sort. Hal Lindsey, author of the apocalyptic The Late Great Planet Earth, agrees we are in the generation of the end times, but says the Bible clearly teaches against “date setting.” And church historian Mark Noll says efforts to date the return of Christ have occurred within the church from its beginning, with little gain. “Date setting is an effort to play God, something we shouldn’t do,” said Noll. “Instead, we should fervently expect the end of the world, but live in a manner that will glorify him.”

MEDICAL ETHICS

The use of fetal tissues in medical research continues to be a controversial issue for the Reagan administration. Last month, after three days of intensive meetings, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) advisory committee issued a preliminary conclusion that using the tissue of aborted fetuses for research “is acceptable.” However, the committee declined to take a position “on the morality of abortion in general.” The panel’s final recommendations are scheduled to be released in December.

Meanwhile, the White House is urging Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Otis Bowen to “develop new options that would … protect unborn or newborn children from experimentation, research, and organ transplantation except in cases where the unborn or newborn child would itself directly benefit from any such procedures to which it was subjected.” White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said the President is “not opposed to medical research,” but simply wants HHS to “take a look at ways to protect the unborn and the newborn as this research is conducted.”

Why Fetal Tissue?

In April, HHS banned NIH experiments involving fetal tissues until an investigation was made into the ethical and legal implications of the research (CT, May 13, 1988, p. 39). Scientists have been looking into the possibility of using fetal tissue to treat a variety of diseases because the tissue grows faster and would be less likely to be rejected than adult tissue.

The experiments have been controversial largely because of the abortion issue. Nearly all experiments have used tissue that came from elective abortions. Critics have charged that because “fresh” tissue appears to be most effective, some researchers are taking the tissue before the fetus is actually dead. Another concern is that women may be coerced into having more dangerous, late-term abortions that would yield more beneficial fetal tissue.

The NIH advisory committee stressed the importance that the abortion decision, the abortion procedure, and the tissue experimentation all be kept separate. The panel also recommended that no changes in abortion procedures be made with research in mind. “Recognizing the moral sensitivities deeply held in our society, we need appropriate guidelines for acknowledging and protecting these sensitivities,” the committee said.

HHS chief Bowen said that despite pressure from the White House, he will wait to take action on the issue until the committee releases its final report in December.

Prolife Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.), a leading critic of the fetal experiments, called the panel’s preliminary recommendations “vile.” “We don’t harvest organs from murder victims, neither should we from deliberately aborted preborn infants,” he said. Humphrey said he hopes the President “will come to his own independent judgment” on this and direct HHS to continue the ban.

In another abortion-related matter, an effort to expand the federal funding of abortions failed last month as President Reagan signed an appropriations bill that maintained the policy of only funding abortions when the life of the mother is threatened. The Senate had intially voted to expand abortion funding to include cases of rape and incest, but reversed itself after a threatened Reagan veto.

SEMINARY EDUCATION

Denominational seminaries have become melting pots for students wanting more than doctrine.

Russ Barksdale, the singles minister of an 8,000-member Baptist church since 1984, is a card-carrying Southern Baptist. But from January 1985 to May 1986, he attended Reformed Theological Seminary (RTS), whose Presbyterian leanings differ with the finer points of Baptist theology.

Barksdale sought out RTS for two reasons: First, it was theologically conservative; and second, it offered him one thing no Southern Baptist seminary did at the time—a campus in the city where he lived and worked.

Moving Toward Diversity

Barksdale’s experience represents a trend in some denominational seminaries. While independent evangelical seminaries such as Fuller and Gordon-Conwell have always catered to a variety of doctrinal needs, seminaries with specific theological leanings and a homogeneous faculty are emerging as student melting pots as well.

For instance, last year at Asbury Theological Seminary, where most of the faculty is from the Wesleyan-Arminian tradition, students from 49 non-Methodist denominations attended, forming 37 percent of the student population. At Eastern Baptist Seminary, 79 percent of the faculty shared the school’s American Baptist affiliation, compared to only 25 percent of the student population. And schools like RTS and Dallas Theological Seminary—which is dispensational and baptistic—also admit substantial groups of students from outside their traditions.

One result of such intermingling is seen at the denominational level. For example, approximately 40 percent of the ministers entering the United Methodist denomination are trained outside that body’s official seminaries.

Meeting Student Needs

Such pluralism in evangelical seminaries is often a matter of necessity rather than choice. Leon Pucala, executive director of the Association of Theological Seminaries in the United States and Canada (ATS), points out that some students have family or work responsibilities and cannot easily change their address to attend seminary. “A lot of these people are serving churches and would not be free to just pick up and move to a seminary.”

Other students, according to Asbury’s president, David McKenna, are more attracted to special features of a seminary rather than to denominational ties. Degrees other than the master of divinity, such as master of counseling and Christian education, are being added to meet the more defined needs of today’s churches and ministries. Says RTS president Luder Whitlock, by their nature, these programs attract a broad range of students because they are not offered at every denominational seminary.

The newer, more flexible programs began appearing in response to declining enrollments at seminaries. Their appeal, as well as the pressure for seminaries to maintain enrollments, contributes to the diversity among student populations.

Keeping The Creed

Seminary administrators admit this broad mix of students is challenging. Internally, the seminaries must maintain their creedal beliefs while addressing the needs of the students outside the seminary’s tradition.

Some, like McKenna, Whitlock, and Dallas Theological Seminary’s John Walvoord, say part of the answer lies in having different doctrinal expectations for the faculty than for students. At Dallas, for example, students are given more latitude than faculty. “We don’t question them on details,” said Walvoord. “But we hold our faculty to a more strict accounting because they are the examples for our students.” Earlier this year, three Dallas professors were asked to resign because of theological differences with the seminary (CT, Feb. 5, 1988, p. 52).

RTS’s Whitlock adds that with theological agreement among faculty, a pluralistic student environment can be a strength. “The mix really is a wonderful opportunity for the students,” said Whitlock. “It gives them an opportunity for firsthand exposure to other perspectives and cultures.”

Still, some denominations prefer students from theologically compatible seminaries. The Free Methodist Church, for example, strongly urges its ministerial candidates to attend either Western Theological Seminary or Asbury. Yet, according to Bishop Clyde E. Van Valin, there is a slight increase in candidates coming to the church from other seminaries. While the denomination plans to introduce a special curriculum for these students, “We prefer that our seminary students go to the seminaries we have affiliated with,” said Van Valin.

Russ Barksdale says the time spent outside his denomination was valuable, and suspects it is becoming so for a growing number of his contemporaries.

“I think my generation is trying to expose [itself] to all different kinds of approaches and theologies,” Barksdale said, “not necessarily to buy into them, but to help make us better pastors.”

By Joe Maxwell.