Anti-Semitism and the church—and how they grew.

From the biblical period to the present, it is difficult to find a single century in which the Christian church has not in some significant way contributed to the anguish of the Jewish people. Of course, Jesus and his followers and the believers of the earliest church found their identity as part of Judaism. But by the middle of the second century C.E., the church defined itself not only apart from Judaism, but as having taken its place. The history of Christian contempt for Jews and Judaism is not intelligible without a survey of the factors that contributed to this radical shift of identity.

First, there were theological differences centering on the teachings of Jesus, and particularly on the question of his messiahship. By presenting himself as a “new Torah,” Jesus did not meet the expectation of the masses. For them he did not embody or represent the hope of Israel. The land yet writhed under Roman oppression.

Second, the church was successful in reaching out to Gentiles, which led to the landmark ruling of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15). That decision, about the year 49, released gentile converts from the necessity of circumcision and adherence to the Mosaic law. By championing the cause of gentile freedom from Jewish rituals and regulations, Paul and the apostolic leaders had opened a door that allowed for a rapid transition to a reconstituted community. This created a new challenge as Jews and Gentiles had immediate difficulty learning to live harmoniously within the same body. The move from worship on the Sabbath to the Lord’s Day is but one important example of change the church faced at this time.

Third, the persecution of Jewish believers was a factor in the split. The growing antagonism also resulted in an effort to root out from the synagogue all minim (“heretics”). All who deviated—both Jews and Jewish Christians—from Pharisaic norms were no longer welcome within the community. It was an attempt to enforce a particular definition of Jewish purity with the thought of preservation and survival.

Fourth, in two Jewish revolts against Rome (66–73 and 132–135), Jewish Christians refused to fight, compromising their allegiance to the Jewish community and their identity with the Jewish state. On the other hand, the Jewish support of the messianic claimant, Bar Kokhba, nailed shut the door of lingering hope that Jewish Christians had for a change in the majority’s convictions. Further, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the disappearance of all major sects but the Pharisees, forced a reformulation of Judaism. At Yavne, through the work of the Pharisees, a new Judaism gradually emerged. Rabbinic Judaism, as it came to be called, was a separate religion from Christianity, which considered all Jewish Christians personae non gratae in the synagogue.

Thus, what had begun as an intrafamily dispute developed into a permanent breach—in the words of Otto Piper, “a rivalry between the religions of the synagogue and of the church.”

The “New Israel” Emerges

Paul’s warning to gentile believers about pride (Rom. 11:17–24) went unheeded. The church had become overwhelmingly composed of Gentiles. So they reasoned, as newly ingrafted branches, that there was no more need for the support of the root (Israel). What presumption! At first, the Gentiles were but a rejected wild olive branch allowed by God’s mercy to be grafted into the believing family of Abraham. But in the second, third, and fourth centuries a new spirit of arrogance and supersessionism had arisen. Paul had insisted that God did not reject his people, for “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Rom. 11:29). Yet Gentiles claimed to have replaced Israel. As the “new” Israel, the gentile church spiritually expropriated what had belonged to Israel. Though some of this spiritualizing interpretation begins in certain passages of the New Testament, it becomes fully developed in the writings of early church fathers.

At first the church was a remnant within Israel, participating in new-covenant life inside of a renewed “Israel of God.” Of this Jewish haburah (religious brotherhood), Gentiles had no part. For when the church began, Gentiles were described as those “who do not know God” (1 Thess. 4:5). But now, those formerly outside of the covenant had displaced the physical sons of Abraham who had given them spiritual birth. This displacement resulted in many institutions and concepts of Israel being de-Judaized or Hellenized by the gentile church. In his Dialogue With Trypho, a Jew, the apologist Justin Martyr stressed that what was of old and belonged to Israel—including the Jewish Scriptures—was now the property of Christians. They are “not yours but ours,” stated Justin emphatically.

The tearing away from Jewish roots resulted in the church defining itself largely in non-Jewish terminology. The word “Christianity,” derived from Christos, a Greek rendering of the Hebrew mashiach or “Messiah,” is representative of this process. Dom Gregory Dix has called attention to some of the other, significant changes: “ ‘The Living God’ became ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus’ and ultimately ‘God the Father.’ ‘The Messiah Jeshua’ became ‘Jesus Christ the Son of God’ and, ultimately, ‘God the Son.’ The ‘New-Covenant-life’ became ‘the Spirit’ and ‘the Paraclete’ and, ultimately, ‘God the Holy Ghost.’ The ‘New Covenant’ became ‘the Atonement.’ ‘The Nazarenes’ became ‘the Christians.’ The ‘Scriptures’ became ‘the Old Testament.’ The ‘Israel of God’ became ‘the Holy Church.’ “In addition, the memorial feast of the Last Supper came to be known as the “Eucharist.”

Furthermore, the church came to refer to the Scriptures with a new set of terms: “The Torah” became “the Pentateuch,” “Tehillim” (Psalms) became “the Psalter,” and Greek names such as “Genesis” and “Exodus” gradually replaced their Hebrew counterparts. The origin and development of the word “Bible” is also Greek.

The apostle Paul spent much of his life in the Hellenistic world where the majority of Jews were dispersed. But he had considerable misgivings about those whose philosophy centered solely on the wisdom of the Greek world. Accordingly, he expounded to the Corinthians what he found as a new and better world view. To know “Christ crucified,” argued Paul to both Jews and Greeks, was to know “the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:18–25). Yet, by the middle of the second century, Christianity had accepted and employed Greek philosophy. As the “new” Israel sought to gain a hearing for the gospel message among Gentiles, the church moved, as it were, further from Mount Sinai and closer to Mars Hill.

Justin Martyr had been influenced by Platonic thought before his conversion. After he became a Christian, Justin carried many of Plato’s ideas into his teaching. As the Hebrew Scriptures were used to bring Jews to Christ, Justin used Platonic thought to reach Greeks. In the following century, Clement and others from Alexandria placed even greater emphasis upon reading the Bible with Platonic eyes. One result was that third-century Christians began to view the physical world of flesh and matter as evil. The perpetuation of this view throughout the centuries would have dire consequences for the church’s understanding of salvation, spirituality, and marriage and the family.

From De-Judaizing To Anti-Judaism

Christian hostility to Judaism has usually brought in its wake hostility to Jews. The two are so intimately connected they are often inseparable. As Stuart Rosenberg has perceptively observed, “Anti-semitism and anti-Judaism, history teaches, feed upon each other; they are twin phenomena.” The actual term anti-Semitism, however, was not introduced until 1879, by Wilhelm Marr, a German political agitator. At that time it designated anti-Jewish campaigns in Europe. Soon, however, it came to be applied to the hostility and hatred directed toward Jews since before the Christian era.

The topic of anti-Semitism is never far from the collective conscience of world Jewry. In today’s church, however, the story of animosity, enmity, and strife directed by Christians toward Jews remains generally untold. Perhaps this is the case because the history of the church is about as long as the history of the evils directed toward Jews—if not in the overt acts of Christians, certainly in their guilty silence.

Portions of the New Testament and other early Christian literature contain striking anti-Jewish rhetoric. It is crucial, however, to make an important distinction about these polemical outbursts against Jews and Judaism. As Richard Longenecker has written, in the New Testament the polemic against the Jews was “an intrafamily device used to win Jews to the Christian faith, in the second century it became anti-Semitic and used to win Gentiles.” In the first case it was directed mainly by Jews against Jews, and in the second mainly by Gentiles against Jews.

The attacks in the New Testament sound harsh, for these were Jews speaking to other Jews about very visceral and revolutionary issues. Traditional Jews did not believe that the Messiah had come. The followers of the Nazarene did. Hence, each group fired bitter accusations against the other. In Matthew 23 Jesus is roundly critical of the Pharisees; but he, himself, was likely representative of the same Jewish sect. He calls them “hypocrites,” “blind guides,” “blind fools,” and “snakes,” and compares them to “whitewashed tombs.” In another context Jesus rebukes his fellow Jews by saying, “You belong to your father, the devil” (John 8:44). Paul writes to the Thessalonians about “the Jews” who “drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men” (1 Thess. 2:15). John writes to the church at Smyrna about Jews who are “a synagogue of Satan” (Rev. 2:9).

It is one thing to read this inflammatory language in the context of an intramural Jewish debate. It is something else, however, to take this stinging rhetoric—as the church tragically has done over the centuries—and use it to promote the condemnation of Jews and the negating of all that is Jewish. Sadly, this latter type of anti-Judaism is prevalent in the gentile Christian writings of the early church fathers.

The Early Fathers: Blaming The Victims

By the middle of the second century, the writings of the church fathers reveal considerable racial antagonism between gentile Christians and Jews. The Letter of Barnabas and the works of Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr are particularly worthy of note.

The posture of the church was decisively set against the synagogue. Whereas one gentile nation after another had responded positively to the Christian missionary outreach, the synagogue continued to cling stubbornly to its ancestral faith. This left the church increasingly frustrated and embittered. Sermons, dialogues, diatribes, and polemics became the order of the day. The church sought to “conquer” its opponent by seeking every possible evidence to demonstrate that Judaism was a dead and legalistic faith.

The gentile church hastened to employ the ideological leverage it got from the two thwarted Jewish revolts. The overthrow of the Jewish nation—especially the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the temple by gentile armies—was seen as divine chastisement, proof that God had rejected his one chosen people. The crushing defeat of the nation provided ammunition for apologists who now insisted the church was the authentic Israel of God.

The death, exile, or slavery of thousands of Jews allowed for further arguments against Judaism. In the Roman Empire, Judaism lost its status as a religio licita, a legal exception to the cult of emperor worship. No Jew was allowed to come near the city of Jerusalem. The Pax Romana would not be denied. Jews were now condemned to wander among the “Christian” nations, those new inheritors of the covenant promises.

The sack of Jerusalem was also viewed by the church as punishment of Jews for the crime of crucifying Jesus. Jewish suffering and ostracism were attributed to the ignorance and apostasy of a reprobate people who had put to death the Christ. The theme of “Christ-killer” is accordingly now picked up in the writings of church fathers. Let us note two examples, Justin Martyr and Origen.

Justin was a converted gentile philosopher who died a martyr in Rome. Justin’s second-century Dialogue With Trypho, a Jew represents, in Pinchas Lapide’s words, “the prototypical contrast of the Christian protagonist triumphant and the nervous Jew on the defensive.” Justin argues his case by stating that Jews are separated from other nations and “justly suffer.” Justin hammers in his point by focusing on the fact that Jewish cities are “burned with fire” and Jews are “desolate,” forbidden to go up to Jerusalem “for you have slain the Just One, and His prophets before Him; and now you reject those who hope in Him.…”

In a similar vein, Origen in the third century wrote, “And these calamities [the Jews] have suffered, because they were a most wicked nation, which, although guilty of many other sins, yet has been punished so severely for none, as for those that were committed against our Jesus.” Again, in clear terms, the suffering of the Jewish people is directly related to their “sin” of rejecting Jesus.

Furthermore, the Fathers taught that the unfaithfulness of the Jewish people resulted in a collective guilt that made them subject to the permanent curse of God. Accordingly, church fathers from the time of Jerome and Augustine (late fourth century) applied the lesson of the barren fig tree (Matt. 21:18–22) to the Jewish people. Jesus had said, “May you never bear fruit again.” Thus the church argued that Jews were a people eternally “cursed” by God. All blessings throughout Scripture earlier ascribed to Israel, the church now claimed for itself. All curses, however, it left for the Jews.

Allegory To The Rescue

The early Fathers had to solve the problem of what to do with the Old Testament. Their anti-Judaic stance forced them to view the Jewish Scriptures with its strange laws and customs as offensive at worst and little more than antiquated at best. In addition, the church had taken the position that it had replaced Israel. No longer a remnant within Israel, it had become a separate gentile body. Accordingly, it proudly bore the new role of adversary to the parent that had given it birth. For the church, therefore, to admit any real connection with the Old Testament as the teacher that prepared the way for the gospel would be to grant a measure of legitimacy and historical validity to the Jewish people. The church was caught in a bind.

One solution was offered by Marcion, a wealthy, second-century Christian shipowner from Sinope (in what is now northern Turkey), who came to Rome. Marcion appears to have been influenced by the dualistic teachings of Gnosticism. He was violently opposed to anything Jewish and argued that the Old Testament should be removed from the canon of the church. Although Marcion’s solution generally reflected the anti-Judaic attitude of the second-century church, the church could not totally cut itself off from the Jewish Scriptures. These Scriptures provided the church with its raison d’être. The church had superseded Israel, and the Old Testament was the descriptive document that defined the inheritance to which this “new” Israel laid claim. Furthermore, to eliminate the Old Testament would remove from the church a major apologetic tool in its controversy with Judaism. In order to support the messianic claims of Jesus, the church adduced before its Jewish opponents hundreds of Old Testament prophetic texts. So the church needed to save the Old Testament and, accordingly, rejected Marcion’s extreme position.

The church fathers, however, found their solution in allegory. This way the Old Testament could be made a “Christian” document. Through their efforts to spiritualize, typologize, and Christologize the text, the early fathers were able to find abundant Christian meaning in the Old Testament. Christ, or New Testament thought, was read into, rather than out of, the biblical text in some of the most obscure places. Accordingly, Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, and others developed a system of allegorical exegesis that had the disastrous effect of wrenching the biblical text from its plain historical meaning.

Transferring the Jewish Scriptures to the “new” Israel meant clothing them in Christian dress. For example, the sacrifices of the Old Testament became bread and wine; the 12 bells on the priest’s robe signified the 12 disciples. In early Christian allegory, different levels of meaning may be distinguished, such as moral, spiritual, and eschatological. But the Christological meaning is especially common. For example, in patristic hermeneutics the scarlet cord of Rahab represents salvation through Christ’s blood; and in the account of the Flood (Gen. 6–8), Noah symbolized Christ, and the ark, the church.

The history of biblical interpretation proves that at best allegorical exegesis is both suspect and risky. (During the Reformation, Luther denounced the allegories of Origen, and called allegory “the scum on Scripture,” “a monkey-game” and a “nose of wax,” that is, something that can be bent any way desired.) The exegetical integrity of the text is surrendered to the wasteland of subjectivity. The authorial intent of the passage stands in jeopardy of being compromised or entirely lost.

But vapidity of meaning may not be the only loss sustained by a hermeneutic that primarily spiritualizes the text. There may be implications for the issue of anti-Semitism as well. In this connection, Harold O. J. Brown has observed that “Christians have tended to be more hostile to the unconverted Jews of their day as they tended to spiritualize the biblical doctrine of the millennium and advocate an otherworldly, ascetic approach to discipleship.” Brown’s point that there is a tendency in the church—especially since Augustine (c. 400)—to amillennialism, accompanied by an increasing disdain for Jewish people, is worth serious consideration.

By Marvin R. Wilson.

From a non-Jewish perspective, it has been often assumed that the catastrophic fall of Jerusalem and the miserable suffering of the Jewish people spoke in the most dramatic way not only about the identity of God’s elect, but especially about the vindication of Christian claims made for Jesus. However, as G. W. H. Lampe correctly observes, for Gentiles and Jewish Christians “the decisive event which vindicated Jesus as the Christ, the Lord, the Son of God, was not the destruction of his enemies but his resurrection from the dead.”

Most of the Christian literature throughout the second and third centuries reveals more of the same: a general ridicule and contempt for Jews and Judaism. For example, in the Epistle to Diognetus, an exposition of gentile Christianity to Gentiles, the writer calls attention to the Jews’ “mutilation of the flesh as a proof of election, as if they were, for this reason, especially beloved of God.” He also cites their “general silliness and deceit and fussiness and pride.” In addition, the works of Cyprian, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Irenaeus are among those of special note.

In the fourth century, when Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire, Jews experienced a further wave of discrimination and persecution. Many of their legal rights were lost. Jews were not permitted to dwell in Jerusalem. They were also forbidden to seek converts. In 339 it was considered a criminal offense to convert to Judaism. Several decades following this, the Synod of Laodicea ruled against Christians feasting with Jews, classifying those who did so as heretics. Around 380, Ambrose, bishop of Milan, praised the burning of a synagogue as an act pleasing to God.

Before the end of the century, John, a presbyter in Antioch, unleashed a series of eight Homilies against the Jews. Because of his eloquence, John became dubbed chrysostom, the “goldenmouthed.” The sermons of Chrysostom were primarily intended to keep Gentiles from being drawn to Jewish worship and law. He vehemently and irrationally attacked Jews. In his homilies, Chrysostom—like many of the Fathers before him—emphasized that because “the Jews” killed Christ, God has rejected them, destroying Jerusalem to display his disfavor. But in his First Discourse, his choice of anti-Judaic rhetoric is utterly crude and thoroughly offensive—and all the more so coming from the lips of a presbyter from Antioch, where believers first bore the name “Christian” (Acts 11:26). A selected sample from this most judaeophobic Father reads:

Many, I know, respect the Jews and think that their present way of life is a venerable one. This is why I hasten to uproot and tear out this deadly opinion … the synagogue is not only a brothel and a theatre; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts … when God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons.… The Jews live for their bellies, they gape for the things of this world, their condition is no better than that of pigs or goats because of their wanton ways and excessive gluttony. They know but one thing: to fill their bellies and be drunk.

Throughout the centuries such vilifying of the Jewish people has not been confined to sermons like that of Chrysostom. It has also been perpetuated through shameful acts of hatred by confessing members of the Christian community—so much as to make the gospel story all the more incredible to Jewish ears. Little wonder that the rabbis in the talmudic period sometimes used a sarcastic pun to refer to the gospel. For Jews, the “Gospel” (Greek, euangelion) became the “wicked scroll” (Hebrew, aven gilyon).

“Christ Killers” And “Sucklers Of Sows”

In the Middle Ages, Jews were largely excluded from Christian culture. Jews sought to avoid social, economic, and ecclesiastical pressures by living in secluded quarters of their cities. The Jewish people were considered useful for one main purpose: money lending. This isolation of Jews from the larger society led Christians to accuse Jews of being pariahs. Stripped of many personal liberties, and victimized by an elitist “Christian” culture, Jews were required to wear a distinctive hat or patch sewn on their clothing. The very idea of “hebraic” was commonly equated with “satanic.”

Jews experienced a barrage of accusations: They were said to have a peculiar smell, in contrast to the “odor of sanctity.” They were held responsible for many evils, the “Christ-killer” charge still prominent. They were called desecraters of the Host, allegedly entering churches and piercing the holy wafer out of which the “real blood” of Jesus flowed. They were accused of murdering Christian infants in order to use their blood (instead of wine) at the Passover Seder. They were blamed for poisoning wells and thus causing the Black Plague that killed one-third of Europe. They were also said to be sucklers of sows. Jewish art from this period depicts the Jew as humbled and downcast, rather than proud and upright.

The church launched the First Crusade in 1096. Urban II called for soldiers of Christ to liberate the Holy Land from the Moslem invaders. However, on the way, the “infidel” Jews suffered gravely at the hands of the Crusaders. Thousands of Jews who had refused baptism were murdered in the streets. Numerous mass suicides occurred. Synagogues were torched. But with all this, Jews steadfastly refused most attempts at conversion.

As the Middle Ages drew to a close, Jews experienced additional indignities and forms of persecution. During the thirteenth century, holy books were seized, and burned by cartloads. In Spain, a church council ruled that if a Jew tried to convert a Christian he was to be killed and his property taken. Jews were forbidden to eat with or talk to Christians. They became homeless wanderers, expelled from England in 1290, from France in 1306, and subsequently from cities in Spain, Germany, and Austria.

The Inquisition and expulsion of 1492 resulted in thousands of torturings, burnings at the stake, and forced conversions. Jews were ordered to leave Spain or face death. Many Jews converted in public, but remained Jews in private. These Jews were known as Marranos. More than 150,000 others fled Spain, but were not allowed to settle in western Europe. Eventually, these refugees made their way to North Africa, Morocco, and eastern Mediterranean lands.

Pogroms And Propaganda

Martin Luther made a decisive break with the Catholic church. The issues central to this Reformer’s thought included faith and works, Scripture and tradition, and the priesthood of believers. But this was not Luther’s complete theological agenda. Toward the start of his influential career he expressed hope of reaching the Jewish community with the gospel. In 1523 he issued a tract, “That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew,” which affirmed the Jewish descent of Jesus. Luther pointed out that early missionary outreach to Jews failed because of the “wicked and shameless” life of popes, priests, and scholars rather than evil or obstinacy on the part of Jews.

However well-meaning Luther was at the start, he changed. When Luther saw that Jews failed to respond, he began to turn against them, issuing a series of vitriolic pamphlets. In these bitter diatribes one finds Jews labeled as “venomous,” “thieves,” and “disgusting vermin.” Furthermore, Luther called for Jews to be driven out of the country permanently. Appealing to this and other anti-Semitic doctrine, four centuries later the Nazis carried out Luther’s desire with horrifying success. Fortunately, in recent years, through the efforts of both Jewish and Lutheran leaders, considerable improvement in interfaith relations has been achieved.

In the latter part of the nineteenth century the largest Jewish population in the world (six million) was in czarist Russia. There Jews experienced a series of vicious pogroms that left thousands dead. Others, joining Jews from other European lands, fled to America. There they hoped to find a place, earlier described by George Washington as offering “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” Between 1880 and 1910 more than two million Jews immigrated to America through New York City. In 1894 the trumped-up treason trial in France of the Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus drew the problem of anti-Semitism to world attention.

In the twentieth century, the Holocaust stands as an unparalleled embodiment of the horror of anti-Semitism. Nazi propaganda stated that the human race must be “purified” by ridding it of Jews. The “final solution” to the Jewish “problem” was camps, gas chambers, and crematoria. Between 1933, when Hitler came to power, and the end of World War II, some six million Jewish lives were destroyed. It is to the shame of Christians everywhere that the established church did so little to prevent or protest the slaughter.

At present, anti-Semitism persists wherever Jews are found. Jews of Russia and France have been especially oppressed. In European countries and in the United States, recent anti-Jewish incidents have included synagogue smearings and bombings, desecration of gravestones, vicious graffiti, Nazi pamphlets, and grotesque Jewish stereotypes in the press. At other times, the so-called polite variety of anti-Semitism is found, namely discrimination and/or antipathy displayed toward Jews in the social, educational, and economic realms. Jews are still unofficially shunned by admissions committees at some private schools and by membership committees of exclusive clubs.

We have covered all too briefly nearly two millennia of the history of contempt. But, in conclusion, it must be stressed that the Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum. Though it was devised in a country with an enviable reputation for brilliant culture and intellectual sophistication, the seeds of anti-Semitism had been planted much earlier. The Holocaust represents the tragic culmination of anti-Jewish attitudes and practices that had been allowed to manifest themselves—largely unchecked—in or nearby the church for nearly two thousand years. Perhaps the most important reason the Holocaust happened is that the church had forgotten its Jewish roots.

Marvin R. Wilson is Ockenga professor of biblical studies at Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts. This article is adapted from his forthcoming book, Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith, to be copublished by William B. Eerdmans and the Center for Judaic-Christian Studies.

Christian views of Judaism are changing.

For Christians and Jews whose perceptions of one another are drawn from stereotype and caricature rather than actual interaction, three events made June 1987 a significant month.

The Reverend Bailey Smith, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, was being publicly criticized once again. Smith had gained notoriety for his statement, “God Almighty doesn’t hear the prayer of a Jew,” but was later cited as an example of a repentant fundamentalist when he met with Jewish leaders and traveled to Israel as an act of reconciliation. Now the itinerant evangelist and member of the board of directors of the bankrupt PTL ministry told a conference of Southern Baptist evangelists in St. Louis that “unless [the Jewish people] repent and get born again, they don’t have a prayer!”

During the same month the 199th General Assembly of the 3.1 million-member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) passed a controversial paper, “A Theological Understanding of the Relationship Between Christians and Jews,” after downgrading its status from “policy statement” to “study paper,” and modifying its statements on the State of Israel. Benjamin Weir, who had just returned from 16 months as a hostage in Lebanon, had made an impassioned plea to scuttle stronger statements in support of Israel. He told the assembly that he would find it “very difficult to live with the paper” if it called Israel the promised land for Jews. The study paper was changed to reject the notion that the State of Israel fulfilled God’s promise to the Jewish people. A small, but vocal group of Hebrew Christian Presbyterian ministers criticized “what the paper did not say.” And Herbert Links, executive director of the Committee on the Christian Approach to Jews, Presbytery of Philadelphia, complained that “the tone of the document advocates dialogue with Jews rather than a sharing of the Gospel.” Links asserted, “In any modern ‘inter-faith dialogue’ there’s always a Jewish hidden agenda which disallows any discussion regarding the real issue—the Messiahship of Jesus. How then can there be honest ‘dialogue’ between Jews and Christians if He is excluded?”

If the Presbyterian statement was embroiled in controversy even as a “study paper,” the 1.7 million-member United Church of Christ’s affirmative resolution made at its June 1987 convention in Cleveland, Ohio, was destined for continued bitter debate. To pass the declaration at their general synod, the resolution committee had to fight strong opposition even to get it on the floor; and floor leaders had to delete references to Israel’s “right to exist.” Surprisingly, the final resolution passed smoothly, expressing that Judaism and Christianity were equally legitimate and asking forgiveness for the historical Christian anti-Semitism that denied Judaism’s validity. While Robert H. Everett, pastor of Emanuel Church, Irvington, New Jersey, insists that the resolution “puts the U.C.C. on record as being in the forefront of Jewish-Christian relations,” he acknowledges that “the U.C.C. has been, on a national denominational level, rather hostile to Israel and we had expected problems in this area.”

Mainline denominations, such as the United Church of Christ, are huge aggregates of members of many different theological persuasions—with many different approaches to Christian-Jewish relations. In the past year, the UCC resolution has been assailed from both sides of the theological spectrum. Conservatives have accused the resolution of “giving away the whole theological store.” Some have gone as far as to state that “for our revelation to be true, Judaism has to be false,” and “the church is definitely the successor institution to Judaism.”

At the other end of the spectrum, liberal challengers insist that any validation of Judaism empowers Zionism, a philosophy they view as “imperialistic” and “racist.” Jewish leaders have been alarmed at anti-Zionist rhetoric from National Council of Churches’ administrators and United Church of Christ opponents that in Jewish eyes verges on hatred. They have taken note of deep pockets of anti-Semitism within liberal and mainline Protestantism, a phenomenon that both liberal and conservative Christian participants in Christian-Jewish dialogue sadly admit.

Evangelicals On The Rise

The strong feelings that surround Christian-Jewish relations do not occur spontaneously or in a vacuum. The Presbyterian paper had been originally presented in 1983; the UCC resolution had been the work of various committees over a three-year period. Bailey Smith had made his original infamous remark in 1980. Christian-Jewish dialogues had entered a new era of rapprochement during the 1960s, and considerable interaction among selected national leaders had taken place in the past two decades.

During those decades, the Jewish leadership, more comfortable with liberal theologians, had to come to grips with the ascent of conservative Christian theology. The rise of political fundamentalism and the emergence of evangelical Jimmy Carter (Newsweek declaring 1976 “The Year of the Evangelical”) led to a surprising number of articles and books on conservative Christianity. A 1976 Gallup poll indicated that approximately 50 percent of all Protestants and 20 percent of all American Catholics claimed to have been “born again.” The 1970s also brought a deeper awareness of the Holocaust and Christian anti-Semitism, as theologians and historians grappled with the moral failure of Christendom. Israel and Zionism were increasingly under attack at the United Nations; and in worldwide perception, the Jewish state was increasingly viewed as a Goliath, rather than a David.

Jewish leaders involved in dialogue were often caught in a revival of liberal-conservative Christian spats. Jews interested in evangelical-Jewish conferences were asked by liberal Christian colleagues: “Why do you want to have relationships with those evangelists and religious bigots?” And some evangelical leaders asked their newfound Jewish friends: “How can you dialogue with those liberals who do not support Israel, despise the Bible and Jewish peoplehood?”

Charles Y. Glock and Rodney Stark’s Christian Beliefs and Anti-Semitism (1966) was cited by liberals to “prove” that the more conservative a Christian was the more anti-Semitic he or she tended to be. One famed liberal church historian used this study to explain to Jewish readers (alarmed by Jimmy Carter’s overt evangelicalism) that while most evangelicals supported the State of Israel, their support was “puzzling to Jews, because domestically Evangelists have often tended toward anti-Semitism, while mainline and liberal Protestants, not known for anti-Semitism ‘next door,’ often are more ambiguous in their support for Israel.” Jewish readers were not quite sure they wanted to know the evangelicals this liberal historian caricatured:

Evangelicals produce those Miss Americas who tell you over lowcut bathing suits and evening gowns how much they love Jesus. They favor Marabel Morgan, who teaches slavish submission of wives to husbands for Jesus’ sake, in The Total Woman. She gives Evangelical wives counsel on how to dress up in boots and baby doll nighties and to “put out” sexually so that hubby will give many material goodies in return. They are behind what is often called the Jocks for Jesus movement, being almost obsessed with sports.

Within a few years, however, this same church historian observed that evangelical-Jewish relations was “the most significant religious trend in the United States.”

Misunderstanding of evangelicalism persists: The PTL and Swaggart debacles have not helped change the Elmer Gantry stereotype of evangelists. (To the Jewish community, evangelical and evangelist are synonyms.) Jews generally expect tracts, disrespect, dishonesty, and a hard-sell approach from evangelicals: During televised football games, the fans lifting banners inscribed with John 3:16 must be “evangelicals.” And a 1986 Anti-Defamation League survey of evangelical attitudes included Mormons as “evangelicals.” (Nevertheless, this survey showed more positive attitudes toward Jews than a 1966 survey.)

Evangelicals And Jews

As evangelical-Jewish relations have matured through three national dialogues (1975, 1980, and 1984) and numerous local conferences throughout the United States, the seeds of conflict (as well as understanding) present in mainline denominational struggles have also been seen among evangelicals. Evangelical theologian Donald G. Bloesch, of the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary and a participant in the Second National Conference of Evangelicals and Jews, is concerned that both the Presbyterian study paper and the UCC resolution “tend toward universalism and religious relativism.” Ken Myers, an evangelical member of the PCUSA and editor of This World and the newsletter Public Eye, noted that he was “struck by how many assertions of the Westminster Confession are compromised if one accepts the teaching of the new PCUSA statement.” Several evangelical leaders in the Reformed tradition are concerned that Jews will not accept as “good, decent Christians” those who cannot share such universalistic statements.

Off the record, other evangelicals remarked that both the PCUSA and the UCC were honestly trying to deal with the historic anti-Semitism within the church and the problems vexing Christian-Jewish relations. These evangelicals believed the declarations were making grassroots Christians more aware, and one evangelical leader observed that in spite of the problems, the declarations were “a breath of fresh air” in the stagnant denominational atmosphere of anti-Jewish rhetoric.

And yet, most evangelicals involved in dialogue with the Jewish community realize there is a fine line between holding to their beliefs and drifting into a live-and-let-live ecumenical relativism. Evangelicals do not have the luxury of choosing beliefs as their liberal counterparts do. At the same time, evangelicals know little about modern Jews and modern Judaism. Demographically and socially they are often separated from their Jewish neighbors, and they face the daily anti-Semitism, racism, and bigotry propounded by the surrounding culture. They stereotype and caricature the Jewish community as extensively as the Jewish community stereotypes and caricatures them.

The success of the evangelical-Jewish conferences among leaders has been in bringing the two different communities of faith with two different agendas together to share their concerns. Evangelicals often approach dialogue with a theologically oriented agenda, genuinely interested in deepening their knowledge of the Jewish roots of Christian faith: “What do they believe about the Messiah, sin, atonement, redemption, and interpreting the Bible?” Jews, on the other hand, have a this-world, socially oriented agenda: “Let’s talk about human rights, social action, religion and politics, Israel, and prejudice.”

In the national conferences between evangelicals and Jews, both agendas were incorporated with a pleasant broadening effect. In the first national conference, “The Messiah” was the second topic area discussed, while “Responses to Moral Crises and Social Ferment” was the fifth topic. Jews learned that evangelicalism does have a social conscience. Evangelical scholars learned that modern Judaism has an impressive dimension of theological expertise. After coming together with a measure of fear, friendships began to evolve as caricatures began to dissipate. Sensitivity developed during frank and honest discussions, and the great diversity found in both communities led to the exclamation: “Why haven’t we worked together before in these areas of moral concern?” In fact, in a number of conferences, participants had to chuckle at times during vigorous ad hoc discussions when they realized that a Jew and an evangelical were arguing fervently on the same side of an issue, while a Jew and an evangelical on the other side zealously opposed their views.

Most evangelical and Jewish leaders involved in dialogue puzzle over how to reach the grassroots of their communities where significant attitudinal change may occur. For example, most evangelical laypeople (like most clergy) are unaware that Judaism teaches grace and faith; that torah is mistranslated as “law,” and is actually related to the root “to teach”; that the Pharisees were some of the best people of their day and a highly diverse group; that both Jesus and Paul were observant Jews; that when Paul says man is justified by faith and not by works of the law, he is saying nothing foreign to Judaism. Nevertheless, even in Sunday school curricula published by the four major evangelical companies, dichotomies are often drawn between Christianity and Judaism that build a false impression of Judaism. Evangelicalism is just as guilty as other segments of society of “bearing false witness” about Jews and Judaism.

In addition, evangelicals are basically unaware of how Christian teaching has been abused to persecute Jewish people for centuries. Sunday school curricula for the spring quarter of 1988 from the four major publishers include quite a few allusions to “the Jews” killing Jesus. The teacher’s booklets do not mention the danger of forming anti-Jewish attitudes through such teaching; there are no warnings of possibly engendering hatred or stereotypes in the minds of the students.

Richard V. Pierard has recently called into question the perceptions that a nationally known evangelical clergyman has imparted about Jews and Judaism. “Of course, he did not belittle or denigrate Jews in every sermon, but even a single disparaging remark is one too many,” the evangelical historian at Indiana State University stated. “And … on numerous occasions through his rhetoric, choice of words, and even intonation … he has manifested a kind of antipathy to Jews and Jewishness.”

Pierard’s concerns over sermons that portrayed “the wickedness of the Jews,” spread the “Christ-killer” theme, distorted Judaism, and stereotyped modern Jewish people through biblical allusions would unfortunately apply to sermons heard weekly from evangelical pulpits. Even a prominent leader of a Jewish evangelistic organization repeatedly commits such caricature. A number of evangelicals have grave concerns whether progress in relationships between the two communities can really gain ground unless these false beliefs are changed. The question is whether evangelical Christianity must build itself up at the expense of an inaccurate portrayal of Jews and Judaism. Certainly, most evangelicals believe their faith needs no such false foundation, but lack of sensitivity to such portrayals necessitates a major reorientation in evangelical teaching.

Convincing And Converting Jews

More visible, but not necessarily more important than Christian ignorance of Judaism, is the conflict over evangelism. In dialogue, Jews soon found that evangelical leaders deplored any deception in presenting the gospel to Jewish people. Deceitful techniques and lack of respect for potential converts was mourned by evangelical and Jew alike. Evangelicals insisted that undue pressure on the prospective convert was out of order, because only the Holy Spirit could convict and convert. The Christian’s task was to be a faithful “witness.” Jews learned that Christianity at its very core was witness-oriented—the early Christians were evangelistic; in fact, first-century Judaism was evangelistic.

More important, Jews learned that for an evangelical to denounce witness altogether meant ostracism from his or her faith community. This past spring, one periodical sought to have a debate by evangelical theologians over whether one should witness to Jewish people—only to find that those who would disparage evangelism completely were not considered evangelicals. Nevertheless, in the 1970s Billy Graham expressed his concern over the emphasis at Key ‘73 on missions that target Jews alone, stating that he had “never felt called to single out the Jews as Jews nor to single out any other particular groups, cultural, ethnic, or religious” (CT News, March 16, 1973, p. 29). And in 1977, the American Jewish Committee gave this evangelist their first National Interreligious Award, noting that Graham had strengthened “mutual respect and understanding between evangelical and Jewish communities” (CT News, Nov. 18, 1977, p. 49).

Evangelicals, on the other hand, are continually learning the shocking anti-Semitism couched in historic Christian “witness.” From Chrysostom to the Crusaders, from Martin Luther to the Holocaust, “evangelism” and “proselytization” have often been attempts to eradicate Judaism. The Jews’ only escape from Christian persecution throughout the medieval period was to convert to Christianity. In fact, the Nazi regime was the first time in history that conversion could not save the Jew. Thus, when Jewish people meet an evangelical, they expect to be pressured to convert.

Some missionary enterprises to Jewish people have techniques of confrontation and insolence. At the least, Jewish people experience the same irritation during evangelical witness as do most evangelicals when a pair of very knowledgeable and proof text-laden Jehovah’s Witnesses rap on their door. Ironically, Jewish people are often eager to know what an evangelical believes if a friendship is built on mutual respect.

Mainline denominations have had heavy involvement in Jewish evangelism in the past. The Presbyterians, for example, set up many Hebrew Christian churches in the early decades of the twentieth century. However, most Jewish missionary organizations today are supported by evangelicals.

Evangelicals are also involved in modern “messianic synagogues,” to the consternation of the Jewish community. While some Jewish leaders can bring themselves to accept the evangelicals’ need to evangelize, “Hebrew Christian” churches and “messianic synagogues” are perceived as deceptive attempts to convert Jews who would not otherwise become Christians. Indeed, messianic synagogues that turn toward more traditional Judaism are soon out of business, and those converts searching for a more Jewish worship often complain that the messianic synagogue in their area “is just a glorified charismatic service with a few Hebrew words thrown in.” And, unfortunately, many leaders and workers in missionary enterprises to Jews oppose evangelical-Jewish dialogue. They fear such dialogue will damage both the financial support for their ministries and also evangelical good will toward their organizations.

Jews point to the tens of thousands of dollars spent to make one Jewish convert to Christianity. Although such converts are few (and just as many Christians convert to Judaism every year without such solicitation), there is great fear of the annihilation of Judaism through missions aimed solely at Jews. Even the Philadelphia messianic synagogue, Beth Yeshua, that has opposed Moishe Rosen and Jews for Jesus, is intensely opposed by the Jewish community. Nationally, a Jewish leader who would accept Hebrew Christians or Messianic Jews as Jews would soon lose status in the Jewish community.

Still, some Jewish leaders have come to understand that evangelicals cannot be told to cease to evangelize entirely, as many liberal Protestants have done. Even the respected Anglican proponent of Christian-Jewish relations, James Parkes, insisted that Judaism was not an “alternative scheme of salvation to Christianity, but a different kind of religion.” For the most part, Jews have no desire to make modern Christians into nominal Christians, but rather are seeking to eradicate the religious intolerance that has led to Jewish persecution in the past. Rabbi Joshua O. Haberman of the prestigious Washington (D.C.) Hebrew Congregation explains that the Bible is both the Christian’s and the Jew’s “spiritual rock of ages,” the “beacon of moral guidance and salvation” on which evangelical-Jewish relations will continue to grow.

The Erosion Of Christian Zionism

Evangelicals have been recognized in Jewish circles as supporters of the State of Israel. On the grassroots level, the large majority of prophecy-minded premillennialist evangelicals wholeheartedly support the Jewish state and hold the Jewish people of history in awe. But in academic circles and in leadership positions, evangelical support is much more equivocal. They point out that Arab and Palestinian Christians have been exerting pressure for a more balanced viewpoint, and evangelical missionaries in the Middle East have found it necessary to be as firmly supportive of the Arab cause as their more liberal colleagues. The mood at most evangelical seminaries and colleges is currently ambivalent towards the Jewish state, and several evangelical periodicals have totally abandoned a prophetic Christian Zionist stance.

William Sanford LaSor pointed out some of these pressures two decades ago while professor of Old Testament at Fuller Theological Seminary. In defending Arab rights following the 1967 Six-Day War, LaSor explained that “only one who has lived in the Arab world and has talked intimately with Arabs knows how deep are the wounds caused by the formation of the State of Israel.” He related the extreme difficulty of using the Old Testament with its passages on “Zion” in a Christian service in the Arab world, and stated candidly: “If you ask an Arab Christian what solution he has to offer to the present problem, you will get the same answer you get from a non-Christian Arab: Israel must be effaced, every Jew must be driven into the sea.”

Thus, the issue of Israel has created a deeper division among those involved in Christian-Jewish relations than has evangelism. The few Christian Zionists involved in mainline denominational leadership positions are vehemently opposed, ridiculed, and have been forced from administrative roles. For instance, the Reformed Church in America is reported to have removed the Reverend Isaac Rottenberg from his administrative position in the denomination for his pro-Israel stance. This liberal clergyman until recently headed the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel. In addition, those Catholic priests who expected the Roman church to recognize Israel during the nation’s fortieth anniversary have been sadly disappointed. Is this anti-Zionism in its various degrees and forms in the church anti-Semitic? Father Ed Flannery responds: “Not necessarily, but almost always … it has become more difficult with time to remain anti-Zionist and non-anti-Semitic, given the mortal threat to Israel’s existence by its Arab enemies.”

Roman Catholics: Fighting Anti-Semitism Inside The Church

At a recent national convention of Christians and Jews, a well-respected Catholic speaker was asked, “Where are the evangelicals in this conference?” He quipped: “That’s all we need … them here passing out their tracts!” If the truth be told, however, many of the anti-Jewish Christian attitudes, portrayals, and cliches were conveyed to the Western world through this leader’s church.

When Pope John XXIII decided to undertake a study of anti-Semitism in the church, conservative leaders in the Vatican immediately opposed the initiative. Although the pope had made it clear to the Curia that the forthcoming Vatican Council II should strive to take a firm stand against the evil of anti-Semitism, the cardinals rejected the first Christian Unity draft proposal because it hinted that the Vatican should grant diplomatic recognition to Israel. (In 1963, Arab diplomats made it clear to the new pope, Paul VI, that any attempt to speak out or act on behalf of the Jews might jeopardize the well-being of the nearly three million Roman Catholics in Arab lands.)

The elimination of the “Christ-killer” theme has posed an even thornier question for Roman Catholic leaders. Meeting in synod on November 20, 1964, the bishops initially agreed upon a strongly worded resolution affirming the hope that Christians “may never again present the Jewish people as one rejected, cursed, or guilty of deicide.” Yet this simple statement failed to gain the necessary votes. Also rejected was the statement that church workers and priests should “not teach anything that could give rise to hatred or contempt of Jews in the hearts of Christians.”

For two decades, more liberal Catholic leaders have been working to elaborate the positive theological perspective of Jews and Judaism missing from Vatican II’s 1965 Nostra Aetate (or Declaration of the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions). In March 1988, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) authorized the publication of Criteria for the Evaluation of Dramatizations of the Passion, which Eugene Fisher, executive secretary of the Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish relations of the NCCB, said sought to eliminate an “unfortunate tendency to set up a dramatic, but unhistorical opposition between Jesus and the Jewish people in depicting the events of Jesus’ ministry and crucifixion.” Edward H. Flannery, the priest who graphically depicted the history of anti-Semitism in Christendom in The Anguish of the Jews, has devoted his life to dispelling such caricatures of Jews and to bringing a more positive Catholic stance toward the State of Israel.

By David A. Rausch.

In the evangelical community, the debate often ensues over prophetic interpretation. “I have yet to see a Reformed amillennialist leader who has come to grips with the reality of the State of Israel,” one respected premillennialist evangelical leader privately contended; “they have the same trouble overcoming their Augustinian interpretation that Catholic leadership often has. Unfortunately, this attitude is transferred to the Jewish people.” Pastor Doug Shearer of the New Hope Christian Fellowship in Sacramento, California, and leader of TAV, a Christian Zionist organization involved heavily in dialogue, yet refusing to compromise its witness, maintains that “premillennialist leaders today are not picking up the gauntlet on Israel” and that they continually “trivialize Zion.”

Shearer further states that “premillennialists are not responding to the moral crises of the day,” with the result that a new postmillennialism is making inroads into the Christian community. These ultra-Reformed “Christian reconstructionists” purport to have definite answers and definite solutions that Shearer believes are dangerous to both Christians and Jews (see CT, Feb. 20, 1987, “Democracy as Heresy,” for a report on this movement). Shearer, like a number of other leaders contacted, believes that such movements, coupled with anti-Israel bias in evangelical academic circles, will change the grassroots support for the Jewish state within decades.

Nowhere is the change becoming more evident than in charismatic and Pentecostal circles. A contingent of Christian Reconstructionists and Reformed amillennialists have become part of Pat Robertson’s CBN University, where a debate now ensues. In Pentecostalism’s fastest-growing denomination, the Assemblies of God, the premillennialist interpretation required of all ordained pastors, as well as the churches’ historic support for Israel, is being eroded. David A. Lewis, a popular Assemblies preacher and teacher involved in dialogue, has recently written:

Dominion theology [Christian reconstructionism] has previously had its greatest influence among non-Charismatics, but has strongly penetrated Charismatic circles and is admittedly determined to take over the Charismatic movement’s theological mode of thinking. Although they have their differences, there is this in common: a theological antisemitism is almost universal in these new doctrinal constructs. This theological antisemitism manifests itself in both contempt for the Jewish people and the idea of replacement (the church takes the place of National Israel. God has no further use for Israel as a nation or people).

Lewis organized the Evangelical Christian Leadership Summit Conference that convened in Tulsa, December 9–12, 1987. His concerns are shared by already beseiged Assemblies leaders on state and national levels.

For their part, Reformed amillennialist evangelicals argue that their theology should be welcome in Christian-Jewish dialogue, and that their sincere opposition to anti-Semitism should not have to lead to theological affirmation of Jewish people or a Jewish state. They feel alienated and spurned in Christian-Jewish dialogue by a basically premillennialist evangelicalism on the one hand, and a universalist mainline ecumenism on the other. “We must be honest that Christianity has superseded Judaism, and the church is now God’s covenant community,” one leader commented; “the Jews are no longer the covenant people of God, and Judaism has no more validity than Islam.”

Grassroots Gains

Although tensions are clearly visible on the national level between Christians and Jews, frank discussions and stronger relationships continue to blossom. On the local level, among Christians and Jews who lack national prominence, some of the greatest gains in understanding and day-to-day friendships are being accomplished: housewives and businesspersons, clergy and teachers. This is as it should be, for unless the grassroots of this nation build bridges of friendship and understanding, unless the millions of Christians and Jews dispel damaging prejudices and caricatures about the other, official pronouncements from leaders accomplish little. In getting to know one another through discussion, Christians and Jews have been able individually to break down incredible barriers.

“Loving your neighbor as yourself” is a Jewish dictum that continued as a Christian dictum because it was commanded and modeled by a very Jewish Jesus. Christians have begun their journey as neighbors often by feeling the pain of the Jewish people through history. Jewish people have responded appreciatively to those who have grappled with the injustice of this history, those who feel pain and regret over what has been done in the name of Christ.

The norm governing relationships between human beings in Judaism and in the teaching of the Jewish Jesus is compassion and love; and one finds that Christians and Jews who have become friends often acknowledge that their interaction became firmly grounded in love and concern. Through mutual respect and a spirit of humility, they gained a budding friendship. The task of reconciliation was so large that emotional and spiritual healing had to take place. The “strangers” became “neighbors” by making themselves vulnerable—vulnerable to misunderstanding; vulnerable to rejection. They agreed to listen to one another; to learn of the other’s tradition and faith.

Because of the history of anti-Semitism and the deep involvement of committed Christians in that history, it is necessary for the Christian to listen, learn, and love the most at the outset. Jews should not be expected to meet the Christian halfway (although, surprisingly, many do).

David A. Rausch is professor of church history and Judaic studies at Ashland College and Theological Seminary, Ashland, Ohio. He has published more than 200 articles on Jewish-Christian relations and has participated in numerous dialogues on the national and local level. His eighth book, Building Bridges: Understanding Jews and Judaism (Moody Press), was released earlier this year. He is also the author (with Carl Hermann Voss) of Protestantism: Its Modern Meaning (Fortress Press).

DENOMINATION REPORT

The United Church of Canada has left the door open for the ordination of practicing homosexuals, after a 13-hour debate on the issue at its thirty-second general council, held in Victoria, British Columbia.

A raised-hand vote showed that some two-thirds of the council’s 388 commissioners supported a statement that affirmed the right of church membership to everyone living in obedience to Jesus Christ “regardless of sexual orientation”—and the subsequent right of all church members to “be considered eligible” for ordination.

Earlier this year the church produced a report suggesting a gay lifestyle could be considered a “gift of God,” leading gay activists to expect a statement from the council in support of practicing homosexuals. But efforts of the Community of Concern (COC), a 300-member coalition of evangelicals and moderately orthodox ministers and laypeople, helped soften the church’s position. Headed by William Fritz, minister of the 2,400-member Collier Street United Church of Barrie, Ontario, the COC won several concessions, both from Affirm (the church’s gay lobby) and from the committee that led the commissioners in hammering out the final statement.

In addition to its position on sexual orientation, that statement included:

• A strong affirmation of Christian marriage, which included reference to married heterosexuality and single celibacy as “gifts from God”;

• A firm rejection of the one attempt from the floor to include endorsement of homosexual practice;

• A “confessional” segment that suggested the United Church has “participated in a history of injustice and persecution against gay and lesbian persons in violation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Leaving The Church?

The big question mark hanging over the United Church in the general council’s aftermath is how many ministers, members, and congregations will leave the church. So far, there has been no mass exodus, although there are indications that many laypeople are refusing leadership roles until they see what happens.

Several ministers have already announced their intentions to leave. Rodger Jackson, pastor of Woodslee and Belle River United Churches near Windsor, said the council’s decision “will cause congregations and clergy to separate themselves either as I am doing or simply change the sign out front and ignore the fact that the church exists.”

For his part, Fritz is urging ministers and congregations to stay with the church and help turn the tide. He believes strong emphasis on Christian family values and diligent pastoral care will be essential during the next few years.

The United Church’s dichotomy on this issue is explained in part by the church’s very makeup. Formed in 1925 by a merger of Canadian Methodists, Congregationalists, and two-thirds of its Presbyterians, it has since added segments of the Evangelical United Brethren and Disciples of Christ denominations to its roster. And 13 years ago it failed to consummate a long-proposed marriage with Canadian Anglicanism.

In fact, the elected leader of the church for the next two years reflects the diversity of the church. Siberian-born, Korean-parented Sang Chul Lee, minister of Toronto Korean United Church, will seek conciliation as he leads his denomination through the gay-ordination debate’s aftermath. A theological liberal by Korean standards, Lee leads a congregation that practices evangelism and Bible study with a vigor generally uncharacteristic of his denomination.

He believes the United Church will respond positively to strong pastoral care, blended with a continuing trend to consensus.

By Lloyd Mackey in Victoria, British Columbia.

CHURCH AND STATE

Twenty-five years ago, Madalyn Murray O’Hair gained notoriety as the person responsible for having prayer removed from the public schools. Since that time, she has been accused—accurately and inaccurately—of a variety of efforts to remove other aspects of religion from public life. Now O’Hair is talking of renewing her failed 1978 effort to have the motto “In God We Trust” removed from American coins and bills.

In recent media interviews, O’Hair has said she will “dedicate the rest of her life” to removing the motto. O’Hair’s son John has indicated that their group, American Atheists, is preparing legal action against the motto, although none has been forthcoming.

In an effort to forestall O’Hair, the National Legal Foundation (NLF,) a conservative legal organization that concentrates on religious-freedom issues, has launched a nationwide ballot campaign. NLF placed a full-page ad in USA Today in July and also included a ballot in a fund-raising letter dated August 10. NLF executive director Robert Skolrood said the organization “never anticipated the tens of thousands” of ballots that have come in from supporters.

NLF has an appointment later this month to present the ballots to the White House. After the election, the group will also present ballots to the newly elected Congress.

Skolrood is quick to emphasize that this campaign has nothing to do with the erroneous petitions that keep coming to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) about the rumor that O’Hair is trying to end all religious broadcasting. The FCC said it has received more than 22 million such petitions since 1974. FCC spokesperson Martha Contee said the FCC still receives an average of 80,000 a month, despite years of efforts by that agency, the National Religious Broadcasters, and the National Association of Evangelicals to dispel the rumor. The false petitions have no date, and no names or addresses of sponsoring organizations, making it impossible to stem the tide.

Some critics have suggested that the NLF’s campaign is only a fund-raising strategy, since it is unlikely that O’Hair would succeed in any effort to have the motto removed. But Skolrood disagrees. “In 1963, millions of good, God-fearing Americans failed to take her seriously, so she won [on the school prayer issue],” he said. “This time we are not going to let her win.”

TRENDS

The news hurt, but it didn’t come as a total surprise to Willie Wilson, pastor of the Union Temple Baptist Church in Southeast Washington, D.C. Earlier in the week, a 16-year-old boy who had grown up two doors from the church was shot in the head and the back—another victim of the seemingly endless drug “turf battles” taking place in many areas of the nation’s capital. “The drug problem is one that touches everyone’s lives here daily in terms of having a family member or friend that is either a user or a seller of drugs,” Wilson said.

As drug abuse escalates across the country, churches increasingly are being forced to confront the problem. The situation has become a particular challenge for urban churches in neighborhoods where drug abuse and drug-related violence have become commonplace. Police in the District of Columbia, Los Angeles, Detroit, and New York report significant increases this year in the number of drug-related homicides and assaults.

Waging Holy War

Wilson and the Union Temple Baptist Church have been in the lead urging local churches to go on the offensive against the drug problem. “The government cannot solve this problem,” Wilson said. “The church must be out in front with the support of the government and the community.”

Wilson’s church has implemented a two-pronged approach to deal with the problem: prevention and rehabilitation. Both emphasize spiritual strength because Wilson believes that “drug abuse is a spiritual problem first of all.”

The preventive approach at Union Temple Baptist focuses on instilling young people “with a sense of self-worth and spiritual strength” through the “Orita Substance Abuse Prevention Program.” Orita is an African word meaning crossroads or the point at which one is forced to make a decision. Wilson said the Orita program sets up “rites of passage,” such as memorizing Scripture and learning a marketable skill. Orita’s goal is to enhance spiritual and physical development and equip young people with the tools to resist drugs.

In addition, the church has received a federal grant to set up “Say No to Drugs” clubs in schools throughout Southeast Washington. Through the clubs, the church tries to build the self-esteem of the children, particularly those children living in severe poverty where the drug trade is most appealing. Wilson tells of a 15-year-old girl involved in dealing drugs. “When she finally broke away, she said to me, ‘You know, at least [the drug traffickers] made me feel like I was somebody.’ That’s one of the ploys they use—making people feel as if they care,” Wilson said.

The church’s rehabilitative approach also centers on building spiritual strength. “As we allow the Spirit of God to work in us, there is a greater power we can call upon,” Wilson said. Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous meetings are held three times a week at the church.

Wilson and Union Temple Baptist have also pioneered a new support program for youth aged 11 to 17. “Prior to this, there were absolutely no programs in this city for youth at that age once they came out of a drug rehabilitation program,” Wilson said. The program brings young people to the church’s Crisis and Counseling Center twice a week to help reinforce rehabilitation as the former young addicts return to the street. Many adult former drug and alcohol abusers serve as counselors and encouragers for the youth in the program.

On The Front Lines

Other religious groups are also taking more aggressive steps in the war against drugs. In April, members of the Nation of Islam drew national attention for their antidrug patrols in the Northeast section of Washington. Muslims from a local mosque patrolled the grounds of two apartment complexes riddled with drug deals and drug-related violence. Initially accused of vigilantism, the patrols, nonetheless, forced drug dealers out of the two complexes. The Muslims have also helped rebuild the community around the complexes.

Around the same time, Union Temple Baptist sponsored a “Unifest March” in Southeast Washington to demonstrate Christian unity against the drug problem. Nearly 15,000 people from local churches participated. Although he sees a “newfound awareness around the nation” about the seriousness of the drug problem, Wilson believes many churches have been slow to respond. He acknowledges that most churches do not have the negative consequences of drug abuse portrayed as vividly as they are in his neighborhood. But, as studies indicate that drug abuse is increasing dramatically in the suburbs, he predicts the drug issue will be “hitting home” for more and more churches.

By Kim A. Lawton.

MINISTRY ETHICS

Membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) leapt to over 490 with the acceptance of more than 40 Christian groups this past summer. The financial watchdog organization, whose visibility has increased in the last two years as a result of the moral failures of leading televangelists, also announced that three organizations resigned and two, including an ECFA charter member, were expelled by ECFA’s board of directors.

Calvary Temple Church, based in Fort Wayne, Indiana, was dropped for not complying with ECFA’s standard governing board makeup. And the Charlottesville, Virginia-based ministry Christian Aid Mission (CAM,) one of ECFA’s original members, was cited for violating four of ECFA’s seven standards, including those governing fund-raising practices, board structure, and ethical integrity.

Victimized By Enemies?

With a staff of about 35, CAM specializes in raising funds for indigenous evangelistic ministries overseas. According to the 1987 annual report supplied by CAM to CHRISTIANITY TODAY, the ministry took in almost $3 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1987.

CAM president Robert Finley said his organization has been victimized by enemies, including disgruntled former staff. Finley was scheduled to meet last month with an ECFA-appointed committee to explain the allegations. (That meeting was scheduled to take place after CT’s press deadline.)

ECFA executive director Arthur Borden said that even if Finley has a good explanation for many of the charges, the decision to terminate CAM was justified. “The main problem [with CAM] is the organization of the organization,” said Borden. He explained that CAM’s bylaws clearly violate ECFA standards for selection and makeup of their board. Borden said 1988 is the first year ECFA has examined the bylaws of member organizations.

According to Borden, CAM’s bylaws reveal that it is controlled not by its board, but by a smaller group within the board that has the power to select and remove board members. This smaller group, known as the Membership, currently includes Finley, his wife, and a CAM staff member. The entire CAM board consists of only five people; three other board members resigned in May, citing disagreements with Finley.

Finley responded extensively by telephone and in writing to questions submitted by CHRISTIANITY TODAY. He said CAM was delaying replacing the board members who resigned until ECFA ruled on CAM’s process for selecting its board. Borden said that if CAM is willing to make changes required by ECFA, it could reapply for membership and would be treated like any other organization seeking ECFA’s acceptance.

However, Fredrick Lester, one of three board members who resigned in May, said he had his doubts that Finley would make changes that diminish his control of CAM. Lester said Finley has stated that CAM donors do not care whether it belongs to ECFA. Finley declined comment on whether he valued ECFA membership.

Lester, a retired businessman, said that he and the two others who resigned did so because the “situation was hopeless with regard to cleaning the ministry up from the inside.” But Finley indicated that one of those who resigned, Donald Michels, did so for reasons that had nothing to do with CAM’s policies or practices.

However, Michels said that although he considers Finley a brother, he was displeased with Finley’s leadership. He said board members approached Finley more than once with concerns about ministry operations, but that Finley was unresponsive.

Early this year Lester served on a committee of board members that interviewed almost all of CAM’s employees, some of whom had approached the board with concerns about the way the ministry was being operated. Lester said some of those interviewed questioned whether donated funds were actually being disbursed overseas. Some of the money, he said, is deposited into bank accounts “to be assigned,” accounts controlled by Finley.

Lester said Finley fired a CAM staff attorney who had informed board members of questionable ministry practices. Finley accused the attorney in question of a clandestine attempt to “divide and conquer” the ministry. He said CAM’s books are audited yearly by a respected certified public accountant. “I’ve never spent a penny [of money donated to CAM] on anything except for what we have publicly reported,” Finley said.

Finley did acknowledge that an unethical fund-raising letter went out over his signature last year, but he said the staff person responsible for the letter sent it out without his knowledge. According to Finley, that staff member has since been released.

DISASTER

Paul Munshi was packing to return to Bangladesh when the call came from his country’s embassy in Washington. The message was ominous: The main airport at Dhaka, the nation’s capital, was under water. “Since that airport is one of the higher places in my country, I knew the situation was bad,” said Munshi, director of Christian Service Society (CSS), a relief-and-development agency in Bangladesh.

Munshi flew instead to Calcutta and then convinced a local pilot to fly him and a film crew from CSS’s counterpart, World Relief, into Bangladesh. A veteran of previous floods in his poverty-ravaged homeland, Munshi was shaken by what he saw. “It was much worse than I had imagined. Entire villages have disappeared, washed away into the rivers.”

World Relief, one of several Christian agencies sending assistance to Bangladesh, is working closely with Munshi in providing food, clean water, and medical assistance to homeless victims devastated by what is being called the worst flooding in the history of Bangladesh. Joining World Relief are World Vision, Church World Service, MAP International, the Salvation Army, and a host of other agencies. According to a State Department spokesman, the United States has pledged $3.6 million in aid, while Japan has topped all donor nations with a promise of $13 million.

Accustomed To Disaster

Flooding is a perennial problem for Bangladesh, a nation wedged into India’s northeast corner, directly in the path of runoff from the Himalayas and backed up against the Bay of Bengal. The record is staggering: A tidal wave in 1970 killed 350,000, flooding in 1976 left 300,000 homeless, cyclone-whipped waves killed 600 in 1977, annual flooding that washes away entire villages, and a major flood last year that totaled $4.5 billion in damages.

The 110 million Bangladeshis crammed into a country the size of Wisconsin are considered among the poorest people in the world. Born out of a civil war in the early 1970s that killed many of its intellectuals, Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) has had two presidents assassinated during its turbulent 17-year history. Major demonstrations against the government last November nearly shut down the economy.

According to Munshi, most Bangladeshis live at a subsistence level. “Men get up early each day to seek work. If they are lucky, they get a job hoeing weeds. Families do not eat until the men come home after dark. And if they come home without money, they do not eat that day.”

Staying Alive

Most relief experts say the initial goal in Bangladesh was to keep people alive. During the first two weeks of the flooding, people were forced to drink contaminated water to avoid dehydration. The resulting outbreaks of diarrhea were complicated by bites from poisonous snakes sharing dry ground with people evacuated by the flood.

A statement released from the Bangladesh embassy in Washington, D.C., asked for “ready-to-eat high protein dry food because people have no cooking oil.” Although earlier death reports have been sketchy, relief-agency officials fear the numbers will increase in the coming weeks. “As the emergency persists, we expect the toll to rise sharply from water-borne diseases and illnesses related to malnutrition,” said World Vision’s John Key, director of the agency’s work in Bangladesh.

A World Relief team that recently returned from Bangladesh confirmed early reports that 40 million people are homeless. An average of 20,000 new cases of diarrhea are being reported each day, and reports of patients contracting cholera have relief officials worried about a major epidemic.

Munshi was able to reach his home in Khulna, where flood damage is minimal. He says conditions there will greatly increase World Relief’s ability to help distribute supplies, but that the needs are almost overwhelming.

“Our people have no food, water, or houses. If God’s people in the United States and Canada are going to do anything, they must do it now.”

By Lyn Cryderman.

North American Scene

TELEVANGELISM

The Return Of Jim Bakker?

After more than a year of near silence, Jim Bakker went public with a confession and topped all bidders trying to buy his former PTL empire.

In late August, Bakker told about 2,000 people gathered at the Southeastern Congress of the Holy Spirit in Charlotte, North Carolina, that he had “sinned against the body of Christ.” He said he had spent the past year reading the Bible and seeking God, and had confessed his sins “from childhood to this minute” to a Catholic priest, whom he did not name. In response to a question from a local pastor, those in attendance said they had “sinned against Jim Bakker.”

The former PTL leader is currently waiting word from U.S Bankruptcy Court Judge Rufus Reynolds on whether his $172 million offer to buy back the television network and theme park will be accepted. Two issues make his return improbable: whether Bakker can indeed raise the money, and whether he will be held responsible for PTL’s financial failure.

DENOMINATIONS

Baptist Seminary “Divided”

The effects of the ongoing skirmish between moderates and conservatives in the Southern Baptist Convention continue to show up in Southern Baptist schools, such as Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.

A three-member committee of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada (ATS) visited the Louisville campus and reported that the 38-year-old school is “a very troubled campus and divided institution.” New Southeastern president Lewis Drummond cautioned that the committee’s visit came only a day after he was made president and in the middle of what has been the school’s most volatile period. “Hopefully, we are now in a period of reconciliation,” stated Drummond.

Trustees of the school last fall took measures to ensure that only biblical inerrantists would be added to the faculty, which prompted the resignations of president W. Randall Lolley, dean Morris Ashcraft, and six other administrators. The ATS committee stated that the purpose of its visit was “to determine what implications, if any, the events at the seminary may have regarding the proper recognition and adherence to the principles of freedom and institutional integrity.” The seminary is seeking accreditation from the organization.

YOUTH

Drugs Down, Suicide Up

High-achieving American teens are saying no to drugs and alcohol, but still consider suicide an answer to their problems, according to a survey of teens listed in Who’s Who Among American High School Students. The survey also found that business has replaced medicine as the top career choice for teen achievers.

The survey found that marijuana use among high achievers has virtually disappeared in the past decade. Less than 1 percent reported use of other drugs such as cocaine and crack, and 63 percent said they never drink alcohol (compared to 48 percent in 1983).

But the number of teen achievers who have considered suicide jumped from 28 to 30 percent in the past four years, and the number who have attempted suicide rose from 3 to 4 percent. Cited most frequently as the factors teens believe contribute to suicide are a feeling of personal worthlessness (86 percent); pressure to achieve (71 percent); and fear of failure (65 percent).

Other results from the survey show high-achieving teens favor George Bush over Michael Dukakis, do not discuss sex with their parents, believe prayer should be allowed in public schools, and generally confide in their mothers more than their fathers.

CHURCH AND POLITICS

Democrats Losing Catholics?

The defection of two Catholic bishops from the Democratic party underscores the difficulty that party may have in keeping prolife Democrats in the fold. Archbishop John F. Whealon of Hartford, Connecticut, cited the Democrats’ prochoice stance on abortion as the major factor contributing to his leaving the party. Writing in his column in The Catholic Transcript, he said the Democratic party “has abandoned the Catholic church.”

Whealon joins Auxiliary Bishop Austin B. Vaughn of the New York archdiocese, who earlier this year dropped out of the Democratic party because of its abortion stance. The two stand in opposition to Joseph Cardinal Bemardin and John Cardinal O’Conner, who strongly condemn abortion but reject the idea that bishops endorse certain political stances for Catholics, a belief that mirrors the policy of the conference of Catholic bishops. Other church officials have expressed concern that those attempting to determine the church’s political agenda could threaten its tax-exempt status.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Hospitalized: Evangelist Billy Graham, in Rochester, New York, for treatment of a localized infection in his foot. Graham had apparently been bitten by a brown recluse spider at his North Carolina mountain home. Doctors said they hospitalized Graham for several days to “ensure a quicker recovery.”

Named: As president of Haven of Rest Ministries, Raymond C. Ortlund, founder and former director of Renewal Ministries. “Haven of Rest” is a daily 30-minute radio program heard on more than 200 outlets in North America.

World Scene

CENTRAL AMERICA

No Haven For Refugees

Despite a plea to Congress from El Salvador President José Napoleon Duarte, the United States will continue to send Salvadorian refugees back to their Central American homeland.

Last month Duarte wrote members of Congress, telling them that “The Marxist forces which prey upon the homeless look now to renew the conflict and stir discontent among the thousands” who return. Last year, the U.S. expelled 3,691 Salvadorians and has denied all but 4 percent of the 3,485 requests for asylum this year. Currently, approximately 500,000 Salvadorians live in the U.S.

Duarte, who has cancer of the liver and stomach, personally appealed to President Ronald Reagan to suspend deportation of Salvadorians. President Reagan turned down the request, siding with Justice Department officials who consider Salvadorians economic immigrants rather than political refugees.

Currently, many Salvadorians have received shelter in American churches.

CHINA

Worried About 1997

Christians in Hong Kong are concerned about a new constitution being considered for 1997 when the British colony becomes a part of China. In a recent statement, the Hong Kong Church Renewal Movement said articles in the constitution—known as the Basic Law—may hinder efforts to carry out mission work in China.

At issue is the “Three-Mutual Policy” contained in the Basic Law. It calls for “non-subordination, non-interference, and mutual respect” between Hong Kong religious organizations and China. The statement prepared by the Hong Kong evangelistic group concludes that the “Three-Mutual Policy” could place “certain restrictions” on Christians in Hong Kong who would like to conduct evangelistic work in China.

The document, titled “Mission Hong Kong—2000,” also outlined strategies for church leaders in such areas as church growth, evangelism, and relations with China.

SOUTHERN AFRICA

Gospel Blitz In Swaziland

Evangelists from a variety of denominations conducted a nearly round-the-clock ministry effort for two weeks in Manzini, the largest city in Swaziland. Sponsored by Africa Enterprise, an interracial, interdenominational evangelistic organization, the evangelists went to public schools, prisons, factories, offices, and local churches to proclaim the gospel.

Each day a group of young people from Youth for Christ descended upon the city’s central market district singing, “We are the children of Africa, a new foundation for the nation.” Crowds gathered to sing and dance with the youth, then stayed to listen to an evangelist preach. Other evangelists closed the day with midnight services for miners.

Local Methodists were so enthused by the teaching they received from evangelist Mbulelo Hina that they took to the streets looking for potential converts. Samuel Hynde, a well-known missionary statesman in Swaziland, told the evangelists, “This mission has been an eye-opener to the churches. We see today the results of the prayer of multitudes of people.”

BOLIVIA

The Lure Of The Coca Leaf

America’s drug war may have an unlikely target: Christian farmers in Bolivia who cannot resist the huge profits from growing coca, the raw material of cocaine. But according to a report from the Evangelical Foreign Missions Service, many churches are pressuring their members to plow the leaf under.

Pentecostals in Bolivia, for example, will not allow coca growers to hold leadership positions in their churches. And members caught working in cocaine processing labs there are disciplined.

Other groups have tried similar tactics, but face tremendous pressure. For example, the Bolivian National Assembly of the Church of God (Anderson, Ind.) tried to pass a resolution forbidding members from growing coca, but the resolution was defeated. And some Baptist congregations in the Chapare growing district have voted to dismiss pastors who preach against coca growing.

Observers blame such attitudes on concerted public-relations campaigns of drug dealers who are described as “fabulously rich.”

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Appointed: Anglican Bishop Gresford Chitemo, as leader for African Enterprise’s East Africa Ministries. Chitemo succeeds Bishop Festo Kivengere who died of leukemia earlier this year.

As president of Asian Theological Seminary, Isabelo F. Magalit, currently senior pastor of Diliman Bible Church. Magalit has served as general secretary of the Inter Varsity Christian Fellowship of the Philippines and is a regional coordinator of the Asia Lausanne Committee for World Evangelism.

Announced: By Pope John Paul II,

his approval of strict economic sanctions against South Africa, now under consideration by the United States Congress. The announcement came at the beginning of a ten-day tour of Africa that skirts South Africa.

Died: British Christian statesman and author Arthur Wallis. In recent years, Wallis has worked with an evangelistic team based with the Community Church in Southampton.

TRENDS

Despite the widespread publicity surrounding AIDS, it has not become a major issue for most Protestant denominations. But when the Church of the Nazarene held its first conference on AIDS earlier this year in Taconic, New York, more than 110 pastors and laypersons assembled to consider ways the church can deal with the disease.

Michael Malloy, executive director of Nashville’s Nazarene-affiliated Christian Counseling Services (ccs) and one of the conference organizers, is pleased with his denomination’s role in studying how to help the victims of AIDS. “When we were planning the conference we were really concerned we would get sidetracked on the issue of homosexuality,” Malloy said. “We did address the subject, but we knew that AIDS was the issue. These people [AIDS victims] need the love of God through Jesus Christ, period. God had this on our hearts before the conference even began.”

At the national level, the Nazarenes are in the preliminary stages of creating policies advising their local churches on how to deal with AIDS victims in their congregations. The denomination functions as a network for local churches, as well as a source of funds, says Steve Weber, coordinator of Compassionate Ministries at the church’s Kansas City headquarters.

Education, according to Malloy, is one of the most significant responses to the epidemic the church can offer. Barry Brown, who pastors a Nazarene church in San Francisco, explained that because of widespread press coverage of the disease in his area, people are knowledgeable about the disease. He attributes the lack of AIDS phobia in his congregation to this educational exposure.

AIDS victim Keith Smith, who contracted the disease before he became a Christian, works with both the Nazarene Church and CCS. He says victims need encouragement from the church and feels his denomination has shown such support to him. “Everyone wants programs for everything, but you don’t need a program,” Smith said. “If you love someone you are going to meet his needs, and a program will develop from that.”

Smith says one of the most significant aspects of the Nazarene ministry is its “grassroots” nature. “They [laypeople] are saying, ‘We need to do something,’ ” said Smith.

Smith and Brown admit some may criticize the work of the Nazarenes for not being evangelistic enough. But they feel their AIDS ministry helps open the door to the gospel. Says Brown: “We enter the situation with love, and as questions arise we have an avenue to bring in the gospel.”

By Linda Brubaker.

UPDATE

Students have returned to class at the Oral Roberts University (ORU) Medical School, but only about 20 of them are receiving money as part of the school’s medical-missionary scholarship program. School administrators raised the ire of donors and students alike by announcing in February the cancellation of the scholarships (CT, July 15, 1988, p. 36), for which Oral Roberts claimed $8.4 million had been raised.

The cancellation mainly affected last year’s entering class of about 50, all of whom received $22,000 for the 1987–88 school year. Several of these students maintain the program had been represented to them as four years of education in exchange for four years of missionary service. Tulsa attorneys from whom the students sought counsel agree.

A few months after the program was cancelled, Roberts announced its reinstatement. But he said the amount of the scholarships was contingent on donor contributions. He said he would need an additional $8 million each year to provide full scholarships, and he continues to solicit donations for the medical school.

Students who received money last year were asked to sign a new contract this year in order to receive scholarship money. The new document releases the school from any obligation it assumed under the original agreement. Those who signed the new contract will receive $20,000 worth of aid this year, with no guarantees of aid for the future. About 65 students refused to sign the new agreement, many of them on the advice of Tulsa attorney Carl Hall. Hall believes the school is guilty of not fulfilling its obligations to students still under the original contract. He said, “If there is money available, then those students who signed the first contract ought to get their share of it.”

Hall cited several reasons for his advice to students not to sign. Under the new contract, no future funds from ORU are guaranteed. Yet the contract forbids students from borrowing money elsewhere. The new contract, like the first, allows students to pay back ORU through missionary service. But under the original agreement, transportation costs to the mission field and living expenses were provided. Under the new contract, students are totally responsible for financing their mission work.

“By signing the second contract,” Hall said, “students are giving up every right they had under the first in return for nothing.” Hall said he is advising students to borrow money and to transfer out of ORU as soon as they can.

Five students from last year’s entering class have already transferred. Medical students who transfer usually do so following their second year, after the completion of the basic science requirements. Larry Edwards, dean of the medical school, has publicly threatened students who transfer with legal action for violating the terms of the initial contract. Edwards refused to discuss the problems of scholarships with CHRISTIANITY TODAY, citing a bias among evangelicals against charismatic ministries.

PROLIFE MOVEMENT

This fall a new—and different—coalition of religious right-to-life groups will arrive on the scene, made up of antiabortion groups from the so-called mainline, or liberal, Protestant churches. In an introductory letter to members of Congress, the National Pro-Life Religious Council told legislators that various religious leaders have decided to “join together to witness to and promote the biblical standard of the value, dignity and sanctity of human life.”

In addition, the new organization aims to promote unity among “those Americans who believe that life is a sacred gift from God and who want their elected officials both in the church and the government to understand and reflect the same belief.”

Louisa W. Rucker, chairperson of the council, said part of the group’s purpose will be to counter the influence of the Washington-based lobby Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights (RCAR.) This coalition is backed by nearly two dozen liberal Protestant, Jewish, and ethical humanist agencies opposed to restrictions of access to abortion.

“RCAR pretends to speak for the vast majority in mainline religious denominations,” said Rucker, who is also executive director of the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life. “We think that this is, to say the least, an exaggeration.” Headquartered in the Washington suburb of Fairfax, Virginia, the group goes by the acronym NOEL.

For their part, leaders of the abortion-rights lobby say they are not afraid of a religious right-to-life alliance. “Quite frankly, I consider it a compliment, because it shows that the work we’re doing is successful and that they feel a need to counter our effectiveness,” said RCAR executive director Frederica Hodges.

Gaining Momentum

Nonetheless, prolife advocates within mainline churches believe the momentum is on their side. The alliance’s new activity comes in the wake of a summer in which several major liberal Protestant denominations voted to modify or reconsider their traditional position in favor of abortion rights.

Going the furthest was the American Baptist Churches. At its June gathering, the church’s top governing body abandoned its prochoice stand altogether, taking a neutral position on the legality of abortion. Recently, it also became known that the denomination quietly cut its ties to RCAR because they viewed the organization as too stridently pro-choice.

The Episcopal and United Methodist churches also softened their positions at summer conferences. And the Presbyterian Church (USA,) with one of the strongest prochoice stands on record, voted in June to go through a lengthy process of reconsideration.

The antiabortion religious council includes several national organizations—including NOEL and Presbyterian Pro-Life—that have influenced these shifts among liberal denominations. Although acting primarily as a voice within mainline Protestantism, the new alliance also includes evangelicals and Roman Catholics.

Fighting With Encouragement

Rucker said that in challenging RCAR, the organization does not intend to become a mirror image of its liberal adversary.

For one thing, the prolife coalition says it will not engage in direct lobbying, except when called on by members of Congress to provide information or give testimony. Their main goal, according to a brochure, is to give encouragement and develop cooperation among those opposing abortion within the churches. The new alliance has an all-volunteer staff housed in the NOEL headquarters at Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax.

“Our message is a positive one,” said Jean Garton, another council spokesperson and an adviser to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. “It is not what we’re against, but what we’re for—holding to the traditional view of human life that has been so influential in the formation of our country.”

So far, the council has a dozen member organizations. Aside from NOEL and the Presbyterians, they include Friends for Life (United Church of Christ), Lutherans for Life, the National Association of Evangelicals, and the Office of Pro-Life Activities of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.

By William Bole.