Manager Alvin Dark of the World Series-winning Oakland A’s went home and prayed with his family, then told A’s owner Charles O. Finley he’d take the job another year. Finley and the A’s team are a tough challenge to any manager (Dick Williams walked out on Finley after the A’s won the 1973 Series). But, Dark told reporters later, “we felt this is where the Lord wants to have us.” Finley described him as the best manager he’d ever had.
For Dark, 52, the year has represented a comeback not only in baseball but spiritually. Raised a Bible-Belt Baptist, he was known for his aggressiveness in the fourteen years he played as third baseman and shortstop for six teams. He became manager of the San Francisco Giants in 1961, but many temper tantrums, alleged racism, and marital difficulties later he was fired. Divorced and remarried, he went to work in 1966 for Finley, then in Kansas City, but Finley fired him a year and a half later when Dark sided with players in a dispute. Dark moved on to Cleveland but was sent packing in 1971.
He returned to Florida to take up golf. Somehow he and his wife got involved in home Bible-study groups, and soon they experienced the deeper reality of what they had only professed before. Thus, reported Time, when Dark took over at Oakland this year he announced he had a model for the job: Jesus Christ. The manager said he had given a lot of thought to the way Christ “would handle ballplayers.”
By season’s end it was clear Dark was indeed a new man: no temper explosions, no tongue-lashing of players, no insubordination of Finley (“the Bible teaches you to listen to your boss”)—curiously, a style that causes some to question his managerial prowess.
Dark is one reason why sports commentator Rich Ashburn, a former Phillies star, says “there’s a Jesus movement under way in baseball.”
The main reason, says Ashburn, is “a groundswell of fellowship that so far has embraced twenty-two of the twenty-four major-league baseball clubs.” He credits much of the groundswell to former Detroit News sports writer Watson “Waddy” Spoelstra, who recently founded Baseball Chapel, Incorporated.
The bald, bespectacled Spoelstra, 64, says he became a follower of Christ in 1957 when God answered prayer in healing his critically ill daughter. Before that he had been a hard-drinking sports reporter who “seemed dedicated to keeping the distilleries of America on overtime,” commented a writer in the Sporting News. (Spoelstra says he and Gerald Ford used to “get stiff together in the same joints” back when Ford was playing football for the University of Michigan.)
The following year he met Bill Glass, who went on to become a star for the Detroit Lions football team and later a full-time evangelist. Glass led Spoelstra along in the Christian life, and Spoelstra helped Glass with PR in his evangelistic crusades, devoting big chunks of time to it when he retired from sports-writing last year.
Spoelstra, who attends an Episcopal church, had long been concerned about creating opportunities for members of pro teams to attend religious services when on the road (schedules and unfamiliarity often ruled out attending churches). Football teams had been holding pre-game chapel services for several years; why not baseball teams? Spoelstra got Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn’s approval of an offer to coordinate weekly chapel services for the twelve major-league teams that would be on the road each Sunday.
There were two chapel teams at the beginning of the 1973 season: the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago Cubs. The idea caught on, and by the end of this year’s season twenty-two of the twenty-four teams were holding services regularly (the Kansas City Royals and the Detroit Tigers are expected to join the fold next year). Spoelstra meanwhile had to give up his work with Glass and give full-time attention to the baseball ministry, for which his board provides a part-time salary.
His Baseball Chapel board coordinator is evangelist-film-maker Billy Zeoli, and the sixteen board members include Glass, Kuhn, Dark, General Manager Pat Williams of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team, President John McHale of the Montreal Expos baseball team, and evangelist-teacher Bill Pannell of Fuller Seminary. Kuhn’s office helps with miscellaneous expenses.
Spoelstra’s main job is to recruit team members to be chapel leaders and to help line up speakers (businessmen and athletes, usually). Pitcher Don Sutton, who won games in the play-offs and World Series, is the Los Angeles Dodgers leader. Slugger Reggie Jackson is the unlikely but enthusiastic leader for the A’s. One day evangelist Tom Skinner addressed the A’s in New York. Jackson was so impressed he bought Skinner a plane ticket to speak again when the A’s were in Cleveland.
Sometimes managers are the ones leading their teams to the services: Yogi Berra of the New York Mets, Sparky Anderson of the Cincinnati Reds, and Bill Virdon of the Yankees.
On Sunday of the World Series both the Dodgers and the A’s held pre-game chapels. It was the first time a home team held a service. Pannell spoke to both clubs; about twenty A’s attended and thirty Dodgers. As the season closed, attendance for the twelve visiting teams’ chapels were averaging more than 150, with Cincinnati, Oakland, the Cubs, Minnesota, and San Francisco on top. Some of those most enthusiastic about the chapel program are turned-on Catholics who openly witness to their team-mates about their faith in Christ.
One such Catholic is veteran catcher John Boccabella of the San Francisco Giants, who transferred from the Expos in May. The first Sunday he attended chapel he and the speaker were the only ones there. Boccabella went to work. The next Sunday there were six. Attendance swelled steadily. On the last Sunday of the season nearly all the players were present. “I hope for all of you this will carry over in the winter to the particular church you belong to,” Boccabella exhorted.
But church isn’t everything, he cautions. “Faith in Jesus Christ just doesn’t happen by going to church on Sunday. The Bible is like a warranty book. Reading the Bible every day is the key to life.”
Some observers claim the chapels have improved relations both among players themselves and between players and management. They have also apparently improved spiritual relationships. For example, Oakland’s Jesus Alou disclosed: “I was baptized at church the day before the play-offs started. I’ve been reading the Bible for a long time, but I realized I wasn’t growing anymore. Now I know I’m saved.” And Dodgers coach Tom Lasorda says: “I want to be a part of anything that gets guys closer to God. The more rewarding life is close to God. I’d say the program has brought many of us much, much closer.”
ON THE TRAIL FOR GOD
Southern Baptist evangelist Arthur Blessitt, 33, known in the past for his ministry on Sunset Strip in Hollywood and more recently for a round-the-world witness trek carrying a cross, became the first ministerial candidate for the U. S. presidency in 1976. He says he’ll take time off from his global walk (he’s gotten as far as South Africa) to enter the Florida and New Hampshire primaries. His aim is to make morality and spirituality campaign issues, in effect using a political platform to exhort the nation—from its national leaders on down—to turn to God.
Collision In Chad
Christians in Chad are still being persecuted for refusing to participate in old tribal initiation rites they say are pagan. Reliable sources report the torture deaths of a number of pastors, evangelists, and other church leaders who declined to commit acts counter to their faith: drinking chicken blood offered to idols, handling fetishes, and the like. The accounts tell of persons buried alive with just part of a leg left above ground or—for slower death—with only the head exposed, a terrifying warning to others who resist.
The persecution originated fifteen months ago when President François N’garta Tombalbaye launched a cultural revolution assertedly to rid the nation and its four million inhabitants of unwanted foreign influences and to establish an identity with the country’s past (see June 21 issue, page 34). Male students, government administrators, businessmen, professionals, and other educated community leaders were the first ones selected to undergo the rites. Last summer thousands were sent to remote camps for two months of cultural “education.” The university was forced to postpone its opening, and Chad’s business and public services were disrupted.
According to New York Times correspondent Henry Kamm, the ordeals in the camps exact a brutal physical and psychic toll. They are known to include floggings, burning with coals, scarring, sexual indignities, mock burials, drugging, and acts of humiliation.
In the dispute surrounding the rites, some missionaries have been expelled and dozens of churches have been closed. Some believers have been killed, others maimed.
According to Tombalbaye’s announced plans, the nation’s masses are to begin undergoing the rites this month. But church leaders reportedly met in August and agreed to oppose the rites, and some church groups say they will not readmit members who take part. Clearly, Tombalbaye and the evangelical churches in Chad—more than 1,500 congregations with tens of thousands of members—are on a collision course, and more blood is likely to flow.
MAN’S INCREASED WORTH
Like just about everthing else these days, the elements that make up the human body are rising in price. Northwestern University biochemist Donald T. Forman estimates that the inorganic components of a person weighing 150 pounds are now worth about $5.60. He figures the cost in 1969 was $3.50 and in the thirties $.98.
More than 60 per cent of body weight is water, he calculates, a third is fat and protein, and nearly 6 per cent is ash and minerals in the skeleton and body fluids.
No Constitutional Duty
In a milestone decision the U. S. Supreme Court last month ruled that states have no constitutional duty to provide free bus transportation for parochial students. The decision upheld a lower federal court ruling in a case filed by a Missouri family seeking the busing service. It was the first time the justices have ever ruled on a claim that the states must provide the same services to parochial as to public school students. Twenty-seven states provide such busing; the decision means the twenty-three that do not may not be forced to provide it.
The court also voided a California tax-credit plan that helped parents of parochial school children defray tuition costs.
Pending is a case challenging the constitutionality of a Pennsylvania law providing state funds for textbooks and auxiliary services for non-public schools, a case affecting other states.
Lausanne Follow-Up
A survey of the participants at last summer’s International Congress on World Evangelization (ICOWE) at Lausanne, Switzerland, disclosed that most wanted some kind of follow-up “fellowship” to keep the spirit and purpose of the congress alive. Congress organizers then announced that a Continuation Committee would be appointed to implement those wishes (see August 16 issue, page 35). Last month the ICOWE planning body met in Honolulu and selected forty-five persons, most of them from lists of nominees submitted by national and regional caucuses at Lausanne. They are:
THE MIDDLE EAST: Ramez Attalah, seminary student, Egypt; Antonine Deeb, Christian and Missionary Alliance evangelist, Lebanon.
OCEANIA: Jack Dain, Anglican bishop, Australia.
CANADA: Mariano di Gangi, Presbyterian, mission executive.
EAST ASIA: Lawrence Chia, Presbyterian, university professor, Singapore; Chongnahm Cho, president, Seoul (Korea) Seminary; Akira Hatori, evangelist and teacher, Japan Bible Seminary; Mrs., M. Mapalie, Reformed Church, Indonesia; Petrus Octavianus, evangelist, educator, mission executive, Indonesia; Philip Teng, Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor, editor, educator, Hong Kong.
WEST ASIA: Saphir P. Athyal, Mar Thoma Church, principal of Union Biblical Seminary, India; B. U. Khokhar, general secretary, Pakistan Fellowship of Evangelical Students; N. D. A. Samuel, bishop, Church of South India; S. Sangma, Baptist, church council executive, Bangladesh; I. Ben Wati, Baptist, executive secretary, Evangelical Fellowship of India.
LATIN AMERICA: Pedro Arana-Quiroz, Presbyterian, executive, International Community of Evangelical Students, Peru; Nilson do Arnaral Fanini, Baptist minister, Brazil; Juan M. Isais, director, Latin America Mission of Mexico; Samuel 0. Libert, Baptist evangelist, Argentina.
AFRICA: Michael Cassidy, Anglican, evangelist, South Africa; Byang H. Kato, Evangelical Church of West Africa, general secretary, Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar; Festo Kivengere, Anglican bishop, Church of Uganda; Gottfried Osei-Mensah, Baptist pastor, Kenya; Florence Yeboah, Presbyterian, Ghana; Isaac Zokoue, Central Africa.
EUROPE: Peter Beyerhaus, Lutheran, theologian, university professor, Germany; Henri Blocher, Reformed Church, seminary professor, France; Armin Hoppler, Reformed Church and Free Evangelical Church, international secretary, Scripture Union, Switzerland; Josip Horak, Baptist lay pastor, university professor, Yugoslavia; Gordon Landreth, executive, the Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain; Peter Schneider, Lutheran, general secretary, German Evangelical Alliance; John Stott, Anglican pastor, England; Erling Utnem, Lutheran bishop, Church of Norway.
UNITED STATES: Vonette Bright, Presbyterian, prayer movement leader; Kenneth Chafin, Southern Baptist, evangelism teacher; Robert E. Coleman, United Methodist, clergyman and teacher; Leighton Ford, United Presbyterian, evangelist; James Kennedy, Southern Presbyterian pastor, Florida; Harold Lindsell, Southern Baptist, editor, “Christianity Today”; W. Stanley Mooneyham, Free Will Baptist, president, World Vision International; Ted Raedeke, Missouri Synod Lutheran, executive director, Key 73; Manuel L. Scott, Sr., National Baptist (USA) pastor, Los Angeles; C. Peter Wagner, Congregational Church, mission professor; Thomas F. Zimmerman, superintendent, Assemblies of God.
A youth and another Latin American will be added to the committee shortly says a spokesman. The first meeting of the committee will be held in Mexico City in January with evangelist Billy Graham as the convening chairman.
Paul Little of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship is executive secretary.
Affirming Life
Churches need to be “life-affirming” and at the same time place confidence in the “maturity and judgment of people to make freely their own decisions,” a World Council of Churches-sponsored consultation on abortion stated last month. Thirty-five representatives from churches in a dozen European countries met at the Lay Academy at Monbachtal, Germany, to discuss problems of pastoral care connected with abortion. Present as observers were bishops from both the Vatican and the Orthodox Church. The churches had been instructed to send persons involved in the issues on the practical level rather than theologians and to ensure that at least half were women (eighteen were).
The four-day consultation was convened by the WCC at the request of the Conference of European Churches, regional arm of the WCC. It grew out of a survey conducted by the WCC on the churches’ position on abortion. The majority of the churches covered by the survey had urged the WCC to refrain from making a general statement on abortion but instead to direct attention to the burgeoning personal and pastoral problems growing out of it. There are two to three million abortions, legal and illegal, in Europe every year; abortion ends about one in every three pregnancies.
Because of the wide range of opinions represented, the adoption of any theological stand on abortion was deliberately avoided. Tension and disagreement marked some of the discussion, but conferees agreed that abortion is the least satisfactory way to deal with pregnancy. Emphasis was placed on the churches’ role to provide alternatives to abortion either before or after conception, whether by offering advice for family planning, working for change in the socio-economic field (where possible taking a responsible part in legal decision-making and in civil affairs), providing adoption agencies, or offering pastoral care.
The results of the conference were summed up in a letter sent to the European churches reminding them of their pastoral responsibility. The basic tenor of the letter is that the churches should promote “positive prevention” of abortion. “Hard theological thinking to undergird our pastoral work” is called for. The letter ends with the observation that abortion is a symptom of a much deeper malaise in society and that “we as the church are caught up in the common sin—we surely bear some responsibility for the situation we now face.”
HELMUT EGELKRAUT
Sorrow And Guilt
The some 1,000 delegates to last month’s seventh biennial convention of the American Lutheran Church (ALC) in Detroit elected Dr. David W. Preus to his first six-year term as president (he assumed the office after the death of Dr. Kent S. Knutson last year), relaxed the church’s policy on abortion (approving it in cases of “difficult human situations”), and expressed sorrow over the doctrinal discord in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS).
The statement on the LCMS could be interpreted as a mild rebuke of LCMS president Jacob A. O. Preus (cousin of David) and recent LCMS decisions elevating a Preus-authored statement of faith to the level of official church doctrine. Adherence to the ecumenical creeds and the Lutheran Confessions is requirement enough for faith and unity, said the ALC statement.
Meanwhile, the LCMS turmoil went on. The Concordia (St. Louis) Seminary board ousted the suspended John H. Tietjen as president, finding him guilty of ten charges, including one of holding and fostering false doctrine. Tietjen says he will not appeal. According to church law, the conviction requires that he be removed from the LCMS pastoral ministry.
The Bishops And The Battle
In a scenic semi-tropical resort seventy-five miles south of Mexico City—far from the sounds of the battle over women’s place in the ministry—the bishops of the Episcopal Church last month voted 97 to 35 to support the principle of ordination of women to the priesthood. There were six abstentions. The bishops, however, voted against calling for a special convention to deal with the issue before the regularly scheduled triennial convention in Minneapolis in 1976. They asked that no further attempts to ordain women be made until the laws of the church are changed.
In 1972 the bishops adopted a similar resolution, though by a tighter vote, but the 1973 general convention failed to implement it (see October 26, 1973, issue, page 55). The convention is made up of the 150-member House of Bishops and the House of Deputies, composed of more than 900 priests and laymen representing dioceses. The majority of the delegates at the 1973 convention voiced their approval of women’s ordination, but a unit-voting rule required that split delegations be recorded as negative votes, and the measure lost.
On July 29 three retired bishops, aided by an active one, took part in the ordination of eleven women deacons to the priesthood in Philadelphia (see August 16 issue, page 39), a rebel action that was ruled invalid by an emergency meeting of the House of Bishops in August (see September 13 issue, page 68). Last month a Board of Inquiry was appointed to investigate charges filed by several bishops against the four who participated in the ordination service. The board must determine whether there is sufficient ground to put the accused on trial.
At least two of the women who were ordained in Philadelphia vowed to assume their priesthood by taking part in an interdenominational communion service at Riverside Church in New York City late last month (under Episcopal law, deacons can take part in virtually all ministerial functions except the administering of the Eucharist). Several other women told their bishops they too will start practicing their priesthood.
Some observers believe the issue of ordination could end up in a civil court, which would then be required to rule on the constitutionality of Episcopal canon law.
Meanwhile, the conservative American Church Union (a 7,300-member Episcopal “high church” group with an 11,000-circulation monthly newspaper) urged the 3.1-million-member denomination to resist pressures to ordain women priests. The ACU also criticized the church’s theological education board for making a $35,000 grant to the Episcopal women’s caucus, and it dropped from membership retired Missouri bishop Edward Randolph Welles—one of the Philadelphia Four.
RECOVERED
Some things turn out all right after all. In Tucson, Arizona, a man deposited some used clothing in a drop box, then remembered he’d left $3,600 in cash in the pockets of a pair of trousers.
“He was wringing his hands when I showed up,” said Major David Riley, the Salvation Army center director, who had dispatched a worker to search the box after the frantic donor called. “The man nearly fainted when we told him we found the money. He told us he would have lost his business if the money had not been recovered.”
