Letters

Global Injustices

The CT Institute on Human Rights, “Freedoms Under Fire” (July 20), touches the core of truth of global injustices resulting from religious intolerances. One major corrective step would be to call upon the United Nations to cease to allow men or women from nations where such atrocities occur to serve in positions such as Secretary General or President of the General Assembly. Both positions are currently filled by men whose home countries (Egypt and Saudi Arabia) are among those whose violations of human rights are more than just suspect.

A second corrective would involve a six-year process culminating in formal reapproval of the complete 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (on the document’s fiftieth anniversary, Oct. 12, 1998), and to make the declaration binding on all UN member nations.

F. M. Womack

Erwin, Tenn.

The Intellect And Action Behind Robertson’S Words

Thank you for the well-stated editorial on Pat Robertson [“Here’s to You, Mr. Robertson,” July 20], He puts his intellect to work and action behind his words. He and his associates are responsible for a large measure of practical blessing to many, and are engaged in spiritual battles on behalf of us all.

Carolyn Mattson

Canton Center, Conn.

Singing With The Worms

I have a confession to make, one that comes hard to a long-playing parishioner like myself: Hymns give me problems. I’m not referring merely to the embarrassment of bellowing lustily into verse four, when the song leader has called only for verses one through three. I have trouble understanding some of the hymns.

To be honest, often when I’m singing, my vocal chords are running on cruise control. You could slip just about anything with a G clef in front of me—dietary laws from Leviticus, a chicken-salad recipe, even a murder confession—and I’ll carry on without missing a beat. My lips sing praises, but my eyes have little signs that say, “Back in five choruses,” while I re-establish circulation in my legs, check the pew pocket for an offering envelope, or grope under the pew for the grand-kids. Even when I am tuned in, I puzzle over some oft-sung phrases. For example, exactly where—or who—is “Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land”? And will someone please tell me just how to raise an Ebenezer?

I remember, when I was a kid, giggling through the first stanza of “At the Cross,” where I found myself singing the phrase “such a worm as I.” I scanned the sanctuary to see who joined me in this amazing confession: my Sunday school teacher, old Mr. Binkley, a banker; my best friend’s parents; even the pastor himself—all admitting their wormhood! My boyish mind reeled with images of these wiggly congregants, seen in their true likenesses, in a tin-can church hearing a sermon entitled, “Come, I Will Make You Fishers of Men.” And I had the perfect rejoinder when my father told me to stop squirming in church: “But Dad—we’re worms!”

Perhaps the unseen hands who compile hymnals heard of my confusion. Some years later they changed the wording to “sinners such as I.” It’s less profoundly descriptive, but it’s easier to explain to kids over Sunday dinner (and more conducive to the appetite). I can’t help suspecting that it also goes down easier with the former worms themselves. However, it can’t be long before another edition of the hymnal polishes our reputation yet shinier—providing, of course, the musical editors can make “ethically challenged persons” fit the rhyme and meter.

EUTYCHUS

Your editorial saying Pat Robertson is “doing great things for Christ” by trying to buy UPI and with his cable TV network is absurd. Robertson made it clear, repeatedly, that if he owned UPI his religion would have nothing to do with this news service. And the overwhelming majority of programming on his 24-hour “Family Channel” also has nothing to do with Christianity.

John Lofton

Laurel, Md.

It’s interesting that you mention Ted Turner in your editorial about Pat Robertson and UPI. When I asked a friend at UPI his reaction to having Pat Robertson as an employer, he responded: “It’s strange; people ask us if we’re concerned because Pat Robertson worships God, but nobody asks people at CNN if they’re concerned because Ted Turner worships Jane Fonda.”

The nervousness at UPI over Pat Robertson is also curious because ultimately, control for UPI evolved into a bidding war between a Jewish organization and an Arab organization, with the Arab group winning. And during the mid-1980s, UPI was owned for a time by two men of the Baha’i faith.

For a secular news agency, UPI has an unusual religious history.

Gordon Govier

Madison, Wis.

Advancing Evangelical Thought?

Your article “Born Gay [June 22] reflects an advance for evangelical thought. I would never have expected evangelicals to allow for the possibility of homosexuality having genetics as one cause. Why are evangelicals so uptight about this as a possibility? Is it that we may have to change our views? Are we infallible? We need to be less defensive and more inquisitive.

Pastor Calvin Gray

Bear Creek Evangelical

Presbyterian Church

Denver, Colo.

It seems the church never learns from past mistakes. The early Christians erred in telling Gentiles they must be circumcised to be saved. But the gospel makes people more important than rules—even biblical rules.

If God doesn’t require that a man’s genitals must be altered to become “holy” (Gal. 5:6), then neither would he require the hypothalamus in the brains of homosexual men to be altered in order for them to “get saved.” To tell millions of people that they must “circumcise” themselves before they are welcome in our churches must break the heart of God. No wonder gay people are so mad at us. We have created an “us vs. them” cult of privileged heterosexuals. What a horrible witness to the world of the Christian faith.

Paul Alan Johnson

Woodland Hills, Calif.

Joe Dallas was fair, reasonable, and biblical in his evaluation of the purported evidence for a genetic factor in homosexuality. His thesis that the existence of a trait or tendency does not make it normal or desirable also suggests another approach: Even if we set aside biblical data, as many are urging the church to do, from an evolutionary point of view, homosexuality is a dead-end street. Even from a naturalistic perspective, homosexuality cannot be judged in a positive light! However, as with other abnormal human conditions, it should provoke Christians to compassionate attempts to bring the gracious, regenerating love of God to those affected by it.

Charles R. Boatman

Westwood Hills Christian Church

Los Angeles, Calif.

My experience and what I have heard about the experiences of others have brought me to conclude that homosexuality cannot be changed.

I do compliment Joe Dallas and other Christian therapists for at least sympathizing with, and seeking to understand, the homosexual Christian experience. Unfortunately, all too often those in the church have reacted only with fear, ignorance, and blind condemnation to those of us in the pews struggling to come to terms with our love and faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior as well as what we have felt all our lives to be our “natural” sexual feelings towards the same sex.

I reject the idea that my only options are to live a life of sexual denial—either as celibate or as a never fully satisfied and often-frustrated married man. The church could better serve congregations by attempting to define traditional sexual morals and ideals in light of human sexual realities. And one of those unchangeable realities is homosexuality.

Unsigned

Orange County, Calif.

Both progay and antigay camps make the mistake of lumping homosexuality into either/or categories. In actuality, there is a spectrum of sexuality from extreme heterosexuality to extreme homosexuality. People on either extreme will never change, and the ex-ex-gays prove this. There are others nearer to the center who do change their orientation. Not acknowledging this spectrum, our more fundamentalist churches often put pressure on extreme gays that results in hypocrisy and tragic suicides. But progays often seduce borderline gays into a lifestyle with which they are not comfortable.

Donald Campbell

Concord, Calif.

Accepting a genetic predisposition to a homosexual lifestyle doesn’t make us accept it but rather change our approach to working with homosexuals. Another question to deal with in the future is, if we find the specific gene that causes a predisposition to homosexuality, can we ethically “fix” that individual?

Kal Busman

Knoxville, Tenn.

It is a sad fact that the church, to a great extent, did not integrate until the federal government outlawed discrimination. I’m afraid we are repeating that error again, this time with homosexuals.

Rev. Dr. Mark H. Miller

San Francisco, Calif.

The facts of biology and reproduction buttress the contention that heterosexuality is prescriptively natural and normal, and homosexuality is prescriptively unnatural and abnormal. For example: The bodies of a man and a woman seem designed for union with one another. It would be a mistake to argue from the facts of biology to “what ought to be”; but certainly, the facts of biology lend credence to the view that heterosexuality—not homosexuality—is natural, normal, and the morally acceptable lifestyle.

Those who mistakenly argue that homosexuality is natural and normal fail to make the significant and much-needed distinctions between prescriptive and descriptive normality, between human beings and mere animals, between (what Emerson termed) “the law for man” and the “law for thing.”

Haven Bradford Gow

Arlington Heights, Ill.

The Needed Charismatic Movement

Your article “Catholics on the Pentecostal Trail” (June 22) is well done and rounded. Our own community has found its direction after a number of years and would like to tell about it.

We have seen it release the Holy Spirit within us and deepen our belief in the power of prayer and love of God, a greater interest in reading Scripture, and more of an ability to share and witness to others. We have become more active in our larger church community through various ministries and works as dedicated and committed people. When we come together for services there is a more enlivened participation and singing. We can sense a feeling of unity as we come together as one in Christ as the Holy Spirit acts as a leaven in spreading to those who are open to It.

The charismatic movement will be needed as long as people want to be revitalized.

Stefany Miano

Wantagh, N.Y.

I was in the South Bend area during the formative years of this movement. In fact, I attended a prayer meeting that occurred before the first summer conference in preparation for it. But the movement really had its roots across the street at St. Mary’s College, which is a distinct institution from Notre Dame, where Kevin Ranaghan was on the faculty. My ministry, while in that area, was greatly impacted by that movement, even as a Protestant.

Meredith Rupe

Big Rapids, Mich.

Julia Duin and the experts she cites seem genuinely dumbfounded by the failure of charismatic Catholics to become more Protestantized. I think the critics are recognizing what is, in fact, a strength of the Catholic charismatic renewal—they’ve managed to remain Catholic!

Instead of trying to make Catholic charismatics more “Protestant,” perhaps Protestants should listen when Catholics say how their charismatic experience has made the Eucharist more important to them. Perhaps we should pay attention when we see charismatic Catholics not only opposing abortion, but speaking up for the homeless, giving shelter to illegal aliens, and waging peace. In their very Catholicity they model an integrated form of the Christian life that reveals the shallowness of much Protestant charismatic spirituality.

Rev. William J. Cork

Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church

Montpelier, Vt.

Confused Facts About Westminster

The News article “Big Problems on Campus” (May 18) contained one small but important inaccuracy regarding the relationship between Westminster Seminary in California and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). WASC did not state that Westminster’s doctrinal statement was in conflict with principles of academic freedom, but rather that the doctrinal pledge taken by faculty was in conflict with such principles.

Westminster’s doctrinal statement is the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms, and WASC has not objected to the content of this historic Presbyterian creed as a statement of faith for the seminary. WASC did fear that the pledge, in which faculty promise not to “inculcate, teach, or insinuate” views contrary to the Westminster Standards, could be applied to prevent faculty from even exposing students to alternative views—although the WASC team acknowledged that Westminster faculty are free to and do discuss different views and the reasons for them in class.

Westminster in California has responded to WASC’s concern by deleting “teach” from the doctrinal pledge. This modification involves no change in Westminster’s foundational commitments: our faculty is committed to advocating enthusiastically the historic Reformed theology summarized in the Westminster Standards. In fact, in May 1992 we added the continental Reformed creeds (Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession, Canons of Dort) to our doctrinal statements as expressions of historic Calvinism consistent with the Westminster Standards.

Our faculty is also committed to challenging students to respond knowledgeably, deeply, and thoughtfully with other views, and to giving our students the liberty to wrestle with Scripture for themselves and reach their own conclusions.

Dennis E. Johnson, Academic Dean

Westminster Seminary in California

Escondido, Calif.

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