Evil Whites or Bad Families?

L.A. Justice,by Robert Vernon (Focus on the Family, 254 pp.; $17.99, hardcover);The Coming Race Wars? A Cry for Reconciliation,by William Pannell (Zondervan, 143 pp.; $9.99, paper). Reviewed by John Wilson, a writer in Pasadena, California.

In An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis argued that we read literature to experience “an enlargement of being.… Each of us by nature sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and a selectiveness peculiar to himself.… We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.”

Although Lewis’s subject was what he termed “strictly literary reading,” his conclusions apply to other reading as well. Consider the outpouring of books and articles occasioned by the 1992 Los Angeles riots. With few exceptions, to read these responses is to be stunned by their narrowness of vision. Still, however partial and inadequate their testimony, these voices deserve to be heard, for they challenge us to enlarge our own limited vision.

Two Christian responses to the riots provide a case in point: Robert Vernon’s L.A. Justice and William Pannell’s The Coming Race Wars? Both see what happened in L.A. as symptomatic of deep, widespread problems in American society. Both invoke Christian principles. They differ radically, however, in their diagnosis of the riots—and in just about everything else.

Vernon, the son of a career L.A. police officer, was a 37-year veteran when he retired from the LAPD in 1992, having reached the rank of assistant chief. Part one of his book (more than two-thirds of the whole) focuses on two subjects: the riots and the witchhunt conducted against him following unsubstantiated allegations that his religious beliefs were improperly influencing his job performance. (Vernon’s account of this latter affair is the most important section of his book; where were the civil libertarians when the target was a real, live “Christian fundamentalist”?)

In part two, Vernon attempts to identify the “true root causes” of the riots. “Poverty, racism, poor education, lack of job opportunities, and crime are very real concerns,” Vernon writes. “But there are deeper problems that cause these symptoms to appear.” Vernon contends that all of these “symptoms” ultimately derive from the breakdown of the family.

Thus, his proposal for a “federal family czar” who would support the ideal of the traditional family, “condemn behavior destructive to the family,” and ensure that government policies are “family friendly.” Indeed, Vernon concludes, “None of the other issues faced by our government will matter if our families continue to deteriorate. All else pales in importance.”

Why, then, not a federal sin czar, to address the most fundamental cause of our problems: our self-willed estrangement from God? Vernon’s proposal—its utter implausibility aside—suggests the narrow limits of his vision. Traditional family values desperately need to be encouraged—“Dan Quayle Was Right,” as a recent Atlantic cover story proclaimed—but in conjunction with policies that will address those “symptoms” that Vernon disposes of far too easily.

America’s “police state”

From a white police officer we turn to a black seminary professor. William Pannell, professor of preaching and practical theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, disagrees that the breakdown of “family values” is the best handle for understanding the riots.

While many Americans are oppressed by the constant threat of violent crime, with carjacking lately added to the menu, it is the police who most worry Pannell: “We are on the very brink of a police state wherein law and order will mean something far more aggressive than it did when Richard Nixon inhabited the White House.” Indeed, “This is really the generation that will fulfill Saul Alinsky’s dark prophecy of an America that moves into either a radical social change or an indigenous American fascism.”

Rarely has a book been so misleadingly subtitled: instead of “a cry for reconciliation,” Pannell’s book offers an indictment of white society, the white evangelical establishment, and white males, period. It is loaded with outrageous stereotypes and taunting sarcasm. For instance, here is Pannell on the effects of downward mobility on the American middle class: “The antidote for this growing sense of powerlessness among whites is more helpings of the same thing that caused the malady—more doses of the rightness of whiteness. What a burden that must be to have to be strong, nearly perfect, wise, adequate, brave, clean and reverent, exceptional—all those wonderful Boy Scout traits!”

In a later chapter, Pannell celebrates the efforts of practitioners of liberation theology to “rescue theology from the palsied grip of Euro-American scholars and churchmen.” Never mind the fact that the popular appeal of liberation theology in Latin America has been dwarfed by the impact of Protestant evangelicalism, or that “Euro-American scholars and churchmen” were among liberation theology’s most enthusiastic supporters.

In his introduction, it should be noted, Pannell himself acknowledges that his “argument is one-sided in the extreme.… But I believe it is important for me … that I say what I have to say, even if at times it smacks of bitterness and sounds unreasonable. If my words are unguarded, they are at least sincere.” For that very reason, it would be a mistake to ignore Pannell’s message.

Does he speak for all African Americans? No, and he does not claim to, but the reception of his book among black leaders suggests that he speaks for many. The explosive anger, the bitterness at promises unfulfilled—these are widespread in the black community.

Reading Coming Race Wars? we begin to see the world (and ourselves) through Pannell’s eyes. We may protest that the picture is grossly distorted, but such differences in perception can provide a starting point for dialogue and change.

“The primary impulse of each of us,” Lewis wrote, “is to maintain and aggrandise himself. The secondary impulse is to go out of the self, to correct its provincialism and heal its loneliness.” We need to listen to the policeman, to the seminary professor who doesn’t like “cops,” and to many other voices. And we need books that—unlike these two—are themselves the product of such listening.

A History Of Church Shopping

The Churching of America, 1776–1990: Winners and Losers in our Religious Economy,by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark (Rutgers University Press, xiv + 328 pp.; $22.95, hardcover). Reviewed by James A. Mathisen, associate professor of sociology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

For Easter Sunday 1990, a “Sunday supplement” to our newspaper carried a lead article on contemporary megachurches and the appeal they have for their congregants. “Happy customers from California to Maryland are eating up ‘fast-food religion’ this Easter.” Both intrigued and appalled, I read further that these Sunday services are designed as “a baited hook for the shoppers.”

This Madison Avenue approach to church life has now been elevated to an academic level. Sociologist Roger Finke and his mentor, Rodney Stark, argue in The Churching of America that it is not only appropriate but necessary to understand the church from a marketing perspective. They contend that “economic concepts such as markets, firms, market penetrations, and segmented markets” provide insights for understanding why some religious bodies fail and others succeed.

The result is a fascinating and provocative book—actually, books, since it is really two books wrapped into one. The first is a historical work. Finke and Stark have uncovered a variety of hitherto-unknown demographic sources that enable them to reconstruct likely rates of “religious adherence” since 1776 and thereby provide the basis for their market model. For example, between the Revolution and the Civil War, the rate of adherence more than doubled from 17 percent to 37 percent of the population. The problem is that for groups such as Congregationalists and Episcopalians, their “market shares” were declining from 20 percent to 4 percent, and from 16 percent to 3.5 percent, respectively, over the same period. By 1906, over half of the U.S. population was churched, and that rate inched upward to 62 percent by 1980.

The great rude awakening

Finke and Stark’s historical conclusions will alternately tickle the fancy and arouse the ire of serious scholars of American religion. They don the costume of “dragon slayers” to do battle with two of the most treasured explanations scholars employ for understanding the history of religion in America—secularization and awakenings.

The conventional secularization wisdom, as set forth by Peter Berger et al., says that the future of religion in the U.S. is precarious because of the culture’s pluralism, which inherently weakens the truth claims of any single religious tradition, including orthodox Christianity. Nonsense, say Finke and Stark. Faith in the power of monopoly religion is both bad history and bad economics. Instead, American religious pluralism and the “endless cycle of sect formation, transformation, schism, and rebirth” are positive indexes of active religious markets continuously responding to the changing demands of their consumers. With the “disestablishment” of mainline religion after the Revolution, an “unregulated, free market, religious economy” resulted, and adherence rates boomed for the next three generations.

Besides slaying the dragon of secularization, Finke and Stark tackle “awakenings,” the idea popularized by William McLoughlin and others favoring a cyclical theory of religious expression. Nonsense, say Finke and Stark. Instead, historians Timothy Smith and Jon Butler are closer to depicting the reality that awakenings never occurred or at least were never huge outbursts.

Thus the “Great Awakening” was “actually nothing more (or less) than George Whitefield’s well-planned, well-publicized, and well-financed revival campaign.” What really occurred is that under the influence of Whitefield, Cartwright, Finney, and others, a variety of upstart groups most successfully responded to changing market conditions. Older mainline groups failed to adapt, and the upstarts won the day, often by default.

Church by the numbers

So it is that Finke and Stark’s “second book”—that of consistently and persistently applying the market model now in vogue among “rational choice” theorists in economics and sociology—consists of their interpretation of the “why?” of winning and losing in the American religious economy.

For instance, they point out that if religious monopolies are bound to fail and upstart groups have been the consistent winner, then the worst possible advice Peter Berger could have provided in 1963 was that denominations merge to form cartels, thus “reducing the number of competing units.” Instead, merger is a sign of weakness; Finke and Stark identify “a strong positive correlation” historically between increasing market share and retaining denominational identity.

Theoretically, “rational choice” predicts that religious consumers evaluate the costs and benefits of their options and then consume the religious goods that “maximize net benefits.” Because mainline churches are plagued by “free riders” who contribute little and thereby weaken the shared benefits for all, it turns out that the stricter, sectlike groups are more able to maximize benefits for their adherents, even though the cost of individual membership is high. This is true because each member “benefits from the higher average level of participation thereby generated by the group,” in part because possible activities outside the group would be even more costly.

So, is religion a market, or is it like a market? In one sense, Finke and Stark raise nearly as many unresolved issues as they provide answers. Their rational-choice explanation of Catholicism’s historical success, for example, does not seem to fit their model as well as does their historical contrast of Baptist success versus Methodist failing. And their reductionistic tendencies (i.e., “rational choice” explains all) are certain to trouble both those who prefer more theological and more historical explanations of winning and losing, although for varying reasons. Furthermore, must winning be measured only in numerical terms if “only a few” find the small gate and the narrow way?

The book still succeeds, however, even if one disagrees with its theoretical interpretation, because it supplies such a wealth of historical and sociological analysis in a fashion that is stimulating and thought provoking. For those of us who care about the futures of our congregations and denominations, it is loaded with encouragement alongside warning: To succeed we must understand the choices available in our dynamically pluralistic religious culture.

Return To Hell

Gehenna,by Paul Thigpen (Creation House, 276 pp.; $9.99, paper). Reviewed by Robert Bittner, an editor and freelance writer living in the Chicago area.

Dante Alighieri’s 600-year-old classic, The Inferno, gets updated in this joke-filled retelling of one man’s soul-searching trek to hell and back. The novel begins when Thomas Travis, a professor of historical theology, escapes a gang of thugs on a dark Atlanta street, only to find himself passing through the gate of hell. Well, actually, the man-hole cover of hell. As one character notes, hell has been redecorated since Dante was there.

Trapped in the underworld, Travis learns he is destined to descend through the rings of hell, witnessing the punishments of damned souls—punishments that increase with intensity as he travels farther down. From feeling the hollow longing of souls in Sheol to watching the suffering of souls boiled in molten plastic or drowning in oceans of blood, Travis learns firsthand the difficult fact that life’s sins carry eternal consequences. The story of how he finds God’s grace, even in the lowest level of hell, makes for lively—if sometimes gruesome—reading.

Still, given Dante’s lasting achievment, I can’t help wishing that Thigpen had aimed for more than banter. The satire, which could have challenged readers, simply confirms what many evangelicals already accept. Gehenna will entertain, but the subject matter calls for more than a smile.

In Zaire, even the poor are millionaires. But they are still poor. The hyperinflation rate means 5 million zaires amount to no more than $1 in U.S. currency.

The economy of this French-speaking Central African nation of 40 million people has collapsed. Unemployment is at 80 percent. Food prices are beyond the reach of many. The U.S. State Department estimates that 5.2 percent of the population is suffering from acute malnutrition. Hospitals are without medicines, and many expatriate doctors have had to leave because of the violence.

Despite local and international pressure, Mobutu Sese Seko, the country’s military ruler of 28 years, has refused to give up power.

Looting, rioting, and fighting are frequent. In February, at least 1,000 people were killed, including French ambassador Philippe Bernard, during a mutiny by soldiers. Ethnic and regional animosity is brewing. The country has 200 tribal groups and is divided into ten regions. By May, at least 150,000 Kasai people had been driven out of their homes in the mineral-rich Shaba province, which the Katanga people always have claimed for themselves.

A Christian land

Ironically, Zaire is predominantly Christian. About 90 percent of the population professes Christianity, with at least 40 percent being Catholic, including Mobutu. A 1972 state decree brought all Protestant churches under one umbrella, the Church of Christ in Zaire, known by its French acronym ECZ. ECZ is made up of more than 80 Protestant denominations; the biggest groups include the Disciples of Christ and Presbyterian churches.

The churches are caught up in the crisis. During the February unrest when infuriated soldiers ran amuck, ECZ’s theological school in Kinshasa suffered extensive damage. The seminary building and student and faculty residences were ransacked, and the library and classrooms were destroyed. One student was killed, others injured.

Life for the average church member is hard. “The people, especially in the urban areas, are suffering seriously due to lack of food and medicines,” says David Dyck, secretary for African Affairs for the Mennonite Central Committee. “Nobody has any money,” says Phillip Wood, a medical missionary in Zaire for 14 years and Canadian director for Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (WEC) International.

At the national level, the ECZ and the Catholic church have been in the forefront calling for change. They initiated a national conference in August 1991 in which churches, with other religious groups, appealed to delegates to “demonstrate a spirit of love, peace, and fraternity” and to “overcome sentiments of revenge, hatred, and division.”

But bickering between Mobutu’s supporters and the opposition gave the government opportunity to suspend the proceedings for “security reasons.”

Thousands of people marched through Kinshasa in February 1992 in a peaceful demonstration, demanding the reopening of the conference. Many were reportedly “clutching Bibles and rosaries.” But Mobutu’s troops opened fire, killing at least 30 people and wounding more than 100.

Mobutu’s information minister, Kitenge Yezu, blamed “radical Roman Catholic priests,” who he said “were totally responsible for what happened as they had been warned not to hold the march.”

The conference eventually reconvened and elected Etienne Tshisekedi, a Catholic, as prime minister of the transition government. For once it looked as if Mobutu’s era had ended. The international community, including Mobutu’s former allies, the United States, France, and Belgium, which in the past gave Mobutu loans and arms—and even sent their troops to help him crush rebels—recognized the transitional government and called upon Mobutu to surrender power to Tshisekedi.

But in April, Mobutu rebuffed the international community when he dismissed Tshisekedi’s government and appointed his own prime minister, Faustin Birindwa. Tshisekedi has refused to surrender power to Birindwa. “The president did not appoint me, and he cannot get rid of me.”

“The country now has two governments, two legislative authorities, two currencies, and two armies,” said a Western diplomat in Kinshasa.

“We are looking very carefully at a way to neutralize Mobutu without sparking a war,” says Tshisekedi. But some say Zaire remains a time bomb that could explode into a Liberia or a Somalia.

Church perseveres

Despite political and economic instability, reports indicate growth of the churches and endurance of believers.

Robert Fetherlin, regional director for Africa of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA), says the church is doing well. “God enables his church to move.”

The CMA experience is echoed by other mission agencies operating in Zaire. “We have good reports. They are struggling on,” says Wood of WEC Canada.

“They are determined not to be discouraged by the circumstances,” says Dyck of the Mennonite churches.

The CMA, which has been in the country for more than 100 years, had to pull out its 25 staff members; since then, only 4 have returned. Fetherlin says the abrupt withdrawal of missionaries may turn out to be a blessing for the CMA-related churches. “I think it may work out well for the church,” he says. “They are standing on their feet.” And the church is keeping pressure on the government. In May, the Presbyterian Community of Zaire pledged to “disobey unjust laws” and asked for United Nations intervention in dealing with Mobutu’s human-rights record. A statement signed by the moderator and general secretary of the Presbyterian Community of Zaire said, “We denounce all of the maneuverings to perpetuate the dictatorship, especially the looting, arbitrary arrests, theft, and violations [of human rights].”

These may be hard days for the people of Zaire, but evangelical leaders on the continent say African Christians must not give in to pessimism, but rather confront their national challenges by faith and prayer. Tokunboh Adeyemo of the Nairobi-based Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar says, “The future of Africa is not in the hands of secular politicians, economists, developers or financial institutions … but in your hand as a woman or man of God and of prayer.”

By Isaac Phiri.

GHANA

Ministry Breaks Slavery Bonds

For generations, girls in the North Tongu District of Ghana’s Volta Region have been slaves to traditional fetish priests. Currently more than 1,000 girls are slaves serving priests at two-dozen shrines where idols are worshiped.

Walter Pinpong, Ghana executive director of International Needs (IN), says the shrine priests will obtain girls aged 4 to 8 from families wanting to break a curse that has been placed upon them. Rather than face threats of familial deaths or other disasters, families will relinquish a young daughter. This has been going on for generations, Pinpong says, because when the slave girl dies, the family must replace her.

Girls work from sunrise to sunset tending the land, yet they must find their own food. At puberty they also become sex slaves of the fetish priest. “It’s a deplorable situation of total illiteracy and abject poverty,” Pinpong told CHRISTIANITY TODAY. But Pinpong, 44, is working to change all that.

In a two-year training program, Pinpong and his IN staff have been able to take 41 residents from the shrines and teach mat-weaving vocational skills. In addition, IN teaches the girls how to read, sew, and bake. Once basic living needs have been met, IN introduces a Bible-study program, and several of the girls have become Christians.

Pinpong is negotiating with fetish priests to trade a tractor for the release of some of the girls. “Ultimately, our aim is to see them spiritually free as well as physically free.”

ISLAM

Rights Coalition Watches Muslims

Two-dozen organizations have joined forces to form the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights in Islamic Countries to publicize persecution of Christians in Islam-dominated societies.

According to Edgar Dass, coalition member and president of the Pakistani-American Christian Association, the new group will “expose countless unfair trials, religiously provoked murders, [and] beatings of Christian leaders and laity.”

“Sudan, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia [have] a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement that is threatening Christians,” says Steve Snyder, president of Christian Solidarity International, a member of the coalition.

One carefully watched case is that of Gul Masih, a Pakistani Christian, sentenced to death last November under that country’s blasphemy law (CT, April 5, 1993, p. 78). Masih appealed his sentence and is on death row awaiting a new trial.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

In Bulgaria, Baptist Union President Teodor Angelov has been elected to head the new United Evangelical Churches, an alliance of 100 representatives from Baptist, Church of God, Congregational, Methodist, and Pentecostal congregations in Sofia, Angelov says the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is disturbed by a growth in evangelical numbers and is behind a media disinformation campaign that accuses evangelicals of everything from terrorism to cannibalism.

• Representatives from 85 Malaysian churches met recently for Missions Fest ‘93, the nation’s first National Missions Conference. The event drew 375 participants interested in serving in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.

• Peter Cameron, principal of Saint Andrew’s College at the University of Sydney, has lost an appeal of a March 18 heresy conviction (CT, May 17, 1993, p. 90) by the Presbytery of Sydney of the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales. The presbytery had found Cameron guilty of making statements inconsistent with the Westminster Confession by preaching a sermon on women’s ordination in which he said the Bible could not always be taken literally.

• Bishop Casimir Wang Milu has been paroled by Chinese authorities after nine years in a Dashaping labor camp. He had been charged with five offenses related to the Vatican-loyal underground Catholic church in China.

VIETNAM

Free Worship Carries a Price

To avoid government interference with worship, about 40,000 Christians in south Vietnam risk beatings and imprisonment to worship in unregistered house churches. Though less than 8 percent of Vietnamese are Christian, the Communist government attempts to control this rapidly growing group by strictly regulating the official Tin Lanh church. In many areas, these churches must receive authorization from Communist officials for dates of worship, length of service, and sermon content.

“The government is very afraid of anyone they cannot control,” says Tom White, mission director for Voice of the Martyrs (VOTM), an international missionary organization.

VOTM reports that one pastor has been sentenced to nine years in prison for refusing to reveal the names of other house-church pastors. He reportedly has converted 30 fellow prisoners to Christianity.

Charles Reynolds has gained a new appreciation for the plight of Noah. The pastor of First Christian Church in Keithsburg, Illinois, has been contending with a “Great Flood” of his own.

When the waters of the Mississippi River and nearby Pope Creek broke through the levee of sandbags in the town of 750, First Christian—the only Protestant church in town—became one of its victims.

“After the levee broke, I went over to the church in a rowboat, and there were 13 inches of water standing in our sanctuary,” Reynolds says. The basement was completely under water. Four days before the levee broke, church members formed a bucket brigade to evacuate the basement, but the appliances, tables, folding chairs, partition drapes, and new robes still got drenched upstairs, where the water level outside the church reached three feet.

Even more devastating than the damage to the church has been the flood’s effect on church members, says Reynolds. “We have 185 houses or businesses that are under water and unlivable.”

Ecumenical cooperation

Still, where rural Midwest Christians are concerned, optimism and cooperation abound. Unlike some other parts of the world where disaster strikes, there has been little looting or finger-pointing. Instead there has been a massive outpouring of relief.

For instance, Keithsburg’s Catholic church has loaned First Christian its building until repairs can be made. “I believe God will have a rainbow for us when all this is done,” Reynolds says. “Sometimes God uses adversity to build us up.”

Flooding in the upper Mississippi River basin had caused 29 deaths by mid-July, driven more than 30,000 people from their homes, and drowned 6 million acres of some of the world’s most productive farmland. Estimates of the total damage have risen as high as $10 billion.

“In dollar damage, it will exceed anything the Midwest has had before,” says Lloyd Rollins, executive secretary of the United Methodist Committee on Relief. But hundreds of churches and Christian organizations from St. Paul to St. Louis are not waiting for damage estimates. They are already immersed in relief efforts.

Feed the Hungry made emergency flights with a C130 military cargo plane to deliver a water purification system to Des Moines and bring 60,000 pounds of food to families displaced along the Des Moines River in southeast Iowa.

The Salvation Army has been on the front lines since heavy rains caused flooding in April and May. More than 1,000 church volunteers working in six states have given more than 65,000 hours to the relief efforts. Volunteers also have served more than 140,000 meals to victims and relief workers.

World Vision already has distributed $1.65 million in food and supplies.

Nowhere is the flood’s punch more evident than in Des Moines, where the water purification system was ruined by flood waters, leaving the city’s residents dependent on outside sources for potable water.

Thirty pastors in the Evangelical Ministerial Association banded together to offer a practical and spiritual response to the crisis. “We want this to have a distinctly Christian witness and we don’t want to duplicate efforts,” says Bruce Wittern of Easton Place United Methodist Church.

A chaplaincy program for both relief volunteers and those devastated by the flood has offered a Christian presence and encouragement. “The volunteers are getting stressed out and snappy. Some of them are putting in 16-hour days,” Wittern says, “And the people at the homeless sites are really at the end of their ropes.” One volunteer chaplain ended up taking a suicide call from someone despondent over his losses.

The ministerial association also has organized a Christian Executive Relief Committee, which is working with other Christian organizations such as World Vision and World Relief. And churches are distributing “response action forms” that allow church members to designate what they need or what they can do. Wittern says, “Were going to try to match the needs with people who can help.”

More than 2,000 members of 40 churches gathered July 18 for a Flood Relief Rally at First Federated Church in Des Moines. An “altar call” netted 500 volunteers for cleaning projects.

Further downstream, assembly lines of volunteers have been slapping together sandwiches nearly around the clock in the “disaster kitchen” at Edmundson Road Baptist Church in St. Louis.

“We’re preparing about 5,500 to 6,000 meals a day,” says Jim Albers, director for the Missouri Baptist Convention’s disaster relief program. Most are delivered to hungry sandbaggers and other relief workers, but an increasing number are being used to feed displaced homeowners and farmers.

Albers says the response to calls for volunteers has been fantastic. “We’ve been really blessed by enthusiasm and Christian spirit,” Albers says. “But we plan to be here for the duration. We’re a long way from being out of the woods.”

Given the Midwestern bedrock values and fortitude in a crisis, volunteers will be around until they are no longer needed.

By Heidi Schlumpf Kezmoh.

Pray for Rain is not among the featured bands.

Cornerstone, one of a half-dozen Christian rock music festivals in the country, is celebrating its tenth annual gathering on Independence Day weekend during the deluge of ‘93. Rain falls in torrents during the four-day event in western Illinois, 30 miles from the raging Mississippi River, turning a 575-acre campground into a giant mudhole.

For the music-minded, the $65 entry fee is a bargain. Big names are part of the 60 acts playing on different stages: Phil Keaggy, Rich Mullins, DeGarmo and Key, REZ, Newsboys. Certainly some of the more creatively named bands are there: Cauzin’ efekt, Vigilantes of Love, Fear Not, Lost Tribe.

The music is loud. Very loud.

The Cornerstone festival is an outgrowth of the Chicago-based Cornerstone magazine, affiliated with Jesus People USA. Many of the 10,000 attending—more than half pitching tents on the grounds—are reminiscent of the early Jesus People movement. This on-fire-for-Jesus subculture includes nonconformists sporting mohawk hairdos and rings in pierced nipples and eyelids.

Yet what makes Cornerstone unusual is not the music playing during the night but the evangelical thinkers lecturing during the day. In seven tents, seminar speakers tell truth and expose error. Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead talks about religious liberties; author/professor Ruth Tucker discusses the New Age movement; ethicist Alvin Bowles, Sr., lectures on euthanasia and abortion; Operation Mobilization international director George Verwer shares thoughts on discipleship training and church planting. For the average believer, it is an opportunity to ask questions face-to-face with some Christian movers and shakers.

Bowles says talking to teens with pink and gold hair is disconcerting, at first: “You can’t judge a book by its cover. These people know Scripture and they know the Lord. You can tell by talking to them. They’re not freaky.”

“They’re a little different, but they’re good people,” Whitehead says.

The first seven years the festival rocked in Chicago suburbs before moving outside Bushnell, population 3,800. The move has not dampened enthusiasm or attendance. Many even make the 225-mile trek from the Windy City.

Cornerstone is a boon for the local economy. The Rotary Club sells ice cream bars for civic projects. The United Methodist Church holds a sausage and biscuit breakfast to raise funds for missionary efforts. Entrepreneurial types move onto the campgrounds selling everything from T-shirts to funnel cakes. Half the homeowners between Bushnell and the campground hold rummage or bake sales in front yards.

“It’s almost like experiencing heaven,” says Nelson Myers of Austin, Texas. “Everybody loves the Lord.” For Scott Gorke of Beverly, Massachusetts, the festival provides an opportunity to experience a “24-hour road trip” with friends. It took Don McLeod four days to arrive from Seattle, but he wants to hear Norman Geisler, John Perkins, and Bob and Gretchen Passantino.

The camping experience is a time to draw closer to the Lord and leave behind problems of the city. “It’s all good, clean fun,” says Aleena Thornton of Lake Zurich, Illinois. “There are no fights, no alcohol. Everyone respects the zipper on your tent. It’s the only place where you can see such a variety of Christians all gathered for the same reason—Jesus. You can dress differently and have different-colored hair and still be accepted.”

By John W. Kennedy in Bushnell, Illinois.

Unified strategy dooms prohomosexual law.

In April, Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell sent a communique to city council members urging swift passage of “Domestic Partners” (DP) legislation. In essence, the bill called for legal recognition of domestic partners—that is, homosexual couples, living under the same roof.

Marriage between homosexuals is not recognized as legal in Pennsylvania. But the legislation called for same-sex partners of city employees and residents to have access to pension, health benefits, and death benefits traditionally reserved for married couples.

Though similar legislation has passed in other cities, Philadelphia’s version was unique in that it was limited to homosexual couples, as opposed to unmarried heterosexual partners.

Uphill battle

Early on, 13 of the city’s 17 council members favored the bill. With the mayor’s unequivocal support, the legislation seemed unassailable. Nevertheless, proponents of traditional family values felt it was a battle worth fighting.

Shortly after Rendell had the legislation introduced, the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia contacted Bill Devlin, director of the Philadelphia Christian Action Council (PCAC), to discuss a strategy. “At that time,” says Devlin, “the odds were a hundred to one against us.”

Soon, however, a three-pronged plan was in place. It called for a multicultural, multiethnic, religious coalition to rally opposition to DP. Representatives of the city’s African-American churches and even a Muslim cleric soon signed on with Catholics and the mostly white evangelical church represented by the PCAC.

The strategy’s second prong addressed attitude and style. “We looked at how this issue was handled in other places, such as Oregon and Colorado,” says Devlin, “and made an intentional choice to make ours a very positive, life-affirming effort.”

Rejecting what he called a “Rambo Christian” approach, Devlin says the coalition sought to avoid appearing

overly judgmental. It sought to gain support through “principled persuasion” as opposed to power. The principled persuasion focused not on arguments from the Bible, but on what was best for children, for families, and for society as a whole. Opponents also addressed practical matters, observing, for example, that while the awarding of benefits presumes relationships of commitment, homosexuals typically move frequently from partner to partner.

Turning the tide

Finally, the strategy called for flooding the city council with phone calls, letters, and postcards. The archdiocese printed one million postcards, with messages calling the DP measure a “tragic mistake” for the city and a “direct attack on the natural arrangement of family life.”

A quarter of a million signed postcards were hand-delivered to City Hall; an unknown number of others were mailed. Devlin, two black Christian leaders, and Philadelphia’s Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua were among those who testified against the measure before the city council. Bevilacqua said, “This proposed legislation extends legal recognition to a sexual relationship which I, and I sincerely believe the overwhelming majority of the citizens of this city, consider immoral.”

Not long afterwards, the city council president came out against the legislation. Then, citing the well-organized public opposition, Rendell decided to call off the effort.

Devlin attributes the success of the effort in part to reporters who asked “fair, respectful questions.” Not as encouraging was the difficulty in mustering support from the white evangelical community, as opposed to Catholics and blacks used to social action.

Overall, the support was great enough to stop the legislation. The battle, however, may not be over. Supporters of the legislation, including Rendell, are expected to introduce a new plan later this year.

By Randy Frame in Philadelphia.

These are lean years for Christian colleges, but few have faced tougher financial times than The King’s College in Briarcliff Manor, New York. Founded in 1938 by evangelist Percy Crawford, King’s is waging a battle for its survival. Amid doubts about the school’s future, enrollment has plummeted from a high of 860 in 1980 to an estimated 230 this fall. King’s, which depends heavily on tuition income for its solvency, has responded in part by greatly reducing its staff and faculty.

To make matters worse, earlier this year the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools informed King’s that its accreditation would not be renewed based on concerns about the college’s overall viability. As a result, several students have transferred.

Paul Neuman, the school’s director of communications, says King’s would be on the road to recovery if the sale of its Briarcliff Manor campus could be completed. King’s already has assumed the mortgage on a new campus in Sterling Forest, New York, which it had planned to occupy by June. An Irish sports and cultural association wants to buy the Briarcliff campus. But a small community group—voicing concern about noise and traffic—has delayed the sale by requesting an extended environmental impact study, forcing King’s to default on the Sterling Forest loan.

Some contend that the school in recent years has lost the confidence of alumni and churches that traditionally have supported King’s by sending students and dollars. In the past, allegations have surfaced regarding the integrity of the leadership at King’s, particularly Friedhelm Radandt, who has been president since 1985. David Diehl, who taught at King’s from 1967 to 1988, was forced out after refusing to sign a statement expressing confidence in Radandt’s integrity.

A turning point for Diehl and others came in 1987 when Radandt dismissed Samuel Barkat as vice-president of academic affairs. Barkat later resigned his faculty position in protest. Diehl alleges that Radandt’s handling of Barkat was part of a pattern of “dishonest and unchristian” treatment of various faculty and staff members. Those who challenged Radandt’s leadership style or decisions, says Diehl, were routinely “targeted” and forced out. Among Radandt’s most vocal critics was psychology professor Agnia Assur, who, like Diehl, refused to sign what she considered a loyalty oath to Radandt. In 1988, after her contract was not renewed, Assur took her case to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

An AAUP panel sided with Assur, saying her academic freedom had been denied when she was dismissed merely for speaking out against Radandt.

Neuman expresses full confidence in the integrity of Radandt, calling him “a moral giant” who has been “grossly misrepresented” by “hatemongers who wish to see this college fail.”

King’s remains accredited by Middle States through the 1993–94 academic year, and the decision to remove it next year is under appeal. Addressing the financial outlook, Neuman says aggressive fundraising has reversed declines in giving. “We’re 180 degrees out from where we were this time last year.”

Pastors turning to corporate America for help.

One of the hottest new annual conferences, “The Church in the 21st Century,” began quietly two years ago, and news of it has spread almost entirely by word of mouth. Designed to focus on rapid and complex changes in American Christianity, the meetings are sponsored by Leadership Network, a Tyler, Texas-based organization that has grown to prominence in short order.

What makes Church in the 21st Century unique is its emphasis on entrepreneurial leadership and management skills successful in large businesses. Management maven Peter Drucker, a speaker at the first conference in 1991, is as apt to be quoted as Saint Paul. And corporation CEOs lead more workshops than pastors or denominational officials.

Last month’s conference in Orlando, Florida, drew a capacity crowd of 325 to hear Leith Anderson, author and pastor of the pacesetting Wooddale Church in Minnesota; Fortune 500 business executive Max De Pree; human-development consultant William Bridges; researcher-trend analyst George Barna; psychologist Larry Crabb; and United Theological Seminary president Leonard Sweet. They and others spoke on handling transitions in culture, in organizational structures, and in the personal and professional lives of leaders.

“Leadership Network began with no agenda,” said Bob Buford, Leadership Network’s chairman who is also CEO of Buford Television in Tyler. “There’s no denominational tie-in … nor do we get into doctrine or theology.”

Responding to opportunity

About a dozen years ago, Buford, now 53, met with Christianity Today, Inc., executives Harold Myra and Paul Robbins to determine how to help pastors. Deciding that “no one was paying much attention to the large churches,” Buford asked 25 megachurch pastors to meet in Glen Eyrie, a Colorado retreat center.

They had no agenda, no speakers—only Drucker’s key management questions: Who is the customer? What does the customer value? Although the meetings initially were by invitation only, the Leadership Network concept evolved three years ago.

Now, in addition to Church in the 21st Century conferences, LN holds forums (limited to 25 invited persons) for groups of pastors, Christian education directors, business administrators, pastors’ spouses, children’s-ministry workers, and other groups in churches of 1,000 or more; topical “summit” conferences that model corporate leadership and resources for groups of about 100; and “foundation” conferences designed for groups of several hundred highly motivated and affluent leaders who, Buford says, “want to multiply their productivity for the kingdom.”

Drawing interest

Network president Fred Smith, Jr., 47, says LN is based on Jesus’ parable of the talents. “We think the Master is entrepreneurial,” Smith explained in an interview. “He said, ‘Handle your resources, work your talents.’ We want to get the Master a better return on the giftedness of people. We want to be a broker between what God has designed them to be and what they are.”

Apparently a growing cadre of church workers buys that concept, although LN has used a soft sell—it has never advertised nor sought media attention. “This is the one conference I wouldn’t want to miss,” said a pastor at the three-day event in Orlando. Other attenders mentioned networking, keeping up with cultural trends, and “gaining a vision” as reasons they came.

Seminary and denominational officials “are very curious about what we do,” Buford said. “But I don’t know of any resistance.” Indeed, in the opening address, United Methodist seminary administrator Sweet acknowledged that old ways of doing ministry are not working in a “postmodern world,” where the “centers [and] middles are not holding.” Yet, he challenged leaders to achieve a “paradoxical harmony” by bringing together apparent opposites, like “white chocolate,” local/global, larger/smaller, ancient/future, medium/message. “Faith yokes yesterday to today,” he said. “Christ is the unity of opposites.”

Next year’s conference, “Tomorrow’s Church—the Best of Both Worlds,” will be June 26–29 in Minneapolis.

By Russell Chandler in Orlando.

But conference gives little credence to Scripture.

America and Russia are two trains on separate tracks going in opposite directions in terms of moral values, representatives from the two countries realized at a July conference in Moscow.

American theologian Carl F. H. Henry and Russian Orthodox priest Georgi Edelstein were two leading voices for religious values at the conference to discuss how high moral standards are relevant to a more stable and just society. Participants, however, were more willing to play the role of agnostic than spiritual seeker.

“Russia is at a crossroads and is open to new ideas and developments,” said Michael Matskovsky, director of the International Center for Human Rights, cosponsor of the event with World Vision’s Christian Resource Center (CRC). “At this point, determining the questions is more important than having all the answers.”

Peter Deyneka, Jr., of the U.S.-based Russian Ministries, said, “America is moving from a consensus of Judeo-Christian moral assumptions to an exclusion of those assumptions, and we are suffering the consequences.

“In the United States as in Russia, religious people agree on the need for spiritual and moral values. In Russia, unlike America, nonreligious people as well as religious people see the need for moral and spiritual renewal.”

Edelstein, an Orthodox priest, lambasted the Russian Orthodox Church’s patriarchy and its resistance to change, blaming it on the influence of Communist and KGB infiltration in the church.

“Repentance is our biggest need,” he said. “The beginning of moral revival and renewal will be our ability to repent of our past.”

A case for Scripture

Of the Russian participants, only Edelstein lobbied for a scripturally based morality. “There is only the morality based on the Bible, no other. There is no such thing as communist morality.”

Boris Nazarov, president of the Information Center on Russia and Human Rights, said, “The state should serve the individual and not the reverse. Russia’s tragedy is that the individual served the state.” He added that human rights should include self-determination, the right of the unborn child, privacy rights, and the banning of capital punishment. The “Golden Rule,” he said, should be the foundation of all human rights.

Henry stressed that no stable society is possible without shared values. “In both countries, materialism has too often shaped our values, whether in education, politics, literature, or mass media.” He told the participants they need to understand they are linked to the transcendent source. “In the absence of the transcendent, man nominates himself as the royal pretender.”

In a concluding press conference, CRC director Sharon Linzey said, “All the speakers and participants agreed on the need for moral values in the organization of a just society.”

The question left mostly unanswered by the Russian participants is whether the source of those moral values will be the Scriptures.

Just days after the conclusion of the conference, the Russian legislature voted to amend a 1990 law (see “Nyet to Religious Liberty”) to prohibit independent activities of foreign religious organizations and workers.

That such a debate over basic religious freedoms is taking place on the heels of a major conference on moral and religious values indicates the Russians are still deeply perplexed over how to rebuild their society after Communist rule.

Nyet To Religious Liberty

A July 14 decision by the Russian Parliament to amend the 1990 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations would prohibit independent activities of foreign religious organizations, their representatives, and individual religious workers who are not Russian Federation citizens. The list includes missionary, publishing, production, advertising, and commercial activities.

The measure requires foreign religious groups to affiliate with Russian organizations or churches, or to obtain state accreditation. If he signs the bill, Russian President Boris Yeltsin would jeopardize Western aid. Ifhe vetoes it, Yeltsin would offend the 60 million-member Russian Orthodox Church.

The Russian Orthodox Church has become concerned over proselytizing efforts of such groups as the Mormons, Hare Krishnas, and the Unification Church in the past five years. There are more than 300 Western religious organizations in the country, many operating with no ties to existing Russian groups. Orthodox Patriarch Alexi II insisted that religious “choice must not be imposed on us from the outside.”

Russian Parliamentarian and Orthodox priest Gleb Yakunin labeled the amendment “discriminatory, antidemocratic, and counter to international human rights.” He said it is designed to “muzzle all competing organizations” in their preaching activities.

Protestant church leaders in Russia sent a letter to Yeltsin saying that “forbidding the cooperation of international religious organizations and their leaders dooms our nation to isolationism and to greater spiritual famine.”

Some suggest the underlying reason for the law is cultural insensitivity by Western Christians.

“It’s a very real message that Americans may have to back off,” says Ivan I. Fahs, a professor from Wheaton College in Illinois who attended the recent Moscow moral values summit. “They are a bit upset, not so much at the proselytizing as with the big pockets of foreigners.”

Fahs says Americans who have come to Russia and rented huge stadiums for evangelism rallies, stayed in lavish hotels, and eaten expensive meals have caused resentment. “I think the Russians have a point,” Fahs says. “If we are going to minister to them, we can eat their food.”

U.S. politicians also have called on Yeltsin to veto the bill. In Washington, five members of Congress, led by Sen. Richard Lugar, asked Yeltsin to “stand against any movement back in the direction of religious intolerance.”

By Brian F. O’Connell, News Network International, in Moscow.