In December 1989, Romanian Christians Peter Dugulescu and Ion Alexandru believed it was their Christian duty to stand against their government. Now that communism has been overthrown, they believe it is no less their Christian duty to participate in government.

On December 22, 1989, just after the city of Timişoara declared itself free of communist rule, Baptist pastor Peter Dugulescu addressed a crowd of 150,000 people that had gathered in the city square. “In this great, historic moment,” he said, “we need to turn our face back to God and pray.” He then led the crowd in the Lord’s Prayer. He is now a member of Romania’s House of Deputies.

Ion Alexandru, an Orthodox Christian, participated in the revolution in Bucharest. He has since helped form the Christian-Democratic National Peasant party.

He was elected to the Senate in May 1990.

Dugulescu and Alexandru spoke to CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s Thomas Giles during a recent visit to the United States.

According to the Gallup polling organization, 63 percent of the people living in former Eastern bloc countries say they are dissatisfied with democracy. Why?

Peter Dugulescu: Like the Israelites in Egypt, they lived in slavery for decades. Now we must learn how to live in freedom. Some nostalgics in Romania say, “It was better under [former leader Nicolae] Ceausescu because, though he was a dictator, we knew what to expect from him. We had our own jobs, our small salaries, our living provided.” But now in our free-market economy, we must struggle to make a living. This is the risk of democracy.

What have Romanian Christians done with their freedom?

Dugulescu: While some churches do not know how to use these freedoms, most of us are able to plant new churches, preach the gospel in the streets, organize crusades in soccer stadiums and cultural halls—even teach the Bible in public schools.

Why are you involved in politics?

Dugulescu: The platform of the Christian-Democratic National Peasant party emphasizes Christian ethics. As a party, it seeks to contribute to the regeneration of the Romanian nation on the basis of Christian morality.

I never sought to become a politician—I didn’t even like politics—but when I first read the platform, I thought, I want to be a part of this work. So I became a member of the party. Later, I was asked to run for elections because I am very well known in my district. I accepted, won, and became the first evangelical Christian in all Parliament.

Ion Alexandru: Since we both had participated in the revolution, we felt it was our responsibility to become involved in politics. If we do not fulfill the work of God after the revolution, people will have the right to say, “You overthrew communism, but you didn’t bring God into our homes.”

What are your most significant political accomplishments?

Alexandru: We have introduced the study of the Bible and world religions into our public schools. We also have fought hard to insert the words “so help me, God” at the end of the presidential oath, and for churches to receive five hectares of land for their use.

What have been your most surprising political challenges?

Alexandru: The most surprising, and greatest, challenge is abortion.

Dugulescu: Under Ceausescu, abortion was forbidden, though not for moral reasons.

A lot of people emigrated during his regime; so he outlawed abortion in order to increase the population.

Alexandru: Since the revolution, after the new regime opened the door for abortion, there have been more than three million unborn children killed.

Is there a prolife movement in Romania?

Alexandru: Virtually all our political parties support abortion rights for fear of losing popularity; even ours keeps its neutrality. So the only force defending innocent babies is the church.

Dugulescu: Ion and an Orthodox priest have organized the country’s first prolife group.

Five years after the adoption of the highly touted Ethics and Financial Integrity Commission (EFICOM), members of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) have voted to disband the program. According to bylaws adopted during the organization’s annual meeting in February, all nonprofit ministries with annual broadcast-related incomes of $500,000 or more will instead be required to be members in good standing in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA). NRB officials said the change will affect 40 to 50 EFICOM organizations not already members of ECFA. Smaller nonprofit groups will come under the oversight of the NRB ethics committee.

The change marks the official end of a long—and sometimes rocky—road in the religious broadcasting industry’s efforts to police itself on financial matters, “It will mean that NRB is getting out of the accrediting business, essentially,” acknowledged organization president E. Brandt Gustavson. Although the NRB had been discussing the establishment of some sort of financial-accountability mechanism prior to 1987, the televangelism scandals precipitated the advent of EFICOM. However, after official approval of EFICOM, the NRB realized implementation would be more complicated than they had originally envisioned (CT, Mar. 9, 1992, p. 59).

The net effect of the new policy will be negligible, since ECFA already has been administering EFICOM. According to NRB chairman David Clark, that was part of the reasoning that led to the decision: “With ECFA doing most of the work, we said, ‘It doesn’t make a lot of sense to have a separate organization, so let’s move together.’ ”

Vulnerability warning

Jeffrey Hadden, sociology professor at the University of Virginia, said that while he agrees that EFICOM in many ways was a duplication of ECFA, he still has concerns that the majority of NRB’s 800 members will not have an accountability structure. “To the extent that all ministries—including for-profit ministries—don’t really fall under the regulation of ECFA, the religious broadcasting industry remains vulnerable,” he said. Hadden encouraged the NRB to maintain strong pressure for high ethical standards. “It’s a very tough job to be responsible for your brother, but when your brother is giving your master a bad image, then I think inevitably it becomes your responsibility.”

Clark said the NRB has appointed a committee to begin work on a set of guidelines for the for-profit members of NRB. He also emphasized that the dissolving of EFICOM in no way indicates a backing away from ethics. He said all members will be required to follow a new code of ethics, also voted into bylaws this year. The five-point code calls on broadcasters to conduct personal and corporate lives in a way that will not bring shame to the name of the Lord; to “speak the truth in love without being unnecessarily offensive”; to refrain from unnecessary criticism or conformity to other organizations; to honor all obligations to “vendors, neighbors, community, and government”; and in matters of dispute with other Christians, to attempt to submit grievances to Christian arbitration rather than the courts.

Other highlights of the NRB’s fiftieth annual convention:

• Taking advantage of the Los Angeles locale, the NRB sponsored a “Hollyood Night,” hosted by Hollywood First Presbyterian Church pastor Lloyd Ogilvie, and Church on the Way pastor Jack Hayford. Hundreds of Christians who work in the entertainment industry attended, including Pat and Debbie Boone, Dean Jones, Carol Lawrence, and Clint Holmes.

• The NRB presented actress Angela Lansbury with its Centurion Award for exemplifying “the highest ideals of traditional family, moral, and spiritual values” in her profession and in her personal life.

In her acceptance speech, Lansbury quoted from Maya Angelou’s inaugural poem. She acknowledged the “collaboration of our Lord” in her career, saying she has had “such a sense of oneness with God.”

• A minor abortion-related flap erupted after the NRB executive committee declined a request that the convention show the prolife Hard Truth video, which shows footage of abortions. Several prominent NRB members had petitioned the convention planners to show the film. Gustavson said after reviewing the video that NRB representatives “felt it was not appropriate to show to a captive audience.”

By Kim A. Lawton in Los Angeles.

PAKISTAN

Human-rights Group Formed

The newly organized U.S.-Pakistani-American Christian Association is protesting a blasphemy law under which Christians can be put to death.

Edgar Dass, president of the Milford, Pennsylvania, group, criticizes Pakistan’s 1991 Shari’a Act that deems use of “derogatory” remarks about the Islamic prophet Muhammad or “any imputation or insinuation directly or indirectly” deserving of death.

On February 2, Faisalabad police arrested Anwar Masih for “loudly uttering blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad in public.” If convicted, Masih faces the death penalty. Another Christian, Gul Masil, was sentenced to hang last November under the blasphemy law and is appealing his case.

“What constitutes a derogatory remark is never defined,” says Dass, who grew up in Pakistan, which is 97 percent Muslim.

In another case, Naimat Ahmar, who was exonerated of a blasphemy charge, was stabbed to death on a street in January 1992 by a Muslim who danced over the corpse and bragged that he had killed an infidel. Even the policeman arresting the accused murderer (charges later were dropped) kissed him, according to Dass.

EVANGELISM

Jamaica Welcomes Palau

Luis Palau’s recent two-week “Say Yes to Jesus” crusade in Jamaica received support from 130 pastors and laity from 13 United States churches. Palau spoke to 245,000 people in stadiums, churches, schools, hospitals, prisons, and on streets. More than 100,000 schoolchildren heard the gospel preached at assemblies; an estimated 17,500 people made Christian commitments.

Palau, the 58-year-old evangelist based in Portland, Oregon, was received warmly by Jamaica’s political leaders, who have been groping for solutions to the nation’s social and moral problems. He addressed most of the 60 members of Parliament. “We must evangelize the nation or it will perish,” Governor-General Sir Howard Cooke declared. In the past 30 years, the murder rate has risen 950 percent, and robberies have escalated 2,000 percent on the island.

“A Christian revival is moving through Jamaica that has the ability to touch many other countries,” Palau said. “I see Jamaica becoming a spiritual superpower that could affect the whole world.”

SURVEY

Atheists Are Common in Uruguay

Uruguay has a higher proportion of atheists and agnostics than any other country, says a new 19-nation survey by Gallup International. Pollsters found 7 percent of those in Uruguay are atheist, and 3 percent are agnostic.

The figures may be low, according to John Maust, editor of Latin America Evangelist. He notes that 14 percent of Uruguayans in the Gallup poll claimed no religious preference, and that could be an expression of unbelief.

“At least a third of the nation are self-professing atheists and agnostics,” Maust says. In addition, he says, while 56 percent claim to be Catholic, all but 20 percent are nominal Catholics. Evangelical Protestants account for only 2 percent of the population.

Les Thompson, president of Logoi International, believes 25 percent are atheists and agnostics. “You can actually feel a religious indifference. As soon as the subject turns to religion, they don’t want to discuss it.” Maust and Thompson say Uruguay is difficult to evangelize because of historical and cultural barriers. In 1918, the government legislated a strict separation of church and state as a way to undercut the authority of the Catholic church, and that has resulted in broad secularism. For instance, Christmas is officially called Family Day, and Holy Week is dubbed Tourism Week.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Two thousand and counting. That is the number of languages into which at least one book of the Bible has been translated—about a third of the total number of languages in the world. The milestone was reached last year when the Gospel of Mark was translated into Bete: Daloa, a language spoken by at least 500,000 people in the West African nation of Cote d’Ivoire (name changed in 1985 from Ivory Coast). The number is more or less symbolic, because it represents only those translations received by the libraries of the American Bible Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society.

• American missionary William Brown and his Iraqi Christian wife, Esther, were unharmed in a bomb attack on January 29 outside their home in the Kurdish town of Dohuk. A bomb of one kilogram of TNT exploded in front of the kitchen window while the couple were in their bedroom. Brown is owner of the only Christian bookstore in “free Kurdistan.”

• The Family (formerly the Children of God) will regain custody of eight children who were taken into custody by Australian police last spring. In the past, the Family has been accused of encouraging followers to engage in shared sexual relationships, including sex with children. Victoria’s Community Services Department sought custody of the children, alleging they were being subjected to that and other forms of abuse. But in his ruling, Judge Greg Levine said evidence suggests the group’s past unacceptable sexual practices “have been terminated,” and that he was not satisfied the children’s emotional and intellectual development had been damaged significantly.

For many in the Third World, concern for the long-term future of the earth is a luxury they cannot afford. People don’t worry about consequences that are 20 years down the road when the immediate problem is surviving next week.

But most would agree that environmental consciousness lately has become more of a focus of relief-and-development efforts, both Christian and secular. Joseph Sheldon, a leading evangelical environmentalist and professor at Messiah College, observes, for example, that the World Bank is increasingly linking its loans to environmentally sound projects.

He attributes this in part to the influence of Herman Daly, an evangelical who is a top World Bank economist. Says Sheldon, “Daly’s views are rooted in sustainable economics. He understands that the earth’s resources are at some point limited.”

While the church as a whole often has been criticized for being slow to add the issue of the environment to its agenda, many missionaries and Christian relief-and-development organizations have been friends of the environment for a long time. Says World Vision president Robert Seiple, “Organizations that have stressed sustainable development are environmentally conscious virtually by definition, because a big part of sustainable development is taking care of the earth.”

Beyond this, according to Seiple, Christian organizations lately have started addressing environmental issues “with more intentionality.”

Blazing An Ecology-Minded Trail

Sarah Corson and her husband, Ken, spent several years ministering among the poor in five different Central American nations.

“When we returned to the U.S. in 1979, we were devastated by the affluence and waste in this country,” Sarah says. Failing to find a missions organization that taught such things as how to use windmills and how to milk cows, they started Servants in Faith and Technology (SIFAT), based in Lineville, Alabama. SIFAT trains missionaries in development strategy and use of appropriate technology in the Third World.

What kind of cactus is best for camel fodder? That is a typical question Martin Price is asked at Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization (ECHO) in North Fort Myers, Florida. Price has a Ph.D. in biochemistry, but also immediate access to many experts. ECHO provides ideas, information, and seeds to church workers committed to helping peasant farmers and urban gardeners.

Putting people first

There is, however, no such thing as a Christian organization that is dedicated exclusively to environmental concern in the Third World.

As Martin Price of the Florida-based Educational Concerns for Hunger Organization (ECHO) puts it, “If you’re thinking only of the environment, you’ve done well when you’ve kept the peasant farmer off the land. But if your ultimate concern is for the peasant farmer, you have not succeeded until you’ve provided him with the knowledge and resources to enable the land to support him.”

Because environmental degradation ultimately has a human face, many working to improve conditions for the Third World poor link environmental issues to issues of justice. Sarah Corson, of the Lineville, Alabama-based Servants in Faith and Technology (SIFAT), faces a moral dilemma every time she thinks about eating a banana. “There are workers in some countries who are being exploited, who can barely feed their families, in order that we in the U.S. can buy bananas at 39 cents a pound.”

According to Corson, subsistence farmers in the Third World were once able to provide for themselves on land that was ecologically diverse. In many instances, she says, foreign corporations or wealthy nationals have bought up the land, turning the yield into single cash crops and leaving the indigenous poor with little choice but to work for the owners on the owners’ terms. To Job Ebenezer, a key player in the formation of the Christian environmental organization Green Cross, advocacy for the environment is potentially a powerful evangelism. Says Ebenezer, “When Christians make sacrifices on behalf of others, or take personal health risks in a cleanup, people are bound to discover at some point that love of Christ and Creation are the motivating factors.”

By Randy Frame.

ON STAGE

A Multimedia Gospel?

Jesus Was His Name, a multimedia stage event combining 70-millimeter film on an 80 foot-high screen with a live, 58-member cast, is embarking on a tour of 30 U.S. cities. The show, conceived by French film and stage producer Robert Hossein, kicks off a six-month tour on April 6 in Worcester, Massachusetts, and winds up October 24 in Cleveland. Per· formances in most cities—primarily in civic centers and sports arenas—will run two to five days.

Actors on the stage interact with events occurring on the giant screen. The same characters appear to descend from the screen to walk onto the stage, and sometimes into the audience. The actors do not speak, but a time-coded computer soundtrack mixes voices of three narrators and music to tell the life of Jesus. All words are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

“The biblical passages are word for word,” says Patricia Kellert, producer for Radio City Music Hall Productions, which bought the rights to the U.S. shows. In all, 34 events are depicted, including the Sermon on the Mount, the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the raising of Lazarus, the Last Supper, the trial before Pontius Pilate, and the crucifixion.

Kellert says tickets will range from $10 to $25, but family and group discounts will be available.

Hossein, a 65-year-old Catholic, is best known for directing the first theatrical production of Les Miserables in 1980.

COURT CASE

Atheists Give Up the Fight

American Atheists has abandoned a fight against Zion, Illinois, over the words In God We Trust in the city’s redesigned seal. But Zion Mayor Billy McCullough, a Christian, sees it as a hollow victory, because American Atheists won the first clash over the city’s original seal, incorporated in 1900.

That seal contained the words God Reigns, a cross, shield, scepter, and dove. A district court ruled the emblem an “unconstitutional endorsement of Christianity” in 1990. A court of appeals affirmed the decision in 1991, and the Supreme Court refused to hear the case last year.

Last December the city chose a new design, containing the phrase In God We Trust, which the courts have recognized as having a special status.

Meanwhile, Zion has until July to remove its original seal from city street signs, buildings, police cars, stationery, payroll checks, and a water tower. “I’d do it all again,” McCullough says. “There’s a matter of principle here. The very structure of this country is being attacked. This will have far-reaching effects.”

MEDIA

New Film Code Sought

Ted Baehr, president of the Atlanta-based Christian Film and Television Commission, has gathered one million signatures on petitions calling for a new family-friendly movie code. He has been busy recently presenting the petitions—gathered by several Christian organizations—to Hollywood studio executives.

Baehr is proposing a new code whereby movie producers are asked to respect human life, portray romantic relationships without nudity, show restraint in the portrayal of sexual aberrations, and eliminate language that incites bigotry and hatred. The code would be an updated version of one that served as a watchdog on Hollywood from 1933 to 1966. In 1966, the National Council of Churches closed its Hollywood office, and the Catholic church shut down its Legion of Decency office. Within two years, the industry replaced the code with a rating system that spawned R and X films.

Not everyone appreciates Baehr’s efforts. Kathy Garmezy, executive director of the Hollywood Policy Center, wrote to Baehr, “Your effort to enforce your own code on others is the kind of censorship that is dangerous for all our futures.”

Baehr says he is advocating moral persuasion, not censorship. “What is surprising is that the heads of studios continue to be amazed when movies with Christian themes and wide audience appeal consistently make big money at the box office.”

COURTS

Lawyer Resists Unified Bar

Michael J. Tocci is broke, but his conscience is clear.

The 38-year-old lawyer is waging a one-man crusade against New Hampshire’s unified bar, which requires every attorney in the state to join the bar association. Tocci says the group is “monopolized by secular humanists and atheists.” Paying dues, he says, would be aiding a “philosophy antagonistic to my Christian faith.” He also contends the unified bar creates a monopoly that inhibits his right to choose with whom to associate when making a living.

Tocci, a 1987 graduate of Regent (then CBN) University law school, began practicing in 1988, but he and the bar soon became embroiled over membership. Tocci has been suspended from active practice for refusing to pay yearly dues. He owes $1,071 in back dues and late-payment penalties. His suspension is being considered by the state supreme court.

The state bar association has defended the unified bar vigorously. Tocci says the bar has a “cookie cutter,” politically correct mentality. Out of money, he and his wife, Barbara, and five children have relocated temporarily to Massachusetts, where he is working for his brother’s construction company. Tocci remains resolute. “I got into law to confront the system, not be a part of it.”

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

An annual U.S. Coast Guard prayer breakfast was canceled days before its scheduled February 9 date after a homosexual congressman complained that Family Research Council president Gary L. Bauer was to be the featured speaker. Rep. Gerry E. Studds, a Massachusetts Democrat, pressured coast guard commandant J. William Kime into calling off the breakfast. Studds chairs the Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, which oversees the coast guard. Bauer has been a vocal opponent of the Clinton administration’s proposed lifting of the military’s homosexual ban.

• “God and the GOP,” a new art show at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, has sparked dozens of complaints that one of the works is irreverent. The painting, by Austrian Josef Schutzenhofer, depicts Virginia’s two most famous religious broadcasters, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. In the picture, Falwell is sitting with his pants down to his thighs, and Robertson has a roll of toilet paper nearby. A television set in the picture displays vulgar remarks. Old Dominion president James V. Koch defends the art and the university’s right to display it.

• The Oral Roberts University Board of Regents has picked a successor to the founder of the institution: son Richard Roberts. The younger Roberts has been the school’s executive vice-president for the past six years. He will take over as president in May, with father Oral becoming chancellor.

• James Harvey Smith, 56, executive director of the Family Life Counseling Center of Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas and author of Learning to Live with the One You Love, died February 22 after a short illness. He was director of Youth for Christ in Wichita, Kansas, for 13 years beginning in 1959 and had been a YFCI vice-president. He had been a contributing editor to three of CT’s sister publications: LEADERSHIP, CAMPUS LIFE, and MARRIAGE PARTNERSHIP.

• Latin American missionary Phil Saint, 80, died in February from injuries suffered in a tractor accident. He had been a missionary to Argentina for 35 years. One of Saint’s brothers, Nate, was killed along with Jim Elliot by Auca Indians in Ecuador in 1956.

• Paige Patterson, president of Southeastern Seminary, has been denied membership in a 500-member Southern Baptist congregation in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Deacons of Wake Forest Church voted 16 to 1 on January 24 to deny membership to Patterson, who has been a driving force in consolidating conservative power in the denomination. “This church has been wounded in the Southern Baptist war more than any other church in the Southern Baptist Convention,” pastor Tom Jackson said. “Out of 15 million members claimed by Southern Baptists, he is the one person identified as the source of all that pain.”

• Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, will become the first evangelical school to offer a master’s program in bioethics, starting in the fall of 1993. Courses in a two-year program will be taught by faculty members and visiting professors.

DENOMINATIONS

Charismatics Form New Body

What do you get when you cross clerical vestments and fixed creeds with speaking in tongues and words of prophecy? You get the Charismatic Episcopal Church of North America, a denomination formed last year that blends liturgy with spiritual gifts.

The denomination already has attracted 22 congregations—all, so far, from independent charismatic backgrounds.

“We have a hundred serious inquiries right now, 25 of them from Episcopal priests,” says Randy Adler, the denomination’s first bishop, based at Saint Michael’s Charismatic Episcopal Church in San Clemente, California. The denomination traces apostolic succession through both the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches. Congregants number 4,000, in churches from Salem, Massachusetts, to Seattle.

Adler, 47, believes the denomination’s convergence of streams—uniting charismatic, evangelical, and sacramental tributaries—is an important move forward. The new organization opposes the ordination of women.

“We’re not making any liberal moves to redefine the family,” he says. The church uses the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and the Book of Common Prayer as primary texts. Adler predicts 100 churches will be in the fold by the end of the year, including 20,000 people in India from a Pentecostal network of 30 churches.

“The Lord loves liturgy in worship, but he also loves charismatic freedom of worship,” says Adler. He advises pastors to teach about liturgy for six months, then make a speedy transition.

Evangelicals step into El Salvador’s politics.

When evangelical attorney Jorge Martinez resigned his position in El Salvador’s cabinet in January to prepare to run for president, he did so in the belief that his candidacy would benefit from—if not hinge on—the emergence of evangelicals as a highly visible and increasingly influential minority in his predominantly Catholic country.

Church-growth consultant John Kessler says evangelicals compose about 18 percent of the population in El Salvador, while some evangelical leaders put the figure closer to 25 percent. According to Martinez, the number of evangelicals has grown from 98,000 at the start of the eighties to 1.5 million today. He believes the number is underestimated, saying many people keep their faith a secret because of the threat of persecution.

But evangelicals are having a powerful impact on Salvadoran culture, family life, and politics, all of which have been heavily influenced by the country’s matriarchal family structure, extreme poverty, and dominant Catholic faith. Until recently, the power elite in El Salvador has been exclusively Catholic. Salvadoran evangelicals are largely uneducated, making them unlikely candidates for political office. And evangelicals themselves have traditionally eschewed positions of power, viewing them as the place for “sons of the Devil,” not sons of God.

Perhaps the most dramatic impact of evangelicals on society has been seen in the family structure of converts. In an attempt to counter the Marian emphasis of Latin American Catholicism, many evangelical leaders teach that God is masculine. Alcohol is strictly shunned, while monogamy, male headship, and paternal responsibility are held up as essential Christian virtues.

“The evangelical church here teaches that the man who doesn’t provide for his family is worse than an animal,” explains one prominent evangelical leader. “Many men have turned their lives over to Christ, and they’re no longer irresponsible drunkards and adulterers. They’ve become very hard-working. The change in these men and their families has been so dramatic that even nonevangelicals are beginning to adopt this family structure.”

Evangelicalism is also having an impact on public life. Like many of their counterparts in the United States, Salvadoran evangelicals are beginning to take on new roles in the larger culture. Perhaps inspired by the example of other Latin American evangelicals—President Jorge Serrano Elias in Guatemala and Second Vice President Carlos Garcia in Peru, for example—they are slowly beginning to see themselves as agents of social change and as participants in political life.

Although Martinez served in the cabinet of rightist President Alfredo Cristiani, first as vice-minister of agriculture and then vice-minister of the interior, he is considered leftist by the Right and a rightist by the Left.

The source of much of the confusion is his work on behalf of the poor. Raised a Catholic, Martinez underwent a conversion experience in 1980, after which he began witnessing to friends and preaching in poor communities. His work among the poor drew the attention of right-wing death squads terrorizing the country. “They had never seen generosity on the part of Christians before,” says Martinez, “so when they saw me helping the poor communities, they thought I must be a Communist guerrilla.”

After years of disenfranchisement, Salvadoran evangelicals are in a position to take on more political authority. There is a push among many evangelicals to elect more of their numbers to political office at all levels, including the presidency. The standard bearer is likely to be Martinez, who recently formed a new centrist party, the United Movement.

With the election two years away, Martinez has his work cut out for him. A definite underdog, he will need to attract the support of more nonevangelicals—charismatic Catholics and believers from the Catholic renewal movement are likely targets—to have even a chance of winning.

By Jan Harris Long in El Salvador.

When Latin Americans Evangelize …

The evangelical movement is reported to be growing dramatically in Latin America, with huge numbers of former Roman Catholics defecting to evangelical and Pentecostal Protestant churches. But there is increasing evidence one of the biggest beneficiaries of Protestant evangelistic activity in Latin America is the Catholic church itself.

In 1989 and 1991, John Kessler, former coordinator of the International Institute for Indepth Evangelization, commissioned surveys in Central America to find out how many evangelicals existed. Not only were there far fewer evangelicals than estimated—for example, 8.9 percent in Costa Rica compared to an estimated 24 percent, and 19.3 percent in Guatemala instead of twice as many—but there were far more people leaving the evangelical church than suspected. A poll after a 1992 campaign in Costa Rica found that 80 percent of the 5,000 people who said they had changed religions as a result of the campaign were back in the Catholic church five months later.

“Some of the big evangelistic campaigns that claim to have a lot of converts have really had more of a positive impact on the Catholic church than the Protestant church,” says David Befus, an economic development expert who has lived in Latin America for 20 years.

The Catholic church is fighting back against what it believes are unfair and overly aggressive tactics on the part of many evangelicals. Bishop Plácido Rodríguez says, “Evangelicals are enticing them by feeding them or giving them other benefits to become members of their church.”

Befus says Catholics are “starting to have Bible studies and their own evangelistic campaigns. They’re using some of the same choruses and letting people clap and sing in their services. They’re doing a lot more interesting things because they have to compete.”

The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause is really quite simple: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” But religious groups, civil libertarians, and even Supreme Court justices continue to differ over exactly what that means. This spring, two key religion cases could afford the high court an opportunity to provide new definitions for proper church and state boundaries.

Since 1971, the Court has used the so-called Lemon test to determine whether a government action constituted the establishment of religion. Under that framework, a government action must have a “secular purpose,” its primary effect must neither advance nor inhibit religion, and it must not foster “excessive government entanglement with religion.”

In Zobrest v. Catalina Foothills School District, justices are considering whether the state of Arizona should have provided a sign-language interpreter for a deaf student who attended a Catholic school. Under the federal Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, James Zobrest was eligible for such a government-financed interpreter.

School district attorney John Richardson told the Court, “We draw the line at a public employee … going to work and conveying to Jimmy Zobrest that Jesus Christ was the son of God and died to save his sins.”

However, attorney William Bentley Ball, arguing for the Zobrest family, said the Establishment Clause would not have been violated because an interpreter merely would be “serving as this child’s ears,” enabling the child to hear, not advancing religion.

Bradley Jacob, executive director of the Christian Legal Society (CLS), said the issue is fair treatment for religious students. “Every other deaf student in Arizona is entitled to a sign interpreter at public expense, but because Jimmy’s parents wanted him to go to a Catholic school, he lost out.”

Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said, “We could see the floodgates open to a wide variety of public tax dollars flowing to religious schools all over the United States in a fundamental violation of the principle that the taxpayers of America should not be paying for sectarian religious education.”

In Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, the question is whether a public school that leases its building to community groups after hours may deny access to a church. The New York school district refused to allow Lamb’s Chapel to use the building to show a film series produced by Focus on the Family. School attorney John Hoefling argued that the facility was a “limited public forum,” which could keep some groups out. He said the policy decided to keep religious groups out in an effort to avoid “establishment problems and entanglement problems.” He admitted the school would allow antireligious groups use of the school.

Lamb’s Chapel attorney Jay Sekulow said religious use of the school would be permissible under three First Amendment principles.

When the New York City public-school system mandated a new curriculum designed to teach “the positive aspects” of homosexuality, officials confidently assumed no one could overturn their decision. To their chagrin, an assortment of parents, school boards, and religiously based coalitions rose up to challenge the largest public-school system in the nation. Not only did they win concessions in the curriculum, but they also contributed to the chancellor of schools losing his job at the end of June.

At issue is a multicultural curriculum known as Children of the Rainbow, inaugurated in 1991 through the impetus of school chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez. The required usage affects all 930,000 students, from kindergarten through high school, in New York City’s 32 school districts.

Portions of the document, which, according to the New York Times, were “prepared with little oversight by a teacher who is a lesbian,” almost immediately came under attack for their implications that tolerance means complete acceptance. Some of the Rainbow Curriculum’s recommended books, Daddy’s Roommate, Heather Has Two Mommies, and Gloria Goes to Gay Pride, got flak on educational grounds as well. “They’re poorly written, lack creative illustrations,” say some curriculum experts, “and tell stories that would be difficult for young children to follow.”

The first school board to go public in an open refusal to use the Rainbow Curriculum was District 24 in western Queens. In August 1992, the board distributed a blunt mailing to its 22,000 parents, in which board president Mary A. Cummins said, “We will not accept two people of the same sex engaged in deviant sex practices as ‘family.’ ”

She, like most in the school district, is Roman Catholic, but she tells CHRISTIANITY TODAY, “It’s a moral question, and I don’t know of any religion, race, color, or creed that hasn’t backed us in some way. I’m willing to go to the Supreme Court if necessary on the grounds that our First Amendment rights have been violated.”

Her vigorous activities, including an October rally with 1,500 persons in front of the board of education office in Brooklyn, led to a showdown in which Fernandez—whose salary is $195,000 a year—fired Cummins from her volunteer position. In December, the board of education (of which at least three of the seven members have expressed major concerns about the curriculum) annulled Cummins’s suspension. In the meantime, at least six other school boards publicly announced plans to reject or modify the curriculum.

Another skirmish occurred in late January when Fernandez changed some controversial passages, such as “lesbian/gay families” to “same gender couples” or eliminated some of the more detailed questions and answers about blood, semen, and vaginal fluids. Most critics rejected the conciliatory overture as “meaningless.”

The latest weakening of the controversial curriculum took place in mid-February when, by a vote of four to three, the board of education decided not to retain Fernandez when his contract expires on June 30. The publicly cited reasons for this loss of confidence included criticisms of the chancellor’s authoritarian style, his political misjudgments, and his lost control of priorities. The possibility exists that Mayor David N. Dinkins may restructure the board to include six new appointees of his choosing, and thereby invite a reversal of the four-to-three vote. But in all likelihood, Fernandez soon will depart from the now rudderless school system.

How does this lame-duck situation affect the Rainbow Curriculum? Frank Sobrino, spokesman for Fernandez, says that “its status is still the same,” and districts are being encouraged to “implement it in a way that they find acceptable.”

Current board members, however, declined to talk to CHRISTIANITY TODAY as to the future of the Rainbow Curriculum, or about how much that particular issue affected the four-to-three vote. A former president of the board of education, Robert F. Wagner, Jr., says “The tendency of the system is to put everything on hold until a new chancellor is hired and verbalizes a new agenda.”

Religious community’s role

Although District 24 in Queens has received the most media attention for opposing the Rainbow Curriculum, a number of religiously based coalitions also have emerged, most of which emphasize parental rights or the unfairness of “enforced diversity” and “inverted pluralism.” For example, Delores Ayling, an evangelical from Brooklyn, formed Concerned Parents for Educational Accountability.

She says her organization’s support comes from Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Asians, “making us more multicultural than the Rainbow Curriculum. Our broad support helps us emphasize that the issue is one of morality, not of politics.”

Highly visible church leaders also have been influential. Times Square Church’s David Wilkerson has publicly opposed the curriculum, and John Cardinal O’Connor, the Roman Catholic archbishop of New York, has written three letters endorsing a Catholic-led Coalition of Concerned Parents and Clergy. Prayer groups and parent groups have sprung up in a number of churches.

Joann Weimer, a District 24 parent and lifelong resident of the metropolitan New York area says, “There are still a lot of tight-knit communities who cling to traditional values.” These long-held religiously founded values may become a rallying point in the effort to defeat the New York school system’s agenda of endorsing homosexuality as a morally legitimate lifestyle.

By Warren Bird in New York City