From its inception in 1951, the National Council of Churches (NCC) hoped to be the corporate voice of American Christianity—an arm-in-arm coalition that would seek to inject Protestant morality into the nation’s conscience. Indeed, when media pundits wanted to know what Christians thought about something, they called the NCC’s offices on Riverside Drive in Manhattan—nicknamed the “God Box”—for a good quote.

Entering 1989, however, those callers are asking a new set of questions. Like, “What went wrong?”

Exactly what is wrong with the NCC depends on who is doing the analysis. But both critics and supporters of the council, which represents some 42 million Christians, characterize its current problems with the same word: crisis.

The most visible cause of this crisis is money, or the lack of it. Financial support to the NCC from its 32 member communions is down more than 50 percent (after adjustment for inflation) since 1975. And with the latest round of cuts, the organization’s professional staff will be 61, down from 187 just two decades ago.

Change In The Mainline

NCC General Secretary Arie Brouwer has characterized the decline in terms of the “changed place of so-called mainline churches in American culture.” This is signified, he said, by a decrease in media attention and annual membership declines in the major NCC denominations, such as the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

“Liberal churches tend to hold a different place in the hearts and affections of their members than do conservative evangelical churches,” said Brouwer. “While evangelical churches function as cultural or community centers, liberal Protestant churches are not as much at the center of the lives of their members. And America is an evangelical culture.”

But critics have set forth other explanations for the steady exodus from mainline denominations, including that the NCC emphasizes politics at the expense of spirituality. Said author K. L. Billingsley, “They’ve become so heavily politicized, there’s no real reason to go to churches; they’ve abandoned the major purpose of the church.”

Billingsley, who recently completed a book to be published this spring by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, in which he analyzes resolutions adopted by the NCC, added that many people have been distanced by the church council’s specific political leanings. Billingsley said, “In the vast body of NCC resolutions, I could not find one clear condemnation of any human-rights violation by the Soviet Union.” Billingsley also alleged the NCC has failed to provide a clear account of how its money is spent.

Speaking to these charges, NCC president Patricia McClurg emphasized that the National Council “spends almost all of its money and most of its time on others.” McClurg cited the organization’s work in developing a policy statement on child care, its opposition to pornography, and its creation of a commission on evangelism and worship as examples of the good it has accomplished without fanfare. “It if doesn’t make somebody angry,” McClurg lamented, “people in the pews don’t hear about it.”

McClurg expressed pride in the NCC’s historic emphasis on human and civil rights, and on issues of justice. She acknowledged, “We love [American] society and are very dependent on it. We probably need to be a little better about saying that.”

Radical Reorganization

Organizational problems, including unclear patterns of authority within the NCC, have also contributed to its malaise. The organization has wavered between autonomy for its various subunits and accountability to centralized leadership. Those charged with the task of putting the NCC back on track are speaking not of organizational fine-tuning, but of fundamental reorganization.

A recent report to the NCC governing board asks the organization to pursue dialogue with other faith groups, including Roman Catholics and conservative evangelicals. The report states that “such a process would entail a willingness on the part of the NCC and its programs to die in order that new life might spring forth as a stronger witness to our unity in Christ.”

But Billy Melvin, executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), which represents over 15 million Christians through its subsidiaries, affiliates, and commissions, said such an overture from the NCC “is not a new suggestion.” He said that for the two organizations to build a meaningful relationship, “the NCC would have to demonstrate that they no longer want what they’ve been wanting since 1951.”

“There is more than a dime’s worth of difference between the two organizations,” Melvin said. “If that difference did not exist, then obviously one of us should go out of business.” In addition to expressing concerns about the politicization of the NCC, Melvin said the theological requirements of the organization are too minimal. He cited the NCC’s hesitancy to condemn abortion and homosexuality as signs of its “spiritual bankruptcy.”

Brouwer said the NCC’s official stands merely represent the positions of its member communions. He called issues of theology and politicization “vastly overrated factors” in explaining the council’s problems, and defended the organization’s basic posture. “Anyone who argues that political witness is not related to the priority of gospel proclamation,” said Brouwer, “just ought to go back and read the prophets.”

Brouwer maintains the NCC is in no danger of collapsing. But Dean Kelley, longtime NCC director for civil and religious liberty, told Religious News Service that the “so-called ecumenical denominations have simply run out of steam.”

In May, a 15-person “Special Action Committee” will bring recommendations to the NCC governing board concerning the organization’s future.

By Randy Frame.

In the wake of Canada’s recent national elections, which saw Prime Minister Brian Mulroney elected for a second term, Canadian evangelicals are counting the cost of election rhetoric that accentuated the free-trade issue at the expense of their own special concerns.

Following the 51-day campaign, Prime Minister Mulroney s Progressive Conservative (PC) government was returned for another term. The ardent free-trade booster became the first Conservative prime minister of this century to head two successive majority governments.

A large turnout (75 percent of eligible voters) reflected voter interest. Mulroney’s PCS got 43 percent of the popular vote to elect 169 members in the 295-seat House of Commons. The Liberal Party, led by John Turner, grabbed 32 percent of the popular vote to elect 83 members, while the New Democratic Party’s (NDP) 20 percent of the vote elected a record 43 members (the NDP is a moderate socialist party). Nine other parties and numerous independent candidates managed to garner 5 percent of the popular vote but elected no members.

Issues Facing The Church

The Christian Heritage Party (CHP), in its first electoral bid, fielded 63 candidates, though none placed higher than fourth in any constituency. Ed VanWoudenberg, CHP leader, maintained the free-trade focus had diverted attention from issues of concern to his party.

Prolife forces had hoped to make some gains in the election but emerged with about the same parliamentary strength. An estimated 74 committed prolifers were victors. The addition of several newcomers was offset, however, by the defeat of several supporters.

Campaign Life, a prolife coalition, targeted about 30 candidates for defeat. But Anglican minister Reg Stackhouse, former principal of Wycliffe College in Toronto, was infuriated by the prolife literature, which, he contends, falsely pictured him as a supporter of abortion. Defeated in his bid for re-election by a Liberal who was backed by pro-lifers, Stackhouse said he is considering libel action.

In the wake of the election, the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada (EFC) will resume its advocacy on a broad range of issues, according to EFC director Brian Stiller. He added, however, that he hopes the preoccupation over the free-trade issue does not simply shift to the abortion question.

“EFC’s call for a public commission to consider the broader range of human life issues [artificial reproductive technology, surrogate motherhood, use of fetal tissues, abortion, and organ transplants],” he suggested, “would elevate the debate and exchange light for heat.”

Other pressing concerns that evangelicals hoped would be addressed, he added, were child care and immigration.

The government’s term of office is normally up to five years unless the prime minister calls an election sooner.

By Leslie K. Tarr.

Over 600 people, about half of them pastors, met in Atlanta last month to learn more about Operation Rescue (OR) and its strategy to prevent abortions. That strategy, in essence, is to block the entrances to abortion clinics.

OR’s founder and national director, Randall Terry, organized the conference to recruit additional volunteers for the activist organization. He got help from several well-known Christian leaders who either addressed the summit or sent messages to those attending.

Television preacher Jerry Falwell endorsed the movement, as he has done before. But according to OR spokesman Mark Lucas, Falwell made no commitment to participate himself, something he has previously hinted at doing.

Moral Majority president Jerry Nims delivered endorsements on behalf of Campus Crusade president Bill Bright, and Crawford Loritts, national director of Here’s Life Black America. Loritts was scheduled to address the summit but could not attend, according to Lucas, because of a schedule conflict. OR has attempted to engage support from black Christians for the rescue movement.

Plan B

Meanwhile, radio and television preacher Charles Stanley has endorsed another strategy intended to stop abortions. The pastor of First Baptist Church of Atlanta recently hosted a meeting of 125 area pastors and businessmen to launch a fund-raising effort on behalf of the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based American Rights Coalition (ARC). Last year, supporters of OR were disappointed when Stanley publicly distanced himself from their movement because he felt it did not meet biblical criteria for civil disobedience (CT, Nov. 4, 1988, p. 35).

The ARC strategy is to seek out women who have been injured by an abortion and provide them with help, including legal counsel, in hopes they will file malpractice lawsuits against abortion clinic operators. In Atlanta, the group has purchased space on ten area billboards, which now ask: “Having problems from an abortion?” and list ARC’s toll-free number.

ARC president Charles Wysong characterized initial response to the billboards as “overwhelming,” though he declined to give specific figures. He did say that eight of the calls referred to instances of women injured by abortions in 1988. Wysong also noted that two women, one in Atlanta and one in nearby Macon, recently died—shortly after having received abortions. He said that as a result of ARC’s influence, one suit has already been filed in the Macon case and another is likely to be filed on behalf of the Atlanta woman.

Escalating Movement

Despite Stanley’s publicly stated opposition to OR’s tactics, the rescue movement appears to be catching on. Said OR’s Lucas, “It’s growing so rapidly we can’t keep up with the number of rescues taking place.”

OR attempts to monitor the growth of the rescue movement, especially in cases where the leaders of other efforts received training at the organization’s headquarters in Binghamton, New York. Lucas estimated that from May to mid-December of last year, between 5,000 and 6,000 arrests were made of between 3,000 and 4,000 people (some people were arrested more than once).

Lucas said his group is planning for 1,000, but hoping that as many as 3,000 will participate in demonstrations in New York City, January 12–14. A federal judge in New York last year fined Randall Terry and Operation Rescue $50,000 for civil contempt as a result of a suit filed by abortion advocates. “Part of the reason for the New York City rescues,” said Lucas, “is to demonstrate that we won’t be intimidated.”

CHRISTIANITY TODAY/January 13, 1989

Last January, Christian media workers attending the National Religious Broadcasters annual convention were told a forthcoming movie, The Last Temptation of Christ, would affirm the Christian faith.

So much for predictions.

The reality, of course, is that events sometimes move so fast that it is impossible to predict their outcomes. Consider the recent developments in the Middle East (see p. 57). Who would have guessed the United States would talk directly with the Palestinian Liberation Organization?

Yet certain events often give hints to the future. For example, had the early supporters of The Last Temptation read the original novel, they might have been better prepared to deal with what became a major controversy for Christians. The problem comes in sorting out the clues behind the news, a task for those whose work calls them to follow national and international events. It is in that spirit that CHRISTIANITY TODAY asked five Christian journalists to predict issues evangelicals will face in 1989.

Abortion

I’d be awfully surprised if any issue rivals abortion in 1989. The election of George Bush makes it all the more likely that Roe v. Wade will be overturned, or at least substantially curtailed. This may happen without a single Bush appointment to the Court, since Bush’s attorney general, Richard Thornburgh, is already challenging the decision. And Justice Harry Blackmun says there are five anti-Roe votes on the Court now. I hope so. If Roe is tossed out, the issue will revert to the states, and battles over abortion will erupt in every one. If it isn’t overturned in 1989, it will still be on everyone’s mind.

The moral witness of Operation Rescue makes this certain. It is amazing the impact that mass civil disobedience has. It worked against slavery. It worked against segregation. And I think it will work against abortion. I’ve never seen a poll that shows a majority of Americans want abortion banned. But people change their minds. I did on abortion. Operation Rescue, with all the media attention it’s bound to get, will prod folks to see abortion as the overarching moral issue of our time. For most people, when they look at abortion that way, there is only one position—opposition. I think thousands of fresh opponents will turn up in 1989.

By Fred Barnes, a senior editor for The New Republic.

Telling The Truth

The biggest issue facing evangelicals in 1989? Credibility.

In 1983 I interviewed Bob Slosser, former assistant national editor of the New York Times. He told me that because of their “enthusiasm,” Christians have a naive tendency to become hyperbolic, inflating the facts in order to make a good case sound even better. The result—journalists place less and less credence in statements by evangelical or fundamentalist activists.

Christians are even more unbelievable today than they were five years ago when I interviewed Slosser. (And it should be noted that Slosser is no anti-Christian bigot; he is widely respected in charismatic-evangelical circles as an author and executive at the Christian Broadcasting Network.)

The hypocritical shenanigans of Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart are the two most blatant examples of Christians who have rendered a body blow to evangelical credibility. But there are other examples: presidential candidate Pat Robertson claiming he was not a television evangelist; a South Dakota newscaster admitting she tries to “sneak” Christianity into her stories; author Edgar Whisenant claiming special knowledge regarding the date of the Rapture.

To be sure, the news media share some of the blame for appearing to pounce only when the stories are sensational, flaky, or both; but let’s face it: Christians are providing plenty of grist for the news mills. It seems to me the biggest challenge facing evangelicals in 1989 is to place more emphasis on pursuing our professions with competence and integrity rather than grinding the Lord’s axe for him.

If I can’t believe you when you say all Christians are going to be raptured on September 13, 1988, why should I believe you when you say Jesus loves me, died for my sins, and is risen from the dead?

By John DeDakis, a writer for the Cable News Network (CNN).

Human Sexuality

Sexual issues—abortion, AIDS, divorce, homosexuality, and others—will dominate public discussion in 1989. Unfortunately, secular forces have claimed this territory. For most Christians, human sexuality is still a subject too hot to handle in the church. That may change in 1989.

With evangelicals shying away from the subject, serious-minded individuals have turned to other sources, such as Episcopal Bishop John Spong, who would have the church bless unions of homosexual couples, and pre-and extra-marital sex. Or Roman Catholic feminist Rosemary Radford Ruether, who has written covenant rites for lesbians.

For its stands on some of these issues, the Catholic church has been criticized for engaging in “pelvic theology.” Yet an evangelical theology of sex—one that shows the Bible sets guidelines for human sexuality—has not been widely taught in churches. So people invent their own answers.

Sex is the major battleground for men’s and women’s bodies and souls, but Christians have ill-equipped themselves for this war. In 1989, the church will be forced to join the fight.

By Julia Duin, religion writer for the Houston Chronicle.

The New Age

The most important issue facing evangelicals in 1989 will be deciding what is the most important issue, and coalescing around it.

There seem to be few burning causes. The religious broadcasters have already been hit by the lightning bolt of accountability. And though evangelicals helped elect George Bush, no religious group felt completely comfortable ideologically with either candidate.

So what’s left? Staking out and defending the Christian world view—the belief that a right relationship to a personal God lies only through receiving by grace the atoning work of Jesus Christ. In keen competition is the increasingly pervasive Eastern, monistic world view—aided by the burgeoning influx of immigrants whose religious roots derive from Asian traditions—that many pathways all lead to the same “One.”

Evangelicals could well muster against mutant forms of higher self-worship subsumed under the “New Age” label. But at the same time, the “name it and claim it” theology of the health-and-wealth gospelers deserves equal censure; it is the thinly veiled evangelical equivalent of the New Age rubric: “You create your own reality.”

By Russ Chandler, a religion writer for the Los Angeles Times.

Resurgent Racism

Can evangelicalism speak to questions of racial bigotry raised by technology in 1989?

As the United States stands 11 years from the start of the Third Millennium, increased computerization and mechanization have expanded the ranks of the unemployed, discouraged workers among minorities, and helped create a fast-growing, low-paying service industry. Subsequently, increased competition for work and misdirected anger over economic loss have stirred the embers of racial and religious hatred.

Will evangelicalism’s traditional accent on personal belief over social responsibility stymie sincere efforts to integrate congregations racially and confront racist attitudes? Or will such efforts split churches and create the kinds of membership losses experienced in liberal Protestant churches?

The Southern Baptist Convention has planned a national conference on race relations in Nashville, Tennessee, for the January 16–17 Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday. Those who attend may already accept racism as a serious moral problem. How they, and other denominations, address this problem poses a major challenge to the church.

By Vince Golphin, religion writer for the Syracuse Herald-Journal.

Hidden Truth

It is the meaning that men attribute to their life, it is their entire system of values that define the meaning and the value of old age. The reverse applies: by the way in which a society behaves toward its old people it uncovers the naked, and often carefully hidden, truth about its real principles and aims.

—Simone de Beauvoir in The Coming of Age

No Useful Past

What is worrisome is the absolute domination of the present in so many homes, and the absence of any shared past. It isn’t a class phenomenon so much as it is the result of a society which moves around a lot and thus disposes of objects which other, more stable societies would retain; this, combined with a relentless and largely media-driven compulsion to worry most about the new, whatever it may be, makes a concern with the novels and essays, or for that matter the spoken memories, of an older generation marginal. In too many cases, it isn’t even marginal.

—John Garvey in Commonweal (Oct. 21, 1988)

When We Are Weak We Are Strong

I relive each moment of my visit with Corrie ten Boom [paralyzed by a stroke], I recall how our eyes met as we were fed our cucumber sandwiches. Helpless and for the most part dependent, I felt our mutual weakness. Yet I am certain neither of us had ever felt stronger. It makes me think of the Cross of Christ—a symbol of weakness and humiliation, yet at the same time, a symbol of victory and strength.…

For a wheelchair may confine a body that is wasting away. But no wheelchair can confine the soul … the soul that is inwardly renewed day by day.

For paralyzed people can walk with the Lord.

Speechless people can talk with the Almighty.

Sightless people can see Jesus.

Deaf people can hear the Word of God.

And those like Tante Corrie, their minds shadowy and obscure, can have the very mind of Christ.

—Joni Eareckson Tada, quoted in My Heart Sings

(ed. Joan Winmill Brown)

Prayer As A Convenience

Prayer times have been slipped into the local church calendar week almost like fillers. We pray for one minute here and four minutes there. The pastor prays the pastoral prayer on Sunday, and somebody offers opening and closing prayers for everything from softball games to car washes to choir concerts. Somehow we feel that if we pray at the beginning and end of something, God is bound to bless whatever falls in between.…

The once-popular early morning prayer breakfast has been replaced in many churches by a motivational speaker or Christian businessman who sends us charging into our day—in between an opening and closing prayer!

—Jim Smoke in Whatever Happened to Ordinary Christians?

New Indoor Sport

We live in an age where the ridicule of blacks is forbidden, where anti-Semitism is punishable by political death, but where Christian-bashing is a popular indoor sport; and films mocking Jesus Christ are considered avant-garde.

—Patrick J. Buchanan in Focus on the Family

Jesus Then And Now

For thirty years Jesus did nothing, then for three years He stormed every time He went down to Jerusalem. Josephus says He tore through the Temple courts like a madman. We hear nothing about that Jesus Christ today. The meek and mild Being pictured today makes us lose altogether the meaning of the Cross. We have to find out why Jesus was beside Himself with rage and indignation at the Pharisees and not with those given over to carnal sins. Which state of society is going to stand a ripping and tearing Being like Jesus Christ Who drags to the ground the highest respected pillars of its civilized society, and shows that their respectability and religiosity is built on a much more abominable pride than the harlot’s or the publican’s? The latter are disgusting and coarse, but these men have the very pride of the devil in their hearts.

—Oswald Chambers in The Highest Good

Brightening The Shadows

It’s tough to be in the dark and not let the dark get in you. The unending struggle for the Christian is to walk in the light and at the same time keep moving into the shadows.

—Tim Goble in World Christian (March/April 1988)

DOUGLAS GROOTHUIS¹Douglas Groothuis is a research associate with Probe Center Northwest in Seattle. This article was adapted by the author from his book Confronting the New Age (InterVarsity Press).

By now it should be clear to even the most casual observer that the New Age is more than a passing fad—it is a deep cultural trend attracting thousands of people from all walks of life. It has galvanized a host of disparate organizations, events, individuals, and ideas around its self-deifying themes. Celebrity evangelists such as Shirley MacLaine and John Denver, scientific sages such as Fritjof Capra, and entrepreneurs such as Werner Erhard tout a burgeoning market of books and magazines, magical crystals, exotic therapies, and mind-expanding seminars.

One area of culture after another is being touched—if not consumed—by a New Age orientation. Christians, while initially slow to respond to the New Age’s growing cultural clout, have now rushed to analyze, expose, debate, and debunk the movement. Unfortunately, many of these recent responses are superficial. Their examination of the New Age probes only skin deep. They expound sensational conspiracy theories that alarm the ignorant instead of equipping the saints.

Yet the New Age movement demands more from Christians than reactionary rhetoric. If Christians are to meet this challenge effectively, we must have first of all a biblical understanding of how we are to relate to culture.

The Human Touch

Culture describes our “way of life”—how we interact with ourselves, our environment, and God. It includes manners, morals, habits, and artifacts. Culture, unlike nature, is humanly engineered. We use God-given material and give it the unmistakable “human touch”—of painting, ceremonies, gardens, and gulags. Creation gives us chunks of gold; humans create gold rings, tooth fillings, crosses, and Buddha figurines. Culture is the cultivation of God’s creation.

Cultures spring from the world views of the culture formers, whether they be Christian, New Age, or otherwise. Henry Van Til has said that “culture is religion externalized.” Yet it is just as true that world views are influenced by a person’s surrounding culture. Clearly, the biblical injunction is to base our thinking on God’s transcultural truths and seek to apply them to our particular culture. But how should this be done in relation to the New Age’s cultural impact?

At least three scriptural themes address our interaction with culture—separation, transformation, and conservation. They are foundational to a solid response to the New Age, and without holding them in proper balance we fall into error.

A People Set Apart

Any biblically literate Christian should know to separate himself from an obviously occult/New Age practice such as trance or spirit channeling, since the Old Testament strictly condemns consultation with mediums (Deut. 18:9–14). God’s people are to shun this “abomination,” which calls forth judgment on cultures polluted by it. There is absolutely no way to Christianize it.

Separation, then, is a central biblical theme. God elected Israel to be a unique nation “set apart” from the surrounding pagan peoples. When the Israelites assimilated into the pagan culture instead of separating from it, they suffered God’s judgment for spiritual adultery. Separation from sinful cultural patterns glorifies God, who himself is separate from all sin. We are to be holy (or separate) because God is holy.

The apostle John underscored this when he instructed us not to love “the world or the things in the world,” which are passing away (1 John 2:15–17). John does not mean to shun the entire world (creation) or avoid all of human culture, but rather to shun the “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (v. 16).

Jesus repeatedly taught that total obedience to him means separation from evil in every form. “You cannot serve both God and mammon,” he said (Matt. 6:24). Although Jesus socialized with outcasts and outright sinners, he did not succumb to cultural sin of any stripe.

The separation theme is crucial for confronting the New Age. The New Age world view is antithetical to Christianity; the two cannot mingle. God is either personal or impersonal, not both; he is either moral or amoral, not both; people are nondivine or divine, not both; there is resurrection or reincarnation, not both; ethics are absolute or relative, not both. You cannot serve both God and the New Age. Even if it is considered impolite in a pluralistic culture to dispute the truth of another’s beliefs, the Christian must speak the truth in love, saying, “No! I cannot agree with pantheism, monism, relativism, spiritism, and the rest. I will have no part. These beliefs are both false and dangerous.”

If Christians hope to confront error effectively, we cannot let ourselves become prisoners of what we are confronting. We must be separate.

But if the separation theme is not complemented and balanced by the themes of transformation and conservation, Christians run the risk of viewing themselves as “more separate than thou” and isolating themselves from legitimate involvement in culture.

Theater Of Redemption

Jesus Christ is the Redeemer. He came to restore us to fellowship with the Father through his atoning death on the cross, and to restore our works that they might honor God (Eph. 2:8–10). This necessitates our transformation. Paul says that if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17), and he exhorts each of us: “Be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). This demands a distinctively Christian world view.

Separation cautions us to avoid the sinful snares of fallen culture. Transformation inspires us to apply our Christian world view to culture for the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31; Col. 3:17). From the beginning, God charged Adam and Eve to “have dominion” over (or to transform) the Earth for his glory (Gen. 1:26–28; Ps. 8:3–9). We are called, notes philosopher Calvin Seerveld in his book Rainbows for a Fallen World, “to exercise dominion over the whole earth, subdue it, make the world serviceable, turn all creation into a footstool that doubles its native praise of the Lord. God elected man … to rule the world and make the name of Yahweh reverberate from one end of the cosmos to the other.” That calling has not been revoked. It is not enough to resist evil, we must also march ahead to recapture territory too long held by Satan, the usurper.

Although Christianity does not look to this world as the final frame of reference, it is passionately concerned with this world as the theater of redemption and the beginning of restoration.

We pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). The kingdom of God has both a present and a future reality. We pray and labor that the realities of God’s kingdom may be manifest in all of life. John Stott forcefully states: “For the Kingdom of God is God’s dynamic rule, breaking into human history through Jesus, confronting, combatting, and overcoming evil, spreading the wholeness of personal and communal wellbeing, taking possession of his people in total blessing and total demand.”

A kingdom spirituality is not content to divide the sacred (prayer, Bible reading, church attendance) from the secular (work, education, politics), but rather sees everything in relation to the total lordship of Jesus Christ. As Francis Schaeffer proclaimed, “The Lordship of Christ covers all of life and all of life equally.”

If we only separate from and condemn evil, we become merely reactionary—more anti-New Age than pro-Christ. Our constructive values—inasmuch as we develop them at all—take a back seat to our critical evaluations. And instead of seeking first the kingdom of God, we seek first to expose the kingdom of evil. As a result, our demonology may become more developed than our Christology.

The kingdom of evil is always seeking to advance—not only to claim secular ground that kingdom citizens have abandoned, but to move into the sacred domain of the church itself. When Christians retreat from the world, they are easily overtaken. The only way the church can adequately resist the evil offensive is to mount a counteroffensive. While self-preservation is not the only reason the church should make a sustained, prayerful effort to transform society, it is certainly a sufficient one. If we do not confront the world, we shall be conformed to it.

History demonstrates that the Christian dynamic is world transforming. Though surrounded by the cultural chaos of a declining Roman empire, the early church significantly affected its culture through its high view of human life (opposing infanticide), its elevation and emancipation of slaves, its denunciation of barbarous games, and its unequaled charity. Christians transformed the pagan world and helped set the course of Western civilization.

Christianity later contributed to political and religious liberties; to literacy, education, health care, and the arts; and to social reform, such as the abolition of slavery, and protection for the unborn. This transformational dynamic is both unmistakable in history and imperative for today.

Parents who remove their child from a public school classroom for the sake of separation from some New Age practice need also to seek to rectify the problem through appropriate action. They should, as much as possible, try to transform the situation so that all children—Christian and non-Christian—are not indoctrinated into New Age beliefs. That may mean working to change public school curricula, or establishing alternative forms of education. In any case, Christians are called to transformation as well as separation.

Truth Wherever It May Be

Christians are also to conserve God-honoring areas of culture. Although the world is tragically tainted by sin, some pockets of culture do still exist that are pleasing to God and should be conserved. Identifying these areas calls for discernment and wisdom.

Paul’s preaching to the Athenians at Mars Hill demonstrates the conservation theme. Though he was “greatly distressed” (Acts 17:16, NIV) over the Athenians’ idolatry, he began by commending what was true in their philosophies. He first noted the religiosity evidenced by their many idols, one of which bore the inscription, “To an unknown god.” Paul then said, “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (v. 23). In proclaiming God as Creator and Lord who is nevertheless “not far from each one of us” (v. 27), Paul favorably quotes from the Cretan poet Epimenides, who said, “For in him we live and move and have our being,” and from the Cilician poet Aratus, who said, “We are indeed his offspring” (v. 28).

Yet after identifying religious themes to be conserved, Paul went on to decry their idolatry, to call them to repentance, and to proclaim the One who is risen from the dead (vv. 29–31).

Paul did not completely reject Greek philosophy. He knew that by God’s grace it contained some elements of truth—even though the whole philosophical system was built on the shifting sands of human opinion. In fact, Paul separates himself from worldly thinking, insisting that the gospel is based on God’s revelation, not human craftiness (1 Cor. 3:19; Col. 2:8–9). Yet he recognizes that “all truth is God’s truth,” wherever it may be uncovered.

Saying that, however, does not mean that whatever people take to be true is, in fact, “true for them.” To such relativism, the Bible declares, “Let God be true though every man is false” (Rom. 3:4). Nor does it mean that human opinion is exalted to the status of biblical revelation.

What it does mean is that aspects of God’s truth have been discerned worldwide by all people through his general revelation. Jesus said that God “makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45). To reject the truth that God has granted to unbelievers is to reject a gift from the ultimate source of the truth, God himself. To accept truth from unbelievers is not to accept the ultimately false world view that has adopted it.

We can best defend Christianity by recognizing truth wherever we find it and integrating it into a distinctively Christian viewpoint. James Orr, the late Scottish theologian, calls this “the truest and best form of Christian apology [defense]—to show that in Christianity, as nowhere else, the severed portions of truth found in all other systems are organically united, while it completes the body of truth by discoveries peculiar to itself.”

Save The “Severed Portions”

It is vital that we understand the conservation theme in order that we not throw out these “severed portions of truth.” First, of course, we need to determine whether there is a portion at all worth saving. Some New Age practices are irredeemable. But not everything associated with the New Age movement is irredeemable. Some elements of New Age thought should be conserved precisely because they agree with a Christian perspective.

For instance, Christian psychologists can agree with New Age psychologists—over against materialists—that humans are more than programmed animals or machines and that they have real spiritual capacities that need to be recognized and exercised. Both will stress “human potential,” although the Christian stresses the potential of beings made in the image of God as they submit to their Maker, Savior, and Guide; while the New Ager stresses the unlimited potential of self-realized, human “gods.”

An example of such agreement is found in Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy, which, although it is sometimes tied to New Age ideas, resonates with and reinforces some crucial Christian themes. He stresses the innate and basic human need for meaning and purpose in life, what he calls “the will to meaning.” Yet many suffer, thinks Frankl, from an “existential vacuum” or meaninglessness. The aim of logotherapy is to help people discover a higher purpose.

Frankl, though not a Christian, indirectly highlights our need for God’s ultimate direction and purpose, and the fact that we are lost and alienated apart from a personal relationship with him. Many of his insights should be appreciated and conserved by Christians. Because of common grace, Christians often find friends in unlikely places—if they are looking.

Six Pitfalls

When the separation, transformation, and conservation themes are held in balance, Christians can intelligently and effectively confront the New Age. Without this balance, they may easily fall into any of six different mental traps.

The quarantine mentality. Those with this tendency are rightly distrustful of the New Age world view and agenda, recognizing the separation theme, but they wrongly assume that anything approved by the New Age is intrinsically evil and therefore “off limits” for all Christians.

This approach tars with too wide a brush and thus paints black what may in fact be white or gray. It overemphasizes and misapplies separation and fails to recognize the conservation and the transformation themes.

For instance, the holistic health movement is significantly stained by New Age ideas. Supposed occult energies—or even entities—may be invoked for healing purposes, such as “therapeutic touch,” an occult energy therapy.

All that is holistic, however, is not hellish. An emphasis on the “whole person” medically and spiritually is indeed healthy and not, in itself, incompatible with biblical teaching. Yet some have quarantined everything holistic.

The taboo mentality. If everything related to the New Age is out of bounds, then spiritual and intellectual discernment is exhausted by a simple list of taboo practices, ideas, and individuals. Certainly, much that is New Age should be strictly and studiously avoided. No one should ever take part in psychic healing, astrology, past-life therapy, or any occult activity. Christianity has plenty of “don’ts” (witness eight of the Ten Commandments). But the “taboo mentality” tends to substitute a list of taboos for learning how to think discerningly. It invokes simplistic black and white rules instead of cultivating the ability to understand critically the issues at hand (using the Word of God and prayer, 1 Tim. 4:1–5).

The paranoid mentality. Awareness and avoidance of evil is a Christian virtue. But unhealthy fear of evil and vain speculations concerning its extent are not virtues. This mentality can be both crippling and condemning, as Christians, lacking sufficient evidence, label other Christians as New Age.

It is, of course, true that some New Agers hide under the guise of Christianity, while their teachings actually deny Christ. Such counterfeit Christianity must be unmasked and confronted. But where hurried condemnation replaces careful evaluation, the distinction between brotherly disagreement and heretical teaching may be sadly confused. The good is not conserved.

Those trapped in this pitfall have little patience or energy to honor the transformation theme of Scripture. Their fears immobilize them, and they make no attempt to transform culture. They simply condemn it, sometimes with encyclopedic specificity. They also misapply the separation theme—separating sheep from sheep instead of sheep from goats. The church is thereby divided against itself and is rendered less effective.

The Chicken Little mentality. Since the ascension of our Lord into heaven, Christians have expectantly awaited his descending from heaven at the end of the age (Acts 1:11). It is the “blessed hope” of all believers (Titus 2:13). Yet some have invested too much in calculating how New Age activities relate to particular end-time events. Some condemn the New Age movement primarily because they believe it fulfills biblical prophecy concerning the rise of evil in the world before the Second Coming, and hold few other arguments in their apologetic arsenal. Like those with the paranoid mentality, they ignore the transformation and the conservation themes.

We should not assume that God has given up on our or any other culture, although the threat of judgment should drive us to our knees and into the streets. The kingdom will come in its fullness only when Jesus Christ returns; yet there is kingdom work to be done here and now. Apocalyptic speculations may narrow the vision of the church only to saving a few souls, rather than advancing as an army on Earth for Christ, the King of creation. An apocalyptic apologetic may also ring hollow and unconvincing if the scenarios fail to materialize, leaving eschatological egg on the church’s face.

The ostrich mentality. This pitfall comes from a lack of awareness of the separation and the transformation themes. Some Christians dismiss the advance of the New Age into our culture as merely the figment of overactive imaginations, and stick their heads comfortably in the sands of ignorance. Their ignorance then ossifies into spiritual impotence, which leaves them helpless to unmask and confront New Age activity. Having not identified the problem, they cannot hope to transform a bad situation into a better one for Christ. “It couldn’t happen here,” they say—until a friend or relative joins a cult, or begins to consult a channeler, or starts quoting Shirley MacLaine.

The chameleon mentality. This pitfall is a cousin to the ostrich mentality because it too misunderstands the Christian’s separation and transformation responsibilities. Those affected are “trendier than thou” and equate human (or demonic) innovation with spiritual insight. They passively absorb their environment, changing colors in accordance with popular New Age practices or ideas. So we hear calls for “Christian yoga,” “Christian zen,” or less blatant compromises with non-Christian presuppositions. Although it is true that “all truth is God’s truth,” all that glitters is not God’s gold; fool’s gold abounds.

The Critical Balance

With the themes of separation, transformation, and conservation in balance, we arrive at a position of “critical engagement” with our culture. We are called to be critical: separated from the world’s culture, while bringing all of its elements under the scrutiny of God’s Word. And we are called to be engaged: to transform culture for the glory of God and to conserve those aspects of culture that please him.

The challenge of the New Age demands a cultural integrity: a critical engagement of our culture for the greater glory of God. As we balance the biblical themes of separation, transformation, and conservation, we honor the Lord of culture.

When evangelical Christians write about sex, they usually concentrate on the joys and difficulties of marriage. How can marriages be divorce-proofed? How can they be happy?

Yet today most people live a long period of adult life before marriage, and many never marry. Increasing divorce adds another large group to the single population. The elderly, who are growing in number, add still more. (A high proportion have lost a spouse.) All of these groups, in addition to a sizable group of people whose desires are primarily homosexual, call us to offer a view of sexuality that applies to singles just as much as to married people.

Equals In The Kingdom

God is in the process of redeeming the world through his Son, and his work applies equally to the single and the married. Their salvation is not in being married, nor in being single. It is a salvation that breaks into their circumstances, whatever they are, transforming them. Of course, single people experience God’s transforming power in a distinctive way. But it is not an inferior way. Our temptation ought to be, in fact, to call their way superior. (That was certainly the temptation of Paul, and many of the church fathers.) For the single person’s way is closer to that of Jesus, who is the pioneer of our salvation.

Imagine, if you can, patronizing Jesus as a single person. “Why haven’t you ever married?” he is asked. “You seem like such a nice person. I have a cousin in Bethsaida I’d really like you to meet.”

When I imagine such a ludicrous scene, I realize how Jesus transforms ordinary expectations. Matters that seem quite important become embarrassingly flimsy when we encounter him. Our dreams and ambitions, our worries and fears, are held up to his light, and most of them become quite transparent. “You are worried that you might end up miserably single? Come unto me, all you who are weary and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” He offers single people a far greater joy than that which marriage can provide. He calls them, as he calls married people, to follow him.

Radicals And Stewards

I owe a debt to my brother, William Stafford, for pointing out two great patterns of response to Jesus’ call to discipleship. One is the response of stewardship. The other is the response of radicalism.

If you give a steward a million dollars, he will invest it wisely and honestly, and use the profit for God’s kingdom. The radical will immediately give it all to the poor. The steward, if he is an accountant, will try to witness to God by being an honest and hard-working accountant. The radical may be an accountant, but his heart will be in what he does after work. The steward will serve on the city council; the radical will demonstrate outside the doors. The steward works with the conditions of life as he finds them; the radical seeks fundamental change. The steward sees the necessity of compromise; the radical sees the necessity of purity.

In sexuality, the response of stewardship is marriage. One thinks immediately of Martin Luther. He had spent most of his life as a monk, earnestly climbing rungs on the ladder to heaven. He concluded there was no ladder: God saves us without regard to our religious efforts. That included the whole monastic affair, and celibacy as part of it. Luther had practiced celibacy, yet concluded that celibacy could only be lived by “peculiar” persons, perhaps one in a thousand. Calvin had a better balanced view, more in accord with Scripture. But it is Luther’s ideas about sexuality that have become ours.

The steward knows that the business of caring for a spouse, raising children, and supporting a family will often make his life look very similar to that of his non-Christian neighbors. After all, encouraging your spouse, changing your baby’s diapers, and coaching your daughter’s soccer team are not distinctively Christian tasks. But the Christian steward intends to do these ordinary tasks prayerfully and selflessly. He hopes to be a better parent, spouse, nurturer, and provider because of his faith.

The steward’s response is completely familiar to most of us, since it has totally dominated Protestantism, and has come to almost equal prominence in Catholicism. In the Roman church, the celibate priesthood seems increasingly an anachronism. A great many American Catholics would gladly rid themselves of it.

Isn’T Jesus The Norm?

The steward assumes that marriage is the normal way to live; celibacy or singleness is a “peculiar” or unusual situation. But the radical answers this with a question: From where do we get our norms? From an observation of what is usual in the world as it exists? Or from the kingdom as it breaks into the world? Isn’t Jesus our norm? Aren’t we to follow in his steps?

The radical is not terribly interested in preserving and hallowing the world as it exists. He is focused on the coming kingdom. He sees the practical demands of ordinary life as an interference: he would rather serve God only. Not only is Jesus his model, so is Paul. In both he sees an active, dedicated life, in which no practical matter—finances, family needs, political realism—is allowed to interfere with the cause of God’s kingdom.

Celibacy is only one aspect of a life radically devoted to God. The radical may also, in imitation of Christ, favor a simple lifestyle, unencumbered by the responsibilities of possessions. He may eschew the right to defend himself, turning the other cheek. Often, he will give up his own individual freedom, choosing to work as part of a dedicated cadre. Thus, traditional monastic vows were “poverty, chastity, and obedience.”

For the radical, celibacy is not so much a sacrifice as an opportunity. He knows there will be no marriage in heaven, so he is prepared to be in that state already. Celibacy may have its difficulties, but such difficulties come when you live a dedicated, focused life.

Radical Discipleship

While the steward’s response is very familiar to us, the radical’s response seems, well, peculiar. But that has not always been so. The radical response traces its roots to Jesus and the requirements he made for his disciples while they were with him. It grew to dominate Christianity in the years after Constantine. Indeed, for a thousand years it was considered the normal way to serve Jesus Christ best.

When Constantine stopped the persecution of Christians, he changed the way Christians thought about spiritual life. For the first centuries, martyrdom and suffering had been dominant themes. Now something far more dangerous than persecution invaded the church: the permissive, compromised attitudes of Rome. Seeking a deeper purity than they could find in their churches, some men and women went out into the desert. Anthony was one of these, a wealthy landowner who left all his possessions to pursue a life of prayer. None of these early radicals had any idea of starting a movement, but they caught the imagination of other Christians dissatisfied with the lackadaisical status quo. More and more men and women followed them into the desert to pray.

Experience taught that not everyone could be an Anthony. He lived in complete solitude, but most people found that the temptations of a life alone were too great. So monasteries were established—communes of people who lived simply, shared their few possessions, and kept certain standards of devotional life.

At the beginning this was a simple and informal attempt to live a thoroughly committed life. Such simplicity did not last. Over centuries monasteries grew large, sometimes wealthy and secure in their assertion of superior spirituality.

In the beginning, though, they must have shown an impressively genuine godliness. As the Roman empire became increasingly dissolute (under a Christian veneer), and was threatened by invasion, a life of Christian stewardship seemed more and more problematic. How could a person invest his life in the here and now when civilization showed signs of imminent destruction? The monks, because they had made a radical choice outside of the status quo, were able to live independently of the ups and downs of society. Everything was changing; they stayed the same.

Their radicalism was not pure, of course. An antimaterial, antisex, antifemale ideology seems to have infected the monks’ way of thinking from the very beginning, which possibly explains why, rather than going out into the world and preaching the gospel as Jesus and Paul had, they removed themselves from people out into the desert. (Later religious orders, however, such as the Franciscans and the Jesuits, were quite evangelistic.) The temptations of wealth and position and spiritual pride came, too. A monk might take a vow of poverty and then live in a palace. There was plenty of religious hypocrisy. Perhaps worst of all, monasticism developed a theory of salvation that seemed almost scientifically institutionalized. The grace of God no longer seemed necessary—or, more accurately, was simply taken for granted. This was the “ladder of angels” that Luther rejected.

By no means would I call for a return to monasticism. Yet I would find it strange if a response to God that was so appealing to centuries of Christians had nothing worthwhile in it. Radicalism continually reasserts itself under different disguises, particularly when the church grows fat or the times are unusually threatened. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in The Cost of Discipleship and Life Together, written during the years after Hitler came to power, promoted a form of radical discipleship. During the 1960s, some radicalism came back into American Protestantism. Christian communes were launched in which all members had to share alike and live a simple life, and in which obedience to the spiritual leaders of the group was considered an essential vow of membership. In some respects, too, the modern missionary movement is radical. Missionaries are usually expected (as pastors, for example, are not) to live simply and to obey their leaders in the mission society.

Strangely, though, the value of celibacy has not reasserted itself. We have a large population of singles who need to be celibate. Yet they feel this as a punishment. Is it possible they could see it, instead, as an opportunity?

A Special Calling?

There are objections to promoting positive celibacy. Some Christians say that celibacy is a special calling, given only to a few. It cannot be forced on someone. “Involuntary celibacy” is a contradiction in terms.

For example, Helmut Thielicke, writing to suggest tolerance of homosexual alliances, says that “Celibacy cannot be used as a counter-argument, because celibacy is based upon a special calling and, moreover, is an act of free will.”

It is difficult to see how this claim could be justified. The only passage in Scripture that might suggest celibacy is a special, voluntary calling would be Jesus’ words in Matthew 19, in which he says, in response to the disciples’ shock over the indissolubility of marriage, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have made themselves eunuchs because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

This saying is, commentators admit, somewhat enigmatic. If Jesus were saying that celibacy must be a special calling, he would apparently identify “this word” (which only those to whom it has been given can accept) with celibacy. That is how Geoffrey Bromiley takes it: “A gift is needed if a person separated from a former spouse is to live without remarrying.”

The trouble with this interpretation is that Jesus has not mentioned a word about life without remarriage. He has spoken about the purity of marriage, which cannot be broken for any reason. “This word” would seem to be the demand for a pure monogamy. Who can live with the absolute demands of Christian marriage? Only those to whom it has been given. But Jesus immediately speaks of another possibility: that of celibacy, which some have because of their birth, some because of their experiences, and some because of their choice to live for the kingdom of God.

One would not want to stake too much on an interpretation of this difficult passage. But Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 7 seem crystal clear. Marriage and celibacy are equally a free choice. Paul gives no hint that marriage is normal, and celibacy an unusual “special” condition for those who are called to it. He personally favors one choice (celibacy), but he recognizes that another might be better. He does speak of “gifts,” but the implication is that either marriage or celibacy might be one’s gift. “I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that” (1 Cor. 7:7, NIV).

Paul’s judgment is that a person is best off staying in the situation in which he finds himself, single or married. These include conditions in which he clearly had no choice. “Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised.… Were you a slave when you were called? Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so.… Now about virgins … I think that it is good for you to remain as you are. Are you married? Do not seek a divorce. Are you unmarried? Do not look for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned” (7:18–27, NIV).

The only “special calling” Paul recognizes is the calling to be the Lord’s servant. A person can answer that call in any condition—circumcised or uncircumcised, slave or free, married or single. Single people may marry if they wish—but they are equally free to stay single. All that matters is living obediently before God. He calls each one of us to be his own. That calling does not usually change our situation. It transforms it into a Christian vocation.

Not everyone who goes without sex is celibate in the sense that Paul would want him to be, for not everyone is entirely devoted to the Lord and answers Christ’s calling as a single person. But that such a calling would be entirely good for any single person—indeed, the best of all options—Paul obviously did not doubt. He certainly did not think he was recommending it to one in a thousand “peculiar” Corinthians.

Living Like A Blind Man

Paul’s recommendation is hard for us to reconcile with what we feel about single life. How could he recommend a way of life that is, for most people, so miserable? Even those who recommend celibacy under certain circumstances acknowledge its misery. For example, John White in Eros Defiled: “What has life to offer you if marriage and normal sexual relations will never be yours?… Are we implying by our question that you are worse off than other people? If so we must stop right here. You are worse off—in one way. So is a blind man or a deaf man.… You have a personal tragedy.… If you want to spend the rest of your life feeling bitter and sorry for yourself, you will have only yourself to blame for your suffering.”

A lot can be said for a stiff upper lip. We all certainly need one at times, and single people, oppressed by our society’s glorification of marriage, need one often. But is life without sex necessarily a crippled existence? Is single life at best like a blind person making do in spite of his handicap? Very clearly, Paul could not have imagined so. He wrote of the privations he experienced—poverty, beatings, shipwrecks—but he never included singleness. No doubt we are all affected by our experiences, and Paul’s experiences included meeting the risen Jesus. Can anyone imagine comparing Jesus’ life, single as it was, to that of a blind man or a deaf man? For that matter, should we pity a Saint Francis, a Mother Teresa, a C. S. Lewis (celibate for nearly all his life)? No doubt they had special abilities and unusual faith to live as they did. But at least they raise our hopes. Perhaps being single is not always a handicap.

Some point out that single people—particularly single males—are prone to violence and suicide in our society. They are right: being single is often difficult, painfully so. But is the difficulty intrinsic to singleness, or is it rooted in the powerfully antisingle feelings of our society? If single people were in a supportive environment, would they have the same difficulty?

Others say a single person’s misery has a basis in Scripture. At the foundation of the universe, God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). Adam needed a helpmate. God’s company was no substitute.

God’s goodness was not exhausted in Eden, however. The New Testament introduces better possibilities. Jesus will take us to Eden, but beyond Eden. He himself is the best evidence of where we are going. “It is not good for man to be alone.” Was Jesus’ life then “not good”?

Of course it was very good. And he is not, and has never been, alone. From the beginning, he was in fellowship with the Father. He calls us to a fellowship like that with each other. Jesus prayed just before his death, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.… I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.… May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:20–24, NIV). Anyone experiencing such oneness with other believers is not really alone any longer. He has a true and eternal family.

Going without sex is not, per se, gracious or beautiful. A person who cannot marry and yet cannot accept his or her situation will feel the “not good” of being alone. Life in the kingdom, however, ought to transform that individual’s situation. Such a person is no longer alone, for he or she has become a member of a family. Making this real for single people should be as important for the church as its concern for strong marriages. Whether celibacy is for life, or for a short period, the need is the same.

Paul’s mention of slavery (1 Cor. 7:21–23) puts all this in an interesting, and realistic, light. Paul makes it clear that no one wants to be a slave: “If you can gain your freedom, do so.” We may feel the same about our sexual condition, married or single. Just as the slave ached for freedom, so a single person may ache for sexual intimacy, and a married person may ache to be released from a partner. But the coming of Jesus transforms ordinary judgments. “He who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord’s freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ’s slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.” In marriage or in singleness, in stewardship or in radical singlemindedness, we can all serve Christ. That is genuine freedom.

Celibacy As A Sign

Not only does Salvation in Christ transform our sexuality, but our sexuality becomes a sign of the kingdom. The way we live as sexual creatures ought to witness that Jesus is Lord.

How can celibacy witness to anything besides misanthropy? Let Irene Kassorla’s Nice Girls Do, which spent 22 weeks on the New York Times list of best sellers, offer a contemporary view: “James Thurber once asked the question, ‘Is sex necessary?’ My immediate answer is an unqualified yes.… While one could certainly argue that it is possible to survive without sex … or walks in the park, or music, or laughter, or the other sweet extras of living that are not primary biological needs … WHY SHOULD YOU?”

Kassorla explains that when you try to repress your erotic sensuality, you inevitably repress all your emotions. She considers an active sex life to be an essential ingredient for a stable personality. “Too many women I’ve treated,” she says, “repress their normal sexual functioning.… Often a closer examination of their emotional profiles reveals that these sexually sterile women have rigid and peculiar personalities, as well.”

Note that this is not worlds away from John White’s comparison of celibacy to blindness or deafness. One may claim that a cripple can make the best of life within his limitations. But who would choose to be blind? And how can a disability be a sign of the kingdom?

The Joys Of Self-Control?

One answer has been given repeatedly over the centuries: a celibate person demonstrates self-control. By doing without something as attractive as sex, he demonstrates that his mind and spirit have gained control over the body’s appetites. Gandhi, for instance, gave up sleeping with his wife, but he would take a beautiful young woman to bed with him (but not have sex) in order to develop his own self-mastery.

In Jesus and his disciples, including Paul, there was no hint of such an asceticism. They were not celibate to prove their own mastery. They were celibate because their singleness enabled them to serve God in a way that would otherwise have been impossible. They lived with a singleness of purpose, a “single eye.” In Paul’s words, they showed “an undivided devotion to the Lord.”

Consider Jesus. It is impossible to imagine a more single-minded person than he. Throughout his ministry he knew his business exactly. He could not be dissuaded from his agenda by the concerns of the crowds, the criticisms of the Pharisees, or the fears and hopes of his disciples. He “set his face” as he went toward Jerusalem, to his own death (Luke 9:51). This picture of Jesus steadfastly choosing to give his life is the greatest sign of the kingdom; everywhere that the kingdom has been preached, the cross has been used as a shorthand symbol for that single-minded self-sacrifice.

But could Jesus have made these choices if he were married and had a family to care for? Perhaps he could, but certainly not so freely. Neither could Paul have dedicated his life in the same degree to planting churches if he had needed to share his concern with a wife and family.

A single person is not necessarily a sign of the kingdom when tangled in longings and a sense of loss. But a single person can demonstrate with a remarkable clarity that he knows the reason he was created: to love and serve God only, and her neighbor as herself. If that singleness of vision, that purity of heart, possesses a single and shows itself in purposeful service of others and in preoccupation with prayer and worship, then that person makes a radical statement with his or her life about the kingdom.

This is what the church can offer a single person, above all else. It is all very well to help single people plot strategies for meeting marriageable partners, but what does that have to do with the kingdom of God? If the strategies fail, is the single person’s life then condemned to failure? Of course not. It cannot be easy, in our society, to help a single person shift his or her gaze from the promise of sex and intimacy to the promise of a radical dedication to God’s kingdom. Even if a single person is willing to move in that direction, he or she will almost certainly feel depressed and lonely at times over what is felt to have been lost. Married people feel depressed and lonely too, of course, but perhaps less than singles, for marriage has the affirmation and support of our society.

Yet if anyone feels hesitant to speak to single people about such a difficult, radical path, he ought to go back to the New Testament and read again what Jesus promised to his disciples. They, too, were called to be witnesses of an invisible kingdom. They, too, were asked to give up family and friends, at least for a time. They were not called as disciples with promises of warmth and intimacy, however much they may (or may not) have experienced warmth and intimacy along the way. They were called to be servants of Jesus. They answered. They did not regret it.

Which Way Is Best?

There are two kinds of signs in our sexuality, each very different from the other, and in our history one has tended to dominate the other. For centuries celibacy was considered the main entrance to sexual salvation, with marriage a kind of back door for the rabble. Then, after the Reformation, marriage took over the front door, and single people were sent to the back. They became peculiar, crippled people; their best hope was to overcome their handicap.

Can the two signs coexist? Can we value them both? The early church did. Most of the apostles did their work in tandem with a believing wife; Paul, Barnabas, and Timothy apparently did theirs alone (1 Cor. 9:5). Paul recommended celibacy to the Corinthians, but to the Ephesians compared marriage to the love of Christ for the church. Jesus was celibate, yet he attended a wedding and blessed its celebration with a miracle. When Paul wrote to Timothy, he sanctioned a group of older women who had evidently taken a celibate vow, dedicating their lives to Christ’s ministry (1 Tim. 5:9–14); but he recommended that younger women not take such a vow, since they tended to change their minds and wish to marry.

Nowhere in Scripture is there any sign of preferring one form of sexual witness over another, except in Paul’s carefully hedged recommendation of celibacy to the Corinthians. Historians say the early centuries of the church show the same pattern: single people and married people in the church together, valuing each other’s gifts.

Today no one can doubt that we need all the witness to Christ we can muster, and that sexuality is an area where our witness is most vulnerable and under attack. Can we afford to let any of our gifts go unrecognized?

Excerpted from the new book The Sexual Christian (Christianity Today/Victor Books).

Meditation

TERRY EASTLAND¹Terry Eastland is now a resident scholar at the National Legal Center for the Public Interest, Washington, D.C. A frequent contributor to various magazines, including the American Spectator and Commentary, he also serves as a commentator on National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered.”

On May 13 last year, Terry Eastland, Attorney General Edwin Meese III’s chief spokesman, went to ask his boss how to respond to rumors about Panama’s General Noriega. A few minutes later, Eastland was fired, he said, for not having defended the attorney general aggressively enough to reporters.

It was a strange finale to a 12-month period of incredible pressure. Court-appointed Special Prosecutor James C. McKay had been investigating Meese’s relation to an Iraqi pipeline project promoted by one of his close friends and to the questionable dealings of the Wedtech Corporation, a Bronx military defense contractor. Conservatives in government (such as Secretary of Education William Bennett) and the press (such as Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Snow) came to Eastland’s defense, while 25 Republican members of Congress called for the attorney general’s resignation.

Through it all, Eastland maintained a charitable attitude toward Meese. Said Snow, “Even in private, Eastland tried to put the best gloss on Meese.”

Here Eastland talks about how his Christian faith helped him endure the turbulence and pressure of life in the U.S. Department of Justice.

During my five years of government service, I dealt with a great variety of issues: criminal law reform, organized crime and illegal drug trafficking, international terrorism, civil rights, obscenity control, abortion law, public corruption, religious liberty, judicial selection, and proper constitutional interpretation—to name a few. Reporters asked me thousands of questions on these and other matters. Not once did any of them try to write stories about my own faith. Not that they should have: A story about a government official’s faith isn’t the sort of thing a journalist covering the Justice Department ordinarily would write. And anyway, my faith never became an “issue,” as it has for some in public life.

But now that I’ve left government service, I thought it might be helpful to have “on the record” some personal reflections on the life of faith of one Christian during his time in office.

Over the past five years I found myself frequently turning to several biblical passages, all from the New Testament. I don’t know why I went so often to these passages instead of some others—except to say, of course, that it was providential: these were the lamps that lit my way.

One was Philippians 4:8. I first learned this verse in the King James Version, and I still like it that way: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

Paul wrote this, but it might as well have been written by a moral philosopher from Athens. There is nothing specifically Christian about the virtues Paul lists, and indeed two of them don’t appear anywhere else in the New Testament. These are virtues apparently within the natural reach of all men. Still, God inspired Paul to include this advice in his letter.

When dealing with news stories that were not quite true or fair, with people both in and out of government who were not totally honest, with actions that lacked the best motives, I often thought of Philippians 4:8. For me, it was a statement of a minimum standard—not the highest ideal for a Christian, but one a Christian should certainly live up to before striving to fulfill the ultimate commandment to love one another. How do we live up to this standard? Paul supplies the answer: “Think on these things.” In C. S. Lewis: The Shape of His Faith and Thought, Yale theologian Paul Holmer writes that “character is a quiet consequence of what we think.” So it is.

I am happy to report (here is a thing of “good report”!) that during my years at the Justice Department I saw some displays of character strength. I recall an occasion when someone I knew learned something about a government official whom she didn’t particularly like. The information did not suggest anything criminal or unethical on the part of this official. But it would have been embarrassing had it become known. Fortunately, the person who came across this juicy tidbit resisted the temptation to leak it to the news media.

On another occasion, a probable nominee for a Justice Department position decided to withdraw his candidacy. Reporters were obliged to write a story about the event, but I was pleased that without exception they declined to print the reason for the withdrawal, which concerned the man’s marriage and only would have hurt him had it been published.

A second passage was actually an entire chapter—Romans 12. Paul, who liked imperatives, snapped off at least 32 in the 21 verses of this chapter.

Of particular importance to me was the second verse of Romans 12. In the Phillips translation, it reads: “Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remold your minds within.…”

The world around me was (and still is) Washington, D.C., a place unlike any other—and I’ve lived overseas, in the East, the South, the Midwest, California, and my native Texas. Washington is a one-company town, the company being politics, and there is only one individual at the top—the President. Many, both in and outside government, scramble to get closer to the top. A job in the executive branch is coveted over all others in government—except, of course, for those in the White House itself. And within journalism, covering the White House is considered the plum of plums.

Of course, everyone has a world around him, and all worlds squeeze. I can testify that the Washington world can put a hard squeeze on you, and for me it was important to remember Paul’s imperative to resist the squeezing and allow God to work from within. This meant time alone with God and with other Christians, time apart from the power scramble. An early morning Bible study once a week proved a constant source of refreshment, and helped point my mind and heart in the right direction, away from the City of Man and toward the City of God.

A third passage was Romans 8:26. Here Paul writes (as translated in the Revised Standard Version): “… for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words.”

How many of us begin to pray and stop in midsentence? How many of us utter words intended for God that seem to go nowhere? I did at many points in the past five years. It was a great comfort—the Great Comforter is the perfect name for the Holy Spirit—to know that the Spirit was there praying for me when I groped for words, when I did not have any, and when I was distracted by the cares of my world from the discipline of prayer itself. Which is to say: God was there, even when I wasn’t. That is the nature of God, and a tremendous theological truth.

The fourth passage takes us back to Philippians, specifically to chapter 3, verse 10; still more specifically to the first five words: “that I may know him.” That expresses my life’s ambition. During the past five years, the ambition of the moment—confirmation of a Supreme Court nominee or passage of important criminal-law reform—received a great deal of my attention, and necessarily so. But for me as for others in other lines of work, it was valuable to have the longest possible perspective on life. Philippians 3:10 summed it up.

Of course, I am far from having achieved this greatest ambition. The second verse of “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds,” written by John Newton more than two centuries ago, goes this way: “Weak is the effort of my heart, and cold my warmest thought; / But when I see Thee as Thou art, I’ll praise Thee as I ought.”

During my government years, I often felt weak of heart and cold of thought. But I knew that Newton was right: someday I will see him as he is, and praise him as I ought. I will know him.

Our day-to-day lives are important. We can make a difference in this world, and I am thankful for the opportunity to have served in our government where, I hope, I did make a difference. But I also know that during these years God worked a difference in me, just as he does in all of us, in all the years of our lives.

God only knows.

God makes his plan.

The information is unavailable

to the mortal man.

—Paul Simon, “Slip-Slidin’ Away”

From the first, Buffalo seemed unlikely turf for cosmological battle. Buffalo is Middle America: home for two former U.S. Presidents (Millard Fillmore and Grover Cleveland), training ground for baseball pitcher Warren Spahn, and principal staging area for American visitors to Niagara Falls. Western New York is conservative country, 60 percent Roman Catholic. It is the last place anyone would expect to find a battle pitting the tenets of American evangelical revivalism against the world view of secular humanists.

But for one week in August, that was exactly what happened. Billy Graham brought crusade evangelism to Pilot Field in downtown Buffalo, while out at the Amherst campus of the State University of New York (SUNY)/College at Buffalo the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) held its tenth world congress.

When I heard about it, my curiosity was piqued. This I had to see. So I began making preparations for a trek to Buffalo.

Like all objective journalists, I went with my prejudices. I’m a Billy Graham fan. I went to report on the two meetings—their similarities and contrasts—but when push comes to shove, I clearly identify with one side. So I found myself preparing for the battle by not only packing my Bible, but C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and a modern articulation of Aquinas’s five proofs of God’s existence.

Somewhere, I knew, in some intellectual gymnasium with Wagner’s Gotterdamerung playing in the background, a secular humanist was doing the same thing: priming himself with Darwinian evolutionary theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, Dewian educational principles, and sex by Margaret Sanger. I didn’t want to be caught short.

I jumped in my car, and as I hummed over the Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York toll roads, I rehearsed questions, anticipated answers, and explored provocative thoughts.

The battle was about to be joined.

The Humanists

Monday morning I made my way to the SUNY campus in Buffalo. Picking up a conference schedule, I looked over the meeting topics. They offered the wide diversity characteristic of many a “world congress”: “Building a World Community,” “Ethics of the Future,” “Sex and Gender in the 21st Century,” “Religions of the Future,” “Science and Technology,” “Pseudoscience and the Paranormal,” “Ecology and Population,” “Human Rights,” “Moral Education,” and “Global War and Peace.”

After roughing out a schedule in my mind, I wandered over to the table displays of publishers, movements, and other organizations represented at the meeting. I knew that IHEU is an umbrella organization headquartered in the Netherlands, but I had not realized its list of 65 affiliated organizations (representing four million members) covered such a wide range of interests. There were speakers from 21 different countries. Working groups on disarmament, abortion, human rights, and even Esperanto (the 101-year-old movement for a universal language) were represented. American humanist groups included the American Humanist Association, the American Ethical Union, and the Fellowship of Religious Humanists.

Prometheus Books, publisher of over 60 humanist titles each year, was having a field day. As one woman employee put it, “This is really our audience. It feels good to see so many of our authors here and to talk to people in sympathy with their views. We attend many meetings where we’re on the fringe. Here we’re center stage.”

The various “bibles” of humanism were prominently displayed: books by Paul Kurtz such as The Humanist Alternative and In Defense of Secular Humanism. And the definitive book by Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism.

Indeed, humanists are a bookish people. The scent of humanism is eau de librarie. Everything smacks of intellectual effort and pencil shavings. Bearded pipe smokers command the terrain; thinking, not feeling, is the fashion.

On the other hand, passionate conviction is not foreign to humanist discussions. I overheard one woman passionately complaining to one of the conference organizers about the inordinate amount of time scheduled for lecturing with so little left for personal interaction and discussion. “I didn’t come all this way to sit in lectures all day. I want to meet some other humanists.”

In the range of meetings, the organizational hustling, and the steady stream of low-level grousing, a humanist convention reminded me very much of the National Religious Broadcasters convention. It was when I began to attend the meetings that I realized I had actually stumbled upon a whole new world.

I dropped in on a session called “Religions of the Future I.” Frank Miosi was presenting a paper, “The Future of Religion,” a discussion of how future religion will “recast the definition both of the divine and of the meaning of religion.” In listening to his explanation of how the divine will change (best summed up by saying the “divine” will no longer be absolute, but relative; I hope someone remembers to tell the divine), I discovered an interesting audience response.

Evangelical audiences react to something they like by saying “Amen.” Black church audiences say, “Amen, brother.” Charismatic audiences say, “Praise the Lord.” Humanist audiences snicker. For example, at one point Miosi said, “If God is all powerful, then why does evil exist?” The audience snickered knowingly. “If God is all wise, why does he bind himself and limit his effectiveness?” (snicker). “Why does God allow young children to die, earthquakes to destroy cities, famine to ravage villages, thalidomide babies to be born?” (angry snort). “Why would a real God allow 747s full of innocent people to be shot down?” (outraged laughter). Obviously the laughter is not directed at the tragedies mentioned, but reflects the humanists’ principal objection to the religions of the world—the belief in an all-powerful, absolute God who directs human affairs and occasionally interjects himself in miraculous ways.

Indeed, the humanist world view is built on the presupposition of a naturalistic world, where the scientific method, human logic and reason, and man himself are the measure of all things. God does not exist for most humanists; and if he does exist (for those who call themselves religious humanists) he is not the all-powerful, absolute being we worship.

Paul Kurtz, professor of philosophy at the SUNY/College at Buffalo and a principal theorist in the humanist movement, put it this way: “Human reason and science hold the keys to understanding the universe and to solving world problems. We deplore efforts to look outside nature for salvation, or trying to explain the world in supernatural terms.”

This rejection of a supernatural world view leads to a second cardinal principle: The absolute value of each individual human being and his or her right to free choice. When humanists try to describe “salvation,” or the summum bonum of the humanist life, they talk about it in terms of intellectual development. Joe Barnhardt, a former Southern Baptist fundamentalist turned skewerer of prominent religious figures like Billy Graham, said, “We too believe in a ‘born again’ experience, only for us everyone must be born again into the family of man. Babies are born into this world and must learn ethics. Humanists need to be ethically educated. That’s our salvation experience.”

Which leads to the third cardinal principle of humanism: Their hope for a perfect world built on tolerance of all reasonable, logical views. Such a world would be free of strife, presumably because reasonable people, given enough time and understanding, would come to agree on fundamental solutions to world problems. Mankind would live in respectful peace. Because there would be no violence and war, and because problems such as pollution, overpopulation, racism, and education would be attacked logically, our standard of living would rise and world peace would become a reality.

Some progress is being made on these fronts, according to Edd Doerr, vice-president of the American Humanist Association: “We have made progress in race relations, women’s rights, slowing of population growth, abortion rights, and the peace movement. Humanists have been at the forefront of many of these battles, and our numbers and influence are growing. We’re optimistic.”

People become humanists in several ways. One is to grow up in the tradition. In Europe, particularly, the humanist legacy is long: “My father was a very active humanist,” remembered a young West German lawyer. “Some of my earliest memories are of traveling to humanist conferences and listening to my father speak. So it has always been natural for me to involve myself in humanist activities.”

Another way to become a humanist is through a rational exploration of alternatives and a decision for the humanist way. “I always liked discussing issues of philosophical importance with my friends,” said a human-rights worker from the Netherlands. “After they had heard my views they would often say, ‘You’re a humanist.’ They said it often enough that finally I went out and bought a book on humanism, and after reading it decided that I was a humanist. And then I got active in humanist causes.”

Still a third experience is a strong reaction against one’s religious upbringing. Bette Chambers was raised a Southern Baptist. When she was 14 she realized that the people in her church were willing to send money to Africa for missions to black people, but wouldn’t dream of giving money to American blacks. “I decided that wasn’t fair. From that time I started looking for a religion that was fair. I ended up a humanist.”

I ended up liking the humanists I talked to at the conference. I liked much of what they had to say. Many of their goals were good: I’m for world peace; I’m for population control by rational means rather than the natural controls of war, pestilence, and famine. Racism is bad. Women need to get a fair shake. In fact, in several meetings I almost caught myself snickering.

But then I’d hear something so off the wall that I’d get blown away with its absurdity. One speaker defended abortion by saying something like this: “Before we had liberalized abortion laws, five million women each year died of overparenting. Now because those women can control the size of their families through abortion, far fewer of the five million die.” Death by overparenting?

I emerged from my meetings into a humid, overcast day of threatening rain and heat. The speeches I had heard did little to lighten things. They offered good food for thought, but seemed short on answers. The dreary day matched my mood.

The Evangelicals

As I drove from the SUNY campus to Pilot Field in downtown Buffalo, the sun broke through. A good omen, I thought. My good feelings lasted until I reached downtown, got hopelessly lost, and then, after finding the stadium, couldn’t find a parking spot. I’ll be honest: my confidence in supernatural providence wavered.

Grab a bite of food, Terry, I said to myself. You’ll need a bit of physical sustenance to lay the foundation for the spiritual nourishment about to be received. Man cannot live by Billy alone, I thought, and headed for Garcia’s for a sirloin steak with salad and a Diet Coke. After ordering I visited the men’s room. “Bet I know where you’re going,” volunteered the man who walked in behind me.

“Where’s that?” I said.

“The Billy Graham Crusade. I can tell by that bag over your shoulder.”

Frankly, the leather case in which I carry my recorder, pencils, and note pads could tip no one off that I was headed to Pilot Field for an evangelistic crusade. But I let it pass.

“I’m thinking of going, too,” he said. “My wife won’t go. She says she’ll go back to her office and work late till I’m done. I don’t know. Our priest mentioned it yesterday. Said people in the parish could go if they wanted. Or not go. Up to them. He didn’t care one way or the other.… Maybe I’ll go.”

“I think you should,” I volunteered.

It is 6:00 by the time I am seated at the stadium, an hour and a half before game time—er, the start of the service. Pilot Field is the home of the Buffalo Bisons, a Triple A baseball affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. It’s a very fine stadium, seating 20,000. Over the outfield fence one can see the red brick factories of industrial Buffalo. In the foreground, there is a honeycomb of freeway ramps, with cars scurrying up and down and around. People are starting to fill the seats. The 3,000-voice choir, volunteers from local churches, are mostly in place and beginning to practice. I can’t help wondering whether any of the people filing in are secular humanists. Probably there are very few intentional ones, but a ton of people live and think as if they were humanists—without even knowing it.

At seven o’clock, a full half-hour before the service begins, the stadium is almost full. No last-minute crush here. I walk under the stands, by tables piled high with Graham-authored books. Vendors also sell tapes, pamphlets, and records. I’m relieved to find no Billy Graham T-shirts, autographed photos, or dolls.

About 7:25 the choir begins to sing. Graham walks onto the field and takes his seat on the platform, constructed over second base. Dignitaries are announced. Local crusade committee members and politicians pray and welcome and honor Dr. Graham. The service does not drag, however, and by 8:00 he begins to speak.

“Is sin worth it?”

“One thing is sure. Whatever is missed by our court system, God will judge. In the end it will all come out.”

“One thing you should never forget, though: God loves you.”

“Jesus said, ‘He that believeth on my word shall have everlasting life.’ ”

“You are under the sentence of death—but you can come into everlasting life.”

“Christians have hope because of Christ, because God raised him from the dead. Outside of Christ there is no hope.”

“You make this commitment in public. There is no such thing as private religion before the Lord.”

Graham’s statements are simple, illustrated with quotations from Time magazine, with stories of his travels, or with verses of Scripture. His message cannot be misunderstood. It is uncompromising, yet kind. He calls people to make a decision.

The sermon is the antithesis of what I heard earlier in the day. For Graham there is a God, a powerful God who both controls and cares. Individual human beings are important, but only in their relation to God. By themselves they are lost and hopeless. The future is longer for Graham. It extends beyond this life into eternity.

I sit for an hour in the stadium after the service ends. Over 1,000 have gone forward in response to Graham’s invitation to accept the person of Jesus, and they are being advised by an equal number of volunteer counselors.

A woman two seats away stays also. I ask her what she thought of the service. “It was good,” she says. “He didn’t convince me, I guess. It doesn’t feel comfortable to me. I came because my daughter’s in the choir and she wanted me to come.”

“What doesn’t feel comfortable?”

“It’s too personal. I grew up Catholic, then for a long time fell away from the church. My family did too. Then my daughter got born again. I went to her new church, but I didn’t like it—too much hand-waving and hugging.

“But my daughter did seem happier. So it made me think maybe I should go back to church. Now I go to mass regularly again.

“The thing I like about Mr. Graham is I think he would say it’s okay for me to go to the Catholic church. What’s important to him is believing in Jesus. And I believe in Jesus.”

Humanists Versus Evangelicals

Tuesday turned hotter and muggier, and so did the rhetoric—particularly at a press conference where Joe Barnhardt criticized Billy Graham’s theology: “It is a vicious theology, a religion of fire insurance. If you don’t believe the way Billy Graham wants you to believe, then you go to hell. I’d call that cosmic terrorism.”

Actually, Barnhardt’s press conference statements were not exactly what they seemed to be. The humanists wanted Billy Graham to recognize them. They were sending the message through newspaper reporters that they wanted to debate him. The week before, Paul Kurtz had been quoted in the Buffalo News as saying, “We welcome Mr. Graham, but we consider his fundamentalist religion obsolete. The world is a global community requiring a new set of values, not something developed thousands of years ago. We call for dialogue and negotiations with Mr. Graham on these issues.”

Although very few at the crusade were even aware of the humanist conference, the Graham presence was a common topic for the humanists. “I wish he would come out and speak to us,” said one young humanist. “We all know he’s an honest person. We just disagree with what he teaches.”

In such comments I heard a wistful longing for respect. The humanists seemed willing to tolerate some disagreement with their viewpoints on the part of the evangelist. A relationship might be possible—for some humanists. But it really drives them nuts to be categorically dismissed as devils incarnate.

I felt the flip side. It hurt to hear Billy Graham maligned. Okay, so it was just a part of press-conference terrorism in a vigorous competition for newspaper space. So it’s just part of the political game of winning adherents. It still hurt.

I now know how secular humanists must feel when their positions are distorted and misreported.

Some Questions, Some Answers

In one short week observing humanists, I couldn’t possibly get all my questions answered. I still wonder, for example, why so many former Southern Baptists have become outspoken humanists. And why female humanists complaining about being excluded from leadership of humanist organizations sound just like female Christians complaining about being excluded from leadership of Christian organizations. And why a follower of Lyndon Larouche was bugging everyone to death at the conference.

But I did get answers to some of my questions, and formed some opinions on the humanist movement as a whole:

1. I don’t think humanists understand that in championing tolerance as an operating principle they sound and act incredibly intolerant.

I can understand how that happens. For example, as a Christian at a humanist conference, I found myself getting pretty intolerant over being labeled intolerant. I thought I was being pretty cordial, considering the circumstances. By setting up tolerance as not only a way to behave, but as a fundamental intellectual operating principle, humanists end up committing the very sin they deplore. Tolerance is a wonderful attitude, but when you insist that everyone else operate by your definition of tolerance, you end up intolerant. It amounts to insisting that each person’s thinking be treated as equally valid except for those who do not treat each person’s thinking as equally valid. Anyone who believes in divine revelation (a large proportion of the world’s population) is disqualified from respect by humanists, because such a person is prepared to say what’s right and wrong based on his understanding of God’s word. Fundamentalists get treated like fools, and humanists seem arrogant and exclusive.

To be fair, there was some recognition of this problem. On opening night, one speaker noted the need for more joy among humanists, more recognition of the awe of life. Another speaker, Kumund Joshi, noted that if humanists are to make progress worldwide, it is “no longer necessary to fight religion; we must fight our own arrogance.” She went on to say that rhetoric alone is not enough, that “work alone is effective.” Which leads to a second observation:

2. The glue that holds humanists together is most often expressed negatively: the evils of religion.

It is tempting to think that this is because many humanists come out of religious backgrounds. Thus, their negativism is an understandable form of sour grapes.

Or it can be explained as an occupational hazard of debate in the public arena. To convince people your idea is best, you must at some point show where other ideas are wrong. All movements and “theologies” must clearly identify the bad guys.

But the reason for the ubiquitous negative rhetoric is probably a bit deeper and more legitimate than either of these explanations. The philosophy of humanism, because of its goal of incorporating such a diversity of opinion and approach, almost demands a negative apologetic. Only negatives can command universal agreement. There are no authoritative scriptures to hold humanists together. There is no divine founder, and not even a human path-breaker, like the Buddha, to emulate. The glue must be negative reaction. Which leads to a further consequence:

3. The lack of fellowship and leadership in the movement.

Perhaps the lack of leadership is a natural consequence of such a mélange of causes. The IHEU is indeed a loose coalition of guerrilla fighters rather than a unified panzer division. This is intended.

But the lack of fellowship is truly bothersome to many humanists. I noticed the rather dry consequences.

The only way I can think to describe this is through a discovery I made several years ago. At that time I loved to watch Monday night football, but I disliked Howard Cosell. So I got in the habit of watching the game with the sound turned off. It worked well—for a while. The relief at not having to hear Cosell pontificate was satisfying. But eventually I realized that the drama of the game was significantly reduced. Not only the announcers, but the crowd noise and, most of all, the dramatic music played behind introductions and highlights really did add to the emotional impact of the game.

In a similar way, IHEU seemed to lack any background music. There was no melody to hold the meeting together, and no emotional dimension to the presentations. Perhaps this is intentional—part of the package of relying on rational thought alone. But it seemed a minus to me. I heard humanists themselves speak of a desire for a little more “background music” in their movement.

4. Finally, I found the common ignorance of what the future holds a bit disconcerting.

Hope for humanists seems very undefined. In our century of unrest and tragedy, human progress seems a remarkably dim dream. I’m sure humanists would be more optimistic about the potential of human progress. But their expressions of it did little to make me feel secure.

Poolside Conclusion

Perhaps the week’s most significant observation, however, came not in a SUNY classroom or stadium box seat, but by my hotel pool. After one particularly pleasant dip, I crawled to my chaise longue and was languishing lizardlike in the midday heat. As my fellow sun worshipers know, a wet body just emerging from the pool can feel uncomfortably chilly. Then, after time in the sun, the body again heats to the point of discomfort. But about halfway between those two events, there is a time when everything is just right. The clean, relaxed body is just the perfect temperature; a cool breeze relaxes it even more; and at that moment you can’t imagine how things could be any better.

Crusades and conferences are like that, too. Somewhere between the initial awkwardness and ignorance of the opening meetings, and the end-of-the-conference boredom and intellectual overheating, there is a time when everything comes together. That special moment in Buffalo came for me with Billy Graham’s invitation to receive Christ on the second night of the crusade.

To be honest, you can see Graham better on TV. In person you are a long distance from his lectern, and you battle with the distractions of 20,000 people and a less-than-perfect sound system. Still, you experience something remarkable when you are there, something that doesn’t come across on TV.

As usual, many responded to Graham’s invitation. Over 1,000 got up out of their seats and walked down on the field. Obviously something dramatic was happening in their lives.

For me, too, the sense of something powerful filled my soul. Nothing like this happens at a humanist conference. Nothing even comes close.

The huge choir sings “Just As I Am” in the background and people come.

Graham stands pillarlike in prayer and people come.

Others pray and watch and feel the goose bumps all over—and still more people come.

The spectacle of so many people publicly changing their lives, making a decision to live in a whole new way, is overwhelming. They are driving a stake in the ground, declaring that from this moment on, they will go a whole new direction.

How can that kind of change be explained? For me, there is only one way: God is at work. He is at work in a way no humanist—no, not only no humanist but no Christian, either—can possibly understand.

There was no contest in Buffalo. The battle I had come for was nothing more than a few people, humanists and Christians, throwing words around.

But when the Holy Spirit works in people’s lives, a whole new level is reached. God is at work—nothing more, and nothing less. Philosophies compete. Their spokesmen can debate. But who can compete with God?