Page 5707 – Christianity Today (2024)

Christ that in the flower blooms

is manifested mild

and with more subtle power looms

than thunderheads wild.

Given the choice between the two

quiet grace or power

he may have chosen one to woo.

We watch to see the second flower.

What are you looking for in your Christian life? A remarkable experience of rescue that can be attributed to angelic or supernatural agency? A quick and final deliverance out of all your troubles? A miraculous healing? An amazing transformation by which you become a Christian with mighty power?

I remember vividly the first man who told me, “I must have power.” He went everywhere to have hands laid on him so that he might have power—English hands, Welsh hands, American hands. At last he was able to assure me that he had received power. I asked him what his wife thought about his new experience. He blushed. The relationship with her was not one tiny bit better.

What would you say to the following five propositions?

1. The Spirit-filled Christian often has remarkable deliverances from danger.

2. The Spirit-filled Christian can expect visions of God and of heaven and will often be in a state of ecstasy.

3. The Spirit-filled Christian is not often ill and if he is he can count on supernatural healing.

4. The Spirit-filled Christian, utterly yielded to Christ, is always a powerful personality, radiating health, energy, and vitality.

5. The Spirit-filled Christian never has a trace of fear or any visible signs of weakness.

Before you respond, let me ask another question: what are you going to be guided by? Your prejudices? Your preconceived ideas? Your wishful thinking? Images you have carved out from sermons or recent exciting paperbacks? Or the Scriptures, God’s holy, infallible Word? Evangelical Christians must bring every claim, every idea, every bit of teaching, however exciting it may sound, however popular it has become, under the authority of Holy Scripture. So let us turn to the Bible to see what God has to say about these things.

First hear what Paul says in Second Corinthians (11:30–12:10, NIV): “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying. In Damascus the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.”

Then we come to Paul’s vision and his thorn: “I must go on boasting. Although there is nothing to be gained, I will go on to visions and revelations from the Lord. I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to Paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.… I will not boast about myself, except about my weaknesses. Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth. But I refrain, so that no one will think more of me than is warranted by what I do or say.

“To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

It is significant to note that the next sentence reads, “I have made a fool of myself but you drove me to it. I ought to have been commended by you, for I am not in the least inferior to the ‘super-apostles,’ even though I am nothing.” Instead of a supernatural deliverance story as in Acts 12, we read of a rather humiliating slither down the wall in a fish-basket that may have smelled bad. Paul paints himself as a comic rather than a heroic figure here.

For a vision and a revelation of heaven he has to go back fourteen years to somewhere around A.D. 42 or 43. The exciting details of that vision he refuses to disclose. Just think of the popular paperback he could have made of it today!

The peril of the possibility of becoming a braggart he admits twice. Note also the sickness that handicapped him. Three times he asked to be healed of it, and three times his request was turned down.

What was the matter with him? Nothing. This is New Testament Christianity. This is Spirit-filled living. This is the real image of the Spirit-filled man.

One of my friends, Richard Bell, was an IVCF staff worker in the West Indies for several years, greatly used by God. He got phlebitis and came home to England desperately needing rest. Then he was found to have cancer. Some of his friends prevailed on him to go to a certain place for the laying-on of hands. After twenty-four hours, he was assured in the group that he was healed. So he went to Cader Idris in West Wales and started to climb this favorite mountain of his. A hemorrhage quickly established that he was not healed. He went home to die, feeling himself an awful failure. If only he had enough faith, they had assured him, he would be healed. So he had two problems: his cancer and his guilty conscience.

After considering this passage in Second Corinthians, he ceased feeling guilty. The God who said no to Paul had said no to him. It was a case not of his lack of faith but of God’s sovereign wisdom: some he heals in answer to prayer, but to many others he gives patience so that they may endure their sickness to his glory. Many people were challenged through Richard’s Spirit-filled testimony from his death bed. And the testimony he recorded on tape in the face of death has been an enormous help to many people since his death.

A woman who was found to have a malignant melanoma in her leg ten years ago died quite recently at the age of forty-three. But she led her Jehovah’s Witness nurse to Christ in the last three months of her life. She suffered greatly but never faltered in her faith and never complained. This is the power of New Testament Christianity.

Another of my friends, knowing that he had not very long to live, said each morning, “This is another day, Lord. Take it and use it to your glory.” In his terminal illness, men and women were blessed through his prayers, through his witness, and through the courageous way in which he faced death. This is Spirit-filled living. “My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Bishop Taylor Smith, one of my heroes when I was a student, was asked to preach at a jubilee celebration in Chicago. While he was crossing the Atlantic, he walked round on the promenade deck in the open air each day and lost his voice. He arrived in Chicago and preached in a whisper, with none of the modern electronic gadgets available for amplification. At the end of his address, someone came to him and said, “You have persuaded me that I must become a Christian.” The bishop asked, “What exactly was it that I said that brought you to this point?” The man answered, “I couldn’t hear a word you said—it was just looking at you.” To put it another way, God’s strength was made perfect in the bishop’s weakness.

Why did Paul speak about spiritual power in this way in this passage in Second Corinthians? Paul was up against four opposing viewpoints in Corinth.

1. The ritualists, who had come rushing in from Jerusalem to confuse his converts, saying, “You must have this extra experience (circumcision) or you are not proper Christians.”

2. The antinomians, who said, “It doesn’t matter how you behave as long as you believe the right things.”

3. The super-supernaturalists, who claimed a hotline from heaven that put them ahead in teaching all that Paul had ever taught.

4. The wishful thinkers, who naturally preferred the exciting and extraordinary to the steady, ordinary daily discipline of Christian living.

In First Corinthians 1 and 2, Paul deals with Group 1. In First Corinthians 5 through 8, he deals with Group 2. In Second Corinthians 10 through 13, and especially the verses we have been looking at, he deals with Groups 3 and 4, the super-supernaturalists and the wishful thinkers. In each of us, there is a great yen to have this hotline from heaven and to be constantly seeing the exciting and extraordinary. But see what Paul says in First Corinthians 2:1–5. We don’t read, “I came to you with great excitement, in great power and tremendous confidence, radiating health with every step I took in Corinth.”

Holy Spirit power is not divine power that replaces the natural weakness of the human personality. Holy Spirit power was promised by the Risen Lord in Luke 24:49 and in Acts 1:8 for the specific purpose of bearing witness to the Risen Lord, not in order to give some Christians a “deeper experience” than others. And the promise Luke records is of power to cover as “clothing” the men whom Christ had called to his service, not of a completely new personality under the old skin, a personality that knows no frailty in a body that knows no weakness.

The promise of spiritual power is circ*mscribed, i.e., limited to certain situations, occasions, and purposes. It is not power promised for power’s sake, or power for our sake. It is not influence promised for the sake of influence. It is not power to bolster up our image or our ego. It is not power so that we can dominate other people’s lives or manipulate and control their thinking, their emotions, or their wills. It is not our power in place of our weakness. It is God’s power manifest in our weakness. It is God’s power using our human weakness as a platform on which it can be seen to be God’s power; God’s power using our frail storm lamps as a holder from which to shine into the hearts of men; God’s power as a tent surrounding us, supporting the framework of the weakness of our human nature. The weakness remains—the power transcends it.

Why do we need the Holy Spirit’s power? We need it because God’s power flows along God’s pylons. The power flows in the direction of the fulfillment of his purposes. The power of Christ is spiritual power, enabling strength given for his moment to his servant for his task; strength to bear witness to him effectively, to draw attention to someone other than ourselves. “Witnesses to me” means exactly what it says. (See Second Corinthians 4:6, 7; First Corinthians 2:1–5.) We need the Spirit’s power—

• to overthrow false ideas and ideologies or systems of thought by which men live (2 Cor. 10:3, 4);

• to face difficulties courageously (Phil. 4:13);

• to endure physical pain bravely (1 Pet. 4:12–14);

• to believe Christ is with us steadfastly when we don’t feel his presence with us at all (Heb. 13:5, 6);

• to fit in with other Christians humbly and helpfully, and support them in their hours of weakness and distress as well as in their daily routine (2 Cor. 1:4–7);

• to recognize temptations speedily and to resist them firmly (1 Cor. 10:13);

• to absorb solid teaching gratefully (Col. 2:6–9);

• to stand up for the truth uncompromisingly and with courtesy (Rom. 1:14–16; 16:25–27);

• to recognize continually that our natural resources, i.e., what we are by nature and past experience and what we have achieved by grace, are utterly inadequate to face today’s task, but that Christ’s grace is sufficient for us this very day (2 Cor. 3:16; 4:7);

• to have the ability to find some real delight in our weaknesses, for whenever we are weak, then, and then only, are we strong (2 Cor. 10:9–12).

How do we get the power of Christ’s Spirit? True spiritual power, like joy and fellowship, is not an end in itself but a by-product graciously thrown in as we seek to fulfill the Christian obligations for which the power is needed. As we lay hold of the promise God has given us, the power is turned on. “Seek the Lord and his strength,” says the Word of God. The Lord first; then his strength is found in his presence for the fulfillment of his will in our lives.

If we seek the Lord for the Lord’s sake, then spiritual strength is surely given us so that we may go on seeking him singleheartedly and go out to serve him faithfully. We may not be conscious of the power at the time, only of our own weakness. It may be only when we hear later of blessing coming to others through our words or deeds that we can be sure the power of God was truly released. The power of God is imparted in the process of witnessing and worshiping, not just for the purpose of witnessing and worshiping. I can do all things through the empowering Christ, who continually imparts power, rather than giving it as a reservoir for us to draw on at will.

If we take the time to abide in his presence—i.e., to live in constant conscious dependence on him, browsing daily in his inspired Word—we can be sure that the power of Christ’s Spirit will be released in us.

What Shall We Name This New Year?

Newsweek magazine labeled 1976 “the year of the evangelical.” Will 1977 be the year of the post-evangelical?

The Chinese have a nice way of describing their years: by beasts. Last year was the year of the dragon; 1975, the year of the leopard. This year goes to the serpent. Turtles, monkeys, pigs, and tigers have all had their time in the Chinese sun.

I wonder what we American Christians would call the years if we named them for animals instead of numbering them. What would this new year be?

Maybe the year of the rabbit, since the great emphasis among evangelicals seems to be on procreation and numerical growth.

Or the beaver. The year of the beaver: I like that. It creates visions of new—if not more stately—and larger church buildings. Enlarge the dammed-up pond and attract more beavers.

The anteater is another possibility. Let others take their aim at tigers and wolves; we’ll settle for ants.

How about the rhinoceros? Thick skin, horn upraised; nobody will get in his way. Relational theology? It’s for the birds, not us rhinos.

With one of us in the White House under Democratic party aegis, perhaps Christians should call this the year of the donkey. (A survey of many church boards might confirm the decision.)

I’ve racked my brain without being able to think of an animal that mauls and kills its own kind. So the current tendency toward internecine warfare among Christians is indescribable.

I wish this would turn out to be the year of the Lion. Don’t you?

EUTYCHUS VIII

Finding Evangelism

I have mixed reactions to the article by C. Peter Wagner, “How ‘Christian’ Is America?” (Dec. 3). While he has pointed out many glaring weaknesses of the Gallup report (the large proportion of the 71 per cent who are probably nominally Christian), I am somewhat disturbed by other comments.

He states, “Mainline denominations are beginning to recapture the evangelistic priority on high levels.” However, only two individuals were specifically named. Also, while these denominations may be rethinking their priorities in the area of evangelism, what do they offer as a definition of evangelism? I should think that this would have great bearing on whether or not they are truly involving themselves in biblical evangelism.

Dr. Wagner further finds great hope in “strong statements on biblical evangelism” which “are coming from Roman Catholic leaders.” I find this incredulous! While I would be the last to deny that there are Roman Catholics who are really born again, it is very difficult for me to imagine the basic tenets of the church having changed to include an “evangelism” apart from the sacraments which are the very foundation of Catholicism! Could Dr. Wagner do a follow-up on these changes in Roman Catholicism? Or could it be that he is now advocating a salvation different from Ephesians 2:8, 9?… While I agree with much of what Dr. Wagner has written, I cannot accept the sum total of the article. It would seem that he is so interested in finding a fountainhead of evangelistic orientation in America that whatever is called evangelism is accepted as biblical simply on that basis alone.

PHILIP A. JONES

First Baptist Church

Freeport, Ill.

C. Peter Wagner’s otherwise stimulating article seems misguided in one central premise. As a staff member of one of the organizations responsible for blocking any government religious census in this country, I would like to respond to his suggestion that it is only “undue nervousness over maintaining separation of church and state” that prevents the Census Bureau from collecting religious data.

It seems to us that there are a number of very sound reasons for opposing an official religious census conducted by the United States government. For one thing, such a census would imply an intensified role for government at a time in our history when many (most?) Americans are questioning the level of government involvement in their personal lives. Government has no legitimate concern with areas in which it cannot legislate, and it is forbidden to legislate in the area of religion. In a country which protects all religious expressions, it is illegitimate for government to even be concerned about the degree of religious belief, affiliation, or practice that such a census would inevitably involve.… Since churches and church research groups can do the job reasonably well, it is not appropriate for the government to gather data for the primary use of churches. Such an undertaking would surely violate the “principal or primary effect test,” upon which many church-state legal decisions are decided.

Finally, we question whether any census in any country could really uncover the number of individuals who “practice the Christian code in their daily lives.” This type of data would elude the most sophisticated government data-gathering agencies, or even public-opinion surveys. We believe the churches and synagogues of America are quite capable of gathering adequate statistical and quantitative information to help them in their work. Let’s not call upon the government for everything.

ALBERT J. MENENDEZ

Director of Research

Americans United for Separation of Church and State

Silver Spring, Md.

Who Pays For “No Need”?

I do not wish to detract from the very fine article by Leon Gerig, “Financing for the Future” (Nov. 5). On the other hand, I do feel that the article contains one inference which your readers should examine and consider very carefully. The list of possibilities offered to parents who wish to receive financial assistance for students planning to attend college is very inclusive and will be a great help to many people. Those people should consider, however, the moral implications of applying for or using “no need” scholarships. By asking for this sort of consideration, parents are indicating that they wish to be considered on a set of standards which differs from those used for the great majority of financial-aid applicants. They should bear in mind, also, that the cost of providing such scholarships must be borne by someone. The someone may be other students in the same college or, particularly in the case of Christian colleges, it may be an underpaid faculty. Within the financial-aid officer’s profession, there is probably not a clear consensus on the ethical nature of “no-need” scholarships. Many people will be inclined to accept such awards if they are extended. I would hope that your readers would be among the group who would consider saying no to such offers and pointing out to colleges why they cannot accept them.

JOHN H. LETARTE

Dean of Student Admissions and Records

The State University at Potsdam

Potsdam, N. Y.

Readers often ask, “What does ITG mean on my mailing label?” Or, “When does my subscription expire?” The answer is simple: ITG 15 means the subscription has fifteen Issues To Go before it expires. We publish twice a month, twenty-four times a year. To make it work out right we occasionally have a three-week, rather than a two-week, interval between issues. This usually happens in the summer and at the end of the year.

When Harry Whitley announced his retirement in 1972 from the High Kirk of Edinburgh (St. Giles’), his street-corner newsvendor complained it would be bad for business. “When I wanted to get to the pub before six o’clock,” he explained, “I only needed to shout ‘Whitley in trouble again!’ In no time my papers were snapped up.”

“What’s going to happen now?” the vendor demanded of the offending pastor. “Couldn’t they find you another job? I hear the Pope’s in poor health.”

Dr. Whitley’s appointment to St. Giles’ in 1954 had been unexpected. Brought up in the Catholic Apostolic Church, and a biographer of Edward Irving, he did pioneer youth work in Edinburgh’s slums, then entered the ministry after coming under the spell of Dr. George MacLeod. During his first two pastorates on Clydeside he scandalized the fashionable by dirtying his hands painting dreary tenements and consorting with the poor.

At St. Giles’ he encountered blighting opposition. For eight years his ministry was incredibly inhibited when his senior minister tried to resume the full control he had formally relinquished. From him Whitley two years later received the following letter: “I have never invited you to call me by my Christian name, and I would prefer that you would not do so. So perhaps you will do me the courtesy of continuing to address me in the future as you have done in the past.” Here is the unacceptable face of Presbyterianism wherein some ministers are more equal than others.

This letter is quoted in Harry Whitley’s newly published work Thorns and Thistles (Edina Press, £4), a sequel to his Laughter in Heaven (reviewed in this journal June 19, 1964, p. 25). To launch the book the publishers gave a small reception. Harry Whitley died last May, but his old friend Lord George MacLeod was there and led off with some inimitable comments. “The great thing about the church today,” he suggested, “is that it is not being persecuted, because there is nothing to persecute it about. Even where there is enthusiasm [here he cited some modern movements] it is sometimes more airborne than reborn.”

MacLeod added that it was extraordinary the lengths people will go in talking about ecumenicity—but few of them made the mistake of practicing it. Here he advocated a careful reading of the sixteen pages Whitley had devoted to what became known as “The Tirrell Affair.”

The Reverend John A. Tirrell, an Episcopalian from the diocese in California then presided over by the late Bishop James Pike, came to pursue postgraduate research in New College, Edinburgh. He needed a job to help pay his way, and none was forthcoming in his own denomination. He worshiped regularly at St. Giles’ and so commended himself that Whitley invited him to fill a vacant assistantship there. Bishop Pike, asked for permission, wired back, “O.K.—this is a great opportunity.” John Tirrell (to anticipate a little) made a big contribution to the St. Giles’ team. It was on Whitley’s part an imaginative gesture, an ecumenical action nevertheless doomed to failure because it had not originated in the official ecumenical stables where they know about such things.

Whitley found himself in the middle of what Ian Henderson once called “this ghastly internecine strife among Christians which the Ecumenical Movement has brought about.” From the Episcopal side the bishop of Edinburgh threatened sanctions upon the young Californian; in the Kirk’s general assembly an elder statesman said that brotherly love had nothing to do with the case—it was a question of right procedure.

By this time Tirrell was seeking to exercise “a full ministry,” and wanted permission to dispense the sacraments. Alas, upon that rock the project foundered.

The Tirrell Affair was referred from presbytery to general assembly and then back to presbytery, which finally decided that Tirrell could administer the sacraments in St. Giles’ if Bishops Pike and Carey (of Edinburgh) concurred. By this time it had become a cause célèbre. The Church of England assembly at West-minster heard a very slanted account (I was there) from a canon who turned out to be a friend of the bishop of Edinburgh. The archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Ramsey, not Dr. Fisher as Harry Whitley says) wrote personally to the moderator, not realizing this was quite the wrong way to deal with a Presbyterian church. Bishop Pike, on a visit to England, was persuaded to change his mind.

Not only was the ecumenical battle lost, but the impression was given that a bishop of the tiny Episcopal Church in Scotland (with communicants making up less than 1 per cent of the population) could tell the national Church of Scotland who could administer the sacraments in the mother church of Presbyterianism.

An earlier controversy in which Whitley was involved arose from his dismay at finding John Knox’s burial place marked by a plaque in Parliament Square over which the lawyers of Edinburgh parked their cars. He determined to restore honor to his illustrious predecessor, who is now sadly ignored by Kirk and capital. His attempt to move a statue of Knox out of St. Giles’ and into the square outside met official obstruction, but he and his colleagues did it just the same—“early one morning.”

Altogether, Whitley’s book is a fascinating account of establishment pressures on a nonconformist who disliked “wafflers and God-botherers.” True to form, he took his farewell words to Edinburgh Presbytery from Edward Irving, himself deposed from the Kirk’s ministry in 1833 for alleged heresy but now partially rehabilitated. I quote in full:

“Be of no school; give heed to none of their rules or canons. Take thy liberty, be fettered by no times, accommodate no man’s conveniency, spare no man’s prejudice, yield to no man’s inclinations, though thou should scatter all thy friends, and rejoice all thine enemies. Preach the Gospel: not the gospel of the last age, or of this age, but the everlasting gospel; not Christ crucified merely, but Christ risen; not Christ risen merely, but Christ present in the Spirit, and Christ to be again present in person. Preach thy Lord in humiliation, and thy Lord in exaltation; and not Christ only, but the Father, and the will of the Father. Keep not thy people banqueting, but bring them out to do battle for the glory of God, and of his church; to which end thou shalt need to preach them the Holy Ghost, who is the strength of battle.”

Both Irving and Whitley remind me of an ancient writer who said (I quote from memory): “No man has attained to the degree of truth until a thousand righteous men bear witness that he is a heretic.” It must be disturbing to the establishment that God does not always choose to relay instructions through proper channels.

A recent announcement over government-owned Radio Zaire made it official: “The administration of public primary and secondary schools will be returned to the churches.”

Legal representatives of the Catholics, Protestants, and Kimbanguists (a semicultic independent church) have begun meeting with Department of Education officials in Kinshasa, the capital, to work out details of the decision, according to sources. That could take a long time. The transfer involves well over three million students, 80,000 teachers, and a budget that since 1965 has averaged about 20 per cent of the total national budget.

Since the first days of Belgian colonial rule, almost all education of the children was done in parochial schools. Even when the government nationalized the primary and secondary schools in 1974, fourteen years after independence, 80 per cent of the public schools were still administered by various church groups.

If the transfer of schools back to the religious sector is complicated for the government, it also causes complications for the churches. When the schools were taken over in 1974, some teachers threw off moral restraints and assumed a life-style impossible under a church-administered system, and in some areas persons antagonistic to the local churches were appointed school directors. The resulting question: What should the churches do with them?

While reaction among Zairian church leaders seems generally favorable to the transfer, some foresee a serious problem. The government take-over had resulted in some spiritual benefits that could be canceled out by the recent reversal of policy. An American Baptist Churches mission spokesman observed, “Overall, it was generally agreed that there were advantages in [the 1974 nationalization]. Church-appointed Zairian school directors and missionary educators remained at their posts, and it was a relief for them to be freed from the heavy burden of administrative responsibility for a school system which served hundreds of villages over a widespread geographical area. They felt a new sense of freedom and found that more of their time and energy could be devoted to programs of evangelism and Christian service. At the same time, opportunities for Christian witness in the classroom were as great as before nationalization, and in some cases, even greater.”

Resuming the responsibilities of school administration and its insatiable demands could drain from the churches that new sense of freedom and commitment to evangelism which has flourished since 1974, some leaders fear.

The recent decision clobbers the much-publicized goal of complete “Africanization” of the schools by 1980. Churches with mission ties will certainly appeal for expatriate help as they try to cope with administrative responsibilities for as many as 80,000 children in some jurisdictions.

The “Africanization” goal of the government had political as well as cultural implications. Some high officials claimed that as long as the children were educated in church-run schools, their loyalty would never belong totally to the state. The banning of religious instruction in the schools and the formation of all students into political cadres were part of the nationalization decree in 1974.

Where Two Or Three …

Zion United Methodist Church in Marissa, Illinois, may be the smallest church in America. With only three members, it has been kept open for fifty years by a brother and sister, Alex and Pearl Wildy, 83 and 87 respectively. It was their mother’s last wish that they maintain the church, founded in 1868. They place flowers on her grave before each service. Pastor R. David Reynolds, 28, is paid in cash each week by Alex Wildy, who also tends the church’s kerosene lamps and coal stove. Reynolds, who has been at Zion for four years, is also pastor of the nearby 148-member Marissa United Methodist Church.

This ban on religious instruction proved ineffectual, and it has been dropped. The commissioner of state for political affairs cautioned church leaders, however, that though the churches resumed administration of the schools, this did not necessarily mean that clergy and other religious personnel should take over the teaching posts.

Why did the government of President Mobutu Sese Seko turn the schools back to the churches? One missionary correspondent reported that there has been widespread moral regression under nationalization, and this has alarmed government leaders. But money may be the overriding factor. The government has learned that setting up an educational administration parallelling the already existing one of the churches is too costly and not nearly so effective. So, in this view, economic reality won over “Africanization.”

The transfer of schools is probably related to a larger austerity program forced upon the Zaire government by its creditors. The nation owes $2.9 billion in overseas debts and needs still more money. Manhattan’s Citibank and other creditor banks have agreed to a new $250 million loan, but first they imposed tough conditions that are pressuring the government to make humiliating about-faces, of which the school system is not the worst.

The government policy regarding foreign-owned companies, for example, has boomeranged to discredit the nation and hurt innocent Zairians. In 1973 Mobutu forced out many expatriate small businessmen and farmers and turned over their homes, assets, and businesses to selected Zairians. Now he is asking these expelled foreigners to return, while ordering the Zairians out of their houses and demanding full accountability of the “Africanized” properties.

In effect, the same sort of thing has happened in education.

Pneuma ’76: A Call For Unity

The sixth annual meeting of the Society for Pentecostal Studies convened in Atlanta last month to hear papers on “The Biblical Basis of the Pentecostal Faith.” This theme was chosen in part as a response to Nazarene Timothy Smith’s challenge in 1975 to deemphasize glossolalia in Pentecostal faith and practice. The papers presented by a dozen classical Pentecostal scholars did just the opposite, with John Swails III of Emmanuel College suggesting the occurrence of glossolalia in the Old Testament Jewish prophetic tradition. On the other hand, Professor Bill MacDonald of Gordon College questioned “messages in tongues” directed to congregations since glossolalia in his view is usually “God-directed” rather than “man-directed.”

Cecil B. Knight, General Overseer of the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), gave the opening address. While recognizing the value of cultural and organizational diversity among Pentecostals, he called for them—the new charisismatics and old-line Pentecostals alike—to come together” in mutually beneficial ways. For example, he suggested, a joint Pentecostal seminary could be established. Citing the costs of maintaining several small struggling institutions, Knight suggested that a jointly operated institution using the “cluster concept” of denominational components with a shared faculty and central facilities might be the answer for the classical Pentecostal groups.

Graduate theological training is a recent development among American Pentecostal denominations. At present there are three in operation: the Assemblies of God Graduate School in Springfield, Missouri (founded in 1973); the Church of God Graduate School in Cleveland, Tennessee (1975), and C. H. Mason Seminary in Atlanta (1970), operated by the largest black Pentecostal body, the Church of God in Christ. It is one of several seminaries connected with Atlanta’s Interdenominational Theological Center. Melodyland School of Theology in Anaheim, California, is interdenominationally charismatic, and Oral Roberts University in Tulsa is making another attempt to have a graduate seminary program.

Also surfacing at the conference was the fact that Pentecostals are entering older seminaries in increasing numbers on both the faculty and student levels. For example, Russell Spittler of the Assemblies of God was recently made assistant dean at Fuller Theological Seminary where as many as one-third of the students come from Pentecostal backgrounds. New York City’s venerable Union Seminary now includes two Pentecostals on the faculty: James A. Forbes, Jr., a dynamic young black scholar and preacher of the United Holy Church who holds the chair of homiletics once held by Harry Emerson Fosdick, and Old Testament professor Jerry Shepherd of the Assemblies of God.

In the restaurants and corridors between sessions, the inerrancy question raised by Harold Lindsell’s book The Battle for the Bible held the center of attention. Practically all Pentecostals would give assent to the inerrancy teaching (even though the word “inerrancy” does not appear in most Pentecostal denominational statements of faith), but concern was expressed over the prospects of “heresy trials” that might divert attention from the advance of the Pentecostal and charismatic renewals that are sweeping the world. Knight, however, underlined the doctrine in his address as the “platform [on which] we can stand together as Pentecostals and as Christians.”

In business sessions, the SPS reacted favorably to the overture of the World Pentecostal Conference which in September designated the Society as an officially recognized “research agency.” Program chairman Horace Ward, Jr., of West Coast Bible College (Church of God, Cleveland) was elevated to the presidency, while Anthony Palma, dean of the Assemblies of God Graduate School was placed in charge of next year’s program.

VINSON SYNAN

The Pickpocket

Somewhere there’s a pickpocket who may be better for having committed one of his crimes—if he took what he stole to heart.

Southern Baptist mission pastor John Wallen was standing on a busy street corner in Neosho, Missouri, waiting for traffic to clear. Suddenly a stranger with a coat draped over his arm brushed by and disappeared. Wallen immediately checked his wallet. It was still there, but something else was missing from his coat pocket. The thief had stolen a packet of tracts on “How to Have a Full and Meaningful Life.”

Crucial Vote

Voting has begun in the sixty presbyteries (regional units) of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. (Southern) on the proposed change in its doctrinal stance. Included are new ordination vows, a book of confessions, and a new declaration of faith. Opponents of the package said in a full-page advertisem*nt in the December Presbyterian Survey that the denomination is taking “the most crucial vote in decades.” Among the signers of the “Save Our Theology” appeal were former stated clerk James A. Millard, Jr., Mrs. Billy Graham, and former moderators C. Darby Fulton and J. McDowell Richards. Two other former moderators have also opposed an affirmative vote, but sixteen have said they favor the changes.

The first three presbyteries to vote on the package passed it with comfortable margins. Three-fourths of the regional units must approve if it is to go back to the General Assembly for a final constitutional vote. By the third week of next month three-fourths will have cast their ballots. If the contest is close, the outcome may not be known until the last of the presbyteries meet in April.

Absolution

Jackson, Tennessee, is not a place that generates much news of international interest. This overwhelmingly Protestant city of about 40,000 on the road from Memphis to Nashville is an especially unlikely site for important Roman Catholic developments.

But when Bishop Carroll Dozier came to Jackson from Memphis last month, so did reporters from the three major television networks, two wire services, and assorted other agencies. They dutifully recorded every detail of the second edition of a service he had conducted in Memphis a week earlier (most of them had missed it). Approximately 2,000 of the faithful attended the civic-center event in Jackson, while about six times that number had participated in the first edition at the Memphis Coliseum.

Why was all this newsworthy? Why did the Pope’s personal representative go to the trouble of issuing a statement saying he had not approved the program? Why did Catholic publications and prelates across the country “choose up sides” and commend or condemn the bishop of west Tennessee?

Dozier had touched a Catholic nerve by absolving divorced and remarried Catholics of their sins to the extent that they could partake of communion. To do this, he granted a “general absolution,” a rite usually reserved for soldiers going into battle or people in other emergency situations. The well-publicized services were attended by inactive Catholics from distant places as well as those from within the Memphis diocese.

The bishop instructed the communicants—many of whom had not been to mass for years—to go to confession within a year. This point, too, disturbed some of his colleagues. The president of the National Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Joseph L. Bernardin of Cincinnati, issued a statement specifying that confessing sin to a priest before communion is still the norm.

The Non-Conformists

A new Gallup Poll shows that about 12 per cent of American adults are engaged in non-traditional religious movements. Transcendental Meditation (TM) was found to be the most popular, supported by 4 per cent of the 1,553 adults surveyed (or six million of the nation’s population). Yoga was listed by 3 per cent, the charismatic movement and mysticism by 2 per cent each (or an estimated three million people each), and eastern religions by 1 per cent.

The followers of TM and yoga tend to be young adults under age 25, said the Gallup report. It also stated that most of the new religions tend to place great value on the inner self and the attainment of mental, psychic, or spiritual states of peace.

No Resurrection

New York City police are investigating a bizarre case involving a group of cult members who were found in an apartment praying over the decomposed body of a man who had died of cancer in early October. Oric Bovar, 59, and five of his followers, were exhorting the deceased, a 29-year-old graduate student from Greece, to rise from the dead, the police said. The prayer vigil apparently had lasted two months.

Bovar has been described as a writer, opera coach, and astrologist. It was as an astrologist living in Italy but frequently visiting the United States that he built up a following of perhaps as many as 1,000, including many young entertainers and professionals in both New York and Los Angeles. A number defected when he returned nineteen months ago from Italy changed in appearance and philosophy. For one thing, he indicated that he was Jesus Christ incarnate, say defectors, and he laid down a lot of rules: no drinking, no drugs, no doctors or medicine, no premarital sex, no meat-eating, and no dealing with anybody else in the psychic business. Disobedience would bring dire results, he warned.

The police went to the apartment after receiving a call from a woman identifying herself as Mary Magdalene, who described the vigil. The body was covered with a shroud and lying on a bed surrounded by the six praying men. One of the men said the six were not part of a cult but simply members of a prayer group motivated by a deeply shared “faith in Jesus Christ.”

Religion in Transit

Among the sixty-one floats in the nationally televised Pageant of Roses Parade on New Year’s Day in Pasadena, California, were entries by the Garden Grove (California) Community Church, the Lutheran Laymen’s League, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormon). The Garden Grove float was the sole entry sponsored by a single congregation in the by-invitation-only event. Television preacher Robert Schuller is pastor of the church. The grand marshalls of the event were Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, well-known in evangelical circles for their witness and Christian books.

For the fifth time a proposal to ordain women to the ministry failed to gain the necessary two-thirds vote by classes (districts) of the Reformed Church in America. The denomination’s General Synod last June recommended the classes to vote affirmatively in order to permit the synod to vote on the issue this year.

The Missouri branch of the Church of Scientology lost its $2.5 million libel suit against the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and two of its reporters, James Adams and Elaine Viets. The case involved five articles on the sect and its recruiting practices published in 1974. It was balanced reporting that did not constitute malicious defamation, the state supreme-court justices indicated in a unanimous decision. Observers say Scientologists have developed a reputation for media confrontations, compounding their image-polishing problems.

Here Comes Santa

In cities across America the Salvation Army bell-ringers manning the Christmas kettles and the Volunteers of America Santa Clauses got some unexpected—and unwanted—competition. Members of the Hare Krishna sect stopped their chanting, donned Santa Claus outfits, and hit the streets to pass out literature and candy canes or flowers and to hustle donations in exchange for the freebies.

VOA leaders complained that the super-salesmen Krishna Santas had given a bad image to street Santas in general and that contributions to the VOA were down drastically.

In some locations competing Santas almost came to blows, and police ticketed a number of Krishna Santas who failed to move on when told. Authorities warned the alien Santas against misrepresentation.

The Krishna people say they didn’t want to confuse anybody. “When people see Santa, the contemporary emblem of Christmas, we want them to think of God,” explained one leader.

The United Church of Canada is trying to stop the Reed paper company from cutting down more than 16 million acres of timber in northern Ontario. A church research report says that the result would be “an ecological catastrophe” affecting Canadian Indians who, contrary to promises, have not been consulted.

The Christian Broadcasting Network of Portsmouth, Virginia, has ordered a satellite earth station that will give it the capability to broadcast simultaneously across the United States and around the world. The unit is valued at $500,000.

Atheist activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair is still in the news. She announced the revival of the annual celebration of the Winter Solstice on December 21, which she claimed was stolen by Christians to celebrate the birth “of their mythical Christ.” She also declared Thursday to be the sabbath day of American atheists, and urged that employers arrange the work schedules of atheist employees accordingly. Meanwhile, her son William J. Murray, 30, has filed a $1 million suit against Gospel Tract Society of Independence, Missouri, for publishing a pamphlet allegedly describing him inaccurately as having forsaken his atheist convictions and become a Christian.

Dallas—Big D or Big Dud? A Bill Gaither “Praise Gathering” concert and a “World Thrust” conference sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ had to be cancelled recently due to lack of interest (from 5,000 to 10,000 registrants had been hoped for), and a national prayer congress expected to attract 10,000 drew fewer than 1,000. Nearly 100,000 thronged to the city less than five years ago for Campus Crusade’s Explo ’72. But Crusade’s “Here’s Life” effort, a roaring success in some cities, by comparison made only a dull thud in Big D last year.

Pastor Charles Blair of the bankrupt Calvary Temple church in Denver was sentenced last month to five years probation, fined $12, 750, and ordered to repay in full all victims of the financial collapse associated with Blair and the Temple. Blair was found guilty last August on seventeen counts of fraudulent sale of securities. He has vowed to repay “every cent” and is making progress toward that goal.

The National Council of Churches has raised about $70,000 since July for the legal defense of Leonard Crow Dog, 33, a Sioux medicine man serving prison sentences for convictions connected with the takeover of Wounded Knee by radicals in 1973. NCC direct-mail appeals portray him as “a victim of outrageous injustice.” The NCC contends that Crow Dog was performing religious and medical services and had nothing to do with the violence and theft for which he was jailed.

The National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., will provide an emergency backup loan program of up to $1 million for the ailing NAACP, says NBC president Joseph H. Jackson. A cash sum of $250,000 has been set aside for the purpose, the NBC will borrow a similar amount, and another $500,000 will be available from an unspecified source, according to Jackson.

The best tactic in combatting objectionable TV programming is to make it unprofitable for the sponsors. “Hit them in the billfold; you can’t get any closer to their hearts,” said Dallas advertising man William Hill in summing up the consensus of a Southern Baptist-sponsored hearing on television and morality.

Personalia

Evangelist Billy Graham made headlines in the National Enquirer with a statement expressing his belief that intelligent, ordinary-looking beings may exist in outer space and “have developed space vehicles capable of reaching Earth.” He said he believes they worship God, would visit Earth in peace if they came, and could hold the solution to many of Earth’s problems.

President David Allan Hubbard of Fuller Seminary was recently elected president of the Association of Theological Schools, an accrediting agency with nearly 200 Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and Jewish seminaries and theological schools as members.

Rebecca Ann Reid, 17, a member of Royal Haven Baptist Church in Dallas who was chosen Miss Teenage America of 1977 from among 20,000 entrants, says she intends to share her faith in Christ with as many as possible during her reign.

Graham Kerr, the former Galloping Gourmet of television, and his wife Treena are building a mountain retreat near Vail, Colorado, for couples with serious marital problems. “We are in a Christian war against divorce,” declares Kerr, whose own troubled marriage was rescued only after he and his wife professed Christ last year. They’ve named their ministry Rejoice Fellowship. Couples will be charged $24 per day for five days, including meals, but they will do their own cooking (from Kerr-packed kits and menus)—part of the Kerr therapy.

Methodist clergyman Richard Jones, 70, retired as president of the Canadian Council of Christians and Jews, which he organized in 1947. He initiated Brotherhood Week, an observance that has spread to every major city in Canada.

World Scene

A number of church relief agencies have sent clothing, tent, medicine, and other aid to help the survivors of the recent earthquake in northeastern Turkey that killed several thousand and left thousands of others homeless in sub-freezing weather. (The quake’s epicenter was underneath Mt. Ararat.) Of the nearly 40 million people in Turkey, fewer than three dozen are evangelical Christians, according to mission sources.

In a pre-Christmas attack on religion, the Communist Party in the Soviet Union urged the news media to save Soviet youth from “church traps” by a more forceful presentation of atheism. Pravda, the party’s paper, said letters from readers are complaining of a new “attitude of reconciliation toward religion” that is especially evident among the young.

Three Catholic missionaries from West Germany were slain last month by a terrorist in Rhodesia.

The Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland rejected the ordination of women, the third time advocates of it got a majority vote but not the required three-fourths majority. About 600 female theological graduates serve as unordained lectors, fulfilling many functions of pastors, but without approval to celebrate the eucharist.

The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) is probably America’s newest denomination. It was constituted officially last month in Chicago by break-away elements from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). The 172 delegates and some 200 observers represented about 150 congregations and 75,000 baptized members in five regional synods across the country. Predictions of 300 or more congregations by mid-year were common.

Pastor William Kohn of a Milwaukee church was elected to a two-year term as president, initially a part-time executive position. Kohn, a former LCMS district president, resigned in 1974 as the chief LCMS mission executive in protest against the Missouri Synod’s conservatism.

Pastor Will Herzfeld of Oakland, California, a prominent leader among black Lutherans, was elected vice-president.

A constitution and by-laws were adopted. The constitution contains a confessional statement similar to the Missouri Synod’s, and it provides for a biennial review of whether or not the AELC should continue in existence.

A five-part resolution declared “continuing fellowship” with the LCMS and indicated a desire for altar and pulpit fellowship with the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church in America, and “other Lutheran church bodies in this continent and throughout the world.” The board of directors was instructed to apply for membership in cooperative Lutheran agencies, and to explore possible membership in both the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches. A recommendation regarding NCC and WCC membership is to be presented at the 1978 convention.

A decision on the ordination of women to the ministry was left to the discretion of the five regional synods, which were formed in the weeks prior to the Chicago meeting. The delegates agreed to “commend to the other synods … the action of the Pacific Regional Synod in approving the ordination of women” and to urge them to take action. The 2.7-million-member LCMS does not ordain women, but the Pacific Synod’s action is in line with the practice of the other two major Lutheran denominations, which do. At least one woman, Janith Otte of Oakland, is qualified for the ministry and is seeking a pastorate in the AELC. Several other women are at the seminary level.

Seminex (Concordia Seminary-in-Exile) and Partners in Mission, a support operation for domestic and overseas ministries, were recognized as part of the AELC. Each is responsible for its own funding, however.

A 1977 budget of $140,000 was adopted, and AELC members were challenged to study various social and ecclesiastical issues.

The AELC board selected Elwyn Ewald of St. Louis as the denomination’s executive secretary for the next two years. He has been the chief executive of Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM), the dissident body in the Missouri Synod out of which most of the AELC’s leaders came. (ELIM is continuing its work on a reduced scale for the immediate future despite pressure against it by Missouri Synod loyalists, say sources.) St. Louis will serve as AELC headquarters city for the time being, according to Ewald.

In a convention sermon, Seminex president John Tietjen urged the AELC to institute safeguards against organizations and regulations that overshadow a concern for people and result in a “new legalism,” a slap at the Missouri Synod. “The Gospel alone is the criterion for our fellowship,” he declared.

Kohn got applause when he said during the keynote address: “It is our intention as a church body to give the people of the AELC the opportunity to be involved in the study of theological issues so that consensus on understanding the Scriptures, rather than voting power, shall be the deciding factor.” It was another obvious reference to the doctrinal turmoil that has beset the LCMS in recent years.

New York pastor C. Thomas Spitz, the AELC’s ecumenical officer, conceded that the nation doesn’t need another Lutheran church but that AELC members need each other. The AELC does not intend to continue a separate existence over a prolonged period of time, he said.

“We believe that Lutheran consolidation will occur,” he asserted, “and we want to be a part of it.” (AELC leaders predict a six-to ten-year lifespan for their church.)

In corridor talk, reporters noted that it is usually conservative groups that break away from liberal-controlled bodies to form new organizations. A reversal of that trend occurred in 1962 when the Progressive National Baptist Convention was formed by churches that left the more conservative National Baptist Convention, U.S.A. The AELC is the most prominent illustration of such a reversal so far in this decade.

There was little overt bitterness or high emotion evident in the AELC proceedings. But there are many troubles at the local level. A hint of them was contained in a report of the LCMS board of directors, whose meetings overlapped with the AELC convention. In a resolution on property rights, the board reminded member congregations that in the event of division or threatened division within a congregation, all parties are encouraged to deal with each other and with the issue in Christian love and concern. The board also said that it is not automatic that a minority in a congregation has no rights regarding the congregation’s property when the majority votes to terminate membership in the LCMS. Nor is it true that courts are prohibited from deciding a church property dispute just because a doctrinal controversy exists, the report says.

A statement outlining “theological, legal, and practical ramifications of schism within congregations” was to be mailed to all LCMS congregations this month.

A Rewarding Study

A knowledge of the Bible can be rewarding, as any Bible college professor can attest. Especially Richard McNeely of Biola College in suburban Los Angeles. Somehow he got picked as a contestant on the television game show “50 Grand Slam.” The show is based on the contestants’ knowledge on the given topic of the day. On McNeely’s day, the topic was the Bible. When it was over he had won the top prize of $50,000.

Our Man At the U.N.

President-elect Jimmy Carter’s nominee for the chief U.S. diplomatic post at the United Nations, Congressman Andrew Jackson Young, Jr., 44, is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ. He travels in ecumenical circles (for years he’s held office in the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches) and prays in evangelical ones (he is part of the prayer-group movement in Congress, meeting weekly with a few Republican and Democratic “moderates” for discussion and prayer). He describes himself as a liberal socially and politically but a “fairly orthodox” believer theologically. He commutes to Georgia most weekends and frequently preaches twice on Sunday; the churches he visits vary widely.

The son of a dentist, Young grew up in a middle-class black family in a New Orleans neighborhood that was nearly all white. The family attended Central Congregational Church. Young was educated in black public and private schools, Dillard University, and Howard University in Washington, D.C., from which he graduated at age 19. On his way home from Howard he met a white fresh out of Yale Divinity School who was on his way to Africa as a missionary. “He was the first young Christian I had ever really gotten to know,” Young recalled in an interview with correspondent James C. Hefley. The friend invited Young to a summer youth conference in Texas sponsored by the NCC.

“That was the first time that I sat down and really studied the New Testament,” he said. It was a spiritual turning point. Young decided to enter full-time Christian work, intending to enroll in seminary and then go to Africa as a missionary, a decision that at first upset his family (his father wanted him to be a dentist).

At Hartford Seminary he studied Gandhi and became convinced that the country’s social ills could be changed without violence.

He worked in various youth projects and among a number of local congregations. While running a Bible school at the First Congregational Church in Marion, Alabama, he met Jean Childs, a Bible teacher who had attended Manchester College in Indiana. She later became his wife (they have four children).

Their applications for missionary work somehow went astray in the denominational bureaucracy, and by the time it was all straightened out the Youngs were settled in the pastorate of a small church in Thomasville, Georgia (Young was ordained in 1955 into the ministry of the former Congregational Christian Church).

Two years later Young joined the NCC staff as a youth-work executive, then went to work for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1961. He became executive director of the civil rights organization in 1964 and executive vice-president in 1967. In 1968 he was named chairman of the NCC’s Delta Ministry program (he retained his SCLC post). Throughout the civil-rights marches and demonstrations of the early and middle 1960s he was frequently out front with Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders.

In 1970 the firm-willed but soft-spoken Young won the Democratic nomination for Congress from Georgia’s fifth district but lost the election. In 1972 he ran again and became Georgia’s first black congressman since 1870. During these forays he often bumped into a rising Georgia politician named Jimmy Carter (he ran for governor in 1970). “I found out he was sensitive to people,” says Young, “and that impressed me.” They became friends. During the recent presidential campaign, Young was one of Carter’s closest advisors, and he helped to deliver the black vote.

Young is on the international committee that oversees the WCC’s controversial Program to Combat Racism. He says he is committed to the concept of majority rule in southern Africa. Therefore, he had no problems of conscience as a committee member in approving grants to “liberation” movements. “The money was to be used for humanitarian purposes—food, clothing, medical care,” he says. “We made no judgment on the way in which the people struggled against oppression.”

The Youngs envision themselves someday going back to a little country church “to work with ordinary people and their problems.” But for now it’s a big building in New York and some very big problems as America’s ambassador to the United Nations.

“I hope that I will always be open enough for God to lead me, no matter where it is that he wants me to go,” affirms the minister.

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Amy’s New Teacher

The wife of a United Methodist pastor will be Amy Carter’s new teacher when the daughter of the President-elect moves to Washington.

“We have a lot in common, being from the South and, most important of all, Christian,” said Mrs. Verona Meeder, fourth- and fifth-grade teacher at Thaddeus Stevens School, located about five blocks from the White House.

Mrs. Meeder, a black, is a native of North Carolina. Her husband was the pastor of a United Methodist church near the school until last June. Since then, Andrew Meeder has been the pastor of Lanham Methodist Church in suburban Maryland. He is a graduate of Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. The couple met while both were students at East Carolina University.

The Thaddeus Stevens School is located just off K Street Northwest, a key thoroughfare along which a number of the capital’s modern commercial office buildings are situated. The 108-year-old school was originally built for black children and was segregated during its first eighty-six years.

Nine-year-old Amy, whose mother was reared a Methodist, will be the first child of an American president to attend public school in Washington since Theodore Roosevelt’s son Quentin. The three-story school has 215 pupils from pre-kindergarten through the sixth grade. About 60 per cent are black American (more than 90 per cent of Washington’s public-school population is black), 10 per cent are white American, and the remaining 30 per cent are foreign-born from some two dozen countries, most of them from the diplomatic community.

Mrs. Meeder has taught at the school for ten years. Some of her pupils are Hindu and Muslim. They are excused from classes on their religious holidays.

John Novotney, Religious News Service correspondent, quoted the teacher as saying: “I consider it quite a responsibility. I feel a sense of mission to be given the challenge to teach her, and I’m very serious about how to deal with it.” She added that she hoped that as a result the image of urban schools will be given a lift.

As a pastor’s wife, Mrs. Meeder has taught Sunday school and worked with church women’s groups over the years. The Meeders have three children, a 21-year-old girl who is finishing college and two teen-age boys.

Amy’s new school, named after a Republican abolitionist congressman of the Civil War era, has reportedly been besieged with requests from parents in the suburbs offering to pay high tuition rates to be able to transfer their children there.

Secret Service spokesmen will not say how they intend to handle Amy’s security while she is at school, but if it becomes difficult she may be transferred to a more secluded private institution.

War in Toronto

In a move that made front-page news in the city’s papers and dominated newscasts early last month, Roman Catholic archbishop Philip Poco*ck of Toronto launched a full-scale attack on p*rnography. The spiritual head of Canada’s largest English-speaking archdiocese called on the 900,000 faithful to boycott all publications, theaters, and businesses that “encourage the p*rnographic.”

He issued his call to arms in advertisem*nts in all three Toronto dailies. They were paid for by the Knights of Columbus. In the ads, Poco*ck said the prime motivation for the current “amazing proliferation” of p*rnographic material is financial profit, but the ultimate result is “the destruction of the moral fibre and virtue of our people, especially the young.”

Priests in the 200 congregations of the archdiocese were ordered to read the letter at masses and to preach against p*rnography. Parents were urged to protest the sale of smut at neighborhood stores and to ask that “adult” publications, if they must be carried, be kept out of sight.

In an unprecedented display of unanimity, major Protestant leaders voiced their support and urged their church members to support the anti-obscenity drive.

LESLIE K. TARR

Saints in Memphis

Bishop J. O. Patterson, Sr., 64, was elected to a third four-year term as international presiding bishop of the three-million-member Church of God in Christ. The action was taken at the recent annual Holy Convocation of the black Pentecostal denomination in Memphis. Plans were also approved to build a $20 million national headquarters to be known as “Saints Center” in downtown Memphis. The complex will contain a 15,000-seat-dome-shaped auditorium, a 2.000-car garage, and other church facilities.

An estimated 45,000 delegates attended one or more sessions of the convention, which combined around-the-clock revival services and business meetings.

Serving Under Fire

The tightrope that relief administrators must walk to serve war victims was spotlighted by the National Catholic Reporter last month. The independent, lay-edited Catholic weekly, in a major feature article, warmed over allegations that it began making about ten years ago. It charged that officials of Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in Viet Nam were too cozy with government people. In particular, said the paper, the CRS director from 1967, Robert L. Charlebois, was too close to the Central Intelligence Agency and American Army personnel.

Charlebois, now working in CRS headquarters, was quick to deny that he had worked hand-in-glove with the U.S. military. His job, he said, was to “feed the poor.” The new CRS executive director, Bishop Edwin Broderick, said CRS’s goal for twenty-one years in Southeast Asia was “to help as many of God’s poor as possible.” In order to accomplish this, he explained, “it was necessary for CRS to work cooperatively with whatever governments were involved. Without their logistical support, it would be utterly impossible for CRS to carry on any kind of effective relief program.” Broderick stressed, however, that “at no time did CRS knowingly act on behalf of any military intelligence agencies, and if CRS reports and correspondence were used to supply any organization with ‘intelligence’ information, then CRS was never aware of such procedures.”

The Reporter feature, written by the weekly’s Washington correspondent, Richard Rashke, included some previously unpublished allegations by former CRS workers. It was entitled, “Christ’s Work—or the CIA’s.” While some of the material vital to the article’s overall charges is not attributed to any source, most of the new material is linked to Jacqui Chagnon, a former CRS staffer in Vietnam now working in Washington for Clergy and Laity Concerned, an anti-war group. Also quoted is Heinz Kotte, an expriest now working in Germany with Action for a World in Solidarity. Both claimed that goods were provided directly to the military or to families of soldiers. In response, CRS officials said the quickest and fastest way to get commodities to the needy was through the military.

Rashke’s article charged that U.S. personnel in charge of the war effort used a “carrot and stick” technique to get CRS workers to cooperate. Those who provided intelligence information and who were otherwise cooperative got such help as postal and post-exchange privileges, priority travel on CIA and military flights, and free housing, the article said. Charlebois responded that instead of being given such privileges, he often fought for them.

The article noted the resignation of a number of staffers who were disgusted with the relations between CRS and government officials. Charlebois said his people “were told before they came to Viet Nam that we were apolitical.… There were times when people got so emotionally involved that they couldn’t perform, at which time they had to be relieved from the staff.… I can honestly say I never, ever, removed a staff person at a request or suggestion of U.S. or Vietnamese officials.”

CRS is the largest relief agency in the world. The outlay in the past year, according to Associated Press figures, was $257 million, and in the past thirty-three years it has amounted to $3.7 billion.

High Tension In Latin America

Tension continues between the government of Ecuador and the Roman Catholic Church following the arrest of thirty-one people in a church-owned retreat house north of Quito in late November. The group was described by the minister of government, Colonel Bolivar Jarrin, as subversive and “ready to begin guerrilla activity.” Jarrin charged there were direct links between the group and the bishops’ meeting in the city of Riobamba in August that was broken up by police and resulted in the expulsion of a number of foreign clergy from the country (see September 10, 1976, issue, page 68).

A Spanish priest and two Ecuadorian ex-priests were among those detained, along with officials of the Catholic University, according to reports. The Spaniard was later expelled.

Among other accusations, the government claimed the group planned to incite the peasants. A number of farms in the province of Chimborazo have been occupied in recent weeks by peasants demanding land. They have the backing of Bishop Leonidas Proana of Riobamba, capital of the province, who organized the August bishops’ meeting.

The military government said that it is determined to continue with its plan for a return to democracy, with elections scheduled this year, but that it can do so only “in a climate of order and peace.”

According to a document found by police, the group arrested was allegedly planning to found a clandestine political movement, the “National Democratic Union,” which was to be formed by “the democratic elements of the people, the armed forces, and the new church.”

Meanwhile, in Colombia, the Catholic hierarchy there warned in a document released November 30 that Marxism is penetrating the church. The document, signed by sixty-five leaders from all over the country, criticized in harsh terms various dissident movements of priests and liberationist thinking, which “puts the temporal above the spiritual and tends to negate the transcendence of Christ’s redemptive action.”

The declaration was released three weeks after the military arrested three priests and a nun in Cartagena and confiscated arms, military uniforms, medicines, and cash that were hidden in a church and in the priests’ homes, apparently destined for the Communist guerrilla “National Liberation Army” (ELN). The four were accused of serving as a link with the guerrillas.

The bishops’ declaration characterized the Marxist influence as “not simply a compromising action in the light of the requirements of social justice” but “an attack against the pillars of the Catholic faith itself.”

STEPHEN R. SYWULKA

No Obituary Yet For Church Colleges

Church-related colleges, especially those with strong evangelical commitments, are not necessarily an endangered species. This finding, contrary to widely held opinion, was reported at year-end by the University of Arizona higher-education center after a study of ten-year enrollment trends. Principal authors of the report were Earl J. McGrath and Richard C. Neese. McGrath, executive director of the center’s program in liberal studies, is also senior adviser for education to the Lilly Endowment and former U.S. commissioner of education.

“Those institutions in which religion is a genuine force are faring better than those which have succumbed to the secularization widespread in our culture and in the enterprise of higher education at large,” McGrath and Reese concluded. They back up their statement with figures from 88 per cent of the self-declared church-related colleges and universities with full-time enrollments of 250 to 2,900 students. Over the 1965–75 decade, 327 institutions had an aggregate growth of 13 per cent. The total enrollment grew from 287,052 to 324,124.

The higher-education experts found the greatest growth in colleges related to groups with strong evangelical positions, such as the Assemblies of God and the Southern Baptist Convention. The thirty Southern Baptist institutions reporting in the survey experienced a ten-year growth of 31 per cent. At the other end of the scale, the American Baptist Churches was among the four denominations whose colleges showed a decrease during the decade. The five ABC schools lost 6 per cent. Also dropping in enrollment were colleges of the United Church of Christ (3 per cent), United Presbyterian Church (7 per cent), and Church of the Nazarene (10 per cent). However, the authors of the report explained that the Nazarene figure does not include two institutions organized since 1965. Had they been counted in the denominational total, the Nazarene category would have registered a 9 per cent increase.

McGrath and Neese noted that enrollments in many of the nation’s public colleges dropped sharply from 1975 to 1976 (even though they showed large gains from 1965 to 1975), but that church-related schools registered a gain. The writers also made special mention of the fact that some schools with strong evangelical positions, such as non-denominational Wheaton, were not covered in their survey. Many of these independent institutions are attracting record enrollments of highly qualified students, they said.

Enrollment is not all that counts, the experts cautioned. While students keep coming, the funds to educate them are harder to get. Said the Arizona report: “One of the principal purposes of this analysis is to refute the notion among potential donors that financial aid to the church-related college is a poor investment because it is in danger of closing for want of students. The fact is that with larger resources in the form of gifts—and particularly scholarship assistance—these institutions could easily draw a larger percentage of the college-going population.”

One of the denominational studies mentioned in the McGrath-Neese report is that of the National Commission on United Methodist Higher Education. At a November meeting this commission called for more “constitutionally permissible” state and federal funding for church-related colleges. At a meeting this spring it will decide on an official definition for “church-related.”

The ‘Threat’ To Religious Broadcasting: Somebody Is Lying

“Keep those cards and letters coming in” is the familiar appeal of American religious broadcasters.

There is one kind of card and letter they wish they could stop, though—the letter to the Federal Communications Commission about a long settled petition. Messages by the thousands continue to pour into the FCC (and into other federal offices) asking for a denial of a mythical petition from Madalyn Murray O’Hair that would “eliminate the proclamation of the Gospel via the airwaves in America.” If there were such a request to the FCC the broadcasters would welcome the mail, but there is none.

The petition number cited in most of the notices that encourages the letters is RM 2493. That is the number assigned to the Milam-Lansman petition, which the FCC denied in August, 1975. While Mrs. O’Hair, self-proclaimed atheist leader, might have been sympathetic to that request, she was not a party to it. The persons who filed it are communications consultants, and they were asking the FCC to rule in a rather narrowly-defined area of station licensing.

Mrs. O’Hair gained her fame in cases related to school devotions and astronaut Bible readings, but so far she has no pending business at the FCC. Yet notices crop up in church bulletins and newsletters stating (without authority) that the FCC has granted her a hearing.

Those notices prompt all sorts of appeals to the FCC, and the mail is an embarrassment to religious broadcasters. At last count last month, nearly four million pieces referring to RM 2493 had been received since it was denied in 1975.

The notices urging mail have shown up in every state, and the appeals are identical, said Ben Armstrong, executive secretary of National Religious Broadcasters. His organization has been trying for over a year to get Christians to turn off the correspondence. He said responsible broadcasters have made many appeals to their constituencies to ignore the anonymous suggestions to write. He is now convinced that someone with ulterior motives is behind the drive, trying either to embarrass the FCC or to ridicule religious broadcasting.

Armstrong has decided to get help in trying to track down the source of the appeals for letters. He has asked the FCC to bring the Justice Department into the investigation. Government sleuths may be able to turn up the culprit NRB has been unable to turn off.

Up, Up And Away!

Church Growth: Everybody’s Business, by E. LeRoy Lawson and Tesunao Yamamori (Standard, 1976, 152 pp., n.p., pb), Introducing Church Growth, by Tesunao Yamamori and LeRoy Lawson (Standard, 1975, 256 pp., n.p.), Your Church Can Grow, by C. Peter Wagner (Regal, 1976, 176 pp., $3.50 pb), and Your Church Has Real Possibilities, by Robert H. Schuller (Regal, 180 pp., $2.95 pb), are reviewed by Richard Allen Bodey, pastor, First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Gastonia, North Carolina.

A fantastic future for the institutional church in the United States of America”! This confident forecast by Robert H. Schuller, the pastor of California’s mushrooming Garden Grove Community Church, is welcome news indeed, especially at a time when, according to the many recent prophets of doom, the Church is nearly ready for last rites.

This new optimism about the institutional church is one of the tastier fruits of the church-growth movement, a “scientific approach” to understanding the principles and dynamics of church growth. Critics trace the movement to the American penchant for bigness as a sign of success. Proponents, however, claim biblical inspiration for it, arguing that the book of Acts sets forth a pattern of church growth that is meant to be normative, and is as feasible today as it was in the first century. Why, then, is it so largely frustrated? For an objective answer to that question, church-growth researchers draw heavily on the social sciences—cultural anthropology, psychology, sociology, and linguistics—as well as on biblical and historical studies.

In their neat, handy overview, Church Growth: Everybody’s Business, Lawson and Yamamori locate the genius of the movement in its insistence that the following emphases are essential to the missionary thrust of the Church: the authority of the Bible, the distinctiveness and priority of evangelism, a realistic evaluation of receptivity to the Gospel, scientific objectivity, and shared research. Of particular value to pastors and lay leaders alike are the chapters “How Do Churches Grow?” (twelve conditions), “Why Don’t All Churches Grow?” (ten obstacles), “How Can I Make My Church Grow?” (eight steps), and “Where Should the Missionary Dollar Go?”

Introducing Church Growth, a more formal textbook by the same team of writers, presents the major concepts of the church-growth school, identifies the most important publications in the field, and includes a generous selection of excerpts from the writings of authorities. The final chapters deal with the controversial issues of the relation of Christianity to non-Christian religions and the Church’s role in revolution. Church-growth leaders, while favoring a sympathetic understanding of other religions and acknowledging the validity of certain of their insights, are nevertheless committed to the uniqueness of Christ and the necessity of Christian conversion. Similarly, the movement recognizes the need to transform the social order but finds the key to social change, not in confrontation with established structures, but in individual conversion.

Discussion questions are appended to each chapter. Many of them, though stimulating and relevant, are too advanced for beginners and cannot be answered satisfactorily from a reading of this text alone. The book also has an excessive number of blank, or nearly blank, pages.

Turning from Lawson and Yamamori to Wagner is like exchanging a cuddly kitten for a belligerent porcupine. Your Church Can Grow is a disturbing book—disturbing for its truth, no less disturbing for its fallacies.

One can scarcely dispute Wagner’s thesis that God wants churches to grow. And many of us in static or dying congregations are guilty, as he charges, of taking refuge in “remnant theology.” But his idealization of the super-church lacks both scriptural sanction and empirical validity. A five-thousand-member congregation may feed a pastor’s ego and project an image of success, but comparative studies—based on criteria such as attendance, per-capita giving, member involvement, and corporate fellowship—suggest that ten congregations of five hundred members each are apt to generate greater spiritual growth among the members.

Admittedly, the big church can offer a wider variety of specialized ministries. But this advantage hardly compensates for the weaknesses that inevitably accompany bigness. Preaching, for example, has its best effect when the preacher maintains close pastoral contact with his hearers. But no one person can be a pastor to several thousand people. Nor is the quality of Christian worship, as Wagner mistakenly argues, necessarily influenced by the size of the worshiping body. Who doubts that the institution of the Eucharist in the Upper Room was one of the most moving worship experiences of all time? Yet only a dozen or so were present.

Many will find Wagner’s patronizing attitude toward pastors of “unexpansive personality” highly offensive. His allowance for various equally acceptable philosophies of ministry is debatable. And his hunch that many “dead wood” church members are really good Christians suffering from pastoral neglect or lacking the opportunity to exercise their spiritual gifts leads one to question his familiarity with the problem.

Faults and fallacies notwithstanding, the book sounds a challenge that should be taken seriously by all church leaders. Those who study its seven vital signs of a healthy church and take appropriate action in their own congregations should find the future brighter than the past.

“Grow or perish,” warns Schuller, whose formula for success combines adventuresome faith with professional salesmanship—and more than a pinch of showmanship—in ministering to clearly identified human needs and hurts. Your Church Has Possibilities expounds the techniques he has used to produce one of the greatest success stories in modern American church history, and he “absolutely guarantees” that these techniques will enable almost any church to grow.

For Schuller, the ultimate test of methods and programs seems to be their popular appeal. For the Lord of the Church, the decisive test was the glory of God. Between the two, as Christ’s wilderness temptation makes abundantly plain, an irreconcilable conflict often exists.

The books reviewed here provide a good sampling of church-growth theory. For a sympathetic, yet biblically and theologically sensitive assessment of the movement, I recommend Harvie M. Conn’s Theological Perspectives on Church Growth (1976, Presbyterian and Reformed) and J. Robertson McQuilkin’s Measuring the Church Growth Movement (1974, Moody), both of which have helpful bibliographies.

Less Is More

Church Growth Is Not the Point, by Robert K. Hudnut (Harper & Row, 1975, 143 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Howard A. Snyder, executive director, Light and Life Men, Winona Lake, Indiana.

This book is not a criticism of the church-growth movement, at least not directly. Its thesis is that the point of being a Christian is suffering, passivity, discipleship. “Church growth is not the point, faithfulness to the Gospel is.”

Hudnut makes a number of arresting statements. God’s work “is the one enterprise which we don’t run.” “Grace is what is happening to us that we didn’t plan.” On peace and reconciliation, the author speaks cogently of the priority of “peace between” over “peace within”: “We have everyone pursuing ‘peace of mind’ when we should have everyone pursuing the peace of the world, from which pursuit you may or may not get peace of mind.… The cross is the Christian symbol, not the cross-legged contemplative.”

Hudnut is good when he speaks of the Church’s inability to do anything except by God’s grace. He is best when he speaks of discipleship. Leadership is the greatest lack in the American church today, he says, and the reason is the shallowness of our discipleship. Church leaders do their best: the problem is that “others who should be leading are not.” In the early Church, discipleship meant leadership. “Normally we focus on the charisma of Jesus. It is time to remember also the charisma of the disciples.” Following Jesus absorbed the first believers totally—and “the one who is possessed is the one who leads. The problem is that we do not have enough church people who are possessed.” Hudnut would put the emphasis here, rather than on “possibility thinking.”

Hudnut’s point about leadership is worth considering. From the world we get the picture that the key to “sucess” is a strong, individualistic leader who inspires others to work together and follow him. It is relatively unimportant what happens to these followers as persons. But the Gospel seeks to develop the Body of Christ, and in this Body each person contributes as he is renewed according to the image of Christ. Some lead more overtly and obviously, according to their gifts. But every disciple makes his unique contribution as a person. So discipleship becomes leadership.

But what about Hudnut’s thesis that church growth is not the point, that “decreasing numbers” means “increasing power”? Noting that membership and attendance are down in many churches, the author claims that “loss of growth in statistics has often meant increase in growth in the Gospel.” That may or may not be true in a given case, however. Hudnut gives no evidence—either empirical or biblical—that it is necessarily so, or that it is so today in American Protestantism.

The fact is that some churches are growing while others are declining. Hudnut seems to write exclusively from within the perspective of those that are declining. He equates decreasing numbers with increasing faithfulness, which is just as erroneous as saying statistical growth is the proof of faithfulness. Neither church growth nor church decline is the point; faithfulness to the Gospel is.

Hudnut writes for the church member who wants to be faithful but finds himself in a declining church with little evidence of spiritual vitality. He does a good job of pointing that church member to some of the basics of Christian discipleship. The title and style chosen for the book deliberately put the case in a stark either/or form. That is all right for the sake of making a point. In the final analysis, however, we may well come back and affirm a positive relationship, in most cases, between Christian faithfulness and church growth.

Transactional Analysis And Christianity

When God Says You’re OK, by Jon Tal Murphree (InterVarsity, 1976, 130 pp., $2.95 pb), is reviewed by Charles Dickson, assistant professor of psychology, Lenoir Rhyne College, Hickory, North Carolina.

This brief paperback should be of interest to anyone who is concerned about one of the newer phenomena in psychology, Transactional Analysis, and its relation to the Christian faith.

Transactional Analysis (TA) is being taught and used in hundreds of centers throughout the country and also in many seminaries. It uses individual responses called “transactions” as its units of analysis. People respond to one another in any of three ways, corresponding to the ego-states that exist in all people: as a Parent, an Adult, a Child (P-A-C). The Parent represents attitudes received as a child, primarily of a controlling, manipulative nature. The Adult ego-state is a mature, responsible response pattern concerned with decision-making and value judgments. The Child ego-state is a dependent, immature, self-seeking response, reflecting basic drives and instincts. The goal of TA is to make people aware of which ego-state they are expressing and the position into which it puts others. By moving from disruptive into complementary transactions, a person can develop more satisfying relations with others.

When God Says You’re OK is not a polemic against the proponents of TA but an attempt to set TA within the context of a Christian view of man. The author does not disagree with the basic categories of P-A-C, but he thinks they are inadequate to explain the totality of man’s spiritual nature. They must be expanded to include the divinely created capacity for God. We could then find in those categories the tools for understanding something of man’s sense of isolation without God as well as something of his capacity to interact with the God-personality.

For Murphree this task is not a mere adjunct to the process, a kind of theological frosting on a psychological cake, but rather a fundamental ingredient. He cleverly interweaves such diverse creatures as Charlie Brown, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Soviet scientist Dotsenko with Judy and John next door in illustrating his points.

This provides evangelical Christians with a working basis for understanding Transactional Analysis as a tool for helping oneself and others, while also underlining the necessity of a proper relationship with God if one is to maintain a balanced and integrated personality.

The OKness based on acceptance of others will dispel human loneliness, but it will never drive away existential loneliness. For this we need a relationship with a loving God who, through Jesus Christ, is the Great OKer.

Equality Or Complementarity?

Let Me Be a Woman, by Elisabeth Elliot (Tyndale, 1976, 190 pp., $5.95), is reviewed by C. E. Cerling, Jr., minister of education, Hopevale Memorial Baptist Church, Saginaw, Michigan.

What was the most significant evangelical book of 1975? Eternity suggested Scanzoni and Hardesty’s All We’re Meant to Be. Elisabeth Elliot answers this title by saying, please, Let Me Be A Woman. Her definition of what a woman is, however, is vastly different from Scanzoni and Hardesty’s.

This book takes the form of correspondence between Mrs. Elliot and her recently engaged daughter, Valerie, about her impending marriage. As a result, it is really two books; one about women’s lib, the other about marriage. The book about marriage is far and away the better one.

Four themes recur throughout the book. First, everything has its place in God’s creation. “The special gift and ability of each creature defines its special limitations. And as the bird easily comes to terms with the necessity of bearing wings when it finds that it is, in fact, the wings that bear the bird—up, away from the world, into the sky, into freedom—so the woman who accepts the limitations of womanhood finds in those very limitations her gifts, her special calling—wings, in fact, which bear her up into perfect freedom, into the will of God.” In God’s will from creation, “it is the nature of the woman to submit.” For by submitting a woman finds perfect freedom because freedom means “doing the thing we were meant for.” This is a theme evangelical feminism must face: did God create the two sexes for a reason? Is there some essential, non-anatomical difference between the sexes? If not, then why did God create two sexes instead of just one? If so, then in what do the differences consist?

Second, hierarchy is necessary for order. There is no society where order comes apart from hierarchy. The same is true of the miniature society, the family. Hierarchy, however, need not be onerous. To illustrate this Elliot uses a personal reference: she can remember only one time in her married life when her husband had to command her to do something. In marriage, an institution created by God, God gives authority to the husband. A wife’s submission to this authority then brings her true freedom because it is really submission to God. As in society in general freedom cannot be found apart from submission to God’s authority, so in marriage freedom is impossible for a woman apart from submission to her husband’s authority. No woman can be truly free attempting to be a man. “It is a naïve sort of feminism that insists that women prove their ability to do all the things that men do.… Men have never sought to prove that they can do all the things women do. Why subject women to purely masculine criteria?” By rejecting male authority in marriage, Elliot thinks, this is what women do.

Third, hierarchy is essential because equality in marriage is impossible. Complementary differences are what God planned. “Who is in a position to apportion everything according to preference or competence?… It is a naïve view of human nature to assume that two equals can take turns leading and following, and can, because they are ‘mature’ do without rank.” What in fact is happening is that “‘equal opportunity’ nearly always implies that women want to do what men do, not that men want to do what women do, which indicates that prestige is attached to men’s work but not to women’s.” Therefore Elliot argues the need for differences. Equality is a beautiful ideal, but women’s lib must face the question, Is it a sociological possibility or merely an ideal?

A fourth theme finds less emphasis, although it is clearly important. Marriage reflects the relation of God to Israel and of Christ to his Church. “Tremendous heavenly truths are set forth in a wife’s subjection to her husband, and the use of this metaphor in the Bible cannot be accidental.” But women’s libbers say submission is cultural, not essential. If they are right, marriage does not illustrate any longer the relation of Christ to his Church.

This book, however, is more than a book about women’s liberation. It is also a book about marriage. Elisabeth Elliot reveals great insight into the marriage relationship. For example, she warns her daughter that she will be marrying a sinner, a man, and a husband. As a sinner he will have faults. She must learn to love him for what is good and live with the faults. She will also be marrying a man; she will find that being around a man is quite different from being around a woman. Finally, she will be marrying a husband, not a father or a brother. Her husband will be able to do some things her other males could not; he will also not be able to do some things they could. This must be accepted.

Apart from the ideas about marriage, the strength of this book is its criticism of evangelical women’s liberation. The statement of the traditional women’s role is adequate but rather limited by the form chosen.

Briefly Noted

Many pamphlets have appeared on the Unification Church and its prophet (of which InterVarsity’s forty-four-page The Moon Doctrine by J. Isamu Yamamoto is probably the best), and it’s time to expect books. One of the first is The Spirit of Sun Myung Moon by evangelical author Zola Levitt (Harvest House, 127 pp., $1.75 pb).

Have you ever been exasperated by Robert’s Rules of Order and wondered if there were some alternative other than chaos or an informal consensus that might owe more to personality strengths than the merits of the issue? If so, try Deschler’s Rules of Order by the late Lewis Deschler (Prentice-Hall, 228 pp., $10), who served as parliamentarian of Congress 1928–74. He does not simply give Congress’s rules, but simplifies and generalizes them so that any organization that has members, especially if it is incorporated, can have up-to-date, fair guidelines for getting started and then doing things “decently and in order.” Obviously many religious organizations can find this helpful.

PSALMS Three mid-nineteenth-century commentaries on all 150 psalms are now reprinted in comparatively convenient one-volume editions: Perowne (Zondervan, 1,099 pp., $19.95), Plumer (Banner of Truth, 1,211 pp., $18.95), and Spurgeon, abridged from seven volumes by David Otis Fuller (Kregel, 703 pp., $14.95).

Yet another religiously oriented paperback line has begun to send forth titles, the Fountain Books imprint of Collins + World. Among its initial offerings is well-known writer William Barclay’s translation of The New Testament (576 pp., $2.95 pb). It was first issued in a two-volume hardback nearly a decade ago and would be a worthwhile addition to the shelf of translations in many an English-speaking Christian’s home.

Stephen Neill presents the seminary student or educated layman with a lucid, comprehensive introduction to New Testament theology from a moderately critical point of view in Jesus Through Many Eyes (Fortress, 214 pp., $4.50 pb). He assumes no knowledge of Greek or previous theological study on the part of the reader and leads him through all the books of the New Testament, grouping them by genre and date. A selected, annotated bibliography, which includes many conservative works, guides the student into further study.

Books giving principles of biblical interpretation (“hermeneutics”) abound. One of the most helpful is Understand by Walter Henricksen (Navpress [Box 1659, Colorado Springs, Colo. 80901], 107 pp., $1.95 pb), a leader in The Navigators. He describes and illustrates twenty-four “rules” of interpretation such as, “Biblical examples are authoritative only when supported by a command,” and, “Interpret words in harmony with their meaning in the times of the author.”

EVANGELISM Along with the more technique-oriented manuals, it is helpful to read biblical and theological reflections on evangelism. Of course, very practical ideas are also imbedded throughout the following recent releases: Dynamics of Evangelism by Gerald Borchert, New Testament professor at North American Baptist Seminary (Word, 146 pp., $5.95); Evangelism in Perspective by Robert Coleman, evangelism professor at Asbury Seminary (Christian Publications, 109 pp., $3.95, $1.75 pb); Word in Deed: Theological Themes in Evangelism by Gabriel Fackre, United Church of Christ minister and theology professor at Andover Newton (Eerdmans, 109 pp., $1.95 pb); Evangelization and Catechesis by Johannes Hofinger, a Jesuit (Paulist, 153 pp., $4.95 pb); Love Leaves No Choice: Life-Style Evangelism by C. B. Hogue, evangelism director for the Southern Baptist Convention (Word, 160 pp., $5.95); Bringing God’s News to Neighbors by Carl Kromminga, practical-theology professor at Calvin Seminary (Presbyterian and Reformed, 162 pp., $4.50 pb); Going Public With One’s Faith edited by R. James Ogden, focusing on biblical models (Judson, 128 pp., $2.50 pb); Contemporary Problems of Evangelism by Wendell Price, pastor of North Seattle Alliance Church (Christian Publications, 111 pp., $3.95, $2 pb); and Christian Mission in the Modern World by renowned Anglican Bible teacher John Stott (Inter-Varsity, 128 pp., $2.95 pb). None of these books is overly technical. Although the range of the authors’ denominations is wide, there are many common concerns.

The enigmatic figure of Melchizedek has been interpreted in a variety of ways since the Reformation. Bruce Demarest of Conservative Baptist Seminary catalogues these by period, school, and exegete in readable, exhaustive detail in A History of Interpretation of Hebrews 7:1–10 from the Reformation to the Present (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 146 pp., 32 marks, pb).

If you’re a discouraged pastor, you’re in good company—the company of Luther, Calvin, Bonar, Morgan, and Spurgeon. In a sermon Spurgeon once said, “I am the subject of depressions of the spirit so fearful that I hope none of you ever get to such extremes of wretchedness as I go to.”

The causes of discouragement in the pastorate are many: failing to achieve a goal, failing to live up to personal convictions, being physically exhausted, being criticized by the congregation, dealing continually with the grim side of life, seeing others succeed where you do not, and satanic opposition, which may occur in conjunction with any of these other conditions. Some practical things can be done to combat discouragement.

1. Look for physical causes. Perhaps you are emotionally and physically drained. Go to bed and sleep as long as you wish. You may awaken feeling fine. Reduce the demands on your time and allow more rest and relaxation. If the depression lasts, consult your doctor to see if there are any physical reasons for it.

2. Look for physiological or psychological causes. After the age of forty a number of changes take place in social circ*mstances and in the body. The American Institute of Family Relations publication “Problems After Forty” is helpful. (The AIFR address is 5287 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90027; ask for publication 328.)

3. Try to discover what is making you feel discouraged. Margaret Benton, writing on depression in another AIFR publication, says that discouragement and depression occur when “we cannot do what we want to do, cannot get what we want and need, feel guilty over something we have done or left undone, have lost someone we love, have gone from a situation where we were happy to one that seems to hold no promise, when we have been hurt by someone, when we feel inferior, unloved, lonely and as though we have nothing to offer others” (“Suggestions For Decreasing Depression,” publication 513). Understanding the cause of depression permits one either to remove the cause or to change one’s attitude about the cause. One of the marks of spiritual and emotional maturity is the ability to accept what we cannot change.

4. Express your discouragement openly, at least to yourself and God. The Psalms abound in examples of this. You may not change the circ*mstances, but tears may change you. Crying is an emotional release from tension. Your mind will be clearer when you have cried out your discouragement. One note of caution: there is a limit to the healthful expression of grief. To go on and on for weeks, even months, is not therapeutic but debilitating.

5. If you continue to grieve after you have cried out your discouragement, consider the possibility that you might be indulging in self-pity. One reason for the success of Alcoholics Anonymous is that it doesn’t permit self-pity. One of Elijah’s problems was self-pity, complicated, no doubt, by hunger and physical exhaustion. He felt that he alone stood against Baal. Tim LaHaye says that self-pity is the primary cause of depression (How to Win Over Depression, Zondervan).

6. Look for the anger in your depression. Sometimes depression is the result of anger turned at self—perhaps justifiably, perhaps not. We often abuse ourselves to a degree that we would never tolerate from another person. Such self-abuse is as destructive as abuse coming from someone else.

Sometimes depression is the result of anger disguised as hurt. Some people are not comfortable with expressions of anger so they convert angry feelings to feelings of hurt. Luther firmly believed in the therapeutic use of anger. Two of his suggestions for dealing with depression are “faith in Christ—and get downright angry!” If the anger is toward another person and you are not able to express it to him or her, express the anger openly to yourself. Hear your voice saying those angry words. Much like crying, the expression of anger releases tension.

7. Think positively. The concept of positive thinking is as old as the Bible. Philippians 4:8, 9 draws an important connection between having the God of peace with us and our responsibility to think positively. I’m not suggesting a Pollyanna approach to life or the sacrifice of a healthy critical eye, but I must underscore our responsibility to think right thoughts. Do not expect peace from the God of peace so long as you indulge yourself in negative thinking.

Dr. Jack Arnold, pastor of Grace Church in Roanoke, Virginia, suggests, “Instead of tearing down everyone else’s false theology, preach the truth with a positive ring. If you cannot say something positive about a person, say nothing at all. Negative pastors produce negative people who do not know how to love. Yet the world can only know that we are Christ’s disciples by the love we show to one another.”

8. Experiment to see if you can break the spell of discouragement. While in the pastorate I found great comfort in listening to the Psalms on my portable cassette tape player while alone on the beach or sailing far out in the ocean.

Margaret Benton suggests in the AIFR pamphlet previously mentioned: experiment with physical activity; revive an old interest like a collecting hobby or join a friend in his hobby or read about another place and plan a trip there; try being with friends to see if contact with other human beings or the interest of the moment breaks the spell; experiment to see if “acting happy” will help.

Maxwell Maltz also has much to say about acting happy in his book Psycho-Cybernetics. He calls it “acting as if,” creative mental picturing. You actually see yourself as the good or successful person you want to be and behave accordingly. Maltz points out that we are discouraged and fail because we keep on seeing ourselves as discouraged failures. We have a built-in success mechanism that will take over for us if we think of succeeding and behave as though we are a success.

9. Don’t permit yourself to fret about your depression. Relax and take the attitude, “This too, will pass,” as moods do. Think about other times when you have felt depressed and have overcome it. Experience still produces hope (Rom. 5:4, 5).

10. If your moods seem to have a regular cycle, chart them on a calendar and plan to take it easy on your dark days.

As a general rule it is helpful to attempt to discover the cause of depression. We can do something constructive when we understand where it’s coming from. Avoid the tendency to say to yourself, “If I’m really spiritual, I shouldn’t be discouraged.” Even Jesus felt this emotion (Matt. 26:38). Talk out your feelings to a close friend, a counselor, or alone in front of the mirror. Hearing yourself put your feelings into words will help you understand them better.—ANDRE BUSTANOBY, marriage and family counselor, Bowie, Maryland.

Many Americans feel quite strongly about what’s wrong with America and what actions are necessary to get the country back on the right track. We hope that, as the new President takes office, evangelicals in particular will speak up and let him know how they feel. For a long time, far too few of them have been advising American presidents. Evangelicals should make their collective impact felt by communicating with the White House and sharing their concerns as never before.

We urge that the incoming administration focus attention on the abortion question. Abortion is now the leading cause of death in America, and forthright action is sorely needed. Neither the executive nor the legislative branch of government has taken any noteworthy initiatives to restore rights to the unborn. The country is still at the mercy of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that went to extreme lengths to legitimate abortion on demand. We strongly contend that the effects of that ruling do not represent the norm desired by the American people as a whole.

Abortion must compete with many other crucial questions for attention. But Jimmy Carter needs to be reminded again and again that his contact with the people during the election campaign showed the depth of concern about the current inadequacies of legal restraints on abortion. Carter himself has said repeatedly that he was asked more about his stand on abortion than about anything else. He said he was against it and pledged that he would do what he could, under the law, to reduce the number of abortions. If he is to keep his promise to be responsive to the rank and file, he will take strong steps to put back into American legal codes the right of the fetus to live.

Having said that, we should recognize that Carter faces a raft of problems when he takes over the Oval Office. Proponents of all kinds of causes loudly proclaim that theirs is the most urgent. Which squeaky wheel does he oil first?

Perhaps a bit presumptuously, Christianity Today asked its editors-at-large to offer Carter some advice by completing the sentence, “If I were president …”

Dr. Thomas Howard, professor of English at Gordon College, Massachusetts, replied, “I would try most earnestly to use all the force of my office to strike a loud warning bell for America to call her back from her wild pursuit of self-destruction on the shoals of secularism, egoism, luxury, and hubris. I would try to destroy the myth that there is any road to health for a society other than that of self-denial, work, integrity, and purity.”

Dr. Nancy Tischler, professor of English and humanities at Pennsylvania State University, Middletown, said she would try “to replace pragmatism with idealism, cynicism with honesty. I should consider the long-term good of this country, cut the budget, reduce the waste, power, and size of the federal government, and try to govern with justice and mercy and humility.”

Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, assistant professor of history at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, pointed out that most people agree on the problems facing the president but differ on their order of priority and their solutions. Yamauchi said he would be “especially concerned with attending to the problems of the ‘downtrodden’—the poor, the unemployed, the aged, the victims of crime, and the minorities who have suffered from discrimination. I would seek to restrain Americans from their increasingly affluent and often wasteful use of funds and resources, so that these may be conserved and shared with those who are in need of them, both in the United States and abroad.”

Dr. Carl Armerding, who is assistant professor of Old Testament at Regent College, Vancouver, and is currently studying at Cambridge, said he would set two priorities: “In domestic affairs, to work out the implications of an election that divided the ‘haves’ from the ‘have-nots’ so radically, and, in foreign affairs, to take up the peace initiatives recently floated in Egypt and Syria and press for an overall settlement in the Middle East.”

Dr. Leon Morris, returning to his native Australia after a teaching stint at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, thought he would like to see the President leading the nation to act in the spirit of the coin motto “In God We Trust.” There was a time, he said, “when the United States, in the spirit of this motto, was known for its passionate concern for justice, for its help for the weak, for its genuine altruism.”

Professor Peter Beyerhaus of the University of Tübingen in Germany was the most specific. He said flatly he would ask that morning prayer be reintroduced in public schools. “I am hoping for a spiritual explosion in the United States,” he said.

Dr. John Warwick Montgomery, professor-at-large at Melodyland Christian Center, Anaheim, California, reached into history for his contribution. Montgomery suggested that Carter take his cue from Sir Matthew Hale, lord chief justice of England in the reign of Charles II. A portion of Hale’s diary, in which he sets out his plan for a typical day, is included in the introduction to a book Three Epistles to His Children. Regular prayer, behavior monitoring, and mental diligence are features of the plan, which also embraces principles often appearing in modern management techniques.

Dr. Harold Kuhn, a professor at Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Kentucky, said he would put himself in Solomon’s place and ask for wisdom. Kuhn put the premium on selecting the right kind of people to help him govern, “including, where practical, evangelical Christians.”

Like the next occupant of the White House, these contributors are Christians who take the Bible seriously. Believers everywhere should join in prayer that Jimmy Carter will have this Book not only at his side but also in his heart and mind as he makes decisions.

The Bequest Of Benjamin Britten

Last month at the age of sixty-three composer Benjamin Britten died as he had lived, quietly secluded in his coastal home at Aldeburgh, Suffolk, England. Unlike many artists he was not a “personality.” Rather, his music tells us his story.

Britten, born November 22, 1913, began to play the piano at two. At age seven he read himself to sleep with musical scores of operas and symphonies; the pattern of notes fascinated him. He had written an oratorio and a string quartet by the time he was nine, and he received a scholarship to the Royal College of Music when he was sixteen. Unlike many composers today, he never saddled himself with outside teaching jobs or part-time work but earned his living solely through his musical writing.

Also unlike many of his contemporaries, Britten did not divorce himself from the musical past. He used dissonance and at times twelve-tone rows, but he also wrote moving lyrical music such as his song cycle “A Charm of Lullabies.” Moreover, Britten rejected the secularist tendencies of composers to ignore the Church as a vehicle for great music and Christianity as a subject for it. Two of his best-known compositions are “A War Requiem” and “A Ceremony of Carols,” for treble voices and harp. In the latter the choristers process into the church singing of Christ’s birth. After singing the carols, they recess singing the same music with which they entered. Britten also wrote several religious parables—like small operas—for church performance; “Curlew River” is the best known of these. “Hymn to St. Cecilia,” “Missa Brevis in D,” and the song cycle “The Holy Sonnets of John Donne” are other well-known compositions for the Church.

Benjamin Britten will be best remembered, though, as a great operatic composer. His international acclaim came with the premiere of Peter Grimes, now part of the repertoire of every major opera house in the world. It was commissioned, for only $1,000, by then Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitzky. Other operas followed, including the stark all-male Billy Budd, based on Herman Melville’s masterpiece.

Benjamin Britten was undoubtedly one of this century’s most gifted and brilliant composers. He also was one of the most disciplined. He worked every morning, exercised and rested in the afternoon, and returned to work after tea. As in the parable of the talents, he multiplied his and proved a good steward of what God had given him.

Paul’s Pattern For Starting Anew

The New Year is a time for beginnings. It is time to start a clean page. The account of Paul’s conversion in Acts 9 is one of the Bible’s most dramatic descriptions of a fresh start. The former persecutor of Christians made a complete turnaround in his life; he was a different person after that day on the Damascus Road.

Paul’s record of achievement as the first great missionary was due in no small part to the way he began his new life in Christ. The events of those initial days after his conversion provide a pattern for any believers turning a new leaf. God blessed his steps, which were not easy ones for him or for those around him.

His first significant act was to get up (v. 8) and get going. Some people, presented with a clean slate, are afraid to make the first entry. Not Paul! Instead of bewailing his temporary handicap, he accepted the help of seeing people around him, and he started his walk with the Lord.

Except to say that he neither ate nor drank (v. 9), the Scriptures tell us little about Paul’s activity until Ananias was sent to him. No doubt it was a time of meditation and waiting on God.

During the visit from the reluctant Ananias, Paul submitted to the ministry of a Christian brother (vv. 17–19). He received spiritual and physical help to prepare for his future ministry.

Almost immediately, the convert began to share his new faith. He proclaimed Jesus in a variety of ways to a variety of audiences (vv. 20, 22, 29). Interspersed with his public witness were meetings with the brethren in which he got more counsel and assistance (vv. 27, 30).

God blessed his efforts (v. 31), as he will those of any Christian submitting himself totally to God.