Page 5680 – Christianity Today (2024)

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Temple—what do these schools have in common? They all began firmly committed to evangelical Christianity and are now secular in scope and viewpoint. These are but a few of the multitudes of colleges and universities that have made the gradual transition from decisively Christian to nominally church-related to openly secular. This pattern is repeated so often that it seems inevitable. Why? What causes the loss of original identity in so many Christian institutions?

To answer this question thoroughly would take knowledge and analytical skill far greater than mine. What follows is a survey of some possible contributing factors to such a decline. I have separated them into three groups: practical, emotional, and philosophical.

Practical Factors

First and most obvious is the pressure of finances. What the students pay usually provides only a part of the needed capital. With the search for endowments, bequests, and public funding comes the danger of controls. The authentic “gift” is rare. Often the larger the gift, the stronger the attached strings. Leaders of a Christian institution may feel forced to compromise its position to meet the demands of payrolls and other pressing expenses.

Second are accreditation pressures. If Christian institutions are to compete with secular schools, they need to be approved by state and other accrediting agencies. Although in theory these agencies are neutral about the world view presented by an institution, subtle pressures are often brought to bear on evangelical institutions to broaden their perspectives.

Third among the practical pressures is the problem of faculty recruitment. Nothing shapes the direction of our academic institution so much as the faculty. I once spoke with a college president who was about to retire. He had taken a small Christian college with a minor budget and meager facilities and built it into a major institution. Yet he said to me with tears, “I have given all my energy to buildings and funding. I’ve neglected the area of faculty recruitment. Our faculty no longer has a strong Christian commitment, and it is my fault.” The institution he built is now secularized.

Often the paper credentials become more important in hiring than the philosophical and theological perspective of the one who holds them. The Ph.D. from Harvard carries more weight than a Th.D. from a Christian seminary. And such points as “Can this person communicate? Is he or she skilled in teaching?” are often neglected.

I’ve seen schools where the theology department has five professors, four of whom are soundly committed to Christianity but are very weak communicators. Their classrooms are dull and stuffy. The fifth professor has wandered far afield from classical Christianity but is dynamic, spontaneous, warm, and exciting in the classroom. Who influences the students the most? We could argue that students should not be influenced by such extraneous factors as personal charisma, but it would be naive to do so. If Christian institutions are to endure, they must have teachers who are both sound and skilled in communication.

Then, fourth, there is the question of church supervision. It is a glaring fact of history that where church-related schools have been under close church supervision, their endurance has been greater. This may be post hoc ergo propter hoc thinking, but I doubt it. When the school is not answerable to the church, the tendency is for the curriculum to become broader and broader until it no longer represents the church.

The climate of higher education in America is highly unfavorable to church controls. Colleges and seminaries want to lead the church, not serve it. In the past, the seminary and Christian college were seen as servants of the church, filling a highly specialized need for research and training. There was to be a spirit of reciprocity and mutual dependence between church and school. But this concept collides with prevailing notions in secular education. It therefore becomes more difficult, though more necessary, for the school to submit to the church.

Emotional Factors

First among what for lack of a better word I am calling “emotional” factors is the shibboleth of academic freedom. If research is to be vital and the pursuit of knowledge is to have integrity, a certain amount of academic freedom must be given to professors. But this freedom cannot extend to the point of autonomy if the purposes of a confessional institution are to be served. Yet it now seems to be considered an inalienable right of professors to teach whatever they want. All too often, the banner of academic freedom has been used as a cloak for perjury. Seminary professors take ordination vows professing belief in doctrines that they then deny in the classroom. Professors sign statements of faith and then proceed to undermine them in the name of academic freedom. When an institution seeks to censor or remove a professor guilty of such perjury, the professor is seen as an injured victim and the institution as a menacing, intolerant tyrant. Sometimes an institution would rather tolerate the professor’s subversion of its standards than be exposed to public ridicule for “tyranny.” The tenure system and faculty unions make this problem all the more acute.

A second “emotional” factor is the problem of competition. Every school wants to be regarded as academically excellent. In our culture, secular institutions determine academic trends, and this poses grave problems for the Christian institution. For example, secularists have strong prejudices against Christian beliefs. A question of biblical authority may be met by a response that “no one with any intellectual integrity still believes in the Bible.” The Christian institution may soften its view of Scripture to earn the credibility of the secular world.

Closely related to this is the problem of intimidation. The ridicule of the secularist can be hard on the Christian ego. The insecure Christian scholar or institution is most vulnerable at the point of scholarly reputation. Where courage fails, Christian institutions falter.

The problem of intimidation is rarely discussed among Christian educators. Perhaps we don’t want to admit our vulnerability. But it is a reality that we dare not overlook. There is a constant need for mutual support among Christian scholars. We need the encouragement of one another.

Philosophical Factors

The first point in this category is the demise of natural theology as a cohesive force. Kant’s assault on natural theology and the possibility of establishing crucial theological truths on the basis of theoretical thought created a crisis for higher Christian education. Theology, the queen of the sciences, was rudely dethroned. Where Kant was accepted, theology no longer could serve as an integrating intellectual force. The mixed articles of Aquinas could no longer serve as common ground for the pursuit of truth. The university became a multiversity with “religion” subsumed under a larger department of anthropology or sociology. Schools that desired to keep theology in a preeminent position often degenerated into citadels of irrelevant obscurantism. Others sought a compromise with the Kantian framework and slowly capitulated to it. A few institutions sought to develop a Christian intellectual methodology by which they could maintain their Christian world view in a highly intellecual environment. Fideistic philosophies developed by which theology could be defended on grounds other than natural reason. Westminster Seminary is the most notable and successful school of this type. Another response was to launch a counterattack against Kant and continue the Christian model along the lines of Aquinas. This was partially successful in some Roman Catholic institutions.

A second philosophical factor was the rise of the phenomenological approach to education. This grew out of the demise of natural theology. If metaphysics was no longer an intellectual option, then it became the task of education to focus learning on the realm of the phenomenological. Countless Christian educators adopted this method, quite unaware of its philosophical roots or importance. Even in Roman Catholic institutions the competition became keen between the neo-Thomists and the advocates of phenomenology.

I witnessed the subtle intrusion of the phenomenological approach into a Christian college a few years ago. I was invited to address the faculty on “The Uniqueness of Christian Education.” As I walked to the lecture hall I noticed a sign on an office door: “Religion Dept.” Before the lecture I asked the faculty if the “religion department” had always been called that. A professor replied that until four years ago its name was “department of biblical and theological studies.” I asked why the name had been changed. No one knew. The teachers seemed perplexed by my line of questioning. In this Christian college, the change of a core academic department from a classical description to one of phenomenological parlance had gone virtually unnoticed.

These are some of the possible causes of the death of Christian colleges and universities. An awareness of them should help us be more vigilant in our present structures and in the ones we plan for the future. There are no guarantees for the endurance of Christian schools, but there are safeguards. We must take seriously our attrition rate in scholarship. The Christian faith has a vital contribution to make to the enterprise of learning.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Watergate cover-ups and clandestine Central Intelligence Agency activities have thrust us into an era when baring the organizational soul to the public has become a virtue—and the eighth deadly sin is refusing to do so.

Despite traditional protection from state interference, religious organizations are not immune to these pressures for disclosure. During the last year religious groups have been the targets of proposed legislation in Congress, notably the charity disclosure bill, H.R. 41, introduced into the House of Representatives by Charles H. Wilson (D-Calif.), chairman of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service.

Wilson’s bill seeks to regulate any charitable organization, including churches and other religious groups, that solicits “in any manner or through any means, the remittance of a contribution by mail.” In plain language, this means that a religious group asking in any way for money to be donated to it through the mail is subject to the disclosure requirements of the bill. Groups covered by the bill would have to include with their solicitations the following information: the legal name and address of the charity; the purpose of the solicitation and intended use of the money contributed; and the percentage of contributions “which were directly applied” to the charitable purpose, after deducting “all fundraising and management and general costs during the most recent complete fiscal year.”

This information must be provided at the point of solicitation, or when the appeal for funds is made, rather than at the demand of prospective contributors or investigators. The bill requires groups that solicit on radio to make their communications clearly audible. Those that use television must make their disclosures in clear lettering and for a sufficient period of time to allow the viewer to read the wording. The bill exempts some very short radio and TV appeals, and also “bona fide membership organizations,” including churches, that make exclusive solicitations to their members.

Any charitable organization, including churches, that falls under the bill would find its records subject to the watchful eye of the Postal Service. At the request of postal authorities, churches would have to supply “audit reports, accounts, or other information as the Postal Service may require to establish or verify information which such organization is required to include in solicitations.”

From a legal point of view, there are two main problems with H.R. 41. In the first place, there is good reason to believe that the courts would find the bill unconstitutional. Secondly, even if the bill is constitutional, some of the key words and phrases are so vague that the courts would have to work overtime to give them meaning in future lawsuits.

The possible conflict of the bill with the Constitution centers on the First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from passing laws “respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” If H.R. 41 becomes law it seems likely to restrict the freedom of churches and other religious organizations in fundraising. Television appeals would have to be interrupted by an extensive disclosure statement, and the impact of the appeal would be blunted. Also, the additional accounting and paperwork in delineating management and “direct” charitable costs will put an added financial burden on religious groups. In a kind of religious Catch-22, as churches spend more money on administration to comply with the disclosure law, the percentage of money they can apply directly to their charitable purpose will decrease. And in the public eye they may appear to be spending an inordinate amount of money on administration, partly because the disclosure law requires them to do so. The power of churches and other religious organizations to raise money freely to support their activities is necessary if they are to remain an independent force in society. Otherwise, financial pressures may force these groups to rely more on foundations or even government aid, and our constitutional principle of strong, separate spiritual institutions will be lost.

The eyes of the government are turning their watchful sight churchward. Under H.R.41 any church or religious group that asks for money through the mails must make full public financial disclosures.

The U.S. Supreme Court has traditionally avoided taking an active role in restricting or regulating the activities of religious groups. On the contrary, most active steps by the court have been to broaden the power of religious groups. For example, in the 1952 Zorach v. Clauson case, the court held that a New York City ruling which allowed students to leave school for religious instruction during regular school classes was constitutional. The court again approved a form of state aid to religion in Sherbert v. Verner in 1963. Writing for the majority the late Justice Tom C. Clark said it was a violation of freedom of religion not to allow a woman who was a Seventh-day Adventist to receive state unemployment compensation. She had been fired by her employer because her religious convictions prohibited her from working on Saturdays.

H.R. 41, in contrast, would cast the federal government in an active role opposing religion. This role appears to be in conflict with the Supreme Court’s landmark 1947 decision of Everson v. Board of Education, in which the late Justice Hugo Black declared that “State power is no more to be used to handicap religions than it is to favor them.” Chief Justice Warren Burger reinforced this line of thought in 1970 in Walz v. Tax Commission, which upheld tax exemptions for property used solely for religious worship. Burger wrote, “We must also be sure that the end result—the effect—is not an excessive government entanglement in religion.” He established two tests to determine excessive state entanglement in religion: “whether the involvement is excessive, and whether it is a continuing one calling for official and continuing surveillance leading to an impermissible degree of entanglement.” Although Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist criticized this entanglement standard in a later case, Burger’s ruling still stands as the law of the land.

The Chief Justice concluded in Walz that a principle of “benevolent neutrality” should control the state’s dealings with the church. The provisions of H.R. 41 seem anything but “benevolently neutral” as they attempt to impose an active fundraising and accounting burden on religious groups.

But the constitutional problems that surround H.R. 41 are only part of the problem. The language of the bill is so vague that considerable litigation is inevitable on that ground alone. One phrase that poses serious problems of interpretation is the statement that charitable organizations that solicit “in any manner or through any means” the remittance of contributions by mail must include the various financial disclosures with the solicitations. But what about the lay chairman of a local church pledge drive who stands in front of his congregation and tells them to take pledge cards from the ushers and mail them to the church? If nonmembers are present, must the chairman exclude them explicitly from his appeal, or recite the disclosure litany from the pulpit? Will missionaries writing of their financial needs on the field be under similar obligations? Which federal agencies will implement and police such requirements?

Or how about the pastor who is pulled aside by a nonmember who wants information about giving money to the church? If the pastor suggests that the inquirer drop his contribution in the mail, will this suggestion be a solicitation “in any manner and through any means”—a solicitation that would require a full, on-the-spot disclosure of management percentages? If so, the pastor’s freedom in asking for contributions will be severely limited.

What it all boils down to is this: the phrase “in any manner or through any means” is so sweeping that it is bound to be challenged in court by religious groups that are understandably reluctant to surrender control over their fundraising.

An even more difficult section of the bill to define is the requirement of disclosure of the percentage of all contributions that were directly applied to the charitable purpose “after deducting all fundraising and management and general costs during the most recent complete fiscal year of the organization.” In any charity, there is a large gray area of costs that cannot be defined clearly as either “management” or purely charitable. In a local church, is the minister’s salary a management cost, when a large part of his time is devoted to counseling and preaching? If the costs attributable to counseling and preaching are not being “directly applied” to the charitable purpose, it is difficult to imagine what would be. But the pastor is also an administrator. So to comply with H.R. 41 it will probably be necessary to allocate his salary between charitable and administrative functions.

Also, what about the church secretary’s salary? Granted, the secretary may be doing “fundraising” work, like typing appeal letters. But the job may also include typing the minister’s sermons and putting together the Sunday bulletin. That part of the secretary’s salary required for both of these latter tasks would seem to be money “directly applied to the charitable purpose,” but some postal investigator might well decide otherwise. If the bill becomes law, the failure to define these terms clearly could create a nightmare of paperwork and accounting costs for religious groups, and will make enforcement by the Postal Service even harder.

The problem of enforcement and surveillance brings up another difficult problem raised by the language of the proposed law. Recent amendments, apparently in response to constitutional questions about excessive state entanglement in religion posed by the Walz case, give lip service to restricting the Postal Service’s power under the bill to oversee religious groups. For example, the Service cannot audit charities “at regular intervals” and can intervene only where there is a “specific need.” But postal authorities still retain broad discretion under H.R. 41 to demand “such audit reports, accounts, or other information as the Postal Service may require to establish or verify information which such organization is required to include in solicitations.”

Taken at face value these words seem to give the Postal Service the right to demand such confidential records as contributors lists. If these lists should become public, and there is reason to think that they might under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act, a church or other religious organizations would lose control over who would have access to their hard-earned and carefully-guarded donor lists. Donors to unpopular or controversial evangelistic groups might find themselves being harrassed by the group’s opponents.

Finally, though churches and other religious groups that solicit “exclusively” from their “members” are excluded from the bill, the definition of the word “members” raises a knotty question. There are some churches with different classes of membership. The United Methodist Book of Discipline, for example, provides for “affiliate members” who can participate fully and hold office in one United Methodist church while staying on the rolls of another. There are also “associate members,” who are members of a different denomination but who elect to participate in a United Methodist church on the same terms as an affiliate member. H.R. 41 is unclear whether the term “members” includes all these types. Defining the term precisely is essential to determine whether solicitations to one or more classes of “members” require disclosure under the bill. Furthermore, in some organizations all donors are regarded as members of a contributors’ organization or club, and their membership gives them certain privileges and recognition. If the word “members” in this bill can be read so broadly, religious groups might be well advised to use the same escape hatch to avoid compliance with disclosure requirements.

But looking for ways to escape the requirements of H.R. 41 is not really the answer to this proposed legislation. Instead of imposing onerous, vague, and constitutionally questionable disclosure requirements on religious organizations, the federal government should concentrate on enforcing mail fraud and other statutes that are on the books. The most that is called for on the federal level is a statute that would preempt the various state laws now in force so that charity regulations would become more uniform nationally. Any such legislation, however, should only give federal authorities power to compel disclosure and investigate religious groups when there is evidence of some criminal or civil violation. Bills like H.R. 41 that require disclosure with no evidence of wrongdoing and give the Postal Service broad discretion in auditing confidential church records seem more an overreaction to the enthusiasm for disclosure than a measured proposal for effective long-term reform.

Pillar of Cloud

A wonder when the cloud halts,

A time of rest and fruit

While herds grow fat

And ewes suckle young.

Away on nervous hills

The watchmen pace

While lovers below

Give leave to spring.

But what to do

When the cloud moves on?

Strike the set! Break camp!

Move out and mount the hill.

Zion’s milk waits over the brow.

Zion’s honey flows at the end

Of a misty trek.

MICHAEL GRAVES

Immediacy

As I was saying,

what I want, God,

what I really want

is always the immediacy

of the short sight,

of the softly heard,

the immediacy of the human race

that charges its destiny into wreckage

several times a century.

I of the short sight and dim hearing

would do likewise, Lord,

if You permitted.

CAROLE SANDERSON STREETER

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Question: Could you give us a brief description of your inner healing ministry?

Answer: In my second book I give twelve different angles of how you can experience inner healing. It’s not some bizarre new experience, but it’s a part of the natural walk in life. Inner healing is synonymous with spiritual growth and each personl who begins to practice the teachings of Jesus begins to move into inner healing. I use the Scripture that God knew us before we were conceived. Therefore, he knew us also when we were conceived. I’ve found that the time from conception to birth can be as significant as the period from birth to five years old. I have seen this from experience. I ask people to imagine their conceptions and to see Jesus in that picture. And so a person’s conception is holy and ordained by God. What happens in an audience is that every illegitimate person breaks. There is no way that a person who knows that he is illegitimate can ever deal with it in a rational, logical way. Psychiatrists and psychologists have for years held the theory that an unborn child can pick up negative emotions from his environment. These remain on the unconscious level at birth, and so there is no other way to reach them except through the grace of Jesus. You can spend years in psychoanalysis, but there’s no way to be healed except by divine grace. This is the most universal thing about my ministry.

There are two things that I feel are of the utmost importance. The first thing a person must do is get to the place where he will say, “I will to be born.” So many people who have become failures in life are people who live passive lives. They often have an unconscious will to die. The hardest thing I have to do is to get an audience to imagine Jesus at the time of birth saying, “You don’t have to be born unless you really want to. This is going to be your chance. You’ve got to make the decision. Do you will to be born? You’re going to be in my love and my care. I’ll never leave you and I’ll never forsake you. Do you want life?” I try to give people confidence in Jesus’ words. And then I tell the audience that this may be the most important decision you ever made. That way they take the responsibility for their lives instead of blaming parents or God. Sometimes I spend more time on this than anything else. This kind of technique uses the imagination. You can use it in praying for others or in trying to free yourself from debilitating attitudes. I’ve had many changes in my life. I’m not always sure what caused me to respond differently to situations. I’ve had many problems. Rejection was a basic one with me. Some people struggle with an inferiority complex. Siblings close in age often experience this. One of them acts like a sweet little angel while the other is a perfect little devil. The child who is openly honest usually gets blamed for everything, and therefore he suffers. And then, many people are frustrated, which is caused from being threatened as children: I’m going to punish you if you don’t make better grades. I try to deal with the root causes of these problems. A lot of times people tell me the symptoms, such as, I’m a drug addict or I can’t get along with my wife. But I don’t ever worry about that. I go from what I know to trying to pinpoint the root cause. I have certain meditations that I use depending on what the root problem is—frustration, guilt, fear.

Q: What do you believe is the church’s role in healing?

A: Well, if we take the Scripture in its entirety we can’t deny the value of Jesus’ healing ministry. The church must incorporate the healing ministry as a part of its total program—the anointing with oil and the laying on of hands. Episcopalians have done this, perhaps because the order of Saint Luke has perpetuated this movement of healing. And Catholics have incorporated healing as a part of their ministry. Some other denominations haven’t.

Q: What about Pentecostals?

A: Yes, they have. And in the last ten years Methodists have really opened up with the healing ministry. I think that probably the Baptists of the major denominations ignore it.

Q: Should healing ministries be under the government and the discipline of the local churches or denominations?

A: Yes, I think that that would be the proper chain of order. It would have more impact.

Q: Does your local church support or hinder your ministry?

A: My local church supports it. My minister had a very hard time at first with the whole ministry of inner healing. He could accept the physical and spiritual healing, but he had a lot of trouble with emotional healing. We talked several times after he read my first book. He had a lot of questions about it. But six months later he came and said, “I’ve found a scriptural basis for your views.” That was heartwarming to me. We’re very close.

Q: Would you say that there are people who are spiritually sick rather than physically sick and who need some kind of spiritual healing?

A: Yes. I think that any time a person disobeys God he separates himself from God. I think that the person then would have a spiritual sickness. In order to be healed he must repent and receive absolution for his disobedience. And this is spiritual healing to me. It’s different from a physical healing, which is organic, or from an emotional healing. Emotional illnesses and spiritual illnesses are similar because they both stem from disobedience or unforgiveness or lack of love.

Q: There may be people then who are emotionally and not spiritually sick?

A: Yes. Spiritual bondage comes from something the person actually did—a sin he committed, a disobedience to God, an overt act. Emotional illness comes from things having been done to you that you reacted to or responded to in a negative way, such as being hurt by another person or being rejected or blamed unjustly or threatened or put down consistently. All that results in a poor self-image. I’m afraid some of our theology may compound this. You know, man is evil, man is no good—all those Bible passages about the nature of man. When I deal with problems like drug addiction or hom*osexuality I try to get to the root causes—usually one of those things I just mentioned. I don’t treat the symptoms.

Q: Do you think churches are doing enough to help people find healing?

A: Churches put more emphasis on the spiritual, rather than the physical and emotional side of healing. If we’re going to heal the whole person we need to deal with all three. Jesus reached out to the whole person. I don’t believe you can separate them into simplistic categories, because they’re so interrelated.

Q: How would you relate regeneration, or the new birth, to this?

A: Each of us is born into a state of Adam-sin. Man is only aware of the physical and the intellectual parts of his personality. I think that the rebirth experience is when a person becomes aware of the part of him that is eternal. When Christ’s spirit enters a person, the dormant spiritual part of him is regenerated, revived, brought to life. This is the rebirth experience to me. I think it can happen in two ways. It can happen through a personal experience with Jesus, which will have emotion and feeling, though that’s not necessary. I think that it can happen through the will and faith.

Q: But always connected with faith in Jesus?

A: Well, it would have to be from Jesus. There’s no way to the Father except through Jesus.

Q: In other words you accept the traditional notion of personal sin being justified by faith in Christ?

A: Yes, by faith.

Q: What is the scriptural basis for inner healing?

A: Well you know, really there are more passages in the Old Testament than in the New Testament. To me, the word heart in the Bible means the subconscious. I went through the Scriptures from the beginning to the end, studying every passage on the heart—and let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable or I will take a heart of stone and I will make this heart of stone into a heart of flesh. That means that through Christ the coldness, bitterness, resentment, and hostility of a person can be transformed into a healed heart of flesh—warm, loving, alive.

Q: What strengths and weaknesses do you see in the small group movement?

A: Well, I think that the small group experience is important for the growth of the Christian. So many times Christians are reluctant to talk about their spiritual, emotional, or personal lives. A small group makes it easier to open up. For example, in my church we have Wednesday night prayer meeting. We used to have between two and three hundred people there. When the time came for prayer requests, no one ever opened up and said, “I have a need.” It was just, “Pray for so and so who is sick.” A large group can be intimidating. In the past few years our church has broken up into small groups, and it’s very obvious that people feel much freer to share in them. I’m sure that this would be true of most churches.

Q: In other words, you take seriously the New Testament command to share each other’s burdens?

A: I believe that’s the thing we’ve really missed in Christian fellowship. We didn’t have the opportunity. People are willing to share burdens and help others, but that’s only possible in a close communion.

Q: Do you think that you can heal people emotionally or physically without first bringing them face to face with Christ?

A: Yes. This upsets a lot of Christians. People have often said to me that no matter how they’ve tried they couldn’t believe in God or Jesus, that they felt blocked. I have found that this goes back to childhood. Perhaps the person has had an unfortunate, traumatic childhood with his father. Subconsciously, when they try to relate to a heavenly father, they react the way they do to their earthly fathers. When I sense that this is a person’s problem I work to bring him into a relationship through imagination where he can forgive his father. Often a person will move right into an experience of God and his love through Jesus.

Q: At a National Town Meeting recently you said that some of the non-Christians with whom you work could not identify with the spiritual Jesus but that it was important for them to identify with the physical Jesus. What did you mean by that?

A: I didn’t say anything like that. That’s a distortion. It’s not totally incorrect, but it’s just distorted. I said that it’s very important for a person to identify with Christ the Son of God and Jesus the Man—to know him in his spirituality and also know his humanity in order to have the deepest, most complete appreciation of who he was.

Q: You would say, then, that he is the God-Man?

A: That’s right. I feel that so many Christians deny the humanity of Jesus. They only identify with him in church and not with the everyday life of a man who walked the earth.

Q: About a year ago on television you made a commentary about hell. Did you say that there is no such place as hell where the unsaved are eternally punished?

A: Another woman on the program was painting a warped view of Jesus. She said that since she accepted Jesus she prays every time she gets on a plane that Jesus will take every martini and turn it into water. And that she gave up movies when Jesus came into her life, and that she gave up this and gave up that. When the moderator asked what she had to look forward to she said, “eternal life”. Then he asked me if I thought that people who danced, for example, will bum in hell. I said that we do not experience hell after we die, we experience it before we die. Until a person comes into union with Jesus Christ he is in hell. And if he lives out his life and dies without that he remains in hell. If a person comes into union with Jesus on this earth he doesn’t have to wait until death to enter heaven; his judgment is from the moment he comes into union with Jesus, and, therefore, heaven will continue right on after life. Now this is what I said, and it was twisted so that I denied the existence of hell.

Q: Do you believe in Satan? That he’s alive, well, and active in the world?

A: Listen, I try my best to concentrate on love, on good, and on Scripture. There is no evil in anything except as you make it. For example, I wash my hair with beer, and I make homemade bread with beer. But when people see me buying beer, they assume I’m doing something evil. I believe that there is a force of evil. I would hate to call it a person. The Prince of Power is a biblical name for it. I have seen demons possess people. Not as many as I believe are exorcised in some faiths. But, I’ve seen a good number of rituals that involve voodoo and witchcraft. So I cannot deny that there is a real force of evil. As far as putting any shape, size, personality, person, or name to it, I don’t. I believe that perfect love will cancel out every other power, even satanic power. I try to get a person to think of love and Christ.

Q: Are you denying a personal devil?

A: I don’t know what you mean by a personal devil. When you say that all I can think about is that man on a can of lye.

Q: Let’s put it this way. In the book of Revelation it says that the beast and the false prophet and the devil are cast into the lake of fire. What would you understand that to mean?

A: Now, you want me to answer if I believe that they had a fight and that the angel Lucifer fell down to earth. I studied all of that—everything the Scripture says about it. But I believe that there is the power of Christ that overcomes any force of evil, whatever it is, whatever shape or form it takes. I know people like to discuss Satan. They like to discuss the devil. They want to talk about demons. I concentrate on Christ.

Q: It is popular today. But what about the Scripture that says resist the devil and he will flee you?

A: I resist the devil by putting on the whole armor of God. When I go to a meeting and I know that I’m going to face hostility and anger, all satanic forces, I try to feed on Jesus and pour over the Scriptures. This is the way to make the devil flee—to be fortified with Jesus’ teaching and filled with his love. With the kind of ministry I have I’m constantly moving into antagonistic groups. You do realize that my ministry is one of reconciliation—broken churches, broken people, broken groups, broken everything. I don’t ever go into a smooth, easy, nice little church.

Q: What is the role of speaking in tongues in the Christian life?

A: I’m a very shy person by nature. I have never spoken in tongues in a large group. I’m not offended when someone does and there’s an interpretation. But the only place for it in my life is in privacy—in my own meditations and in my own devotions. I have found that it’s a beneficial tool when I’m traveling away from home. Sometimes I get homesick and lonely. I start wondering why God made me do this. Then I don’t want to pray because I blame God that I’m not home with my family. That’s when I feel no love for God and I can pray unemotionally in tongues. It helps me rekindle my love for God. So tongues-speaking is valid in my life.

Q: Now, in your inner healing ministry, what is the role of the Holy Spirit? What would you regard as being filled with the Spirit constituted?

A: If a person makes a total commitment to Christ, which is different from being united with him by faith and having eternal life, then, I think, they have the power of the Holy Spirit. When that commitment comes you’re letting down all of your guards. If a person has resisted very strongly—my husband is a perfect example—and when they finally let go it will be a very traumatic, emotional experience. I kind of eased into total commitment, so there was nothing dramatic or traumatic about it. It was just that I finally said I commit all that I am.

Q: Are there any outward signs that would indicate when a person is filled with the Spirit?

A: Sometimes there are outward signs and sometimes there are no outward signs. I think it depends on the individual person.

Q: Are you saying that there are two baptisms?

A: When a person accepts Jesus, and the Holy Spirit comes within, then they should have the filling of the Spirit. That part of it should come right away. Receiving Christ’s spirit, the Holy Spirit, and giving yourself to him, are two different things, but they should be done at the same time.

Q: You mean they can be done at the same time. But it doesn’t always happen that way.

A: When people understand it, it does. In my meetings in foreign countries where people had no prior teaching about the baptism of the Spirit, they experience the love of God, they accept Jesus and his death on the cross. They’re set free. Then I lead them right into yielding to him and they begin speaking in tongues.

Q: Do you think that speaking in tongues is the sign of the baptism?

A: I have seen hundreds and thousands of people who have made that commitment but they’ve been told that they haven’t received the baptism because they don’t speak in tongues.

Q: But they have, even though they haven’t spoken in tongues?

A: Yes. But the only reason they haven’t spoken in tongues is because there is probably something in their conditioning that would prevent it. The teachings I had from my Baptist church prevented me from it. I didn’t speak in tongues for a year and a half after I received the baptism. I refused to. But once the barrier was broken, it didn’t matter if I was rejected by my church.

Q: At that same town meeting you said that people whose religion is not based on Jesus can apply your techniques.

A: Now you’ll have to keep in mind that the general public was invited to this meeting. Bishop Sheen was supposed to be there, but at the last minute he couldn’t come. No questions were screened and it was difficult to hear. But I think that this should be made clear because it upsets a lot of people. People ask if you can be healed if you don’t believe in Jesus. I don’t see that that blocks it at all. A person comes to me for help. My stand is the same, every bit of my healing prayer is based on the word of Jesus and his power, and I’m the one praying. They’ve come because they have faith in me. In the Bible Jesus says to the man who was let down from the roof that his friend’s faith made him well. He didn’t say that the man had any faith. So when people come to me, whatever their beliefs, I make my stand. So no one has ever been to me and didn’t know I was a Christian.

Q: In other words you would at the same time make known to them your faith in Jesus.

A: No one’s ever in the dark about it. I ask the person, “Are you a believer?” If the answer is no I ask if he believes that through my faith he can be healed. Sometimes I’m told that a person came because a friend recommended me. I’m the one who will be the instrument of Jesus. Jesus is the only one who can walk back into the past. He’s the only one who can touch every moment you’ve ever lived. That’s what I tell people. They would like me to use someone else other than Jesus. But that’s not possible. Then I ask the person to identify with Jesus as the perfect man of love. Usually someone can do that. Then through imagination I ask the person to think of Jesus as that expression of love. That opens up the way for him to feel what I’m saying. Suddenly the person accepts him and they don’t understand how it happened. “How could that have happened to me? How could I have been changed so?” people ask. If I go into a group that is Moslem or Communist and say that to be healed you must believe in Jesus Christ, most of them would shut me out. I have to begin in a way that will get them communicating with me or relating to me emotionally.

Q: When did you speak to a Communist group?

A: The University of Bogota is totally Communist. I had sixty students from the school at a meeting. Two of them were Christians. The rest took their lunch hour to come listen to an American.

Q: How has your brother’s election affected your own ministry?

A: The only difference I have been able to see is the fact that the attendance has increased. I think a lot of people come because they want to meet Jimmy’s sister. Some people come because they’ve read about me in the press. Other people come because they hadn’t heard of inner healing until Jimmy’s election and they really need help. At first I liked it better when people came because they wanted help. Then I began to realize that it really doesn’t matter what their motives are as long as my message is the same. I’ve seen tremendous results with people who would never go to church for any reasons. Journalists come only to get a story, but I’ve been able to follow up and they’ve really become interested, so I’ve had some beautiful experiences. I consider Jimmy’s election an asset rather than a liability.

Q: What is your attitude toward abortion?

A: Although I’m not sure that there is consciousness the moment an egg is impregnated, I do think the fetus is a human being. I’m against abortion.

Q: I understand you are going to do a book about your brother Billy. Is that right?

A: Yes. I asked him if I could write his biography, and he said “okay.” I have the first draft finished. He says he’ll never read it because he doesn’t think there’s a woman capable of writing a book. I’ve really enjoyed it. I don’t see it as being far from my work, because it’s a psychological study of a person and how he relates to other people and other members of the family.

Q: When is it coming out?

A: The first complete draft will have to be reworked maybe twice more before publication.

Q: Is he going to clear it?

A: It’s already been cleared. His wife and daughter read the book. His wife never said a word—for about three and a half hours. And when she got to the end she said, “This is Billy.”

Q: Who is going to publish the book?

A: I haven’t gotten a publisher yet. I’ve got three or four who want it, but I haven’t committed myself yet. I want to get it completely finished and then get a publisher and a good editor. I do have an agent that’s going to work with me.

Q: Tell us something about your mother.

A: When my mother was a young girl she had a gold pin that she got for not missing a Sunday in church for something like fifteen years in a row. But from the time I was born until the time I was married I never knew my mother to go to church. When I was little she nursed seven days a week. She took the night shifts so she could work while we were asleep and be home in the daytime. On Sundays she wouldn’t go to church. Mother would go out to the chicken house and ring a chicken’s neck, pluck its feathers, clean and cook it. We would come home two hours later and find dinner ready. I thought my mother was a heathen. When I came into my experience of really knowing Jesus and who he is, I saw what a spiritual job my mother has done. She is a shower of mercy. My mother has always been for the underdog. It’s her nature. When she was in the Peace Corps in India she couldn’t eat because she saw so many people starving. Why should she have food when the people she was there to help didn’t? That was her attitude. She nearly died of starvation.

Q: What are some of the misunderstandings people have about your ministry?

A: I’ll just mention a couple of things. On a television show someone asked if I believed in reincarnation. I said I haven’t found any place in my theology and ministry to incorporate reincarnation. It was turned around in the press to say that I’m working on getting reincarnation into my ministry and theology.

Then there’s the one on praying to Mary. On a Phil Donahue show I said that I was trying to learn to break away from being the male dominant type of aggressive person. I thought that it would be good to concentrate on Mary and her femininity. I would get up in the morning and would ask myself how Mary would respond, what Mary would do, how Mary would go about the chores. I thought that it was an effective technique.

Q: How do you feel about the situation at the Plains Baptist Church?

A: It’s much worse than anybody knows. What they need in Plains now is a good inner healing service. But then, maybe what they really need is five fewer Carters in town.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

A Wife’s Love Circa 1840 and 1977

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath.

Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

How do I love you? Let me count the ways.

I love you to the depth and breadth and height

Of the sexual relationship

Our bodies can reach, when feeling out of sight

For ends of sense and pleasure.

I love you to the level of your own

Most vocal need, for me to submit and obey.

I love you manipulatively, as men strive for Power

I love you as your every whim desires.

I love you with the boots and clothing put to use

To pander to your pleasure and conceal my griefs,

And with my childish faith, I love you with a love I seem to spend

Upon your being—I love you with the meals,

Chores, screaming unshared needs of all my life!

And if God choose, I shall love you even after

You desert me for a younger woman.

EUTYCHUS VIII

First Rate Furniture

At several times in my readings of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, I have been prompted to write and thank you and your staff for the superb work rendered to the evangelical community through the journal. I anticipate each issue eagerly, and find much to challenge my mind and spirit. As a teacher of literature and language, the journal also provides examples of precise, well-reasoned argument. I must thank you, too, for focusing on the liberal arts from time to time, for they provide “furniture for the mind” and vision for the soul as each of us contemplates the wisdom and majesty of God our redeemer.

DAVID G. LALKA

Associate Professor of English

Columbia Bible College

Columbia, S.C.

The Coming Issue

I rarely write letters of appreciation for articles but when I read “Whither Biblical Inerrancy?” (Current Religious Thought, July 29) I very much felt the desire to do so. I do want to express my appreciation deeply.… There is no question in my mind that this whole question of Scripture and whether it is going to be taken as without error not only when it speaks of salvation matters but when it speaks of the cosmos and history as well, is going to be the issue of the coming few years. I am also convinced that if evangelicalism does not take a clear position on this that the next generation will be completely swept away.

FRANCIS A. SCHAEFFER

Huemoz, Switzerland

That Old, Old War

After having read the September 23 article on Star Wars (Refiner’s Fire), I feel the writer missed the real reason for the movie’s appeal. It isn’t because people with “crippled” imaginations want to see something on the screen they cannot understand in literature. We who enjoy science fiction and fantasy are fortunate to be able to visualize what we read, hence our enjoyment. But we also enjoy a good movie.

I see the movie much as I see the Bible, good versus evil; a continuing battle from Genesis to Revelation, where at last evil is conquered.

Harold O. J. Brown said the evil in Star Wars as well as Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was “undefined and unclarified.” He stated further of Star Wars that “why it is evil or wherein its evil consists is not specified.” His key statement was that “Evil is recognized as evil, good as good.”

There is no need to specify the evil in either Star Wars or Tolkien’s trilogy. God has given man a conscience. When we are presented with evil, we recognize it for what it is.

The beauty of the simplistic Star Wars, and the more involved Lord of the Rings, is that one can temporarily escape to a world of the future, or a world of fantasy adventure, where good overcomes evil. In our present world it sometimes appears that evil is winning. The success of Star Wars indicates that people, especially the young, are hoping good will win out in their lives and in the world. We as Christians should point the way through every media to show these seekers that Jesus Christ is winning indeed, and there is hope and life in him.

(MRS.) PAULA L. JONES

Fridley, Minn.

“Star Wars” is a particularly effective and dangerous film, in that it forsakes the common fare of lust and gore to express in a positive framework spiritual concepts having nothing to do with Christianity. Absent is the concept of a personal Saviour, forgiveness for sins, reward for the faithful and judgment for the wicked, among other points.… The impact of Star Wars has only barely begun to be felt. The film has spawned a new cult of devotees, many of whom are steeping themselves in every essence of the presentation. Enough is left unstated in Star Wars that adults—particularly of college age—can and do discuss for hours the film’s ramifications. Children often now bid each other goodbye in the fashion advanced in the film: “May the Force be with you!” Parents soon will have a chance to measure the film’s commercial impact, by assessing the availability of toys based on Star Wars themes.

GENE B. CRUM

Bloomington, Ind.

Brown’s lack of criticism of the obvious anti-Christian, rationalistic, humanistic, evolutionistic belief system underlying the large percentage of good science fiction, not to mention the eastern-mystical and occultic overtones of such works as the Dune Trilogy, left me somewhat adrift as to the exact purpose of his review. I have seen Star Wars three times and consider the implications of the inevitable sequels as posing a tremendous threat to the orthodox evangelical presuppositions about God, man, and the universe. Far from being a “contentless mysticism,” the idea behind the Force fits in perfectly with modern scientific research on the electro-magnetic spectrum, which, they are postulating, holds everything together, as well as every pantheistic conceptualization of reality in history. George Lucas, the creator of Star Wars, stated in a recent issue of Rolling Stone that the Force was originally based on Tales of Power by Carlos Casteneda. Science fiction is without a doubt the modern mythology of our modern Babylonian tower building. We must confront this mythology in the same way the early church confronted the pagan mythologies of their day: with the full biblical revelation of Jesus Christ and the real “Force” that holds everything together.

WOODROW NICHOLS

Spiritual Counterfeits Projects

Berkeley, Calif.

Short, But Informative

In her enjoyable and informative (but too short) interview with Clyde Kilby (Sept. 9), Cheryl Forbes asked why C. S. Lewis had not produced a following like that of Francis Schaeffer or Bill Gothard. While we may not perceive of Lewis as a “guru,” such a following indeed exists and carries on an active program. Any readers who may be interested can write for information to the New York C. S. Lewis Society, in care of Mrs. John Kirkpatrick, 466 Orange Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06511. The society meets monthly in New York City and produces an excellent monthly newsletter with articles pertaining to Lewis’s life and works.

WILLIAM A. PALMER, Jr.

Glen Cove Christian Church

Glen Cove, N.Y.

Clyde Kilby is quoted as saying that although several years ago Wheaton College had over 150 literature majors, the number then “dropped way off.” This statement, while reflecting national trends, is untrue of Wheaton College. During the last decade the number of English majors at Wheaton College, with an enrollment of under 2,000 students, has never been lower than 142, has been as high as 177, and has averaged 155 per year, not including freshmen.

LELAND RYKEN

Wheaton College

Wheaton, Ill.

I have only lately been able to read your interview with me. Someone has told me that I sounded as if I were somehow opposed to missions.… I do feel that the criticism about missions is rather valid. I am and always have been enthusiastic about missions.

CLYDE KILBY

Wheaton College

Wheaton, Ill.

A Case Of Invention

So “The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings alone run to several thousand words” (Editorials, “The Paradox of J.R.R. Tolkien”). What was that intended to be, a masterly understatement? (On the basis of a quick count, I estimate The Lord of the Rings at some 600,000 words.)

Also I had to laugh when you castigated Tolkien for taking twice as long over The Lord of the Rings as Lewis had over the Narnia series. Both works are masterpieces of their kind, but Tolkien’s trilogy is well over twice as long as the Narnia books (250,000 words?) and is much more complex and sophisticated. Aside from the greater ease afforded him by seven plots which needed to be only loosely tied together, Lewis didn’t have to invent two Elven languages, not to mention Dwarvish and Orkish and Black Speech, nor did he tangle with calendars, runic writing systems, genealogies, chronologies, and poetry. It’s a wonder Tolkien didn’t take four times as long.

DAVID H. TUGGY

Tetelcingo, Morelos, México

“Dilatory in productivity.” “Higgledy-piggledy work habits.” I wasn’t sure the Tolkien I knew was being discussed. If Tolkien’s example teaches us anything, it’s the value of quality over quantity.

MARK BARCLIFT

Mill Valley, Calif.

On Taiwan

Just a word to express appreciation for the article about Taiwan in the August 26 issue. In 1972 I visited Taiwan for about two and a half months and was greatly impressed by the buoyancy in the country, by the industrious character of the people, and by the many efforts which were made to meet the needs of all the people. My wife and I felt that there was an attitude of friendship toward the United States also, which we seldom encountered elsewhere in the course of our travels. It would be a pity to disappoint these faithful friends, and it would, of course, be unethical to renege on our commitments. In this way I heartily concur with what Dr. Lindsell has written.

ROGER NICOLE

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

South Hamilton, Mass.

Your report was timely and informative. I have lived in Taiwan for the past five years as an educational missionary. I am surprised at the variety of your sources of information, and the honesty with which you present your findings. I have lived in the Far East fifteen of the past thirty years. I have lived in China, on the Mainland, under both the Nationalists and the Communists, and I have lived in Taiwan under the Nationalists at two different periods. I have also lived in Japan and South Korea. I have taught Chinese at the University of Michigan and Columbia University, and worked closely with the Summer Institute of Linguistics. I am not trying to blow my own horn, but to assure you that I am no amateur in this area, yet I am surprised by the depth and quality of your reporting. Your readers are indeed fortunate.

PAUL B. DENLINGER

Soochow University

Taipei, Taiwan

I just finished an article for the C.T. Christmas issue on the Virgin Birth of Jesus. I was reminded that when this issue of the magazine comes to our readers it will be only seven weeks until Christmas. How the time flies! The days are getting cooler and there is little time to do the last of the yard work that Friend wife tells me needs to be done. I try to avoid it at all costs!

We present an interview with Ruth Carter Stapleton, sister of the President. We taped it at the O’Hare airport when she was passing through several weeks ago. She’s a busy woman and a warm and delightful person. I’m sorry that space prevents printing all of her comments.

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

A disturbing new film on Hitler has attracted more than 350,000 spectators to sixty first-run West German theaters in only six weeks. Hitler, eine Karriere, consisting entirely of documentary footage from the Nazi period, is the work of Joachim Fest, a popular historian who in 1973 wrote a bestselling biography of Hitler. The author is no Nazi (his position as co-publisher of the Frankfurter Allge-meine Zeitung offers sufficient evidence of his stability), and his concern in making the film was in large part to bring his fellow citizens face to face with the underlying causes of Hitler’s appeal to an entire generation. But the film has been roundly condemned from many sides as actually presenting Hitler in a positive light. The French weekly news magazine Le Point concluded its article on the film with the warning: “The German newspapers have every right to be disturbed. This film wakes sleeping demons: Germany will no longer be able to forget Hitler. If the biographers continue in this vein, Hitler will soon become Germany’s Napoleon.”

How valid are such criticisms? I went to see for myself. In fairness to the author-producer, the film is certainly intended to offer a panoramic criticism of Nazism, and is in no sense an effort to whitewash Hitler. Viewers are spared neither the banality of his speeches—his constant repetition of the same propaganda lines (e.g., “Marxism must die in order for the nation to rise again”; “The Führer is the party and the party is the Führer”)—nor his unconscious descents into the absurd (his appearance in a leather flying helmet, entirely worthy of Charlie Chaplin’s “Great Dictator”). Moreover, some attempt is made to relate the Hitler phenomenon to dangerous German ideological antecedents such as Wagner. But the critics have a real point nonetheless.

Hitler-a Career unwittingly gives the Nazi era a kind of grandeur. The incredible rallies. The torchlight parades. The successful completion of the Autobahn (superhighway) system. Hitler’s own architectural models of the urban “Germania,” by which he intended to surpass ancient Babylon. The gigantic sculptures of Aryan supermen. And—above all—the enraptured faces of children and adults of all ages who saw in Hitler nothing less than a national and personal savior. Such imagery can leave the viewer with the feeling that Hitler’s career was a kind of classical tragedy—that he ought to have succeeded but was destroyed through a fatal flaw.

The new film unwittingly gives the Nazi era a kind of grandeur. Incredible rallies. The torchlight parades. Enraptured faces of children and adults as they watched Hitler.

In part, this cinematographic impression is the natural result of using so much footage prepared as propaganda under Hitler’s own direction. But Fest should have been aware of this danger and should have provided greater balance by giving equal time to the horrors and destructiveness of the Third Reich. In fact, less than half an hour of the two hour and forty-five minute film depicts the collapse of the “thousand year Reich.” Even the film’s title was insensitively chosen: would one speak of Lucifer’s “career”? For a Satan or a Hitler, “fall,” not “career,” is the mot juste.

The problem of viewer reaction is heightened in the Germany of 1977 by the fact that a generation has had virtually no exposure to the Führer through its schooling. The weekly Der Spiegel recently published extracts from a forthcoming book containing the opinions of some 3,000 German youth, ages ten to nineteen, as to who Hitler was; not at all atypical were comments such as: “creator of the Federal Republic [West Germany]”; “a communist”; “a killer of 50,000 [sic] Jews”; “as my grandfather says, under him there were no hippies or terrorists and you could take a walk at night without being attacked.” Such appalling ignorance of the real Hitler is what makes Fest’s film so potentially dangerous: in the materialist vacuum of the West Germany of the moment, where even West Berlin’s Free University is a focal center of leftist radicalism, the Hitler of Fest’s documentary could well elicit nostalgia for a supposed lost ideal rather than repentance for and disgust over the idolatry of worshiping one of history’s most demonic anti-heroes.

What are the concrete lessons to be learned from Hitler—a Career? Here are a few that were particularly driven home to me. Hitler continually played on the (legitimate) fears of Marxism to gain support. May we evangelicals mature sufficiently not to allow the spectre of the left to drive us to a political, economic, or social rightism that can be as foreign to the Gospel as is the radicalism we oppose. Hitler had a gigantic following—representing all ages. The Third Reich simply cannot be treated as an alien system imposed on unwilling subjects by a few maniacs. When Hitler returned to Berlin after celebrating in Paris the rape of France, the common people literally made the Berlin streets into a carpet of flowers for him. Austria entered the Reich not by force but by referendum. But even if Hitler’s rule could be considered a “popular” government, would it have been any less wrong? Hitler should always remind us of the dangers of uncontrolled national sovereignty (even our own), and of the fact that popular movements can themselves be thoroughly perverse. Human rights are more fundamental than any political theory (including democracy), and God’s scriptural ethic must be the final judge of the acts of men. Hitler possessed genuine charisma. A generation was captured by his sincerity and thoroughgoing belief in his own messianic dream, his spellbinding oratorical skill in conveying his message, his expressions of love for children and animals, and his willingness to accept religious reverence and adulation. The pietists (a not insignificant segment of our evangelical community), characterized by eagerness to recognize and follow “spiritual leadership” and cults of personality, should be among the first to learn from the example of Hitler that “many false Christs and false prophets are gone out into the world” (Mark 13:22; 1 John 4:1), and that the spirits of the age are only rightly discerned by the word of the scriptural Christ.

Billy Graham, who cherishes his privacy, didn’t get much of it last month. The evangelist submitted to queries at news conferences with New York, Charlotte, Chicago, and Minneapolis journalists. He appeared on network television talk shows. He gave the main address and wielded the ceremonial shovel as ground was broken for the largest project with which he is identified, Wheaton College’s Billy Graham Center.

It was anything but a low profile for the preacher in the month following his evangelistic tour of Hungary. As the mass media continued to raise questions about the evangelist and his operations, Graham responded to dozens of queries about the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA), the World Evangelism and Christian Education Fund (WE-CEF—see July 29 issue, page 36), the Better Business Bureau’s Philanthropic Advisory Service classification of the BGEA, a new book about him, and his own new book.

He climaxed the month on its last day when he led the BGEA board to agree to publicize the association’s annual report. The action is expected to satisfy the objections of those who have raised questions about the BGEA’s accountability.

An announcement issued following the BGEA board meeting said that the association’s officers “were authorized to make available to the public the annual report for the year ending December 31, 1977, including the audited financial statements of the association.” Such a report has previously gone to board members each year, said the release, and it covers “the affairs of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and its affiliated organizations, in a manner similar to the annual reports of publicly held corporations, including a description of the ministries and audited financial statements.” Even though such reports are not required of the BGEA by law (the organization is classified as a church by the Internal Revenue Service and is thus exempt from reporting requirements), the current “mood of the country” calls for disclosure, Graham told Minneapolis journalists. The board meeting was held in Minneapolis, the BGEA’s headquarters location. (See related editorial, page 27.)

In a later appearance on the ABC network’s “Good Morning America” television show, the evangelist stated that the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB) will have access to the yearly reports. The CBBB has been telling inquirers that the BGEA had not furnished information about its financial affairs. The information included in the audit, he indicated, will put the association in compliance with the CBBB’s request for information. Many charitable and religious groups decline to furnish figures to that agency, he pointed out. Graham said the United Jewish Appeal is one of them.

The BGEA’s announcement of the board action emphasized that the disclosure decision was made at Graham’s suggestion. From early in his ministry the evangelist has tried to organize his financial affairs in such a way as to avoid an “Elmer Gantry” image, and from the time the original money-handling pattern of the BGEA was established he has generally left such matters to experienced business people on his board and staff. He told reporters that colleagues took care of these issues ordinarily so that he could be free to study and preach. His intervention at the September board meeting was considered a rare sortie into the BGEA’s fiscal affairs. He originally suggested disclosure to a board committee two years ago, the evangelist told a reporter, but he pressed the matter at the meeting this year.

Graham’s appearance in Minneapolis also symbolized a head-on confrontation with stories that had been circulating about BGEA annuities. Some reports had said the Minnesota state securities authorities were investigating the BGEA and had suspended the association’s permit to sell annuities. Graham said there never was an investigation and that the BGEA had voluntarily suspended annuity activity in Minnesota when it discovered that it was out of compliance with a technicality in the regulations. He explained that a “comedy of errors” prevented a state mailing from reaching the proper officials at BGEA, thus delaying the timely return of information required by the state. The association’s annuity program will be in “full compliance” with Minnesota law by the end of the month, stated George Wilson, the BGEA’s executive vice-president.

The annuity program is only a small part of the BGEA’s overall financial operation, and there are only about a dozen annuitants in Minnesota, the evangelist reported. He maintained that the soundness of the program is demonstrated by the fact that the BGEA is one of the few organizations that “fully funds” (leaves all payments intact until after the annuitant’s death) its annuities.

In the Wheaton appearance Graham symbolically disbursed millions of the dollars which have been accumulated by the Dallas-based WECEF. That fund, which the Charlotte Observer said in June had been “shielded from public view,” was organized in part to build just such a center, he noted. He is committed to providing $15.5 million for the project, and $8 million has already been handed over, said the evangelist.

“We hope and pray that the center will be a world hub of inspiration, research, and training for evangelism which will glorify Christ and serve every church and organization in preaching the Gospel to the world,” Graham declared in his address. “Our desire is not to build anything which could be interpreted as a monument.”

To be owned and operated by Wheaton College (and not by the BGEA, the evangelist was careful to point out), the center will house the college’s graduate school, an evangelism library, the archives of Graham and his various ministries, and a short-term training program for overseas Christian leaders to be known as the International Institute of Evangelism. The 193,000-square-foot building is being constructed across the street from the college’s administration building. One of the special features envisioned for the center is a walk-through display area where tourists will hear a presentation of the Gospel while viewing materials related to the history of evangelism. Completion of the building is scheduled in the summer of 1979.

When asked by reporters about the WECEF controversy, Graham emphasized that the foundation’s existence had never been a secret. He cited a 1971 news conference in Minneapolis at which its creation was announced, but the “dullness” of the matter, he said, prevented its being picked up by many papers outside the headquarters city. He noted, however, that Religious News Service did pick up the report and that some religious journals mentioned it in late 1971 and early 1972. He also reminded news people that an Akron Beacon Journal reporter, Peter Geiger, interviewed him about it and mentioned it in an article in 1972. The Akron paper is in the same chain as the Charlotte daily that accused Graham of concealing the fund.

Editor David Lawrence, Jr., of the Charlotte Observer personally interviewed the evangelist last month. In the resulting article, which was prominently displayed on the front page of a Sunday edition, Lawrence says Graham “is a very likable man.” He continued: “Regretfully lost in the discussion of that fund is a fuller picture of Billy Graham and his ministry, a ministry which has reached more people than any mortal’s in the history of mankind.”

In his news conference, Graham was also asked about his new book, How To Be Born Again, and the newest book about him, The Gospel According to Billy, by Chuck Ashman, a Los Angeles television personality. In response to the charges that his new book, published by Word, duplicates some material in his World Aflame (Doubleday), Graham acknowledged that there is some duplication. Future printings, he said, will mention that fact. Further, said he in reply questions about plagiarism, “How do you plagiarize yourself?” The evangelist pointed out that he holds the copyrights on both volumes.

He told journalists that he had not read the Ashman book. It contains a variety of unsupported charges. Mary Bishop, one of the reporters who wrote the Charlotte Observer articles, reviewed it in her paper. She said Ashman had promised to produce evidence on some of his charges for the Observer but had not done so. The Charlotte writer, who has completed the manuscript for her own Graham book (under contract to Grosset and Dunlap), says the Ashman volume is a “generous spread of innuendo, cliche, and corn” that is irreverent and “not always accurate.” His writing, she reports, “reads like a ninth-grade essay.” The author, a convicted felon, has been involved in a variety of journalistic, promotional, and educational enterprises across the country.

Bowing Out

The 75,000-member Christian Reformed Church (CRC) of the Netherlands last month pulled out of the International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC), the separatist world-church body founded and directed by New Jersey minister Carl McIntire. It was the largest ICCC body. Leaders complained that McIntire too often speaks and acts unilaterally, dwells excessively on politics, and is vague about financial dealings. A commission was appointed to investigate the handling of money at the ICCC’s Holland office, headed by J. C. Maris, a clergyman of the CRC and a top ICCC executive. Earlier this year, four staff members of that office complained that substantial amounts of ICCC money raised in the Netherlands never reached the projects for which the funds were raised (ministry in Eastern Europe and the digging of wells in India). Afterward, the staffers were fired.

Birth Control

More than nine of ten Roman Catholic married couples are using birth control methods forbidden by their church, according to a nationwide survey by two Princeton University researchers. Their study, published in Family Planning Perspectives, concludes that contraceptive practices of Catholics are about the same as those of non-Catholics. A decade earlier, say the researchers, only 58 per cent of Catholic couples were practicing artificial contraception.

The survey—based on statistics gathered in 1975—shows that 26 per cent of Catholic couples have been surgically sterilized (up from 4 per cent in 1965), 34 per cent use the Pill, and 33 per cent employ other artificial means, while 6 per cent rely on the rhythm method (down from 32 per cent in 1965).

Christian Yellow Pages

“They’re emotionally involved instead of looking at it factually.” That’s what the national director of Christian Yellow Pages, W. R. Tomson of Modesto, California, says about the people who are attacking his enterprise. “It’s being blown all out of proportion,” he insists.

Tomson and the Christian Yellow Pages (CYP) have plenty of attackers. In addition to writing letters to editors, passing resolutions in clergy associations and denominational assemblies, the foes are now going to court. Suits have been filed in several California jurisdictions, and Tomson was served with the papers in one of the cases last month. No trial dates have been set, however.

“We’re simply publishing lists,” the CYP national director stated in an interview. He sees nothing discriminatory, illegal, or unethical about distributing lists of business people who are willing to affirm that they are born-again Christians and who welcome business from others who want to do business with them. Such directories have already been published in thirty-six communities (mostly in the West and South), and thirty others are in various stages of development, he said.

“We hope to strengthen the body of Christ,” Tomson declared, denying that the directories are intended to discriminate against any group. In the communities where the booklets are published, CYP representatives go to churches and other groups to get names and addresses of members who might be interested in being listed. Then, armed with these prospect lists, the salesmen call and take orders for advertisem*nts of various sizes. The order form requires an advertiser to certify that he has accepted Christ as personal Saviour. The finished product, similar in appearance to the classified section of telephone directories, is distributed free through cooperating churches or bookstores.

Taking a page from the strategy book used by church groups who advocate patronage of firms certified by Project Equality or the Better Business Bureau, Tomson said his publications do not advocate boycotts. Instead, he maintains, they list merchants who possess a particular qualification. The only criterion he recognizes is the advertiser’s acceptance of Christ as Saviour.

In suits filed in southern California non-Jews as well as Jews are plaintiffs. The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith has assisted with the legal actions. The plaintiffs alleged that they were discriminated against when they were denied space in the directories. Those denials were based on their refusals to affirm born-again experiences.

Tomson finds it curious that members of the Jewish community are taking issue with CYP. In a statement in the Los Angeles Times he claimed to be utilizing the constitutional freedom available to Americans of all creeds. He added: “The Jews of America have always been a persecuted minority, and by adhering to the principle of standing together and supporting one another, the Jewish community has built financial empires.… In recognizing the successful principle employed by our Jewish neighbors, Christian Yellow Pages is attempting to unify the Christian community while providing a service for all.”

One anti-CYP document issued by the National Conference of Christians and Jews recognizes that originally the target of discrimination (if there was one) was the “nominal Christian” who would not stand up and be counted as a born-again person. The writer of the staff memo described the development as “an intramural struggle of the Born-Again vs. the Liberals.”

Jewish leaders, however, apparently felt threatened and encouraged their Christian friends across the country to speak out against the directories. Among the national groups to denounce CYP was the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (Southern). A representative of the Anti-Defamation League testified before the assembly’s committee studying the resolution. (Tomson said he was never invited to appear before the committee or to send information.)

One of the charges made against CYP is that it is only for profit. Tomson says that it is primarily a Christian testimony. He acknowledges that since it was organized in 1973 it has been operated as a profit-making business. That is now changing, he says, and he is running CYP through the Family of Faith Foundation. The non-profit foundation has applied to the Internal Revenue Service for tax-exempt status and expects to be notified of certification soon. The little profit in the initial years was plowed back into the nation-wide expansion, Tomson told a reporter. In addition to directing CYP from his home he also manages a travel agency.

All of CYP’s troubles do not come from people who are opposed to the concept. There are also competing organizations. One of them, headquartered in San Diego, is Production House, whose booklets are called Christian Business Directories. Suits have also been filed against this firm by people who claim their exclusion amounts to discrimination under California law.

There are also independent operators issuing the books without permission of either of the parent groups. Some are using the names, soliciting business, running up unpaid bills, and then leaving town without producing the “pages.”

One of the latest entries into the field is the grand dragon of the California Ku Klux Klan, who said he intends to issue a directory of businesses favorable to the Klan.

Religion in Transit

Nearly 200 office employees of the National Council of Churches were considering union representation early this month, and a vote was expected soon. They could vote for the union or for an existing staff association as their bargaining agent, or they could vote against representation altogether. Executive staff members, who are not involved in the union election, were instructed to take a neutral position toward the organizing efforts.

Church historian Martin Marty of the University of Chicago Divinity School told an inter-Lutheran gathering in New York City last month that the “born-again movement” is the strongest movement in American religion today. There are commercial and faddish aspects, he said, but “it’s durable, and it’s not going to go away, very likely, when the fad level passes.” Its two major components, he said, are personal experience and biblical authority..

Congregations of the Lutheran Church in America and the American Lutheran Church are being invited to combine their efforts in a major evangelistic emphasis over the next year. It will employ paid ads in newspapers and on radio and television inviting people to engage in “face-to-face religion.” A four-week pilot project in Sioux City, Iowa, resulted in a 9.7 per cent increase in church attendance and a 20 per cent increase in giving, says a Lutheran official. Tests showed that as many as 80 per cent of those surveyed got the message and as many as 50 per cent could identify the source. Media kits for local use are available from the denominations.

The executive committee of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) has worked up a timetable for “responses” in the mid-1980s by the top legislative bodies of ten U.S. churches to a proposed plan of union. The merger plan, first submitted in 1970, has been undergoing revision, a process projected to be completed by 1983. The revised plan will then be submitted to the denominations. Still unclear is the exact nature of the response that will be called for.

More than 500 Westmont College students turned out last month to help victims of the Sycamore Canyon fire in Santa Barbara, California, clean up their devastated homes and lots.

An advisory commission has proposed to the Washington, D.C., city council that churches and certain other non-profit institutions be required to pay property taxes—but at a rate of 10 per cent of what they would pay if they were taxed like other properties.

Personalia

The contributions of Lillian Carter, the President’s peppery Baptist mother, to the “furtherance of international understanding, justice, and peace” were cited by the Synagogue Council of America in its presentation to her of its Covenant of Peace Prize. She is the first woman recipient. Nine years ago she returned from a two-year stint as a Peace Corps volunteer at a small-town clinic in India (she signed up at age 67), and now a hospital she designed is being built in that town. Family friend Andrew J. Young, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, spoke at the award ceremony.

James E. Groppi, 46, the Roman Catholic priest and civil-rights activist who was married last year, announced plans to join St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Milwaukee and to apply for the Episcopal priesthood. Episcopal bishop Charles T. Gaskell, however, said his Milwaukee diocese and the local Catholic diocese have agreed that neither will accept the transfer of a priest from the other. Groppi, now a bus driver, is trying other Wisconsin dioceses.

World Scene

Methodism in much of the world is suffering from a loss of the will to evangelize, declared George C. Hunter III, a United Methodist executive, at a meeting of the executive committee of the World Methodist Church (WMC) in Switzerland. He said Methodists are actively evangelizing in only a dozen of the eighty-seven countries that have a Wesleyan presence. One of the problems, he explained, is that many church leaders have been raised in Christian homes and have never experienced “being newly evangelized.” WMC general secretary Joe Hale reported there are now just under 50 million persons in the Wesleyan community worldwide, including 20.7 million full members.

Trustees of the 500,000-member Korean Methodist Church released a statement opposing American troop withdrawal from South Korea. The action, they warned, might provoke an attack from North Korea or lead to further restrictions on freedom at home in the name of national defense. They said fifty Methodist clergy were killed or imprisoned in the 1950 Korean war, large numbers of members were kidnapped or massacred, churches were destroyed, and religion was severely repressed.

Three California researchers have suffered some setbacks in their attempt to prove that the Book of Mormon has an origin other than the one taught by the 3.8-million-member Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In June, they released the notarized statements of three handwriting analysts who had concluded from studies of photocopied material that twelve pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript were written by a minister-novelist who died in 1816 (see July 8 issue, page 32). Since this was eleven years before Mormon founder Joseph Smith claimed he dug up golden plates in New York containing the Book of Mormon in an ancient Egyptian language, the researchers reasoned that Smith was a fraud and that Mormonism’s foundations are spurious.

However, the handwriting experts qualified their conclusions, saying their findings could be made positive only after study of the original documents. In July, following national press exposure of their preliminary findings, the analysts were able to examine the originals, thanks to officials at Oberlin (Ohio) College and to Mormon leaders in Salt Lake City. The Mormons maintained that their holy book could withstand any challenge hurled at it.

Subsequently, analyst Henry Silver, 86, dropped out of the case without offering a final opinion. He had examined the Mormon manuscript but withdrew without seeing the novel manuscript at Oberlin. Obviously disturbed by all the controversy surrounding the case, Silver claimed he had been misrepresented in initial press accounts, that he had not been told at the outset that the Book of Mormon authorship was involved, and that Walter Martin—the person who had financed the research—had “a vendetta” against the Mormon church. (Martin, a teacher at Melodyland School of Theology in Anaheim, California, lectures and writes about non-Christian cults. He recently filed a defamation suit against the Mormon church.)

Silver is involved in another handwriting case involving the Mormon church. He is one of several analysts who have ruled that the so-called Mormon will of Howard E. Hughes was indeed written by Hughes.

Several other experts disagree with Silver on the will. One of them is William Kaye, the second of the three analysts hired by Martin and the three researchers. Kaye studied handwriting samples of the minister-novelist—Solomon Spalding (also Spaulding)—at Oberlin and the twelve Book of Mormon manuscript pages of First Nephi attributed by Mormon archivists to “an unidentified scribe.” Early last month he reported that the comparison he made “shows unquestionably” that the written materials “have all been executed by the same person.”

Two weeks later, the third expert, Howard C. Doulder, arrived at an opposite conclusion. The pages of the novel at Oberlin and the pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript were written, he said, by “different authors.” The highly respected analyst attributed similarities “to the writing style of that century.” The “unexplainable” writing and letter dissimilarities he found led him to conclude that Spalding “is not the author” of the disputed Book of Mormon pages, he said.

The researchers—Wayne L. Cowdrey, 31, Howard A. Davis, 33, and Donald R. Scales, 27—have written a book, Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? It was due off the press this month. Scales said it would include Doulder’s final opinion as well as his preliminary one based on study of the photocopies. It would also include everything the other two analysts had reported, he added. He pointed out that he and his colleagues had concluded that Spalding was “the true author of the majority of the Book of Mormon fully two years before we had any handwriting evidence, and our case is neither made nor broken on the basis of the handwriting question.”

Martin, who has worked closely with the three researchers, has maintained for years that much of the Book of Mormon is taken from Spalding’s writings.

Meanwhile, Mormon archivists have assembled a large amount of evidence—some of it impressive—to rebut the Spalding theory. They scored a coup of sorts when they discovered that a manuscript page from another Mormon book, Doctrine and Covenants, is apparently in the same handwriting as that of the “unidentified scribe” in the Book of Mormon manuscript. It is dated June, 1831—fifteen years after Spalding’s death.

The Mormons also published side-by-side photo reproductions showing words and letters from the various manuscript sources. The average layman can readily note the striking dissimilarities between Spalding’s specimens and the others.

The Spalding theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon arose in Joseph Smith’s lifetime. Its chief advocate was Philastus Hurlbut, who was excommunicated from the Mormon church in 1833. (Smith was shot to death by a mob in Illinois in 1844.) Hurlbut’s views were contained in a book published by Ohio newspaper editor Eber D. Howe in 1834. The book contained affidavits signed by eight persons, including Spalding’s wife and brother, suggesting that Smith had plagiarized Spalding’s work. The affidavits were similar in content and wording. This fact and other aspects, including the lack of hard evidence, have led a number of scholarly critics of Mormonism over the years to disavow the Spalding theory. At the same time, they reject Smith’s explanation of beginnings.

Mormons often point out that although many of Smith’s early colleagues either left the church in a huff or were excommunicated, none ever differed with his account of how the Book of Mormon was produced. (Smith dictated to associates his translation of the golden plates with the aid of “seer” stones in front of his eyes, according to church teaching.)

Among Mormonism’s critics are Jerald and Sandra Tanner, ex-Mormons who now operate a Salt Lake City publishing firm that specializes in anti-Mormon research. Tanner made a fresh study of the Spalding theory after the researchers’ claims were publicized, managed to accompany Kaye to the Mormon archives to examine manuscript pages and produced a book, Did Spalding write the Book of Mormon? The volume’s answer: no. Adding insult to injury, it contains some of the same photocopy reproductions of handwriting samples as the Cowdrey-Davis-Scales book to make its point, and it came on the market earlier.

Why do handwriting experts differ among themselves? And why do they sometimes reach conclusions that are contrary to what seems obvious to an ordinary person? Observers point out that “experts” can be found on both sides in most important court cases involving handwriting analysis. Often it is a case of one analyst emphasizing similarities and the other pointing out dissimilarities. And then one lawyer, looking on the dim side, suggests that the fee may sometimes be a factor: “You are told what you pay to hear.” Most analysts would deny such a suggestion as a vicious smear.

Whatever, everyone seems to agree that handwriting analysis is not an exact science.

Flood Relief

Clean-up efforts were still going on this month in the Kansas City, Missouri, area following the mid-September deluge that dumped fourteen inches of rain on the city in less than twenty-four hours. At least two dozen persons, including a Presbyterian minister were drowned, 1,200 were left homeless, and an estimated $30 million worth of damage was inflicted.

A number of churches suffered damage. Apparently hardest hit were Second Presbyterian Church and Village Presbyterian Church in suburban Prairie Mission, one of the largest Presbyterian churches in the country. Second sustained about $270,000 worth of damage, and Village pegged its losses at $60,000. Central United Methodist Church and several other churches suffered moderate damage. Leaders say most of the churches carried no flood insurance or reserve funds to cope with such a disaster. Volunteers are trying to salvage what they can, and flood relief drives have been launched.

Pastor Harold A. Thomas of Linwood United Church and his wife Joanne were returning home late on the night the flood struck. A wall of water disabled their car. Mrs. Thomas was saved by clinging to a tree but Thomas was swept away in the swirling water and mud. He was a leader in the local presbytery, which is affiliated with both the United and Southern Presbyterian denominations.

Nearly 400 persons were at a stewardship banquet at Alameda Plaza Hotel that was sponsored by First Nazarene Church when the storm hit. Guest speaker Earl Lee, pastor of First Nazarene Church in Pasadena, California, finished speaking, and a choir began its final number. Water from flooding Brush Creek suddenly swished into the ballroom, and hotel employees instructed everyone to go upstairs to the lobby. All got out safely, but some had to wade in waist-deep water to get to a stalled escalator and stairways, and dozens lost their autos to the flood. The depth later reached eight feet in the ballroom.

The Nazarene denominational headquarters also suffered flood damage, including the loss of some stored materials.

The Salvation Army fielded nine officers and some fifty volunteers, many of them Nazarene college students, to aid disaster workers and victims of the flood. Thousands of meals were served and temporary housing was provided for some victims.

Meanwhile, a report was released late last month summarizing church relief campaigns to aid the victims of the devastating flood that struck Johnstown, Pennsylvania, earlier this year. The report shows that nearly $1 million was raised by various churches and denominational agencies for the flood victims. The largest single gift—$283,000—came from the Roman Catholic diocese of Pittsburgh. A regional unit of the United Methodist Church gave $224,000. Major operations were mounted by the Salvation Army, Catholics, United Methodists, and other groups. Thousands of boxes of clothing and food were distributed, and the equivalent of about 3,500 days were donated by church volunteers in clean-up work.

Dismissed

In an important action that may or may not set a precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court last month let stand a ruling by a court in the state of Washington that teachers can be dismissed for being hom*osexuals. The high court declined to review the case of James Gaylord, 39, a social-studies teacher who taught at Tacoma high school for nearly thirteen years. A former student at the school told authorities in 1972 that Gaylord was a hom*osexual, and when a school official asked the teacher about it, he acknowledged that he was and was promptly fired. Officials explained that he was a “publicly known hom*osexual” and that he was therefore in violation of a school-board rule barring teachers who are “immoral.” Gaylord presently works for the American Federation of Teachers.

The Supreme Court’s action amounts to a refusal to become involved in the controversy over hom*osexual teachers, at least for now. It does not necessarily mean that the justices favor the firing of teachers because of their sexual orientation. But it does mean that public-school administrators do not have to worry about such dismissals until the court takes a more definitive role.

The action has evoked enraged outcries from gay-rights advocates, civil libertarians, and others. But it brought praise from singer Anita Bryant, an evangelical who has crusaded nationally against allowing hom*osexuals to teach. Said she: “Now I have greater hope that God has given America a space to repent and that this will slow down the forces that are attempting to destroy the foundation of this country—the family unit.” Rights of hom*osexual teachers have been upheld in recent court decisions in California, Maryland, Oregon, and Delaware, says a spokesman for the National Gay Task Force, a New York-based group. And several cities—including New York—have active professional organizations of hom*osexual teachers, according to press reports.

Here’s Life Update

Founder-president Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ hopes to see the world reached for Christ by 1980. To help achieve that goal, he launched Here’s Life America in 1974, using Atlanta as a test city. Since that time, nearly 250,000 volunteer workers from about 15,000 churches have had a part in Here’s Life, according to a Campus Crusade spokesman. These workers reported contacts with almost eight million people through mid-June, of whom more than 532,000 made decisions for Christ, said the source. The campaign has been carried out in nearly 200 metropolitan areas in the United States so far, and efforts are now under way overseas, with 100 major cities targeted for a Here’s Life campaign by the end of this year. A follow-up phase on discipleship is meanwhile being pursued.

Here’s Life employs a media blitz to catch people’s attention. Millions of Americans are familiar with the “I Found It” slogan associated with the campaign. The slogan was coined by Bob Screen of the Russ Reid company of Pasadena, California, which handles Campus Crusade’s media strategy. Screen told religion writer Russell Chandler of the Los Angeles Times that the slogan popped into his mind while shaving one morning.

Bible bookstores say the demand for “I Found It” bumper stickers is still high. Some of Screen’s friends meanwhile have made him a special bumper sticker, but he told Chandler he hasn’t got the nerve to paste it on his car. It says: “I Thought Of It.”

World Outlook

A 1980 consultation on world evangelization was authorized at last month’s meeting of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) in Montreal. David M. Howard, an executive with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship and a former missionary in Latin America, was chosen to direct the event. The ten-day consultation is expected to bring together about 450 Christian leaders from all parts of the world, according to LCWE chairman Leighton Ford. It will be held in a Third World city, he said, mentioning Singapore and Nairobi, Kenya, as possible sites. Participants will evaluate what has happened since the 1974 evangelization congress in Lausanne, and they will set post-1980 priorities and strategy, stated Ford.

An LCWE subcommittee reported on plans for a worldwide day of prayer on Pentecost Sunday, May 14, 1978. Other reports indicated an ongoing explosive growth in evangelization around the world. Quebec, Indonesia, South Korea, the Solomon Islands, and Uganda were among the areas highlighted.

Expelled

A footnote of sorts was added last month to the unpleasant chapter of church history involving the recent schism in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). John Tietjen (pronounced teejen), 48, one of the principals in the doctrinal controversy and power struggle that led to the schism, was expelled from the LCMS clergy roster and thus from membership in the denomination.

Tietjen had been president of Concordia Seminary in St. Louis for three years when conservatives, led by LCMS president J. A. O. Preus, launched a drive in 1972 to rid the school of alleged theological liberalism. This led to a showdown that was won by conservatives at the 1973 LCMS biennial convention in New Orleans. False teachings had indeed infiltrated Concordia, the delegates decided. A committee was appointed to deal with Tietjen and the faculty majority, who maintained they were being treated unfairly in the face of false charges. In 1974, Tietjen was suspended as president, charged with tolerating false doctrine in faculty ranks. In the uproar that ensued the majority of faculty members and students walked off campus in protest. They set up a “seminary in exile” and called it Seminex, a school that later became part of the breakaway movement and that now has Tietjen as president (current enrollment: 284).

Meanwhile, two LCMS clergymen had lodged a formal charge against Tietjen following the 1973 convention. They accused him of teaching false doctrine and of sheltering teachers who taught error. In 1975, Vice President Oscar Gerken of the Missouri District of the LCMS, who was responsible for deciding the case, ruled that Tietjen was not guilty of teaching false doctrine. Gerkens was less clear about other aspects, however. This opened the way for Tietjen’s fate to be placed directly in Preus’s hands.

Preus, wishing to avoid conflict-of-interest implications, appointed an LCMS vice president, Theodore Nickel, to handle the matter. Nickel suggested to Tietjen that he could be cleared if he would “withdraw or modify” certain statements deemed out of line with Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. Tietjen rejected the charges of false doctrine but declined to discuss the issues. He explained that he had decided “not to participate further in the proceedings against me because they were a charade whose outcome of removing me from office and from the Synod had been predetermined by the president of the Synod.”

Nickel called Tietjen’s decision to refrain from discussion “regrettable.” In the absence of “written withdrawals or modifications of your challenged statements, there is no recourse except to sustain the charge made by your accusers,” stated Nickel. He held out a final offer: if Tietjen would appeal the ruling, his expulsion would become only a suspension, and the case would be handed to the LCMS court system. Again Tietjen declined to defend himself, and the expulsion order stood.

Campus Crunch

An eight-month-old controversy over whether religious teaching and worship should be allowed on the campus of the University of Missouri at Kansas City came to a head this month when attorney James M. Smart filed suit against the university’s prohibitions.

Smart represents members of Cornerstone, an independent Christian campus church. It has been an official campus organization since 1971 and met on campus without incident until it was denied use of university facilities last February, according to Clint Hall, an elder of the group.

At about the same time two other interdenominational Christian groups—Campus Crusade for Christ and Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International (FGBMFI)—also were denied the right to continue meeting there.

The evictions were based on a policy made by the Board of Curators in 1972. It states: “No university buildings or grounds (except chapels as herein provided) may be used for purposes of religious worship or religious teaching by either student or non-student groups.… No regulations shall be interpreted to forbid the offering of prayer or other appropriate recognition of religion at public functions held on university facilities.” The policy also states that “regular chapels” on campus may be used for religious services “but not for regular recurring services of any groups.”

Bob Bond, who was Campus Crusade’s local university coordinator during the spring semester, said it was mostly due to the ban on their meetings that the decision was made to withdraw Crusade’s staff and suspend activities on the campus this fall.

Bob Bury, another Cornerstone elder, said at the beginning of the current semester that his group requested but was denied permission to meet on the university’s lawn in lieu of a building.

James Webb, president of the Kansas City Chapter of the FGBMFI, said his group does not plan to take legal action. He said members were annoyed by the inconvenience of having to relocate on short notice. “We were booked there all year,” he said, adding that they were given only five days notice last March to stop holding meetings on campus.

Gary Widmar, dean of students, said that prohibition of religious worship and teaching on campus was a “long-standing regulation” of the university in line with the doctrine of separation of church and state. The reason the offending groups were not suspended until early this year is that it was not known what was happening in their meetings, he said. “Once the content of their meetings was adjudged to be what any reasonable person would define as worship—reading the Scriptures and praying and that kind of stuff—at that point we had no choice but to say, ‘You are in violation of university regulations,’” he stated.

The Cornerstone suit charges that the university regulations violate the freedom of expression provision of the First Amendment. It asserts that the regulations are “unconstitutionally vague” because they permit prayer, which is generally considered to be a form of worship, but do not allow “an atmosphere of worship.” Other instances of alleged vagueness are also cited. Lawyer Smart says the rules go beyond separation of church and state requirements because they “deal with the question of what private individuals may do among themselves.”

The suit requests a permanent injunction to be issued to restrain anyone affiliated with the university from enforcing the regulations.

Similar regulations are being introduced or implemented at other campuses around the country, so the case is being followed with more than usual interest by school administrators and religious leaders outside of Kansas City.

MARY ALLISON

Teen-Age Faith

A whopping 95 per cent of American teen-agers believe in God or a universal spirit, according to the latest Gallup Youth Survey. And three out of four teen-agers believe in a “personal” God—one who observes an individual’s actions and rewards or punishes, the survey found.

Nearly 90 per cent of the teens surveyed said they pray, and 39 per cent said they pray “frequently.” (More than half of the older girls—ages 16, 17, and 18—reported they prayed frequently.) About half of the teen-agers polled said they give thanks to God aloud before meals.

The survey results were based on a sample of 1,035 teen-agers.

An earlier survey showed that about 70 per cent of American adults believe in a personal God.

Moon Trek: Many Enterprises

Although the Reverend Sun Myung Moon established his Unification Church in the United States in the mid-1960s, he and the church did not really “go public” in this country until 1974. By then the small group had accumulated a lot of money and holdings, and it had built up an impressive cash flow. The cash flow came largely from an army of members hustling donations door-to-door and on the streets. Hundreds of the young fund-raisers were Japanese who later left the country under the pressure of deportation proceedings but not before thousands of Americans were recruited to keep the money coming in (former “Moonies” say the average solicitor raises about $125 per day). They sell tea, a church newspaper, and fish. Much of the money has been used to increase the church’s holdings and to promote “Master” Moon and his doctrine of a latter-day, Korean-born messiah who will achieve political power over the entire world.

In the years since 1974, Moon and the church have attracted widespread press attention, the ire of many parents who “lost” their children to the unorthodox sect, and the keen interest of a congressional committee that is investigating among other things South Korean influence on American politics. There is speculation that Moon’s funding and strategy have come in part from the Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA), but no hard evidence has been introduced to back up the charges. One top church official, Dan Fefferman, has been threatened with a contempt-of-Congress citation for refusing to answer questions about KCIA links with the church.

These developments hit the press last month:

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged that the Diplomat National Bank in Washington, D.C., was secretly and fraudulently controlled from its beginning in 1975 by accused South Korean agent Tongson Park and Moon’s closest aide, Bo Hi Pak, a former Korean military attache based in Washington. No individual was to own more than 5 per cent of the bank’s shares, but the SEC alleges that Pak bought about 43 per cent of the bank’s stock through eighteen nominees for about $1.1 million. (Park, under indictment for conspiracy and bribery, bought 10 per cent, asserts the SEC.) The Unification Church accounted for 45 per cent of the bank’s checking-account deposits of $5.7 million and nearly one-fourth of the bank’s total deposits, says the SEC complaint. Reports of irregularities at the bank first surfaced more than a year ago, and the bank apparently has been undergoing reorganization to get things straightened out. Columnist Jack Anderson, one of the bank’s founding directors, was among those who resigned, and much of Pak’s stock was turned over to the bank for resale.

• Reporter Richard Halloran of the New York Times obtained a copy of the minutes of a 1973 meeting of top-level Unification Church officers who were planning a drive intended to prevent impeachment of then President Nixon. Moon was not at the meeting, according to Halloran’s story on the minutes, but church president Neil A. Salonen is quoted as telling the other fourteen participants that “Project Watergate” was a “direct priority from Master.” Church members later rallied publicly in support of Nixon in a well-publicized campaign. Halloran said the minutes do not show that orders for the drive came from the KCIA. Earlier, the House Subcommittee on International Organizations cited “reliable information” linking the KCIA to the drive, a charge denied by church officials. The minutes do show, however, that Moon hoped “to give an address to a joint session of Congress.”

• The Boston Globe reported that the church’s financial records show “many apparent discrepancies” and a lack of “satisfactory recordkeeping.” A church lawyer denies improprieties.

Judaism And Earliest Christianity

Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum: The Jewish People in the First Century, section one, volume two, edited by S. Safrai, M. Stern, D. Flusser, and W. C. van Unnik (Fortress, 1977, 722 pp., $32.50), is reviewed by David E. Aune, professor of religion, Saint Xavier College, Chicago, Illinois.

Two generations ago, several magisterial syntheses of the state of knowledge of Judaism in the Hellenistic and Roman era were available to students. Two of the most important and valuable of such works were Emil Schürer’s monumental Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes im ZeitalterJesu Christi [“History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ”] and H. Strack and P. Billerbeck’s Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch [“Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Midrash”], with honorable mention for J. F. Moore’s Judaism. Serious students of early Christianity are fortunate that several new or revised summaries of the last fifty years of scholarship are now in the process of publication. The “old” Schürer is now being completely revised under the competent editorship of Matthew Black, and the first volume of The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, rev. and ed. by G. Vermes and F. Millar (T. & T. Clark, 1973), has already appeared and has become an indispensable tool for the study of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman period. With the concurrent publication of the first volume of the first section of the Compendia in 1974, students of early Christianity now suffer from that most pleasant of all disadvantages, the poverty of riches. (See the review of these two works in the December 20, 1974, issue, page 21.)

Books that superficially treat the political, social, and religious background of the New Testament are a dime-a-dozen (and generally worth every penny). Good books on the subject (like E. Lohse’s The New Testament Environment [Abingdon, 1976]) are rare and when found should cause rejoicing. (See review February 4, issue, page 48.) Great books on the subject, like the one presently being reviewed, are as rare as sightings of Halley’s comet. If you should see this book in a bookstore (doubtless heavily guarded), go at once and sell what you have to sell to buy it.

In the present volume, seven Jewish scholars (all Israelis and all but one professors at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem) and one Christian scholar comprehensively treat a number of important aspects of first century Jewish society, economics, religion, and culture. Volume two handles subjects not treated in volume one, which dealt extensively with geography and political history. Each essay is well-written, carefully documented, and accompanied by a selected bibliography. One point that becomes increasingly clear as one reads this book is that archaeology, reportedly the Israeli national pastime, has made great strides in the last generation. Many of the essays rely heavily on recent archaeological explorations carried out in Israel, reports and interpretations of which are more often than not published in modern Hebrew in various Israeli publications.

Filmstrips

There are a number of noteworthy filmstrips on biblical subjects aimed at children, some of which are appropriate for young teens. The Ten Commandments for Children (Catechetical Guild, Our Sunday Visitor, Noll Plaza, Huntington, IN 46750), closely integrates both the Old and New Testaments. The love of God in Jesus is stressed as the means of fulfilling the essential law. That is why the series of eleven filmstrips (one introductory) is subtitled “God’s Laws of Love for All His Children.” It handles the commandment on adultery sensitively. With traditional drawings and music, this series belongs in evangelical church libraries.

The Sadlier Scripture Series (Wm. H. Sadlier, 11 Park Place, New York, NY 10007) includes ten nicely animated, well told stories from creation to the prophets (Jonah, Amos, Isaiah). The Thomas S. Klise Company (Box 3418, Peoria, IL 61614) also draws from the deuterocanonical works for its delightful litany, Praise the Lord. A fast moving and fun to watch filmstrip, it is a children’s praise service for nature’s beauties. The animation is based on Daniel 3:47–88 (sic), but no one will know unless told. In any case it fits Psalm 148 equally well.

For the New Testament, the Sadlier Company offers two about our Lord, Jesus: Friend of the Lowly and Jesus: Bread of Life. They are based broadly on Luke and John respectively. Alba House (Canfield, OH 44406) offers Follow Me, two read-alongs on one filmstrip that tell what Jesus did with reference to the rich young man and to blind Bartimaeus.

What Jesus taught is the emphasis of the parables offered by two producers, Marshfilm (Box 8082, Mission, KS 66208) and Family Films (14622 Lanark St., Panorama City, CA 91406). Although there is a little overlapping, there is little stylistic similarity. Besides being animated, Marshfilm’s innovation is to relate how Jesus’ childhood observations became adult parables. Each parable is pointed. Family Film’s version is neither live photography nor animation. Rather it features “Church Mice,” stuffed creatures who pose the parables as cute stories. This series is called Four Parables for Boys and Girls.

A beautiful retelling of the Lord’s Prayer is The “Our Father” from Twenty-Third Publications (Box 180, West Mystic, CT 06388). It emphasizes how the teaching of the Lord’s Prayer would have sounded to the ears of first-century Semitic children. By means of animated flashbacks the hearers relate segments of the prayer to stories of Noah’s Ark, Lot, Joseph, and Daniel. The guide, unfortunately, overuses terms like “myth” and “legend.” Ignore the guide, but get this truly imaginative production.

Check with your audio-visual retailer or write the producer for further information such as price and availability of teaching aids.

DALE SANDERS

Portland, Oregon

The social context of the ministry of Jesus and of the earliest Christians is illuminated by a number of essays on social and economic subjects such as M. Stern’s “Aspects of Jewish Society: the Priesthood and Other Classes,” S. Applebaum’s “The Social and Economic Status of the Jews in the Diaspora,” and “Economic Life in Palestine,” and S. Safrai’s “Home and Family.” The authors of these essays show themselves exceptionally well-versed in New Testament studies by frequently demonstrating how aspects of their subjects are relevant to a more adequate understanding of early Christianity. A clearer picture of first century Palestinian religious life emerges in four essays by S. Safrai, “Religion in Everyday Life,” “The Temple” (which summarizes the results of recent archaeological investigations near the site of the Temple), “The Synagogue,” and “Education and the Study of Torah.” M. D. Herr’s article on “The Calendar,” though more esoteric than most of the articles in the volume, is nevertheless an important contribution to the subject. In the area of philology (here one of the pressing questions for students of the New Testament relates to the original language of Jesus), C. Rabin discusses “Hebrew and Aramaic in the First Century” (unaccountably his bibliography omits the fine article by J. Fitzmyer, “The Languages of Palestine in the First Century, A.D.,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 32 [1970], 501–31), and G. Mussies treats “Greek in Palestine and the Diaspora.” G. Foerster’s excellent discussion of “Art and Architecture in Palestine” suffers from a lack of pictorial illustrations necessary for an adequate treatment of such a subject. “Paganism in Palestine” is expertly treated by Israeli New Testament scholar D. Flusser, who demonstrates that on the whole Palestinian Judaism was essentially immune to paganism. Finally, M. Stern’s “The Jews in Greek and Latin Literature,” though erudite in its own right, should be read in the context provided by A. Momigliano’s chapter on “The Hellenistic Discovery of Judaism” in his Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization (Cambridge, 1975).

When completed the entire Compendia project will consist of five sections, presumably with two or more volumes per section, dealing basically with Judaism and Christianity and their mutual relationships during the first two Christian centuries. The project is a massive undertaking, the size of which is more than matched by the quality of scholarship evident in the two volumes that have so far appeared. No theological library can do without them.

American Indian Religion

Seeing With A Native Eye: Essays on Native American Religion, edited by Walter Holden Capps (Harper & Row, 1976, $3.95 pb), is reviewed by Arthur Roberts, professor of philosophy and religion, George Fox College, Newberg, Oregon.

These essays provide a helpful introduction to the study of the various native American religions. The value of such study to persons within the despiritualized West may be illustrated by the response of an old Navajo herder to pictures of a bomber, “How many sheep will it hold?” Christians have often applied reductionist interpretation to the religions of “inferior” cultures but resent the application of such interpretations to their own culture. This book serves as a reminder of the judgment and fulfillment of all cultures in Christ.

The most reflective non-Indian essay is Richard Comstock’s. He shows how eschatological expectations of a harmonious union of Europeans, native Americans, animals, and nature, depicted so eloquently in Hick’s “Peaceable Kingdom” give way to the myth of a “no-good savage.” “It is as if the societies with the complex technologies have felt some kind of threat from these people so easy to defeat in an uneven battle, but so difficult to exorcise from the secret imaginings of their hearts.”

Quietly, like the slaves of ancient Egypt, the native peoples are gathering world-wide. Will Christ become their liberator, their second Moses? This book could well be read in conjunction with Hannah’s song, Isaiah, the Magnificat, and Jesus’ words about the future of the meek.

Churches Behind Bars

A Christian’s Guide to Effective Jail and Prison Ministries, by Dale K. Pace (Revell, 1976, 318 pp., $11.95), is reviewed by John de Vries, Protestant chaplain, Centre Federal de Formation, Laval, Quebec.

This book will fill a conspicuously empty spot in the library of every minister and church worker. As a supervisor chaplain and regional coordinator for Good News Mission, which has chaplains in jails in several states, Dale Pace is well qualified to write a comprehensive and well documented introductory textbook. This easy-to-read book focuses on the chaplain and related ministries in correctional institutions.

The author honestly and candidly describes the problems and issues that the chaplain and Christian workers must manage to have an effective ministry to the “Church Behind Bars.” Pace describes the biblical imperatives for such a ministry, and he rightly laments the lack of religious or spiritual ministry in more than 1,600 of the 4,000 American correctional institutions. The “house of penitence,” first established by the Quaker Christians as an alternative to ruthless corporal punishment, is today a “foreign mission field” within driving distance of every North American city (and church?). The author is encouraged by the growing evangelical awareness and response to the needs of our incarcerated population.

Pace wants results. His book is pragmatic. The basic underlying issues of injustice in the correctional institutions, the unchristian forms of punishment, and the questionable methods of many correctional institutions should not be ignored by the Christian and the chaplain. But Pace does not discuss these issues. Perhaps his book will serve as an introductory text to be followed by more writing and study in this much neglected area of ministry. He says that a biblical and theological approach to penology and criminology must be developed.

Pace gets needlessly bogged down in a diatribe over the pros and cons of clinical pastoral education, which he finds wanting, and the chaplain’s source of income, which he feels strongly should come from the church rather than the government.

Some of the author’s minor views regarding chaplaincy training, income, and the establishment of a “Church Behind Bars” are debatable, but his overall pastoral thrust is deeply rooted in both the Word and personal professional experience. The book is challenging and is a vital source of information for ministering to prisoners, a class of persons often neglected even by those who believe that Christ came to minister to all men.

The Pilgrimage Of Karl Barth

Karl Barth: His Life from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, by Eberhard Busch (Fortress, 1976, 369 pp., $19.95), is reviewed by Donald G. Bloesch, professor of theology, Dubuque Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa.

The author of this perceptive study was Karl Barth’s last assistant and is now curator of the Barth archives in Basel. The book presents an illuminating summary of Barth’s thought, as well as an informative and scintillating account of his life. Some of Busch’s material is based on unpublished letters in the Barth archives and on records of addresses and conversations not generally available.

Of particular interest to students of theology is Barth’s spiritual pilgrimage, as the author describes it. In his early years as a theological student Barth was exposed to the liberal theology that dominated German and Swiss universities. At one stage in his career his philosophy was that the only divine element in the world is good will (à la Kant). After his studies in Berlin he came to regard Schleiermacher as the leading light in his thought. Among his professors Harnack and Hermann exerted considerable influence on him. His commitment to liberal theology was irrevocably shaken when his German teachers identified with the Kaiser’s war effort. As a pastor in Safenwil, Switzerland, he veered toward the right theologically and toward the left politically. In his teaching years at German universities he moved steadily toward a theocentric as over against an anthropocentric theology. In his book on Anselm (1931) he finally arrived at a theological method (“faith seeking understanding”) that broke with philosophical theology. These years also saw his conflict with National Socialism and his role in the Barmen Confession, which was drawn up by German theologians and pastors against the German Christians who sought to accommodate the faith to Nazi ideology. For Barth the battle against National Socialism was a battle against natural theology and a defense of the first commandment.

Barth’s relation to the Confessing Church in Germany was not always amicable. When Hitler assumed absolute power, Barth was compelled to return to his native country where he took a teaching post at Basel, but he continued to maintain close contact with the Confessing Church. As the Confessing Church became evermore concerned with right doctrine over against a public witness in the face of growing paganism, Barth began to express reservations. He criticized the Confessing Church for fighting only for itself and for the freedom and purity of its proclamation while keeping silent over the persecution of the Jews, the harsh treatment of political opponents, and the suppression of the press in the new Germany.

In his later years Barth became increasingly disenchanted with existentialism, and his earlier break with Gogarten, Bultmann, Tillich, et al. now became an open rupture. He regarded existentialist theology as the latest development in Neo-Protestantism, where the point of departure is religious experience rather than divine revelation. He argued against Bultmann that philosophy is not the handmaid of theology but that both theology and philosophy can only be the handmaid of the church and of Christ.

Of special interest today in light of Marquardt’s book Theology and Socialism: The Example of Karl Barth (1972) is Barth’s complex relation to socialism. Marquardt maintains that Barth’s theology was an attempt to give conceptual undergirding to his commitment to socialism, already evident in his pastorate in Safenwil. Barth was outspoken in his defense of the rights of workers and at Safenwil was even known as “the Red pastor.” Yet Busch makes it clear that Barth always maintained a certain distance from socialist ideology though he was active in socialist politics. Barth was careful never to identify a political program with the kingdom of God and felt that Christians should enter the political arena anonymously. He declared: “I regard the ‘political pastor’ in any form as a mistake, even if he is a socialist. But as a man and a citizen … I take the side of the Social Democrats.” For Barth theology must not become political nor politics become theological. At the same time he saw that the object of Christian faith and responsibility is not only divine justification but also human justice. The church’s message should be addressed to concrete life situations and therefore should have political implications and consequences. He contended that a genuine confession of faith should have something definite to say in terms of both dogmatics and ethics. This is why he refused to support the confessional statement of the No Other Gospel movement, since he believed that it did not effectively challenge the principalities and powers of our time.

Barth was passionately concerned with both doctrine and life. “The question of right doctrine,” he lamented, “introduces us to the vacuum at the heart of our church and inside Christianity.” At the same time he saw that doctrine must be integrally related to life, for otherwise it becomes irrelevant and saltless. Barth sought to call the church back to a confessional basis without succumbing to the temptation of a confessionalism that blocks the free movement of the Spirit and that exempts the confession from judgment and reformation in the light of the Word of God. A confession must never be a straitjacket that leaves no room for free inquiry, but an invitation to obedience to the Word of God in the concrete situation in which people find themselves. One does not have to agree with everything Barth says on confessions and theology to appreciate Busch’s fine contribution to theological understanding in our time.

Gnosticism Popularized

The Laughing Savior, by John Dart (Harper & Row, 1976, 154 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Malcolm L. Peel, chairperson, department of philosophy and religion, Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

A perennial challenge to scholars of the ancient past is to make their studies readable to a non-professional audience. Here the task has been performed for them by a journalist, John Dart, religion news writer for the Los Angeles Times. Supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Dart did his work at Stamford University. However, the scholar upon whose files and information he depended most, James M. Robinson, is based at the Claremont Graduate School.

Dart has produced a highly-readable, non-technical introduction to one of the truly great manuscript discoveries of the 20th century, the Gnostic documents of Nag Hammadi. The book is divided into four parts. Part One contains a dramatic account of “The Discovery,” from 1947 when Jean Doresse first saw a codex in the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo to 1976 when Robinson revisited the scene of the find. It is a tale of how scholarly jealousies and international politics combined to delay full publication of the find for more than thirty years. Also included is an admission by Robinson that his primary motivation in tackling Nag Hammadi was the prospect it afforded of vindicating Rudolph Bultmann’s contention that New Testament Christology was formatively shaped by a pre-Christian Gnostic redeemer myth.

Part Two, “The Jewish Connection,” sets forth the widely-held theory that Gnosticism, the most virulent heresy combated by the early church, originated in heterodox Jewish circles. Evidence for this is offered from selected Nag Hammadi texts held to contain rabbinic-style interpretations of the Old Testament (notably, Gen. 1–3), interpretations that reveal a radical transvaluation of Jewish values (such as, the Serpent in Genesis is declared good, the Creator evil).

Part Three, “Will the Real Savior Please Stand Up?,” raises two crucial questions about the new texts: first, whether they yield any new, non-canonical but reliable information about the historical Jesus; second, whether they contain evidence of a pre-Christian Gnostic redeemer myth. Dart, accepting the conclusions of Robinson and his close associates, affirms that the Gospel of Thomas contains sayings of Jesus older in form than their canonical New Testament counterparts, and that the Paraphrase of Shem and the Apocalypse of Adam do contain non-Christian and probably pre-Christian versions of a Gnostic redeemer myth.

Part Four, “The Gnostic Phenomenon,” examines less heterodox writings in the library, notably, the Valentinian Gospel of Truth. Also, it reports that there is no evidence in the manuscripts library for the orgiastic excesses and anti-feminism attributed to Gnostics by the early Church Fathers. Finally, there is an attempt to present a schematic development of Gnosticism on the basis of types of laughter found on the lips of the Saviour and certain female beings found in the texts. The volume concludes with a helpful appendix, prepared by James Brashler of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at Claremont, containing summaries of all fifty-two writings of the library.

The volume includes a valuable up-to-date, accurate account of the discovery and publication of the documents; the identification of key scholarly theories emerging about the texts; and the appendix. However, there are some shortcomings: a complete lack of documentation; the omission of any extended discussion of more than half of the texts; a failure to mention the names of all those members of the Coptic Gnostic Library Translation Team who provided the Institute for Antiquity with its transcriptions and translations; and silence regarding the dissenting opinions of other scholars on the question of the presence of a pre-Christian Gnostic redeemer myth in Nag Hammadi texts. In spite of these things, however, this is currently the best popular account of Nag Hammadi available in English, a fitting prelude to the publication by Harper & Row of all the library in English translation within a few months.

Briefly Noted

A wide range of tension-creating issues is treated by Russell A. Cervin in Mission in Ferment (Covenant Press [3200 W. Foster Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60625], 120 pp., $3.50 pb). Among the topics are: calls for moratorium, cultural resistance, church/mission tension, and the struggle of liberation theologians.

We’ve always said we care about our children and believe in ministering to them. But do we really? Have we demonstrated our concern? Of course, we have Sunday school. We give an occasional party and perhaps set up a few activities for them. But are children really significant in the life of the church?

At our church we’ve been putting more and more emphasis on the children. It’s true that they are the leaders of tomorrow. But they are also people of today, and they qualify for our attention and concern just as much as those of any other age do.

Every Sunday during our worship service we have a children’s sermon. After the opening hymn and prayers I invite the youngsters to the front. They sit on the floor around me for a five-minute sermon, nearly always illustrated, and on a level that they can understand. That means using concepts and a vocabulary within the grasp of children under twelve.

In the beginning, not everyone was sure that the children’s sermon was a good idea. “Some of the people are complaining,” an elder reported after the third Sunday. “They say you’re spending too much time in the service with those kids.”

“I’m sorry they feel that way,” I replied. “I certainly don’t want to upset anyone. But what we’ve been saying by our attitude, if not by our words, is that children don’t really count; God isn’t interested in you until you become a teenager—except in Sunday school, of course. Don’t you think we ought to let the children know that they do count?” He nodded. Not enthusiastically, but at least he nodded.

Three Sundays later at the door he said, “You know, I enjoyed the children’s sermon this morning. It was a lesson for me as well.” And six months later he said, “I hope this won’t hurt your feelings, but sometimes I get more out of your children’s sermons than I do the regular ones.”

I told him that I was glad he was getting something out of the worship experience and that I didn’t care whether it was the hymns, the prayers, the organ music, or some other part of the service that ministered to him.

Before beginning, I discussed the idea of a children’s sermon with some parents. Although they didn’t oppose it, they felt it would not be effective to have young children attend the whole service. “We want our children to learn something,” one said. “It’s awfully boring for my five-year-old to sit through an hour of regular worship.”

We developed a compromise. The children’s sermon takes place at about 11:10, after the opening prayers and a hymn. When it is over the four- and five-year-olds go to another part of the church for a forty-five minute program. From time to time the teachers talk to them about what went on during the quarter hour when they were in the worship service. They’re also told, “Just think, when you’re six, you can sit in there with the others.”

We considered the junior-church idea, and one day we may try that. But I feel that it’s good for families to have the experience of worshiping together. And the children seem to like the arrangement. Every Sunday morning children greet me warmly at the door. I receive effusive hugs from both girls and boys. I love those children, and their expressions tell me that they know it.

Amuse-You-Tuesday, another program for children, developed out of a comment by Vicki Turner. “Cec, we need to do something more for our kids. The teen-agers get a lot of attention, but what about the ten-year-olds?”

Others agreed. And so one Tuesday morning eight of us got together to talk about it. We decided that what was needed in a program for children was an enthusiastic presentation, solid biblical content, and a certain amount of physical activity—drama, crafts, or simple recreation.

On Tuesdays we start at four P.M. Children who come early can have juice and cookies. Occasionally we start the hour with crafts, and the children begin working on their projects as soon as they arrive.

Normally we spend ten or fifteen minutes on singing. I’m not a great singer—the pianist once asked me, “How can I find your key when you sing somewhere between two of them?”—but I am enthusiastic. And I can make the children sing. We do action songs and we learn Bible verses set to music. In six weeks we learned to sing all the books of the Old Testament.

Next there is a Bible story, done by one of the volunteers or by me. We use the flannelgraph board, or flashcard pictures, or puppets, or chalk drawings.

Then two creative women lead the children in crafts and physical activity. They may have the children dramatize the story they’ve heard, as we did the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace. Or they have a related craft project, such as making three-dimensional ravens out of construction paper, each with a piece of bread in its mouth, to illustrate the story of God’s sending the birds to feed Elijah.

On Sunday evenings we have the Good News Club. Learning centers are set up around the room. On a typical evening, one child might be listening to a cassette telling the story of Abraham leaving his country. Another is looking at slides that show what ancient Palestine looked like. Three others are in a corner building a tent. Another group is doing simple research to find out what kind of food the patriarchs ate.

We’re also trying out other programs. For instance, at our monthly church family service, we’re having a separate program for children when the adult speakers don’t interest them. And we’re planning to have the children themselves handle the service at least once a year.

Jim, a gifted musician, is developing an unusual type of choir. Children from kindergarten through sixth grade sing a psalm of praise while the teen-agers flow in with a more contemporary piece, such as “Day by Day” from Godspell. Sometimes the musical instruments that the children are learning to play, such as the French horn, clarinet, and guitar, are written into the musical number.

It doesn’t take a church with two thousand members to do programs like these; our membership is only three hundred. What’s needed most is the determination to show children that we care about them.—CECIL B. MURPHEY, pastor, Riverdale Presbyterian Church. Riverdale, Georgia.