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Brief letters are welcome. They may be edited for space and clarity and must include the writer's real name (and preferably city, state, and country) if intended for publication in the Christianity Today online letters area. Due to the volume of mail, we cannot respond personally to all e-mail messages.

Did Open Debate Help The Openness Debate? (Feb. 19, 2001)
I want to commend you for printing the "Open Theism Debate" article. I was unaware that this was such a hot potato among the Baptist General Conference. The subject is of vast interest and the use of the computer for good and bad responses was interesting. I am saddened that when we discuss theology we often throw bricks instead of roses. Thanks for publishing this.

Ronald Ricketts
Plainfield, Indiana

Trained to Thrill (Feb. 13, 2001)
I am writing about the computer game Catechumen. While it was a noble effort for N'Lightning to try to make a computer game without blood and gore, their game is a failure in several respects. First, the quality of the game is terrible. As a professional computer game developer and someone who enjoys playing games frequently, I can say that Catechumen is one of the worst first-person shooter games I have seen. The graphics are poor quality, the player movement is awkward and unrealistic, the first three weapons (available in the demo) are virtually identical, and I could go on. For USA Today to state that it "deftly matches its secular counterparts challenge for challenge and thrill for thrill" is completely untrue. Secular titles selling for the same price or less are miles ahead in terms of art quality, gameplay, special effects, etc. If this game indeed had an $850,000 budget over 18 months, those investors put their money into the wrong developers. Second, Christians thinking that the game offers a healthy Christian message are misled. Perhaps the game characters and setting are based on some historical information from Rome, A.D. 171, but the point of the game is to run around zapping people into repentence or dissolving demons. Is it not the power of the gospel that saves? What an awful image to present that salvation comes from a mortal hero who races around with a holy sword emitting colorful electrical bolts of lightning.

Perry Board
Indianpolis, Indiana

Watchtower Society Corporate Shakeup (Feb. 2, 2001)
I very much appreciated your article relating how Jehovah's Witnesses in New York are rearranging their corporate structure. (It would appear all large corporations follow this course for tax purposes.) Jehovah's Witnesses were told quite a different story in their recent publication, The Watchtower. Funny the message a person receives on the inside of the organization versus the outside of the organization! I was a Witnesses for 30 years, we were told only what "came down from God" through the Watchtower organization. This is how they keep so many honest, good people inside the Watchtower walls—which is such a pity.

Dorothy Rafuse
Nova Scotia, Canada

Whatever Happened to God? (Feb. 1, 2001)
I would like to respond to Donald G. Bloesch's article "Whatever Happened to God?." The perspective that the church needs to return to the great commission and a move back toward evangelism is absolutely correct. We frequently become too involved with our own spiritual state, and we forget that there are millions around us who don't know the redeeming, saving grace of Christ.
However, we need to remember to be "wise as serpents" in this Gospel endeavor. Because of the nature of our culture, many people will not respond (and have not responded) to the traditional way of doing things. We need to address the reasons that people are not responding to the way we are doing things, and find ways that will reach them. This is not to say that we water down the message or compromise its integrity, but rather that we find different ways of communicating it. This may include technological methods and different forms of music.
Bloesch's statement that contemporary praise music "is essentially a spectacle that appeals to the senses rather than an act of obeisance to the mighty God" is a gross misrepresentation of what modern praise music is all about. I agree that, in some churches, worship has "become performance rather than praise," but most of the time, contemporary praise music simply seeks to meet people where they are. Bloesch implies that one church or individual might turn from traditional worship to contemporary worship (or vice versa) because of their unhappiness of one form over another. Usually, though, the reason that people prefer one method of worship over another (and indeed why we should seek to respond to this preference) is because one method will be more successful in bringing them into the presence of God and allowing them to feel that they are worshiping more effectively. The good feeling that we get is not why we worship God. We get that feeling because, after worshiping in a style we are comfortable with, we are more able to sense that we have actually drawn near to and pleased God.
As a musician, I strive to specifically embrace music that effectively reaches different groups of people and how they will respond and worship. The music style will bring people in, the Spirit of God will move them, and the response is to worship. And nothing glorifies God more, I believe, than someone turning from sin and repenting. In this sense, one great way we can worship is by bringing new believers into the fold. This is what it means not only to take up our crosses and follow, but also to "Go, therefore … "

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February (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45