What is offered and what is read are two different things.
Not so very long ago, quality evangelical literature was difficult to find. Basic theological tools such as original language commentaries, introductions, archaeological studies, and doctrinal works were either nonexistent or of questionable value, being polemical or out-of-date, or both.
Happily, those times have changed. Thousands of fine books are currently available for the evangelical public to choose from. Scholarly reference books, technical biblical studies, commentaries, theological treatises, and reprints of classic materials are all available in numerous editions, bindings, and price ranges. Christian publishers are to be commended for this. They have performed a service that in large part is responsible for the strength of evangelicalism today. By publishing the best of the past and giving scholars of today an opportunity to be heard, all of evangelicalism has benefited.
Not that there aren’t areas in need of improvement. We could mention, for example, the need for books aimed at lay people who are beyond the elementary level; for upgraded offerings on psychology and family; for devotional works with substance; and for realistic material on how to live the Christian life. Changing times require updated material. The research and development staffs of today’s publishers cannot afford to go to sleep now.
But what is offered and what is read are two different things. We may dish up a theological banquet, but if no one comes it isn’t really a feast. It’s only a lot of good uneaten food. Evangelical book buyers today seem to be passing up the feast in favor of McDonald’s. A large percentage of the best-selling books are “trendy,” sensationalist, experience-oriented, or theologically shallow. Year after year genuinely significant material fails to reach into the corners of the evangelical market. About the only exception to this rule is C. S. Lewis, who continues to appeal to large numbers of people.
Clearly our work is cut out for us. Publishers need to promote their higher quality material, and pastors, teachers, and Bible study leaders should encourage people to move to a higher level of reading. “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”; we are, to a large extent, what we read. If evangelicalism is to grow up as a theological movement it will have to feed on more substantial theological fare than it does now.
The worst since Attica in 1971. That’s how the early February prison riot at New Mexico State Penitentiary was described. Investigations will follow, and perhaps some changes, but by and large the daily routine of thousands of prisoners in the U.S. will go on as before. They will suffer overcrowding, unscrupulous guards, and terror from self-appointed cellblock bullies.
As with other social sores, it seems to take a violent eruption, at the expense of many lives, for people to consider remedies. Many will be proposed after the Santa Fe riots, and they deserve serious consideration by public officials: things like reducing overcrowding; improving attitudes of guards (you can be tough and respectful—see Luke 3:14); smaller prisons; halfway houses; open-door residential centers. Actually, the number of alternative programs is climbing, but community opposition remains stiff. Some people have no sympathy for the prisoner, neither while incarcerated nor after released.
Evidence seems to show that imprisonment does little, if anything, to change the crime rate. In the past 10 years, the U.S. prison population has leaped from 200,000 to more than 300,000. Thus, prison riots are the ugly climax of behavior patterns begun years ago, even during childhood. The riots themselves often stem from years of violence and intimidation among inmates. Take criminals off the streets, put them behind bars, and crime continues in the prisons.
Right now the prisons and the public are in a bind. More criminals are being sentenced to longer prison terms, making for more serious problems, but popular resistance is slowing moves toward greater use of alternatives to prison. Public officials and people with either uninformed or calloused attitudes toward prisoners would do well to read Charles Colson’s books, Born Again and Life Sentence. It was in prison that Colson promised a fellow inmate that he would never forget “this stinking place” and the people there. Later, he argued for a Christian ministry to prisoners, telling the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons that such a ministry was necessary because four out of five crimes are committed by ex-convicts.
A pilot program proved successful, and Prison Fellowship was formed. Colson’s basic approach is to bring selected prisoners to the Washington, D.C., area for training sessions in Christian living and discipleship. After two weeks, the prisoners return to prison to work with their fellow inmates. The fellowship also sponsors seminars to train Christians to visit prisoners while they are in jail and to support them when they are released. Colson’s Prison Fellowship is now working in 130 prisons. He says that in these places there are better relationships between the prisoners, plus a dramatically lower rate of recidivism.
Colson, prison chaplains, and Christians are proving it is possible not only to reform prison life but also the lives of prisoners. Because of their dedication, sacrifice, and witness, some prisoners are able to say, “I was in prison, and ye came unto me.” Colson has his sights set on all 600 prisons in the country. His wisdom, zeal, and courage can serve as the model for local churches and Christians everywhere.
Geo-political developments in West Asia seem to hold the same irresistible fascination for conservative Christians that a bright light holds for a moth. Neither seems able to resist rushing in and fluttering about in a feverish, ludicrous, and self-damaging manner.
The Islamic revolution in Iran and the Soviet consolidation of its control in Afghanistan have once again set the wings to whirring. Some of the same publications that a generation ago identified Mussolini as the Antichrist are once again identifying the forces aligned with the Beast. Ministers who are otherwise none too sure of their Third World geography are proclaiming with amazing certainty from their pulpits the boundaries of Gog and Magog. Today’s breathless presumption, more likely than not, will look a bit hysterical in hindsight, and the observing world will once again be laughing up its sleeve.
Why are we so quick to label God’s enemies and so slow to learn the lessons that God labored to teach his Old Testament people in the ebb and flow of power politics? If God used the Babylonians to punish the Israelites for their idolatry, may he not be using the Iranians to chastize the Americans for their materialistic greed? And if God promptly punished his elect for relying on the horses and chariots of Egypt, why has he restrained his hand when Christians’ only response to recent events is to demand massive rearming and retaliation?
“It is not for you to know the times and the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power,” our Lord declared just before charging his disciples to be his witnesses. Why do we insist on detracting from our witness by dubious speculation? The apostle John said that God’s children who look for his appearing should have one preoccupation: purifying themselves as he is pure. Let’s get on with it.
A California billboard picturing the Ayatollah Khomeini and the message “Fight Back—Drive 55” perhaps best illustrates the energy predicament our nation is in. Ten years ago conservation implied little more than saving an endangered species of the earthworm; now it means participating in world politics.
The energy crisis is real. It is not a fabrication of special-interest groups opposed to oil company profits. It is not an artificial crisis created by excessive government regulation. Instead, it is the inevitable result when 6 percent of the world’s population consume more than one-third of the world’s resources.
Some have argued that North America’s overconsumption grew out of God’s mandate in Genesis 1 for man to “fill the earth and subdue it.” But Mark Hatfield convincingly showed that our attitudes are more informed by the Enlightenment than by Scripture. Pursuing our own self-interests, rather than the interests of the global community, leads to overconsumption.
The word “stewardship” best describes the biblical attitude we are to have toward the earth and its resources. Before we are told to have dominion over the earth, we read that God created it. God is the owner, and we are to be the stewards.
As Christians, therefore, we should do our part to conserve our limited supply of energy and resources—not because we want to get back at the Ayatollah, but because we know it’s right.
