Fort Pierce seemed an unlikely spot for a fight against pornography. The city of 47,000 on Florida’s east coast already had two topless bars, a struggling massage parlor, and several bookstores with adult literature in the back room.
But maybe the addition of an X-rated theater became too much. When the local newspapers announced last April that someone planned to convert a rug outlet into an adult movie theater, a citizen’s group—composed mainly of members of the city’s 70-plus churches—had formed in opposition within a week.
An angry group of about 500 met at Southside Baptist Church, located within sight of the proposed theater. For more than two hours they voiced strong feelings against the theater, and discussed how to block its opening. They feared higher crime would follow, plus further decay of the town’s moral standards, and objected to becoming the only town in a four-county area with an adult theater. (None of the bordering counties, in fact, permitted topless bars or massage parlors.) Also, the attenders said they didn’t want their children growing up where that sort of enterprise flourished. The group ignored denominational lines: Baptists joined with Lutherans, Methodists with Catholics. Presbyterians with Episcopalians.
Despite the growing furor, theater operator Richard Sparks insisted he would continue with plans for his Barn Cinema. The local press latched on to the pornography issue, and news articles appeared almost daily. By the time the group decided to meet again, the theater’s fate was a hot discussion topic city wide.
More than 800 attended the second meeting, when the group adopted the name Saint Lucie [County] Citizens Against Pornography (CAP). Southside Baptist pastor Tony Carson, known for his opposition to pornography in any of its forms, was elected president, and spearheaded CAP’s subsequent efforts.
CAP leaders chose a basic strategy: appeal to the five-member county commission to halt the theater’s opening. Should that attempt fail, CAP planned at least to seek a county ordinance outlawing the showing of pornographic films.
CAP met with the commissioners twice last May. Each time, the meetings moved to larger quarters in the civic auditorium because of large crowds. The 1,500 attenders at the second meeting learned that a state obscenity law had been on the books for years, but was never enforced in Fort Pierce. CAP leaders met soon after with the sheriff, who vowed to enforce the dormant law.
The first casualty in the war against smut was a drive-in theater, which for years had featured soft-core pornographic movies. With reels of the Pig Keeper’s Daughter tucked under their arms, deputies led the theater’s projectionist and manager to jail. Kent Theaters, owner of the drive-in, agreed to halt the week-end flesh features before the case came to trial, although in their place the management began showing a steady diet of gory honor films.
In the meantime, remodeling of the Barn Cinema building proceeded on schedule. Sparks by then was getting support from a counter group to CAP, the much smaller, but more shrill Citizens for Freedom of Choice. Sparks carefully followed local building codes and zoning regulations—the only areas where county officials might have found cause to block the theater—so it opened on schedule, three months after word of his plans first got out.
Opening day, however, lasted less than 24 hours. Sparks was arrested the first day on charges of violating the state’s obscenity law.
A merry-go-round endurance test followed: Sparks bonded out on the first charges and reopened the theater. He was arrested again, and got out on bond again. This pattern continued until a federal judge ordered a stop to the arrests until Sparks could be tried on the first arrest.
After a series of pretrial motions and two days of jury selection. Sparks stood trial on the first four films seized by the deputies. The jurors viewed some four hours of the X-rated movies—trying to judge whether they were obscene and “patently offensive.” CAP members constantly flowed to the courthouse during the week-long trial, although many stood in hallways while jurors watched the movies.
They were pleased when the jury ruled that three of the four films appealed to the prurient interest and were obscene. Sparks received a suspended sentence on the first convictions. But he also had to stand trial on 13 other misdemeanor charges for obscenity, plus more serious felony charges of tampering with evidence. These charges were eventually dropped when Sparks agreed to close the theater last October and leave the county.
CAP members attributed their success to letting authorities know their feelings about the theater and pornography. They had placed constant pressure on the proper authorities to enforce existing state laws—tools, they say, available to concerned groups almost anywhere in the country. CAP members note that it didn’t hurt their cause that the sheriff and three commissioners were up for reelection.
Political Appointments
Halverson Gets The Nod For The Senate Chaplaincy
The U.S. Senate’s new Republican majority nominated the well-known evangelical Richard D. Halverson, pastor since 1958 of Washington’s Fourth Presbyterian Church, located in Bethesda, Maryland, as its fiftieth chaplain. His nomination for the post came during a Republican caucus session in late November, during which Senator Howard Baker was selected as majority leader. The full Senate is expected to approve the nomination on January 5.
Halverson, 64, said he spent a week praying about the offer, which reportedly was conveyed to him by Senator Mark Hatfield (R-Oreg.). He will assume the $40,100-per-year post (the current figure) on February 1, and is refraining from public comment until then.
The swift nomination came as a surprise to current Senate chaplain Edward L. R. Elson, a fellow Presbyterian pastor and close friend of Halverson. Elson began serving as Senate chaplain in 1969, shortly before he retired from the pastorate of the National Presbyterian Church in Washington. He indicated to Baker on November 12 his desire to vacate the chaplaincy, and delivered in writing his intention “to retire in a nonpartisan, nonpolitical manner,” by waiting until after the inauguration on January 20. However, he did not expect the nomination of a successor so soon.
His primary concern is the possibility that the post will appear to be a partisan plum, handed out in the same manner as many other new administration appointments. In retirement, Elson plans to complete his autobiography and publish his sixth book of Senate prayers. At 74, he has composed a total of 1,745 prayers in more than a decade. He is also writing a history of Senate chaplains.
The chaplain opens the Senate each day with prayer. He also becomes a resource person to the 100 senators and their 6,500 support personnel. Elson noted, “I may be approached by a Catholic senator, who says, ‘I’m going to speak to a group of Baptists—what do I say?’ ”
Halverson, who currently is board chairman of World Vision International, will not be a newcomer to Capitol Hill. He has long been involved with Senate prayer breakfasts and the National Prayer Breakfast movement. The Princeton Seminary and Wheaton College graduate announced from the pulpit on November 30 his decision to accept the offer, and left his congregation of 2,000 surprised and happy for him.
There was no announcement about who will succeed Halverson at one of the metropolitan area’s most prominent evangelical churches.
BETH SPRING
Koop Is Mentioned For The Surgeon General Slot
C. Everett Koop, chief surgeon at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and a well-known opponent of abortion, is under consideration for the job of surgeon general in the Reagan Administration.
At press time it was uncertain when the job would be filled and how strong Koop’s chances were. About 40 members of Congress so far have written to Reagan urging that he appoint Koop. The appointment requires Senate ratification.
Koop is widely admired among evangelical Christians for his views on the sanctity of life. He coauthored a book (and related film series) with theologian Francis Schaeffer, titled How Should We Then Live?, on the moral decline of Western Civilization.
The surgeon general is the federal government’s chief medical officer, and oversees the following federal agencies: the National Institutes of Health: the Center for Disease Control; the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental Health Administration; the Food and Drug Administration; the Health Resources Administration; and the Health Services Administration. The job pays $61,600 a year.
Those congressmen pushing Koop for the job believe he is by far more qualified than others whose names have been advanced. Chief surgeon at Children’s Hospital since 1948, he has also been an assistant surgeon at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and a consultant in pediatric surgery at the U.S. Naval Hospital of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Hospital. He was widely acclaimed after heading a surgical team that separated a pair of Siamese twins, from the Dominican Republic, during a 10-hour operation in 1974.
Bangladesh
Missions Hemmed In As Result Of Islamic Turmoil
Mission societies in Bangladesh continue to feel the backlash from turbulence created by the Islamic revolution. Each organization in Bangladesh that is funded from abroad must receive official government registration. This recognition is preceded by extensive “inquiries” conducted by the intelligence branch of the government. Detailed audits and spending projections now are required. All mission agencies have been placed under the general supervision of the Ministry of Social Welfare.
A number of Christian development organizations have been denied registration, especially those that started after the 1971 War of Independence. Some parachurch groups, such as Campus Crusade for Christ and Every Home Crusade, were told they are no longer permitted to bring foreign funds into the country. One mainstream American denomination, which has been working in Bangladesh since the early 1950s, has been denied registration. These organizations are in the process of appealing the decisions.
Other missions have been registered but were told to cut both foreign personnel and funding. Mission leaders are in consultation over these new restrictions.
Recently an official government release, appearing in all Bangladesh newspapers, announced the banning of a book that documents the story of a Muslim convert. The release said the book “deliberately and maliciously intended to outrage the religious feelings of the citizens of Bangladesh professing the religion of Islam by insulting their religion and religious beliefs.”
One literature-producing mission has been told it must strictly censor its materials or face government involvement in the selection process of tracts and books.
Members of Parliament have demanded to know the number of converts from Islam to Christianity. A member of the president’s cabinet has assured Parliament that an investigation will be made.
These winds of change and uncertainty have created a climate of apprehension among the tiny, 200,000-strong. Christian minority in Bangladesh. Nationally administered institutions continue to be almost totally supported from external sources.
The National Christian Council of Churches recently split down the middle, creating serious rifts in the Christian community. Efforts are being made toward reconciliation.
In spite of the convulsive trauma of these events, there is forward movement in church growth in certain areas of the country. New outreaches are being started. There is a spirit of urgency prevailing among missionaries who realize that the unbroken line of foreign Christian input into Bangladesh since William Carey’s day (1793) may soon be interrupted—or severely curtailed.
Evangelism
U. Of Maryland Is Buzzing With Evangelical Activity
Evangelical activity at the University of Maryland dissolved apathy at the College Park campus last fall, provoking student newspaper coverage and resistance from some denominational chaplains.
Thriving, established parachurch groups have been joined in the past year by a number of unaffiliated Bible studies and by two highly visible Christian groups.
The New Life Evangelical Church, a conservative independent group, has doubled in size to between 60 and 80 members. ACTS (Active Christians That Serve) began with 5 people and now claims 100.
Crowds of up to 500 students cluster on the library plaza to hear Tom Short, one of four New Life elders, preach daily from noon until 3 P.M., weather permitting. He often zeroes in on sin in students’ lives, inviting a barrage of questions and heckling—once including a pie in the face. Short views these sessions as “an open forum,” a vehicle for students who “know all the questions about the Bible” to hear some answers.
Short’s open-air evangelism, along with New Life’s distribution of 16,000 paperback New Testaments, provides fodder for frequent student newspaper coverage. One reporter infiltrated the group, posing as a born-again believer. He “hounded Short’s footsteps for two weeks,” he wrote, and “the most ungodly thing I saw Short attempt was a hellacious spike shot during an otherwise Christian volleyball game.”
The university’s Episcopal chaplain described New Life’s activities as “blitzing” the campus, but the group is quick to deny credit for any ongoing signs of revival. “We don’t want anyone to get the idea that when the spiritual paratroopers arrived, God started working,” elder Jack Stockdale said. The church and campus fellowship began in 1979, when organizers moved to the College Park area from Ohio State University. There, they had established a similar, ongoing outreach called OSU Bible Studies.
One outspoken critic of New Life’s approach is the university’s campus pastor, Elizabeth Platz, who recently celebrated her tenth anniversary as the first ordained woman in the Lutheran Church of America. In October, Platz sent a letter to 1,000 students and numerous clergy in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., that seemed to link increased evangelical activity with recruitment drives by the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis as causes for concern. “We pray that the judgmental presentation of Christianity and the activities of the Nazis and KKK are but a passing confluence of events, but we dare not trust to this as being true,” she wrote.
To fortify her point, Platz enclosed a reprint from the Lutheran Quarterly, which portrays Campus Crusade for Christ in unflattering terms: “The typical pattern of operation of Campus Crusade leaders is to make uninvited visits in the dormitory rooms of individual students.… In their personal contacts, they often invite their intended quarry to parties … which are purely evangelistic in nature, design and intent.
UM’s Campus Crusade leader. Dan Mosely, aware of the Platz mailing, said with a laugh, “They’ve got our number.” What Mosely emphasizes in his growing ministry to 150 students is “being sensitive to people and clearly communicating the gospel without being judgmental.” He readily acknowledges that “some students blow it” when they first attempt to share their faith in Christ. “Balance comes with maturity in their walk,” he adds.
Platz said her counseling involves increasing numbers of students who are bruised by an onslaught of exuberant witnessing. “I get the battlescarred ones,” she said, noting that one student with cerebral palsy was told simply to believe in order to be healed. Some Roman Catholic students in past years have been told that they are categorically destined for hell.
Platz has not attempted to make contact with any of the evangelical groups, but she believes their success “should be saying to us that there are great questions and great needs out there that perhaps we are not addressing as we should.” After 15 years on campus, Platz is not without battle scars herself, recalling that an unnamed group once told her she was an instrument of the Antichrist.
The fact that Christian groups are thriving at Maryland is particularly noteworthy because of two obstacles unique to that campus. The undergraduate student body numbers 35,000 and a full 70 percent are commuters, many unreachable by traditional methods of dormitory evangelism. Religious groups on campus must also content with a “no proselytizing” rule that went into effect when the Hare Krishnas were granted chaplaincy status.
Platz attributes resurgent “fundamentalism” to the human need for shelter and assurance in times of uncertainty. The present mood of withdrawal, she feels, indicates that students have come full circle from the radical activism of the 1960s. Others view the ongoing Christian harvest as a result of many years of planting and watering, as well as persistent prayer.
The four New Life elders meet each morning for prayer. Another group, consisting of the leadership of campus chapters of Campus Crusade, Navigators, InterVarsity, Young Life, New Life, and ACTS, meets weekly for mutual prayer support and friendship.
“We all have a positive attitude about what the Lord is doing in each of us, and that carries over to the students,” according to Lance Hudgens, associate pastor of Wallace Memorial United Presbyterian Church, who coordinates the meeting. “Everyone has strong convictions, but no one feels they have all the truth cornered,” he said.
Platz agrees heartily that no one has the truth cornered, especially in terms of method. But she expressed one of her goals as a campus minister in words nearly identical to Mosely’s: “I think the biggest thing is to help people be articulate about their faith,” she said. The attention-getting efforts of New Life, in particular, appear to be spurring large numbers of students to do just that.
BETH SPRING
Austria
Even Visibility Calls For Evangelical Unity
Seven hundred evangelicals gathered at the Vienna Kongresshaus in November to participate in the second annual community worship service sponsored by the various “free churches” in the city. Such a gathering—unthinkable a few years ago—gave evidence to the growth and multiplication of churches in the Vienna area. Horst Fischer, pastor of the Huetteldorf Baptist Church, addressed the crowd, which consisted of the congregations of the various Baptist churches in the area, the growing family of churches planted by the Brethren-related Tulpengasse Fellowship, and churches or fellowships established by The Evangelical Alliance Mission and Greater Europe Mission.
Later that same day, leaders of Austria’s minuscule evangelical minority (less than 1 percent of the 7.5 million population) gathered at Schloss Mittersill, InterVarsity’s medieval castle in western Austria, for a week of training. George Peters, retired professor of missions from Dallas Theological Seminary and recognized church growth authority, lectured in German on the principles of church growth. Ingrid Trobisch, well-known writer on marriage and family matters, discussed in a series of evening presentations ways to help pastors and missionaries cope with stresses in their marriages.
Many conferees were encouraged by an emerging sense of cooperation among the free churches. (Free church in this context means non-Catholic and non-Lutheran believers who usually teach some form of believer’s baptism.) Although the idea had surfaced earlier, Peters reemphasized the need for a united effort in order to achieve an evangelical breakthrough.
Three Austrian denominations—Baptist, Mennonite, and Brethren—envision an umbrella organization, which, while not impinging upon the members’ independence, will allow coordinated ministries and outreach efforts. Other evangelical groups and missions probably will be invited to participate.
DEVERE K. CURTISS
World Scene
Legislation establishing an emergency grain reserve was signed into law by President Carter last month. The idea of the four-million-ton domestic reserve, which would be used for overseas relief to cope with famine and other urgent needs, is to replenish it when grain is plentiful and prices are normal, rather than bid for scarce grain when prices have been driven up. Thus it works as a stabilizing force in the market as well as feeding the hungry. Bread for the World and several church-related groups had drafted suggested legislation and pressed for its passage for three years.
Mexican officials in the border city of Juarez recently jailed and deported three Americans connected to U.S. church-supported orphanages. Brighton Claiborne, who operates the House of Refuge orphanage in Juarez, was ordered out primarily because he had only a tourist visa and not a work permit. Pat Zullo and Dan Atwood, from an orphanage in nearby Zaragosa supported by Full Gospel Native Missionaries in Joplin, Missouri, were told their orphanage didn’t have a “business license,” and that they were in the country illegally. Hundreds of American missionaries work in the country with tourist visas, so the requirement that Claiborne have a work permit may be significant.
The three Roman Catholic nuns and one lay worker found shot to death last month in El Salvador were believed the first Americans to die in several years of violence there. Salvadorian Bishop Arturo Rivera y Damas blamed the murders on rightist forces supported by the ruling government junta in a statement broadcast nationwide by radio. In the aftermath, the U.S. suspended more than $25 million in economic aid to pressure the 15-month-old reformist junta to reconcile warring leftist and rightist factions. An estimated 8,000 persons died in the violence last year, including at least 10 priests. Right-wing terrorists often regard Catholic missionaries who work with the poor as subversive.
The government of Spain has offered concessions for a limited number of new FM radio stations in the country. An evangelical media organization, MECOVAN, is requesting permission to open FM stations in two important cities: Madrid and Barcelona. If permission and financing are secured, these two stations will cover an area with 10 million people, or one-third of the total Spanish population. Juan Gili, director of MECOVAN, calls this “a unique opportunity in the European context.”
The Free Evangelical Theological Academy in Basel has grown in its first 10 years to become Switzerland’s second largest seminary. The academy now has about 170 students, 55 of them in their first year. The academy’s aim is to “offer an alternative to official state and church education institutions that demonstrates that thorough theological work can be achieved without [negative] Bible criticism.”
The established (Lutheran) Protestant Church in Germany may let private religious broadcasters in on cable television. The EKD broached this possibility for the first time at its synod in Osnabrück in November. Groups such as Trans World Radio’s associate. Evangeliums-Rundfunk, long have advocated such a step. Encouraged, the five-year-old West German Association of Evangelical Communicators voted to upgrade from an informal grouping to a registered society involved in training, evaluation, and support.
Italy’s worst earthquake in 65 years left more than 3,000 people dead and 300,000 homeless. Thousands of volunteers streamed in to help with relief efforts that were hampered by rain, mud, and snow. Church and private organizations, including the Italian Evangelical Alliance and the Federation of Italian Evangelical Churches, organized relief centers to help provide food and shelter in the nation’s southern region.
Widely reported workers’ gains in Poland have been accompanied by gains for the church. The Bible Society in Poland reports the demand for Bibles rose sharply in the wake of the appearance of the Roman Catholic Mass on state television. The Polish-language edition of the Vatican monthly newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, has been allowed “unhindered” entrance into the country and unhampered distribution. The Catholic church was planning to import 90,000 copies of each issue.
Orthodox Christians in Azerbaijan want to know why all their churches—there are at least 50—have been closed while mosques are permitted to remain open. Keston College in England received a copy of a petition to Patriarch Pimen, signed by more than 400 Orthodox Georgians and Russians from three regions in the Azerbaijan Republic of the Soviet Union. They said they represent up to 23,000 Orthodox believers in the area, and appealed for help in their quest to open one church for worship.
Israel’s minister of religious affairs has been indicted for bribe taking. Aharon Abuhatzeira, a Jew of Moroccan origins, was formally accused last month of taking bribes from two religious institutions in exchange for inflated government grants and loans and other favors. It was the first time an Israeli cabinet minister had been indicted. “Rarely,” says reporter David K. Shipler, “has a single development become the focus of so many of the complex tensions that run through Israeli society—between religious and nonreligious Jews, between those of European and North American origins and those from Arab and North African countries, and between politicians and the press.”
Cambodia’s winter rice harvest is believed to have yielded about half what was typical before the warfare and famine of the last several years. But that is twice as much as was produced last year—thanks to some 60,000 tons of seed rice provided by aid agencies. For this reason the agencies, which have pumped half a billion dollars into relief operations, are tapering off markedly on food deliveries or even suspending them until the critical period shortly before the next harvest. “Cambodia’s recovery is far from complete,” the New York Times editorialized recently. “But Cambodians are no longer starving, as people are in East Africa. The emergency has shifted and so should the relief efforts.”
The first Mormon temple in a “non-Christian” nation has been dedicated in Tokyo, Japan. The $10 million temple is the eighteenth operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints worldwide. Mormon President Spencer W. Kimball dedicated the structure, built for special sacred ceremonies, including baptism for the dead, and marriage and “sealing” ordinances.
How to relate to the “cargo cults” was the topic of a unique Seminar on Melanesian Movements held at Pyramid. Irian Jaya, last fall. (The term comes from South Pacific island leaders who prophesied the coming of ships laden with gifts for their followers.) Seventy-five evangelical missionaries interacted with two experts on new religious movements in primal societies. Harold W. Turner of the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and John G. Shelan of Luther Seminary at Lae, Papua New Guinea. They considered how to detect embryonic movements, how to keep channels of communication open with the aberrant groups, and how to equip the national churches to deal with them.
Bible Translation
Male Bias In Scripture Is High On Ncc A-Gender
The National Council of Churches (NCC) intends to do something about “sexist” language in Scripture. Its education division voted last month to prepare a collection of Bible passages used in public worship (lectionaries) that are more inclusive of women.
A task force will adapt portions of the Revised Standard Version Bible for the lectionaries, three-year cycles of Scripture readings used in worship by thousands of local churches. If the churches respond favorably after an experimental period through the mid-1980s, the council’s Division of Education and Ministry (DEM) will consider producing an entire Bible with the “inclusive language” texts.
Heretical? Unnecessary tampering? Even conservative scholars agree there are instances of male bias in various Scripture translations (CT. Oct. 5. 1979, p. 23). They cite Psalm 68 as an example: the King James version reads “great was the company of those that publish the word of the Lord.” even though the Hebrew is the explicitly feminine, “great was the company of those women who publish …” However, scholars disagree on when and if the original Greek and Hebrew texts allow such “inclusive language” changes—especially in language referring to deity.
The NCC has pursued its “inclusive language” course since the early 1970s. Two years ago the DEM appointed a 13-member task force with a mandate to deal with Scriptural language where it is “sexist, racist, classist, or anti-semitic,” said DEM staff executive Emily Gibbes.
The task force’s eight men and five women, including Harvard theologian Krister Stendahl, United Methodist official Jeanne Audrey Powers, and Bangor (Maine) Theological Seminary president Wayne Click, arrived at eight recommendations last June. However, the full DEM unit committee at its November meeting dropped several of the more controversial ones. For instance, the task force had wanted to replace “he” with the impersonal pronoun “it” in references to the Spirit of God when the Greek is neuter, and to speak of Jesus Christ as the “Child of God.” rather than the Son of God.
Princeton Seminary professor Bruce Metzger objected to changes not in keeping with a literal translation of Scripture. Metzger chairs the NCC’s Revised Standard Version committee—a 24-member subcommittee of the DEM. It has the final say in language changes in the RSV, and is working to finish a new edition of the 29-year-old RSV by the end of the decade. (The NCC holds the copyright to the RSV—the most widely used English language translation.)
Metzger’s committee on occasion has changed masculine pronouns used to describe people when the meaning of the original Greek and Hebrew texts isn’t altered. For example, it has suggested more than 240 changes in masculine pronouns in its updated version of the Psalms. The well-known “What is man that thou art mindful …” becomes “What is a human being …” and so on.
However, this hasn’t been enough for hardliners. Feminists charge that “sexist” language contributes to the modern oppression of women. They would like also to change the masculine designations for God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
This is going too far for Metzger and other conservative scholars. He told a reporter. “I, for one, refuse to cut myself off from the Judeo-Christian tradition of calling God ‘Father.’ ”
Any subsequent “inclusive language” adaptation of the RSV would be a “paraphrase,” and not a true translation, Metzger asserts. The council already has promised such a Bible will be totally separate from the RSV. At its November meeting the NCC’s education division supported the RSV committee’s position that the text of the RSV Bible should remain true to the ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek manuscripts.
However, the division did ask that the RSV committee add scholars with “feminist perspectives” as vacancies occur. Metzger said, “We will keep that in mind,” but his committee will choose the most qualified persons. (His committee nominates its own members; the DEM must approve them.)
Most of the specific examples of how language might be made nonsexist were removed from the task force’s original report. The yet-to-be-named group assigned to rework the lectionaries will use “language which expresses inclusiveness with regard to human beings and which attempts to expand the range of images beyond the masculine to assist the Church in understanding the full nature of God.”
Are inclusive language changes worth the effort? Task force member Burton Throckmorton of Bangor Seminary believes “too many people are being offended in church” by male bias in Scripture. That shouldn’t be, he said.
On the other hand. Metzger says his mail has been running against making sweeping changes. Whole Sunday school classes of 15 to 20 have signed requests “asking me to hold fast” against language changes, he said. In his opinion, the average churchman doesn’t care about the inclusive language issue, or finds it irrelevant and irreverant.
Deaths
Dorothy Day, 83, cofounder of the Catholic Worker Movement and well-known pacifist whose protests often landed her in jail, and who founded many shelters for the poor and homeless; November 29, after a long-lived heart ailment that confined her to her austere room in Maryhouse, a residence for homeless women in Manhattan.
North American Scene
Big business is finding that “Jesus Sells,” the Los Angeles Times reports, citing such examples as Disneyland, which is now scheduling two Christian-oriented nights each year, and fast-selling Christian T-shirts. Additional secular companies, such as Scott, Foresman & Company, and MCA Records, are buying into the lucrative Christian book and music industry. The American Research Corporation last spring commissioned a George Gallup Poll of Christians’ buying habits: ARC officials say about 150 clients have paid up to $1,250 for the lengthy “Profile of the Christian Marketplace 1980,” based on Gallup’s studies. The emergence of Christianity as a marketing factor is more noticeable in southern California than elsewhere nationwide, said the Times.
The Church of Scientology and the Internal Revenue Service are locked in another legal battle. The group’s 500,000-member California branch is contesting an IRS position that Scientology, a self-described “applied religious philosophy.” failed to qualify for tax-exempt status from 1970 to 1972, and so owes $1.4 million in back taxes. Key church-and-state issues are involved. Scientologists charge. In November, two high-ranking Scientologists were convicted of burglary charges in connection with the group’s alleged scheme to infiltrate government offices and steal documents. A year ago nine other members were found guilty of obstruction of justice in connection with the same alleged scheme.
American Festival of Evangelism planners request prayer for the nation’s political leaders on Inauguration Day (Jan. 20). The prayer event calls for Christians to pray in small groups for the “Key 16”—the President, U.S. Supreme Court justices, their governor, and U.S. and state senators and representatives. The July 27–30 AFE is expected to draw 20,000 Christians to Kansas City, Missouri. Its purpose, says coordinator Paul Benjamin, is equipping for evangelism the “four out of five churches in America that are not growing.”
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod president Jacob A. O. Preus has met privately with the Lutheran theologian whom Preus questioned publicly on a doctrinal issue. Concordia Seminary professor Walter Maier, Jr., and Preus both attended a five-hour closed session at the Fort Wayne, Indiana, school. In an earlier letter to all 6,000 LCMS congregations. Preus said doubts need to be resolved about Maier’s view of “objective justification”—the doctrine that God declared the whole world righteous or forgiven such that “in no way should faith be looked upon as preceding justification or as a cause of it.” Maier defended himself in his own letter to the congregations. The LCMS third vice-president is considered a possible candidate to succeed Preus, who is retiring as LCMS president.
Campus Crusade for Christ lost six buildings in the raging fire that swept across a portion of southern California in late November. Its headquarters complex in suburban San Bernardino sustained an estimated $1 million in damages. The main administrative building escaped the fire, fanned by winds of up to 100 mph. But about a dozen staff members were burned out of their homes, and one of the three destroyed office buildings housed Campus Crusade’s Worldwide Challenge magazine. Staff members were evacuated November 24, and all escaped injury. Near-normal operations resumed a week later.
Hispanic Christians are organizing for evangelism under the America for Jesus (AFJ) banner. One hundred Hispanic leaders and workers met last month in Dallas and elected a planning committee of 12 Hispanics, chaired by Raimundo Jiminez, an Assemblies of God evangelist. AFJ national coordinator John Gimenez (who organized last year’s Washington for Jesus rally) participated throughout the two-day workshop, and AFJ cochairman Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ addressed the group. Pentecostals dominated the invited attendance.
