Chris Marantika stood at the podium, looking out at American church leaders gathered for a summer missions conference. “God is not dead. He’s alive!” Marantika roared. Then he said in a quieter tone, “He’s not even tired.” Laughter filled the auditorium.
Marantika is an engaging speaker. But for the seminary president who traces his roots to a tiny Indonesian island, the power of God is no laughing matter. He is a man who likes to believe God for big things—things that are humanly impossible.
In 1979, when he founded the interdenominational Evangelical Theological Seminary of Indonesia on the island of Java, he set a grand goal. Marantika wanted to start 1,000 churches by the year 2000. By the end of the first year, his seminary students and staff had planted 27 churches. Most Christian leaders would have been delighted, but not Marantika. His reaction was to expand the goal, explaining, “we have to have an objective beyond what is rational so that we can believe God for it.”
The seminary president’s vision grew to embrace all of Indonesia, a nation made up of more than 13,500 islands, nearly 1,000 of which are inhabited. Marantika reasoned that it is the church’s responsibility to disciple the entire nation. His next goal was to accomplish that task in one generation.
Marantika calls the plan “Indonesia 1:1:1,” and—along with the seminary—it is his favorite topic. His voice grows excited when he talks about the possibility of starting a church in every village in Indonesia by the year 2015. It is an ambitious project. Some 50,000 Indonesian villages don’t have a church.
This project is humanly impossible, and Marantika knows it. His voice loses its usual confidence as he talks of all that will be needed to start 50,000 churches in 30 years by an evangelical population that numbers its current churches barely in the thousands. “But I think we can do it,” he says, “if we do it together.”
To Marantika, “together” means working with various Protestant churches, denominations, and parachurch organizations in Indonesia. But perhaps even more significantly, it means working with Western—especially American—mission agencies and churches.
Marantika is a product of American seminaries. From his humble island beginnings, he became a successful pastor and church planter in Indonesia. In 1972 he began seven years of study in the United States, earning a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and a master of sacred theology degree and a doctor of theology degree from Dallas Theological Seminary.
While he was at Dallas Seminary he began to question the principles of self-support, self-propagation, and self-government that for more than 100 years have served as a goal for the church-planting programs of mission agencies.
“I struggled for years with this concept …,” he says. “People were telling me that ideal missionary work is doing something that can be supported completely from within the country.”
However, resources in Indonesia are limited. The evangelical population, estimated at roughly 6.8 million, represents a tiny island in a sea of 140 million Muslims. “My dream is Indonesia for Christ,” Marantika says. “But we can’t do it if we have to do it by ourselves.”
Those are strangely despairing words to be spoken by a visionary. Yet before he came to the United States, a sense of hopelessness characterized Marantika’s dreams about doing something great for God. He felt that the church in Indonesia was too small and weak.
In the United States, he was amazed to see the size and resources of the evangelical population. He wondered if some of the resources of this great church could be channeled to help the much smaller church in Indonesia. But he had to reckon with the traditional mission principles of self-support, self-propagation, and self-government.
At Dallas Seminary he studied what the Bible says about the independence of the church. He says he concluded that “self, self, self is not biblical. The concept of the body is unity, togetherness, interdependence.”
Instead of the three “self” principles, he proposed three “P’s”—pray together, pay together, and proclaim together. U.S. churches and mission agencies should support the national church with prayer, finances, and workers, he reasoned, rather than concentrate on developing a totally independent national church.
It was an audacious suggestion. Yet Marantika’s sincerity, conviction, and vision for Indonesia, along with his proven capability, have gained him a hearing among American mission leaders.
Overseas Crusades was one of the first Western mission agencies to cooperate with Marantika and his seminary program. The mission agency “highly favors missionary cooperation involving Western and non-Western mission agencies and efforts,” says Larry Keyes, Overseas Crusades president. “We believe such cooperation as we have experienced with Chris Marantika in Indonesia has enhanced our ministry as well as his.”
The Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society (CBFMS) also has worked with the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Indonesia. “Our mission is committed to the concept of partnership in mission, including the area of finances,” says Leonard Tuggy, CBFMS Asia secretary. “But we still feel it is important for the local church to have the goal of self-support.”
CBFMS, Overseas Crusades, and two other Western mission agencies have loaned personnel to teach in Marantika’s seminary. In a separate effort, the Christian Nationals Evangelism Commission (CNEC) raised $400,000 to build a campus. Today, CNEC channels $15,000 a month to help support the seminary’s staff, students, and operating expenses.
By the end of the last school year, 294 students had graduated after planting at least one church each, a requirement for graduation. As a result, 327 new congregations have been established in cooperation with the parent denominations of the students who started them.
That is no small accomplishment. But according to Marantika, the best is yet to come. Because students must spend four days a week in classes, they are able to plant churches only within a 100-mile radius of the campus. What is needed, he says, are more campuses located throughout Indonesia.
Those additional campuses are at the heart of his Indonesia 1:1:1 program. This year he will begin four branch campuses of the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Indonesia. Faculty members will provide both classroom and field instruction in church planting. Teachers on each campus will consist of four graduates of the seminary’s church-planting program and one missionary from the West. By 1990, Marantika plans to have 14 campuses in operation, with satellite campuses to be added every year until the total reaches 450 by the year 2015.
It is an ambitious undertaking, but no one is telling Marantika that it can’t be done. “His is a record of deeds done,” says Jim Reapsome, editor of Evangelical Missions Quarterly. “He went out there, said ‘This is what I am going to do,’ and he did it.”
Missouri Synod Lutherans Open Washington Office
The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) has opened a government liaison office in Washington, D.C. The office is headed by Candace P. Mueller, a former U.S. Senate committee staff member active in family and prolife areas of concern.
The conservative LCMS has asked Mueller to pursue three activities: communicating with LCMS members who are involved in public policymaking; strengthening ties between the denomination and interreligious groups in Washington; and informing church members about public policy developments.
Mueller said she will concentrate on such issues as global relief and development assistance, relations between church and state, prolife initiatives, and parochial school concerns. The LCMS operates the nation’s largest network of Protestant parochial schools, with an enrollment of 201,000.
With nearly 3 million members, the LCMS is the nation’s second-largest Lutheran denomination. It has had no presence in Washington since 1975 when it withdrew its support from the Lutheran Council in the USA (LCUSA) Office of Governmental Affairs, LCMS president Ralph A. Bohlmann has distanced his denomination from positions taken by LCUSA representative Charles Bergstrom. Bergstrom works closely with People for the American Way, an organization formed to counter the political activities of the Religious Right. He declined to comment on the new LCMS Washington office.
Bergstrom plans to retire in 1988—when the three Lutheran denominations represented by LCUSA are scheduled to merge—leaving open the possibilty for change in the LCUSA’s role and structure. As a result, Washington policymakers could develop a new perception of Lutheran interests based on Mueller’s activities and the LCMS’s priorities.
NORTH AMERICAN SCENE
Los Angeles Bans Discrimination Against Aids Victims
The Los Angeles City Council has passed an ordinance that protects victims of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) from discrimination in employment, housing, and health care. One council member said the law was meant to educate the public and to prevent hysteria, AIDS—a disease found primarily among homosexuals, intravenous drug users, and hemophiliacs—attacks the body’s immune system. Nearly 550 of the 1,060 cases of AIDS diagnosed in Los Angeles County in the last five years have been fatal.
Recordings To Be Labeled
The Recording Industry Association of America has announced that record companies will label recordings that contain sexually explicit lyrics. The action came in response to the Parents Music Resource Center, which has called for regulation of such language in song lyrics. The recording industry has not said it will comply with other recommendations made by the Parents Music Resource Center, including a request that recordings be given ratings similar to those on motion pictures.
Priest Sued After Divulging A Confession
A California woman, Sheridan Edwards, has filed a $5 million lawsuit against an Episcopal priest, alleging that he violated the secrecy of her confession that she had embezzled church funds. A 1965 state law recognizes a priest-penitent privilege that can be invoked to keep a clergyman from divulging the contents of a confession. The priest named in Edwards’s suit testified against her at her embezzlement trial. She was convicted of grand theft and sentenced to seven months in jail.
Liberal Group Launches Television Campaign
People for the American Way (PAW) has produced television spots to respond to criticism leveled against it by Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell. At least 48 television stations have agreed to air the two-minute broadcasts, PAW’s television spots charge that the Religious Right poses a threat to “the ideals of our founding fathers and [the] separation of church and state.”
Lutherans Study Cohabitation
An American Lutheran Church study indicates that an average of 40 percent of Lutheran couples in the United States live together before seeking a church marriage. The study says couples who live together outside of marriage “seem to suggest that faith is not a resource for them and that trust depends only on unreliable human communities.” The document, which is not a policy statement, urges couples to declare their commitment to each other publicly.
Methodist Board Rejects Total Divestment
The United Methodist General Board of Pensions has rejected recommendations to divest its stock in all companies that do business in South Africa. The pension board instead voted to “put teeth” in its commitment to pressure corporations to adhere to the Sullivan Principles, a set of guidelines for improving work-place conditions for black South Africans. The board will divest its stock within two years from companies that fail to make progress in implementing the Sullivan Principles.
Court Aids Home Schooling
The Minnesota State Supreme Court has overturned the misdemeanor conviction of a woman who educates her children at home. The conviction was overturned when the court struck down a portion of the state’s compulsory school attendance law that required all teachers to have qualifications “essentially equivalent” to teachers in public schools. The law’s language was too vague to form the basis for a criminal conviction, the court ruled. However, the court left open the possibility of civil proceedings in such cases.
WORLD SCENE
Mormons Promise No Missionary Activity From Jerusalem Base
Representatives of Brigham Young University (BYU) have signed a guarantee that a proposed branch of the school in Jerusalem will not be used as a base for Mormon missionary activity, BYU president Jeffrey Holland said any student or staff member found to be proselytizing Israelis will be expelled from Israel. The six-acre study center construction site has been the target of massive weekly demonstrations.
Thousands In Zimbabwe Become Christians
Some 31,000 people in Zimbabwe, including at least four government officials and the wife of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe, made decisions for Christ during a recent 16-day evangelistic crusade. The meetings were led by Reinhard Bonnke and the Christ for All Nations team.
Pilgrim’S Progress Popular In China
A recent printing of 200,000 copies of Pilgrim’s Progress sold out in three days in the People’s Republic of China. The government-owned Social Science Press and other Chinese agencies have been printing Pilgrim’s Progress and other books as examples of Western literature and civilization. With the exception of the Bible, Pilgrim’s Progress has been translated into more Chinese dialects than any other book.
Scottish Church Rules Out Women Priests
The General Synod of the Scottish Episcopal Church has voted against admitting women to the priesthood. It also voted not to allow women who were ordained outside Scotland to function as priests in the Scottish Episcopal Church.
Millions In Sudan And Chad Face Starvation
United Nations officials estimate that four million people are threatened by starvation in Chad and western Sudan before harvest time. Officials are planning airlifts of food to meet the emergency need. In Chad, only four-wheel-drive vehicles can travel many of the roads, which are flooded.
Burundi Cracks Down On Worship
The military government of Burundi has arrested several Catholic priests for defying a ban on worship services between 7 A.M. and 5 P.M. on weekdays. Among those arrested was Joachim Gitega, the African nation’s most senior Catholic bishop. In March, Burundi’s Interior Ministry banned daytime worship services, claiming they took too much time from rural workers and thus hurt the country’s economy. According to a U.S. embassy spokesman in Burundi, some missionaries from Spain, Belgium, and the United States have been forced to leave Burundi.
Opposing Women’S Ordination
An unusual alliance of Anglo-Catholics and conservative evangelicals in the Church of England has been formed to oppose women’s ordination. Known as the Association for an Apostolic Ministry, the alliance will try to influence elections for the church’s new general synod. Last year’s synod voted in favor of women’s ordination. However, a two-thirds majority is needed on the next vote for the measure to become church law.
Personalia
Cal Thomas has resigned as communications vice-president for the Moral Majority. The author of a syndicated opinion column that appears in 37 newspapers nationwide, Thomas plans to expand his efforts to provide a Christian perspective on the news. Along with his opinion column he will provide commentary for a new Christian Broadcasting Network nightly news program.
James Armstrong, a former United Methodist bishop and former president of the National Council of Churches, has been named visiting professor of preaching at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. He will continue to work as a consultant on corporate ethics.
DEATHS
K. Owen White, 83, theologically conservative former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, former president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, former pastor of Houston’s First Baptist Church; July 11, in Tucson, Arizona, of cancer.
Eugene Carson Blake, 78, former stated clerk of the United Presbyterian Church, former president of the National Council of Churches, former general secretary of the World Council of Churches, and a leading voice for civil rights; July 31, in Stamford, Connecticut, of complications related to diabetes.
Willem Adolf Visser’t Hooft, 84, first chief executive of the World Council of Churches, leading figure in the ecumenical movement, Netherlands Reformed Church clergyman; July 4, in Geneva, Switzerland.
