A Seminar Junkie
It came as no small shock to me to discover recently that a highly respected member of our church is undergoing treatment for spiritual rehabilitation. This man is a church officer, Sunday school teacher, and tither. But he revealed, at last Sunday evening’s service, that he is a also a seminar junkie. He was quick to add that he is getting help from Seminars Anonymous (SA), a rapidly expanding organization founded to counteract an evangelical epidemic.
None of us knew that Herb had mortgaged his home to obtain money for weekly seminar fixes. We were sobered (if you know what I mean) to hear that he slid into his addiction gradually. “Ah, for the good old days, when a sermon and Bible study could get me through the week,” he lamented.
Herb told us the turning point came when he was on a tour across the Arctic Circle. The church group was studying “The Dangers of Lukewarmness” when, as if enlightened by the rays of the midnight sun, Herb admitted to himself that he was addicted to seminars. He promptly returned to his wife and children (not seen since a seminar last summer on family dynamics). Then he entered an SA Detopicfication Center.
Herb said he could no longer keep his addiction secret when he learned that our pastor was enrolled at a camp near Mount Saint Helens to consider “The Theological Implications of Volcanic Eruptions.” Fearing his faithful shepherd was on the path to seminar addiction, he went public.
It was a courageous step and it has challenged our church. Can we possibly survive without all these outside experts? Several of us have enrolled in next month’s “Spirituality With or Without Seminars” to find out.
EUTYCHUS
A Challenge To The Soul
What an incredibly sensitive illustration on your August 9 cover. Seeing the picture I had to read the article [“The Inexplicable Prayers of Ruby Bridges”]. I keep this issue where I can ponder the cover and let its challenge sink into my soul.
RUTH LYON
Kent, Wash.
Don’T Forget The Living
Tom Minnery’s editorial “Winning Isn’t Everything” [Aug. 9] states that “the antiabortion campaign accords well with the Constitution, which affords protection of life to all.” This may be true; however, would it not also hold true that Christians who challenge the U.S. government and its stockpile of nuclear weapons—with their awful threat to human life around the globe and their terrible drain of resources—are also in accord with the Constitution? Let’s not save the unborn and forget those who already are alive.
KAREN PUST, R.N.
Tucson, Ariz.
Minnery’s editorial expressed the need to keep priorities clear: that spiritual vigor, not political power, is the essential for Christian living. It seems our Constitution-building forefathers knew what we have forgotten: that godly men and women will make decisions and speak out in a manner reflecting attitudes in tune with the sovereign God of the universe. We cannot expect leaders not in communion with God to rule according to the desires of our hearts. Doing so is asking wild trees to bear good fruit.
VIRGINIA LAUTENSCHLATER
Ardmore, S.Dak.
The Gulag Vs. The Free World
Reading “God in the Gulag” [Aug. 9], my heart went out to our brothers and sisters in Soviet labor camps. I envisioned their exodus and the open arms awaiting them in the “free world.” Then I wondered: Would their joy turn into our exploitation? Has life in the Soviet gulag really prepared them for an opportunist, fundamentalist, evangelical, electronic church? When the TV cameras have gone, the evangelical press has wrung out its last successful book, and Yuri has spoken at his last Bible conference, what would we do with him? And what if we discovered that his beliefs about Calvinism or Arminianism or the Lord’s return weren’t exactly like “ours”? Would we allow him to speak at “our” conference or Sunday school or join “our” church? Would Yuri’s deliverance really be only an escape from one gulag to another of a different kind?
JAMES H. DUNDAS
Quakertown, Pa.
The contrast of our lives to that described in “God in the Gulag” shows we are “spoiled.” We pick the mote from each other’s eye, and know not that we are wretched and miserable, poor, blind, and naked.
C. CLARK ALLEN
Raymondville, Tex.
Tangible Appreciation
I was so impressed by Harold Myra’s [Publisher’s] message in the August 9 issue, especially concerning Ken Taylor. Compared to Ken’s light, my little candle barely flickers.
CT is one of the seven wonders of my life; I have looked at every page for more than 25 years. You don’t appeal for donor dollars, but please accept the enclosed check as my little part to help your ministries and to express appreciation for what you have done for me.
W. P. PENNINGTON, M.D.
Athens, Ala.
Dr. Pennington’s generous gift will go to CT’s program to provide free subscriptions to graduating seminarians going into the ministry.
—Eds.
Faulty Exposition?
John Stott [“What Makes Leadership Christian?” Aug. 9] makes a slip in biblical interpretation when he cites the proverb (29:18) “Where there is no vision, the people perish” as referring to our “imaginative perception, … insight and foresight.” The Hebrew term here is very specific and technical, reserved in OT use for revelation from God to a prophet. Where God does not give direction, in other words, the people are lost. Many—before Stott—have misapplied this verse.
MILTON C. FISHER
Professor of OT and Academic Dean
Reformed Episcopal Seminary
Philadelphia, Pa.
The Harvey Milk School
Although Warren Bird’s report on our Harvey Milk Off-Site High School Program [News, Aug. 9] did not exhibit the malice we have come to associate with the so-called Christian view, a few points need clarification. The Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth, Inc., is not a “homosexual advocacy” group. It is a social service agency offering a full range of free social services to homosexually oriented youth and their families. The statement that $50,000 in tax money was provided by New York City is incorrect. The Board of Education provides a teacher and supervision for that teacher. All other funding is provided from private contributions.
The possibility of change of sexual orientation is, of course, a matter of religious faith for many and as such is beyond rational discourse. It has absolutely no relevance to our school program, however: 20 youngsters who were hounded from their schools and homes are now off the streets and in a classroom.
A. DAMIEN MARTIN, ED.D.
Institute for the Protection of Lesbian and Gay Youth, Inc.
New York, N.Y.
A Difficult Fight
I appreciate the willingness of CT to discuss homosexuality and the mission of the church [“The Homosexual Lifestyle: Is There a Way Out?” News, Aug. 9], I find it difficult, however, to believe that the battle of the homosexual with sexuality is that much different from that of the heterosexual when the issue of marriage is eliminated. Many honest heterosexual Christians have tremendous difficulty in the disciplining of their sexual desires. In a world of heterosexually oriented advertising, perhaps the fight is even more difficult.
RALPH G. LEVERETT
Nashville, Tenn.
I was pleased with the overall tenor of the article. However, there is no “homosexual lifestyle” per se. To speak of “curing” or “unlearning” a constitutional homosexual makes no sense—as it makes no sense to attempt to “cure” or “unlearn” a constitutional heterosexual. I am sure that Exodus organizations have helped people who thought they were homosexual to overcome whatever distracted them from leading a fully productive, natural (for them) heterosexual lifestyle. I don’t doubt there are some people who, because of externally applied guilt are convinced they have been “cured” in order to assuage their guilt, and are today leading a pseudoheterosexual, but unnatural (for them), lifestyle. I echo John Evans when he says that no true (i.e., constitutional) homosexual has ever completely changed to a heterosexual.
JAMES MCCREA
Piedmont, Calif.
Jesus recommends that when we have need of prayer, we should enter into our closet and shut the door. Perhaps the homosexual should enter his closet and face his problem alone with his Heavenly Father, teaching no other to sin.
JOSEPH G. S. ROBINSON
Worcester, Mass.
Those who have cried out, both literally and in prayer, for God to change us have come to realize that it is not his will, but man’s will; it is not he who is offended by us, but man. The countless hours spent in prayer pleading for that miracle have convinced many of us that we are as much a part of his handiwork as our heterosexual brothers and sisters.
ANONYMOUS
Most Christians are too intimidated by an increasingly militant gay community to take a firm stand and call homosexuality what Paul called it in Romans 1: sin. By what insane methodology does one so twist and torture Scripture as to make it sanction homosexuality as a viable “lifestyle”?
PAUL S. ARDANS
Phoenix, Ariz.
We “Just” Use The Lingo
Thank you, Eutychus, for “Learning the Lingo” [Aug. 9], I might add one word that has become essential to evangelical prayer: just (“Lord, we just …”).
DOUG MORGAN
Richmond Heights, Ohio
Can you explain to me what exactly a Christian cliché is? I would hate ever to use one in mixed company!
CATHERINE S. SHANLEY
Merced, Calif.
Credibility With Evangelicals?
After being thoroughly discredited earlier this year, Ron Enroth and his Spiritual Counterfeits group appear in your August 9 issue as “authorities” [“Cult Specialists Assess Nontraditional Religions in the Mid-eighties”]. You only lose credibility in the evangelical community by quoting these disreputable sources. Perhaps it does not bother you that those who hold to inerrancy are dropping their subscriptions like flies.
DR. R. L. HYMERS, JR.
Fundamentalist Baptist Tabernacle
Los Angeles, Calif.
It seems to me that so-called cult specialists can’t see the trees for the forest. They are so busy cult watching they are oblivious to the fact that the millions who have left traditional Christian churches did so because of their disillusionment with those who loudly proclaim to love the Lord, yet live in conditions inconsistent with the life of our divine Exemplar.
LILA W. JONES
El Toro, Calif.
