The Church and AIDS
CT should be commended for tackling the “high-risk issue” of AIDS and ministry to persons with AIDS [“High-risk Ministry,” Aug. 7]. It is indeed time for evangelical churches to follow the compassionate and healing steps of Jesus in our world. As Andrés Tapia says, in responding to persons with AIDS evangelicals need to “define the church’s view of homosexuality.” It is also helpful that he notes there is no consensus on the nature of homosexuality or on the possibility of reorientation. It is not correct, however, to state that “evangelicals agree that homosexual activity is sinful.” But, as David Schiedermayer points out, plagues have always offered opportunity for superstitious generalizations to grow into outright persecution.
Encouraging evangelicals to jump on the AIDS ministry bandwagon is no substitute for dealing with the underlying ignorance evangelicals exhibit in response to lesbians and gay men. What kind of gospel is it that rushes to the bedside of a dying gay person with AIDS to talk about God’s love when living lesbians and gay men continue to be exploited, ridiculed, and avoided by the evangelical church?
TIMOTHY PHILLIPS
Evangelicals Concerned
Western Springs, Ill.
The lottery: Less harmful than taxes?
Chuck Colson’s attitude toward a lottery ad seems a bit melodramatic [“The Myth of the Money Tree,” July 10]. Why doesn’t he criticize our government for having become a business? His attack on the lottery is misguided—it is the income tax that is an act of political cowardice, that mocks the integrity of government. After all, if the same standard the government applies to cigarette companies were applied, truth in paying income taxes would demand a caution—“Warning: Income taxes have determined that you have no right to all of your earnings, only to what the almighty state has decided to leave you.” Isn’t the income tax, which is taken forcibly out of a poor man’s income, also a part of his grocery money?
NICHOLAS AKSIONCZYK
Sacramento, Calif.
Maybe we all contribute to lottery deception by forcing legislatures to seek dubious schemes for raising revenue. Colson is right: “If revenues are necessary, legislatures should raise taxes.” Have evangelicals in their “antitax-increase frenzy” forced legislatures to seek alternative, perhaps unsound, strategies to support education and other programs?
JOHN BOWER
Bethel College
St. Paul, Minn.
A curious ambiguity
Clark Pinnock’s glowing review of Michael Novak’s Will It Liberate? [Books, July 10] is accompanied appropriately enough by Doug Bandow’s equally glowing review of two procapitalism books. I find a curious ambiguity, if not contradiction, in the two photos that highlight these reviews: Lee Iacocca, champion of U.S. capitalism, and Mary Kay Ashe, exemplar of American beauty and fashion. Are you purposely being ironic in choosing these images? They are certainly prototypes of capitalism, which Novak, Nash, Berger, and Pinnock promote in the name of Christianity; but they are also—behind the veneer of “hard work” and “initiative”—images of capitalism at its most troublesome: indulgently and decadently wealthy, catering to egotism, materialism, elitism, and greed.
WILLIAM O’BRIEN
The Other Side
Philadelphia, Pa.
All writers and reviewers in your July 10 Books section seem to think the economic debate related to liberation theology is a question of which system can most quickly create a society of wealth defined by consumption. However, that misses the point entirely. I lived for the past eight years in two socialist countries: one is socialist because of free democratic elections, the other because of maneuverings of power among the allies after WW II. Neither country has as high a standard of living as the U.S. measured by energy consumption. But both countries are rated significantly higher than the U.S. in terms of quality of life, measured by lack of street crime, availability of free education, medical attention, employment opportunities, and so on. Are “Quality of Life” lists even publicized here? The last one I saw ranked the U.S. a low twentieth.
DR. DANIEL LIECHTY
Stenton House
Philadelphia, Pa.
The New Electronic Church
Have you seen those new laser guns kids are playing with? In this high-tech version of cowboys and Indians, each player sports a chest pack and laser gun. Fire the harmless, thin red beam into your opponent’s chest pack and beep! He’s out.
At first I thought these toys were expensive encouragements to violence. But I’ve changed my mind. In fact, if used properly within Christian circles, the laser guns could actually reduce conflict and save money.
When Elder Smith squares off with Elder Brown over whether to repave the church parking lot, why keep the whole board up past midnight to hear the wrangling? Simply move to the parking lot, give each elder a laser gun, and the correct view would quickly emerge.
Or why spend all that money for a three-day inerrancy conference? Gather the participants in a Photon arcade, and the last scholar standing can declare the single authoritative position. It’s cheaper and faster than scholarship and dialogue.
The possibilities are limitless. And in the wake of all the sad events of the last several months, these laser guns might be just what we need to give a whole new meaning to the phrase “electronic church.”
EUTYCHUS
A fine point
Mark Noll’s statement that “the founders … recognized that government was not religion” shaves a very fine point [“The Constitution at 200,” July 10]. The founders recognized that government was not to be controlled by a church, but they certainly granted that it should be built upon a religion, assumed by all of them to be the Christian religion. The point is that our founders faltered when they wrote the preamble; no mention of any higher authority of their Constitution than “We, the People.” There is no reference to God, Christ, or the Laws of God, as the 11-year-old Declaration of Independence has.
REV. RAYMOND PATTON JOSEPH
Southfield Reformed
Presbyterian Church
Southfield, Mich.
Heretical teachings?
The Bruce Barron article [News, July 10] “Faith Healers: Moving Toward the Mainstream?” leaves readers with more misinformation than facts. In quoting from our book, The Born-again Jesus of the Word-Faith Teachings, he pulled an “if” clause out of context, when context is sorely needed. Out of context, the statement “If Jesus is a born-again man and is now exalted … then you and I who are also born-again are equal with this God” implies doubt on our part to the reader. To the contrary, this statement concludes a series of facts.
E. W. Kenyon, (the real father of the Word-Faith movement) and his follower, Kenneth Hagin, state that Jesus took on “the nature of Satan” in the Garden of Gethsemane, received punishment in hell, and was then born again in hell, the “first-born of many brethren.” This teaching decimates the Trinity, Christology, and salvation in one blow. Our book clearly presents the Gnostic Word-Faith system begun by E. W. Kenyon. Thank you for allowing us to correct the false impression. Unfortunately, wishful thinking will not change heretical teachings.
JUDITH AND EDWARD MATTA
Spirit of Truth Ministry
Fullerton, Calif.
Esteeming MacDonald
The news of Gordon MacDonald’s moral lapse [News, July 10] is the most disappointing, distasteful, and depressing news I have encountered in my Christian life—perhaps because I hold him in such high esteem. But his posture of repentence strikes me as being utterly sincere. I hope CT will not cease advertising his books, nor Christian bookstores take them off their shelves, unless they also plan to refrain from selling Bibles—or at least remove the Psalms from them.
BERNIE SMITH
Bridging the Gap
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Loving Israel
So Pastor Byron Spradlin believes Christians can love Israel too much [Speaking Out, July 10]. Well, let’s check the record: (1) Tertullian, living in the second and third centuries, declared the Jews were the Cains, the murderers. (2) In the fourth century, Saint Chrysostom called the synagogue “a refuge of the devil, citadel of Satan” and declared, “God hates the Jews and has always done so.” (3) In 1543, Martin Luther wrote: “What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Their synagogues should be set on fire … their homes be broken down … their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach anymore.” (4) On November 11, 1939, a Catholic, a Lutheran, and a Pentecostal, all members in good standing in their churches, donned their Nazi S.S. uniforms and fulfilled the Führer’s wish by shooting my grandfather in Poland because he was a Jew. (5) In 1981, a leading spokesman for a major evangelical denomination stated God doesn’t hear the prayers of my people. In 1987, the same man reiterated this conviction. (6) In 1987 the Vatican still has not recognized the State of Israel.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
GABRIEL A. GOLDBERG
Northridge, Calif.
A general remembered
I was sorry to read in your July 10 issue of the death of Lt. Gen. William Harrison. He was a splendid Christian gentleman as well as an effective military officer. I treasure a personal memoir my late husband recorded in his diary.
In 1942 my husband, newly out of chaplains’ school, was assigned to Camp Butner, North Carolina. General Harrison was also serving there, but they had not met. One Sunday morning at the appointed hour for a Protestant service, no one had showed up but my husband and the organist. Chaplain and musician were casually chatting in front of the chapel, about to call the whole thing off, when a staff car pulled up bearing the general’s insignia on the front bumper. Out climbed General Harrison, and immediately chaplain and organist snapped to attention.
“Chaplain, is there not a service at this hour?” came the question.
“Well, yes, sir, but no one has come, so I thought we might cancel it,” came the embarrassed reply.
“Chaplain, do you believe in the words of our Lord, ‘Where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst’?”
“Oh, yes, sir, yes, indeed.”
The general started up the steps. “Then let the service commence.” And possibly the oddest service in military history took place, with an organist, a general, and a chaplain with a very red face.
FLORENCE E. ARNOLD
Muncie, Ind.
