The Last Word
Instead of arguing whether executions should be public (on TV), Charles Colson needs to reconsider whether they should be at all [“Prime-time Executions,” July 22]. Christian support for the death penalty is forbidden by the Golden Rule, just as slavery is.
For Christians, the commands of Jesus are absolutely final. Moses may have had the first word; Jesus is the last Word. Vengeance is his; he will repay. We are to love our (and society’s) enemies.
John Goodwin
Sisters, Oreg.
Vets need 12-step programs
[“The Hidden Gospel of the 12 Steps,” July 22] is long overdue. A lot of Vietnam Christians [vets] could have used a healthy Christian 12-step program.
Robert (Bob) Sarlo
Point Man International
Ogden, Utah
Although A.A. has benefited many people, it should be emphasized that the 12-step approach might not be the best choice for everyone. Your readers should be informed of three other national recovery groups recently reviewed in Health magazine: (1) Rational Recovery, (2) Secular Organizations for Sobriety, and (3) Women for Sobriety. Their approaches are secular, but would offer alternatives for people who dislike A.A.
Mary E. Bonneson
Brookfield, Wis.
The only problem with the [12-step] cover of your July 22 issue is that you have the picture upside-down. Any “gospel” that conceals the claims of Christ is a staircase leading downward to hell. The error is epitomized by Tim Stafford’s concession that A.A. groups are tolerant of Christians unless they undermine the pluralistic assumptions of the group by suggesting that non-Christian views of God are misguided. In fact, the greatest unkindness you can do a person is to save his body from drink, drugs, and so on while failing to point him to the only Savior of his soul.
Steve Hays
Kirkland, Wash.
Addicted for life
What a sad commentary on our society that books need to be written on “religious addiction.” Your review “When Religion Makes Us Sick” [Books, July 22] makes “religious addicts” like me feel about the same way. I can only point to the New Testament church for a pattern of radical Christianity most churches sadly lack today. How many books would have been written about one of the most militant street evangelists of all time, the apostle Paul? Can’t these authors, and others who so quickly condemn “religious addiction” (i.e., “commitment”), read the Book of Acts? What would be written today if Jesus himself preached in our society the strong statements of commitment in John 6, which led most followers to turn back and brought the commitment of the Twelve into question?
I’ve gone to jail for preaching the gospel in a public park, as have several members of our church (we were acquitted), and I’d do it again. If that qualifies me as a “religious addict,” I’m hooked for life!
Pastor Steve Brazell
The Door
Glendale, Ariz.
Women without confidence
I enjoyed the timely and relevant editorial “Women in the Confidence Gap” [July 22] and encourage you to develop this theme into an article.
I am a committed Christian woman whose confidence has been eroding since I left graduate school. In the first 7 years of my walk with God, I led Bible studies and prayer meetings, and counseled students. During 11 postcollege years, the trend was reversed in five churches in two states. My career has progressed, but my ability to minister in a church setting has been significantly reduced—due solely to the fact that I am a woman. In my church, only men may preach, teach, lead worship, lead Bible studies, give announcements, usher—even act as greeters; the pastor desires to develop leadership skills in the men.
Consequently, my ministry in the church is limited to nursery duty, babysitting, and cooking for ill members. My ministry outside the church, in parachurch organizations, has included training Christian counselors, serving on the boards of active ministries, working with the homeless, and spending vacations on foreign mission fields.
Three times a week I park myself in a pew, convinced no one will expect any performance from me. Sometimes I wonder whether God will remove my teaching talent because I have failed to use it. Do I quit a church just because it has a restrictive theology towards the role of two-thirds of the congregation?
L.M.
Address withheld on request
A significant social issue
Thank you for your informative news article [“Religious Right Rallies for “Gay-rights Battles,” July 22].
The Christian Civic League of Maine, a Christian political action organization representing 240 churches and 4,400 families, is launching a statewide voter referendum on gay rights this year. If we are able to gather 60,000 signatures by February 3, the question of the people’s right to decide the issue of homosexual-rights legislation will appear on the general election ballot in November 1992. This would be the first-in-the-nation statewide referendum on gay rights and afford an unprecedented opportunity to publicly discuss this significant social issue.
Jasper S. Wyman
Christian Civic League of Maine
Augusta, Maine
People who won’t listen
Guy M. Condon, in “You Say Choice, I Say Murder” [June 24], argues that prolifers need to pay close attention to the language they use. He hints there is a communication problem between prolifers and the rest of the world, but he only touches the tip of the iceberg.
The larger problem is that neither prolifers nor prochoicers listen to the other side. How about some new verbs—to be used by both sides of the debate? Verbs like “listen,” “sit down with,” “communicate with,” and “talk with” would serve us all well. I am tired of being told what to do by people who will not listen. Perhaps this is close to the heart of the feminist prochoice arguments.
Judy C. Knupke
Newton Lower Falls, Mass.
Condon has hit the nail on the head. One of the Devil’s favorite tricks is to make righteousness appear self-righteous. Perhaps out of frustration, some prolifers succumb to—even relish—their identity as a culturally marginalized, hypersectarian remnant. To the unsympathetic ear, they celebrate their hatred of abortion like Jonah eagerly awaiting Nineveh’s fall from outside the city walls.
While this may gratify a certain apocalyptic mania, it won’t do much to stop the killing nor advance respect for human life. The prolife agenda must become proactive, not simply reactive, and always reflect a genuine spirit of charity. Moreover, as essential as a “radical” Christian witness is, ultimately you have to be on the inside to be effective.
Stephen Settle
New Holstein, Wis.
Condon, although making some good points, seems oversensitive to proabortion (“prochoice”) criticism of the prolife movement. It is the proabortion bias and tunnel vision of the news media that have all but totally censored or distorted our message. On an even playing field, legalized abortion might have been rejected long ago as barbaric, as the general public became aware of the reality of the living, preborn human baby, and the detailed violence of the killing act of abortion.
Dan Garrison
Middletown, Pa.
Shortly after reading Condon’s excellent article, I listened to a press conference by Planned Parenthood’s director. How skillfully she used rhetoric to make their positions sound reasonable, inclusive, and American! I agreed with almost nothing she said but admired her ability to pose abortion in terms of liberty, women’s rights, and privacy.
However, Jesus taught us to hate sin but love the sinner. Surely words like murder and kill do not demonstrate compassion for women who have made a mistake and ended a pregnancy. They need our prayers, not words likely to elicit pain and guilt.
Mark Blackwell
St. Louis, Mo.
Normal usage of rhetoric seems always to be in a derogatory sense. Thanks to Condon—with an assist by my dictionary—I was delighted to learn rhetoric isn’t at all the dirty word it’s commonly made out to be.
Peter Kushkowski
Haddam, Conn.
Condon’s article exemplifies the dangerous trend toward appeasement now being pursued by many in prolife leadership ranks. The prolife effort did not become the largest and most important social movement of our time by watering down the truth about abortion to please men and accommodate polite society. Abortion is what it is, and it does no good to go soft on the heart of the issue.
Dan Allison, Executive Director
Pinellas County Right to Life
Clearwater, Fla.
A proabortion friend, now 70 and childless, told me, “My mother would have been better off if she could have had an abortion instead of me.” I now understand my friend’s debilitating depressions. I wonder how many other prochoicers share her feelings of guilt and worthlessness and might be helped, even healed, by compassion.
Condon is right to urge us to create the vision of compassion in our language. We need also to create it in our hearts.
Carol DeChant
Chicago, Ill.
Gordon president still at work
We appreciate the attention given to Dick Gross’s decision to leave the presidency of Gordon College [North American Scene, June 24]. We would, however, like to correct the impression that he has resigned, past tense, and maybe even left the campus. Dick has announced his intention to step down, future tense, at the end of the 1991–92 school year after a careful trustee committee study on the future of the college, then a search for his successor. He will be very much with us for the coming year.
Harry M. Durning, PR Director
Gordon College
Wenham, Mass.
Target group: People!
Your editorial “Church Growth’s Two Faces” [June 24] was a tremendous relief to me. It seems every article I’ve read lately was on “targeting” certain people in the community, leading me to believe that if we aren’t targeting, we’ll never be “successful.” The articles caused me to meet with our church staff. “Do we seem to be ‘targeting’ any certain group in our church?” I asked.
“Yes, said one. “Single moms.”
“I think we’ve targeted senior citizens,” said another.
“True,” said a third. “But I think you judge by the music. It looks to me like we’re targeting youth.”
“We’re forgetting our children’s daycare center and our Christian school,” I exclaimed. “And the latchkey program for kids after school!”
We were depressed. No wonder we weren’t “successful.”
Then CT arrived in the mail. Your article said, “The goal of the church is to help bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and then to aid their spiritual growth.” People! That’s all of them, isn’t it?
Thanks for always being on the cutting edge. We’ve decided just to keep ministering to those added to the church daily by the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Marjorie Kitchell
Foursquare Gospel Church
Boulder City, Nev.
I take exception to Parro’s remarks in his guest editorial. Anyone familiar with George Barna’s work knows he credits the Holy Spirit in convicting and calling unbelievers and lays prayer as the foundation of church growth. Marketing in church-growth strategies is merely a servant’s mindset. That is, doing everything possible to reach the unsaved without compromising the gospel. Again and again Barna emphasizes the need for relevant, authentic Christianity.
Paul J. Rottler
Glendale, Calif.
As a church growth/marketing consultant, I think the view given was too narrow. To say that marketing generally operates on unbiblical assumptions is wrong. Every church that ever existed has done marketing. The style of your building, the condition of your facilities, the music provided, the church bulletin, how the gospel is presented, as well as many other factors, are all involved in the marketing of a church. The sad fact is, all churches do marketing, but most do it terribly.
Don Ake
Akron, Ohio
C. Peter Wagner’s daunting comment [in the related News story] deserves our attention: “Maybe something else is needed.” Could part of that “something else” be a gospel message that places at least equal emphasis on confrontation and contradiction to that of contextualization and commonalities? Has an emphasis on felt needs advocated in much church-growth literature resulted in a half-gospel being understood by its hearers? Do recipients of the gospel message recognize their world view must be challenged and transformed? An old Korean proverb states: If the water is dirty downstream, it’s dirty upstream. If our churches are not growing, it would probably be advantageous to re-evaluate the touchstone to the churches’ formation, the gospel message, and our presentation of it.
Tom A. Steffen
Biola University
La Mirada, Calif.
Listening to Jesus
Once again Philip Yancey was outstanding, this time in “General Schwarzkopf Meets the Beatitudes” [June 24]. How refreshing to read someone not toeing the usual Persian Gulf line. But, of course, listening to Jesus will do that to you.
Rev. Peter Stitsinger, Pastor
St. Paul United Church of Christ
Davis, Ill.
I appreciate Yancey’s honest conclusion that “I am beginning, I think, to understand the Beatitudes.” The apostle Paul points out simply and clearly that these same blessings are ours today through the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It would be so much easier to let the Spirit do his work—but then we would not have the endless volumes and endless discussions that fascinate us so because we cannot understand them in this age of Grace.
Vincent G. Gustafson
Morenci, Ariz.
Hentoff and intellectual freedom
Marvin Olasky’s treatment of Nat Hentoff is approving but less than fair [“The Village’s Prolife Voice,” June 24].
Hentoff is not simply a defender of pornography; his devotion to intellectual freedom has made him an outspoken foe of the “political correctness” movement since long before anyone thought to call it that. In that, too, he departs from the prevailing mood at the Voice.
And to say that Hentoff, of all people, toes a party line is to impugn the integrity of anyone—Christian, atheist or otherwise—who holds liberal or leftist views. Olasky could have mentioned that Hentoff is an admirer of John Cardinal O’Connor at a time when O’Connor-bashing is part of the liberal “party line” here in New York.
Miriam Weiss
Astoria, N.Y.
Are we to the point that a “card-carrying member of the ACLU” and an avowed atheist must be featured in your magazine to support Christian views on abortion? I fail to understand publicizing an atheist simply because he believes in one aspect of what we Christians believe.
Patricia Kastama
Conowingo, Md.
No civil authority for schools
Ken Sidey’s editorial “The Hazards of Choice,” [June 24] ignores the fundamental issue: Is public education a biblically valid alternative?
Using the Reformed theological concept of “spheres of responsibility,” many in the Christian-school and home-school movements reject public education as an option for both Christians and pagans. From this model, parents have concluded that civil governments have no biblical authority to establish and maintain general educational programs and facilities. Therefore, the state’s presence in the educational market is seen as an intrusion into an area of responsibility that God has granted exclusively to the family unit. In consistent obedience to this belief, these parents oppose all government schemes designed to sustain this encroachment. The primary criticism of public schools is not their poor performance but their very existence.
Thus, public education is “beyond redemption” because it is an illegitimate human undertaking.
George A. Mindeman
Siloam Springs, Ark.
Are you trying to bait your readers or are you serious that Christians should be patrons of the godless government school system that arrogantly calls itself the “public” school system, despite the fact that every school (system) performs a public service? Is Christian endorsement going to “bring good news to the next generation” via the most paganizing institution(s) in the nation?
Gordon Oosterman
Address unknown
Almost all proponents of choice also include in their plans an opportunity for parents to choose among public schools in a given area, some even suggesting vouchers might be used for children to attend public schools in neighboring districts.
Thus, far from creating the kind of two-tiered, racially segregated system your editorial envisions, this plan will in fact free children from disadvantaged and poor backgrounds to choose other alternatives, whether public or private, which will liberate them from the imprisonment of often substandard inner-city schools.
Pastor David F. Crow
Pennsylvania Furnace, Pa.
To be sure, tuition vouchers, as Sidey notes, could work against the interests of the poor. Christians should insist that the dollar value of vouchers be inversely pegged to family income levels, thus empowering the poor to compete more successfully with the affluent.
We now may have the opportunity to implement structural changes that would end unnecessary government coercion in schooling and respect the consciences of those families who feel violated by our present monopoly system. It’s hard to see how Christians can do anything but give their enthusiastic support to such a change.
Prof. Richard A. Baer, Jr.
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y.
Letters are welcome. Brevity is preferred, and all are subject to condensation. Write to Eutychus, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.
What’s in a name? Apparently not enough “consumer orientation,” as far as some churches are concerned. It’s not enough to set good old “First Presbyterian” on the church sign, or marquee, or in the ads in the local paper. It needs a little more drawing power: “The Friendly Church,” or “A Place to Grow,” or something like that.
Frankly, it’s time for some truth in advertising. Maybe it doesn’t deserve the top spot on the church’s list of priorities. But I’m beginning to think that nonchurchgoers may be smarter than we think. They can see through all the grand and glorious descriptions. When it comes to truth, the church needs to lead the way. Here are a few examples. The descriptions are true; the names have been left off. But you’ll recognize the churches I’m talking about, I’m sure.
“We can’t stand sin, and we like sinners even less.”
“Our church is about as lively as a 91-year-old (in dog years) basset hound.”
“If you show up at our door, you’d better be in a three-piece suit. And if you think someone will say ‘Hi’ to you, forget it.”
“Come as you are, but be sure to leave your mind at the door.”
“We’ve had some financial problems lately, and we want your money.”
“You’ll feel right at home here—if you don’t wear a beard, a pantsuit, necklaces, bracelets, or earrings, and have never heard of Sandi Patti.” Maybe it won’t have them pouring into the pews. But with some churches I know of, the truth couldn’t hurt.
EUTYCHUS
