I was edified by Tim Stafford’s overview of the population debate [“Are People the Problem?” CT Institute, Oct. 3]. Several of my myths were debunked. Yet, in the end, I was uneasy with some of the explicit and implied conclusions. My concern is that Stafford has accepted some conclusions of the population movement without fully examining them in the light of an evangelical focus on Jesus.
For example, Stafford describes scenes where Indians have internalized the population-control message, the implication being that this was achieved largely through improved mortality rates for children. This is wonderful material for a secular conference on population control. I found myself wondering about the state of the soul of the people he described. My concern is that by defining marginal progress against the symptoms of an underlying spiritual malaise as a success story, we might lose our focus on transformation through redemption.
While Stafford’s conclusion that family planning belongs to families is certainly a valid restatement of the emerging consensus of the population movement, it seems marginally relevant to evangelical concerns. With the U.S. government contributing hundreds of millions to supporting population-control efforts while U.S. evangelicals are devoting much less than that to reaching unreached peoples, our priorities should be clear. Support for family-planning efforts can certainly be a byproduct of our central mission; it should never be a focus.
But Stafford finishes well: “The certainty of God’s triumph and of his judgment must control how we concern ourselves with population.” In the final analysis, population-control programs remain the purview of a population movement that reflects a secular world-view. The focus is on creating the kingdom without the King. While the benefit of such programs is tangentially related to evangelical goals, our focus should remain fixed on the Great Commission.
-Robert B. Monical
Colorado Springs, Colo.
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The answer to the question of overpopulation was answered for me years ago in a tenth-grade biology class. We grew bacteria in a petri dish filled with nutrient agar. For weeks we watched the bacteria multiply into colonies, until they completely covered the dish. Then a funny thing happened: they started to die. Eventually there were no live bacteria left. You see, the bacteria fed on the nutrient agar and excreted waste. Eventually the bacteria’s own excrement exceeded the available nutrient agar. The end.
To presume that human beings will fare differently is certainly arrogant. We may, as Julian Simon says, be able to create our own nutrients – at least for a while. But what are the resource limits of the elements from which that agar will be made? And, except for very modest recycling efforts, the excrement side of the equation is barely being addressed. Can God have patience much longer with a people as presumptuous and wasteful as us?
-Wendy J. Steinberg
Wynantskill, N.Y.
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Stafford writes, “Contraception can be understood as part of this pattern [of God’s providence] – a provision of God.” Psalm 127:3 reads, “Sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him.” I believe in absolutes. Would you be so kind as to tell me which one of these statements is absolutely true? Can they both be?
-Charles Kelly
Scobey, Mont.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The Gary Thomas article, “Wise Christians Clip Obituaries,” provided a great deal of food for profitable thought [Oct. 3]. It reminded me of John Donne’s “Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee” and of William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis.” Thanks to Gary Thomas for making us think about a distasteful subject.
However, as I read and reread the article, I noticed what to me is a glaring omission. He closed with a quotation from Ecclesiastes (7:2), a book from which we do not draw our theology, and used only one other scriptural reference, an allusion to 1 Corinthians 15:19. He rightly called our attention to “the teaching of the ancients,” but in the process left the impression that everyone will die. The very chapter he used (1 Cor. 15) contains the blessed exception, “We will not all sleep” (v. 51, NIV).
Have we come to the point in the history of the church that the great hope of the early church, the personal return of Jesus Christ, can be pretty much ignored in such a fine article?
-James R. Leonard
Bettendorf, Iowa
THE PALESTINIAN PROBLEM
Bruce Brander’s article “Palestinian Christians Face Uncertain Fate” [News, Oct. 3] is pure Israel bashing. I remind him that Israel was the only country to recognize what was to be a sovereign Palestinian nation. It was Muslim nations, not Zionist, that occupied what was to be an unmandated Palestinian homeland in 1948. In recent times, a Palestinian’s chances of getting murdered by a radical Muslim are far greater than of being killed by an Israeli.
-Leland Garrison
Marion, Ind.
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* Thank you for bringing the situation in Israel and Palestine to the attention of readers. Many, including some of my own colleagues in mission, assume that the Palestinian community is an Islamic monolith. It is refreshing to read and sense the heartbeat of our Arab brothers and sisters. Their need is great. For too long they have been the object of Western Christian ignorance.
-William J. Saal (WJSaal@aol)
Upper Darby, Pa.
THOSE YFC PIONEERS
To that impressive roster of the “YFC influenced,” you could add the name of Larry Ward [“YFC Celebrates Golden Year,” News, Oct. 3]. Director of Watertown (S.D.) Youth for Christ (1944-45) during military service in World War II, he went on to become vice president/overseas director of World Vision and later founder/president of Food for the Hungry – serving along the way as the first managing editor of a magazine called Christianity Today.
The motion that developed then continues. Ward now serves as director of WorldTouch.
-June L. Pereira
Arizona
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When reading that YFC started in 1944, a wonderful remembrance hit me. Sometime early in 1945, I was moved by the army from Germany to Paris, where I was stationed before being sent back to the U.S. for discharge. We arrived in Paris late at night, and the next morning I discovered we were in a very large warehouse. Looking around, I found this notice on a bulletin board:
A Cordial Invitation to christian fellowship is extended to you by “the fishermen.”
Thursdays at 7:30 Saturdays at 7:30 Dufayel Barracks American Cathedral Metro Barbes Parish Room 23, Avenue Geo. V. Metro, Geo. V. YOUTH FOR CHRIST
Being 23 years old, 3 and one half years in the service, and coming from a vital Christian home and church, this invitation really was appealing, and I made it to the next YFC meeting. That was the beginning of a truly great experience socially and spiritually, and gave one a taste of heaven on earth.
-Glenn Morey
Anderson, Ind.
NO EPISCOPAL WAR
Your article by John Kennedy on our recent triennial general convention in Indianapolis contains some mistakes of fact and curious interpretations of what happened [News, Oct. 3]. The bishops of the Episcopal Church have spent three years rebuilding a sense of community and collegiality, and we all waited eagerly to see how they would handle an open discussion on sexuality issues that have threatened the peace of the church for many years. To call the intense but very civil debate on their proposed pastoral teaching a “showdown” is just plain wrong. Their decision to send the Affirmation, a critique on the fifth draft that originated with a group of bishops in the Southwest, along with the pastoral study document – downgraded from a teaching – was not a decision to give it “equal footing.” The debate made it very clear that the bishops were sending it as a response to the pastoral. So when Bishop Spong of Newark proposed a very different kind of response, both liberal and conservative bishops said that it should also be sent with the pastoral. Then they decided to send neither but to put them in the official minutes with signatories. Kennedy does not make a very basic distinction between the proposed pastoral teaching and a pastoral letter.
I would also like to see Kennedy’s documentation that the Episcopal Church, or any other mainline church in America, “has been losing adherents in recent years because of its liberal bent.” He is describing a sweeping trend without much substantiating evidence.
Finally, I’m not sure what “war” Bishop Kelshaw is girding for, but it reminds me of a phrase from the sixties: Suppose they gave a war and nobody came. The Episcopal Church is trying to deal with deeply divisive issues as openly and honestly as it can. It is painful and messy – but it ain’t war.
-Jim Solheim
Episcopal News Service
New York, N.Y.
RWANDAN “LESSONS” FOR U.S. CHURCH?
* The reported news that Hutu Christians were involved in murders of the Tutsi minority further roused my suspicions that all has not been well in the fabled revival church of Rwanda [World Scene, Oct. 3]. Johnstone’s Operation World reports 80 percent of the country are Christians of various types, with 25 percent evangelicals. Rwanda has been a great “success” story for missions. What do we make of this? What kind of church is it that is so widespread and yet apparently impotent to stop ancient hatreds? One has to believe that the great majority of believers abhors the violence. I would love to hear from those in Rwanda what lessons they have learned for the church.
-Dennis Hesselbart (whesselbarth@igc.apc.org)
P.S. What a delight to find CT on-line with aol. Great idea!
THE GOVERNMENT’S TITHES
Thank you for your recent editorial “Uncle Sam Wants Your Tithes” [Oct. 3]. As a pastoral family living on one salary with eight children to support (one in college), we have always considered the “tithe,” like taxes, to be one of our financial obligations. We pay our tithe “from the top” rather than from the leftovers after all other bills have been paid. It is unfortunate that our government has altered the words of Jesus to: “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto Caesar the things that are God’s.”
-Pastor Al Hilding
Buckingham, Ill.
ZIMBABWE INDEPENDENCE
* The story by Edward Gilbreath on Zimbabwe’s new missionary restrictions [Oct. 3] contains a historical inaccuracy. “Since Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain in 1980, . . .” he writes. Rhodesia declared independence in 1965. Black-majority rule came in 1980. In 1979, the country was every bit as independent from Britain as the United States was in 1779. If “independence” means government by the pre-colonial peoples, the United States will only become “independent” when it is governed by the Amerindians.
-gehringe@eos.ncsu.edu
CT WELCOMED ONLINE
* Thanks for making your magazine available electronically. As a daily newspaper editor and an evangelical Christian, I appreciate the care and research of your magazine at a time when some Christian publications and leaders resort to hyperbole and distortions. Hopefully, God will use America Online to distribute your thought-provoking material to a wider audience, and expose this technology-savvy generation to the powerful claims of Jesus Christ.
-Norman Lewis (NLewis@aol)
Butte, Mont.
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* I have been an occasional user of AOL for the past few months. I will now be a regular user with the introduction of Christianity Online. I was pleased to see the article [Church in Action, Oct. 24] about helping urban boys become real men (from my home city).
-John W. Mielke (John12653@aol)
Minnetonka, Minn.
Brief letters are welcome. They may be edited for space and clarity, and must include the writer’s name and address. Send to Eutychus, Christianity Today, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188; fax: 708/260-0114. E-mail: ctedit@aol.com. Letters preceded by * were received online.
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