Proud to be called “pastor”* I’ve been a senior pastor for 22 years. Pastor Steve and I serve churches that are worlds apart, but our hearts beat together. I’ve inhaled smoke from “burnout” as well. Dave Goetz’s article [“Why Pastor Steve Loves His Job” April 7] speaks for the majority of us. We love our jobs. We have passion to preach. “Being there” for people in crisis deeply moves us. We’re called to this. Goetz does more than tell one man’s story. He tenderly exposes the dignity and significance of our calling in a way that made me proud to be called “pastor.”
Pastor Bill Oudemolen Foothills Bible Church Littleton, Colo.
* Too much is written today about the pastor-as-ceo. I was determined that if this was yet another article on one who found a way to “package for the market,” I wouldn’t waste my time reading it. As American decadence runs rampant, the “Pastor Steves” will be the servants God uses to manifest himself—not another businessman going for a slice of the yuppie pie. You presented the pastor as the Bible does: the shepherd of the flock of God.
Pastor Glenn Baker Forsyth Baptist Church Forsyth, Ill.
I sympathize with anyone who, like Steve, has asked his church board for a raise to provide for his family and is rejected. One of his elders suggested if Steve needed more money, he could join the National Guard and become a chaplain.
In addition to serving as pastor of a local church, I have been a chaplain in the National Guard for 26 years. It is an excellent extension of ministry, and it provides opportunities for education and professional development and a wonderful source of additional income, including a pension after age 60. Chaplains in the National Guard don’t have to beg their boards for a raise; they get regular increases with time, grade, and cost of living.
The motive of the board member may have been selfish, but his advice was good.
Jay R. Pruim Lansing, Mich.
* Pastors will remain overworked, underpaid, and continue to face unrealistic expectations as long as they, and the churches they serve, buy into (1) a separation of clergy and laity and (2) a single pastor/leader model. Both concepts would shock the churches described in the New Testament. A return to the New Testament principle of shared leadership and the abolition of the clergy/ laity distinction will empower all of God’s people, including those gifted to pastoral ministry, to fulfill their God-ordained roles in the body of Christ.
James Rigney Picayune, Miss.
* I am church planting with the PCA [Presbyterian Church in America] and find it interesting that Steve struggles in wanting a close relationship with some other man or couple in the congregation, and has a need for someone to be concerned for him as a person. I can echo his heart cry. Church planting is the biggest challenge my wife and I have ever faced. Having other embers in the fire with us would make a world of difference. I think there are many pastors who love their call, yet the loneliness is very intense and difficult. I find that people in the church really don’t understand that.
Doug Domin Concord, N.H.
Right on target* The article entitled “What Pastors’ Wives Wish Their Churches Knew” [April 7] was right on target! As a pastor’s wife, I hope that all laypeople who read this will learn a valuable lesson from it. I know I did!
Susan DeLisle Hickory, N.C.
* Having spent 16 of my 18 years as a Baptist PK, I was astonished at the similarities in the “plight” of the pastor’s wife and the pastor’s child. I sometimes wonder why the pastor’s entire family is not on the parish payroll. My mother and her children often felt pressured to join certain groups. I was always keenly aware that my actions affected how the congregation perceived my father, a heavy burden for an adolescent. I know the percentage of PKs who leave the church is high, and I remember asking my dad if I was going to grow up weird. I am one of the lucky ones: I still believe in the redemptive love of Christ. My father always encouraged his children to be their own selves, not whom the elders believed they should be. The same is true for his wife. It is unfortunate that loneliness seems to be so prevalent in the families of the shepherd, and at the same time, so brushed aside. Zoba most accurately portrayed the problems with so illustrious a position in the community of faith, as well as the rewards.
Sarah Laribee Fort Collins, Colo.
Evangelism and personal integration William Dyrness’s “Can Americans Still Hear the Good News?” [April 7] was a commendable piece with numerous insights. However, I got mired in the biased treatment leveled at individual search for self-integration.
The author asserts that the search for personal integration “is discouraged by Paul, … has become problematic at best.” He implies that integration of the individual self and understanding the self in relational terms are mutually exclusive, and proclaims that the appeal of personal integration is to become “less effective.” These assertions arise from the limited and intellectualized experience of theology. Real life differs considerably.
Christ fully exemplifies the individual, whose level of personal integration achieves the wholeness toward which the soul compels him. God’s goal is that every human might embrace this very quest. It is the purpose of our existence. It is central to the Good News.
The appropriate task for evangelism is to recognize how it has distorted the gospel and has prevented the full message from emerging. Evangelism needs to step back, reinvent itself, and enable the “story of God’s love” to tell and interpret itself.
Daniel T. Bell Lander, Wyo.
Life’s complexities* David Neff’s editorial “Mourning the Morning-After Pill” [April 7] made important points about the morning-after pill’s risk of disconnecting human sexuality from personal responsibility. Yet, life is often more complex than the “down-with-the-pill” theme of Neff’s editorial.
For a variety of reasons, there are individuals who decide that a pregnancy is not a reasonable option. The morning-after pill is a far more humane option than abortion. When my teenage daughter was raped by a male she did not know, I was grateful that the pediatrician had the option of prescribing a morning-after medication. I daresay many other born-again parents would feel a similar gratitude.
We Christians tend to seem like Pharisees when we promulgate rigid, man-made rules.
Name and city withheld by request
Nelson and the “forgotten” Bach* I was pleased to see the Arts piece about conductor John Nelson in the April 7 issue. I’m glad to know of the spiritual impact his testimony is having in a segment of culture not often reached with the gospel. I was disappointed, however, that Richard Kauffman failed to note Nelson’s sometime collaboration with fellow Juilliard grad Peter Schickele in “rediscovering” and promoting the works of forgotten composer P.D.Q. Bach!
Larry Pile Albany, Ohio
Not new or refreshing* If Douglas D. Webster’s review is any indication, it seems a misnomer for Thomas Long to call Peter J. Gomes’s The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart an “oasis” [Books, April 7]. Gomes’s “reeducating” book is anything but an oasis: it is simply another person’s attempt to, as Webster wrote, “make it possible to accept what one wants to in the Bible and discard the rest.” This is neither new nor refreshing. Predictably, those who wish to disregard uncomfortable biblical truth have been doing so for centuries. Gomes laments the fact that many Christians read the Bible incorrectly, but his own shallow reading is revealed when he addresses the supposedly serious question of Paul’s alleged anti-Semitism. If trying to convert people to Christianity is considered an “anti-” activity, then Jesus was a big bully and a hatemonger.
Also, one would do well to note the irony of Gomes’s assertion that pro-lifers are guilty of literalism in trying to prove that abortion is wrong. Isn’t Gomes’s childlike “the Bible is silent on abortion!” exactly the kind of literalism he condemns? Of course, he’s right: the Bible is silent on abortion. It is also silent on flushing a cat down the toilet and shooting a bird’s nest out of a tree.
Finally, how can Gomes be “one of the great preachers of our generation”? His attempts to render the Bible ineffectual disqualify him from such a category. A great speaker perhaps, but not a great preacher. There is a difference.
Eric Rigney Lexington, Ky.
Webster urges us to be “doubtful about ourselves and confident in God’s revelation.” But does Webster not see that being “confident in God’s revelation” is itself the height of immodesty, for it means nothing more than being confident in our take on “God’s revelation”? Surely being “doubtful about ourselves” requires us to question our positions on all complex matters, including our interpretations of “the one and only Good Book.”
I also found Webster’s comment that pederasty, lasciviousness, exploitation, and so on are “not unlike [the gay relations] we have today” flippantly dismissive of a legitimate point raised by Gomes. Do Paul’s strictures necessarily apply to loving, monogamous gay relationships? It could have been a good discussion, but Webster seemed more interested in winning applause from the choir than in grappling with a difficult and perhaps threatening issue.
Steve Baughman San Francisco, Calif.
Rabbi Rudin’s opposition After reading of Rabbi A. James Rudin’s fervent opposition to the calling of Jews to faith in Jesus the Messiah [News, April 7], I remark: The rabbis have led my people into the curses of Moses these past 20 centuries, for if we had pleased God and were under the sure blessings and protection of Deuteronomy 28, how could we possibly have been spewed from the land to be slaughtered and despised among the goyim 2,000 years, and to end up in the ovens of Hitler? The truth is, we have followed treasonous leaders in betrayal of our king, and we have reaped their destruction. As the prophets foretold, the Gentiles came to his light, and we followed our teachers into darkness.
Steve Rafalsky Woodstock, N.Y.
Fuller Theological Seminary doesn’t have “evangelicalism’s only formal Judaic Studies program.” Moody Bible Institute in Chicago has one—what I understand to be evangelicalism’s oldest. For eight years I have chaired the Jewish Studies Department at Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas. The Messianic-Jewish movement itself has formal Judaic studies programs as well. Programs or at least courses on Jewish studies and Christian origins are abundant in seminaries across America and the world.
But the article didn’t answer the question: “Is the term Jewish-Christian a contradiction?” The answer depends on what dictionary one uses to authorize their vocabulary. Believing that the Bible—and not Rabbi Rudin—is the best source for explaining what it means to be “Christian” or “Jewish,” I think the question is easy to answer. A cursory examination of the New Testament evidences that Jesus’ first followers understood themselves to be fulfilling what it meant to be Jewish—not denying it. New Testament believers knew of no contradiction. For them, much as is the case for Jewish believers today, their embrace of Jesus inflamed some of their Jewish religious passions and practices—something many don’t understand or appreciate today, much as they didn’t yesterday. I don’t expect Rabbi Rudin to appreciate their situation; I do, however, call upon all evangelicals to support Jewish believers who are working on their very legitimate question—what it means to be both Jewish and Christian.
Here’s another question: Is it possible to be a strong Christian and not support Jewish-Christians?
Jeffrey L. Seif, Chair Department of Jewish Studies Christ for the Nations Institute Dallas, Tex.
Crime drops in Pensacola Regarding the Brownsville Revival [News, March 3], the wording of the statement “Contrary to a widely circulating rumor, crime rates in Pensacola have not decreased dramatically” indicates that false information was spread from the pulpit. The leadership of the revival do their utmost to be certain exaggerations or false statements are not made. The actual statements made had to do specifically with the juvenile crime rate. The January 3, 1997, issue of the Pensacola News Journal published articles entitled “Juvenile crime falls for 1st time” and “Juvenile crime drops in Escambia, Santa Rosa; rises in State.” They publicly documented information that Brownsville had obtained earlier.
Tomi Davidson, Publicist/Secretary Together in the Harvest Ministries, Inc. Foley, Ala.
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