CT kicked off 1971 with a startling report from Washington State:
Thousands of young people in the Pacific Northwest are forsaking pot to follow Christ. Spokane, Washington, is the latest big city to feel the impact of the movement, which is largely outside the churches. …
Scores of young Bible-toting hip and straight types … take to the streets daily to share their faith. Often they kneel on sidewalks to pray with peers who want to receive Jesus. They show up in strength at community dances and other events to talk about him, stage “Jesus marches” and outdoor rallies, and hold forth in Bible study and outspoken witness sessions in the area’s twelve public high schools. …
The Jesus People opened the “I Am” coffeehouse and two communal “houses”: the House of Abraham and the House of Sarah. … Nearly 300 miles away in Seattle, revival fires have burned brightly in the underground for two years. Numerous communes and coffeehouses have sprung up there and spawned ministries elsewhere in the Northwest and British Columbia. The largest coffeehouse is “The Catacombs,” across the street from the Space Needle. … It attracts up to 400 on weekend nights for gospel rock, Jesus “rapping,” and friendship. A heavy program of Bible studies and training classes is offered the rest of the week.
CT decoded some of the new converts’ lingo and told readers to look past the “freaked out” style and not get distracted by all the “bell bottoms, beads … coffeehouses and communes.”
The Jesus movement must be given more than a cheap sociological and psychological explanation.
Where did it all begin? Out of the ashes of Haight-Ashbury? As an aftermath to the Sunset Strip riots? Among the disillusioned of the drug culture? Yes, and much more. The movement began spontaneously over a wide front. In the last three years, the West Coast, the supposed center of sensual pleasure, has ironically reached a flash point of despair over this world and spiritual longing for another. …
The same hip teen-ager who last year turned his friends on to drugs may now be turning them on to Jesus. In an era when students have led the protest against war and racism, we should not be surprised that they have taken the Gospel of Christ and moved it into their world. Tens of thousands evangelize today rather than just a few paid professionals. …
The Gospel of the incarnation is being acted out again in the youth culture, as the Word becomes flesh in these particular lives and their particular style. … Whether the churches can embrace these authentic Christians in their own culture is an open question, and with the answer rests much of the future.
CT also reported on “Jesus rock,” Jesus People music festivals, and evangelical in 1971. While many commentators said the whole thing seemed like another Baby Boomer fad, the magazine argued there was more to it.
With so many thousands of young people involved, and given the reality of group-identity pressures, it can reasonably be assumed that cases of band-wagon Christianity do exist. Faddism is furthered by commercial exploitation—for example, a “Jesus People’s wrist-watch” marketed by a church for $14.95. But it can also be the product of church neglect or inability to follow through with new converts.
On a wide front, however, the movement defies description as a fad. Many of the counter-culture converts—the “street Christians”—of the years 1967–70 are still hanging in there, spiritually stronger than ever.
CT kept readers apprised of other religious developments as well, including a major debate between two Catholic theologians in Germany.
The debate between Hans Küng and Karl Rahner is surely one of the most remarkable events within today’s remarkable period of Roman Catholic history. … Küng has insisted that Catholics should openly admit that profound changes have taken place in the understanding of church dogma. He wants Catholics to stop insisting that the church has always and really taught one and the same truth. But Rahner has chosen not to accept Küng’s way. He opts for the other solution: there has been no change; there has only been interpretation.
Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr died in 1971, prompting a reflection on his legacy. He wasn’t an evangelical, but an Asbury Theological Seminary professor argued evangelicals nonetheless owed him a debt of gratitude.
We are indebted to Niebuhr … for his realistic view of human reason. It was his contention that reason is as largely affected by sin as are the appetites. Seeing the fearsome contrast between the “moral” individual and the “immoral society” of men in collective life, he affirmed strict limitations upon the ability of reason to curb the power of egoism. …
His genius … lay in his ability to see the complexity of the factors in human behavior, and the demonic possibilities built into the structures of society, notably those of political and economic power. Certainly our century will not outlive the necessity for hearing his verdict upon the prevalence of pride as an ingredient in modern civilization. … Niebuhr thus saw that the corrupting effects of human pride ruled out any and all mundane utopias.
CT marked another significant passing when oil industry magnate J. Howard Pew died at 89. Pew was a major financial donor and almost single-handedly underwrote the launch of CT.
Mr. Pew was a big man physically as well as spiritually, with a rugged constitution, a deep voice, and a keen sense of humor. He played excellent golf and until a year ago was still able to break ninety. He had a fondness for cigars and a thorough antipathy to alcohol. He was a man of strong convictions and great integrity; his word was his bond. His mind was keen, and his interests ranged wide. …
It is fair to say that, humanly speaking, the magazine would never have survived or even have gotten off the ground without his generous support and enthusiastic backing.
Founding editor L. Nelson Bell mourned the growing acceptance of abortion in America.
That we have embarked on this new approach to the termination of pregnancies bodes ill for America as well as for those churches that have become active in this. It evidences a callous disregard for the realities of the unwarranted termination of life, which sears the souls of all concerned. …
The Christian minister increasingly finds himself called upon for counsel by pregnant unmarried girls. It is a responsibility he cannot shirk. But it is disturbing to see that many ministers are meeting this situation by referring the girls to the various abortion services now available through church agencies.
As a physician and a Christian, one who can well understand the emotional agonies involved for parents and daughters, I urge all concerned not to accept what seems to be the easy way out but to face up to the fact that a human life is involved—a life that cannot defend itself and is in no way responsible for its plight.
Editors noted a Supreme Court ruling on vulgarity and freedom of speech, speculating it might be positive for evangelism:
The court reversed the conviction of Paul R. Cohen, who had been charged after he appeared in a Los Angeles courthouse corridor wearing a jacket that bore an obscene remark denouncing the draft. …
Much as Christians may loathe the growing respectability of four-letter words once considered immoral, they should now find ways of capitalizing on this legal precedent. A court that has upheld scurrilous discourse in public places will have to allow the communication of the Christian Gospel, for example, in similar situations.
CT invited a debate about the merits of megachurches in 1971—before they were called “megachurches.” The vice president of Lynchburg Baptist College argued the affirmative, while a Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor made the case that mid-sized churches are better.
Perhaps the greatest advantage of the mid-size church is its ability to provide diverse expression without losing personal contacts. In such a congregation, the pastor can know everyone by name. More important, he can know something about each person, visit in his home, share his joys and sorrows. This kind of contact still has value, not only for the pastor, who must preach to real people, but also for the layman, who learns that Sunday’s preacher is more than a good actor, that he, too, is flesh and blood. …
Too many Christians seem to crave great preaching and great music and are willing to pay any price except personal involvement to get it. They take up their weekly watch on the end of a pew, contribute to the offering, rejoice in the sermon, shake hands with a greeter (whose name they probably do not know), and are gone for another week. Such Christians will always be with us, perhaps, but we ought not to structure our church strategy to make it easy to be an invisible member of the Body of Christ.
The magazine also attempted to intervene in the ongoing debate about speaking in tongues, publishing “A Truce Proposal for the Tongues Controversy.”
An acrimonious debate about the legitimacy of tongues in the Christian life divides our ranks and saps our energies. This article is an attempt to clear the air and raise the level of rhetoric on both sides. If the evangelical community followed the guidelines proposed, greater harmony would descend and the mission of the Church would advance. …
Speaking practically, of course, there are distinctives that make difficult a united worship of Pentecostals and non-Pentecostals. Differing styles of church meeting have developed along denominational lines, just as have differences over the sacraments. However, this need have no bearing on interdenominational fellowship and cooperation; there is a very real basis for unity in all major issues. Moreover, churches need not split when tongues breaks out within them. Paul left room within the worship service for such manifestations (1 Cor. 14:26, 39), so long as certain guidelines were followed—edification (14:5, 26), interpretation (14:5, 13, 28), self-control (14:27), order (14:40), and the absence of proselytizing (12:18–31).
This last is the foundation stone of combined worship and continued unity. Anyone who insists on propagating his distinctive practice—be it tongues, a certain mode of baptism, or foot-washing—removes himself from those who do not practice such. The proper view of glossolalia will recognize it as an individual gift depending on the sovereign choice of the Spirit, not a corporate experience every Christian must undergo.
An Australian Bible scholar noted that in the early 1970s, evangelicals were increasingly being called conservative evangelicals. He argued the modifier was not entirely right.
There have always been evangelicals who have been daring innovators and who have refused to walk meekly in the old paths. … Wherever I look I seem to see evangelicals taking an initiative. While holding firmly to the basic evangelical position, many are refusing to be bound by the old evangelical shibboleths and are advocating radically new ideas and practices. …
It seems idle to speak of evangelicals these days as conservative. There is conservatism enough, it is true. But an eager search for new ideas and new methods characterizes evangelicalism as it starts the seventies. If this creative, innovative attitude can be maintained, the consequences are incalculable.
Some readers, of course, got mad at things they read in CT. That happens every year. In 1971, editors took the time to respond to one unhappy subscriber with a note about recycling:
A disappointed reader of Christianity Today clipped and returned a paragraph that offended him and canceled his subscription. “Your magazine isn’t even worth recycling,” he charged.
The truth is that content notwithstanding we are worth recycling, especially in view of dwindling forest reserves. … Conservation of God-given natural resources becomes an ever more critical Christian responsibility.
