CT has always argued that Christians should be active in the public square and that the Bible has relevant things to say about contemporary life, including politics. But in 1980, editors expressed concerns about simplistic applications of Scripture at the ballot box.
There is no biblical text to tell us which candidate should be president. There is no chapter that contains an economic blueprint for the international economic order in the 1980s. … That does not mean that Christians should derive their economic and political views entirely from secular theories. There are biblical principles that have profound importance for our politics.
Certainly the application of those biblical principles to concrete situations today is an extremely complex task. People equally committed to biblical principle disagree strongly over specific social programs. That disagreement among Christians is legitimate and healthy.
But Christians ought to be willing to regularly discuss these conflicting proposals with those who disagree with them in a spirit of prayer, openness to the Holy Spirit, and unconditional submission to God’s Word. The more deeply our politics are grounded in biblical principles, the more Christian they are.
Founding editor Carl F. H. Henry returned to the pages of the magazine to warn evangelicals about bandwagons and the risks of partisan politics.
Resurgent evangelical interest in politics is to be welcomed and commended. Yet some observers fear—and with good reason—that this involvement may eventually become as politically misguided as was the activism of liberal Christianity earlier in this century. …
The grassroots multitudes are calling for leaders of godly character and commitment in national affairs, and for an end to the erosion of biblical values. Complicating the present election debate is the emergence of several evangelical groups professing to provide scriptural guidance for the evangelical community.
Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority promotes corporate prayer in public schools, as does Leadership Foundation, whereas the Baptist Joint Public Affairs Committee along with the National Council of Churches resists it. Coalition for Christian Action, Christian Voice, Christian Embassy, and lesser known groups all actively support politically conservative candidates. Heartened by the impact of prolife forces and the Supreme Court’s decision against welfare funding of abortions, evangelical groups hope to expand their campaign against liberal misperceptions of the good. …
Many evangelicals are intellectually unprepared for energetic social engagements. They do not discern the connections between theology and ethical theory and strategy. They wish to go beyond mere negative criticism of controversial ecumenical commitments, yet are largely cast on nonevangelical initiatives.
The magazine offered its own “energetic social engagements” on several important issues in 1980, including the ongoing energy crisis, caused by a drop in Middle East oil production. The president of Moody Bible Institute discussed how Christians should respond.
The energy problem should remind us that human solutions have human limitations. We are in a dying world. But how can Christians respond to the energy crisis? First, they should look to God to bring them through the stormy seas that may lie ahead. Our confidence is in the Lord, come what may. He is sovereign, and he can be trusted.
Second, Christians need God’s help to be examples to the world. Wasting energy is as much an act of violence against the poor as refusing to feed the hungry. Since we know that what we have is out of proportion to what other people have, it should make us uncomfortable, motivated to take action.
A Sign, Not a Weathervane
Americans debated alternatives to oil and coal in 1980, including nuclear power. CT asked an evangelical engineering professor to weigh in.
Evangelical faith demands that the consequences of sin be taken seriously. … We will avoid the idea that Eden can be planted in the world without turning to impale ourselves on the flaming sword in a doomed attempt to reenter Eden. We will accept the cursed and temporary status of our earth and work within those limitations. We are at last ready to realize that an infinite growth of both population and living standard is impossible. …
The realistic appraisal of human nature found in Scripture provides an important part of our protection against abuse. Humans can never be expected to be perfect, and the rule of law is our defense against inevitable consequences. This constructive approach leads to what one might describe as Christian environmentalism: regulation in which continual watchfulness is applied to all our organizations, especially those that are commercial. This watchfulness is institutionalized through government, but when government becomes the agent of romantic environmentalists, its regulation becomes negative and destructive, for it tries to reach the impossible ideal of a risk-free society.
But government regulation can be constructive when it is not chasing an impossible ideal. Considerable gains have already been made in this direction by the environmental movement. As a result, a substantial cleanup of air, water, and land is now under way, involving every industry.
Another big issue was stopping government funding for abortion. CT reported on the legal battle over the Hyde Amendment.
Prolife groups cheered the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision upholding the constitutionality of the so-called Hyde Amendment. Named for its original sponsor, Congressman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), the four-year-old measure bans Medicaid financing of all abortions except those necessary to save a mother’s life, or in cases of promptly reported rape or incest.
The Supreme Court rejected a January lower court ruling by New York Federal District Court Judge John F. Dooling, Jr., who said the amendment violated the constitutional rights of poor women. While acknowledging a woman’s right to abortion, the Supreme Court declared that this freedom does not give a woman the constitutional claim to money to pay for the abortion. …
When in force, the Hyde Amendment would cut from 300,000 to about 2,000 the number of abortions paid for annually through federal aid. About 1 million abortions are performed every year in the U.S.
Not every issue facing Christians at the start of the new decade was so serious. In a regular column addressing ministers’ questions, CT ran a piece on the importance of pastors getting exercise.
Everyone knows the physical benefits of running. Increased energy, lowered risk of heart attack, and reduced weight head the list. The mental benefits—self-confidence, relaxation, and that unspeakable “runner’s high”—are touted from a hundred magazines and books. Those benefits are real and reason enough to keep me going, but as a pastor I have additional reasons to run.
Running humanizes a pastor. So often my people meet me only on spiritual grounds. … On Sundays I am wearing a robe that proclaims my status as ordained, and during the week I am properly attired as befits my reverend dignity. It is easy for them to think that I am a spiritual being inhabiting only a spiritual world. But when they know I run, they realize there is at least one very physical part of me. They may think that my head is in the clouds, but they know my feet are pounding the ground. That knowledge can help bridge the gap that so many church customs tend to establish.
It is hard for me to look ceremonious and holy when I am straining to finish a run. My hair is sticking out wildly, my face flushed, and my shirt drenched. More than once one of my people has seen me in that condition. Their response is to shout and wave. Then they make a special point to tell me they have seen me. Part of the joy in their retelling of the encounter is the tacit statement, “You may fool some of the people by looking so cool and dignified in your black robe, but I have seen the real you.”
CT also found time to praise The Empire Strikes Back and rave about Bob Dylan’s latest album, Slow Train.
“Slow Train” is more than a testimony to Bob Dylan’s completion into the Christian faith: it is a call into the bars, into the streets, into the world, to repentance, to “the man on the cross … crucified for you. Believe in his power, that’s about all you’ve got to do!” …
Bob’s new album is a special success: not only for him personally, as God will contrive to work through him as a person; but also musically, as it reaches for the shadows. It beseeches a decision from the hardest hearted, the one who is hardest to find, the outlaw—that one who never committed himself for fear of being hurt. It is an inspiration to all brothers and sisters.
The magazine published a review of Dallas, the most popular soap opera on prime-time television. A Wheaton College professor argued that the show brought “images of evil back into focus.”
J. R., the eldest Ewing brother on the TV show Dallas, has become, as they say, “a legend in his own time.” … J. R., like his literary ancestors, is evil: unmitigated, unabashed, pure evil. He, as they, often wears the disguise of virtue, but the audience can always count on the dramatic irony of his corrupt intentions; we know he’s out to pervert and destroy everybody. The more his villainy suggests the diabolical, the more mysterious he becomes. And mystery is in short supply on television—real mystery, not merely suspense.
He is so very attractive because he makes the fictional cosmos of Dallas multidimensional; by his presence he lends the show the structure of Christian cosmology: heaven and earth and hell. And this is what makes the show so unusual (at least before its offspring were born) and so likeable.
In the real-world drama of the election, Republican candidate Ronald Reagan won decisively in November, taking majorities in 44 of 50 state contests. CT commended Religious Right leaders for motivating and mobilizing evangelicals, but also sounded a note of warning.
We must acknowledge an important role played by Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Robison, and other representatives of organizations representing politically conservative segments of evangelicalism. We commend them for getting Christians to register and vote; these are clear Christian duties.
For the first time in half a century, evangelicals generally became involved in a national election. They registered, took sides, worked actively to select candidates they preferred, and voted their choice. And the politically conservative evangelical vote was significant. Particularly in the South and in contests below the level of presidency their votes sometimes proved decisive.
Having said this, however, we must caution politically conservative evangelicals against taking too much credit for the outcome of the election. American evangelicals are a minority in a pluralistic society. Certainly conservatives among them could not alone have elected Mr. Reagan. He had to draw on other groups as well. He came to power partly because he increasingly took a moderate stand, allaying fear that he was an extremist. …
God is not going to work miracles just because of Christian influence in or on the White House. Conservative evangelicals must not place their hope in a “quick fix.” Mr. Reagan will not bring the millennium to America, nor will he restore an imaginary golden age of an earlier day. We should neither expect nor demand this. The wheels of state grind very slowly.
It is not humanly possible to change a social structure overnight. Immense pressures will be placed on Ronald Reagan, and on occasion he will yield. Some compromises are necessary and wise; evangelical Christians should prepare to accept them. Other compromises are harmful. The wisdom of American evangelicals will become evident as they learn when to work with and support a president who makes compromises for the common good, and when to stand up and be counted in opposition because that boundary of the common good has been crossed.
Looking ahead, CT tried to suss out what the election triumph meant for the future of the country and the witness of evangelicals.
Ronald Reagan’s election day sweep raised the hopes of many evangelical Christians for a more conservative, moral course for the country. …
Some Christian lobbyists already predict that a bill granting income tax credits for private school tuition will now have the votes to pass, as will a bill taking jurisdiction over prayer in public schools out of the hands of unfriendly federal courts.
Somewhat less certain are the odds for the long-stalled antiabortion amendment to the Constitution. The November 4 election brought in a majority of prolife senators and congressmen, but a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority in each house to pass, before it can be sent to the President for his signature and then on to the states, where 38 legislatures must ratify it. “Clearly, we don’t have two-thirds of the Senate now,” said Paul Weyrich, a Washington-wise lobbyist for conservative and religious causes.
The Reagan floodtide will likely bring many forward for a share of the credit. … Pollster Lou Harris, who most accurately forecast the Reagan victory, attributed it much more to a broad repudiation of the Carter policies than to any call to arms by the Christian fundamentalists. … That accords with the August Gallup Poll, which found that most evangelicals’ views on most of the issues are about the same as everyone else’s.
