An Evangelical Chair at Harvard?

The harvard divinity school of a generation ago would not have openly courted evangelical support for its activities. But today it wants not only to take evangelicals seriously, but would welcome a professorship that will institutionalize this commitment permanently.

Consider Harvard’s past: Though given birth by a small group of seventeenth-century English Puritan ministers, the university had become by the next century a liberal institution hardly remembering its Puritan heritage. This liberalism carried over to the divinity school, which was established in 1816 as a separate department. By midcentury, it had become de facto a Unitarian school. Evangelicals, if they attended mainline seminaries, usually went to places like Yale or Princeton where theological conservatism was taken seriously.

Harvard, on the other hand, was considered by most evangelicals to be a wasteland—a Sodom and Gomorrah of theological scholarship. This label was perhaps unfair since its faculty included many important religious thinkers during the last century. But the fact remains that there were no evangelicals at Harvard during this early period and the faculty was decidedly liberal theologically. Even the suggestion that the divinity school enlist evangelical students or, worse, invite an evangelical to join the faculty, would have been received with scorn and unbelief.

Harvard’s current interest in evangelicalism must be traced to two events that happened in the last century. First of all, after 60 years of Unitarian domination, it was decided in 1880 to bring the divinity school more in line with its original interdenominational charter and appoint non-Unitarians to the faculty.

Second, at the turn of the century, Harvard Divinity School merged with Andover Seminary. The Andover faculty was largely Congregational and more conservative than Harvard’s. The merger reinforced the decision in 1880 to make Harvard into a theologically and denominationally diverse community of scholars and students. The merger fell apart, largely for legal reasons, and Andover left Cambridge in the 1920s to join the Baptist seminary in Newton, producing today’s Andover-Newton Theological School. But by that time, Harvard Divinity School itself had changed decisively.

Ironically, if one asks most evangelicals (and indeed, many liberals who should know better) what they think Harvard Divinity School is today, they will still say that it is a Unitarian seminary of students and faculty who subscribe to a liberal theology—if indeed they subscribe to any theology at all. But they are out of date. Following the Andover affair, Harvard Divinity School evolved until it is today a complex institution that defies old stereotypes.

For one thing, even though the divinity school is proud of its long association with Unitarians, Harvard is no longer a “Unitarian stronghold.” Unitarian/Universalist students still attend the divinity school in significant numbers (28 in a student body of 380), but so do members of many mainline denominations and religious groups, including Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Lutherans, and Roman Catholics.

More to the point, at least since the turn of the century Harvard has not been monolithically liberal. It is true that many members of the divinity school faculty have identified with liberal causes. But today a wide range of theological belief is voiced in the classroom.

Nor can the student body any longer be classified as exclusively “liberal.” Significantly, in a student body of 380 men and women, over 50 can be identified as evangelical. And contrary to a popular notion held even by members of our own community that this evangelical presence is a recent phenomenon, evangelicals have attended the divinity school in relatively large numbers at least since the 1920s. Today, evangelical alumni can be found on the faculties of many leading evangelical seminaries, most notably at Fuller and Gordon-Conwell. Many leading pastors from evangelical denominations like the Southern Baptist Convention hold advanced degrees from Harvard Divinity School or, more recently, have spent a sabbatical semester there as Merrill Fellows. Other prominent evangelical leaders, including Kenneth Kantzer, the recent editor of CT, did their doctoral work in religion at Harvard.

One can only speculate why a larger percentage of Harvard Divinity School students over the past 50 years has been evangelical, compared with Harvard’s mainline competitors. One alumnus, an evangelical Presbyterian pastoring a church in North Carolina, told me that during the 1940s when he attended the divinity school it was well known in evangelical circles that a solid education, especially in Bible, could be had at Harvard without feeling pressured to conform to a liberal theological point of view. In other words, evangelicals could enter and leave Harvard with their evangelical beliefs still intact—challenged, perhaps, but intact. I believe it is the school’s long-standing commitment to toleration and freedom of thought that has been behind this. It is still a tradition here that while students and faculty freely engage in theological discussion and defend their particular point of view, individual conviction is respected.

So harvard’s interest in (or at least, experience with) evangelicals is not altogether new. What is new, I think, is a desire on the part of many to foster more than just a casual interest in evangelicalism—to take evangelicalism seriously and somehow to incorporate it more fully into the life of the school.

There are at least two reasons for this desire. The first has already been alluded to: evangelicals represent the largest group of Protestants in this country. Many have attended Harvard Divinity School. And yet, evangelicalism is at the least underrepresented on the faculty. This is an unfortunate omission.

Second, many members of the faculty think the time is propitious for evangelical and nonevangelical scholars to engage in serious dialogue. Furthermore, they believe that evangelical scholarship should be taken seriously. I can perhaps convey this feeling best by describing my own development as a “liberal” church historian who takes evangelicalism seriously.

I am not an evangelical—at least not in the eyes of my evangelical friends (although some of my liberal friends are convinced otherwise). Brought up a United Methodist, I now belong to the Society of Friends. Yet my contact with evangelicals over the past 12 years—much of it as a seminarian and graduate student—has been an important force in my own spiritual and intellectual development and, indeed, in the way I teach.

My first experience with evangelicalism occurred at New College at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where I spent my middler year. Here I met many American evangelicals—so many, in fact, that I initially wondered whether New College was not a branch of the Southern Baptist Convention! Most of these evangelicals were Ph.D. students studying with scholars whom they, and I, admired—people like Tom Torrance in theology and A. C. Cheyne in church history. It was Cheyne, incidentally, who converted this would-be sociologist of religion into a church historian, and cultivated my current interest in evangelical Presbyterianism of the Scottish variety.

Many years later I collaborated with one of Professor Cheyne’s Ph.D. students, John Akers, who is now a trusted associate of Billy Graham. Dr. Akers and I have worked closely on several projects at Harvard that are relative to the divinity school’s evangelical connection, including a dialogue held last year with members of the Gordon-Conwell faculty on the topic “Evangelical and Liberal—A True Dichotomy?”

At Oxford University where I did my own Ph.D., I had the good fortune of working with Methodist scholar J. D. Walsh, to whom many evangelical doctoral candidates have gravitated over the years. One of the first pieces of Oxford scholarship I read was that of another Walsh student, John Wesley White, whose research on transatlantic revivalism influenced my own doctoral studies.

My early exposure to evangelicals and their scholarship has had an important impact on my teaching. Increasingly, I see the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century evangelical revival as a positive force within the church and an inspiration for renewal within the church today. I continue to admire the work done in history and contemporary theology by Prof. Richard Lovelace of Gordon-Conwell and many other evangelical historians and scholars.

Other members of the faculty share my interest in evangelicalism. One is former dean Krister Stendahl, the Andrew Mellon Professor of Divinity, and a leading New Testament scholar.

Stendahl, a friend of Billy Graham’s (with whom Stendahl first discussed the possibility of an evangelical chair at Harvard), feels that the presence of an evangelical scholar would be beneficial in at least three ways: (1) The chair would give evangelical scholarship a forum at Harvard in a substantial way; (2) It would open up a real option for its students; and (3) It would challenge scholarly exchange in everyday faculty discussion. In Stendahl’s opinion the divinity school faculty must be protected against “narrowing and labeling,” and for this reason an evangelical professorship is an important priority for Harvard Divinity School.

Another faculty member is John Carman, director of the Center for the Study of World Religions and Parkman Professor of Divinity. Dr. Carman grew up in a missionary home in India where his academic interest in Indian religions was awakened. He strongly feels that since contemporary evangelicalism is heir to a theological tradition many liberal Christians have rejected, there is a danger that evangelical positions will not receive an adequate hearing.

I asked Professor Stendahl about the role evangelical scholarship might play at an institution like Harvard. This is what he told me: “The time is long past when liberal, mainline, or ecumenical scholars can claim that they are the objective scholars with exclusive rights to academic respectability. Thus, the issue is far deeper than just widening the spectrum in order to be more inclusive—adding another species to the zoo. It is the health and vitality of theological studies for the future that is at stake, and the overcoming of outdated but lingering structures of ‘we and they’.

“For instance, Carl F. H. Henry’s multivolume work in theology is a major contribution in the field—in many fields—but its impact on us all will depend on breaking down institutionalized patterns where academic institutions become challenged by it from within.”

The interest in evangelicalism by nonevangelical scholars (and by many evangelicals in nonevangelical activities) is part of a trend that has been developing over a good part of the second half of this century.

From the perspective of many evangelical scholars, I suspect a growing willingness today to explore common areas of theological agreement with nonevangelical scholars. I also sense a genuine desire on the part of many evangelicals to have their work taken more seriously by the nonevangelical academic community. This in part explains why evangelical Ph.D. candidates are attending mainline seminaries in record numbers. It also explains why evangelical scholars are publishing in nonevangelical scholarly journals and presses with much more frequency than even 20 years ago. From the nonevangelical side, there is much more of a willingness to reject two unfair stereotypes that have been used over the years to describe evangelicals. The first is that all evangelicals are narrow fundamentalists, and the second, that evangelicalism and good scholarship are mutually exclusive. Also, many nonevangelical seminary professors either consciously or subconciously admire the vitality of evangelicalism and would like to learn more about it from the perspective of ministerial arts.

For example, as chairman last spring of the Billings Prize Committee, which selects the divinity school’s most accomplished student preachers each year, I had the rare experience (for a Quaker) of sitting through 19 student sermons in a period of just over six hours. The strongest sermons in my opinion were preached by students who were either evangelical or came from evangelical backgrounds. It became evident to me that in the area of preaching, we have much to learn from evangelical traditions where student preparation in the ministerial arts appears superior to our own.

It perhaps becomes clearer now why Harvard is interested in evangelicals. They have been at the divinity school in relatively large numbers for more than 50 years. And there is today a genuine interest in evangelical scholarship on the part of many nonevangelical faculty. The centerpiece of both these developments, however, would be a professorship in evangelical Christianity. It also bears mentioning that the presence of a professor of evangelical Christianity on the Harvard Divinity School faculty does not preclude the appointment of evangelicals to other positions as well.

For the first time in this country, evangelical thought and practice—be it in Bible, ethics, church history, or theology—will be taught and studied in a largely nonevangelical seminary. The incumbent of this professorship will not only be a resource for our own evangelical students, but will be a resource of international importance to all communities of faith. Most important, as far as I am concerned, he or she will, in a constructive and scholarly way, provoke and challenge accepted patterns of belief and practice held by mainliners and evangelicals alike. “Provoking” and “challenging” are part of the Harvard ethos anyway, and I believe our community will be strengthened by the addition of this scholarly and spiritual presence.

Ideas

Documenting the Dramatic Shift in Seminaries from Liberal to Conservative

Kenneth S. Kantzer

To grasp the magnitude of gradual, steady change, glance back over a quarter century.

One of the brightest spots on the evangelical scene is seminary education. The old adage is true: As goes the seminary today, so goes the church tomorrow. And today seminary education is going exceedingly well for evangelicalism.

Because growth has been so steady and spread over several decades, few realize the dramatic shift that has taken place in the theological direction of seminary education. I began my own advanced study for the ministry when I graduated from college in the 1930s. I sought an accredited school committed to a consistent biblical theology, with a scholarly faculty, a large library, and a disciplined intellectual atmosphere. I couldn’t find any. The nonevangelical schools had great libraries, strong scholarly faculties, and impressive reputations as accredited centers of learning. The evangelical schools had no libraries to speak of, unknown faculty (J. Gresham Machen, the last evangelical scholar, had just died), and no tradition of high scholarship. So I chose two schools: the first, a rather typical fundamentalist school so new the ink was barely dry on its articles of incorporation; and the second, a liberal school with a solid reputation for academic excellence. By tapping into the two extremes, I hoped to gain the best of both worlds. As it turned out, I could have done worse.

Even by 1956 the situation had changed only a little. At that time the 10 largest accredited seminaries (in order of student body size) were:

1. Southern

2. Southwestern

3. Concordia

4. Union (N.Y.)

5. Garrett-Evangelical

6. Yale

7. Luther

8. Princeton

9. New Orleans

10. Candler

We can estimate the changes taking place by examining that list now, 25 years later. The only schools still listed among the top 10 in 1981 (the year of the most recent statistics) were the 3 Southern Baptist schools, the very conservative Missouri Lutheran Concordia, and Princeton.

And in the last generation, a whole new group of fundamentalist and evangelical seminaries have sprung into being. Many of them have grown to formidable size with respectable libraries and large faculties of impressive scholarship.

In 1981, according to the most recent Factbook on Theological Education, the top 10 schools in order of student enrollment were:

1. Southwestern

2. Fuller

3. Southern

4. New Orleans

5. Southeastern

6. San Francisco

7. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

8. Princeton

9. Concordia (St. Louis)

10. Asbury

Replacing the more liberally oriented schools from the 1956 list were Fuller, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, and Asbury (all committed to a conservative evangelical theology), Southeastern of the Southern Baptist Convention, and San Francisco (with over half of its students part-time and only 17 percent enrolled in the professional M.Div. program).

This is but the tip of the iceberg. Just below the top 10 for 1981 are the conservative evangelical schools Talbot and Gordon-Conwell, not to mention other large schools in the same tradition, such as Concordia (Fort Wayne). Bethel (St. Paul), Ashland, Regent, and Nazarene—all with enrollments over 400.

In the last five years, the standard professional accrediting association for theological schools (ATS) has added 14 new seminaries to its roster: Oral Roberts, Covenant, Saint Anthony, Alliance, Cincinnati Christian, Columbia Graduate School, Liberty Baptist, Melodyland, Regent, Trinity Episcopal, Assembly of God Graduate School, Canadian Theological Seminary, Mount Saint Mary, and Scott College. Of these, 2 are Roman Catholic and at least 10 are committed to conservative evangelicalism. Moreover, two of the larger and better-known evangelical schools, Dallas and Westminster, are not even members of the theological accrediting association, but have regional accreditation. There are also other big conservative schools with no accreditation at all.

Of course, large numbers of evangelical students enroll at schools whose faculty members are not committed exclusively to conservative evangelicalism. Roger Martin of Harvard Divinity School reports that approximately one-sixth of the Student body there would reckon itself as conservative evangelical. An even larger share of the student body would be evangelical at Princeton, Seabury-Western, and many other schools.

L. Russ Bush, theology professor at Southwestern, estimates that as high as 90 percent of the students in his classes are committed to the inerrancy of Scripture, though some might prefer not to use the word.

Total enrollment in all ATS member schools reached 50,559 for 1981–82, the latest year for which figures are available. This represents a 54 percent increase over the last decade—up from 32,816. However, this dramatic increase seriously misrepresents the number of seminary students seeking ordination and newly entering the service of the churches. As the ATSFactbook notes: “The degree exhibiting the least growth is the M.Div., the basic ordination degree.” The figures for this degree increased slightly from 21,000 to 26,000 during the decade, but now include only half of all seminary students. Of these 26,000 students preparing for ordination to the ministry, about 5,000 are women, far fewer of whom actually seek ordination to the pastoral ministry (perhaps to the discredit of the churches). The number of men now enrolled for the basic degree leading to ordination has decreased every year since 1977 and now stands at 829 fewer than five years ago.

This fact is specially important to evangelicals for two reasons: (1) in most schools, the more theologically and ethically conservative seminary students actually enter the ministry of the church and seek ordination to the ministry; and (2) the extraordinary growth of the conservative evangelical seminaries in recent years and the large number of very conservative schools seeking membership in the accrediting society during the same period have kept the M.Div. figure from declining more drastically.

The effect of this surge of evangelicalism in seminary education is already apparent in the church at large. Clergy under 30 years of age are decidedly more orthodox and likely to be historically evangelical in their social and ethical convictions than those over 30. This is all the more significant since this age group of the general populace is decidedly least orthodox and tends to be most liberal.

Recent polls show this trend on issue after issue. For example, 83 percent of the clergy under 30 indicate that they have had a deep religious experience that affected their lives; only 80 percent of those 30–50 have ever had such an experience, and even fewer of those over 50. Nearly 9 out of 10 clergy under 30 years of age say that their only hope for heaven is through personal faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, but a significantly higher percentage of older clergy tend to opt for the view that heaven is a divine reward for those who earn it by their good life. Over three-quarters of those under 30 test their religious faith by the teaching of the Bible; but only slightly more than half of those over 50 do so. Of those under 30, 8 out of 10 accept the Bible as the Word of God without any mistakes in all that it says. But of those over 30, less than 7 out of 10 do so. Seven out of 10 clergy under 30 believe that the human race began with a special creation of Adam and Eve; only a little over half of those above 30 accept the biblical account of Creation as true to fact.

Younger clergy, too, reflect a deeper concern over human poverty and commitment to doing something about the plight of the poor. In fact, nearly twice as many of those under 30 express such a concern, compared with those over 50. Likewise reflecting a conservative evangelical viewpoint, 95 percent of all clergy under 30 are vigorously opposed to free abortions. Twice as many are likely to reject easy divorce as those over 30; and they are more likely to approve remarriage after divorce only in cases of adultery or permanent desertion.

On the practice of premarital sex, extramarital sex, and homosexuality, younger clergy are more influenced by the looser views of the general public, except that clergy of all ages who consider themselves conservative or evangelical in theology are unanimous in flatly rejecting all three and opting for a strictly traditional view that sex is to be restricted to a one man-one woman relationship. Finally, clergy under 30 are more opposed than their elders to the use of alcohol as a beverage and are more likely to rule out the ordination of women to the ministry.

What does all this tell us about the direction of theological education? Many things:

1. The churches are growing more conservative in theology and more committed to traditional biblical and ethical values.

2. The churches are also returning to a biblical concern (characteristic of historic evangelicalism) for people—their needs, their hurts, and especially their poverty.

3. Seminaries that expect to place their graduates must prepare the kind of ministers who can serve effectively as leaders in this kind of church.

4. Seminaries strongly committed to a consistent evangelical theology, lifestyle, and ethic are growing; and there is every indication that they will continue to grow for the forseeable future.

Eutychus and His Kin: February 4, 1983

The Hyphen And The Preposition

It was in the Screwtape Letters that the late C. S. Lewis cautioned us to beware of hyphenated Christianity: Christian-pacifist, Christian-vegetarian, Christian-socialist, and so on. Personally I am not as uneasy around the hyphen as I am around the preposition for.

Consider the power of that preposition: Campers for Christ, Cowboys for Christ, Carpenters for Christ (this one sounds as if it could have started in Nazareth, but I doubt it). Nurses for Christ, Truckers for Christ (known in some areas as Jammers for Jesus), Teachers for Christ.

Are there counterparts to these organizations? Are there teachers for Satan, cowboys for themselves, campers for a good time, nurses for Buddha, carpenters for the AFL-CIO, and truckers for the late Jimmy Hoffa?

Not too long ago I was talking to a faith-filled daredevil who called himself a “sky diver for Christ.”

“Do you yell ‘Jesus’ or ‘Geronimo’ when you jump?” I quipped.

He was annoyed. This was clearly a serious issue with him and I could see that if I pressed the matter it would only result in a non-Christian “chute-out.”

The word for is clearly overworked.

I have read I Was a Prisoner for Christ, I Was a Communist for Christ, and when I was in college I belonged to the H2SO4 (Help 2 Save Others 4) Christ Sunday school class. I have a born-again friend who wanted a specialized license plate that read FORGIVEN, but there were too many letters and he had to abbreviate it to 4-GIVEN. It was a kind of witness, I suppose, but it seems to me there is a difference between “four-given” and “for-given,” his license plate being in the former (or is it four-mer) category. It’s balancing either side of the preposition that gets tricky. Is the trucker in Truckers for Christ primarily a Kenworth driver or a Christian? Is the nurse primarily a scientist or a believer?

But the crucial question must be: Does the organization using the preposition really represent any abridgment of what Christ lived or taught? I once heard a hooker explain that she was a “hooker for Christ.” “Born-again gays” protest that they are “for Christ.” So are the “strippers for Christ.” Once on “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” a land developer was building and selling condominiums under the corporate name of Condos for Christ.

Without hyphens and prepositions, the various parachurch organizations seem to grow in authenticity. The New Testament is refreshingly free of prepositions and hyphens. The Twelve did not form an organization called Apostles for Christ. Nor did Stephen’s friends build a society called Martyrs for Christ. A man’s commitment was his allegiance. Christians for anything were first called Christians, and prayer and Bible study were always in vogue with no prepositions to diffuse their understanding of what a Christian was or what he or she was to do in the world. As they saw it, every Christian was for Jesus.

EUTYCHUS

Applause!

I applaud your editorial, “It’s Too Soon to Quit!” [Dec. 17], I am encouraged that growing numbers of evangelicals and fundamentalists are evidencing an interest in imparting biblical values to and into contemporary culture.

In my thinking, three things are essential if we hope to change our society: (1) commitment to a deep-rooted personal righteousness in our own individual lives, (2) collective organization toward common goals, and (3) perseverance.

RAYMOND VAUGHN BANNER

Des Moines, Iowa

It seems to me CHRISTIANITY TODAY has adopted the same approach to social issues and involvement that characterizes much of evangelicalism. It is an attitude of embarrassment, of having been chastened by the liberal camp for not being up to snuff (according to their standards) in social activities, especially those kinds of activities approved of by them, of promising to do better.

Granted, we shouldn’t seek to trumpet our good deeds; but let’s not pretend they don’t exist, either. Let’s not also adopt the position of supplicants at the liberal throne and apologize for not measuring up to their expectations, promising to do better in the future.

Rather, let’s challenge them to produce the vast array of good deeds that the evangelical church has produced in the past and to be a little more forthright in telling of the deeds it does today. Let’s also stress that it is neither just nor fair to say that we have no concern for the poor only because we do not support tax-based, government programs for relief.

REV. TIM D. CRATER

Dunwoody Community Church

Atlanta, Georgia

Wrong Relationship

I would like to point out an error in the Personalia item [Dec. 17] pertaining to the relationship of the David C. Cook Company to the Foundation.

The publishing company is owned by the David C. Cook Foundation, which is a not-for-profit corporation. The dividends of the company go to the support of the foundation. The foundation carries on a worldwide mission outreach with special emphasis on Christian literature, communication research, and the development of Third World national writers and editors.

DAVID C. COOK III

David C. Cook Publishing Co.

Elgin, Ill.

Bravo!

Thank you for Richard Dinwiddie’s “Messiah: Behind the Scenes of Handel’s Masterpiece” [Dec. 17]. The article fulfills my long-time wish to see a major Christian journal give this monument of Western music the attention it deserves and provide pertinent information about the composer and the circumstances surrounding its writing.

WILLIAM E. MCDONALD

Clarks Summit, Pa.

This, to be honest, represented the best that has come out of your magazine.

GERALD VAN HEES

Whiting, Ind.

Allegorical Interpretation

The 25 affirmations and denials by the Council on Biblical Inerrancy [News, Dec. 17] are interesting reading and commendable—unfortunately, neither Paul nor Jesus could pass their tests of correct scriptural interpretation. Allegorical interpretations may cause more problems than they solve; nevertheless, throwing them all out is equivalent to tossing out the baby with the bathwater. Allegory was an acceptable way of interpreting Scripture in Paul’s day, and for many hundreds of years afterward.

Scripture does not contradict itself, but the statement presented in number 17 goes beyond that, and makes of every verse a new law. If the 613 commands of the Torah are burdensome, how much more so is this!

Moses said that we have to keep the law for all time; Jesus said that he fulfilled the law; Paul told us that if we kept the law, we had turned away from God’s grace. Statements 17 and 18 cannot be applied to the Old Testament and still stay in harmony with the New. We live not under a dispensation of the law, but under individual and personal grace, and a dispensation of faith and Holy Spirit. The idea that there is one “right” set of principles contradicts the hope that the Messiah will “write the law on every human heart.”

TOM WOLPERT

Phoenixville, Pa.

Not Quite Perfect

I thought you had accomplished the issuance of a “perfect” example of what a magazine should be [Dec. 17] until I read the news article concerning drunk-driving laws. You almost made it; however, I believe the blood alcohol level in the blood test should be 0.10 percent rather than the 10.0 percent you indicate constitutes drunken driving. Even the most hardened drinker could not withstand the onslaught of a 10 percent solution of alcohol in the bloodstream!

ANDREW C. TAINTER III

Woodbridge, Va.

Further Explanation

I was surprised to see myself quoted in a December 17 news article [“Some Evangelicals and Jews Edge Close on Israel Issue”], and would like to explain my concern about the meeting in a fuller context.

Evangelicalism has at its heart the evangel, the good news of God’s salvation through Jesus Christ to every man. Evangelicalism also has a mandate to proclaim that evangel. My dismay at what was being said at the Washington meeting came because I sensed that this mandate was being carefully avoided if not denied. That is what I meant by compromise. Evangelicalism and the Great Commission go hand in hand. If the purpose of this dialogue was to establish friendship so as to foster opportunities to present the evangel (an approach with which I agree), that is not what came across in the meeting.

While I am in favor of evangelical-Jewish contacts, and even cooperation on certain issues, the differences between the two groups must not be ignored nor the gospel obscured.

HOMER HEATER, JR.

Lanham, Md.

Two Mistakes!

Arthur Williamson’s good article, “The Great Commission or The Great Commandment?” [Nov. 26]; had two mistakes that must be corrected. I did not, as the article said, coauthor my paper on salvation with Prof. James I. Packer; in reality my excellent coauthor was Dr. James Parker III.

Nor was it true that I was surprised to discover that biblical terminology supports a narrower rather than a broader usage of the word salvation. (I had already argued that in 1977 in Evangelism, Salvation and Social Justice.)

RONALD J. SIDER

Philadelphia, Pa.

Another Tax!

My husband is employed as a church musician in the Lutheran state church. We would like to make a correction in World Scene [Nov. 12],

Church members pay a tax equal to 8 to 9 percent of their income tax (which is about 10 percent of the income) to the church. In other words, the church tax seldom amounts to more than 1 percent of the total income.

Church membership in Hamburg is about 53 percent Lutheran, 10 percent Catholic, 12 percent other religious groupings (Christian free churches, Islamic, cults), compared to 90 percent Lutheran and 10 percent Catholic after World War II. The remaining 25 percent are dropouts from one of the above groups. Proportions have changed partly because of internal migrations and the influx of guest workers. It is nevertheless true that an increasing number of people are leaving the church and that there is less social stigma attached to that move.

LOIS K. WOLLIN

Hamburg, West Germany

Letters are welcome. Only a selection can be published. Since all are subject to condensation, those of 100 to 150 words are preferred. Address letters to Eutychus and His Kin, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60187.

Beyond Fathering

Foster parenting shattered, then expanded, my concept of the Father.

God is like a father, my Sunday school teacher told me; he was my heavenly Father who had sent his Son. I was six or seven years old, and it sounded so reasonable that I accepted it as a fact without doubt or struggle and decided to follow the Son. Years later I understood why it had been so easy. I had know that my earthly father loved me. His love for my mother and me was something I could no more question than that my eyes were blue. We sometimes disagreed, we became angry and yelled at each other, he even made mistakes that hurt me. But he cared, and I knew it. It was like the given in a geometry problem: unquestionable. I accepted my heavenly Father’s love in the same way.

When I grew up I married a man who was the same kind of husband and father, one who made it easy for our three daughters to know God as Father. Then we had our first foster child and my theology cracked. Carol’s father had raped her—many times. We did not describe God as a father to her, and fortunately, she met Jesus as Savior. But the question kept coming back to haunt me: How can a child whose earthly father is a living blasphemy of the fatherhood of God ever accept the love of a heavenly Father? Or, if all a child knows of fatherhood is betrayal, how does he find the Son as Savior?

Ten years after Carol, my concept of God as Father shattered. By this time the comings and goings of about 75 foster children, few of whom had fathers who satisfied even minimal standards of fatherhood, had left me apologetic about saying “Our Father …” And I could never know how we measured up in their eyes as representatives of his Son, because we cannot know how a teen-ager whose experiences are unknown to us interprets our expressions of concern or our discipline.

The crisis came one night shortly after Christmas when we had five foster sons, all 16 or 17 years old, and all abandoned in one way or another by their earthly fathers. Four were in bed. The fifth hung around the kitchen as I did the final clearing up and made myself a cup of tea.

Technically, Derek was no longer our foster child. He had gone home before Christmas, but more and more frequently he spent the night with us instead of walking several cold and snowy miles farther after working late. He was appealingly friendly and honest with us and had, I think unknowingly, helped orient our newer arrivals toward cooperation rather than rebellion. Besides, I was trying to feed him enough to fill out his broadening shoulders and lengthening limbs, and I had the impression that his father and stepmother didn’t care whether he ate or not.

We sat at the table together, Derek looking at the floor and talking, rambling, about the kind of motorcycle he’d buy when he had saved enough, the places he liked to go fishing, his plans for joining the army. Sometimes his voice dropped so low that I’d miss part of what he was saying, like something about his father visiting grandparents without him. Then he’d talk about deer hunting, and tell me how his father had launched into a tirade on school taxes when he brought home a good report card. Although he had put much thought and effort into Christmas gifts for his family (I knew because we shopped together), he had received no gifts except from us. He kept coming back to that as if saying it again might make sense of it: “If my father had only written Merry Christmas on a piece of paper and given it to me. I’d have been happy.”

I heard it, and I felt it, and at the same time I heard the variations our other boys could have given: If my father had only written me a letter once in a while after he left … If my father were home instead of in prison … If my father had found a place where I could stay with him … If my father had only said he was sorry after he threw me against the wall.

I put Derek to bed with a hug and a backrub and the assurance that we wanted him. Then I went back downstairs, shut myself in the little room I use for conferences, and cried because my children were hurting and because I was overwhelmed with awe that the caring Derek felt from us was not ours but our Lord’s. Derek knew we cared for him almost before we knew, and we had not done much to show it: some feeding, some listening, some inexpensive Christmas gifts.

I’d had it backwards all those years: God is not like a father, but a father is supposed to be like God, and Jesus has shown us what he is like. Fatherhood (or motherhood) is only one expression of his love. He used my earthly father to make himself known to me, but it was not just my father’s finite love that reached me. If he uses my hands, my words, my cooking to touch these children, then I know they are receiving infinitely more than I can give. His love is not just filtered through earthly parents. It is not limited by our weakness, but poured out abundantly, in full measure, and overflowing. We do not measure the fatherhood of God even by our best imitations; we define what we are called to be by what he is.

DEBORAH L. DETERING1Mrs. Detering is free-lance writer living in Ontario, Oregon.

Christianity and Capitalism: New Light in an Old Debate

The views of evangelicals concerning the relationship between Christianity and capitalism could hardly be more diverse. On the Right are views such as those expressed by the Arthur S. DeMoss Foundation in a “Free Enterprise Seminar” that came very close to equating “our Christian heritage” and “our free enterprise system.” At the other end of the spectrum are outspoken evangelical academicians and church leaders who couch their anticapitalistic views in equally religious language. These Left-leaning evangelicals point to the materialism and neglect of the poor and disadvantaged as compelling indicators of the unchristian condition of our current economic order.

Clearly, both cannot be correct, but that does not mean the truth is to be found somewhere in the center, between the two extremes. As a conservative, my own vision for the church and society necessarily is rooted in the Right, but I am uneasy when the Right seeks to baptize conservative politics (to which I subscribe) as “biblical.” Perhaps my position on the Right in a subtly defined niche that is “betwixt and between” is the reason I am so enthusiastic about Michael Novak’s new book, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (Simon and Schuster, 433 pp., $17.50).

“Of all the systems of political economy which have shaped our history, none has so revolutionized ordinary expectations of human life—lengthened the life span, made the elimination of poverty and famine thinkable, enlarged the range of human choice—as democratic capitalism.” Novak, a distinguished Roman Catholic theologian and a leader in the neoconservative movement, thus attacks the status quo among Western intellectuals, who have overwhelmingly conceded the “moral high ground” to socialism or Marxism. But that is not so, contends Novak in this book. He argues persuasively that democratic capitalism is the economic and political system most compatible with Christianity.

Novak first describes the ideals underlying the system he calls democratic capitalism. The key idea is that there are actually three subsystems in vital interaction with one another: a democractic political system, an economic system with private ownership of property and a free market, and a moral-cultural system embodied in families, churches, schools, and other voluntary associations. The term “democratic capitalism” is intended to capture this plurality. The chapter on the family is particularly strong, contrasting the traditional ideal of a heterosexual family united in matrimony and raising children with the views of modern social engineers who bemoan the family’s “oppression” and cry for its liberation.

Novak’s second object is to highlight the significant failures of the socialist alternative and debunk its use of religious language and constituencies. In the global debate between capitalism and socialism, Novak observes, the socialists score rhetorical points by contrasting the peaceable and just kingdom they hope to create with the flawed realities of existing capitalist societies. However, he shrewdly points out that when each system is measured by its real world performance (comparing apples with apples, so to speak), capitalism not only proves more productive of goods and services but also of such personal liberties as diligence, reliability, integrity, and compassion.

Finally, Novak takes issue with the anticapitalist tradition seen in much modern theology, urging religious thinkers who “loathe” capitalism to rethink their position. He argues that liberation theology, European Christian socialism, and the political activities of much of the Latin American clergy are based on fundamental misunderstandings of capitalist philosophy and values.

Novak is not the only scholar to fault theologians and religious intellectuals for their lack of political and economic acumen. In The Ethic of Democratic Capitalism, published last year, Lutheran theologian Robert Benne reproaches the Christian “ethics establishment” for opposing and criticizing a system it does not understand. Others are the Institute for Religion and Democracy (headed by Richard John Neuhaus), and This World, a thoughtful journal committed to examining “the moral and religious underpinnings” of economic, political, and cultural issues.

The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism is an important book that should be welcomed warmly by evangelicals. While no one book can say everything on a subject, Michael Novak has certainly struck upon what needs to be said as he reaffirms a vision of a good and free society at a time when the need for such reaffirmation is being urgently felt.

Reviewed by Carl Horn III, now serving in the U.S. Department of Justice. He was formerly legal counsel to Wheaton College and the Christian Legal Society.

Christian Women at Work, by Patricia Ward and Martha Stout (Zondervan, 1981, 242 pp., $9.95), is reviewed by Jan Porteus Howard, a high school home economics teacher and family life counselor in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Why have a title like Christian women at work in the 1980s, when millions of their secular counterparts are also working? Perhaps it is because these women have a disproportionate sense of guilt about working. Implicit in the title is the ongoing struggle and ambivalence that many working Christian women seem to feel: their need to justify their work outside the home, and being forced to make tradeoffs. The authors challenge us to rethink this: “Often the scripts Christian women repeat subconsciously are at odds with the gospel message of freedom and acceptance” (p. 89).

In interviewing over 100 Christian working women, including homemakers (whom, incidentally, they picture as pursuing legitimate careers), the authors have carefully presented in a positive light a wide range of vocations. Their case-study approach gives the personal and professional triumphs and struggles of white-, pink-, and blue-collar workers. It also deals well with such real-world issues as coping with change, tokenism, discrimination, sexual harassment, loneliness, displaced homemakers, single parents, and so on.

Perhaps the book’s greatest strength is the authenticity of its approach. The authors offer a broad view of women, work, and power structures, affirming the efforts of women to be “salt” and “light” in various vocations. They point to Scripture to show the freedom, acceptance, and respect that Christ brought to women in the first century, and describe the implications of such Christlike attitudes for today. Women seeking to enter or advance in the working world will find helpful the 21-page appendix with its list of resource directories, self-help books, free pamphlets, government organizations, and educational programs.

Neither feminist nor traditional in its approach, this book is a challenge to fuzzy theological and/or cultural thinking. It offers valuable insight for people confronted by these problems.

Improving Your Serve, by Charles R. Swindoll (Word, 1980, 219 pp., $8.95), is reviewed by Robert Ferguson, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, Tennessee.

Charles R. Swindoll, senior pastor of the First Evangelical Free Church in Fullerton, California, is a popular writer and broadcaster. He has given us another book in his own readable, biblical, and down-to-earth style.

Improving Your Serve is subtitled “The Art of Unselfish Living” and is based on the statement of our Lord, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many”. (Mark 10:45, NIV). Swindoll maintains that God’s purpose for those he has redeemed is to be Christlike, which means being delivered from all superficiality and selfishness and becoming real and giving. He gives a brief but practical exposition of the Beatitudes, calling them “the most descriptive word-portraits of a servant ever recorded.” He insists that living the life of a servant is the need of the day; costly though it may be, this different quality of life is what influences others.

The book is an honest and humble record of one man’s personal struggles. His discovery is of one of the basic principles of the New Testament: to find life we must be prepared to lose it in the service of God and humanity. For a book that will not only challenge you to be more Christlike but also help you to know how, buy this one. Then put into practice the principles it sets down.

Call to Conversion, by Jim Wallis (Harper & Row, 1981, 129 pp., $9.95), is reviewed by John F. Peters, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Jim Wallis, a writer, speaker, and considered a leader among what was known as the young evangelicals, is known to many CT readers. Time magazine once recognized him as one of America’s religious leaders. His Call to Conversion begins with a definition of conversion that goes beyond the onetime “saved” experience: it applies to the erring, lukewarm, disobedient, and idolatrous believer. Christian commitment includes the believer’s response to national and institutional values that are not consistent with God’s standards. Having established this base, Wallis goes on to show how Christianity in America has become showy and publicly “respectable,” so that the essence of the message is lost.

Two themes of Christian responsibility for this age are specifically addressed in two chapters: our concern and involvement with and for the poor, and this nation’s increasing commitment to nuclear war. While the Scriptures and the life of Jesus show a peculiar love and care for the poor, most of us treat the poor as nonexistent. The author feels believers must involve themselves with the poor: we would experience Christlikeness and liberty in ridding ourselves of wealth and material possessions.

Because “the reality of nuclear war is completely absent …” in political discussions, Wallis calls the church to reverse this direction by prayer and suffering.

The remaining third of the book challenges the reader to adopt a serious Christian commitment to life. Although most readers will not find new information in these chapters, there is a needed focus upon Christian commitment and a sense of responsibility for our total life and being. The effective witness is one of love, concern, suffering, and commitment, even to the point of laying down one’s life. Conversion is not just individualistic, but affects church, citizenship, and community.

Wallis’s writing is simple, compelling, and forceful. He writes as a caring pastor rather than as a theologian, and some readers will be surprised at his support of the church as an institution. To strengthen his argument, he appropriately relays experiences from his own pilgrimage as a student and as a longtime member in a struggling community.

In a fresh way, Wallis inspires readers to suffer, pray, love, worship, hope, and to be faithful. He asks the body of Christ to discern the Spirit, and he leads us to praise and celebration in the Eucharist—a theme he may have wished to develop further.

I believe Wallis’s attempt in this book to integrate faith and witness in today’s world is appropriate. Though some readers may find his chapter “Perils” on the American nuclear war buildup somewhat strong, this ought not to divert them from a new perspective on Christian responsibility, nor from the message in other chapters or the theme of the book. This prophetic message is a “gospel for these times,” an appropriate word to every sincere Christian.

Dramatic Changes for the Church of England

A year of lively challenges confront England’s state church.

Last year was dramatic for the Church of England. It welcomed the first pope ever to step on British soil. The archbishop of Canterbury baptized a boy who, in the normal course, will be king four decades from now. Visiting women priests from other Anglican provinces embarrassed the mother church, which gave them a mixed reception. The General Synod endorsed total disengagement from South Africa.

But there was more. Anglican clergy of the higher sort scuppered the proposed covenant toward unity with Methodist, United Reformed, and Moravian churches—a sickener, particularly for Methodists, who had suffered that indignity before.

Clergy of the lower sort suggested updating the national anthem, which, said one, was “rarely sung except at football matches—and then only when Britain is at war.” The words “Send her victorious” were dropped just when success in the South Atlantic had been achieved. Seething indignation ensued. One reviser explained, “In Christianity, victory comes only by a cross.”

A new South Atlantic storm blew up with a service in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, marking the end of hostilities. It stressed thanksgiving for the war’s end; for the courage, determination, and endurance shown; and for the safe return of so many. There was remembrance of the fallen, intercession for the wounded and bereaved. And prayer for reconstruction in the Falklands, for peace and reconciliation.

In his address to a congregation that included queen and prime minister, Archbishop Runcie said: “Those who dare interpret God’s will must never claim him as an asset for one nation or group rather than another. War springs from the love and loyalty which should be offered to God being applied to some God-substitute—one of the most dangerous being nationalism.”

Pointing out that they would be praying for the bereaved both in Britain and in Argentina, he observed: “Common sorrow could do something to reunite those who were engaged in this struggle. A shared anguish can be a bridge of reconciliation.” It was sometimes those who had remained at home, he continued, who stayed most belligerent in their attitudes.

This was simply not the sort of language many had expected, especially from one who held a World War II military cross. They said it emphasized peace and reconciliation more than thanksgiving for a brilliant victory. Next-of-kin of the fallen, on the other hand, reportedly found the service moving and helpful. Cardinal Hume of Westminster and leaders of Methodist and United Reformed churches jumped to the archbishop’s defense, and said the service had hit all the right notes; I agree with them.

The controversy briefly restored religion to the front pages and correspondence columns of the national dailies. One percipient rector wrote: “At last this largely unchurched nation has put before it what priests and laity have slogged to say in the parishes: that contrary to assertions, our task is not to provide a focus for the ‘religious feelings’ of the people, but to be a sign of Christ, drawing all away from presuppositions and comfortable religion to the true Way.”

The charge of leftward tendencies reemerged when a Church of England working group produced a report on The Church and the Bomb, calling for unilateral disarmament for Britain. Archbishop Runcie hastened to describe the document as the “honest opinion of a group of private individuals,” and not church policy (General Synod will discuss the matter next month).

Among the working party’s members was Canon Paul Oestreicher, a well-known pacifist who holds a key post with the British Council of Churches, has long-time links with the Prague-based Christian Peace Conference, and has reported international ecumenical gatherings for a Communist daily. Oestreicher is quick to protest that the state is applying undue pressure on the church, and suggests that that calls for severing church-state links.

And that—disestablishment of the Church of England—is another wormy can on the English church scene. Disestablishment would require the consent of both church and Parliament. Since both bodies are controlled by Conservatives, such consent is unlikely. One hears dark talk of radicals who are infiltrating church committees and do not wish the Establishment well.

“It grieves me,” said a prominent Member of Parliament, “to see so many clergy and bishops betraying their role by going into party politics on issues like pacifism and nuclear disarmament. They are also besotted with the Third World.… They want to turn everything upside-down, but what ordinary people want is some stability and certainty in the church.”

It grieves me, as a British citizen, that a legislator shows such a dismally inadequate grasp of the Christian gospel and the Christian’s role in church and society. An Anglican clergyman with different ideas about the world turned upside-down sees disestablishment as the precondition of “a radical return to the vibrant Christianity of New Testament times.” Precondition or not, that man just may have the root of the matter in him.

J. D. DOUGLAS1Dr. Douglas is a writer living in Saint Andrews, Scotland, andct editor at large.

Ex-Pastors: Why Did They Leave?

A survey reveals the reasons, rewards, and regrets of leaving the pastoral ministry.

You are 45 years old. You have pastored three churches since leaving seminary 18 years ago. You are about to assume a new position. But for the first time in your career, people will no longer call you pastor.

You agonized about this decision when you were first offered a nonparish ministry. You wondered about Sundays when you wouldn’t be preaching, a thought that prompted both fear and relief. You speculated about what people would say, what they would call you. Drop-out? Ex-pastor?

You are not alone. Many pastors are leaving the church for nonpastoral work as denominational leaders, seminary or college teachers, or directors of Christian organizations.

Why are they leaving? What effect does this career change have on their lives? How does it feel to be out of the ministry? Are they happy with their decision or do they miss the pastorate? Would they, if asked, return to pastor a church?

Recently I surveyed 26 ex-pastors in an attempt to find some answers to these questions. Most offered clear insight into why pastors leave the pastorate and how they feel about that decision later.

I made the following observations:

1. Most pastors left the parish not out of dissatisfaction with congregational work as much as uneasiness about how little time it gave them for personal and family life. Though ex-pastors loved pastoral work, too often their family life suffered as a result. Spouses have made their statement with a dramatic rise in the divorce rate among pastors. Children also rebelled. As a way out of this dilemma, nonparish work seemed to offer more personal time and freedom in the ex-pastor’s schedule for himself and his family.

2. Most pastors enjoyed preaching but would rather have gone anywhere except a committee meeting. Pastors jealously guarded their right to preach, but uttered quiet amens when board meetings were cancelled. Some went AWOL from churches permanently when offered positions in a seminary where they could “preach” five days a week without ever having to face another trustee meeting.

3. Pastors struggled constantly with unrealistic standards of perfectionism. They were simply not given the freedom or grace to fail. Many felt that while they were certainly less than divine, they were nonetheless supposed to be a little more than human. While churches seemed to demand so much, nonpastoral work seemed to have far more realistic standards of behavior.

4. Pastors who made the career change to nonparish work were pulled by the opportunity but pushed by less noble reasons. The most compelling pull was opportunity for more responsible, attractive, and specialized ministry. But the most obvious push for change was a pastor’s need simply to get away from the pastorate—a moratorium on life compounded by too much stress. Burnout also takes its toll in the church today.

5. Pastors who left their churches struggled with feelings of isolation and loneliness. Many felt alienated from church members as well as other pastors. Most learned to live with these feelings, but had not expected them prior to the change.

6. Not all who left pastoral ministry regreted the move. Most ex-pastors, given the same conditions of their original decision, would have made the same choice again.

7. Getting out of the pastorate also brought some rewards. Removing the pulpit from the pastor’s eye often permitted him to evaluate things more clearly. Some ex-pastors learned what their own personal motives, needs, and problems were; what the value of the laity was; and they gained a more realistic understanding of how the rest of the world thought. Said one ex-pastor: “I am where I am for awhile. When I return to a church it will be with a deeper appreciation for the pastorate.”

8. Many ex-pastors, however, were not content out of parish ministry. Almost half were ready to return after being out only a few years. Having experienced stress in the outside world, they seemed more tolerant of the tension they found in the church.

A survey offers a composite picture, not an individualized portrait, of every person who leaves the ministry. But a composite does suggest some questions that might be asked.

Pastors considering nonparish work might ask themselves what they are looking for: more family time, more tolerance to fail, a long rest? Can they cope with feelings of loneliness? Are they ready to learn new things about themselves, the church, and the world? Will they be content outside the pastorate?

The church, too, might ask what it is doing that might be driving pastors away. Is it expecting too much of them, both in terms of time away from home and family, as well as unrealistic standards of perfection? Does the preacher need a sabbatical from the 24-hour demands of the pastorate?

Incidently, anyone know of a good church that needs a pastor? I know a few ex-pastors who would just love to come back.

CHARLES A. WICKMAN1Mr. Wickman is vice-president for public affairs at Trinity College, Deerfield, Illinois—and a former pastor.

Refiner’s Fire: The View from the Back Row

An orchestra trombonist describes the elation he feels while offering to God “the shorthand of emotion.”

Hector berlioz, the nineteenth-century French composer known for his definitive Treatise on Instrumentation, wrote of the trombone: “It possesses a nobility and grandeur to the highest degree; it has all the serious and powerful tones of sublime musical poetry, from religious, calm and imposing accents to savage, orgiastic outbursts.… The trombones can chant like a choir of priests, threaten, utter gloomy sighs, a mournful lament or a bright hymn of glory; they can break forth into awe-inspiring cries and awaken the dead or doom the living with their fearful voices.”

Berlioz knew what he was talking about. Just ask anyone who has heard Verdi’s Requiem, or Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, or Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony. When I began playing the trombone in the fourth grade, I knew there was something special about it. But now, as a professional, I realize that the best thing about playing the trombone has nothing to do with the actual music I play. Rather, it is the fact that in the orchestra, the trombones sit in the back row.

Except for the conductor, no one in the orchestra has a better view of the action than the trombone section. From my seat, I see every instrument, hear every note, feel every vibration. The lush tones of the strings, the delicate sounds of the woodwinds, the striking harmonies of the brass—all are reflected back to me. And when the conductor gives the trombones a cue, he reaches over the orchestra, inviting, cajoling, even asking us to join in the music making. I am convinced it is the best seat in the house!

But along with that seat comes a heightened awareness of everything and everyone else that is around me, and I have, through much prayer, practice, and patience, been shown that there is a lot more to making music than meets the ear.

When a Christian makes music, he is not merely participating in the scientific phenomenom of vibrating columns of air to produce what we know as music. Music making is an intense spiritual experience, a celebration of creation, an act of love. And when the audience responds with a thunderous ovation, it is not the members of the orchestra, or Beethoven, or Wagner, or Copland they are applauding, but, whether they know it or not, it is the living God. It is God alone who bestows on composers the mysterious gift of composition, and on performers that unspeakable gift of interpretation.

An orchestra offering a Haydn symphony is praising God no less than a choir singing gospel choruses. Every note speaks of the great Creator, the first source of all this world knows. In that respect, there is neither sacred nor secular, for, as all music comes from him, so it represents him to us in all of his varied forms. That an ensemble of mere humans striking, blowing, stroking, and plucking objects of wood, metal, and plastic can produce sounds so glorious that they caused Tolstoy to write, “Music is the shorthand of emotion,” is truly a miracle.

The responsibility of the professional musician to perform well is great. But for the Christian musician, that burden weighs even heavier. Just as Martin Luther fainted from the sheer awe of the presence of Christ when he served his first Communion, so the Christian musician stands, overwhelmed at the great creative force that is God. The conductor alone does not need to be satisfied, for there is a far greater Authority to answer to.

In the Baltimore Symphony, I sit next to a former college classmate and a devoted Christian performer, second trombonist Eric Carlson. The communion of our minds when we play is very special. Unlike our non-Christian colleagues, we feel the music on a different level, a deeper dimension. The music transcends notes and paper, technical skill and quality of sound, to become our offering, our gift, our “thank you” to the One who made and makes all things. We become a part of his creative process and shout, “I AM THAT I AM THAT I AM” in a new voice. Our whole beings strain to praise, to put forth our best. And when it all “clicks,” when mind and soul and spirit and music all meet, we get a glimpse of the Garden of Eden; we experience an instant of heaven. And we pray that those on the “other side”—the audience—will be moved by the re-creative process in which we have participated.

When people ask me why I make music, I reply that I make it as an offering to God. It came from him, and I return it to him. It is a continual cycle of giving, sharing, offering, and sacrificing that is one of the joys of my life. I praise him for the talent he has given me, and for the privilege of witnessing to the majesty of his name in a way that touches so many.

From my seat in the back row, I can truly see it all. I can feel it all. And it inspires me, awes me, and sometimes frightens me. But how wonderful it is that all of us, performers and listeners alike, can join together in kinship with the psalmist and say, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!” What a privilege. What a responsibility. What a joy!

DOUGLAS YEO1A graduate of Wheaton College Conservatory of Music Mr. Yeo is currently bass trombonist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.

Ralph Winter’s Mission Center Forges Ahead; Money Still Tight

John Maust

His ‘unreached people’ strategy seems to be taking hold among other missions.

The U.S. Center for World Mission faced imminent foreclosure last year (CT, Sept. 18, 1981, p. 46). Indeed, founder Ralph Winter’s missions push toward the frontiers seemed destined to die at the loan desk.

But last minute funds rolled in, much as they had in several previous crises, and past-due payments on the center’s campus were made. The Pasadena, California, missions complex remains very much alive, and its priority on frontier missions is increasingly being embraced in evangelical circles:

• The Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA) made “Penetrating Frontiers” the theme of its annual meeting in September. In a declaration there, the IFMA’S 85 member agencies confessed to “staying too long in established ministries” and made evangelization of the world’s unreached peoples its “chief and irreplaceable duty.”

• Among denominations, the Evangelical Free church recently named a staff person to work full-time promoting frontier missions in its local churches. The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel has set a goal of contacting 100 unreached people groups by 1990.

• Missions agency officials report an increasing number of young people who make as a criteria for their candidacy whether the mission is involved in the frontiers.

• Influential spokesmen such as author Don Richardson (Peace Child) and missiologist Donald McGavran are sounding the call. Wrote McGavran (U.S. Center board chairman) recently: “So long as the contemporary delusion persists that the best missionary work today is helping the young denominations, so long will these unreached peoples of earth remain unevangelized.”

Of course, talk won’t pay the U.S. Center’s next financial obstacle: a $6 million balloon payment due in September 1983. But Winter, 57, believes that if enough evangelicals catch his vision for frontier missions, the money will come in.

Specifically, he and others are counting on the success of the Frontier Fellowship. This U.S. Center-related group is promoting to mission agencies and denominations a daily prayer and giving discipline, which seeks to involve one million people by December 1983.

With each person giving his daily loose change to frontier missions (about 28ȼ), the plan would generate $100 per year per person, or roughly $100 million each year. Donors are asked to designate the first $15 for the U.S. Center, thereby eliminating the remaining $10 million or so owed on the campus. All the rest would go solely to frontier missions programs of the various agencies.

It sounds a bit complicated, but Winter simplifies it this way: “Our [the U.S. Center’s] problem is not fund raising. Our problem is in getting a number of organizations to join in a nationwide prayer campaign for the frontiers.

“If that campaign succeeds, our financial problems will go away. If it doesn’t, our financial problems might as well not be solved. In other words, the prayer campaign is a much more important goal than the center itself.”

The idea for the Frontier Fellowship came from Burmese pastor Kawl Vuta, who told Winter how families in his Presbyterian denomination support missions by setting aside a handful of rice at every meal.

This reminds them to pray for their missionaries, and the pooled handfuls of rice are sold for missions. Vuta said Burmese Presbyterians raised more than $5,600 by this method last year.

When Winter heard Vuta’s story, “the thing that just hit me right between the eyes was, ‘You cannot do less—this is the way for the frontier vision to be kept alive.’ ”

A staff member quipped, “Well, what are we going to do? Ask people to save french fries?” Someone else suggested saving loose change, and the idea stuck. Later, Winter and others decided a devotional booklet was needed to give the biblical and historical basis for frontier missions.

So far, the campaign has attracted 20,000 subscribers to the Frontier Fellowship’s Daily Prayer Guide. Fifteen organizations are members of the fellowship—including the Africa Inland Mission, the World Evangelical Fellowship, and a United Presbyterian group.

Winter’s focus on frontier missions dates back to 1974, when he and wife Roberta prepared a plenary paper for the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization. They were astonished to find that roughly 2.4 billion people, or 84 percent of the world’s non-Christians, were beyond the reach of existing missions and national churches.

Despite that, less than 10 percent of the world’s missionary force was working to evangelize these unreached people.

With charts, graphs, and statistics, the Winters described this imbalance. However, they left feeling “we probably hadn’t clearly convinced anybody; it was so technical,” Winter said.

But he had convinced himself—enough so that in 1976 he left the faculty of the Fuller School of World Mission and established the U.S. Center. Its two major activities continue to be locating and determining how to reach the world’s hidden peoples, and mobilizing the Christian community through information about them.

(The terms, hidden, unreached, and frontier have synonomously come to mean those 16,750 people groups in the world that still do not have a strong indigenous evangelical church.)

The U.S. Center is a cooperative missions base, where 42 agencies are involved. Among the staff are 67 missionaries, representing experience in 64 agencies and 40 different countries. While the center itself is a mission agency, its role is as a catalyst and in assisting other agencies toward work in frontier missions.

One can’t chalk up the center’s late bill payments on extravagance. It relies heavily on volunteer workers (even Ralph Winter’s father, a retired engineer, volunteers his Thursdays). Staff receive missionary salaries based on need, so that Winter receives no more than the newest staff member. He’s usually seen wearing the same blue sport coat and driving to work in a 1965 station wagon on its third 100,000-mile cycle.

Should Winter have the opportunity again, he would probably still buy the 35-acre, 100-building Pasadena campus of a former Nazarene college on which his center is located. Property and buildings cost roughly $15 million, but the property now is worth about $20 million, he says.

Once the center is paid off, it will be self-sustaining, largely because most of the personnel are on loan from various mission agencies.

His original plan was paying the $15 million through one million, one-time, gifts of $15. This way, no money would be diverted away from churches or missions agencies, and a large number of people would be involved in frontier missions.

That vision remains, but Winter admitted that if it had not been for large money gifts from individuals and organizations, the center would have folded. Still, Winter said, the center intends to reassign to other agencies any individual gift over $15. Gifts from churches and organizations are considered as loans, and will be paid back as soon as enough $15 gifts come in through the Frontier Fellowship plan.

Would the center accept if someone, say a Bunker Hunt, offered to cover remaining payments with one check?

“In our weaker moments, we’d thought of the possibility that someone would walk into the office and offer $11 million,” Winter said. “We decided we would accept it, but with the same plan of returning all but the first $15 once enough other small gifts came in.”

Former missionary to Japan, Phil Foxwell, told Winter the center’s financial status had sounded “insane.” But he was sold enough on the center’s work that he came out of retirement to work there, and he said, “It’s amazing how God has provided funds to meet the payments.”

Staff member and former school teacher Vernon Dueck said he, too, had been skeptical about the U.S. Center. But after talking with Winter, he found that “Dr. Winter’s been saying [about missions] what I’d been thinking all these years.” Dueck’s task was convincing his own denomination, the Baptist General Conference, to join the Frontier Fellowship campaign.

Unfortunately, some observers feel, the center’s funding troubles may have obscured the center’s vital purpose and present services.

But there’s a method behind Winter’s seeming madness in having to pay off the debt in a crisis atmosphere.

Many Christians will become concerned about saving a $20 million piece of property, but not about the hidden peoples, who “are not dramatic enough, not on our consciences enough,” he said.

“We run into a lot of people who don’t have the time to listen to us, except that they know that if sufficient funds don’t come in, the center will go down.… So that I believe that God is using our plight to dramatize the urgency of the hidden peoples.”

in Pasadena, California

World Scene

Radio Station HCJB has installed a second hydroelectric plant to power its international gospel broadcasts. The 4-million-watt plant, built on a remote mountain tributary of the Amazon and inaugurated last November 30, cost $2.25 million. It will provide greater short-wave signal strength by enabling the present transmitters to perform at optimum capacity; the facility also allows for future expansion.

A tent campaign in Ireland produced solid results for that Roman Catholic stronghold. The two-week effort last fall in Dublin, led by Canadian evangelist Barry Moore, drew good attendance in spite of stormy weather throughout; more than 80 commitments were recorded.

The projected merger of two Dutch Reformed denominations in the Netherlands has an ironic twist. A century ago, theologian Abraham Kuyper led a group in seceding from the Netherlands Reformed Church (Hervormde Kerk) bcause of its liberalism. The denomination he formed, the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (GKN), last year applied to reunite with the Hervormde Kerk. The application was approved in November, with the goal of full reunion set for 1986. But the controversial action was strongly opposed by a conservative wing in the Hervormde Kerk, the Reformed Alliance—because of liberalism in the GKN!

Twelve members of the “Siberian Seven” Vashchenko family who traveled from Chernogorsk, Siberia, to Moscow to visit their four relatives in the American Embassy were detained for two days by the Soviet authorities in mid-December and then flown back to their home. The group had received clearance for the visit, but rejected a U.S. embassy condition that they visit two at a time rather than all together.

Baptists in Yugoslavia have targeted the 100,000 Turkish Muslims in their country for evangelism. Their publishing house in Novi Sad is producing New Testaments and other literature for this purpose. Protestants themselves number only 150,000 in a population of 22.6 million.

The Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa has asked the secret society, the Broederbond (Fraternity of Brothers), to relinquish its anonymity. The all-white society, whose members are said to include many ministers, is a reputed champion of the government’s apartheid policy. It has announced that it will surrender its secret character.

The Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology has announced it will form its first class in September, NEGST is the first English-language graduate-level seminary in Africa to be sponsored by the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar (a French-language seminary was launched at Bangui, Central African Republic, in 1977). It will offer the M. Div. and M. Th. degrees.

The Ethiopian government has signed a three-year contract with a Mennonite missions organization. The Mennonite Mission in Ethiopia, which represents the Mennonite Central Committee and the Eastern Mennonites, is responsible to “promote and encourage relief and development activities in Ethiopia.” The signing last month regularizes relations that had grown strained over last year’s closing of a church, detention of six church leaders, and freezing of church bank accounts.

The plot is extremely thick in the Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.Act 1: Patriarch Derderian suspends Archbishop Ajamian from leadership of the Jerusalem Armenian Church. Confidants of the patriarch say Ajamian cooperated with the Israelis too openly and was involved in financial wrongdoing. Act 2: Ajamian sues the patriarch for publishing paid advertisements in the Jordanian press labeling him as a “collaborator” with the Israeli government. Act 3: The Israeli government refuses to renew the visa of the patriarchate’s number two man, Archbishop Kazanjian from Australia. The patriarch’s backers say it is because Kazanjian is too friendly with radical Armenian nationalists. But Kazanjian’s partisans say the visa is really a bargaining chip being used by the Israelis to secure reinstatement of Ajamian to the Jerusalem church.

A Hindu “mass awakening campaign” carried out last year in India netted contributions of $2.5 million for buttressing Hinduism’s dominant position in the country. According to the Express News Service in Hyderabad, interest from the fund will be used to field 1,000 trained, full-time workers by mid-1983. It reported that 160 are already deployed. The service quoted a Hindu official to the effect that the prime object is to stem conversions from Hinduism, reversing a recent trend. He said that eradicating untouchability is a key element to the program’s success.

India’s Union Biblical Seminary launched a Center for Mission Studies this school year. The seminary, in transition from its present location at Yeotmal to a new campus in Pune, is offering both an M.A. in missions and a diploma course for missionaries. Principal Saphir Athyal is directing the center pending appointment of a full-time director.

Fifty Protestant pastors, 400 Roman Catholic priests, and unnumbered Buddhist monks remain in prision in Vietnam, according to a recent report.

New Zealand’s National Council of Churches has agreed to an ecumenical structure that would include the Roman Catholic church. The 12 current member denominations approved a draft constitution last fall for the envisioned New Zealand Council of Churches. The action awaits approval by the country’s Catholic bishops.

North American Scene

New Jersey Attorney General Irwin I. Kimmelman has said he will not defend a law requiring a daily one-minute period of silence in New Jersey public schools if challenges are brought against it. A measure requiring the moment of silence recently became law over the veto of New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean. Kimmelman said, “It it my duty not to defend a law that I believe to be unconstitutional.”

In Massachusetts bartenders no longer have to locate at least 500 feet from church property. The U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a Massachusetts law that gave churches and schools the power to veto the issuing of liquor licenses within 500 feet of their property. Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote the 8-to-1 opinion and claimed that the law violated the constitutionally required separation of church and state. The ruling does not overturn similar laws in 27 other states. Burger said the critical difference is that in Massachusetts, churches had the right to block bars and taverns simply by objecting in writing.

On January 1, the legal drinking age in New Jersey went from 18 to 21. State Assemblyman Martin Herman argued that drunk driving among the 18-to-21-year-old age group “rose astronomically” after the age was lowered to 18 in 1973. Herman said he was convinced that raising the drinking age would save 40 lives annually and reduce juvenile crime in the state. In 1982 New York and Connecticut raised the legal drinking age from 18 to 19.

Liberty Baptist College won a provisional one-year certification from the Virginia State Board of Education for its biology teacher training program. Foes of certification argued that a required course at the college called “The History of Life” taught the theory of creation while implanting doubt about the validity of the theory of evolution.

A U.S. Court of Appeals banned a nativity scene in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where it had been a Christmas tradition for 40 years. In 1981, a federal judge upheld the use of a small nativity scene on the steps of the City-County Building in Denver. Many legal experts predict the issue will end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Total Lutheran membership in the United States and Canada fell by 23,950 from 1980 to 1981. The 1981 membership stood at 8.8 million, compared with 9.2 million in 1970, when the downward swing began. The figures were reported by the Lutheran Council in New York. They show that some Lutheran branches gained membership from 1980 to 1981, but not enough to offset losses by two of the three largest Lutheran assemblies. The largest, the Lutheran Church in America, with 3 million members, lost 1,900, and the American Lutheran Church, with 2.3 million members, lost 6,000. The 2.7-million-member Missouri Synod (including its Canadian affiliate) gained 2,500 members; the 410,300-member Wisconsin Synod gained 3,200; and the 109,400-member Association of Evangelical Lutheran churches gained 1,600.

Sixty-six persons who were forcibly removed from Faith Baptist Church in Louisville, Nebraska, in October have filed a $66 million lawsuit against Nebraska state and local officials. The plaintiffs, 30 pastors and 36 laymen, allege that their constitutional rights of free religion, assembly, speech, and association were abridged in the incident. Twenty-one of the plaintiffs are from Nebraska. The rest are among several hundred persons who had come to Louisville to support Everett Sileven, pastor of Faith Baptist Church, where the incident occurred (CT, Nov. 12, 1982, p. 54). The church housed a religious school, which operated in violation of Nebraska law because its teachers were uncertified.

Chicago Archbishop Joseph Bernardin plans to release a detailed report on diocesan finances that is designed to answer the questions of all critics. The move is seen as an attempt by Bernardin to end criticism that grew from the practices of the late John Cardinal Cody.

FCC Ends Its Investigation of the PTL Organization

But Jim Bakker now may have to contend with the Justice Department.

Broadcast regulators have decided not to make a federal case out of a three-year-old investigation of Jim Bakker’s PTL Club, much to the talk show host’s relief.

Without making its reasons public, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sent to the Justice Department results of its inquiry into whether Bakker used money donated for missions to pay debts at home. The FCC also permitted Bakker to transfer his Canton, Ohio, television station to a new owner.

This could be either a victory for PTL or a precursor to criminal charges. By approving the Canton transfer, the FCC placed Bakker safely out of its reach, since it may take discliplinary action only against station owners, not broadcasters. Bakker is a broadcaster, beaming his Christian variety show nationwide from an organization called Heritage Village Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. His foray into station ownership began and ended with WJAN, a UHF station in Canton.

Bakker’s hand-picked successor there, the David Livingstone Missionary Foundation, will continue to present religious broadcasting and will assume $1.4 million in debts that the station accrued.

At PTL, the mood is one of cautious euphoria. A spokesman said, “Bakker is extremely pleased that the FCC investigation is over and that the transfer was made possible by a four-to-three vote,” but he had no comment on the possibility of a Justice Department investigation or on alleged financial mismanagement at PTL.

Ben Armstrong, executive director of National Religious Broadcasters, sees the decision as a complete vindication of the beleaguered Bakker. “If there were a serious problem, then the FCC would have taken it up. The charges didn’t warrant further hearings. If the FCC didn’t think it was worth pursuing, then the Justice Department won’t either,” Armstrong said.

But the three FCC commissioners who dissented attempted to give Justice all the cannon fodder it needs. Arguing that PTL remains “under a cloud of serious misconduct,” the dissenting commissioners say the FCC shirked its duty by not examining the charges itself. Allowing a station transfer to take place in this situation, they say, implies to broadcasters that they can skate out from under FCC scrutiny or comply only marginally with its standards.

PTL first attracted FCC attention in 1979, after a page-one article in the Charlotte Observer said Bakker raised funds on the air for a mission project in Korea, in which Paul Yonggi Cho was to start a broadcast ministry with PTL assistance. Instead, the article said, Bakker used the money to pay off large debts at home. The Observer did not tell the whole story. Bakker managed to raise nearly $300,000 of the $400,000 he needed to send start-up equipment to Cho. But he discovered that duty fees would double his costs. While Bakker was trying to resolve the problem, Cho went public, saying the money never arrived. Bakker believes he fulfilled his mission obligation by diverting the money to a project in Japan. He said he did not use the money for debts at headquarters, but this apparently was not easy to show. All transactions at Heritage Village took place out of a single checking account, and until 1982 there was no budget.

According to PTL officials, Bakker has recently tightened up his $5.2 million operation, with each department operating on a strict “pay-as-you-go” basis. He also has abandoned the practice of soliciting funds for a single designated purpose on “The Jim Bakker Program” (formerly the PTL Club). Spokesman Brad Lacey said a telethon last March to pay off debts on the network’s satellite was the last pitch for a specific project that viewers will get from Bakker. The 1979 confrontation escalated when Bakker claimed First Amendment protection and refused to comply with FCC subpoenas to testify and provide financial information. Because PTL is incorporated as the Heritage Village Church and Missionary Foundation, Bakker and his attorneys believed the FCC inquiries were violating church and state separation. But the FCC said Bakker lost his church protection when he was awarded a license to operate a television station.

One reason for the strong reaction from the three dissenting FCC commissioners was the potential contribution of this case toward resolving a recurring question: How strictly must a donor’s wishes be followed when his money is spent? Nonprofit organizations are technically entitled to use donated money in any way they choose, according to Internal Revenue Service standards. But courts have ruled that the expressed wishes of donors must be respected. So far “no case has definitively reconciled the two concepts,” according to Arthur Borden, director of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA)

PTL’S activities have not occasioned much concern at ECFA, which Bakker joined in April 1981 after what Borden called “extensive checking” into PTL finances. “We don’t know of anything now that would send us back to investigate,” Borden said.

Because of the unresolved difference between the letter of IRS law and the spirit of court interpretation about donor wishes, it appears the FCC confined its investigation to whether PTL acted “in the public interest.” Differing interpretations of what this means led to the split among the commissioners. The majority, in voting to dismiss the matter, weighed practical considerations more heavily than the need to set a new precedent, and are said to be sympathetic toward religious broadcasting in general. The decision was based on the observation that PTL would not benefit financially from the station transfer; programming on WJAN in Canton would not be disrupted; and the FCC could avoid the expense of lengthy hearings.

Whether public FCC hearings should have been held was debated long and hard, according to an FCC source. The dissenters were particularly reluctant to let the case go, since this is the first time a prominent religious broadcaster has tangled so intensely with the FCC.

For now, Bakker is in the clear. Whether he remains there depends on the Justice Department’s inclination to pursue the matter, and on his willingness to keep improving the financial management at PTL.

BETH SPRING

Few issues have triggered the letter-writing energies of Christians as has Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s plot to end all religious broadcasting. But after several million dollars in postage, the widely circulated rumor is no truer than when it first made the rounds in 1974.

No such plan by atheist O’Hair ever existed, according to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB). Attempts by both organizations to get to the root of the rumor have been unsuccessful, and NRB official Robert Niklaus finds the continuing letter crusade irritating.

At the FCC in Washington, letters arrive in waves, clogging clerical procedures. The load peaks in the early months of each year. This year is no different. FCC consumer assistant Eileen Chaney said letters and calls are again on the upswing, beginning with 100 telephone inquiries in November. Chaney’s office averages 25,000 letters per week during peak times, and the number received since 1974 totals 13 million.

“We did attempt to get to the bottom of it, but it was impossible,” she said. “The original petition had no name or date on it. We couldn’t track it down. The fact that there is no date on it seems to keep it going.”

The one-page appeal says O’Hair was “granted a federal hearing in Washington, D.C.,” in support of petition 2493. If she prevails, the letter says, “all Sunday worship services being broadcast either by radio or television will stop.”

But O’Hair never even requested a hearing and had nothing to do with the obsolete petition. Filed by two Californians in 1974, petition 2493 asked the FCC to investigate the operating practices of noncommercial radio and television stations, which include many of the nation’s religious broadcasters. The two petitioners requested the FCC to accept no new applications from religious groups until the study was completed.

On August 1, 1975, the request was denied, and the FCC said it would continue to “treat religious and secular organizations alike in determining who is eligible for broadcasting channels.”

At about the same time, O’Hair was making headlines because of court battles over the influence of religion in public schools. Somehow, Chaney conjectures, the two issues became entangled in the minds of a few confused and fearful people.

The FCC responds to each letter with a form reply, assuring the writers that the FCC has no authority to interfere with the content of broadcast programming. Meanwhile, NRB’S affiliates across the country, along with other Christian communicators, attempt to spread the word: the rumor is—and always was—false.

A symbol of the moderate theological movement in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod will fade late next spring when Concordia Seminary-in-Exile in St. Louis, popularly known as Seminex, awards diplomas to its final class of graduates, and disperses most of its faculty to other Lutheran schools.

The change is one sign of the end of an era in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a 2.6-million-member denomination once wracked by theological and political strife. Enrollment at Concordia Seminary is now about 700, the level it was before moderate professors and students abandoned the school in 1974, under attack from synod conservatives, and formed Seminex.

With the majority of the nation’s 9 million Lutherans moving towards the merger tentatively planned for 1988, the Missouri Synod has remained firmly in the hands of those who won the political battles of the 1970s and shows few signs of shifting from its staunchly conservative course. The synod has a new $10 million headquarters building, and, under the presidency of Ralph Bohlmann, is trying to maintain a conservative course while not aggressively moving against remaining synod moderates.

The doctrinal controversy between conservative and moderate theologians in the denomination reached its hottest point in 1974 when synod president J. A. O. Preus fired John Tietjen, then president of Concordia Theological Seminary in St. Louis, the synod’s most prominent school for clergymen. Prior to the firing, Concordia Seminary had been under attack by synod conservatives for a whole range of views on Scripture and church doctrine that conservatives considered unacceptable to the church.

To protest the firing, 45 of Concordia’s 5550 faculty members and about 400 of its 600 students walked off the campus into what they called “exile.” A few weeks later the exiled professors were also fired and the dissidents formed Seminex.

“I don’t see how we could have done anything else,” said Tietjen in an interview recently. Having led Concordia through the bitter struggle and headed Seminex since its founding, Tietjen still finds it hard to talk about the controversy. Most of the professors who staked their jobs on faculty solidarity and commitment to their moderate theology stayed with Seminex.

At the end of this year, however, many of them will be assigned to other Lutheran seminaries, although Seminex will continue to pay their salaries. Some will remain in St. Louis, and a few, including Tietjen, will go to the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago to oversee the work that remains for Seminex. About 25 students will graduate from Seminex this academic year, and the remaining students will transfer to other schools. Seminex will continue to offer a doctor of ministry for those currently enrolled in advanced studies.

Although Seminex graduates were offically barred from synod pastorates unless they underwent a rigorous period of examination, students kept coming to Seminex. Since its formation, the seminary in exile has graduated about 700 students, some of whom are serving Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod parishes.

Most, however, are in congregations of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, the denomination founded by the 100,000 Missouri Synod Lutherans who left over the doctrinal strife. Others have entered the ministry of the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America.

The synod strife and the formation of Seminex was one of the “two or three most important events in the history of American Lutheranism,” said August Suelflow, head of Concordia Historical Institute in St. Louis. It also assured that for at least the next generation, American Lutheranism will move along two tracks: the conservative path of the Missouri Synod, and the more moderate-to-liberal road taken by the rest of the Lutherans in the United States.

RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE

Membership losses by many mainline Protestant bodies in the past decade have been staggering. In 1980 alone, the United Methodist Church lost 69,000 members; the Episcopal Church, 55,000; the United Presbyterian Church. 53,000; the United Church of Christ, 9,000; and the American Lutheran Church, 9,000.

Citing those figures in a talk to the Minneapolis Ministerial Association, United Methodist Bishop Emerson S. Colaw offered four reasons for the decline: the white Anglo-Saxon birthrate has slowed to about zero growth; the nation’s population is growing older; there has been a failure to develop an effective urban strategy by the churches has had a negative effect; and last, there has been a shift in some denominations away from lay evangelism to dependence on a professional clergy.

In Minnesota, Bishop Colaw noted, the United Methodist Church has lost about 20,000 members from its all-time high. If this rate continues, United Methodists, who now have 437 churches in the state, will close the last one by the year 2100, he said.

The bishop said studies have shown that half the nation’s unchurched view themselves as potentially responsive to the churches if they could find an institution seriously concerned about working for a better society, could find good preaching, and could discover a good religious education program for their children.

What should mainline Protestantism do to reach them? Bishop Colaw suggested four approaches:

• Emphasize hope. The New Testament, he pointed out, “is a book of hope, based on resurrection theology. This is not Pollyannish, but the conviction that our ultimate destination is in God’s hands.… Our role is not to echo the anxiety [found in secular society] but to hold up the possibilities in human existence. Don’t be afraid to talk about spiritual matters: conversion, prayer, grace, divine guidance, healing. We’re in the faithing business. Strike the notes of courage, assurance, and trust.”

• Emphasize community. “We are the body of Christ,” the bishop said. “Use body language.… The electronic church [radio and television religion] may continue for a considerable period of time, but it will not seriously impact the local church because it cannot offer the one thing that the human spirit most hungers for and that is human touch.…”

• Emphasize ethnics. “In Minnesota,” the bishop said, “there are 35,000 Native Americans, 27,000 Asian Americans, 32,000 Hispanics, and 54,000 blacks. By 1988, there will be 62 million ethnics in America.… Start new churches among the ethnics. That, said Bishop Colow, is where the population growth will take place.

• Emphasize the Holy Spirit. “The Spirit is the spirit of surprise,” the bishop said. “We don’t know when or where God will renew the church but we do believe it will happen. It is happening in unexpected places,” such as in the Southern Hemisphere where it is predicted there will be a billion Christians by the year 2000—more than in North America and Europe.

RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE

Among states intent on curbing drunk-driving tragedies, Maryland has been a pacesetter. State legislators voted to raise the drinking age to 21; police officers may randomly stop motorists for sobriety check-ups; and U.S. Congressman Michael Barnes of Maryland led the way when Congress passed national legislation giving states more highway funds if they strengthen drunk-driving laws.

Much of the momentum began, as it usually does, with a life-shattering tragedy. Now that momentum may gather anew because of a recent court sentence that the citizen activists saw as shockingly lenient. It was no ordinary drunk-driving case that served to galvanize their crusade a year ago.

The incident occurred Christmas Eve, 1981, when Martha Proctor was driving to church with two sons, a daughter, and three baby grandchildren. As her Volkswagen Rabbit rounded a curve, a station wagon in the oncoming lane veered left and struck the Proctor car head-on. At the hospital, after she was treated for a fractured skull, Martha learned that the only other survivor was her daughter Tanya.

The station wagon’s driver, Kevin N. Cooper, is a 27-year-old carpenter who admitted drinking seven beers at a Christmas party just before the crash. One month before the first anniversary of the incident, Cooper was sentenced to six months in jail, served concurrently with 500 hours of community service on a work-release program. He will be on probation for five years, which means an automatic arrest if he is caught with any alcohol on his breath.

The sentence sent shock waves through Maryland’s well-organized citizen groups that combat drunk driving. Tom Sexton, director of Maryland Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) said, “The sentence took us totally by surprise. It is a clear indication that the judicial system in Maryland has yet to get the message.” MADD organized a protest march at the courthouse where the sentence was pronounced and has urged people to write letters expressing their outrage.

It has also caused MADD to become more aggressive in seeking heavy punishment for drunk drivers. For the first time, MADD is endorsing the idea of mandatory sentencing for all drunk drivers involved in a serious accident, rather than just for repeat offenders.

In Cooper’s case, the maximum sentence for automobile manslaughter would have been three years for each count of homicide, or 15 years total. But Judge Donald Gilmore says the light sentence is fair because Cooper is a first-time offender who claims he was not intoxicated—a claim the jury believed.

More than an hour after his arrest, Cooper’s blood-alcohol level was .12 percent. In Maryland, the legal limit is .13, but most experts agree that a person is not fit to drive after blood alcohol reaches .10 percent.

Getting the legal limit reduced is a key step toward easier arrests and convictions, and it is required by new federal legislation before extra highway funds are distributed to states that want to conform to stricter standards.

A county task force in Maryland, chaired by Loren Gisselbeck, pastor of the Proctors’ United Methodist church, is lobbying hard to get state legislators interested in the national incentive program so that they will lower the allowable blood alcohol level.

Gisselbeck’s task force (CT, March 5, 1982, page 50) produced 52 recommendations for legislative changes and better community education. One of the biggest problems prosecutors face in Maryland is a rule allowing a defendant to disregard a district court decision if it is unfavorable and begin his defense again in a higher court.

The Proctor family has not been deeply involved with citizen efforts in Maryland to change the laws because they moved to Pennsylvania to begin life again. Martha, who Gisselbeck described as “a real snap-back kind of person,” is fully recovered from her physical injuries. Daughter Tanya lost all three of her baby daughters in the crash and is now attending college.

Gisselbeck, who received news of the fatalities by telephone just before his church’s Christmas pageant (planned by Martha) began, finds life is different for him too. “I’ve become less tolerant of people with drinking problems,” he said. “Now I am more insistent that they see what they are doing to themselves.”

BETH SPRING

Personalia

In an entry to this column in the December 17 issue concerning the appointment of David Mehlis as chief executive officer at David C. Cook Publishing Company, it was not made clear who owns the company. A family business until 1950, it is now owned by the Cook Foundation. Mehlis is the first chief operating officer from outside the Cook family.

The Salvation Army’s 1982 award for community service has gone to Timothy Johnson, a health columnist and an associate pastor of an Evangelical Covenant church. Johnson was described as “the nation’s most successful communicator of health-care information for mass consumers.” He authors a daily column in more than 90 newspapers and has appeared on ABC’S “Good Morning, America.”

Deaths

Leon Jaworski, 77, a Houston lawyer, a prosecutor at the Nuremburg trials of the Nazi war criminals, the second of three special prosecutors of the Watergate affair, and a committed Christian; December 9, 1982, at his ranch near Austin, Texas; of pancreatic cancer.

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