Hunger and need are the Christian’s opportunity for compassion.

“Lean years”—the phrase comes from Genesis. Characteristically, however, we do not remember its context as “The Story of the Lean Years” but “The Story of Joseph the Provider.” Perhaps we should revive this side of the story.

Joseph seems the type for our time. He says the nature of his commission is “to preserve life,” or “to keep alive many survivors” (Gen. 45:5–7). This is no isolated position in Scripture. “Preserving” gains centrality in the New Testament when Jesus equates “to do good” with “to save life” (Mark 3:4). His actions show he fulfilled the promise of Joseph’s example: he sustained people both physically and spiritually.

Moreover, he called his disciples to participate in his ministries. The parable of the Good Samaritan makes preserving life central to Christian ethics. It is a basic form of love toward our neighbor: Christianity is a relief and rescue enterprise. In his parables on stewardship, Jesus generalizes the model of Joseph the Provider, making it a rule for all believers. We are to be like “the faithful and wise servant, whom the master has put in charge of the servants in his household to give them their food at the proper time” (Matt. 24:45).

We associate Joseph especially with stewardship. This immediately applies to the battle against world hunger recently described as equivalent to William Wilberforce’s struggle to abolish slavery. To continue Christ’s ministry on earth, the church must provide those in need with the material means for life. “Keeping alive … many survivors” ought to become the conscious commitment of Christians today: we are meant to be providers of people. One would expect Christian businessmen in the lineage of Joseph to show special creativity in upholding existing jobs and creating new ones.

Besides feeding the poor of the world there is the task of spiritual provisioning. North American society is hardly less corroded by secularism than its European counterpart, with all its destructive side effects on people both inside and outside the churches. Our mandate is continually to improve the moral and spiritual substance in these lands through preaching and applying the gospel.

The church always needs both apostles and deacons. We must stand on both legs. Evangelicals must simply subscribe to the biblical order that there are these two intermeshed ministries. Jesus made this clear when in one of his parables he described himself as a man going on a journey who puts his servants in charge, “each with his work.” One-sidedness would be a rebuff to the Master’s instruction. It would also deny the varied gifts of the Spirit and the biblical idea of the church as a body with different members.

Joseph also exemplifies the principle of the creative minority. Like Daniel at the court of the Chaldeans, Joseph in exile shows more care for the people of his host country than even the local authorities do. He takes action when those in charge are helpless or blind. So the provider principle also applies in alien surroundings; the Christian’s milieu does not have to be congenial. It is our God-given program to a secular society. Joseph follows the command of Jeremiah 29:7 to “seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile.”

In dark times new light has always come through individuals and small groups dedicated to seeking God, the source of all light. Those willing to receive from God became the providers for humanity, keeping people spiritually, and then also physically, alive.

Further, the story of Joseph is a paradigm for crises. Joseph sustained a nation in a time of violent change from affluence to famine. One man who had a vital, living relationship with the higher wisdom of the Creator became instrumental in preserving the lives of millions.

The story is also an example of what has been called “a panic-proof experience of the guidance of God.” Joseph says: “God has sent me … to preserve life.” This is like Paul on the stricken ship in the Mediterranean. With the experts at their wits’ end, he followed the instructions God gave him in prayer and saved the whole ship’s company. Crises seem to be a climate in which Christianity thrives and Christians get to the helm. Ours is not a fair-weather religion; we have resources beyond the visible.

Finally, some experts today think Western economies are not merely experiencing a passing recession, but are becoming aged. They envisage a general deterioration, first mental and cultural, then economic, with no recovery. Historian Arnold Toynbee has noted that generally civilizations grow up, blossom, wither, and decay; and that in past history Europe alone has been able to evade this iron law because, through its association with Christianity, more than once it has found unexpected renewal.

Perhaps we are facing a similar moment, where the spiritual and material discomfort of Western society may be either the symptom of an illness unto death, or the condition that caused the Prodigal Son to return home. Much will depend on Christians, on whether we shed our private concerns and heed Christ’s call to be providers for humanity in his footsteps. God wants us to be purveyors of bread, and of the Bread.

Klaus Bockmühl is professor of theology and ethics at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Ex-cultists are organizing; more sophisticated methods of deprogramming are in use.

New religions are becoming more a part of everyday life, seeping into the mainstream and away from the fringes of society where it is easier to identify a “cult.” Hare Krishnas dress in business suits or blue jeans; Sun Myung Moon’s Unification church owns daily newspapers in New York and Washington, D.C.; the Children of God and Divine Light Mission have adopted more conventional-sounding names in some locations.

In response, parents, former members, mental health professionals, and deprogrammers are becoming better organized. They are also renouncing “coercive” techniques that too often backfire and deepen the commitment of a cult member. Many of the new approaches will be welcomed by Christians who share a concern about the rapid rise of these groups, but other tough questions regarding spiritual needs and religious freedom remain largely unanswered.

As the new approaches take hold, attempts to legislate restrictions on cults or expand parents’ rights to gain access to adult children in religious groups are receiving less attention.

One of the new developments is “networking.” Ex-cult members have announced formation of Focus, a network designed to lend support to people who come out of cults and frequently feel let down spiritually and emotionally. Focus will attempt to change the image of ex-members from “embittered accusers who are overwhelmed by their victimization” to an informed group of people who can share what they have learned and “build into youth ministries and public education a sense of how persuasion tips over into coercion,” according to cofounder Gary Scharff, a former Moonie.

Another network, Citizens Freedom Foundation, also emphasizes the need for public education and the use of “exit counseling” instead of deprogramming. This is another new approach. The difference between the two is largely determined by the attitude of the cult member. Exit counseling means exposing a member to outside information about his group and its leader, based on his willingness to listen. Deprogramming, a more intensive counseling process, generally begins by forcibly removing the cult member and inducing an emotional breakpoint called a “snapping moment.”

Steve Hassan, founder of Ex-Moon, an organization for people who have emerged from the Unification church, says “the purpose of a noncoercive intervention is to help cult members reevaluate their cult commitment—not to force them to leave.” Hassan, who does exit counseling, advises parents to “operate on the assumption that their child is going to leave the cult” and to maintain open lines of communication. Along with many other cult watchers, Hassan has observed that a significant number of members simply walk away of their own volition. He said “only a few hundred Moonies have been deprogrammed, but several thousand have walked out.” By his estimates, there are 25,000 former Moonies in the U.S. and only 4,000 active members. The Unification church claims nearly 40,000 U.S. adherents.

Still, some members of cults credit deprogramming as their only hope of escape. Sharon Bell, formerly involved with The Way International, said “there was no way I would have been able to extricate myself except by deprogramming” because of the group’s subtle tactics and her own pride.

Proponents of deprogramming believe many groups enforce methods of self-hypnosis (“thought-blocking”) through repetitious chanting or hyperventilation, and members use this as a reflex when confronted by ideas or information that is contrary to the group’s teaching. Because of this, some parents believe communication is impossible and it is essential to snatch the member away from the group by force.

Even so, deprogramming is currently undergoing a conversion process itself, toward more sophisticated, individualized techniques. Studies conducted by Margaret Singer, professor of psychology at University of California in Berkeley, on prisoners of war and kidnap victims such as Patty Hearst have helped raise the profile of thought-control research among professionals. Taking into consideration the subject’s stability and family relations before he joined the group is increasingly important. And one deprogrammer stated that case selection is critical, so parents or relatives with questionable motives may be screened out.

The deprogrammer must become better equipped to handle “life commitment questions,” according to Rabbi Yehudah Fine, director of the Jewish Community Relations Council task force on missionaries and cults. Concerns about life’s meaning, God, and death do not dissolve when a member emerges from a group, and it is often up to the deprogrammer to help the person “see the limitations of his experience, grow past it, and integrate,” Fine said. Also crucial is the assurance that the member may have truly experienced God’s reality inside the cult, but if he did, it was because of God’s initiative, not the group’s theology or practice.

Ex-members, the success stories of deprogramming, have some unique concerns about the practice. One ex-Moonie described a combined emotion of anger and gratitude toward his deprogrammer, and found out it is a normal reaction. Emerging members frequently feel bruised by the process, and some are calling for a rigorous standard of ethics.

Another important goal is raising the professional credibility of the process among psychiatrists and psychologists. Galen Kelly, a deprogrammer and criminal justice specialist, points out that “it has worked with prison gangs, terrorists, teen-age prostitutes. Deprogramming has generally been successful, but it has to be brought into the open, professionalized, and clarified in order to survive.”

Whether that will happen is a matter of considerable debate, since deprogrammers often are viewed as mavericks or charlatans within the professional mental health community. Among psychiatrists, kidnapping and involuntary confinement are approved only when a patient is considered mentally ill and dangerous. While the parents’ dilemma is “very real and very poignant,” psychiatrist James Gordon says coercive deprogramming is not the way to proceed and should never receive legal or medical sanction.

Gordon, formerly with the National Institute of Mental Health, is writing a book about what goes on inside new religions and how counselors need to approach group members.

At the root of the problem of professional acceptability, Gordon said, is the absence of spiritual understanding among mental health professionals. Psychiatrists “tend to see religion through pathological lenses. That has to be rectified; religion has to be seen as a legitimate expression of the human spirit,” Gordon said. “Only then can we see how it is manipulated.”

Ronald Enroth, professor at Westmont College and author of numerous books on cults, agrees that the spiritual side of counseling is largely ignored, and the problem is approached from a purely clinical point of view: “It’s an easy way out—like taking a pill to make it go away.”

Deprogramming seldom addresses the underlying difficulties that compel a person to join in the first place. Enroth said, “A tremendous need in the Christian community is for qualified counselors. I don’t know of a single evangelical counseling ministry where I can refer these people.”

One family suffered the heartbreak of seeing a daughter emerge from the Unification church, only to return to the group two years later. Enroth quoted her father as saying, “We never dealt with her spiritual needs.”

Religious freedom questions pose a dilemma as well, especially when the phenomenon of new religions is viewed in its historical context. Church historian Belden Lane, of Saint Louis University, wrote in the Reformed Journal: “If we condemn people for spending long hours in religious study and prayer with little food or rest, we come dangerously close to condemning the entire contemplative tradition.… If we complain that young people are sometimes turned against their parents as a result of their new-found faith, we run the risk of forgetting Francis of Assisi or Thomas Aquinas.” Aquinas was confined for two years in an unsuccessful attempt to talk him out of the Dominican order he joined. When George Whitefield began making an impact through his sermons, he was charged with hypnotizing his listeners. And—illustrating the risk today—the book Moonwebs by Josh Freed likens Moonie conversions to eighteenth-century Wesleyan revivals.

Aberrant religious groups are nothing new; nor are accusations directed toward new expressions of authentic faith. More flexible, open attitudes toward members of these groups appear to be gaining support, possibly alleviating fears about abuses of religious and individual freedom. But finding a completely satisfactory way of censuring harmful groups that masquerade as religions is still a long way off.

Who Decides What Is A Cult And What Is Not?

A Jewish family once asked cult deprogrammer Ted Patrick to rescue their daughter out of a Baptist church. “That church was the real thing,” Patrick recalls, “and I had to refuse.” But in another instance, a non-church-going mother in Chicago hired him after her son joined a charismatic Episcopalian congregation in Texas.

Houston’s Church of the Redeemer did not strike Patrick as the real thing, so he agreed to do the job. The young man was taken to a motel, where Patrick tried for two days to get his mind to “snap.” The deprogramming failed, and the man returned to his “household,” one of the about 40 communal living arrangements gathered around nuclear families at Church of the Redeemer.

Since then, Patrick’s intended quarry has married and changed his affiliation to a different Episcopal church in Houston. Bob Woodson, Redeemer’s administrative assistant, was there in 1976 when the incident took place. Charismatic renewal in a Texas mainline church was quirky, Woodson admits, and “we had a rather strict, structured environment.” But he says no one was ever converted or compelled to stay against his will.

“We were not a breakaway, rebellious group. We always kept the canon law,” Woodson says, though other churches in the diocese tended to look askance at their exuberant worship and exercise of spiritual gifts.

Patrick still insists Redeemer was a “cult,” citing tell-tale signs of authoritarian leadership and the practice of members turning their money over to the church. He claims there are many instances of cult infiltration in “regular groups” that go undetected. Discerning the regular from the irregular is perhaps the thorniest issue cult watchers and deprogrammers face. Because of surface similarities, there is “a tendency to cast the net too widely and lump evangelicals in with aberrant groups,” according to Ronald Enroth, an evangelical authority on cults. “I shudder at the thought of Patrick deciding what religion is deviant and what is not.”

Families with loved ones in new religious groups are understandably vulnerable to Patrick’s claims of success. In the past decade, he says, he has “snapped” 2,600 people—beginning with his own son—out of groups that exercise mind control and cut members off from the rest of society. Though he has been jailed for kidnapping and is suspect in the eyes of psychiatrists and psychologists, Patrick is the object of standing ovations and accolades from parents and former cult members, many of whom bear personal witness to the success of his street-smart style.

He defines deprogramming as a process of “getting the mind to think again.” Groups often instruct their members that Patrick will use violence and physical abuse against them if they are caught. But he says the exaggerated horror stories make his job easy. “The minute [a deprogramming subject] lays eyes on me, he starts thinking. We sit side by side and just talk. When I treat them with courtesy, give them good food and rest, it makes them begin questioning the cult.”

Patrick is currently writing a textbook and developing a new technique that he says may be used by any qualified counselor or psychiatrist and thereby “eliminate the need for a Ted Patrick.”

He is surprisingly soft-spoken and unflappable—more Clark Kent than Superman. But at times his sweeping denouncements of religious coercion lead him into treacherous territory. Basing his opinions on a Penthouse article, Patrick, who has no formal training in religion, compared television preacher Jerry Falwell to Sun Myung Moon. “Falwell has more people under mind control than Moon. He leads the biggest cult in the nation,” Patrick insisted. He said this is symptomatic of what is happening around the country.

BETH SPRING

Judge Who Ruled Against Creation Law Speaks Out

The federal judge who declared the Arkansas creationism law unconstitutional earlier this year recently said he would not rule out the teaching of evidence pointing to the possibility the world was created.

But United States District Court Judge William R. Overton said in a press conference held last month at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, that the majority of the scientific community would have to agree the evidence is valid, before he believes it could be taught in public school science classes.

Overton said he had received hundreds of negative letters since he ruled that the law violated the Constitution’s ban on establishment of religion by forcing a “literal interpretation on Genesis” into public school.

Because of several death threats he has received, Overton traveled to Levvisburg with a federal marshal who acted as a bodyguard. He came to Bucknell to give a speech on the issue.

Asked about what schools should teach if someone discovered good evidence that the world was created, as outlined in Genesis, he said, “Certainly, if there is scientific evidence of a sudden creation, the fact that it may involve God or a creator or something of that nature shouldn’t keep it from being taught as science, if the scientific community accepts it.

“But the scientific community, you’ll have to understand, excludes the concept of a creator in these matters, not because the scientific community is atheistic, but simply because the scientific community has to look for an explanation in nature. Those are sort of the rules for science.”

Overton emphasized that the Arkansas law was an attempt by creationists “to characterize what is essentially a religious statement as science, when in fact it’s not accepted by a credible portion of the scientific community. I personally believe that matters of religion should remain outside the school room.”

Overton indicated he is concerned that many people view his decision as a victory of secularism over religion. He said the words of the writer of one of the letters he has received actually sum up what most of the negative letter writers want: “Schools should be allowed to teach creation beliefs, my kind,” the letter said.

The judge said he has allowed the sociology department of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock to study the letters he has received. A paper is forthcoming on the study, he said.

One letter writer sent him a picture of a monkey. “You can hang it in your office and show everyone how proud you are of your relations,” the letter said.

“Communism, atheism, sex, and abortion get a lot of attention in those letters, apparently,” said Overton. “A lot of people accuse me of being an atheist in the letters I’ve received, and nothing’s further from the truth.”

He is a member of the First United Methodist Church of Little Rock. He noted that plaintiffs in the case, who testified against the creationism law, included Arkansas leaders of the United Methodist, Episcopal, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and African Methodist Episcopal churches. Other plaintiffs included Southern Baptists, the American Jewish Congress, and the American Jewish Committee.

“These people—they don’t want biology teachers teaching a brand of religion to their parishioners and a very particularistic brand of religion at that,” he said.

JIM MERKEL in Lewisburg,

Pennsylvania

North American Scene

Mock “witch burnings” sponsored by suburban Chicago civic clubs aroused the ire of real witches this Halloween. The witch burnings, intended as playful Halloween rites for children, were denounced by the leader of a witch coven in Chicago Heights. Stanley Modrzyk, high priest of the First Temple of the Craft of Witches International Craft Association, said the burnings “propagate religious bigotry and discrimination.”

Awards were conferred on “Captain Kangaroo” and Bill Moyers by Catholic broadcasters. Gabriel Awards are given annually by the national association of Catholic broadcasters. They cited Robert Keeshan—Captain Kangaroo to children—and television commentator Bill Moyers for personal achievement. “Bill,” a CBS network presentation starring Mickey Rooney as a handicapped man, was named the best national entertainment program. National Public Radio’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” with its wry and sensitive monologues by host Garrison Keillor, was selected as the top national radio entertainment program.

In October, Episcopal and Lutheran bishops joined for the first time to distribute the Eucharist at a Lutheran Communion service. The cooperation came after the two denominations approved closer relations in September. Episcopal church Presiding Bishop John M. Allin and heads of three Lutheran bodies—Bishop James R. Crumley, Jr. (Lutheran Church in America), Presiding Bishop David Preus (American Lutheran Church), and Bishop William Kohn (Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches)—also announced they will celebrate a joint Eucharist in Washington, D.C.’s National Cathedral next January.

A $150,000 media campaign against abortion will be sponsored by the Catholic Communication Campaign (ccc). The effort will be financed by a collection taken from Catholic parishes nationwide. The three television and seven radio spots were produced by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. Not all the advertisements oppose abortion directly. The TV spots depict friendships between two paraplegics, a pair of elderly women, and the love between an infant and her mother.

World Scene

Britain’s Conservative party leaders are upset by the report of a Church of England committee that recommends that Britain renounce its nuclear capability. Fumed one Tory MP: a “group of supposedly eminent and certainly unrepresentative clerics” are seeking “to undermine the defenses of the United Kingdom.” The church’s Board for Social Responsibility working party that issued the report was chaired by Bishop Graham Leonard of London. The group concluded that “the cause of right cannot be upheld by fighting a nuclear war.” Nuclear war, it stated, involves indiscriminate mass killing, which is intrinsically immoral. Therefore, it argued, deterrence is immoral, since an intention, however conditional, to do something immoral must of itself be immoral. The Anglicans’ general synod, which meets in February, may or may not endorse the report.

The European Confessing Fellowships (ECF) came out swinging at their recent fourth convention. Tübingen (West Germany) University professor Peter Beyerhaus accused the World Council of Churches of “terrible distortion of biblical truths.” He said that documents prepared for next summer’s wcc assembly contain “dire misrepresentations of Christology.” The ECF during its three-day gathering condemned abortion, pornography, common-law marriage, sexual abuse of young people, legitimization of homosexuality, and euthanasia.

There was a bizarre twist—or twitch—last month to this year’s eight-hundredth anniversary year of the birth of Saint Francis of Assisi. Medium-force quakes in central Italy caused millions of dollars in damage to ancient buildings and medieval art treasures in Assisi and neighboring towns. Monks barred the public from the Saint Francis Basilica as art experts worked to save three priceless frescoes from further earthquake damage.

A Christian youth camp held in strongly Muslim Niger last August represented a breakthrough for the Evangelical Church of Niger. It obtained special permission to hold the camp in the village of Galmi on the edge of the Sahara. Two hundred twenty-five Christians in their early twenties attended the six-day camp. The final evening’s testimony meeting concluded only as dawn broke across the desert.

The South African government has extended its banning of Beyers Naude for three years. A clergyman in the Dutch Reformed church, Naude was director of the Christian Institute, which questioned the whole apartheid structure of South Africa and endorsed black liberation movements and boycotts against South Africa. Banning orders deny freedom of movement, association, and expression to the person targeted.

South Africa’s Dutch Reformed (Nederduitse Gereformeerde or NC) churchhas not noticeably budged after its suspension from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. At its quadrennial synod last month, it overwhelmingly defeated a motion declaring there is no biblical justification for South Africa’s mixed marriages act and immorality act, which outlaw relations across the color line. A drive to approve of mixed church services as a matter of policy was also rejected. A call to review the NG church’s own biblical justification for apartheid was put off for four years. In other action, the synod voted to allow women to become deacons.

Authorities in Ethiopia’s Wollega Province appear to be waging a campaign against the Lutheran Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus. The president and five other members of the Western Synod were arrested in September. Some 200 of the synod’s 320 church buildings were reported closed, and church meetings are forbidden during the week. A West German Lutheran mission agency reports that pastors are “hindered in every possible way.” The central government is reported to have set up a commission to investigate the difficulties between the church and Wollega Province officials.

A rural community health project in Pakistan was temporarily closed after a Muslim student nurse became a Christian. The Bible and Medical Missionary Fellowship operated the much appreciated project in the village of Kunri. Meanwhile, a committee appointed by President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq to suggest ways of turning Pakistan into a truly Islamic state, has come up with these proposals: the death penalty for prostitution and drug trafficking, a ban on ballroom dancing, the confiscation and burning of all vulgar and obscene materials, and measures to discourage women from buying jewelry and highly embroidered cloth.

The Sikhs of India, a distinct religious group that makes up some 2 percent of the nation’s population, set out on a three-month-long rampage in August to win greater autonomy in their north India heartland, the state of Punjab. More than 26,000 were arrested and more than 100 killed in the ensuing turmoil. Late last month the Indian government said it was ready to accept some Sikh demands: declaring Amritsar a Sikh holy city; making the city of Chandigarth, joint capital of Punjab and Haryana states, totally Punjabi; and enacting a law to bring all Sikh temples nationwide under control of a committee that manages Punjabi temples. But it rejected demands for greater political autonomy.

Radio programming beamed into China—long primarily evangelistic in content—is being reshaped to fit the actual situation. Jonathan Chao, dean of the China Graduate School of Theology in Hong Kong, is launching a “Seminary of the Air,” designed to provide a full program of instruction in biblical theology to the leaders of house church meetings. Chao, who also heads a Chinese Church Research Center, believes there may be 1 million such leaders, ministering to 25 million or more believers.

The Three-Self Patriotic Movement, China’s officially approved Protestant church, has announced that it plans to print 1 million copies of the Bible in the Chinese language at the end of the year. To accomplish this objective, it is adding two Bible printing plants, in Fuzhow this year and Nanjing next, to the existing plant in Shanghai.

Fundamentalist Church School In Nebraska Reopens

Everett Sileven, pastor of the Faith Baptist Church of Louisville, Nebraska, entered the county jail on Friday, September 3. Eight Fridays later he was released.

Sileven is administrator of the controversial Faith Baptist Church school, and his release was no easy matter. It came after a week of demonstrations and negotiations by some 400 to 500 fundamentalists who descended on the quiet eastern Nebraska community following word the church was to be padlocked. Cass County Judge Raymond Case ordered the church locked for the second time in as many years because it is unlicensed and its teachers uncertified—both requirements of the state.

The church was padlocked early Monday, October 18, but only after 18 law enforcement officials carried and dragged about 85 weeping and chanting fundamentalists out of the building (CT, November 12, p. 54).

Classes were hardly interrupted for the determined Faith Baptists, however. By Wednesday they were holding school in the church bus of a sympathetic Kentucky congregation (the school has 29 students).

On Wednesday afternoon fundamentalists marched to the Cass County Jail and rallied. The rally included the hardline preaching of a dozen angry ministers, all accustomed to delivering fire-and-brimstone oratory.

That, and the sheer numbers of the fundamentalists (present from more than 30 states), prompted Judge Case to suspend orders to relock the church after a Wednesday night service. The judge had already said he was not comfortable with locking the church during regular worship periods and had promised to open it on Wednesday and Sunday. The Wednesday evening meeting was tense until Indianapolis pastor Greg Dixon, also national secretary of the Moral Majority, entered the packed sanctuary with the suspension order. His announcement engendered cheers, “Amens,” and a proclamation of partial victory. Still, Dixon noted in front of an empty chair marked for Sileven, the Faith Baptist pastor was in jail.

The fundamentalists rallied again on Thursday, and by that time the annoyance of Nebraska natives was made visible. One pickup truck drove into the middle of the fundamentalists’ parade and released a smoke bomb; another truck passed bearing the sign, “Nebraska, Love It or Leave It.” And while preachers later spoke against the Nebraska laws, a tractor passed, with the driver noisily revving the engine. “It’s a good thing I’m used to street preaching,” the preacher of the moment shouted into the roar.

Moral Majority’s Dixon and Roy Thompson, a Cleveland pastor, negotiated late Thursday night with Judge Case for Sileven’s release. An agreement was struck, then made official at a Friday morning hearing.

Sileven was released with the agreement that a “moratorium” be declared on the Faith school. It would remain closed 30 days or until the end of the state legislature’s special session (scheduled to begin November 5).

The fundamentalists hoped the Nebraska legislature would lift legal requirements stipulating that all schools be licensed by the state and have state-certified teachers. (The special legislative session, however, was called for revenue considerations. Any address of the Louisville problem—one shared by at least three other Christian schools now under legal pressure in the state—would be incidental.)

If, at the end of the moratorium period, no changes were made in state law, Sileven said he would reopen the school—but also surrender himself to the county court, possibly to go back into jail.

Dixon declared the agreement a “monstrous victory” coming on the heels of a “monstrous crime.” But Sileven’s release was at best a temporary solution. Only a change in law will satisfy the Faith Baptists, and Nebraska lawmakers have twice in this five-year struggle had opportunity to change the requirements. On both occasions, bills lifting the licensing and certification rules were defeated.

Jews For Jesus To Begin ‘Y’Shua’ Ad Campaign

Since its beginning in 1973, the organization Jews for Jesus, an outgrowth of the Jesus movement, has distributed over 25 million tracts, produced 10 albums of Jewish-style gospel music, and made extensive use of radio, television, and newspaper advertisements to promote the message that Jesus is for everybody, including Jews.

According to the organization’s information officer, Sue Perlman, virtually every Jew in the United States has heard of Jews for Jesus, partly because of the bluntness of the organization’s name.

After nine years, some of the novelty of the name is wearing off, but now Jews for Jesus hopes the double takes will return with the implementation of its “Y’shua” campaign. It is the largest single outreach in the history of Jews for Jesus, and is described by the organization as “an all-out media effort to clear up misunderstandings as to who the real Jesus is.”

At the heart of the campaign is a full-page newspaper ad scheduled to appear this December in more than 20 major newspapers throughout the United States, including the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Moishe Rosen, the organization’s founder, maintains that, while Christians will recognize “Y’shua” as the Hebrew word for “Jesus,” most non-Christians will look twice at the name, and “for many, it will have the kind of impact that counts for eternity.”

Rosen said, “We’ve had to be innovative to make people look again—to cause them to consider anew what they thought they already knew and decided not to believe.”

In addition to the Times and the Post, the full-page ad will appear in the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, and perhaps as many as 25 other major metropolitan daily newspapers.

The ad, which links Y’shua to the real meaning of Christmas, is the first of four progressive steps in the Y’shua campaign. Respondents who indicate they are not believers in Jesus will receive a free copy of a book written by Rosen especially for the campaign. The book, Y’shua—The Jewish Way To Say Jesus (Moody Press), presents the case for believing in Y’shua.

The third step of the campaign consists of personal follow-up and instruction. Jews for Jesus will use its own staff members and seek the cooperation of churches and evangelistic agencies to make follow-up visits and phone calls. Finally, Jewish respondents will receive a free subscription to Issues, Jews for Jesus’ bimonthly evangelistic publication.

The ad will appear once in each paper sometime between December 1 and Hanukkah, which begins the evening of December 10. According to Rosen, this is a period during which “many people are thinking about spiritual possibilities.”

The ad is strikingly critical of a secular view of Christmas. It says, “Now many would have liked it better if the angel [Matthew 1:21] had said, “And you are to give him the name Santa because he will bring you presents.”

Also, the ad issues a direct challenge to nonbelievers: “Maybe you don’t like your sins, yourself, or the God who made you. Sorry about that, but that’s your problem, and it doesn’t really change the truth.” According to Perlman, statements in the ad that might seem offensive to non-Jews will be understood within the Jewish community as a type of subtle, cultural humor.

Although the campaign’s target is the Jewish population, about 10 Gentiles become Christians through the ministry of Jews for Jesus for every Jew who accepts Christ.

RANDY FRAME

Issue Of Religious Groups In High Schools Is Appealed To Supreme Court

Ruling on Widmar v. Vincent last December, the U.S. Supreme Court solidified the right of college students to meet on campus for religious purposes (CT, January 1, p. 46). The rights of high school students to do the same, however, remain in question.

Courts have argued that high school students, younger and less mature than college students, may mistakenly think religious meetings at the high school bear the approval of the administration. That would be an unconstitutional establishment of religion by the state. Christian attorneys disagree, and a recently developing case is considered ideal to put before the Supreme Court in hopes of extending Widmar rights to high school students.

The case is Lubbock Civil Liberties Union v. Lubbock Independent School District, and it began in 1980 when the Lubbock, Texas, school district adopted new policies regarding religious activities. The school board disallowed daily recital of prayer and Bible passages over the public address system, but permitted students to meet for religious purposes on the same basis as other student organizations.

The Lubbock Civil Liberties Union sued, saying the religious meetings should also be banned. The trial court upheld the new policy, calling it neutral since it permitted student groups of all kinds to gather. But the court of appeals reversed that decision, saying the policy’s primary intention was an unconstitutional accommodation of religious groups.

The appeals court said that allowing meetings “at a time closely associated with the beginning or end of the school day implies recognition of religious activities … as an integral part of the [school] … and carried with it an implicit approval.…”

The case is now being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Christian Legal Society (CLS), said director Lynn Buzzard, has had “extensive” involvement in preparation of the appeal. Besides filing a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of the Lubbock school district, CLS has assisted with legal strategies and created a litigation fund to support the case (costs may reach $70,000). Buzzard noted that Leon Jaworski, famed as the Watergate prosecutor, will argue the case if the Supreme Court elects to hear it. Whether the Court will hear the case will not be known for months.

The Lubbock decision, as it now stands, “flies in the face of almost all other free speech cases, where courts have struck down any restrictions (prior restraint) on free speech based on the content of that speech,” Buzzard said. “Yet here it is solely the religious content that bars students from meeting.”

Buzzard said the National Association of Evangelicals, Baptist Joint Committee, and the Catholic League are among groups also planning to file friend-of-the-court briefs on the school district’s behalf.

What Catholics And Evangelicals Have In Common

Evangelical Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants have discovered they have more in common with each other than they do with liberals in their respective denominations.

“It’s obvious that most of us feel more comfortable with one another than we do with many in our own denominations,” said Catholic historian James Hitchcock during a workshop at the “Christianity Confronts Modernity” conference in Ann Arbor, Michigan, October 20 to 23.

The conference, attended by 130 church leaders, was sponsored by the Center for Pastoral Renewal, an arm of Ann Arbor’s Word of God community, a group of charismatic Christians seeking an ecumenical expression of their faith. The community holds four different worship services—Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and Free church—but gathers its 2,000 members in one group twice a month to coordinate its various ministries.

The group has been influential in leading the Catholic charismatic movement toward recognizing the importance of individual sharing of the faith with nonbelievers, the necessity of a conversion experience, and acknowledging the authority of Scripture. “The Catholic charismatic movement has been around for 15 years,” said Hitchcock, “but this conference represents a more widespread renewal, a resurgence of orthodoxy.”

Though four of the seven general session speakers were local Word of God personalities, and most of the conferees were charismatics, there were notable exceptions: Hitchcock, professor at Saint Louis University; Stanley Harakas, professor of ethics at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology, Brookline, Massachusetts; James I. Packer, professor of historical and systematic theology at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia; Howard Snyder, professor at Wesleyan Urban Coalition, Chicago; and Richard Lovelace, professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Massachusetts.

“The primacy of conversion was emphasized,” said Father Pat Egan of London. “It gives me a basis for evaluation—there’s ‘converted’ thinking and ‘unconverted’ thinking.”

“I gained several fresh insights,” said Father Philip Merdinger, leader of the Catholic People of Hope community in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey. “Preaching aimed at the heart is a good idea, as is teaching that focuses on the practical rather than the theological. That’s a better approach than the insipid little homilies we’ve grown used to.”

Other priests commented that one-on-one discipling and accountability groups were ideas they planned to implement.

Evangelicals of all stripes agreed they faced common dangers.

Speakers emphasized that “secular humanism” can be a misleading term because it suggests the threat to faith is a visible, identifiable force. Instead, “the process of de-Christianization is happening not just in the secular world, but within the church itself,” said Peter Williamson, conference chairman. As evidence, he cited relaxed sexual standards among Christian young people, a divorce rate among church members almost as high as the national average, disintegration of the family, an increasing emphasis on self-fulfillment, and a reluctance to affirm Christ’s deity and the authority of the Bible.

“Urbanization, mobility, and individualism are forces eroding Christianity from within,” said Kevin Perrotta, an editor of Pastoral Renewal magazine. “The ways Christians spend their money, for instance, or their TV-viewing habits, are the same as for non-Christians.”

It was left to Richard Lovelace to quote Pogo’s diagnosis: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

At the close of the conference, the Pastoral Renewal Association was formed to organize attempts to encourage renewal—meaning “repentance from sin, wholehearted commitment to Christ, and reliance on the power of the Holy Spirit.… We want to work together in practical ways to strengthen one another as Christians, to defend Christianity, and to bring the world to Christ,” according to the association’s statement of purpose.

Most of the suggestions for action centered on personal renewal and submission to the Bible rather than political action.

Harold O. J. Brown, professor of theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield. Illinois, urged the conferees to focus on what the Bible clearly addresses.

“The tendency today is to shift our attention from the message of atonement, which requires a clear theology of the Trinity, to a message of liberation. Evangelicals have allowed the world to set their agenda.

“The Bible clearly teaches atonement and forbids adultery, for instance. Issues like abortion, world hunger, and racism are addressed implicitly. And things like school prayer, national defense, and nuclear disarmament are more distant applications of biblical principles.

“We haven’t done a good job of sorting according to the emphasis the Bible puts on issues, and therefore atonement has been diluted because we’ve divided our attention among other issues.”

What ways these evangelicals will find to work together remains to be seen.

“There are important differences among us—such as views on the sacraments, for instance,” said Perrotta. “But to cooperate we don’t have to water down individual beliefs to a lowest-common-denominator ecumenism. We have more than enough in common to form a basis for living and serving together.”

MARSHALL SHELLEY

Evangelist Lester Roloff, a Texas fundamentalist minister who made headlines for refusing to knuckle under to state licensing authorities, is dead at the age of 68. Roloff and four others associated with his Corpus Christi-based ministry were killed in a plane crash on November 2 when the Cessna 210 Roloff was piloting crashed in east central Texas.

A Baptist minister and an experienced pilot, Roloff encountered heavy thunderstorms en route to a speaking engagement in Kansas City and went down over a Texas cattle ranch. The others, all women between the ages of 20 and 30, were to sing at the engagement.

Constitutional lawyer William Bentley Ball described Roloff as “an extremely courageous defender of religious liberty” and a “beacon light for American fundamentalism.” Ball defended Roloff in a court case that resulted in the legal vindication of Roloff’s refusal to allow the state of Texas to license his homes for troubled youth. In 1979, his three Texas homes were closed as a result of a suit filed by the state attorney general. The homes were reopened after Roloff reorganized his ministry, placing the homes under his People’s Baptist Church, instead of under Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises.

The homes have been in the public eye since 1973. Since then, accusations of beatings and other questionable forms of punishment, including withholding of meals, have consistently been leveled against Roloff’s operations (CT, Sept. 7, 1979, p. 60). In addition, Roloff was criticized for denouncing psychiatrists and the use of psychiatric treatment at his homes.

Greg Dixon, a prominent Indianapolis fundamentalist pastor, said, “From a human standpoint, the tragic death of Brother Roloff is one of the greatest blows to the cause of Christianity and religious liberty. In my opinion, he was the greatest Christian of our time.”

And Now … The Pornographer Of The Month

Donald Wildmon’s National Federation for Decency (NFD) has announced a new award: Pornographer of the Month. The first winner? The company that owns Kentucky Fried Chicken.

NFD officials said that R.J. Reynolds/Del Monte/Kentucky Fried Chicken was named Pornographer of the Month because the company contributes more money promoting pornography by advertising in pornographic magazines than any other advertiser in America. No dollar figures were provided.

“With every can of Del Monte food and every box of Kentucky Fried Chicken a person buys, part of their money is used to help promote pornography and the associated sickness which sells people as objects,” Wildmon said. “They are more interested in money than people.”

The United Methodist minister decried the company for “endorsing” the “pornographic dehumanization of women” and “a way of life which has no room for the old, the sick, the poor, the unlovely, or the family.”

The NFD will award the Pornographer of the Month to companies that advertise in or distribute pornographic magazines. The ploy may have some effect, since more than 25 advertisers have told the NFD they no longer plan to advertise in the pornographic publications.

The source of the money is a new 3-D camera he and his partner developed.

The television commercial begins with a red sun glimmering over the horizon and the sounds of majestic, expectant, classical music. The announcer’s voice proclaims, “You are about to behold a miracle.”

The miracle, the ad goes on to explain and dramatize, is three-dimensional photography. Now this art form, which in the past was dismissed as impractical if not impossible, can be performed by an amateur photographer.

But perhaps a greater miracle is the story behind the camera’s success. Horatio Alger could not have written a better script than the one Jerry Nims lives.

As recently as five years ago, Nims was on the brink of financial destruction. He was barely able to pay his staff of nine researchers who continued clearing a road into the technological frontier.

Today Nims is the chairman and chief executive officer of the Nimslo Corporation, which has literally given to the world another dimension in photography. Since 1978, Nims has raised more than $100 million to support the production and marketing of the Nimslo camera, named for Nims and the Chinese technical expert behind the venture, Allen Lo. Nims now employs 700 in the United States and several hundred more abroad. The estimated value of his Atlanta-based corporation is $450 million.

Nims says, “What has happened to me is a flat-out miracle. I shouldn’t be here; this business shouldn’t be here. Nims credits a large part of the strength he needed to endure through the lean years to the sustaining faith of his wife and to the promise of Matthew 24:13: “Those who endure to the end shall be saved.”

Nims, 47, could retire today if he wished. “I wouldn’t mind if I never saw another airplane,” he said, in reference to the tiring trips to Europe his business demands of him.

But his business has become a financial source for Christian activities ranging from urban mission work in Denver and Atlanta, to ministries in refugee camps in various parts of the world, to support for oppressed Christians in Eastern Europe.

Nims tries not to highlight his financial generosity. He merely observes: “We’ve been fortunate in business, and I’m a firm believer in the compassionate use of any money I make.”

Recently, Nims helped to finance promotional campaigns for Francis Schaeffer’s A Christian Manifesto, John Whitehead’s The Second American Revolution and Franky Schaeffer’s A Time for Anger. The amount Nims invested is not known, but it is believed to be substantial.

Nims credits Francis Schaeffer with having brought into focus his understanding that his Christian faith should penetrate all his activities. In 1980, Nims spent more than a month with Schaeffer in Switzerland. In the preface of his book, Schaeffer said Nims’s questions about the Christian’s relationship to government provided the impetus for the book.

Nims invested in the book because he felt the message needed to be heard; the unexpected financial return, resulting from the sale of nearly 300,000 copies, is all being channeled into support of Christian ministries.

The books Nims has helped finance are being used as a battle plan by some fundamentalists. This is mildly ironic since Nims, though he does not judge the actions of other Christians, considers himself neither politically rightist nor theologically fundamentalist. He is a self-proclaimed “ecumenical evangelical,” meaning that he advocates unity among those who proclaim Christ as Savior and Lord as opposed to division over methods of baptism and fine points of theology.

“There was a lot of praying done before the Manifesto was written,” Nims says. “I don’t recommend a theocracy or a group of people that gets together late at night and plots. Of course the ideas in the book can be misapplied; the Bible has been misused. But the issues needed to be raised; there has been far too little debate on these questions.”

Since the publication of A Christian Manifesto, Nims Communications, which consists of Nims and his secretary, has been flooded with query letters from authors with ideas for books expressing similar sentiments. Nims has sent some of these authors to their typewriters. Currently, at least four books are in the final stages of editing—books dealing with such topics as law, the media, and the church in Eastern Europe, as they are related to the Christian’s role in government.

In addition, Nims has helped produce Franky Schaeffer’s film The Second American Revolution, and he may become a full-fledged book publisher himself.

Nims believes that those adhering to the Judeo-Christian ethic are being relegated by society to a communications ghetto. He has challenged Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee to explain why A Christian Manifesto has not appeared on the Post’s best-seller list. Bradlee claims it’s because the book is not selling in the stores he checks; Nims maintains this book, and others like it, are not placed in these stores because the Post will not review them.

Nims’s actions are undergirded essentially by two basic tenets. First, he believes the main struggle in the world is not between Right and Left, capitalism and communism, or East and West. Rather, he believes the war is being fought between those who believe the world emerged from impersonal chance and matter, and those who believe in a personal Creator-God.

Second, Nims maintains it is one thing to turn a cheek to a personal insult, and quite another to turn from evil. “For example,” he says, “child pornography is an abomination. We should pray for the child pornographer, but we should also enter into society and try to remove the destructive opportunity he has under the guise of freedom of speech.” In addition, Nims asserts he would not hesitate to break a law of society if he knew he had to keep God’s law.

But if all this means Nims is a religious “rightist,” many of his other activities would identify him with middle-of-the-road evangelicalism. He works with his father, a retired American Baptist minister who spends most of his time in Eastern Europe, ministering to the persecuted church. He supports several foreign missions efforts, including the Haggai Institute, a resource center in Singapore for Third World leaders. He keeps four pictures of refugees on his office wall and tries to view them daily, to remind himself that other people go to bed hungry. All these are in addition to the support he provides for inner-city mission work in Denver and Atlanta. Like his camera, Jerry Nims is hard to categorize.

Children Of God Cult Records Higher Numbers

After claiming last year that divine judgment in the form of a nuclear holocaust was about to descend upon Europe and America, David “Moses” Berg, the 63-year-old founder and leader of the Children of God/Family of Love cult, urged followers to move to the Southern Hemisphere and to the Far East.

However, 1981 statistics released by the Children of God (COG) disclose that cult members are not heeding the warning. According to those statistics, at the end of last year nearly half of COG’s 9,788 members were living in the Northern Hemisphere, 17 percent in the United States.

That membership figure, which includes 4,277 children, is an all-time high. The cult lost more than 2,000 members in 1978, partly because Berg fired 300 leaders. Defection, venereal disease, and bad publicity also contributed to the decline. But the cult has made a comeback in recent years.

The report of last May also announced a distribution of more than 400 million pieces of literature, and 34,957 persons won through “flirty fishing,” (prostitution evangelism), all since 1971.

The COG cult is characterized by the supplanting of biblical revelation with cult teaching, sexual and financial exploitation of members, fear of outsiders, and preoccupation with death.

Berg communicates to cult members through letters, called “MO” letters, which he extols as “God’s word for today,” not to be confused with the Bible, “God’s word for yesterday.”

In a 1979 MO letter, Berg, once a Protestant minister, wrote that the Trinity consists of Father, Mother, and Son. In a 1978 letter, Berg encouraged cult members to have sex with potential converts in an effort to “win souls for Jesus.” Each member was requested to keep a “flirty fish” diary in which to record details of their experiences.

Recent COG publications contain photographs of young children engaged in sexual play with adults. Sexual experimentation from infancy onward is advocated by Berg and practiced within his extended “family” of disciples.

Meanwhile, efforts of former cult members to expose the cult’s beliefs and practices, continue. Kathy Hansen, deprogrammed four years ago, now publishes a newsletter targeted for present and former members and their families.

Also, Berg’s elder daughter, Linda, who resides in California with her second husband, has succeeded in enrolling a number of former members (including her mother Jane) in Bill Gothard seminars. She credits Gothard with facilitating her return to evangelical Christianity. Jane Berg (formerly Mother Eve in the cult) has moved to Knoxville where she and other ex-Children of God members are operating a Christian ministry at the World’s Fair.

JOSEPH HOPKINS

Deaths

Raymond Albert DeVries, 50, vice-president of special services at Lexicon Music/Light Records, pastor, conference director, editor of In Tune magazine, music consultant to Christian schools; October 26, at a Christian Booksellers Association board of directors meeting in Colorado Springs, of cardiac arrest.

Best records for Christmas listening.

The celebration of Christ’s birth continues to produce joyous and exciting music. For the third year, we have selected some recordings from recently released albums of Christmas music that are exceptional in writing and performance.

• Hely-Hutchinson: Carol Symphony, Pro Arte Orchestra, Choir of Guildford Cathedral, Barry Rose, conductor; EMI HMV Greensleeve ESD-7021. The only recording ever made of Christian Victor Hely-Hutchinson’s Carol Symphony has long been unavailable, making this new British reissue most welcome. Written in the late 1920s, the composer imaginatively develops familiar Christmas melodies into a four-movement symphony. Easily recognized are “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen,” and the “Coventry Carol.” Rose also conducts the “Fantasia on Christmas Carols” by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

• We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Boston Pops Orchestra and Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Williams, conductor; Philips 6302–125 (digital). “A Christmas Carol,” by Charles Ives, is a hauntingly beautiful lullaby that is rarely heard. “Carol of the Drum,” popularly known as “The Little Drummer Boy,” is given its original title on this album and attributed to its real composer, Katherine K. Davis. “The Twelve Days of Christmas”—with a bell instead of a partridge in that familiar pear tree and other musical instruments in lieu of the traditional gifts—becomes a mini-introduction to the orchestra. This is a very merry Christmas collection indeed!

Still available are Boston Pops Christmas albums conducted by the late Arthur Fiedler, including: A Christmas Festival (Polydor 24–5004); Pops Goes Christmas (RCA LSC-3324), with the Arthur Fiedler Chorus; and Pops Christmas Party (RCA ARL1-3436; formerly LSC-2329). The latter includes Humperdinck’s “Children’s Prayer and Dream Pantomime” (from Hansel and Gretel).

• Pastorales de Noel, Jean-Pierre Rampal, flute, and Alexandre Legoya, guitar, with Michel Legrand at keyboards and conducting the London Symphony Orchestra; CBS-37205. Legrand has refreshingly arranged five familiar Christmas songs and composed an extended original work, “Pastorales (pour Noel).” The unique instrumentations and combination of sounds show unusual originality in expressing many of the moods of Christmas.

• Echoes of Christmas, the Dale Warland Singers; Augsburg 23–1621, digital. This is a superb professional chorus performing an especially interesting repertoire, which includes a unique three-quarter-time version of “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” and a dramatic setting of “I Saw Three Ships.” Two recent compositions in this 1979 recording are also noteworthy: the vibrant “Out of the Orient Crystal Skies,” by Richard Zgodava, and a gentle “Hallelu,” by Stephen Paulus. A similar album, Carols of Christmas, was produced in 1981 (Augsburg 23–1317, digital), with an equally superb choral sound. Their just-released Sing Noel (Augsburg 23–2916, digital) features Christmas music of the contemporary American composer Daniel Pinkham.

• The Music of Christmas, the Cambridge Singers and Orchestra, John Rutter, conductor; WORD Medallion Series WSB-8887, Rutter’s fourth Christmas collection distinctively treats 18 traditional selections. Recorded in England’s Ely Cathedral, the choral diction is as clear as the bells on “Ding! Dong! Merrily on High.” Among the special delights are Rutter’s brilliant Handelian setting of “Joy to the World” and his whimsical version of “We Wish You a Merry Christmans.”

• In Dulci Jubilo, Paul Manz, organ; Augsburg 23–1665, digital. This is an album of distinction. Assisted by brass, flutes, and strings, Manz performs music of Praetorius, Bach, Corelli, and others.

• Christmas with the Canadian Brass. John Grady, organ, RCA ARL1-4132. This brass quintet plays superbly, and on some numbers combines with the massive organ of Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York for an unforgettable musical experience.

These recommendations come from among the finest of the recent Christmas albums. We believe they can enrich your personal celebration and worship this Christmas season.

NEWS

Ruth Dinwiddie is a program host and producer for the Moody Broadcasting Network, Chicago; Richard, her husband, is music director and conductor of The Chicago Master Chorale.

How do we mix the oil and water of evangelism and social responsibility? Delegates in Grand Rapids wrestle with an important issue discussed in “The Other Side of Thanksgiving.”

What is the relationship between the Great Commission (to go into all the world and preach the gospel) and the Great Commandment (to love God and to love one’s neighbor as oneself)? How do evangelism and social responsibility relate?

Are they different sides of the same coin—or competitors? Mission executives increasingly complain that relief and development agencies get a growing share of a finite evangelical dollar. Other opinion leaders insist it is high time evangelicals paid more attention to the needs of 800 million fellow humans who live near the margins of survival. They assert that the traditional emphasis on preaching the gospel and on church growth is a distortion of the real mandate of God’s people in the world.

The Consultation on the Relationship between Evangelism and Social Responsibility held at Grand Rapids, Michigan, last June grasped a nettle that has been a major irritant at international evangelical gatherings for more than a decade. By facing these issues squarely its sponsors hoped to produce a document that would defuse tensions and help unite Christians whose perceptions of Christian responsibility were leading them to stress different priorities, threatening to produce overt disunity within the worldwide evangelical movement.

The structure of the consultation was designed with great care by a joint committee established by the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF) and the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (LCWE) to coordinate their most important joint exercise to date. Forty-two participants and ten consultants from 27 countries were hosted for six days by president Dick Van Halsema at his beautiful Reformed Bible College campus.

Senior evangelical leaders participating included Leighton Ford of LCWE and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association; Wade Coggins and Bruce Nicholls of WEF; John R. W. Stott, rector emeritus of All Souls Church, London; Ed Dayton of World Vision; Harold Lindsell, editor emeritus of CHRISTIANITY TODAY; and John Perkins of Voice of Calvary, Mississippi. But chairmanship of the consultation was in the hands of such younger men as Gottfried Osei-Mensah of Ghana (LCWE director) and Bong Rin Ro of Taiwan (WEF). Other non-Western leaders included David Gitari, Anglican bishop of East Kenya, Tokunboh Adeyemo of the Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar, and John Richard of the Evangelical Fellowship of India.

At the moving opening service of worship and dedication, Bishop Gitari provided a vivid backdrop to the topic of the consultation from his own experience. He told how Kenyan evangelists itinerating on camels in order to preach to Northeast Kenya’s nomadic peoples had won numerous converts. Their grave health and economic needs quickly caused evangelistic concern to merge with social action. The church developed a holistic program of pastoral care and social transformation that deeply marked that part of Kenya.

Leighton Ford set out the ground rules. Many, he said, had expressed apprehension about the Grand Rapids event, fearing that the gathering could widen and solidify divisions in the worldwide evangelical movement. He reminded members that the consultation had been called to “clarify but not to change” the Lausanne Covenant identification of Christian duty as involving “both evangelism and sociopolitical responsibility.”

At the 1974 Lausanne Congress there was sharp disagreement over this issue. John Stott called social action a partner of evangelism, but was accused by Trinity Evangelical Divinity School professor Arthur Johnston of having “dethroned evangelism as the only historical aim of mission.” An unofficial Radical Discipleship Group produced a paper rejecting as “demonic” any effort to “drive a wedge between evangelism and social justice.” The Lausanne Covenant defined evangelism as the primary mission of the church, but Ron Sider wrote that to define any task of the church as primary was “unbiblical and misleading.” René Padilla from Buenos Aires, writing in 1976 in The New Face of Evangelicalism, which he edited, said that “the Covenant is a death blow to the superficial equation of the Christian mission with the multiplication of Christians and churches.”

Four years later, at Pattaya, Thailand, the same issue was again prominent. One third of the members called on the Lausanne committee to convene a world conference on evangelism and social responsibility. The Grand Rapids consultation was the result.

The consultation was structured around plenary sessions to introduce and discuss major papers, small groups to explore major issues in depth, and case studies to present examples of Christian social responsibility in situations as diverse as India, Mississippi, Burma, and the Philippines. Group reports were submitted each day to a drafting committee chaired by John Stott, who was assisted by David Wells of Gordon-Conwell Seminary. The final day and a half of the consultation was devoted to a line-by-line consideration of the report, a 40-page document that went through a number of drafts and was not yet in final form by publication date.

By the second day issues began to surface, sometimes gently, sometimes contentiously. Most of the questions clustered around four themes: What is mission? How broad is salvation in Scripture? How does the Lord’s teaching on the kingdom relate to the mission of the church and to Paul’s model of evangelism? and, What is the mandate of Christians concerning social justice (as distinct from social service)? On each of these questions most members brought with them views reflecting presuppositions that were usually theological but just as often also political.

From these key issues other topics teemed: Does the church-growth emphasis on numbers necessarily deemphasize discipleship? Is some contemporary thinking about mission based on ideas that originate in the World Council of Churches, which contributed to the demise of the International Missionary Council and which has decimated ecumenical missions since World War II? Are evangelicals who accept some of liberation theology’s propositions on their way to articulating a gospel that will rationalize and encourage violence and even killing in the name of Christ?

With such volatile issues on the agenda for up to 14 hours each day, debate was sometimes tough. Statesmanlike leadership, by Osei-Mensah and Adeyemo in particular, defused difficult moments in the plenary sessions. Small group leaders needed all their skills to balance the vigorous opinions expressed by participants.

A recurring pronouncement at the consultation was that the church should be affirming the lordship of Christ over all demonic powers of evil that “possess persons, pervade structures, societies, and the created order.” In the radical discipleship stream, Anglican pastor Vinay Samuel of Bangalore, India, and his English colleague Chris Sugden crusaded with vigor and enthusiasm for this definition and understanding of the mission of the church. Their stand was seconded by Padilla and a minority of consultation members. Some participants challenged their views, asserting that their writings strongly reflect nonevangelical theological positions about the nature of salvation. Socioeconomic improvements are described as an aspect of salvation by those who broadly interpret the Bible’s salvation language, building on the fact that salvation has not only personal but also social and cosmic dimensions.

Ron Sider (Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger) and James I. Packer explored this subject in a carefully argued paper. To the surprise of some participants (and to his own, Sider admitted), the paper came down on the side of a narrow use of salvation language: “We find it less confusing and more faithful to biblical usage to restrict salvation language to the sphere of conscious confession of faith in Christ.” Sider’s conclusion removed one of the main props of evangelicals who accept the conceptual categories adopted by the World Council of Churches at its Bangkok assembly in 1973, where it was stated that “salvation is the peace of the people of Vietnam, independence in Angola … justice and reconciliation in Northern Ireland.”

In the Samuel-Sugden firing line for hewing to the primacy of evangelism in the mission of the church was Arthur Johnston (Battle for World Evangelism, 1978), together with Donald McGavran, founder and mentor of the church growth movement and, by implication, Peter Wagner of the School of Church Growth at Fuller Theological Seminary. Johnston was joined in his defense by Peter Beyerhaus of Tübingen, Germany, Klaus Bockmühl (Regent College, Vancouver), Harold Lindsell, and Wagner.

Many consultation participants construed Luke 4:16–21 and its parallel passage in Isaiah 61:1–2 in a quasi-political sense, suggesting that today’s church should be involved in “proclaiming release to captives and setting at liberty the oppressed.” Johnston insisted that Christians must distinguish between the theocratic institution and mission of Israel and that of Jesus and the church inaugurated at Pentecost.

Both Beyerhaus and Johnston referred to the influence of Jürgen Moltman, author of A Theology of Hope (1967) and a colleague of Beyerhaus at Tübingen, who has laid much of the intellectual foundation of liberation theology. Moltman does not distinguish between the kingdom and the church. His vision of the future appears to involve the reign of God apart from judgment. That reign is foreshadowed by present sociopolitical accomplishments. Beyerhaus suggested that the writings of Moltman (and his teacher Ernst Bloch) have contributed significantly to the development of ecumenical missiology, especially the emerging utopic vision in the World Council of Churches.

Focusing on the doctrine of the kingdom as the source of a theology of social responsibility is a departure for evangelicals. Until recently, the source for most of them working in this field was the doctrine of creation. By contrast, Walter Rauschenbusch, the most famous theologian of the social gospel movement, developed a theology of social reform and political action deriving from a theology of the kingdom in his major work, A Theology for the Social Gospel (1919). What direction this new—for evangelicals—approach will develop, and whether it will lead to new unraveling among different strands of theological emphasis, remains to be seen.

Post- and amillenialists asserted that evangelism is the proclamation of Jesus’ kingly reign and authority in this age. Therefore, they said, Christians, as “representatives of the kingdom,” should be deeply involved in issues of social justice and in consequent political action. The Anabaptist view at the consultation tended broadly to endorse these strong social justice concerns but with a less-clearly worked out eschatology and the insistence that only nonviolent methods are options for Christians.

Premillenialists tended to pessimism about the possibility of significant moral transformation before the return of Christ. They stressed the primacy of evangelism and insisted that evangelism is itself a fundamental form of social action. They did not claim, though, that it should have a priority of ministry, and accepted that social assistance might be the most appropriate first response to a situation of grave human need.

Several recent writers on the history of evangelicalism have claimed a causal relationship between the rise of premillenialism and the decline of social concern among evangelicals. The consultation explored this alleged link and disallowed it. Instead it declared that premillenial evangelicals in the early twentieth century reacted against the optimistic thrust of the social gospel movement and stressed the lostness of man without Christ and hence the urgency of the evangelistic task. This emphasis may have lessened social involvement by some evangelicals in the North American setting, but it led to a massive increase in Christian caring in the Third World. Hundreds of hospitals and leprosariums were established, and literacy and primary education became major emphases of evangelical, often premillenial, missions.

Eschatology also impinges on a weighty question for Christian relief and development agencies as they frame policy and spending priorities. Where does social justice diverge from social assistance? People of different millenial persuasions join in supporting involvement in relief and social assistance. But questions of justice and development lead to divergence, raising as they do highly political economic and class issues.

It was stated that not to express a judgment concerning injustice and exploitation is to support tacitly an unjust status quo. Some argued that the church, as church, should be involved in the fight for justice; others said believers should work as individuals for justice and equity, demonstrating Christ’s reign in their own lives. Padilla lamented that Latin American evangelicals often align themselves self-interestedly with political forces of reaction. Emilio Nunez of Guatemala acknowledged that the church in Latin America has “played the game for the political Right” but warned that it must not now repeat its naïveté and serve the purposes of the Left.

Participants were not asked to endorse or sign the report of the consultation. But they did consider the first draft, and received a third draft following the consultation. Running to more than 23,000 words, it may prove the most influential evangelical document of the 1980s. John Stott’s experience and industry served the consultation well. He skillfully summarized areas of consensus without concealing divergent principles of biblical interpretation or understandings of Christian social responsibility, stemming from differing theological traditions and cultural or ideological contexts.

In the report, three kinds of evangelism-social responsibility relationship are identified: social responsibility as a consequence of evangelism, social action as a bridge to evangelism, and social concern as a partner of evangelism. In a memorable section on the question of primacy, the report says: “Seldom if ever should we have to choose between satisfying physical hunger and spiritual hunger, or between healing bodies or saving souls, since an authentic love for our neighbor will lead us to serve him or her as a whole person. Nevertheless, if we must choose, then we have to say that the supreme and ultimate need of all mankind is the saving grace of Jesus Christ and therefore a person’s eternal spiritual salvation is of greater importance than his or her temporal and material well-being.”

The report distinguishes carefully between social responsibility, to which Christians are called, and what it identifies as “false dreams” for the future of human society that are generated by both Marxist and Western materialistic ideologies.

The final report section, entitled “Guidelines for Action.” will probably be the most quoted. Distinguishing functionally between what it calls social service and social action, a short crucial passage delineates the meaning of “socio-political involvement,” the Lausanne Covenant phrase that the consultation had set out to clarify. The report rejects political action entailing civil strife or revolution; it endorses political action consistent with biblical principles where such action is possible.

A major subsection urges that local churches should teach Christians to think in a Christian manner about social issues and questions. But it cautions that where Scripture is unclear churches should beware making pronouncements that would create controversy. The local church should normally avoid partisan politics but should not shirk a prophetic ministry, proclaiming the law of God. It should also seek to meet social, emotional, and physical need, and work for the well-being of society.

The guidelines call Christians in affluent areas of the world to adopt a lifestyle of simplicity and contentment, releasing funds for evangelistic and social enterprises around the world.

Did the grand rapids consultation achieve its stated aim of clarifying the relationship of evangelism and social responsibility? It would be futile to attempt a definitive assessment so soon. But certain features are already clear.

The report is a major evangelical document. Its solid strength lies principally in its practical sections, though its theological chapters are also of great value as a discussion of the issues. The guidelines will undoubtedly help Christians in all kinds of situations and will serve churches and individuals around the world as a foundational reference source.

But the consultation by its very nature did not—and probably could not resolve the underlying theological questions. The meagerness of primary biblical investigation of the issues was disappointing. The focus was theological. Apart from introductory morning Bible studies, there was little explicit consideration of the plenteous biblical material concerning the results of evangelism in the early church, and the relationship between the Christian faith as believed and as lived by the early church. Many of the tensions among evangelicals exposed at the consultation are deeply rooted in divergent approaches to biblical revelation and are based on conflicting views of the nature of the church. Greater evangelical oneness awaits a Holy Spirit-guided deeper understanding of the wisdom and will of God.

Grand Rapids took a major step in clarifying issues related to evangelism and social responsibility and in developing guidelines for action. But many important questions about the content of biblical revelation remain to be tackled if greater evangelical unanimity is to be achieved.

Arthur P. Williamson teaches at the New University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. His field is social policy. He is coeditor of Violence and Social Services in Northern Ireland (Heineman Educational Books, London, 1978).

Five mission leaders react to the relief versus development question raised by Philip Yancey in “The Other Side of Thanksgiving.”

James Plueddemann, former SIM International missionary to Nigeria, now acting dean, Wheaton College Graduate School The article raises two questions. First, Do we feed people if we have no chance or time to tell them about Jesus? It seems crass to say we will not feed the starving unless we can first preach to them. We should refuse to use food as “bait” for evangelism. Our concern for others should automatically result from the love of Christ in our lives. Yet I know also that a person’s deepest need is his relationship to God. So I feel strange if I get torn apart emotionally when I hear of a person dying of starvation but don’t worry much that he will most likely spend eternity in hell. Why is it so easy to give money to the first need, and glibly say, “Go in peace; we’ll pray for you,” for the second? Is it important for people to know they are receiving a cup of cold water in Jesus’ name? When this is possible, I think the answer is, Yes.

The second question asks, By giving relief after the crisis is over, do we do long-range harm by making people dependent on us? I feel important when I can do things for people or to people who are in deep need. Yet Yancey’s article properly points out that to continue to help people by doing things for them once they can help themselves makes them less than human.

How can we stimulate this self-development? We must learn to do it by slowly weaning people from our resources after the crisis is over. The process may hurt for a while, but people generally learn to take initiative when they have to face the consequences of lack of initiative. I know that people can become resentful when we withdraw even a little aid, but if we encourage independence realistically and compassionately, we can foster a sense of dignity in the people we came to save.

I admit, however, that this is easier said than done. In Africa I’ve sometimes seen a no-win situation. People hate us when they’re dependent on us for food, and they hate us when we do not give them food. We ran into a great deal of trouble here in the Sahel area of West Africa. If we withdraw aid it will hurt, and we will face some resentment. In fact, to secure our continued help, people may even try to manipulate us into canceling plans to reduce aid. (Probably if we were in their position we would act as they do. It’s human nature to take the easy path.) But if we withdraw aid very slowly, and give them opportunity to take initiative, we can wean them from their dependence. The alternative is to abandon them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps; this undercuts many development projects.

J. Alan Youngren, consultant to evangelical organizations in marketing and development; coauthor, Your Money: Their Ministry(Eerdmans, 1981) A significant element of Yancey’s article is his documentation of the capacity of relief work to make dependent people. Those in Halba Camp are nourished now, but they are actually less capable of conducting their own lives than they were. And the estimates that one-third of Halba’s residents are not refugees indicate the magnetic attraction of the Western largesse.

Yancey’s documentary approach also makes vividly clear that neither rehabilitation of the people’s means of support nor the educational works of development necessarily, or even likely, grow out of relief efforts. The people’s disdain for fishing, agriculture, and filtered water indicates how long and arduous a process development will be.

Obviously, the potential for lasting solutions is with development, as opposed to relief. Yet the donor is actually somewhat like the refugee. He too fails to respond to the wisdom behind development. As Yancey indicates, agencies are not very successful in getting donors to give to this more significant area.

Two factors maintain the donor’s regrettable preference for relief. First, his giving is triggered primarily by emotion—raw, primitive emotion. And the fund raisers stay with the formula that taps into this. Second, the donor senses the dependence he produces, and it appeals to him. I doubt that the donor will easily forget Somalia once the name has been etched on his mind. Look at his faithfulness to the Korean orphans. If he is convinced that only his giving is preventing a fallback to the original crisis, he is pleased. And he likes the idea that only the strength of America is granting stability to so many areas of the world.

What can relief groups do to change this? I don’t see anything in sight. Those who do not emphasize relief will suffer a drop in revenue.

Of course, an agency can simply raise money for relief and spend it on development. As one fund raiser said, “Half check the box for ‘relief’, and the other half check ‘where needed most’. We can do the smart thing, development, with that.” The problem is compounded because in America everyone has rising expectations. An agency has to grow to hold up its head among its peers. Growth is an American sickness. It’s hard to be at the same level of income as last year.

Some face reduced revenue; that is bad enough. But add to that the problem of failure to grow. The resulting pressure drives fund raisers to the double-minded approach of focusing their ads on relief, but in fine print noting that donations would also be used for development.

Development simply does not “pull” like relief. You could show a crisis and say, “These people are dying of starvation within sight of a river full of fish. They could be taught to fish.” But compared to a movie of kids with flies in their eyes, it would be a failure. If you could put all the emotion back into it, it still would not have the potential to produce dependence. So those donors who take pleasure from being depended on will not be strongly influenced.

Arthur L. Beals, former Conservative Baptist missionary to the Philippines and pastor, now executive director, World Concern Should relief work be separated from preaching the gospel? To answer we must know what that phrase “preaching the gospel” means. Jesus spent little time “preaching the gospel” if we restrict it to its biblical meaning of telling the good news in words.

But suppose we speak instead of “situational evangelism.” We read that “Jesus went everywhere proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God and healing every kind of disease and sickness.” He proclaimed (in words) and he also healed. This is an imparting of life that is verbal only at times. We must not restrict obedience to Christ to the preaching of the gospel, a verbal activity, and then ask, “Is that activity appropriate to relief work?” The answer would have to be, Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. But obedience in life as well as in appropriate witness in words is essential to all relief work if it is being done as Christian relief work in the name of Jesus Christ.

We can also get confused on the difference between our responsibility for obedience and for results. If I witness appropriately in a relief or refugee project, God is responsible for results. In some situations, I may even have a public evangelistic meeting in the camp. On the other hand, in a Muslim culture that is impossible. There my responsibility is to live out my Christian witness and take appropriate opportunities to witness verbally only on a one-to-one basis. God’s responsibility is the result.

Can American donors be reeducated to respond to appeals that are not just emotional? Yes. But to accomplish that, we have to invest both time and resources. We must, for instance, educate the donor to think in terms of such questions as: What is the need in the world? What caused the need in the world? What does God say is the Christian responsibility in addressing that need? What resources are available that I can give to meet that need? What are the problems if those needs go unaddressed? I’d summarize all these as “need education.”

Can relief organizations get contributors to give to sanitation and other systems to battle what Yancey calls the underlying cause of disease? Yes. But we need to make the appeal personal. If we talk about a need for a well we may not get response because the donor does not see the issue in human terms. By contrast, when he sees a starving human being, he says, “I want to help.” How can we present development (the need for clean wells, for instance)? The donor must respond, “I can make a difference in my world.” If we break that need into small enough components he can understand what he can do.

Here is an illustration. We do not try to sell an agricultural program, but rather remind people that it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. And to teach him to fish, we tell donors it costs 50 cents a day to provide the line or bait. People relate to things that are small enough to be achievable within their limited resources. If we can help them do this, we go a long way toward solving the problem of raising money for development.

Someone might ask, “Doesn’t that still mean showing pictures of starving children in a particular area long after they have been fed?” To misrepresent Somalia by depicting starvation that is temporarily under control is wrong. But in trying to explain what is happening so people will intellectually understand and emotionally respond, the relief agency can say, “If we don’t continue our work, this will be the end result.” In a television program I have no problem with showing the picture of a starving child. A year ago, we could show films of children and mothers in our Somali camp starving to death. Today, because of fine relief work, much has changed. Yet if we now were to withdraw both our relief and development work, within 60 days the camp would be right back where it was a year ago. People need to know that.

I don’t agree with the statement, “Relief agencies need situations like Somalia as badly as Somalia needs relief help.” But agencies must be more creative in discovering strategies to get the public’s attention and then show the problem and the way to help. This relates to whether it is legitimate to educate donors with a part of the money they give. I believe it is. So agencies need Somalias only if they do not take the responsibility for showing their donors what is involved. If they fail to do this, all they can do is present the hottest emotional appeal possible.

Ted W. Engstrom, former Youth for Christ executive, now president, International World Vision

Jesus sought the lost and the sick, to save them and heal them. Often the same people had both problems. Today as well we should minister to these multiple spiritual and physical needs when possible.

As far as we know, Jesus did not personally instruct people in the specifics of preventive health care, sanitation, and the underlying causes of disease. But his confidence in the Old Testament shows that he regarded its instructions on preventing disease as important. Leviticus, for instance, teaches the value of cleanliness in eating and drinking habits.

The American Christian needs increasingly to recognize that because the poor of the world will probably never cease out of the land (Deut. 15:11), God is directing a lifestyle for the Christian in which he is told, “Open wide your hand … to the needy and to the poor, in the land.” We should give to the needy not only in times of crisis, but as a regular, lifelong practice.

We are finding that with education, more and more evangelicals are recognizing the need not only for emergency relief, but for long-term programs. We have little difficulty in raising funds for both. For every $3 we raise for relief we can raise $2 for development.

William Snyder, special assistant to the executive secretary (formerly executive secretary), Mennonite Central Committee

Christian relief agencies may underestimate the public’s capacity to appreciate the difficulties in countries like Somalia. Pictures of cadaverous-looking children mislead potential donors because the problems in these countries are much more complex than providing food and medicine. Somalia is 99 percent Sunni Muslim and 5 percent literate; half the people living there are refugees—about 1.5 million. Short-term programs for a few refugee camps simply will not meet such needs. I believe, therefore, that we need to reevaluate the use of funds raised to deal with these broader problems.

In 1981 the Mennonite Central Committee spent a modest $1,720,000 there in cash and materials. It does not get this from the general public but primarily from Mennonite and Brethren in Christ groups, to whom we try to explain the broader problems. As a result we rely less on heart-rending photos and the like. We have chosen to work with the Somali government and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to teach refugees to plant small plots that yield food for a family, and for sale if there is surplus. We teach agricultural skills that refugees may apply wherever they settle later. We also concentrate on women’s education in the Caba Djra region, dealing with such skills as sewing, nutrition, and cooking. In Somalia (but not in every underdeveloped country), the preaching of the gospel will need to follow much later than relief and development ministries. However, there is likely to be some conversation about Christ on the personal level.

Besides money, such work requires people with a long-term commitment, who are trained in theology and languages. They provide a core around which short-termers with more technical skills can be used.

Lunch had just begun when our guest casually announced his family had the day before sold a well-known product, clearing $13 million. Before we even had time to choke on the soup, he exclaimed, “Guess what I discovered in the Bible today!” And he proceeded to treat us to a spiritual feast. It is that way whenever we are with him. He delights in the Lord and his Word.

The Septuagint translation of Psalm 37:4 reads, “Indulge thyself with delight in the Lord.” It is a joy to meet Christians who indulge in the Lord’s delights until they are full to overflowing with spiritual refreshment!

There are also the addicted. Paul refers in 1 Corinthians 16:15 to certain believers who had “addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.”

We knew such a family of Christians in Wheaton when we were there attending college. A large and generous family, they lived in a large and generous Victorian mansion. Every Sunday they laid out a full-course, sit-down dinner for 40 to 60 people—mostly the children of missionaries, but also some who just happened to need a good meal.

Another friend, who lived under a hostile atheistic regime, knit for others. She could turn out a sweater a week—even pants. With bitter winters and no central heating, these provided excellent thermal underwear.

One old Irish friend from China lived in a little room in a retirement home in Belfast. I stopped to see her on a visit to Northern Ireland, and there, in the center of the room, was her work desk: a folding table. “Let me show you what I’m doing,” she said enthusiastically, the blue eyes I knew as a child still lovely, still twinkling.

On the table was an odd assortment of empty plastic bottles, boxes, and bits and pieces no one else wanted. “I send these to my missionary friends to pass around. It helps in a clinic when a wee child has to have a shot.” To those who have nothing, even an empty plastic bottle is a treasure.

Each of these individuals was “addicted to the ministry of the saints.”

“Indulgent in the Lord’s delights” and “addicted to the ministry”: what a combination!

Retiring editor Kenneth Kantzer recalls the most significant changes on the Christian scene of the last five years.

Much has happened during the last five years while Kenneth Kantzer has served as editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. In this interview with Dr. Kantzer, we reflect upon those years as he sees them.

During the five years you have been with CHRISTIANITY TODAY, what have been the most important changes in American evangelicalism?

The single most startling change in evangelicalism is its shift toward political and social involvement. And specially noteworthy is the fact that the segment within evangelicalism most obdurate against such involvement came forward to take the lead.

Growing out of that, and probably in part a result of it, is the tendency for evangelicals and fundamentalists to join forces. Fundamentalists are sloughing off their extreme right wing. Bob Jones is asking whether he can continue to call himself a fundamentalist because the major body of fundamentalists has moved too far from his position. As a result, he distances himself from the large body of fundamentalists moving in the direction of other evangelicals.

In his book The Fundamentalist Phenomenon, Jerry Falwell invites evangelicals to sit down and discuss matters with the fundamentalists. He has made plain that he does not wish to attack evangelicals who hold to the traditional fundamentals of biblical faith.

Of course, most fundamentalists are strongly separatistic, holding not only that it is wrong to participate in religiously liberal organizations but also to cooperate with admitted evangelicals who retain membership in such bodies. For some, this separatist teaching is what divides fundamentalists from evangelicals.

In a historic sense, haven’t evangelicals and fundamentalists really been very close together on basics?

On the doctrines each considers basic to Christian faith, they are in complete agreement. For example, while the National Association of Evangelical’s statement of faith doesn’t have the word “inerrant” in it, it is clearly an inerrantist document. That statement of faith would not only be accepted by fundamentalists, they also reckon that it includes all the doctrines most important to them.

In the political realm Christians must work with others who do not fully agree with them. Falwell and others in the Moral Majority have gotten deeply into this process of bringing together people who may not one hundred percent agree with them—the very thing for which fundamentalism has criticized evangelicals in the past. Has this helped to bring about more realistic thinking on relationships with other Christians?

I think it has done that, but in a complicated manner. The complication is that Falwell and his group of centrist fundamentalists have drawn a clear line in their own minds between political and religious action. Politically, they can work with anyone in a pluralistic society who agrees with them on any issue regardless of that person’s religious views. By contrast, the basis for cooperation religiously is adherence to the fundamentals of the faith. In the political arena, therefore, they accept traditional Roman Catholics, Jews, and Mormons. (A Mormon, in fact, is one of the Moral Majority leaders.) This necessity for cooperation on the political level has taught fundamentalists skills in working with people with whom they don’t fully agree.

Moreover, fundamentalists have also come to realize that they have more in common with evangelicals than they thought. Still, I doubt very much if Jerry Falwell would have Billy Graham, a Southern Baptist, in his pulpit. Nevertheless he has made his peace with Graham. That’s remarkable and a great gain for the entire evangelical cause. The more we can do to strengthen and encourage all evangelicals fully committed to basic biblical doctrine and piety to work together, the better it is for the cause of Christ. One of my major goals at CHRISTIANITY TODAY has been to enlarge such an evangelical consensus.

What do you see as the essence of an evangelical?

Unfortunately the word is used rather freely to mean many different things. The most common usage of the term, however, focuses on what in traditional theology are called the formal and the material principles of the Christian faith. “Formal” is cognate to formative; at stake is how you form your faith. We evangelicals form our faith by what the Bible teaches. We accept the Bible as the infallible and inerrant Word of God. I know some claim they’ve formed their faith by the Bible but don’t want to use the terms infallible or inerrant. I look upon them as inconsistent evangelicals, but evangelicals nonetheless.

The “material” principle has to do with the matter or the essential doctrinal content of the faith. It includes salvation through faith in Christ and such items as are summarized in the Apostles’ Creed.

Is evangelicalism more influential, or less influential, in our culture than it has been?

My opinion—unprovable, I admit—is that evangelicalism is weaker now than it was 15 years ago, or 50 years ago.

People often think it is stronger because they hear more about it in the public media. It certainly has a better press today than it had anytime since the First World War. Then, too, evangelicals now have a greater sense of their own identity than they did earlier in this century. But the influence of evangelical faith and evangelical ethics on our society is less. As a culture, our nation and, indeed, Western Europe are moving away from biblical Christianity.

Most people don’t realize that a hundred years ago the mainline denominations were all evangelical. As late as 1880, for example, you went a long way to find any United Methodist who wasn’t an evangelical. An individual member might be liberal, but he knew what his denomination stood for. And the leadership was evangelical. In the middle of the nineteenth century you really had to turn to the Unitarians to find out-and-out liberals. Now all that has changed. While strong elements of evangelicalism remain in all these denominations, their leadership, and therefore their influence, has become unevangelical. And that in turn has changed the structure of our society.

You portray this strong evangelical history and yet we read that at the founding of our country it was minuscule.

That’s true. Most historians believe that membership in the church at the time of the Revolution was less than 10 percent. In the early part of the nineteenth century the percentage was in the low teens. Through the nineteenth century, membership never came close to 50 percent for all churches—Roman Catholic, Protestant, or others. Now 70 percent of the populace are members of the church.

Was the shift due to the Great Awakening that occurred in that era?

It was partly due to the Great Awakening, but also to the fact that in the United States it became the accepted thing to belong to the church.

But it was not at the founding of our country?

No. Back then you didn’t join a church unless you professed faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and lived a life in conformity with that profession.

But the Christian church now is the center of our population, comprising 70 percent of the adults. You can’t run for a major office today unless you belong to a church. In fact, it can’t be just any church; it has to be a respectable church. Remember the Adlai Stevenson who ran for president? He belonged to the Unitarian church in Libertyville, Illinois, until he began to think about running for president. Then he joined the Presbyterian church because the Unitarian church would never do nowadays (though several of our early presidents were Unitarians; John Adams was a member of a Unitarian congregation in Boston, and Jefferson and Madison were Unitarian in theology).

Are you implying that the 10 percent were as effective in their society as our higher percentage now, or that we really have only 10 percent now who are the salt in that sense?

I suspect the percentage of our population that is evangelical is about the same as it was in the early part of the nineteenth century. But yes, the evangelical influence of that small percentage was infinitely greater than the evangelical influence today. This is due partly to broad changes in our culture extending over several centuries and in part to the fact that evangelical church membership consisted of the educated elite in that day.

Five years ago we were still being shocked by the latest Christian leader who was getting a divorce. We’re still not shockproof, but now we’re used to hearing of many Christians who get a divorce. What are your observations about the breakdown of the family?

I’m agin’ it! There’s no question but that our standards are changing, and not by any means in just the liberal churches. Our thorough-going evangelical churches are changing, too. I think in part this is a corollary of the fact that 70 percent of the populace are church members. A century ago many of these people would not have been church members. But the situation today also has its good side. The church has got to recognize that it’s not a body of well people. It is under orders from Christ to receive sick people into membership—so long as they are spiritually alive. The church, in fact, is a body of sick people trying to apply to each other the medicines provided by Christ so they may become better and stronger. As our society becomes sicker, we are naturally going to have more sick people in the church.

Are we more biblical in being open and compassionate?

Part of the maturity of a church comes in recognizing that it is a healing body that accepts those who haven’t arrived. But that has got to bring tension, because if you accept those that haven’t arrived, then in the minds of many it isn’t so bad not to have arrived. We’re going to have to live with that kind of problem. Biblical instruction is the key to meeting it. Biblical instruction won’t fully solve it, of course, but it’s the way to tackle the problem. The ideal lifestyle for the Christian must be clearly taught and modeled, but part of that lifestyle is to embrace those who are falling short.

What about the fracas over inspiration?

Five years ago I was fearful that evangelicalism would split into two factions: one with a relatively loose view of biblical authority and the other adhering to a very rigid understanding of biblical inspiration. I think that danger is now receding. Today there is a growing consensus of what I believe to be a more sane understanding of what the church has always meant by the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture.

On the other hand, those pushing for a looser view of biblical authority have not been able to sway any large segment of the evangelical community in their direction. And some of those on the outer fringe of evangelicalism are beginning to see that things are not so green over on the other side as they had thought. They have discovered that they are not moving out onto a field of broader opportunity but are approaching the edge of a cliff.

How about new movements in the Catholic church?

One of the most significant developments in our time is what has happened in the Roman Catholic church; everybody knows its major outlines. The Catholic church is now becoming like the Protestant church: a mixture of everything. You have traditional Catholics who accept all the dogmas in typical nineteenth-century form including a distinctive Roman Catholic ethics. At the opposite end, you have liberals who are uneasy about believing in God, let alone in a divine Christ.

The charismatic Catholics form a middle group. Here you find the largest number of those we might call evangelical Catholics, who understand the gospel and draw their spiritual guidance directly from the Bible. Charismatic Catholics do not form a neatly evangelical group, however. Some are also traditional Catholics who would like to roll the church back to the nineteenth century. Others are quite pietistic but fairly liberal in their theology. While some feel comfortable in the doctrinal framework of the Roman church, others reject distinctive Roman doctrines or, at best, sit very lightly on them. For all practical purposes they have become Protestants who remain within the Roman Catholic church because it’s a great mission field.

Some see a religious realignment from Catholic versus Protestant to conservative Catholics and Protestants versus liberal Catholics and Protestants. Do you think that is on target?

Yes. That sort of alignment has been evident ever since liberalism struck the Roman Catholic church at the end of the nineteenth century. Roman Catholics have tended to think that liberals are always Protestant liberals. But they are coming to realize that liberals may also be Catholic liberals. Then, of course, both Catholics and evangelical Protestants are fighting the secularism that looms so large and takes so many different forms today. In self-protection, therefore, conservative Catholics have pulled together with conservative Protestants against common enemies.

What changes do you see on the international scene?

In the last five years the leadership of the church has shifted dramatically from the missionary to Third World nationals. No more than ten years ago, control of the overseas mission lay in the hands of the North American missionary—or worse, in the mission headquarters at a continent’s distance from the field. But today leadership has transferred to the national church. The missionaries are there with resources, education, finances, and particular skills. But they aren’t running the show; they’re waiting until the national church tells them where they can function.

Of course, this has created all sorts of problems. But it has also brought immense good. One side effect is that the new Third World leadership is touchy about doing things the North American way. It has to prove that behind the scenes missionaries are not pulling the strings, but that they themselves are exercising genuine independent leadership.

What do you feel will be the results of this theologically 25 or 50 years down the road? Do you see distinct African and Asian theologies emerging?

When Christianity penetrates an established society, all sorts of new sects spring up. That has proved true in the United States even though American churches are European churches made up of descendents of Europeans. Yet native American sects sprang up. We have our Mormons, our Jehovah’s Witnesses, and especially in Southern California, our 750 varieties of heresy. But all the major denominations remain basically orthodox in their official confessions of faith.

The church in Africa also will surely be molded by its African heritage. But in Africa and Asia, the local homegrown heresies and sects will be multiplied because there the church is adapting to alien cultures. In time, it will develop a more mature and consistent African or Asian theology, and some of the oddities around the fringe will disappear. On the other hand, we who stand more solidly in the stream of Western Christianity cannot reject out of hand the possibility of learning new truth from the Third World churches. God is always free to shed new light on his Word, and we must beware of the pride that closes our minds to fresh insights that can enlarge our understanding of God and his world.

Mainline denominations overseas tend to be relatively conservative, and there is broader acceptance of the ecumenical agenda. Do you see that as changing?

Overseas churches are both more conservative and more ecumenical. That sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? It certainly doesn’t follow our pattern in the West where the more conservative a church is, the less it is likely to be interested in the ecumenical movement. But what seems odd to us in the West makes good sense from the viewpoint of the mission field. Missionaries tend to represent the theologically conservative element in the mainline denominations, and therefore daughter churches tend to be more conservative. At the same time, the mother church is perceived differently by the Third World churches for they tend to see it as reflected in the conservative missionaries. Also, small differences in doctrine don’t seem quite so important in the midst of a pagan society where the church is struggling for its very existence. National churches, therefore, are generally more open to ecumenical movement and less critical of some things that bother us very much. But eventually, I believe they will have to come to grips with the same sort of problems we have had to face.

Do you believe the World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF) and the Lausanne Committee will merge fairly soon?

I think that’s a foregone conclusion. WEF has tied together evangelicals around the world, but it’s been dominated by the Third World group. David Howard’s election as general secretary and the move of the WEF offices to the NAE building are symbolic of what’s going to happen. Perhaps WEF would have preferred a Third Worlder as general secretary, but Howard is very capable and highly trusted by almost everyone. Third World leaders revere Billy Graham and respect NAE. But they don’t want to be told what to do.

In any case, David Howard’s election and the move of WEF to the NAE office building are significant straws in the wind. Both worlds will profit. We can contribute resources and experience to the Third World churches; they, in turn, have much to offer us. There are some very bright Third World leaders around the world. They know what needs to be done, and they are not bashful in saying what they have to say. We can learn much from them.

How do you view the Third World tension between liberation theology and evangelicals? Do you see a healthy intermixing of major dangers?

Let me back up a bit in answering that question. Throughout the entire nineteenth century, evangelicals (especially Puritan evangelicals) were involved in all sorts of social causes. In some ways Prohibition represented the high-water mark of evangelical and Puritan impact on American morals. But when Prohibition failed, evangelicals felt the bottom had dropped out. They had fought for a cause and lost. At the same time they were squeezed out of leadership roles and places of influence in all the major old-line denominations and religious institutions. Their response was to wash their hands of involvement in political and social activity. My father-in-law, a wonderful Christian man, never voted in his life—for conscience’ sake. He didn’t want to waste his time and energies in a fruitless endeavor. His reaction may have been extreme, but it was a reflection of the attitude of many evangelicals from 1920 through 1960. I think the current tendency of evangelicals to move back into social and political action is good. Of course, it also opens the door to many dangers, but basically I think it means we are simply being Christian in our society. After all, our Lord commanded us to be salt to the earth.

Do you see the socially involved Third World leaders maintaining their orthodoxy theologically?

Yes, I do. And influencing Americans along the direction in which the American church is beginning once again to move. Of course, not all are evangelical. I understand and sympathize with the so-called liberation theologians even though I heartily disapprove of their attempts to synthesize biblical Christianity and Marxism. Fifteen years ago in Chile, it was really very, very difficult to maintain a Christian conscience, with a proper regard for humanity, and not want to be a revolutionary. The same is true today in many other parts of the world. Evangelical concern about human justice, human dignity, and basic human rights (including the rights of the unborn) is growing and so is the determination to do something about these matters.

The June consultation on the Relationship between Evangelism and Social Responsibility, sponsored by WEF and the Lausanne Committee, was a major move in the right direction. The sponsors chose the participants wisely. They included not just Third World and mission leaders who would politely agree with one another. They brought in those with sharp edges in their thinking in the hope that evangelicals could find common agreement while still protecting those sharp edges so important to each.

And it happened! By no means were evangelicals as far apart as some had thought. Art Johnston didn’t really think all social action is bound to be sinful. And Ron Sider never did believe the gospel is primarily trying to improve the society in which you live. Grand Rapids was a significant milestone for the evangelical cause. John Stott, with a great deal of help from others, wrote the resulting statement, and it’s a remarkably balanced document.

How do you feel about parachurch organizations?

On the whole I’m sympathetic with parachurch organizations. After all, CHRISTIANITY TODAY is one.

Parachurch structures are usually set up by individual Christians to do what denominations or the local churches have been unable to do. While I would prefer to have such structures directly accountable to the churches, I am grateful that they are doing a job that wasn’t getting done. So I’m willing to put up with poor control that leaves possibilities for any wild-eyed person to do almost anything. Parachurch organizations are getting good things done. And I don’t see any diminishing of the parachurch role in the foreseeable future.

Another recent phenomenon has been the electronic church.

I have mixed feelings about the electronic church. I know the common charge that they are speaking only to themselves. To a considerable extent they are talking only to people who already agree with them and their theology. But that’s not all bad. The saints need instruction and exhortation, too. My own father, though a professing Christian all his life, first found a really vital faith and living hope in Christ by listening to a radio preacher—and not the best one at that.

But the electronic church also reaches a great many who aren’t churched, and so it is an effective evangelistic tool. My grandmother (my mother’s mother) for the first 70 years of her life adhered faithfully to the religion of good “Americanism”: Do your best and in the end everything will come out all right. Then she began listening over the radio to the gravelly voice of Dr. M. R. DeHaan. Through his “electronic church” she came into a wonderful acquaintance with Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of sinners.

The bad part of the electronic church is that it often fosters a private Christianity with no obligation to others. This denies a fundamental aspect of Christian faith: We are a body—a body of human beings united in Christ. All too often the electronic church encourages people to warp biblical Christianity out of shape by turning it into a privatized faith. Yet some in the electronic church do encourage their viewers to get involved in local churches. As a result, many have done so.

Of course, vigorous objections against the electronic church are also raised because it drains money from other Christian organizations. It is true that Christians are contributing hundreds of millions of dollars to the electronic church. We cannot help but wonder if those same resources wouldn’t produce immensely greater benefits in the long run if channeled into colleges, seminaries, missions, and evangelism through the local church. Yet relative values like these are hard to assess. And who can set the price of a soul’s salvation?

How do you assess the boom in Protestant elementary and secondary schools?

Oddly, just at the time the Catholic church is abandoning its schools, Protestants are starting them. Are we evangelicals Johnny-come-latelys or just perverse? I think there is a valid explanation for this dramatic reversal. The Catholic church is becoming more like the populace; it has become Americanized. When someone runs for Congress, you don’t ask if he’s a Roman Catholic—but 20 or 30 years ago you did. Remember the John Kennedy campaign? Today Roman Catholics are an accepted part of society, so separate schools are not as important to them. That’s why they are no longer willing to lay out the immense amounts of money necessary to finance private schools.

Though they don’t realize it, in the past evangelicals greatly influenced what our schools were like. It was the King James Bible that was read in most schools throughout our land. When prayers were offered they may not have been good, warm, evangelical prayers, but they were influenced by the evangelical tradition. The schools also cooperated with evangelical churches. But with the decline in evangelical influence upon our society, and with the shift in mainline religious leadership away from evangelicalism, evangelicals now sense keenly their minority position. They want to educate their children in schools where they can protect their evangelical heritage, which is now under greater pressure than it was even 20 years ago.

The 1962 Supreme Court decision that barred the Board of Regents from formulating a prayer for New York schools triggered the boom. In the minds of many, that ruling eliminated prayer from our public schools. Of course, the decision didn’t really do that, but that’s the way many interpreted it. According to the popular version, it pushed God out of our public schools. Certainly that decision had tremendous impact in encouraging people to start schools.

Incidentally, the charge that private schools were started to foster racism is a red herring. Such schools were infinitesimal, and the great growth of private schools has come primarily because of the desire for Christian education, and secondly, to secure a better quality of education than public schools provided.

What overall quality of education are these kids getting?

On the whole, students in private schools do better on their standardized tests than students in the public schools. Part of the explanation is that they’re a somewhat select group of children with better-heeled and better-educated parents. But that doesn’t explain the significant improvement in test scores for students who transfer from public to private schools. More important is the fact that most who patronize these private schools want their children to learn the three Rs. They don’t look upon school as just a baby-sitting affair or a state requirement. Across the board, private schools are doing the better academic job. What they lack is a great many fringe benefits that cost a lot of money. But some of these, such as music programs and sports, have been curtailed or dropped in some public school districts for lack of funds.

How are our Christian colleges faring?

Many Christian liberal arts colleges are cutting back in quality in order to survive. In my judgment this is tragic since we mortgage the church of the future by providing poor quality college training for our youngsters. I recognize that if Christian people don’t support them, they have to do something. And I deeply regret that evangelicals don’t see the importance of Christian college education. To me, that should be one of the great priorities of the evangelical movement. But it isn’t.

How are we going to finance Christian higher education in view of the staggering costs projected for the decade ahead?

Unless we make a radical change in educational finances, more and more of our students will have no choice but to go to state schools. Some find an easy solution to all our financial troubles in government subsidies. But the old adage is still true: he who pays the piper calls the tune. Unless we can find a way for government to support higher education without controlling its educational philosophy, government supports would prove a curse instead of a blessing.

Most agree that the kind of governmental aid showing most promise is that of indirect grants to students who then would be free to choose their own schools—public or private. Such aid is now available and it does not seem as yet to have brought excessive governmental control. But it needs to be greatly expanded if private colleges are to compete on an equal basis with our public universities.

Do you think more support from the churches is feasible?

By all means! Academic institutions can never support themselves adequately. Even in the unlikely possiblity that indirect government aid to students increases significantly, our Christian institutions will continue to need heavy support. And few evangelical investments could ever bring greater spiritual profit to our churches.

You are personally very much interested in seminary education. What has happened there in the last five years?

Evangelical seminaries continue to grow in size and influence. They are now pouring graduates into the churches in sufficient number to change the whole complexion of the North American clergy. The most conservative and most thoroughly evangelical ministers in the United States are to be found in the under-30 crowd.

Have you changed in the last five years?

I’ve changed in some superficial ways. I’m immensely more conscious about my vocabulary when I write. I strive for a fog index of ten [tenth grade]. If I move back into writing theology, I wonder how my colleagues will respond to theological articles written at that level.

How do you think these five years may have changed the impact of your ministry for the balance of your life?

Six years ago my goal was to get out of administration so I could bury myself in a library and spend the rest of my life writing a systematic theology and erudite books on theology and related topics. As editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, I’ve written for a wholly different kind of reader.

Do you think this will make you more or less effective?

I shall be less effective with professional theologians. I have held serious administrative posts for over 30 years, and I have always given them my best. I am now 65. At my age it is physically impossible to pick up what I might well have been able to pick up six or more years ago. In a way, therefore, my stint at editing CHRISTIANITY TODAY is responsible for a redirecting of my life. I now plan to write primarily for the pastor and the lay person—the same person I’ve been writing for in my CHRISTIANITY TODAY editorials.

Do you feel this is for the good?

Only God knows the answer to that. I think it’s wise for me, given the factors that have molded me across the years. I certainly have no regrets. I teach others that Christians should be servants available for whatever ministries Christ has for them. So I’d better practice what I preach.

If you could remain out there leading the troops, where would you take Christianity and CHRISTIANITY TODAY in the next five years?

CHRISTIANITY TODAY should be a flagship. It should carry the evangelical banner high for all to see. And in setting forth the evangelical faith it should avoid the temptation to settle for a tasteless pabulum concocted from the least-common denominator of all who call themselves evangelical. It should hold forth a full-blooded Christianity. Only thus can evangelicalism be seen for what it really is—an exciting, gutsy faith important for living on planet Earth, and beautifully attractive to the needy soul. Only thus can it serve as a rallying point for evangelicals of all sorts. From time to time, of course, evangelicals will disagree with the articles published in its pages and even with its editorials. But CHRISTIANITY TODAY ought to be the kind of magazine with which the broad spectrum of evangelicals can identify. They need to be able to say: “That’s my magazine. On the basics it represents my kind of Christianity. It faithfully sets forth a truly biblical Christianity, and it does so with honesty and vitality. It makes mistakes, as we all do, but it’s headed in the right direction.” CHRISTIANITY TODAY should carry the flag for biblical evangelicalism.

But CHRISTIANITY TODAY has an even more important role than serving as the flagship of evangelicalism. It is to create an effective leadership for the church of Christ. The evangelical church today desperately needs good leaders. By contrast with the nonevangelical churches, our leadership is not educated. We have zeal and commitment, but we are not well trained with skills for effective leadership. We surrendered that in the early part of this century, and we’re now living in the shadow of that defeat. No doubt, if we had to choose between spiritually committed leaders with zeal for Christ’s kingdom and educated leaders well equipped for their tasks, we should without hesitation choose the former. But neither alone is adequate. Both are essential if the church of Christ is not to suffer.

In the decade ahead, I believe CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S major role is to help equip leadership for the evangelical churches. It must do this in many different ways. Most evangelicals, including its leadership, haven’t really thought through their evangelicalism. The evangelical lay person can’t define evangelical teaching with precision. He certainly can’t articulate biblical doctrines with clarity; sometimes he can’t even list them. Therefore biblical and evangelical teaching do not really shape his ongoing lifestyle and daily thinking. They don’t determine how he reacts when he reads the newspaper or carries on his daily business or pulls the lever in his polling booth or writes his monthly checks to spend his income. CHRISTIANITY TODAY must provide Christian leaders with resources to enable him to shape his conscience. We have no right to play God. But we do have full warrant to explicate the Word of God and what it means to think Christianly according to the Scripture and what it means to live out the Christian life in our world in obedience to the Lord of the church.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY is in an exceptional position to carry out this task. When it was launched, nobody knew what CHRISTIANITY TODAY would amount to, and many were quite suspicious of it. Thorough-going evangelicals were grateful for it, but didn’t realize how influential it was to become. Now we know that three times as many minsiters read it and look to it for leadership as any other magazine. That’s why I have reckoned it a great privilege to be its editor. And that’s why a heavy responsibility lays upon Dr. V. Gilbert Beers, its new editor. He needs the earnest prayers of all of us.