Noodles: A New Symbol?

Noodles have become the foundation of church potluck dinners today. Once they were only a colloquialism defining the addled and trivial, but now they have risen to a place of honor as a basic food of American evangelicalism.

In a recent newsletter from a rather large church, I noted a curious article:

“Please check your Corning Ware dishes. Last week at the fellowship supper someone picked up the wrong dish by mistake. They both had noodles left in them, but one was bigger than the other. If you took home the wrong noodle casserole dish by mistake, bring it to the church office and pick up yours.”

I can’t be the first to react to casserole Christianity. I have no doctrinal objections to eating in the fellowship—while Acts 6 shall stand—but across the years I find myself becoming more and more prejudiced about the rise of the noodle in church life.

My objections are not only peptic but philosophical and symbolic: could the noodle casserole become the cold and sticky matrix of modern church fellowship? Noodles are as cheap as the popular view of grace and are mortared together with bits of tuna, chili, and chicken, thus fitting into any matrix, holding any identity.

But just consider all the unpalatable aspects of this symbol. Noodles are plastic. Noodles are dry—often. Usually they are yellow, an uncourageous color. Noodles are chummy when they are warm, gummy when they grow cold; cheesy at times, and unable to stand firm in hot water.

Of course, koinonia can grow sweet around the noodle, so we should never avoid the church where these bits of pasta are the regular potluck fare. After all, this is the age of the noodle. But beware the fellowship where they seem to be a congregational symbol!

EUTYCHUS

Veiled Mysteries

Thank you for the excellent articles on the Creation-Evolution issue [Oct. 8]. No amount of research, logic, argument, or discussion will resolve the problem of whether the universe is old or young, or when the events of creation week took place. These mysteries are veiled from our view by our Creator.

Most creationists today still operate on a Newtonian view of time and space and are not thinking relativistically as the modern physicist does, and too few creationists spend enough time in the Scriptures to dig out the additional amazing clues to creation tucked away there for our benefit. As a result the Christian “scientific” view is all too often far out of date and not very competitive with what the well-informed non-Christian scientist holds to be the nature of the universe.

LAMBERT DOLPHIN

SRI International

Menlo Park, Calif.

A major contribution to seeing human evolution as a problem is reflected in the editorial: “Though a physical being a human is not just a physical being but also possesses a nonphysical soul/spirit.” But the Bible does not teach that a human being has or possesses a body/soul/spirit unity. It is not that we have things called souls or spirits, but that we are soulful and spiritual because God has formed us in his image. Soulfulness and spirituality are attributes of what that whole human being made in the image of God is. This biblical perspective leaves open the possibility of the emergence of totally biblical human characteristics through God’s activity describable as evolution.

RICHARD H. BUBE

Stanford University

Stanford, Calif.

One small correction: according to the calculations of Bishop Lightfoot, it was man (not the world) that was created on October 23, 4004 B.C. Lightfoot’s calculations led him to the conclusion that the week of creation took place from October 18 to 24, 4004 B.C., with Adam’s creation occurring on October 23 at 9:00 A.M., forty-fifth meridian time.

RONALD YOUNGBLOOD

Bethel Theological Seminary

San Diego, Calif.

I feel CT failed its readers when doubt was cast upon the literal interpretation of Genesis 1. The Bible plainly teaches that God created the world in six days. Any other interpretation of periods of time limits the power of the Creator and contradicts his truth.

When the poor science of sin-degraded man today contradicts the Bible presentation of Creation and the universal flood catastrophe, it behooves the Christian observer to stick with the plain Bible truth. Deviation from this can only add to the great amount of confusion that already pervades Christendom today.

N. J. SORENSEN

Collegedale, Tenn.

Please cancel my subscription to CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Although a nonevangelical, my reading of CT had aroused my sympathy for evangelical doctrines. Your evolution issue, however, brought me up short. Your respectful attention to the scientific charlatans of the Institute of Creation Research and your weak failure to denounce the utter absurdity of the so-called young earth theory (which not only contradicts modern biology and geology, but the whole system of modern physics, chemistry, and astronomy) forced me to recognize the intellectual dishonesty evangelicals manifest when faced with the findings of modern science. Any system of belief that requires such sacrifices of intellectual integrity simply cannot be valid.

ROBERT A. EMERY

Rochester, N.Y.

As a science teacher at a Christian university, I was pleased to see the excellent article by V. Elving Anderson in your magazine. He is well respected in the scientific community and speaks for many Christians in the sciences.

ELLEN W. MCLAUGHLIN

Birmingham, Ala.

I must take issue with Duane Gish’s application of the second law. His claim that “the evolutionary hypothesis contradicts the well-established science of thermodynamics” is patently untrue and such statements are at the root of the ridicule that not only creationists but all Bible-believing Christians are receiving at the hands of many scientists.

The second law of thermodynamics has a much more limited scope of application than Gish claims. It has to do only with the transformation of energy. What the second law says is that when any changes take place within a clearly defined system, the sum of the entropy of the system plus that of its surroundings must always increase. To put it another way, the amount of energy available to do useful work in both system and surroundings must always decrease. That is all the second law says.

Though there is evidence in this for the existence of a Creator, I believe we Christians should advance this argument with some humility. We know only what happens in a small corner of our universe—that is, that entropy increases here. Whether there are natural processes, yet undetected, that might somehow rewind the universe’s energy clock, we cannot say for sure; we simply haven’t found them yet. So the apparently universal increase of entropy, when the universe is considered as a whole, is to be thought of as evidence for creation—though not, as Gish contends, as evidence against evolution.

RONALD L. KLAUS

Philadelphia, Pa.

Feathers, not Features

There was an error in my article “It Is Either ‘In the Beginning God’ or, ‘… Hydrogen’ ” [Oct. 8]. It is stated that “Some evolutionists argue that Archaeopteryx should be considered transitional, although it had 100 percent modern-type bird features, wings, and flew.” This should have read “… modern-type bird feathers …”

DUANE T. GISH

El Cajon, Calif.

Take an Honest Look

The Evangelical Women’s Caucus appreciates your editorial endorsement of “equal rights” for women and your call to evangelicals to “search for fair and righteous laws for every human, but especially now for the women of our land” [“Killing ERA Didn’t Cure the Patient,” Sept. 17].

It is time for evangelicals to look honestly and rationally at what state ERA laws have and have not done. It is time to stop perpetuating sexist, homophobic, moralistic, and sometimes just plain silly propaganda slogans.

NANCY A. HARDESTY

Evangelical Women’s Caucus

Atlanta, Ga.

Correction

A correction to your notes [News, Oct. 8] on revisions to the Episcopal Hymnal: “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was deleted back in 1940; the committee preparing the current version simply rejected appeals that the song be restored. Fortunately, the committee’s decision to omit “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus” as overly militant was overruled by the convention delegates, who apparently recognize Ephesians as an appropriate Christian text.

More interesting than the hymns excluded are several that found their way into the new collection. Most intriguing was the adoption of Shaker theology in “ ’Tis the Gift to be Simple,” perhaps as a gesture of posthumous ecumenism toward that early American cult. Fascinating!

RICHARD R. MOUK

New York, N.Y.

Wrong Source!

Your article “Did Two Scientologist Spies Come in from the Cold?” [Sept. 17] contains the statement, “When Reader’s Digest ran a two-part series attacking Scientology, it was [Ford] Schwartz the editors asked for a list of organizations that could help families of Scientology members.”

While Schwartz sincerely believes this to be the case, his recollection may give your readers a false impression. I was the editor-author of the two articles referred to and met Schwartz about three months before the second of the two articles appeared and after it was, in fact, already written. After our meeting, Schwartz telephoned me several times in his assumed role of anti-Scientology activist and more frequently after our research department, following our standard procedure of checking every fact mentioned in the magazine, contacted the Spiritual Counterfeits Project in which his wife Andrea was working.

Schwartz’s phone calls aroused my suspicions that he might be a Scientology agent, but I treated him as fairly and courteously as I do any potential source, and in response to my questioning, he gave me the names and his evaluations of several anticult activists and organizations. None of those were listed in our article. The three organizations we listed were chosen by me long before I met Schwartz, on the basis of my personal acquaintance with people in the organizations. Schwartz did not know, nor did I tell him, that our article was already on the presses, and hence he was under a false impression as to his influence upon its contents, which was nil.

EUGENE H. METHVIN

Reader’s Digest

Pleasantville, N.Y.

Facing Up To The Holocaust

The holocaust, that Nazi attempt to destroy the European Jews, is a topic with which evangelicals are only beginning to grapple. After all, how can we account for the apparent situation of a holy and transcendent but loving God choosing a people to be his own, working through them to convey his words and gift of salvation to humanity, and then abandoning them to an existence of ongoing persecution and possible extermination? And how do we explain to our Jewish neighbors and to ourselves why Christians have played the central role in promoting anti-Semitism (really anti-Judaism) through the centuries, and why some of the most atrocious anti-Semitic literature in our time has been produced by people who profess to be fundamentalists, and circulated within conservative circles?

The anniversary of the despicable Kristallnacht pogrom that took place in Germany 44 years ago this month makes it appropriate to pause and reflect on the Holocaust. There has been a flood of literature on the subject and the related topic of the Christian struggle against Nazi totalitarianism. The following discussion is designed to help readers thread their way through the maze of recent publications.

Of particular importance is the historical account of the tragedy by Yehuda Bauer, A History of the Holocaust (Franklin Watts, 1982). It is likely to replace the standard work by Lucy S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews (1975). Bauer’s balanced treatment includes an overview of Jewish history, the development of anti-Semitism, and Nazi racial policies; a detailed discussion of Jewish life in the ghettos, the extermination process, and attempts at resistance and rescue; and comments about its moral and spiritual significance.

Three recent symposia merit consideration. The Holocaust: Ideology, Bureaucracy, and Genocide, edited by Henry Friedlander and Sybil Morton (Kraus, 1980), contains the papers of the 1977–78 San Jose Conferences on the Holocaust. Human Responses to the Holocaust: Perpetrators and Victims, Bystanders and Resisters (Edwin Mellen, 1981), edited by Michael D. Ryan, is the proceedings of the 1979 Bernhard E. Olson Scholar’s Conference. Abraham J. Peck edited Jews and Christians After the Holocaust (Fortress, 1982), which is lectures delivered at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnati in 1980.

The San Jose essays deal with historical manifestations of anti-Semitism, life in Germany, the stands taken by various professions, anti-Nazi elites in Europe, attitudes in the United States, and the moral and spiritual aftereffects of the Holocaust. The Olson Conference papers are more narrowly focused but devote more space to the involvement of churches and to theological and ethical reflections. The seven contributors to the interfaith symposium in Cincinnati delve most deeply into the theological implications of the Holocaust.

A thoughtful treatment by a Jewish thinker is Arthur A. Cohen’s The Tremendum: A Theological Interpretation of the Holocaust (Crossroad, 1981). He presents the Nazi death camps as a “new event” in history. Their vastness and terror are severed from the traditional assumptions of history, politics, and morality, revealing the enormity of infinitized man who fears and denies death by building a monument of corpses to it. The Holocaust constitutes an abyss, a caesura in Jewish history, which transforms our understanding of everything that went before and requires a redefinition of God and his relationship to the world and man. This Cohen offers.

Though one might quarrel with some selections (and omissions—and I would have preferred more depth in the editorial comments), the documents assembled by Peter Matheson in The Third Reich and the Christian Churches (Eerdmans, 1981) provide much food for thought. Both Protestant and Catholic Christians welcomed the new order with boundless enthusiasm, assuming that the old values of patriotism, family life, and respect for authority would be restored and the red tide of Bolshevism turned back. But as these 68 church-struggle documents show, the ecclesiastical leaders quickly found the ground cut out from under them by Hitler and national socialism.

Especially striking is the summary of a conversation that two Catholic prelates had with the Führer in April 1933. Hitler pointed out that he was only doing to the Jews what their churches had done for 1,500 years. Surely the chickens of Christian anti-Semitism were coming home to roost! But he also responded to a query about freedom for “confessional” schools (the equivalent of U.S. “parochial” or “Christian” schools) by saying “we need soldiers, believing soldiers.” Because these are the “most valuable” kind, his government would maintain the confessional schools in order to train “believing men.”

Although evangelical participation in Holocaust discussions is less noticeable, a start has been made. Modest evangelical-Jewish dialogues took place in 1975 and 1980; Bonhoeffer scholars Burton Nelson and Ruth Zerner are preparing studies of this towering figure; David Rausch has been writing in the Holocaust area; and the dissertations of Robert W. Ross, So It Was True: The American Protestant Press and the Nazi Persecution of the Jews (Minnesota, 1980), and William E. Nawyn’s American Protestantism’s Response to Germany’s Jews and Refugees (UMI Research Press, 1982) were published.

Jakob Jocz’s The Jewish People and Jesus Christ after Auschwitz (Baker, 1981), is a praiseworthy discussion of the differences between Christians and Jews concerning the role of God, Christology, Hebrew Christianity, Jewishness, mission, and dialogue. It is based on a thorough knowledge of Jewish literature, a sensitivity to Jewish feelings and insights, and a willingness to hold firmly to the central tenets of Christianity.

We will probably never fully understand the Holocaust, but these books are groping in the right direction. Ultimately, we are cast upon the mystery of God in eschatological faith that the Judge of all the earth will make it right, someday, somehow.

Reviewed by Richard V. Pierard, professor of history, Indiana State University, Terre Haute.

Judging English Bibles

The English Bible from KJV to NIV, by Jack P. Lewis (Baker, 1981, 408 pp., $16.95), is reviewed by D. A. Carson, associate professor of New Testament, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

The cascade of new, English translations of the Bible has finally been reduced to a trickle. Most are still in print, making reliable introductions to the strengths and weaknesses of the most common ones of value to the church. Jack P. Lewis, professor of Bible at Harding Graduate School of Religion since 1954, provides just such a guide.

Lewis’s first two chapters survey the history of the Bible prior to the English versions, and the English versions prior to the King James Version. The third chapter focuses on “Doctrinal Problems in the King James Version,” and the remaining 11 chapters examine the strengths and weaknesses of the ASV, RSV, NEB, NASB, JB, NAB, NWT (Jehovah’s Witnesses), LB, TEV (the Good News Bible), NIV, and the New KJV. The book concludes with a 40-page bibliography: two pages on Bible history and translation and the rest a catalogue of most of the principal discussions of the versions treated in the book.

This work does not compete with more comprehensive one-volume histories of the Bible (such as F. F. Bruce’s The Books and the Parchments). It does go over almost the same ground covered by Sakae Kubo and Walter Specht in So Many Versions? Twentieth Century English Versions of the Bible (Zondervan, 1975), albeit in considerably more detail. (Kubo/Specht discuss 15 English-language Bibles in 240 pages; Lewis treats 12 in 400 pages). The stance, theological and linguistic, is as careful and “neutral” as could reasonably be expected. Lewis tries to be even-handed, and the plethora of examples he cites insures that disagreement with him on some detail rarely jeopardizes his larger case. Nowhere does he selfconsciously formulate the criteria by which he assesses “good” and “bad” in translation (unlike, for instance, the work of Eugene H. Glassman, The Translation Debate: What Makes a Bible Translation Good? [IVP, 1981]). But his practice of assessment reveals Lewis as a sympathetic and sensitive supporter of “dynamic equivalence.” Lewis does not come out unequivocally in favor of any one translation. But he insists that although he is hard on some of them, God’s Word can be heard in any translation if it is read prayerfully. He tellingly draws a comparison between English versions of the Bible and dictionaries, for, as Samuel Johnson once said, “Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.” This is an admirable book, one that quietly masks long hours of careful study behind readable prose and mature judgments.

The Preached Word

Thru the Bible, Vol. 1, by J. Vernon McGee (Nelson, 1981,612 pp., $22.50), is reviewed by Paige Patterson, president of the Criswell Center for Biblical Studies, Dallas, Texas.

J. vernon mcgee’s 21 years as pastor of the Church of the Open Door in Los Angeles, followed by a burgeoning radio ministry, well established in his mind that regardless of the proliferation of preaching, there is “a famine in the land for the Word of God.” As a result, he devoted over half a decade to a series of radio messages that began in Genesis and culminated in the Apocalypse. This volume is the first of a projected five encompassing those expositions. McGee’s preface charts the course for his work, stressing that he is making no attempt to present “a theological or technical commentary on the Bible.” He is a “popularizer.”

The introduction concerns the nature of the Bible and gives guidelines for successfully grasping the message of Scripture. McGee stresses his confidence in the Bible, insisting that “the words of Scripture are inspired—not just the thoughts, but the words.” Each book of the Pentateuch is discussed, using format of introduction, outline, and exposition. The introductions are adequate, the outlines superb, but the expositions are a mixed bag.

This critique of the expositions, however, is not an assault on content but a frustration with their brevity. A theologian, pastor, or other serious Bible student reading this will harbor the suspicion that McGee knew a great deal more than he told. Furthermore, Deuteronomy is slighted in space allotment, which seems unfortunate in light of the way Deuteronomy lends itself to the work of the preacher. There are also some unfortunate and inaccurate observations. For example, McGee predicts that by the end of this century the theory of evolution will be “as dead as a dodo bird.” Could we be so fortunate? The theory may appear in a change of dress by then, but not in its posture.

McGee is a “gap theorist” in interpreting Genesis. Creation occurred in six 24-hour periods following the initial upheaval of the primitive earth. He dismisses the possibility that “the sons of God” in Genesis 6 refers to angels. The full historicity of the Pentateuchal narratives is affirmed, and the Mosaic authorship of the whole is assumed. In general, the volume is representative of conservative evangelical opinion with few intrusions of novel or odd interpretations.

The strengths of this treatment of the Torah are principally three. First, for the man with only limited reading time, McGee’s interpretation is a marvel of succinctness and lucidity. Second, this clarity is accentuated by the author’s knack for cogent illustration. With his multifaceted examples, allusions, and picturesque phraseology, McGee’s appealing individualism adds a unique fragrance to the exposition. For example, he advises students to be honest about using the materials of others, counseling that, “You ought to graze on everybody’s pasture, but give your own milk.”

But McGee’s greatest contribution is his demonstration that the Bible is not only understandable but also teachable and preachable. This is true of even such delicate subjects as Zipporah’s circumcision of Gershom (Exod. 4) and the laws concerning unclean bodily discharges (Lev. 15).

The layman will revel in this book, while the pastor and the theologian will find its homey presentation refreshing.

God In Irian Java

The Night the Giant Rolled Over, by Jerry Jenkins (Word, 1981, 160 pp., $7.95), andThe People Time Forgot, by Alice Gibbons (Moody, 1981,324 pp., $5.95), are reviewed by Larry M. Lake, English department chairman at Delaware County Christian School, Pennsylvania.

These two books document the impact of Christian missions on people in Irian Jaya (formerly Dutch New Guinea) from strikingly different perspectives. The Night the Giant Rolled Over describes the role of missionaries and Mission Aviation Fellowship in relief and rebuilding efforts following a major earthquake in 1977. It illustrates the importance of small aircraft in primitive conditions, and portrays the vulnerability and courage of several missionaries, most notably Jerry Reeder and Jeff Heritage, both MAF pilots. Parts of this book suffer from generalizations and a too-broad overview of a complex area. Although Jenkins’s visit to Indonesia was unfortunately brief, he has done his homework; eyewitness accounts of the earthquake and of relief work are detailed and captivating.

The People Time Forgot is the result of a different perspective. Don and Alice Gibbons and their family lived for nearly 25 years with the Damal people of central Irian Jaya. The book sometimes provides an overabundance of detail (place names, intricacies of ritual, meticulous recounting of events), and a tendency to measure the relatively slow growth of the church in other areas by the phenomenal development of the church in the Ilaga and Beoga. But such subjectivity results in an engaging and personal view of the great, often beneficial, changes Christianity has brought to this formerly neglected people.

The book describes Damal life and culture before the missionaries appeared on the scene by recounting the life stories of several Damals who later became Christians, in the style of Richardson’s Lords of the Earth (Regal, 1977). Part 2 describes the efforts missionaries made to reach the Damal, and the Damal’s own myths about the “immortals” with light skin who would someday return to tell people how to live forever. The last section describes church growth, the innovative literacy program in the Beoga valley, and the evangelistic missions Damal Christians are now undertaking in other parts of Irian Jaya, Indonesia. All in all, the reading is good and it offers a rare look at a remote place where God is also at work.

Theologians discover God beyond this world.

What a difference! The idea of a transcendent God appeared to be all but gone 20 years ago. It was either nonsense, myth, untrue, or irrelevant to postmodern man—depending on which theologian you were reading. In 1963 Paul Van Buren’s The Secular Meaning of the Gospel was published. It was followed by a spate of other works that elbowed God out of heaven, leaving man alone to fend for himself.

But in 1964, Herbert Marcuse argued in One-Dimensional Man that the loss of a transcendent point of reference would be humanity’s undoing. In 1969, H. W. Richardson and D. R. Cutler edited Transcendence, a book that challenged this dissolving sense in our technological culture. Also in 1969 Langdon Gilkey sought to reopen the question of God language in Naming the Whirlwind. Then Peter Berger heard a Rumor of Angels (1970). More recently Van Buren has himself come to realize that unless we relate to God in his transcendence, little else is of value. In Discerning the Way (1980) is a section titled “In the End, God.” There Van Buren writes, “That God reign, that all acknowledge Him, that His will be done on earth as well as in heaven—that is the goal [of history]. This makes our walking a matter of cosmic theological importance of the highest sort.”

It is significant that these theologians are returning to the idea of a transcendent God. It is also ironic. A generation ago C. E. M. Joad said in a highly original treatise that decadence does not set in when a particular evil thing is done, but it comes with “the dropping of the object,” the loss of a transcendent point of reference. When transcendence goes, decadence comes. One would have thought that theologians, of all people, would realize this and withstand to the death any encroachment on that fundamental idea. If God becomes simply the “Life Process” or “Ground of Being,” neopaganism is just around the corner. It was not without reason that the prophets of Israel rose up in holy horror against the prophets of Baal and the earthy religion then current in Canaan. Let God once be absorbed into the forces of birth, growth, and death, and everything will go.

In the last quarter-century, the pressure to conceive of God as immanent has been enormous, but its Western roots go back a long way. Beginning with Schleiermacher, there has been in modern times a relentless push toward identifying God with the order of nature. We can see this in such writers as Hegel, the British idealists T. H. Green and B. Bosenquet, Henri Bergson, Samuel Alexander, Alfred North Whitehead, Paul Tillich, Norman Pittenger, and Pierre de Chardin. It is difficult to explain precisely why the idea of a “god within” is so attractive. Historically, it is easy to find contributing factors, such as the theory of evolution, or the leveling effect of psychology that seems to reduce everything to a state of being (mind). Also involved are biochemical explanations of life processes, some theologians’ flirtation with Marxist (neo-Hegelian) ideas, and the modern tendency to see everything in the light of what may be observed. But none of this explains the allure of any theology of immanence, even if it provides a context for understanding it. Perhaps C. S. Lewis was right when he said it was not deism or atheism but pantheism that was the natural state of man and the point to which he rebels.

But happily, a return to transcendence is occurring. And a great deal is at stake—no less than the gospel and historic Christianity.

When we drop the idea of a transcendent God, virtually all the fundamental doctrines of the faith fall with it. Without a transcendent God, the idea of creation becomes meaningless; the created order, in fact, becomes God, coeternal and coextensive with him. The Incarnation cannot be the unique event of the Word become flesh, but becomes a general statement about God being present in all of us, making the world order divine. Without a transcendent God, Jesus might be the high point of the process, and a window into reality, but not the Second Person of the eternal Trinity. Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and his ascension to heaven become simple myth. Prayer, conceived as involving personal interchange, is out of the question because there is nothing to relate to. The Second Coming, final judgment, and personal immortality become equally mythological because the world process is all there is.

Ultimately, the denial of God’s transendence is a denial of the Bible’s teaching. The fundamental postulate of Scripture is that God cannot be thought of simply in this-worldly terms. The apocalyptic descriptions of God in Revelation are dazzling in portraying him as so far above the creation as to be virtually indescribable. God himself sums it up through Isaiah: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Where then is a house you could build for me? And where is a place that I may rest? For my hand made all these things …” (Isa. 66:1–2).

It is only when we see God in all his majesty as transcendent that we will become humble and contrite in spirit, and tremble at his word. We will then experience the comfort of knowing that although far off, God is close to us in mercy and acceptance. That is better than to provoke the One sitting in the heavens to laugh at our arrogance as we seek to dethrone him and put an idol in his place.

Walter A Elwell, professor of theology at Wheaton College Graduate School, Illinois, is a CHRISTIANITY TODAY staff editor.

Almost ninety percent of this rapidly growing “nation” is unevangelized.

America has long been known as the “melting pot” of the world. For many years, individuals and families from every nation under the sun have swarmed to the United States in search of a new life. In the past, the vast majority of these immigrants were European. Today, however, almost one out of every two newcomers is from Latin America.

More than 12 million Hispanics now reside in the U.S. They are found not only in the Southwest, but in large cities and small communities as well. New York City, for example, is home to almost two million Latinos. In such cities as Miami and San Antonio, Latin Americans constitute over one-half the total population. Except for Mexico, Spain, and Argentina, the U.S. has more Spanish-speaking people than any nation in the world.

But over 90 percent of this vast nation within a nation remains unevangelized. “They are part of the 130 million souls of the world who, according to missiologists, would receive Christ if only confronted with a clear and simple presentation of his claims,” states Dick Mercado, general director of the Mexican Gospel Mission in Phoenix.

How can we meet this growing Latin American challenge?

First, we must recognize that different areas and circumstances pose different problems. Hispanics in major cities often constitute large and distinct communities. While these communities tend to become isolated, usually Spanish-speaking churches can be formed within them. This is not always possible in smaller communities, and Hispanics there must be reached through the resources of established, English-speaking churches. Border areas, of course, have their own unique problems and opportunities. Prejudices are sometimes magnified, but the lifelong exposure these people have to one another’s culture and language often provides open doors for ministry.

People involved in cross-cultural ministries agree that certain principles must apply. First, and most important, we must avoid prejudice or condescension. We must respect cultural differences, recognizing that the cultures of other ethnic groups are as valid as our own and in no way inferior. Neither should we group all Latinos together. There is considerable difference both linguistically and culturally among individuals from different Latin American backgrounds. Culturally, a Mexican from Chihuahua may have more in common with an English-speaking Texan than with a Spanish-speaking person from South America.

We must also minister to Latin Americans in their own language whenever possible. This may be difficult. But we must always remember that the language of love, expressed in genuine consideration and open friendship, often speaks louder than words. At the very least, Spanish Bibles, hymnals, and other materials should be made available.

Robert Weiss, pastor in a small, agricultural community in the mid-South, found himself thrust into a ministry to Hispanics without warning. “One Sunday morning, a Spanish-speaking family attended our worship service. I could not speak a word of Spanish and they could not understand English. I was at a total loss until I recalled a young member of our congregation knew Spanish. With his help I was able to communicate at least.”

Weiss investigated, and found people in his community from Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Colombia. Some were migrants, following the crops from state to state; others had settled down and found permanent jobs. “In both cases,” Weiss remarks, “no attempts were being made to minister to their spiritual needs. We began to visit and actively seek their presence and participation in our services.”

We also need to recognize the physical needs of these people. Most are here to gain economic opportunities. Many are attempting to escape incredible poverty or repressive political situations. Unfortunately, their condition is sometimes little improved by immigration. San Francisco’s “Mission District,” for example, comprises some 150,000 persons from every nation in Latin America. With a median income one-third less then the citywide average, 12 percent unemployment, and school drop-out rates of from 12 to 14 percent, their needs are often acute.

Lutheran Latino Ministries in San Francisco supports worship services in Spanish, provides legal service for immigrants, Christian education in a multicultural setting, summer programs for underprivileged children, and cross-cultural workshops to promote greater understanding between Anglos and Latinos. Citizenship classes and courses in English also help newcomers to become part of a new, sometimes strange culture.

Government sources indicate that by 1990 the Latin American community may outstrip the black population to become the largest minority in the U.S. We must plan now to meet this growing challenge. We need to present the claims of Jesus Christ with boldness and clarity, and out of hearts filled with genuine concern for the spiritual as well as the material and social need of our fellow human beings.

Mr. Clark is director of Las Buenas Nuevas/The Good News, a bilingual ministry in the U.S. and Mexico, based in Bisbee, Arizona.

Assets increase, but the soul slides nearer bankruptcy.

Christians who read john updike are often eager to speculate on the writer’s religious faith. “Oh, he must be a Christian,” some say. “Look at the theology in his books.” But no one ever says point-blank, “Yes, John Updike is a Christian. I heard him say so.”

A 1968 Time magazine cover story on Updike included a short reference to a religious experience he had around 1960. It said Updike was raised a Unitarian amid Lutherans and Amish of southeastern Pennsylvania, joined the less-liberal Congregational church in 1959, and a year later, when the awareness of the passing of time pressed closely upon him, he felt a constant sense of horror about death. The fullblown religious crisis lasted several months, and Updike got through it only by clinging to the stern theological teachings of Karl Barth.

One might conclude that, yes, Updike may have had a conversion experience. Whatever the case, his works of poetry and fiction seem to be shot through with Reformation theology. Many articulate a powerful sense of sin and its far-reaching effects on people.

In his novels Rabbit Run (1960), Rabbit Redux (1971), and now the Pulitizer Prize-winning Rabbit Is Rich (1981), this sense of sin exists in its most graphic and troubling form. The books develop a tragic character, Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, who has led a steadily decaying existence since his glory days as a high school athlete.

In Rabbit Is Rich, Harry has become a prospering Toyota dealer. At middle age, he is making a financial go of it, while the rest of the world seems to be running down, and on empty. But there is counterpoint here: as Harry’s assets increase, the equity of his soul slides nearer bankruptcy. Harry knows this but seems powerless to help himself. He is a midlife survivor, a soul hanging by an unraveling thread. “In middle age you are carrying the world in a sense and yet it seems out of control more than ever, the self that you had as a boy all scattered and distributed like those pieces of bread in the miracle.” Harry’s fragments are scattered along a trail of mistakes: the ghost of an extramarital affair that haunts him; a tormenting, bruised fatherhood; a relentless hourly lust that seems demonic.

Can the slide of Harry’s “good American soul” (Norman Mailer’s term) be traced back to his childhood conception of God? There is a feeling of slippage here. Harry feels that God somewhere deserted him; in his mind, he and God have not been on speaking terms for quite a while.

This “stony truce” is further complicated by a nourished, focused anger at God for the way things have gone for Harry. He blames God for life, for death. “A girl called Jill died when Harry’s house burned down, a girl Nelson [Harry’s son] had come to love like a sister. But the years have piled on, and the surviving have patched things up, and so many more have joined the dead, undone by diseases for which only God is to blame.… Think of all the blame God has to shoulder.”

With God so nebulous, Harry’s sins run unchecked; but he is not completely without conscience. He looks back on his affair of 20 years earlier, the memory triggered one day when a young woman he knows to be his own offspring strolls into his Toyota dealership. He thinks: There is no getting away; our sins, our seed, coil back.

But stabs of conscience or not, Harry’s sins—and the sins of those closest to him—collect like iron shavings on magnets. Harry’s whole existence edges toward trouble. Sexually, Updike tells us, he tries to picture things that will turn him on. But he is running out of pictures. His wife, Janice, brags to her mother about her own affair, which happened simultaneously with Harry’s. Why the two have stayed together through the years is at least partially summed up thus: “One of their bonds has always been that her confusion keeps pace with his.” The absence of peace, drummed into Harry’s head by a crusty Sunday school teacher in his youth, has arrived. Harry believes everyone starts behind an eight ball, and that he and his circle of mateswapping friends are tumbling down a chute together. In a grumble of stale bitterness, Harry thinks: We are all of us filled with a perfect darkness.

Nowhere is Harry’s darkness greater than in the relationship between himself and his son, Nelson. It seems exactly Freudian, with father and son unconsciously wanting to kill each other. After dropping out of Kent State University, Nelson has returned, still bitter, wanting a share in the family business. With him is Melanie, a girl he spends nights with but will not marry because he plans to wed Pru, a girl who is pregnant by him. Taking Nelson into the business means Harry will have to fire Charlie, his best friend, and also the man who participated in his wife’s affair.

But take Nelson into the business is what Harry must do; his wife and mother-in-law insist. One day, sitting by a swimming pool with Janice and friends, Harry thinks that “someday what would give him a great deal of pleasure would be to take a great round rock and crush [Janice’s] skull with it.” But this frustration is not even close to the feelings of anger and hatred and spite he has for Nelson.

In the book’s most rueful scene, Harry watches Nelson fumble through the marriage ceremony with his pregnant bride. “The burning in [Harry’s] tear ducts and the rawness scraping at the back of his throat have become irresistible, all the forsaken poor ailing paltry witnesses to this marriage at Harry’s back roll forward in hoops of terrible knowing, an impalpable suddenly sensed mass of human sadness concentrated burningly upon the nape of Nelson’s neck as he and the girl stand there mute while the rest of them grope and fumble in their thick red new prayer books after the name and number of a psalm announced.… Rabbit cannot contribute … because he is weeping, weeping, washing out the words, the page, which has become as white and blank as the nape of Nelson’s poor mute frail neck.… There is this place the tears have unlocked that is endlessly rich, a spring.”

Rabbit Is Rich cries real tears—tears of pity, of anguish, of the soul running a race for cover—tears that began their flow with Rabbit Run and Rabbit Redux. That these books bawl with human despair and ache with vulgarity, abrasive language, hopelessness, and sin really isn’t surprising. What continues to surprise, though, is that the characters, the settings, the problems and dilemmas that set the conflict in motion, are so down-the-street, so mid-American. Are these the full implications of a secular humanism so widespread and rampant that no part of society is exempt from its presence and effects? It is a question critics such as Dean Doner started asking 20 years ago.

Says Doner, writing about Rabbit Run, “Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom is fleeing from a great number of things, many of them the usual pressures, the usual traps, of contemporary life. Few novels delineate more clearly the claustrophobic nature of our institutions: an economy which traps a man into a mean, petty, lying hucksterism; housing which traps a man and his family into close, airless, nerve-shattering ‘togetherness’; unimaginative, dirty cities which offer no release for the spirit; the ugly voices of advertising and television; the middle-class morality which wars with man’s nature. These are the common villains. But behind all these forces, as though they were mere façades, lies the real net which snares this Rabbit. That net is essentially the total implications of humanism, the denial of the Unseen …”

Formerly assistant editor of LEADERSHIP magazine, Mr. Pawley is currently a free-lance writer living in a Chicago suburb.

Decked with robes, dresses, flags, and banners of many national colors, more than 3,500 Christians from 29 countries gathered in Jerusalem last month to celebrate the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles and show their support for Israel.

The celebrants could not have met with better timing for their purpose and enthusiasm. The gathering coincided with the wrenching introspection many Israelis went through over the massacre by Christian militia troops of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who were in camps under Israeli charge. It also coincided with the burning down, in a suspected act of arson, of Jerusalem’s Narkis Street Baptist Church. Many at the feast opened their wallets to help rebuild the gutted structure.

The eight-day celebration, organized by the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, began October 3, and filled the city’s largest auditorium and conference center. The days were taken up with seminars, mostly dealing with a biblical view of modern Israel. The evenings were devoted to a common meeting in the main auditorium.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin addressed the opening night crowd of 4,000 people. Apart from Knesset debates, it was his first public address after the massacre. He received a standing, whistling ovation—better, as one in the audience said, than he would have gotten from Israelis.

Looking weary and leaning on a cane, Mr. Begin called the meeting “one of the greatest manifestations of the brotherhood of nations and of Christian-Jewish solidarity. We, believing Jews and believing Christians, can work together so that our children and our children’s children can live in peace,” he said. He briefly defended Israeli actions in Lebanon and outlined proposals for Palestinian self-administration on the West Bank. He left after another standing ovation.

The evening’s main speaker, Lance Lambert, a Jewish Christian who has lived in Israel since 1973, lined out the prevailing view of the conference and of the Christian embassy. “Some want this government to fall,” he said, referring to the political clashes that followed the Phalangist massacre. “What I know is this: Israel will not fall. She will not fall because God has raised her up. God has regathered her; God has given his word she is home to stay.

If anyone disagreed with him, it was not evident in that most receptive audience. The largest part of those at the celebration came from the United States. Other large delegations came from England and South Africa. It was evident that many of them belong to the charismatic renewal. Most raised their hands during times of worship and praise, and numbers danced in the aisles when the music moved them, which was often.

This was the fourth celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles organized by Christians in Jerusalem in as many years. In 1979, a number of Christians living in Jerusalem decided to observe Succoth (as the feast is known) among themselves. In 1980, after Israel made Jerusalem its capital and foreign governments moved their embassies out of the city at the behest of Arab nations, the International Christian Embassy was founded, and it organized a more formal celebration of the feast. Last year, the embassy’s efforts drew 3,000 people to Jerusalem with the theme “Israel, you are not alone.”

The idea behind the feast, according to Jan Willem van der Hoeven, one of the founders of the embassy, is Zechariah’s prophecy (14:16) that all the nations will go up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles after the return of Jesus Christ.

On the fourth evening of the conference, Maj. Saad Haddad, commander of Christian militia forces in southern Lebanon on Israel’s border, was an unexpected guest speaker and, for nearly an hour, explained why some Lebanese Christians feel that Israel’s actions in Lebanon were the only way the country could restore self-government.

The next afternoon, on the eve of the Sabbath, thousands of the celebrants walked with banners proclaiming love and support for Israel down the steep slope of the Mount of Olives from Beth-phage to the western wall in the old city.

Some of the feast’s celebration was quieted by the news that the Narkis Street Baptist Church, a large wooden structure, had been totally burned early Friday morning. At the church’s regular Saturday service, which was held in the church yard beside the charred stucco walls that remained, Rev. Robert Lindsey, the church’s pastor, said that the congregation had grown from 12 to 120 since 1976. They had been praying for fire from heaven and for larger quarters, he said, but had not expected the answer in the form it came. Nearly 1,000 people filled the yard, and when the call was made for help in rebuilding the church, dollars, shekels, and checks overflowed the collection plates.

EDMUND K. GRAVELY JR., in Jerusalem

Mormons Add A Twist To Their Holy Book

The Book of Mormon is no longer just the Book of Mormon. Church leaders announced in early October that, in order to clarify that Mormons believe in Christ, the name of one of their holy books would be expanded to the Book of Mormon—Another Testament of Jesus Christ. (Mormon Christology, however, substantially differs from that of orthodox Christianity, CT, July 16, p. 30.)

The selection received the required unanimous vote of the First Presidency of the Church—its highest governing body—and its council of 12 apostles. According to Don LeFevre, the church’s director of press relations, the name change is the most dramatic manifestation of a “long-standing idea to seek to be better understood.” LeFevre said, “Many of our missionaries find that our nickname [Mormon] is more popular than our real name [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints].”

LeFevre explained, “We simply want to educate those who think the Mormon church is not Christian, to clarify that Jesus is a central figure in the Book of Mormon.”

High Court Hears Bob Jones Case

Bob Jones University first began tangling with the federal government 12 years ago, when the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced it would no longer grant tax-exempt status to certain institutions it deemed racist, including Bob Jones and Goldsboro (N.C.) Christian Schools. The fundamentalist Christian schools haven’t had much success in the courts since then, and their case finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court October 12. The hearing drew the largest crowds since the Watergate tapes and reverse discrimination cases of the 1970s. According to William B. Ball, the counsel representing Bob Jones, “no case of recent years has been more fraught with potential consequences.”

Supreme Court justices are aware of the tightrope they are walking. Should the Court decide in favor of schools such as Bob Jones, which bars interracial dating and marriage, and Goldsboro, which does not admit blacks, the civil rights camp will charge the government with subsidizing racial discrimination. But if the Court supports the res in its efforts to discourage the growth of “segregation academies,” the effects on religious freedom in the United States could be far-reaching.

Repercussions, according to some civil rights groups, could extend to other institutions which currently enjoy tax-exempt status, including, for example, all-boy and all-girl private schools and churches that refuse to ordain women.

William T. Coleman, the Court-appointed attorney arguing for the IRS, contends a decision against Bob Jones would not have repercussions elsewhere. He argued before the Court that racial discrimination is in a category by itself. Coleman argued that institutions that violate the “fundamental public policy” against racial discrimination are not “charitable” within the meaning of the tax exemption provisions.

Ball, on the other hand, maintains the case is one of “religious civil rights.” Ball contends that the actions of institutions such as Bob Jones are motivated not by racial discrimination, but by sincere religious conviction (CT, February 19, p. 26). According to Ball, the issue is “whether government may require that the exercise of a proved, long-held and sincerely held religious belief, by an institution … shall, on the ground of conflict with ‘federal public policy,’ result in the denial of its tax-exempt status.”

Another dimension of Ball’s argument concerns whether or not the res, without explicit authorization from Congress, has the power to determine which institutions should be tax-exempt.

Private charities, schools, and a coalition of more than 400 other groups, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief, are all anxiously awaiting the Court’s decision, which will come by next summer.

North American Scene

National Bible Week, November 21 to 28, marks the bicentennial of Bible publishing in the United States. The Laymen’s National Bible Committee, the sponsor of National Bible Week, has notified 2,400 public and university libraries of the week, requesting observance through special exhibits and activities. On September 12, 1782, the Continental Congress authorized publishing of the King James Version of the Bible by a Philadelphia printer.

Congress has adopted a resolution asking President Reagan to designate 1983 the Year of the Bible. The resolution asserts that “the history of our nation clearly illustrates the value of voluntarily applying the teachings of the Scriptures in the lives of individuals, families and societies,” and that “renewing our knowledge of and faith in God through Holy Scripture can strengthen us as a nation and a people.” Senator William Armstrong (R-Colo.) sponsored the legislation. As commemorative legislation, it requires 30 signatures from the Senate and a majority, 218, from the House before it can be considered.

Consumption of alcohol, even in the smallest quantities, prevents the growth and reproduction of red blood cells, according to Dr. Jerry L. Spivak of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Spivak adds that the ill effects are “transient and reversible,” that the red blood cells return to normal when the alcohol leaves the system, and that the damage can be minimized by taking certain vitamins and eating green leafy vegetables. According to the latest Gallup poll, the number of Americans who drink is down from 70 percent in 1981 to 65 percent in August of this year.

Nyack College, Nyack, New York, celebrated its centennial year during its homecoming weekend in mid-October. Founded in 1882 as a missionary training school, Nyack is the oldest Bible college in North America, the forerunner of some 400 similar institutions. The weekend’s activities included the inauguration of Nyack’s new president, David L. Rambo. Rambo replaced Thomas P. Bailey who retired after 35 years of service to the college.

The U. S. Supreme Court next spring will review a Minnesota tuition tax credit law similar to a bill proposed by the Reagan administration. Last spring, in the case of Mueller v. Allen, a federal appeals court upheld a 1955 Minnesota law permitting parents to deduct up to $700 in state taxes for the educational expenses of each child. Noting that it applied to parents of children in both public and private schools, the court determined the law was neutral under the First Amendment. But opponents of the law, including the American Civil Liberties Union, note that about 95 percent of the students enrolled in nonpublic schools in Minnesota attend religious schools. Many view the case as a test of the Reagan administration’s national tuition tax credit proposal.

A modern day version of the story of the Prodigal Son is the subject of a major feature film to be released in commercial theaters by World Wide Pictures in 1983. An impressive array of craftsmen has been hired to assist in the making of the film, called The Prodigal. The producer is Ken Wales, a Christian who has served as an actor, writer, director, and producer of numerous films including The Tamarind Seed and Revenge of the Pink Panther. William Creber, the film’s production designer/art director is a three-time Academy Award nominee for his work on Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, and The Greatest Story Ever Told. The Prodigal, which will be shown in commercial theaters around the world, features Billy Graham preaching at his crusade in Spokane, Washington, in August.

The National Federation for Decency has assailedPlayboymagazine for publishing a sexual fantasy they believe parodies the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Donald Wildmon, a United Methodist minister who founded the organization, has registered complaints with Playboy’s major advertisers and said he planned to mail a copy of the article to 160,000 clergy throughout the nation. The article is actually a story in which a “stupid” couple agrees to have a “more intelligent friend” impregnate the wife. While the action is in progress, the husband visits the park where he is visited by an angel-like nymph who tells him, among other things, that he is Joseph, his wife is Mary, and his son will be a genius, the Messiah. Then the angel has sex with the husband to “demonstrate what heaven really is.”

A rumor that Stephen F. Olford was murdered at Calvary Baptist Church in New York City was refuted by Encounter Ministries, Inc., the organization Olford founded and leads. Olford, who pastored Calvary Baptist from 1959–1973, was in England when reports of his death began circulating in late September. The National Association of Evangelicals received calls of condolence from throughout the United States. A young man claiming to be a relative of Olford falsely informed the president of Bethel College in Minnesota of Olford’s death. No further explanation has been offered as to how and why the rumor spread.

Led by a plummeting Catholic school population, the enrollment in private schools in the United States has declined sharply, according to a Census Bureau report. The report also revealed an increase of more than 30 percent between 1964 and 1979 in black enrollment and a 37 percent skid in the number of whites enrolled.

Twenty-one boxes of the personal letters and journals of reclusive Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard will remain in the custody of the Los Angeles County clerk pending trial over whether the church or its former archivist, Gerald Armstrong, should have them. Fearing the material will be used to represent Hubbard unfavorably, the church is suing Armstrong, a former member, claiming he stole the documents, estimated to be worth several million dollars to collectors.

Nurses in some San Francisco area hospitals are refusing to assist in second-trimester abortions, causing the hospitals to put new limits on abortions. The nurses say it is too traumatic for them to work with fetuses the same size as babies they work to care for during child birth. Margaret Crosby, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney, views the refusal by hospitals to do late-term abortions as “yet another assault” on the right to abortion.

Earlham College, a Quaker school is rushing to the aid of young men who have refused to register for the draft. The school is backing Mike Frisch, 20, who decided two years ago not to comply with the registration law. Earlham says it will make up any federal aid a student loses because of failure to register. Earlham’s president, Franklin Wallin, says, “We’re not doing this for people who forgot to register or were too lazy to do so. This is just for people who are doing it as a matter of principle.”

Leaders of the Alliance of Latin American Youth Movements have set a goal to lead 10 million Latin American youths to Christ in 1984. The fledgling Costa Rica-based group presented its evangelistic plan to southern California missions executives at a Los Angeles luncheon hosted by the Open Doors with Brother Andrew organization.

Conservative Churches Grow, But Not By Witnessing, Canadian Researchers Find

A Canadian sociological study calls into question the assumption that evangelical churches are unusually successful in winning unchurched people. Sociologists Reginald W. Bibby of the University of Lethbridge and Merlin B. Brinkerhoff of the University of Calgary base their contention on a five-year study of 16 evangelical churches in Canada’s “oil capital,” Calgary, Alberta.

They enlisted the cooperation of the congregations in analyzing the backgrounds of all new members received from 1976 through 1980. The designated membership categories were reaffiliation (transfer of membership or resumption of lapsed membership), birth (immediate family members), and proselytism (those with an unchurched background).

Their findings closely paralleled those of a previous study they had conducted in Calgary 10 years earlier. “In both decades, growth was primarily internal, representing the procreation and circulation of ‘the saints’,” they concluded.

Seventy percent of the additions came from transfers of membership of people who were already Christians, and 17 percent were from families of members. In that fast-growing urban center, only 13 percent of the additions were from the ranks of the unchurched. (Most of those unchurched had been reached through Christian friends or relatives.)

The sociologists concluded that “these findings … do not support the imminent prospect of proselytism becoming the major new membership pathway which will revitalize ailing churches.”

They recognize that their findings run counter to evangelical assumptions and to some of the conclusions of Dean Kelley in his book Why Conservative Churches Are Growing.

The two contend that their findings “offer a fairly conclusive case for the limited outreach of conservative groups in Canada.” They add, “We would maintain that any departure from our central finding in any modern industrial country—including, of course, the United States—is not to be expected.”

They intimate that failure to make evangelistic inroads into the ranks of the unchurched, secularized majority could be disastrous for Canadian churches. Previous studies by Bibby revealed that since World War II, the proportion of Canadians attending weekly church services had dropped from two-thirds to one-third of the total population. The two warn the percentage could drop considerably lower by the turn of the century.

The Calgary study involved congregations of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, several Baptist groups, the Missionary church, Nazarene church, the Pentecostal denomination, Christian Brethren, and the Salvation Army.

The sociologists’ findings were presented in a paper, “Circulation of the Saints Revisited,” at the annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Providence, Rhode Island, late last month.

LESLIE K. TARR

World Scene

A church group in the Netherlands published a book full ofNATOmilitary secrets last month. The Interchurch Peace Council produced the 72-page book in Dutch and are selling it at a cost of about $2.50. The book is headed straight for the best-seller list, and NATO officials at its Brussels headquarters are hopping mad. The group isn’t saying how it got the information and argues that the public has a right to know everything.

The primate of an Orthodox denomination in the U.S. agreed last month to leave the United States if federal authorities dropped charges that he incited anti-Semitic violence in his native Romania during World War II. Archbishop Valerian Trifa, 68, heads the 35,000-member Romanian Orthodox Episcopate, with headquarters near Jackson, Michigan. He denied accusations of writing inflammatory newspaper articles and making anti-Jewish speeches, one of them said to have touched off four days of rioting in Bucharest in which 300 Christians and Jews were killed. But he admitted that he belonged to the fascist Iron Guard and that he had lied to American immigration officials 32 years ago to win an entry visa. The Justice Department said Trifa is the first person to be forced out of the U.S. for concealing war crimes from immigration officials.

The Austrian (Lutheran) Protestant Church appears to be placing a fresh stress on evangelism. At the end of September it held its first Protestant convention in Salzburg to promote a missionary emphasis, drawing some 1,000 participants. According to one of the organizers, the convention was designed to supplement earlier youth conventions (CT, June 12, 1981, p. 44), reaching up to the 25–40 age group. The head of the Protestant church’s department of evangelism and church growth, Klaus Eickhoff, said that most Austrians have been christened but no longer know “the gospel of reconciliation,” and therefore are “without faith, without hope.” No free church pastor could have said it better.

The recession’s punch is hitting West Germany’s Lutheran church especially hard. Under the republic’s state church system, all church members are obliged to pay a state church tax equal to 8 or 9 percent of their income, which is channeled back to the church. Those who are not members are officially leaving the church to save money, although some continue to attend services. Others find this an opportune time to depart as a way of protesting church policies, perceived as too liberal by many Germans. The majority still retains membership in the state churches (Lutheran and Roman Catholic), with 80 percent in the system overall, but membership is declining noticeably in the big northern cities—to 50 percent in Hamburg, for example.

Efforts to grant the Siberian Seven U.S. permanent resident status are stalled for this session of Congress. The Pentecostal believers, who have remained in sanctuary in the U.S. embassy in Moscow for almost four-and-a-half years, seek to emigrate in order to practice their faith in freedom. A bill to grant them permanent resident status passed the Senate unanimously in July. But the chairman of the House Immigration Subcommittee, Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli (D-Ky.), believes the measure would set a bad precedent and has bottled it up in his committee. Meanwhile, the eldest Vashchenko daughter, Lidia, has resumed her hunger strike.

At the Islamic Conference’s thirteenth annual session in Niamey, Niger, agreement was reached on providing financial and other assistance to Uganda, Malaysia, and Niger for establishing Islamic universities. And the United Arab Emirates announced that it will send 1 million copies of the Koran to Niger as a gift.

Madagascar is an ecumenist’s dream. The Federation of Protestant Churches in Madagascar has had just two member denominations: the Church of Jesus Christ in Madagascar (FJKM) and the Malagasy Lutheran Church (FLM). In September the island nation’s two groups voted to merge, thus making the federation redundant. The FJKM was itself a 1960s merger of Anglican, Reformed, and Friends churches, and the FLM joined three Lutheran bodies from Norway and the U.S. The combined membership accounts for more than 1.5 million of the country’s 9.2 million citizens.

Two South African Dutch Reformed denominations suspended from membership in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) in August for their espousal of apartheid have reacted in different ways. The smaller group, the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk, resigned from WARC. But the dominant group, the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk, invited its colored (mixed-race) daughter church, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (NGSK), to hold talks with it. The NGSK accepted the offer.

Four missionaries in Algeria have been permanently expelled. The four, all with the North African Mission, have been working among the Kabyles, a minority race in the country. No explanation has been given for the expulsions, but the line of questioning by officials suggests a political rather than a religious motive. In neighboring Morocco, by contrast, Dutch tourist Paul de Kloe was recently sentenced to two years of imprisonment for distributing religious literature without official permission, an infringement of Moroccan law. De Kloe has now been released after appeal and concerted outside representation on his behalf.

A central synagogue for Jerusalem was dedicated in August. Costing more than $14 million, the Jerusalem Great Synagogue—not a temple—seats 1,700 men, plus 600 women in its balcony. Designed as a meeting place for all Jews, not just particular factions within Judaism, its opening was an important event in national life, even though it was overshadowed by the Lebanon invasion.

Ten years after, the children were still acutely troubled.

The most extensive study of divorced families ever undertaken has yielded grave findings and has seriously challenged the conventional wisdom on the subject.

The Children of Divorce project, begun in northern California in 1971, studied 60 divorced families spanning a variety of racial and economic backgrounds. The 131 children involved ranged from 3–18 years of age

Judith Wallerstein, founder of the project, is a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley and also operates the Center for the Family in Transition in nearby Corte Madera. Her interest in the effects of divorce on children began when she moved to California after 17 years at the Menninger Foundation. When schools and social agencies asked questions about children and divorce, she found no adequate research on the subject and began her own. One of her goals was to test the “dogma” that a divorce that allegedly promotes the happiness of the adults is also good for the children, something she calls a “typically adult argument.” She interviewed all members of the 60 families at various stages during the study. Originally, she expected the project to last only one year, after which time she assumed that most of the damaging effects of divorce, like those of bereavement, would have abated. Such did not prove to be the case. She found the damage to be acute still—10 years after the study started.

Many of the children—37 percent—were found to be “consciously and intensely unhappy and dissatisfied with their life in the post-divorce family.” Many of them were “intensely lonely” and complained of coming home after school to an empty house. Divorced parents’ readjustment to single life often made them feel left out. Even in remarried families, children felt abandoned or shunned by the newly married couple, whose main concern often seemed to be privacy.

Strong anger—especially directed at the father—remained years after the marriage breakup. Older boys and adolescents were among those most likely to exhibit outbursts of temper or violent behavior. Others refused contact with their fathers, even returning their birthday gifts to them unopened.

Wallerstein expected that children who had been rejected would feel powerless and troubled, but she was unprepared for the depths of misery in some of them. One nine-year-old, reminded of his policeman father by the sound of a siren, launched into a 35-minute crying spell in the presence of interviewers.

Twenty-nine percent of the 131 children represented a middle ground of psychological health between those described as “depressed” and those who were “coping.” This group showed average academic and social progress, but Wallerstein noted “islands of unhappiness” in them that did not bode well for future development.

Thirty-four percent of the children, a group representing both sexes and all ages, were found to be psychologically resilient and coping well with their changed life. However, even among this group, many of them still felt lonely, unhappy, or sorrowful about what had happened. They harbored vivid, detailed memories of the breakup even after 10 years.

In almost all cases, the first news of the divorce came as a shock, with the children neither seeing it as a solution to their problems nor experiencing feelings of relief. They considered their situation to be no worse than that of anyone else and would have been content to carry on. The divorce, Wallerstein says, was “a bolt of lightning that struck them when they had not even been aware of a need to come in from the storm.”

The faithfulness of the children to their original families surprised the researchers and proved unsettling to some of the parents. Many children clung to fantasies of a magical connection between their parents; still others replied “which one?” to questions about their fathers years after the divorce.

Fatherly visits did help to diminish dependency on one parent, but Wallerstein describes these relationships as “offering the children little in fully addressing the complex tasks of growing up.” Neither new friends nor grandparents, although helpful, were found able to fill the voids in the children’s lives.

Brother-sister relationships among children from divorced families continued to be strong. The enduring ties Wallerstein describes as almost constituting a kind of “subfamily.”

The older children of divorce showed a surprisingly strong commitment to the concept of the family and definitely did not want to wind up divorced themselves. In many cases, they wanted to delay both marriage (often desiring to live together first) and having children.

Concerning the causes of divorce, Wallerstein believes that in most cases, “there was never really a marriage.” Where true intimacy and oneness were lacking, the marriage was unable to bear the stresses of life—children, deaths in the family, change, and economic woes. Wallerstein acknowledges that many people have been “carried away” in equating eroticism with happiness in recent years. A number of husbands in the project had been having extramarital affairs.

In spite of finding it “clear” that the divorced family is, “in many ways less adaptive economically, socially, and psychologically to the raising of children than the two-parent family,” Wallerstein believes that divorce should remain “a readily available option.” But impulsive, frivolous divorce she views as disastrous, especially in cases where the couple has been married for many years. She values highly the institution of marriage and supports all efforts (such as Marriage Encounter and similar projects) to strengthen the marriage bond.

With the millions who are already victims of divorce, she has encouraged clergy and church groups to become involved. “Divorce is like no other stress,” she says, pointing out that the emotional support that is quickly forthcoming in cases such as death is absent in a divorce; relatives tend toward aloofness or abandonment. The church, she avers, should marshal its resources to “fight loneliness.” Those who would be effective therapists and comforters she counsels to acquire training with children.

Wallerstein and her associates are currently planning a study of children from nondivorced families, intending to compare the results with the Children of Divorce project.

LLOYD BILLINGSLEY in Berkeley

Missions Interest Grows Among United Presbyterians

“This summer our church commissioned five overseas missionaries,” said pastor Arnold Nelson of the First Presbyterian Church of Salinas, California. “What a shame that not one of them could go out as Presbyterian, though they would have liked to.” Nelson went on, “I don’t believe that even if we gave [the Presbyterian mission board] the money they would send them. There is a difference of philosophy.”

But most leaders at the eighth Presbyterians United for Mission Advance (PUMA) conference, meeting last month in Redwood City, California, seemed to disagree. “We think we are beginning to see daylight,” said Frank Seidelburg of the United Presbyterian Center for Mission Study. He cited a recent $1 million fund established by the denominational mission agency, whereby Presbyterians can give specifically for new evangelistic missions to so-called hidden peoples. The United Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship, associated with Ralph Winter’s U.S. Center for World Mission, is behind the fund.

Winter sees PUMA as a hopeful sign in the United Presbyterian church. Once one of the largest mission-sending organizations with 1,400 missionaries, the United Presbyterian church now has about 300. PUMA began as a layman’s study group in 1974, spurred by encouragement from Winter and Fuller Theological Seminary’s Arthur Glasser. At the time, there was little or no missions emphasis among the several hundred Presbyterian churches in northern California. Now PUMA brings together over 50 missionaries for two days of fellowship with pastors and mission committees, and sends them out for multiple speaking engagements in over 40 supporting Presbyterian churches. The result seems to be increased interest in missions. The Menlo Park church, one of the leaders, now has about 100 laymen active on various mission task forces, and allocates a budget of half a million dollars. PUMA-like organizations have spread to southern California, Portland, Cincinnati, and Buffalo, conference officials said.

Most of the 50 missionaries present at the October meeting were from non-Presbyterian missions, though many had Presbyterian background or affiliation. PUMA tries to invite as many United Presbyterian missionaries as possible, said Neil Elsheimer, president-elect and key founding member. But there simply are not enough available. The makeup of the conference was representative of the missions interest of participating churches. Many large, evangelical Presbyterian churches in the area have supported non-Presbyterian missions handsomely. Several speakers mentioned the impact of Inter-Varsity’s Urbana conference on their young church members. Unable to go out as Presbyterian missionaries, these young people have joined other missions, and their churches have supported them.

Nonetheless, PUMA leaders seemed bent on good relationships with the denomination, PUMA is recognized by the denomination. The United Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship and the United Presbyterian Center for Mission Study are also recognized. Bill King, associate synod executive for the Synod of the Pacific in the United Presbyterian Church, acknowledged tension between denominational leaders and PUMA over the philosophy of the church as it relates to national leadership in Third World churches. But he said, “There’s good creative tension here. I think it’s healthy.”

Church politics were not high on the conference agenda. Speakers emphasized conventional evangelical concerns in missions, and missionaries seemed to particularly enjoy fellowship with each other. Josif Ton, a Romanian pastor recently expelled from his country, made perhaps the greatest impact of the conference with his talk on suffering. Many missionaries spoke enthusiastically of great opportunities where they work. PUMA’s main emphasis is educational, helping churches form active missions committees and have effective missions emphasis weeks. Robert Thorp, a Presbyterian missionary to Guatemala for 34 years, has become full-time executive secretary, and spends much of his time organizing seminars for missions committees as well as the annual PUMA conference. Would denominational leaders be concerned over the non-Presbyterian missions represented? “They’re the ones who taught us to be ecumenical in the first place,” said Thorp.

Ralph Winter and his crusade to spur a revival of missions appears to function as the unofficial guiding light of PUMA. Winter presented his analysis of Protestant missionary history, seeing the beginning of a new era of mission advance in the realization that many “people groups” have never heard the gospel.

The second era, as Winter sees it, began with Hudson Taylor’s realization that China missions had never penetrated the coastline. He established the China Inland Mission, and indirectly inspired numerous new “faith” missions aimed at the inland frontiers, such as Sudan Interior Mission, Africa Inland Mission, and Unevangelized Fields Mission. These began while many “first era” missions were pulling back, since their work was well established and national leadership was ready.

Similarly, the insights of Cameron Townsend of Wycliffe and Donald McGavran of Fuller have led to an awareness of new frontiers among ‘hidden peoples”—distinct ethnic groups that have no witnessing church. Winter made the point that while older missions were initially resistant to Hudson Taylor’s initiative, they soon outstripped the newer “faith” missions. Winter hopes to see the same phenomenon recur. “We [Presbyterians] don’t have a lot going on out there, but with our background and experience the independent missions will be left standing still.” Winter does not restrict his hopes to Presbyterians. “Within ten years, churches in the National Council could have 50 percent of the missionaries, where now they have 3 percent.” PUMA may not share Winter’s confidence, but they certainly share his hope.

TIM STAFFORD

The lyrics are great, but how is the taste?

With sales of secular exercise records soaring, Christian record companies are flexing their marketing muscles in an effort to carve a slice of the economic action. If initial sales of Christian aerobic albums are any indication, these companies should fare rather well.

Aerobic exercises are strenuous routines intended to improve cardiovascular fitness as well as muscle strength and toning. The choreographed exercise routines are generally performed to the accompaniment of rhythmic music. The Christian albums substitute a sampling of Christian pop, rock, and jazz in place of the pop, rock, and jazz commonly used on secular aerobic records; and though secular aerobic albums freely refer to the exercises as “dance,” most of the Christian versions prefer a more innocuous euphemism such as “strenuous exercise.”

When Judi Sheppard Missett’s Jazzercise became the first fitness album ever to attain the record industry’s certified gold status (sales in excess of 500,000), it was only the warm-up. Now, only one year later, Missett’s success has been followed by Carol Hansel’s Exercise and Dance Program, Vol. I (gold), Jane Fonda’s Workout Record (gold), and Richard Simmons’s Reach (certified platinum, sales in excess of one million). With the nation caught up in the fitness craze, Christian music executives are eager to remind the religious record-buying public that their bodies are indeed temples of the Holy Spirit. And to meet the anticipated demand, the Christian companies are producing aerobic albums faster than you can say, “Eight dollars, please”: Aerobic Celebration, Aerobic Praise, Aerobic Jubilation, Firm Believer, Devotion in Motion, Praise-R-Cise (Slogan: “With Praise-R-Cise I can reduce my size.”), and more to come.

Even so, the idea of a Christian dance exercise record didn’t meet with instantaneous record company approval. Word discussed the concept a year and a half ago, according to Director of Public Relations Walt Quinn. But, wary of adverse reaction, Word decided to put the project on hold. When the New Benson Company, a competitor of Word, Inc., discussed an aerobics project, similar concerns surfaced.

“There were some questions within the company,” said Don Klein, Benson’s public relations director. “But enthusiasm began to build. There were those who had an ear for what was needed. And we became convinced that the idea was right for the time. I think that’s been proven by the fact that it has worked.”

By “worked,” Klein means “sold.” Since the release of Aerobic Celebration in May, the Benson Company has moved 130,000 copies, which by any standards is respectable; by Christian standards it’s very respectable. The market: fitness-conscious women, ages 18 to 30.

In response to Benson’s success with Aerobics Celebration and the recent release of its sequel, Word, Inc., has unveiled Firm Believer, “a complete exercise program featuring today’s finest Christian music.” The first of several fitness products from the Texas-based subsidiary of the American Broadcasting Co., Firm Believer features Judy Moser, wife of Word’s executive vice-president, records and music, and Bobbie Wolgemuth, wife of Word’s vice-president of books, (both pictured on the cover), teaming up to put listeners through their paces in a series of chatty routines not unlike their secular counterparts. Word plans to follow Firm Believer with at least two more aerobic albums and other supporting products all marketed with “Shape-up Center” displays in Christian bookstores.

But as the Christian music machine turns out fitness products and as the religious public buys them, the questions of skeptics and critics persist: At what point does giving people what they want become crass commercialism? Does it cheapen sacred music to have it obscured with exercise instructions on the toning of thighs, abdomens, and buttocks? Does it contribute to the isolationist Christian ghetto mentality to insist on producing a spiritual version of everything the world produces? And perhaps most probing: Are Christians overdosing on a good thing, making a fetish of fitness, toning their temples while obscuring Paul’s instruction, “Bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come” (1 Tim. 4:8)?

In response, Christian music executives prefer to view their aerobic products as opportunities to bring together bodily exercise and spiritual toning. Christian women can finally shape up aerobics-style without having to endure the objectionable lyrics of Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical.”

“The entire concept of believing that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit and it is good to praise and worship the Lord is built right into a Christian aerobics record,” according to Lonnie Long-mire of Windy Distributors, the company that has released Aerobic Jubilation. And Benson’s Don Klein sums up the assets of Christian aerobic albums like this: “The lyrics are uplifting. They focus on the things of the Lord. And,” he adds, unintentionally refocusing a bigger question, “as people listen to these aerobic albums, they will be exposed to other Christian music products.”

Is Herpes Quelling The Sexual Revolution?

According to a Washington Post-ABC News public opinion poll, sexual morality among young, unmarried adults has become a very pragmatic concern. And the catalyst for what the poll sees as a curb in America’s sexual revolution is the genital disease herpes, which, according to some government estimates, affects between 5 and 20 million Americans.

In its efforts to legislate morality, herpes, America’s most common sexually transmitted disease, has encountered considerably less resistance than the New Right. The poll revealed that more than 80 percent of the 1,505 people (ages 18 to 37) surveyed claim either that they are convinced their behavior is such that they won’t contract the disease (63%) or that they are changing behavior to avoid the risk (22%).

Although new drugs to treat the disease are coming on the market, herpes, usually considered an epidemic, has no cure. Medical experts regard untreated syphilis as a far more serious disease than herpes. But most cases of syphilis and gonorrhea, both caused by bacteria, can be treated by antibiotics, whereas herpes, spawned by a virus related to the one that causes common cold sores, is incurable.

Also, herpes has potentially more serious long-term consequences. It has been linked to female cervical cancer and can be transmitted to infants during childbirth. Herpes is usually fatal to newborns, but can be prevented by Caesarean section deliveries.

Interviews with some of those surveyed indicate that those who are changing their habits are doing so by avoiding casual sex. One herpes sufferer who participated in the poll said, “It’s caused me to have a more conservative attitude toward sexual inclinations and has caused much depression and frustration.”

Deaths

George Eldon Ladd, 71, professor emeritus of New Testament exegesis and theology at Fuller Theological Seminary and one of the leading evangelical New Testament scholars in the United States; October 5, in Pasadena, of complications from pneumonia.

James L. Cummings, 55, first vice-president of the National Council of Churches and presiding bishop of the Ninth Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church; October 3, of heart complications.

Mary LeBar, 72, noted children’s and Christian education author and former faculty member at Wheaton College; October 3, in Durango, Colorado, of a massive heart attack.

A board member resigns, believing that Lear’s criticisms of the Religious Right are distortions.

Television producer Norman Lear’s 1980 brainchild, “People for the American Way” (PAW), is a grassroots group designed to combat the “radical religious right.” It débuted with a series of brief, televised, public service announcements in which “Christians” expressed their distaste for preachers who told them how to vote. “That’s not the American way,” they chided.

Next came an extravagant, celebrityladen television special, “I Love Liberty.” Now, emerging from its formative years, the organization may be entering a cantankerous puberty. A television special, “Life and Liberty … For All Who Believe,” aired in six cities in October, and more showings are scheduled.

The program features Burt Lancaster, brow furrowed, solemnly announcing that the New Right wants to “force, and I mean force, their narrow doctrine on all of us.” A similarly emotional appeal is apparent in full-page newspaper advertisements that accuse Jerry Falwell and “other electronic preachers” of a preposterous agenda: “They racially segregate private schools. They want to deny homosexuals the right to vote. They ban all new dictionaries in Texas. They want to deny you social security benefits.” In the “Life and Liberty” documentary, Lancaster says “Falwell and Pat Robertson call for the end of public education.”

The hyperbole is a departure for Lear, who early on claimed his group would not “appeal to fears and anxieties” to raise support. The histrionics brought criticism from some well-respected religious figures associated with the group. One board member who is reassessing his involvement said, “What they are doing now is as bad as what they are combating.”

George B. Higgins of Catholic University, Washington, D.C., resigned from PAW’S advisory board due to a lack of time to participate and because “increasingly, I find myself disagreeing with both the letter and the spirit of some of PAW’s newspaper advertisements and other public statements.”

Higgins, himself an outspoken critic of the New Right, said he sides with editorial opinions expressed in Commonweal, a Catholic periodical that charged PAW with distorting facts and having a weakness “for the slippery half-truths and stock slogans of moral relativism and unthinking individualism.”

Other board members with similar doubts include David Mathews of the Charles F. Kettering Foundation in Dayton, Ohio, and Theodore Hesburgh, president of Notre Dame University. Hesburgh perused some PAW materials when the group was forming, and said that was the “total extent of my involvement,” although his name has appeared prominently on publicity pieces. “It was important at that point [1980] to have an antidote to the wrong use of religion in politics,” Hesburgh said. “Now, I get the impression that Moral Majority has calmed down a bit. They may have gotten the message, and I’m glad I had a part in delivering it.”

PAW, in its publications and television productions, paints the New Right with a broad brush. It links isolated incidents of book burning and statements by fringe leaders as part of a unified movement. In “Life and Liberty,” a San Diego minister is shown advocating the death sentence for homosexuals. Books are burned at an Assemblies of God church in Monticello, Minnesota. News clips show former Southern Baptist president Bailey Smith saying “God Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew,” although that incident is more than two years old.

PAW has avoided debate and dialogue with New Right leaders, and appears to overlook diversity within the movement. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, for example, rarely interact with one another. Falwell often notes that his harshest critics come from conservative Christian circles. Church historian Martin Marty sees the New Right consisting of “internally competing organizations out for the same bucks.” What both camps appear to share is a realization that a readily identified villain—whether “secular humanism” or “radical right”—mobilizes followers more effectively than moderation.

In Lynchburg, Virginia, Falwell has requested equal time from each television station that airs PAW’s “Life and Liberty.” This tactic has been employed successfully by PAW in the past, in response to ostensibly political statements made by Falwell on his weekly “Old Time Gospel Hour.”

Moral Majority spokesman Cal Thomas said PAW is “conducting an antireligious campaign that bears a striking resemblance to Hitler, who whipped up public sentiment against the Jews and then began persecution.” A 30-minute film for state Moral Majority leaders will be made available for public airing, Thomas said. In it, “we don’t say a word about Norman Lear. We just present our own positions.” Thomas was particularly disturbed about charges that Moral Majority is involved with book burning and censorship. He denied any participation in or advocacy of those activities.

Martin Marty, who resigned from PAW’s board last year but still consults with the group, was asked to review “Life and Liberty” before it was shown. He made the recommendation that the Bailey Smith comment about Jews be deleted since Smith has long since apologized. But, Marty says, “that was the only place where I felt the person or movement were not adequately represented.”

He disagrees with Moral Majority when it denies any association with incidents portrayed in the program. “Moral Majority wants it both ways. They want a high level of national orangization, yet claim complete autonomy for their local chapters. So critics always have the problem of a moving target.”

As he sees it, “While PAW goofs up now and then, it has a place and is needed. It looks to me to be the survivor of the several groups that sprang up. You have to ask yourself, ‘What if the New Christian Right had the field all to itself?”

On the flip side, Marty says “PAW, like every organization, will fall prey to the temptation of bureaucratizing its own approach. They must remain supple and alert to shifts in the new Christian right, and admit those changes to the clientele.”