Liberal theologians at least know the difficulties and can help us map the terrain.

Evangelicals face an intellectual challenge: How is it possible to be faithful to the Bible without being irrelevant to modern hearers? How do they explain a traditional understanding of the gospel that originated in the premodern situation to people who think in modern ways?

Evangelical theology almost by definition identifies with the doctrinal substance of classical and Reformational Christianity. It places enormous stress Upon the objective, infallible authority of God’s written Word and reiterates belief in the scriptural teachings of Protestant confessions of faith.

Evangelical theology thus was formulated essentially in the period that preceded a set of assumptions about reality that came in with the Enlightenment in Europe. We are even proud to declare it: evangelical theology is rooted in the Bible and in the history of Christian thought that was before Kant, Darwin, Strauss, Marx, and Freud—before those ideas that now present such a challenge to it became prominent. But besides being proud, we need to be sober and realistic about the task we have implicitly set ourselves: By choosing to be evangelical we are in effect claiming to be able to make a case for these antique beliefs in the modern setting.

It is insufficient just to offer an account of why evangelical theology is popular today. We might say the classical faith is proving its richness and power and people prefer it to the bare bones of liberal, fictive religion. We might claim it offers the strong meaning and straightforward beliefs they are seeking. But this says nothing about its being true. Of course it meets people’s needs—but so do some strange myths and cults. We must offer something more than a social account of why orthodox religion is becoming popular again—it could go out of style just as fast as it came in.

It is a painful challenge I am asking us to face. Some forms of what Peter Berger calls deductive orthodoxy have decided not to try. Belief cannot argue with unbelief, they say; faith has credentials the world knows nothing of. But this retreat into the citadel of faith can be a fig leaf to cover up intellectual shortcomings and is sure to discourage the person considering the claims of Christianity. It is a painful thing to seek to be faithful to the Word of God and also be deeply honest and sensitive with what we as modern people feel and know about things like the human side of Scripture, the dynamics of society, the development of life on earth, and human psychology. Our great intellectual challenge is to present our premodern faith intelligently in the modern situation. Liberal theologians do not think we can, which is why most of them became liberal theologians. Our job is to show them we can.

Donald Bloesch in his otherwise excellent Essentials of Evangelical Theology does not help us greatly here. His stress upon the Spirit and his confidence in the inherent power of the gospel to accredit itself without our assistance translate into a slight indifference toward meeting this intellectual challenge. He will make an allusion to a legendary element in the Bible without telling us how he avoids Bultmann’s approach, or to the authority of the Bible’s central message without saying whether or not this implies a “canon within the canon.” For the liberal observer anxious to see if evangelicals can achieve a meaningfulness for their ancient faith in today’s world, Bloesch would not seem sufficiently rigorous intellectually.

On the other hand, in his exhaustive God, Revelation, and Authority (soon to be six volumes), Carl Henry aims to establish once and for all the rational superiority of biblical faith. He intends to prove the cogency and necessity of taking the Christian propositional revelation as a primary axiom in consistent and coherent philosophy of religion. One is thereby either convinced of Christianity as a whole and accepts it, or finds it unpersuasive and rejects the whole sustem. The liberal critic would reply that Henry certainly takes the intellectual challenge seriously but wonder if Christianity is a tight, coherent system in the first place, and if a deductively rational argument for it carries much weight.

I believe we ought to go at it piece by piece, doctrine by doctrine, theme by theme. Modern people will grasp the beauty of classical thinking in theology as the result of a team effort by many thinkers and teachers in the church who explicate the orthodox themes one by one in conscious correlation with the experience we all share in the modern world. They will diligently relate Scripture to everyday realities, and strive to show how these doctrines illumine and clarify human existence.

For example, Reinhold Neibuhr’s penetrating analysis of human behavior exposed the desperate sinfulness of sin and restored to credibility the fallenness of man. This is what we need to do if our faithfulness to the Bible is to be seen as relevant to the modern situation.

Both liberal and conservative theologians have an intellectual challenge peculiar to them. The liberal theologian has to explain how he achieves relevance without accommodating to the culture and proving unfaithful to the gospel. The conservative has to explain how he can remain faithful to the Bible without espousing apparent absurdities and appearing irrelevant. It boils down to the difficulty of being conservative and contemporary at the same time.

Perhaps if we would realize that we both have a serious problem, a little empathy might arise in our hearts for one another. Not that we evangelicals give up for a moment the conviction that it matters eternally what people believe in regard to the gospel of Christ, or that liberal theology represents a serious threat to the truth. It is simply recognizing that explaining the traditional faith in the modern world is a tough mountain to climb and that liberal theologians at least know how difficult it is and can help us indirectly in mapping some of the terrain. I doubt that we shall reach the summit without looking back and admitting we wouldn’t have done it without the prodding.

Dr. Pinnock is professor of systematic theology at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

This list was born in the fire of experience.

Within the first six months of my pastoral ministry, I came across an intriguing list entitled, “Twenty Don’ts for Young Pastors,” by Daniel F. Roth. He had written them on the flyleaf of a book discovered after his death. The don’ts were listed alone, with no illustrations, no esoteric, theological concepts, no long discussions. But the list was so practical that I couldn’t help but think that he had learned them the hard way—through experience.

Today we have an entirely new breed of young pastors, who often serve on the staff of a large church. Though their titles may vary, these staff ministers must relate to the senior pastor.

In my first year as an assistant pastor, I, too, developed a list of don’ts (and do’s), born of the fire of my experience.

Don’ts

1. Don’t harbor negative feelings. You may have noticed that the man you work for is human, prone to an occasional mistake. He may make an unintentional comment that hurts; sometimes he may even treat you as an employee rather than a brother; he may be abrupt. Through it all, it is your job to forgive freely. A grudge and bitterness will work on you like a parasite, mining your loyalty to the man and the church that hired you.

2. Don’t be blinded by another’s weaknesses. When you begin ministry in a new church, you will likely be unaware of the senior pastor’s weaknesses. Don’t worry: they will appear. Sometimes, however, they loom larger than they really are, simply because of your close relationship. But seeing weaknesses in others gives us a chance to let God work unconditional love in our hearts for them.

3. Don’t be drawn into unnecessary controversy. Almost before you are settled in, some parishioners will take it upon themselves to tell you certain facts about the senior pastor. When it happened to me the first time, I didn’t know how to react or what to do. I have since developed a strategy.

When someone complains, I first ask, “Have you talked with the senior pastor about this?” If the answer is yes (frequently it isn’t), I inquire, “Am I a part of the solution to this problem?” If the answer again is yes, I still proceed with caution. If it is a matter of serious concern, it should be brought to a meeting of all concerned, including the senior pastor.

4. Don’t make excuses. I learned that while working my way through college at a grocery store where I had a short-tempered boss. When I blew an assignment I would naturally try to explain why. But he seldom wanted to listen to my excuses. He would simply say, “Just do it right the next time.”

That lesson comes in handy when working with senior pastors. They are busy and concerned about your ministry and how it affects the church—but they seldom have time to sit and listen to you make excuses. Chances are, they won’t condemn you for a mistake, but will simply want you to “do it right next time.” Furthermore, a good, honest “I made a mistake” is better than trying to rationalize away blame.

5. Don’t view your present post as merely a prelude to something better. In many evangelical churches there is an unstated pastoral hierarchy. It means one must start as a youth minister before he can be an assistant pastor. A successful assistant might get to be an associate pastor. Finally, there is the pinnacle of senior pastorhood. The serious problem here is that sometimes a man will work in a church “just until he can get one of his own.” That is a tragedy. The most effective youth pastors don’t say that. They feel God’s call to work with youth where they are; they are excited about the field God has called them to cultivate today.

Such a “stepping-stone mentality” could carry over into later ministry. Then, the reasoning may be, “I’m just here until I can get something bigger.”

Do’s

1. Work to help make your boss a success. Our job as pastors is to make our Lord known and give him glory for the fruit produced in our ministry. Most pastors want to glorify God, not themselves.

You should not have joined the staff if you were not convinced that the pastor you wanted to work with had a vision for that church with which you could agree. When you are part of a team, your job is to support the senior pastor in what he believes is the direction the church should be moving. Pastors going in different directions will eventually be split.

2. Offer your insight and suggestions. You are responsible to provide input into directing the church.

Recently, an associate pastor and I discussed a new program for the large church he serves. He was convinced it would be a good program for that body of believers, but felt he could not talk to the senior pastor about it because, he said, “I don’t think he’d go for it.”

But it is an associate’s job to make suggestions and to offer his unique insights. The Lord can use a junior staff person to bring something valuable to that church.

3. Allow God to help you be positive. There are many discouragements in the ministry, but they won’t be fatal if your attitude says, “I’m going to do the best job I can for Jesus; the rest is in his hands.” Some ministers are so busy that they forget about their devotional life and personal prayer time. These are essential for a continuing positive attitude.

4. Keep the lines of communication open. I once forgot to tell my senior pastor about a member who had been admitted to the hospital. While some lapses in communication are almost inevitable, don’t let them happen often or your senior pastor will wonder what else you are forgetting.

5. Be loyal: remember that you are a part of the church you are serving. You have a vital interest in its people, its leaders, and its programs. Be loyal to the people you work with and for. If your senior pastor knows you are behind him 100 percent, he will have an extra measure of freedom to go on to other things. Be loyal, and give your full enthusiasm to each project.

Mr. Hunt is associate pastor of Mount Hood Assembly of God Church in Parkdale, Oregon.

Screenplay by Carol Sobieski; directed by John Huston.

John Huston’s film version of Annie is probably the first official “family” film in a long time. It is a tightly constructed, eye-filling paean to American showmanship, and the values it upholds are entirely consistent with a Christian outlook. Carol Burnett’s parody of a frustrated sex siren and a few expletives are all that account for its PG rating. See it with a little girl if possible, but by all means see it.

Columbia Pictures’ Annie is from the hands of the veteran film director, John Huston. His first effort—the great detective thriller The Maltese Falcon (1941)—presented one of Huston’s central themes: the conflict between honesty about oneself and our capacity for self-deception. Both films present the classic Huston hero, who appears to be a dispassionate, cynical loner but in reality is hiding deep and unresolved emotions.

In Annie, Oliver Warbucks (Albert Finney) lives a similar life of self-deception, and his conquests have brought him little satisfaction. When his secretary (Ann Reinking) returns from an orphanage with Annie, Warbucks sneers, “I love money, power, and capitalism. I hate little girls!” Into this secure, sterile world comes a ten-year-old, red-headed dynamo named Annie (Aileen Quinn), who not only teaches Warbucks to like little girls, but warms him up to life in general. In the end, Warbucks becomes the father Annie never had. As in much of Huston’s work, it is a close personal relationship that breaks down walls of cynicism and becomes the basis for positive action and self-discovery.

Although Annie is not a “Christian” film, it can be taken as an image of grace. Both Annie and her “Daddy” Warbucks are in deep need, unable to resolve the dilemmas of their existences. In unforeseen and surprising ways they are brought together, and each brings healing and wholeness to the other’s broken life. Annie is also glorious entertainment, and evangelicals who have long cried about the seedy quality of film and television should put their money where their mouths are.

Reviewed by Paul Leggett, pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church, Montclair, New Jersey.

This novel is what happens when a fine writer’s sensibilities are informed by a Christian world view.

New York publishers have given readers little reason to expect regeneration through Christ in their novels. But that is just what the reader finds in Farrar, Straus and Giroux’s recent Poppa John. Its author, Larry Woiwode, is no newcomer to New York publishing: his stories have appeared in the New Yorker, and his first novel, What I’m Going to Do, I Think (FS&G, 1969), won the William Faulkner Foundation Award.

His second novel, Beyond the Bedroom Wall (FS&G, 1975), was also critically acclaimed. Subtitled “A Family Album,” it chronicles four generations of North Dakotans, beginning with Otto Neumiller, a German immigrant, and his son Charles, a carpenter who comes to make his father’s coffin. The narrative moves on to Charles’s son Martin and his wife, Alpha, whose early death stems partly from being uprooted from North Dakota. As their children grow up, the family drifts away from the strength-giving center of their life in the Midwest.

Woiwode tells the story with such richly textured and unhurried details that the reader recalls events as if they were his own memories. The book established its author as an uncommonly intelligent and skilled writer. Then Woiwode came to faith in Christ.

What happens when a fine writer’s sensibilities are informed by a Christian world view? Poppa John is a first indication. Where Beyond the Bedroom Wall was an often beautiful, largely loving story, Poppa John is as cold and unrelenting as the December snow of the story’s setting. For a dozen years, Ned Daley, now nearly 70, played Poppa John on a popular television soap opera, a character who acted as confessor and counselor. Appropriating to Poppa John his own preacher-grandfather’s propensity for quoting Scriptures, Ned buys and studies a chain-reference Bible, aided by Spurgeon and Strong’s Concordance. The unspoken force that fidelity to Scripture gave Poppa John appealed to Ned, as did the anonymity the role afforded. He came to prefer being Poppa John:

He would slip into Poppa John, since the chances were good he’d meet somebody who knew him. And once a character of such continual standing, whose gaps and limits are known, is established as benign, he’s controllable; he won’t slip into the unpredictable pitfalls that can seize your entire attention in the blind and tortuous negotiations you undergo in a real self.

Ned knew those pitfalls. Throughout his adult life there had been times when it took all that was in him to stave off feelings of impending physical and mental disintegration, feelings precipitated by incursions from the past—particularly the appearance of the distorted face of his father, with whose violent death he had never come to terms.

Ned held this “cavernous anxiousness” at bay by becoming Poppa John where he was not faced with his self, the “private solitary sort of closeted retreat, where you were caught within the inescapable sack of the self that you’d been in since birth. Who or what indeed could free you from this body that bore your death?”

This is the question at the core of Poppa John. When Ned loses his role as Poppa John, there is nothing to hold back the past. Past and present, illusion and reality, threaten to coalesce. It is this unemployed, disoriented man the reader meets.

On December 23, with money running out, Ned and his wife make a gesture toward festivity: they go Christmas shopping. While shopping alone for Celia, the past overtakes Ned. Losing hold both physically and mentally, he finally collapses in an alcoholic haze. Then, in a remarkable passage where voices and faces from childhood, words and images from Scripture, and distorted perceptions of people and places around him fade in and out, he is brought to the moment of grace:

A stream of images went pouring from his eves … in flashing increments all the way back to his birth, and he thought: It’s this? This simple? Simple?… Then … the face from the basement came sailing up at him in full release, free of the tilted perspective it had always assumed and he saw his father at last as he’d looked when he was alive, and then the face flew on out the back of his skull, and in its fracturing aftermath he was staring at a pair of bare feet, tensed in their final tremors, crossed at the arches, twitching and tearing over an iron spike.

To ever have held up his head in the light of this was monstrosity. Unspeakable presump—

Amazing grace; remarkable writing.

Moments later oblivion overtakes Ned. He wakes two days later to the whiteness of a hospital room. The book’s last pages are dazzling, all the more so for the “dark strumming” that shadows the first part of the novel. Freed from the face and his fears of death, Ned sees in his bed sheets “the mountainous snows that would cover his grave.” Death indeed has lost its sting.

One of Woiwode’s convictions is that writers who are Christians must, as Scripture instructs, rid themselves of false tongues. He tells the truth in Poppa John: he does not draw back from the central and indisputable truth about fallen man. He does not deny the depths of man’s darkness, and consequently he does not diminish the power of light, the Light that came into the darkness.

Like Walker Percy, Woiwode couches prophetic comments in his story. He writes of Christians who, like sacrificing pagans, tempt God to perform; of theologians who are as much psychologists and social theorists as men of God; of people who want God only as syrup—if at all. Woiwode says that in becoming a Christian he was freed from fear. Because God is with him, he can go to the edge in his writing.

Though not unflawed, this novel is one of the few recent books that is literary and Christian. Larry Woiwode deserves the attention of Christians who care for both literature and orthodoxy.

Mrs. Baker is a free-lance writer living in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

The press, as much as anybody, has been guilty of mishandling the statistics.

On Christmas Eve, 1906, wireless radio operators on ships sailing near Brant Rock, Massachusetts, heard voices. In fact, they heard a woman reading from the Gospel of Luke, and another singing Handel’s “Largo.” They heard the first wireless voice broadcast ever transmitted to the public. It was a Christian radio program.

Christian broadcasting (now called the electronic church) has come a long way since 1906. Religious television grew steadily through the 1950s and 1960s, then exploded in the first half of the 1970s. In 1970, Arbitron rating service monitored 38 syndicated Christian television programs. By 1975, when the growth leveled off, the number had reached 65.

In 1972, Pat Robertson was operating the only religious TV station in the United States. Today there are 65 religious stations. Moreover, that growth has been lopsided. About half of the syndicated programs were evangelical in 1972, but today 92 percent are.

In the last year, however, one question has sprung into prominence: Is the electronic church shorting out? A spate of newspaper and magazine articles has loudly announced declining audiences for controversial television preachers like Jerry Falwell and Oral Roberts. Triggered by a sociologist’s study that alleges that TV preachers boasted of inflated audiences from the start, some reporters have decided religious broadcasting is a fad beginning to pass.

Actually, the industry is still prospering. What the commentators have overlooked is the total audience of the electronic church, as opposed to the separate audiences of individual big-name broadcasters. Christian broadcasting as a whole faces the predicament of too much prosperity. The electronic church is not shorting out, but so many competitors are jamming its circuits that it is in danger of an overload.

It is now widely admitted that early estimates for the size of the electronic church were exaggerated, in large measure by a press alarmed at the specter of right-wing preachers heaven-bent on taking over the government. It is true that Jerry Falwell boasted in 1980 that 25 million people watched his “Old-Time Gospel Hour” every week, an estimate that is larger than the audience for all religious programs combined.

But even though Falwell lamely retreated behind the euphemisim that he was speaking “ministerially,” magazines like Penthouse and Playboy were guessing his audience was even bigger. Penthouse feared Falwell could have as many as 60 million viewers. Playboy placed it at around 30 million.

Actually, though Falwell has received most of the media attention, his program has never had the biggest audience. Oral Roberts, Rex Humbard, and Robert Schuller are the big three in the electronic church. Roberts and Humbard, beginning TV programs in 1954 and 1953 respectively, have long been at the top in audience attraction. Their audiences and Schuller’s now each just top 2 million each week, according to the Arbitron rating service.

Both religious broadcasters and secular journalists have been guilty of mishandling the statistics. Jeffrey Hadden and Charles Swann, authors of Prime Time Preachers, note that some electronic church ministries have arrived at an audience of 40 or 50 million by counting the same viewer more than once. The single viewer who watches Humbard and Roberts, for example, gets counted as two viewers.

Some journalists have done the reverse: noted a decline in a few TV preachers’ audiences, then added those losses into a total and said that that number of viewers has been lost to the electronic church. But that estimate does not take into account the possibility that viewers who have stopped watching Oral Roberts have started watching Robert Schuller or some other TV minister.

Just how big is the entire religious TV audience? Ratings services such as Arbitron don’t help much because, while they can determine the size audience for a particular program, they can’t sort out overlapping audiences. National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) executive Ben Armstrong puts the audience at around 14 million. Armstrong’s estimate does not count more than once the single viewer who watches more than one religious program. William Martin, a Rice University sociologist who has long written on the electronic church, estimates the same audience at a higher total of between 20 and 22 million. William Fore of the National Council of Churches has put the audience at 10 million.

An exact total, then, is impossible to arrive at. The most exact estimate that can be made is that the electronic church audience is between 10 and 20 million people. (TV is in 98 percent of all homes in the U.S., which has a population of 226 million.) Of course, there are far more viewers on occasion than that: Martin believes as much as half the nation sporadically watches a religious special such as a Billy Graham crusade.

A better count of the audience may come late next year. It is then that the first definitive study of the electronic church is scheduled for completion, according to NRB’S Armstrong. NRB is sponsoring a cooperative survey to be undertaken by the Gallup organization and the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School of Communications.

The $200,000 study is being financed by diverse sources: Jerry Falwell has contributed, as well as the National Council of Churches; Rex Humbard as well as the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.

It was Prime Time Preachers, the study by Hadden and Swann, that generated headlines about the electronic church shrinking. A careful reading of the book indicates that the authors were more cautious in that suggestion than the headlines interpreting their book were. Although Hadden and Swann noted that Arbitron ratings show a decline in viewers since 1978, they added that the decline was small enough and recent enough that it “is too early to call it a trend.”

Oral Roberts has, in fact, lost viewers—more than 40 percent of the audience he had in 1977. The other old pro, Humbard, has also suffered losses. Gary Taylor is the former general manager of the Rex Humbard Ministry and his judgment is respected in the industry. Taylor is worried about the “fragmented audiences of the major religious [broadcast] ministries.”

Veteran broadcasters such as Humbard and Roberts, Taylor notes, once had the field largely to themselves. Now dozens of other programs have moved in to share the same audience, an audience Taylor believes is “already at the point of saturation.” Jerry Rose, second vice-president of the NRB, concurs that the audience is “considerably fragmented.”

Rose, also the manager of a Christian TV station in Chicago, believes religious programmers will have to be more imaginative to hold audiences. It is not only rivalry within the family that faces religous broadcasters.

CBS has succeeded with its Sunday morning news program and has expanded it to 90 minutes. NBC is considering its own Sunday morning entry.

Cable, usually regarded as a boon for religious broadcasters, presents its own problems. Pay movie services now offer first-run feature films on Sunday morning as well as the rest of the week. What all the high-powered competition means is that Sunday morning religious programs will have fewer “drop-in” or casual viewers who could find nothing else to watch. “Cable is a threat to religious ministries because it further fragments the opportunity to reach broader based audiences,” Taylor thinks.

Finally, religious broadcasters are deeply concerned about a bill now in the House of Representatives. Until now, cable operators have been required by the Federal Communications Commision to carry local stations. Bill HR 5949 would allow cable operators not to carry stations that pull less than 1 percent of the total market share of viewers.

NRB officials say such a rule would endanger many religious stations; they believe the change is being pressed because cable operators suddenly have the opportunity to reap huge profits by leasing channels to purveyors of movies. The NRB therefore favors a proposed amendment to the bill, made by James Collins, a Texas Republican. Collins’s amendment would exempt religious programming from the audience share requirement.

Meanwhile, the surging airwaves broadcasters have been riding appear to be cresting. “The impact of the major ministries has probably peaked,” says Taylor. He expects a very gradual decline in the next 10 years.

If Taylor’s prediction holds, religious broadcasters will face a life that will definitely be harder in the 1980s than it was in the booming 1970s.

Japanese Are Responding To Tv Evangelism

Long resistant to traditional methods of evangelism, many Japanese have now willingly opened their living rooms to the gospel. A weekly series of animated Bible stories on prime-time television and a special edition of the Living Bible are making an unprecedented impact on the Japanese public. Cosponsors of this evangelistic blitz are Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and Living Bibles International (LBI).

“Japan is seeing a modern miracle,” said David Clark of CBN, commenting on the breakthrough to prime-time TV. “It is a significant development in children’s TV.” It is estimated that more than 3.8 million people in Tokyo alone watch “Family Theater.” The program is so well received that the original projection of 26 weekly shows has been increased to 104. It is being produced by a Japanese company under CBN supervision to ensure that “Family Theater” conforms to local culture as well as Scripture and also appeals to the audience. Its production cost is $4 million.

Each 30-minute animated program portrays a boy hero and his friends going into a time tunnel. The first series of 26 shows, aired last October through March on 22 stations, presented the Bible as “Superbook,” the subtitle of the first segment. Currently on the air is the second series of 26. Of the 104 shows, 49 are based on the Old Testament and 55 on the New Testament. Only Old Testament stories have been aired so far.

A Japanese magazine, The Gospel for Millions, said that until now, TV evangelism was just a dream because of cost and TV stations’ refusals to slot Christian programs on prime time since they drew a low percentage of viewers.

It is, moreover, an opportune time. The magazine said, “This is the time of economically low growth, so not everybody is busy, and many people are spending their lives watching TV with a feeling of insecurity and dissatisfaction.” A survey conducted a few years ago revealed that most Japanese watched TV three hours and 25 minutes a day, while housewives averaged five hours. It also revealed that 98.2 percent of households in Japan have color TV—the highest percentage in the world.

The Bible For Your Tomorrow, designed by Living Bibles International for this joint evangelistic effort, is a 400-page book comprising key chapters from the Old and New Testaments, including the entire Gospel of Matthew and five complete epistles.

Each “Family Theater” program has three 30-second advertisements, which say that its programs are based on stories in The Bible For Your Tomorrow.

About 1,500 pastors are cooperating in this project. Earl Weirich of CBN said the network hopes to raise that number to 3,500.

This CBN-LBI liaison is expected to continue in another four Asian countries. “Family Theater” will be dubbed into other languages, and new special editions of the Living Bible will make their way into Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Thailand later this year.

CBN also has contracted for or is negotiating the introduction of “Superbook” to a wider audience. These countries include Spain, France, Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Italy, Nigeria, South Africa, the Philippines, New Zealand, and Canada.

“We are also getting ready to negotiate with Christian publishing companies to write a curriculum that could be used as a teaching tool with the TV series,” said Weirich. It will be designed for use in Europe, Canada, and the United States. Japan, as such, will soon be exporting another of its products to the U.S.: “Family Theater.”

LAWSON LAU

Despite Scandals, Armstrong’S Church Is Growing

Despite recurring scandals and defections, the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) and its fiery founder, Herbert W. Armstrong, are stronger than ever. Membership is growing at the rate of more than 1,000 new members a year and as of May 3, 1982, stood at 70,680. Ninety-five new congregations have been added in the past two-and-a-half years. Income has soared from $90.3 million in 1980 to $108.4 million in 1981. (WCG press secretary Ellis La-Ravia states that the previously announced figure of $66.4 million for 1979 represented U.S. income only, while the recent amounts are worldwide totals.)

Circulation of Armstrong’s magazine, Plain Truth, has zoomed to 4.3 million; subscriptions have doubled to nearly 2.5 million, and giveaways (at newsstands, supermarkets, etc.) have tripled to almost 1.9 million since late 1979. Nonmember contributors are holding steady at 144,000 after a 25,000 drop from 1976 to 1979, but “new people” are flooding the mail processing center in Pasadena, California, at the rate of 100,000 per month. This upsurge may be explained in large part by the WCG’S dramatic expansion of media coverage. Since January 1981, “The World Tomorrow” broadcast in the U.S. has more than doubled to 100 radio stations and 144 television stations. The program, featuring monologues by Armstrong, is transmitted worldwide by a total of 168 radio and 192 television stations, including 108 outlets in Canada, 61 in Australia, and 35 in the Philippines. It is beamed to the British Isles via Radio Luxembourg. Armstrong, peripatetic “ambassador without portfolio,” continues his excursions to world capitals. Over the past years, his travels have taken him to Europe, the Far East, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East. In Cairo, Egypt, he was received by Anwar Sadat’s successor, President Hosni Mubarak. Armstrong’s colleges—both named Ambassador—at Pasadena and Big Sandy, Texas (a junior college), enrolled 500 and 200 students respectively for the 1981–82 academic year.

Armstrong recently filed to end his five-year marriage with the former Ramona Martin, who is 46 years his junior. Armstrong, who will be 90 on July 31, returned last summer to his Pasadena residence from the couple’s home in Tucson. He charges that Ramona has refused to join him there. “God hates divorce. So do I,” he recently wrote constituents, but justified his action from 1 Corinthians 7:12–15, in which Paul declares that upon the departure of an “unbelieving” mate, “a brother or sister is not under bondage.” Ironically, Armstrong’s adamant opposition to divorce resulted in the dissolution of hundreds of WCG marriages involving a divorced partner until the rigidly enforced “D and R” (divorce and remarriage) regulation was modified a year before Armstrong married Ramona, a divorcee, in 1977. His first marriage had ended ten years earlier when his wife of nearly fifty years, Loma, died.

In an article in the May 1982 issue of the Plain Truth (“God Hates Divorce—Yet He Divorced His Own Wife! Why?”) Armstrong likens his defunct marriage to that of God with Israel: “It’s a case of an aged personage who loved a beautiful young woman and proposed marriage. He offered her a considerably increased lifestyle and many advantages—even to make her the “first lady” of all the earth—for this aged personage was God.… But his wife was unfaithful and refused to live with him in peace.” Accordingly, God pronounced judgment upon his faithless bride and “divorced” her.

Ramona could not be reached for comment. An informed source contends that she does not want the divorce and is frustrated by her husband’s refusal to support her and her son (by a previous marriage) and to continue mortgage payments on the Tucson residence. The source believes the real reason behind Armstrong’s action is his fear that Ramona, in league with other “conspirators,” will attempt to have him declared mentally incompetent and removed from the church’s leadership. When Stanley R. Rader, 52, long considered the de facto power behind the Armstrong throne, was relieved of his responsibilities a year ago, it was rumored that the dismissal was triggered by the disclosure of a plot to depose Armstrong. Rader, contacted by telephone, denied the rumor.

Rader denied he had been “fired,” declaring that his intention to “return to a more private life” after resolution of the church’s legal battle with the state of California had been announced long before his resignation. (The state imposed a receivership on the church in January 1979 pending investigation of alleged financial irregularities.) Rader insisted that he has never aspired to succeed Armstrong as the spiritual leader. Armstrong conferred upon Rader, who was his treasurer, legal counsel, and constant traveling companion on missions to heads of state around the world, a bonus of $750,000 ($250,000 after taxes) in appreciation for his services. Rader has resumed his law practice, but stated that he is available to serve as “adviser” if called upon, and he continues on the church’s payroll, although his salary (which he says exceeds $200,000), originally guaranteed through 2003, reportedly has been cut back.

Since his removal, a number of “Rader men” in the Armstrong organization likewise have been dismissed, including Henry Cornwall and Sherwin McMichael, whose suit against David Robinson for alleged libelous accusations in his book Herbert Armstrongs Tangled Web subsequently was dropped. Also banished were aides Joe Kotura, Jack Bicket, John Kineston, and Jack Kessler. Kotura and Bicket recently were restored after they reportedly reaffirmed loyalty to Armstrong. Kessler, 32, attorney and accountant who audited WCG financial records and prepared Armstrong’s personal income tax during the seventies, was disfellowshipped in September 1981. Members of the church, including his father and brother-in-law (both pastors) and presumably his wife, were forbidden to communicate with him. On December 30, Kessler wrote the 16-member governing board a 14-page letter urging correction of “continuing, persistent financial abuses” within the church.

(Armstrong’s theology is unorthodox in many respects. He denies the existence of the Trinity, the soul, hell, and the existence of the Holy Spirit as a person. One of his teachings is “British Israelism”—that Anglo-Saxons are the true Israel; the British being the tribe of Ephraim and the United States the tribe of Manasseh.)

Meanwhile, the Church of God, International, run by Armstrong’s estranged son, Garner Ted is slipping slightly financially. Weekly income has dipped to $20,442 from $21,000 eighteen months ago, and membership has fallen from 3,000 to 1,800 during that interval. Garner Ted currently broadcasts from a new headquarters building in Tyler, Texas, over 8 television and “less than 35” radio stations—compared with 300 radio and 165 TV stations during the heyday of WCG broadcasting in the early seventies. He has virtually ruled out any possibility of his return to the WCG. He stated that his father has repeatedly spumed overtures of filial concern, even refusing to accept a letter hand-delivered by a friend. However, close observers believe Garner Ted would welcome an invitation back to the WCG, but only on his terms: total power and free reign to make sweeping reforms and personnel changes.

What will happen when at last the elder Armstrong passes from the scene? Young ex-members who publish Ambassador Report (an anti-WCG newsletter) believe Roderick Meredith, a former top-ranking executive, has the inside track. Another highly placed source sees Meredith as the leader of a reactionary wing within the WCG, but believes the present directors will seek to protect their $60,000 to $100,000 salaries by establishing “rule by committee.” None of the contenders seems to possess the public speaking ability and charisma of either Armstrong. Like Jehovah’s Witnesses of the post-Russell-Rutherford-Knorr era, future leadership will probably be assumed by a hierarchy of less talented executives who have somehow managed to survive the rapidly spinning revolving door at Pasadena headquarters. Even Herbert, while exclaiming, “God will keep me alive and on the job as long as he needs me,” has bowed to the inevitable and empowered his council of elders to appoint a successor “to the physical and spiritual offices in the church” in the event of his death or incapacity.

JOSEPH M. HOPKINS

North American Scene

The basketball team Athletes in Action has been cut from its sponsorship by Campus Crusade for Christ. The team, considered one of the top amateur squads in the world, has been touring for 15 years. Campus Crusade decided to redirect funds to overseas evangelistic projects. The Athletes in Action team will continue if funding can be raised from other sources.

The General Association of Regular Baptists (GARB) lined up squarely against what it sees as the excesses of American society at its recent annual meeting. In colorfully worded statements, GARB attacked “bribe-taking lawmakers” and a California sperm bank “that seeks to populate the world with supersmart sinners.” Alcoholism, drug trafficking, homosexuality, and crime were all denounced as part of the “moral degeneracy” that “runs like a rampaging river through the land.” The 74,000-member denomination was urged to “pray as we have never prayed before.”

Liturgical and social dancing—except disco—has been approved for the 214,000 members of the Christian Reformed Church. Delegates at that denomination’s annual synod warned against the “negative potential” of some social dancing but said it can be legitimate recreation when “genuine Christian maturity” is exercised. The synod also vetoed ecclesiastical fellowship with South Africa’s (white) Dutch Reformed Church.

World Scene

There is now one Third World missionary for every three North American missionaries. Even more significant, according to a recently completed study, is that “non-Western missionary recruitment for full-time cross-cultural endeavor appears to be growing at least five times as fast as recruitment for missions in North America.” A year of survey work by Lawrence Keyes, based in Saõ Paulo, Brazil, uncovered 368 non-Western mission agencies from at least 57 different countries. They are probably fielding over 15,000 missionaries, almost triple the number just eight years ago. Keyes, an O.C. Ministries missionary, is coordinator of the Unit of Research and Information established recently by the Missions Commission of the World Evangelical Fellowship.

A group of Christian Indians from North America has made an urgent appeal to help the predominantly Christian Miskito Indians in Nicaragua. A Mohawk evangelist, Tom Claus, along with other well-known Indian leaders, announced recently in Los Angeles the launching of an appeal for $400,000 to assist the Miskitos. Claus, president of Christian Hope Indian Eskimo Fellowship (CHIEF), said that the money is needed to help feed the 250 Miskito prisoners, provide 500 homes for refugees who fled to Honduras, and provide blankets and agricultural help. More than 50 American Indian tribal chiefs have been enlisted to help raise money and create public awareness of the plight of the Miskitos.

There is a religious angle to the controversial Siberia-Europe natural gas pipeline. About one-tenth of the 100,000 people working on construction of the pipeline are forced laborers. Among the criminals and political prisoners are those incarcerated for their religious activities—believers such as Baptist preachers Vladimir Marmus and Alexander Ussatjuk. According to the International Association for Human Rights (IGFM) in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, the forced laborers are housed in “inadequate trucks that offer no protection” against temperatures of 30 to 40 below zero in winter. Many are reported to have fallen ill already.

Ethiopian evangelicals are winning respect from their country’s Marxist government. One hundred families who were resettled in 1977 from overcrowded highland areas have now become self sufficient. As a result, authorities are asking the Kale Heywat Development Program, the relief arm of the SIM-related Word of Life church, to rehabilitate a second 100 families in southern Ethiopia. In the highlands, erosion and over-farming impoverished the soil. In the lowland resettlement area, SIM supplies oxen for plowing, vaccination against trypanosomiasis carried by the tsetse fly, farm tools, food subsidy for children, and antimalarial medication.

Soviet Christians are duplicating a 24-cassette version of the New Testament in Russian, the first produced in their language. The Slavic Gospel Association and Messianic Life, a Jewish-Christian organization, launched the project.

A New Life campaign in the Zurich area of Switzerland was jointly sponsored by the Reformed, Roman Catholic, and free churches. This unprecedented cooperation, with some 10,000 Christians participating during April and May, resulted in the formation of about 1,300 new Bible study groups. Also, a free evangelistic paperback book, prepared for the campaign by Campus Crusade for Christ, was distributed to some 140,000 persons who responded to newspaper and billboard advertisements.

Evangelicals Study The Link Between Social Action And Gospel

Meeting for six days at the end of June at Reformed Bible College, Grand Rapids, Michigan, over 50 evangelical theologians from 26 countries considered the relationship between evangelism and social responsibility. The event was sponsored by the World Evangelical Fellowship and the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. At the opening service, Leighton Ford of the Lausanne Committee spoke of the apprehensions which surrounded the topic. The meeting, he made clear, had been called to clarify, but not rewrite, the statement in the Lausanne Covenant concerning the responsibility of Christians to engage in social and political action.

The event was a response to a decade of growing demand for guidance from evangelical Christians from around the world. The realities of world hunger, exploitation, and the desitution of some 800 million people are pressing in on the consciousness of evangelicals in a new way. Many, particularly in Asia and North and South America, want to understand better the balance between these elements of the church’s mission. Which should have priority? How may the church of Jesus Christ minister to the spiritual and physical needs of a troubled world? How does the evangelical evaluate the insistent demands of the liberation theologians that Christians join in the struggle for social justice?

Consultation participants considered eight major papers and case studies from different cultural settings, which were designed to increase understanding of key issues from both theological and practical perspectives. The papers considered ways in which Christians through the centuries have viewed the balance between evangelism and social action, the manner in which eschatological views may influence social action, and whether salvation language may be used to describe social or political liberation.

A consultation report was drafted by John Stott of England and David Wells of Gordon-Conwell Seminary near Boston. This drew extensively on views expressed in the small group and plenary sessions, and at the end of the consultation, participants considered its draft form line by line. Long hours of patient listening and seeking to understand new viewpoints clarified and resolved some—but by no means all—of the issues.

Conscious of the anxieties of many evangelicals who remember the decline of the liberal social gospel movement, the report stoutly affirms the priority of evangelism. It states: “Evangelism has a logical priority.… If social action is a consequence and aim of evangelism (as we have asserted) then evangelism must precede it. In addition, social progress is being hindered in some countries by the prevailing religious culture; only evangelism can change this.”

The report continues: “Seldom if ever should we have to choose between satisfying physical hunger and spiritual hunger, or between healing bodies and saving souls, since an authentic love for our neighbor will lead us to serve him or her as a whole person. Nevertheless, if we must choose, then we have to say that the supreme and ultimate need of all mankind is the saving grace of Jesus Christ and therefore a person’s eternal, spiritual salvation is of greater importance than his or her temporal and material well-being.”

The report does, however, consider a range of circumstances in which social responsibility and evangelism may be separated. It recognizes that some people have gifts as evangelists while others are called to service and acts of mercy, both of which should be used for the common good (Rom. 12:8). It also identifies at least three relationships that it describes as “equally valid.” These are: social concern as a consequence of evangelism; social concern as a bridge to evangelism; and social concern as a partner of evangelism. It points to the ministry of Jesus Christ as a clear illustration of the partnership between the two; in his earthly ministry, proclamation (kerygma) and service (diaconia) went hand in hand, with his words explaining his works and his works dramatizing his words. Both words and works were expressions of his compassion for people.

The report continues: “… although social action should not be called evangelism nor identified with it (since central to evangelism is the verbal proclamation of the gospel), nevertheless it has an evangelistic dimension in the sense that good works of love, done in the name of Christ, are a silent but visible demonstration of the gospel.”

On the vexed question of social justice, a range of views was aired by participants. It was recognized that some social change necessitates political action and that this is feared by many evangelicals on the grounds that it may lead to civil strife and even revolution. The report recommends that the sociopolitical involvement of which the Lausanne Covenant speaks should be pursued through the democratic process in states where this form of government prevails. Appropriate forms of action for Christians in non-democratic societies are also discussed.

A major section of the report addressed the work of the local church. Is there such a thing as local church social responsibility? Should local churches become involved in political action? This topic is discussed in the contexts of political and religious freedom and situations of oppression. Its guidelines suggest ways in which local churches and their leaders may respond to social issues in their communities. It discusses a range of options, including the need for responsible leadership to inform church members about contemporary social and ethical issues and to discuss these in light of the moral demands of the kingdom. “We are also agreed … that the church has a prophetic ministry, should seek to be the conscience of the nation, and has a duty to help the congregation develop a Christian mind so that the people may learn to think Christianly even about controversial questions.”

Guidelines for churches in conditions where Christians are suffering harassment or active persecution, “living at the margins of society,” were drawn up by consultation members who have lived in Uganda and Eastern Europe. In such situations, it is suggested, the local church must first be consistent to itself, establishing and maintaining the credibility of its witness. It can function as a living model of a community of love, bearing testimony by deeds of love and by being a model of “just structures, harmonious relationships, and contented lifestyles.” It must witness to the gospel by personal evangelism, love, and service to those in deep human need. Its members must stand together and, speaking on local issues, witness to the principles of Christ. The report identifies in the Bible a “noble succession of men … such as Elijah, Nathan, Daniel, and John the Baptist, who risked their lives by courageously defying human authority in the name of the God of justice.”

ARTHUR WILLIAMSON

Canadian Bill Threatens Christian School

The government of the Canadian province of Ontario has reintroduced a piece of legislation that threatens the existence of a small but respected Christian liberal arts graduate school. Ostensibly aimed at curbing “degree mills,” which are surfacing in the province, the original legislation, proposed in 1980, was opposed as too encompassing by evangelical Bible schools and seminaries and by the Institute for Christian Studies (ICS).

The revised legislation makes provision for valid and recognized vocational “religious degrees”—such as M.Div., B.Th., or B.R.E.—but it prohibits the granting of “nonreligious degrees,” such as B.A., M.A., M.Phil., or Ph.D., except by the 15 government-established universities. In addition, the province has served notice that it has no intention of recognizing more colleges, regardless of their academic credentials.

The Institute for Christian Studies sees the bill as a devastating blow. Founded in 1967, the Christian Reformed Church-related graduate school offers the master of philosophy degree and, through a joint program with Amsterdam’s Free University, makes it possible for qualified students to earn doctoral degrees from the Dutch university.

The institute, with eight faculty members (all with Ph.D. degrees) and 48 graduate students, is highly respected by the general academic community. A number of professors from provincially recognized universities have written to the government to express their high estimate of the graduate school’s program.

Dr. Bernard Zylstra, ICS principal, in a letter to the province’s premier, expressed hearty support of the government’s attempts to stamp out “degree mills.”

Since the institute has an eminently qualified faculty and has granted only 19 M.Phil. degrees since 1975, its supporters point out that it can hardly be designated a “degree mill.”

Zylstra and others have rejected the suggestion that they offer “religious degrees.” To do that, he said, in an open letter to the premier, would be “to deny what we are doing, handicap our students as they move on elsewhere, and, ultimately, threaten our existence.”

Passage of the legislation, contend ICS supporters, would be a grave injustice, which could be a body blow to the institution.

LESLIE K. TARR

Supreme Court Rules Against Child Porn

Last month’s Supreme Court ruling on child pornography means it does not have to be proven obscene before it can be banned. The decision placed it in the category of “speech” that is not deserving of First Amendment protection, along with libel, language that incites to violence, and obscenity.

The nine justices made their important ruling by unanimously upholding the constitutionality of a New York law that bars the use of children (under the age of 16) in sexually explicit films, photographs, or performances.

In so doing, they reversed the judgment of the New York Court of Appeals, which last year ruled the law unconstitutional since it did not require establishment of obscenity under the Miller formula. (In the 1973 Miller v. California case, the Supreme Court defined as obscene those works “which, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex, which portray sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and which, taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”)

Associate Justice Byron R. White wrote in the court opinion that an obscenity test such as Miller “bears no connection to the issue of whether a child has been physically or psychologically harmed in the production of the work.” He added that a pornographic work that could pass the Miller obscenity test “may nevertheless embody the hardest core of child pornography.”

The court defended removal of child pornography from First Amendment protection because “the prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse of children constitutes a government objective of surpassing importance.” It noted that “virtually all of the states and the United States have passed legislation proscribing the production or otherwise combating ‘child pornography.’ ” This legislation, White’s opinion stated, is in line with expert advice that “the use of children as subjects is harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the child.”

For those concerned that child pornography laws might stifle legitimate free speech interests, court opinions argued that they do not limit discussion of child sexuality or even illustration that does not utilize or photograph children. Depictions of serious social value—Justice White mentioned “medical textbooks” and “pictorials in National Geographic”—do not “amount to more than a tiny fraction of the materials within the statute’s reach.” The opinions implied that it would be “impermissible” to apply child pornography laws in such exceptional cases.

The practical result of the ruling is to uphold not only the constitutionality of the New York law, but also those of 19 other states that prohibit child pornography regardless of whether the material is legally obscene.

The 17 states whose child pornography statutes only prohibit obscene material, and those without legislation in this area, are now likely to pass laws on the New York model (with perhaps stiffer penalties for material prosecuted as obscene). Thus the legal door should soon swing shut on this vilest of pornographic activity.

This could be a hollow victory, however, according to Bruce Taylor, general counsel for Citizens for Decency through Law. He said there is a trend for enforcement officials to not assign personnel to police pornography (the Customs Department, for instance, has now ceased checking imported materials for obscenity). And many, he notes, who deplore child pornography casually tolerate the adult pornography enterprise that fathered it.

More enthusiasm than cash for filming the Bible.

In 1975, the Genesis Project embarked on a 20-year task of filming the entire Bible word for word in three English translations. As the project nears its midpoint, the directors are holding their breath to see whether the advent of new communications technologies can help offset staggering production cost overruns. The company has a $17 million deficit.

So far, Genesis Project has produced the feature-length film Jesus and complete renditions of Genesis and Luke, each consisting of more than a dozen 15-minute films. Painstaking attention to detail—down to specially thrown pottery, rebuilt synagogues, and rewoven clothes—has won high praise from virtually everyone who has seen the New Media Bible, as it is called.

But sales figures have not matched the initial enthusiasm, and production costs have skyrocketed. The problem appears to be the price: for all 33 films (18 installments of Genesis and 15 of Luke) the cost is almost $10,000. Buyers—mostly mainline Protestant churches—tend to acquire it piecemeal, purchasing one or two $300 packages at a time.

The packages include a film, audiocassettes, a leader’s guide, projectionist’s script, and ten copies of Bibletimes magazine to accompany the script.

While cost overruns are higher than expected, according to producer John Heyman, the work is proceeding on course. Along with trust in the Lord, the people at Genesis Project are putting plenty of faith in new technologies that may eventually bring the New Media Bible within the grasp of individuals.

In mid-May, the Luke and Genesis chapters were made available on videotape, costing $1,500 each. The combined price for both books on video is one-third the price of the 8 and 16 mm. film versions. Video would be shown on television screens.

By Christmas, Heyman expects to be distributing his product on videodiscs as well, and he foresees the day when all 225 hours of the New Media Bible will be condensed on a microchip which would program television sets to show the Bible.

“I hope by the time we finish filming in 1993 or 1994 that we will be able to disseminate this as reasonably as an inexpensive book,” Heyman said. “These new technologies are a tremendous boon.”

Heyman’s optimism about new technologies is not shared universally, because many market uncertainties remain. For example, videodiscs exist in two varieties that are incompatible with one another. And the microchip is an idea scarcely off the drawing board.

Even the drop in price from film to videotape is a mixed blessing. Buyers still are not beating down the doors, partly because they anticipate even lower prices as other options become available. They remain cautious about sinking their money into video equipment that could be outdated quickly in a changing market, according to a former Genesis Project sales staff member.

At the project’s U.S. marketing office in Washington, D.C., indications are that Heyman is accurate in forecasting growing interest among individuals. Following a single appearance by project spokesmen on “The 700 Club,” more than 600 calls were received in 10 days. Many of these individuals said they have a specialized use for the videotapes, such as a prison ministry or home Bible studies.

Marketing efforts so far have attracted about 3,000 customers and many of these consist of “cluster groups” of churches that share the materials. United Methodist congregations account for 23 percent of the sales, followed by Baptists at 20 percent.

Genesis Project is a for-profit corporation funded by private investors. Heyman personally put up $2.5 million, and others, including Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance, have invested $15 million.

People at Genesis Project view their product as Bible translation rather than entertainment or ministry. C.B. Wismar, director of the project’s U.S. operation, said “We are not a religious film company. We are Bible translators and have, in a sense, revolutionized the translation of the Bible by making it audio-visual.”

But rather than being an alternative to the old-fashioned way of studying Scripture, Wismar said he finds the films encourage people to return to reading. “People are drawn back into the written word with a new freshness,” he said.

Currently, research is being conducted that will culminate in the filming of Acts, Exodus, the remaining Gospels, and the rest of the Pentateuch. Heyman anticipates 93 consecutive weeks of filming during 1983 and 1984, on location in the Middle East. To pay for the next phase of production, Heyman must raise additional money.

He admits to having qualms about production costs, but says, “I trust absolutely that the work will be finished.”

Jerry Falwell Will Start Publishing A Magazine

In September, Jerry Falwell’s Old Time Gospel Hour will begin publishing a monthly magazine entitled the Fundamentalist Journal. The editor’s note in the first issue says the magazine will “create a forum to encourage Christian leadership and statesmanship to stand for the old-time religion in these critical days.” The magazine will carry advertising and is planned to be self-supporting in two years.

Jerry Falwell will be listed as editor-in-chief. Other staff members will be Ed Dobson and Ed Hindson, administrators at Falwell’s Liberty Baptist College, who will be senior editors; Nelson Keener, Falwell’s administrative assistant, who will be managing editor; and Ruth McClellan, coordinating editor.

The first editor’s note also says, “For too long fundamentalism has been misunderstood, maligned and misrepresented by those outside the movement. This magazine sets the record straight as to who we are and what we believe. We are proud of our fundamentalist heritage. It is time that we defended, from within, the movement that has made such a dynamic impact on America.”

Personalia

Tetsunao Yamamori has been appointed executive vice president and president-elect of Food for the Hungry. Yamamori will assume the presidency in 1984, when current president Larry Ward plans to step down. Yamamori has taught at Biola University and Fuller Theological Seminary.

Most Americans, sensitized by the Iranian hostage episode that began in 1979, are keenly aware of the rise of militant Islam. Far fewer have been alerted to growing Hindu aggressiveness in India.

A militant Hindu society, Rashtriya Swayam Sevak (RSS, the Hindi words mean National Pure Service), rose from obscurity 20 years ago and now wields powerful influence on its own. It does so through some 50 affiliated organizations, including the Hindu Resurrection Front and the Temple Protection Front. The RSS political wing controls 8 daily and 40 weekly newspapers. Other militant Hindu groups also operate.

Over the last several years, rising fervor in Hindu observance has led to increased ostracism of the low-caste harijans, or untouchables. Numbers of them have reacted by bolting from Hinduism to Islam or Christianity where they could expect less doctrinaire discrimination. The defections fostered an untypical missionary zeal among Hindus, and rising stridency and recriminations on all sides.

As it gathered strength in the Hindu heartland of northern India, the RSS encountered government suppression in those states. This pushed it into southern India with its much larger Christian minorities. The Christians grew alarmed.

Last winter the tension erupted along the Kanyakumari coast, the southern spout end of the funnel-shaped subcontinent. This district has the highest concentration of Christians in the state of Tamil Nadu (perhaps 45 percent), and the RSS had targeted it for action. The district name is that of a Hindu “virgin goddess,” and the RSS charged that the Christians were out to make Kanya Kumari into Kanni (Tamil for virgin) Mary.

Along the shore is a historically low-caste group of fishermen that converted from Hinduism to Roman Catholicism during the time that Francis Xavier preached along this coast in the sixteenth century. Just inland are the Nadars, a relatively prosperous and predominantly Hindu cultural grouping. They include, however, a significant Protestant minority (attached to the Church of South India), converted after the British arrived in the nineteenth century.

Over the last year there have been several confrontations between the RSS and Christian Nadars.

Trouble began to build in February. A Hindu awakening conference led to the installation of an idol on a traffic island in the town of Thingal Chandai. When worshipers disrupted traffic, the highways department removed the idol, causing Hindu resentment.

Then the trouble erupted at the end of the month during the annual Hindu temple festival in Mandaikaadu, a Nadar village.

Celebrants customarily pass through the adjacent fisher village of Pudur to take a holy dip in the sea. Enroute they drop coins in the collection box at the small Christian shrine on the edge of the village. To encourage this, the fisher folk play music over the shrine loudspeaker.

This year at the Manaikaadu temple festival, RSS volunteers showed up to manage things—many of them dressed in uniforms resembling those of the police. Anti-Christian propaganda began to blare over the temple loudspeakers.

Incensed, the Christians at the Pudur shrine turned up their volume and pointed their speaker toward the temple.

The next day a fisher boy got in an argument with RSS men and was beaten up. The Pudur villagers responded by attacking men they presumed to be RSS volunteers—actually police. Routed at first, the police returned and shot at those villagers who were at the shrine, killing G and wounding 15.

The violence rapidly spread to neighboring villages. Fishermen attacked the Nadar village of Eetamozhi, razing a few of its shops. In turn, Nadars burned down the entire fisher village of Pallam, including all its beached catamarans.

In the months since the outbreak, the Tamil Nadu state government has held discussions with both Christian and Hindu religious leaders, has instituted a judicial inquiry, and has banned the public airing of religious propaganda over loudspeakers.

But the tensions remain, and India’s Christians have been served notice that Hinduism no longer fits its traditional passive image.

NEWS

Moody Bible Institute bucks a trend by staying in the city.

Henry Ward Beecher, the nineteenth century clergyman and editor, was not enamored of Dwight L. Moody’s ministry. “He thinks it is no use to attempt to work for this world,” Beecher wrote. “In his opinion it is blasted—a wreck bound to sink—and the only thing that is worth doing is to get as many of the crew off as you can, and let her go.”

Nearly 100 years later, many people have the same opinion of Moody Bible Institute (MBI), the Chicago Bible school Moody founded. MBI was established in 1886, and the public is yet prone to think the institute’s staff and students try to live in the nineteenth century.

The last time MBI was in the news, for example, was when the school dismissed a professor whose wife openly backed the Equal Rights

Amendment. Reporters marveled not only that a man could get fired for that, but that the school has so many rules: no dancing, no drinking or smoking, and no movies. The dismissed professor admitted that he felt a little silly taking his family to see Star Wars, then sitting in the car while his children—not having signed the Moody pledge—viewed the movie.

The institute does indeed cling stubbornly to rules some people think anachronistic; but what is less widely recognized is a deep commitment of a nature that not many conservative Christians are noted for. It is a commitment to the inner city. MBI is squeezed into the heart of Chicago, surrounded by a wild tapestry of urban variety. Four blocks to the west live the poorest of Chicago’s poor—in a public housing project called Cabrini-Green. Four blocks to the east live the rich—in a neighborhood alongside Lake Michigan aptly called the Gold Coast.

Some 23 distinct ethnic communities bustle within a six-mile radius of the school. The institute itself is located on LaSalle Street, the artery beside which sit Chicago’s most powerful banks and businesses.

No one hears MBI preaching the social gospel. Paradoxically, though, the conservative evangelical school quietly operates 27 inner city ministries. Each week during the school year 1,300 students stream from the institute to tutor ghetto children, witness to prisoners, staff rescue missions, and help lonely senior citizens with grocery shopping and housecleaning.

All this is in line with MBI’s history, Henry Ward Beecher’s perceptions to the contrary. Chicago’s Near North Side was called “Little Hell” when Moody elected to locate his school there. The evangelist himself was known to appear with a thunderous knock at the doors of poor families. He bore baskets of coal and food.

Moody considered his a mission to the masses. The masses, his present-day adherents agree, continue to be in the cities. What was called “Little Hell” is no heaven today—a fact which literally hit home with the institute once when a bomb intended for a massage parlor blew the windows out of a building on campus.

But George Sweeting, president of MBI, flatly declares that the institute is “definitely wedded to the city.” Why? “History has placed us here,” he replies. Willing donors have dangled the bait of scenic campuses in suburban Chicago and Milwaukee before Sweeting’s face. He will not bite.

Many other evangelical schools and seminaries have. The Philadelphia-based Conwell Seminary merged with the Boston-based Gordon Seminary to form Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, in picturesque New England. Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, began in Chicago, but moved to the suburbs. So did Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. Bible schools like Columbia (South Carolina) Bible College and Saint Paul Bible College began in cities and moved out. Most recently, Detroit Bible College left that city for a suburb and a new name, William Tyndale Bible College.

Those schools haven’t moved out of cowardice or lack of concern for the inner city, of course. Room to grow and financial considerations have played a part. And many have inner city ministries even after relocation in the suburbs.

But MBI’s perseverance in the city is all the more impressive in light of the many which have left. Sweeting believes the school has stayed largely because of its unusual design. It is not a seminary or a four-year college. Students come for three years and study the faith intensely, mainly so they will know how to give it away. Evangelism and missions are the institute’s reasons for being.

“The city is a marvelous laboratory where our students have a flesh and blood confrontation with life as it is,” Sweeting says. Working from the city also has impressive precedents, he adds. “The New Testament apostles set the pattern. Christianity was born among the mixed multitudes.”

MBI administrators believe an understanding of the city is as crucial to a modern strategy of evangelism as it was to a first-century strategy. “The cities are growing, not dying,” says Leonard Rascher, the institute’s director of practical Christian ministry. He oversees the urban ministries of students. “All of the destiny of the world is in the center cities.”

Dean of faculty Howard Whaley agrees. “The emphasis on training missionaries has swung back to the cities,” he contends. In the last five years mission agencies have increased their interest in the cities of the world. Since most students live in dormitories adjacent to the Moody campus, staying in the city gives students what Sweeting calls an “urban mindset.” That makes MBI an appropriate lab to train people for missions, Whaley thinks.

The students minister at the Cook County Hospital and Jail, a YMCA center, and St. Joseph’s Center for the Mentally Handicapped. Some work at day care centers and others with the blind. They evangelize in laundromats and with home Bible studies.

There is a concern for the students’ safety. No one remembers a student being injured, and Rascher is proud there has been no incident in his nine years on the faculty. “You need to be wise,” he explains. “Students have to be with partners.”

Whaley’s concern for student safety is not merely professional. He has a daughter attending Moody, but insists he is at peace. “One day it struck me that the prayer I’d been praying for the safety of all students was good enough for my daughter too,” he says.

The students may be safe from the city, but is the city safe from the students? An officer at the desk in the district police office just across the street from MBI thinks it is. Moody students, he observes, have not rocked the town on its ear. He says they have not brought big changes to Cabrini-Green or the Gold Coast. But the MBI community has to be the most peaceful in the neighborhood. Students there give police no trouble, “absolutely none,” the policeman says.

They are, in fact, so noted for honesty that the city government often asks students to count ballots in the notoriously dishonest Chicago elections. And banks prize Moody students as coin counters.

Faculty members, meanwhile, sometimes show up in surprising places. Sweeting had an idea a few years ago to offer a Lenten series of noontime lectures for the business community. The prominent Harris Bank agreed to open its auditorium to Moody professors, and the lectures have become an annual pre-Easter custom. Faculty members have also been asked to lead Bible studies at the Merchandise Mart, a huge economic center.

Besides admirers in the business quadrant, the Institute has its friends at City Hall. “Some schools cannot expand one iota,” Sweeting admits. “The city has sat down and talked with us. That has been helpful.” The government has agreed to such politically sensitive moves as closing off streets and allowing the school to build over them—Chestnut Street and Institute Place are two examples.

Sweeting remembers a call from Mayor Richard Daley in 1973. City Hall was concerned that there were no floats representing the “true meaning of Christmas” in the annual Christmas parade. Daley, an Irish Catholic, called on the conservative Protestant institute to provide the float.

Sweeting believes relations are good with city government because the institute has stayed in the city so long, having become something of a landmark listed on tourist maps. Whaley adds that the school is, after all, a “value-producing institution.” The Chicago YMCA has called MBI one of “the greatest assets of the Near North Side of Chicago.”

Despite MBI’S involvement in relief work, the institute remains open to criticism that it is not working to change the system that may precipitate poverty and crime. Whaley answers that Moody is only “the beginning of that solution.” It is “an educational institution, not an agency for social change like the local church.” He adds that social awareness has heightened in the last 20 years and more graduates are going into social work.

In the meantime, MBI can be expected to stay in the city. “I have deep convictions,” Sweeting states. “We are committed to the city.” If the city was, in Beecher’s words, a “wreck bound to sink,” it is apparent Moody Bible Institute would go down with it.

United Presbyterians May—Unite

Separated since the advent of the Civil War, America’s two largest Presbyterian denominations may now be on the verge of reconciliation. The 800,000-member Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (PCUS) voted 344 to 30 at its general assembly to merge with the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA). The 2.4 million member UPCUSA reciprocated at its general assembly, voting 571 to 18 in favor of reunion.

There is one remaining hurdle before the reunion becomes reality. Three-fourths of the PCUS presbyteries (45 of 60) and two-thirds of the UPCUSA presbyteries (101 of 151) must approve the merger. All presbyteries have been asked to vote on the issue next February.

UPCUSA presbyteries are expected to approve the reunion, but PCUS officials admit they may be hard pressed to get the three-fourths majority vote they need. It is agreed that positive votes from both general assemblies make reunion difficult to resist.

Randolph Taylor, PCUS chairperson on the denomination’s Joint Committee on Reunion, said, “I’m convinced that the matter of Presbyterian reunion will remain before our two churches” even if the requisite number of presbyteries don’t vote for it next winter. “It won’t go away,” he said. The UPCUSA chairperson on the reunion committee, Robert Lamar, agreed. “Full organic union is in our future,” he said.

The PCUS, based in Atlanta, is regarded as the more conservative of the two denominations. Dissent on reunion at both general assemblies centered on the rights of minorities and women. The UPCUSA enforces the right of women to be elders in local churches; PCUS does not. A clause in the 288-page reunion plan would give PCUS 15 years before its churches are required to elect women elders.

If the reunion succeeds, the reunited church will be called the Presbyterian Church (USA) and will have a combined membership of 3.2 million. It would be the fourth largest religious body in the U.S., following the Roman Catholic church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the United Methodist Church.

In other action at its general assembly, the PCUS voted to reaffirm its stand in favor of abortion rights and it expressed disapproval of President Reagan’s proposed school prayer amendment.

The UPCUSA also voted against the prayer amendment. It adopted a resolution censuring attempts at getting creation science into public school curriculum. Results were also presented on a survey of United Presbyterian beliefs about the Bible. Fourteen percent agreed that the Bible is without error in all that it teaches, including matters touching on history and science. A majority, 48 percent, agreed that “all of the Bible is both the inspired Word of God and at the same time a thoroughly human document.”

Pope Names Cincinnati Archbishop To Replace Cody

Pope John Paul II appointed Joseph L. Bernardin, archbishop of Cincinnati, as the new archbishop of the nation’s largest Roman Catholic archdiocese, Chicago. Bernardin was appointed in early July, sooner than expected after the April death of his predecessor, John Cardinal Cody.

Bernardin is well known in the Catholic hierarchy. The archbishop of Cincinnati since 1972, he is president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and the United States Catholic Conference. Some observers believe he has the best chance of becoming the first American pope. He is Italian.

Bernardin’s supervison of the 2.4 million-member Chicago flock is expected to differ greatly from Cody’s. Cody was quiet and reclusive. Bernardin has already said he will be “Very visible” as the new Chicago archbishop. His leadership style has been characterized as cautious but clear and firm.

Cody died amid an unbecoming controversy over allegations that he had channeled $1 million in church funds to a longtime friend. The former archbishop denied the charges and resisted investigation, saying, “any accusations against the shepherd are also against the church.” Bernardin told reporters he will open financial records to the public. “My administration will certainly be open, and there is nothing to hide,” he said.

In an outpouring of uniformly favorable coverage about Bernardin’s selection, the Chicago news media mistakenly reported he had taken a vow of poverty. Bernardin said he has not taken a vow of poverty but tries to live modestly. In Cincinnati, he considered the archbishop’s mansion too luxurious and moved into a three-room apartment.

Detesting oneself makes it almost impossible to honor respect or love others.

Violence is a major concern of most Americans today. The phenomenal increase in homicides is of chief concern—and justifiably so. In Los Angeles, which is typical of the nation’s large urban centers, there was a 59 percent increase in homicides during the three-year period 1977–9, and a 27 percent increase during 1980. Most alarming was the shift to so-called senseless murders: killing without provocation.

Historically, there has been a relationship between the murderer and his victim—a jealous husband, a disgruntled employee, an angry business partner. Now, however, we are witnessing more murders that occur for the sheer thrill of the kill itself, or as a flippant means to settle an argument. A wanton disregard for the value of life would appear to be on the increase. In more homicide cases today the victim and the perpetrator are strangers, completely unrelated to one another. In many of these cases, there appears to be little the victim could have done to prevent the crime.

In other words, each of us is more likely to face a murderous assault regardless of our lifestyle or preventive measures taken.

I am sure the causes of this increase in violence are complex and manifold, but as a law enforcement officer, it appears obvious to me that the phenomenon of self-hatred is a chief contributor. It is typical for those who do not value the lives of others to have low self-esteem. I have seen it in their body language; I have noticed that they do not make eye contact; and I have even heard them make overt statements describing their poor self-image.

Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but detesting one’s self makes it almost impossible to honor, respect, or love others. From such a perspective it is then easy to extinguish or destroy something that has little value. Additionally, unhappiness with oneself often breeds bitterness, an anger with the personality or situation one has been “dealt.” This hostility is another explanation for the brutal, often pointless, acts of violence that occur with increasing regularity.

If this line of reasoning is accurate, what explains the apparent increase in self-rejection? Why do many Americans hate themselves? Having dealt with individuals displaying these symptoms over my 26 years as a police officer, there is no question in my mind that the self-image is formed very early in life. Further, behavior that stems from low self-esteem often understandably results in more rejection. And this cycle often continues with tragic consequences. It follows, then, that the key to analyzing this complex problem lies in the home—that institution primarily responsible for socializing new human beings.

The American home has experienced profound changes in recent years, one of the most significant of which is absentee parents. More often than not, when police officers attempt to notify the parents of juveniles we have found or detained, we discover there is no one at home. Neither mother nor father is there to welcome the children home from school, to give them the guidance, encouragement, and love that is needed during the formative years.

From a materialistic perspective, we have a standard of living that is unequalled. Our lives are cluttered with gadgets, conveniences, and status symbols. Often, however, neglected children—little ones who feel insecure and rejected—are the ones who pay the price for our “good life.” Whether consciously or not, many parents have come to value material success over and above human values. In a real sense, “things” have been given precedent over the most precious possession we have—our children. But spumed love often turns into hostility and hatred. The Bible says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger” (Eph. 6:4).

I believe the most profound way we provoke our children is through rejection. Our epidemic of rebellious children is a direct result of neglect, or when material gain replaces guidance and love. To say that we would be better off to live in tents, cooking over open fires but having respect for one another, than to live in $200,000 homes surrounded by gadgets and despising one another, may overstate our choice. But we need to value people more than things. Perhaps when we do, the violence will diminish.

Robert L. Vernon is assistant chief of police for the City of Los Angeles. California. He is the author of L.A. Cop: Peacemaker in Blue (Benson, 1978).

The ministry of music is one of the most significant ministries of the church. Simultaneously, it is one in which many decisions are made on assumptions or common practices that may or may not be accurate. Pastors also often have deep concerns they do not have opportunity to express.

As a service to the local church, CHRISTIANITY TODAY has designed the following questionnaire, directed primarily to the senior pastor. Your honest and considered replies will be of genuine help to others, as theirs may be to you. A summary will be published in a future issue of CT. For your observations to be included, your completed questionnaire should be received at CT no later than September 30, 1982.

Use a separate sheet of paper for items requiring longer answers.

General

1. In your opinion, what are the most significant issues today in church music? .

2. What significance does music have in your ministry? . Does it actually achieve the goals set for it?

3. Does your music ministry have a significant outreach into your immediate community? .

4. How would you appraise relevance and quality of music programs in evangelical schools? .

Are they meeting the needs of the church? .

Why or why not? .

The Pastor

1. Have you personally had any training in the theology and

practice of worship? . In hymnology? . In music? .

2. Do you meet regularly with your minister of music? .

3. Do you preach at every musical performance? .

The Ministry Of Music

1. What criteria do you use in selecting a minister of music? .

2. Is the minister of music ordained? .

3. Is your minister of music full-time? Yes No .

¾? ½? ⅓? Less than ⅓? .

4. Does your minister of music have theological training? . Formal music education? . If so, to what extent? . Professional music performance experience? .

5. To whom does the minister of music report? Senior pastor music committee board other .

6. What group(s) does the minister of music conduct? . Is the minister of music conductor of the adult choir? .The organist? .

Administration

1. Do you have a music committee? . How does it relate to the minister of music? . What are its primary responsibilities? .

2. Do you have choirs or ensembles other than the adult choir? . What kind . Do you have an orchestra? . A handbell group? .

3. How many are regularly in the adult choir? Are they auditioned? . How many are members of your church? Is such membership required for participation in the choir? . Does the choir include any students who are not affiliated with your church? .

4. Do any of your regular groups depend on nonchurch members for more than 5 percent of their membership? . If so, which groups?

5. What is your total music budget? $.

6. What do you pay the minister of music? $. The organist? $. Are any other music positions salaried? . If so, to what extent? .

7. What kind(s) of repertoire do your groups use? .

8. Do you have a sanctuary organ and/or piano? . What kind(s)? .

9. When do your groups rehearse? Where? .

The Hymnal

1. What hymnal(s) do you use?

2. What are your basic criteria in selecting a hymnal? .

3. What percentage of the hymns in the hymnal do you think you use? %.

4. When did you last purchase a hymnal? .

Special Ministries

1. How often do you have concert-type programs? .

How long are they? .

2. What effects do Christian recordings, radio, and television have on your music ministry? .

3. What effects do touring groups and guest artists have? .

On what basis do you invite outside artists? .

Your Church

1. Is the church in a denomination? . If so, please give the full name .

2. What is the population of the city/town in which your church is located? .

3. What is the normal attendance at your morning service(s)? Evening? Concerts? .

It is not necessary to sign your name. However, if you do not mind giving your name, is there any portion of your response (in addition to salaries) on which you would not wish to be quoted?

Mail your completed response to: CT Music Survey, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60187.

Artur Schnabel defined “great music” as “music that is composed better than it can be played.” I think the same can be said of Christianity. Only One has played the score perfectly, and he was The Composer. Some people have done magnificently. Others seem to forget the score halfway through, while still others never get past the practice stage. Most players are just average.

But the score, as God wrote it, and as our Lord himself lived it, is the most beautiful the world has ever heard.

Beethoven wrote some of his greatest music after he became deaf. Though he never heard it, he composed music “better than it can be played.” There was another musician in a land where for years “God’s music” was not allowed to be played. Daily he took out his score of Handel’s Messiah and placed it on the dining room table. Then, on the table, his fingers silently and diligently played through the entire score. “He was making music,” commented a friend, “that only God could hear.”

Anything worth doing well takes practice. I listen to great pianists, watch the Olympics, hear about surgeons who perform incredible operations. And then I think of the hours of daily practice over the years that brought them to that place. It both shames and challenges me. It is easy to become casual in a land where Christianity is accepted.

If there are any regrets in heaven, perhaps they will be that given such beautiful music to play—music “composed better than it can be played”—most of us have practiced so casually, so little.