“The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) now expresses its deep concern about the threat of a nuclear holocaust and urges our national leaders to rededicate their efforts to obtain a meaningful arms control agreement that will scale down the nuclear arms race.” Such was the wording of a resolution passed by the NAE at its annual convention in Arlington Heights, Illinois, last month. Arthur Gay, pastor of the South Park Church in Park Ridge, Illinois, was elected president of the 3.5-million-member association.

Some commentators were surprised that the usually staid and conservative NAE expressed such feelings about the present danger of nuclear war, but the resolution reflects the growing influence of its Evangelical Social Action Commission (ESAC). This group has been quietly working behind the scenes to sensitize the parent organization to the significant sociopolitical problems of the day.

In the ESAC workshops at this year’s convention, a number of experienced social workers, urban pastors, and even a juvenile judge explained how churches could assist families during the current economic crisis, combat violence in the family, and preserve the legal rights of children.

The commission traces its origins to the 1951 convention, where a forum on social action was included in the program that focused on the relationship between Christianity and particular politico-economic systems, labor-management differences, and race relations issues.

A prominent personality in the forum was Carl F. H. Henry, whose tract The Uneasy Conscience of modern Fundamentalism had sparked considerable discussion in evangelical circles about social concerns. When the 1951 convention decided to create the Commission on Social Action, he was named its chairman. After he stepped down in 1956, lesser-known figures headed the agency, and its attention was mainly directed to individualistic efforts like developing social welfare programs and combating alcohol.

An important milestone in the body’s history was the merger with the Commission on Evangelical Action in 1973. The latter’s function had been to look after religious freedom concerns and articulate an evangelical viewpoint on governmental and political matters. It worked closely with the NAE Office of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C.

Renamed the Evangelical Social Action Commission, its scope of interest expanded into areas like arms control, minority development, and political activism. Two well-known black evangelicals served as chairmen during the next eight years: Clarence Hilliard of Chicago (1974–78) and John Perkins of the Voice of Calvary (1978–82). They did much to galvanize the organization into becoming a genuine social action body.

In 1976, ESAC developed the NAE’s resolution on hunger and in 1977 asked to have a phrase on social concern included in the statement on Scripture debated by the convention. In 1978, it cosponsored a resolution endorsing the Panama Canal treaty and in 1979 actually secured passage of a resolution on the threat of war that called on the U.S. government “to exercise reasonable restraint in the production and use of its military capability and to encourage other nations to do the same.”

It also inaugurated the “Faithful Servant Award” to recognize evangelicals whose lives have been distinguished by a devotion to meeting the needs of the whole person. The first recipients were Paul Rees and Frank Gaebelein. This year it was bestowed upon the septuagenarian Louis Rawls, pastor of the Baptist Tabernacle on Chicago’s South Side and one of the NAE’S oldest black members.

Recently, Rufus Jones, who retired last year as general director of the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society, was appointed ESAC’S first executive director. David Crail, a Wesleyan church pastor in Chicago, succeeded John Perkins as chairman. Perkins in turn was named to the prestigious NAE executive committee, the first black to serve in that capacity.

The respect that ESAC has gained in NAE circles and the attention being paid to its recommendations provide evidence that the NAE is developing more of a social conscience than its critics have realized and that it has moved appreciably from the sociopolitical conservatism of its earlier days.

NEWS

Scholars and laymen rally for inerrancy in San Diego.

One participant at an unusual event in San Diego last month was reported to have gazed around him and declared, “It looks like all my theological bubble gum cards have come to life.”

Well-known leaders from many branches of evangelicalism had gathered to participate in the “Congress on the Bible,” organized by the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy (ICBI). The one-time event was designed to infuse the evangelical movement with renewed enthusiasm for the authority and reliability of Scripture.

The ICBI organized five years ago to restate and modernize the arguments for biblical inerrancy, arguments that have grown stronger in the light of archeological and historical research. Its books and papers have mainly addressed pastors and academics, and San Diego’s three-and-a-half-day gathering was designed for the laity.

“They’re the ones who pay the bills; they’re the board members [of Christian institutions],” said Norman Geisler, a theology professor at Dallas Theological Seminary. “If all you have is a bunch of preachers and scholars sitting around, you’d never get anything accomplished.”

Some 2,500 attended the congress and packed many of the seminars conducted mainly by professors from a wide range of conservative schools, on various aspects of biblical authority. Speakers at plenary sessions included Christian celebrities known to most people only through books and films, such as Joni Eareckson, Bill Bright, and Francis and Edith Schaeffer.

Presidential counselor Edwin Meese delivered a forthright speech on the value of the Bible, calling it, “the foundation upon which our country was built,” and referring to it as a “reliable roadmap” for charting the direction of the country. Meese is a member of a Missouri Synod Lutheran church in El Cajon, California, and came at the request of an acquaintance, Campus Crusade’s Bill Bright, the chairman of the congress committee.

The organizers handled the nettlesome issue of creationism by scheduling seminar speakers with variant views. Henry Morris of the Institute for Creation Research lectured on the young earth view, with its literal six days of creation. Walter Bradley, a mechanical engineering professor at Texas A&M University, explained the old earth view, which allows for geological ages.

During a press conference held by three scholars at the congress, it was clear that none of them would be pinned down to the young earth view, which has been pressed in court suits in California and Arkansas, and thus popularized in the press. The three participants in the press conference were Kenneth Kantzer, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, J. I. Packer of Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, and philosopher Francis Schaeffer. All three said that a young earth view of creation (and thus a denial of the geological ages of the earth’s development) was not required for a belief in inerrancy. (An old earth view does not necessarily presuppose human evolution, however.)

Josif Ton, a Romanian Baptist minister who was kicked out of his Communist country last year (CT, October 23, 1981, p. 54) for his vigorous efforts to spread the faith, recounted his own spiritual journey during a speech. He said he became a Christian early in life and held fast to his faith despite the Marxist indoctrination he received in school. He learned English as a means of furthering his theological knowledge, because there wasn’t much theology available in his language. The first English theology book he read, however, cast him into despair, because it undermined the reliability of the Bible. He said he did not know then that there was a difference between liberal and conservative scholarship, and the result was that he abandoned the faith.

“My faith wasn’t killed by Marxism and communism,” he declared. “My faith was killed by liberal theologians.” It was only after a long while that he climbed back to his former beliefs, he said, and then he made perhaps the strongest statement of the entire conference: “Liberal theologians who undermine the faith of their nation in the Bible work for a Communist takeover of their land.”

Many of the scholars who participated in ICBI believe that the doctrine of inerrancy is essential to any reversal of the trend away from orthodox Christianity, a trend already well advanced in mainline seminaries. James Montgomery Boice, chairman of ICBI, said he doubts that liberal scholars are paying much attention to the organization, however. His views were underscored by a conference participant from a liberal denomination, James Glynn, an American Lutheran pastor from Arlington Heights, Illinois. Glynn said his pastoral colleagues would be amazed to learn he bothered to attend the congress, because none of them take inerrancy seriously. He does, however, and the Cross and Crown Lutheran Church, which he pastors, has grown from 100 to 300 in the three years he has been there. Glynn credits the growth to his serious preaching of the gospel. He himself accepts the Bible’s authority, but he managed to get passing grades in the liberal Lutheran seminary he attended in Saint Paul, Minnesota, by saying to himself, “I need to learn this stuff, but I don’t buy it.” Glynn said that during his entire seminary education he never had a single course that considered evangelical theology seriously. His liberal professors did not grapple intellectually with conservative scholarship, only emotionally, and rejected it out of hand, Glynn said.

In interviews with a number of professors who conducted seminars at the “Congress on the Bible,” there appeared a thread of opinion that a trend may be developing among liberals to take the historic beliefs about the Bible more seriously.

Harold Hoehner, New Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, studied at the University of Tubingen in Germany. He said he was surprised to learn there that Tübingen professor Peter Stuhlmacher admitted freely his belief in the deity of Christ and his bodily resurrection from the dead. Stuhlmacher is a student of Ernst Käsemann, who was in turn a protégé of Rudolf Bultmann, well known among theologians for his efforts to “demythologize” the Scriptures of such miracles as the Resurrection. Hoehner said he was surprised that in two generations Bultmann’s system has turned around so sharply, especially since Stuhlmacher teaches at Tübingen, the historic center of New Testament scholarship in Europe. It was at German schools such as Tübingen that liberal ideas about Scripture arose during the last century, and they are by and large the same ideas now prevalent in most mainline seminaries in the United States.

Gleason Archer, the Old Testament specialist at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, said that wherever he travels to speak, he runs into a simple unpreparedness on the part of liberal professors to respond to the results of conservative biblical scholarship. He notes some maturing attitudes at the Ivy League schools, but at schools of lesser esteem, he said, they “are up to date with scholarship as of 1870. They don’t realize much else has happened.” He said, for example, some of these schools still teach that Moses could not have written the Pentateuch, even though, in debate, it is very easy to show how ridiculous that view really is. He noted that Princeton Theological Seminary has awarded a full scholarship to a 1982 Trinity graduate, and he takes that as a sign that such schools are beginning to value conservative scholarship more highly.

Geisler, who has edited many of the scholarly papers produced by the ICBI, said he is beginning to see evidence that liberals are paying attention. He was surprised when 300 students and faculty at Princeton Seminary gathered to hear him lecture on inerrancy at Princeton last December. At Dartmouth, he gave a religion professor a bibliography on inerrancy and the professor confessed he was familiar with none of the books on it.

Geisler and the others agreed that the battle with their liberal counterparts will not be won by public debate, but by quietly getting to know them, getting them to read the ICBI papers, and by getting them to examine the presuppositions that lead to liberal views of the Bible. Archer said that with its emphasis on scholarship and discussion, “ICBI has specialized in apologetic confrontation in a way that was not possible before.”

TOM MINNERY in San Diego

I am glad to say that the age-old game of finding the fervency factor is fading throughout the faith. It is, however, still played by a few. Those who cling to it may want to read this closely in order really to determine how to rate their own fervency. The point of this little game is simple, and the game can be played any time you enter a room full of other Christians.

To begin the game, move to some vantage point where you can survey a whole room of believers at once. This may be the silvery icon of the coffee urn in pastors’ meetings, while in lay meetings the best place may be the book table or the tract rack. Once you achieve this viewing position, begin at once to rate everybody’s fervency for Christ, instantly assigning scores on a scale of one to seven—seven, of course, being the number of perfection. Last of all, rate yourself.

To play the game best, you must not shrink from making definite conclusions based on intuition, snap judgments, and bold conjecture. A good rule of thumb is that it takes about 60 seconds per Christian to do the rating. In a gathering of 10, the skillful player can locate his own fervency in 10 minutes; a gathering of 20 will require 20 minutes; a gathering of 50 takes nearly an hour.

Here are the categories of comparative fervency.

First, dress. Remember, great believers always wear gray. The more pastels that surface in a person’s dress, the more you may distrust their gaudy and peacock allegiance to Christ. Can you imagine Martin Luther at Worms in paisleys and windowpane plaids? Remember that Jesus always wore a simple, homespun, off-white broadcloth. Jewelry is an automatic disclaimer. For men it is always a mark of inward vanity. Never trust a man in a gold neck chain or a diamond ring, even if you see a KJV New Testament in his gaudy vest pocket.

Second, mannerisms and body language. Overfriendliness is a sure mark of libertinism. Here you must trust your first impressions and intuition. Ask yourself in a most objective way, “Does the smile look sincere? Is it really the way Christ would have smiled by Galilee? Does the sparkle in the eye appear at all flirtatious?” Here you must ask yourself if the dress matches the mannerisms; a happy person dressed in gray may suggest inward hypocrisy. On the other hand, a gray countenance dressed in bright apparel may suggest a hungering after carnal lifestyles.

Third, the most blatant indication of fervency or the lack of it is, of course, speech. Fervency is as fervency talks. Does the brother in question say, “Praise the Lord!” and speak of the “Word o’God,” or does he just talk normally, refusing to reflect the “joys of Jesus”? It has been my experience that a real “blood-bought believer” will be “unashamed of the gospel” and have a “real heart for Jesus.” Mark it down, there is no other way to be on “fire for God,” and the “man who can’t bless it should confess it.”

Remember, the categories are dress, mannerisms, and speech, and to rate yourself on the fervency scale you must compare everyone to your own devoted self. You will probably always be able to place fairly high in the ratings as long as you remember one thing; if other people tried harder, they really could be a little more like Jesus and you.

Author Calvin Miller is pastor of the Westside Baptist Church in Omaha, Nebraska.

As a Christian police officer, I found Dave Jackson’s article difficult to critique because of the many issues raised. I will therefore limit my comments to six areas.

First, I found Fern Nisly’s reaction to Victor to be a very Christian response to a traumatic event. The fact that the Nislys prayed for a God-given decision and then followed through with it took courage and deep conviction. Because we are dealing with the possibility of a repeat act more violent than the first, prayer, faith, and courage are a must in order to make such a response. Mr. Jackson does point out a fact we must all remember: not all cases end the way this incident did. Because of this, I would say alternatively to the Fellowship that it takes just as much courage to follow through after an arrest as it does to drop charges because of a spiritual decision.

We must always keep in mind that we do not change lives by refusing to prosecute a case for fear an offender might end up in jail. We can see criminals change when we tell them of the free gift of salvation in Jesus Christ. It is when they see our faith, our love and caring spirits (because of Christ), that lives change. At present, I see nothing spiritually wrong in forgiving an offender, telling him of the saving love of Jesus Christ, and following the case through in our courts. God is still in control, and we can commit the outcome to his wisdom, not our own.

Second, I agree that arming ourselves with guns, installing alarms, and earning black belts can easily lead to paranoia. We are apt to let these weapons, and what they protect, become our gods, begetting a paranoia that shows a lack of faith in our Protector. As Christians, we have a right to feel that God will protect us from harm as he chooses. But we need balance. Just as we do not walk down the middle of an expressway testing whether God will deliver us from the cars, so we must also use common sense in protecting ourselves and our property. The sin is not in protecting ourselves, but in letting the protection control us.

Third, we cannot jump to the conclusion that criminals should not be sent to prison just because the prison system has failed to rehabilitate. Prisons are society’s attempt to discipline an offender. If an individual will not change, will not turn away from his criminal habits, and is bent on continuing his harmful behavior, prison is our only alternative for society’s safety. I also feel that speedy arrests and trials are a deterrent to crime. An offender who feels he has a better than even chance of being apprehended and jailed may alter his decision to commit the crime.

Fourth, I agree 100 percent that all juvenile offenders should be brought to the attention of the criminal justice system. The mere fact of an arrest may alert parents to the antisocial behavior of their children, and this can deter crime. Also, as Jackson stated, juvenile courts will do everything possible to avoid sending a youth to a detention facility.

It is here that Christian involvement in the life of an offender can be a means of preventing further antisocial behavior. Remember, though, that all offenders will not react similarly to this involvement. But some lives will be changed when the Christian community reaches out with Christ’s love. Some of these young people can be turned around if Christian fellowships within the community will continue to show them alternative Christian lifestyles. This is more meaningful to the person, however, if he has first been reprimanded by the proper authority. An official warning or punishment could be what is needed to get his attention. In the Bible, God often used harsh circumstances to soften the heart of an unbeliever.

Fifth, while a criminal act may have been against property, the root cause of the crime and its potential for danger still exist. Women have been raped by persons only intending to burglarize. Guns have been stolen and sold on the street, and police officers have died trying to apprehend stolen cars. The target was property, but the opportunity led to violence.

Sixth, concerning deterrents, all three referred to in the article are biblical and reflect the love of the body of believers. If these were to be applied on a large scale, they would have a positive effect on all of society. I admit I was concerned that witnessing to people about Jesus Christ was the first deterrent suggested. But if society does not come to grips with the fact that Jesus Christ is the deterrent to sin (crime), then the outlook is bleak. We, as the body of Christ, must become involved in offering the criminal a suitable alternative to crime—while at the same time we protect the innocent from those who will not change.

As a Christian police officer, I welcome the involvement of Reba Place Fellowship. I would only ask that their involvement be first of all spiritual: leading others to Christ, and then helping in their Christian growth.

Second, I would ask them not to alienate the police, or attempt to circumvent the courts or the prison system. Each has its job to do, and in each system there are Jesus-controlled people who are willing to help the Fellowship, and others like them. It is the job of the body of Christ to help heal the wounds after the police, courts, and (if necessary) prisons have performed their duly assigned functions.

“I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds” (Acts 26:20, NIV).

Sgt. Powers was the 1981 recipient of the Chicago Police Medal, the department’s highest award for valor. He is an officer of the Chicagoland chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Peace Officers.

At a time when fear of crime is at an all-time high and demands for harsher punishment of criminals are rampant, how could anyone seriously advocate “victim-offender reconciliation”?

As Christians, who among us does not admire Christ’s teachings about forgiving our enemies and turning the other cheek? And yet, with the complexities of modern life, the feeling that more and more crime and violence surround us, does the gospel model of forgiveness and reconciliation really have any practical meaning? Some might think so—at least on a personal basis as experienced by members of Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, Illinois. The more cynical among us might advise that becoming reconciled with the criminal who violated you is both dangerous and inappropriate. To the cynic, it would be inconsistent with the Christian concept of justice and accountability.

Yet, the fact remains that the type of reconciliation described by Dave Jackson and practiced by Fern and Marv Nisly with Victor, the offender, is not simply an isolated example of personally living out Christ’s message of reconciliation and peace. On the contrary, there is significant public interest being focused upon Victim Offender Reconciliation Programs (VORP). They offer practical benefits as an alternative to jail for certain property-related offenses, and they are being promoted in the United States primarily through the joint efforts of PACT (Prisoner and Community Together) and the Mennonite Central Committee. In recent months, victims and offenders in the PACT/MCC program have appeared on several national television programs, including NBC’S “Today.” VORP also has been increasingly highlighted in national and regional newspapers and magazines.

VORP began in 1975 in Elkhart, Indiana, and the PACT/MCC model is now being replicated in several counties of southern Indiana and in Lima, Ohio. Other communities have expressed their interest in these programs.

In virtually all of these efforts, local congregations and individual Christians have been active in developing the programs. Serving as both staff and volunteer mediators, these Christians have the opportunity of seeking to live out Christ’s fundamental teachings of reconciliation within one of the harshest and most violent institutions in modern society. As an alternative to costly and often debilitating incarceration, VORP provides a wide range of benefits to the victim, to the offender, and to the larger community.

The victim is given the rare opportunity of confronting the person who violated him. This face-to-face meeting in the presence of a trained community facilitator allows the victim to express intense feelings of frustration, hurt, and even anger. Many of his questions can be answered: Why me? How did you get into my house? Were you stalking me long? Why did you have to destroy my kid’s toys? Was there something I could have done to prevent you from coming in?

Beyond such important emotional benefits, the victim can work out acceptable restitution and repayment by the offender. In short, the traumatic experience of being a victim can be dealt with in a more whole sense, and brought to a close.

The offender is held personally accountable by the VORP process. He or she is in the equally rare situation of having to learn the human dimension of his or her criminal act. Though only property may have been stolen, the individuals who were victimized are still fearful and hurt. Face-to-face confrontation with the person the offender violated is not an easy experience for most of them. VORP also allows the less serious offender to avoid the destructiveness and violence of a prison experience. And finally, the offender is given the opportunity to share his own humanity, even to express sorrow and ask forgiveness.

The community at large also benefits from VORP. With prisons throughout our nation dangerously overcrowded, and the cost of building more prison cells skyrocketing, finding realistic and appropriate alternatives to incarceration of those guilty of moderately serious offences makes good sense. Taxpayers save an enormous amount of money with programs like VORP, which cost only a fraction of the price of prison incarceration. Perhaps even more important, a VORP program in a community strengthens the teaching of nonviolent techniques to resolve conflict. Nobody connected with the VORP process—whether victim, offender, or mediator—can leave the experience without being moved by the enormous power that can occur in Christian reconciliation.

Victim-offender reconciliation may seem to be too radical a departure from the traditional democratic criminal justice system for some. But in truth, VORP represents a return to some of the most fundamental Judeo-Christian values upon which our faith is built. Focusing upon personal accountability in response to community conflict, as well as emphasizing restitution, has a long history within Western civilization. Modern criminal law and its many legal abstractions—including defining more serious crimes as against “the state” and deemphasizing the role of the victim—is a relatively young historical development. As such, the victim-offender reconciliation process can play a prophetic role in calling us to reaffirm some fundamental truths of our Christian heritage and its application in modern life.

Mr. Umbreit is executive director of PACT (Prisoner and Community Together) with headquarters in Michigan City, Indiana. He is a lay leader in First United Methodist Church of Valparaiso, Indiana.

Christian values can even be put to use in the present, complex system of criminal justice.

When Fern Nisly opened the front door, the two young black men walked right in without an invitation. She didn’t know them, and on that warm, Thursday afternoon, she was home alone except for the kids.

“Hey, wait a minute. What do you want?” challenged Fern.

“We’re looking for Joe,” said one who was over six feet tall.

“Well, he doesn’t live here. He hasn’t lived here for a long time.”

“Yes he does, and he owes us. We’re going upstairs for him.”

“I said that he doesn’t live here. You’ll have to leave now.” Short as she was, Fern began pushing one toward the door.

“Get your hands off me, woman, and don’t give me any lip. We know he’s here.” They both turned and started up the stairs.

“He’s not here,” Fern panicked. “We live here now. He’s moved over on Seward Street.”

“All right,” the tall one said. “Let’s get out of here.” And they left.

Fern shut the door and stood with her back against it, her heart thudding. In a few minutes she heard another commotion in the back of the house. She ran to the window in time to see two men leaping over the side fence into the yard of the neighboring apartment building. As they turned to look back at her house, she could see that they were the men who had come to the front door. What were they after? And why wouldn’t they leave her alone?

Bewildered and frightened, she returned to the living room. Then, to her great relief, she saw through the front window a woman from her neighborhood church. Fern called her in and unloaded her frightening story. Together they went to see what had happened at the back of the house. The main door was locked, but in the basement they discovered the cellar door open. Missing was Fran’s checkbook, wallet with her driver’s license, gas credit cards, $80, and the house key.

To be invaded so brazenly right in the middle of the day made Fern feel as though the whole world was unsafe. This had not been an assault in a dark and lonely alley, or a burglary while she was away from home. These men had marched right in, and she had been unable to stop them.

Fern was a member of Reba Place Fellowship, an intentional church community that has existed in Evanston, just north of Chicago, for the past 25 years. Murders, rapes, and armed robberies have increased severalfold in that time. In 1979, Evanston’s per capita burglary rate was said to be double that reported in Chicago. In appearance, this neighborhood looks to be as nice as any one could find for lower-income urban dwellers: apartment buildings interspersed with old frame houses along streets lined with shady elms. But it is not safe.

What should be the Christian response? It becomes a situation for exploring biblical ethics and their practical application.

The members of Reba Place Fellowship all five within a few square blocks. They constitute the single largest self-conscious group on their streets. As a church, they are practiced in making decisions together and could, as a body, select a course of action that would be faithfully followed by most members.

One approach might be to arm themselves with weapons, guard dogs, the most sophisticated electronic alarm systems—maybe even hire a private security company to patrol the streets. Then, of course, they would need to learn how to use those things—learn to shoot, to practice martial arts, to train guard dogs, to set alarms—and double-bolt the doors. That is one approach, and with today’s rising crime rate, many people have resorted to it in one form or another.

But that prospect is not very pleasant. When you take on the job of defending yourself, you do not really sleep easier. You are tense, preoccupied, paranoid that the next criminal will have a better weapon, a higher degree in karate, or be able to circumvent the alarm. It is like trying to be the high school tough guy: sooner or later you will meet your match. In the meantime, life is charged with anxiety.

Another response would be to promote the role of the police, encouraging arrests and swift convictions, and long sentences to get and keep the criminals off the streets. But that is also a problem. The riots and carnage at Attica and Santa Fe are grisly reminders of the failure of America’s prison system—by any standard. For those who think prisons should reform criminals, records show they do the opposite and are more like graduate schools in crime. For others, who believe the threat of incarceration will deter crime, the rates seem unaffected by increased sentences. Even those who call for punishment are unsatisfied because they erroneously think prisons coddle criminals, forgetting the unofficial beatings, gang rapes, and murders that are too often administered in prisons.

Of course we should encourage prison reform, but it is not the whole answer. According to Vernon G. Housewright, head of the Arkansas Department of Corrections, who has 25 years of experience, putting an offender in prison at a cost of $9,500 to $39,000 a year is not the solution to crime: “There are 400 new prisons under construction across the country, but prisons cannot stop crime. Crime is a community concern.” There must be some alternatives—alternatives that are consistent with Christian values, and which can be employed even now in the present, shabby system.

When should we apply Jesus’ ethic? He said, “Do not resist one who is evil. But if any one strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if one would … take your coat, let him have your cloak as well.… Love your enemies” (Matt. 5:39–44). Some Christians would exempt the state from this mandate, but if we claim to be biblically obedient, we must accept its application at some level—if not corporate, then personal.

In the Nisly situation, Fern and her husband, Marv, called the police. One of the offenders was identified and arrested. However, after careful consultation with other members of their church, the Nislys decided to look for an occasion for victim-offender reconciliation. Usually this is best accomplished with the help of an outside agency, but the opportunity, risky though it was, presented itself personally.

About a week after the initial hearing, when the accused offender (we’ll call him Victor) was out on bail, Marv and Fern met him on the sidewalk as they were walking near the local park. Though it was very awkward, Marv decided that he would try to make some contact.

“Hey, Victor,” Marv started.

“That ain’t my name,” he snapped back. But he stopped.

Marv didn’t know what to say, so he jumped in with, “I wonder if you’re aware of how it makes people feel when you come into their house uninvited?”

“Well, what do you think it feels like to be accused of something you didn’t do? It’s no fun getting arrested.” (Victor had pled not guilty, even though he admitted to police that he knew who had committed the crime and could get the stolen goods back.)

“We know what you did,” said Marv. “There’s no doubt in our minds, so we don’t want to get into an argument. But I want you to know how that affected people, and what kind of fear it stirred in my wife and children. That really frightened them.”

“I know what it’s like. Guys break into my house all the time,” Victor responded. “But I never was in your house. Besides, how come you’re so uptight this time? You didn’t do anything last time.”

Marv and Fern were speechless. Victor was apparently referring to a burglary that had happened to them nearly a year before when they had lost a camera, tape recorder, and several other items.

Finally Marv said, “Well, we don’t want to see you go to jail, but somehow we want to know that you won’t do it again.”

Victor laughed a nervous laugh as they turned and walked their separate ways.

But now what should the Nislys do? Victor had commented on the important social role the criminal justice system is supposed to play in deterring crime when he claimed that their failure to do anything the previous year had given him reason to think he could get away with more crime. Had that played a part in his thinking and actions, or was he just offering it as an excuse after the fact?

On the other hand, the personal contact with Victor, inadequate as it had been, had removed their fear and with it the compulsion for personal redress. The Nislys felt free to consider what was best for Victor and society. If the case proceeded, a prison sentence was quite likely for Victor. The evidence against him was substantial; he was over 18, and he had been convicted previously for unlawful entry. But the prisons in Illinois are horrendous. Time spent in one carried a high potential for destroying rather than rehabilitating Victor. And society, indeed the Nislys’ own neighborhood, would most likely reap a worse criminal.

After much prayer, the Nislys decided to request the state’s attorney to drop charges. (Once an arrest is made, the matter is technically out of the victim’s hands.) The state’s attorney and the judge were very cynical of the Nislys’ wish, but they cooperated and the case was dismissed.

As they left the courtroom, Marv held the door open for Victor. There on the courthouse steps their courage began to pay off. Victor thanked them genuinely, admitted his guilt, asked their forgiveness, and promised never to do such a thing again.

Marv and Fern saw Victor often that summer, in the park or on the street. He was always friendly and open, visiting, and buying the kids ice cream. Later, he got a job and did not hang around the corners so much.

A year passed, and Fern met him one day. “How are you doing?” she asked.

“Much better, much better. I moved, y’know, but I’m still workin’. How ’bout you?”

“I’m doin’ fine,” answered Fern.

This is one of the many encounters with crime that members of Reba Place Fellowship have had in their neighborhood. By God’s grace, this one had a positive conclusion. Other situations have ended less hopefully, but in the process the church has developed some guidelines. They do not represent the only answer, by any means. They do, however, suggest alternatives that move in a redemptive, less violent, direction.

Distinctions

Juvenile versus adult crime. Some juvenile officers and courts exercise several options before sending a young person to reformatory. In many situations, a “brush with the law” corrects youngsters who would be otherwise unaware of the seriousness of their misbehavior. The more impressionable and less street-wise a youth is, the greater the chance for effective correction. Thus, even in situations where one might be compelled to allow an adult to steal or take advantage because of Christ’s admonitions, or the probability that prison would worsen matters, a Christian might be freer to call the police, believing that there is a redemptive potential in the process.

Crimes against persons versus crimes against property. It is a terrible violation to have one’s home burglarized, and the emotional impact of that should never be underestimated. It is nothing, however, to the terror of being robbed, assaulted, or raped. The law recognizes this distinction, both in the seriousness of sentencing and in the effort it puts into apprehension. In deciding how to respond, a victim can also take these distinctions into account—but for different reasons. One should never choose not to call the police as a means of denying the trauma or the need to deal further with it. One should look instead for a more redemptive way to engage the offender.

The rational criminal versus the insane person. To restrain, call the police about, or to hospitalize a person who cannot control himself may be doing that individual a favor by preventing more serious harm, a favor for which he may thank you later. Contrary to excusing people “for reasons of insanity,” there may be more justification for stepping in and doing something corrective. Such an individual qualifies less as the “enemy” Jesus tells us not to resist.

Crimes against others versus crimes against one’s self. Jesus advises the Christian to turn the other cheek, but it may be another matter to turn our neighbor’s cheek. Even turning one’s own cheek may make a neighborhood “safer” for crime, thereby making one’s neighbors more vulnerable against their will. In each situation, this dynamic and its implications must be considered.

Deadly or offensive force versus restraining or diverting force. It may not be a matter for purists, but there is a very real distinction between threatening to shoot a thief and in grabbing a purse snatcher in a bear hug and holding him until a woman can retrieve her purse. Pacifist debates often polarize over the extreme examples, although there are many creative alternatives between threatening life or sitting by passively. Of course, many of those actions require one to risk personal safety for the sake of another person, but that is a common gospel motif. We cannot escape it and still follow Jesus.

Deterrents

Reduced possessions. Living economically responsible lives in a world where poverty plagues so many has its own justification in God’s concern for the poor. But in terms of crime, there is another benefit. Jesus said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth … where thieves break in and steal.” Failure to heed this teaching of Jesus can lead to the seeming necessity to send thieves to prison. On the other hand, a deliberate commitment to a simple lifestyle of reduced or limited possessions can decrease one’s vulnerability to crime. This tactic should not be underestimated. When many such Christians five in the same neighborhood, the whole neighborhood is less attractive to thieves, and society is served as well.

Close proximity. “How good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.” That is also a way to deter crime, and it is completely consistent with kingdom principles. The police say nothing prevents crime better than nosy neighbors, and it is true. Members of a church who choose to locate geographically close to one another can know the comings and goings in each other’s homes and so recognize when something odd is happening that should be checked out. Such a broader consciousness benefits even non-Christian neighbors.

Reconciliation and God’s peace. In spite of the public’s fear of criminals, most violent crimes occur between acquaintances, often family members. Learning how to help before someone is harmed is a gift from God.

One day the streets around Reba Place filled with police, reporters, and TV crews. A police SWAT team was deployed on the roofs of apartment buildings surrounding one in which a man was holding his children hostage after a marital dispute. When the police came, they were belligerent, and the man had panicked and threatened to shoot anyone forcing his way into the apartment. A full-scale battle threatened. Finally, the man, who had never attended a worship service at the Fellowship, agreed to surrender if one of the elders of the church would escort him to safety. Because of the reputation of the local Christians, he trusted them to shield him from the sharpshooters he was convinced intended to pick him off the moment he came out the door. Later, the judge released the man into the custody of the church provided he and his wife would receive marital counseling for the next year.

In many such situations, the search for a faithful and compassionate civic responsibility has been met by God’s gift to creativity and merciful intervention. But there are other instances in which the members of Reba Place confess failure—at least by all appearances. Still, the process has been valuable because it has moved them beyond theory to grapple with one of the harsh realities of the modern, urban world.

Dave Jackson is an editor for David C. Cook Publishing Company. His article is adapted from his book, Dial 911, Peaceful Christians and Urban Violence, published this month by Herald Press. Mr. Jackson is a pastoral elder at Reba Place Fellowship in Evanston, Illinois.

Our culture is in danger of taking a normal, delightful, human institution and deifying it.

Even before the last notes of “O Perfect Love” have faded into the hush of the candlelit sanctuary and the misty bridal veil has been raised for the groom’s kiss, I have often wished for the courage to preach a wedding sermon entitled “Marriage Is Not the Greatest.”

Marriage is in trouble today. Divorce statistics have reached alarming numbers. On newsstands, family-oriented magazines publish article after article of advice on improving wedded bliss: How to handle conflict; how to achieve open communication; how to express emotion honestly; how to prevent children from crowding a marriage; how to attain a mutually satisfying sex life. These are just some of the topics covered by Christian, as well as secular, publishers.

But despite the seemingly limitless how-to’s, marriage today seems more fragile than ever. Why?

I believe marriage is in trouble today because society and the church have a faulty view of it—a deified myth of this human, delightful, yet flawed, institution.

Though fertility gods have been dethroned by the advance of Christianity, today’s culture seems to be resurrecting them in a more palatable form. Though a few lone voices speak against the institution, most laud a romantic image of marriage as life’s ultimate source of true joy.

What is the result? A crash. Thousands of crashes. An average of 20 to 30 divorce crashes is printed every day in any medium-sized newspaper.

Why? Because in reality every marriage faces conflict, misunderstanding, smashed fantasies, and bruised egos. Any real marriage held up against the faulty yardstick of total joy will measure short. And if relationships that are meant to give total joy fail, lives are shattered.

What can we do to help destroy this myth, while at the same time offer encouragement and support to the institution of marriage?

I propose reconsideration of a basic truth: Nothing created is ultimate. The world is passing away. Human institutions are temporal. People change. Nothing remains the same except he who is the Alpha and Omega.

This truth applies directly to Christian marriages, for Christians expect their marriages to be a source of joy in their lives. In fact, they are taught to expect their unions to be better, their communication skills more superior, and their sexual relations more satisfying than relationships of people without Christ. Many, then, are shocked when they find they must struggle to find happiness in marriage.

How should the church respond? With newsstand-like advice on how to improve the component parts of marriage? Perhaps, in part; but there needs to be a caution that the overall biblical perspective might become lost in a mass of specifics. Far better than all this advice might be to take a closer look at the Bible to find a sound theological basis for marriage. Such a theology might include the following unmythical truths about marriage:

1.Marriage as a human institution is temporal. It was not meant as, nor will it ever be, an eternal relationship. It is time bound and therefore will pass away at the end of life.

Mark 12:18–27 illustrates this truth. Here the Sadducees, a Jewish sect, challenge Jesus with an argument meant to discredit the resurrection. They tell of seven brothers who all died childless, each having in turn been married to the same woman. Based upon the presupposition of the eternal bond of marriage, the Sadducees try to disprove the resurrection by asking, “Whose wife would this woman be?” Jesus shows the faultiness of their argument by explaining that the woman would not be a wife to any of the seven brothers because human marriage will have no part in the heavenly picture.

When I think of marriage as limited to earthly existence I feel a kind of sadness, even loneliness. Marriage is the most fulfilling human relationship I have experienced, despite its failures. I find it difficult to think of life without my wife. But my sadness results from misunderstanding the words of Jesus. He does not teach that heaven will be devoid of love or intimate relationships. Quite the contrary. Instead, what I now experience in part with one person I will some day experience fully in heaven with God and all his children. Earthly limitations on love relationships will be removed in heaven.

I see marriage as a school with two people in each class. The partners in each class are taught how to love others by loving each other. The school is not meant for this life only, but it directs its pupils toward the perfect relationship of Christ and his church. Marriage is temporal, for this life only. Any attempts to deify it as an institution or make it into a myth of perfect joy will only fail.

2.Marriage is not a totally fulfilling relationship. Marriage partners in today’s increasingly mobile society often find themselves removed from family and friends who have provided additional emotional support. Without new friends or relationships to fill that void, husbands and wives must rely on each other alone for support. Many marriages crumble from that weight. But it is vitally important that marriage partners do not expect their spouses to provide all their emotional support, and that marriage itself does not discourage the development of other relationships.

The church needs to provide marriage partners with more than mere how-to’s on marriage. It must also encourage and foster long-term supportive relationships where people can become grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters to one another.

3.Marriage is not for everyone. In 1 Corinthians 7:25–40, the apostle Paul writes about single and married people. Some Protestants limit this passage, which favors the single state, to Christians undergoing persecution. In all other circumstances, they argue, marriage is to be preferred. But Paul’s argument should not be restricted to times of persecution. He reasons that when Christians face hard battles, it is the single person without the conflicting demands of home and family who is better suited for ministry. Marriage is not wrong, of course; but for the sake of the gospel’s advancement, the single life is better.

We must not view the single life as inferior, especially in regard to certain spiritual tasks in which it is superior to marriage. The church should cultivate positive rather than negative images of the single life. It should demonstrate sensitivity and respect to those who are called by God to be single. By doing this the church will be taking a step toward a more balanced perspective on marriage. If singleness in dedication to God is a desirable option, then marriage will not be viewed as the only route to happiness.

Christian marriage, then, must be viewed within the framework of sound biblical theology. Marriage is not eternal; it is not a relationship that fulfills all emotional needs; it is not for everyone. And marriage is not problem free. The expectancy level for Christian marriage should be biblical. Ecstasy is not always present in even the most stable union, and the popularized myth of sensual love overcoming all obstacles can only lead to disillusionment. The only biblical ground for divorce is unfaithfulness, not sexual dissatisfaction or even boredom.

Faithfulness is the Christian mandate for marriage; joy is its by-product. Romance and a healthy sex life are great and wonderful gifts that may come in marriage—but they are not its ultimate achievement.

What can i say to a bride and groom that would encourage and strengthen their vows to each other in the days ahead?

First of all, I can encourage them to be open to developing other supportive relationships. I might ask some questions to stimulate their thinking. For example, How did your engagement affect your relationship with your friends? What people other than your partner are important to you? Are you uncomfortable around any of your partner’s friends, and if so, why? How are you dealing with these feelings? What do you plan to do about the situation? What friends do you and your partner have in common? What can you both do to strengthen these relationships? To whom do you go to discuss a problem besides your mate?

If a pastor senses there are few or no support relationships for a couple, he owes it to them to suggest steps to develop such support. He might advise them to set aside one night a week to invite another couple in for coffee, to become involved as a couple in a weekly recreation program, or even to initiate a book discussion group with other couples. Practical suggestions to help such a couple fight isolation are just one step toward marital stability.

Second, I can assure the couple that responsibility for cultivating other relationships is not theirs alone. Churches also must be a creative force in combating the fragmentation and isolation of our culture. The period before marriage should be viewed as providing a valuable opportunity to establish a basis for stability in marriage. Couples who have grown children, for instance, might “adopt” an engaged couple. Their hospitality and honest sharing could serve as valuable models for the new couple. Growth groups in churches should invite engaged couples to meetings where they can experience the power and warmth of support and prayer.

Third, I can advise the couple to strengthen and honor its extended family. This loving support system is often the first line of defense against the collapse of a marriage. Any tendency on the part of a pastor or counselor to criticize parents or family without also offering reasons to appreciate them should be discouraged. Couples should be open to frank, yet loving, discussion about how they can both leave their families and still honor them.

Marriage is not the greatest. But it can become greater than all the swelling divorce statistics if we will see it for what it really is.

Frederick Herwaldt, Jr., is pastor of the Onesquethaw Reformed Church in Feura Bush, New York.

The controversial legal proceedings condemning Jesus to death are stoutly defended by a prominent legal scholar.

The legal proceedings that resulted in the crucifixion of our Lord have been the source of numberless commentaries and homilies throughout Christian history. Most evangelical pastors are acquainted with the standard older works on the subject—such as Chandler’s Trial of Jesus (1909) and Linton’s Sanhedrin Verdict (1943). These accept the Gospel narratives as historical fact and endeavor to determine on the basis of them the relative legality or illegality of what occurred.

Today, however, the trial accounts in the New Testament are viewed with a jaundiced eye by many influential interpreters of them. Liberal biblical scholarship has directed its form-critical weaponry against the reliability of the narratives (e.g., Paul Winter’s On the Trial of Jesus, Berlin, 1961, and his 1963 German article on the subject in Das Altertum). Jewish sensitivity to the anti-Semitic claim that “the Jews murdered Jesus” has led not only to journalistic outcrys against the Passion Play at Oberammergau but also to serious objections to the historicity of the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ trial.

No less an eminent jurist than Haim Cohn, an Israeli Supreme Court Justice who has represented Israel on the UN Human Rights Commission, thus expanded his 1967 Israel Law Review article on the subject into a book-length onslaught, The Trial and Death of Jesus (English translation from the Hebrew, published by KTAV in 1977). And in 1974, Hans Küng, perhaps the most widely read liberal Catholic theologian alive today, flatly declared in Christ sein (“On being a Christian”) that it is “no longer possible to reconstruct the events of Jesus’ trial, for we possess neither the original documents nor the actual testimony.”

The appearance, then, in the closing months of 1980 of a powerful defense of the reliability of the trial accounts is of more than routine interest. The work, titled Le Procès de Jésus (“The Trial of Jesus”) and published by Presses Universitaires de France, is written not by a theologian but by a distinguished and prolific legal scholar, Jean Imbert, professor at the University of Paris. Though disagreeing at some important points with the finest previous defense of the trial narratives, Blinzler’s Der Prozess Jesu (third ed., 1960), Imbert updates and generally confirms that author’s work. He leaves little doubt that the Gospels are indeed a truthful source of information on the judicial condemnation of Jesus.

We offer here—particularly for readers who lack access to Imbert’s work—a brief catalog of the standard objections to the reliability of the Gospel accounts of the trial and Imbert’s decisive refutations of these arguments.

1. The examination of Jesus before the Sanhedrin court involves “such wholesale violation of all the rules of law and procedure” (Cohn) that it is “inconceivable” that the legalistic Pharisees would ever have permitted it.

But—even if one admits that there were substantive and procedural errors committed (and those claims, as we shall see, are often exaggerated)—it hardly follows that the Jewish religious leaders were incapable of such acts! Indeed, several other trials are reported from Jesus’ time in which the authorities played fast and loose with Mishnaic law and procedure (e.g., Rabbi Elazar ben Tsaddok saw an adulteress executed by fire, whereas the law insisted on strangulation [Mishna Sanhedrin 7:2, 11:1]; note also in John 8 that stoning and not strangulation of an adulteress was clearly accepted).

Blinzler had argued that the law of the trial was not traditional, Pharisaic, Mishnaic law at all, but a Sadducean law that later became obsolete—thus making the trial of Jesus indeed a true trial, but one that constituted “judicial murder.” Imbert takes a less convoluted route to much the same conclusion: Pharisaic criminal law and procedure were in force in Jesus’ time, but the disregard of them in this trial points to an occasion less judicial than political in nature—“a pseudo-judicial means employed essentially to reduce Jesus’ prestige” among the Jews.

2. The Gospels put all the trial events in one night and the day following, thereby hopelessly violating Mishnaic proscriptions against trials at night or on the eve of a feast day.

But Imbert makes short work of this hoary criticism by noting that Jaubert’s discovery among the Dead Sea Scrolls of a “Jubilees-Qumran” calendar allows for a three-day chronology of the events, obviating these difficulties. Imbert admits that Jaubert’s dating has not been unanimously accepted, but rightly observes that “her theory has been elevated to quasi-certainty by the discovery of a new group of manuscripts, the Mishmarot, establishing that the Essene festival cycle began with Passover on Tuesday evening the 14th of Nisan,” thus confirming a Tuesday date for the Last Supper and the “long chronology” of the trial.

3. The Gospel of John “displays not the least knowledge of a Jewish trial” (Cohn) and so offers “formidable support” to Cohn’s thesis that there never was a Jewish trial of Jesus at all—that the Romans alone were responsible for Jesus’ condemnation.

Imbert points out, however, that John surely is aware of the Sanhedrin episode (John 18:24, 28). Moreover, “if John doesn’t give the details, this omission is intentional: John knew that the procedure before the Sanhedrin was amply described and commented upon by his predecessors, the Synoptic writers.”

4. Pilate was only a procurator—essentially a financial administrator—so he doubtless could not have handed down a death penalty; and psychologically he could hardly have referred Jesus to Herod or been influenced by the crowd or suggested a choice between Jesus and Barabbas.

However: (1) The Pilate inscription discovered in 1961 designates the governor also as “prefect,” so he was fully capable of rendering the death penalty; moreover, even procurators exercised the jus gladii. (2) Two fragments in the Digest declare that a Roman governor could refer an accused to the local magistrate having jurisdiction over the accused’s place of residence, and in A.D. 67 Vespasian turned over to Herod Agrippa II the Galilean rebels he had captured. (3) Instead of the release of Barabbas being “a product of the Evangelists’ imagination” (Paul Winter), there is plentiful contemporary evidence that both Roman and Jewish procedure allowed for such judicial discretion (see, e.g., Steinwenter in The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, 1965, pp. 9–10, and Chavel in JBL, LX [1941], 272–8). (4) An entire volume—J. Cohn’s Les villes libres … (Brussels, 1965)—collects examples of Roman provincial governors’ acceding in their sentences to crowd pressure.

We could go on with additional examples, but Imbert’s conclusion has already been sufficiently illustrated: “Nothing in the story of Jesus’ trial as presented by the Gospel writers transgresses historical reality. To the contrary, everything given there allows us to maintain that the Gospels were written by men of great intellectual honesty.… Far from contradicting themselves, the Evangelists each add certain new elements, and it is only by viewing them all together that one can obtain a comprehensive picture of the different stages of Jesus’ trial.”

RESURRECTION

“Nor would the thing be so difficult of belief

were we as attentive as we ought to be to the wonders

which meet our eye in every quarter of the world.”

—John Calvin

Yes, every winter death wins out

And turns the woodland stark and still.

(And death seemed victor on that Hill

Where Truth and Love were put to rout.)

But wonder that we know so well—

Magnolia breaking forth in glory!

Why then should we doubt the Story

Mary hurried back to tell?

VERNON GROUNDS

GETHSEMANE

What must they think, to know such quiet sleep,

Who dream below, exhausted? Could they keep

So little love, tonight? Yet I would stay

Alone to face the ebbing of my days.

And shall I know such emptiness, to thirst?

It stirs my heart, for, emptied, from the first

I overflowed. But his assured love

Does yet remain; its insight will not move.

My dreams and hopes seem ashen, and my friends,

Asleep below, unknowing of my ends.

I leave them little, here, dry hopes, no wealth,

And take away the coolness of myself.

And is the cost too great? My quiet youth

Could not escape His love. And still the truth

Of that love stays, for, permanently right,

It offers an eternal landscape, light.

I burn within this dark and quiet night,

In haste to take my leave, for I have sight

Of what this love may gain—and cost—

When sacrificed to Him who seeks the lost.

RICHARD JAMES SHERRY

“Is It I?” MARK 14: 17–21

Christ’s round-table seminar

on sin, with wine

and bread for a snack,

for a moment

strays

From the psalm (was it the fifty-first?) they

are studying together

and gets personal.

Ideas

in the head

are realized

as facts in the heart.

Tympanic questions

percuss

the drumhead table:

Is it I/Is it I/Is it I?

Will I be among the lucky

eleven? Or will

I be the luckless

one.

Will doubt tonight mature in denial?

Will sloth

become a final betrayal?

Will greed break out

and make its grab?

Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison.

EUGENE H. PETERSON

The Carpenter’s Work

“Isn’t he the carpenter?” they asked.

And so he was.

As a lad he learned to use

the tools of his trade—

Chisel and hammer and saw.

With wood and nails

he shared his Father’s work

and made a living.

The years passed; he left his shop

to preach and heal.

He furnished people’s lives with

goodness and truth and love,

Until rejected and condemned,

he stretched out his arms on a cross.

With wood and nails

he finished his Father’s work

as they made his dying.

CHARLES E. HUMMEL

Lawyer-theologian John Warwick Montgomery is dean of the Simon Greenleaf School of Law in Orange, California, and director of its European program at the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

Confession is the first step in establishing a new beginning in our fellowship with God.

It is a crucial principle of our existence that each of us needs support from others. Indeed, it could be argued that this is the major driving force behind the notion of the Christian community found in Scripture—we need each other and we belong to each other. While the principle can be applied in many different directions, we will focus here on sin and forgiveness.

Individually, we are misled at times by our own ideas and understandings; we may be especially disturbed by our own failures as followers of Christ. As a result, we pay a heavy price in terms of unrest and anxiety, which are displeasing to the Lord. Those of us in the Protestant tradition are especially vulnerable to this sort of suffering. We exult in our doctrine of “the priesthood of the believer”—and rightly so. It is almost incredible that individually we have direct access to God without need of any intermediary other than Christ himself. We can therefore approach God alone, and we can accept his forgiveness alone.

At times, though, I find that the memory of past sin refuses to go away. It continues to haunt me, even after I have confessed it to God. I know I have sinned; I know I have confessed the sin to God; I know God has forgiven me and restored me to full fellowship with himself through Christ. But because I carry out the confession transaction alone, I continue to suffer feelings of guilt as if I had never confessed. At such times, to have acted alone in a vacuum is simply not enough for me, and I need desperately to hear from someone else that I have been forgiven, that God has heard me. The fact of the matter is, Satan can all too easily bring past sin to mind, questioning my repentance, or even whether I confessed “properly,” thus stealing my joy and hindering me in the exercise of the spiritual gifts God has given me.

This does not appear to me to be the case in the Roman Catholic tradition. Catholicism has a formal means of confession wherein the confessor is told directly where forgiveness lies, and that forgiveness has specifically taken place. Neither was this a problem historically in Judaism. On the Day of Atonement the priest declared publicly that the whole community participating in the sacrifice had been forgiven.

We Protestants adamantly insist that no one has more right to God than we do, and we refuse to grant anyone else the right to declare us to be forgiven. But while this is a glorious fact, we must face a potential problem inherent in it. We can solve that problem, however, without losing our Protestant distinctive.

In my experience, few Christian people show less of the joy of what Christ does for us than Protestants who have just taken Communion. Have you noticed the long faces, the sad eyes, the drawn mouths? Have you felt the depression yourself? Is this what “remembering the Lord” does for us? If the joy of the Lord is our strength at such times, we are in real trouble.

But please note that I do not belittle the magnitude of all that Christ suffered for us, nor our utter unworthiness. Knowing the truth of both, we are deeply humbled and shamed. Neither do I mean to detract from the seriousness of the command that we examine ourselves. Partaking of Communion is serious business, and there is no place for superficiality (Paul suggests in 1 Cor. 11:30 that a flippant attitude can cause sickness or even death). Clearly God takes it seriously, and so should we. But it should also be a celebration, each time a glorious event of festival and renewal.

Undoubtedly the first Communion was a gloomy time as the disciples realized (finally) that Jesus was to die. They seemed to have nothing to celebrate. But that is not our situation, for we know much more than they did. For us it should be anything but a gloomy time. Jesus has risen, and lives on! That first Communion was not the end at all; Jesus has conquered Satan, including the effects of Satan’s actions in our own lives.

Jesus lives!

For all of us who are Christians, Communion forms an ideal opportunity to affirm and proclaim powerfully that reality of all realities of Christianity—the hope of still another new beginning. Communion can be for us a time of declaration that we have confessed our sin, and that God has forgiven us.

A common pattern for Communion includes thanksgiving to God for sacrificing his Son for us; confession of sins, individually and corporately; examination of ourselves; partaking of the elements; and renewed dedication to God.

While this is all good, it seems to me that it lacks one crucial element to make it really complete: an explicit declaration on the basis of the Scriptures that because of Christ’s death, sin is forgiven, and because the participants have confessed their sins, they have a new beginning, and their fellowship with God is fully and totally restored.

This would really be nothing new; the facts are still the same, even if nothing is said. But the explicit statement of those facts could make a big difference in the joy we experience, both together and individually. We rightly become sad thinking of the pain and disgrace that Christ suffered, especially since we know he did it for us individually—and would have done so even if we had been the only ones on earth. Such was his love. And we rightly become afraid when we examine ourselves, lest somehow we fail to partake properly and thus “profane the body and blood of the Lord.” No one wants to be responsible for that. But to stop there is to tell only part of the story. The fact is, because Christ died, we are forgiven.

God does not call us to sadness, but to joy. Our fellowship with him is restored, and it is at his initiative. He is not sad, why should we be? We have a new beginning. An explicit statement of such facts should be part of Communion. The leader could handle this easily, simply reminding the congregation of the truth of such passages as 1 John 1:8–9 and then declaring explicitly and publicly on file basis of the Scriptures (not his own authority) that God has forgiven them; their fellowship is now totally restored.

There is an account in Nehemiah 8:1–12 that is particularly instructive in this regard. In this historical narrative the people have returned from exile, and at their request, Ezra has read the Law to them. They had the same reaction we commonly have to Communion: they cried—probably because of the requirements of the Law, and specifically because they knew they had failed to obey God. Sound familiar?

Ezra’s response to their crying is striking. The day was a holy day, he said, totally unfit for crying. Rather, on such a day feasting and partying are in order. Talk about celebration!

We are often surprised to find holiness and fun juxtaposed that way. It makes us uncomfortable—maybe because we expect sadness to be the correct response to holiness, even if only because it points out our own sinfulness. At such times we somehow feel that God is more pleased with sadness than fun.

We are tempted, therefore, to feel that way each time we take Communion. Holiness is there, certainly; we are dealing with great truths, and they are not to be taken lightly. Christ’s suffering for us was real, and our sin is clear to us all.

But Christ did not die to make us sad, but to heal us and forgive us. Communion is intended to be a time when we remember that this is the case. Once confession has been made, sin no longer stands between us and God, and we have a new beginning. And just as confession is a natural part of Communion, so too should be the declaration of forgiveness on the basis of Scripture. It is a holy time; it is a time for festivity.

Let’s celebrate the Lord’s Supper!

Donald A. Burquest is assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Texas at Arlington.

A story of death and resurrection in modern metaphor.

I saw a strange sight. I stumbled upon a story most strange, like nothing my life, my street sense, my sly tongue had ever prepared me for. Hush, child. Hush, now, and I will tell it to you.

Even before the dawn one Friday morning I noticed a young man, handsome and strong, walking the alleys of the City. He was pulling an old cart filled with clothes both bright and new, and he was calling in a clear, tenor voice: “Rags!” Ah, the air was foul and the first light filthy to be crossed by such sweet music!

“Rags! New rags for old! I take your tired rags! Rags!”

“Now, this is a wonder,” I thought to myself, for the man stood six-feet-four, and his arms were like tree limbs, hard and muscular, and his eyes flashed intelligence. Could he find no better job than this, to be a ragman in the inner city?

I followed him. My curiosity drove me. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Soon the Ragman saw a woman sitting on her back porch. She was sobbing into her handkerchief, sighing, and shedding a thousand tears. Her knees and elbows made a sad X. Her shoulders shook. Her heart was breaking.

The Ragman stopped his cart. Quietly he walked to the woman, stepping round tin cans, dead toys, and Pampers.

“Give me your rag,” he said so gently, “and I’ll give you another.”

He slipped the handkerchief from her eyes. She looked up, and he laid across her palm a linen cloth so clean and new that it shined. She blinked from the gift to the giver.

Then, as he began to pull his cart again, the Ragman did a strange thing: he put her stained, snotty handkerchief to his own face; and then he began to weep, to sob as grievously as she had done, his shoulders shaking. Yet she was left behind without a tear.

“This is a wonder,” I breathed to myself, and I followed the sobbing Ragman like a child who cannot turn away from mystery.

“Rags! Rags! New rags for old!”

In a little while, when the sky showed grey behind the rooftops and I could see the shredded curtains hanging out black windows, the Ragman came upon a girl whose head was wrapped in a bandage, whose eyes were empty. Blood soaked her bandage. A single line of blood ran down her cheek.

Now the tall Ragman looked upon this child with pity, and he drew a lovely yellow bonnet from his cart.

“Give me your rag,” he said, tracing his own line on her cheek, “and I’ll give you mine.”

The child could only gaze at him while he loosened the bandage, removed it, and tied it to his own head. The bonnet he set on hers. And I gasped at what I saw: for with the bandage went the wound! Against his brow it ran a darker, more substantial blood—his own!

“Rags! Rags! I take old rags!” cried the sobbing, bleeding, strong, intelligent Ragman.

The sun hurt the sky now, and my eyes; the Ragman seemed more and more in a hurry.

“Are you going to work?” he asked a man who leaned against a telephone pole. The man shook his head.

The Ragman inquired, “Do you have a job?”

“Are you crazy?” sneered the other. He pulled away from the pole, revealing the right sleeve of his jacket. It was flat, the cuff stuffed into the pocket. He had no arm.

“So,” said the Ragman. “Give me your jacket, and I’ll give you mine.”

Such quiet authority in his voice! The one-armed man took off his jacket. So did the Ragman—and I trembled at what I saw: for the Ragman’s arm stayed in his jacket, and when the other put it on, then he had two good arms, thick as tree limbs; but the Ragman had only one.

“Go to work,” he said.

After that he saw a drunk, lying unconscious beneath an army blanket, an old man, hunched, wizened, and sick. He took that blanket and wrapped it round himself, but for the drunk he left a new suit of clothes.

And now I had to run to keep up with the Ragman. Though he was weeping uncontrollably, and bleeding freely at his forehead, pulling his cart with one arm, stumbling for drunkenness, falling again and again, exhausted, old, old and sick, yet he went very fast. On spider’s legs he skittered through the alleys of the City, this mile and the next, until he’d come to its limits, and then he rushed beyond.

I wept to see the change in this man. I hurt to see his sorrow. And yet I needed to see where he was going in such a haste, perhaps to know what drove him so.

The little old Ragman—he came to a landfill. He came to a garbage dump. And then I wanted to help him in what he did, but I hung back, hiding. He climbed a hill. With tormented labor he cleared a little space on that hill. Then he sighed. He lay down. He pillowed his head on a handkerchief and a jacket. He covered his bones with an army blanket. And he died.

Oh, how I cried to witness that death! I slumped in a junked car and wailed and mourned as one who has no hope—because I had come to love the Ragman. Every other face had faded in the wonder of this man, and I cherished him; but he died. I cried myself to sleep.

I did not know—how could I know?—that I slept through Friday night and Saturday and its night, too.

But then, on Sunday morning, I was wakened by a violence. Light—pure, hard, demanding light—slammed against my sour face, and I blinked, and I looked, and I saw the last and the first wonder of all. There was the Ragman, folding the blanket most carefully, a scar on his forehead, but alive! And, besides that, healthy! There was no sign of sorrow nor of age, and all the rags that he had gathered shined for cleanliness.

Well, then I lowered my head and, trembling for all that I had seen, I myself walked up to the Ragman. I told him my name with shame, for I was a sorry figure next to him. Then I took off all my clothes in that place, and I said to him with dear yearning in my voice: “Dress me.”

He dressed me. My Lord, he put new rags on me, and I am a wonder beside him. The Ragman, the Ragman, the Christ!

Walter Wangerin, Jr., is pastor of Grace Lutheran Church, Evansville, Indiana. His highly acclaimed Book of the Dun Cow (Harper & Row, 1978) won the 1980 American Book Award.