Guerrilla defector seems to bolster the Guatemalan government’s claims.

The following report from correspondent Stephen R. Sywulka in Guatemala generally coincides with the government version of events in the case. Roman Catholic sources take vigorous exception to his conclusions, insisting that Pellecer’s kidnapping could not have been prearranged since he was bleeding and unconscious when abducted, that the government denied all knowledge of his whereabouts over the months that followed, that he showed signs of brainwashing in his few stage-managed appearances, and that he is still a prisoner.

It hit like a bomb blast, sending shock waves rolling through the social and ecclesiastical structure of Guatemala. At a surprise news conference called by the government amid strict security measures, Jesuit priest Luis Eduardo Pellecer Faena admitted he had served actively with the Guerrilla Army of the Poor (EGP), and asked forgiveness from the people of Guatemala.

Pellecer, 35, spoke with reporters, government officials, and diplomats for over two hours, recounting the steps that first led him to join the EGP, and then to his disillusionment and escape through a simulated kidnapping. “I ask your forgiveness, a thousand times forgiveness,” he said.

“I contributed to subversive actions which have sown violence in this country.”

It came as no surprise that members of the Catholic clergy have sympathized with the guerrillas. Pellecer charged that the Jesuits as a whole, members of several other orders, some prestigious schools, and the Catholic relief agency, Caritas, were implicated with the subversives. The priest singled out the theology of liberation as a major factor, saying it presented a new Jesus, a revolutionary rebel who opposed the capitalist system; a Jesus for the poor only, sent by God to establish a new kingdom on earth. “This kingdom which we Jesuits preach is a kingdom equivalent to socialism,” said Pellecer. “To arrive there, we obviously need to obtain power.” And power, he said, would be gained by hatred of the rich.

Along with the liberation theology was a strong Marxist orientation. Pellecer claimed that all the Jesuits “of my generation” were heavily exposed to Marxism-Leninism during the course of their studies.

He also said that in a meeting two years ago, the Jesuit order put first priority on work among the poorest levels of society. “It was decided that we should contribute toward the radicalization of Jesus for the poor,” he said. “We were able to get in with the people and give them the proper dose of Marxism appropriate to their low cultural and political level.”

Sent first to El Salvador to work with a catechist group known as “Delegates of the Word of God,” Pellecer and his companions taught the peasants that they should defend themselves against the “oppressive” landowners and organize “self-defense committees.” “We handed these groups over to [the guerrillas] on a silver platter,” he said.

Transferred to Nicaragua, the young priest helped organize cooperatives that served to channel funds to the Sandinistas, who were then struggling against the Somoza regime.

Sent to his native Guatemala in 1977, Pellecer began working with an urban organization to “consciencitize” the inhabitants of slum and squatter settlements. He also served as adviser to the Belgian School, a well-known Catholic institution for girls, for their “Operation Uspantan.” In this program, upper level students were sent for one to two months during vacation to five with peasant families in Quiche province.

All of these efforts, explained Pellecer, were part of a first stage designed to raise the level of consciousness. It was understood that this was preparation for a “second story” that would involve political and/or military action.

Impressed by his work, the EGP approached the priest in the summer of 1978. At that time, he did not want to join, he said, partly because he was planning to marry a Nicaraguan girl. But the marriage fell through, and in late 1979 Pellecer sent word through his contact, an ex-Jesuit, that he was available.

Pellecer emphasized that he was a “sympathizer,” not a “militant.” As such, he kept on with his regular job in Guatemala City and did not have or use weapons. His specific assignment was with the “National Propaganda Commission,” an attempt by the four main guerrilla organizations in Guatemala to coordinate publicity, especially outside the country, against the government and its security forces. The priest claimed that much of the bad press, which the governments of Guatemala and El Salvador suffer around the world, was directly due to the church and that the Jesuits had a direct line to Amnesty International.

Pellecer’s disenchantment with the guerrillas came as he began to realize that it was impossible to separate theory and practice, and that the Marxist practice was producing violence and suffering. When he was pressured to undergo military training and take up arms, he decided to pull out of the EGP. The problem was how to do it. Through a friend, he contacted the security forces and a fake kidnapping was arranged. It took place on June 8. Four months later, he reappeared at the press conference.

The priest insisted that he had been treated well and was telling his story voluntarily, though he predicted some people would claim he was talking under coercion. In fact, the archbishops of Panama and El Salvador reacted immediately to the news by saying Pellecer had been drugged and tortured, and by demanding his “release.” But observers in Guatemala noted that his presentation was unusually lucid and straightforward and he showed no signs of drugs.

Reporters were able to meet with Pellecer several times subsequent to the news conference, but otherwise he remained in seclusion. A government spokesman said that although he was being protected for his own safety within Guatemala, he was free to leave the country at any time.

Questioned by reporters, Pellecer said he estimated that 15 to 20 priests in Guatemala were collaborating with the subversives, including “all the Jesuits of my generation,” some Maryknollers, some from other orders, and a few seculars. There are currently 42 Jesuits in Guatemala. Only three are native born; the rest are Spanish. One of Pellecer’s most startling charges was that his superiors in the order were aware of what he was doing and had given tacit approval.

There was speculation that the government might expel the Jesuits, but Pellecer himself told the questioners he would not advise it as it would only heighten their sense of martyrdom. He advocated dialogue and stricter controls. (The Jesuit order has been thrown out twice in the history of the country: once in the colonial period, and again during the liberal reforms of President Justo Rufino Barrios in the 1880s.)

Another dramatic allegation made by Pellecer was that funds for the guerrillas were handled partially through European relief agencies, including Caritas.

The news conference, which was broadcast almost verbatim by the two major TV news programs and later rebroadcast on all radio and television stations in the country, sent the church hierarchy scurrying into closed-door consultations.

A statement released a couple of days later by the national bishops conference claimed that some of Pellecer’s allegations were “serious and false.” The bishops stated their “total support” for the insitutions mentioned by the priest, including Caritas, the Company of Jesus, and the Delegates of the Word of God.

“We profoundly lament that a priest has opted for the path of violence and subversion to solve the pressing problems of the country in contradiction to the very clear norms of the church,” said the statement. The bishops also defended the Latin America Catholic conferences in Medellín and Puebla, which Pellecer had linked with liberation theology.

While Pellecer is the first priest to defect from the guerrilla ranks, two others were killed recently in a shootout with police and another is alleged to be fighting with subversives in the jungle.

On July 25, police surrounded a guerrilla hideout in a suburb of Guatemala city. After a four-hour gun battle, eight bodies were found in the house along with arms, bombs, and leftist propaganda. Two of the dead were later identified as Catholic missionaries: Raoul Joseph Leger, a Canadian, and Angel Martinez Rodrigo, from Spain. They were known respectively as Commandante Miguel and Pedro in the guerrilla organization.

A leftist Mexican magazine, Por Esto, recently published an interview with Donald McKennan, an Irish priest who was allegedly serving as chaplain with a guerrilla group in the Guatemalan jungles. Photos showed him in uniform with a submachine gun over his shoulder. McKennan had served as a priest in Quiche province, an area hit hard by the violence.

Evangelicals in Guatemala have been watching the latest developments carefully. Some see new opportunities for evangelism as many Catholics become disillusioned with their church. Others are wary that all religious workers and institutions, including evangelical missionaries and schools, may come under suspicion.

World Scene

The Salvation Army has a new general. Commissioner Jarl Wahlstrom, 63, will assume the post being vacated by General Arnold Brown in mid-December at the mandatory retirement age of 68. A Finn, Wahlstrom has served the army since 1938 in his own country and in administrative posts in Canada (with Bermuda) and Sweden. Brown, a Canadian, has served as the top officer in the army’s worldwide force of 25,000 officers (full-time staff) for four-and-a-half years.

Bible sales in Nicaragua are the highest ever this year, despite a very tight economy, according to Ignacio Hernandez, director of the Nicaraguan Bible Society. More than 200,000 popular language New Testaments were to arrive in the country last month. They will be distributed mostly in rural areas as part of the United Bible Societies project to give Bibles to the nation’s thousands of new literates.

A backlash is developing in member churches over a World Council of Churches decision to boycott European banks that have business finks with South Africa, IDEA, the information service of the German Evangelical Alliance, reports that the Protestant (Lutheran) Church in Germany (EKD) issued a statement declaring that the WCC is “by no means a kind of Protestant Vatican,” and that it was not bound to abide by the WCC decision. The Swiss Council of Churches also registered opposition to the action, and the Protestant Reformed Church in the canton of Zurich served notice that it intends to cancel its $16,000 annual contribution to the WCC.

The largest printing job ever given to a single Swedish printing plant is under way there. It is a 500,000-copy edition of the first new translation of the Swedish New Testament to be made since World War I. Swedish Bibles have been financed by the government ever since the first version was printed in 1526. The 750-page Testaments are subsidized, and will cost buyers about $10. So far they have cost the government about $1.25 million.

Shades of Wittenberg! Five Greek Orthodox priests asked to discuss 40 theses with their superiors, and are being brought to trial by the Holy Synod of the Greek church. According to a Greek correspondent, the theses address such issues as electing archbishops by the priests instead of by the Synod of Bishops, allowing priests to marry, and adjusting their salaries. Two of the priests, Stavros Papachristos, 55, and Spiros Tsakalos, 40, who claim they speak for 8,000 priests, demonstrated in front of Athens University last summer to dramatize their cause. “Down with hierarchical dictatorship!” read one of their placards. Papachristos is under a five-month suspension of all priestly functions for having defended a deacon of “progressive persuasion.”

European evangelicals met to discuss and pray for revival in Haamstedt, The Netherlands, recently. In the September conference, 175 participants examined past revivals and learned about present-day movements in Scandinavia, Russia, and Czechoslovakia. Speakers included Philippe Decorvet and Claire-Lise de Benoit of Switzerland, and Peter Schneider of Germany. Western contributors included Richard Lovelace, J. Edwin Orr, and George Peters.

A reported apparition of the Virgin Mary is giving Communist officials in Yugoslavia fits. It all began in July when six girls from the mountain village of Citluk reported seeing a golden-haired Madonna floating over a remote meadow. Western diplomatic sources estimate that since then as many as 30,000 Yugoslav Catholics have flocked to the area. The state-controlled press began to ridicule the reported event as “scientifically impossible,” and Radovan Samardizic, secretary of the government’s Commission on Church Relations, saw it as “a publicity trick, an attempt to show strength.” Officials thereupon fenced off the meadow, barred journalists, and sentenced the local priest to three-and-one-half years in prison for spreading “hostile propaganda.”

More fallout from the Sadat assassination: Alarmed at the high incidence of allegiance to the Islamic fundamentalist societies among Egypt’s youth, the Ministry of Education has announced a campaign to counter their teachings. It says new Islamic curricula will be introduced in all public schools next year to explain the basic tenets of the faith and the role it can play in facing the problems of the age.

Christians are alive and well in North Korea, according to a native of Korea who recently visited relatives in Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic. A Presbyterian minister who has served a Korean-language church in Los Angeles for 22 years learned from leaders of the Christian League that there are about 5,000 believers in the country, perhaps the most austere in the Communist sphere. In the capital city, he was told, some 700 Christians worship in 100 house churches. Before Korea was partitioned, the percentage of Christians was higher in the North than in the South.

When pastor Andy Lindo came to the Church of Christ in Poway, California, a town near San Diego, the church membership soared, especially among young people. Something else soared at the Poway Church of Christ: controversy. As Lindo’s ministry took hold, some parents of young members began picketing.

Lindo is a practitioner of a much-debated renewal movement spreading throughout local congregations of the Church of Christ across the country. For want of a better term, outsiders call it “The Crossroads Movement,” because it started with Chuck Lucas, pastor of the Crossroads Church of Christ in Gainesville, Florida, in 1971. Lucas conducts seminars for other Church of Christ ministers.

The practices include discipleship, aggressive evangelism, prayer partnerships in which older Christians are matched with newer ones, and something known as “one-another Christianity,” a term that summarizes the emphasis on personal growth in the faith.

There have been some excesses that caused much consternation among Church of Christ members who are not part of the movement. At Lindo’s church in Poway, it was once a practice to discuss the personal problems of members openly in a “soul talk.” This is no longer done.

Ronald Brumley, an elder in the Poway church, said, “We have been overly strong in giving out advice” about how participants should live their lives, and people who wanted to leave the movement have been unduly ostracized. He and Lindo say they regret the division and controversy surrounding the movement, but they also feel the blame does not lie only with them, and say they are making efforts at reconciliation.

Some accusers attack the books used by Crossroads workers. Jay Adams’s Competent to Counsel is labeled “a Calvinistic book with incorrect relation to the Holy Spirit.” Stephen Olford’s Manna in the Morning is criticized as “an extra-biblical catechism.” (Olford and Adams are widely known authors in the larger evangelical sphere). The New International Version of the Bible has been called “a transdenominational version that cannot convert anyone.”

The Church of Christ has no denominational hierarchy or official spokesmen, but affiliated schools and publications are divided over the Crossroads movement. Jerry Jones of the Harding University Bible Department, James Lovell of Action magazine, and Reuel Lemmons, editor of the publication Firm Foundation, all support Lucas and Crossroads. All three reject the charges of cultism leveled at Crossroads, and say that news media sensationalism has blown things out of proportion. There have been numerous articles appearing in local newspapers in cities to which Crossroads has spread. The Gainesville, Florida, paper has written extensively on it, and with hostility. Ira Rice, editor of a Birmingham, Alabama, Church of Christ publication, Contending for the Faith, is critical, and has reprinted an investigative article on Crossroads from the Los Angeles Times. Rice believes the movement’s philosophy of total commitment amounts to a kind of salvation by works.

John Banks, a San Diego-area Church of Christ minister, regards Rice as a muckraker, but he said Rice has handled the Crossroads issue correctly. “Someone has to blow the whistle sometime,” he said. In conjunction with other San Diego ministers, Banks purchased an extensive, theologically detailed, newspaper ad that echoed many of the charges against Crossroads, and which dissociated the ministers’ churches from it.

Much of the furor has been on university campuses, pitting longstanding campus outreaches and Crossroads workers. William J. Teague, president of Abilene Christian University, states that his university does not permit Chuck Lucas or his direct associates to speak on campus. Otto Spangler of the Baptist Campus Ministry on the Gainesville campus of the University of Florida feels that after many efforts to cooperate, “there is no room for dialogue” with the exclusivist Crossroads workers. Said Spangler: “I could not begin to tell of the damage done to students whom I have counseled because of the practices of this church. I would warn anyone against involvement with this mindset.”

Brumley, of the Poway Church of Christ, was asked if the large numbers attending his church means that the Crossroads movement is valid. He said the numbers at least show that “something is happening.” It seems, though, that within and without the Church of Christ, there is little agreement on what this is.

An evangelical on camera in Dallas.

Last summer’s Southern Baptist Convention was attended by crews from all three commercial television stations in Dallas, Texas. That was unusual, since most TV news operations have neither the time nor the inclination to pay serious attention to religion. The Dallas coverage was even more unusual because the Baptist convention was in Los Angeles.

Television news coverage of religion in Dallas heated up this year when WFAA, the local ABC affiliate, became the first to use a full-time religion reporter, a 25-year-old evangelical Christian named Peggy Wehmeyer. The station management took a gamble on her even though she had never worked in television before. Some of her colleagues at the station, in one of the country’s top 10 television markets, were not accustomed to greenhorns starting out at the top. Some of them balked at working with her at all, although others were kind. She came to the station (first as a writer, then as an on-camera reporter) from Dallas Theological Seminary, where she was public information director.

Marty Haag, the program director for WFAA, said public response to its regular religion coverage has been good. “We were inundated with letters from people who appreciated it,” he said. The religion beat is an unusual one for television, Haag said, but it is a significant one. “This is the kind of beat where all sorts of trends and movements in society show up. It also gives us a chance to report good news stories in which people are doing things for others.”

Haag said Wehmeyer’s transition from print to broadcast journalism has been unusually smooth, given the suddenness, and he added that some reporters are not able to make it at all.

Her Christian friends thought Wehmeyer’s transition from the seminary to WFAA’s news was something close to a miracle.

But although her climb was fast, Wehmeyer knows it was not easy. She remembers fear that almost dried up her words the day she met Haag and asked if she could work for him. She remembers terror in facing that first morning on the desk after Haag had challenged her desire to work by saying, “You want to work here? Okay—come in tomorrow morning and manage the desk.” She didn’t even know what the desk was.

She remembers encouragement from some people, but also the hurt provoked by nasty rumors and the impenetrable chill of veterans in the newsroom who had worked too long and hard to tolerate inexperience. She remembers prayers for strength, and prayers of thanks for new responsibilities. She remembers facing the risk of giving up her seminary job to write news for anchorman Tracy Rowlett’s 4:30–5:00 P.M. show.

Even after surviving that year’s transition in the newsroom, Peggy Wehmeyer faces problems.

Her inexperience is one hurdle. “I need more time to smooth out some of the rough edges,” she said. “I’d like to get more of the basic structural things down well enough so I can be even more creative. I’ve learned pretty well how to put visuals and print together now, but you can never get good enough at that. It takes time and experience.

Integrating her faith and profession is another problem for Wehmeyer. One day she spoke at a Christian women’s club. During the speech she gave her personal testimony, but after the meeting could not shake an uneasy feeling about what she had done. Prior to her job with Channel 8 she had often spoken about her faith, but this time something didn’t fit.

Would she compromise her objectivity as a religion reporter by telling people what she believed? Could people in that audience respect stories she might write about religions not her own? Would Jews, Mormons, or atheists speak openly to her on the beat if they knew she tried to persuade people to become Christians?

The next day Wehmeyer discussed her uneasiness with one of her supervisors. He told her to cut the testimonies: he said they were bad for the station. He said she could speak about religion on television or on the beat, but that it would be wise for her as a religion reporter not to tell the public what she believes. Wehmeyer’s friends thought she was compromising.

But she made her own decision. “I don’t think at this point in my life I can be a good reporter,” she said, “seen and respected as objective, if I am also going out persuading people what they should believe. The two conflict. At least for right now I have settled with the idea that my job is to be a good reporter first.”

She added, “I don’t feel any less committed as a Christian, or like I have to hide my faith. I just feel that God has called me to be a reporter and that means, for the time being, that in other areas I must be subdued.”

Wehmeyer is subdued in public maybe, but not in the news room. She said she never goes around flying to evangelize or cram her faith down someone’s throat. But she is very open about what she believes. “I’ve been advised a number of times not to be so open,” she said. “But when people ask me why I believe what I believe—I tell them. Others have beliefs too. They just aren’t as open about them. Everybody has a certain frame of mind through which he sees things. There’s no reporter who is totally objective.”

Wehmeyer’s bias is a burden at times. “I’m sensitive to the fact that people know I’m a Christian,” she said. “Because I am a Christian I feel I have to prove that I’m even more objective than others in my reporting.”

Her faith has been stretched tight by the demands of Channel 8 reporting. “In this business you’re supposed to be a real skeptic,” Wehmeyer said, “but a Christian is someone who has faith and trusts people. I’ve had to live with the tension of being a skeptic and one who lives by faith.

“One person told me sooner or later I’d lose my faith here,” she said. “I think that’s a bunch of baloney. We ought to be skeptical about a lot of things that happen in religion.

“I’ve gotten out of my ivory tower since leaving the seminary,” she said. “I’ve seen where people hurt. Once I covered a car accident where a mother and her child were trapped in a car. I watched helplessly as they burned to death and asked, ‘God—how can you let this happen?’

“I have to admit,” she said, “the longer I work in the news room, the more I find out I don’t have all the answers. I used to have all the answers in black and white. Now I’ve had to accept the fact that I five in some gray areas. It takes a very secure person to live in the gray areas.”

Diverse Christians, citing Bible prophecy, show remarkable unity.

It seems generally that the Christians who most vocally support Israel are conservatives—those with a higher regard for biblical prophecy than liberal Protestants. But that is not always the case. An unusual meeting in Washington last month brought together mainline Protestants and Catholics from across the country, as well as those conservative Protestants who stand strongly for the defense of Israel on biblical grounds.

The National Christian Congress for Israel opened just eight days after the assassination of Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat, and scarcely an hour before the U.S. House of Representatives voted against the sale of AWACS (Advanced Warning and Control System) aircraft to Saudi Arabia. That confluence of events heightened the sense of urgency felt by the participants.

Franklin H. Littell, president of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel, which sponsored the event, said the congress was planned to unite Christians from a diversity of denominations and organizations in their common concern for the safety of the Jewish homeland. “We didn’t know we’d be meeting at the most crucial time on the calendar for Israel’s survival,” he observed.

Attracting approximately 100 participants from across the country, the meeting opened with briefings by Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.) and Robert F. Drinan, a Roman Catholic priest and former congressman from Massachusetts, who is now a professor of international law at Georgetown University Law Center. Numerous ecumenical and interfaith groups were represented, along with the Criswell Center for Biblical Studies, which is a conservative Southern Baptist School; the charismatically oriented Melodyland Christian Center; and Gordon College (Mass.). Their show of unified support for Israel came as a counterweight to pro-Arab stands taken by the National Council of Churches and some mainline groups. The NCC has advocated including the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, in Middle East negotiations.

Littell, in an opening statement, noted that “the real issue is whether you affirm or deny that in the providence of God the Jewish people have survived and are to survive.” Beyond making this affirmation, the congress took a strong position against the proposed AWACS sale.

On that point, Kemp was applauded for his departure from the Reagan administration’s position. A conservative, Kemp is well known for the Kemp-Roth tax cut bill. He is also active in congressional efforts to aid dissidents in the Soviet Union.

He made a forthright statement of his own Christian faith, calling the establishment of Israel in 1948 “a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.” Based on his own observations during a trip to the Holy Land, he praised the Israelis for supporting the Christian community in Lebanon and for their efforts to restore Jewish and Christian holy sites in East Jerusalem. Kemp told the group that “My wife and I like to think of ourselves as serious Bible students,” and he said the role of the United States is to preserve opportunities for biblical prophecies to come true.

But his opposition to the AWACS sale was based on reasons he kept separate from his own religious views. When a member of the audience asked him why, as a Christian, he opposed the sale, Kemp responded, “I would rather not put it in those terms. This is an issue on which Christians can disagree.

“I oppose it because the Saudis do not support the Camp David agreements; because they arm the PLO; because they don’t understand the threat they face in the Persian Gulf from Soviet encroachment.” Other reasons included Saudi unwillingness to cooperate with the United States in its endeavor to establish military bases in the area for its Rapid Deployment Force.

Once the Saudis indicate a willingness to reciprocate, then the sale of AWACS should be considered, Kemp said, and not before. Acknowledging that some sore spots remain following his clash with the president over the issue, Kemp said, “Political hard feelings are not the end of the world.”

Drinan, Kemp’s former congressional colleague, delivered a stem review of Christian anti-Semitism through the ages. “We have to recognize that, in all candor, Christians have always been wrong about Jews,” he said, enumerating anti-Semitic statements made by Martin Luther, Saint John Chrysostom, and the National Council of Churches, among others. A liberal Democrat, Drinan did not seek reelection to the House in 1980 after Pope John Paul II said clergy should not hold public office.

Terming the death of Anwar Sadat “very catastrophic,” Drinan warned against underestimating the importance of events in history. “We should meditate every day of our lives on what God intends to teach us by the fact that the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel happened in our lifetime. This is not just a happenstance. It is a great turning point in history.”

Instead of an alliance with Israel based on political and economic considerations, Drinan said he sees a “profound moral consensus” developing in favor of Israel. Maintenance of a relationship that ensures Israel’s security will be influenced largely by the attitudes of American Christians. “Deep down, the ultimate heresy is to deny the relevance of Judaism,” he said. “What if, by our silence or indifference, the destruction of Israel came about in our lifetime?”

Against that eventuality, Drinan urged that the United States stop arming Arab nations, reduce oil dependency, and support a unified Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. Over all, he said, “we need to concentrate our energies on keeping our aid to Israel from being slashed.”

Participants at the meeting were encouraged to act on their convictions by visiting members of Congress, preparing letters to President Reagan, and joining in a prayer vigil at the Soviet embassy. U.S. Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson presided at a prayer breakfast, and participants mingled with members of the Israeli embassy at a reception. During his talk, Halverson said, “There is something shallow about a Christianity that has lost its Jewish roots.”

Littell viewed the event as the first annual meeting of its kind, and expressed his hope that the rally will attract increasing numbers of concerned Christians over the years. “It’s going to be a long, hard fight in some respects,” he said, “but it’s worth it.”

A Demonstration in Israel, Too

While that diverse group of Christians met in Washington to show support for Israel, some 3,000 evangelicals from North America, The Netherlands, and South Africa gathered in Jerusalem to demonstrate on behalf of Israel’s claim that Jerusalem is its capital. The visit was timed to coincide with the Feast of Tabernacles, or Succoth, and they attended under the auspices of the International Christian Embassy. The so-called embassy was organized in 1980 by a Dutch missionary in Israel, Van Willem van der Hoeven, after Israel proclaimed Jerusalem its “united and indivisible” capital earlier that year.

Prime Minister Menachem Begin welcomed the Christian supporters, saying they provided “great satisfaction.” Members of Rabbi Meir Kahane’s extremist Kach movement responded differently. Van der Hoeven, they charged, was “a devout missionary” attempting to convert Jews to Christianity, and Kahane’s followers managed to tear down one of the group’s banners.

California, long a haven for substandard colleges, is applying more pressure to diploma mills. Two bills, opening the avenue for stricter educational standards, will go into effect in 1982. Religious schools will not be affected by the tightened standards, however, because of church-and-state separation considerations.

The recently passed bills will amend the Private Postsecondary Education Act of 1977 by initiating a council that will develop tougher standards for private educational insitutions. At present, a school is considered “authorized” by the state when it can show at least $50,000 of assets in property and equipment, and will agree to file annual affidavits that include such innocuous facts as the address of the school. This has allowed schools, including religious schools, to award advanced degrees for little work, and advertise themselves as “authorized.” (CT, May 29, p. 26).

The lax California requirements come under section 94310(c) of the present educational code. The newly impaneled council is to “develop explicit standards for the review and authorization” of schools under that section, but religious schools have been exempted. (There are a number of levels of “authorization” for schools. Religious schools seeking higher levels of authorization may do so but are not required.) They will fall under a newly created section, 94310(d), which basically will add only one requirement to what the theological schools had under the old 94310(c).

The theological schools will have to file a “full disclosure” affadvait, including such points as institutional objectives, curriculum, and tuition schedules. Another amendment will define the “instruction” that must be offered by institutions granting degrees (religious included), but the definition nebulously states that “instruction” amounts to “learning experiences” presented in a “planned curriculum.”

A spokesman at the California Department of Education said the additions to the educational code will hardly affect religious diploma mills. When the new law becomes effective in 1983, those questionable institutions will be able to continue as before, he said. An information bulletin released by the department explained that the legislature was reluctant to levy “additional imposition of standards which may infringe upon their [theological schools] religious beliefs.”

Once again, the experts disagreed.

Few social problems have vexed the evangelical community as greatly as divorce and remarriage. With the recent spate of books flowing from the pens of evangelical authors, one might have expected some consensus. Yet, positions seem as sharply defined now as before. Marked differences were on display at the recent National Conference on Divorce and Remarriage in Milwaukee.

The conference, sponsored by the Jackson Psychiatric Center of Milwaukee, brought together a variety of leading experts, including representatives of Judaism (Rabbi David Shapiro, contributing editor of Judaism), Catholicism (Dennis Doherty, Marquette University theologian), the legal field (John McLario, general counsel for the Christian Legal Defense and Education Foundation), several noted evangelical pastors (Californians Paul Steele and John MacArthur, Jr., and Grand Rapids-based Jerome DeJong), seminary professors (Charles Ryrie of Dallas Theological Seminary and Carl Laney of Western Conservative Baptist Seminary in Portland), editor emeritus of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Harold Lindsell, and a practicing psychiatrist (Basil Jackson of Milwaukee).

The purpose of the gathering was not to give easy prepackaged answers. Rather, the meetings were to help “bridge the gap between the ivory tower of the theologians and the practical front line of the … practitioner,” in the words of Jackson, the organizer. He urged listeners to hear the answers given by people “expert in the field” so that they might go away prepared to develop their own solutions to the dilemma of divorce and remarriage.

Meanwhile, Marriage Flounders On …

The good ship marriage, the latest U.S. Census Bureau information shows, kept afloat during the 1970s—but it scraped the rocks a little, and sustained some hull damage. A census report released last month revealed that from 1970 to 1980 more marriages ended in divorce, fewer couples got married, those who did marry waited longer, and an increasing number of people chose to live alone.

The statistics also showed that births of out-of-wedlock babies increased by about 7 percent from 1970 to 1980. Fifty-five percent of all black babies born in 1979 were to unwed mothers. But the increase of out-of-wedlock births among teen-agers is greater for whites than blacks. Researchers believe the rise in such births are due to women waiting until a later age to get married and the lessened social stigma attached to an unwed mother keeping her child.

Mississippi had the highest percentage of births out of wedlock (27.2), followed by Delaware (22.9 percent), Louisiana (22.8 percent), and Florida (22.4 percent).

From 1970 to 1980, the ratio of divorced to married people doubled, while about 1 in 20 persons was divorced in 1970, 1 in 10 was divorced in 1980. The median age of the first marriage for men rose from 22 to just over 24, and for women from about 21 to 22. In addition, the number of unmarried couples living together tripled from 1970 to 1980, rising from 523,000 to 1,560,000. (Stiff, those numbers represent only about 2 percent of all households in the U.S.)

In his opening address, Jackson suggested that the issue has been complicated by the difficulty anyone has of arriving at a truly objective theology. “No matter how erudite the theologian is … one’s emotional background, one’s preconceived notions, one’s preconceived ideas result in some degree of eisegesis [reading something into the biblical text that the author did not intend]. I will get out of the exceptive clause, for example, to some degree the conditioning I bring to it,” Jackson explained. Having heard that, some might have wondered why bother to discuss the issue at all.

Doherty, the Catholic theologian, brought conferees the Roman Catholic teaching on marriage and the church’s legislation relating to the “sacrament.” With wry humor, he candidly admitted that while Roman Catholic theology does not permit divorce, Catholic practice has found various ways of accommodating it. “Law creates loopholes, and savvy lawyers can exploit loopholes and we know it,” he remarked.

The other pastors and seminary professors who spoke staked out their ground on the meaning of the so-called exception clause found in Matthew 5:32 and 19:9. So extensively did the participants discuss this that the conference title ran the risk of becoming a misnomer. A more accurate designation might have been National Conference on the Matthean Exception Clause.

Two basically opposed viewpoints surfaced. The first, represented in papers by Ryrie, Laney, and Steele strongly rejected the commonly held idea that Jesus allowed divorce and remarriage in cases of adultery. Both Laney and Ryrie supported the interpretation of the Matthew 5 and 19 exceptions as referring to marriage within the degrees prohibited in Leviticus 18 (i.e., incest).

Steele made his case by dealing more broadly with the Old and New Testament passages teaching a lofty view of marriage as a “one flesh” union. But, along with the seminary professors, Steele agreed that no grammatical grounds exist for seeing the “exception clause” as permitting remarriage.

Lindsell, DeJong, and MacArthur held an opposing view. MacArthur observed that the confusion over the biblical view of divorce occurs “when we try to accommodate the divine standard to the lack of standards in our contemporary morality, or when we try to compensate for the low standards of society with a higher law than God set in his Word.” None of the speakers favored divorce, one comparing it to a man cutting off his leg to remove a splinter.

Still, Lindsell, MacArthur, and DeJong did accept adultery and desertion (in some cases) as constituting grounds for divorce when the adultery has been “unremitting” (MacArthur) and when all avenues for reconciliation have been exhausted.

DeJong devoted much of his presentation to the need for an attitude of grace to prevail, even while adhering to the specifics of the Bible’s hard words concerning divorce. He spoke of the need to restore erring brothers and sisters in a spirit of love whenever genuine sorrow over sin and repentance can be found.

“How am I going to face my wife?”

One night last month, Jerry Falwell matched the best defender of creationism he could find against the best defender of evolution he could find. By all accounts, the creationist won hands down.

But you can judge for yourself: Falwell will spend up to a half-million dollars to broadcast the debate on television.

The evolutionist was Russell Doolittle, a protein chemist from the University of California. The creationist was Duane Gish, a biochemist from the Institute for Creation Research. The debate took place at Falwell’s Liberty Baptist College in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Admittedly, Doolittle did not have the home field advantage, as he tried to argue for evolutionism in Lynchburg. Still, by his own admission, he lost badly. “I’m devastated,” he said after the debate. “This was so important. How am I going to face my wife after making such a fool of myself?” His comments were carried in a Washington Post account of the event.

Doolittle, who has debated on behalf of evolution previously, tripped himself up by not paying attention to the clock. He, like Gish, had 18 minutes to make an opening statement, but spent so much time reading from a creationist text about dinosaurs, and criticizing it, that he failed to get through a slide presentation that offered evidence for evolution.

Instead of a well-fashioned argument for his view, the conclusion of Doolittle’s statement, according to a transcript, went this way: “I’m running out of time. It’s incredible. Well, I have to go very quickly here. May I, in fact, quickly now just go through my slides? I just saw what I think is a 30-second flash here. These have been the fastest 18 minutes of my life. And as I’m now on my last slide—Oop! I’ve been squeezed out. My last slide just went by. I’m out of gas, and I think that …” At that point Falwell told Doolittle his time was up.

Gish, also an experienced debater, pummeled the theory of evolution with argument after argument, and finished on time.

Doolittle received $5,000 for debating Gish, and in spite of offering that much money, Falwell still had a difficult time enticing an evolutionist to Lynchburg. Astronomer Carl Sagan turned him down, as did noted anthropologists Ashley Montagu and Stephen Jay Gould.

According to the Post, Doolittle said after the debate, “For the $5,000 fee, they could pay some numbskull to come in and make a fool of himself. As it turns out, that’s exactly what they got.”

In his opening remarks, Doolittle said he came because he is worried about the future of American education, given the new laws in Arkansas and Mississippi requiring the presentation of creationism in science classes if evolution is taught. “To me this is a travesty,” said Doolittle.

The debate will be broadcast by Falwell’s “Old Time Gospel Hour” organization at varying times and locations around the country during late November and early December, depending upon when the Falwell people can purchase time on local stations. (People interested in viewing the program should watch local television listings as well as for newspaper advertisements for the program.)

Among the arguments Doolittle made for evolution was the fact that most scientists agree the earth is much older than the age that is allowed by “young earth” proponents, including many, although not all, creationists.

Doolittle said various means of dating rocks all agree that the earth is 4.6 billion years old. Confirmation was made when astronauts brought back moon rocks, he said, and the age of those rocks matched other measurements.

In his rebuttal to Gish, Doolittle asked, why, if origins of the earth are supposed to be supernatural, must they conform to the Christian view, rather than the views of competing religions? Just because science cannot now explain some aspects of origins does not mean it will never uncover the answers, he said.

Rebutting Doolittle, Gish argued that age calculations of moon rocks did not consistently show an age corresponding to the estimated age of the earth. Rather, he said, those calculations varied widely.

A high-powered group mobilizes, but some ghetto workers are skeptical.

With his billions of dollars in budget cuts now cemented, President Reagan is encouraging church volunteers to fill the breach left by reductions in social welfare programs. For suburban, mostly white evangelicals, long impotent in dealing with inner-city ills, the cutbacks present a clear challenge to minister to the physical, social, and spiritual needs of the urban poor.

While some suburban churches have long track records of effective urban outreach, most seem ill equipped to prepare and send lay people into poor neighborhoods. It boils down to white Christians, and white money, trying to reach poor blacks and Hispanics. Already there is some concern about how successful that will be.

One evangelical Christian organization was formed in recent months to organize outreaches to the poor. The STEP Foundation (Strategies to Eliminate Poverty) is a group of wealthy business leaders and church and parachurch workers who share a conviction that suburban Christians should be about the business of ministering to the urban poor.

The STEP board of directors meets monthly in Dallas, and on it are some of that city’s wealthiest Christians. The board is composed of Henry “Bud” Smith, a Dallas insurance executive; oil and silver magnate Bunker Hunt; Clint Murchison, Jr., owner of the Dallas Cowboys football team; Bill Bright of Campus Crusade; Holly Coors, wife of Colorado beer brewer Joseph Coors; Mary Crowley, a wealthy Dallas businesswoman; Clarence “Arch” Decker, a Denver lawyer and publisher of a Christian newspaper; Harvey Oostdyk, an inner-city worker who heads the Dallas STEP program; Kent Hutcheson of Campus Crusade; and Robert Pittinger, formerly of Campus Crusade. STEP’s president is E. V. Hill, pastor of the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles and director of the World Christian Training Center (CT, Oct. 2, p. 57). Hill recently received $1 million from Hunt to duplicate Hill’s training program in 14 inner-city locations across the country.

One of STEP’s strategies, Hill explains, is to “find successful programs and get them duplicated. Another strategy is to recruit church laity directly into STEP volunteer programs. Pilot projects are under way in Dallas, Denver, and in conjunction with E. V. Hill’s Los Angeles ministry. The idea is to establish model programs of church volunteerism in these cities.

At the heart of this effort is Harv Oostdyk, a New Yorker who has worked in the inner city with Young Life and the Cities and Schools Program. Oostdyk, director of the Dallas model, writes enthusiastically about expanding the scope of volunteerism in churches:

“Too much volunteerism has been tutors, clothers, and donations. People seldom have an opportunity to give things like ideas, insights, skills such as data processing, accounting management, and influ-fluence.… The pews of the churches of America are filled with a whole glorious spectrum of gifts that have never been applied to the needs of the poor.”

Months before STEP formed, Oostdyk was promoting his ideas with Christian leaders throughout the country. In Dallas, he found a kindred spirit in Pittinger, formerly of Campus Crusade, and in Denver, with Decker, an attorney and publisher of the Christian newspaper, HIS People.

Both men were then active in the burgeoning “Christian Right.” That movement gained momentum at the National Affairs Briefing in Dallas in September 1980, when then candidate Ronald Reagen appeared and gave his endorsement to politically active conservative Christians. Both Pittinger and Decker were instrumental in introducing Oostdyk to other conservative Christian leaders. Because many of these people lived in Dallas, the city became a natural meeting place for the organizers of the STEP Foundation (then called Foundation for the Poor).

In the early months of the Reagan administration, Oostdyk and Pittinger were pushing for a presidentially appointed “National Commission for the Poor.” The proposal, which was written by Oostdyk, included a suggestion that E. V. Hill chair a commission that would “bring new resources and strategies to the ghetto,” mainly through church volunteers.

The proposal picked up steam in February when STEP presented its ideas at an afternoon session of the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.

In the weeks that followed, four U.S. senators—Jesse Helms, Bill Armstrong, Roger Jepsen, and Mark Hatfield—signed a letter to presidential aide Edwin Meese in support of the proposal.

In the final analysis, the president opted for a broader approach: a 35-member task force on “private sector initiatives.” It wasn’t exactly what the STEP Foundation had in mind; nonetheless, their voice was heard. And no one, including the president, would underplay the importance of church volunteerism.

Meanwhile in Dallas, the STEP pilot program is expanding, STEP board member Mary Crowley, president of Home Interiors and Gifts, Inc., personally recruited a cadre of women volunteers to help in the 70-block target area in northeast Dallas. “It’s going to work in Dallas,” said Crowley at a recent STEP meeting. “It can happen when … God’s people work together.”

Oostdyk sets the pace for the Dallas program. His plans for coming weeks: “Identify 100 Christians in our 70 blocks and have them in discipleship, build relations with 15 churches in our blocks, and identify 20 Christian workers in the area.” Students from Dallas Theological Seminary (the seminary is located in the project area) are also showing an interest. Some 100 seminarians are going door to door in the 70-block area, to evangelize and disciple. Other plans call for the development of a “think tank,” in which business, government, and church leaders could meet to grapple with various urban problems.

In Denver, STEP is proceeding at a slower pace, using the same technique of recruiting laity to reach the poor. Kent Hutcheson, international training director for Campus Crusade, heads up the Denver program. He has worked closely with Christian Corps International (CCI), an evangelistic social concern ministry in predominantly black northeast Denver, directed by Russell Porter.

How effectively has STEP coordinated with evangelicals already working in the inner city? Judging from the model programs in Dallas and Denver, the relationship has room for improvement. One complaint coming from urban ministers in those cities is that STEP came not to listen and understand, but rather to lay down its own programs.

“We were sort of brought in on the tail end without being able to get input on methodology,” said Tony Evans, black pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas. He said he has had contact with STEP through Black Evangelistic Enterprises and as an instructor at Dallas Theological Seminary.

“If STEP is claiming evangelism as a goal, it needs to be more tightly tied to evangelical churches,” Evans suggested. “Only through the local church will they have a lasting effect.” He pointed out that a lot of the needy in the inner city are already in churches. Caring for their needs must come first, he said. He favors the idea of planting evangelical churches in the inner city where they do not already exist.

In Denver, a group of inner-city ministers who meet regularly have also criticized STEP for doing little to research existing evangelical efforts, CCI director Russ Porter suggested that “STEP will only be effective if they come in as participant observers willing to be taught, rather than taking the reins.”

Asked about the initial lack of coordination with inner-city ministers, E. V. Hill said, “Remember, we were just born,” stressing that STEP’s strategy will take time to develop. “I’ve already received more than a hundred letters from groups demanding support,” he said.

John Perkins, a well-known black minister who built the Voice of Calvary Ministries, said one problem of an organization like STEP is that it might use its clout and influence to build its own image, rather than working with churches and ministries at the grassroots level. He emphasized a need for a strong “philosophy of development” that deals with the “white dominating society.”

It remains to be seen how suburban evangelicals can best help the urban poor and what role an organization like STEP might play in that process.

The fruit of lips that confess his name.

A seventeenth-century German pastor is said to have buried 5,000 of his parishioners in one year, an average of nearly 15 a day. Yet, although his parish was ravaged by war, pestilence, and an invader’s economic oppression, he wrote this table grace for his children:

Now thank we all our God

With heart and hands and voices;

Who wondrous things hath done,

In whom His world rejoices.

Who, from our mother’s arms,

Hath led us on our way

With countless gifts of love,

And still is ours today.

In 1636, amid the darkness of the Thirty Years’ War, Martin Rinkart drew spiritual strength from a spirit of thanksgiving for God’s past and present goodness.

Fifteen years earlier, when the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in America, they, too, were acknowledging their gratitude to God for his “countless gifts of love.” Whether expressed in the ecstasy of jubilation or the agony of desperation, it is a good thing to give thanks (Ps. 92:1). Jesus regularly gave thanks to the Father. Thanksgiving is a necessary and natural part of the Christian life. Thanksgiving sanctifies all aspects of life, including suffering (1 Thess. 5:18).

Thanksgiving encompasses the whole of the Christian life. God commands us to thank him for everything he brings into our lives (Eph. 5:20). We can do this because we have confidence that God is working everything together to the specific good of conforming us to the image of his Son (Rom. 8:28–29). The condition for enjoying our Christian liberty is that we receive everything with thanksgiving (1 Tim. 4:4).

There are at least 140 references in Scripture to thanksgiving. Many passages link thanksgiving with praise, often through music. In fact, to “prophesy” through music meant to praise and give thanks (1 Chron. 25:3). “I will praise God’s name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving” (Ps. 69:30, NIV). Translators have sometimes considered thanksgiving and praise almost as synonymous terms. Today, we read Psalm 40:3 as “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.” Miles Cover-dale, in 1535, translated the last phrase, “even a thanksgiving unto our God.”

The word most frequently used in the New Testament for giving thanks, eucharistein, implies intimacy with the person to whom thanks is given. Matthew uses it when he records the Lord giving thanks at the Last Supper (Matt. 26:27). The root word of thanksgiving is charis, “grace.” We acknowledge this when we refer to “giving thanks” before a meal as “saying grace.” Paul emphasizes that when we give thanks to God through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, we are to do so with grace in our hearts (Eph. 5:18–20; Col. 3:16–17). We must have God’s grace in our hearts if we are rightly to give thanks to him.

God commands that we offer thanks to him: “And be thankful” (Col. 3:15). Therefore, our expressions of thanks are a sign of our obedience. “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name” (Ps. 100:4).

Praise and thanksgiving also are evidence of faith, as Jesus made clear in the case of the one thankful leper out of ten who were healed (Luke 17:11–19). Lack of faith and a spirit of ingratitude go together. God condemned pagan worshipers who “neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him” (Rom. 1:21), and many times he dealt severely with Israel for failing to be thankful.

Thanksgiving and praise often involve sacrifice. “I will sacrifice a thank offering to you and call on the name of the Lord” (Ps. 116:17). Sometimes we fail to understand the sacrificial nature of our verbal praise and thanksgiving, whether spoken or sung. “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name” (Heb. 13:15). It is significant that the phrase “sacrifice of praise” occurs in a book written to Christians fully conversant with the principles of Jewish sacrificial law, including offerings of thanksgiving (Lev. 7:11–15). They understood that God would accept only those sacrifices that met his conditions (Gen. 8:21), and that he would reject those that did not (Lev. 26:31). “When you sacrifice an offering of thanksgiving to the Lord, sacrifice it in such a way that it will be accepted on your behalf” (Lev. 22:29).

The Requirements For Thanksgiving

God’s Word spells out at least five conditions required of a thankful worshiper. The first is a loving and obedient heart. God considers obedience to his Word more important than an extravagant sacrifice (1 Sam. 15:22). Since “out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34), what we say or sing should reflect the commitment of our hearts to God.

Unfortunately, this is not always true. In Mark 7:6–7, Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13: “These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” In such instances, God will not accept our sacrifices. “Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring me choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps” (Amos 5:22–23).

A second condition is reconciliation with fellow Christians. Jesus mandated healed relationships among Christians as a prerequisite to offering acceptable sacrifices: “Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift” (Matt. 5:23–24). God does not hear our scintillating sermons or spectacular music if we have failed to do all we can to correct an injury we have inflicted on another Christian. Many ministries do not enjoy God’s blessing because they lack the integrity of restored relationships.

The third thing we need is genuine humility. A spirit of pride and self-righteousness can make our sacrifices and thanksgiving unacceptable (Amos 4:5). In fact, such a spirit can make a sinful act out of an outward expression of thanksgiving, such as the Pharisee who gave thanks to God that he was not like the publican (Luke 18:9–14).

Fourth, we must have a rejoicing spirit. We are to offer our sacrifices cheerfully and willingly (2 Cor. 9:7). God does not want anything that we only give “grudgingly or of necessity.” It must be a genuine gift (Exod. 28:38).

Fifth, and last, our thanksgiving is to be sincere. The English table grace says it so beautifully: “For what we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful.”

The Price Of Thanksgiving

Scripture also makes clear the costs of the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. A sacrifice is not truly a sacrifice if it comes too easily. When Araunah the Jebusite offered his threshing floor and oxen without charge so that David could make a free sacrifice to the Lord, David replied, “No, I insist on paying you for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing” (2 Sam. 24:24). Whatever was given had to be costly to the giver. The Law prorated the offerings according to the giver’s resources, from a young bull for the rich (Lev. 4:3) to a little fine flour for the destitute (Lev. 5:11–13).

There are a number of ways the fruit of our lips can be a costly sacrifice of praise. In particular, there may be the cost of preparation. We have no right to expect people to listen to what we have to say or sing if we have not earned the right to be heard by preparing our message as best we can—artistically, technically, and spiritually.

Some offerings of praise are sacrifices only in the cost to the listener of enduring them. I know of a pastor who sometimes would bow his head—and not in prayer—when his church choir sang. A sacrifice of praise should edify God’s people, not embarrass them.

There are several types of cost of preparation. One is the cost of time. Publius Syrus (c. 42 B.C.) said, “It takes a long time to bring excellence to maturity.” Scripture repeatedly places emphasis on mastery of an art as a condition for ministry through that art. Those who built the temple and fashioned its works of art were selected for their exceptional ability. The temple musicians were selected on the basis of their skill and training (1 Chron. 25:7).

Preparation may require the cost of disciplining emotion. Perhaps the emotion most often encountered is frustration. We may be frustrated with ourselves for a certain lack of skill, or with an uncooperative and insensitive committee, with an unappreciative congregation, or an insecure fellow Christian who is undercutting our ministry. We may even be frustrated with God for not diminishing all the other frustrations.

The subtle emotion of fear can be especially hard to discipline. Fear of criticism may hinder us from fulfilling our spiritual responsibilities. If we are content with things as they are, we never will make them what they could be and our sacrifices will become shallow routine. We must constantly pray that we will not delude ourselves into thinking we are exercising leadership in praise and thanksgiving when in fact we are merely running in place. There is a certain false safety in mediocrity. For instance, a fear that others will outshine us may cause us to surround ourselves with mediocrity so that we will look better by comparison.

There is also the cost of perception. Praise is not a spectator sport, nor is it just an emotional experience. The mind, as well as the heart, is to be engaged. Paul said, “I will sing with my spirit [emotions], but I will also sing with my mind” (1 Cor. 14:15). The more mature expressions of biblical truth may require a greater effort on our part to enter into them.

To consider the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, one must also be aware of the scriptural principle that requires the cost of a clean sacrifice. The Law demanded that, irrespective of cost, there were to be no imperfections. We, too, are to bring the very best we can to God, to perform our sacrifices of praise to the best that we are able. Sacrificial excellence is not a contradiction in terms, but a mark of spiritual maturity.

However, we must be realistic about our abilities and resources. Mary and Joseph could bring only two turtledoves when they presented Christ in the temple (Luke 2:22–24). There are times when we would do well to offer a clean turtledove sacrifice of praise rather than one that is like a maimed and spotted sheep. It is much better to do simple (not simplistic) things well than to do great things poorly.

We, too, are to be clean. Those who approach the Lord are to do so with “clean hands and a pure heart” (Ps. 24:4). The priests purified themselves and the people before they offered sacrifices. Before Isaiah was commissioned to proclaim God’s message, his defiled lips were cleansed (Isa. 6:7). Perhaps we need to be encouraged to spend more time at the beginning of a service in prayer and fellowship with God, examining our hearts, and less time in prattle and fellowship with one another.

The Perpetuity Of Thanksgiving

Finally, offering the sacrifice of praise is a way of life. “Let us continually offer …” writes the author of Hebrews. The Old Testament sacrifices had to be offered continually. The Levitical ministers stood before the Lord in rotating shifts, offering thanksgiving around the clock. David offered thanksgiving at night (Ps. 119:62) and in the morning (1 Chron. 23:30). We, too, are to give thanks “without ceasing” (Eph. 5:20). One way to help us do this would be to maintain a daily record of what we are thankful to God for.

We live in a state of offering our very selves to God as continual, living sacrifices. “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1). In fact, we are the only gifts we truly can give, for every gift we have is a gift from God (James 1:17). As the seventeenth-century English poet Richard Crashaw wrote, “we ourselves become our own best sacrifice.”

The fruit of our lips is certainly a part of presenting our bodies. As part of this continual sacrifice, we offer our sacrifices of praise, and we will continue to do so throughout eternity. “O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever” (Ps. 30:12).

Our willingness to offer genuine sacrifices of praise is an evidence that we consider the Lord worthy of all our sacrifice and of our thanks. Revelation 4:9–11 stresses that he is worthy of thanksgiving. Don Wyrtzen has expressed this beautifully:

He is deserving of all thanks and praise,

With joy overflowing our voices we raise,

We’ll sing and sing of Him for endless days,

This is our sacrifice of praise.

Whether spontaneous or extensively prepared, our sacrifices of thanksgiving and praise must meet God’s conditions if they are to be acceptable. Costly, clean, and continual, they are an evidence of faith, a test of obedience, a source of encouragement, and an expression of love.

The Christmas season is often enriched by new, exciting recordings. Last year, we recommended several of the finest albums released over the past 25 years (CT, Dec. 12, 1980). We believe a number of additional fine recordings issued last year will also enhance your enjoyment and celebration of Christmas as they have ours. All of these, priced from $6.98 to $9.98 (except for some digital recordings), should be available through knowledgeable, major record shops.

• The Spirit of Christmas, John Alldis Choir, London Symphony Orchestra, Colin Davis, conductor; Philips 9500-779. Peter Hope’s tasteful, exciting arrangements have created a spectacular “picture in sound of the Christmas Festival.” The 18 well-loved Christmas hymns and carols, 12 for orchestra alone, are divided into two extended semi-suites. The moods range from the stunning “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” and the driving “Patapan” to the tender setting of Kirkpatrick’s “Away in a Manger” and the splendid “Good King Wenceslaus.”

• Christmas from Clare, Clare College Choir and Orchestra, Cambridge, John Rutter, conductor; Argo ARB-914. John Rutter has done it again. These 20 arrangements and original compositions exhibit the same marvelous sounds of previous recordings, demonstrating why he probably is the single most influential force in new Christmas music today. Special favorites in our household are the tender “Mary’s Lullaby,” an original composition he wrote for his bride, a joyous setting of a rarely heard English tune for “I Saw Three Ships,” and the hauntingly beautiful “Wexford Carol.”

• Christmas Fanfare, Bach Choir, Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, Sir David Willcocks, conductor; London digital LDR-10028. From the glorious opening brass and organ fanfare on “O Come, All Ye Faithful” to the concluding one on “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” the sound and performances of these 16 selections are truly spectacular. This is the second album drawn from the repertoire of the Bach Choir Family Carol Concerts given annually at Royal Albert Hall in London. The choir’s impeccable diction, precise intonation, and musical articulation are especially impressive in “Ding, Dong Merrily on High.” A special delight is “Once in Royal David’s City,” and Rutter’s “Star Carol” is most exciting.

• Christmas with the King’s Singers; MMG-1126. This six-voice male ensemble is probably the world’s finest chamber vocal ensemble. Originally from King’s College, Cambridge, their live performances have amazed audiences around the world. They possess extraordinary range, unmatched versatility, incredible virtuosity, and a sonority equal to that of many groups 10 times their number—all without special electronic effects. Although the 16 selections here are mostly a cappella, you are never conscious that an orchestra is lacking. Whether the tasteful vocal effects of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” or the exciting cross-rhythms of “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,” this very original album will add a new dimension to your Christmas listening. An earlier album, Deck the Hall: Songs for Christmas (MMG-1108), is still available. Although perhaps of greater interest to those interested in historical materials, several familiar Christmas hymns and folk songs are also included.

• Do You Hear What I Hear, Jay Welch Chorale, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Jay Welch, conductor; Varese Sarabande digital VCDM-1000.70. This album is particularly remarkable for its depth of sound and dynamic range. The 300-voice choir does well with the light, a cappella pieces that constitute half of the 15 selections, as well as with the spectacular ones that approach the sound barrier. The material ranges from the title song to “For Unto Us” from Messiah, and four of the too-seldom heard Alfred Burt carols. Most arrangements were written by Welch; outstanding is the stunning setting of “We Three Kings,” with its broad touches of the Orientalism of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade. It alone is worth the price of the album.