The council still has a maddening brood of bureaucrats engaging in in-talk while the rest of the world goes by.

Some years ago, I covered a central committee meeting of the World Council of Churches. One staffer had taken my measure, and at its close, she said, “Well, have you found enough controversial material this time?”

Renewing acquaintance with WCC headquarters last summer, I found controversial material flaunting itself shamelessly in a series of posters adorning the wall outside the cafeteria. The theme was man’s inhumanity to man down the ages. In wording and in lack of religious content they suggested a Marxist textbook for 12-year-olds. One poster disapproved of English sixteenth-century buccaneering on the Spanish Main.

The two most recent posters concerned Iran and Zimbabwe. In one, the shah’s troops were still firing on innocent bystanders; in the other, the freedom fighters were still struggling for independence. Either the WCC staff was reluctant to let a couple of splendid grievances go, or they dismally lacked the imagination that would have appended, say, a joyful P.S. to the Zimbabwe poster: “Hallelujah, the battle’s won!” The posters were totally devoid of animus against the political left, which surprised me not at all.

I tried, but no one would identify precisely for me the source of those posters. They were evidently not unconnected with a continuing siege mentality over the Program to Combat Racism. The WCC reminds critics that this is only a small part of its work and witness, yet this topic keeps surfacing in reports and comments. We are defiantly told that even in times of fierce opposition, support for the PCR’s Special Fund has increased, that churches must combat apartheid, and white racism must be resisted.

The latter emphasis disturbs me. I was at the 1969 Canterbury meeting where white racism was hailed as “the most dangerous form.” I was at the 1971 Addis Ababa meeting where plenary debate and decisions gave the impression it was almost the only form. At that time, it was announced that a study of the Christian attitude toward violence and just war was being undertaken under WCC auspices. We still await its findings. There was, however, a reminder at Geneva that white racism was not the only form, which fact the committee duly “noted.”

Also noted was the intriguing sentence: “the decision of issues by majority vote created problems for the Orthodox Churches.” The WCC has always been sensitive about the position of churches in the Eastern European bloc. Metropolitan Kirill obliquely warned the committee at Geneva: “Do not create situations unhelpful to the ecumenical fellowship.” Until Nairobi, the WCC took the hint. The Orthodox were handled with kid gloves while strong statements were unleashed against sundry right-wing regimes.

What Nairobi began, Afghanistan continued, causing the executive committee last February to make a rare, albeit moderate, criticism of the Soviet Union. Pressures at home had caused the Russian Orthodox Church to backtrack since then, but a wide variety of speakers at the central committee meeting would not take the hint and hammered at the issue. Afghanistan was peripheral to the amendment they proposed, but everyone knew that a significant principle was involved. The platform quibbled about a procedural point (that it was not necessary for the central committee to endorse an action of the executive committee), while the Russian churchmen blamed it all on “political propaganda” by the public media in the West (never substantiated, of course).

Some plain speaking ensued wherein the Russians were treated just like any other member of the committee in a candid debate. They retired more thoughtful men to their Incontinental base (the only delegation to stay in a plushy hotel). They would not have appreciated a French journalist’s press conference question, which asked in effect: You talk of solidarity with the poor, but what about solidarity with the poor of Afghanistan? He was reminded of the importance of trying to understand “those in situations different from our own.”

In the document on the sharing of resources, there was a call for local congregations to be brought into discussion of matters that concern the WCC. What was needed was “a short, simple interpretation of the [Vancouver 1983] Assembly, its theme and purpose, written in popular language, for translation and wide distribution and study in local congregations.” Implementation of this plea for coherence would make many more friends for the WCC. Some readers become infuriated by the council, not for what it says, but because they cannot understand what it says. And the council still has a maddening brood of initialed offspring engaging in in-talk while the rest of the world goes by.

Dutifully reading the documents that were inspired (I use the word loosely) by last summer’s meeting, I came across a thought-provoking sentence: “About one-third of member churches have not found it possible, for currency exchange and other reasons, to make any recent contribution to the Council.” Since no document ungallantly pointed the finger at any noncontributor, or even gave the recommended contribution for each member church, this question beggar posed a problem. But all credit is due the helpfulness of the WCC press staff, who at my request produced a copy of the 1979 financial report.

Among nondonors were the seven South African member churches, the Methodist Church in Korea, and the Orthodox Church of Greece. The West Germans contributed most to the budget (about $5.3 million) nearly twice as much as churches in the USA (where the United Methodist Church led with some $628,350). The six USSR member churches aggregated just over $9,800.

I was impressed by the good spirit in which the central committee’s proceedings were conducted under the moderatorship of Archbishop Edward Scott of Canada. Gone are most of this committee’s theological heavyweights of yesteryear who dominated the proceedings and made headlines. There is an increasing feeling, moreover, that no discredit attaches to the committee’s failure to speak on an issue with one voice—that healthy differences publicly expressed, indeed, may add to the committee’s credibility.

Finally in these somewhat random reflections, I was impressed by Philip Potter’s contribution at Geneva. He told a joke against himself (a Nairobi comment that “Potter behaves as though he were anointed, not appointed”), and in his report as general secretary only once reverted—and that mildly—to his old bellicosity (“we will not be bullied by those who attack us …”). His report was a thoughtful piece, not least for a sentence he quoted from another WCC document: “In a world in which the language of faith has lost meaning for lack of translation into life, the acting out of God’s kind of sharing announces as no words can the good news of Christ to humankind.” Not even I could find controversial material in that.

J. D. Douglas is an author and journalist living in St. Andrews, Scotland.

Bible colleges and seminaries not threatened.

The small but respected Institute for Christian Studies (ICS) holds a unique spot in Ontario higher education. Unlike the 15 recognized universities in the province, the Toronto-based graduate school teaches liberal arts from an evangelical Christian perspective. This approach supplies values and insights otherwise lacking in liberal arts programs, say ICS administrators, and certainly doesn’t weaken the school’s academic respectability.

Because of the 12-year-old school’s unique contribution, supporters believe ICS has every right to exist and flourish. Understandably, they are upset by proposed legislation, now before Ontario’s parliament, that threatens to yank the school’s degree-granting status, and, for that matter, that of any college or university existing without government recognition.

The province’s Ministry of Colleges and Universities last March introduced its Bill 4 primarily as a way to kill off so-called degree mills operating in the province. Most educators applaud this effort to close the mail-order colleges. But because its provisions also threaten schools like ICS and other alternative forms of education, critics would just as soon see Bill 4 on the floor and driven out of sight.

The Bill 4 squabble is best understood against the background of Canada’s systems and traditions for higher education. Christian liberal arts colleges are rare to nonexistent in the 10 provinces. Traditionally, Canadian politicians and academicians have favored publicly supported universities.

Legislatures have favored public education, partly because they see it as a way to unite the citizenry. Educators have warned of shabby educational standards at the small Bible schools (and in some cases were justified).

In Ontario, money enters the picture. Chancellor Jack Scott of Central Baptist Seminary in Toronto notes that recognized universities get government grants based on their total enrollments. Those schools are not likely to favor nonrecognized schools, which might lure away potential students (and dollars). What’s more, Scott asserts, these same university officials control the province’s education department, which, in turn, charts educational policy.

Since Canada lacks any systems of accreditation for its colleges and universities, the provinces themselves monitor schools. In Ontario, under the proposed Bill 4, liberal arts degrees could be granted only by the 15 government-recognized universities. To retain their degree-granting status, nonrecognized schools must affiliate with a recognized university, or work out some other arrangement with the legislature. Another option is to change their graduation degrees to “certificates.”

When Bible colleges and seminaries protested Bill 4, the Ministry of Colleges and Education assured them the government had no intention of changing its long-standing policy of noninvolvement in religious education: Bible colleges and seminaries still would be able to grant degrees, but only religious ones, and after getting approval from the legislature.

ICS makes no claims to being a major university, and it does not fit the pattern of a theological school. For that reason, said principal (president) Bernard Zylstra, “We were about to fall between the cracks of Bill 4.”

He describes the school as a small graduate university, “a philosophical institution with foci in three or four major disciplines such as aesthetics, theology, philosophy proper, political theory, and history.” The school grants its own master of philosophy degrees, and its students may earn doctoral degrees in cooperation with the Free University of Amsterdam. At present, 35 full-time and several part-time students attend classes at ICS. They study under respected faculty members, such as aesthetics professor and writer Calvin Seerveld (see Refiner’s Fire, p. 48).

ICS officials fought Bill 4 from the beginning, and slowed its progress. The evangelical association that funds and administers ICS mounted a nationwide letter-writing campaign against Bill 4: ministers of education and parliament were literally inundated with letters, said development director Marcia Hollingsworth of the Association for the Advancement of Christian Scholarship (AACS). With spiritual roots in the Reformed community, the AACS appealed for protests against Bill 4 in a letter to all Reformed churches in the province and to the 2,500 persons on its mailing list.

(The AACS founded the institute in 1967, and coordinates several programs, including book publishing and seminars. An Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship staff member leads its outreach program to college campuses.)

Some ICS faculty provide leadership for the Canada-wide task force, Committee for Justice and Liberty, which also raised an early alert to Bill 4. The independent group, described as liberal in politics and conservative in theology, has proposed an amendment to Bill 4 that would provide for recognition of free-standing universities, in addition to the recognized 15. Committee director Gerald Vandezande has contacted members of opposition political parties, and says they will support such an amendment when the bill comes up for the second and third readings required for its passage, possibly before the current legislative term ends in mid-December.

For the government to bar alternative forms of education would be a “violation of public justice in a pluralistic system,” he charged. Vandezande, with ICS officials, has drafted an application for a charter (not yet submitted) seeking status for ICS as a free-standing institution.

Schools such as Ontario Bible College and Seminary and Central Baptist Seminary have filed “private member’s bills” with the legislature. If approved, these applications (on which schools attest to their academic and financial health) give the schools government recognition for their religion and theology degrees.

Ontario Bible College’s bill was approved, said academic dean Robert Duez, but won’t be acted upon until (and if) Bill 4 passes. If anything, Bill 4 will help his school, Duez said: the government’s stamp on the school’s religion degrees further enhances a student’s ability to transfer his Bible college or seminary credit to a secular university. “Any institution that is respectable academically probably will not be affected [by Bill 4],” he said.

The goverment has assured the approval of Central Baptist’s private member’s bill, said chancellor Jack Scott.

But because it grants liberal arts, not religion degrees, ICS faces a stickier problem. ICS administrators and education officials have met several times to discuss options in the event that Bill 4 passes. (The planned date of Bill 4’s implementation, if adopted by the legislature, is Sept. 1, 1981.)

Education officials suggested that ICS consider: increased cooperation with the Free University of Amsterdam, which would grant ICS master’s, as well as doctoral degrees; affiliation with a Toronto university; or cooperation with Calvin College or another accredited U.S. school that would oversee ICS programs and grant the degree.

Education official Paul Gardner acknowledged the school does have an option to seek a private bill as a free-standing institution. However, he asserted the government stance “that arts and science degrees should be granted only through the 15 provincial universities.”

ICS last summer sought to affiliate with the University of Toronto, but was rejected. That school already has seven affiliated religious institutions: three Roman Catholic, two Anglican, one United Church of Canada, and one United Presbyterian. These “federated together” by a “memorandum of agreement” in 1978, said director Iain Nichol. The degrees are granted conjointly with the university.

Government officials have promised to intervene in behalf of ICS in further attempts to affiliate with the University of Toronto or another school, said ICS principal Zylstra. The affiliation route may be difficult because of the “secularizing thrust of higher education in the province,” he said.

Should ICS be unable to affiliate with one of the recognized universities, said Zylstra, it faces two alternatives: going out of business, or going “whole hog” for a charter as a free-standing institution that grants general M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees.

Vandezande hopes the school takes the latter course. In meetings between his Committee for Justice and Liberty and government officials, Vandezande has said, “I would be fighting just as hard [for ICS] if it were a Marxist or a socialist school.… In a pluralistic society, there must be justice and equal opportunity.”

Ironically, he said, the ruling Progressive Conservative party, which is Christian-dominated, has opposed free-standing universities while the opposition Socialist party and others have sided with ICS and schools like it. He criticized the province’s Bible colleges and seminaries for having “dropped out of the fight” for ICS, now that they have filed for private member’s bills.

If the government refuses an ics appeal to become a free-standing university, the school should continue granting its degrees until the matter is taken to court, Vandezande said. His experience shows him this sometimes is the best way to get things done.

Enterprise

Owners Who Tithe Make Bank a Prophet-able Idea

If all goes as planned, the nation’s first “Christian” bank will open sometime between November 1 and December 12 in a Portland suburb. It’s called the Stewardship Bank of Oregon, a state-chartered, full-service commercial bank with one significant difference: its stockholders all confess Jesus Christ as Lord and pledge a 10 percent donation of the bank’s gross profits to Christian schools and organizations.

The State of Oregon is requiring $1.5 million in stock to be sold before opening day; Robert Laughlin, one of the bank’s founders, expected to reach that goal by November 1. Stock is being offered at $10 a share, with a minimum purchase of $100. By late September, some 120 stockholders had bought about half the stock.

Laughlin is chairman and chief executive of Western Food Equipment Company of Portland, a family business. It will own the building to be occupied by the bank, on which construction is nearing completion.

Laughlin said a few years ago an employee of his asked why no Christian bank existed. “The idea kind of haunted me,” Laughlin said. That led to serious thinking, and the idea was born. Laughlin has been visiting around the country, trying to interest Christian businessmen in considering such banks for their own communities. There are 10 groups in seven states investigating the possibility, all them watching closely to see what happens in Portland.

When he speaks to businessmen, Laughlin asks if they know of Christian schools in need of extra money. That usually produces the expected answer, and makes the idea of a tithing bank sound especially good.

While the Stewardship Bank of Oregon will be attuned to the needs of small businesses, according to Laughlin, it does not plan to be a soft touch for loans, no matter what an applicant’s religious beliefs might be. Its loan standards will be as rigorous as those of any other bank, he said.

Many denominations are represented among the stockholders, showing, said Laughlin, that Christians can unite for a common cause without compromising denominational beliefs. He believes that to be one of the important features of the Stewardship Bank of Oregon.

North American Scene

Some 15 to 20 Southern Baptist pastors recently gathered to oppose the strong coalition of conservatives, headed by Houston appeals court Judge Paul Pressler and president Paige Patterson of the Criswell Center for Biblical Studies in Houston. Pastor Cecil Sherman of Asheville, North Carolina, who called the meeting, said the group wants to refocus on missions and restore leadership to those who will do so. He criticized conservatives as ignoring missions and mission financing in order to promote doctrinal issues. He said missions “is what called us [SBC] into being as a convention … and this is what we ought to continue to be organized around.”

A nondenominational Michigan Bible College finally closed this fall after a long-running financial crisis. Owosso College had more than 400 students several years ago. But when the 78-year-old school closed—the final blow coming when it couldn’t pay its electric bill—only 48 students were enrolled. Observers allege difficulties began during the early 1970s under former president Kenneth Armstrong, with irresponsible spending and investments not school related.

Opponents of President Carter’s White House Conference on Families found a platform with Ronald Reagan. The Republican presidential candidate appointed a 25-member family advisory board, to critique Carter’s WHCF report and find ways to promote so-called traditional family values. Leading WHCF critic Connie Marshner of the Free Congress Foundation chaired the committee, which included evangelicals Beverly LaHaye, Harold O.J. Brown, and antiabortion leader Mildred Jefferson.

Agroup of black pastors cast their vote for not voting. At the second National Black Pastors Conference in Chicago last month, New York City pastor and organizer William A. Jones said blacks should not support any presidential candidate because all have ignored the plight of the black poor. Blacks should focus instead on local elections, he said. The civil rights-oriented group was formed especially to plot strategy for this fall’s election, and generally in order to mobilize the black church on a variety of political and economic issues (issue of Dec. 21, 1979, p. 32).

Local churches will have a say in the proposed merger of the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). A joint steering committee announced this plan: 200 congregations from each denomination will pair off to study doctrinal and structural issues of church union. Another 300 congregations, not located near ecumenical partners, will study church union individually. The two denominations will use this grassroots data in preparing for their 1985 decision on whether or not to begin formal merger talks.

The terminally ill have a right to commit suicide, according to a two-month-old California-based group, Hemlock. The 300-member group (which claims to be growing at the rate of 50 per week) will publish a manual describing consideration of, and means for, suicide—or “self-deliverance”—by the incurably ill. Hemlock is a member of the newly formed World Federation of Right to Die societies, some of whose 22 member groups advocate only “passive euthanasia” (removal from life support systems, for instance) to those such as Great Britain’s EXIT, which support active suicide.

The U.S. Catholic Church recently closed its film rating service. The film office has tried to adapt to the changing times and film industry since its founding in the 1930s. However, increasing violence and explicit sex in movies, along with changing church attitudes on moral issues, reportedly made rating difficult. This, along with financial shortages, reportedly led to the decision to close. Its magazine, Review, ceased publication.

Recent additions to the Billy Graham Center archives in Wheaton, Illinois, include records of Mission Aviation Fellowship and the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association. Parts of each collection are restricted at the donors’ request, but most archives materials are completely open to the public, said director Robert Shuster. The archives staff seeks materials on organizations and “the typical, as well as the famous, Christian worker,” Shuster said, so visitors can study some of the ways Christians in the past have functioned in specific areas of ministry.

Personalia

Robert H. Mounce, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at Western Kentucky University, has been named president of Whitworth College in Spokane, Washington. Mounce started a religious studies program while at Western Kentucky. He also wrote the volume on Revelation for the New International Commentary on the New Testament.

TV evangelist Pat Robertson has resigned from the Roundtable, an organization of evangelical conservatives involved in social and political campaigns. He said his first mission is soul winning and he wants to avoid involvements that might confuse that mission. He stressed he has no differences with other Roundtable members and said Christians should be good citizens.

The chief executive officer of South Africa’s largest Dutch Reformed denomination has resigned amid speculation that he found it increasingly difficult to support his church’s stand in favor of apartheid. Frans O’Brien Geldenhuys did not immediately announce his reasons for leaving the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk, but he had publicly questioned his church’s position.

Thomas Phillips, chief executive at Raytheon Corporation, will chair the annual Bible Week luncheon in New York City later this month. Phillips, an evangelical Christian, helped lead Charles Colson to Christ after Colson’s involvement in Watergate while serving as an assistant to President Nixon.

James Dunn has been elected executive director of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, the Washington, D.C.-based agency representing nine Baptist denominations. For the last 12 years Dunn directed the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and he has been an outspoken critic of the political efforts of well-known conservative Christian evangelists. He declared his first priority to be “faithfulness to religious liberty and church-and-state separation.”

World Scene

Melvin Bailey and Thomas White are among 37 American prisoners released from Cuban jails as a good-will gesture. The pair spent 18 months in Havana’s Comenado del Este prison after their single-engine aircraft ran out of fuel and landed on Cuba’s southern coast in May 1979 while dropping religious literature (issue of Sept. 7, 1979, p. 75). They were charged with “dissemination of anti-Communist, diversionist literature,” a state security crime, and sentenced to 24 years each. White had been on the payroll of the Glendale, California-based organization associated with the name of Richard Wurmbrand: Jesus to the Communist World.

Brazilian Mormons recently opened a new headquarters building in São Paulo.

The complex, which includes administrative offices and a training center, serves the ballooning Mormon church in Brazil. Its membership jumped 50 percent in the last five years—from 75,000 to 115,000—and has been influenced by large numbers of missionaries sent from the U.S.

Is Protestant extremist Ian Paisley being groomed to lead an independent Northern Ireland? The British government denied such reports, although Northern Ireland Secretary Humphrey Atkins recently consulted with Paisley. The British press claims the idea is that an independent Northern Ireland would be free to make peace with the Irish Republic. Dublin officials are said to be receptive to the concept, which they believe would lead to some form of confederation.

West Germany’s “Missionary Year 1980,” a nationwide evangelistic initiative in which all the major denominations and evangelistic organizations in the country are involved, is providing “the greatest encouragement and motivation for evangelism in the history of the church in Germany.” So reported Peter Schneider, executive secretary of the German Evangelical Alliance at a meeting of the European Evangelical Alliance in Lausanne, Switzerland, last month. But EEA president Morgan Derham told German evangelicals he was concerned because Pentecostals are excluded. He said he would like to see the “German Alliance accept the Pentecostals as evangelical brothers.”

A Pentecostal denomination in Romania has linked up with the U.S.-based Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee). The 150,000-member Apostolic Pentecostal Church of God in Romania was officially recognized as belonging to the denomination this year during that body’s fifty-eighth general assembly in Dallas. The Romanian denomination, which claims more than 1,000 congregations, was begun in the early 1920s, and grew out of correspondence between a Romanian immigrant to the United States and friends in his homeland. The doctrinal statement and government of the church were developed from copies of the Church of God Evangel sent from the United States.

The East German Communist party moved to improve its relations further with the church last month. It dropped the requirement—in force for 10 years—that churches obtain advance permission from authorities for all meetings and other activities by registering with the militia. The party stipulated, however, that lifting of the preregistration applies only to events of an “exclusively religious character.” Earlier conciliatory gestures were the granting of television time to churches on church holidays and creation of a 100-member committee to prepare for the five-hundredth anniversary in 1983 of the birth of Martin Luther. The East German Protestant Church provided four advisers to the committee, but declined to join it, having set up its own committee in 1978.

In the aftermath of Poland’s nationwide strikes, a joint Episcopal and Government Commission was established to normalize relations between the Roman Catholic church and the Communist authorities. It met first in late September and is to meet again this month. Similar commissions operated previously: 1949–1950 and 1956–1960, when the regime was relatively weak. After 1950 the government abrogated a signed agreement, and gave itself full power over clerical appointments. In 1960 it reneged on promises of democratization made during the earlier Gdansk workers’ riots and instead emphasized “strengthening Socialism and the position of the party.” Catholic Sunday masses continue to be broadcast on radio and television.

Two Soviet Pentecostal leaders have been arrested and one has already been sentenced, according to information reaching the Research Center for Religion and Human Rights in Closed Societies. Boris Perchatkin, 34, has been rearrested after an escape last year. He was a leader and organizer of the Christian Emigration Movement, now having about 50,000 members. Bishop Nikolai Goretoi, arrested earlier, has received a sentence of 12 years—7 years of hard labor and 5 years of internal exile. Goretoi served a previous sentence. Both men lived in Nakhodka, an eastern Siberia coastal town near Vladivostok.

Three Ghanaian denominations slated to merge in January have agreed to a two-year postponement. Two Presbyterian groups and the Methodist church (Sept. 5 issue) were to have inaugurated the Church of Christ in Ghana (CCG) two months from now. Eight of nine presbyteries in the Presbyterian Church of Ghana requested postponement of the union to allow time for educating congregations about the merger. The Ghana Mennonite Church plans to vote during 1981 on whether or not to join the CCG.

The Protestant church is thriving in an otherwise dismal Ethiopia, with the junta facing military and political crises in the north, east, and central regions, and drought and famine in the south. Churches in the capital, although organized to go underground if necessary, are bulging. The Word of Life Churches (with Sudan Interior Mission origins) added 40 new congregations throughout the country last year, bringing the total above 700. The elders commissioned 18 new evangelists this year. Its Bible school system is not only self-supporting, but is also offering scholarships to students from areas only recently exposed to the gospel. Aid agencies such as TEAR Fund and MAP International are channeling food, medicines, blankets, and water tanks to drought areas by means of the churches.

Police are conducting an investigation into alleged bribery and corruption in Israel’s Religious Affairs Ministry. Religious Affairs Minister Aharon Abuhatziera and six close associates are suspected of funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars of ministry funds to nonexistent rabbinical seminaries, or to seminaries claiming far more students than they actually have. Some of the money, the Israeli press reported, has turned up in the Swiss bank accounts of those under investigation. The affair threatens to split the National Religious Party, since it pits Yosef Burg, party leader and interior minister (in charge of the national police) against Abuhatziera. The 12 NRP seats are crucial to survival of Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s fragile Likud ruling coalition.

Hostilities in the Middle East were not allowed to disrupt the pilgrimage during the Muslim lunar month that ends November 8. One startling example: more than 100 Iranian buses were driven from Tehran around Iraq—by way of Turkey, Syria, and Jordan—to Israel. There, some 5,000 white-robed pilgrims boarded the buses, some bearing pictures of the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, for the trip through Jordan to Saudi Arabia. Jordan, still technically at war with Israel, provided temporary passports for the Israeli citizens, who were asked to leave their Israeli papers with the Jordanian Ministry of the Interior. “I don’t think they’d like them walking around Mecca with Israeli documents,” said an Israeli military spokesman. Jordan allows its own buses to ferry Arabs from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, but insists that non-Jordanian buses transport Israel’s Arabs.

Koreans are sending church-planting missionaries to Indonesia, and Americans are helping with the funding in a pacesetting international partnership arrangement. Han Chul-Ha, associate director of the Asian Center for Theological Studies and Mission in Seoul, Korea, started the project. He formed the Asia Evangelistic Commission to help export Korea’s rapid church growth to other parts of Asia. World Vision agreed to provide support. Each new congregation is tied to an Indonesian “mother church,” which provides oversight and a pastor or evangelist. Workers are trained in church-planting techniques by the Indonesian Bible Institute. Outside assistance to a new congregation will be limited to approximately three years. The Korea-Indonesian Church Planting Project plans by next September to increase to 75 its sponsorships of congregations moving toward self-support.

Billy Graham drew capacity crowds during his month of crusades in Japan. Police had to shut the gates of Osaka’s Nissei Stadium when 27,000 people crowded into spaces provided for 25,000, with hundreds more outside trying to get in. Earlier, officials in Okinawa said that the Graham meetings there were the largest gatherings ever held on that island. CHRISTIANITYTODAYwill carry a full report on the Japan crusades—including the Tokyo meetings in the 50,000-seat Karakuen Stadium—next issue.

The unprecedented unity of 237 Protestant churches that participated in the Singapore Billy Graham Crusade in December 1978 has now resulted in the formation of the Evangelical Fellowship of Singapore (EFOS). EFOS shows an apparent decline of the strong liberal influence of the 1950s and 1960s in this island republic, as well as significant progress made by evangelicals since the mid-1970s.

“Things were still pretty bad even in the early 1970s,” said Benjamin Chew, honorary chairman of both the Graham Crusade and EFOS. “Then we had a steady evangelical shift.”

Chew attributed the shift to sound evangelical teaching and the work of parachurch organizations, especially in the University of Singapore. More than 10 young evangelicals who became pastors during the last decade were converted at the university level. Another factor was the renewal movement of the 1970s. “We had men like Bishop Doraisamy,” said Chew, “who shifted from a semiliberal to a dedicated evangelical position.”

Two congresses on evangelism in 1978 gave additional impetus to evangelical fevor. “The Graham Crusade was really the peak,” Chew said. “I definitely see a greater evangelical influence in Singapore in the ’80s.”

Earlier this year, a front-page report in the secular newspaper highlighted the appointment of two laymen active in evangelical churches to cabinet positions in the government. They were Minister of Foreign Affairs S. Dhanabalan, a Brethren church elder, and Minister of Education Tony Tan, an Anglican.

EFOS drew its 29 Central Council members from 14 denominations. Of these, 13 also participated on the executive committee of the Graham crusade. This is natural since EFOS was first discussed at length by the crusade committee. Especially significant is the inclusion of a Bible Presbyterian church leader, since this fundamentalist group (with 20 churches in Singapore) actively opposed the Graham Crusade.

A month after EFOS launched its recruitment drive, 15 churches and seven parachurch organizations joined the fellowship. Administrator Liew Kee Kok (who was crusade manager) said it is still too early to accurately gauge response. “Most churches say they need to discuss membership implications before giving an answer.”

Thus far, the only objections to the formation of EFOS have come from representatives of the National Council of Churches of Singapore. They said EFOS is redundant since the NCCS already functions as a national church body. NCCS, which has its roots in the defunct Malayan Christian Council formed in 1948, now draws its membership from six denominations. Two of them, the Mar Thoma Church and Syrian Orthodox Church, have only one congregation each.

Most evangelical churches, however, declined joining the NCCS because of its ties with the World Council of Churches. In a recent interview, NCCS general secretary James Wong objected to the liberal tag. “Singapore has changed so much in its religious scene over the last 20 years,” Wong said. “For people to harp over what happened in the ’40s and ’50s, they must believe that history is linear and not progressive. This to me shows the small-mindedness of Christian leaders. But the NCCS leadership has changed radically.” He said the NCCS debated the issue of WCC ties in early 1970 and had decided not to be a WCC member. Since then, Wong said, “we send them no donations and receive no funds from them, and do not support any of their projects.”

This assurance, however, ran contrary to the minutes of an NCCS general committee meeting held on August 16, 1979, which stated: “The honorary treasurer reported that the NCCS received a check for $1,112 from the WCC in aid of Program of Projects. The money was given for administrative purposes.”

Wong, one of four EFOS vice-chairmen, nonetheless hopes that NCCS and EFOS will complement each other. So far, there has been no tangible evidence of such relationship.

Commenting on the radical change in NCCS leadership, a member of the EFOS Central Council, Alfred Yeo, said “The evangelical witness in the NCCS is not always guaranteed.” This is because representatives appointed to the NCCS council serve a four-year-term, and office holders are elected annually.

Yeo then charged that the NCCS is supposed to represent the Chinese and English churches, “but in practice, all the activities so far are in English.” Anticipating such a weakness, EFOS appointed Kao Keng Tai as its associate general secretary. Kao is expected to act as liaison between English-speaking and Chinese-speaking churches. He has for the last seven years served as secretary of the executive council of the Union of the Chinese-speaking Christian Churches of Singapore. Its current membership stands at 53 Chinese-speaking churches and parachurch organizations out of about 120 Chinese churches and organizations in Singapore.

EFOS intends, moreover, to avoid a structural weakness of NCCS. While NCCS is meant only for denominations, EFOS membership is open to all local churches, parachurch organizations, and individuals who subscribe to its statement of faith and constitution. The NCCS does not have a statement of faith, Chew said.

Beyond this tension between liberals and evangelicals lies the more crucial matter of the EFOS mandate. Lawyer William Wan, general secretary of EFOS, said EFOS “ought to be a representative voice, not only nationally but internationally.” While saying EFOS should stay out of politics, he stressed, members must be “bold and courageous enough to address ourselves to the government if it infringes upon Christian principles.” He stated the need to study social issues and present the government with a united, credible Christian platform. Late last year, the government invited views on its proposed amendments to the divorce law contained in the women’s charter bill, including divorce by consent. It appears that the government decided not to proceed with legalizing divorce by consent because of several written statements against it by evangelical bodies such as the Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship.

On the international level, Wan said EFOS should be an information resource center for more accurate dissemination of news on Singapore to other countries. In addition, he said, “Our movement should be in fellowship with the World Evangelical Fellowship and have more direct links with other national fellowships in our region.” Such links will help Singaporeans “understand problems affecting Asian churches because we are part of Asia, and keep us informed of developments in the West.”

A graduate of Regent College, Vancouver, Wan said he would explore the possibility of setting up a theological commission. “Our concern,” he said, “is to have national theologians coming together from different denominations, different types of schools, to study pressing theological problems.” For starters, he wanted to examine the charismatic movement.

Finally, Wan stressed that EFOS is a coordinating body that will work toward evangelical cooperation among churches and parachurch organizations. “We can play the mediating role, defusing hard feelings and misunderstanding,” he said.

Wan confessed that such objectives are “ambitious.” “But since we represent a national group of evangelicals,” he said, “we have the resources and, we hope, the finances to carry them out.”

Israel

West Bank Relief: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Israel’s West Bank military authorities are blocking some of the welfare and development projects of religious and charitable organizations working with Palestinians there. Reporter David K. Shipler observes that the authorities tend to approve projects for towns that are submissive to occupation and to disapprove them for towns with pro-PLO leanings. Also, he notes, social welfare programs get the nod, while those aimed at raising the level of economic productivity or producing highly skilled workers are vetoed.

Aid agencies are caught in a bind: they must cooperate with the authorities to operate on the West Bank, but if they appear to be adjuncts of Israeli authority they lose credibility with the Palestinians they seek to help. Protestant agencies involved include the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), the American Friends Service Committee, the Lutheran World Federation, and the Middle East Council of Churches.

The latest casualty of the tension is MCC worker Paul K. Quiring and his family. They left Israel in September after being denied permission to work there; they earlier had served a four-year term on the West Bank. Quiring evidently displeased the authorities by making a carefully researched statement before a U.S. congressional committee describing the encroachment of Jewish settlements on Palestinian farmland and water supplies.

Ghana

What Next? White Bibles on the Black Market

Bibles for promised brides are a hot item in Ghana, whose economy has long been a shambles. Many distributors are making illegal profits by selling the popular engagement gift for the exorbitant price of $90 (at the official exchange rate for the grossly overvalued Ghanaian cedi).

The public has turned bitter over the soaring cost of Bibles and has started pointing an accusing finger—probably unfairly—at the Bible Society of Ghana.

Maxwell Dzunu, general secretary of the Bible society, acknowledged in an interview that Scripture supplies are scarce. Dzunu explained that for the last four years the society has been prohibited from transferring funds to overseas printing facilities and therefore has not received fresh stocks of Scriptures.

(During his first year in office, Ghanaian President Hilla Limann is widely credited for imposing austere economic measures that conserved enough foreign exchange to pay the nation’s short-term debts. His management teams shaped up major enterprises that grew inefficient and corrupt during years of military rule. Still, his efforts have been undercut by the decline in world prices for cocoa—the main prop of Ghana’s economy. Ghanians thus have yet to experience relief from bare store shelves and an inflation rate exceeding 50 percent a year.)

Dzunu deplored the attitudes of distributors who exploit the Ghanaians’ desire for Bibles. To counteract overpricing, he announced that the price for all standard binding Bibles had been set at $5.50. He also asked that churches urge their members to use local language Bibles for their marriages in place of the traditional English-language Bibles that are in short supply. “After all,” he said, “most of the so-called engagement Bibles are not read by their recipients. They are treasured so much that, instead of reading them, they are neatly tucked in the bottom of trunks.”

Understandably, given the state of the economy, Ghana’s churches have failed to meet their assigned 12 percent share of the society’s $910,000 budget. Local church contributions last year amounted to only $35,500—less than 4 percent of the society’s budget.

In spite of these fiscal constraints, the society is proceeding with translation of the Old Testament into the Dangme language, and of the New Testament into the Nzewo and Fante tongues. The government also has approved the society’s proposed unified orthography for the Akan language.

G. B. K. OWUSU

The American Lutheran Church

Complementary Counsel and Contrary Conviction

Convention delegates of the American Lutheran Church (ALC) tackled some hot issues in the cool northlands of Minneapolis last month. The abortion issue was so complex that it warranted not one, but two position statements. A question remained whether the statements are contradictory.

Delegates first approved a strong statement, prepared by the ALC Church Council, deploring “the absence of any legal protection for human life from the time of conception to birth” and the “alarming increase of induced abortions since the 1973 Supreme Court decision.”

But a second, much longer statement, drafted by a 14-member task force appointed two years ago, illustrated the complexities of the abortion issue. It placed the responsibility on individuals “to make the best possible decision they are capable of making in light of the information available to them and their sense of accountability to God, neighbor, and self.”

Some ALC officials criticized the task force report as lacking in biblical foundations, and in effect supporting elective abortion. Task force supporters disagreed. David W. Preus, who was reelected at the biennial meeting to a six-year term as president of the 2.3-million-member denomination, denied that the statements contradicted each other. He noted that the first was approved as a statement of “judgment and conviction” (or a public stand), while the second statement was approved for the “comment and counsel” of ALC congregations.

Convention delegates disregarded Preus’s advice when they asked for the sale of all the denomination’s stock in firms doing business in South Africa as the best strategy to oppose government-imposed segregation, or apartheid. Preus had argued that divestiture takes away church representation at company stockholder meetings, and thereby removes a stronger witness than the protest withdrawal provides.

A black South African bishop also opposed a stock sale. L. E. Dlamini, bishop of the Southeastern Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in South Africa, told delegates that while his church opposes apartheid, divestiture would hurt “the very people you intend to help and liberate.”

About half of the ALC’s 18 districts supported divestiture in resolutions. The ALC has already sold holdings in three firms doing business in South Africa, and reportedly still holds $24.8 million in stock in 18 corporations doing business there. The approved resolution calls divestiture “the most legitimate strategy in opposing apartheid,” and requests that ALC trustees divest in “a prudent manner” that does not place “undue risk” on ALC investments.

The convention turned down a recommendation that the church support the proposed Equal Rights Amendment. It also voted to authorize a study on whether the ALC should join the National Council of Churches.

By a nearly unanimous vote, the delegates approved a process possibly leading in two years to a vote on merger options between the ALC and two other Lutheran bodies. Four proposals, ranging from close cooperation with no merger to a full merger, are being considered by the ALC, the Lutheran Church in America, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches. A new single church would have more than 5 million members.

Outgoing president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, Jacob A. O. Preus, showed the improbability of any future merger between his LCMS and the ALC. In an address to the ALC convention, Preus said the LCMS basically feels uncomfortable with the diversity of doctrine and practice allowed in the ALC. He said the LCMS believes it necessary that “a confessional church … be in agreement in doctrine and practice.” In 1977, the LCMS declared its fellowship with the ALC “in protest” because of disagreements with the more liberal ALC on scriptural interpretation, women’s ordination, and other issues.

Elementary Religious Education

Judge’s Gavel Dismisses Chattanooga Bible Classes

For the first time in 58 years, grade school students in Chattanooga, Tennessee, aren’t studying the Bible—at least, not in the public school classroom.

A September 5 U.S. District Court ruling severely curtailed the program, begun in 1922 by the Public School Bible Study Committee. It operates at present in both the Chattanooga and Hamilton County school systems. Specifically, Judge Frank Wilson, a respected United Methodist Sunday school teacher, ruled that Bible classes taught in the Hamilton County elementary school system violated constitutional provisions against state establishment of religion.

Judge Wilson had listened to several tape-recorded lessons, and concluded the intent and purpose was to convey a religious message rather than a literary or historic message. Because of that, the lessons violated guidelines he established a year ago for maintaining the constitutionality of the program. He established these after parents of several students filed suit against the program, and he declared it unconstitutional. The Bible study committee then revamped the program, and felt it satisfied the judge’s guidelines. The committee gave jurisdiction of the program to the two school systems, but still provided financing.

However, the parents again filed suit with the active support of the American Civil Liberties Union. They had vocal backing from Thor Hall, religion professor at the University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. They specifically challenged Bible classes in the elementary schools, but not in the junior and senior high schools.

Ironically, the judge upheld the constitutionality of the Bible classes taught in the Chattanooga elementary schools. However, the Bible study commmittee dropped its funding of the Chattanooga elementary program, so classes stopped there as well.

Committee vice-chairman John Stophel, a Chattanooga lawyer, explained that since each school system used the same curriculum, “It was foolish to think that we could permanently sustain the program in the city schools.” The committee could explain the judge’s mixed ruling only in that he had studied separate groups of lessons from each school system before making his decision.

The committee, composed of 45 of the area’s most prominent business, political, and religious leaders, continued its funding of the junior and senior high school programs in both school systems. The committee decided not to appeal the judge’s ruling or make further attempts to revise the elementary program. Insurance executive and committee chairman Hugh O. Maclellan told a reporter that a continuing program apparently would “require distortion or omission of events recorded in the Bible,” so that funding for it would “constitute betrayal of the generous donors who have supported the program.”

Critics said recent events show the tyranny of the minority. Elementary students needed a signed slip from their parents to participate in the voluntary program; even then, participation was 95 to 100 percent, said Stophel. To prevent embarrassing those not taking part, elementary schools conducted the semester-long classes for no more than half the class at one time. This way, nonparticipants would join at least half the class in some other activity and not be isolated.

California

Churches Find State Less Prying but Mere Taxing

Religious organizations in California are now less likely to be investigated but more likely to lose their tax-exempt status. That is the result of two recent legislative measures: one that passed, another that didn’t.

The first one, signed into law by Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr., severely trimmed the power of the state attorney general to investigate alleged financial abuses by religious organizations. A California law that came into effect early in 1980 had given the attorney general broad powers to investigate and correct any “wrongful activity” discovered for such controversial groups as the Worldwide Church of God and its founder, Herbert W. Armstrong, Synanon, and Eugene Scott’s Faith Center (Apr. 18 issue, p. 48).

The bill, authored by State Senator Nicholas Petris (D-Oakland), received backing from a coalition of civil-rights and religious groups that said state intrusion into the affairs of even one unorthodox religious group threatened First and Fourth Amendment rights and freedom of worship of all religious groups. The measure was opposed mostly by groups of parents of children in religious cults and by some psychologists.

The new law bars the attorney general from looking into the affairs of religious organizations, except for criminal matters and a few narrowly defined civil complaints. Amendments added during the bill’s passage through senate and assembly committees allow the attorney general to: “make inquiry” concerning funds solicited from the general public for specific purposes, make destruction or unauthorized altering of financial records a criminal offense, and instruct the courts to consider requiring financial restitution in the criminal conviction of any individual.

Attorney General George Deukmejian said the new law “puts in serious jeopardy” the state’s suits against the Worldwide Church of God and Synanon, both accused of widescale diversion of funds. He did not say whether these suits would now be dropped, but acknowledged that all such pending cases “must … now be reexamined.”

Governor Brown vetoed a second measure, which would have prohibited state tax officials from denying a church its tax-exempt status for making political statements in keeping with its religious faith. This bill also had passed overwhelmingly in the legislature; it was sponsored by Republican State Senator H. L. Richardson. It could still be enacted over Brown’s veto by a two-thirds majority of both houses of the legislature, but that was considered unlikely.

Richardson branded the veto “a pagan assault against the churches of California.” But increasing public concern about politically outspoken churches and ministers appeared to buttress the governor’s veto.

The Richardson bill also would have simplified tax filing by churches. It was backed, therefore, by two interest groups: those who sought the liberty to preach and mail information about their positions on moral issues having political ramifications—such as abortion and homosexual rights; and churches with connected Christian schools that would have been relieved of detailed tax reporting. These churches considered release of such information a government encroachment on religious freedom; they have resisted court efforts to define what is and what is not an integral part of a church.

Churches in California still can lose their tax exempt status if they engage in “substantial” propaganda campaigns, attempt to influence legislation, or campaign for political candidates. And as many as 70 churches that stopped filing the appropriate IRS forms in the last year or two, expecting the bill to pass, now find themselves in a bind. At least one—Calvary Baptist Church in Fairfield—has had a lien placed against its property because of delinquent property taxes.

They use California curriculum hearings to curb publishers’ evolutionary dogmatism.

Skirmishes between creationists and evolutionists in schools and legislatures around the country are being reported widely, but the evolution of some new science textbooks themselves sometimes passes unnoticed.

Less than 10 years ago, elementary science texts by and large presented evolution as hard fact, with no room for doubt. But partially because of a tiny yet tenacious organization of Christians in San Diego, things have begun to change—ever so slightly—in the last few years.

For example, a new science book for seventh and eighth graders, published by Laidlaw Brothers, winds up its introduction to a chapter on the origins of life this way: “This unit, in general, is about what many scientists have thought about the beginnings. Their ideas are interesting and exciting. But since evidence is lacking, people are still left to wonder just how it all began.”

Another seventh- and eighth-grade text, this one by Allyn and Bacon, introduces a similar chapter thus: “Our present knowledge of the history of the earth is based chiefly on a study of the rocks that are found at the earth’s surface. Unfortunately, many of these rocks are so twisted and crumpled that their histories are not clear. Other rocks have eroded away and their histories are lost forever. In addition, there were long periods when no rocks were formed. Therefore, present ideas about the earth’s history include many speculations about the meanings of the relatively few facts that have been discovered …” A new eighth-grade science text by the Harcourt Brace Jovanovich publishing company introduces a section on evolution with this less-than-doctrinaire title: “The Long and Magnificent Journey—An Evolutionary Viewpoint.”

Two Southern Californians, Nell Segraves and Jean Sumrall, have been fighting for the last 18 years to get changes like that. They began informally in 1962, and in 1970 formed the Creation Science Research Center (CSRC) in San Diego with other evangelical Christians. Its purpose is to defend creationist beliefs and publish elementary teaching material that explains creationism from a scientific viewpoint. (Creationists believe that the origins of the universe and of life on this planet are better explained by a model of intelligent, purposeful design and special creation—creation of all species separately—than by an evolutionary model.)

Nell’s son Kelly, trained in theology, is director, and writes much of their book material. Robert Kofahl, who has a doctorate in chemistry from Cal Tech, serves as science coordinator, and works to keep their publishing efforts on a sound scientific track. (CSRC is not to be confused with the Institute for Creation Research, also in San Diego. The two are separate but cooperative.)

California is the nation’s most populous state, and is a market no large textbook publisher can ignore. Elementary texts must be approved by the state board of education before local districts can buy them, and that is where the creationists press their views. Nell Segraves has become an effective lobbyist and book critic at textbook adoption hearings held by the state school board’s Curriculum Commission. “People say we’re trying to censor science,” she said in an interview at her San Diego office. “We say we’re trying to protest the censor of science,” by getting publishers to acknowledge that evolution is theory, not fact. In the face of the creationist lobbying, some publishers have been loosening their evolutionary dogmatism rather than be refused permission to sell their books in California. Publishers readily acknowledge they cannot present evolution as they used to. Eugene Frank, director of publications for Laidlaw, said, “We don’t think it’s a publisher’s responsibility to give a position and say, ‘This is it.’ No one knows. The answers are still not available.”

Even with the changes, grade school readers would still find it difficult to believe in anything but evolution, judging from presentations in most of the books now in use, and Segraves acknowledges that there’s a long way to go. Although evolution may be identified as theory, it’s still usually the only theory seriously explained. Most grade school science text writers, for example, are still fond of describing the evolution of the horse, from the tiny, four-toed eohippus of 58 million years ago to the fully-grown, hooved equus of modern times. Scientists who believe in creationism energetically dispute that.

Nonetheless, Sumrall says the change in emphasis in new editions is evident, compared with editions of the same books 10 years ago. “Before, I’d find sometimes one-third of a book devoted to various aspects of evolution. We don’t find the dogmatism now. We don’t find the whole book brainwashing the kid.” She and Segraves don’t object to evolution as the dominant teaching, only when it is presented as fact.

The women acknowledge that although there may be light at the end of the tunnel, it is still an awfully long tunnel. The board of education routinely adopts many texts over their objection, and even when one they like is approved, it is still up to budget-wary school districts to buy it. “A publisher told me that getting his book on the adoption list is really only a license to peddle books in California,” Segraves said. No publishers as yet deal seriously with creationism. (CSRC has been unable to get any of its own books on the adoption list.)

Besides all that, the state doesn’t control the sales of high school science texts. That puts them beyond the practical range of CSRC lobbying, and in them evolution remains just about as dogmatic as ever. “I do see movement [in high school texts], but it’s not significant,” said Richard Bliss, a curriculum expert at the Institute for Creation Research. “We still see much, much indoctrination, although we may not see the word evolution.” Both organizations maintain that creation stands up scientifically as a theory for the origin of life. They want these scientific facts, not the biblical doctrine of Genesis, taught in the schools alongside evolution. “We have nothing to fear from good science,” Bliss said.

Over the years, Segraves has made slow but steady strides with the state board of education members appointed by former Governor Ronald Reagan, as well as with its textbook adoption arm, the Curriculum Commission. In 1973 the board required that evolution be clearly labeled as speculative and theoretical in elementary science books. In 1978, because of the more liberal influence of Governor Edmund (Jerry) Brown’s school board appointees, science regulations were revamped. Evolution, in effect, was to be taught in science textbooks and creationism was relegated to the realm of philosophy and religion. “We didn’t buy it,” Segraves said, and CSRC creationists went to court. They lost because they missed a filing date. They appealed, and were asked by the judge to try and settle out of court with the school board’s lawyers. This they did, but the board rejected the settlement. CSRC will be back in court in December for a new trial date, but Segraves worries about the $10,000 in legal fees she believes she will need, and is now trying to raise.

CSRC chose to register as a public trust to enhance its credibility and to avoid being identified with, or dependent upon, religious groups. That is both its strength and its weakness. Unlike private religious organizations, public trusts are permitted to lobby and retain their tax-exempt status, but they are limited in the dollar amounts of donations they may receive, effectively excluding large foundation grants.

“We’re a public trust,” said Segraves, “and if the public doesn’t support us [with small, individual contributions], we have no right [in the eyes of the Internal Revenue Service] to exist.” Many publishers and scientists in California, who have run up against the dogged creationists, probably hope that support never materializes for the hard-pressed CSRC.

Dialogue

Is a New Alliance Needed to Repel Secular Inroads?

How can the church maintain its unique Christian identity in a rapidly changing society that seeks to manipulate and absorb it?

That question drew a small group of evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders together in Ann Arbor, Michigan, last month. The participants came by invitation of Pastoral Renewal, a journal published there by The Word of God, the interdenominational Christian community born out of the Catholic charismatic renewal. Also sponsoring the meeting was the Center for Christian Studies of South Bend, Indiana.

Pastoral Renewal publisher Peter S. Williamson explained further that the goal of the meeting was “not to focus on Christian unity per se, but to investigate ways in which we can work together toward goals of common concern to us.” Word of God coordinator Mark Kinzer named some of those goals, which were aimed at “adapting and applying Christianity to a drastically new social environment.”

He proposed that Christian leaders make it their top priority to restore natural groupings and strengthen family life. He asked them to equip Christians to deal with powerful influences of technological society, such as the communications media and mass education; to provide teaching on practical Christian living; and to restore patterns of Christian initiation and church discipline that again make clear the boundaries between church and secular society.

Kinzer said modern technological society obscures “the boundaries separating the church from the surrounding society, contributing greatly to a vast infusion of non-Christian currents of thought and life.”

Speakers included well-known author and Regent College professor James I. Packer, editors Kenneth Kantzer of CHRISTIANITY TODAY and Stephen Board of Eternity, and church renewal author Howard Snyder. Others were James Hitchcock, president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars; Paul Vitz, New York University psychology professor and author of Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self Worship; and church historian Richard Lovelace.

Some participants felt that Dubuque Theological Seminary professor Donald G. Bloesch captured the theme of the meeting in his prepared paper. Bloesch stated, “I believe the time is ripe for a new evangelical alliance, embracing Bible-believing Christians from all branches of Christendom.”

Bloesch said the church today is challenged by the advancing secularization of contemporary society. He indicated that biblical authority is being eroded in many segments of the church, and certain key Christian doctrines are being reinterpreted according to secular modes of thought. Bloesch cited indications that Roman Catholics and evangelical Protestants may soon be able to oppose jointly these dangerous trends, as well as cooperate in evangelistic mission. Evangelicals, he said, are “rediscovering their roots”: appreciation of the fathers of the church and of the place of religious orders, sacraments, and church authority. At the same time, he said, many Roman Catholics are moving toward a view of Christian truth and life consonant with some of the major concerns of evangelicals.

JOHN BLATTNER

University Chapel Policy

Critics Charge Princeton Strays from Founders’ Path

A Jewish rabbi participated in opening exercises at Princeton University this fall. As usual, the event took place in the university chapel, but this year the administration removed the cross from the altar. Music, readings, and prayers referred to God, but avoided mention of Christ by name.

The interfaith approach reflects the school’s new policy on the role of the chapel and its dean. A year ago, the university trustees emphasized religious pluralism on campus, and said it should be respected. In their report, the trustees said university functions in the chapel must be clearly distinguished from the chapel’s Sunday services, when worship is explicitly Christian.

Princeton’s founding patriarchs, Jonathan Edwards and John Witherspoon, wouldn’t like this turn of events, say critics. Founded in 1746 on bedrock Calvinist principles, the school’s stance should remain avowedly Christian, they argue. One trustee who is an evangelical Christian refused to sign the chapel report. Journalist Philip Lawler, in a National Review article entitled “Getting God Out of Princeton,” blamed the policy change on president William Bowen’s pursuit of secular humanism.

A faculty committee report on the chapel failed to mention Christ, and referred to God’s existence only once. The trustees’ chapel committee, chaired by Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts John Coburn, smacked of relativism and universalism, said critics.

The trustees’ report seemed to contradict and misinterpret the school’s founding fathers. Ministers such as Edwards and Witherspoon founded Princeton as a Christian college, but the trustees affirmed religious pluralism and implied the founders would have approved it. In one section, the report reads: “We hope to affirm the religious spirit which helped to give birth to Princeton by recommending further expressions in a variety of forms—but motivated by the same spirit.”

Recent events notwithstanding, Princeton has retained its Christian identity longer than other Ivy League universities, such as Harvard and Yale, which also were founded to train Christian ministers. The school places its dean of the chapel in the administrative hierarchy, and gives him the powers of any other dean.

All university presidents were clergymen up to the turn of the century. Until 1964 the school retained its requirements of mandatory attendance at religious services (although by then, these requirements were considerably watered down). President Robert F. Goheen told incoming freshmen at the time that “the maturing and shaping of the moral and spiritual structure of your lives must be largely your own affair.”

Observers cite a further crumbling in recent years of the school’s visible stance as a Christian college. Increasingly, schools want to avoid having policies that provoke questions of church and state relationships and allegations of discrimination on religious grounds, which may explain the trends at Princeton.

However, journalist Lawler, a member of the conservative group, Concerned Alumni of Princeton, wrote that president Bowen, since his arrival in 1972, has consistently downplayed the role of the university chapel and its dean, Ernest Gordon. Lawler described the strong-willed Gordon as an outspoken supporter of Princeton’s religious heritage, who could not help but irritate Bowen, a “leading exponent” of secular humanism.

When Gordon announced his retirement after 25 years, Bowen began a complete reevaluation of the deanship. He appointed a broadly based committee to study the proper role of the chapel dean—a crucial question being whether the new dean should be an ordained Christian minister. (Bowen was on a temporary sabbatical, and could not be reached for comment.)

The matter finally landed with the trustees, who decided that the new dean would indeed be a Christian minister: Frederick H. Borsch, an Episcopal priest and president of the Church Divinity School of the Pacific in Berkeley, California. The school appointed an acting dean until Borsch arrives on campus in January.

But the trustees also made provisions to accommodate the school’s religious pluralism. Trustee Bob Connor, an evangelical Christian active in campus outreach before his Princeton graduation in 1978, served on the trustees’ subcommittee on the chapel. He refused to sign the report when it was introduced a year ago.

In a telephone interview, Connor criticized the report’s “universalistic perspective” as “theologically untenable.” The report distorted the “original Christ-centeredness” of Princeton’s founders, he charged. The 24-year-old hospital administrator called “ominous” the “omission of the covenant relationship between the university and the Lord as embodied in Dei sub numine viget (the school’s motto, meaning “Under God’s power she flourishes”).

However, new dean Borsch sees the university’s change of stance as appropriate and necessary, considering “the campus is more pluralistic.” In an interview, he said, “It seems to me the essence of Christianity is wanting to share faith with other people. Christianity’s strength is in sharing its faith and vision with all kinds of other people.”

Because he is a Christian minister, Borsch promises to continue Christian services in the chapel. Sunday morning interfaith services would be a mistake, he said. However, the 45-year-old New Testament professor hopes for cooperation between campus religious groups that transcends theological differences: “The message about what God has done in Christ does not mean we cannot cooperate … and share with those who have been given a different form of revelation.”

About 500 persons regularly attend Sunday worship in the university chapel, but only about one-third are students. Another 300 students participate in the chapel’s social ministries, such as prison visitation.

All told, a relatively small percentage of the 4,400 undergraduate students actively participate in organized religion. Surveys indicate that about 30 percent of the students are Roman Catholic. About 20 percent are Jewish, while Presbyterians and Episcopalians outnumber those from other Protestant groups.

Whether the campus experiences an awakening like that in Edward’s day remains another matter.

What would Edwards think of the pluralistic awareness at the chapel? New dean Borsch suggested: “I would like to think that Edwards would be very quick to understand that the challenges and ministry today are very different, and he would be on the side of those who are probing to find the most faithful ways in the spirit of the times to present the gospel.”

Trustee Connor gave a different exegesis when he explained to fellow trustees why he could not support its report on the chapel. He distributed copies of Edwards quotes to all the trustees. Then, with a portrait of the fiery preacher facing him from the opposite wall, Connor said he felt led to give “an Old Testament-style talk” in support of the school’s historic Christian stance.

JOHN MAUST

New Call to Peacemaking

Peace Church Coalition Wins and Loses Friends

Just as world militarism has increased, so has the interest in peacemaking, said a leader of the second national conference of the New Call to Peacemaking. Convener Norval Hadley, a World Vision staff member and Evangelical Friends Alliance leader, added, “Now is the time for the church to boldly proclaim the biblical message of peacemaking.”

About 300 members of historic peace churches—Quakers, Church of the Brethren, and Mennonites—discussed tangible ways to engage in peacemaking: tax resistance, conscientious objection to service, and nonregistration for the military draft, among others. Delegates at last month’s meeting put their proposals into a 3,500-word document, which compiled the work of 27 study groups that met during the four-day session at Green Lake, Wisconsin.

Some members of the peace churches in the past voiced reservations about the group, fearing they were too radical and biblically weak. At the recent convention of the U.S. Conference of the Mennonite Brethren Church, delegates voted to withdraw the church’s cooperation with the New Call to Peacemaking—a four-year-old peace church coalition, which had its first national meeting two years ago (issue of Nov. 3, 1978, p.58).

At its first meeting, the New Call to Peacemaking asked the 400,000 members of its several participating denominations to “seriously consider refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes, as a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship.”

Those who came to Green Lake this year included greater numbers of local church leaders and young people as well as some tax resisters, such as Bruce Chrisman, of Ava, Illinois. The General Conference Mennonite Church has appealed Chrisman’s conviction as a tax resister, and in a friend-of-the-court brief to the Springfield (Ill.) district court, supported Chrisman’s claim that “paying for war is the same as bearing arms.”

Peacemaking advocates believe their cause will grow because of increasing support from evangelical groups not always recognized for their peace efforts. The Southern Baptists, the National Association of Evangelicals, and evangelist Billy Graham in recent months have publicly attacked the arms race.

Among its recommendations, the delegation called for a moratorium on the production, testing, and deployment of nuclear and other weapons. They encouraged “open, nonviolent noncooperation with the conscription system” as a way to oppose militarism. They again asked that members consider refusing to pay the military portion of their federal taxes, and that congregations and church agencies honor employees’ requests not to withhold war taxes.

William Carey University

Trying Graduate Cultural Studies Where Students Are

If geography is a tall barrier to postgraduate study, officials at William Carey International University (WCIU) suggest a solution: earning graduate degrees by extension.

“The school [WCIU] will provide an option for people who can’t establish traditional residency on campus,” said new dean of graduate studies James O. Buswell III. WCIU rests on a 17-acre campus in Pasadena, California, and is associated with the U.S. Center for World Mission. (Missiologist Ralph Winter founded both institutions, and is WCIU president.)

The school focuses upon international development issues, and more than 20 mostly graduate-level courses were offered on campus this fall. However, its distinctive is courses by extension.

Buswell has corresponded with at least 40 prospective doctoral students. According to plans still being developed, each applicant secures an advisory committee composed of three persons skilled in his or her area of study. The school pays the committee from the student’s tuition fees, and lists them as WCIU adjunct faculty members. The student more or less designs his three-year program, but progress is regularly monitored by Buswell and the committee.

The school hopes to avoid criticisms that it is a mail-order degree factory. Buswell explains: “We have to be academically hard-nosed.” The long-time anthropology professor (most recently at Wheaton College) gladly accepted his new administrative post because WCIU offers “the cross-cultural emphasis I’ve been teaching for 30 years.”

The school has applied for state approval of its program of teaching English as a second language; that approval is necessary before the school may apply for accreditation through the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC), which it intends to do. WASC has specific guidelines for approving nontraditional, off-campus graduate programs, such as those offered by WCIU, Buswell said.

School officials patterned their extension program after the University Without Walls (undergraduate) and Union Graduate School in Cincinnati, Ohio. Registered as a secular university, WCIU is open to all students. However, Buswell noted the advantages to overseas missionaries unable to return to the U.S. for doctoral study.

At the undergraduate level, WCIU has a concentrated, semester-long Institute of International Studies. This program aims for students pursuing careers in a cross-cultural setting. Last year, IIS organizers offered the program for the first time off-campus at Pennsylvania State University. Their goal is to locate their extramural program at 90 state colleges and universities by 1985.

Currently, graduate programs include applied linguistics, community health, teaching English as a second language, and Chinese, Hindu, Muslim, and tribal studies.

Is God In Process?

Faith and Process: The Significance of Process Thought for Christian Faith, by Paul R. Sponheim (Augsburg, 1979, 351 pp., $12.50), is reviewed by Colin Brown, professor of systematic theology, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

All philosophy, it has been remarked, is really a series of footnotes to Plato. With somewhat more justice it could be said that “process thought” is a series of footnotes to A. N. Whitehead.

Paul R. Sponheim, professor of systematic theology at Luther-Northwestern Seminaries in Saint Paul, sets out in Faith and Process to explore the significance of process thought—the view of reality deriving from the writings of Whitehead—for Christian faith, thought, and service. It opens with a plea for metaphysics; the Christian cannot avoid the ongoing quest for meaning. Christian faith raises philosophical questions—not least is the problem of how our faith relates to the scientific view of the world. Whitehead’s process thought is seen as providing a framework and appropriate categories for expressing the Christian faith today.

God himself is in process of becoming. Process thinkers speak of God’s primordial nature and of God’s consequent nature. But even as creator, God is not “creativity-itself.” Rather, creativity is the more encompassing concept, with God as an extraordinary instance. Whitehead claimed that, “It is as true to say that God creates the world, as that the world creates God” (Process and Reality, corrected edition, p. 348).

Faith and Process performs a real service in providing a clear, sober, and judicious exposition of Whiteheadian thought. It is meticulously illustrated by quotations from Whitehead’s books and numerous other recent writers, complete with diagrams exhibiting their differences. Dr. Sponheim is at pains to relate process thought to Christian faith, stressing that metaphysics is the servant of faith, and suggesting ways in which process thought may contribute to the dialogue with atheism.

For all that, I find that my doubts about process theology are greater than ever. There is much in Whitehead that is provocative—not least his challenge to Christians to think out how they view the relationship of God to the world. But this is precisely the problem: far from providing a solution to the problem of evil and a theological foundation for ecology, process thought gives us a God who is finite and amoral. As the ground of novelty, God is in all things luring them indiscriminately to achieve their subjective aims and thus maximize themselves. On this basis it is difficult to see how one could blame the rapist or murderer, for could it not be said that what they are doing is realizing their subjective aims? When Dr. Sponheim speaks of God choosing to receive the world “in Christ” and of the divine will to love becoming concrete in Christ, he appears to revert to the language of theism in order to give some Christian content to a scheme of thought that is basically pagan. Could it be that, after all, process thought is a twentieth-century, updated version of the religion of Canaan proclaiming an immanent deity and a gospel of creaturely self-fulfillment?

There is no little irony in the fact that Dr. Sponheim has moved from the study of Kierkegaard to the study of Whitehead. The shift is as dramatic as a move from Kierkegaard to his archenemy, Hegel. Hegel taught an all-embracing, philosophical, and religious system based on an evolving, immanent deity. Kierkegaard pointed out the system was indemonstrable and the church needed to return to the God of the Bible. The same is true for process thought.

Gifts Of The Spirit

Grace Gifts, by Michael Griffiths (Eerdmans, 1978, 80 pp., $2.65), The Spirit in the Church, by Karl Rahner (Seabury Press, 1979, 104 pp., $3.95), and Scripture and the Charismatic Renewal, edited by George Martin (Servant Books, 1979, 127 pp., $4.00), are reviewed by J. Kenneth Grider, professor of theology, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Missouri.

These three small books, all related to gifts of the Spirit, and not especially to tongues speaking, are helpful in varying ways.

Grace Gifts, by Michael Griffiths, is a brief study, but it compresses many helpful insights. Griffiths understands a gift as consisting of God’s heightening the “natural aptitudes” he bestows upon us as Creator (pp. 70–71). The author further considers that spiritual gifts are at least 14 in number (pp. 25–66), and that they have “not ceased; but are “applicable today” (p. 8). They really are gifts (p. 68), and are not to be sought. Instead of “earnestly desire,” he translates 1 Corinthians 12:31 as an indicative instead of as an imperative—“You earnestly desire”—and says the Corinthians were being reprimanded for their desire for gifts (pp. 9, 68ff.).

Of these three books, the other two are written by and for Roman Catholics. Both (one by Karl Rahner, and the other a symposium by Catholic writers) take up issues not especially of interest to Protestants—except that it is of interest to us that they are dealing with these issues. Rahner, for example, says that “office holders” in the church should realize that “their subjects,” “ordinary Christians,” are sometimes given “commands and promptings” by “the Lord” (pp. 60–66). In this connection, he says, “They are actions that God wills even before the starting signal has been given by the hierarchy …” (p. 61). He is interested in “prophecies” (p. 89ff.). But unlike the way in which they are understood by the typical Protestant Pentecostal, they “almost always” are messages “delivered by persons seen in visions” (p. 89).

The Catholic symposium, Scripture and the Charismatic Renewal, would be of interest to Protestants who would like to know about the strictures under which Catholics read Scripture and think about its meaning. Not just certain dogmas are official for Catholics, but specific interpretations of given Bible texts are official (e.g., p. 25). The book treats Vatican II statements that encourage Scripture reading by Catholics, and it reveals a renewal of lay Catholic interest in and use of the Bible.

A New Life Of Calvin

God’s Man: A Novel on the Life of John Calvin, by Duncan Norton-Taylor (Baker Book House, 1979, 298 pp., $8.95), is reviewed by Larry M. Lake, chairman, English department, Delaware County Christian School, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania.

Biographies are difficult to write. The biography of a man who died over 400 years ago presents even more difficulties. Yet God’s Man is a triumph over typical obstacles. The author’s untypical approach to biography, writing it as a novel, is a wise choice. In his words, “few biographies can be wholly true, while novels may wholly bear their own truth.”

Perhaps the book’s most striking feature is its first-person narrative. Instead of the expected “John Calvin was born in Noyon, France, in 1509 …” the beginning is told from Calvin’s perspective as, lying on his deathbed, he is visited by the Reformer Farel. Calvin reviews his life, recalling being shown relics in the cathedral at age three, the death of his mother, his first days at school. These events are described in present tense, helping to convey a sense of closeness and authenticity. By the end of the first section, Calvin has become a leader in the Reformation, and has published the first edition of his Institutes.

The novel’s second part is from the viewpoint of one of Calvin’s critics who travels and works with him, but eventually leaves him. Here the author shows some of the criticism leveled against Calvin, without having to belabor his defense. The reader considers the source and moves on.

In the third section Calvin is established as a pastor in Geneva and tells his story about that city’s political turmoil and his own infirmities. Maigret, a loyal friend and supporter, next continues the narrative. As a member of the aristocracy, he has insights into Genevan life that Calvin never could have had.

In the last two parts Calvin again tells his own story, as the church is threatened by heresy and political maneuverings, as he establishes a school, and as he completes his fifth edition of the Institutes, prefacing it with the statement, “A thing is done soon enough if it is done well enough.”

In many places the writing has a poetic clarity, and scenes are set simply and imaginatively.

God’s Man is a successful biography and an entertaining novel. It will be interesting to Christians who enjoy people, theology, history, and fine writing.

True Faith For Today

From the Pinnacle of the Temple: Faith or Presumption? by Charles Farah, Jr. (Logos International, 1979, 243 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Paul Elbert, postgraduate in New Testament, University of London, King’s College.

Does the believer exercise faith or presumption? This question will be of interest to every practicing Christian who tries to serve God. Farah, professor of historical theology at Oral Roberts University, sees within the body of Christ two extremist elements. One denies the existence of the miraculous in Jesus’ ministry to believers today and treats the Book of Acts with antiquarian disinterest. The other, overzealous to be used of God, detaches the biblical teaching about faith from its contextual relation to total truth, pushing it to illogical extremes. The result in this case can be heresy.

There exists today between these two extremes a significant portion that includes the classical Pentecostal denominations and the charismatic movements in the Protestant and Catholic sectors. There Christians generally take the Epistles as normative for doctrine of the church and the principles of the Book of Acts as normative for life and experience of the church. But herein is a problem, providing good reasons for Farah’s pastoral concern. He believes care needs to be taken in the nascent and burgeoning renewal in order to preserve balanced doctrine in the area of faith.

This is so because there is on the periphery of this growing edge of the church an extremist fringe of “faith” teachers who routinely attack balanced and sound doctrine in the realm of faith. The oversimplified “faith” formulas (e.g., “confess it and it’s yours”) and associated false doctrines have so victimized and plagued mainstream Christianity that Farah’s book should be received with a sigh of relief by all who wish to live a balanced Christian life of faith.

Farah addresses himself to finding a remedy with all due tolerance and courtesy. He pleads for a return to contextual scientific exegesis to determine meaning for Scripture passages.

The book concludes with a 20-page set of practical guidelines for Christian leaders entitled “A Methodology for Ecumenical Theology,” which may be the highlight of the book. This bold and courageous book reasserts the sovereignty of God and helps define real biblical faith. Every pastor and lay person who has encountered the effects of presumptuous false doctrine needs to have this book in hand.

Putting It All Together

The Integration of Psychology and Theology, by John D. Carter and Bruce Narramore (Zondervan, 1979, 139 pp., $3.95 pb), is reviewed by Willard Harley, Sr., practicing psychologist, and professor emeritus, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California.

This volume is number one in a projected series on the integration of psychology and Christianity. The book begins with an excellent treatment of the ambivalence among Christians toward applying psychology to human behavior. The authors’ openness to psychological data is based on the assumption that all truth is God’s truth.

Chapter three follows two of introduction, and delineates the scope of both systematic theology and psychology in order to illustrate their communality and major differences. This effort, I feel, unfortunately illustrates how tempting it is to force dissimilar categories into a single mold. For example, the doctrine of sin is supposed to be the theological pairing of psychopathology. I have the impression that the authors, like Freud, developed their theories out of their counseling cases. If Christ’s most frequent examples of fallen man were the clean-living, religious Pharisees, would not the most essential effects of the Fall be seen by observing our best specimens of unregenerated man—rather than the emotionally disturbed? Do not some of our devoutly committed Christians share the same psychopathologies as the unbelievers?

In chapters four to seven the current attitudes toward integration are divided into four approaches or models. The first two are briefly but well described. The latter two would bear further clarification. For instance, while the authors see themselves in model four, the Integrates, they seem to sound more like number three, the Parallel Model. The book closes on the point that practical integration is an ongoing process already at work in the Christian psychologist.

I only wish that such a beginning treatment of this almost virgin area had clear definitions. What psychology? Whose psychology? What constitutes a Christian psychology? Whose theology? Whose data? What happens when data need theory for interpretation? What was lost in the Fall? What constituted the image of God? What therapy does the Christian psychologist offer the unregenerated client?

Obviously, a fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer, but beginning books ought to start at the beginning.

Luke-Acts Today

Studies in Luke-Acts, edited by Leander E. Keck and J. Louis Martyn (Fortress Press, 1980, 316 pp., $7.95), is reviewed by Peter H. Davids, assistant professor of biblical studies, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, Ambridge, Pennsylvania.

L. E. Keck and J. L. Martyn first issued this volume in 1966 as a tribute to their teacher, Paul Schubert. Professor Schubert and some of the contributors have died since then, but in many cases the essays were seminal, so a paperback reprint of the volume is now in our hands. The work is a collection of essays from the early 1960s by such scholars as van Unnik, Cadbury, Dahl, Käsemann, and Haenchen; it is grouped into three parts: (1) general overviews of the interpretation, perspective, and theology of Luke-Acts, (2) specific issues in Luke-Acts, and (3) studies of the relationship between Acts and its literary setting.

While one can hardly evaluate a volume of first-quality essays in a few words, three comments should be made about this work. First, some of the essays are now dated—the editors themselves suggest C. H. Talbert’s Perspectives on Luke-Acts as a source of more recent material. Second, many of the essays are classics, which must be read in any thorough study of Luke-Acts; even the dated ones are useful for a history of interpretation (e.g., Conzelmann, “The Address of Paul on the Areopagus,” P. Vielhauer, “On the ‘Paulinism’ of Acts,” and H. J. Cadbury, “Four Features of Lucan Style”). Finally, only one essay is by an evangelical (C. F. D. Moule, “The Christology of Acts”), showing a continuing need for more evangelical involvement in such scholarship (despite I. H. Marshall’s recent contributions).

The Church In South Africa

The Church Struggle in South Africa, by John W. de Gruchy (Eerdmans, 1979, 267 pp., $7.95); Perceptions of Apartheid: The Churches and Political Change in South Africa, by Ernie Regehr (Herald Press, 1979, 309 pp., $7.95), are reviewed by Richard V. Pierard, professor of history, Indiana State University, Terre Haute.

South Africa today is of deep concern to Christians everywhere. The republic’s 1961 constitution states unequivocally that South Africa is a Christian country. But the odious racial policies that are summed up under the rubric of apartheid or “separate development” are hardly those that bring honor to the Christ who died that all people might be equal and free through faith in him.

The officially sanctioned racism and the fascist-like police state atmosphere have led some critics to equate South Africa with Nazi Germany, but this is not really accurate. The rule of law has not completely disappeared. Courageous journalists, lawyers, businessmen, and above all, churchmen, have been challenging the apartheid system; already some lessening of its rigors are seen.

There is an extensive body of literature on Christianity in South Africa and the two books reviewed here are welcome additions, as they deal frankly and sensitively with the issues. Both contain concise, informative historical surveys, analyses of the various theological positions, and discussions of how Christians are combating apartheid. Dr. John de Gruchy of Cape Town, an able scholar and devoted churchman, has a remarkably clear grasp of events and movements in his country as well as in Europe and the Americas. His treatment of the tensions within the deeply divided Christian community and between church and state is perceptive. Particularly meritorious is his clear-headed, positive assessment of South African black theology and his biblically grounded presentation of the kingdom of God as the vehicle for white liberation. In terms of its clarity of writing and theological depth this book deserves to be ranked among the best of the year. Christians who are seeking to apply their faith to the problems of contemporary society will profit much from de Gruchy’s insights.

Ernie Regehr, a Canadian Mennonite, was sent to South Africa by his church to study apartheid and its ramifications for Christianity. His account covers much of the same ground as de Gruchy’s in tracing the role of the churches in racial-political conflict, but he emphasizes more how various groups in the country perceive the system. He presents the factual side of apartheid in considerably more detail and alerts the reader to the unmistakable enormity of this evil. Its wealth of data and its character as an outsider’s view make this book a good complement to de Gruchy’s.

Briefly Noted

Eschatology: A good general survey of current debate among theologians is Christian Hope and the Future (InterVarsity) by Stephen H. Travis. A revised edition of On the Way to the Future (Augsburg) by Hans Schwarz surveys Christian eschatology in the light of current trends in theology, philosophy, and science. Jurgen Moltmann’s The Future of Creation (Fortress) is a collection of thought-provoking essays about eschatology, hope, the Cross, and more.

Affirming the historic premillennial position, David Ewert in And Then Comes the End (Herald) offers a spiritually minded, topical survey of the biblical material related to the Second Coming of Christ. A rather polemical, antimillennial overview is What the Bible Says About the End Time (College Press, Joplin, Mo.) by Russell Boatman. Jim McKeever affirms Christians Will Go Through the Tribulation (Alpha Omega, Box 4130, Medford, Oreg.) and tells how to prepare for it. The Incredible Cover-Up by Dave MacPherson is now being distributed by Alpha Omega and presents what is called the true story of the pretrib Rapture. Fear, Faith and the Future (Augsburg) by Ted Peters affirms Christian hope in the face of doomsdayers. Lehman Strauss’s Prophetic Mysteries Explained (Loizeaux Brothers) looks at the prophetic significance of the parables in Matthew 13 and the letters of Revelation 2–3 in traditional dispensationalist terms. Life in the Afterlife (Tyndale) by Tim LaHaye is also traditional dispensationalism, with a cautionary word about “out-of-the-body” experiences.

Paulist Press offers What Are They Saying About the Resurrection? by Gerald O’Collins and What Are They Saying About Death and Christian Hope? by Monika Hellwig. Is There Life After Death? (Harvest House, Irvine, Calif.) by John Weldon and Zola Levitt says “yes” in easy-to-understand terms. Life, Death and Beyond (Zondervan) by J. Kerby Anderson is a fine study of the experiences of death and what they prove.

Universalism is making another appearance. Something to Believe In (Harper & Row) by Robert Short is a plea for Christian universalism, complete with cartoons from Peanuts, Doonesbury, and others. Arguing the same theme more academically is Eternal Life: Why We Believe (Westminster) by L. Harold DeWolf. Unconditional Good News (Eerdmans) by Neal Punt pushes “toward an understanding of biblical universalism” within the Reformed tradition.

Encounter With Terminal Illness (Zondervan) by Ruth Kopp deals sympathetically and helpfully with the problems surrounding death, and suggests how to draw upon spiritual resources.

Doctrine of God:The Existence of God and the Beginning of the Universe (Here’s Life) by William Lane Craig is a readable presentation of what is essentially the cosmological argument, and is especially good for thoughtful college students. James M. Houston’s I Believe in the Creator (Eerdmans) is powerful and profound, a highly recommended study of God as a loving Creator. One God in Trinity (Cornerstone), edited by Peter Toon and James D. Spiceland, is an excellent collection of 10 essays analyzing a central doctrine in Christianity. The God of Jesus Christ (Franciscan Herald) by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger is a moving set of meditations on God as Trinity. Emil Brunner’s classic The Christian Doctrine of God (Westminster) is now available in paperback for a new generation of students.

Three books look at God’s relation to us. The Back of God (Tyndale) by Bill Austin avoids easy answers, but finds signs of God’s presence in our lives. The Optional God (Morehouse-Barlow) by Stephen F. Bayne shows that God is not optional. God With Us (Westminster, paperback) by Joseph Haroutunian relates God to our personal lives, finding communion with God as we commune with each other.

Faith Incarnate In Life

The Physical Side of Being Spiritual, by Peter E. Gillquist (Zondervan, 1979, 174 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Dan E. Nicholas, public information officer, Mendocino County Schools, Ukiah, California.

Peter Gillquist would like you to take your shoes off and feel the earth beneath your feet—and know God intended it that way. God purposefully constructed his universe and his gospel to be as much physical as it is spiritual.

In this recent book, Gillquist takes a long look at the tendency of evangelicals to devalue their bodies and otherwise to escape the tangible, touchable side of the Christian faith in their desire to be spiritual.

Mental religion gets a bad review from this author. He follows up his earlier work, Love Is Now (Zondervan), a treatise on grace, with this new work which stresses an earthwise holiness. In easy-to-read style, the author advocates a faith lived out in visible fashion before fellow flesh-and-blood pilgrims with whom we are to rub elbows in the church.

An unsatisfying faith, in Gillquist’s view, is one that traffics in pop religion and private piety, shunning the church in trade for parachurch, doctrinal fads, and a me-and-Jesus religious solitaire.

Gillquist leans heavily on the early church fathers as models worth following. During a period of concern for intense spirituality, these leaders did not let go of the physical aspects of the faith. Evidence of this is their high view of the sacraments of holy baptism and the Lord’s Supper, events that speak to a healthy marriage of the physical and the spiritual.

In a day when all manner of Christians stroll through a cafeteria line of religious choices, often dangerously overspiritual, Gillquist focuses on a diet that has satisfied the saints for centuries. He addresses areas where the church is hurting today: worship, community life, and accountability. These are areas in which evangelicals could stand to get a lot more physical with their faith.

Must specialized ministry drive wedges between evangelism and social action?

Six months have passed since the World Council of Churches Commission on World Missions and Evangelism Melbourne Conference, “Your Kingdom Come,” and the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization Pattaya Consultation, “How Shall They Hear?” Both were concerned with the church’s mission in the world. Melbourne listened attentively to the cries of the poor and the oppressed. The LCWE Consultation on World Evangelization (COWE), on the other hand, concentrated on how to evangelize the world’s unreached peoples.

The distinction between the two conferences, between concern for the poor and concern for the lost, should not be over-pressed, however. At neither conference was there a total disjunction between these two Christian responsibilities. At COWE one miniconsultant focused on refugees, and another on the urban poor. Similarly, Melbourne did not altogether disregard the necessity of evangelism, as some have unjustly said. Its Section II declared that “the proclamation of the gospel to the whole world remains an urgent obligation for all Christians,” and its Section III that we have a “special obligation to those who have never heard the good news of the kingdom.”

Nevertheless, the difference in emphasis remains. The Melbourne documents pulsate with indignation over human injustice and with longings to liberate the oppressed, whereas their call for world evangelization lacks a comparable passion. As for COWE, its almost exclusive preoccupation with evangelism led to the issue of “A Statement of Concerns,” which originated with Third World evangelical leaders but was quickly signed by a widely representative group of more than 200 others. Although it recognized the useful work done since Lausanne by the committee’s Strategy and Theology groups, it went on to criticize it for seeming to have gone back on the Lausanne Covenant’s commitment to both evangelism and sociopolitical involvement, and for not being “seriously concerned with the social, political and economic issues … that are a great stumbling block to the proclamation of the Gospel.”

The LCWE’s executive, to whom the “Statement of Concerns” was addressed, invited three of its leading signatories to meet them and elaborate their criticisms, and was able to assure them that it had no intention of going back on the Lausanne Covenant. Indeed, the Thailand Statement (overwhelmingly endorsed by the participants on the last day, with only one dissenter) includes these sentences: “Although evangelism and social action are not identical, we gladly reaffirm our commitment to both, and we endorse the Lausanne Covenant in its entirety. It remains the basis of our common activity, and nothing it contains is beyond our concern, so long as it is clearly related to world evangelization.” It then goes on to reaffirm the covenant’s declaration that “in the church’s mission of sacrificial service evangelism is primary,” and explains the reason for this primacy in the following terms: “This is not to deny that evangelism and social action are integrally related, but rather to acknowledge that of all the tragic needs of human beings none is greater than their alienation from their Creator and the reality of eternal death for those who refuse to repent and believe.”

Meanwhile, can anything be done to dissipate the current confusion? My friend David Hesselgrave (see “Tomorrow’s Missionaries,” July 18 issue), while saying that he thinks it permissible to opt for my wide definition of “mission” as “everything the church is sent into the world to do,” asks whether I mean to involve “missionaries” in this “everything,” and invites me to be explicit on this point. I am happy to oblige.

It seems to me important to distinguish between polarization and specialization. That is, although we should not polarize on this issue—some Christians defining mission in terms of evangelism and others in terms of social action—we must accept the reality that God calls some to specialize in the former, and others in the latter. The early church first recognized this when the apostles affirmed that their special calling was pastoral (the ministry of the Word and prayer), while the seven were appointed to the social work of caring for the widows (Acts 6). Paul’s doctrine of the body of Christ, with all members gifted for different ministries, confirms and universalizes this truth.

Nevertheless, how can legitimate specialization be prevented from driving wedges yet more deeply between evangelism and social action? I have three suggestions to make.

First, in general terms, in spite of our specialist callings, every Christian is sent into the world as both a witness and a servant. Whenever we see someone in need, whether that need is spiritual or physical or social, if we have the wherewithal to meet it, we must do so; otherwise we cannot claim to have God’s love dwelling in us (1 John 3:16). Often people have more than one need, and if we love them with God’s love we shall do our utmost to relieve their needs. It is then, too, that they are most likely to believe. Verbal witness is not enough. As Jesus said, it is when people “see our good works” that our light shines most brightly and will give glory to our heavenly Father (Matt. 5:16).

Second, each local church should be involved in both evangelism and social action. Since God calls and gifts different people for different ministries, it seems a logical deduction that those with similar gifts and callings should coalesce into specialist study and action groups and be encouraged to concentrate on their particular God-given ministries. At the same time, they should be given regular opportunities to report back to the whole congregation, so that the body of Christ may know what its different members are up to and may support them with encouragement and prayer.

Third, what about missionaries? It is agreed that they neither can do everything (for lack of time and energy), nor should give themselves to any ministry for which they have not been gifted and called, nor should they meddle in the politics of their host country (unless specifically requested by national Christians), since they are guests and aliens in it. Nevertheless, because missionaries have come to identify with another country, all its people’s needs and aspirations should arouse their sympathetic concern. They cannot close their eyes to local poverty or hunger, disease or drought, bad farming or exploitation. What, then, should they do if these needs remain unmet, and if they remain convinced of their own continuing calling to evangelism? Should they not do, in principle, what the apostles did in Acts 6, namely take steps to ensure that others are appointed to do the social work to which they have not been called?

My personal belief is that we should develop many more mission teams, so that evangelists, teachers, doctors, agriculturalists, social workers, and relief and development experts can work together in the name of Jesus Christ, offering a humble, holistic service to the whole neighborhood to which they have been called.

John R. W. Stott is rector emeritus of All Souls Church, London, England.