The abortion debate has been a peculiar tug-of-war, often finding church groups on opposite sides. Roman Catholic and a growing number of evangelical organizations are fighting to change the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark ruling, Roe v. Wade, which gave women the constitutional right to an abortion (with states unable to protect fetal life until the third trimester of pregnancy). At the same time, many mainstream Protestant groups are pulling to maintain a woman’s freedom of choice regarding abortion.

Most denominations that had national assemblies this summer spoke to the abortion issue, and the so-called prolife and prochoice groups have religiously pursued their respective causes.

The United Presbyterian Church reaffirmed its position favoring a woman’s right to personal choice regarding abortion—rejecting an explicit prolife resolution. The Southern Baptists, on the other hand, took a strong stand against permissive abortion. Its convention delegates favored adoption of a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortion except in instances to save the mother’s life.

Most of the prolife groups in the Protestant mainstream are ad hoc: Lutherans for Life, Methodists for Life, and Presbyterians Prolife, to name a few. Denominational prochoice support has come mostly from official boards and agencies: the United Methodist Women’s Division, and the United Presbyterian Council on Women and the Church, for example.

Prolife groups cheered the Supreme Court’s June 30 decision upholding the constitutionality of the so-called Hyde Amendment. Named for its original sponsor, Congressman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), the four-year-old measure bans Medicaid financing of all abortions except those necessary to save a mother’s life, or in cases of promptly reported rape or incest.

The Supreme Court rejected a January lower court ruling by New York Federal District Court Judge John F. Dooling, Jr., who said the amendment violated the constituional rights of poor women. While acknowledging a woman’s right to abortion, the Supreme Court declared that this freedom does not give a woman the constitutional claim to money to pay for the abortion.

The high court rejected arguments that the Hyde Amendment violated First Amendment prohibitions against either free exercise or establishment of religion. Dooling had ruled the amendment a violation of free exercise of religion. He said that some religions such as certain branches of Judaism, and the American Baptist and United Methodist Churches are not rigidly opposed to all abortions in the way that the Roman Catholic Church is, for instance. He argued that to deny women of these faiths the money to have an abortion might infringe on their religious rights.

During arguments before the Supreme Court, the Carter administration had argued in opposition: “The constitutional right to practice the religion of one’s choice does not entail a corresponding governmental obligation to pay the cost of conduct undertaken in fulfillment of a person’s perceived religious duties.”

The high court said the free exercise of religion argument had no legal standing, since no one had ever claimed this constitutional violation on behalf of the New York woman involved in the Dooling case, on whose behalf the suit challenging the Hyde Amendment was brought.

But matters got complicated in late July when a coalition of groups petitioned the Supreme Court for a rehearing. The court was not expected to reconsider its ruling for several weeks. Even though prolifers expected the court’s earlier decision would stick, they were upset by the delay. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (formerly HEW) notified state Medicaid agencies that financing would continue pending the outcome of the appeal.

(When in force, the Hyde Amendment would cut from 300,000 to about 2,000 the number of abortions paid for annually through federal aid. About 1 million abortions are performed every year in the U.S.)

The Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights backed the appeal of the high court’s ruling. With 26 religious member agencies, its purpose is to “safeguard the legal option of abortion,” said spokesperson April Lacy.

The RCAR was founded as (and is still) a project of the United Methodist Church, with headquarters in the United Methodist Building in Washington, D.C. While it is financed by private foundations, its membership includes committees and divisions within the United Church of Christ, the Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church U.S., and several other mainstream Protestant bodies.

The group organized in 1973 in opposition to other groups pushing for a constitutional amendment prohibiting abortions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling. Many of the latter had representatives at the eighth annual National Right to Life convention earlier this summer in Anaheim, California. The sponsoring nonsectarian National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) is pushing for a Human Life Amendment outlawing all abortions except those to save the mother’s life. So far 19 states (of the 34 needed) have voted to call a constitutional convention to consider it.

Significantly, an evangelical Protestant was chairman of this year’s meeting: Donald P. Shoemaker, an ordained Grace Brethren minister and biblical studies professor at Biola College in La Mirada, California. His goal as chairman was to build evangelical support for the prolife cause.

As he promoted the Right-to-Life meeting among evangelicals, Shoemaker said he ran into two objections. Some evangelicals stayed away because they felt the prolife cause was a “single issue,” into which they couldn’t incorporate a whole set of biblically based goals, such as evangelism.

Shoemaker, executive director of a southern California evangelical prolife group, Crusade for Life, also said others did not want to campaign against abortion if it meant joining alongside persons of different ideologies. One nationally known southern California pastor thus rejected an invitation to the convention when he heard a prominent gay rights spokesman also would be there, Shoemaker said. The 35-year-old father of two sympathized with this tension, but detected an inconsistency: “Evangelicals wouldn’t question the motivations of a fellow PTA member before helping him raise money for a bloodmobile project, for instance.”

Among evangelicals, the better-known prolife spokesmen have included theologians John W. Montgomery and Harold O.J. Brown, and Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, coauthors of Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Curtis Young is director of what is likely the largest evangelical prolife lobby—the Washington, D.C.-based Christian Action Council.

The fledgling council now has 80 local chapters nationwide, and hopes to reach 100 by 1981. In March it opened its first crisis pregnancy center in Washington, D.C. While it is not a political action committee, the CAC monitors and supports prolife legislation on Capitol Hill.

Young believes the Schaeffer-Koop book and film series has effectively awakened many evangelicals to the abortion issue. He has personally explained the prolife cause to churches and civic groups, averaging 10,000 miles of travel per month between February and June of this year for prolife speaking engagements. Young says he encourages Christians to be prepared to articulate without apology to a secular world their biblically based views against abortion.

That abortion remains for many a religious issue, not just a legal one, was evidenced at the National Right to Life Committee gathering. Demonstrators outside the convention center carried signs such as “Take the church out of my uterus,” and “Forced pregnancies increase church membership.” Prolifers inside—who included Hare Krishnas, Mormons, and secular prolifers—had signs such as “Jesus was a fetus.”

Prayer in the Public Schools

Prayer: Too Controversial for Election Year Action?

Time is running out for those who want to restore officially sanctioned prayer in public schools. The present effort in Congress to strip federal courts of jurisdiction in school prayer cases is boxed up in a House judiciary subcommittee, where it may be talked to death. Observers seemed agreed last month that in the rush and crush of business as Congress heads for adjournment and the campaign trail, the prayer issue has little chance of coming up for floor vote. Proponents of the move will then have to start all over again in the Ninety-seventh Congress next year.

In hearings in July and August, religious forces took opposing sides in the fight, with both sides insisting that freedom of religion is at stake. Representatives of mainstream denominational churches argued that the U.S. Supreme Court decisions of 1962 and 1963 banned only government mandated religious exercises from public schools, not voluntary prayer, and they urged the legislators not to breach the wall of separation between church and state. Leaders of the growing conservative movement among evangelicals and fundamentalists, however, contended that local officials and lower courts have been intimidated by the high court’s decisions, and that a virtual ban on even voluntary prayer exists in many communities as a result of a “chilling effect.”

It all began last year when Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, an ardent Southern Baptist, won Senate approval (51 to 40) of an amendment to remove school prayer matters from the federal courts’ domain. The amendment was removed from an important education bill and tacked onto a judiciary bill known as S.450. Sent to the House, S.450 languished in subcommittees for more than a year. House proponents of the measure, led by Illinois Republican Philip Crane, launched a discharge-petition drive early this year. Such a drive, if successful, would have extracted the bill from the subcommittee and brought it directly to the House floor for debate and voting. A number of television evangelists and evangelical leaders joined Crane’s campaign and urged their constituents to press their congressmen to sign the petition. Subsequently, some legislators said they received more mail on the prayer issue than on any other in all their years in politics. By early summer, more than 170 of the necessary 218 signatures had been registered.

Alarmed by the prospects (Who would want to go on record against prayer in an election year?), opponents swung into action. Subcommittee chairman Robert W. Kastenmeier (D-Wis.), an amendment foe, called for public hearings on S.450, taking the edge off the petition drive—and the heat off Congress. The legislators could tell their constituents that the bill was on its way up through normal processes. Several legislators even removed their names from the petition.

Kastenmeier, who long had chosen to ignore S.450, now called for at least two sessions of public hearings, each lasting two days, for late July and August. He cited the importance of the proposed amendment and the widespread public interest as justification for the hearings. Crane criticized the hearings as “a thinly veiled attempt to let the proponents … blow off steam.”

Two of the subcommittee’s members signed the discharge petition: Republican Carlos Moorhead of California, an evangelical Presbyterian, and Democrat Lamar Gudger of North Carolina, and they sided with forces favoring the amendment during the hearings. Kastenmeier, ranking GOP member Robert McClory of Illinois, and Democrat George E. Danielson of California expressed stern opposition to the move.

The first—and most important—set of hearings came in the midst of Judiciary Committee deliberations on what to do about Billy Carter and the Libya affair. In the confusion, schedules of speakers favoring prayer were reshuffled, and some of the strongest constitutionally oriented testimony came long after most reporters left. The impression given most readers of the secular press: advocates of prayer want the amendment passed so they can promote a religious revival in public schools. Indeed, in their testimony and in response to questions, Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ and Baptist evangelist James Robison of Texas attributed the nation’s major problems in part to divine judgment because of the Supreme Court’s ouster of God from the classroom in the 1962 and 1963 decisions. They and other proponents said they want only voluntary prayer in schools and an end to intimidation of teachers.

Robert Dugan, director of public affairs in the Washington office of the National Association of Evangelicals, said that the passage of S.450 “is necessary because of the construction put on the [1962 and 1963] decisions by the courts at all levels,” and he listed instances where lower courts struck down arrangements where students could gather voluntarily for a brief period of prayer—in one case, even before school hours. He asserted that such decisions impinge on the religious-freedom rights of those who want to engage in voluntary prayer. He also challenged the earlier testimony of Baptist leader Robert C. Campbell, who insisted that “voluntary prayer is alive and well in our schools today.”

Charles Rice, a constitutional-law specialist who teaches at Notre Dame, appeared on behalf of television preacher Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority movement and reminded the legislators that Congress on a number of occasions has drawn boundaries for federal-court jurisdiction. He clearly gained points from subcommittee members in his contention that the problem is not so much Congress’s intrusion into the judiciary, but the judiciary’s intrusion into the legislative processes.

President M. William Howard of the National Council of Churches reiterated the NCC’s long-time opposition to attempts to reverse the Supreme Court’s ruling. He charged that public school prayers are an injustice to children of minority religions and a disservice “to true religion.” Prayer, he said, is too important, too sacred, too intimate to be scheduled or administered by government.

Other speakers against the amendment insisted that a public school pupil has always had the right to engage in voluntary prayer at any time.

As in other forums where the issue has been debated, there were no clear-cut definitions of what “voluntary prayer” is in the legislative context. Is it silent only or can it be oral?

And, as a number of witnesses pointed out, what effect would S.450 really have if passed? It would not abrogate any past decision by the Supreme Court, they reminded, and state courts may continue to use the 1962 and 1963 rulings as their own guidelines.

Dugan and others, however, are convinced that if S.450 is passed, local communities can regain control over their own affairs and decide what is right for them.

EDWARD E. PLOWMAN

Draft Resistance Spreads in Churches

Churches Go on Offensive over Draft Registration

Various church groups and teachers expressed their opposition to draft registration this summer. A few indicated they would support outright resistance by young men required to register beginning July 21 at the nation’s 34,000 post offices.

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC, Quaker) and other antidraft groups staged vigils at many post offices. The AFSC has offered support to those who refuse to register and who conscientiously object to military service.

The Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Peace Section began soliciting contributions for a draft resisters fund; the money would assist Mennonite young people who suffer financial hardship resulting from their draft resistance. Spokesmen noted that refusal to cooperate with draft registration is an offense punishable by up to $10,000 in fines and five years in jail. While maximum penalties were not expected to be enforced, a spokesman noted that nonregistrants faced the possibility of costs for legal counsel and fines.

Among the historic peace churches, the 68,000-member General Conference Mennonite Church probably went the furthest in the fight against the military. At their triennial meeting in July, delegates approved court action, if necessary, that would allow employers an exemption from withholding federal taxes from employees’ paychecks. Their action was prompted by a Mennonite employee who, in 1977, asked that her full salary be paid directly to her so that in paying her taxes she could withhold as a protest that portion that would go to the military. At the time, the church felt obligated to continue tax withholding. However, a task force subsequently was appointed and its proposal—adopted by the assembly—empowered church officers to initiate a judicial action, or test case, challenging the withholding policy on grounds of First Amendment separation of church and state.

A number of mainstream denominations also spoke toward draft registration. The Lutheran Council in the U.S.A. said in a letter to pastors that “the churches stand ready to support with counseling and love” young men who feel they should not register. United Methodist peace division provided, upon written request, cards on which young men could state and then file with the denomination their conscientious objector status prior to registration.

On July 20 a group of 36 religious leaders condemned draft registration in a signed statement, partly because they believe it to be the first step toward a military draft. They urged young men to “consider seriously the moral implications of registration for the draft.” The signers included seven bishops and ten denominational leaders, including the United Presbyterian Church, Brethren in Christ, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), as well as the predominantly homosexual Metropolitan Community Churches, and the Unitarian Universalist Church. A number of minority leaders also signed, noting the disproportionate number of poor and minorities who serve. These included black evangelical John Perkins of Voice of Calvary Ministries.

Broadcasting

Evangelical Foray into Canadian Radio Is Nixed

Evangelical Christians who want to operate family-oriented radio stations in Canada had better be subtle about their intentions. Even subtlety might not be enough.

That conclusion could be drawn from a nine-page, July 9 decision by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC). It denied an FM station license in Vancouver, British Columbia, to Canadian Family Radio, which is headed by Ralph Jacobson, a former missionary and representative for Sudan Interior Mission who has been involved more recently in Third World development aid administrative work in Alberta.

A dissenting minority of the CRTC voted in favor of granting CFR a three-year license.

The commission’s decision was an almost complete reversal of its 16-month-old approval in principle of the Canadian Family Radio application. On February 13, 1979, the CRTC had cleared the proposal subject to further negotiations over transmitter site and power, “performance,” and frequency allocations.

Meanwhile, Interchurch Communication, representing the broadcasting units of Canadian Anglican, Federation Baptist, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and United churches, filed an intervention brief with the CRTC. The intervention cautioned that the commission appeared on the verge of licensing a “religious” radio station—a contradiction of long-standing CRTC policy.

Interchurch Communication wondered if Jacobson’s labeling of program material as “nonsectarian” could be considered a guarantee “that such programming will be of interest and benefit to all—or even a majority of—religious groups.”

Jacobson says he has recognized from the start that a religious station as such would not meet CRTC approval. The idea, he says, has been to establish an outlet responsible to traditional Judeo-Christian values.

Two Canadian Family Radio actions apparently captured the interest of Interchurch Communication and led to its intervention. In its pleas to the CRTC, Interchurch noted that Jacobson had referred to his “ministry” in an April 1979 article in Canadian Association of Christian Broadcasters’ newsletter Transmitter Views. Then, at a subsequent CRTC hearing earlier this year, Rod Booth, the United Church’s broadcast director for British Columbia, exhibited a bulletin insert CFR had distributed to churches throughout British Columbia asking that Christians pray for the venture.

As part of its 1979 approval, the CRTC had asked Jacobson for a revised promise of performance to allay the concerns of some commission members about overt religious content.

An example of CRTC concerns was Jacobson’s proposal to air 37.5 hours of nonclassical religious music each week. The nature of the programming, the commission ruled, would make the station “pervasively religious.”

While awaiting the final decision, Canadian Family Radio spent some $200,000, some of it in converting a former Canadian Broadcasting Corporation studio in centrally located Hotel Vancouver. Jacobson says work on the studio proceeded on the basis of witnessed assurances from Pierre Camu, former CRTC chairman, that the approval in principle was tantamount to a license as soon as the stipulations had been satisfied.

After hearing of the license turndown, Jacobson said some of the difficulty seemed to relate to the commission’s insistence that religious music constitutes religious programming. “In line with what we understood to be the commission’s policy, we determined gaps in the present broadcast service and found that sacred music was, indeed, lacking,” Jacobson told this reporter.

LLOYD MACKEY

Personalia

The biweekly publication of preacher Jerry Falwell’s conservative lobby, Moral Majority, recently gave four pages to a controversy between Falwell and fundamentalist educators Bob Jones, Jr., and his son. Bob Jones III. The newspaper published a letter said to have been written by Bob Jones, Jr., to June 1980 Bob Jones University graduates, in which he called Falwell “the most dangerous man in America today as far as biblical Christianity is concerned.” He stated Falwell’s Moral Majority is “one of Satan’s devices to build the world church of Anti-Christ.” In his own letter of defense, Falwell rebutted Jones’s criticisms point by point, characterized them as vitriolic, and noted Jones’s tendency to make sharp attacks against other church and political leaders.

A Harvard paleontologist has implicated the late French Jesuit author and philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in the notorious Piltdown Man hoax. Writing in Natural History, Stephen Jay Gould says his year of study showed strong evidence that de Chardin was an active and willing accomplice of British naturalist Charles Dawson, who in 1912 “found” the first of two skulls with a humanlike cranium and an ape-like jaw near Piltdown, England. Until 1953, when it was discovered the remains were a fabrication of human and ape bones, the find was hailed as the missing link. Gould suspects de Chardin was caught in a youthful joke that got out of hand.

A lawyer has joined the full-time staff of the National Association of Evangelicals Office of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. Forest Montgomery, taking an early retirement after 25 years in the federal government (the last 15 in the treasury department), earlier this month became counsel to the public affairs office. Associate director Floyd Robertson, with NAE for the last 20 years, retired in August.

The 50-member Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization reelected evangelist Leighton Ford as chairman in a meeting following the 10-day international gathering in late June in Pattaya, Thailand. Secretary Gottfried Osei-Mensah remains in charge of the LCWE office in Nairobi, Kenya.

Airline executive James O. Plinton said he wanted to put Christ back into the Young Men’s Christian Association soon after becoming president of the national council of the YMCAS of the U.S.A. Now the black Southern Baptist layman has another restoration project. As new executive director of the Miami (Florida) Metropolitan Fellowship of Churches, largely inactive in recent years, he is heading up there—in the aftermath of rioting this summer—the group’s first major service project in a decade. Project Reconciliation is a $100,000 effort to enable eight, mostly black congregations to offer summer youth programs and provide blacks a framework for communication with church and city leaders.

Denominations

A Sticky Summer on the Denominational Circuit

“Never do this summer what you can put off until the next.” Such a statement characterizes recently completed meetings of several denominations facing particularly sticky issues.

The 175,000-member Church of the Brethren tabled until next year a reevaluation of its 25-year-old mission policy of “indigenization.” On its main mission fields—Nigeria, Ecuador, and India—the church has encouraged national churches to be self-supporting; but some Brethren are advocating more direct U.S. church involvement. Delegates did debate the merits of church growth principles. Some members wanted a greater thrust in evangelism, and others argued that lifestyle and service are sufficient witness. The discussion was in response to a study of ways to halt diminishing Church of the Brethren membership.

A task force report indicating openness toward couples who live together outside marriage stirred up general synod delegates of the Anglican Church of Canada. The report noted a growing trend toward unwed cohabitation includes even “Christian men and women,” stating, “We must be prepared to marvel, in silence, when we see that he [God] can make ‘common law marriage,’ on occasion, a means of grace.” Many speakers opposed the report. One, from Sudbury, Ontario, said the report as much as declared, “Well done, thou good and faithful shackers up; enter into the joy of our church.”

Conservative Baptists postponed until next summer decisions on a proposed restructuring of the 37-year-old movement. Some have supported changes that would unify the Conservative Baptist Foreign Mission Society, Home Mission Society, and numerous state associations of CB churches that joined the movement as self-determining entities. These three groups have remained politically independent of each other—requiring them to conduct separate business meetings before passing resolutions or amendments. Opponents fear a centralized structure would restrict the autonomy of the 1,200 Baptist churches (membership of about 300,000) that identify with the movement.

Some denominations observed anniversaries. The Church of God (Anderson, Ind.), an outgrowth of the holiness movement within Methodism in the late nineteenth century, began a year-long centennial celebration. Beginning with five worshipers in tiny Beaverdam, Indiana, the church now has 175,000 U.S. members, and 350,000 worldwide.

The National Association of Congregational Christian Churches—formed in 1955 by Congregational churches not entering the United Church of Christ—climaxed its silver anniversary celebration at the annual meeting in Galesburg, Illinois. The movement emphasizes the autonomy of local churches, of which there are about 400.

The 3-million-member Lutheran Church in America opened its biennial meeting on the 450th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. Delegates promptly voted to change the title of the chief officer of the denomination from president to “bishop,” and of each of the 33 synods. LCA president-turned-bishop James Crumley disliked the switch, feeling Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics would be confused and think the change means an LCA shift toward understanding the office as those two churches do. Supporters believe the name bishop is more biblical and pastoral.

In other church meetings:

• The General Synod of the 350,000-member Reformed Church in America reached an important compromise regarding the ordination of women ministers. It approved changes in the Book of Church Order making clear that it is now legal for a woman to be ordained as a minister of the Reformed Church. At the same time, the synod acted to protect persons who cannot in good conscience support women’s ordination: it proposed that such persons not be required to participate in voting approval, ordaining, or installing a woman minister. These persons would not be allowed to vote against a woman’s ordination purely on the basis of sex, however, and must abstain from voting in such cases. Delegates discussed the United Presbyterian controversy over women’s ordination, and wanted a measure that would prevent divisions like those in the UPCUSA. Since the action involves amending the RCA Book of Church Order, its adoption will require a voted approval by two-thirds of the congregations.

• The 151,000-member Wesleyan Church declared practicing homosexuality to be sin, but recognized that “the grace of God is sufficient to overcome the practice of such activity.” At their quadrennial meeting in Indianapolis, delegates also took stands against abortion and the use of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco, and asked that members “exercise responsible stewardship” of their leisure time.

• Delegates at the twenty-fifth biennial meeting of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America called for a study of ways to counter the proselytizing of Greek Orthodox members by Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Analyzing his church-commissioned membership study, pollster George Gallup told delegates that Greek Orthodox young people are “searching for spiritual moorings.” He suggested they be encouraged toward Bible study, spiritual counseling, and regular prayer life.

North American Scene

United Methodism has its first woman bishop: Marjorie S. Matthews, 64, of Traverse City, Michigan. Her election in July by the UMC’s North Central Jurisdictional Conference required a record 29 ballots, then a suspension of the rules before the thirtieth, when she was elected by acclamation. Significantly, Matthews, who for the last five years has been her annual conference district superintendent, is believed to be the first elected woman bishop of any major U.S. denomination, and the first to attain this level of authority over a large ecclesiastical area within a U.S. Protestant body. She described her election to reporters as “a gigantic step for womankind and a leap in the church’s understanding of theology.” UMC women’s groups had lobbied for some time for a female bishop.

The deity of Christ issue continues to build in the Presbyterian church. A synod court has upheld the National Capitol Union Presbytery’s earlier decision to admit to a Rockville, Maryland, pastorate the transferring United Church of Christ pastor, Mansfield Kaseman. A group of pastors had appealed the decision by the presbytery (a joint United Presbyterian and Presbyterian Church in the U.S. unit), because Kaseman has refused to state without qualification that Jesus is God and had failed to satisfy their questions on other points of orthodoxy. Some local churches have already withdrawn, and others have threatened to do so, over the issue. The final outcome is pending yet another appeal—this one to the UPCUSA’s permanent judicial commission, which, says a spokesman, possibly will hear the case in January 1981.

Divinity students from Harvard and other schools learned religion by experience this summer, rather than in the classroom. Theologian Harvey Cox led a students’ group to West Virginia, where there is a mixed bag of religious groups. The students planned to spend several days (and sometimes live in the homes) with members of the large Hare Krishna settlement near Moundsville, with black fundamentalist churches, and with snake handlers, Mennonites, and fundamentalists. Cox reportedly hoped the participatory approach would in time lead to a new way to study religion that takes into account the full cultural and historical setting of each group. Harvard, Marshall University, and West Virginia College of Graduate Studies jointly sponsored the project.

The board of aldermen of Clayton, Missouri, recently nixed plans for a $9.9 million Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod headquarters building. The church had requested permission to build on the western edge of its Concordia Seminary campus, but neighbors had opposed the project as “a commercial office building” in a residential area that would increase traffic and lower property values.

The church summer financial slump has extended to refugee sponsorships. Relief agencies report difficulty in finding sponsors, particularly for single Cuban refugees. The reason is because congregations have traditionally sponsored families, not singles, and because some churches fear reports of a high number of criminals among the refugees, spokesmen say.

Baylor University has settled its year-long textbook controversy. Amid charges that the textbook People of the Covenant, coauthored by Baylor religion department chairman H. J. Flanders, presented Adam and Eve as symbols rather than historic figures and Jonah as allegory, the school conducted a review of the religion department and its texts. That review culminated in trustee board acceptance of a 10-point Academic Affairs Committee report. The Bible, it says, will be the text for required Bible survey courses. People of the Covenant may still be used if desired by the professor as a reference book. In the Old Testament course, “not less than three reference books shall be adopted.” The statement affirmed the infallibility of Scripture and urged the school to hire only religion professors who support it.

A Roman Catholic TV magazine show is scheduled to debut this fall, and its thrust, says producer Martin Doblmeier, is “evangelization through example.” The pilot program focused upon Washington, D.C., priest Horace McKenna’s work among the city’s poor. The then yet-to-be-named show, financed with $195,000 from the church’s communication campaign, was to be carried so far by stations in 22 of the total 168 U.S. dioceses; each will pay a participatory fee as member of a TV cooperative. The diocese will secure local air time and will also produce a local story to go along with the national feature that will be aired in all participating dioceses.

Protestant communication ventures include the United Methodist Church’s continuing involvement in commercial television. Separate search committees looked for an executive and a professional fund-raising organization for its $25 million project aimed at first buying a commercial TV station. The new United Presbyterian program “Video I: The Presbyterian Television Magazine,” had its debut June 8 on 430 cable systems via RCA Satcom I, inaugurating the Presbyterian Satellite Network. Second and third installments are scheduled for September 7 and November 9.

The Unitarian Universalist Fellowship invited controversial Roman Catholic theologian Hans Küng to join their ranks, but Küng declined. In his reply, Küng said he will continue studies toward a Unitarian point of view, “going back to the original intention of the New Testament.” But, he said, they would understand how such a membership “would be misunderstood.”

Deaths

Eric M. North, 92, general secretary of the American Bible Society from 1928 to 1956, and a founder in 1946 and former chairman of the international United Bible Societies; July 25, in Washington, D.C.

Hector Espinoza Garza, 46, a respected Mexican Bible teacher, who was Latin America coordinator for the California-based funding and training agency for Christian nationals, Christian Nationals Evangelism Commission, and a former Mexico director of World Literature Crusade; July 20, near San Luis Potosi, Mexico, in a car collision that also killed his wife, Teresa.

Faith healing, army building, and the hotel business.

Pentecostal evangelist Morris Cerullo is better known in Nigeria than in, say, North Dakota. The 48-year-old, Assemblies of God-ordained minister has been known to draw audiences of more than 200,000 for a single service in Third World countries. In an interview, Cerullo said of his popularity overseas, “If I were to go to Indonesia tomorrow, no less than 50,000 would turn out.”

Among Christians in the United States, Cerullo’s name was little recognized, especially until recent years. Even in San Diego—headquarters of Morris Cerullo World Evangelism (MCWE) since its 1960 founding—residents, when questioned, seem to know little about their home town’s faith-healing evangelist.

But recent shifts may bring MCWE greater visibility in the U.S. In 1970, in response to one of a number of self-professed personal messages from God, the stocky five-foot, seven-inch evangelist felt led to a greater North American emphasis. MCWE increased its number of meetings in the U.S. and Canada; at least 15 are scheduled this year.

Trademarks of Cerullo’s meetings are: healings, with on-the-spot testimonials of their validity; clapping and exuberant worship; attenders anointed with oil; and a concluding salvation altar call. In the U.S., local church support for Cerullo is mostly Pentecostal and charismatic, although he frequently makes interdenominational appeals and says Roman Catholics and ethnic peoples are among his strongest supporters.

Cerullo says his organization now takes in $10 million annually—no paltry amount, considering that many evangelicals say they’ve never heard of him.

In earlier years Cerullo sought to avoid publicity. Now, MCWE’s ICI Advertising Agency helps promote Cerullo’s crusades, his more than 30 books, his TV ventures, and the recently established School of Ministry—a three-month program similar in concept to the training offered in the past to national church leaders during Cerullo’s overseas crusades. Cerullo claims to have trained more than 125,000 national church leaders since 1962: “we have been the pioneers … we are on the cutting edge,” he said. About 40 nations were represented among the 313 students who finished the most recent school session in San Diego.

The school’s announced goal was “raising up [of] 10 million soldiers in God’s army in 10 years.” This lofty goal prompted a requirement that applicants promise to share Cerullo’s teachings with at least 100 others after graduation. Cerullo says students are taught to become “proof producers,” who are able to go out and “work the works of God” (healings, deliverances, and miracles). His mobilization of Christians began in earnest in 1962 in Pôrto Alegre, Brazil, when he says God told him, “Son, build me an army.”

In San Diego, Cerullo’s visibility began increasing two years ago—up almost 20 stories—when MCWE purchased the landmark El Cortez Hotel and Convention Center Complex. Covering about four city blocks, the property includes several hotels with a total of 500 guest rooms, parking structures, offices, and shops.

MCWE paid a bargain price of $7.5 million for the choice, downtown property, and so far has spent about $4 million more to upgrade the facilities, which had fallen into disrepair. About $1 million went for a high-technology, electronic learning center in the School of Ministry, which is located there. (MCWE publicity describes the property as a “beautiful 25 million dollar campus.”)

While Cerullo says MCWE bought the property “basically for the school,” his organization seems equally interested in the commercial aspects of the El Cortez. (MCWE is itself a nonprofit corporation, while the center is profit making.)

Spokesmen for the organization say an additional $5 million will be spent for renovations, to be directed by recently hired specialists Harriet and Tony Drago. MCWE intends to make the El Cortez a first-class, deluxe facility capable of entertaining overnight guests, as well as businessmen’s and religious conventions. Partly to compensate for its rule against alcohol, the hotel will serve “the finest gourmet food in San Diego,” said Jerry Cummings, general manager of Cerullo’s ICI Advertising Agency. (The center is a curious mix of religious and secular. MCWE’s “I Care Prayer Chapel,” with its “Wall of Intercession” designed after Jerusalem’s Western Wall, is adjacent to the hotel swimming pool and exercise rooms. MCWE’s “Chapel in the Sky” stands where a bar used to be.)

In fact, the hotel business has put a squeeze on the school. Three school sessions were planned for 1980, but the third has been dropped. Only one three-month session is planned for 1981, from January through March—slow months in the hotel business. Drago told a reporter the three-month system would work better than if they tried to have students, tourists, and conventions at the same time.

This wasn’t the first change of plans for the school, which has undergone several top leadership changes in its short, 18-month existence. MCWE had planned originally to build the school on its 228-acre property north of San Diego. In January 1979 the San Diego City Council granted MCWE a conditional use permit to construct and operate a religious and retirement center on the property. Besides the school, MCWE intended to build a 9,000-square-foot visitors center, a 6,000-seat worship center, a 1,000-student parochial school, a 340-bed convalescent center, a 150,000-square-foot office facility, and 260 hillside villas.

Two years ago Cerullo told the New York Times that several million dollars had already been pledged toward the then-anticipated $100 million project. Now those dollars will go elsewhere. Just to prepare the property for construction would cost $40 million, and the total package would cost at least $200 million, Cerullo said, and the organization got what it needed—and much cheaper—by buying the El Cortez. Because of that, MCWE has made known the 228 acres are for sale. A sizeable profit will probably be made—property values having increased since MCWE bought the land for a reported $4,000 per acre (about $912,000) in the early 1970s.

MCWE’s various investments have aroused local curiosity, if nothing else. Cerullo dismisses suspicions regarding MCWE spending, and says his organization is financially accountable. He said in an interview that his annual salary is $18,000 and that MCWE has an annual outside audit by a nationally recognized firm.

Media director David Balsiger resigned in 1972, as did at least 10 other executives at about the same time. Balsiger alleged in his resignation letter that, among other things, Cerullo employed unethical procedures and misused donor funds. Current board member George Ekeroth, who left the MCWE staff recently after 16 years to become executive director of the new Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies and Research, called such allegations “completely untrue.”

Ekeroth did acknowledge observations sometimes voiced by former and present staff members about Cerullo’s power within MCWE. The organization is essentially “a one-man management operation,” and “that can be either a plus or a minus,” he said in a recent interview. Cerullo and his wife, Theresa, comprise two-fifths of the five-member MCWE board. Remaining members are California Assembly of God minister Paul Trulin, and controversial preacher Charles Blair of Calvary Temple in Denver.

The organization has experienced some rocky personnel shifts. Within the past two years, chairman Jim Martin and a number of others on the 50-member-plus board of elders resigned. An editor of MCWE’s 175,000-circulation Deeper Life magazine, a public relations advance man, and several other executives also resigned. Cerullo’s eldest son, David, formerly a special assistant to his father, left the organization for other work, and his daughter, Susan, former MCWE personnel director, married and moved to Toronto, advertising director Cummings said.

Discipleship/shepherding teacher Ern Baxter left the school’s teaching staff after a short stint. Cerullo said Baxter left because of ill health. Other MCWE sources indicate Baxter left partly because at least one local church threatened to cut off its support if Baxter remained. (Discipleship/shepherding teachings are controversial among charismatics, and Cerullo said in an interview that Baxter had agreed not to teach that subject at the school.)

When the school first opened early in 1979, some students complained that actual course offerings failed to match those described in the school catalogue. A present faculty member remembers that “any resemblance to the school catalogue was purely coincidental.” Students interviewed at the campus in July seemed unanimous in their praise of Cerullo and the school. The internationals travel to San Diego at their own expense, but MCWE provides scholarships to many to help meet the $1,800 tuition and board fee charged to all students.

Like many Christian organizations today, MCWE began as a tiny “Mom and Pop” operation and later grew into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. MCWE began in 1960 in the Cerullo garage, which had been converted into a mailing room for literature. Prior to that, he held pastorates in a New Hampshire Assembly of God church (1952–1953) and in South Bend, Indiana’s Calvary Temple (1959).

Cerullo’s Jewish mother died when he was two years old, and his Italian father—described by Cerullo as an alcoholic—was unable to care for the family’s five children. All were placed in foster homes as wards of the state. At an orthodox Jewish orphanage in Clifton, New Jersey, Morris received religious instruction and a bar mitzvah ceremony.

However, a Pentecostal staff nurse, with whom he became acquainted, witnessed to him. When a routine locker check uncovered a Pentecostal magazine given to him by the nurse, she was dismissed, and Morris, then 14, decided to run away. He recalls two angels leading him for several miles in a blinding storm to where his friend, the former nurse, was waiting for him. The following Sunday evening, at Bethany Assembly of God Church in Paterson, New Jersey, Cerullo says he was baptized with the Holy Spirit, and the spiritual gifts of tongues, interpretation, and prophecy were bestowed upon him. About six months later, in the same sanctuary, Cerullo says he had a vivid experience of God’s presence, and heard a prophetic message that he believes called him to a worldwide ministry.

Cerullo says God has told him to present the gospel to every Jew on earth before Christ’s return. In what he calls a “miracle,” MCWE once was given Israel’s entire voter registration list of 500,000 names; since then, MCWE reportedly has used this to send three mass mailings of missionary material. Cerullo says 25,000 Jews receive his Israel Bible correspondence course on a regular monthly basis.

Prophecy is a main staple of Cerullo’s writings and teachings. Calling himself “a very strong believer in knowing the seasons,” Cerullo says he uses his prophetic gift to prepare Christians for the end times, and to alert the many self-professed Christians who, if “Christ returned today, wouldn’t make it.” He cites various world and economic problems when describing the “great shaking” that has started. (He predicts a Soviet invasion of Israel within three to five years.) With a contribution, donors can receive Cerullo’s “confidential prophecy [telephone] hotline card.” The telephone recording, updated monthly, gives “an up-to-date six minute prophecy by Morris Cerullo on today’s happenings.”

Other fund-raising tools and giveaways have included a “Scripture victory wheel,” a “Masada medallion,” and a set of 12-ounce, crystal goblets, each with a different disciple’s picture.

Some San Diego residents have questioned MCWE’s investments and methods, said a San Diego Union reporter. However, there is no evidence to allege wrongdoing, and people should not criticize Cerullo because of his methods, the reporter said. “If he wants to give away crystal goblets, that’s his business.”

JOHN MAUST with MARJORIE CHANDLER

Ghana

Impending Merger Raises a Flurry of Resistance

With the inauguration of the proposed Church of Christ in Ghana (CCG) only four months away, the union is inundated with problems. Some lay- and clergymen are threatening to secede if their churches join the union.

Last December, C. G. Baeta, a former head of the Department of the Study of Religions at the University of Ghana and chairman of the Ghana Church Union Committee, announced at a press conference that three denominations—the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and the Methodist Church, Ghana—would merge on January 4, 1981. The committee has been negotiating the merger—which would encompass a quarter of Ghana’s 11.7 million population—for the last 22 years.

Church union negotiations in Ghana began in 1955 when the Christian Council of the then Gold Coast invited Bishop Sumitra, moderator of the Church of South India—a united church in a developing country—to visit Ghana and share his experiences in formation of the new church.

The first meeting of the committee was held in 1957, and conversations continued through 1979. During the process, however, the Diocese of the Church of the Province of West Africa (Anglican)—one of the four churches originally committed to the union—withdrew.

Since the merger announcement was made, there has been strong argument both for and against the union.

Some ministers and elders have threatened to establish a Reformed Methodist denomination if their mother church joins the union. Although the Methodist Church voted 84 percent in favor of the union at its last conference, they argue that the procedure (voting by raising of hands) was undemocratic.

A group of Methodists describing themselves as “silent majority spokesmen” have called on the three churches to review immediately the concept of union. These spokesmen suggest there are more urgent priorities for the church than union, including the “spiritually sick state of the church, morally degenerated leaders within its institutions, the grip of poverty and hunger on Ghanaian society, and an analysis of the reasons behind the mass flow of traditional church membership into the so-called [indigenous, Ghana-based] spiritual churches.” They also hinted that the proposed union could stir up tribal antagonisms. They called for a referendum on the proposal, which would be preceded by effective mass education.

From the Presbyterian Church, a group of antichurch unionists has vowed to oppose the drive for unity during this year’s synod at Kumasi. The members called the inauguration date unsuitable “because no proper education has been done.”

Some members of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church belittle the church union concept, feeling that the Christian Council already unites them in principle. Others see it as a platform to unite Christians. One layman asked, “If the two sister Presbyterian churches could never unite because of language differences, why should they now unite in a larger grouping?”

The public relations officer for the CCG, clergyman Ossei-Akoannor, confirmed the threat by some ministers to form a Reformed Methodist Church, but described them as “a minority.” However, he admitted failings in the process of educating about church union.

Meanwhile, the moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ghana, I. H. Frimpong, has declared that church union has come to stay and “there is no turning back.” Addressing a specially called meeting of Presbyterian Church pastors in Accra, Frimpong appealed to the ministers of the three denominations to give full support and unflinching cooperation to the union.

The president of the Methodist Church, E. B. Essamuah, also appealed to all Christians to support church union because “it will wipe away tribalism in the country.”

G. B. K. OWUSU

Mexico

Back to the Bad Old Days Out in the Pueblos

A small group of evangelical families, including some out-of-town guests, were holding a Sunday evening service during July in the rural Mexican town of San Nicolás de Guadalupe. Suddenly two trucks screeched to a stop outside. Dozens of men armed with such weapons as axes, clubs, and stones jumped down and began attacking both the house and the believers; other townspeople joined the fray.

The result was 15 persons wounded—some suffered fractures—three badly damaged cars, and a house with nothing—not even the kitchen stove—left intact.

Mexican missionary Norberto Cortes reported that although two believers escaped to try to seek help, no one in the entire town was willing to intervene on their behalf. Observers assumed they were reluctant to oppose the anti-Protestant vendetta they believed was instigated by the local Roman Catholic priest. Cortes noted that Red Cross ambulances carried off some of the wounded, but that otherwise the authorities in the entire region of San Felipe del Progreso, in the state of Mexico, ignored the evangelicals’ pleas for justice.

In a curious sequel the following Sunday, the only non-Christian man in an evangelical San Nicolás family was confronted by townspeople and killed “for being a believer.”

The incident came unavoidably to the attention of the state government when some 800 Pentecostals gathered in front of the capitol in Toluca with placards and banners. The believers publicly accused San Nicolá’s town president of directing the attack and declared their intention of continuing to live in the hostile community. The National Committee for Evangelical Defense also sent a delegation from Mexico City to Toluca to assure that justice would be done.

Although no believers died in San Nicolás, another incident last May in the Atlantic state of Veracruz was more violent. A prominent believer in the small Church of God in San Jorge Atitla Omealca was murdered, his brother kidnapped (and still missing in August), and both their wives kidnapped for a short period.

The Reformed Evangelical Synod

Reformed Group Keeps Unity Without Ducking the Issues

Meeting in the historic Protestant city of Nimes, France, in July, 100 delegates from the 38 member churches of the Reformed Evangelical Synod succeeded in maintaining both confessional integrity and unity.

It was not a foregone conclusion. A number of issues had been troubling the RES, a grouping of evangelical Calvinist denominations with a combined membership of about 5.5 million. The issues included race relations, membership in the World Council of Churches, and doctrinal developments in one of its members, the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands. Added to these long-standing issues was a new one—homosexuality.

Communications from a number of Presbyterian churches indicated they might withdraw if the synod failed to take a strong stand on crucial issues. There were also rumors that the Indonesian churches would withdraw if dual membership in the RES and WCC were made impossible or if the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands were pressured to withdraw. The stage was set for crisis.

General Secretary Paul C. Schrotenboer expressed concern in his opening report that excessive attention to internal problems would prevent the churches from undertaking their service together in the world. He urged the synod to spend more time in prayer, and it did.

In the end all but one or two major decisions were made without dissent. Several factors led to the favorable outcome. One was the series of conferences—prior to and during the first week of the synod—on missions, youth work, church-state relations, and gospel broadcasting. In these the delegates caught the vision of a united testimony, with their shared tradition and evangelical position, that they can bear effectively only together.

A second factor was the procedure of thoroughly and unhurriedly discussing the issues first in small representative committees before they were debated in plenary sessions. With but two exceptions, each committee came with a unanimous report to the synod and all reports were adopted with relatively slight changes.

A third factor was the broadening of ecumenical interest, especially in the World Evangelical Fellowship. Possibilities of fruitful cooperation between the WEF and the RFS seemed to decrease the tension over WCC membership.

The synod:

• adopted a lengthy declaration on the social calling of the church, and combined evangelism and the diaconal task in one word/deed undertaking;

• urged member churches in South Africa to work to remove structures of social injustice, but otherwise kept hands off this subject so as not to impede current internal grappling with this issue among the four South African member churches from the Dutch Reformed tradition;

• dealt partially with the “new theology” emanating from the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (the synod satisfied itself that the Dutch church had repudiated the teaching of Herman Wiersenga, which holds there was no actual atonement for sin by Christ but that he had instead suffered shock; but it deferred, pending further reporting, action on controversial teaching spread by Harry Kuitert on the authority of the Scriptures);

• labeled all homosexual practice sin;

• agreed to establish closer relationships with the WEF, and authorized one more study on dual WCC-RES membership;

At the end of the assembly, moderator John P. Galbraith expressed thanks to the Lord for the way his Spirit had led the synod. The hours were long, the feelings ran deep, and the differences were not all resolved; but the Nimes synod that began with a service of prayer was able to conclude with a united expression of praise.

World Scene

The Vatican has issued a call for a major redistribution of Roman Catholic priests throughout the world. In a July report, their uneven distribution was dramatized by noting that two clusters of nations, Europe and North America, and Latin America and the Philippines, each account for 45 percent of the Catholic population. But the northern cluster is served by 77.2 percent of available priests, while the southern cluster is served by only 12.6 percent. The document proposes that “rich” and “poor” dioceses could be paired, with the bishops from both and the priests concerned working out binding agreements on the terms of redeployment. The declining ratio of priests to the Catholic population—from one to 1,400 in 1962 to one to 1,800 in 1977—has aggravated the distribution problem.

In a surprise decision by its general synod, the Church of England agreed to initiate dialogue with the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches about women’s ordination. None of the three churches have women priests. Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie, who appears more inclined toward ecumenical exploration with “our episcopally ordered brethren” than with Protestants, supported the move. The synod also gave a cool reception to new proposals for linking five British churches in a unity convenant, merely “taking note” of the churches’ Council for Covenanting report.

Britain has lifted its 12-year-old ban on the entry of Scientologists. The government announcement in July is expected to lead to a flow of hundreds of adherents of the Church of Scientology sect to its world headquarters, located in Sussex on a luxurious 55-acre estate that once belonged to the Maharajah of Jaipur.

An association of Flemish Protestants was formed recently in Belgium. The Flemish Evangelical Alliance was launched at the Antwerp meeting, with provision for denominations, local churches, parachurch organizations, and individuals to join. Clergymen Jean du Meunier of Mechelen and B. C. Carp of Antwerp were elected chairman and secretary, respectively.

The Evangelical Church of the Union (EKU) voted recently to enter into full communion with the United Church of Christ, U.S.A. Synods of the EKU in West and East Germany have a combined 12 million members and are descended from the Evangelical Church of the Prussian Union, which merged Lutheran and Reformed congregations in 1817. German immigrants from this church formed the Evangelical Synod of North America, which merged to form the Evangelical and Reformed Church in 1934, and again in 1957 to form the United Church of Christ. The EKU is exploring full communion with other United Churches, but creation of another world confession fellowship is not envisioned.

Publication of an open letter by Russian Orthodox Priest Dmitri Dudko in the July News Bulletin of the Moscow Patriarchate confirms his startling “confession” on Moscow television in June. Addressing Patriarch Pimen, Dudko wrote that his dissident activities were “mere sensation seeking or political intrigue,” and asked forgiveness for his “folly … insults … the sorrow I have caused you.”

Seminary students in Hungary are being punished for participating in religious group activities and carrying out pastoral work among university students. One seminarian at the Theological Seminary in Budapest was refused ordination by Istvan Bagi, auxiliary bishop and rector of the seminary. Fifteen other seminarians appealed on his behalf to the Hungarian Episcopal Conference. As the case had caused a sensation among believers, the bishop decided to avoid further controversy by allowing the ordination after all. But he penalized the 15 other seminarians by sending them back to their dioceses and banning them from further study at the seminary.

Another leader in the Seventh-Day Adventist movement in the Soviet Union has been arrested. Rostislav Galetsky, 32, who had been living in hiding for five years, was apprehended in July in Leningrad. He had been an active evangelist of the All Union Church of the True and Free Seventh-Day Adventists, and may have been the designated successor to leader Vladimir Shelkiv, who died last January in a Soviet labor camp.

The Turkish government announced in July that it would reopen Istanbul’s famed Aya Sofya Mosque for prayers for the first time in 45 years. The mosque, a Byzantine church in pre-Ottoman times, has been a museum since 1935 when Turkey became a secular state. Culture Minister Tevfik Koraltan said the return to religious use of the mosque—apparently a move aimed at appeasing Muslim fundamentalists—would occur toward the end of the holy month of Ramadan (in July).

The World Muslim League is pushing the Koran and its recitation among Muslims living outside the traditional Muslim sphere. The league, with headquarters in Mecca, has made 3.4 million copies of the Koran available to this diaspora in the last few months. A spokesman said that the Saudi Arabian government has decided to establish a modern Koran printing press in Medina and announced production of a further 5 million copies. Also, for the first time, the league has sent 31 Koran reciters to the non-Islamic world—people specially trained to “recite” passages from the Koran in the approved modified chanting style. An additional 100 reciters are being trained.

The total of new believers among Cambodian (Kampuchean) refugees has reached 26,000, according to a recent report in the Alliance Witness. Fifty-three congregations, scattered throughout the refugee camps in Thailand, have resulted from the awakening that is continuing in them.

Western Christian educators will begin teaching later this month in five Chinese cities. But, reported the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, “They are going largely without Bibles, without buildings of their own, and without illusions about the role they can play in the People’s Republic.” Representatives of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, the Yale-China Association, the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association, and the Lingnan Board will be teaching in Changsha, Wuhan, Taigu, Taiyan, and Lanzhou. Nathan Pusey, president of the United Board, which formerly governed 13 Christian universities in China, and president emeritus of Harvard University, was quoted as saying, “We are not interested in starting Christian institutions of our own. And we are not interested in proselytizing.”

The prime minister of the world’s newest nation, Vanuatu, is a clergyman—and so is his defeated rival. Walter Lini, an Anglican, was sworn in on July 30 as prime minister of the some 70 islands in the South Pacific formerly known as the New Hebrides. The islands had been jointly administered by the British and French. Lini defeated Roman Catholic priest Gerard Leymang, who represented the French influence. A month earlier a local chief, Jimmy Stevens, led a group of French-speaking separatists in a takeover of the largest island, Espiritu Santo, and attempted to secede. Leymang then came out in support of the secession attempt, which was quashed.

‘Imperialism,’ cry the Marxists; ‘ethnocide,’ cry the anthropologists.

Fifty Americans penetrating remote jungles, winning the confidence of the Indians, changing their customs and religion.… Such a scenario makes for conflict, even in Venezuela, the most democratic of Latin American countries.

In its latest attacks against New Tribes Mission workers in Venezuela, the national press has deployed its full arsenal. Lurid headlines in virtually all of the country’s newspapers accuse the missionaries of intelligence activities, coercion, sabotage of natural resources, imperialism, and ethnocide. These are worn accusations, almost clichés, but in the last few years they have arisen more often. “Every time this comes up it’s a little worse,” said Wilfred Neese, a second-generation missionary who represents the Sanford, Florida-based mission before the Venezuelan government.

The recent furor began in November of 1978, with the release of a short documentary film, Yo Hablo a Caracas (“I Speak to Caracas”). The film featured a Maquiritare Indian, identified as the “chief” of his tribe, who had worked with New Tribes missionaries for nine years and was now allegedly denouncing them as imperialists. It has won a prize as best short subject film.

But critics say the film is seriously flawed. The Indian spoke in his native language and people fluent in both the Maquiritare and Spanish languages called the “translation” a “script.” Also, the Indian’s tribe—which has no one chief—later censured him for cooperating with the filmmakers. The film was shown in the Venezuelan Congress, in schools, and public forums. It brought about four separate investigations: by the Congress, the state of Bolivar (where many of the missionaries live), the attorney general, and the army. As one newpaper understated, “Yo Hablo a Caracas raised some dust.”

The congressional investigation committee, which posed the greatest threat to the missionaries, was headed by Alexis Ortiz, a co-writer of the Yo Hablo a Caracas “script” and a representative of the Movement Toward Socialism party. Ortiz, one of a tiny minority of officials who want to oust the missionaries, could not persuade the majority of his colleagues to his point of view. On July 14, after months of investigation that included a trip into the jungles, Ortiz annouced his resignation from the committee. In his resignation speech he accused the Congress of catering to the evangelicals to prevent loss of their half-million votes.

“For now I think the battle’s won,” the president of the Evangelical Council of Venezuela had commented a week before Ortiz resigned. As council head, Luis Magín Alvarez has played the role of advocate for New Tribes since the investigations began. Of the seven congressmen on the committee, he said five strongly supported the mission. “We have their word,” he stated. “We have nothing to fear from the government.”

But circumstances may change. Venezuelan newspapers, which tend to be anti-American, continue printing only the attacks on missionaries (most of them made by anthropologists). As a result, the average person appears to have absorbed one idea from the headlines: the missionary is the villain. A group called Movement for an Indigenous Identity is gaining popularity.

Against this backdrop, New Tribes and the Evangelical Council are holding weekend seminars across the country to educate the national church and to work out strategy before there is another attack and probe by the Congress. “Never before has the Christian church here been so unified as over this issue,” said Neese. Church leaders see the issue as a conflict between proponents of religious freedom and a minority with antithetical, Marxist interests. It is a battle they plan to keep fighting.

“The problems I have with the New Tribes begin with their name,” one Venezuelan businessman said. “Why do they have to use the word ‘new’? It grates against one. It brings up the image of them changing the indigenous identity, of making new tribes, well, of colonizing.”

This sentiment, which represents the “gut” objection of many Latin Americans, is probably inescapable, given the way a mission such as New Tribes works. Its missionaries, who have been in Venezuela since 1946, go into the most remote areas of the country, looking for “tribes that are new to the gospel.” They build airstrips in the crevices of the mountains and jungles. They hang their hammocks among the Maquiritare, the Panare, the Yanomami, and set about learning each language and coding it into symbols. They introduce medicine, modern tools, the Venezuelan flag, and eventually the Bible.

Neese winces at the phrase “changing culture,” but he realizes that this is what the missionaries are doing. “The anthropologist, the doctor, the missionary, the nurse … anyone by walking into a village immediately brings change,” he said. He acknowledges missionaries have made mistakes in the past and in some cases were clumsy in imposing their culture, but he says now they are sensitive to the issue and show it by their work.

James Bou, director of the mission in Venezuela, wrote in a magazine article, “Our idea was not to take the indigene to civilization, but to take to him those aspects of civilization, adapted to his needs, that would benefit him in his personal and communal life.” The missionaries thus introduced the machete as a quicker way of cutting down a tree than by setting a fire around its base. They brought dentistry tools to replace two sticks to knock out teeth. They brought bilingual education (the indigenous language and Spanish) to ease the inevitable transition as Venezuela develops its interior. When people accuse them of forcing the Indians to wear clothes, missionaries bring out their pictures of naked indigenous Christians.

The missionaries do aim to change the Indians in one key aspect: religion. In an article in the Daily Journal, Venezuela’s English-language paper, a UNESCO-funded anthropologist, Dr. Leslie Sponsell, wrote that religion is the “glue” of culture, so that no matter how well-intentioned they were, the missionaries were disintegrating the indigenous culture of the Amazonas.

Neese sees anthropologists’ objections as purely pragmatic. “The Indian culture changes when the gospel comes in—as the Indian changes,” he said. “And when the culture changes, the anthropologist can’t write his thesis. That’s the problem.”

Alvarez, of the Evangelical Council, grows impatient with the argument over culture. He said that since New Tribes has worked in southern Venezuela, the missionaries’ teaching of hygiene and nutrition has increased the Indians’ life span. “To preserve the culture at the expense of sacrificing the people is inhumane,” Alvarez declared.

The missionaries teach the gospel within the cultural framework when it does not contradict Scripture, said Neese. As an example, he cited the Maquiritares—75 percent of whom are now Christians—who already have a concept of a single, benevolent god, Wanaadi, and the missionaries set about to teach the attributes of Wanaadi in more detail. But other tribes were more animistic, believing everything was infused by evil, impersonal spirits; with them the missionaries had to start from scratch.

The newspapers accuse the missionaries of spreading the gospel by coercion. One of the biggest waves of adverse publicity came when a Venezuelan linguist announced that the New Tribes translation of the Bible into Panare manipulated the Panares by accusing them of killing Christ. “The translation does say, ‘The Panare killed Christ,’ ” Neese said. “But what the linguist didn’t say was that in the Panare language, the name of their tribe is the same word they use for people. To them, that says, ‘The people killed Christ.’ ”

Some accusers have said the real job of New Tribes is not to teach the Bible at all but to infiltrate the region and spy for the U.S. government. Without naming any sources, most of the newspapers stated that the missionaries had connections with the CIA and U.S.-based multinational corporations, and that during World War II and the Korean conflict they supplied the American army with minerals from the Amazonas Territory. They add that the 15 airstrips built by the mission represent a threat to national sovereignty.

Neese denied the espionage charges and said that the mission has gone to such lengths to disassociate itself from the U.S. government that it would not even contact the American embassy in Venezuela when the pressure was on to have the missionaries expelled. He said New Tribes has always worked through the Venezuelan government—that missionaries report regularly to the Venezuelan authorities and include in their reports any suspicious activities in the region. “The best security in the Amazonas is the New Tribes Mission,” Neese said.

The latest investigations have supported the mission’s contention that since 1946, when New Tribes and Venezuela signed the agreement identifying the territory in which the missionaries could work, the enemy has not been the government, but a minority within the government. Alvarez said the opponents were Marxists who themselves wanted to control the territory for subversive activities. The Marxists want “a declaration of independence for the region” so they can supply the Indians with guns and have access to Brazil and other Latin American countries, Alvarez believes.

But, he said, the Amazonas Territory is part of Venezuela, and the missionaries only help to make it more so. They teach the indigenous peoples Spanish and introduce the concept of patriotism. Their schools and health facilities are turned over to the government. In this “satellite century,” Alvarez said, especially with recent oil discoveries further in the country’s interior, it is inconceivable that undeveloped areas can remain isolated.

“We are preparing the Indians for the oncoming culture,” Neese affirmed. He said that in Puerto Ayacucho—a town on the frontier of “civilization”—the Indians were being engulfed too quickly by the Venezuelan culture: now they not only have no identity of their own, but have learned prostitution, drunkenness, and thievery. “I’m just thankful for those who have gotten to know the outside world through the gospel first.” he said.

The front-line fighter for New Tribes in this battle has been the Evangelical Council of Venezuela, an interdenominational organization to which the mission belongs. The council has risen to the challenge to claim the right to freedom of religion. Representatives of the evangelical group have attended every official meeting on the issue. They have lobbied in government and collected an impressive list of supporters. They have spent more than $12,000—money donated by churches—on paid advertisements to counteract what Alvarez called “lopsided” journalism.

Venezuelan Christians are not unanimous in their support of missionaries, of course; Alvarez occasionally encounters opposition from nationalists within the church. “I remind them, ‘In the first place we’re Christians, in the second place we’re Venezuelans,’ ” he said.

Alvarez is fiercely supportive of American missionaries, but given the complicated accusations, he thinks the best long-term solution would be for Venezuelans to take over the New Tribes work. Although many Indians have become missionaries to their own tribes, so far only one couple from the developed area of Venezuela is training to minister to indigenous peoples. If the churches could recruit more national missionaries, the issue would be focused on freedom of religion instead of foreign sabotage. “We won’t give up the right to reach the Indians for the gospel,” Alvarez said.

Anglo and Hispanic

El Paso Churches Help Bridge the Border Gap

The muddy trickle separating El Paso, Texas, from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, has been characterized as too thin to plow and too thick to drink. For thousands of illegal Mexican immigrants, the Rio Grande River has been a wet, sometimes precarious, crosswalk. They have seeped into congregations of every denomination represented among El Paso’s 500 churches.

Anglo-Hispanic congregational mixes are the norm throughout El Paso, and church growth has been greatest among evangelical bodies. The large Southern Baptist Spanish Publishing House is located here.

Most local Hispanics are Roman Catholic. The El Paso-centered Catholic diocese includes 7 southern New Mexico and 11 west Texas counties. Nearly 75 percent of its 300,000 Catholics are of Hispanic origin, and about 90 percent of this Catholic population reside in El Paso.

Despite the Catholic predominance, Protestants increasingly are giving funds and support to Hispanic social action groups in the community. The 10-year-old Trinity Coalition intends to “empower individuals, families and groups … in new awareness to the emerging Hispanic community,” said director Manny de La Rosa.

The coalition, begun originally by the United Church of Christ, has a $390,000 annual budget. About $35,000 of that comes from the UCC, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Disciples of Christ, and Baptists; the balance comes from state matching funds. Trinity’s staff of 13 carries out an “in-home delivery system of human services,” which include children’s day care, chore services for senior citizens, and family reunification programs for new immigrants, said de La Rosa.

“The old style of ministry and missions was colonizing, in effect, at the expense of the oppressed,” he said. “The church was concerned only with preaching and teaching, not healing … and not facing the sociological realities.”

Because of its location, El Paso has become something of a testing center for church ministries that reach out to both the documented and the illegal newcomers.

Susan Buell, an Episcopal priest and divorced mother of three, is organizing a school for 6- to 12-year-old children of undocumented and monolingual families. “Often times they think I’m a nun,” said Buell, adding that the erroneous assumption helps in relating to Hispanics who are used to nuns being involved in education. The goal of the school is to teach “enough English to children so they can go into the public schools,” she said. Her involvement draws little local Episcopalian support, said Buell, noting hers is “a conservative diocese.”

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is putting together an immigrant advocacy program modeled after the highly successful U.S. Catholic Conference on Immigration (USCCI), which was established in 1924 to handle family reunification during post-Mexican revolution years.

AFSC program director Al Velarde said the USCCI last year was directly involved in obtaining 1,138 new immigrant visas, and represented 233 people in Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) deportation or exclusion hearings. He said the USCCI also made nearly 12,000 referrals to other agencies.

Of his own group, Velarde said, “We’re here to assist anyone in coming legally to the U.S.” His organization has gained the respect of local government officials. “Whenever we feel a law is wrong, we try to change it at the top,” he said.

Velarde is pleased that churches increasingly are getting involved in immigrant issues, but he believes future confrontations between church and state on immigrant matters are “unavoidable.”

The awkward church-state relationship is perhaps best evidenced at El Paso’s Centro Vida Church. Pastor Joe Salcido and Hispanic followers broke from a large charismatic congregation three years ago when “the Spanish people were beginning to outnumber the others and were resented for it.” Starting a new church with only a few dollars and members, the church now has a $200,000 annual budget and rents a building within “a stone’s throw” of the Rio Grande, said Salcido.

The church “works with about 1,000 people from all levels of life,” he said. Salcido rented the downtown Juarez bull-ring for a four-day crusade last year that he says produced 1,500 converts a night. “We’re not looking to an American gospel, we’re looking to Jesus,” said Salcido.

He admits having illegals in his congregation. “I know they’re there. We reached them through our radio program.” Meanwhile, U.S. Border Patrol agents frequently perch on Centro Vida property. With binoculars, they scan the river and opposite bank.

“The Lord gives us divine silence,” smiles one Centro Vida member.”

PETER BROCK

We cannot fix criteria of humanness and then conclude that, lacking these, the fetus is not human.

In both the United States and the United Kingdom the recent liberalization of abortion laws has become for Christians a major moral issue. In England and Wales, since David Steel’s 1967 Abortion Act, although illegal abortions have not decreased, the annual average of legal abortions has increased from 10 to more than 100,000. For every five babies born alive, one is now aborted. A human fetus is being destroyed every five minutes.

What is the issue? Proabortionists begin with the rights of the mother (especially her right to choose) and see abortion as little more than a retroactive contraceptive. Antiabortionists begin with the rights of the unborn child (especially his or her right to live) and see abortion as little less than prenatal infanticide. The former appeal particularly to compassion, and cite situations in which the mother and/or her family would suffer intolerable strain if the unwanted pregnancy were allowed to come to term. The latter appeal particularly to justice, and stress the need to defend the rights of an unborn child who cannot defend himself. But we must not set compassion and justice in opposition to one another. Compassion needs moral guidelines; without the ingredient of justice it is bound to go astray.

The moral question concerns the nature and status of the human fetus. If “it” were only a lump of jelly or blob of tissue, then of course it could be removed without qualms. But “it” is actually a “he” or “she,” an unborn child. What is the evidence for this assertion?

We begin (as we always must) with the Bible. The author of Psalm 139 looks back to the antenatal stage of his existence. Three words sum up what he affirms. First, creation. He seems to liken God both to a potter who “formed” his inmost being and to a weaver who “knit him together” in his mother’s womb (v. 13). Although the Bible makes no claim to be a textbook of embryology, here is a plain affirmation that the growth of the fetus is neither haphazard nor automatic but a divine work of creative skill.

The second word is continuity. The psalmist surveys his life in four stages: past (v. 1), present (vv. 2–6), future (vv. 7–12), and before birth (vv. 13–16), and in all four refers to himself as “I.” He who is writing as a full-grown man has the same personal identity as the fetus in his mother’s womb. He affirms a direct continuity between his antenatal and postnatal being.

The third word is communion, or relationship. Psalm 139 is arguably the most radical statement in the Old Testament of God’s personal relationship to the individual. Personal pronouns and possessives occur in the first person (I, me, my) 46 times and in the second person (you, yours) 32 times. Further, the basis on which God knows us intimately (vv. 1–7) and attaches himself to us so that we cannot escape from him (vv. 7–12) is he formed us in the womb and established his relationship with us then (vv. 13–16).

These three words supply us with the essential biblical perspective in which to think. The fetus is not a growth in the mother’s body (which can be removed as readily as her tonsils or appendix), nor even a potential human being, but a human life who, though not yet mature, has the potentiality to grow into the fulness of the humanity he already possesses. We cannot fix criteria of humanness (like self-consciousness, reason, independence, speech, moral choice, or responsive love) and then conclude that, lacking these, the fetus is not human. The newborn child and the senile old person lack these also. Nor can we draw a line at any point and say that after it the child is human and before it, not. There is no “decisive moment of humanization,” subsequent to conception, whether implantation, or “animation” (when some early fathers, building on Aristotle, supposed that the fetus receives a rational soul, a boy at about one month and a girl at about two), or “quickening” (a purely subjective notion, when the mother first feels the fetus move), or viability (which is getting earlier and earlier), or birth (when the child takes his first independent breath). All these are stages in the continuous process by which an individual human life is developing into mature human personhood. From fusion onwards the fetus is an “unborn child.”

The rest of Scripture endorses this perspective. An expectant mother is a “woman with child.” When the pregnant Elizabeth (carrying John the Baptist) was visited by the pregnant Mary (carrying Jesus) and heard her greeting, “the babe leaped in her womb for joy” (Luke 1:41, 44). The same truth is confessed in the creed, since he who “was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate” was throughout—from conception to death—one and the same “Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord.”

This biblical evaluation of the humanness of the fetus is confirmed by modern medical science. In the 1960s the genetic code was unraveled. We now know that from the moment the ovum is fertilized by the penetration of the sperm, the zygote has a unique genotype distinct from both parents. The 23 pairs of chromosomes are complete. The sex, size, and shape, the color of skin, hair, and eyes, the intelligence and temperament of the child are already determined. At 3 to 3½ weeks the tiny heart begins to beat. At 4 weeks, although the embryo is only a quarter of an inch long, the head and body are distinguishable, as are also rudimentary eyes, ears, and mouth. At 6 to 7 weeks brain function can be detected, at 8 every limb has begun to appear, including fingers and toes, and at 9 to 10 weeks the child can use his hands to grasp and his mouth to suck his thumb. By 13 weeks, when the pregnancy is only one-third through—and when abortions usually begin—the embryo is completely organized, and a miniature baby lies in his mother’s womb. He can alter his position, respond to pain, noise, and light, and have an attack of hiccups. Even his fingerprint is already unique. From then on he merely develops in size and strength.

If, then, the life of the fetus is a human life, with the full potentiality of growing into an adult human person, we have to think of mother and unborn child as two human beings at different stages of maturity. Doctors have to consider that they have two patients, not one, and seek the well-being of both. Lawyers and politicians have to think similarly, in accordance with the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child (1959), that children need “special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth.” Christians will want to demand “extra” safeguards and care before birth because at this stage the child is helpless to protect himself, and the God of the Bible defends the powerless.

So “we have to assert as normative the general inviolability of the fetus” (Archbishop Michael Ramsey in 1967). Most Protestant theologians go on to say that, in certain extreme cases of urgent necessity, when the continuance of the pregnancy threatens to kill the mother, or drive her to suicide, or render her a complete “physical or mental wreck” (the McNaughten judgment in 1938) and so significantly shorten her life, it would be morally justifiable to sacrifice her unborn child in order to spare her. But in such circumstances death in some form is already present; “the doctor has not introduced death into the case” (Oliver O’Donovan in The Christian and the Unborn Child, 1973). The Christian conscience rebels against the notion that an unborn child may be destroyed because his birth would be a “burden” to the mother or her family. This argument could equally justify the destruction of a newborn child, the comatose victim of a car crash, or an imbecile. Yet such merciless “mercy killing” is totally unacceptable in a civilized community, as Dr. Francis Schaeffer and Dr. Everett Koop have powerfully argued in Whatever Happened to the Human Race?

If we Christians campaign for a stricter abortion policy, as we should, we must both back it up with an educational program to reduce unwanted pregnancies and also accept full responsibility for its social effects and ensure that mothers receive the personal, social, medical, and financial support they need. Louise Summerhill, the founder of Birthright, rightly said, “We help rather than abort. We believe in making a better world for babies to come into, rather than killing them.”

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

Publishing novels based on biblical narrative looks profitable and easy.

Enough novels on biblical narratives or ones with biblical settings have now been published to establish a trend. More are coming. Of course, historical novels have long been a staple of the trade houses, and there are many examples of truly distinguished work in this subgenre, Par Lagerkvist’s Barabbas and Robert Graves’s I, Claudius being two. But the spate of recent novels issued by religious houses deserves examination at this time on two counts: the fate of these novels in the market place may determine the attitudes of religious publishers toward imaginative writing; more important, these books will affect the religious imagination of a large audience.

Publishing novels based on biblical narratives looks profitable and easy. Publishers reckon this sort of book has some immediate advantages. Buyers have little difficulty recognizing what books called Adam and Joseph are about. They also can be sure that these have good story lines, are in the sense of being both virtuous and compelling. Publishers feel comfortable because their patrons will feel comfortable with these offerings.

I believe the success of the works of Lewis and Tolkien has made it clear that religious people long for stories just as much if not more than for books of sermons. And, wary of stories with ambiguous contemporary settings, leery of narratives without explicitly “higher purposes,” novels of biblical narratives appear to be a safe way of filling in the “story gap.” Underlying all other considerations may be the feeling that it’s impossible to go too wrong with a biblical novelization; as one pop recording artist said of her remake of a “golden oldie”: if it had it, it’s still got it.

I do not mean to make all this sound like a plot, insidious and cynical. Publishers have tried to anticipate the “needs” of their readers: what people will buy. Marketing forecasting makes divination look like child’s play.

Writing these novels looks profitable to the writers for the same reasons it does to the publishers; for others it looks easy. The action of the story seems a given. The characters are known. And there is a body of legend and scholarship surrounding the biblical accounts. The author who feels insecure about his powers of imagination may feel he can rely on this scaffolding to help him complete the incredibly difficult task of building a novel.

Within 10 pages, the aspiring novelist, if he has good sense about writing, sees just how wrong—how naive—he has been. Retelling a biblical narrative is like exploring an ancient cave and finding the dragon alive and hungry.

The givens are as restricting as they are liberating. Adhering closely to the original practically eliminates the suspense. Everyone already knows what happens next. Manipulating the story line, however, may seem even more hazardous. Christians with a high regard for Scripture may be stopped by altered chronology; they may be outraged that the author has taken liberties (although a novel is a novel is a novel, no matter what it is based on), or they may feel cheated.

Of greater concern to the novelist is his vision. Why attempt to create such a novel? Working with a biblical narrative he will see, as every writer must, that vision is ultimately a matter of language. But for him the matter of language cuts two ways, involving hermeneutics as well as craft.

Anyone who knows something of a foreign language knows that language entails its own world, its own modes of thinking and feeling, even its own sense of space and time. The writer, in reimagining the original narrative, should understand profoundly more than the translator that the meaning of the narrative is locked up in the original language—that there are modes of thought and feeling there that are very different from his own. He must see how the past is truly past, the pastoral culture of Scripture truly lost to the modern mind, in spite of bridges between that time and our own.

Poor historical novelists usually miss this: they mistake it for a matter of “scenery.” They think that if one “does his homework,” gets the depth of the Jordan River right, and becomes acquainted with the pottery of the time, then the writer has done his job. But the writer who immerses himself in language and culture will see that his job is not a matter of scenery, is not archaeological in nature but anthropological. He will hold himself responsible for recovering not the artifacts of the time but its essence. He will try to exhume the nature of man from a dead language.

It is then the writer returns to the very different, chilly, ironic, whimsical, and bitter waters of contemporary English. He must try to find a diction that correlates in thought and feeling to what is common to the world he is trying to recover. This is, of course, impossible. The first time the writer composes dialogue such as: “Folks in Judah just don’t seem to be into God, you know?” he may despair.

Generally, he will have to steer a middle course between two excesses: the cartoonish colloquialisms of our culture and the vulgarity of literature-in-translation English. So many mistake the prose of literature-in-translation for a close rendering of the original text; but stilted English is only a close approximation of other languages in the sense that it has forfeited its claim to be good English through trying to be “literal.” But all languages are fluent languages: there was nothing awkward about the language of Genesis to its author.

A number of these novels have come to hand, and they all seem to fit into two categories. A great many are “women’s books.” Although their authors’ knowledge of ancient culture is loudly proclaimed, the stories are informed by the same vision which produces soap operas, Gothics, and penny romances.

Yet, although the story line may be drawn from the Bible, the author is still left—as much as any naturalistic writer—with the obligation of creating anew these incidents, this chronology. One cannot escape the responsibility of imagining. And these authors, quite unself-consciously, I think, have fallen into the ruts of their time. If the author’s sensibility is attuned to the frustrations of a housewife, or has been educated in the “liberation theology” of the National Enquirer, the novel is sure to be a half-baked Fear of Flying, albeit with overtures toward the divine.

Books by other authors, with a greater control of their powers, are basically “retranscriptions” of the original narratives from the spare Hebraic way of storytelling into a fuller and more detailed treatment. Such a tradition can be traced from Homer through Flaubert (see Auerbach’s Mimesis). These books allow their readers greater “psychic access” to the reality that this tale happened. These books generally concern themselves with the first stories—the Creation, the Fall—and grant insight into the meaning of the stories insofar as they “open them up.” A good example of a book in this category would be David Bolt’s Adam (Harold Shaw, 1979).

But I have yet to see a truly ambitious biblical novel, one that brings alive to its readers a culture that we as Christians much too often equate with our own. A woman of my mother’s generation once said to me: If Jesus Christ came back today, he’d be an executive preaching in a country club dining room. Wrong. Dead wrong. What we need are novels that will remake this woman’s imagination, and preserve the foreign character of biblical images, their unlikeliness as well as their inevitability. But what we often get are contemporary fairy tales in exotic settings. These books may have their uses, but they don’t do what could be done, and they are not the standard by which imaginative writing should be judged.

Harold Fickett, author of Mrs. Sunday’s Problem and Other Stories (Revell, 1979), teaches at Wheaton College, Illinois.

In this diverse collection of categories related to church history, several things stand out clearly as trends. First, there is growing interest in denominational studies. Over the past few decades with the stress on merger and bigness, one would perhaps have expected individual Christian distinctives to have disappeared. Such was not the case. The call to abandon distinctives caused people to look at them more closely, and to discover that they really did mean something after all. The result is that today histories of denominations, biographies of founders, doctrinal studies, and periods of time are being looked at carefully, from a denominational point of view.

Second, the relation of Christianity to the arts is being explored in a new and creative way by evangelicals. There has been something of the world denier in evangelical thought in times past; today, however, a serious attempt is being made to look at how music, art, literature, aesthetics, and architecture relate to the basic Christian message. It is as if to say, this is our Father’s world and all that may be used in the interest of our Father’s business is a legitimate concern for the believer.

Third, the place of the pulpit is receiving attention once more. Gimmicks have failed, fads have come and gone, but the needs of the congregation have remained. How to meet those needs is an increasing concern to the evangelical community, as it takes a new look at effective preaching. Every preacher asks himself somewhere along the line, What good does all this preaching do? Attention is now being directed to that question, and there are some good answers being given.

Fourth, the problem of Israel won’t go away. This is not news, of course, but this fact stands out clearly in the books that continue to pour off the presses. Would that some practical solution could be offered that is acceptable to all responsible parties to enable peace to be established in the Middle East. Every point of view is presented, but nothing substantive seems to be accomplished.

It is not easy to select those books that ought to be called the best of the year; so many could qualify for one reason or another. A few, however, do stand out, sometimes as representatives of a class. The following four were selected as choice books of evangelical interest.

John Wesley (Collins), by Stanley Ayling. This scholarly, well-written, and urbane treatment of Wesley represents the interest now being directed toward denominational beginnings. Ayling tries to see Wesley as a part of his own time, but he never forgets the immense influence Wesley has had on subsequent British history. It is a fine book that deserves careful reading.

Gateway to Heaven (Harper & Row), by Sheldon Vanauken. This is a brilliant, moving Christian novel that is impossible to put down. It is a new kind of novel for Christians and indicative of what can be done when one sets out in new directions. Vanauken is a writer whose work will stand the test of time.

Baptists and the Bible (Moody), by Russ Bush and Tom J. Nettles. This book is important because of the history it contains and the fair-minded approach taken. Bombast so often replaces rationality in controversial matters, but you will not find any of that in this volume. The authors are clearly out to heal and help. This book sets a pattern for works of this sort.

Beyond the Gunsights: One Arab Family in the Promised Land (Houghton Mifflin), by Yoella Har-Shefi. The complexities of Israel’s problems are set forth in this challenging book in a personal way by describing the lives of an Arab family. That it was written by a survivor of a Warsaw ghetto is also significant. The book is no partisan polemic for the Arab point of view, but is a sensitive portrayal of what life is like for everyone in that disturbed land. One needs to read this book to balance out the prophecy charts that so often make concern for the future cancel out any interest in the people who make up the present.

DENOMINATIONS. Herbert Bowman’s A Look at Today’s Churches—A Comparative Guide (Concordia) is a brief, general introduction to the basic denominations in America. It is helpful, but Bowman is confused about premillennialism and dispensationalism (pp. 61–63).

Baptists. A revised edition of the excellent survey The Baptists in America (Doubleday/Galilee), by O. K. and Marjorie Armstrong, is now available in paperback. It is the best introduction available. Baptists Who Dared (Judson), by Frank Hoadley and Benjamin Browne, briefly gives lives of over 20 courageous Baptists. Baptists in Transition (Judson), by Winthrop Hudson, takes a look at some of the tensions deep in Baptist life. Baptists and the Bible (Moody), by L. Russ Bush and Tom J. Nettles, looks specifically at the current controversy over inspiration and authority in a well-written and fair-minded work. It puts the discussion into a much-needed historical context by considering Baptist views from the past. Baptists in Canada: Search for Identity Amidst Diversity (Welch, 960 Gateway, Burlington, Ont., Canada), edited by Jarold K. Zeman, is a stimulating collection of essays. Leslie Tarr’s “Another Perspective on T. T. Shields” is especially interesting. A very clever and readable survey is The Twentieth Century Baptist (Judson), by Carl Tiller. Done as a news journal, the significant events and people related to The Baptist World Alliance during its first 75 years are chronicled.

Methodists. Three works directly related to Wesley appeared in the last year, two of them excellent and complementary biographies; John Wesley (Collins), by Stanley Ayling, and Strangely Warmed (Tyndale), by Garth Lean. Robert L. Moore’s John Wesley and Authority: A Psychological Perspective (Scholar’s Press) reduces Wesley too far into Freudian categories to be helpful, in my opinion. Two valuable source works are: Methodist Union Catalog: Pre-1976 Imprints, Vol. IV, DO-FY (Scarecrow Press), edited by Kenneth Rowe, drawn from more than 200 libraries, and The Works of John Wesley: Letters I, 1721–1739 (Oxford Univ. Press), edited by Frank Baker. The introduction and notes are superb. Ted Campbell looks at the Apostolate of United Methodism (Discipleship Resources, Box 840, Nashville, Tenn.), and William Greathouse examines Christian perfectionism in From the Apostles to Wesley (Beacon Hill Press, Kansas City).

Lutherans.The Lutherans in North America, revised edition (Fortress), edited by E. Clifford Nelson, certainly has to be the volume to own on this subject. A much shorter, but still helpful history is The Story of the American Lutheran Church (Augsburg), by Alvin Rogness. Ten Faces of Ministry (Augsburg) by Milo Brekke, Merton Strommen, and Dorothy Williams, is a fascinating survey of what five thousand Lutherans said regarding pastoral and congregational effectiveness. Anyone would profit by reading this book.

Episcopalians. A Communion of Communions: The Eucharistic Fellowship (Seabury), edited by J. Robert Wright, contains the Detroit Report and papers of the Triennial Ecumenical Study of the Episcopal Church, 1976–79.

Evangelical United Brethren.The History of the Evangelical United Brethren Church (Abingdon), by I. Bruce Behney and Paul H. Eller, is a definitive history of this denomination from its beginnings to its merger with the United Methodist Church in 1968.

Mennonites.Women Among the Brethren (Board of Christian Literature of the General Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, Hillsboro, Kansas), edited by Katie Wiebe, gives 15 stirring stories of the lives of women who dared to serve the Lord. Evangelicalism and Anabaptism (Herald), edited by C. Norman Kraus, is a look at evangelicalism from a specifically Anabaptist-Mennonite perspective. “Pop Eschatology” by Marlin Jeschke is especially interesting.

Quakers. Elbert Russell’s monumental The History of Quakerism (Friends United Press, Richmond, Ind.) is available again in paperback. It remains the best single-volume history available.

Pentecostals.Pentecostals Around the World (Paragon, Box 809, Fern Park, Fla.) is a firsthand account of Pentecostalism’s amazing growth worldwide. Neo-Pentecostalism: A Sociological Assessment (Univ. Press of America), by Cecil Bradfield, is an attempt to look at the phenomenon as a social experience. (For Roman Catholic Pentecostalism, see below.)

Amish.Amish Society, third edition, revised (Johns Hopkins Univ.), by John A. Hostetler, is an updating of the best single book available on the Amish. It is well written, well documented, and authoritative.

Salvation Army.Marching to Glory (Harper & Row), by Edward H. McKinley, ably covers the Salvation Army’s first hundred years, 1880–1980. A shorter and nicely illustrated account is A Gentle War (Macmillan) by Lawrence Fellows.

The Bruderhof. Although technically not a denomination, this interesting federation of three colonies located in New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut has survived for three generations and is carefully written up in The Joyful Community (Univ. of Chicago), by Benjamin Zablocki.

Roman Catholicism. Three introductory volumes head this list. The first is a massive Summa, entitled simply Catholicism, two volumes (Winston Press), by Richard P. McBrien. It is a comprehensive, balanced, thoughtful summary of Catholic life and doctrine that shows clearly where Roman Catholicism is today. It is a fine work. Modern Catholic Dictionary (Doubleday), by John A. Hardon, is a well-written, one-volume statement of where the Roman Catholic church stands on major topics. It is especially helpful for those who do not understand Roman Catholicism. The American Catholic Catalog (Harper & Row), by Bernard Hassan, is an illustrated survey, complete with bibliographies, of Roman Catholic distinctives, written for lay people.

Several studies examine Roman Catholicism as a part of the modern world. Catholicism and Modernity: Confrontation or Capitulation (Seabury), by James Hitchcock, is a serious look at a major crisis in the Roman Catholic church. Catholics and American Politics (Harvard), by Mary T. Hanna, looks at the dynamics of faith in changing social situations and how this affects political life. With Clumsy Grace (Seabury), by Charles Meconis, looks at the American Catholic left wing from 1961–1975. The Battle for the American Church (Doubleday), by George Kelly, is a powerful analysis of the church in America and the problems it faces.

Two books look at Catholic Pentecostalism: A Portion of My Spirit (Carillon), by Michael Scanlan, and The Theological Self-Understanding of the Catholic Charismatic Movement (Univ. Press of America), by James F. Breckenridge.

Toward Reunion (Paulist), by Edward Kilmartin, is a look at the problems that stand in the way of Roman Catholic and Orthodox reunion and a discussion of the progress being made in that area.

CHRISTIANITY AND THE ARTS. This much neglected aspect of the church’s life is receiving new attention these days. Fresh attempts are being made to relate Christianity to the arts as well as to see how the two have influenced each other in the past. Many well-done works have appeared in the last year.

Music. A wonderfully readable and comprehensive study of Christian hymnody is Sing With Understanding (Broadman), by Harry Eskew and Hugh T. McElrath. It discusses what hymns are, where hymns fit into culture, history, and the church, and concludes with an excellent bibliography and index. Two interesting histories are Christian Music in Contemporary Witness (Baker), by Donald P. Ellsworth, and Somebody’s Calling My Name: Black Sacred Music and Social Change (Judson), by Wyatt Lee Walker. Both are extremely helpful works and highly recommended. The former is more comprehensive and answers questions about music in the church today. Two practical works are The Church Musician’s Enchiridion (Northwestern Publishers, 3624 W. North Ave., Milwaukee, Wis.), by A. O. Lehmann, and The Ministry of Music in the Church (Moody), by Vic Delamont. Both are handy guides for leaders of church music, covering rehearsal to presentation.

A new hymnbook reprint is Christian Hymns, by the Evangelical Movement of Wales (Bryntirion, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan, Wales, U.K.). I found it to be a marvelous selection of meaty hymns, with little sentimentality or fluff. These are the great hymns of the faith and they are available again for our time.

Literature. Two of John Bunyan’s classics have been redone for today. The Annotated Pilgrim’s Progress (Moody), by Warren Wiersbe, is nicely done. The explanatory notes go a long way toward making the story live again. Chronicles of Mansoul (Regal), by Ethel Barrett, is Bunyan’s Holy War redone in a sparkling style that should appeal to readers of all ages. George MacDonald’s At the Back of the North Wind (David C. Cook) and Sir Gibbie (Schocken), edited by Elizabeth Yates, attest to the growing interest in one of the nineteenth century’s most significant writers. There is a minor MacDonald revival going on just now, and all for the better. A beautiful new edition of W. D. Howell’s The Quality of Mercy is now available, complete with introduction and notes by James P. Elliot, published by the Indiana University Press. It is a nice piece of work.

A Long Perspective (Pacific Northwest Book Distributors, Box 15158, Wedgewood Station, Seattle, Wash.), by George Edward McDonough, is a sensitive book of Christian poetry, which, like all good literature, improves with every reading. Adam (Harold Shaw), by David Bolt, is praised by C. S. Lewis as being splendid, rich, and fresh, and so it is. This is a marvelous book. The Finale (InterVarsity), by Calvin Miller, is the thrilling conclusion of a three-part work beginning with The Singer and The Song, written in the tradition of Lewis and Tolkien. Book one of a new set of legends is Magician’s Bane (Nelson), by Charles Beamer. It begins what promises to be an exciting series about another world, much like Narnia. It is the classic struggle of good against evil told in compelling language. A fine collection of short stories dealing with providence, morality, revelation, and community is Faith and Fiction: The Modern Short Story (Eerdmans), edited by Robert Detweiler and Glenn Meeter. Sheldon Vanauken has done it again with Gateway to Heaven (Harper & Row). If you enjoyed reading Vanauken’s previous work, A Severe Mercy, you will welcome this beautiful story. Helen Steiner Rice fans will appreciate her latest book, And the Greatest of These Is Love: Poems and Promises (Revell).

Biographies.David Garrick: A Critical Biography (Southern Illinois Univ.), by George Stone and George Kahrl, will quickly establish itself as the best book on the subject. More than a biography, it is a virtual compendium of an age. It is a rare treat to read a book like this. Two more works of high quality and value are The Good Natured Man: A Portrait of Oliver Goldsmith (William Morrow), by Leonard Wibberley, and Nathaniel Hawthorne (Oxford Univ. Press), by Arling Turner. Heinrich Heine: A Modern Biography (Princeton Univ. Press), by Jeffrey L. Sammons, is very well done and provides valuable information on that period of time. Heine’s religious ideas are carefully handled. The standard biography of Matthew Arnold, by Lionel Trilling, is now available in paperback, published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. This book is without peer. Yet another extremely well-done work is Lewis Carroll: A Biography (Schocken), by Anne Clark. Nicely illustrated and written, this should become a standard work as well. Christopher Milne’s beautifully written recollections of childhood, The Path Through the Trees (Dutton), will be read with delight by everyone, whether they like Pooh or not. Three biographies of Dorothy Sayers round out this list: Alzina Stone Dale’s Maker and Craftsman (Eerdmans), Ralph Hone’s Dorothy Sayers: A Literary Biography (Kent State Univ. Press), and James Brabazon’s Dorothy L. Sayers (Gollancz). In many ways they are all quite different, but they complement one another, and all Sayers’s fans will be delighted with this embarrassment of riches. Although not technically a biography, Amos Wilder’s fine book about his brother should be mentioned here: Thornton Wilder and His Public (Fortress).

Literary Studies. Daniel Berrigan has brought Dante up to date in The Discipline of the Mountain: Dante’s Purgatorio in a Nuclear Age (Seabury). King Arthur and the Grail (Taplinger, 200 Park Ave. S., New York, N. Y.), by Richard Cavendish, is a detailed study of the Arthurian legends and their meaning. The Seventeenth-Century Resolve (Univ. of Kentucky), edited by John L. Lievsay, is a valuable collection of religious “resolves.” It is the only one of its kind available today. Two books, both by Katherine Briggs, deal with an ever-fascinating subject: Abbey, Lubbers and Boggarts: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Fairies (Pantheon), beautifully illustrated by Yvonne Gilbert, and The Vanishing People: Fairy Lore and Legends (Pantheon). The encyclopedia is magnificent. Two new books have appeared that ably open up the world of Narnia to new (and to old) readers: Reading With the Heart: The Way Into Narnia (Eerdmans), by Peter J. Schakel, and Narnia Explored (Revell), by Paul A. Karkainxn.

The David Myth in Western Literature (Purdue Univ. Press), edited by Raymond-Jean Frontain and Jan Wojcik, is a collection of 11 essays that discuss the role David plays in a wide range of literature. It is well worth reading. A fascinating study by Perry D. Westbrook is Free Will and Determinism in American Literature (Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press). History, Guilt, and Habit (Wesleyan Univ. Press, distributed by Columbia Univ. Press), is Owen Barfield’s analysis of our dangerously one-sided world. It is impressive reading. Two books relate to Flannery O’Connor: The Habit of Being (Vintage), are O’Connor’s letters, selected and edited by Sally Fitzgerald and are an absolute treasure. Flannery O’Connor’s South (Louisiana State Univ. Press), by Robert Coles, is very helpful background reading.

Finally, two new books deal with Christianity and imagination: Triumphs of the Imagination: Literature in Christian Perspective (InterVarsity), by Leland Ryken, and Christian Faith and Creative Imagination (The Eastbourne Bible Centre, 91/93 Seaside Road, Eastbourne, East Sussex, England), by Harold T. Barrow. Ryken’s fine, comprehensive study is highly recommended.

PREACHER AND PREACHING. Strength in the church comes from clarity in the pulpit. Protestants have always stressed the importance of the preached word, even if they haven’t always done it very well. A series of new books have appeared to help rectify that situation.

A couple of older standard works have been reprinted: Sacred Rhetoric on a Course of Lectures on Preaching (Banner of Truth), by Robert L. Dabney, discusses sermons and delivery step by step. This remarkable Presbyterian was right on the mark. So was an equally remarkable Methodist, William A. Quayle, in The Pastor-Preacher (Baker), where homiletics is examined under four heads: the man, the student, the preacher, and the pastor. Al Fasol has selected classic material on sermon preparation from 14 well-known preachers in Selected Readings in Preaching (Baker).

A series of helpful books discusses various aspects of preaching: Preaching With Confidence: A Theological Essay on the Power of the Pulpit (Eerdmans), by James Daane; Proclaiming the Truth: Guides to Scriptural Preaching (Baker), by Donald Demary; Communication in Pulpit and Parish (Westminster), by Merrill R. Abbey; Preaching and Worhip in the Small Church (Abingdon), by W. H. Willimon and R. L. Wilson; and Evangelistic Preaching: A Step-by-Step Guide to Pulpit Evangelism (Moody), by Lloyd M. Perry and John R. Strubbar; and Preaching the Story (Fortress), by Edmund Steimle, Morris Riedenthal, and Charles Rice. I found all of these books to be very helpful and informative in the areas they set out to cover.

Warren Wiersbe, himself a well-known preacher, has produced a splendid volume. Listening to the Giants (Baker), in which 13 great preachers are viewed, preaching bibliography is developed and discussed, and a series of miscellaneous tidbits are offered. All of this is enjoyable and enlightening reading.

JUDAICA. A significant number of books continues to be written in this area, with a growth in material on Jewish-Christian relations. Many are realizing that in our secularized society, where human dignity is increasingly being undermined, that Jews and Christians have a great deal to lose by not drawing on their common heritage. Israel also continues to be a source of discussion.

Judaica. The Jewish World: History and Culture of the Jewish People (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.), edited by Elie Kedourie, is a magnificent, lavishly illustrated history of the Jewish people from 500 B.C. to the present day. It is without peer in its class. Salo Baron has revised and enlarged the second edition of Vol. XVII of A Social and Religious History of the Jews, dealing with the late Middle Ages from 1200 to 1650, published jointly by Columbia University Press and the Jewish Publication Society of America. It is a definitive and scholarly work. A newly revised The Holy and the Profane (William Morrow), by Theodor Gaster, is a discussion of the evolution of Jewish folk ways, from birth to death. It is packed with curious and interesting material, as well as down-to-earth facts. Judaism (Argus Communications, Niles, Ill.), by S. T. Lachs and S. P. Wachs, is part of the Major World Religions Series and nicely offers an introduction to the history and faith of Judaism. It is simply written and well illustrated.

Four new books deal with Jews in America. The American Jewish Year Book 1980 (The American Jewish Committee/The Jewish Publication Society of America), edited by Milton Himmelfarb and David Singer, is the authoritative record of events and trends in American and world Jewish life. There aren’t many questions that can’t be answered here. Hidden Survivors (Prentice-Hall), by Thomas Cottle, poignantly discusses America’s poor Jews. The Eastern European emigration of Jews to America from 1881 to 1920 is deftly handled by Azriel Eisenberg in Eyewitness to American Jewish History, Part III (Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 838 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y.). Congress and Israel: Foreign Aid Decision-Making in the House of Representatives 1969–1976 (Greenwood Press), by Marvin Feuerwerger, analyzes congressional activity during the critical Nixon and Ford years.

Five new books deal with the Holocaust. Father John Morley argues that the Vatican’s desire to preserve diplomatic relations with Germany led it to neglect its own moral responsibility in Vatican Diplomacy and the Jews During the Holocaust 1939–1943 (KTAV). Joseph and Me in the Days of the Holocaust (KTAV), by Judy Hoffmann, is the pitiful story of one who managed to live and tell about it. Her story should never be forgotten. The Stroop Report (Pantheon), edited by Sybil Milton, is a facsimile edition and translation of the official Nazi report on the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. Its chilling objectivity is a devastating commentary on Nazi inhumanity. By Words Alone (University of Chicago), by Sidra Ezraki, looks at the Holocaust in literature. Reeve Robert Brenner sympathetically analyzes The Faith and Doubt of Holocaust Survivors (Free Press).

Jewish-Christian Relations. A set of challenging (and hardly orthodox) essays is Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity (Paulist), edited by Alan T. Davies. Sharing Israel’s Messiah (B’Rit Shalom, Box 554, Highland Park, Ill.) is a manual on how to witness inoffensively to Jews. Jacob Gartenhaus has written up the lives of 33 Jewish believers in Famous Hebrew Christians (Baker).

Two books dealing specifically with Jewish-Christian relations are Issues in the Jewish-Christian Dialogue (Paulist), edited by Helga Croner and Leon Klenicki, and Evangelicals and Jews in Conversation (Baker), edited by Marc Tanenbaum, Marvin Wilson, and A. J. Rudin. The latter is a ground-breaking work that ably draws evangelicals into the discussion in a creative, irenic way.

A Gentile … with the Heart of a Jew: G. Douglas Young (Parson, Nyack, N.Y.) by Calvin B. Hanson is a biography of the late, well-known director of the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem, a place where so many evangelicals have learned so much about Israel. It is fascinating reading.

The Israel Problem.The Untold History of Israel (Grove Press), by Jacques Derogy and Hesi Carmel, is a well-written, easy-to-read account of Israel’s hisotry. The “untold” part comes from previously secret documents used by the authors. Kenneth Ray Bain in The March to Zion (Texas A & M) carefully analyzes U.S. policy as it related to the founding of Israel as a state. Two interesting books look at the Jewish inhabitants of Israel: Belonging: Conversations with Men and Women Who Have Chosen to Make Israel Their Home (Holt, Rinehart and Winston), by James McNeish, and The Israelis: Portrait of a People in Conflict (Herald), by Frank Epp, which balances out his earlier work, The Palestinians.

Three new books are written with the Arabs’ interest in mind: The Question of Palestine (Times Books), by Edward W. Said, argues strongly for Palestinian self-determination; Beyond the Gunsights (Houghton Mifflin), by Yoella Har-Shefi, takes a sympathetic look at one Arab Israeli family and their struggles for equality in Israel; and The View from East Jerusalem (Herald), by John A. Lapp, takes a more general look at the problems Arabs face.

Carl F. H. Henry, first editor of Christianity Today, is lecturer at large for World Vision International. An author of many books, he lives in Arlington, Virginia.

The general subject of church history continues to generate considerable interest; important works were written during the last year in all aspects of the discipline. The Puritans attracted a good deal of attention, both the British and the American varieties, and advances were made in producing primary source materials. Writers such as Thomas Boston, Jonathan Edwards, and John Bunyan received special attention. The medieval period was looked at with more than the usual interest, also with a view to making primary sources available. This interest is perhaps the logical extension backwards of Renaissance/Reformation studies. The problems faced during that period arose earlier, and resulted in necessary attention to their origin.

The social and political aspects of church life and history provide a focus that one finds in almost all the areas. With such a stress today upon sociopolitical considerations, it is only natural to take a careful look at earlier periods of church history to see what insight can be gained by discovering what the church did or did not do in dealing with its problems.

There was another focus upon the place individuals played in history: kings, queens, statesmen, theologians, and saints all came in for biographical treatment. In some instances the prayers or significant writings of these history makers were made available for the first time. There is apparently a growing appreciation for what one person can do to shape the course of a given age.

It would be extremely difficult to determine which books are the best of the year for evangelicals; nevertheless, an attempt will be made. These books do not necessarily reflect an evangelical point of view; they are, however, books from which evangelicals could learn a great deal.

In the area of general church history, I have selected six under the title, “book of the year.”

A History of Christian Doctrine (Fortress), edited by Hubert Cunliffe-Jones with Benjamin Drewery. This book, although long in coming, was worth waiting for. It is the best single-volume history of doctrine now available. Written by 11 eminent scholars, it admirably covers the salient points of historical theology. It also includes a study of Eastern theology from 600–1453, the first time, to my knowledge, in a survey of this sort. This work is bound to become a standard text.

Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (Louisiana State Univ.), by Terry Jones. This is history with a difference; in many ways it is the way it ought to be done. Jones takes Chaucer’s poem and carefully analyzes all that relates to the Knight and his tale. We go through history, plagues, chivalry, the military, feudal life, and then some. The Middle Ages come alive in this fine work.

The Age of Reform, 1250–1550 (Yale Univ. Press), by Steven Ozment. The eminent Yale historian has produced a book in the “new mold.” It seeks to evaluate the Reformation in the light of what led up to it, and as it interacted with the social and political developments of the time. Traditional in many ways, this work still moves out in new directions; evangelicals will benefit by its analysis of the late Middle Ages and the Reformation.

The Road to Khartoum (Norton), by Charles Chenevix Trench. This biography of Gen. Charles “Chinese” Gordon is an absolute masterpiece. Trench, whose name will be familiar to church historians as a descendent of the famous bishop of Dublin, has cut through the myths surrounding this popular folk hero and made a real person out of him. Gordon’s strange and mystic ways are sympathetically handled, and in the process some thorny issues—such as the sordid slave traffic in the Sudan—are touched upon.

The German Churches Under Hitler: Background, Struggle, and Epilogue (Wayne State Univ.), by Ernst Christian Helmreich. We have long needed a reflective yet definitive treatment of the difficult church struggle in the Nazi era, and it has now appeared. The study is patient, careful, authoritative, and leaves nothing to chance—the footnotes/bibliography take almost 150 pages. May we never forget the lessons we may learn from reading this volume, especially the price that must be paid for the sin of silence.

The Search for America’s Faith (Abingdon), by George Gallup, Jr., and David Poling. This is a crucial book that everyone who is interested in events of the next 20 years ought to read. Gallup and Poling analyze where American belief is at present, especially among America’s youth, and thus point us toward the future. Traditional values, beliefs, and attitudes are now being reestablished and evangelicals have never had a better opportunity to speak responsibly. Whether or not we will is another question; but this book will cry out to us to do so.

BASIC HISTORY. A significant number of general and interpretative books related to church history appeared during the last year. The search for roots continues, as does the search for understanding those roots.

Reference. Oxford University Press has made available in paperback The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, edited by E. A. Livingstone. Basically British in orientation, it seeks to answer “who or what” questions about the church, and does it admirably. The Religious Dimension: New Directions in Quantitative Research (Academic Press), edited by Robert Wuthnow, provides valuable information on 17 topics such as the effects of Watergate upon confidence in social institutions, and ethnic variations in religious commitment. A lot of worthwhile material is here. A revised edition of The Franciscan Book of Saints (Franciscan Herald Press), by Marion Habig, provides briefly the lives of 366 sainted or blessed Franciscans in order to encourage us to imitate the example set by the followers of Saint Francis. This devotional use of history does just that. An in-depth study of scholarly books, presses, research libraries and journals is made available by the American Council of Learned Societies in Scholarly Communication: The Report of the National Enquiry (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press).

Historiography. Maurice Mandelbaum’s The Anatomy of Historical Knowledge (Johns Hopkins Univ. Press) is now in paperback, making this valuable work available for a wider audience. An excellent introduction to understanding history from an evangelical perspective is David Bebbington’s Patterns in History (InterVarsity). It is especially helpful on the philosophy of historiography. History and Human Nature (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich), by Robert Solomon, is a controversial, penetrating look at European history and culture from 1750–1850. Liberalism takes a beating here, as it does in History of the Idea of Progress (Basic Books), by Robert Nisbet. These are important books that raise serious questions about the failure of the modern world. George Vernadsky has put together a valuable survey in Russian Historiography: A History (Nordland). One hundred thirty-five authors are discussed and valuable bibliographies on the Russian church conclude the book.

Interpretations of History. Liberty Press makes available three books that all stress, in different ways, the need to reestablish human dignity and freedom: The Politicization of Society, edited by K. S. Templeton; The Evolution of Civilizations, by Carroll Quigley; and Gustave LeBon: The Man and His Works, by Alice Widener. The Politicization of Society is a trenchant collection of essays that compels reading. Those by Jacques Ellul and Butler D. Shaffer alone make the book worth buying. R. G. Clouse and R. V. Pierard have written a Christian high school textbook as volume two of “Streams of Civilization” entitled The Modern World to the Nuclear Age (Mott Media/Creation Life). It is a thoroughly Christian, well-written, and nicely illustrated history of the Western world from 1400 to today. Wedge Publishing Foundation (229 College St., Toronto, Ont., Canada) offers a collection of 58 articles from 1945–48 by Hermann Dooyeweerd in Roots of Western Culture: Pagan, Secular and Christian Options, in which he relentlessly exposes the weaknesses of non-Christian philosophies and argues for a total Christian perspective. A Reader in Sociology: Christian Perspective (Herald Press), edited by C. P. DeSanto, C. Redekop, and W. L. Smith-Hinds, is a well-done collection of 40 essays on life and society from a Christian point of view. It is a look at contemporary history in the making.

Church History Surveys.A History of Christianity (Nordland), by Donald Treadgold, is helpful, but spotty; only 17 pages are devoted to the twentieth century, for example. No Other Foundation: The Church Through Twenty Centuries (Cornerstone Books), by Jeremy Jackson, is well-done church history with a difference. Jackson attempts to draw out the meaning of the past for today, without sacrificing objectivity, and he has done a very good job. Built Upon the Cornerstone (Christian Publications, 25 S. 10th St., Box 3404, Harrisburg, Pa.), by Joseph Tewinkel, is a brief, simple survey of church history, suitable for high schoolers. Christian Churches in Recent Times (Concordia), by Roy Sueflow, is a well-written survey of Christianity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. William A. Clebsch in Christianity in European History (Oxford Univ. Press) interprets both religion and culture under the rubric of “humanity” in an attempt to show how Christianity and culture interact. It is highly informative and well written.

A monumental work is A History of Christian Doctrine (Fortress), edited by Hubert Cunliffe-Jones. It is more than a successor to G. P. Fisher’s earlier work; it is a definitive work in the history of doctrine to which all students of church history will turn often. A specialized kind of history is Salvation and the Perfect Society: The Eternal Quest (Univ. of Mass. Press), by Alfred Braunthal; here the major changes in the understanding of salvation are analyzed through history. Braunthal looks at the secular and religious quest in an informative, sympathetic way.

History of Liturgy/Spirituality. Patricia B. Buckland has written an easy-to-understand Advent to Pentecost: A History of the Church Year (Morehouse-Barlow). Of more substance are Word, Water, Wine and Bread (Judson Press), by William Willimon, and the second edition in paperback by Theodor Klauser of A Short History of the Western Liturgy (Oxford Univ. Press). Both are excellent surveys of a complex subject. Western Spirituality: Historical Roots, Ecumenical Routes (Fides/Claretian), edited by Matthew Fox, is a fine collection of essays that cover the topic of spirituality from the New Testament to W. E. Hocking. Augsburg has made available an excellent and highly informative Manual of Liturgy: Lutheran Book of Worship by P. H. Pfatteicher and C. R. Messerli. It should become the standard guide for anyone interested in Lutheran liturgy. Howard Galley piled and edited The Prayer Book Office (Seabury), which is handsomely done and intended to enrich the church’s daily prayer. It contains psalms, biblical canticles, antiphons, and some beautiful readings (mostly sermons or homilies) for the church year.

THE EARLY CHURCH. The church until the time of Augustine continues to be a source of interest to historians. It is here that Christian doctrine and practice developed, ultimately giving Western civilization the shape that it has today. Much is still unknown, but continued study regularly reveals new information.

Greek Backgrounds. Collections of sources are always of value and Scholars Press is to be thanked for Sources for the Study of Greek Religion, edited by David Rice and John Stambaugh. This helpful collection is topically arranged and covers everything from the Olympian gods to ghosts. An absolutely marvelous book is the revised edition of The Earth, The Temple, and the Gods: Greek Sacred Architecture (Yale Univ. Press), by Vincent Scully. The text is clear and accurate, and the hundreds of photographs make this book a valuable study. Prometheus Books (1203 Kensington Ave., Buffalo, N.Y.) makes two source books available: The Worlds of the Early Greek Philosophers and The Worlds of Plato and Aristotle, both edited by J. B. Wilbur and H. J. Allen. I found the former to be the more helpful, perhaps because source material used there is harder to come by.

History. An absolutely massive study is Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian: 323 B.C.E. to 135 C.E. (Univ. of Notre Dame/Michael Glazier), by Sean Freyne. It is a detailed, documented study that will probably be definitive on the subject. Everything connected with Galilee during that time is carefully and accurately considered. F. F. Bruce’s The Spreading Flame (Eerdmans) has been reprinted in paperback. This lucid work begins with Paul and ends with the conversion of the English. If only one history of the period could be read, let it be this one. Carroll Newsom in The Roots of Christianity (Prentice-Hall) takes a far more liberal tack than Bruce. It is difficult to determine what it is that Newsom himself believes, but readers will discover that there is some good historical material to be found in this book.

Topical Studies.The Catacombs (Thames and Hudson), by J. Stevenson, is a nicely illustrated history that makes an obscure aspect of the church’s life come alive. The Canonization of the Synagogue Service (Notre Dame Press) by Lawrence Hoffman, argues compellingly for a three-stage process. This is a valuable background study for early Christian worship. Politics and Exegesis: Origen and the Two Swords (Univ. of Calif.), by G. E. Caspary, examines Origen’s exegetical methodology and his theology of politics, casting new light on a complex subject. Howard C. Kee’s Christian Origins in Sociological Perspective (Westminster) is an interesting and well-written account of the social dynamics of Christianity’s early days. The Development of St. Augustine from Neo-Platonism to Christianity, 386–391 A.D. (Univ. Press of America), by Alfred W. Matthews, ably surveys this crucial period in Augustine’s thought. The exhaustive footnotes it contains make it a valuable study.

Collections of Sources. Jack N. Sparks has paraphrased and written introductions to a selection of Athanasius’ letters from A.D. 328 to 373 in The Resurrection Letters (Nelson). These powerful letters are primarily reflections on Easter. Baker has made available selected source material for the study of the early church, the New Testament books, and the New Testament canon in Evidence of Tradition, by Daniel Theron. The original text plus a translation are both found in this “Twin Brooks” paperback. Servant Books (237 N. Michigan, South Bend, Ind.) has published Anne Field’s paraphrases and introductions to fourth-and fifth-century texts relating to baptism in From Darkness to Light. All of the above material is of value to the early church historian.

THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD. Interest in the Middle Ages continues to grow. Historians have long known what others are now beginning to see: that the Reformation—and the modern world, too, for that matter—was built on what preceded this era. The problems of the Middle Ages were passed on to our time, sometimes unanswered. To go back, in many instances, is to go forward, for at least we know where we came from.

Surveys.Renewal in Christ: As the Celtic Church Led “the Way” (Vantage), by Edward Stimson, is a very interesting history that goes beyond the Middle Ages, but it nicely describes church life among the Celts. Religion and the People, 800–1700 (Univ. of N.C.), edited by James Obedkevich, surveys some basic problems, again going beyond the Middle Ages. Patrick Geary’s “The Ninth-Century Relic Trade” is an excellent essay, as is “Cheese and Worms: The Cosmos of a 16th Century Miller” by Carlo Binzburg. As one would expect of Steven Ozment, he has produced a masterful study in The Age of Reform 1250–1550 (Yale Univ. Press), which is an intellectual and religious history of late medieval and Reformation Europe. The Mind of the Middle Ages, third revised edition (Univ. of Chicago), by Frederick Artz, covers A.D. 200–1500 in exemplary fashion. Vision of the End (Columbia Univ. Press), by Bernard McGinn, surveys the apocalyptic traditions of the Middle Ages.

Studies.Vox Populi (Ohio State Univ.), by Timothy Gregory, looks at violence and popular involvement in the religious controversies of the fifth century A.D. John B. Morrall examines Political Thought in the Middle Ages (Univ. of Toronto. Scholars Press makes available The Nature, Structure and Function of the Church in William of Ockham, by John Ryan. Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels (Univ. of Pa.), by James Muldoon, is a scholarly look at how the church related to the non-Christian world from 1250 to 1550.

Three new books deal with the medieval English church: The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Univ. of Toronto), by W.A. Pantin, which is a full-blown study; English Medieval Monasteries, 1066–1540 (Univ. of Ga.), by Roy Midmer, which is a summary and guide; and Chaucer’s Knight: The Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary (Louisiana State Univ.), by Terry Jones, which is a strikingly well-done commentary of sorts on Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale.”

C. S. Lewis’s classic Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge Univ.) is now available in paperback for a whole new generation of scholars to relish.

Texts. Sister Benedicta Ward has translated and nicely introduced The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm (Penguin Books). Marsilius of Padua’s (c. 1275–1342) Defensor Pacis (Univ. of Toronto) is now available in English for the first time, translated and introduced by Alan Gewirth. God As First Principle in Ulrich of Strasbourg (Alba House), by Francis J. Lescoe, is the critical text and introduction of this hitherto unavailable work. Jasper Hopkins nicely translates and evaluates Nicolas of Cusa: On God As Not-Other (Univ. of Minn.).

Volume one of a five-volume set of The Philokalia (Faber & Faber) is now available. A collection of spiritual texts from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries in the Orthodox tradition, this first English translation is by G. E. H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware.

RENAISSANCE/REFORMATION.Renaissance Rome, 1500–1559: A Portrait of a Society (Univ. of Calif.), by Peter Partner, is a brilliantly done work that helps to explain why Luther felt so strongly that reform was needed. Renaissance Drama and The English Church Year (Univ. of Nebraska), by R. Chris Hassel, argues convincingly that apposite dramatic entertainment was held in court on selected festival days of the English church year. Art and the Reformation in Germany (Ohio Univ. Press and Wayne State Univ.), by Carl C. Christensen, discusses both the positive place of art, as well as iconoclasm, in Luther’s Germany. Fortress Press offers The Role of the Augsburg Confession: Catholic and Lutheran Views, edited by Joseph A. Burgess, as an ecumenical discussion on that important document. J. A. O. Preus is to be thanked for translating The Lord’s Supper, by Martin Chemnitz (1552–86), into English for the first time. Concordia publishes this vigorous defense of the Lutheran doctrine of the “real presence” of Christ.

Four Reformers (Augsburg), by Kurt Aland, is a thoughtful introduction to Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, and Zwingli. Baker has reprinted two excellent studies relating to Calvin; The Gospel as Taught by Calvin by R. C. Reed, and Calvin and the Reformation, edited by W. P. Armstrong. Duncan Norton-Taylor has written a novel on the life and times of Calvin in God’s Man (Baker). Historical novels usually leave me cold, but this well-written work gripped me from beginning to end. The Reformation in the Cities (Yale Univ. Press), by Steven Ozment (now available in paperback), is a highly original and provocative study that compels reading.

A stirring account is the well-written The Huguenot Struggle for Recognition (Yale Univ. Press), by N. M. Sutherland, which deals with sixteenth-century France. Artisans of Glory (Univ. of N.C.), by Orest Ranum, deals with writers and historical thought in seventeenth-century France. Church-state relations in seventeenth-century Tuscany are probed by way of a social tragedy in Faith, Reason and the Plague (Cornell Univ. Press/Harvester Press), by Carlo M. Cippola. Finally, seventeenth-century Russia is treated in Fire and Water: A Life of Peter the Great (Coward, McCann and Geoghegan). It is a strange and shocking tale.

BRITISH HISTORY/CHURCH HISTORY. Let’s begin by dipping into the byways of early British religious history with Francis A. Yates’s The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (Routledge and Kegan Paul) where Christian attitudes toward the Jewish esoteric tradition are ably analyzed. We get everything from Shakespearean fairies, witches, and melancholy to messianic prophecy. The Banner of Truth Trust is to be thanked for reprinting The Writings of John Bradford (c. 1510–1555) in two volumes. Making this sought-after source material available again is a genuine service to the church. The same applies to Klock and Klock who have reprinted Daniel Neal’s The History of the Puritans in three volumes. Maurice Ashley has produced a beautifully written and illustrated The English Civil War: A Concise History (Thames and Hudson, 30 Bloomsbury St., London). A detailed and masterful study is Richard Baxter and the Millennium (Rowman and Littlefield), by William M. Lamont. Oxford continues its 13-volume series of John Bunyan’s complete works, with two volumes of his miscellaneous works. Vol. 1 is nicely edited by T. L. Underwood and Roger Sharrock and contains some rarely seen material. Vol. 6 is Bunyan’s Poems, edited by Graham Midgley. They read nicely alongside George Herbert. Moody Press is making some notable material from this period available again in their “Wycliffe Classic Series”: The Holy War, by John Bunyan; The Glory of Christ, by John Owen; and The Letters of Samuel Rutherford, edited by Frank Gaebelein.

Three recent books deal with British social life during the early modern period: The Family, Sex, and Marriage in England 1500–1800 (Harper/Colophon), by Lawrence Stone; English Provincial Society from the Reformation to the Revolution (Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press), by Peter Clark; and Lost Country Life (Pantheon), by Dorothy Hartley. All three are very well written and extremely interesting. The Church in the Age of Orthodoxy and the Enlightenment (Concordia), by Robert G. Clouse, traverses the entire religious situation from 1600 to 1700 in Britain, and also the rest of the Western world. Two excellent books concern the eighteenth century: The Transformation of England (Columbia Univ. Press), by Peter Mathias, dealing with society and economics; and Joseph Priestly: Scientist, Theologian, and Metaphysician (Bucknell Univ. Press), edited by Lester Krift and B. R. Willeford, which contains an exceptionally fine article by Edwin Hiebert on revealed religion and scientific materialism in Priestly’s thought. A fascinating history of a Millenarian group in eighteenth-century England is The French Prophets (Univ. of Calif.), by Hillel Schwartz. The problems this group faced, both social and theological, are not unlike those faced by the doomsdayers of our own time. This book offers excellent insights into this mindset.

A Social History of England 1851–1975 (Methuen), by François Bédarida, covers the nineteenth century rather broadly, and is well worth reading. A fine bit of social history about Victorian times is The Darwinian Revolution (Univ. of Chicago), by Michael Ruse, and an equally fine bit of personal history is A Cornish Childhood (Potter), by A. L. Rowse. Society and Religion During the Age of Industrialization (Univ. Press of America), by Lee Grugel, thoughtfully traces why the Victorian church, like the queen, grew old and feeble, and searched for renewal. Moral Revolution and Economic Science (Greenwood), by Ellen Frankel Paul, traces the demise of laissez-faire in nineteenth-century British political economy, showing that utilitarianism paved the way for state intervention.

John Henry Newman continues to attract interest. Kindly Light: The Spiritual Vision of John Henry Newman (Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, Ind.), by J. Murray Elwood, is a very positive assessment of the man, and Peter Toon’s more balanced Evangelical Theology 1833–1856: A Response to Tractarianism (John Knox) shows convincingly that evangelicals made an even greater impact on the church of that time. The Newman Movement (Univ. of Notre Dame Press), by John Whitney Evans, traces the impact of Newman’s vision by looking at Roman Catholics in American higher education from 1883 to 1971. It is an excellent history.

A few fine, regional books appeared during the last year, three of them dealing with Scotland. Scotland Forever Home (Dodd, Mead), by Geddes MacGregor, wistfully deals with life and religion there. The Days of the Fathers in Ross-Shire (Christian Focus, Henderson Road, Inverness LV2 1SP, Scotland), by John Kennedy, and The Happy Man: The Abiding Witness of Lachlan MacKenzie (Banner of Truth) tell of the vigorous Christianity of the Scots. Eifion Evans writes of the 1859 revival in Revival Comes to Wales (Evangelical Press of Wales, Bryntirion, Bridgend, Mid Glamorgan CF 31 4DX, U.K.). There is much to learn by reading of God’s work in the past.

A series of works has come off the presses dealing with royalty and associated persons and the times in which they lived. The Myth of the Conqueror (AMS Press, 56 E. 13th St., N.Y.) is a full-scale biography of Prince Henry Stuart, James I’s son. The Image of the King: Charles I and II (Atheneum), by Richard Ollard, and the larger Royal Charles (Knopf), by Antonia Fraser, covers the Civil War and restoration. Queen Anne (Routledge and Kegan Paul), by Edward Gregg, is an exhaustive and exceedingly well-done bit of historical writing. The First Churchill (Morrow), by George M. Thomson, is the life of John, First Duke of Marlborough, and Caroline (Atheneum), by Thea Holme, is a biography of Caroline of Brunswick, wife of George IV. Two interesting overviews are the beautifully illustrated Kings and Queens of England and Scotland (Faber and Faber), by David Piper, and the very readable The Court of St. James: The Monarch at Work from Victoria to Elizabeth II (Morrow), by Christopher Hibbert.

MODERN CONTINENTAL EUROPE/ASIA.Napoleon: Master of Europe 1805–1807 (Morrow), by Alistair Horne, is a magnificent work, both in text and illustration. The First World War in German Narrative Prose (Univ. of Toronto), edited by Charles N. Genno and Heinz Wetzel, honors the work of scholar George Wallis Field with a series of essays, a notable one being “Christianity and Revolution in Alfred Dobbin’s November 1918,” by A. W. Riley. Three books deal with the Nazi period: Life With Christ in the Third Reich (Parousia Pub., 4 Bramcote, Camberley, Surrey, GU15, 1SJ, U.K.), by Käthe Pfirrmann, and Blood and Honor (David C. Cook), by Reinhold Kerstan, are moving autobiographies, and The German Churches Under Hitler (Wayne State Univ.), by Ernst Christian Helmreich, is destined to become the definitive work on the subject. It is careful, scholarly, and profound.

A crushing criticism of Marxist utopianism is Frenchman Raymond Aron’s In Defense of Decadent Europe (Regnery/Gateway, South Bend, Ind.). Henry Kissinger called it one of our most important intellectual statements.

Turning to the East, Muhammad (Pantheon), by Maxime Rodinson, is one of the finest biographies of the prophet available. It makes him understandable to Westerners. Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (Univ. of Chicago), by Norman Itzkowitz, skillfully outlines Ottoman history from 1300 to its demise. A significant collection of essays is The Mutual Effects of the Islamic and Judeo-Christian Worlds: The East European Pattern (Brooklyn College Press/Columbia Univ. Press), edited by Abraham Ascher, Tibor Halasi-Kun, and Béla Király. Militant Islam (Harper & Row), by G. H. Jansen, argues (wrongly, I hope) that the hard liners will probably win in the current power struggle, while We Believe in One God (Seabury), edited by Annemarie Schimmel and Abdoldjavad Falaturi, in a series of essays attempts a dialogue between Christianity and Islam. Prophets of Rebellion: Millenarian Protest Movements Against the European Colonial Order (Univ. of N.C.), by Michael Adas, has five case studies in Asia displaying patterns of protest, repression, and rebellion.

The lives of three interesting persons closely related to religion in the East were written up last year. William Carey (Zondervan), by Mary Drewery, tells of India’s pioneer missionary; Ghandi: A Memoir (Simon and Schuster) is a well-done interpretation of that important man, by William Shirer; and The Road to Khartoum (Norton), by C. C. Trench, is a life of the enigmatic, fascinating Gen. Charles Gordon. This is one of the best books I’ve read in a very long time.

AMERICAN CHURCH HISTORY.

Early Period. There has been a good deal of interest in Puritanism in the last year. Banner of Truth saw fit to reprint Cotton Mather’s monumental The Great Works of Christ in America (two volumes, formerly titled Magnalia Christi Americana). It is primary source material of the first magnitude. Richard Lovelace takes a careful look at the origins of American evangelicalism in The American Pietism of Cotton Mather (Eerdmans). Jonathan Edwards’s Scientific and Philosophical Writings (Yale Univ.), edited by Wallace Anderson, is volume six of a series of his complete works, with an excellent introduction by editor Anderson. Coherence in a Fragmented World (Univ. Press of America), by Patricia Wilson-Kastner, discusses Edwards’s theology of the Holy Spirit. Edwards’s The Life and Diary of David Brainerd has been reprinted by Moody Press in their Wycliffe Classic Series. Two valuable studies are Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts, Essex County, 1629–1692, (Univ. of N.C.), by David King, and The Millenarian Piety of Roger Williams (Univ. of Chicago), by W. Clark Gilpin. Four new books deal with the literary creative side of Puritanism: From Wilderness to Wasteland: The Trial of the Puritan God in the American Imagination (Kennikat), by Charles Berryman; Nature and Religious Imagination from Edwards to Bushnell (Fortress), by Conrad Cherry; Puritan Influences in American Literature (Univ. of Ill.), edited by Emory Elliott; and The Language of Puritan Feeling (Rutgers Univ.), by David Leverenz. American Prose to 1820 (Gale Research), by Donald Yannella and John Roch, should be mentioned here. It is an invaluable guide to information sources covering over 80 major writers from John Adams to John Woolman.

The Eighteenth Century.From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut 1690–1765 (Harvard), by Richard L. Bushman, is a first-rate piece of historical writing. Conscience in Crisis (Herald Press), edited by Richard K. MacMaster with S. L. Horst and R. F. Ulle, is a valuable collection of documents from the Mennonites and other peace churches in America from 1739 to 1789, showing the determination of these groups to affirm freedom of conscience in worship and life. Liberty’s Daughters: The Revolutionary Experience of American Women 1750–1800 (Little, Brown), by Mary Beth Norton, is a challenging reassessment of the place of women in colonial America.

The Nineteenth Century.The Alcoholic Republic: An American Tradition (Oxford Univ. Press), by W. J. Rorabaugh, argues that, for many reasons, between 1790 and 1840 Americans drank more alcohol than at any other time in our history. Among these reasons was the quaint belief that alcohol was nutritious because it was made from grain. Three excellent works in the wake of Roots are The Liberty Line (Univ. of Ky.) by Larry Gara, which is a study of the underground railroad and its legends; Aunt Sally (Tyndale), a narrative of the slave life and purchase of Detroit’s Rev. Isaac Williams’s mother; and Wrestlin’ Jacob (John Knox Press), by Erskine Clarke, a portrait of religion in the Old South. All of these books are well worth reading. You might want to balance these three by reading Sherman’s March (Random House), by Burke Davis, which is a graphic account of the pillaging of the Old South. Valiant Friend (Walker), by Margaret Bacon, is a life of the gentle but vigorous Quaker leader Lucretia Mott, who fought for an end to slavery and for feminine rights.

Two very interesting books deal with camp meetings, revivals, and the social religion of those days: Glory Hallelujah! The Story of the Camp Meeting Spiritual (Abingdon), by Ellen Jane Lorenz, and Gospel Hymns and Social Religion: The Rhetoric of Nineteenth Century Revivalism (Temple Univ.), by Sandra Sizer. Two other books deal with the American Indians: The Religions of the American Indians (Univ. of Calif.) by Åke Hultkrantz, which is an excellent introduction to the subject, and The Churches and the Indian Schools 1888–1912 (Univ. of Neb.), by Francis Paul Prucha.

Transylvania: Tutor to the West (Univ. of Ky.), by John Wright, is not only an absorbing history of Transylvania University, but also a valuable history of the nineteenth century (over 300 pages deal with that period of time). Seven American Utopias: The Architecture of Communitarian Socialism 1790–1975 (M.I.T.), by Dolores Hayden, is an engrossing account, with rare, early photographs of these experimental communities. A carefully documented look at the communitarian experiment from a legal point of view is The Boundaries of Utopia (Pantheon), by Carol Wiesbrod.

Mission for Life (Free Press/Macmillan), by Joan Brumberg, is the story of Adoniram Judson, including a broad general look at evangelical religion during the nineteenth century. It is a model of scholarly writing.

The Twentieth Century. Two excellent biographies appeared: John R. Mott: 1865–1955 (Eerdmans), by C. Howard Hopkins, a detailed, careful, definitive work; and Helen and Teacher (Delacorte), by Joseph P. Lash, the moving story of Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy. Both of these biographies are carefully done and provide absorbing reading. 1929: America Before the Crash (Macmillan), by Warren Sloat, admirably covers the twenties, and Fire in the Streets (Simon and Schuster), by Milton Viorst, does the same for the sixties. Public Religion in American Culture (Temple Univ.), by John Wilson, is an excellent study of American “civil religion” and The Berrigans: A Bibliography of Published Works (Garland), by Anne Klejment, provides basic resource information for these significant people of our own time. The Search for America’s Faith (Abingdon), by George Gallup, Jr., and David Poling, is required reading for anyone interested in where the church is today and where it is going tomorrow. Two significant trends stand out: confidence in the church remains high, and Americans still place a great deal of importance on their religious beliefs. Apparently God didn’t die after all during the 1960s.

Carl F. H. Henry, first editor of Christianity Today, is lecturer at large for World Vision International. An author of many books, he lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Pastors who appreciate Christian bookstores are hungry for efficient service.

Is the Christian bookstore a ministry or a business? Is it a valuable extension of the church or simply a separate entity profiting from the boom in Christian literature?

If you were to ask Christian bookstore owners and managers, 98 percent of them would say that their stores are a ministry—a valuable service arm of the church. Yet, studies done by CBA, the Christian Booksellers Association, indicate that many Christian leaders do not support Christian bookstores. In light of this fact, we need to reexamine the role of Christian bookstores and their relationship to the ministry of the church.

Roger Lund, coowner and manager of Good News Bookstore in Olympia, Washington, said, “People come into our store looking for something to fill needs in their lives, and we are often able to help. We’ll send a book home with a pastor, too, and say, ‘Hey, read this and see what you think.’ The other day I gave a book to a pastor after strongly recommending it. He took it home and later bought a dozen copies.”

Confronted by important issues and desiring to help their people effectively, some church leaders recognize that Christian bookstores and the material they sell are valuable resources. Good Christian books expand understanding, inspire, challenge, guide, and encourage spiritual growth and evangelism. “Many authors today are getting down to the nitty-gritty aspects of Christian life and presenting them in different ways,” says pastor Timothy Grassinger of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Colorado Springs. “This is good, not only for the people who read the books, but for us as pastors. We should be familiar with a broad cross section of Christian books so we can knowledgeably direct our people to books that may help them.”

Jon Edwards, minister of education at Pulpit Rock Church in Colorado Springs, feels that Christian bookstores complement the pastor’s ministry in the local church. “If I give a book to somebody that will help him in his personal life, that helps me in my ministry. We’re in business to bring people to maturity in Christ. When people feed their minds with Christian literature rather than sit in front of the television set, the literature is helping us achieve our objectives.” Church leaders are beginning to see that reading congregations strongly support their pastors’ vision, objectives, and long-term goals.

Dr. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida keeps in regular touch with local Christian booksellers. They often ask Kennedy to forewarn them if he’s going to dwell on a significant book in his sermons, because they will be deluged with requests for it afterwards. “If my congregation listens to me for 25 minutes a week and then ends up reading good Christian literature 4 to 6 hours a week, their edification has been greatly expanded,” Kennedy says.

Booksellers are also noticing that church leaders have a growing interest in Christian books. “Pastors, for example, are more concerned about issues,” says Volney James, manager of the Zondervan Family Bookstore in Colorado Springs. “The other day, a pastor came into my store and asked, ‘Is there anything new I should know about?’ I was able to expose him to new products, and he in turn is relaying that information from the pulpit, through his staff, and in counseling sessions. Concerned pastors who are looking at problems within their congregations and trying to deal with them in more than a superficial way are seeking answers in Christian books.”

Although Christian bookstores are increasing at the rate of more than 30 a month, there are no statistics that can show how much the average bookstore’s outreach has increased. There are just too many variables, such as differences in individual ownership, store type, local market, inventory, and location. But a new CBA operations survey indicates that sales volume among member stores is increasing beyond the rate of inflation. Bob Alm, CBA’s membership services director, says, “If booksellers don’t work a lot harder in today’s economic climate, they won’t make it. But generally speaking, the stores are growing in public outreach and service.”

In recent years, many Christian bookstores have tried to become more conscious of their service. Bookstore managers are training their personnel effectively to help people select products that will meet their needs. The old-fashioned, somewhat disorganized stores are slowly giving way to attractive stores with carefully organized merchandise that makes shopping more enjoyable. Booksellers sponsor seminars and workshops to help train church workers and introduce them to the latest teaching aids. Also, an increasing number of educated young men and women are choosing to become Christian booksellers.

June Gardner, director of children’s ministries at First Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs, has learned how to make good use of the local bookstore’s services. “The store saves me a lot of time. One of the employees, a former Christian education director, is well aware of our needs. I call her, ask what she has on a particular subject, and she’ll research it for me. When we needed help with children’s church, she brought out some books and said, ‘Here, take these to your meeting, look them over, and choose what you want.’ ”

Christian bookstores, like other retail businesses, must be operated efficiently. According to CBA figures, most Christian bookstores operate with private capital that has come from life savings or mortgaged homes. Unless the owners apply good management techniques, however, the capital soon disappears. “Many stores that have not operated with a good balance of ministry and business have exhausted their capital,” says John Bass, executive vice-president of CBA. “For this reason, we concentrate on teaching good management practices. Our membership failure rate in 1979 was 6.5 percent, much lower than the national average.”

The average Christian bookstore sells $80,000 worth of retail merchandise in its second year and earns an average profit of slightly more than $3,000. Because the dealer discount on books is only 40 percent and the discount on curriculum is 10–15 percent lower—well below that of many other retail goods—the bookseller is pegged into a rigidly controlled operating costs structure. If he discounts his goods, he cuts his profit margin down to nothing. He requires the full 40 percent to pay his costs for rent or mortgage payments, utilities, advertising, skyrocketing shipping costs, rising payroll and business taxes, loan payments, and wages and salaries. In addition, he must maintain an adequate inventory in light of escalating prices on his products. According to the new survey, the average yearly net profit for all CBA stores is 4.5 percent. Most booksellers could take the money they have invested in their bookstores and make more money by placing it in a local savings account.

Christian bookstores typically do not pay their employees very well. Employees often find they have to work many hard hours on the sales floor and that they must consider a portion of this to be ministry. “It’s difficult,” says Dolores Rainey, CBA bookstore consultant, “for bookstores to produce enough money for salaries to adequately pay the type of personnel they’d like to have.”

In order to serve their customers fully, booksellers work hard to evaluate market needs, maintain adequate inventories, and remain knowledgeable concerning available literature. “Our biggest problem,” comments Dave Hanson, owner of Chapel Bookshoppe in Colorado Springs, “is that we can never carry all the material people want. There’s so much material out there, and special ordering is a major part of our business.”

“We can’t just order unlimited quantities of books,” Volney James adds. “We have to put a definite lid on the amount of total merchandise we can stock. If I took several of every book that publishers sell, I couldn’t contain them.”

The inflating cost of books is increasing booksellers’ replacement costs and hurting customer relations. “We are not the only industry plagued with that problem,” James says, “but our customers are vocal about it and some think we’re trying to rip them off. We then explain that although the book was originally priced at $19.95, it came invoiced to us at $22.95 less our 40 percent discount.” Some booksellers continue to sell merchandise at the old prices, but must pay the new publishers’ prices. As a result, they are drastically reducing their working capital.

In spite of the bookstores’ slim profit margin, some publishers bypass them entirely. “In most cases,” John Bass says, “publishers will not sell at below retail prices to anyone except a bookstore unless a large quantity is ordered. Book tables don’t legally qualify for discounts.” In years past, bookstores often gave discounts to pastors even though Federal Trade Commission laws prohibit offering discounts to one individual and not to another except on the basis of quantities purchased. Despite rising costs, some booksellers continue to offer discounts to church leaders, and many church leaders still expect them. But other booksellers take a dim view of individualized discounting.

“One of our frustrations,” James says, is that many people think that if money is made on something it’s not a ministry. Churches, for instance, want us to set up book tables and discount the books, the idea being that if we give 10 percent off, our literature becomes a ministry and if we sell it for the full price we’re just ‘making money on it.’

“But if a pastor isn’t supported by his church for his services, then are his efforts a ministry? If he is paid, then are his services just a business for him? If we can’t keep our doors open, if we can’t pay our staff and our bills, it doesn’t matter what we call it. It’s a bad testimony, not just the loss of a ministry. The tension between business and ministry always exists, but my best pastors don’t ask for a discount. They tend to be realistic in terms of the total management of money and the total operation of a business. They realize that they can’t pay their churches’ bills with promises.”

Booksellers desiring to serve church and lay leaders effectively must initiate communication themselves. If they give church leaders and laymen reasons for supporting Christian bookstores, the support will come. “When church leaders realize that we are helping their people reach a certain level of spiritual maturity and aren’t just a business, they will be willing to support us,” says Dave Hanson. “A large percentage of church-going Christians don’t enter Christian bookstores because they don’t know what we offer.”

To bridge the gap, some booksellers speak to adult elective classes; they show class members how to select and buy books that will make a real contribution to their own lives and the lives of others. Other booksellers get on their local churches’ mailing lists, attend ministerial meetings, send newsletters to individuals and churches involved in music and education ministries, hold vacation Bible school workshops, distribute tickets for local community events, and offer to provide book tables for special church events.

Unfortunately, many church and lay leaders find that their local Christian booksellers are not communicating with them effectively. Some booksellers have not clearly defined their goals, hesitate to approach different churches, or have little or no staff to serve the churches adequately. Pastors who appreciate Christian bookstores are hungry for efficient service. “I don’t see bookstores actively soliciting business from the clergy and churches,” comments Timothy Grassinger. “They mostly [just] open their doors at 9:00 A.M. and close them in the evenings. If I owned a bookstore, I’d try to drum up more business. I’d make friends out there rather than wait for people to come to my door. Maybe the bookstores could send me a monthly publication listing new titles and descriptions or send out a catalog listing books pastors are using.

Still other pastors want the bookstores to be more attractive and service oriented. “I don’t go into one store,” Jon Edwards states, “because it frustrates me. I know they have what I’m looking for, but it’s difficult to find. Half the time, after I leave the store without finding what I want, a store employee will call me back a week later to tell me they have the book. A Christian bookstore ought to be set up so customers can walk in and find the most helpful books on subjects they are interested in.”

Many pastors want bookstores to evaluate more carefully the books they stock. They don’t have the time to sort out the good Christian books from the shallow material that gives easy answers and has no substance, and they hope that Christian booksellers will do some of the sorting for them. “Some bookstores are discriminate in what they are stocking and some are not,” James Kennedy says. “I’m thankful that the one near us stocks very good books, not just a lot of fluff.”

It all boils down to whether or not the Christian bookstore is viewed as a ministry or as a business. Christian leaders should think about how the local Christian bookstore can complement their ministry in the local church. And Christian booksellers should take the initiative to do all they can to be a supportive service arm of the church.

A former book editor, Stephen Sorenson heads Sorenson Communications in Colorado Springs.

Three women countered the trashy paperbacks of their day with a flood of Christian literature.

Evangelical Christianity has always fostered the making and reading of books. More publications appeared in the first two years of the Reformation than in the preceding century. Robert Raikes (1735–1811), editor of the Gloucester Journal and better known as the founder of the Sunday school in England, became impressed with the needs of ragged and neglected children in his city. He decided that their greatest need was to read, write, and learn of God. Schools for the poor were so scarce as to be virtually nonexistent. The Industrial Revolution was in full swing. In their search for cheap labor, employers hired children as young as five or six to work in their factories.

Sunday was the only day the factories were not open. Released from the restraint of the 16-hour workday, the rowdy young laborers thronged the streets, scandalizing respectable citizens with their cursing, gambling, and irresponsible behavior. Raikes thought, “It would at least be a harmless attempt … should some little plan be formed to check the deplorable defamation of the Sabbath.”

His “little plan” was the Sunday school. By 1811 when Raikes died, 400,000 students were enrolled in Sunday schools. But Raikes’s founding of Sunday schools to teach children to read was only the beginning. A vast market for reading material was created that had not existed before.

These new readers were easy prey for the chapmen or peddlers who had been hawking their crude “chapbooks” to the lower classes for generations. (Shakespeare refers to them in his plays.) These were the only books readily accessible to the poor. They were extremely cheap and their quality matched their price. They catered to public taste (of the baser sort), and though some of them were rather innocuous or even pseudoreligious, the bulk of them were vulgar and crude. Violence, sex, and witchcraft were common themes.

For the poor, there was little alternative to the chapman for securing books. Public libraries as we know them were not yet in existence, and a trip to a regular bookseller would be too costly. Sunday school libraries were beginning to spring up to meet the need, but few books were suitable for the Sunday school’s collection. In addition to being clearly written for and relevant to the lower classes, they also had to be acceptable to the Sunday school leaders, most of them evangelicals. These leaders did not approve of the few children’s books available. This combination of a large potential audience and few suitable books produced a triumvirate of “Sunday school” writers in late eighteenth-century England: Sarah Trimmer, Hannah More, and Mary Sherwood.

Sarah Trimmer (1741–1810)

The first to emerge as a popular author was Sarah Trimmer, the mother of six sons and six daughters. She supervised the training of her little brood, but she also had a larger vision. After hearing of Raikes’s experiment with Sunday schools, she determined to start some in her home town of Brentford.

Though little remains of what she wrote, her output was considerable. Besides writing a number of books, she published two periodicals, The Family Magazine and The Guardian of Education. The former was “especially designed for the instruction and amusement of cottagers and servants, calculated to improve the mind and lead to religion and virtue … The journal’s avowed policy was to counteract the pernicious influence of immoral books” (A Critical History of Children’s Literature, by Cornelia Meigs et al., Macmillan, 1953). The Guardian of Education gave reviews of children’s books and reading guidance. In it Trimmer refuted the philosophies of Rousseau and condemned fairy tales en masse. There’s a bit of irony in the fact that Trimmer’s most popular book, The History of the Robins, was an imaginative story bearing some resemblance to a fairy tale! It was actually intended for her own children rather than for Sunday school scholars.

Hannah More (1745–1833)

Hannah More was the most prestigious and colorful of the three authors. She was a popular playwright of her era. On the wall of the Theatre Royal in Bristol, where she lived for many years, is the inscription, “Boast we not a More!” attesting to the esteem in which she was held by the theatrical world.

Hannah More’s interest in the Sunday school came in a roundabout way. The West Indies slave trade was a social issue of the day. At the height of her career she espoused the cause with a vengeance. She sold oil paintings of a Negro boy to publicize the plight of the blacks and went about showing her friends the plan of an African slave ship.

This interest brought her into contact with a whole new set of people and effected an abrupt change in her life. She became concerned about the plight of the poor in London and tried to arouse her peers by writing three tracts. Because of her fame as a playwright, her tracts were widely read, but their message was ignored. It was this that led her to say, “I am no longer debtor to the Greeks, but I am so to my poor Barbarians.”

More stopped going to London, and with the help of her sisters and an Anglican churchman of evangelical persuasion began setting up Sunday schools in the rural area around Bristol. These schools met with great success. But More’s greatest contribution to the Sunday school movement was through her literary effort. She believed that to “teach the poor to read without providing them with ‘safe’ books was not conducive to religious or moral reform.”

Never one to do things by halfway measures, More set out to discover just what the young people were reading. She bought every chapbook she could find and perused the whole collection. She was incensed at what she found. As disturbing to her as the more vulgar chapbooks were inflammatory publications of the atheistic and antireligious “School of Paine.” His unorthodox approach to religion as well as his revolutionary ideas made his name anathema. In a letter to Macaulay, she fumed, “Vulgar and indecent penny books were always common, but speculative infidelity brought down to the pockets of the poor forms a new era in our history. This requires strong counteraction.”

Her counteraction was effective and to the point. Using the format of the chapbook, and with the help of friends, she produced stories in simple, clear language and illustrated them with woodcuts.

When her tracts were ready, More staged a grand opening. Peddlers and hawkers were her special guests. She gave them each an assortment of tracts to sell, a feat made possible by cajoling her friends into making contributions.

The whole affair was a hit as smashing as her play, Percy, had been. Three hundred thousand copies of the tracts were sold in only a month and a half. The sale of these cheap tracts led to the founding of the Religious Tract Society in 1799.

Many of the tracts were written by More herself. One of the most famous was The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, the story of an honest laborer. This was widely distributed in America as well as in England.

Mary Sherwood (1775–1851)

The last member of the trio was Mary Sherwood. Darton calls her “The most intense moralist of them all.” Sherwood was a born story teller. The daughter of a country parson, she had made up stories since she was a young child. Her first real book was published when she was 27, shortly after she had taken charge of a Sunday school.

Mary married her cousin, Henry Sherwood, an army officer who was stationed in India. Life in India brought great sorrow. A small son born there died in her arms. But in spite of her sorrow, Sherwood began to help those around her. She taught the children of the soldiers and Indian children as well. She also continued to write children’s stories. Little Henry and His Bearer is often referred to as the first children’s missionary story. it was such a part of English culture that Kipling makes reference to it in one of his books.

Mrs. Sherwood’s most important book. The Fairchild Family, portrays children in a realistic fashion and, in spite of its didactic tone, has appeal. It enjoyed enormous popularity for many years.

Though the stories of Sarah Trimmer, Hannah More, and Mary Sherwood have passed into obscurity, they filled an important need in their time and left an indelible impression on children’s literature.

The momentum of this movement carried it to America where the American Sunday School Union played a significant part in the publication and distribution of books. It was one of the first groups, secular or religious, to set up special criteria for children’s literature. To bear its imprint a book must: (1) be clearly and absolutely of a moral and religious character; (2) be graded and adapted to the capacity of the growing mind of the child; (3) exhibit a high order of style so as to constitute fairly good literature; and (4) be adapted for American children. The books were kept small so that a child could handle them easily. They were also cheap so a child could buy them.

This last requirement reflects heavy dependence upon Mary Sherwood and Hannah More. In fact, no American authors of import emerged as they did in the English Sunday school. The vast majority of ASSU books were printed anonymously.

Many books published by the union were sold to the public, but more were distributed through Sunday school libraries. Thus, for the first time, wholesome reading became readily available to a large number of children. This was especially important since public libraries provided little for children until the late 1800s. Their sentiment toward juvenile library use is revealed in the notice some posted: “No Dogs or Children Allowed.”

There were scattered Sunday school libraries before the organization of the ASSU, but it was the union that made Sunday school libraries a household word. Where the people went, the Sunday school and its library went. Many a frontier town found a Sunday school library its only source of reading material.

The early libraries of America were in fact largely Sunday school libraries. As late as 1870, the United States Census notes 33,580 Sunday school libraries in the country, containing 8,346,153 volumes. By contrast, at the same time all town and city libraries contained only 1,237,430 volumes, and the total for school and college libraries in America numbered 3,598,537. In short, Sunday school libraries contained twice as many volumes as all town, city, school, college, and university libraries combined! (See Outline of the History of the Development of the American Public Library, by Martha Conner, American Library Association, 1931).

Gradually, changes began to take place that affected the role of the Sunday school and its libraries. School libraries became widespread. Public libraries added children’s rooms. Secular publishing houses began to cater to young readers. But the Sunday school with its Sunday school library and evangelical concern for the children of the poor had laid the foundation for the first broad use of children’s libraries.

In England they taught the poor to read and in America they made an unforgettable contribution to the masses, but especially to children, giving them something to read. In doing so, they were also able to communicate their evangelical faith to their generation.

Humor In Hebrew

A Situational Hermeneutic

Recently I had occasion to recall an interesting experience I had in connection with the New International Version translation project. After the Salamanca session I went through customs in New York. As one trembling citizen after another in the line in which I was standing passed the customs agent, I saw with some dismay that I had picked a line with a hard-nosed, no-nonsense inspector. When I got up close I detected blood in his eye. The poor guy ahead of me was a college kid wearing a backpack and carrying a big box tied with rope. The agent made him unpack and unravel absolutely everything. And I was next!

Our conversation went something like this:

“Where you coming from?”

“Salamanca, Spain.”

“What were you doing there?” (I can see the man’s mind is racing, trying to recall whether Salamanca is a known link to the French drug scene.)

“I was working on a new Bible translation.”

“W-h-a-t? You’re a Bible translator?” (I can see the disbelief in his eyes. He’s silent for about five seconds, then he looks over to his buddy in the next line. I just know that what he’s thinking is: “Hey Charlie, I just heard a new one. This guy is a Bible translator!” What a thigh-slapper!)

“Yes.” (Spoken very quietly, with Christian resignation.)

“What part of the Bible did you translate?” (Thank God for little favors. At least he knows there are several parts.)

“Genesis and Leviticus.”

“You read Hebrew?” (Maybe that blood in his eye is the blood of Abraham?)

“Yes.” (Spoken a tad more confidently.)

“What’s the word for ‘iron’?”

“Barzel.”

“What’s the word for ‘milk’?”

“Chalav.” (Now I’m rising to the challenge; blood is returning to my feet and hands and face.)

With a magisterial wave of his hand he sends me on my way rejoicing, signs my ticket, my baggage untouched, not another word said.

JOHN JESKE

Love

Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,

If I lacked anything.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:

Love said, You shall be he.

I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,

I cannot look on thee.

Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,

Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame

Go where it doth deserve.

And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?

My dear, then I will serve.

You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:

So I did sit and eat.

GEORGE HERBERT (1593–1663)

Echo-Making

The only One who makes a man’s the one who can.

Men do not make, they take the thing once made

And build clay shadows—

marble, jade,

They carve for pleasure, praise, for trade,

An echo of a creature—image strayed

Into their fancies. Only man the under-maker

Catches sunset with a brush or thinks he can,

Hopes in ink to draw December; apes, plays

Proud creator for a span of days—clay, stone,

Jade, paint remember God made man.

DAVID WICK

Carl F. H. Henry, first editor of Christianity Today, is lecturer at large for World Vision International. An author of many books, he lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Discover whether you are orthodox, neoorthodox, or liberal.

Please check only the two answers in each section that most completely and precisely correspond to your views. If none are satisfactory, please leave the section blank.

I. How do you perceive the death of Jesus Chrlst on the cross?

A. As a supreme example of the love of God that should kindle a similar love in our hearts.

B. As a propitiatory sacrifice that turns away the wrath and judgment of God.

C. As a vicarious substitutionary atonement for the sins of mankind.

D. As an incomparable revelation of God’s grace and mercy.

E. As a ruse to deceive the devil.

F. As a historical sign and witness of God redemptive activity in the world.

G. As the key to the abundant life of freedom.

H. As a demonstration of the invincibility of the human spirit.

I. As a dramatic testimony to the power of suffering love.

II. Which of these salvation models do you deem most valid?

A. Inward healing.

B. Penal redemption.

C. Victory over the devil.

D. Deification.

E. Reunion with the Eternal.

G. Mystical ascent.

H. Release from the pain of desire.

I. Personal integration.

J. Humanization.

III. How do you view the person of Jesus Christ?

A. As a divine soul in a human body.

B. As the heavenly Word of God who assumed human flesh.

C. As true God in the form of true Man.

D. As the mirror of divine being.

E. As the maturation of the human spirit, the flower of humanity.

F. As the ideal of divine-human unity which all people approximate.

G. As the Man for Others.

H. As a prophetic figure imbued with the Spirit of God.

I. As the exemplar of perfected human nature.

J. As the historical personification of liberating love.

IV. How do you understand the relation between Jesus and God?

A. As a perfect blending of deity and humanity.

B. As a hypostatic or personal union in which Jesus is One with the Logos or Word of God.

C. As a substantial unity so that there is one Person in two natures.

D. As a mystical union between the human soul and its divine ground.

E. As a moral union between the divine and human will.

F. As a union of grace by which Jesus is united with God in outgoing service.

G. As a sacramental union in which Jesus becomes an instrument of divine grace.

H. As a spiritual union in which Jesus is one with God in love, but not in substance or being.

I. As an essential union so that it can be asserted that Jesus is overwhelmingly or exclusively divine.

V. What is the purpose of the Incarnation?

A. To make known the pathway to perfection.

B. To save people from divine judgment and hell.

C. To deliver people out of their bondage to the powers of darkness.

D. To reconcile and unite people to God.

E. To demonstrate God’s deep love for us.

F. To communicate the knowledge of salvation.

G. To reveal the presence of God latent within all people.

H. To show people the right way to live.

I. To bring us into contact with God’s love and transform us into his image.

J. To prepare the way for the reunion of the soul with God.

VI. How do you comprehend the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ?

A. As necessary because this was the only way God could have become man.

B. As a supernatural miracle whereby Jesus was conceived without a human father.

C. As an event within history that marked off the origin of Christ from the human race.

D. As an apologetic device of the early church designed to give credence to the deity of Jesus.

E. As one of several myths of a divine birth current in the world of that time.

F. As a poetic expression of the truth of the Incarnation.

G. As primarily a symbol of the purity of Mary’s commitment to Christ.

H. As a legend that has its source in extraordinary phenomena associated with the birth of Christ.

I. As necessary if Jesus were to be born sinless.

J. As a relic of a mythological past.

VII. How do you interpret the resurrection of Christ?

A. As a vision of the departed Lord.

B. As a triumph of Christ over death and hell by rising bodily from the grave.

C. As the corporeal return of Christ to those who believed in him.

D. As the triumph of spirit over matter.

E. As an experience of inner freedom from the anxieties of death and guilt.

F. As the materialization of the spirit of Jesus.

G. As a unique encounter with the reality of liberating love.

H. As an experience of enlightenment concerning man’s immortality.

I. As the rising of new life in the hearts of the disciples.

J. As a discovery of the continuing spiritual presence of their deceased master.

VIII. How do you view the holy Trinity?

A. As one God who assumes three different roles.

B. As three Persons in one Nature.

C. As eternal distinctions that pertain to the very being of God.

D. As three personalities within a unitary being.

E. As three modes of being in which the one God operates.

F. As one Person in three manifestations.

G. As a metaphorical expression that describes the manner in which God relates himself to people.

H. As dimensions of God’s activity in the world.

I. As a departure from the biblical idea of monotheism.

J. As a defensive doctrine that does not really succeed in reconciling disparate elements in the Christian message.

Gauging the Results

Count up the number of B’s and C’s.

Add the D’s in Sections I and V.

Total

SCORE

16–14 Orthodox

14–9 Neoorthodox

9–1 Liberal

1–0 Extreme liberal, humanist, or confused.

Note that if no B’s or C’s are checked in Sections III, IV, and VIII one should rightly be considered Unitarian. If D’s are checked in II, III, IV, and VII, or G’s in II and V, one is probably a mystic. The same can be said for several other options. For those of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox background, D in Section II should be included in the total, though orthodox Protestants avoid this terminology because it suggests pantheism.

A Word of Explanation

Some of the answers outside ot the B’s and C’s are not necessarily unchristian or unbiblical, but they represent limited understandings. Because of their ambiguity or imprecision they lend themselves to interpretations that have been deemed heretical in the past. Note that the D’s in Sections I and V, while basically orthodox, can also be brought into harmony with liberal interpretations that tend to deny or underplay the holiness and wrath of God.

This is a sociological survey and should be seen as a learning device more than as a test of orthodoxy. At the same time, it does give a reliable indication as to whether one is closer to orthodoxy or to liberalism and Unitarianism in one’s view of Jesus Christ. In this context, the norm for orthodoxy is the teaching of Holy Scripture as set forth in the creeds of the early church and the confessions and theology of the Reformation.

Carl F. H. Henry, first editor of Christianity Today, is lecturer at large for World Vision International. An author of many books, he lives in Arlington, Virginia.