Modern Idolatry Exposed

The Golden Cow: Materialism in the Twentieth Century Church, by John White (InterVarsity, 175 pp., $3.50 pb), is reviewed by Leonard G. Goss, agent, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Publishers, Independence, Missouri.

White deals well with the reality of materialism, particularly in the North American Christian world. To do this he dips into the Old Testament prophets who accused the nation of Israel of harlotry. The Israelites forsook the Lord to sell themselves to other gods for political security, monetary enhancement, and social acceptance. Jesus charged the Pharisees with the same sort of idolatry. The Golden Cow, in comparing us with Israel, not only catalogs our own greed for things and our own “religion as industry,” but draws the inescapable conclusion that “there is an uncanny similarity between our day and that of ancient Israel”: consumer exploitation, violent oppression, idolatry, bribery, misplaced military alliances, legal corruption. Ancient Jerusalem? Yes, but today as well.

Perhaps the theme of this book, which the publisher calls “prophetic,” is simply that Christians are not obligated to embrace asceticism in order to battle materialism, but that, in fact, material things do corrupt. While for White there seems little virtue in poverty, there is certainly no great value in riches, either. Association with the latter is shown graphically to bring abject enslavement, a limiting of spiritual horizon, and a definite cheapening of lifestyle by undermining faith.

The theme is cropped close enough, but the author, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, would have offered better service (and been prophetic) had he shown a bit more contempt for the popular and uncritical opinion, so often claimed today by churchgoers, that riches are not so bad after all. Instead of telling readers that the thrust of Jesus’ teaching “does not deal with the virtues of poverty or the sin of riches” (which is true), White might have labored more carefully at defining for us what is the Bible’s (and hence Jesus’) view on materialism. When Scripture declares that we must never attach ourselves to wealth of any kind (Ps. 62:10; Matt. 19:23) lest our lives become forfeit, we must say that it would be folly to do so, and not, as White, that “we are not called to imitate Christ’s poverty but to follow him in his example of love.” And it should be disturbing to read that “Should he heap material riches upon us, well and good.” And oddly, after being told that material abundance corrupts, we are told to brush the problem aside: “We need not feel condemned because we are surrounded by abundance. Rather we should praise and thank a bountiful God who pours unmerited blessings upon us.”

The book has several exemplary points. For example, White’s view of the church is refreshingly traditional, based on people/doctrine, not on real estate or mass psychology. He also deals squarely with parachurch organizations, many of which have used questionable methods of fund raising—professing faith in God alone and simultaneously manipulating people into giving. With religious bumper stickers and other trinkets having gone so far in exploiting and spiritually desensitizing the Christian public, White uses strong words to discuss so-called Christian business. The chapters dealing with local churches, parachurches, and “Christian” business practices are unquestionably the best, I believe, but there are 10 chapters of excellent writing (although some contain questionable thinking). Ministers especially, as well as others concerned about the rampant materialism in the church, will benefit from this book.

Modern Evangelism

Five Lanterns at Sundown, by Alfred Krass (Eerdmans, 1978, 256 pp., $4.95), and The Open Secret, by Leslie Newbigin (Eerdmans, 1978, 208 pp. $5.95), are reviewed by Mark R. Branson, who works with the Theological Students Fellowship, a division of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.

Subtitling his work Evangelism in a Chastened Mood, Alfred Krass has offered us the most complete, biblical, far-reaching, and creative book on evangelism to be published in recent years. Contemporary American culture is the setting for Krass’s evaluation and challenge.

In his preface the author writes, “To an American audience which expects to see evangelism associated with growth and visions of the New Jerusalem, the biblical evangelist must address the question: Have you really caught the drift of the biblical message? Have you appreciated how countercultural it is? Or have you reshaped it to conform to the millennialism of your own culture? Are you aware of the break between your highest visions and God’s promise?” (p. xii).

Retelling Jesus’ parable about the ten virgins, (Matt. 25:1–13) Krass assumes the position of one of the five “suburban women” who failed to get entrance to the wedding feast.

“But the way he acted that night was just so typical! ‘I’m here, and it’s time to start the wedding. Come on, girls.’ And we all woke up and the five of us saw with horror that our lamps were out—it must have been past 12! And there he was going in with Helen and her friends and, and—they were shutting the door! I ran to the door and stood there with my hand against it.

“You see, I still get all riled up when I think about it. I kind of lost control. In my more objective moments, I recognize that what happened that night made no difference whatsoever. The essential things—the decisive things—had happened before sunset, before that day, even. The events of that night were only the logical conclusion to the deep decisions the five of us—and the five of them—had made long ago” (pp. 3, 4).

Krass takes themes from the parable (the wedding-maker, receiving invitations, the night, the announcement, trimming our wicks, the bridegroom, the feast, and on not getting in) and develops biblical, theological, and ethical issues. He explores “models” of Americans and their values. He interacts with modern “inquirers” like Robert Heilbroner, psychologist Kenneth Clark, CBS’s Dan Rather, French sociologist Robert Bellah. Emile Dunkheim (French sociologist) provides a major source of analysis for Krass.

As a member of the NCC Evangelism Working Group, Krass was discouraged by the hesitancy of denominational leaders to deal seriously with ecumenical evangelism, who favored instead definitions leading toward institutional growth. Although not dealing extensively with ecclesiology, the prologue (at the end of the book!) discusses four church models currently perceived: center of resistance, witness to transcendence, a loyal opposition, and a servant community. It is my hope that the issues raised by Krass in Five Lanterns at Sundown will be given serious consideration by everyone interested in the evangelistic task of the church.

Raising similar issues, but on a global scale, Leslie Newbigin offers The Open Secret out of the wealth of his experience as general secretary of the International Missionary Council and as associate general secretary of the World Council of Churches. If viable, the church must be oriented toward missions. Newbigin develops a general picture of how the Western church came to be and the problems we now encounter in the modern world. He calls first and foremost for a theological understanding, which must then be followed by a reordering of structures.

Based on the authority of Jesus Christ as he lays hold of the believer, Newbigin develops a trinitarian missionary theology: “as proclaiming the kingdom of the Father, as showing the life of the Son, and as bearing the witness of the Spirit” (p. 31).

In “The Gospel and World History” Newbigin explores with refreshing insight the doctrine of election. Repudiating views of privileged status, contracted claims, and self-established positions of judgment, Newbigin develops the universal aims of the gospel, the element of surprise for believers and unbelievers in Jesus’ stories, and a focus on “the freedom and responsibility which God gives every person” (pp. 90, 91).

Further sections deal with Latin American Liberation theologians, church-growth models of Donald McGavran, and the methods of Chinese missionary Roland Allen, in which issues of numerical growth, the meaning of conversion, and culture are ably explored. A “three-cornered” relationship “between the traditional culture, the Christianity of the missionary, and the Bible” (p. 165) provides checks against imperialism, accommodation, and relativism. Newbigin defends quite well the necessity of the Bible as a needed element in opposition to some who belong to the Western “modern scientific world.”

Finally, in “The Gospel among the Religions,” Newbigin counters various schools of world religions, comparative religions, and philosophies of religion (notably John Hick).

Throughout The Open Secret Newbigin questions the Western church and its culture. Rather than leaving us with the usual guilt, though, the volume moves us through theological probings, personal reflections, and his own international insights to an exciting view of how the gospel of Jesus Christ needs to go out to all the world.

Krass and Newbigin have provided us with excellent resources. Don’t miss either.

Protestantism Goes Evangelistic

The Church as Evangelist, by George E. Sweazey (Harper & Row, 255 pp., $9.95); Go … and Make Disciples, by David H.C. Read (Abingdon, 110pp., $3.50pb); Opening the Door of Faith: The Why, When, and Where of Evangelism, by John R. Hendrick (John Knox, 112 pp., $4.50 pb); Advocate for God, by Kenneth W. Linsley (Judson, 80 pp., $2.50 pb); How to Witness Successfully, by George Sweeting (Moody, 127 pp., $2.95 pb); Friendship Evangelism, by Arthur G. McPhee (Zondervan, 139 pp., $2.95 pb); One-on-One Evangelism, by James H. Jauncey (Moody, 119 pp., $2.95 pb); The Contagious Congregation, by George G. Hunter (Abingdon, 160 pp., $4.95 pb); Evangelism’s Open Secrets, by Herb Miller (Bethany, 112 pp., $4.25 pb); Real Evangelism, by Bailey E. Smith (Broad-man, 168 pp., $5.95); Evangelism: The Next Ten Years, edited by Sherwood Eliot Wirt (Word, 165 pp., $6.95); Overhearing the Gospel, by Fred B. Craddock (Abingdon, 144 pp., $6.95), are reviewed by Dale Sanders, pastor, Orleans Presbyterian Church, Orleans, Nebraska.

Heightened interest in evangelism has brought forth numerous books spanning the Protestant spectrum. In my judgment, four of the best books on evangelism come from the pens of Presbyterians, published by four different presses. Of the four, George Sweazey and David Read are already well-known speakers and writers. Dr. Sweazey is a former professor of homiletics at Princeton Theological Seminary, and author of the previously well-received Effective Evangelism. Dr. Read is a popular pulpit and radio preacher (New York City’s Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, and NBC’s National Radio Pulpit).

The Church As Evangelist is a passionate, immensely practical guidebook to the art and ethic of evangelism that no church library or ongoing evangelism program should be without. Unhesitant to chide his own denomination, or ecumenical footdragging, Dr. Sweazey calls for the establishment of chairs of evangelism in the seminaries. But beyond institutional interest, he offers wide-ranging and precise advice for local congregational evangelistic outreach. The weaknesses and strengths of various approaches, along with a series of dos and don’ts, are outlined, largely illustrated from personal experience. Bluntly, and refreshingly asking his reader that old question, “have you been saved” (p. 7), Dr. Sweazey takes a hatchet to the fashionable “theology of failure” that equates shrinking congregations with faithfulness to the gospel.

Dr. Sweazey’s theology is unapologetically evangelical, appreciative of evangelicalism as a movement both inside and outside the mainline denominations, and hopeful that evangelism will become the number one task of every theological persuasion (although it’s hard for this reviewer to believe that the liberals, to whom Dr. Sweazey appeals, will alter their practices to the extent he thinks possible).

David Read, like George Sweazey, rejects syncretism among the world’s religions. The perfect companion to the above book, Go … and Make Disciples can be read in two or three hours. Subtitled “The Why and How of Evangelism,” Dr. Read presents an attractive “case” for evangelism, but he leaves the how somewhat ambiguous.

If there is a problem with the above two authors, it is their assumption that evangelism is suitable for all theological persuasions. John R. Hendrick, executive presbyter of the Brazos Presbytery, Texas, in Opening the Door of Faith: The Why, When, and Where of Evangelism, demonstrates the problem. Beginning with personal testimonies—Catholic, Protestant, liberal, conservative—Dr. Hendrick has written a thoughtful book focusing on “faith”; acquiring it, preserving it, and sharing it. He defines faith as centered on Christ, personal, and relational, while stressing that there is no one way persons come to faith. The especially good discussion questions and projects at the end of each chapter enhance the value of this short, chock-full, provocative book, and are excellent for small group use.

Advocate for God is the personal story of Kenneth W. Linsley, a lawyer and general counsel for the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., and how he became a Christian. He also shares how he witnesses as a personable, compassionate believer. This book is a joy and an inspiration to read!

Three further books on personal evangelism, of varying worth, all agree on the point that canned, stereotyped methods should be avoided. George Sweeting, president of Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute, presents an easily followed outline with pertinent review questions. Here is pastoral, practical guidance for the new Christian. A drawback is frequent reference to important evangelical names of the past without identifying them—names that are unfamiliar to many who are new in the church. “Successfully” in the title, it seems to this reviewer, would be better replaced by “Faithfully” or some other non-Madison Avenue term.

Arthur McPhee, radio speaker for “The Mennonite Hour,” puts flesh on the skeleton of Sweeting’s work, making Friendship Evangelism more essay than outline. Both Sweeting and McPhee are personal without overuse of the egocentric “I.” Thirteen chapters each, the books are of near equal length, simplicity, and applicability that make them an ideal duo for a church’s evangelism group.

Pastor/evangelist James H. Jauncey, is the author of One-on-One Evangelism. The repetitive use of the personal pronoun “I” and the multiple assertions that he is a “qualified clinical psychologist” are typical of the tone that pervades this book.

It is essentially a psychological primer to evangelism, and the overwhelming impression one gets is that evangelism is manipulation premised on theory (Maslow). Especially distressing is the use of guilt, even trivial guilt, as a crowbar to persuade people to Christ. It really seems that Dr. Jauncey’s approach is selling the evangelist rather than the Evangel; in either case the accent is on sell.

United Methodism’s entry is George A. Hunter’s The Contagious Congregation, which carries a cautious foreword by Donald McGavran. Dr. Hunter, formerly professor of evangelism at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology, has made extensive use of McGavran’s “Church Growth Model” and adapted it to mainline denominationalism (p. 19) and a heavily Maslowian hierarchical model (p. 41ff). Approximately half the book is a restating of the practical conclusions of Donald McGavran, Win Arn, and Peter Wagner, but without their biblical rationale.

Dr. Hunter’s definition of evangelism is that it “appeals to people to ‘become Christian Disciples’ ” (p. 23). He disagrees with what he defines as “Hear the Word” evangelism, which he labels a misunderstanding, and championed by J. I. Packer and John Strott [sic, p. 23]. No wonder McGavran’s foreword is guarded!

The Disciples of Christ contribute Herb Miller’s Evangelism’s Open Secret. This book contains 112 pages of one anecdote after another, but evangelism, from the pen of this area minister for the Disciples’ Southwest Region, is still an open question.

Real Evangelism, by Bailey E. Smith, pastor of the 11,000-member First Southern Baptist Church in Del City, Oklahoma, and leader in baptisms for four consecutive years, blisters and blusters in Southern style and aggressively goes after deeper lifers, charismatics, disciplers, and other sundry sorts. He consistently misspells J. I. Packer’s name (Packard) and prefers to call a church sanctuary an auditorium. A regional book.

A book of essays presented to Billy Graham on his sixtieth birthday, Evangelism: The Next Ten Years, edited by Sherwood Wirt, is an ideal gift for evangelistically-minded laypeople.

The Puzzler of the Year Award goes to Fred B. Craddock, professor of New Testament and preaching at the Graduate Seminary, Phillips University, whose book grew out of his 1978 Lyman Beecher Lectures at Yale. Overhearing the Gospel, supposedly intended to evangelize the already churched, is an extended doleful explication of Sören Kierkegaard. A spelling error, “abyssmal failure” (p. 31), may be an appropriate description of method and result.

Almost all these books on evangelism take note of reawakened social interest, and the Church Growth Movement as fostered by Fuller Seminary. All the books are troves of illustrations, stories, and anecdotes.

Your church can and should be the first source of both practical and spiritual guidance.

When someone dies, family and friends face the need to make funeral arrangements. These arrangements may constitute one of the largest purchases they will ever make, yet people do not always make the wisest decisions.

Because they are in emotional pain and are ill-informed about funeral practices and costs, people are most vulnerable at this time. They often do not know what the deceased would have wanted. They may feel guilty and want to compensate the deceased for past wrongs, real or imagined. They rarely consider comparing prices and services.

A minister’s assistance at the time of a death can save the survivors anguish and expense. A minister’s guidance in planning funeral arrangements before the time of need can make the difference between a traumatic, negative funeral experience and one that is meaningful and ultimately positive.

To provide the most effective assistance, a minister needs to know the facts about funerals and their costs. Ministers need practical answers to questions like:

• Is a casket necessary for cremation? (No.)

• Is embalming required? (No.)

• Does embalming preserve the body for a long time? (No.)

• Must the body be present at a memorial service? (No.)

• Does preplanning funeral arrangements involve prepaying? (No.)

Planning funeral arrangements before the time of need lets people make decisions that are right for them while they are able to do so. Do they want to be cremated or buried? What about donations to a medical school or transplant center? Should the funeral service be conducted at the mortuary chapel? At the cemetery? Would it be more satisfying to the survivors to hold a memorial service in church? At home? Should friends make charitable gifts in lieu of sending flowers? Once these decisions are made, they need to be written down and copies given to family, doctor, lawyer, and minister.

Such preplanning is practical. It spares family and friends the responsibility of making arrangements while under the stress of grief and the pressure of time. It avoids conflict between family members who may differ about what type of funeral is best. It protects grieving survivors against victimization by unethical or overzealous morticians.

Preplanning has spiritual advantages as well. It provides an opportunity for individuals to discuss the reality of death and dying with their families, friends, and ministers. In doing so, they may become better able to face their mortality. They learn to cope with the fear of death. When preplanning becomes a topic for discussion by church groups, it provides an opportunity for the congregation to consider the Christian attitudes of simplicity, humility, honesty, enduring faith, and joy. Important spiritual values are seen in contrast to merely material ones.

While few people are fully aware of their minister’s capacity to help them at the time of a death, even fewer are aware that their minister can assist them in thinking through their wishes and making funeral plans well in advance of death. Introducing the concept of preplanning to them may require the use of several different approaches and combinations of approaches.

Special sermons are an obvious method of initiating thought and discussion on the earthly realities surrounding death. Although such a sermon may not be easy, it is essential in order to set the stage for further discussion and action. Once the sermon has created a receptive climate, posters on the bulletin board, inserts in the order of service, and articles in the church newsletter are all additionally useful. Adult classes may wish to continue the discussion. Literature on funeral preplanning should be readily available.

Another approach that has been used successfully to encourage preplanning is to conduct funeral-decision workshops at the church. Brief explanations about funerals, their history, their meaning in the context of today’s culture, the view of the church, what alternatives are available, and the advantages of preplanning should precede a question and answer period. Participants should be given forms on which to write their personal wishes, instructions to their survivors, and other pertinent information that their survivors will need to know after death occurs. Various experts from the congregation (lawyers, accountants, estate planners) can be recruited to assist at the workshops. Of course, it is the minister’s commitment and support that ultimately guarantees success.

Assistance in planning and conducting funeral-decision workshops can often be obtained from a memorial society. Memorial societies are nonprofit associations of people who have joined together to promote simplicity in funeral practices and to emphasize the spiritual values of life and death rather than to exalt the physical. (A list of these societies is available from the Continental Association of Funeral and Memorial Societies, 1828 L Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20036. If there is no nearby memorial society, a church may decide to form one. Assistance can be obtained from the Continental Association.)

Death can be a forbidding subject that is studiously avoided until it forces its way into a person’s life, adding turmoil to sorrow. But if it is faced realistically and prepared for carefully, it can be an occasion of blessing and calm assurance for individuals and for their families. The minister’s guidance can make the difference.

Roslyn Katz is a staff writer for Consumer Funeral Information in Panorama City, California.

Bibliography

For comprehensive, detailed coverage of funeral practices, costs, literature, and community resources, these two pamphlets are essential:

A Consumer Bibliography on Funerals by Ruth Mulvey Harmer. Published by the Continental Association of Funeral and Memorial Societies, 1828 L St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20036 (1977) $1.

A Manual of Death Education and Simple Burial, edited by Ernest Morgan. Published by the Celo Press, Route 5, Burnsville, N.C., 28714 (revised in July 1979) $2.

The most complete publication for consumers on funerals is:

Funerals: Consumer’ Last Rights, by the editors of Consumer Reports, Consumers Union, Mount Vernon, N.Y., 10550 (1977).

For some church views, the following pamphlets are good:

A Guide to the Church and the Funeral. Prepared by the Christian Witness Committee of the Presbytery of Union, United Presbyterian Church, 2829 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, Tenn., 37919 (revised August 1979), 25¢ per copy.

Church Comments on Funerals. A compilation of comments by Canadian church leaders of various denominations prepared by the Toronto Memorial Society. Available from the Memorial Society Association of Canada, 5326 Ada Blvd., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Pantheistic wrestlings chastened and redeemed by God.

The publication of The Veritable Years by William Everson (Black Sparrow Press, 1978) was a major event. Better known as Brother Antoninus, Everson is assembling his life work in a trilogy with the overall title, The Crooked Lines of God. The Veritable Years is the second volume; the first volume, The Residual Years, published by New Directions, contains poetry written before he became a Catholic Christian in 1948. The third volume, The Integral Years, will contain the poetry written since he left the monastic order in 1969. The Veritable Years contains all the poetry he wrote and published as Brother Antoninus. Reading it is an overwhelming and moving experience.

These poems powerfully present Everson’s religious wrestlings. Although his intellect is sharp and active, his poems are not limited to the rational consciousness; rather, the depths and heights of the human self speak in his lines.

As a college student in 1934, Everson was converted to poetry and pantheism by the poems of Robinson Jeffers. Jeffers remains a major influence on his work. The ruggedness of the California coast, the fierce and violent grandeur of nature, and the terrible drama of humanity are present in the work of both men. He also speaks of Walt Whitman as one of his fathers. As much as he may have learned from these two poets, as much even as he may resemble them in abstract ways, Everson is his own poet. The most obvious difference between Everson and his poetic fathers is his Christian faith.

This faith is expressed in a variety of ways in The Veritable Years. “Book One: The Crooked Lines of God: 1949” has several retellings of biblical stories, which gain much of their power and immediacy in Everson’s view of California that likens it to Palestine.

Albert Gelpi in his “Afterword” to The Veritable Years insists on the strongly incarnational quality of Everson’s faith. The gospel narrative is incarnate in California. The holy family became contemporary and real in our world. The holy story shares in our history. This fresh perception does not compete with the biblical account, but returns us to it with deeper sight.

Before Everson joined the Dominicans, he worked at a Catholic worker house in Oakland. His poem “Hospice of the Word” draws on that experience. As the following lines show, it conveys a powerful perception of Christ in the poor.

O my brothers! Each brings his

sin-deforméd face

To the greasy pan!

Or there on the nail above the sink

… the townsman’s culled linen, smutched,

Gives back the Divine Face!

These lines reflect Christ’s injunction to “do unto the least of these, my brethren.”

Later poems in The Veritable Years present Everson’s struggle with the monastic life. The Woman is perhaps the single most dominant theme in these poems; she is temptress, wife, lover. In later poems, especially “Book Six: The Rose of Solitude: 1960–1966,” the Woman becomes both a real individual whom Everson knows, and a numinous being perceived in more original images. Here is the last stanza of the title poem, “The Rose of Solitude”:

Solitary Rose! The Spanish pride! The Aztec death!

The Mexican passion! The American hope!

Woman of the Christ-hurt aching in moan! God-thirster!

Beautiful inviolable well-deep of passion!

In the fiercest extravagant love is the tangible source of all wisdom!

In the sprint of your exquisite flesh is evinced the awesome recklessness of God’s mercy!

Although quotations give a poor idea of the poem’s impact, these lines show not only the intense meaning of Woman for him, but also his ability to make the abstract concrete and the immaterial tangible.

Love for a woman, who is now his wife, led Everson to abandon monasticism but not Christianity.

Two poems, “In All These Acts” and “God Germed in Raw Granite,” reflect Everson’s earlier pantheism, but a pantheism chastened and redeemed by God. “In All These Acts” describes an elk killed by falling trees. The last stanza begins “In all these acts / Christ crouches and seethes, pitched forward / on the crucifying stroke.” It continues, “These are the modes of His forth-showing, / His serene agonization.” Here Everson takes more seriously than most of us both creation and incarnation.

The pivotal point of The Veritable Years is “River-Root: A Syzygy.” Although written in the fifties, when Everson was a lay brother of the Dominican order, “River-Root” was not published until 1976. It is a 32-page narrative of eloquence and power. Its plot is simple—a husband and wife, married for some years, have had a misunderstanding that has estranged them. Trying to talk it out has not helped. Then, in sleep, they have a sexual experience that not only overcomes their estrangement but also gives them a mystical union. They conceive a child.

This bare outline does not suggest at all the strength of the poem. “River-Root” begins with an evocation of the least perceptible origins of the river: “Place a hand under moss, brush back a fern, turn over a stone, scoop out a hollow—/ … No more than this is needful for source.” The course of the river is traced to the sea, and the fecundity of the life along its banks—from bears and elks to frogs—is emphasized. Then the city, where the husband and wife live, is placed along the river, the river the commanding image throughout the poem. Christians need the healthiness and joy with which Everson presents sexual union; we have too often retreated from lust into a fear and hatred of the body, rather than celebrating it as God’s good creation and an essential part of who we are.

But there is more; the syzygy in the title refers to the Jungian concept of the union of opposites, in this case sexual opposites. In their love, the couple fuse the fragments of life, “And now in their night / They know the incarnational join: body to body / Twain in one flesh.” Because the lovers are married in God, the culmination of their sexual union is also an intuitive, unconscious mystical union with God. “River-Root” is even more difficult to quote briefly. Everson portrays redeemed sexuality in a closely-knit whole. Reading it is a moving and edifying experience.

Eugene Warren is associate professor of English at the University of Missouri-Rolla, and poetry editor for Christianity & Literature.

A proper environment for tender plants.

When our youngest left for college last fall, our children had completed 54 years of Christian school education in five different schools, one of which we helped found.

This seems to be a good time for evaluation. Would we do it again, or would we choose public school education next time around? (Three children, for various reasons, did log a total of eight years in public high schools.) A final answer will have to wait for some years, perhaps beyond our lifetimes, for all education is a delayed-action bomb, set to go off in the future. And the bomb seems to have a multitude of warheads timed to explode—or fizzle—throughout life.

Back in 1950, when our first child was ready for school, Christian day schools were a new concept—at least to most of us Protestants. Denominations such as Christian Reformed and Missouri Synod Lutheran, and the Mennonites, had well-established educational systems for their constituencies. But the interdenominational, parent-controlled school was a new, in some ways disturbing, idea.

I remember my conversation in 1949 with J. Oliver Buswell, Jr., then president of National Bible Institute in New York, about a school some parents were trying to launch in suburban Philadelphia. They asked us to join their effort, and we were inclined to refuse to be involved.

As I recall, Dr. Buswell said, “I know how you feel because it’s how I used to feel. If the public schools were good enough for me and for my parents, why weren’t they good enough for my children? But I came to realize that the public schools have changed radically in my lifetime, and now I am on the side of Christian school education.” We came down on that side, too, for our own children at least. The decisive reason for our action was that we couldn’t conceive of God-fearing Israelites turning their young children over to Canaanites for their education.

I remember one other thing Dr. Buswell said in that conversation. He was at that time a candidate for a Ph.D. degree in the philosophy of education at New York University where, a few months before he had been invited to attend a ninetieth birthday celebration for Columbia’s distinguished retired professor John Dewey.

“The main subject of discussion,” Dr. Buswell said, as I recall his words, “was what educators would do when people across the country realized that they were trying to replace the church with the school as the center of American life.”

I link that disclosure of what was then beginning to happen in public education to Dewey’s comment of five years earlier, in an article published in Fortune: “There is probably no better way to realize what philosophy is about when it is living, not antiquarian, than to ask ourselves what criteria and ideals should control our educational policies and undertakings.”

Our decision to enter our child in a Christian school was the first time in our lives, I believe, that we admitted the United States was not a Christian nation. The Supreme Court decision of 1948, eliminating required Bible reading from the public schools, was only one factor in that admission. (Curiously, some Christian schools seem to identify Caesar and God in a civil-religion approach to education.)

Let me describe Delaware County Christian School. The institution began after a year of planning and hard work. We started in a Presbyterian church with kindergarten on the first floor. A large basement room was divided into two parts by sheets hung on a wire, with first grade on one side of the sheets, second to fifth on the other. The church kitchen served as a room for remedial reading and similar small-group instructional uses. There were 55 students, two full-time and two part-time teachers, and a part-time nurse. In one year we had outgrown that church, so we moved to a large interdenominational church that permitted us to use its Christian education building. Every Friday afternoon parents packed up the school and put it away, and rearranged the rooms for Sunday; vice versa on Sunday afternoon.

Four years later, after much praying and searching, the school found its permanent home: an estate seven miles away. The main residence was ideal (or so we thought then) for use as a school; minimal structural changes, made largely with volunteer labor by the parents, included fire escapes, breaking down some partitions, and converting bathrooms for expanded usage. The 11 acres of land, later increased to 16, were adequate for sports fields, parking, and future growth.

One significant factor in the success of this school has been, and continues to be, work performed by parents and older children. Cleaning, grounds work, and similar maintenance jobs are assigned, with all families participating. This has also helped preserve a feeling that “this is our school, and we’re all in it together.”

This school today has 700 students, a faculty of 39, and a staff of 13. Headmaster Roy W. Lowrie, Jr., Ed.D., is president of the Association of Christian Schools International. In addition to the original mansion (now used mainly for offices and special instruction) and barn (kindergarten), the $2 million plant includes elementary, intermediate, and high school buildings, elementary gym-auditorium, and high school gym. The annual budget is $1 million.

I recall a board meeting several years after the school’s founding where there appeared on the agenda an item concerning the application by black parents for the admission of their child. A strong discussion ensued (remember, this was the early 1950s). The vote, when it came, was to admit any child, regardless of race, whose parents were convinced of the need for a Christ-centered education for their children. Today the school buses black children out from Philadelphia.

To our shame as evangelical Christians, many “Christian” schools have been founded—and continue today—for the purpose of perpetuating racial segregation. We would not send our own children to a segregated school, nor recommend such a school to others. There is a tendency in Christian schools, after they have become established and accepted, to draw their students from an increasingly narrow portion of the socioeconomic spectrum. Parents who can afford it want their children to have a good “private school” education. Three actions can help prevent such an elitism: first, a continuing education program for parents, to make sure they remember the real reason for leaving Egypt; second, careful screening through admission policies; and third, availability of scholarships for needy families.

Church-related schools usually do not have this problem of elitism. At one point, after our children had spent spent several years in another parent-controlled school, we changed their enrollment to a Lutheran school so that they would be part of a wider spectrum of social, economic, and racial backgrounds.

I suppose all Christian schools are engaged in a quest for “academic excellence”—partly to silence their critics. But this commendable goal sometimes creates conflicts in other areas, conflicts that are not readily resolved. In theory, the Christian school exists to cooperate with parents in the training of their children. Many schools, like Delaware County Christian School, will not accept only one child from a family; all must be included in the application for admission. (Some parents otherwise would send their child with a behavior problem to the Christian school, their other children to a public school; or their slow learner to the Christian school, etc.)

The way it works out in most established schools of the non-church-related type is that the admissions committee turns down the slow learner, or the educationally handicapped, and accepts the bright child from the same family. “We are not equipped for special education,” is the usual explanation. This is also true of a child with blue-collar vocational interests (shop, automobile mechanics, etc.). Most Christian schools are only for college-bound or white-collar-career students. And if a child who has been admitted later becomes a behavior problem, he is expelled—and goes back into the public school.

I consider these actions a violation of the purpose for which Christian schools exist. Granted, a new school cannot handle special problems; it is struggling for its life. But what about the established, educationally enriched, financially solvent school? If the Christian school exists to cooperate with Christian parents as an extension of the home, it cannot disclaim responsibility for its involvement in problems parents face with their children. It cannot expel a child, except on the same grounds as those on which a public school would act. Can parents divest themselves of a child with a behavior problem?

Another issue with which many Christian schools must grapple, in my opinion, is their intrusion into areas of parental responsibility. Many evangelical Christians are threatened by diversities of lifestyle in the extended family of God; perhaps they are unable to handle confrontations with their own children over such differences. The result, in many schools, is a multiplication of rules related to skirt length and type of pants that may be worn (prominent exhibitors at recent Christian school educational conventions have been distributors of uniforms, an ultimate conformity); hair length and style; and such amusements as movies, cards, and dancing, in the total (including family) life of the students.

Another Kind Of Christian School

Our daughter Deborah Bayly teaches in a different kind of Christian school: Lake View Academy, an alternative high school, primarily for low income, multi-ethnic students over 16 years of age. The ungraded school, located in Chicago’s Uptown area at Lake View United Presbyterian Church, is in its eighth year.

A faculty of three permanent teachers and two Mennonite Voluntary Service Workers concentrates on 25 students, works intensively with 40—including graduates. Social services, continuing job counseling, and help with college entrance and performance, extend well beyond the time a student leaves the school.

In addition to the usual academic requirements for graduation, students must successfully hold a job (or do volunteer work) for five consecutive months, or they must pass a college/junior college course. Purpose: to prove they can cope with a larger environment and to ease the transition to a job or college after graduation.

Current student fees are $300 per year, including books and activities. This is an easy amount for students to earn on their own; and the school helps them to find part-time jobs. In addition, students take turns at janitorial tasks and school projects and participate in church work days.

The permanent faculty and the church minister, Rev. James Hargleroad, do most of the fund raising. The church provides facilities, and some Presbytery money recently was made available. Government grants are used when they won’t jeopardize the integrity of the program.

Problems at other (public) schools cause students to come to LVA. Among them: lack of success because of difficulty with English as a second language, or learning disabilities; drug involvement; in some instances “nice kids” terrorized by uncontrolled violence, often gang-related, in and around the public schools.

In an effort to expand students’ horizons beyond their limited inner-city area, the school provides canoeing and wilderness camping experiences. Vocational tryouts in areas of student interests are arranged for a week at a time. Usually these involve working with a Christian who works and enjoys it.

Through the cooperation of Young Life staff members in the Chicago area, LVA students have become involved with church young people in various activities, including travel to a Young Life summer camp.

Low point of the school’s history: the drug overdose death of an American Indian student who refused to undergo professional treatment. High points: the independent commitment of a number of students to Christ, including voluntary attendance at church.

The school tends to be an extended family. One Mexican family has formed friendships with the teachers, inviting them to “fantastic meals.”

JOSEPH BAYLY

It seems to me that parents are responsible to God for decisions about their own children’s appearance and recreation, and that, however attractive the siren song of conformity may be, the school administrators are wrong, in my opinion, if they treat the school as a substitute for parents judgment in the area of modesty, the school can discuss this with them. In a word, parents and school administrators are wrong, in my opinion, if they treat the school as a substitute for parents and assume their authority over and decision-making for the children. No school can take the place of the home, nor can a school make up for a serious moral or spiritual lack in the home. Exceptions, in my observation, are one-Christian-parent homes, where God undertakes to “sanctify” the children (1 Cor. 7:14). For such homes, the Christian school is God’s special provision.

Over the years, some of our friends—equally concerned for their children’s education, which they are convinced should be in public schools—have objected to the “hothouse” environment of a Christian school. Our answer is that a hothouse may be a proper environment both for tender plants and for tender children. The enriched nourishment and training of a hothouse will probably build a stronger organism when it is later transplanted and is forced to stand up to the elements. But our conviction is different from that of many other Christians: we believe that Christian education is most necessary during the early years of a child’s schooling, when patterns of thought, attitude toward God, obedience, and many other elements of a child’s makeup are being formed. In our opinion, a Christian world and life view will be most easily developed during the earliest years rather than at the age of 18 after a secular education, when habits of thought and attitudes toward truth have largely crystallized.

Of course, children in a Christian school are not completely sheltered from the world—nor would we wish them to be. Children of Christian parents are not automatically Christians. Ordinary problems of childhood and the teen years also surface, but a Christian framework exists for understanding and solving these problems.

In addition, only part of a child’s life is spent in school. Another significant part involves friends in the neighborhood with whom he/she plays as well as those in other activities they share with not-yet Christians. We would fear any education that denied responsibility for a Christian witness.

Let’s keep our priorities straight, though. We don’t send children to school primarily to evangelize, or to be salt in a corrupting society. We send them to be educated for life, in its fullest sense: the conventional subject matter, yes, but also for moral reasoning, discipline and self-discipline, goals, career guidance, sex education and social relationships, and citizenship. Who is as equipped as a Bible-believing Christian for such an educating task?

At the heart of Christian school education, of course, is the conviction of the unity of truth: in Dr. Frank Gaebelein’s dictum, “All truth is God’s truth.” Teachers in Christian schools make a conscious attempt to remove the unbiblical distinction between the sacred and the secular that plagues our generation. At the same time, they try to trace “the fingerprints of God” in history and in other areas of study, and to develop a God-conscious attitude toward all of life. A Christian school is not a five-day Sunday school. But at the same time, we are convinced of the great value for our children of academic courses in Bible, doctrine, and church history.

In retrospect, the Christian school’s function as part of the extended family of God (meaning parents joined together in a common commitment to what they perceive to be God’s will in the lives of their children, even beyond the formal school program) is near the top of any list of benefits our family received from all those years of Christian school involvement.

Teachers and classmates and their families who prayed for our children and for us; parents who did not hesitate, in love, to correct and instruct our children—and we theirs; concern for families’ and teachers’ financial and other needs as a Christian community; teachers who became part of our family, “angels unaware”; close friendships with whole families; these are some of the most valuable and enduring elements of our children’s Christian schooling and our involvement in it.

Would we do it again? Yes, but with more awareness of what to look for in a Christian school, and with more appreciation when we found it.

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.

There is the difficulty of stuffing African behavior into Western categories.

One of the first things a newcomer to Africa learns is that the continent is big. The United States can fit about four times into its land area, and there are 50 different countries; but that only begins to suggest the cultural diversity. Even without the Arab North and the white-dominated South, you have hundreds of distinct tribes, large and small, as different from each other as the U.S. is from France. Within Kenya, one small country of about 14 million people, you have in effect a United Nations. The several dozen tribes speak different languages, have different customs, and different personality types.

Besides that diversity, there is the added diversity imported from the West, brought into the church in the form of denominations as different from each other as Quakers and Pentecostals, and with such national origins as Italy, Britain, and America.

Generalizations on how the gospel is doing in Africa or, more narrowly, in Kenya, are thus desperately difficult to apply. For example, there is the generalization that the church continues to grow at a dramatic pace in Kenya. While that is true, what shall we say about the sizeable, sophisticated coast people, influenced for centuries by Arab traders? There the church is tiny. And for very different reasons, the church is struggling among the Masai, a people who, to the immense annoyance of the government, have resisted modernization and education.

Add to that the subtler difficulty of stuffing African behavior into Western categories. It is true, for instance, that Kenyans are generally conservative about sex; they are shocked when they hit New York City—or even Wheaton College. It is also true that the number of pregnant brides in strong, evangelical Kenyan churches would shock most Western Christians.

I am a newcomer to Kenya. My work of less than a year has put me into contact with most of the churches and missions in Kenya, as well as many top journalists. But while I can’t pretend to have any sort of in-depth understanding—and those who have lived here 20 years tend to think that one can never really get over being an outsider in Africa—the view from outside may be as interesting as the view from inside, particularly to other outsiders. My overview of Christianity in Kenya will be quick, somewhat superficial, definitely not “inside,” but closer than the view you can see from where you are. One caution: you must take anyone’s generalizations about Africa with a grain of salt, for it is a huge, diverse, complicated continent.

Of all African countries, Kenya is generally believed to be the easiest in which to live, work, evangelize. There is still a large white presence in Kenya, whereas in many African countries most of the whites have either fled or been forced out, or they were never there in the first place. In Kenya the big houses built by colonialists are still mostly full of Indians or British, and although whites no longer run the government, they hold crucial positions in fields of business and technology. Most of the white presence is in the cities, primarily Nairobi. So are many of the missionaries, and organizations like the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization and World Vision have established headquarters here.

The white population is not so significant numerically—perhaps 40,000 in a city of nearly a million—as it is psychologically. Colonialism ended and Kenyans began to run their own business just over 15 years ago—something college students can still remember. Missionaries were part of that colonial presence, and they are part of the remnants of it that survive. They are, therefore, admired, resented, toadied to, asked for cash, and very, very rarely angrily confronted. The atmosphere on the surface is quite benign. In fact, to an American raised on racial animosity the easy acceptance and graciousness can be giddy. But underneath there is tension, frustration, and misunderstanding. “I wonder why Africans always do it that way?” missionaries, even veteran missionaries, muse. And sometimes a Kenyan will hesitantly ask a missionary he trusts what missionaries really think. But usually the questions and the intimate understanding a discussion of such matters might bring are repressed. “Why did you come here?” a Kenyan friend who has worked with missionaries for years asked us curiously, not hostilely. “What made you think that Kenya was a place that needed you?”

In this context, the nationalization of churches takes on complications never dreamed of by those who only write the theory. It is like a dance between two people unfamiliar with each other’s moves: both have agreed to the dance, both hunker over each other nervously, and both, usually, like kids at their first dance, are too embarrassed simply to laugh when they step on toes, or to stop and frankly talk about what the next move is.

Churches are being nationalized; missions are moving toward a servant role. In many cases they do so reluctantly, but the government says they must, and they agree (though their hearts protest at times) that it is the right thing. But the pace is agonizingly slow, and most missions let go of the reins of power at the pace they themselves judge to be best. The very fact that they are the judges make it clear that paternalism is far from gone. At best, the national church can only protest; at worst, they can call on the government, like a big brother. In this dance, the mission usually leads.

There is a wide variance in how quickly missions have moved to turn over their work to Kenyans. In general, you could say that the mainline churches—Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians—have made the speediest transfer, while conservative or independent missions—Southern Baptists, Africa Inland Mission, Pentecostals—have been the slowest. In the Anglican church, for instance, which in Kenya is basically evangelical in belief, national leaders govern not only the church but also the missionaries who come to help. Africa Inland Mission, an evangelical, interdenominational mission with 350 missionaries in Kenya, is somewhere in the middle: the church runs the church, but the mission still runs the missionaries; they are working now to change that. With other missions, it is no secret that the missionaries still run virtually everything.

This discrepancy may hold future problems, for though nearly all churches in Kenya preach sermons that make glad the heart of an evangelical, the future is not so clear. A young, well-educated Kenyan knows quite well which churches are likely to offer him chances at leadership, and which ones will see him as a lifetime assistant. And doctrinal differences seem small to most Kenyans: after all, in Presbyterian and Anglican churches, just as in Pentecostal churches, the pastors preach for the purpose of getting people saved. Of course, the outside influences of theological education, political involvement, and money may conspire to wean the leaders away from their evangelical beginnings. A lay leader of one of the mainline denominations told me, in a puzzled, saddened tone, “All our pastors are saved. I don’t understand why our leaders aren’t.”

In a catch 22 situation, leaders in missions that are changing slowly often complain that they can neither find nor keep the educated, high-quality national leaders who could do the job. They have lists a yard long of people they have worked to train who have disappointed them. But when you talk to young, educated Kenyan Christians you soon find out why; word gets around. How fast a mission turns over leadership to nationals may have a more lasting effect than how well done is its education on biblical inerrancy.

Of course, there are severe difficulties in turning over an organization that has grown up over many years along Western lines to people who do not think along those lines and who live in a culture that is behind the West both financially and educationally. A good example of these difficulties is seen in the experience of the Africa Inland Mission. They are in the middle of the transition, and unlike some other missions, are genuinely trying.

All mission property was turned over to the Africa Inland Church, the offspring of the mission, quite a few years ago. But in many cases, the mission still is effectively in power. The following will suggest the difficulties to be resolved:

1. Like most churches in Kenya, the AIC is affiliated with the National Christian Council of Kenya, which is affiliated with the World Council of Churches. As the mission in Kenya becomes totally part of the national church, how will this affiliation (which, in the Kenyan situation, implies no theological liberalism or WCC funding) be understood at home?

2. Should mission funds simply be given to the church in a lump sum to disperse? What if it decides then to cut missionary salaries to the level of national church leaders—a standard that most Americans would look on with some horror? What if there is a financial scandal, and a missionary’s salary simply disappears? What if the church decides to cut funds for evangelism projects in remote regions of Kenya? What if the church’s control of Rift Valley Academy, the high school for missionary children, leads to acceptance standards that do not leave enough places for missionaries because African children have filled the places?

3. Nearly all missionaries with AIM have a college degree; hardly any church leaders have anything close to its equivalent. In projects requiring technical expertise, who’s to be boss? Can a Bible college graduate really give direction to a Ph.D. in areas where specific technology is involved? But given the colonialist ethos, how can the Ph.D. give direction to the Bible college graduate without misunderstanding?

4. Can and should missionaries who work together have their own fellowship gatherings, separate from the church leaders with whom they work side by side? Missionaries struggling with culture shock and adjustments to the New Order often do not feel at ease to express themselves in an African group.

5. When there are power struggles within the national church, should missionaries take sides, stay silent, or work (paternalistically) as mediators?

From an outsider’s perspective, all these questions and many more are being faced with reasonable grace by both AIC and AIM. Of course there is pain in facing up to them, and the transition doesn’t promise to be easy. No one doubts that some missionaries should be sent home; but there is some doubt whether the national church will function totally rationally in deciding which ones.

Trust is perhaps the core of the issue. It is easier to talk about being a servant to the church than actually to be one: a servant not only serves, but obeys. It is hard to take orders from someone who only recently was taking orders from you. But missions in countries like Kenya must put their fate in the hands of the church they have worked to create—and, I might add, in God’s hands.

In a sense, concern over nationalization is a luxury. There is, after all, an African church, and a bustling one. Long years of missionary work and sacrifice have paid off bountifully: the church is growing faster here than it is where the message came from. When you read accounts of the earliest missionaries, you can scarcely believe this is the same continent. Evangelical Christianity is welcome at nearly all levels of Kenyan society; even the university, perhaps the most unreceptive institution in Kenya, has its share of Christian professors and students who are not ashamed of their faith. While remote tribes and areas of Kenya where the gospel has barely penetrated remain, by and large the challenge of the Kenyan church lies in reaching the second and third generation Christians who have grown up in the church. The tide of nominalism is tremendous.

Americans know Africa as the continent of conflict, but the conflict between Marxism and free enterprise seems relatively small compared to the ongoing battle, fought at every level of society, in every church and every family, between the new and the old. The grandparents of the Gikuyu people, for instance, watched the British settlers come in their oxcarts, over land without roads. The parents took the fierce spirit-fraught Mau Mau oath to drive them out. The children wear platform shoes and go to American movies every week, barely remembering colonialism; they are educated but their parents cannot read. They ride the bus to work; their parents may yet live in grass-thatched huts you can’t reach on four wheels. They talk about boyfriends and girlfriends; some of their parents might have been introduced to their polygamous marriage partner on the day of the great event.

A Kenyan bishop was quoted recently as saying that Africans have a biblical culture, meaning, I think, not that Kenyans have a particularly godly culture, but that they have a culture very similar to the one you read about in the Bible, in particular, the Old Testament. How easily some things make sense. We Westerners have a hard time explaining why Isaac, when he blessed Jacob by mistake, was full of remorse because he had no blessing left for Esau. No Kenyan is puzzled by that; it is as natural as breathing.

Kenya, with one of the highest rates of population growth in the world, is a youth culture—but certainly not a youth-worshiping culture. Baiting and berating university students is a journalistic pastime. Some church elders, far from being concerned about the lack of young people in church, go out of their way to vent hostility toward young people during church services.

Let me give a poignant and rather ordinary example. A friend’s sister graduated from high school but didn’t do well enough on her exams to go on for more education, for which the competition is extraordinary. Nevertheless, she had no choice but to go home to the small farm her father and three mothers keep. There she became pregnant. Abortion and birth control are seldom considered; there seems to be a basic African revulsion to anything that might interfere with the best thing that can happen in life: babies. So, after having her baby, she was in a dilemma about what to do for the rest of her life. In other days, she would have been a second or third wife, but today there are fewer polygamous marriages, and at any rate her family is Christian. She might still be a first wife, except that the boys who have stayed in her village would be frightened off by the amount of education she has gotten. Graduating from high school is too much education to fit in with the old ways, but not enough to get a job and survive in the city. And staying at home unmarried is, to say the least, not an option. The pressure on a girl who reaches her late twenties unmarried is enormous.

So what can she do? Her only option is to join the lines in the city: lines looking for jobs, for education, for any opportunity. In her case she was lucky. An older brother, my friend, let her stay with him and paid for a secretarial course. Hopefully, that will lead to a job. But in the course of this dilemma, there was really no one in the church to whom she could turn for wisdom. For one thing, she would probably only have been told what a bad girl she had been. For another thing, the elders (the pastor is shared by at least half a dozen churches, so is seldom around) are not in a very good position to give wise counsel to someone trapped between the traditional culture and the urban realities. They simply would not know how to advise her.

A newcomer to Kenya is quickly aware of the full churches: it is not uncommon to see people actually standing at the windows and doors because there is no room inside. But such a hunger for the gospel presents another problem. Most evangelism seems to take place either through one-night-stand crusades or, to a greater extent, in secondary schools, since most of the 2,000 Kenyan high schools have what is known as a Christian Union, a club run by the students. Since most of the best schools are boarding schools, few students even attend a local church. And when they return to their home churches as new, enthusiastic, and usually charismatic Christians, they seldom find much of a youth program. From church elders they may meet suspicion and antagonism. Cut off from mature guidance, these Christian Unions are often sorry, if enthusiastic, affairs. Yet through them most evangelism is done.

There is an awareness of this problem everywhere I have been in Kenya. Church leaders are trying to do something about it. Now there are, in Nairobi, many “youth services,” and in rural settings, youth camps, and youth groups. But often these efforts expose all the more the church’s difficulties, for it lacks what Kenya lacks: money and education. These young people are in high school—but how many church leaders do you suppose have been to high school? Again, there is very little Christian literature written by and for Africans, especially for young people. Some missions have stressed literature, and while they have generally succeeded at establishing printing plants, they have mostly failed at training Africans to write the articles and books and to run the publishing houses.

One might suggest that the young people should have youth ministers; but in a church that does not have enough pastors to provide more than one for every 6 to 10 churches, where would these youth pastors come from? And who would pay them? Without miracles Kenyans are unlikely to give enough in the foreseeable future. One might try to raise the money overseas, but such money can usually be more easily raised for famine or to send missionaries, but not to finance the “normal” activities of the African church. But the point really is moot: where would these youth pastors come from?

Before coming to Kenya, I had heard a lot about the African Independent Church movement, that vast expansion of Christianity in certain areas of East Africa without any missionary instigation. The churches are an interesting and very successful model of indigenousness, and missions scholars have shown a great deal of interest in them. Actually, I think I heard a great deal more about them in North America than I have since coming to Kenya. My current ignorance may be instructive, for I think it points to a failing in the way American Christians approach the African situation.

We are interested in the movement largely because it promises a quick fix to the difficulties of changing a mission-based church into an indigenous one. We would rather not struggle with it; it would be far nicer if the Holy Spirit would solve the problems for us. What are generally ignored, at least in my reading, are the limits of the African Independent Churches. They are, for one, restricted to a certain geographical area, and thus to certain tribes. Second, they show doctrinal aberrancies in many cases. Third, and most crucial, they are going in the opposite direction from Kenya. They are rural, unsophisticated, personality-dominated churches that make almost no inroads among educated young people. Most educated Kenyans seem to know very little about them, and want to know even less. Like it or not, the mission-created, denominational church holds the future.

We have other ways of looking for the quick fix. Most Kenyan church leaders are extremely suspicious of any American Christian organization that is not closely tied to a well-known, reliable church body. It is very seldom that a Kenyan will voice opposition to another Christian, so if you are a traveling evangelist setting up a three-day tent show in Nairobi you will probably be unopposed (and you may have the best altar call of the tour). But likely you will not be appreciated by many church leaders weary of American free-enterprise religion. They want to know that you are going to work with the church, and that you are going to be there to pick up the pieces after the fast action is over. One well-known Christian parachurch organization “helped” organize a mammoth crusade a year ago; in fact; by the assessment of many of the African leaders involved, they took over under the maxim “Our money, our program.” The results, however evangelistically successful, were questionable in terms of building trust. It may be many years before Nairobi sees such “cooperative” evangelism again.

Americans take for granted the huge, well-oiled church machinery they have working for them. Pastors are educated, and plentiful. Buildings are already built, and overbuilt. Seminaries are established, and competing for students. Sunday school materials, books, theological texts, and magazines abound. In that context, what attract attention are the “extras”—crusades, seminars, best-sellers, celebrities, new approaches. We can afford them, for our base is strong.

Currently, however, a fair amount of our “exported Christianity” in the form of missions also goes into such extras. At least, that is the way it looks from Nairobi. But primarily what is needed is to build the church that exists, the church that we, in part, brought into existence. This is particularly true in the urban areas where, ironically, crusades and parachurch organizations usually end up.

One can’t help but be thankful for what God has done in this sun-washed, verdant land. A hundred years ago there was no church; today there is a strong, growing one. Its leaders would be leaders anywhere. Missionaries seem affected; they may not understand and fit into Kenyan culture, but they are nearly all aware that they should, and most are trying. And though there are some missionaries who could probably go anywhere in the world and still be failures, there are also missionaries who are impressively talented: bright, energetic, idealistic, hopeful, thoughtful and, like their hosts, gracious. They are particularly helpful in filling the gap of education and money. And while it would not be true to say that the national church and missionaries are yet working in equal partnership, there are signs that such a relationship may not be too far away in most of the denominations working here. It can happen, where the missionaries are willing to serve and to understand.

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.

Are we beginning anew the weary round of stereotyped evangelism?

Since president Carter’s electrifying announcement on December 15, 1978, that the United States would normalize relations with the People’s Republic of China, evangelical Christians have been praying for an “open door” to help meet the spiritual needs of that vast country. If anything, they have been more euphoric than even commercial and industrial interests; the expression of their zeal lacks only an equivalent of the Canton Trade Fair, the annual mecca of business groups.

What kinds of things have evangelicals been doing during the past year to prepare for potential new openings in the Middle Kingdom? Of prime importance are accelerated efforts to get Christian literature to house church gatherings. Many Bibles and copies of the devotional book Streams in the Desert have been carried in by Chinese and foreign tourists, whose supply—sometimes sizeable—has been undetected or simply not taken by Chinese customs officials. Professional couriers who, by their many trips across the border are familiar with search procedures, make regular trips and turn Bibles over to contacts in Canton; these then pass them on to church groups far in the interior by a kind of “underground railroad.” Less frequently, actual smuggling occurs along borders between China and its neighbors to the southeast. Some Bibles have been mailed to those requesting them, but this has not proven to be very productive. One bizarre distribution effort was made in late December 1978, using balloons launched from an offshore island near Taiwan to airlift Christian literature into China.

While such efforts continue, the United Bible Societies have met with leaders of the “Three-Self Movement,” the government-sponsored religious agency for dealing with Protestant churches, and offered to print in the new simplified script in the People’s Republic of China either the traditional Chinese version of the Bible or the recently completed Today’s Chinese Version. While seeming to welcome such overtures, these leaders have indicated they are beginning to plan their own new translation of the Bible for Christians in China.

Some Chinese and foreign visitors are trying to reestablish informal contact with former friends. These liaisons are intended to elicit news of the past 30 years and to encourage fellow believers, and have been carried on clandestinely by several church groups. Where tours have not been closely regimented, members have been able to “break away” to view former church and mission properties, to visit old friends and make new ones, and to carry on successful witnessing activities in parks or even in homes.

A group of 20 pastors traveled to China in April 1979 under the auspices of the “Three-Self Movement” and were briefed on the general policy of the People’s Republic of China. A report was circulated in mid-March that a few medical personnel of the Society of Jesus were being invited back to man their former hospital in the environs of Shanghai. Although subsequently denied by the Jesuits, this rumor refuses to die, and some Roman Catholic missiologists feel the denial may be a ploy to maintain the low profile of this project.

Evangelical groups engaged in broadcasting from Hong Kong and Manila have reported a tremendous increase in the mail response to their programs. Special correspondence courses using radio English are being prepared to capitalize on the current interest in learning English. Some programs present biblical content in a relevant fashion with emphases, illustrations, and applications that focus on the particular needs of listeners in the People’s Republic of China. Popular made-in-America broadcasts are frequently beamed toward China under the assumption that they have universal appeal.

Several mission groups that had registered financial claims with the U.S. State Department in the late 1960s received payment for the confiscation of their former properties when settlement was made in mid-February. Whether or not this was a wise tactic, it hardly is to be viewed with the same distaste as the reparations demanded by mission agencies for property loss following antimissionary riots in the nineteenth century.

A few religious organizations have engaged in promotional overkill. For only a very few dollars, we are told, areas may be saturated with literature and Christians strengthened in the faith. Everyone seems to know that the People’s Republic of China desires 50,000 teachers of English—but no one is too sure where this rumor started, what agency desires the teachers, what the qualifications are, or where one can obtain further information. Even now, as in the tragic past of missions in China, Christian organizations seem more interested in promoting their own glory than in working together for the kingdom of God. Meanwhile, the gullible Christian public, pulled this way and that by competing claims, hardly knows what to believe. Do not we evangelicals have sufficient Spirit-motivated discipline to cease such activities? God may not allow us to exercise lasting spiritual influence on China until we do.

The new possibilities in China have created a frantic desire for information. Research centers are being strengthened and up-to-date facts are being cranked out; mission agencies have deputized key personnel to listening-post ministries in Hong Kong. Some mission societies are preparing China “position papers” that spell out alternatives for developing possibilities for ministry.

An unusual amount of emphasis has been placed on matching Christians with skills in such areas as science, engineering, agriculture, and education with companies that have contracted for special projects in the People’s Republic of China.

All of these various activities probably have produced some short-range benefit. Imagine the thrill a Chinese Christian experiences when he receives a nicely printed edition of the Bible after years with none or only a poorly handwritten copy. Those with wavering faith may have been encouraged to continue to walk with Christ despite all the disadvantages of “second-class” citizenship. To realize that their plight is recognized and that Christians worldwide are praying for them has surely been of help and comfort.

Further, many American Christians in their safe, suburban church havens have had their vision expanded, their “play-it-safe” mentality challenged, and their own commitment deepened by the courage of their Chinese Christian brothers and sisters. China once again is on the prayer list of many American Christians. Many personnel with technical expertise are being challenged and mobilized to face the needs of that land.

But what about the long-range value? Have the rather impulsive contacts between some Christian tourists and Chinese friends contributed to the announcement in June—apparently not being enforced at present—that banned all further contact between Chinese and foreign visitors? Or was this sparked only by disco dancing, late parties, and sex? Have Chinese Christians suffered by having foreign visitors or by receiving supplies of literature? Has this impact only been local or will there be a type of cumulative adverse effect that will hinder the Christian faith nationwide?

Are we beginning to perpetuate anew the weary round of stereotyped evangelism? While granting that use of the Four Spiritual Laws does produce fruit where the listener is ready to receive Christ, is this really the best instrument we can devise in training Chinese Christians to do pre-evangelistic witnessing in an area that has been blanketed by Marxism over the past 30 years? Is our concern for China’s spiritual welfare sufficiently deep, as well as urgent, that we can use our research to construct creative witnessing models for a new day in that land? Have we really grasped the fact that Jesus always adjusted his message to his audience?

More significantly, has this flurry of activity, accompanied in some circles by many gimmicks and considerable hoopla, led to the conclusion that very soon normal missionary activities can be resumed in China?

We seem to have changed very few of our attitudes. For example, it seems impossible for American Christians, even missiologists, to accept the premise that leaders of the People’s Republic of China, altogether apart from their Communist predilections, have legitimate reasons for being angry at mission and church activities. The 150 years of identification of American missions with the power of cultural, military, and economic imperialism is not whisked away with the wave of a spiritual wand. God may have forgiven us, but the consequences remain. We Americans are bothered by Hare Krishna devotees distributing literature in our airports. But what would our feelings be if we had experienced a century or more of shame and oppression at the hands of the country this religion calls its home?

What is most dangerous is that, in many of these activities, we are operating on the premise that we must play “cat and mouse” with the government of the People’s Republic of China. Obviously, we are faced with a difficult problem. Within the past several months the Religious Affairs Bureau of the People’s Republic of China has resurrected the “Three-Self Movement” as their formal channel to deal with Protestant Christians. The very unofficial, beleaguered house churches that have been quietly meeting over the past 20 years feel they were spiritually betrayed by the “Three-Self Movement.” They would frankly classify it as traitorous, liberal, Christ-denying, and unfit to bear the name of Christian.

An analysis of the past 30 years would indicate that leaders of the “Three-Self Movement” were often unwise in their actions, that they were willing at times to compromise their faith, and that possibly they were not as bold in their Christian witness as we think they should have been. But many were very sincere and have tried to relate their faith to their totalitarian environment, seeking to follow the injunction of Jesus to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.

Unfortunately, many adherents of the house churches were “our” converts and reflected only too accurately the legacy we bequeathed to them of an overly personalized faith that eschewed any social dimensions of the gospel. They, like we, were not basically interested in dealing with those social, political, and economic ills that plagued Chinese society. They overreacted then, even as they may now, to any proposals of the “Three-Self Movement” and its relation to the People’s Republic of China. I say this with deep reluctance, even as I admire their courage through suffering and recognize my own lack of qualifications to sit in judgment upon them.

These few words will not untangle the past. But our premise, as we face the future, seems to be that the days of this government are numbered and we should resolutely refuse all official religious contacts with the properly designated agencies of the People’s Republic of China. We should be clandestine in what we do and never seek to employ government channels. How closely this parallels the nineteenth-century missionary who was forever blaming the “officials and the gentry” and using every imaginable strategem to make end runs to get at the “common people” who would gladly welcome the gospel message! The problem with officials then was their Confucian ideology; now it is Marxism.

Do we really believe that such an approach is going to be productive? Is this the course of action we should initially take without at least tipping our hat to Romans 13? In the last analysis, our only recourse may be to use underground methods; but is this our best first approach? Is this the only method the minds of our best missiologists can devise?

The People’s Republic of China has some very obvious felt needs. Most of them relate to their goal of modernization, and embrace economics, agriculture, industry, science, and education. Religion has no priority at all. The stage is set for critical miscommunication—they on their wavelength and we on ours. Can we give more creative thought to how we—individually and institutionally—might help to meet some of China’s pressing needs? As we engage honestly in such a ministry, we can pray that efforts expended possibly over many long years will lead to a quality of communication that may forgive our past imperialism. Then we can have the opportunity to work with Chinese churches to deal with the deeper, transcendental, and spiritual levels of the country’s felt needs. Then Jesus Christ will not be seen as a stranger—an intruder whom they do not presently want or need—but as one who sees their plight and waits patiently to show how only he can deal with it at the deepest level.

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.

Priming the Preacher

The most valuable lesson I learned in seminary was imparted to me by a professor who stole the idea from John Henry Jowett at an unguarded moment when Jowett was combing his moustache and not paying attention.

“If you have trouble getting a sermon from a text,” he advised, “just try to imagine how some great preacher would handle it. Ask yourself, ‘How would Joseph Parker handle this text? What would Maclaren do with it?’ This will stimulate your creative homiletical juices.”

Well, last week I tried it. Monday morning I sat at my desk (while my friends were playing golf), I stared at my text, and I got nowhere. Then I said to myself, “What would Robert Schuller do with this text?” Immediately I thought of window panes, and my conscience stabbed me. I had promised my wife to help her wash windows. That took care of my creative juices for Monday.

Tuesday I was back at my desk (I’m very disciplined), and I said to myself, “What would Balthasar Hubmaier do with this passage?” Don’t ask me why I thought of him, because his name flashed into my mind unbidden. I spent the rest of the morning scanning church history books and trying to identify Dr. Hubmaier. This detoured my creative juices; I spent the rest of the day dusting my library (church history books get terribly dusty) and rearranging the books. I still don’t know who Hubmaier is.

Wednesday morning I determined to write a sermon if it killed me, and it almost did. “What would Maclaren do with this text?” I muttered. “No doubt he would find three points. He always said he fed his people with a three-pronged fork.” The mere mention of the word “fork” started some other juices moving, so I crept to the kitchen for a snack. Before I knew it, my wife had me on a ladder helping her reorganize the pantry. I fell off and nearly broke my neck. That ended the homiletics for the day.

The rest of the week found me in panic. Thursday I envisioned Jerry Falwell and spent most of the day watching television. Friday I conjured up Martin Luther, and soon I found myself nailing up wallboard in our unfinished attic. By Saturday evening, I was beyond fear: I was petrified. Then I recalled that Spurgeon always prepared his Sunday morning sermon on Saturday evening. Immediately I calmed down, reached for a volume of Spurgeon’s sermons, and within an hour I was ready. Spurgeon never preached better!

Thank you, Jowett! Thank you, Spurgeon! Thank you, Gutenberg!

EUTYCHUS X

Concerned

Thank you for your comments on the International Year of the Child (“The IYC: More Harm than Help to the Family,” Dec. 7). As a parent, a citizen, a Christian, and a minister, I too am concerned about the harm this movement can do.

Surely there are improvements to be made in parent-child relationships and in the way children are treated in general. But to bring in secular humanism and governmental intervention is not the way to bring godly improvement.

REV. JEFF HOOD

Vandelia Church of Christ

Lubbock, Tex.

I sat in total disbelief as I read for the second time your denunciation of the IYC. I couldn’t believe that your journal would carry such a poorly written, biased, unfair attack as this one.

REV. RAYMOND GAYLORD

Cascade Christian Church

Grand Rapids, Mich.

Judicious Review

Thomas Howard’s judicious review of the new film Jesus (“A Better ‘Jesus’ Movie,” Dec. 21) was especially cogent regarding representational crucifixions. They are impossible, surely. Only Wafer and Wine can show what only the Word can say. We need our Lord’s lessons in art as well as in theology if we are to “treat” Truth graphically.

The scenario by St. Luke may be a modest advance over Cecil de Mille and Franco Zeffirelli, but “special effects” will remain forever superfluous to the simplicity of Incarnation. God save Christian film makers from producing any more “religious movies” out of technological tinsel.

MEL LORENTZEN

Professor of Communications

Wheaton Graduate School

Wheaton, Ill.

Right on Target, Mostly

Thank you for the coverage of the New England Pastors’ Conference at Sturbridge (“New England Gears Up for a Third Great Awakening,” Dec. 7). As an observer of the New England scene for many years, and a native, I think John Maust’s comments were right on target, as far as they went. A bit more perspective on the roots of this conference might have helped your readers to see it as one part of a much larger movement here in New England.

Had the headline read, “New England Pastors Gear Up for a Third Great Awakening,” it would have fit the story and the event. But to say “New England Gears Up …” and write about one big meeting of the clergy is to telescope past the labors of many who work alone or in small groups.

JOHN RODMAN

Program Director, WEZE

Boston, Mass.

Love or License

My congratulations on an excellent editorial, “Methodists: Choosing Love or License” in the December 7 issue. You drive home some points that we must see as United Methodists in order to have credibility. I am confident that many in our denomination are applauding your directness and relevance.

REV. DONALD CHARLES LACY

First United Methodist Church

Princeton, Ind.

The vast majority of United Methodists support the sentiments you expressed in that editorial. It has been a source of concern to us who deal with the grassroots of the church that our general boards, for some reason or other, simply do not know what the members are thinking, nor do they reflect the commitment to doctrine consistent and compatible with Christian teaching. This is true not only on issues of human sexuality, but on other issues as well.

I am afraid that if the General Conference does not do something about the problem, we will see a loss of membership and consequently a loss of financial support that will be devastating.

REV. LEOPOLD SCHNEIDER

Pearl River United Methodist Church

Pearl River, N.Y.

God has spoken, or so it is implied in the editorial on the United Methodist Church’s attempt to express Christian love toward homosexuals. According to the editorial, God does not permit gays to work for his church. If in fact those words were truly the intent of Scripture, and the accepted practice of today’s church, I doubt that any gays would ever realize the salvation that Jesus Christ provides for all people.

The editorial seems to fit into a constant pattern of bigotry, hate, intolerance, and ignorance that this magazine produces month after month. If that is your God speaking through these articles, than I am sure that we worship different Gods, read different Scriptures, and offer Christ’s message of hope and salvation either to those “normal enough” or to whosoever believes.

REV. CHARLES W. LARSEN

Metropolitan Community Church

of the Resurrection

Houston, Tex.

Naughty, Naughty

You publish my favorite magazine, but I do not favor pictures in your magazine that contain nudity (see Dec. 7 cover of Raphael’s “Alba Madonna”). I realize that Raphael is considered one of the greatest artists of all time, and that the “Alba Madonna” is probably his most famous painting. It seems to me that this picture of the Christ babe in the nude is out of line for Christians in these times.

REV. L. B. FRIEND

Milton United Methodist Church

Milton, Wash.

Sharp, Even Brilliant

Harvie Conn’s review and analysis of Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Refiner’s Fire, Nov. 16) is a classic piece of work. Conn brings sharp, even brilliant perspective to a difficult and murky arena—the role of humor in communicating life’s learned and revealed truths.

Congratulations to you and him for excellent help to us who are struggling with such matters.

EDWARD L. GRUMAN

Harvie Conn’s review made many valid points. Yet even I, a (lukewarm) fan of Monty Python and of “Saturday Night Live,” found some of his statements troubling.

He writes, “The agony of it all is in the Christian’s inability to find control as he watches this,” by which he means that “the Christian” could not help but laugh uncontrollably at parts of the film. I believe I know many Christians who would be able to control their laughter if they were exposed to Life of Brian, and even more who did control themselves by refusing to patronize the film.

The advance publicity certainly indicated where the film was coming from, and to what depraved depths it might plunge. Perhaps “the Christian” should be critical not of how such films are made, but that they are made at all.

ANDY SAYLOR

Perkasie, Pa.

The decade of the seventies has been laid to rest and already seems far behind us. What the eighties will bring we can only guess.

The sixties saw revolt against tradition and the establishment; the seventies represented the “me” generation. Some predict the eighties will be a decade of experience-centered religion and individual privatization in American life. Others warn that the eighties will see a move toward a secularization of Western society in which religion at best will be tolerated as a tool of the good life, and a new humanism will dominate the scene. Still others warn us of an inevitable oil crisis, of increased international tension, of crushing burdens from the arms race, and of the awful probability of a nuclear holocaust.

Evangelicals must accept their responsibility to bring “salt and light” into this troubled world. They can work and pray for mankind’s good, while they bear faithful, loving witness to the Savior, who alone can bring ultimate good to our sinful human race.

Two of the most exciting areas in this turbulent world are Africa and China: Africa, because in one generation that continent is moving from being a helpless infant among the peoples of the world to full maturity; and China, because the world’s most populous nation though tightly closed to the gospel and antagonistic to the Christian message—is now ever so slightly opening its doors anew to a guarded toleration of the Christian faith. In this issue Tim Stafford gives a Westerner’s first impressions of modern Africa, while Ralph Covell presents a veteran missionary’s assessment of the China situation.

This month the first issue of our new publication, LEADERSHIP, comes off the press. We’re pleased to report that we are on target for both circulation and advertising. We are limiting advertising in this periodical to about 20 percent, and the first issues have filled up quickly. Circulation has also come on very strong—at this writing we plan to print at least 50,000 copies. LEADERSHIP, as a 140-page quarterly journal, will therefore have a very solid base upon which to build.

We’re equally excited about the content. Editor Paul Robbins has skillfully blended the practical with the thoughtful. Any first issue of a publication is something of an experiment, but we believe you’ll find much of value in this first edition, whether you’re a lay leader or part of a church staff. Helping one’s individual church fulfill its scriptural mandate is quite a task—and we’re committed to find, from all over the country, helpful, practical material. Please share with us any ideas you have that could help make the publication more meaningful to you.

Some have asked, since the interest in LEADERSHIP has been so intense, if we will eventually make it a monthly. Although we see circulation growth ahead, we have no plans to increase its frequency. We believe putting out a very substantial “half book, half magazine” four times a year is the right approach for LEADERSHIP.

In regard to CT’s overall ministry, we are grateful that this past year we operated in the black. We are determined to stay on a firm fiscal course without having to rely on heavy subsidies. We believe LEADERSHIP will enable us to broaden our base and give us increased stability for the future.

To help us chart that course for the future, three new people will join the board of Christianity Today, Inc., this month. Robert P. Evans is European director of Greater Europe Mission, Oswald C. J. Hoffmann is speaker for “The Lutheran Hour,” and John Huffman, Jr., is pastor of Saint Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California. Board members,¹Other members: John N. Akers. David W. Boker, Alfyn R. Bell, Jr., B. Clayton Bell, J. Duncan Brown, David E. Cauwels, Allan C. Emery, Jr., Fred Russell Esty, J. Wayte Fulton, Jr., Billy Graham, Ben Haden, Herschel H. Hobbs, W. Maxey Jarmen, Edward L. Johnson, Kenneth S. Kantzer, Robert J. Lamont, Harold Lindsell, Harold L. Myra, Harold J. Ockenga, Paul S. Rees, William H. Seay, Fred Smith, Cary N. Weisixer III, Howard S. Williams both pastors and businessmen, see their service as a ministry, contributing both their time and finances.

One last note. A year ago many readers experienced problems with their subscriptions. Most of this has been ironed out; however, a few people still get bruised by the computer. We appreciate your patience. Right now, the state of the art among fulfillment agencies—with their constantly changing computer programs and complexities of magazine servicehas a lot of “bugs” to be worked out. No magazine is immune. For instance, one Christian publication not long ago learned that a couple dozen Playboy magazines had been sent inadvertently to their subscribers, and that Food and Wine promotions had been sent to others. So far we’ve had no such reports, but we constantly monitor in a very detailed way all subscription functions.

Despite past logistical problems, some of our subscribers have dramatically committed themselves to CT. Our star performer in this regard has signed up for a total of 707 issues (a full 19 years) of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Now there’s a person who’s going to beat inflation!

President, Christianity Today, Inc.

*Other members: John N. Akers, David W. Baker, Allyn R. Bell, Jr., B. Clayton Bell, J. Duncan Brown, David E. Cauwels, Allan C. Emery, Jr., Fred Russell Esty, J. Wayte Fulton, Jr., Billy Graham, Ben Haden, Herschel H. Hobbs, W. Maxey Jarman, Edward L. Johnson, Kenneth S. Kantzer, Robert J. Lamont, Harold Lindsell, Harold L. Myra, Harold J. Ockenga, Paul S. Rees, William H. Seay, Fred Smith, Cary N. Weisiger III, Howard S. Williams