Evangelicals have gotten into the women’s liberation battle with a vengeance. Last Thanksgiving the Evangelical Women’s Caucus met in Washington, emphasizing the fact that women, evangelical or not, have legitimate grievances. These are the focus of the Equal Rights Amendment, which now has passed the Congress and awaits possible ratification by the states.

By now people inside and outside the churches generally agree that women should have the same rights as men: equal pay for the same jobs; equal opportunity for positions generally limited to men; the right and freedom to pursue any career, to own and control property, to obtain credit cards, and the like. But there is one question raised in this connection that has produced some unfortunate consequences: I refer to marriage as it relates to the subject of hierarchy, or of subordination versus egalitarianism. Here evangelicals, including some quite active in the Evangelical Women’s Caucus, are caught between a rock and a hard place.

The issue does not involve women who remain single and decide to carve out careers. For them the question of obeying husbands does not enter the picture. But it does become important to Christian women who do marry. Here it is that the eruption occurs. Central to the discussion is what the Bible has to say on the issue. Elisabeth Elliot of Auca Indian renown stands on the side of hierarchy: wives should obey their husbands. She says: “For the tremendous hierarchical vision of blessedness … the feminist substitues a vision of blessedness which holds all human beings on a level plain—a faceless, colorless, sexless wasteland It is a world which cannot hold the mystery of the Trinity, for there three beings, co-equal and co-eternal, exist in a hierarchical relationship to one another.…”

On the egalitarian side stand people such as Nancy Hardesty, Letha Scanzoni, Virginia Mollenkott, and Paul King Jewett. In their efforts to support the egalitarian thesis that Christian wives need not obey their husbands, they are forced to come to grips with biblical data that, on the surface, do not seem to support egalitarianism in marriage.

In Elisabeth Elliot’s report of the Evangelical Women’s Caucus meeting in The Cambridge Fish she quotes Virginia Mollenkott as saying that “the Genesis 1 account of creation [means] that male and female were created simultaneously and not, as has been generally understood from the teaching of Genesis 2, successively” (Winter, 1975–1976, p. 2). If this conclusion be true then Genesis 2 is obviously transmitting fallible data for it says quite specifically that Adam had named the cattle, the birds of the air, and every beast of the field, but there was no helpmeet found for him. So God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and taking a rib from his ribcage he fashioned Eve, who was to become the mother of all living. If Genesis 1 is regarded as a general statement, and Genesis 2 is seen as the expansion of the details there is no problem. But the way Mollenkott interprets the Bible means she cannot hold to an infallible Scripture.

Hardesty and Scanzoni in their book All We’re Meant to Be argue in favor of egalitarianism in marriage by saying that Paul’s injunction that wives should obey their husbands is a cultural phenomenon, and is not binding today. In other words they deny hierarchy. The Reverend Tom Stark reviewed their book and said this about their approach: “There are a number of places where the authors plainly reject Scripture, and many other places where they have used Scripture irresponsibly” (The Church Herald, October 31, 1975, p. 19).

Paul King Jewett is a male proponent of the women’s egalitarian cause. His book Man as Male and Female is a scholarly and thorough treatment of women’s liberation. So far as marriage is concerned the Apostle Paul is Jewett’s chief obstacle. He says that Paul had two perspectives that are incompatible. He acknowledges that the apostle does teach that wives should obey their husbands but believes this is a hangover from rabbinic teaching. He thinks Paul had an “uneasy conscience.”

Tom Stark reviewed this book also. Of it he said: “Dr. Jewett believes that the traditional understanding of what the Apostle Paul is teaching is a correct understanding of what the Apostle Paul taught and thought, but he is rejecting almost all of these passages, except for Galatians 3:28.” (I might add that in Galatians 4, Paul calls the male and female believers to whom he is writing “sons of God” and “brethren”) Stark concludes his review of Jewett’s book by asserting: “My further problem is that his doctrine of inspiration allows him to set himself as a judge of the Apostle Paul, and to discard many verses in Scripture, ostensibly on the basis that they contradict one verse of Paul (Gal. 3:28), and the life-style of Jesus. Dr. Jewett reveals in his book a clear break from an evangelical view of inspiration and authority of the Bible.”

At stake here is not the matter of women’s liberation. What is the issue for the evangelical is the fact that some of the most ardent advocates of egalitarianism in marriage over against hierarchy reach their conclusion by directly and deliberately denying that the Bible is the infallible rule of faith and practice. Once they do this, they have ceased to be evangelical: Scripture no longer is normative. And if it is not normative in this matter, why should it be normative for matters having to do with salvation? Paul is the great advocate of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. If he is wrong about wives obeying their husbands, how do we know that he is not also wrong about the bodily resurrection?

Anyone who wishes to make a case for egalitarianism in marriage is free to do so. But when he or she denigrates Scripture in the process, that’s too high a price to pay. And if a case for egalitarianism in marriage cannot be made without doing violence to Scripture maybe the case isn’t very strong to begin with.

HAROLD LINDSELL

In an election year the question always comes up whether a Christian should be in politics. As citizens of Caesar’s kingdom, as well as God’s, Christians ought to be involved in government, to the point of holding office and there bearing a testimony for God. In this issue our readers hear from several congressmen who are well-known and respected evangelicals.

Josif Ton’s condensed paper on the failure of Communism’s “new man” theory is a jolter. Our readers should take a hard look also at the Current Religious Thought column on egalitarianism in marriage.

A press critic called it “a festival of American civil religion.”

Leaders at last month’s joint conventions of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) in Washington, D.C., would reject that description of their Bicentennial observance. Yet it is easy to see why an outsider might reach such a conclusion. The program featured an unprecedented mix of politicians and preachers, music and speeches resplendent in God-and-country themes, counsel by a convert from the Watergate cast, resolutions aimed at exerting a moral influence on the nation, and a position paper bearing the title, “Let Freedom Ring,” that prescribed antidotes to America’s spiritual decay.

For many of the 2,000-plus delegates (divided about evenly between the NAE and NRB), it wasn’t a matter of indulging in civil religion but of being challenged to be better Christians and better citizens—and celebrating the fact that they are both.

The four-day event at the Shoreham Americana hotel opened with a Sunday-night “prayer for the nation” rally at which President Ford and Republican congressman John Conlan spoke. In a brief address, Ford credited America’s greatness in part to the place God and the Scriptures had in the thinking of the country’s founders. Responding to those who would complain that with so much corruption and upheaval in society they don’t know who or what to believe, the President said, “My answer is that we can believe in God, we can believe in the faith of our fathers.”

Southern Baptist pastor and broadcaster Jess Moody of West Palm Beach, Florida, asked the President and others to join hands in prayer for the nation. Hundreds wept as Ford clasped hands with Moody and Ben Armstrong, executive secretary of the NRB, and bowed his head. Among other things, Moody prayed that Ford would receive “a special touch of the Holy Spirit” to equip him for the burdens of his office.

Ford was moved by the revival-like atmosphere, comments Armstrong. “Halfway through the prayer, his hand tightened on mine.”

Conlan, a doctrinaire political conservative who attends an independent Bible church in a Washington suburb, challenged his listeners to move “from the pews to the polls in 1976.” There are some 15 million unregistered voters who are evangelicals and who “could turn the tide of this nation,” he theorized. He urged the pastors and other leaders to help get out the vote, to implement their concerns by getting involved at the grass-roots level, where “movements that affect political decisions really begin.” He hammered home the need for Christians to get into issues in their local communities where there is the greatest recourse for change. The audience repeatedly applauded him.

Other political figures also addressed the delegates. Republican Senator Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon seemed to counter Conlan somewhat. He warned against the formation of a “Christian political platform.” Pointing out the differences that exist among the believers in Congress, he asked: “Which of you would like to decide which of us has the Christian position on a given issue?” (Conlan is rumored to be part of a movement to raise millions of dollars to get evangelicals elected to office and to inject a Christian point of view into national issues and legislation.)

Hatfield, a Conservative Baptist who attends Fourth Presbyterian Church in Washington, called on evangelicals to speak out more on social and economic issues and to get involved personally in helping the needy.

Republican John B. Anderson of Rockford, Illinois, a member of the Evangelical Free Church, noted that Christians are justly concerned “about abortion, amnesty, and drug abuse as things that are tearing down the moral fiber of our society.” He asked that they also give attention to equality and to the problems of unemployment, poverty, and hunger. These too have moral implications, he said.

Anderson was part of a four-member panel on “What concerns me most about our country today.” Other members were Democrat congressman Walter Fauntroy of the District of Columbia, a Baptist minister; California Republican Carlos Moorhead, a Presbyterian; and Democrat Don L. Bonker of Washington state, a Baptist. Fauntroy criticized the Christian community for keeping its religious beliefs in church on Sundays instead of applying them in public life and policy. Moorhead and Bonker stressed individual responsibility. Bonker, a freshman congressman who recently made a commitment to Christ, suggested that Christian leaders both in and out of the capital need to get together more and pray about their decisions.

Converted Watergate figure Charles Colson appeared with entertainer Pat Boone and others during sessions on “Decency and the Media.” Colson blamed the media in part for America’s declining moral standards. Several broadcasters and Christian communications people are sponsoring campaigns aimed at cleaning up the media, especially television. As a result of the workshop emphasis, a resolution critical of the major networks and other media was drawn up, but the NRB board rejected it on grounds it was too negative and that the issues had been covered adequately in past resolutions. “We wanted to say something positive this year,” explained an NRB spokesman in an interview.

The “positive” statement came in a paper drafted by broadcaster Pat Robertson. It said God and country are owed special duties of Christian citizenship, and it called on believers to pray for the nation, to vote responsibly, and to encourage godly men to seek public office. It passed unanimously, the NRB’s only resolution this year.

Chairman Richard E. Wiley of the Federal Communications Commission, a United Methodist who identifies with evangelicals, told a joint luncheon gathering of a meeting he had a year ago with the presidents of the three major TV networks. There was discussion about “gratuitous and excessive violent and sexual material” in TV programming, he said. Following this meeting, the networks and the TV industry’s code board adopted the so-called family viewing plan. Under it, the first two hours of evening prime time are to be set aside for material “suitable for viewing by the entire family.” But, noted Wiley, the plan is under attack, and there is already too much violence, sex, and indecency on TV. “Reform is overdue,” he declared, but it cannot be in the form of government censorship. He called on Christians to apply themselves creatively to help provide good programming.

In addition to the main program features there were a number of how-to workshops, informational seminars, and business sessions (a number of the NAE’s affiliates and commissions held their annual meetings simultaneously).

The NAE rejected a resolution on the “right to food” presented by its social action chairman, Clarence Hilliard, a black minister of Chicago. The wording was similar to a pending Hatfield resolution in Congress over which the evangelical constituency is divided, explained NAE leaders. Support of the resolution, they said, could have been interpreted as an endorsement of the Hatfield measure.

Instead, the NAE adopted a position paper that mentions many of the nation’s ills and needs. It pledges participation by Christians “in every lawful and morally right function of human government” and opposition to “whatever is unlawful and morally wrong.”

Nathan Bailey, president of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, was elected to a two-year term as NAE president. Missionary broadcaster Abe C. Van Der Puy continues as NRB president.

There are various membership levels in the NAE; individuals, churches, religious agencies, and denominations can all join. Currently there are thirty-five member denominations, most of them small, and only one is black, the 800-member Full Gospel Pentecostal Association of Portland, Oregon. In all, the NAE claims to represent more than 30,000 congregations with nearly four million constituents.

The overseas mission wing of the NAE is the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association. It represents seventy-two mission agencies with 8,500 missionaries in 120 countries.

NAE members are required to subscribe to a seven-point doctrinal statement that includes belief in the Bible as the “inspired, the only infallible, authoritative word of God.” The final night’s speaker, scholar Francis A. Schaeffer of L’Abri Fellowship in Switzerland, centered his address on that point. Only a “strong, uncompromising view of Scripture”, he asserted, will enable evangelicals to remain firm in their faith in the “hard days” he sees coming. But he warned of “infiltrators.” Said he: “Let me say with tears that evangelicalism today, although growing in numbers and name throughout the world, is not unitedly and clearly standing for a strong view of Scripture.”

“That talk completed the package,” remarked an NRB leader. “Conlan showed us the need to implement what we’re talking about, Hatfield gave us the guidelines, and Schaeffer underscored the basis.”

Women And Missions

Delegates at a recent evangelical workshop on “Woman in Mission” called upon church and mission leaders to examine seriously the place of women in missions, and to integrate biblical principles into the life-style of the community of Christian believers for which they are responsible.

Fifty-one American and Canadian women, representing twenty-three mission boards (related mainly to the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association and the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association) spent three days at the Missionary Internship campus in Farmington, Michigan, in late January to study the personhood of woman and her role in missions.

Three main areas of concern emerged: the need to live by biblical principles rather than cultural conditioning; the importance of personal identity; the need for women to be involved in leadership and decision making. The participants commented frequently on the inconsistency of responsibility and standards for ministry that exist on the field and in the home country. In some instances, as cited in personal testimonies, this involves women missionaries establishing churches and preaching and teaching abroad while having a limited ministry in the home church because they are women. In other cases that were mentioned, a heavy authority structure overseas precludes participation in decision making. Discussion was vigorous at times, and many women reentering the U.S. culture from remote mission stations where they carried heavy responsibilities expressed surprise at the issues raised.

Probably the most strategic move of the conference was the establishment of a task force to pursue the issue of women in mission leadership and decision making. This action reflected the group’s concern for women who have gifts of administration and other leadership abilities but who are not allowed to develop their potential. The question was raised whether women are given equal recognition for equal responsibility and work.

Another task force will develop a survey of problems common to women in missions and work closely with the women in the decision-making study group. Still another task force is planning a second workshop for this fall to press toward accomplishing the goals set forth at the Michigan conference.

GLADYS HUNT

Crediting Calvinism

Evangelist Billy James Hargis said last month he had decided not to file libel charges against Time in connection with a recent story about him (see February 27 issue, page 42). Legal advisors told him he could not expect to win because he is a public figure, he stated. In an interview with the Tulsa Tribune, he said he was “not guilty of all the charges leveled against me in the national press.” He traced his troubles at American Christian College to doctrinal differences he had with college president David Noebel over degrees of Calvinism. But he did not comment specifically on published allegations accusing him of sexual relations with five students at the college, four of them men.

Hargis has indicated in his weekly tabloid and in fund-raising letters that he intends to continue his ministry.

Noebel meanwhile sent letters to backers of the college contending in effect that the allegations are true and are the reason the college terminated its relationship with Hargis in late 1974.

Florida Fight

No peace is yet in sight in the conflict between the Church of Scientology and citizens of the Clearwater, Florida, area (see February 27 issue, page 41). The church filed a $1 million lawsuit against Clearwater mayor Gabriel Cazares in connection with the public controversy surrounding its purchase of a downtown hotel. Over some objections to the way Cazares acted “unilaterally” in trying to unravel mysteries surrounding the purchase, the Clearwater city council voted to provide legal support to the mayor. Cazares, a member of the United Church of Christ, is vice president of the Florida Christian Migrant Ministry.

The Scientology church had threatened to sue the St. Petersburg Times but did not follow through, contrary to an earlier report. Instead, the Times filed suit against the church seeking an injunction against alleged efforts to intimidate the newspaper and its reporters, a charge the Scientologists deny.

In another development, talk show host Bob Snyder has been fired by radio station WDCL, allegedly in an attempt to head off a possible Scientology suit against the Dunedin station for critical remarks made by Snyder on the air.

Meanwhile, a Scientology press spokesman denied a published report that the hotel is off limits to everyone but Scientologists. Other churches are welcome to use the facilities, he said.

Graham On The Spirit

Evangelist Billy Graham, whose book on angels was the nation’s best-selling nonfiction volume of 1975, is now writing a book on the Holy Spirit, according to a press report. He said he put together thirteen of its fifteen chapters while vacationing recently in Mexico. He went there with his wife Ruth, who was ordered to rest after suffering what appeared to be a heart attack (subsequent tests failed to find evidence of it).

Graham said he embarked on months of intensive Bible study about the Holy Spirit after reading The New Pentecost by Cardinal Leo Suenens of Belgium, a leader in the Catholic charismatic movement.

Part of his new book will deal with the gifts of the Spirit (including tongues and healing), said the evangelist. The charismatic movement has been used of God to arouse “dead Christians in many parts of the world, especially in the mainline denominations,” he stated. Yet, said he, there is much that is counterfeit. Also, he added, he does not regard the gift of speaking in tongues “to be evidence that a person has been baptized in the Spirit any more than the other gifts.” All Christians have gifts of some sort from the Holy Spirit, thus all Christians are “charismatics,” he affirmed.

The evangelist was interviewed by a Minneapolis reporter after undergoing tests at the Mayo Clinic. He has had continuing problems with an intestinal ailment he picked up overseas last fall, with his back (he no longer can do any heavy lifting), and with high blood pressure.

Shelf Service

Since May, 1970, more than 1,000 public and parochial school libraries in thirty-eight states have been the recipients of 40,000-plus Christian books at no charge to the schools. The books have been placed by a non-profit organization, Christian School Books of Hubbard, Ohio.

CSB was founded by Evelyn Moffatt, wife of a plastics industry executive. She serves in a volunteer capacity as CSB’s president. Of United Methodist background, she was led to make a commitment to Christ through reading Catherine Marshall’s Beyond Ourselves.

“There is a book to reach anyone who will read,” affirms Mrs. Moffatt. So motivated, she and four paid staffers work out of offices in her basement to place Christian books on the shelves of school libraries. They are assisted by more than 200 volunteers across the country, most of them housewives. In an adopt-a-school plan, a volunteer shows samples of CSB books to the school librarian and explains the CSB program. The order sheet includes instructions for precataloging according to the librarian’s specifications. When the librarian agrees to accept the books, the volunteer enlists a church or service group to “adopt” the school and provide funds to pay for the book shipment. CSB then precatalogs the books and mails them to the school.

CSB has a dealership arrangement with publishers by which it can purchase books wholesale. Mrs. Moffatt says CSB searches for books that present the message of God’s love yet are not “churchy.” She adds that the books are screened, with care taken not to offend any denomination or ethnic group. Lists of recommended books are drawn up for students in both elementary and secondary grades. Among them are hardback and paperback books on sports, biographies, comic books, and books showing the dangers of drugs and the occult.

CSB vice president Rebecca Clark, a convert from the drug scene during the Jesus-movement era, points out that interests vary according to schools and regions. In some schools, for example, World War II is an in subject, and books like The Hiding Place and Hansei are in demand. Elsewhere, Nicky Cruz’s Run, Baby, Run might be a top choice.

Mrs. Moffatt cites tight school budgets as a contributing reason for CSB’s success. Librarians welcome good books that don’t cost them anything. Another reason is the preprocessing, she states. The books are nearly shelf ready upon arrival, saving the librarian hours of work. Most schools approached are willing to accept the books, she says, but some librarians turn them down, usually out of suspicion or fear of possible controversy—or simply because they are reluctant to handle anything pertaining to God.

KATHY CRAKER

Angola: A Question

The following update on Angola was filed by aCHRISTIANITY TODAYcorrespondent in Africa.

As forces of the Soviet-backed Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) roared south through the countryside last month, the population scattered to the bush and villages of family origin. Relatively few were killed, but pastors of the United Church of Central Angola feared for their lives. A number had led their flocks into the fold of the defeated National Union for the Total Liberation of Angola (UNITA).

In the north, members of the Baptist churches around Carmona shed no tears at the flight of the western-backed National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA). Earlier, FNLA activists burned the homes of some Baptists when they declined to take out political party membership, citing their belief in church-state separation. Although the MPLA owes its victory to Soviet arms and thousands of Cuban troops, MPLA radio spokesmen mention neither ally. They give credit for the triumph to African “sons of peasants and workers.” Use of the word “Communist” is avoided, but the broadcasters do speak of their “non-aligned Marxism-Leninism.”

The remaining five missionaries of the Africa Evangelical Fellowship (formerly South Africa General Mission) left Angola in early February. AEF field director Donald Lutes, a Canadian, had been placed under MPLA house arrest last fall for operating a radio transmitter. He decided he had no choice but to leave when the MPLA swept south again. Canadian-American Robert Foster left his rural sixty-bed mission hospital in south central Angola.

Three missionaries serving the United Church (of U. S. Congregational and United Church of Canada origins) were in Angola in December. Canadian doctor George Burgess of the eighty-bed Dondi Mission hospital in UNITA heartland left briefly to spend Christmas in Canada. On his return he got only as far as Lusaka, Zambia. UNITA reverses prevented him from going further. Doctor Betty Bridgeman and nurse Edith Radley were thought to be still in Chissamba Mission Hospital east of Silva Porto (Bié) early this month.

At least two other Protestant missions still had workers in Angola at mid-month. Two women serving with Christian Missions in Many Lands (a Plymouth Brethren-endorsed group) were at a station near the Zambia border, and seventeen members of the Swiss Evangelical Alliance Mission were still at their hospital and other posts on five stations.

Last fall MPLA officials interrogated doctor Rudolph Brechet of the Swiss mission’s Caluquembe Hospital for eighteen hours. When they discovered the local populace was solidly behind him, they released him as “a friend of the people.” Brechet, who has been in Angola since 1945, led in the 1974 founding of the Association of Evangelicals in Angola. The association claims that more than 60 per cent of the nation’s Protestants are evangelical in belief and alignment.

Probably the only Protestant clergyman riding high in MPLA’s Angola is the polished Methodist bishop Emilio de Carvalho. Based in Luanda, the capital, Carvalho is said to be close to MPLA’s leader, Agostinho Neto, himself a son of a Methodist minister and a beneficiary of Methodist mission schools and scholarship aid (see January 16 issue, page 43). Two summers ago Carvalho led his church to call for union with the Catholics. Through his newspaper O Estandarte he is known to favor a single unified Protestant Church for all of Angola.

Carvalho’s own Methodist church, however, has long struggled with an internal cleavage between two tribes, one side identified with big-city Luanda in the west, and the other side identified with rural Malange in the east. The fissure appeared when Carvalho led his urban wing to back the MPLA, essentially an elitist, educated, and “Europeanized” movement (the choir of the Central Methodist Church of Luanda could be heard singing pro-MPLA songs on Radio Luanda). The Malange Methodists favored the now defeated FNLA, basically a rural African grass-roots movement. A number of pro-FNLA Methodist pastors fled Malange when the MPLA shot up the town last summer.

A big question now, say mission observers, is whether Bishop Carvalho will exert influence on the MPLA regarding religious liberty. There are many variables: the extent of Soviet indoctrination, Carvalho’s own objectives, ancient tribal hostilities, the degree of impatience of the ruling urban minority toward the rural majority as social changes are sought. At stake may be the religious future of six million Angolans. Catholics number about 2.8 million (the figure may include several hundred thousand refugees who fled to Portugal), and Protestants are estimated to have between 450,000 and 800,000 adherents, the majority of them Baptists and Methodists.

Clyde Was A Clergyman

It looked like just another bank robbery, perhaps more professionally executed than most. The manager had been tricked into letting a “mother and son” into his private office, the explosive device they produced was frighteningly realistic, the threat to blow the place sky high was convincing, and the getaway with the stolen bank notes was planned to the last detail. Police, referring to the robbers as the Grannie and Clyde Gang, were baffled by the affair and by a spate of other unsolved crimes in the far west of England.

In what lawmen conceded was a thousand-to-one coincidence, the trail took them to a vicarage in Plymouth on routine inquiries. Suddenly the housekeeper, Mrs. Stella Bunting, 59, confessed to complicity in the bank job. The moving spirit of the caper turned out to be her employer, the Reverend Stephen Care, 32, vicar of St. Chad’s.

When the couple appeared at Exeter Crown Court, Care admitted to bank robbery and to stealing antiques from an abbey, a prep school, and a neighboring vicarage. He also asked the court to take into consideration eight other offenses dating from 1973, including thefts from his church and Sunday school offerings. Total haul: $36,000. Mrs. Bunting, said to be completely under Care’s influence, was acquitted of the bank robbery and given a conditional discharge for what the judge called her “very minor role” in the school burglary. The vicar got a seven-year jail term.

The handsome Church of England clergyman, a bachelor son of a Cornish fisherman, was highly regarded by his parishioners. His church services were well attended. He drank at the local pub, told saucy jokes, even appeared in drag once to entertain old folks at a party. He was a snappy dresser, had expensive tastes, and an interest in antiques. It was the latter hobby that proved his undoing. He began to covet rare and valuable pieces he saw on ecclesiastical and social occasions. He took to thieving, and no one suspected him until a stolen article he had sold 150 miles away somehow found its way back to a store in a nearby town—where it was spotted by the original owner.

Care, who admitted everything, could offer the police no explanation. But, said he: “I have made my peace with God and am making my peace with the State.”

Most of the stolen property was recovered.

J.D. DOUGLAS

Evangelicals And Politics

Washington: Christians in the Corridors of Power, by James Hefley and Edward Plowman (Tyndale, 1975, 200 pp., $3.95 pb), is reviewed by Wesley Pippert, UPI correspondent, Washington, D.C.

Two well-known evangelical writers have provided us with the most comprehensive survey yet of professing Christians in official Washington. It is a worthy document for Bicentennial 1976.

Their survey stretches from President Ford and the federal bureaucracy to Congress, from the Prayer Breakfast movement to the churches of the Washington area. Some of the persons, of headline familiarity, may surprise the reader; others, like Senator Mark Hatfield, Representative John Anderson, and Nixon White House political operative Charles Colson, are already known for their Christian witness. The book’s thesis, a valid one, is that the bonds of Jesus Christ cut across denominational lines and, more importantly, across partisanship.

There is a troublesome note here, however. It is expressed by two Christian men in Congress. Says Delegate Walter Fauntroy, a minister who represents the District of Columbia in Congress: “I have difficulty understanding how some of my conservative prayer-breakfast white colleagues can continually vote against programs designed to assist the disadvantaged.” Six pages later, Hefley and Plowman describe Representative Trent Lott of Mississippi as “apple pie positive about the American system,” and quote him as saying, “If I don’t believe that the American dream will work, who in the world will?”

What does it mean to the nation for its leaders to be Christian? When one of them makes a personal decision to accept Christ, we rejoice. When prayer and Bible study, an exemplary life-style, personal morality, and Christian fellowship flow out of this decision, we rejoice.

But the Bible does not stop here. Jeremiah, speaking to the Israelites, linked their amending their ways to practicing justice, and not oppressing the alien, the orphan, or the widow (aid to dependent children?). In Malachi, the Lord said he would judge not only the adulterers and perjurers but “those who oppress the wage earner, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn aside the alien.” This was the force of the Old Testament prophets. Jesus Christ himself calls believers to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner, liberate the oppressed-mandates with direct political implications. How have these Christian politicians and bureaucrats responded? This book, with some exceptions, does not tell how—or whether—they integrate the biblical mandate with their politics.

Assistant Commerce Secretary Betsy Ancker-Johnson lays out a sobering agenda of concerns to America—an energy shortage, severe poverty, strip-mining. She says, “This is going to call for some very levelheaded thinking. It’s a time when I’m glad to be a Christian.” She explains that Christians “have a certain extra confidence and courage.” Is that all? Is that the only difference being a Christian makes for the politician?

A more significant example, perhaps, is President Gerald R. Ford. Hefley and Plowman say that he reportedly became a Christian in 1971. Again, what difference has it made in Ford’s politics as measured by biblical standards? Are his vetoes related to his concept of biblical justice? Is this Christian President any different politically from the non-Christian Grand Rapids congressman?

Politicians and bureaucrats are not ordinary persons. Their actions effect the rest of us. We must be concerned not merely with their personal commitment to Christ but with their political commitment to biblical goals.

Hefley and Plowman sense this, too. For in their final chapter, they say America is in “deep, deep trouble,” which they immediately describe not in spiritual language but in terms of post-Watergate, inflation, recession, the Middle East, and threats to peace. I wish they had asked their subjects tougher questions about these matters in the light of the Bible.

One of the persons who has a scriptural sense of what a politician—or anyone else—ought to be is Louis Evans, Jr., pastor of National Presbyterian Church. “There’s a rising third party in the church replacing the old dictum where you were either a soul saver or a social worker,” Evans says. In this party, “you meet Christ and the naked, pursue peace, and do all that the gospel says we should have been doing all along. It is a balanced ministry to the spiritual, social, economic, and political person.”

Black Political Theology

God of the Oppressed by James Cone (Seabury, 1975, 280 pp., $9.95), and Christian Ethics For Black Theology: The Politics of Liberation, by Major Jones (Abingdon, 1975, 205 pp., $4.50), are reviewed by James Tinney, Ph.D. candidate in political science, Howard University, Washington, D.C.

To view black theology as simply a covert form of political ideology, as some do, is to oversimplify some of the issues while bypassing others. Nevertheless, since black churches generally have never made a harsh separation between the sacred and secular realms, black theology does indeed contain a pronounced element of political protest and designs for liberation. And it insists that any theology that pretends or intends to neglect the secular is a covert form of political ideology itself, albeit one devoted to the status quo.

This contention between those favoring transformation of political relations and those favoring continuation of the present order is nowhere better illustrated than in these two books and their authors. In fact, the alternatives are made more lucid by two simple facts: the conservative contender here makes no pretense of neglecting the secular or social realm; and both sides are represented by theologians from the oppressed camp.

Jones (president of Gammon Seminary) is the conservative who claims that theological support for revolution is an “ideological misuse of the New Testament”; whereas Cone (professor of theology at Union Seminary) is the liberationist who asserts that theology’s task is to help “the oppressed realize that their fight for freedom is a divine right of creation.”

Now, neither of these positions is novel. Strands of both conservatism and radicalism have persisted through the history of the black church (although a fair assessment insist that the latter has been more prominent). If black theological writings only restated these two trends, then it might be pointless to review each new volume. But that is not the case.

These two books are important for two reasons: (1) Unlike previous volumes, these have Cone and Jones confronting and answering each other in a direct manner. (2) Both herein substantially modify their previously stated positions.

Jones makes a noticeable right turn. He begins to espouse ideas that were set forth by white opponents of the “new black mood,” which, curiously, helped create a platform for him in the sixties. He says that biblical freedom has “almost a totally spiritual meaning”; Christian love “is totally unrelated to the slave-master tradition”; premature emancipation of slaves “would have produced chaos,” and had it occurred, “there was no free market for labor. The time was not ripe.” Jones goes on to criticize an “over preoccupation with black history”, the existence of too many non-traditional black schools, the current black-studies emphasis, the unethical qualities of some civil-rights activists, the tendencies of revolutions to produce something worse, and the “mistaken” idea that the riots were necessary causes of black social improvements. As if this were not enough, he caustically states, “Black people have talked too long of oppressions that simply do not now exist.”

Such rantings remove Jones from even the conservative camp of J. Deotis Roberts and Joseph R. Washington, Jr., and thrust him into the unenviable positon and ultra-right company of men like George S. Schuyler, a black “Bircher.”

Cone, on the other hand, while true to his published liberation ideology, develops some new emphases in God of the Oppressed. If anything, he moves to an increased importance of the Scriptures, Christology, and the second coming. Some of this stress on apparently orthodox themes comes as a surprise to many, although it is wedded to political struggle. The “Lordship of Christ” becomes a key phrase for Cone, who also now insists that “the meaning of Christ is not derived from nor dependent upon our social context.” While Cone believes that “reliability” rather than “infallibility” best describes the black viewpoint on the Bible, he contends that “black people in America had great confidence in the holy book … which has not been shaken by the rise of historical criticism.” He also denies that the idea of heaven and the “second coming” are opiates in the Marxist sense. “The power of Christ’s future coming” is the key to “why the oppressed keep on keeping on,” he states. “It is a radical judgment which black people are making upon the society that enslaved them.”

All of this seems to be a natural outgrowth of the “personal testimony” to which Cone gives a central place in this new book. He relates in detail “the presence of the divine Spirit” he encountered in his conversion at age ten and his entering the ministry at age sixteen, at the Bearden, Arkansas, Macedonia African Methodist Episcopal Church. “Jesus is now my story, which sustains and holds me together in struggle,” he fairly shouts later in the book.

With such securely evangelical underpinnings, Cone’s new emphases speak not of a desertion of liberation theology but of a return to the dual, paradoxical thrust of both the sacred and secular in black religion.

In other developments, Cone makes distinctions between tradition and revelation, and between ideology and theology. While he gives no prominence to the formal theories of the “sociology of knowledge,” and to Niebuhr’s analysis in Christ and Culture, he also sets forth with (not entirely new, yet significant) clarity these propositions: that the words of the oppressed are not always the Word of God; and that whites may be “converted” and “given, by the Holy Spirit, a new way of thinking and acting in the world, defined and limited by God’s will to liberate the oppressed.”

I do not want to be overly dramatic, but it seems safe to say that black theology will not be the same now that Jones and Cone have again spoken.

Salvo Against Scripture Critics

More Evidence That Demands a Verdict: Historical Evidences for the Christian Scriptures, by Josh McDowell (Campus Crusade for Christ, 1975, 365 pp., $4.95 pb), is reviewed by David E. Aune, professor of religion, Saint Xavier College, Chicago, Illinois.

The documentary hypothesis of the Pentateuch and form criticism are the two targets of a barrage of qualifications and refutations delivered by conservative biblical scholars under the tactical direction of campus lecturer Josh McDowell. A supplement to the earlier volume Evidence That Demands a Verdict, the book is an encyclopedic apologetic handbook composed of thousands of exact quotations drawn from 521 sources. The purpose is to provide the inquiring Christian student with pro and con arguments in these two major areas of radical biblical criticism. A traveling representative of Campus Crusade for Christ wants to give Christian students in secular universities an arsenal of responses to the claims of radical critics, not infrequently parroted by liberal professors in a onesided way. The volume is thus both a study guide and a research tool. Its most important contribution is undoubtedly its solid demonstration that the evangelical position on the historical reliability of Scripture is supported by scholarly research.

The book is divided into three sections, two of which deal with the documentary hypothesis and form criticism. The first section is introductory and discusses the anti-supernatural presuppositions of radical criticism and the substantial contribution that archaeology has made to biblical research, particularly on the conservative side. Appendices include welcome reprints of five important essays supportive of the evangelical position (such as Cyrus Gordon’s “Higher Criticism and the Forbidden Fruit” and C. S. Lewis’s “Modern Theology and Biblical Criticism”) and a helpful collection of specific archaeological examples that tend to confirm that the biblical narrative is historic and reliable.

The real value of a work of this type is directly proportional to the degree of accuracy and fairness with which the views of the opposition are presented. I am pleased as punch to report that McDowell bends over backward to present accurately and fairly, with elaborate documentation, the views of radical biblical critics. These views are carefully matched with an equally accurate and impressive presentation of conservative rebuttals. While the volume has some unevenness of quality (the section on the documentary hypothesis is far more satisfactory than that on form criticism), the fault seems to lie more with the quality of evangelical scholarship than with McDowell.

In anticipation of a second edition, a few constructive suggestions might be in order. The explicit intention of the book is to provide conservative students with resource materials from sources all too often absent from secular university libraries. It seems to me that this objective was only partially achieved. There seem to be two reasons: (1) Not infrequently the quotations drawn from conservative scholarship are more rhetorical than substantive; while they might be effectively used in one of McDowell’s popular lectures (and on page v he uses the term “lecture notes” to describe the book), they will hardly cut the mustard in a term paper or in classroom discussion and debate. (2) While the book could serve admirably as a research guide for students, it frequently fails to do this.

Although occasionally McDowell suggests which books or articles are particularly good on a specific subject, more often than not the student is left to sink or swim in a sea of literature (521 sources!) with little to guide him. Further, the extensive bibliographies of secondary literature (pp. 22–24, 169–78, 292–99, 322–24) seem to be arranged in accordance with no rational principle (neither alphabetically, chronologically, or topically); however, each entry is numbered so that quotations in the text may be correlated by number and page with the source from which they are drawn. McDowell might do well to place “Guides to Further Research” at appropriate points in the text. Another help would be to annotate bibliographical items that might prove particularly helpful for conservative students.

While evangelicals will derive a certain amount of gratification from seeing radical critics pass in review with varying amounts of egg on their faces, neither the documentary hypothesis nor form criticism currently occupies the center stage in the work of radical critics. Traditionsgeschichte (history of tradition), a combination of source criticism, form criticism, and redaction criticism, seems to be of focal concern in much of contemporary Pentateuchal and Synoptic research. McDowell might do well to cut out some of the repetitive treatment of JEDP and form criticism and zero in on some of the weaknesses (and there are many!) of Traditionsgeschichte as an end-product of earlier Pentateuchal and Synoptic criticism.

Despite these quibbles, I am convinced that McDowell’s book will prove invaluable to inquiring students at secular universities, as well as to Christian students at evangelical Bible institutes, colleges, and seminaries. He deserves our gratitude for meeting an important need in an imaginative way.

America’S Religion: What Kind?

The Nation With the Soul of a Church, by Sidney Mead (Harper & Row, 1975, 128 pp., $7.95, $3.95 pb), is reviewed by W. Terry Harrison, history teacher, Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York.

In this brief series of seven articulate essays, Sidney Mead suggests, essentially, that the world of antagonistic governments can be transformed into a pluralistic commonwealth, one that lives in peace because of recognized law. At the very least, this is his hope. But he worries that it may not become a reality, for he knows that persons in responsible positions, including leaders in high places, fail to foresee the possible end of mankind. He takes for his model the United States, whose history of religious pluralism and political cosmopolitanism nurtures a vision of true universalism.

Pursuing his professional interest in America’s religious history, Mead investigates those religious elements that he believes inhibit the full realization of a truly compromising spirit. There is in the land, he argues, an unresolved conflict that is detrimental to national health. Simply stated, the conflict has to do with the fundamental conviction that America’s Constitution, its history, and its purposes were (and are) essentially Protestant and with the fact that pluralism and sectarianism are now drastically altering the religious complexion of the society. The tensions thus created are best reflected, he thinks, in the so-called post-Protestant arguments.

Mead, however, holds that America has never been “Protestant.” By this he means that in its constitutional and legal structure the United States is not at all rooted in a Protestant theology. The United States, he avers, ought not to be viewed as having any certain religion other than that of the republic. Its theology is that which underlies the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and “the long line of Supreme Court decisions.” Readers will recognize this theology as that borne out of the Newtonian age and the Enlightenment.

Mead wants America’s religious practitioners, especially those concerned with the problem, to recognize that the United States is a pluralistic society in which the basic institutions of church and state do not stand as opposites but work together synergistically (as opposed to syncretistically) to produce a spiritual core. This core is the source of a religious principle that transcends all denominational and sectarian particularities.

The evangelical Christian will find this book thought-provoking but disturbing. In it he will recognize an (implied) argument that is already historic, that there is little room for persistent biblical faith within a republic that is evolving toward the universalist’s ideal. He will also be unhappy with the fact that Mead fails to see the burdensome significance of secularization within American society. There is no attempt, for example, to associate materialism with the new religion or with the religion of the republic. Indeed, Mead’s arguments are directed toward intellectual understanding, not spiritual need.

Although he condemns national idolatry, Sidney Mead seems to encourage a complete compromise with the republic’s processive developments. Christians may find this hard to accept.

Two becoming one: that is the challenge of marriage. A pair of independent I-me-mine types may have to work hard at blending his life-style and her life-style into their life-style. And the blending is likely to leave off where the vocation begins. This may be particularly so when one of the two persons is a minister.

It is not unusual to find a married male minister using his endowments to the full while his wife suppresses her own gifts in order to further his productivity. She keeps the house running, the meals on schedule, and the children under control, trying to help reserve his physical, mental, and emotional strength for the people “out there” who really need him.

A women whose primary abilities lie in parenting and homemaking may thrive on this type of joint service. But a multigifted woman may be uncomfortably aware that she isn’t fulfilling her God-given potential.

Many a parsonage wife and child resent this kind of ministry for a different reason. They see “we” competing with “they” for the minister’s time. Mostly “they” get the best of the deal while “we” get to tiptoe around a collapsed clergyman. The pastor who doesn’t communicate at home how God is using him intensifies the problem. His family can’t even share vicariously in his calling.

Another concept of a couple ministry is that both have full but separate ministries outside the home. He preaches and she teaches the beginners in Sunday school; he sits on the executive board while she rolls bandages with the women’s missionary society; she plays the piano and he does visitation. They go their separate ways instead of bearing together the burdens of spiritual service. He won’t be bothered with her concerns about the four-year-olds and she’s too busy to encourage him in his labors. The emotional distance between them may grow, and the separate activities may increase to cover up the emptiness of their relationship.

The marital ideal of two becoming one suggests that we think not of your mission and my mission but of our mission. It may not be all joy at the start. Even in God’s business, egos tend to compete rather than cooperate. Adjustment takes time, repeated trial and error, and sometimes much forgiveness.

What are the possibilities? Well, one may speak; the other may polish and edit that message for publication, or use artistic, musical, or dramatic talent to enhance a lesson.

They may co-teach a Bible class, assuming joint responsibility for lesson preparation, teaching, visiting, and telephoning.

Counseling together is especially effective in pre-marital and marital counseling. The counseling couple are expressing their unity non-verbally as well as verbally. They are a living illustration.

A few couples speak together at church functions. Using dialogue as a format, they communicate truth from both the masculine and the feminine perspective.

Some ministers are discovering the benefits of viewing their wives as colleagues in the work. The pastor and his wife combine to plan worship services and discuss sermon ideas, illustrations, and applications. They set goals and investigate means of achieving a well-rounded ministry.

As the individuals and their family and church situations change, the form of their service may vary, perhaps requiring some difficult adjustments. Now one and now the other may be more public in the outworkings of their team ministry. And while credit should be given where it is due, it is amazing what a couple can accomplish when neither cares who gets the glory so long as God does.

A joint ministry aids a couple in stirring up each other’s gifts (2 Tim. 1:6). In the context of a caring commitment, they provoke each other to love and good works (Heb. 10:24). Together they consider how their particular abilities can be combined for spiritual effectiveness. Above all, they experience the fulfillment of dividing the burdens and doubling the joys.

To combine the thoughts of the Lawgiver and the wise king: One of you shall chase a thousand, but two of you shall put ten thousand to flight. Two can accomplish more than twice as much as one.—PAMELA HOOVER HEIM, Pasadena, California.

A few days ago my husband and I were in the demonstration room of an electronic plant belonging to a friend in Menlo Park, California. There we marveled over the new inventions for analyzing air pollution and counting the particles in water and other liquids. It is now possible to put on one’s belt a small box (about five inches square and a couple of inches thick) that measures air pollution, giving fair warning of a dangerous situation.

This is marvelous in mines, for instance, where in years gone by the only indication that the air was dangerous to breathe was the discovery that the canary taken as a “test” down into the place where the men were working had died. Now the canary does not have to die to show that the air is too polluted to breathe; a trustworthy device can go right along with the workers to make a continual test.

We saw also an amazingly compact machine that throws a laser beam through liquid and counts its particles. As if by magic, numbers appear on a screen, rapidly changing as the count takes place, until the total number is reached. That number then stays without a flicker of change until the liquid is removed and another one is put in the place of scrutiny.

It is a good thing to be able to measure pollution in air and water, but there is another, non-physical form of pollution that must not be neglected as we concern ourselves with physical dangers. Jesus gives a warning in Matthew 10:28, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” This dangerous one has many prophets, or teachers, who spread pollution that fills not only books, magazines, and other media for spreading ideas but also the conversation of many people. People are “breathing” and “swallowing” ideas, and are “trying out” and “plunging into” practices that are dangerously full of false teaching.

We need to use the measuring device God has put in our hands, which is as effective today as it was centuries ago in sounding a warning signal. Jesus warns us in Matthew 7:15, 16, “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” The Bible is our accurate laser beam, throwing light that penetrates and giving us warning signals before we get immersed in the false.

A new book points up the fact that America and other western countries are being flooded with Eastern thinking and practices. TM—Discovering Inner Energy and Overcoming Stress is a best-seller and is sweeping our countries with a smooth sounding solution to everyone’s need for rest and repose in the midst of the increasing stresses of life. What a temptation to a nervous, “uptight” person to seek repose. “Neither a religion, nor a philosophy, nor a way of life” is the claim at the beginning of the book. So the young Christian feels free to go ahead and try out Transcendental Meditation.

With the Word of God as our laser beam, penetrating the flowing mass of material with its light, and with the Word of God as our sieve, straining the mixture of ideas floating in the intellectual atmosphere, we can come up with some measure of warning. It is important not only to believe the Bible is true but to live by what it teaches. This reality of living by the Word of God includes the active use of the Bible to “test” other “prophets.” We are to beware of false prophets, to keep our distance from the poison of their falseness.

“It (TM) was first introduced into the United States in 1959 by the Indian teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.” “Maharishi’s technique for achieving this state is effortless.” “Maharishi has explained.…” “Maharishi has indicated.…” “Maharishi has explained.…” “Maharishi describes.…” “Maharishi has suggested.…” As one reads on it becomes completely clear that TM has a “prophet,” an Indian mystic. It is this man’s teaching that is being offered by others in this whole process of TM. Does he come from the true and living God?

The answer is that his teaching is based on Eastern thinking. It is related to the Hindu stream of thought. It has nothing to do with the teaching of the Bible, and it is not just a set of relaxation exercises. It is a means of emptying oneself of thoughts, of becoming “aware,” not of truth and of God but of some mystical feeling of depth inside onself. This is where the “rest” is supposed to come from.

What does the Bible say? Jeremiah 6:16 says, “Thus saith the LORD, stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.” In Jeremiah’s moment of history the majority of people were turning away from God’s teaching on how to have rest.

In Matthew 11:28–30 Jesus declares the way to have rest in the midst of stress: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The Son of God is to be our teacher, our prophet as well as our king. The Word of God tells us to meditate day and night, not by emptying our minds but by filling them with his teaching, his Word. “This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and thou shalt have good success” (Josh. 1:8). We cannot meditate both according to God’s instructions and according to TM’s instructions. It is a question of Joshua’s choice, “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.” “Blessed is the man,” we are told in Psalm 1, whose “delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.”

“But I want instant rest. I want instant relief from stress.” True, God’s Word does not promise us perfection now. Micah 2:10 says, “for this is not your rest: because it is polluted.” And Hebrews 4:3 promises that “there remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God,” pointing to a future rest that will be unspoiled. Whose rest are we going to trust?

Listen again to the next verses in Hebrews: “For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from his. Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” This is God’s Word, described by him, which is to be our laser beam and keep us from the polluted ideas of the twentieth century. Use it. Trust it. Search it. Live by it.

EDITH SCHAEFFER

‘She’S Another Kathryn Kuhlman’

Kathryn Kuhlman, well-known American evangelist and healer, died on February 20. According to her close friend, Reverend Ralph Wilkerson, pastor of the Melodyland Christian Center in Anaheim, California, some poeple are already hustling to become the “second Kathryn Kuhlman.”

In the Los Angeles Times, Ralph was quoted as saying, “A famous lady evangelist is already saying, ‘I’ve got her (Kuhlman’s) mantle.’ It’s ridiculous.”

Ralph’s right. It is ridiculous. But it’s not unusual. There’s an evangelist running around today whose publicist (who was Philip’s publicist?) calls him “the new Billy Graham.” They’ve taken Billy’s mantle and he’s not even dead.

And I’m sure there are “little Oral Robertses,” “young Bill Gothards,” “new Norman Vincent Peales,” and freshly squeezed Anita Bryants dotting the landscape. It’s ridiculous, but it’s not new.

In the church at Ephesus, I’m convinced there were young aggressive go-getters who saw themselves as “new Pauls.” And throughout history there have been those (deranged and otherwise) who have considered themselves the Messiah.

I wonder when we’ll learn to be ourselves in the Body of Christ. Just us. Not another Peale or Paul. Not another Calvin or Kuhlman. Just the real Arnold Pepper. Or the authentic Nancy Justice.

And I wonder when we’ll accept people as they are instead of saying, “He’s just like Somebody” or “She’s the new Whatchamacallit.”

But then who am I to talk. I can’t even be me. I’ve got to be “another Eutychus.” Where is Ralph Wilkerson when I need him?

EUTYCHUS VII

Sexism Dispelled

I was the co-ordinator of the Christian Arts Festival at Westminster Seminary and am writing on behalf of the Arts Committee to remark on Miss Forbes’s report, “Affirming the Arts (The Refiner’s Fire, Feb. 13)”. We were disturbed by her comments on our “sexism in action.” Her criticism simply had no grounds. If she had done more careful research she would have learned [that] there were in fact two seminars led by women, drama and poetry (Miss Forbes cites only one). We invited the dramatist and we welcomed the poet the moment she made herself known to us. There was a third woman who assisted in the film/ discussion workshop. Another woman, a lecturer at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, declined our invitation to give a major lecture in her field. Two women accepted our invitation to do Japanese flower arrangement for the Festival. By far the majority of those who displayed in our gallery were women. And finally, if we exclude the Westminster Choir, half of our evening performers (of whom Miss Forbes was one) were women. Rockledge, Pa.

CHARLES DREW

Focus Extended

I have just this day discovered the January 30 issue and wish to express my appreciation for the series on the Black Church. I am aware that this is not the first mention of the Black Church in the magazine but the particular focus of this series seems to extend the perspectives considerably.… Congratulations on this special issue. I trust that this is but the beginning of a more representative perspective of the Spirit’s work.…

WILLIAM E. PANNELL

Fuller Theological Seminary

Pasadena, Calif.

Graceless About Grace

Since I do not regularly read your magazine, I am indebted to one of my students, who previously was one of John Warwick Montgomery’s students, for calling my attention to Montgomery’s account of our nine month old conversation in your issue of January 30, somewhat grandiosely entitled “Encounter in Florence” (Current Religious Thought). I could ignore it, just as I had almost forgotten the original conversation, if Montgomery hadn’t used his account as an occasion not only to ridicule me (though he allows me to remain anonymous), but also to suggest the theological incompetence of the entire Garrett-Evangelical faculty.…

As I recall the occasion, my daughter and I had gone to the only sitting room in our pensione to read, because my younger children were retiring in our rooms. Shortly thereafter Montgomery assembled his travel group in the same room and announced his lecture. He invited all who didn’t wish to hear it to leave. Since there was no other place to go, we remained, and were rewarded with a well-spoken description of Savanarola and some questionable interpretations of Luther. I listened with one ear as I continued to read, making no attempt to dissimulate either activity, as Dr. Montgomery suggests.… I had not known that I had caught that much of his attention. Following his presentation, when we could go back to our own concerns, my daughter and I were conversing quietly about some of our reactions to what he had said. [He] overheard part of our conversation, introduced himself into it, conversed for about five minutes, and then left. We did not “all exit,” as he suggests, unless he considers himself “omnes.” He exited and I went back to my reading, almost forgetful of the conversation until your January 30th issue.

At no time did Montgomery inquire what the purpose of my sabbatical study was. If he had been sufficiently interested, he might have been saved from having to caricature me in his version of one of a “perennial band of sabbatical Fulbright professors.” But what is more dismaying is his willingness to quote a retired colleague from my faculty in order to insinuate that the entire faculty of which I am a part is theologically untutored and evangelical only by “pretension.” I am not sure of the context out of which Professor Philip Watson’s reported comment was ripped, but I must presume he was as incompletely quoted as was my part of the “dialogue” in Montgomery’s version of our meeting. I have observed politicians who debate with “empty chairs,” but I had not known Montgomery was a candidate for any office. In any case, his legalistic understanding of grace, and his graceless account of our conversation about grace, do not seem to qualify him very well under the Lutheran criteria he cites for the office of “theologian.” Maybe it is just as well he is such a good tour group leader.

JAMES E. WILL

Professor of Systematic Theology

Garrett-Evangelical

Theological Seminary

Evanston, Ill..

ERRATUM

A news item in the February 13 “World Scene” column should have stated that the West German church tax amounts to between 8 and 9 per cent of one’s income tax, not income.

Public television could not have chosen a better historical tale for this bicentennial and election year than that of the remarkable Adams family. “The Adams Chronicles,” spanning a century and a half of American history, certainly puts politics into proper perspective.

What with pleas from Thomas Jefferson and the republicans for a presidential candidate who can unite the country and cries from Alexander Hamilton and the federalists for someone with sound economic and foreign policy I became convinced that contemporary campaign speechwriters had copied our nation’s first politicians. The way in which the XYZ Affair was leaked to the public sounded uncomfortably familiar, as did the secret dealings of French and American ambassadors. As American Film noted in its cover story on the series, “In the course of the Watergate hearings no other figure in American history was quoted as often as John Adams, hard-bitten moralist that he was.”

The thirteen-part, $5.2 million series, now half over, not only informs us about our country’s birth but shows us how little politics has changed. Our founding fathers used Christianity for political gain just as some politicians do today. During the continental congress, for example, Ben Franklin wanted a certain pious clergyman to lead a meeting in prayer. His presence was good politics, even if his prayers were long and tedious. John Adams understood and agreed.

The series should go far in correcting the widespread idea that those men who formed our government did so from religious, if not specifically Christian,motivations. The faith of John Adams and his family (his wife Abigail was a minister’s daughter) is not strong or particularly Christian. As we see with the deaths of some of their children, the Adams family is plagued by fierce doubts about even the existence of God.

WNET in New York, which produced the chronicles, made sure that it was well researched. Writers checked the scripts with historians armed with over 300,000 pages of diaries, letters, and other papers. Not only are the scripts accurate, they also are meticulously and cleverly written. The writers depict real persons, not the cardboard characters from history books or classes. Textbook writers ought to take a cue from them.

George Grizzard’s powerful portrayal of John Adams grows and mellows as Adams ages. And the rest of the cast matches Gizzard’s fine acting. The technicians who taped the episodes and the persons who edited the tape give the series a feeling of flow and movement not often seen on television.

The people who shaped our nation struggled with ethical and spiritual issues, with political and personal problems. How much, wondered president John Adams, do the people have a right to know about the internal affairs of governing a nation? A week after that episode first aired Shana Alexander and James Kilpatrick on 60 Minutes’s “Point Counterpoint” wondered the same thing.

If you have not tuned in “The Adams Chronicles” do so before the series ends. Or, catch the reruns. There’s more to learn than a lesson in American history

CHERYL FORBES

Church Music—An Alabaster Box Or Mess Of Pottage?

Like everything else, church music is costing more these days, and it is more than ever important that we get our money’s worth. Professional church musicians complain that when budget decisions are left to non-musical laymen or ministers, this may not always happen.

The issue was dramatized recently by a news release from Utah that caused an unusual degree of anxiety among organists and pipe-organ builders. It seems that the leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) have decreed that all their new church buildings should contain only electronic organs. It is stipulated that a $4,000 to $5,500 instrument is good enough for a parish (“ward”) and an $8,300 to $9,300 organ is adequate for a diocesan (“stage”) “meeting house.” The directive explained that “economic differences in various wards and stakes should not determine the type or size of organs.… Simplicity is desired in all chapel furnishings, including the musical instruments.”

Perhaps the greatest affront to the dignity of church musicians is couched in the stated judgment that “relatively few persons are actually capable of distinguishing significant difference between the sounds of the two types of instruments” (electronic organs and pipe organs). Today’s ears may be dulled by urban noise and high-decibel rock music, and many people may honestly prefer the sounds of a “country guitar” to those of a symphony orchestra. Still, since when are decisions about a church’s architecture—or plumbing—or organ tone—based on whether most people “can tell the difference”?

The quality of electronic organs has improved tremendously in recent years, and with good acoustics some give a fair representation of pipe-organ tone. The cost of a good electronic organ will depend partly on the size of the room in which it is installed. Beyond that, the quality of sound is in direct relation to the expenditure. It is hard to believe that an adequate instrument could be purchased for a minimum of $4,000 or a maximum of $9,300. Triple those figures, and maybe … There is still room for debate on the question of ultimate cost. Pipe-organ components can be used over several generations. On the other hand, the science of electronics advances so rapidly that a ten-year-old electronic organ is probably obsolete.

The issue is clouded by the example the Mormons have set in their music broadcasts. It is inconceivable that the superb Tabernacle organ may one day be replaced by even the finest electronic instrument. Or should we guess that the excellence of the choir and organ music has more to do with public relations than with the aesthetics of worship? Is it churlish to suggest that some intolerable theology has passed unchallenged because of the delightful sounds of the famous Tabernacle Choir, accompanied by Alexander Schreiner or Frank Asper at the great organ?

Albeit, this is not the occasion for evangelicals to throw stones from inside glass houses! Too many of us have made the questionable decisions about church music budgets, crediting them to “our missionary vision.” In some churches a forty-year-old Hammond is still wheezing away, at considerable pitch-variance with the untuneable spinet piano. In others, the choir has no budget for new music and is thumbing through an outdated, dog-eared hymnal. A few groups have aspired to a professional ministry to develop the musical talents of members, but have been unwilling to support it adequately from the pocketbook.

It isn’t true that there are no funds for music. We hear rumors of a gospel singer who was paid $1,000 a week (plus expenses) to sing three songs on a church’s Sunday-morning national telecast. Many popular personalities are now booked by talent agencies, with high fees for appearances at sacred concerts, church banquets, and the like. Our local religious radio station regularly offers tickets, at up to $6 each, to hear “your favorite gospel musicians” in the 5,000-seat Convention Center.

Dr. Ray Robinson, president of Westminster Choir College and an old friend from Youth for Christ rally days, identifies this phenomenon as “religious entertainment” and suggests it is the legitimate offspring of the marriage of religion and show business. Some others are not quite so sure. Where does religion end and entertainment take over? At best, it is a sharing of Christian experience from sincere performer to dedicated listener. At worst, it may be a pseudo-religious happening that, like Esau’s “mess of pottage,” is highly palatable but is much too costly, mostly because it may supplant true worship.

I hope that I do not seem to be speaking in the same authoritarian spirit exhibited by our friends in Salt Lake City. One would hesitate to argue with the church that decides it cannot afford an expensive organ or a professional music ministry at the moment because of its commitment to preach the Gospel and feed the hungry worldwide. But it is well to remember Jesus’ answer to those who contended that the former harlot’s costly ointment should have been sold to help the poor, instead of being poured over his feet in extravagant love. Every congregation of redeemed sinners has the right to choose what its own “alabaster box” will contain. If even a small group of believers decide that a pipe organ is necessary to express their adoration, I say “Amen”—right on!

Admittedly, this is related to “taste” in church music, and someone will argue that one person’s alabaster box is another’s mess of pottage. Well, perhaps—but each of us should make sure which he is paying for. Like the biblical counterparts, one is costly self-indulgence and the other is sacrificial worship.

DONALD P. HUSTAD

Donald Hustad is V. V. Cooke Professor of Organ at Southern Baptist Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

First of Two Parts

Invocation

To LORD NARAYANA, to lotus-born BRAHMA, the Creator … to GOVINDA, ruler among the yogis, to his disciple; SHRI SHANKARACHARYA, … to the tradition of our MASTERS, I bow down.

… To the personified glory of the Lord, to SHANKARA, emancipator of the world, I bow down

To SHANKARACHARYA the redeemer, hailed as KRISHNA and BADARAYANA, to the commentator of the BRAHMA SUTRAS, I bow down.

To the glory of the Lord I bow down again and again, at whose door the whole galaxy of gods pray for perfection day and night.

Adorned with immeasurable glory, preceptor of the whole world, having bowed down to Him we gain fulfillment.

Skilled in dispelling the cloud of ignorance of the people, the gentle emancipator, BRAHMANANDA SARASVATI, the supreme teacher, full of brilliance, Him I bring to my awareness.

Offering the invocation to the lotus feet of SHRI GURU DEV, I bow down.…

Offering cloth to the lotus feet of SHRI GURU DEV, I bow down.…

Offering a flower to the lotus feet of SHRI GURU DEV, I bow down.

Offering incense to the lotus feet of SHRI GURU DEV, I bow down.…

Offering fruit to the lotus feet of SHRI GURU DEV, I bow down.…

Offering camphor light

White as camphor, kindness incarnate, the essence of creation garlanded with BRAHMAN, ever dwelling in the lotus of my heart, the creative impulse of cosmic life, to That, in the form of GURU DEV, I bow down.…

Offering a handful of flowers

GURU in the glory of BRAHMA, GURU in the glory of VISHNU, GURU in the glory of the great LORD SHIVA, GURU in the glory of the personified transcendental fullness of BRAHMAN, to Him, to SHRI GURU DEV adorned with glory, I bow down.

This translated excerpt of the hymn chanted in Sanscrit by the teacher during the initiation into Transcendental Meditation identifies the initiation as a traditional Hindu “puja” or worship ceremony. It is also apparent from this text that the particular Hindu tradition followed is that of Shankara, the ninth-century Hindu philosopher-reformer whose non-dualist doctrine of the unity of all being (monism) is perhaps the most widely held view of reality in modern Hinduism. The primary focus of worship, however, is not Shankara himself but his most recently acknowledged successor, the late Brahmananda Saraswati or Guru Dev.

Under the form of Guru Dev (whose pictured image is on the altar during the “puja”), the Hindu Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, And Shiva are worshipped as manifestations of the formless absolute, Brahman. Guru Dev is the dead master of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose Transcendental Meditation is made available to would-be meditators only if they bring, in addition to the course fee, the flowers, fruit, and cloth (a handkerchief) offered to Guru Dev in the initiation ceremony. Novice meditators normally are also expected to join their teacher in kneeling before the image of Guru Dev in order to receive mantra, the secret Sanscrit word by means of which they are to meditate twice daily for twenty minutes. What the Bible designates as “others gods” (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) are worshiped in this ceremony, and the worshiper bows down to an image representing deity in the form of mortal man, the picture of Guru Dev. This means that initiation into TM requires formal involvement in violations of the First and Second Commandments.

Because few understand Sanscrit and because Maharishi and his teachers keep insisting that TM has nothing to do with religion, most meditators are ignorant of the full significance of the initiation ceremony required of them. Maharishi International University (MIU) professor Jonathan Shear says of the initiation ceremony that “as any teacher of the TM technique will tell you, it is not a religious ceremony at all. In no way does it involve religious belief.…” Professor Shear is well aware of the religious content of the ceremony. His statement is an attempt to mislead those who are ignorant of it. This is typical of the deception practiced by TM teachers in general; they deny what is apparent to all who understand the text of the hymn cited above, that TM at its core is a Hindu religious practice.

Although it has long been apparent that TM is a way to union with “God” or Brahman through the recitation of a mantra (mantrum yoga), the publication of the translated text of the “puja” (excerpted above) by the Spiritual Counterfeits Project of Berkeley Christian Coalition (formerly CWLF) makes it apparent that a system of devotion to guru and gods (bhakti yoga) is also integral to TM. The doctrinal aspect of Maharishi’s system of yoga is called Science of Creative Intelligence (SCI). SCI includes a restatement of quasi-scientific language of the postulates of Shankara’s monism: the unity of all being, the identity of the soul and the essence of being, and the place of yoga as the means to experience the identity of soul and “Being” (atman and Brahman). For the meditator who gains enlightenment by means of the knowledge of SCI and the practice of TM in “cosmic” or “God” consciousness, the final goal is that of traditional Hinduism, according to Maharishi’s writings. The “enlightened” man at death gains Moksha or “liberation” from the cycle of reincarnation as the soul rejoins the “bliss consciousness” of Brahman.

Maharishi’s teaching of TM conflicts with Christianity in its view of God, in its view of man, and in its view of the way to reach God. Maharishi does not acknowledge the personal God and Creator as supreme, and by accepting the monist postulate that “All is One” he denies the Creator-creature distinction fundamental to the biblical revelation of God. The highest being is held to be impersonal and is known in SCI as the “field of Creative Intelligence” rather than by its traditional Hindu name of Brahman. Maharishi views man not as a sinner helpless to save himself from God’s judgment but as an autonomous being capable of experiencing his own divinity. The way to experience man’s divinity is to take part in a system of works based on practices of meditation (TM) and devotion rather than to place faith, through God’s grace, in the atoning death of Jesus Christ for the sins of men.

By persistently denying the religious significance of TM and of its initiation ceremony, Maharishi has succeeded in expanding his movement rapidly in the United States, where he has had his greatest success, and around the world. In the United States alone, more than 700,000 people have been taught TM since 1965. Thirty thousand Americans are reportedly initiated into TM every month. The Student’s International Meditation Society (SIMS) of the Maharishi reportedly received $14 million during the fiscal year ending September 30, 1974. At the present rate of initiation, SIMS income from initiation fees alone would reach about $36 million a year.

Flexibility and growth are certainly hallmarks of Maharishi’s movement. Its official name of incorporation as a non-profit educational organization in California was changed in 1974 to World Plan Executive Council (WPEC). Other organizational names in prominent use are Student’s International Meditation Society (SIMS), International Meditation Society (IMS), American Foundation for the Science of Creative Intelligence (AFSCI), and Spiritual Regeneration Movement (SRM). Specialized fronts for taking TM to particular groups judged open to a missionary thrust may be generated overnight. Black TM Centers, Incorporated, for example, is a group formed especially to take TM to the black community.

The world-wide outreach of Maharishi’s missionary Hinduism, called simply the “World Plan,” has headquarters in Seelisberg, Switzerland. This ambitious plan has the purpose of making TM available to every person in the world. It calls for establishing 3,600 SCI teacher training centers around the world—one center for every million persons. The centers are to train one teacher of SCI for every 1,000 persons. In the United States the quota of 280 centers has been far surpassed; there are 370 World Plan centers. Six thousand Americans have been trained by Maharishi as TM teachers.

The seven substantive goals of the World Plan include these: “(5) To solve the problems of crime, drug abuse, and all behavior that brings unhappiness to the family of man. (6) To bring fulfillment to the economic aspirations of individuals and society. (7) To achieve the spiritual goals of mankind in this generation.” While Christians taking the realistic, biblical view of the fallen nature of man may be sure that such millenarian goals will not be attained before the Second Coming of Christ, they should not underestimate the attractiveness of such goals to those educated in a milieu dominated by secular humanism. The 1975 session of Congress, for example, saw Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) introduce a measure (SR-64) that would put the U.S. Congress on record as affirming that all seven World Plan goals are attainable by means of Maharishi’s SCI. Other senators who have entered favorable statements about Maharishi’s programs in the Congressional Record include Adlai Stevenson III (D-Ill.) and John Tunney (D-Calif.). Ten U.S. senators and congressmen reportedly practice TM. Senator Charles Percy (R-Ill.) and Congressman Richard Nolan (D-Minn.) are two who publicly acknowledge the practice. Senator Tunney’s laudatory statement about Maharishi International University (MIU) in the Congressional Record serves as a kind of quasi-official imprimatur on the concluding pages of the MIU catalogue.

Maharishi International University (MIU) is a key element in fulfilling the World Plan. It occupies a 185-acre campus in Fairfield, Iowa, bought for $2.5 million in 1974. Faculty, students, and even the janitors practice TM. All students must qualify as teachers of TM before graduation. All courses are integrated by the monist world view of Shankara and by the experience of TM, which is held to verify Shankara’s teaching directly. Of the two doctoral programs listed in last year’s catalogue, one is in the Hindu Scriptures, the Vedas, while the other is in the “Psychophysiology of Evolving Consciousness.” This year 600 students are pursuing “enlightenment” at MIU. They are being formed into an elite band of missionaries committed to the worldwide spread of SCI and TM.

In its pursuit of governmental support for the World Plan, Maharishi’s World Plan Executive Council has been rewarded by expressions of official approval from several states and more than fifty cities. Maharishi has addressed the legislatures of Illinois, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Iowa. A California Assembly resolution encouraging the use of SCI and TM in state schools, however, died in committee early in 1974. It had drawn fire from Christian groups as unconstitutional support of sectarian doctrine and practice.

According to a Time cover story on Maharishi (October 13, 1975), seventeen research grants involving TM have been funded by the federal government. They include the following:

1. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism granted $72,000 for training in TM for thirty alcoholics in the Washington, D.C., area.

2. Federal funds of $35,000 were provided for a Title III educational research program in New Jersey schools training 150 students in TM.

3. State and federal grants totaling $29,000 for training in TM were made to the South County Regional World-Study Program in Narragansett, Rhode Island.

In the United States, TM was first introduced as an extra-curricular course at the high school level in Eastchester, New York, in January, 1971, under the direction of school superintendent Dr. Francis G. Driscoll. In the fall of 1971, the SCI course was introduced for regular credit at this school. The Dade County Public School System (Miami, Florida) offered the SCI course to twenty-two teachers in 1973 preparatory to offering it to students. TM is made available to these SCI students as an “optional lab.” TM has been offered as a separate course in itself in some schools at levels as low as the primary grades. Through the fall of 1975, approximately twenty-five high schools offered SCI as a regular course. Introductory lectures offering TM on an extra-curricular basis have been presented much more widely at many schools where the integrated SCI/TM course has not been presented. SCI is the academic part of the course while TM is called the laboratory-

Much of the impetus for teaching TM in public schools has come from preliminary research indicating that drug-users who persist in meditation tend to reduce their use of drugs. However, since many drug-abusers are not interested in practicing TM, and others drop out after starting it, the notion that TM is an effective solution to the drug-abuse problem is an illusion.

Opposition to the teaching of SCI and TM in public schools on grounds that its concealed religious aspect violates constitutional guarantees against sectarian indoctrination at public expense has emerged, notably in California and New Jersey. In California, Lutheran pastor William Grunow filed a class action suit in the superior court for the County of Alameda against the San Lorenzo Unified School District over the teaching of TM to fourteen seventh-graders in 1974–5 and the teaching of an SCI course at San Lorenzo High School. In view of the lawsuit, the school district filed a declaration with the judge promising never again to recommend these courses. A legal precedent is still lacking, unfortunately, since the court found it unnecessary to rule on the plaintiffs’s suit in view of the defendant’s promise to oppose teaching SCI and TM in the future. Even so, educators who become aware of the San Lorenzo court action will be cautious about committing themselves to courses likely to provoke legal action.

Another lawsuit opposing SCI and TM in public schools is pending in New Jersey, where the federal government (which has provided funds for teaching SCI in New Jersey) is among the defendants. The Counterfeits Project has provided plaintiffs with information developed for the San Lorenzo court action. It is hoped that the New Jersey case will bring a definitive legal judgment on the issues involved.

Maharishi has had an extremely favorable press treatment, though recently the very success of his movement seems to have brought about some critical scrutiny. Favorable feature articles on TM have appeared in many magazines, ranging from Mademoiselle to Soldier’s (the official U.S. Army magazine). Academic, scientific, and business journals have also published favorable reports along with occasional adverse comments and a few critical articles. Time’s cover story for October 13, 1975, was on Maharishi.

A major breakthrough on commercial television came in April, 1975, when Maharishi was interviewed by Merv Griffin (a new and enthusiastic meditator) on Griffin’s talk show. Other guests giving testimonials for TM on that show were TV actress Ellen Corby (Grandma Walton), California state senator Arlen Gregorio, and psychiatrist-TM teacher Harold Bloomfield. Because of the show’s great success, another was taped for release on Halloween, 1975. Special guest meditators for the second show were film actor Clint Eastwood, television personality Mary Tyler Moore, psychiatrist Bernard Glueck, and Minnesota congressman Richard N. Nolan.

The April Griffin interview with Maharishi was significant also for a revealing remark made by the guru. It was observed that a drug offender had been sentenced to four years of TM by a judge in Detroit, Michigan. Maharishi’s enthusiastic comment was: “This is the judgment of the Dawn of the Age of Enlightenment where the man is forced to develop his pure consciousness by law. This is the law of the Age of Enlightenment. By penalty he is forced to evolve” (emphasis mine). The unchanging law of the “Age of Enlightenment” that Maharishi has been heralding since January, 1975, is, “… gain the knowledge of Science of Creative Intelligence and practice Transcendental Meditation twice a day” (Western TM Reporter, Summer, 1974, p. 10). What will become of those who reject the knowledge of SCI and the practice of TM as a matter of conscience? The answer has not been stated directly, but Maharishi has said:

There has not been and there will not be a place for the unfit. The fit will lead, and if the unfit are not coming along there is no place for them In the Age of Enlightenment there is no place for ignorant people. The ignorant will be made enlightened by a few orderly, enlightened people moving around [Atlanta Gazette, April 2, 1975, p. 17],

Maharishi’s “Age of Englightenment” apparently is not to be characterized by tolerance for opposing points of view.

In addition to favorable publicity on commercial TV, the WPEC has recently gained educational TV channels on both coasts of the United States. These stations can broadcast the videotaped lectures of Maharishi presenting the principles of the Hindu monism of Shankara as the “Science of Creative Intelligence.” They may also develop programs with meditating public figures such as singers Stevie Wonder and Peggy Lee and sports stars Joe Namath, Bill Walton, and Craig Lincoln.

The two best-selling books promoting TM appeared last year. In hard cover, TM: Discovering Inner Energy and Overcoming Stress by Harold Bloomfield, Michael Cain, and Dennis Jaffe was the third best non-fiction seller nationwide for 1975. Chapters two and seven of this book are valuable for their choice examples of the postulates of Hindu monism translated into psychological terminology. In soft cover, The TM Book by Denise Denniston and Peter McWilliams sugar-coats the TM pill with the usual religious disclaimer, graphs of research studies, and whimsical illustrations by Barry Geller. The TM Book begins with the assertion “TM does not involve religious beliefs.” In answer to the questions “Does TM conflict with any form of religion?” testimonial letters from a Jewish rabbi, a Catholic priest, and a Lutheran theologian who practice TM are presented. Two of these letters will be considered later in this article.

The American Foundation for the Science of Creative Intelligence (AFSCI) was formed to take the message of TM to business corporations. It is claimed that TM increases efficiency and job satisfaction among employees and is even more helpful in relieving the tensions of managers. AFSCI has succeeded in convincing corporations like AT&T and General Foods to offer the TM course to their employees.