Alone in the twilight of the fading year, before handing it over at last to the historians, a religion reporter is inclined to sort through the events and developments of those twelve months, pondering what was significant and what was not. The selection process is neither simple nor necessarily clear-cut. Significance, as beauty, often is in the eyes of the beholder.

There were a number of important religion stories in 1974, some involving or affecting millions of people, some representing milestones in church history.

One of the top stories was the emergence of a markedly evangelical awareness in national life amid the ruins of Watergate: wide attention given

Charles Colson’s conversion and the spiritual experiences of other Watergate figures, Iowa Senator Harold Hughes’s decision to enter full-time Christian service, the near-revival atmosphere of the National Prayer Breakfast, President Ford’s evangelical faith and his association with evangelist-film producer Billy Zeoli, Julie Nixon Eisenhower’s conversion, and the spread of the prayer movement in the nation’s capital. Millions of Americans were exposed to a clear evangelical witness in the accompanying press coverage.

(Ford’s friends attest to the sincerity of his faith and his growth in it. Last month the presidential family hosted Francis and Edith Schaeffer of L’Abri at a private dinner. As national woes mount this year, Ford may be more vocal in calling Americans to a deeper spiritual commitment.)

On the denominational front, the struggle over women’s place in the church was a prominent issue. Most of the headline stories were devoted to the revolt in the Episcopal Church, where a handful of deaconesses say they are now ordained priests and the bishops say they are not. In the face of spreading clamor and impending disciplinary trials, the church may be forced to deal with the matter this year instead of waiting until the 1976 triennial assembly. Prognosis: women will be permitted ordination to the priesthood.

For many denominations and church organizations, 1974 brought a budget crunch, cutbacks, and restructure. In light of current worldwide economic conditions, things will get worse before they get better, and more churches and para-church groups will feel the pinch.

Another big story in 1974 concerned the global response by Christians to the famine-stricken people of Africa and southern Asia and to the victims of hurricane Fifi in Central America. The worst is yet to come, say relief specialists. Hundreds of thousands may die of malnutrition and starvation in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan this year. More than ever, churches will be called on to help solve the world food crisis.

The big topic of the year was evangelism. The International Congress on World Evangelization at Lausanne brought 4,000 Christian leaders together, and its effect will be felt for years to come. (This month the Lausanne continuation committee convenes in Mexico City to map preliminary ongoing strategy.) Congresses on evangelism were held in Japan and Spain. Evangelism was the main subject of the Catholic synod of bishops at Rome. Some 300,000 gathered in Seoul, Korea, for Campus Crusade for Christ’s Explo ’74, a week of training in evangelism. Evangelist Billy Graham celebrated his twenty-fifth anniversary in big-crowd evangelism (and drew big crowds in major crusades in the U. S. and Brazil).

An important but under-reported story involved a paradox of sorts: surging church growth in Third World nations and eastern Europe despite persecution and severe hardships. The majority of evangelical Christians now reside in the Third World. In some countries (Chad for one), cultural-identity movements with pagan trappings have been a source of trouble for believers. In South Korea, protests against restrictions on freedom have landed some church leaders in jail.

During 1974 millions of Americans got better acquainted with some high-living cultists: Guru Maharaj Ji, Sun Myung Moon (who heralds a Korean Christ), and Herbert and Garner Ted Armstrong. Jesus people harried Moon; defections plagued the Armstrongs.

It was the year some large evangelical churches encountered large financial problems. Calvary Temple in Denver filed for bankruptcy, Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, was placed in virtual receivership, and evangelist Rex Humbard’s Cathedral of Tomorrow in Akron, Ohio, barely escaped bankruptcy.

A public-school textbook controversy, led by church people, erupted in West Virginia. It sparked textbook feuds elsewhere.

Other significant religion stories of the year include:

• Church involvement in the permissive-abortion issue;

• Trends toward a denominational or doctrinal basis of fellowship among groups within the charismatic movement, fragmenting it somewhat;

• The ongoing clash over doctrine and policy in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod;

• An evangelical, Donald Coggan, elevated as Archbishop of Canterbury;

• An emphasis on demons and exorcism.

Many people will remember 1974 as a bleak year that began with a shortage of energy and ended with a shortage of money. But in between there were some exciting things—exciting to a religion reporter, at least.

AN EYE FOR DETAIL

In their workshops for writers, renowned Christian authors John and Elizabeth Sherrill describe some of the difficult types of persons they’ve had to interview. One type of person has no mind for detail, they say, citing Corrie ten Boom as an illustration. While writing The Hiding Place, they asked what a certain prison guard looked like.

“Well, she was just—a guard,” replied Miss ten Boom. The Sherills say they had to coax and tug to get all the details.

One day the Sherrills received a post card from Miss ten Boom, who had gone on a visit to Siberia with “Brother Andrew” van der Byl, another Sherrill subject (God’s Smuggler). Duly noted Miss ten Boom:

“I am sitting in a hotel room on Easter Day. The room is fourteen feet six by ten feet. The curtains are light blue. The rug has a pattern on it that reminds me of roses. Am I not a good girl? Love, Corrie.”

Not Exempt

Strange bedfellows were apparent among the dozen or so religious groups on a list of ninety-nine organizations kept under surveillance by a special tax unit of the Internal Revenue Service during the Nixon administration. Some of the groups claimed they were harassed by the IRS after the unit was set up in 1969 allegedly to keep an eye on tax-exempt “subversives,” “militants,” and others.

Those listed included: the National Council of Churches, Billy James Hargis’s Christian Echoes ministry, the Black Muslims, Edgar Bundy’s Church League of America, the Interreligious Foundation for Community Organization (IFCO), Carl Mclntire’s Christian Beacon ministry, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the Founding Church of Scientology, and a Unitarian body. Other well-known groups ranged from the late H. L. Hunt’s Life Line Foundation and the John Birch Society to the Maoist-oriented Progressive Labor Party and the American Nazi Party.

Liberating The Poor

A World Council of Churches Consultation on Development, held at Montreaux, Switzerland, and attended by 110 church people from fifty-two countries, called on the WCC’s 271 member denominations around the world to become more closely identified with the struggles of poor people. Such identity may mean supporting liberation movements against repressive structures of power, said a consultation report.

“A deeper understanding of liberation than that which is expressed in overspiritualized theological interpretations of salvation is needed if churches are to live by identification with the poor,” it went on.

It called on the WCC to ensure that poor people are represented in its decision-making structures and to “reinforce the image of speaking out of its roots in Christian faith rather than projecting the solutions of the secular world.”

Hosting The Wcc

The Reverend Lawi Imathiu was recently named a member of Kenya’s Parliament by President Jomo Kenyatta. Imathiu is head of the 18,000-member Methodist Church of Kenya, chairman of the National Christian Council of Kenya, and chairman of the host committee for the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Nairobi next Fall. Kenya Presbyterian executive John Gatu, chairman of the All Africa Conference of Churches, a Lausanne participant, and a leading advocate of the missionary moratorium concept, is arrangements secretary of the upcoming WCC meeting.

Scotland: The Flickering Flame

Church unity hopes in Scotland flickered, then flared with two recent developments. First, leaders of the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) announced the Kirk will withdraw from talks on unity with the Episcopal Church in Scotland (Anglican). They said an impasse had been reached in the ten-year-long talks and minor unity proposals had failed. Talks, however, between these two churches, the Churches of Christ, the Congregational Union, the Methodist Church, and the United Free Church will continue. These talks are aimed at the creation of a united church.

Last month a committee representing the six denominations reported it could find no reason why differing customs of baptism and the Lord’s Supper could not continue side by side in a united church. “The Lord’s Supper is acquiring a new spontaneity and informality,” noted the report. “A united church would have to recognize this movement and encourage it.” Also: “We should not seek the sole continuance of any single tradition of baptismal practice.”

The six churches published a major report in 1972 outlining a structure for a united church in Scotland. It is now under discussion among the churches. Some will vote on it this year.

Cutting Down

World hunger will be one of the big issues of 1975, and a number of relief agencies are trying to get more Americans to do something about it. In November World Vision International introduced a program called “Project FAST” (Fight Against Starvation Today), aimed at bringing about “permanent changes” in the nation’s food consumption patterns and getting Christians “committed” to help feed the world’s hungry people.

Senator Mark O. Hatfield of Oregon, a World Vision board member, got the Senate to unanimously pass a resolution embracing some of FAST’s proposals. It calls for a spirit of self-sacrifice and periodic fasting through 1975, climaxed in a National Day of Fasting on the Monday before Thanksgiving. The resolution encourages Americans to reevaluate their life styles and share with the “starving millions of the world” the money saved by eating less.

Oxfam-America, the American wing of the British-based Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, claims some 250,000 participated in a day of fasting it sponsored in November. Funds raised from the fast will be spent on both immediate and long-term projects, a spokesman says. (Oxfam says income, at a ten-year low, will force cutbacks and shifts in many of its ongoing programs.)

Other agencies and church groups are speaking out on the issue and tooling up with promotional programs of their own.

But whatever symbolic action (such as fasting) is taken, many relief leaders point out, it will be of little value unless cash is also given to enable agencies to purchase the needed food.

Third World Know-How

They seemed a motley group, forty Asians trooping through the lobby of the Singapura-Forum, a moderately priced Intercontinental hotel in “the Switzerland of the Orient.” Some had never traveled by plane before, others had never used an elevator, and some had never lodged or even eaten in a hotel; a few had to be outfitted with shoes and trousers.

But this fellowship of the forty, as they soon became, were Asian evangelical workers—pastors and evangelists, teachers and lay leaders—gathered for the tenth and eleventh five-week sessions of the Haggai Institute for Advanced Leadership Training. From Bali, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Java, Korea, Malaysia, New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam they came on scholarships enabling them to share their evangelistic Christian outreach in Asia. A few days together welded them into a camaraderie that fascinated other hotel guests. Here were men ranging from 26 to 63, some with Ph.D.s and others without college learning, embracing one another like treasured brothers, bursting into Christian song, and unpredictably asking hotel staff, taxi drivers, and others whether they knew the rewards of personal faith in Christ.

By last month more than 250 Third World Christian leaders had participated in Evangelism International training programs (600 were on the waiting list). They in turn will share their knowledge at national institutes back home in Korea, Indonesia, India, and the Middle East (funds for the Korean and Indian projects have been underwritten by nationals there). Virtually all faculty members, teaching methods, and resource materials are Third World.

Plans call for opening a new headquarters training facility in Singapore by May. It will have conference rooms, an audio-visual room and radio-television studio, a data-gathering center, a library of books by Third-World religious leaders, and facilities for classes. Its estimated cost is $500,000.

The moving spirit behind Evangelism International is John Haggai of Atlanta, Georgia, a 50-year-old evangelist who has conducted crusades throughout the world. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky, where his father, a Syrian evangelical minister, was enrolled in Southern Baptist Seminary. The son too became a pastor, later moving into evangelism full time with his headquarters in Atlanta. In 1964 Haggai visited Asia, where he was “disturbed” by conversations with Asian Christian leaders.

Haggai discovered that numbers of Asian nationals were as well trained as the American missionaries working among them. Moreover, he sensed a growing reaction against Western American cultural motifs. There was increasing resentment also of mission boards that used American dollars to impose their own programs, treating nationals as if they were incapable of carrying forward the mission of the Church.

The 1966 World Congress on Evangelism in Berlin deepened Haggai’s disturbing impressions. The duplication and overlapping of evangelistic effort in the West stood in clear contrast to the unconcern, the understaffing, and even the failure of evangelistic effort in much of the Third World. Not a few Asian Christians, moreover, refused to submerge their national identity in Western cultural patterns; they resented American paternalism in missions and missionaries who considered themselves a class apart. When in 1968 Haggai went to Indonesia and elsewhere in Asia for crusades, he became convinced that updating Asian workers technically in evangelistic skills would multiply their successes. A training program in Indonesia, which he set up with American leaders, fully persuaded him that a preponderance of American trappings, insensitivity to Asian customs, and reliance on Western-oriented illustrations thwarted evangelical goals.

Through the generosity of a Swiss layman who had attended the World Congress on Evangelism, Haggai in 1969 opened a training center in Switzerland, but Americans failed to support it, and Asian trainees disliked the food, climate, and travel problems. The evangelist closed the facility in the Spring of 1970.

The fall session of that year was held in Singapore, a Third World center and free port where English is the official language and where climate and cuisine are more agreeably Asian. Again there was financial stress, but a visiting American layman came to the rescue with the $34,000 needed, and since then money has come in as required.

The cost of participation in the five-week effort averages $2,500 a student, including transportation, lodging, meals, and administrative and faculty expenses; devaluation of American currency and the effect of inflation on operating costs has raised earlier projections by 44 per cent. Dean of the effort is Dr. Ernest Watson of Sydney, Australia, former director of evangelism, radio, and television for the Baptist Union of New South Wales, whom Haggai met at the Berlin congress. They completely agree on the objective of specialized training in evangelization, with an emphasis on implementation rather theory. Asian instructors have included K. C. Han of Korea, Nene Ramientos of the Philippines, Timothy Yu of Hong Kong, D. G. James, James Wong, and David Chan of Singapore, and Daniel D. Souri of India. The first African visiting lecturer was Zabouloni Kabaza of Uganda.

Since the outset, participants have paid 10 per cent of their cost, a figure that for some has represented as much as nine months of their income. Some were allowed by their governments to take out of the country only the equivalent of $1 to $8; others have come despite tremendous difficulty in getting visas. Scholarship aid has been provided mainly by American Christians, although some Australian, Indian, Indonesian, Korean, and Swiss support has emerged. The institute has been authorized as a Singapore company, a fact that greatly facilitates approval of entrance visas for participants. In the initial years only a few lay leaders came, but the number of lay participants has gradually increased, a development Haggai sees as reflective of a wholesome recognition that evangelism is not the task of the clergy alone.

The Singapore venture is not without critics. Some think more could be accomplished less expensively on a national rather than international basis; but that would sacrifice the trans-Asian interactions that Haggai Institute generates. Others think Asia’s present crisis is more deeply intellectual than evangelistic, and that scholarships enabling gifted students to pursue advanced degrees in theological and biblical concerns would be more strategic; Haggai replies that his calling is to evangelization. Some think course content lacks the organization and cohesion of a standard instructional program; the institute’s purpose, however, is not conferring degrees but rather personal confrontation with evangelistic achievers. Some complain that the English comprehension by some participants is inadequate; the institute points out, however, that enrollees are selected from many applicants and that improved screening methods will in time surmount any language difficulty.

CARL F. H. HENRY

Lausanne: Follow-Up And Fall-Out

Some eighty German participants in the world evangelization congress at Lausanne met last month in Wölmersen, Germany, and proposed that the German Evangelical Alliance (GEA) organize a Society for Evangelical Theology. It would be open to all who wish to do theological research and who are willing to subscribe to the Lausanne Covenant.

The participants had come to Wölmersen anticipating a confrontation over the doctrinal basis for further evangelical cooperation. On one side would be representatives of the conservative “confessing communities” in the established churches and on the other side the members of the free churches and of the evangelistic agencies of the established churches. The Theological Convent of the Confessing Communities had asked that the basis include not only the Lausanne Covenant and the GEA’s Basis statement but also the liberal-knocking Frankfurt Declaration and Berlin Declaration on Ecumenism. The Free Church Council, however, had declared it would be content to make the Bible the sole platform for cooperation.

But the clash failed to materialize. Professor Peter Beyerhaus and a number of other leaders of the confessing communities declined to attend the Wölmersen meeting. They told reporters the list of Lausanne participants was so composed that it was bound to lead to basic controversies about the theological foundations for evangelistic cooperation—as occurred in the national caucus at Lausanne. Therefore, they reasoned, “any further discussion within this group would make no sense.”

Minus the strong right-wing presence at Wölmersen, those present agreed to stick to the Lausanne Covenant and the GEA Basis, to extend their cooperation within an already existent working committee for evangelism, and to refrain from founding a new pan-evangelical organization. They encouraged consultation between the confessing communities and free churches, and they pledged to keep evangelism alive in their respective denominations.

WOLFGANG MÜLLER

Crime In Church

Urban churches are increasingly resorting to security devices and personnel for protection—and for good reason.

Last month three gunmen marched into a Thursday-night service at the New Mount Olive Baptist Church, a black congregation in Gary, Indiana. One of the holdup men fired a sawed-off shotgun into the church ceiling. Then, said Pastor Martin W. Jackson, the men forced about 150 of the 400 parishioners to place their wallets, purses, and jewelry in a plastic sack. In addition to the undetermined amount of cash and jewels, the bandits fled with the church tape recorder.

The same church was hit by two men the following Saturday afternoon during a women’s meeting. They took about $30 and raped one of the women.

Meanwhile, police and victims are a bit puzzled by an armed week-day intrusion into the offices of First Alliance Church (Christian and Missionary Alliance) in New York City. Four white men in disguise bound Pastor Eugene McGee’s wife Norma, their teen-age son Nathan, and Jewish missionary worker Vincent Morgan, 31, whose office is on the premises. The men rifled files in Morgan’s office, took $2 and a Torah scroll from a desk drawer, then left—leaving untouched Morgan’s wallet and tape recorders, cameras, Yiddish silver goblets, and other objects of value in plain view.

Later, Morgan discovered his files from the Jews for Jesus outreach campaign in New York last August were missing. In addition to letters between leaders and notes on strategy, the files contain names of contributors. Some observers feel the incident has the touch of the Jewish Defense League, which has been aggressive in its opposition to the Jews for Jesus movement, but police had no evidence linking the theft to the JDL.

Perils Of High Finance

Pastor Charles E. Blair of Calvary Temple in Denver was indicted last month by a Denver grand jury on twenty-one counts of fraudulent sale of securities and conspiracy. Also indicted was former Calvary fund-raiser Wendell Nance. If the charges stand up in court, each count carries a possible one-to-three-year prison sentence and a maximum fine of $5,000.

Three Blair-related organizations are involved: the 6,000-member Calvary Temple, the Charles E. Blair Foundation, and Life Center, a nursing-home project. With assets of $18 million but combined debts of $23 million, the organizations filed for bankruptcy last June (see July 26, 1974, issue, page 36).

At issue is the sale of unregistered time-payment certificates between December, 1971, and March, 1973. Colorado requires state registration of securities before they are sold. The Blair organization contends the certificates technically are not securities.

Last month creditors with $6.4 million of the $9.6 million in claims against Life Center voted to accept a proposed repayment plan. Part of it involves selling property in Colorado and Ohio.

Blair, a well-known evangelical pastor and television preacher, has been on the lecture circuit recently warning fellow pastors and church administrators about the pitfalls of high finance. □

Of Necessity, Innocent

In August, 1973, CBS television featured a three-part documentary on the activities of Ted Patrick of San Diego, a “deprogrammer” of young people in off-beat religious groups (see August 31, 1973, issue, page 40). The documentary showed how Patrick assisted Mr. and Mrs. Curt Crampton in spiriting their daughter Kathe, 19, away from a Seattle cult known as the Church of Armageddon or Love Israel Family. Kathe was detained against her will in San Diego while Patrick and others worked with her. After several days he declared her deprogramming a success, but she escaped and returned to the Seattle commune. Kidnapping charges were later lodged against Patrick. Waiving a jury trial, Patrick had his case heard by U. S. District Court judge Walter T. McGovern in Seattle. Last month McGovern found Patrick, 44, innocent.

McGovern said he based his decision on the “defense of necessity,” likening Patrick to a pedestrian who runs into the street against a red light to save a child from an onrushing car and then is issued a traffic citation. He said Patrick acted as an agent of the parents, who themselves were “not physically capable of recapturing their daughter from [what they believed was] existing, imminent danger.”

Those doing less than what the Cramptons did in hiring Patrick, he said, “would be less than responsible, loving parents.”

The prosecutor contended in vain that even though life-styles may be different, persons such as Kathe are entitled to protection of their civil rights.

Two years ago Patrick was found not guilty of false-imprisonment charges in New York, but last year he was convicted of similar charges in Denver, and the case is under appeal.

Meanwhile, Kathe Crampton refuses to come home.

Hot Line To Heaven

Problem of diplomacy: Tanzania’s president Julius Nyerere says that his country and Uganda are good friends but that it’s “very difficult to respond” to Ugandan President Idi Amin because Amin thinks he has a hot line to God—“and he gets some very funny orders from that direction.”

Picture after picture, paragraph after paragraph, the description of starving people of the world creates an indelible image in our brains and an unforgettable shudder in our emotions. Starvation! Skeleton figures with gaunt, haunting eyes staring out of sockets too well defined. Bones covered with a thin coating of skin, walking, still moving, through bodies stretched out in death, quickly turning into valleys of dry bones. Dust returns to dust.

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7).

And later, in Ezekiel, this:

And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord GOD, thou knowest. Again he said unto me, Prophesy upon these bones, and say unto, them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus saith the Lord GOD unto these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live: and I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord [Ezek. 37:3–6],

God made man and woman not just as physical beings that could breathe and walk and live but as living souls with the possibility of spiritual life. This marvelous Creator has watched through centuries the reverse take place as sin has brought the abnormal situation of famine, starvation, death, and the return to bones alone and finally to dust. Slashed art works bring pain to the artist. How much more must the return of living souls to valleys of dry bones bring pain to the Creator of life itself.

“I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye” (Ezek. 18:23). What is he talking about? Physical life? Spiritual life? Both.

The death of the Son of God brought about the specific and absolute result of life in exchange for death. Those who believe him, and accept what he died to make possible, experience God’s breathing into their nostrils the breath of life once more. Each one who believes becomes alive to God, a fresh, reborn creature who will live forever. And each of these living souls will one day experience the changing of a set of dusty bones, a dead body or dying body, into a resurrected body that will live forever! He who breathed life into Adam will breathe life into each body that has become “dust” once more.

Dusty bones to live forever, covered with sinews, flesh:

So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone. And when I beheld, lo, the sinews and the flesh came up upon them, and the skin covered them above, but there was no breath in them. Then he said unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.… And the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army [Ezek. 37:7–10].

We’re told in Ezekiel that God made it clear that this was a vision and explained what the vision meant. The dry bones were Israel. Israel was saying, “Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost.” God was speaking through Ezekiel to say very sharply and clearly, “One day I am going to bring you up out of your graves and bring you into the Land of Israel, and you will know that I am the Lord God, and that I am the One who has brought you up out of your graves, so that you can live in your own land. I will put my spirit in you, and you will live, and you will know that I the Lord have spoken it, and have also performed it.” God is making it known to Israel that he who made people in the first place, who breathed life into Adam, can take a dead people, physically dead or spiritually dead, and bring them back to life—a victory over the terrible separation Satan brought about. God is also saying that he is going to complete the promises he made to Israel, and that one day there will be a fulfillment of all he promised concerning the Land. “David my servant shall be king over them: and they all shall have one shepherd: and [I] will cleanse them: so they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezek. 37:24, 23b).

When Jesus’ disciples asked, “What shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?” Jesus answered, “Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.… For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matt. 24:5–8).

God is fair with us. We have been warned of wars and pestilences, of earthquakes and famines. We have been given a more serious warning, however: “The love of many shall wax cold” (Matt. 24:12b). The warning goes on, “Therefore be ye ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.”

All of us should feel a strong responsibility to do all we can about helping the starving peoples. And the famines may bring us to a sudden realization that perhaps we are living in the time close to the return of the Lord.

The sight of dry bones scattered in the deserts of the world ought also to be a sober reminder of something very personal to each of us who is a child of the living God: “What about my own spiritual life? How starved am I in the Lord’s sight? Am I myself in a valley of dry bones, spiritually? Am I without flesh and sinews, a sight that would bring horror to anyone who could see? Because I belong to the Lord and can never be separated from him, have I taken it for granted that I will be well fed without eating?”

Starvation can take place either because no food is available or because the available food is not being eaten. We were given the Bible, the Word of God, to “eat” in its unpolluted form. We are to drink the uncontaminated milk of the Word, with no drops of poison in it to weaken us. We are to eat the strong meat of the Word, unadulterated with modern preservatives. We are to feed on the Bread of Life as we stay close to the Lord, and truly communicate in prayer and receive all he has to nourish us with.

We may be the very Christians who are to blow the trumpet of warning in the midst of this devastating period of history. How can we “blow” if our breath is gone? God has provided food for us to feed on day by day. The Holy Spirit will prepare it for us to digest. But it will not help us until we eat.

“The woman thou gavest me”—Adam’s ready complaint in a time of self-defeat—is now being turned into a feminine rejoinder that raises disturbing doubts about modern man’s likeness to the divinely intended Adam. Women’s woes are increasingly attributed to male conversion of the female into a self-gratifying adornment and sex object. Worse yet, women are depicted as exploited and underprivileged victims of a hierarchical society.

A while ago I heard a liberated woman theologian address a learned society with some of the foulest language I have publicly encountered since my unregenerate newspaper days. To use vulgarisms and obscenities in pleading the case for women’s liberation seems to me to be no mark whatever of a liberated person.

Nevertheless, the Christian community can learn much about its mistakes and missed opportunities from champions of liberation.

One need not, of course, subscribe to dogmatic generalizations and exaggerations. The male is not alone or wholly to blame for all the complaints women turn his way. Nor is Judeo-Christian religion responsible for the plight of women; Christianity, in fact, emphasized respect for persons and spurred the revolt against sexism. One need only consider the role of women in primitive societies and non-Christian lands to see that it was Christianity that changed the lot of women. Nor need the cult of the Virgin Mary, whatever its faults, be debunked as presupposing a hatred of real women.

Mariolatry and celibacy or castration are not indeed ideal liberation symbols. It is already too much the case in our day that the spirit of liberation implies avoidance of marriage and family. The prevalent notion that marriage is to be resisted unless one wants children should be deplored, not encouraged.

But there is also another side to the story. While Roman Catholicism made a fetish of the Virgin and confused godliness with celibacy, Protestant emphasis on the universal priesthood of believers seems onesidedly to have meant male believers, since the priesthood of women was envisioned almost solely in terms of motherhood and childbearing. Had women been encouraged to invest all their creative gifts in the service of God and humanity, marriage and the home would not have implied an end to productive careers. The evangelical task force would in effect have been doubled had every Christian homemaker been encouraged to develop and invest her creativity in the service of God and man.

Christian women have assuredly displayed singular dedication and ingenuity in evangelistic and missionary endeavor. Much of today’s missionary task force would be depleted were we to recall from distant fields the gifted women who ventured there, often in the absence of male volunteers.

Nonetheless, the present generation needs a new theology of marriage—one that ignores neither the importance of sexual commitment and family responsibility nor the importance of the wife’s gifts as a career woman alongside her domestic role. Technology has freed men and women alike from many burdens, and modern scientific learning has provided more predictable family planning. Unfortunately more and more women resent motherhood as an experience in which the male’s momentary physical enjoyment involves her not only in nine months of pregnancy but also in sixteen or more years of distasteful daily chores.

She forfeits her career to become a permanent home-plant manager; the father meanwhile advances himself in industrial and professional circles. Periodic sharing of baby-sitting and cooking chores by young parents provides some relief but hardly assures liberation of the career women in the context of a successful family that shelters reasonably happy children.

To be sure, this feminine revolt sometimes reflects a yearning for a non-hierarchical society alongside a commitment to full equalitarianism. Yet the accompanying specific proposals for a new society are very nebulous. A non-hierarchical society is almost as difficult to imagine as to establish; anthropologists have speculated at length about primitive matriarchal societies. If one asks for concrete alternatives to present marriage models (in which many women have no doubt sacrificed themselves simply to hold together an otherwise vulnerable family), some spokesmen for the career-mother speak favorably of state-run child-care collectives not unlike those advanced by Marxist socialism, though the role of marriage is not always clear in this context.

Sometimes it is also unclear whether the alienated woman hopes to alter an industrial society by restoring economic production to the home instead of sharply dividing parental duties, or wants to eliminate what she considers male domination and oppression from the world of work and the sphere of life as well.

My purpose here is to add a comment in relation to the evangelical Christian community. The Christian Church was intended to be a new society that predicates its deepest family orientation on the spiritual kinship of Christ Jesus. The experience of regeneration often stirs up latent creative gifts and sometimes even surfaces new talents in a single or married male or female.

Evangelical women have maintained devout homes sensitive to a wide community of need, and have raised sons and daughters strong in faith and piety; they have also provided innovative leadership both on foreign mission fields and at home in education, writing, music, medicine, and much else besides child evangelism.

But the fact remains that motherhood diverts many evangelical women from their fullest creative possibilities. Not a few consider, and properly so, the nurture of a family and the keeping of a home open to neighbor-needs a superlative calling, aware that the mother who wishes to win disciples to Christ will have no more intimate influence on human beings than that which she has upon her children.

This is a moment in history, however, when able evangelical women are needed in all the professions and vocations now opening to both sexes—medicine, law, the mass media, politics, and much else.

Can it be that Christian women who delight in homemaking as a divine calling can fill a role also as godparents to the children of others who are divinely gifted and burdened to pursue a career alongside motherhood? Instead of merely deploring communal child-care centers, can we probe new possibilities of the extended evangelical family? Jesus once asked, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” (Mark 3:33). Has the day come when evangelical women can say something profound to the world not only about sexism and liberation but also about service in a community of love that frees the woman of faith for an accelerated contribution of her creative gifts in the world as well as in the home?

Defining American Values

The Future of the American Past, by Earl H. Brill (Seabury, 1974, 96 pp., $2.95 pb), and Defining America, by Robert Benne and Philip Hefner (Fortress, 1974, 150 pp., $3.75 pb), are reviewed by John A. Tinkham, graduate student in politics and religion,. Catholic University, Washington, D.C.

As the nation approaches its bicentennial and searches for the meaning of the disturbances of the 1960s, Americans are seeking to redefine American values in a way that will provide goals for the future. This offers a challenge to Christians to come forward and repair the foundation for these goals and values. Two recent efforts to accept this challenge are The Future of The American Past, by an Episcopalian, and Defining America, by two Lutherans. In the belief that something has gone wrong with the American dream, these authors attempt to redefine just what the American dream was and is, find out where it went wrong, and suggest what Christians can do to get America back on the right track.

The Future of the American Past was written as a text for a church study course. It is intended to help church members draw on the resources of their religion in order to become better citizens. It confronts some difficult questions and should provoke interesting group discussions. These questions are how church and state are related, whether Americans still have the sense of pilgrimage that the early colonists experienced, whether there still is an American mission, what Americans mean by freedom and equality, and finally whether there is still hope for the future of America.

In facing the question of church-state relations, Brill goes deeper to examine the relation between religion and culture. He borrows from Richard Nieburhr’s book Christ and Culture, which offers five ways in which the two may be related, each of which has some truth in the American tradition and situation. Should the Christian be in the world, of the world, leading and transforming the world? Or withdrawn from and against it? Whatever the answer is, there is no doubt that Christianity has played an important part in shaping American society and therefore must take blame as well as credit for current conditions in the nation.

Brill sees as the original American pilgrimage the Pilgrims’ setting out to build the “Kingdom of God” or “new Israel” in the new world; but as the colonies became established, this religious motive was gradually replaced by economic motives. He overlooks the great revivals that periodically restored the religious spirit of the colonies and later of the nation. Prosperity is not evil in itself, but only when it is the main motive. As Americans today, disillusioned with affluence, look uncertainly to the future, that uncertainty is like a new frontier, offering Americans a new challenge to resume their pilgrimage.

The American sense of mission carries the idea of pilgrimage further, as Americans have traditionally sought to create a better world. The mission has had many forms, starting with the westward movement to possess the land and convert the Indians; it has taken the forms of opposing godless Communism and of bringing American democracy to developing nations. Just as the American pilgrimage soured in materialism, so the American mission seems to have fallen flat in Viet Nam. The mission can be restored by making America an example, a “city set on a hill,” rather than by imposing our will on other nations by force.

Freedom and equality, American traditional values, are ambiguous, and Brill explains how the meanings have changed through American history. Conservatives stress free enterprise but find it necessary to impose moral restraints on individual freedom. Liberals stress freedom from these restraints in the name of rights but would impose restraints on business. There is also a difference between negative freedom from oppression and positive freedom to act, and a conflict between individual and group rights. The concept of equality also has its ambiguities. Does it mean equality of condition or of opportunity? Is everyone equal, or are women, slaves, Indians, and certain others excluded? Does equality also require uniformity? The author does not attempt to give definitive answers but leaves the questions for discussion groups and for the political process to decide.

Brill is disturbed by Americans’ failure to achieve American traditional values, and observes that most of our national sins have been committed in the name of these values. This means, not that we should reject the values, but rather that we should use them as a basis for deciding what kind of future we want for America. A more Christian approach would put more emphasis on finding the Christian basis for these values and on seeking God’s will rather than our own. At any rate, Brill advises that if we work for these new goals, we can trust God for an optimistic future for America.

There is a similar theme in Benne and Hefner’s Defining America. However, the authors of this book are more pessimistic about the moral condition of America, and therefore see an even greater challenge for Christians to lead the way in restoring pride in their nation. The purpose is to define American values, revive them, and decide what Christians should do to meet this challenge.

In this book, the three primary American values are freedom, initiative, and opportunity. The authors find a religious basis for these values in the “Adamic myth,” a concept borrowed from R. W. B. Lewis—that the original America was a new land, just as Adam was a new man, with no tradition to restrain it from developing toward a future where the Kingdom of God would be built. Expressed in secular terms, the myth is that America was a land where the people would “shake free of the limiting past in a struggling ascent toward the realization of promise in a gracious future.” But America fell away from its pure ideal, as Adam did, and succumbed to evil. The nation and its values were tested by the programs for social and economic reforms of the 1960s and by the Viet Nam War. The authors believe that these programs and the war failed, and conclude that American values are no longer adequate.

Perhaps a reason why the authors are disillusioned with the American dream is that they give it too narrow an interpretation. While some Americans are engaged in a “struggling ascent,” others are more interested in holding on to the achievements of the past. No nation in the world holds its constitution with such reverence. Brill shows that American values are a combination of liberal and conservative versions. The two-party system ensures that both versions continue in some kind of balance.

This pessimism of the authors is typical of an American trait of unwillingness to accept failure, part of the religious crusading spirit with which Americans go about pursuing their goals. Perhaps the reason that the problems are still so evident to the authors is that less fortunate Americans learned during the 1960s to make themselves heard, by speech, voting, and television. The experience was shocking for Americans of all classes, but certainly there were some successes, too.

The authors go on to say that heretofore Americans have been unwilling to acknowledge evil in their history, but that the time has come when it can no longer be avoided. Consequently, they would begin by asking for a realistic view of American history, which they believe has been too glorified to show us where the nation went wrong. Their greatest concern is that America has lost its vision of a “gracious future,” that fear of “future shock” has replaced the optimistic “struggling ascent.” Furthermore, as Americans have charged onward with freedom, initiative, and opportunity, they have lost their sense of belonging. Benne and Hefner recognize that freedom is not an absolute value but is balanced by “belonging.” The concept was expressed by the covenant of the Puritan colony, and until recently has brought the people together as a nation. We voluntarily give up a part of our freedom when we choose to belong to the political state, social groups, and the culture.

The situation is a challenge for Christians to create a new dream with a new vision of the future. This new dream should include God and humanitarian belongingness, and be such that all Americans, including non-Christians, will accept and sacrifice for it.

The authors believe that “we,” presumably all Americans, are suffering from guilt over the evils of American history, and especially the failures of the 1960s. They attempt to answer the difficult question of what a nation can do about its collective guilt. As Christians, they might say that Jesus died for the sins of nations as well as of individuals. They reject this solution, suggesting that the Christian vision of redemption is “not relevant to the national myth.”

The Christian solution would then seem to be for the American people to accept Christ’s redemption for their individual sins, but Benne and Hefner discard this as insufficient when they say that Billy Graham seems “utterly punchless when the prophetic judgment inherent in civil religion is called for.” Their solution is personal sacrifice to avoid God’s wrath on the nation, as though Jesus’ death were not sufficient sacrifice: this seems to be patterned more on Old Testament Judaism than on Christianity. They argue that the Christian basis for this view is given by Romans 12:1 and Mark 8:34, admonitions to sacrifice ourselves and to take up our crosses. This problem of national sin and redemption is a most difficult and important question for the nation. While evangelical Christians may not agree with the answer given in this book, as Americans they should at least consider the challenge offered to rebuild the American dream.

Although the authors of these two books have somewhat different concepts of the problems of the American past, present, and future, all agree that the future of the nation will depend on whether Christians accept the challenge to provide the moral leadership that the nation needs.

Pornography In Context

The Politics of Pornography, by Rousas J. Rushdoony (Arlington House, 1974, 160 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by Perry C. Cotham, assistant professor of speech, David Lipscomb College, Nashville, Tennessee.

There has been no lack of comment from the Christian camp in the continuing discussion of pornography and obscenity. Then why another book on the subject? The answer may be that we are not approaching the problem from the proper, or at least the full, perspective. R. J. Rushdoony’s approach is not to give a history and description of pornography, to review legal arguments and plea for more censorship, or to provide a selection of prooftexts for purity. In fact, he seems less concerned about pornography as such than about interpersonal relations. His book, actually a series of essays, is an effort to discover the foundations of a problem of which the proliferation of pornography is just one symptom.

Rushdoony’s central theme is that a new pornography crusades as a religion for a new freedom and wars against God and his law. The chief inspiration for the new pornography is Marquis de Sade, who reasoned that the Christian God, if he existed, should be murdered and his law-order destroyed. There is no fall of man; hence no sin, crime, or offense can be charged to man. Nature becomes normative, and no one has a right to criticize anything in the world of nature. Once the legitimacy of all “passions” is granted, then every sexual urge has sovereign rights over every other consideration. For Sade, the purpose of life is pleasure, and there is no law beyond man.

Such a philosophy exalts primitivism with its widespread faith that truly primitive man was beyond law and beyond good and evil; sin and evil are not in man but in his environment, in his institutions, or, for traditional nudists, in his clothes. Taking his cue from fertility-cult festivals, modern man believes that chaos is regenerative. The author surveys the ideas of Hegel, Darwin, and Freud, among others, for their ideological reinforcement of this doctrine. He does not limit his discussion of pornography to sex but contends also that Sade’s justification of violence is gaining wide and alarming acceptance.

Rushdoony argues that the Sadean philosophy is incorporated, both wittingly and unwittingly, into most levels of contemporary life. “The Supreme Court in effect has said that he [writer or film-maker] must fulfill his calling” no matter how much he glorifies perversion, murder, rape, and other forms of violence. The rise of violent crime is rooted in man’s desire to play God. While man cannot create life, he can destroy and limit it; after all, pornography is closely linked with the manipulation of people who are reduced to genital organs and may be used sexually.

Contemporary man has exalted humanistic experientialism—the quest for some new, revelatory experience to top previous ones. “Experience has become the new test and standard of life, and it denies the right of God and man to sit in judgment on it.” In the religious realm, this quest spawns occult and charismatic movements (the author chides CHRISTIANITY TODAY as a voice of evangelical Protestantism that “has in recent years become the voice of neo-Pentecostalism and its hostility to Refrormation theology is marked”). In interpersonal relations, the quest leads to singles-only apartments, mate-swapping, incest, and other forms of perversion. The arts, with what Rushdoony calls “will to fiction,” reflect culture’s loss of a sense of reality and search for refuge in various forms of escapism that lead to pornography; life as fiction means life can be lived in terms of one’s imagination. Finally, the sciences with their effort to control and manipulate life (e.g, through abortion, euthanasia, fetal experimentation) depersonalize man, thus providing further philosophical justification for toleration of hard-core pornography.

Rushdoony’s theological approach is sound. To him, the biblical view (theism) is hostile to dialecticism, monism, and dualism. Citing Proverbs 23:7, he notes an essential unity of thought and action. Sin is in man, not in his environment, and involves his total being. Man’s freedom cannot be total, for only God is totally free. But man possesses civil liberty, and this means he must treat others as his equal.

The book is a valuable contribution to the literature dealing with the problems of pornography and distorted interpersonal relations. Few studies delve as deeply into the psychological and philosophical roots of the problem, and the reader needs to bring to the book some understanding of psychology and philosophy if his interest is to be sustained. The author has done extensive reading in the literature of the “new” culture and draws freely from modern novelists (especially Henry Miller), the underground press, and popular pornographic sources. There is occasional dry humor, and there is some redundancy in the continual restatement of Sadean philosophy.

To this critic, the volume has two central weaknesses. First, most readers will find no reason for optimism about the future of our society. One may ask if we have really gone that far in rejection of objective norms, insensitivity to other people, and perverted sexual behavior. (One problem is that neither perversion nor pornography is clearly defined.) Chief evidence in support of the decadent society include unsigned letters to such magazines as Penthouse—letters that seem atypical at best and “put-ons” at worse. Only once (on the last page) is there an effort at statistical support of generalizations; the central argument needs to be buttressed by more hard evidence. Second, in complete opposition to the atmosphere of the entire exposition, Rushdoony asserts in his epilogue “a new power elite will appear” and “the pornographers will soon be dead and gone.” But when, and how, will this occur? If Christians choose to join themselves to this new elite, what must they do? Unfortunately, Rushdoony does not tell us.

Despite these weaknesses, the book is recommended reading for those who want much more than a superficial understanding of the persistent problem of pornography. Its analysis provides much to stimulate a Christian’s thinking.

NEWLY PUBLISHED

The Christian Use of Emotional Power, by Norman Wright (Revell, 159 pp., $4.95). Constructive, biblical examination of how to cope with anxiety, fear, depression, and anger. By a professor at Talbot Seminary. Recommended.

The Encyclopedia of Bible Stories, by Jenny Robertson (Holman, 272 pp., $9.95), Tales of Human Frailty and the Gentleness of God, by Kenneth Phifer (John Knox, 127 pp., $3.95 pb), and The Twelve Apostles, by Ronald Brownrigg (Macmillan, 248 pp., $12.95). Tales of biblical personalities have universal appeal. Robertson presents a colorfully illustrated collection of 119 stories about more than twenty persons. Jesus naturally figures prominently. Phifer offers lessons and specific applications of God’s dealings in the lives of thirteen Old Testament leaders. Brownrigg combines biblical accounts, historical traditions, and artists’ interpretations of the lives of the apostles.

Five Cries of Youth, by Merton Strommer (Harper & Row, 155 pp., $6.95). From extensive questionnaires of young people comes an attentive response to their most urgent needs. Excellent aid for parents and church youth workers.

This Hebrew Lord, by John Spong (Seabury, 190 pp., $5.95), He Came From Galilee, by Parker Brown (Hawthorn, 164 pp., $6.95), Jesus Who Became Christ, by Peter De Rosa (Dimension, 365 pp., $8.95), and Jesus: Inspiring and Disturbing Presence, by Martinus de Jonge (Abingdon, 176 pp., $4.95 pb). Each author attempts to portray the “real” Jesus and his contemporary relevance, but each fails because of exaggeration of the differences between “Jesus’ ” time and our own. Spong stresses Jesus’ Jewish context, which is admittedly to often deemphasized. Brown also includes the Greco-Roman context. DeRosa focuses on various miracles, including the Resurrection, and how they can have meaning even if they didn’t happen. De Jonge offers various approaches to a non-supernatural Christology.

A Theology of the New Testament, by George Eldon Ladd (Eerdmans, 661 pp., $12.50). First-rate work by a leading evangelical scholar. The doctrinal emphases of the Synoptics, John, Acts, Paul, the other letters, and Revelation are presented in turn. Should be in the libraries of all ministers and advanced Bible teachers.

The Ethics of Smuggling, by Brother Andrew (Tyndale, 138 pp., $1.45 pb). Conversational apologia for violating a country’s laws, using biblical examples as well as illustrations from his own ministry. Andrew says he will not lie, but neither will he tell everything. In the wake of Viet Nam and Watergate, Christians need to do hard thinking on the Christian’s relationship to authority. This is at best a starter. For example, Andrew’s argument that while we are to love our enemies, we are not told to love God’s enemies does not deal with the ease most men have in equating them.

Making It on a Pastor’s Pay, by Manfred Hoick (Abingdon, 126 pp., $4.95), and Underground Manual For Ministers’ Wives, by Ruth Truman (Abingdon, 173 pp., $4.95). Practical and worthwhile tandem for the parsonage.

A Symposium on Biblical Hermeneutics, edited by Gordon M. Hyde (Review and Herald, 273 pp., n.p., pb). Fifteen essays by Seventh-day Adventists on the history and principles of interpreting the Scriptures.

Digging Up Jerusalem, by Kathleen Kenyon (Praeger, 288 pp., $12.50). The story of ancient Jerusalem as revealed by archaeological excavations, especially those led by the author in the sixties. More than 100 illustrations.

Enter at Your Own Risk, by Wallace Henley (Revell, 159 pp., $4.95). Challenging thoughts on whole-hearted Christian discipleship by a journalist who was a staff assistant to the President of the United States from 1970 to 1973.

Where Do You Draw the Line?, edited by Victor Cline (Brigham Young, 365 pp., $9.95, $6.95 pb). Examination of pornography, censorship, and violence in twenty essays, showing a need for more control and enforcement. Some interesting paths are used to reach this conclusion.

Shepherding God’s Flock: Volume One, by Jay Adams (Presbyterian and Reformed, 156 pp., $3.75 pb). The first of several proposed volumes by the well-known counselor focuses on the pastor’s personal life and his ministry of visitation.

The Guru, by Bob Larson (Bob Larson Ministries [P.O. Box 26438, Denver, Colo. 80226], 104 pp., $1.45 pb), The Hidden Story of Scientology, by Omar Garrison (Citadel, 232 pp., $8.50), Gautama the Buddha: An Essay in Religious Understanding, by Richard Drummond (Eerdmans, 239 pp., $3.95 pb), Zen and the Comic Spirit, by Conrad Hyers (Westminster, 193 pp., $3.95 pb), The Eagle and the Rising Sun: Americans and the New Religions of Japan, by Robert Ellwood (Westminster, 224 pp., $7.95), Transcendental Meditation: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Science of Creative Intelligence, by Jack Forem (Dutton, 274 pp., $2.95 pb), The Baha’i Faith: Its History and Teachings, by William Miller (William Carey, 444 pp., $8.95 pb), Hare Krishna and the Counter-culture, by J. Stillson Judah (Wiley, 301 pp., $12.95), and Sri Aurobindo, by Satprem (Harper & Row, 381 pp., $3.95 pb). Religions of Asiatic origin (or, in the case of Scientology, affinity) have been making a considerable impact on many Americans who reject both the historic Gospel and the prevailing secularism (though one shouldn’t believe the exaggerated claims of numbers of adherents that publicists assert and media transmit). Larson offers an evangelical polemic against the teen-age Maharaj Ji. The other books are more or less scholarly presentations, by adherents, sympathizers, or observers. They are for mature Christians who need to know more about these rivals.

Myths Of Our Mothers

Announcement of the forthcoming publication of a hymnbook for religio-political activists, Songs of the State, was so warmly received that the enterprising publisher, Van der Zon, is planning a companion volume. Since it has been statistically proved that women constitute a majority not only of the general population but also of that more select group, regular church-goers, many sensitive souls feel it is oppressive to ask women constantly to sing hymns full of masculine references, such as “Faith of Our Fathers.” (Grammarians, it is true, may point out that in English usage, as in that of most other civilized peoples, masculine nouns and pronouns may be used as common gender—i.e., to stand for both sexes. However, as the last known grammarian of the English language, J. Phineas Mather, died of apoplexy while working on a review of the most recent unabridged Webster’s, such grammarians’ quibbles may be safely ignored.)

The only solution to the continuing crisis in hymnody is, as Van der Zon has rightly grasped, the revision of existing hymns and the writing of new ones. Because opinions among the majority, women, are divided, it has been decided that the new hymn volume will contain hymns from opposite perspectives. Holding the volume one way, one will be able to sing the activist lyrics. Turning it over and upside down (or right side up, depending on one’s perspective) brings the quietist versions into view. Among the activist revisions is the feminist version of “Faith of Our Fathers,” “Myth of Our Mothers,” which is also expected to give the new book a market in liberal theological circles and among scholars in comparative religion. “Dare to Be a Deborah” figures in the children’s section. Luther’s favorite, “A Mighty Fortress,” is included only in the German original, “Ein’ feste Burg,” because “die Burg” is feminine in German.

Between the two sections there are some neutral hymns suitable to both groups, such as Reginald Heber’s stirring “The Son of God Goes Forth to War.” Heber, well in advance of his time, wrote, as we all know, “A noble army, men and boys, the matron and the maid,” thus forestalling objections for generations to come (though his use of the singular for the female in this phrase does suggest tokenism). “The Church’s One Foundation,” with its feminization of the concept of the church, has been rewritten: “The denomination’s one foundation/ Is Jesus Christ its Lord” and the name of the melody changed from Aurelia to Aurelium.

In the quietist section, under Frances Ridley Havergal’s name there is a revised “Who Is on the Lord’s Side?,” reading in part, “Silently enlisting at the call divine/ I am but a woman, clinging like a vine.” Songs with lines such as “You in your small corner, I in mine,” could of course be taken over verbatim. Unfortunately the compilers have had to drop the familiar Latin carol, “Adeste, fideles,” as no one could recall whether Adeste is masculine or feminine and they could not find it in their Latin dictionary.

Much work remains to be done in this field, but we can confidently predict that this ambitious new effort, Hymns For Her, will be greeted with all the acclaim it deserves.

Pine Scent

Edith Schaeffer’s column is the first thing I turn to in each new issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. There is in her writing a vigorous kind of refreshment as pervasive as the scent of pines one delights in while meeting the challenges of a bracing mountain climb. No miasmic smog of equivocation here, obscuring the vision; rather, the life-giving atmosphere of a Logos-centered unity of love and duty, rest and rigor, joy and concern.

South Pasadena, Calif.

Misapplied Tar

The comment of Eutychus VI about United Methodists (Nov. 22) is misleading. The use of the words “United Methodist leaders” and “their recent action” gives the impression that the United Methodist Church as a whole officially allows homosexuals into the Methodist ministry. I don’t know where he got his information, but the official magazine (United Methodists Today) stated that the United Methodist Council on Youth Ministry “voted to propose legislation to the 1976 General Conference which would open the ordained ministry to all regardless of sex, race, marital status, or sexual orientation.” I asked and was informed that the vote was fifteen to one in favor of including the phrase “sexual orientation.”

The resolution has no chance whatsoever of passing. Other resolutions from the grass roots of the church are being sent to affirm the present official stand of the church, namely, “We do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider the practice incompatible with Christian teaching.” (U.M. Book of Discipline, 1972, par. 72, c); and United Methodist ministers must be those “whose conduct is above reproach and who are free from harmful practices that would mar their influence or compromise their witness” (ibid., par. 306).

Eutychus’s tar brush applies only to a small, but vocal, minority of United Methodists. May he be more precise in the future.

Milton United Methodist Church

Milton, Wash.

Wild Doings

Malcolm Muggeridge in his Lausanne address protested that liberal clergy constantly frustrate professional humorists by being “infinitely more absurd” in what they do and say than one’s wildest inventions. Unless NCC: Going Deeper (News, Nov. 8) is one of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’S wildest inventions, they have done it again.

Stanford, Conn.

Nice Advice?

The November 22 Current Religious Thought by John Warwick Montgomery, “Transcendental Gastronomy,” was indeed an interesting clever article. But it was equally distressing in its basic assumptions. As chairman for the French Gastronomical Academy, Montgomery assumes that it is our duty to not feel guilty over our thanksgiving banquet, “one of God’s creative gifts,” but rather to exalt such enjoyment to the realm of “transcendental status.” We should not feel guilty for our abundance of holiday foodstuffs, but rather realize that Scripture elevates eating and drinking to a level of “highest theological and spiritual importance.” … Montgomery gives us nice advice—if we are fortunate enough to live in a country where it is possible to indulge in banqueting. But for the majority of the world’s population, even many of them Christians, it is an impossible feat. For those less fortunate, it is probably just not God’s will for them to partake of such “high theological and spiritual” activities.

Montgomery advocates that we should not feel guilty for our abundance. But how can a Christian advocate such, when so many of his spiritual brethren across the globe are unable to share in his abundance? It is hard to believe that he would be able to sign Article Nine of the Lausanne Covenant: “Those of us who live in affluent circumstances accept our duty to develop a simple life-style”.… His article does contain truthful elements, but what a shame that it does not apply to a major portion of the evangelical church around the world.

Maybe we should trim our banqueting … and definitely, we should cease our boasting, and flee such blasphemous desires as to elevate our gastronomy to “transcendental status.”

Deerfield, Ill

The Poet As Prophet

In a letter to a friend of his, T. S. Eliot once said, “You cannot conceive of truth at all, the word has no meaning, except by conceiving of it as something permanent.”

That is not an observation likely to attract much enthusiasm in our own epoch. The general notion abroad now is that we come at the truth of things and ourselves by incessantly innovating, and that in so far as an idea is well worn, it is probably false; nay, that truth itself is a “dynamic” affair, growing, modifying, changing, as we continually recast the molds in which we propose to receive it.

The commonplace “We now know,” with its variants “Science has proved” and “Research has shown,” is brought to bear with all the weight and solemnity that modernity can amass on question after question. For example, it was all very well and good for the ancients to suppose that the gods had something to do with the universe we live in, but of course We Now Know that this was all whistling in the dark. Science has proved.… Or, similarly, it was a very fine thing for those same ancients to speak of God with a royal vocabulary, but We Now Know that all that imagery of God’s majesty was culturally determined, and has nothing to do with anything beyond the borders of tribal imagination. Or again, it was one thing for these people to circumscribe human relations by confining sexual congress inside holy bonds, but We Now Know that that sprang from a superstitious and adolescent understanding of human relationships, and, having come of age ourselves, we can define our own (new) relationships, choosing on an ad hoc basis what appeals to us, and jettisoning the outworn proscriptions.

And so forth. In politics, behavior, ethics, art, and the sciences, the desideratum is the “breakthrough.” Frontiers are there to be crossed; bonds are there to be snapped; taboos are there to be overleaped. If the angels won’t rush in, get them out of the way.

The Christian imagination is perplexed by this sort of thing, in that it does suspect that in the end, there are “permanent things” (Eliot’s phrase), and that there are mysteries on whose hither side the angels do well to falter, and that taboo may well be the recognition of a real interdict. But on the other hand, the Christian is obliged not only to grant but to welcome thousands of the “breakthroughs” accomplished by that very curiosity and derring-do which has so damaged the supposed permanent things. Which breakthroughs shall we welcome? Copernicus? Galileo? Magellan? Of course. Darwin? Freud? Germaine Greer? Well, ah.…

It is not, then, a question of change vs. no change. We live in “merry middle earth” (C. S. Lewis’s phrase), and can’t ever get things quite fixed. We do have to be tinkering. It is the question of how we are to know, and knowing, to preserve, the really permanent things. Which things, if any, are off limits? We destroyed the flat-earth concept: may we destroy the male/female distinction? We scotched the geocentric theory: may we scotch the marriage theory? We got rid of the gods: may we get rid of the children-obey-your-parents notion?

It is not easy to find the border beyond which it is unlawful to venture. And the whole matter is queered for us nowadays by everyman’s terror lest he be found to be “reactionary.” Not to be briskly in the van of contemporaneity is to be a eunuch.

It is to our uncertainty and anxiety in the face of ambiguities like this that the voice of the prophet speaks. At least part of the function of the prophet has been to recall the people to the permanent things, and to articulate freshly for them what those things are in order that they may be grasped firmly once again.

If there are prophetic figures in our own century, one of them is surely T. S. Eliot. Most of us run into his work only in an English class (if at all), and then it is only “Prufrock” and “The Waste Land.” Perhaps we see a production of Murder in the Cathedral once during our lifetime.

But this will not do. At the crunch in which we find ourselves in history, with morals in tatters, public sensibility in hot pursuit of the bizarre, the growtesque, and the brutal, and the imagination of decent people everywhere stunned and hesitant, it is not overstating the case to say that a great deal of what needs to be said right now has been said for us in our own time by this man.

It is an ancient exercise, and a salutary one, for people to recall their ancestors’ wisdom. Our own Scriptures are full of exhortations to do so: and the Greeks, and all medieval and Renaissance men, knew the value of hearking back to “auctoritee,” that is to wisdom uttered by men long dead (which wisdom, contrary to our own suppositions, was held to have gathered weight by its very antiquity).

T. S. Eliot has been dead only a decade, but already his words seem oracular in their clairvoyant relevance to our situation. Indeed, this oracular quality about his pronouncements irritated his critics even while he was still alive. Of the many studies of Eliot that have appeared, none that I know of deals so massively with Eliot’s whole vision, particularly with respect to the alarming issues of public imagination and morals in our epoch, as Russell Kirk’s Eliot and His Age, published at the start of our decade (Random House, 1971). We might not do wrong to pull it off the shelf, here in the middle as it were, and see what we can see.

Eliot, Kirk says, “labored to renew the wardrobe of a moral imagination,” by which he means, using Burke’s definition, “that power of ethical perception which strides beyond the barriers of private experience and events of the moment.” It aspires to apprehend “right order in the soul and right order in the commonwealth.” Eliot felt, like Burke, “ ‘that we have made no discoveries, and we think that no discoveries are to be made, in morality.…’ ” At least part of his achievement was to reinvigorate for us “those perennial moral insights which are the sources of human normality, and which make possible order and justice and freedom.”

Now this is nonsense to the doctrinaire modern, who is committed to innovation, creativity, and experiment on all fronts, moral and psychological as well as educational and scientific. The notion of there being some fixed order that presides over the changes and chances of time and fashion, and that judges these ephemera, is abhorrent to the central doctrine of Modernism, namely, the doctrine of “progress,” understood as self-validating innovation.

Eliot, sometimes almost alone, it seemed, stood over against the avalanche of Modernism. He believed in the “older certitudes,” and in “the painfully acquired wisdom of the species.” He wrote in 1948 that “we are destroying our ancient edifices ‘to make ready the ground upon which the barbarian nomads of the future will encamp in their mechanised caravans.’ ”

In his early poetry and comment, written before he became a Christian, Eliot articulated for us the ennui, impotence, debility, solitude, and senescence of modern man, with images that hail us with the horror of Hell itself. We all know poor Prufrock, with his trousers rolled and his hesitation over the challenge of eating a peach. And “the Waste Land” with its dismaying bar rooms and “the young man carbuncular” and its “empty chapel, only the wind’s home,” and so forth. This poem in particular enraged the modernists. Kirk puts it this way:

“Eliot,” they say, “is snobbishly contrasting the alleged glory and dignity of the Past with what he takes for the degradation of the democratic and industrialized Present. This is historically false and ought to be repudiated by all Advanced Thinkers” [p. 81].

Not so, says Kirk:

The Present, Eliot knew, is only a thin film upon the deep well of the Past.… The ideological cult of Modernism is philosophically ridiculous, for the modernity of 1971, say, is very different from the modernity of 1921. One cannot order his soul, or participate in a public order, merely by applauding the will-o’-the-wisp Present [p. 82].

In this connection Eliot proclaimed himself a “classicist” (as well as a royalist and an Anglo-Catholic, not one of which claims was particularly welcome to his contemporaries). He meant that he lived within Tradition, and that, as Kirk has it, “he stood for right reason, as opposed to obsession with alleged originality, personality, and creativity; for the permanent things, as opposed to the lust for novelty; for normality, as opposed to abnormality” (p. 146).

Moreover, Eliot distrusted what we might call the intellectual democracy of liberalism. He said this about liberalism:

“[It] tends to release energy rather than accumulate it, to relax, rather than to fortify … by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified, by fostering a notion of getting on to which the alternative is a hopeless apathy. Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is its own negation: the artificial, mechanised or brutalised control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos” [p. 277].

As is frequently (always?) the case with the prophetic imagination, Eliot’s political and social concerns sprang from his prior vision of an order that defined and judged our life, one that we ignored or flouted, in our morals and politics and imagination, to our own damnation. In Eliot’s case, of course, that order was the biblical accounting of the universe, received and passed on in the magisterium of the Church. He attributed the disorder and havoc that especially mark our epoch to our having cut the moorings of tradition and dogma that held us to our true center. On point after point, his analysis of the modern situation derives directly from a particular Christian assumption.

For instance, Eliot saw our groping about in aesthetics, political activism, social engineering, and tepid benevolence for answers to the staggering problems of society, and our utter impotence to come to any understanding much less solution, as an index of our loss of the sense of Original Sin:

“If you do away with this struggle, and maintain that by tolerance, benevolence, inoffensiveness, and a redistribution or increase of purchasing power, combined with a devotion, on the part of an elite, to Art, the world will be as good as anyone could require, then you must expect human beings to become more and more vaporous” [p. 213].

Again, Eliot might astound us by tracing the fascination with evil and abnormality, in modern fiction, drama, and painting to a denial of the Incarnation. Kirk says:

If one denies the divine incarnation, Eliot believed, one must affirm a different though inferior power. The diabolical enters into literature, and into society, when we grow fascinated with “the unregenerate personality” [p. 215].

Or again, Eliot saw the paradox of the modern effort to liberalize and democratize the human order coexisting with an apparently incorrigible drift toward totalitarianism on the Left as well as the Right, and he suspected that you get this paradox when you try to build a social edifice on any foundation other than religious truth. Kirk quotes Eliot:

“No scheme for a change of society can be made to appear immediately palatable, except by falsehood … until society has become so desperate that it will accept any change.” The alternative to a totalist order … is a social order founded upon religious truth. “That prospect involves, at least, discipline, inconvenience, and discomfort; but here as hereafter the alternative to hell is purgatory” [p. 417],

Eliot set the utopianism of modern liberal ideology over against the transcendence of Christian revelation. Kirk speaks of Eliot’s opposition to “the pseudo-religion of ideology—which inverts the religious symbols of transcendence, promising here and now, upon earth and tomorrow, the perfection of our nature that religion promises through salvation of the soul” (p. 171). The Social Gospel was, for Eliot, “the Great Commandment with its first clause excised.”

In his drama as well as in his poetry and his criticism, Eliot tried to introduce once more into contemporary sensibility at least the acknowledgment of the permanent, and of the transcendent that judges us. If he could only, somehow, pluck modern men by the elbow and remind them of this much, perhaps the ground would be that much broken to receive the full message, eventually, of what it is (or Who, really) that judges us. Kirk says, “If he could not redeem the stage from Bernard Shaw, at least he might remind the public that there persist older views of the human condition than the Shavina” (p. 403).

But Eliot never supposed that what he had to say would win the day:

“We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph” [p. 418].

A desperate frame of mind? Some call it that. But Eliot knew history, tradition, and Christian dogma too well to be able to look with anything more than a tentative and proximate hope on even the very best efforts of society towards amelioration. And he also saw that it is seldom indeed that those efforts can be called “best.”

Any Christian, in any century, finds himself in a highly ambiguous relation to his society, knowing as he does that he must applaud and assist in any genuine effort to bring justice and mercy to bear on public life, but knowing at the same time that Christian imagination can never hold out any but the bleakest expectations for these efforts. Somehow we build Babel and not Jerusalem every time. The clarity and keenness of Eliot’s criticism of our epoch, if it will not save us (as he knew it would not save him), may at least define and articulate the nature of our (Christians’, that is) confrontation with that epoch, and in so doing, may at least save us from mere muddle, which brings it fear. And, for those of us who cannot tackle the entire corpus of Eliot’s writing itself, Russell Kirk has done a rare and encouraging service.

Thomas Howard is associate professor of English at Gordon College, Wenham, Massachusetts.

The recently concluded World Food Conference at Rome reminded the human family of the grinding poverty and suffering that afflict our planet. In few countries is the problem as acute as in India. According to the Illustrated Weekly of India (Oct. 13, 1974), 90 per cent of the subcontinent’s 585 million inhabitants are “poor” and 30 percent (175 million) are “abjectly poor,” getting not even one square meal per day. Reports suggest that starvation may have claimed 1.5 million lives during the past three months in the densely populated states of Bihar and West Bengal. Meanwhile, apocalyptic voices warn of impending famine, which could mean disaster for tens of millions. Valiant efforts by government and volunteer agencies to reverse the tide appear overwhelmed by the rapid growth in the population, expected to number 1.1 billion by the end of the century.

Main-line Indian theologians have responded to the grave social crisis with a radical theology of humanization and liberation founded on a low view of the person of Christ. M. M. Thomas, director of the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society (CISRS) and chairman of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches, stresses the secular relevance of Jesus, whom he describes as the “New Man,” the “New Creation,” and the “bearer of the New Humanity.” The new Indian theology, which synthesizes Western humanism and Indian pantheism, views Jesus as the paradigm of the higher spiritual being man is destined to become via the evolutionary process operative in history. Jesus’ call to discipleship in the broken world is a summons to be his co-workers in transforming oppressive power structures that impede the realization of man’s full humanity. The all-important datum is not personal conversion but whether the Church can effect political change by renewing and restructuring society. J. Russell Chandran, president of the United Theological College, Bangalore, warns against “an exaggerated emphasis on certain interpretations of sin and salvation which keep people preoccupied with peripheral concerns” (Religion and Society, XXI [1974], p. 32). The concept of sin prevalent in so-called fundamentalist Christianity is regarded as an alien import from the West.

Catalyst of the renascent Indian humanism is the Christian Institute for the Study of Religion and Society, founded in 1957 “to serve Christians and Churches in India in their evangelistic mission.” Under the management of M. M. Thomas, whose brother is a theoretician in the Communist party of India (Maoist), the community of specialist scholars has shifted from the historic Christian base to a secular socio-political ethic. The numerous publications of the society are pervaded with Marxist political jargon clothed in congenial but undefined religious language.

The leading voice in the field of Indian traditional religions is the Roman Catholic philosopher Raymond Panikkar, son of a Hindu father and a Spanish Catholic mother. Stimulated by traditional Indian thought which postulates the harmony and equality of all religions, Panikkar asserts that God has always been savingly at work drawing the sincere Hindu worshiper to Himself through Christ, who is present but hidden in the traditional faith. So Panikkar argues:

He is the light that illuminates every human being coming into the world. Hence Christ is already there in Hinduism in so far as Hinduism is a true religion.… That Christ which is already in Hinduism has not yet unveiled his whole face, has not yet completed his work there” [The Unknown Christ of Hinduism, London, 1964, p. 17].

Panikkar and a growing company of followers urge Christians to desist from the crusading spirit that seeks the conversion of Hindus to Christianity. The task of the Church is to enter into dialogue with Hinduism and thus to unveil to its sight Christ, its hidden guest. However, articulate Indian Christians challenge this optimistic universalism that views Hinduism as the kernel of truth of which Christianity is the head. Paul Sudhakar, a former Hindu now apologist and evangelist to Indian intellectuals, more correctly proclaims Christ as the fulfillment of the spiritual aspirations of the Hindu worshiper—i.e., Christ is the ultimate answer to Hinduism.

Faced with a sea of human need in India, many evangelical Christians and groups are faithfully offering their five loaves and two fish in the spiritual service of their fellow man. The conservative Union Biblical Seminary, Yeotmal, leads the field in the training of committed young men and women to the Th.M. level for pastoral and teaching ministries. Seeking a more strategic location, U.B.S. has targeted a move in 1977 to Nagpur, a city of one million situated at the heart of the subcontinent.

The evangelical alternative to the radical CISRS is TRACI, the newly organized Theological Research and Communication Institute, based in New Delhi. Under the leadership of missionary Bruce Nicholls, TRACI scholars are engaged in a range of research projects designed to enable the Church better to apply the historic Christian message to the contemporary Indian situation in all its complexity.

With nominal Christians making up less than 3 per cent of the population, the Church in India faces a titanic struggle against the revitalized forces of neo-Hinduism, Communism, and religious humanism. But heartening numbers of Indian Christians are asserting that the appropriate response to their country’s staggering human need is not the abolition of historic Christianity but the courageous application of its dynamic in genuine spiritual renewal and social reform. The Christian family worldwide prays that at the present moment of history the Sanskrit slogan affixed to India’s national emblem may be fully vindicated: “Truth alone triumphs.”

Many Christians are being sensitized to their responsibility to engage in compassionate ministries, but no evangelical agency has taken on the task more ambitiously than World Vision. The staff ofCHRISTIANITY TODAYrecently interviewed Dr. W. Stanley Mooneyham, president of World Vision, with a view to giving its readers a larger perspective on how the world is hurting and what Christians can and should do to relieve the hurt. Here is an edited distillation of that interview:

Question. Are there enough food resources to feed all the hungry people?

Answer. A recent International Labor Organization report from Geneva says no; there’s not enough land on which to grow food. My own research and experience cause me to question that. I have seen scrub land, almost desert, blossom like a rose when water was put on it. Millions of acres of such land are available for food production if we would invest the money to utilize them. While not overlooking the problems of production, including the present cultivation of most of America’s arable land, I believe the greatest problem is distribution, not production.

Q. To what extent are political problems an obstacle in relief work?

A. From the standpoint of agencies such as ours, there are two problems. Although we are international in program, staff, and policies, we are sometimes viewed as an American organization with ties to American foreign policy and the CIA because our headquarters is in the United States. I don’t know that this has ever really kept us out of a country, but we are sensitive to the feeling. We are just waiting to see if we will be permitted to stay in Laos under the new coalition government.

Secondly, our evangelical Christian orientation makes it difficult or impossible to work in some countries. We would like to work in North Viet Nam but were rebuffed in our attempts to explore this with the Communist government.

On the other side, inter-country problems may present insurmountable obstacles for outside relief agencies. In the tribal conflicts in Burundi the ruling group wants to hide from the outside world the mass killings of minorities. Sometimes national pride causes a country to refuse to admit its problems until they become catastrophic; Ethiopia is a case in point.

Q. Where will the next major disaster come? Could we have anticipated the drought in Africa?

A. We should have known of the African situation before we did because it was building toward a crisis for five or six years, but it would be impossible to anticipate all the world’s disasters.

However, having recently made an eight-week trip around the “hunger belt,” I think I can safely make some predictions. India is on the edge of an enormous human calamity. Bangladesh is even closer. At least 210 million people—the population of the United States—are severely affected. Drought and the sky-rocketing price of fertilizer have broken the back of the Indian farmer’s hope. I talked to people who confidently expect to be dead before next year’s crop, if there is a crop.

Africa’s Sahel is still a long way from recovery, although rains this year have given some a temporary reprieve. But 25 million people in that area are borderline survivors. Knowing these facts, you would think that world organizations and governments would set in motion massive disaster plans to save human lives, but the past record doesn’t give me much room to hope.

Q. What do you see as the crisis of our day?

A. Some have called it the crisis of the four “f’s”: food, fuel, fertilizer, and famine. Some might like to add “fertility” to that list, but the recent Bucharest conference on population indicates that the world is not agreed on that. We do agree on one thing—worldwide inflation is pushing the marginal countries over the brink. We used to talk about the “third world.” There is now a “fourth world,” and it is the world of absolute poverty. In this world the people cannot attain even minimal survival needs.

Today 40 per cent of the people in the less developed countries are living at the absolute poverty level, which is defined by the United Nations as an income of thirty cents (or less) a day per person. Several years ago the United Nations urged the developed countries to set aside 3 per cent of their Gross National Product for the developing countries. The response was indifference. The request was scaled down to 1 per cent and later to 7 per cent, but only a few have attained even that low figure.

Q. This widening gap increases the tension between the haves and the have-nots, doesn’t it?

A. Absolutely. If something isn’t done to right the injustice and balance the inequity, we could have a violent explosion in the not too distant future. Just look at the hatred and violence that erupted in gasoline lines in this country when we had the inconvenience of an energy shortage. We cannot expect the third and fourth worlds to quietly and patiently starve to death while the rest of the world enjoys its affluence.

Q. Do these people still regard all Americans as wealthy?

A. Yes. And, relatively speaking, we are! A person may have a minus bank balance today but still be making payments on a very comfortable home. The average person in a lesser developed country has only a small shack. His per-capita income is less than $200 per year; in North America it is well over $4,000. In my work I have not found any bitter people, though some may envy us. But I think that bitterness will inevitably develop, especially when they become more acutely aware that the resources and raw materials of their countries fuel the furnaces of the industrialized West.

Q. Do you find a conflict between evangelism and social action?

A. Not when it is understood that one is not synonymous with the other. They are the twin mandates of the New Testament, and to neglect one is not only to cripple the Church and make its message less credible but to do violence to the New Testament teachings.

In our work we put evangelism first and last. This doesn’t mean that everything we do has a direct evangelistic connection. We don’t stamp “Jesus Saves” on every vitamin pill. We simply try to demonstrate Christian love in tangible ways. I feel it would be phony and manipulative to provide help to suffering people only because they are potential evangelistic statistics. However, because most of our relief and development programs are tied to local church or mission agencies, there are usually abundant opportunities for sharing Jesus Christ.

One pastor in the Philippines told me, “You have helped a poor church to help a poor people,” and as a result his church now has over 300 people in weekly Bible studies whereas just a year ago without the community-assistance program he had only about 40 or 50 people involved in Bible study.

Q. Is there still a problem with “rice” Christians?

A. I think it’s far less than it used to be. In many countries it is so unpopular to be a Christian or to embrace the evangelical faith that the possibility of food and shelter is not enough to cause people to break with their traditional religions.

Q. Do you work with mission boards or agencies?

A. Yes, and also with national churches. We are not a traditional missionary sending society. We are a service agency or, as some people call us, a para-church organization. We work with all evangelical Christian groups in a country, though primarily through national churches for we want to strengthen them as they serve Christ through their communities and countries.

Q. How do you feel about being called a “social action” agency? And does World Vision ever try to change a country’s social or economic structure?

A. Let me answer the last part first. No matter what my personal feelings may be regarding a political regime or economic system, I do not feel that we are called to undermine and overthrow governments. We may protest repressive measures, as in the case of Afghanistan a couple of years ago, but we don’t try to organize a coup. As an outside agency, we are usually in a country by permission of the government, so it would be hypocrisy on our part to work directly against that government.

On the other hand, frequently people who embrace the Gospel of Jesus Christ begin to work actively to correct social wrongs and political injustices in their countries. That is their decision, not one which we push on them.

Now about being termed a “social action” agency. Personally, I don’t use the term much, not because it is bad but because it has acquired certain negative connotations. I prefer to talk about Christian caring and the demonstration of Christian love. For us that’s really what it is.

Q. Relief operations have been a very fertile field for frauds. What is the amount of World Vision’s overhead and how much money goes to the field?

A. First, I would have to explain that World Vision is more than just a relief agency. That is one of several ministries we perform. Others include leadership training of nationals, evangelism, and support for national church projects. In relief and development we do such things as give emergency aid, take care of children, provide vocational training, and operate hospitals.

Last year our administrative costs were 20.6 per cent. The year before they were just over 18 per cent. We tried to get them down to 15 per cent, but inflation really clobbered that goal.

Q. What do you include in administrative overhead?

A. Certain things are obviously administrative; others are ministry. All fund-raising is overhead, and a good part of my own time is administration. Almost everything relating to the home office is administrative.

Q. Your salary, then, is divided between ministry and administration. Are there some whose entire salary would be considered non-overhead?

A. Only those nationals in the field who, for example, run orphanages, or schools, or relief distribution programs, or are engaged in evangelism. Salaries of those in the home office, except those of us who carry dual administrative/ministry responsibilities, are completely in the overhead category.

Q. If you were a donor how would you check out an agency to make sure that your money is responsibly spent?

A. I would look at the names and backgrounds of the administrative officers. I would want to know who serves on the board of directors, and I would look for the names of people I know or whose integrity I trust. I would also ask for a copy of the audited financial statement, and I would want to know if the agency held membership in some kind of “accrediting” association such as the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (EFMA) or Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA). I would ask as many questions as necessary to satisfy myself as to the integrity of the organization.

Q. We were told by another administrator of a humanitarian program that his group uses a sort of “policing” program to check for fraud. What is World Vision’s policy?

A. All our field offices are regularly audited by a highly recognized international firm. We exercise tight budget control and careful field supervision to ensure that as much of the donor dollar as possible is used for direct aid. That is more difficult when you are dealing with emergencies and disasters because of the speed with which things must be done, which is another reason why we look for trustworthy Christian counterparts in all the countries where we work.

Q. Does World Vision order, for example, midnight bed checks in some of its orphanages?

A. Not in that way, to my knowledge, but we do have surprise spot checks not only of the institutions but also of the school records.

Q. What are some of the trends in overseas child care?

A. One trend is away from institutional care as much as possible. Of course, in some emergency situations, such as war, where thousands of orphans are created, institutions must be set up to care for them.

A growing problem with us called the “Family-to-Family” program is working very successfully in the Philippines and Cambodia. Our school programs in South Viet Nam and Indonesia are also very successful. In these programs the family is kept together. Through child sponsorship the entire family is benefitted by education, vocational training, health care and the teaching of personal hygiene, some clothing, and food whenever possible.

Each program is related to a local church and is under the supervision of a trained social worker. I have seen these programs at work and am very excited about them. We are committed to a program of excellence.

Q. How many nations does World Vision serve?

A. Presently we have child-care programs in twenty-six countries and relief and leadership-training programs in probably half again that number.

Q. What is your great obstacle in raising funds? Is it communicating the need in a dramatic way? What do you think the churches could do to sensitize people to the plight of the developing nations?

A. We find it difficult to tell people what it means to have absolutely nothing. After all, most of us can only truly relate with what is in our known frame of reference. How can we know what it is like to be terribly hungry? Most of us have never felt hunger as anything more than a temporary inconvenience. I have real trouble communicating the desperate, hopeless plight of most of the world’s people.

We have just announced 1975 as World Vision’s “Year for a Hungry World.” Senator Mark Hatfield is chairman of this emphasis, in which we hope thousands of churches, youth groups, civic clubs, women’s societies, and so on will be involved. We announced this at a press luncheon (non-luncheon might be more accurate) in Washington at which we served what I have actually seen families in India trying to live on—a small grain cake, a cup of weak tea with no cream or sugar, and half a potato. That is their diet for one day, containing far fewer calories than the minimum needed for survival.

We want to ask groups to have “planned famines” where people will go on a liquid diet for at least twenty-four hours and get people to sponsor their fast, with the money going to feed hungry people. Another program we offer to churches is the “Love Loaf” in which each family is given a plastic “loaf” bank to collect funds for hunger programs. Hundreds of churches are using these with good response.

During the year World Vision will also sponsor hunger telethons on many stations across the country. These are some of the ways in which we are trying to dramatize the hunger program and sensitize the conscience of Christian America.

Q. To what extent is non-giving the result of feeling that money should really come from the wealthy?

A. In our experience most rich people support humanitarian programs in a very limited way. I could name two or three beautiful exceptions, but for the most part our funds come from middle or lower economic families, people on fixed incomes, and young people. You can understand that when I tell you that our average gift is under $15.

Q. How do you answer the person who says he’s already giving to a lot of organizations and can’t afford any more?

A. I’m very sympathetic because I probably get as many appeals as the next person—maybe more. There is no human way I can respond to all of them, so my wife and I have to establish priorities for giving. One thing we want to be sure is that some portion of our giving goes to relieve human suffering, as well as sharing the message of eternal life.

Q. Do you take such a person’s name off the mailing list?

A. If requested. I get letters from some older people on Social Security who say they just can’t continue giving but want to receive our material so they can pray for our needs. And we have gotten thousands of letters from children and young people with ten cents or a dollar in the envelope. Some will give birthday or Christmas money. That really touches me, and we don’t deduct a penny for overhead from such gifts. We don’t expect them to give, but we keep them informed so they can pray.

Q. Have you had any problems shipping certain foods overseas? For example, what really happened when you tried to give starving people Metrecal and Slender, which our government ordered off the market?

A. That situation really upset me. The Food and Drug Administration took those two products off the market because they contained cyclamates. Those diet foods were extremely rich in protein, and we had been using them for years in our feeding programs through the generosity of the manufacturers. Incidentally, American and Canadian corporations give us millions of dollars of marketable foodstuffs. In this case, of course, they could no longer sell the diet foods, and rather than destroy huge inventories they offered their entire stock to us.

We first went to the governments of the recipient countries, and they said the cyclamate issue was no problem to them: tests showed that an average Laotian weighing about 120 pounds would have to drink eighty-four cans a day over a period of months to get enough cyclamate to be even potentially harmful. We accepted the food and were ready to ship it. It would have been very helpful in our nutrition centers. The U. S. government provides port-to-port shipping funds for recognized volunteer agencies providing relief supplies, and USAID had agreed to give us the funds.

But then a television commentator in San Francisco got a call from somebody who saw the food on a dock ready to load, and the station “exposed” what it thought was a great story. Senator Cranston picked it up and publicly castigated AID for sending those “deadly drugs” overseas. Suddenly it was a full-blown scandal. AID withdrew the shipping funds, which was the only thing it could do, and ordered us not to ship the food at all, even with private shipping funds.

Q. How could it do that?

A. The FDA said the cases of diet foods had to be destroyed. They could not leave the country, even though other governments were willing to accept them. I presume that our “national image” was the overriding criterion. As a result we had to bulldoze the stuff; the cans were flattened and the liquid run down sewers. The companies reimbursed us for the cost of destroying it, but I wanted to cry.

A radio station in San Francisco called me up and put me on its telephone “hot line.” When I took the call I had no idea I was on the air. People accused me of wanting to send a “death-dealing drug” to poor, innocent people overseas. Funny, I never heard anybody complain about government tobacco subsidies that help make it possible for millions of cigarettes, proven to be harmful to health, to go to overseas markets. I wonder if the difference could be that cigarette exports help equalize our balance of payments.

Q. What kind of an impression did this make on the governments who wanted the food?

A. We didn’t get any repercussions. I suppose they are accustomed to bureaucratic bungling.

Q. What was the total income for World Vision last year?

A. Just under $15 million. Of that amount, a little over $11 million came from the United States, $2 million from Australia and New Zealand, $1.5 million from Canada, and $250,000 from South Africa.

Q. Is the United States really a generous country? A few years ago a drive in Switzerland collected six million francs in just a few days for Biafra. A comparable figure for America would be, say $50 million. Would we have done as well? How do we compare with other Western countries?

A. Per capita, some countries do better than we do, but there are many generous American people who are willing not only to share but to sacrifice when they know their money is being wisely used.

I don’t think that as a nation we are really generous. So much of our so-called foreign aid is really self-serving. It is not really “aid” in the truest meaning of the word, but money that must be spent in this country to buy things we manufacture to be sent to developing countries, things that contribute little to their total development. A large percentage is military hardware. All of the investments and gifts, both from the public and private sectors, which we have put into the third world in the past decade amount to fifty cents per person per year on the receiving end! I don’t think we would say that is particularly generous.

Q. Do you think we’re living in a time of world-wide spiritual awakening? What are some of the spiritual hot spots?

A. We could be on the verge of a spiritual breakthrough. There are some encouraging signs, but they are scattered and must be put together and seen as a whole. Africa continues to be a bright spot. I am very excited about what I see God doing in Southeast Asia. The evangelical church in Brazil is growing much faster than the population. Korea and Indonesia offer hope, as do segments of India’s population, particularly the high-caste Hindus. In various “people movements” scattered around the globe we are seeing high percentages of whole tribes or ethnic groups turning to the Gospel. Only God knows what he is getting ready to do in China, but I tingle with expectation.

I believe the sense of uncertainty, futility, of hopelessness that grips so much of the world offers the Church its greatest hour to proclaim Jesus Christ.

Q. Do you see an awakening in the Sahel region of Africa as a result of relief efforts?

A. Not really. In spite of decades of mission work, the Sahel is still largely Muslim or animistic. But I believe that as we respond to human needs, we will begin to see a spiritual response. Love talked about is easily turned aside, but love demonstrated is irresistible.

Q. Are you ever asked why God allows suffering?

A. I can’t recall ever having been asked that question except maybe on an American college campus. In most of the third world, suffering is a way of life. Religion, culture, and experience have conditioned the people. This does not make suffering any less real or acute, but it seems to keep them from philosophizing about it.

Q. Would you encourage young people to become politicians and change structures or would you encourage them to be scientists and technicians to make more food available to hungry people?

A. My answer is yes, and that isn’t meant to sound facetious. Both are needed. Political structures need to be changed; they need to be given a conscience. The answer to that need is redeemed, involved people.

We don’t need industrial technicians in the third world as much as we need agricultural technicians. Governments that want to industrialize their nations quickly might argue with that statement, but those that are more interested in developing their people than their economies will see it the other way around, I believe. In most of the developing countries, from 70 to 90 per cent of the economy is still agricultural. The development of industries in these countries should be, for the maximum good, related to production, processing, and distribution of agricultural goods. Then a majority of the people will benefit instead of the rich investors and a few skilled workers.

We need such workers as agriculturists, water conservationists, veterinarians, public health experts, machinists, and food processors. I believe our Christian witness will be far more credible if we go with such skills. Then the people will know we are interested in them as human beings, and not just as evangelistic statistics.

Q. Do you see a need for communications specialists—mass-media people—who can take film or radio to the developing nations?

A. Yes, if they are willing to forget the sophistication they have learned in the West and use their training to help build nations that are starting at square one. One Christian group in the Philippines is using radio to teach new farming techniques. Others are teaching personal hygiene and public health. Sure, they preach the Gospel, too.

If we have communications specialists on the field, they should learn who it is they are communicating to (not just identify the target group, but know them in the fullest sense of that word) and how these people can best receive the subject matter being communicated. I am afraid we start with too many Western assumptions.

We are working with some Presbyterian missionaries in southwestern Ethiopia who are trying to help a very primitive tribe. The tribe already has the Gospel, but it needs instruction in Christian growth, in hygiene, in agriculture. The missionaries are working very slowly, very carefully to make sure they are communicating the right things, at the right time, in the right way. This requires an unusual degree of sensitivity, but I am convinced it will pay off in the long run.

Q. There seems to be increasing hostility or tension between Christian schools and local churches on the one hand, and the so-called “para-church” organizations such as World Vision. What is your perspective on this?

A. First of all, I accept the term “para-church” only as a descriptive, rather than as a definitive, designation. While there is some tension, I am not sure it is increasing. It may be declining as we develop a more mature view of what constitutes the Church. Jesus never defined what he meant by the “Church”—he only gave pictures and analogies. To me the Church means “the people of God.” The various ministries may come through what we call the “institutional church” or through what we call the “para-church” agencies.

Para-church organizations as we know them are not new. Paul’s evangelistic team would today be considered a para-church organization. He represented not one but many churches. There should be no tension between church and para-church if we’re all doing the work of God. We’re all God’s people.

A whole year of Christmas is one way we might look ahead to the Bimillennial …

“Excuse me, but don’t you mean the Bicentennial?”

No, the Bimillennial.

“Oh, bimil … like pre-mil, post-mil, all that?”

Not exactly. Bimillennial.

“Hm. Bi—two. Millen … the year 2000!”

Right! We’re within a generation of it, you know.

“But do we have to start thinking about it already? Can’t we at least get the Bicentennial out of the way first? I’m not even sure I’ll live to see the turn of the century.”

There’s really not a lot of time. We’re now at the fourth quarter of this century. Population experts say that a majority of those alive today will still be alive in 2000. Anyway, would you want to miss out on helping to set the stage for what should be one of the greatest and grandest events in human history?

“Well, if you put it that way …”

We do. And we hasten to point out that the close of the millennium will have tremendous symbolic impact for everyone who uses the civil calendar, and will undoubtedly be marked by extensive secular celebrations. It will have even more significance for the Christian. For it will be Anno Domini 2000, the two-thousandth anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ. At its heart the bimillennial celebration should be a magnificent Christian observance. And to get this point across to its own people and to the world, the Church must take the initiative soon. We should not allow the bimillennial to go the way of our Christmas celebration, with its materialistic and pagan accretions. We need to determine how 2000 can be celebrated in a truly biblical way.

If the Church is able to seize and retain the cultural initiative it will find many natural “openings” through which to present the Gospel understandably and meaningfully. If Christians prepare themselves properly, they will have magnificent opportunities to minister evangelistically. People in the year 2000 will be naturally conscious as never before of Jesus Christ as the hinge of history, as the one who was made the focal point of our measure of time. Christians can build on this awareness for the glory of God.

Many who do not recognize the Lordship and Saviourhood of Christ nonetheless think well of him. Jews, though they reject his Messiahship, can appreciate his being one of their own, inasmuch as he had a Jewish mother. Regardless of whether one embraces the theological Jesus, it is hard to dispute the fact that Jesus was the most important and influential person who has ever lived. On that basis alone the world should find him worthy of a momentous anniversary tribute. How much more there is for the redeemed of the Lord to celebrate.

The natural place to begin planning any kind of celebration is to inquire into precedents. How has it been done previously? In this case, however, the only comparable occasion was the year 1000, and that does not get us very far. For one thing, historians have recorded very little about what if anything was done by way of sheer celebration. It might be of help to bimillennial planning if some extensive research were undertaken as to what actually did take place a millennium ago.

There were, it seems, no great and memorable commemorations. The people of the West at that time were very much given to celebrations of all sorts, extending to relatively minor events. But this one was apparently too much for them. The approach of the year called forth fear rather than festivity.

Historians seem unsure exactly how the people felt about the turn of the millennium. The renowned church historian Philip Schaff simply notes:

In the expectation of approaching judgment, crowds of pilgrims flocked to Palestine to greet the advent of the Saviour. But the first millennium passed, and Christendom awoke with a sigh of relief on the first day of the year 1001 [History of the Christian Church, Scribner’s, 1893, V, p. 296].

It must be remembered that these were truly barbarous times. Warfare was rife. Bloody strife was common in both the political and the ecclesiastical realms. The great schism between East and West was just around the corner. But some intense students of the medieval scene contend that the years just preceding and following 1000 were a major turning point. One source (Larousse) puts it this way:

The approach of the year 1000 may have kindled superstitious fires among the peoples of the West, haunted by their belief in the devil. The terror was probably much less that thought, but the date was still symbolic, and in the feudal decentralization in which Europe was born, a spark began to glow. Europe “put on a white surplice”; the bishops, returning to an earlier role, urged peace on the feudal lords, propounding the idea of a truce of God; in Burgundy and at Le Puy, the clergy in 990 were demanding the cessation of senseless marauding, and the movement soon spread to Picardy and North Italy [Larousse Encyclopedia of Ancient and Mediaeval History, Harper and Row, 1963, p. 296].

There was still a long way to go, but there had indeed been major developments. The Byzantine Empire reached its apogee about then, and Leif Ericson, newly converted to Christianity, is believed to have visited the new world in that period—as if to signal what was ahead. In the year 1000 itself, Otto III was the German king and Holy Roman Emperor. He had a scheme for renewing the Roman empire in a Christian framework with Rome as capital, and work began on an imperial palace on the Aventine Hill. Otto had the support of a hand-picked pope, Sylvester II, the first Frenchman to hold the office. C. Warren Hollister describes Europe on the eve of the high Middle Ages in this way:

By 1050 both England and Germany were comparatively stable, well-organized kingdoms. The French monarchy was still weak, but within another century it would be on its way toward dominating France. Meanwhile feudal principalities such as Normandy, Flanders, and Anjou were well advanced toward political stability. Above all, the invasions were over—the siege had ended. Hungary and the Scandinavian world were being absorbed into Western Christendom, and Islam was by now on the defensive. The return of prosperity, the increase in food production, the rise in population, the quickening of commerce, the intensification of intellectual activity, all betokened the coming of a new era. Western Civilization was on the threshold of an immense creative upsurge which was destined, ultimately, to transform the world [Medieval Europe: A Short History, Wiley, 1964, p. 143].

Dare we hope that the year 2000 could serve to help our world out of its own dark ages? There is no foretelling what psychological effect the coming of the bimillennial will have on people. One could speculate that the subconscious anticipation of it is a factor in the recent surge of literature and sermons about the second coming of Christ. There have been a number of periods in church history characterized by an eschatological mania. The effect in our day could be an indifference toward temporal concerns, such as the bimillennial, on the presumption that the Church will soon be raptured.

Christ certainly could return before the year 2000, and many Christians believe it likely. But one would be hard pressed to find scriptural justification for using that belief as an excuse to sit down on the job. We were told to glorify God and make disciples for his kingdom; our orders have not been changed. From the parable of the pounds (Luke 19) it is clear that Jesus wants us to be getting the most out of the resources he has entrusted to us until he comes back. Neglect of the bimillennial opportunity would probably signify laziness and carnality more than sound reasoning and firm conviction.

If we make plans and Christ returns before they can be carried out, we will have lost absolutely nothing, and we will have had the great privilege of working together for a marvelous cause. If we fail to plan, and Christ tarries, we will by default have turned over the opportunity to secular influences.

The anniversary will not be technically accurate; it has been quite well established that Christ was not born in the year-end connecting 1 B.C. and A.D. 1. But few major anniversaries are celebrated on the precise days. (If we wanted to be exact we would celebrate Christmas on December 31 or January 1.)

The means of communications available to us today make possible a truly world-wide, church-wide brainstorming session on what the nature of the 2000 celebration should be. Early involvement of the people in the churches and not just of church professionals will contribute greatly to the success of the plans that are ultimately made. One of the great problems the Church has faced of late is the gap between leadership and laity; laymen often feel that decisions are being imposed upon them, and without sufficient reason. For 2000, let every Christian believer have his say.

At the outset it would be well to concentrate on goals. Our underlying purpose, to glorify God, will, we trust, be readily agreed upon. But how best to do this can be expected to cause considerable dispute. If we get into arguing about concrete projects too soon, we are likely to suffer. Drawing up goals and objectives may be tedious and taxing, but the Church will be thankful in the long run if it perseveres with the basics for a time. Before deciding if and how something should be done, we must ask: What is it for? What good ends do we want it to achieve? What results can be expected? Some consensus on the crucial questions of goals and objectives ought to be arrived at before we move on to specific proposals.

What people want to do with the bimillennial will span a broad variety of concerns. Ivory-tower idealists may press for profound changes in humanity. Many school children and not a few job-holders may be satisfied if the bimillennial means they get extra time off. If we can suppress self-interest we can arrive at some reasonably satisfactory common ground. It’s worth trying.

For a start, these four guidelines seem advisable:

1. Aim high. Given the state of the world and our society, it is hard to get people to commit themselves to any vast undertakings. No matter how urgent a new project may seem, some powerful motivational stimulants are always needed. Here in a two-thousandth anniversary we have a natural arousal agent that would be hard to duplicate. We literally won’t have another chance like this in a thousand years! Although we must take into account human limitations, we should try for achievements that would normally be out of the question.

2. Set goals whose fulfillment can be measured. There is an anti-bricks-and-mortar mood abroad in certain sectors of the Church today that goes to the extreme of resisting commitment to anything very tangible. The danger of nebulous aims is that the achievements will be nebulous also. If there is value in starting something, then those who have a part in it ought to know how well it succeeds.

3. Aim for results that endure. The spectacular will tempt us away from the lasting. But we ought to steer away from temporal observances that are quickly forgotten into long-lasting areas like literature and the arts, things that can be enjoyed over and over again and appreciated for a long time. Perhaps the Church will have to battle for survival in the 2000s; we should be prepared for the worst eventuality. History can give us lessons as to what aspects of culture present a hedge against oppression in that they resist destruction by alien forces.

4. Most important, keep the overall orientation God-directed. It is easy in the present world to confuse the secular and the sacred and to rationalize purely human efforts pantheistically. But this will not happen if we consciously stick by Scripture. This means keeping in mind our mission and ministry here on earth, and realizing that the bimillennial does not change our basic perspective but simply presents an excitingly different and promising context in which to pursue what we should have been doing all along. Let’s be true to the principle and try to put it across to others that God is on our side and that the demands he makes upon human beings are for their own good because he loves them. And let’s be sensitive to the Church’s continuing need to demonstrate to the world that Christ makes a difference.

Decisions, Decisions …

A two-thousandth anniversary can be called a bimillennial, a bimillenary, or a bimillennium. We chose the first of these terms because it seemed likely to become the most common. But then we had another decision to make. One would think that “bimillennial” would be spelled like “millennial,” which all the major dictionaries spell with two ns. But Webster’s Third International (as well as the Seventh and Eighth New Collegiate, which are based on it) is the only leading work to include “bimillennial” as a noun, and it spells the word with only one n. We chose to dissent, and to spell it in what appears to us to be the more likely way.