Those irrepressible performers Flanders and Swann once produced a chauvinistic song that upheld the English against all Ausländer, including the Irish, Welsh, and Scots. Neatly they capsuled what was wrong with the non-English races:

It’s knowing they’re foreign

That makes them so mad.

As a foreigner who lived in England for many years and received no little kindness from the natives, I was continually bewildered by the ecclesiastical scene, more particularly by the Church of England. The latter’s attitude even to “occasional communion” was inconsistent in practice, and there was a vexatious tendency to divide Protestants into Anglicans on one hand, Nonconformists on the other—which left me dangling forlornly. At least the Romans made provision for me as a “separated brother.”

Having a magnificent grievance, then, as a member of the national Church of Scotland, I complained to my Anglican friends. They were more than a match for me, for they arranged that I contribute a regular column to one of their publications, never edited even my most outrageous utterances, but only smiled politely and said how nice it was to see themselves as others saw them. Broken on the rock of English imperturbability, I gave up after six years.

Last week my awareness of being foreign was revived with the arrival of the symposium Evangelicals Today, subtitled “13 Stock-taking essays” (Lutterworth, £ 2.60). Edited by John King, a former editor of the Church of England Newspaper, himself a fearsome toppler of evangelical icons, the book includes at least ten other Anglicans. (The two remaining essayists I cannot identify denominationally.) All thirteen writers live and work in England. That point is worth making, for despite the book’s title everything is written out of an English situation.

The reader will be left with the impression of something totally English and largely Anglican. This is a great pity, for there are weighty lessons here. John King considers that the book shows evangelicals’ readiness to “revalue themselves,” assess anew questions previously thought open and shut, acknowledge that the old ways “can no longer be considered good enough,” and “recognize that traditional evangelicalism is something less than Biblical.” The evangelical for too long shrank from facing up to problems raised by the authority of Scripture, and tended to disinherit those of differing views. His modern counterpart is racily termed “a horse of a different colour … much more concerned about the impact of the Gospel on the secular society,” and rejecting the view that the arts are an improper concern for redeemed man.

Continuing the alarming cult of showing the eminent reasonableness of today’s evangelicals, which reflects on yesterday’s, James Packer expresses some dissatisfaction with the “spotty” Anglican evangelical record in theology. The new mood is one of involvement rather than isolationism. He denies that the new evangelical tendency to ecumenical dialogue is one that “launches you down the slippery slope which ends in total theological ruin.” Packer sees as the main features of evangelical theology a biblical perspective, a trinitarian shape, a radical view of sin and grace, and a spiritual view of the Church.

Much of this attributes the start of new evangelical Anglican attitudes to an assembly at Keele in 1967. Keele is the occasion from which evangelical Anglicans date a new openness of mood, but I doubt whether they have ever launched a serious investigation into its divisive effects. Both Gordon Landreth and John Stott in their essays show sensitivity to the problem.

Perhaps to discuss the situation with reference to the respective positions of evangelical Anglicans, the Evangelical Alliance, and the British Evangelical Council would have merely an exacerbating effect. As the WCC might say, delicate negotiations are continually going on behind the scenes that would be jeopardized by publicity. Still, I would have liked to see John King devote a chapter to this burning issue. There is here a job of reconciliation to be done among British evangelicals. It would be an unspectacular, thankless task, but who better to take the first few faltering steps than those “acknowledged leaders of British evangelicalism” (publisher’s blurb) who have contributed to Evangelicals Today?

One such issue is dealt with by E. M. B. Green in his chapter “Evangelicals, Honesty and New Testament Study.” It begins with a sentence calculated to win the hearts of all comers: “Evangelicals ought to be the last people who could be arraigned for intellectual dishonesty.” This might be a trifle disingenuous: no one would dare deny it, and it makes the reader nervous about challenging some of the ensuing sections. I kept wondering whom the author was getting at when he suggests, for example, “To have a conservative view of Scripture does not mean an easy life, as if I had only to go to the book and read off all the answers.” This might be self-indictment, but I like Canon Green better in such statements as: “The most distinctive thing about the Evangelical in his approach to the Scriptures is that he does not simply go there for the problems that so engross most of his New Testament colleagues … but [goes] for food. It is here that he encounters Christ.”

It is impossible to comment on all the essays, but those of Norman Anderson, Rob Pearman, and Peter Cousins are not only thought-provoking but thoroughly non-partisan, in dealing respectively with “Secular Society, Morality and the Law,” “Evangelicals and Culture,” and “Evangelicals and Education.” Unlike certain of his co-authors, Gervase Duffield in “Evangelical Involvement” spurns the we’re-not-so-awful-after-all approach, laying about him savagely with a bludgeon as though he had old scores to settle. Sweeping, infuriating, entertaining all at once, his essay tells much more than the others of the real state of relations among his fellow-countrymen: the inordinate preoccupation with denominational wrangles, the deep-rooted prejudices, the personality clashes.

But what made this book worthwhile for me was Bryan Ellis’s “The Urban Scene”—an account of his ministry in an inner-city area. Here too the framework was Anglican, but it didn’t matter, for the failure and irrelevance of the Church to meet the living conditions outlined was so obviously not the failure of one denomination. Why did he stay in a wretched area where rewards were so few? Ellis quotes a German pastor: he stayed so that the rumors of God should not wholly die out. He tells too of a bishop who came to confirm slum boys, and after questioning them complained about their lack of prayer and Bible reading. “But it was the first time they had told the truth,” said their curate simply. As a former slum dweller myself I recognize the authenticity of the anecdotes and the irrelevance to them of all our little exercises in controversial divinity.

Each time I enter my local library, I’m struck by the multitude of avid students of all ages poring over bulky reference works and stacks of magazines in their research for essays, theses, dissertations, articles. The age at which the young tackle world problems such as ecology, abortion, women’s lib, pornography, and evolution seems to become steadily lower.

My fervent wish—one could even call it a prayer—is that these young innocents especially may find study sources that “tell it like it is,” the way you and I know that it is.… This, of course, leads to my question: Is Christianity Today in your library?

We’re already in several thousand libraries—but we should be in thousands more: high school, junior and senior college, university, city, town, country libraries. C.T. has long been indexed in the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, the standard researcher’s guide. “Guide” users find C.T.’s writings on the issues of the day cited along with secular ones. But are they then able to find our magazine in the same library where they’ve found the reference?

Librarians recognize the need to provide a balanced fare, but may be unaware of the subtle shadings among journals officially called “Protestant,” “Catholic,” or “Jewish.” You and I know the poles of opinion represented in these broad categories! We know that if C.T. hasn’t made your library’s periodical shelf, impressionable young minds are being deprived of

“… a trans-denominational Protestant magazine which is for conservatives and evangelicals what The Christian Century is for liberals.… Generally considered the most articulate, significant, and intellectual magazine of its type.… Affirms Biblical authority but not in a hyperliteral way. To offer readers a balanced fare, should be in any library which receives the Century.”

To this quote from our editor—in Bill Katz’s Magazines for Libraries, on which most librarians rely in ordering magazine subscriptions—Mr. Katz adds his own affirmation: “Agreed!”

Do you agree, too? In our effort to introduce the faith we represent into the nation’s libraries, you could be our most valuable asset! Librarians respond to patrons’ suggestions, and the personal approach tends to be more successful than, for instance, the donation of a subscription. Gift periodicals are often filed away among all sorts of eccentric and irregular giveaways.

If you care enough to approach your librarian on behalf of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, we’ll mail you as many copies as you can use of our new Library Folder. It’s an attractive brochure that incorporates C.T.’s rather impressive statistics, an excellent testimonial letter, and a letter to the librarian himself.

Who speaks for Christianity in your library? C.T. will—if you will!

Johanna Patterson

Assistant Circulation Manager

1014 Washington Building

Washington, D.C. 20005

Regular Baptists: The Issues

The General Association of Regular Baptist Churches is a weather vane indicating what issues are being talked about in fundamentalist circles. At this year’s convention in Kansas City, Missouri, attended by more than 3,000 messengers (delegates) and visitors, resolutions were passed against abortion on demand, occult practices, universalist teachings on salvation, and the charismatic movement (glossolalia was a special sign in apostolic times and “not intended as a spiritual gift to be exercised regularly in the churches throughout this dispensation”). Noting America had reached a “new low in politics and government,” the body called for prayer for leaders, enlightenment in public affairs, honesty in government, and restraint from unjust criticism.

The 1,400-plus GARBC missionaries were urged to “stand true” in the face of pressure from governments to conform to liberal ways. With Key 73 abroad in the land, the anti-Key 73 Regular Baptists (they are separatists) resolved to conduct special evangelistic activities, “using Biblical methods”—amounting to fulfillment of Key 73’s intent.

The messengers expressed concern over criticism of the institutional church and accused evangelist Billy Graham of “discrediting a divinely established institution” by remarking at Explo ’72 in Dallas that young people had made “an end run around the church.” Such criticism, they said, has led to disenchantment of many believers with their own church and to the proliferation of Christian organizations “having no relationship to local churches.” Further, “participation in small, informal group meetings, home Bible study gatherings or home sessions around taped messages are no substitute for active participation in a Scripturally organized church,” they declared.

There are 1,473 churches in the GARBC, up forty-six over last year, with about 205,000 members. Last year they gave $9.6 million to missionary causes.

Free Will Baptists: No Sign

Nearly 3,500 delegates to the thirty-seventh annual convention of the National Association of Free Will Baptists, meeting at Macon, Georgia, spoke out sharply against the charismatic movement, rejecting “the erroneous teaching that speaking in tongues is a visible sign of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” Executive Secretary Rufus Coffey and Moderator J. D. O’Donnell were reelected to their posts in the 2,250-church group, which has a membership nearing 200,000. Lieutenant Governor Lester Maddox gave a short Bible-laden message, and the delegates applauded him enthusiastically.

Our Own Little Watergate

Southern Baptists in Missouri are torn over the question of secret disbursements of funds, which some contend the executive committee of the Missouri Baptist Convention has tried to conceal.

One committee member, the Reverend James Hackney, who voiced opposition to committee practices, was, as a result, ousted promptly during recent committee meetings in Jefferson City.

Another, Pastor Marvin Hilton of the New Haven Baptist Church in suburban Kansas City, referred to the whole thing as “our own little Watergate.” Under question is $53,150, which is gone, and no one knows precisely where. At least, no one is telling. “The only reason we haven’t explained where all of the money went is that it might be embarrassing to some people,” said committee member Hilton. “For instance, some of the money was used to help buy groceries or things ministers had to have. They wouldn’t want everybody knowing about it.”

The committee has agreed to a public audit of the books for the past three years, asserting that it has not tried to cover up for Executive Secretary Earl C. Harding’s handling of funds. The amount under question represents but a fraction of the state convention’s budget of $5.6 million.

JAMES S. TINNEY

FIRST LADY

Navy Lieutenant Florence Dianna Pohlman, 32, is the military’s first commissioned woman chaplain. Her stated goal: “To serve the Lord Jesus Christ.”

After a brief Pentagon ceremony administered by Admiral E. R. Zumwalt, Jr., Chief of Naval Operations, Chaplain Pohlman reported to Newport, Rhode Island, for the eight-week indoctrination course required for all new chaplains. Her assignment for early September is at a naval training center in Orlando, Florida.

On the day before her commissioning, Miss Pohlman, a graduate of Occidental College (Los Angeles) and Princeton Seminary, became the 124th woman to be ordained in the United Presbyterian Church. The ordination sermon was preached by Dr. Louis H. Evans, Jr., of Washington’s National Presbyterian Church. Evans, who had been Miss Pohlman’s pastor for ten years at her home church in La Jolla, California, said the apostle Paul sowed the “radical seed of parity” in the Church with his statement that in Christ there is neither male nor female.

Big Switch In Big D

Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), based in Portsmouth, Virginia, plans a multi-million dollar switch of television stations in Dallas. Under terms of a preliminary agreement, CBN will pay Doubleday Broadcasting Company of Dallas $2.9 million for KDTV Channel 39, and certain program commitments, plus $1.6 million for a twenty-year lease on KDTV’s studios and transmitter. CBN’s present Dallas facility, KXTX Channel 33, which has been on the air only a few months, will have its call letters and programming transferred to the new station, and its license will be sold to another party, provided the FCC approves. The transaction will give CBN better production facilities and wide coverage, says 43-year-old CBN head Pat Robertson. (Channel 39 is carried by about fifty cable systems and serves scores of others in neighboring states.)

Program plans for the enlarged station include retention of current KDTV favorites such as “Gomer Pyle,” “Bonanza,” “Andy Griffith,” and “The Bold Ones” as well as late-night movies. The latter will be interspersed with Christian messages, according to a CBN spokesman. The station will also carry such CBN stalwarts as “The 700 Club,” “Right On,” and “The New Directions.”

The network owns and operates television stations in Portsmouth and Atlanta (see March 17, 1972, issue, page 40), and radio stations in New York and Virginia, and feeds programming to many others.

China In Scotland

While Scots denominations regularly report decreasing membership, there has been remarkable growth in the Chinese Church in Scotland. There are fellowships in the country’s four large cities, seeking to minister to 1,700 Chinese—chiefly students, nurses, doctors, and restaurant workers, from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, and Sawab. In addition to church services, Bible-study groups are held in homes and hospitals. In Edinburgh the manager of a Chinese restaurant opened a community center for his fellow countrymen and others. “We do not have a bar,” he said, “Only tea is drunk, and the people are happy.”

Last month eighty-six Chinese Christians gathered at Crieff for a three-day conference to discuss further outreach and (perhaps symbolically) climb some of the surrounding hills. The Scottish group is part of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission, which works among 70,000 Chinese in a dozen British and four continental cities. Some 1,600 conversions have been reported since work began in 1950.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Snakes And The Law

Snake-handling preachers Liston Pack and Alfred Ball of the Holiness Church of God in Jesus’ Name were fined $150 and $100 respectively and given suspended jail sentences for violating an injunction against engaging in dangerous practices in church. The action was in connection with a church meeting in Newport, Tennessee, in which Murl Bass, 35, of Chattanooga, was bitten by a rattler, an incident caught by a TV news cameraman and viewed by millions. Bass’s arm was saved by last-minute surgery. Despite jail threats, the men say they will continue their flirting with danger as a matter of faith. Earlier, Pack’s brother and another minister died after drinking strychnine, apparently flunking their test of faith.

The Church In Court

The dissident minority filed suit for possession of the church property after Pastor C. L. Walker of the Little Mountain (North Carolina) Baptist Church and his backers pulled the church out of the Southern Baptist Convention. Walker had preached that the SBC had become “infested with modernism.” A county jury ruled in favor of the minority, whose chief argument was that Walker and the majority were guilty of doctrinal deviation in changing the church’s character to that of an independent Baptist church. But the North Carolina Court of Appeals returned the case for retrial. Civil courts that handle church property disputes must not inquire into underlying doctrinal controversies or base their decisions on such doctrinal consideration, it ruled.

Religion In Transit

Hundreds of Jesuits and sisters soaked up the suds at Fog’n’Grog pub during a symposium on spirituality at the Jesuit-run University of San Francisco, billed as having opened California’s first public beer hall on a college campus. “Some of those nuns looked real cute hefting those big steins of beer,” said a spokesman for the 6,000-student coed school.

Win some, lose some. Dozens of CBS television affiliates bowed to protests and declined to show two “Maude” reruns with an abortion theme. The Federal Communications Commission, however, refused to grant equal time to religious groups opposed to abortion to state their case on offending stations.

More than 3,000 attended the annual Christian Booksellers Association convention in Dallas recently, largest in CBA history (about 800 were dealers). Books on Bible prophecy seemed to command most interest, with books on the charismatic movement and new versions of the Bible close behind. Also noted: the burgeoning growth of small independent paperback publishers.

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School was granted accreditation by the North Central Association of colleges and universities following admission earlier this year as a full member in the American Association of Theological Schools.

Things have settled down at the Creation House publishing firm with the return of executive Cliff Dudley. Dudley had resigned and taken a number of staffers and manuscripts with him to start another company. Creation House president Robert Walker, editor of Christian Life, bought out the new company and gave Dudley greater control over policy.

Jesus is making a visibly lasting impression on some people. Veteran tattoo artist Doc Webb of San Diego says the most popular tattoo today is Jesus Christ.

That much-photographed white, high-spired Catholic church which became a symbol of the seventy-one-day occupation of Wounded Knee burned to the ground, apparently a case of arson. Meanwhile, $85,000 of Iowa Methodist money was promised toward the $105,000 bail for Dennis Banks, the American Indian Movement leader arrested in connection with the Wounded Knee occupation.

Key 73 executive director Ted Raedeke says more than 11 million American homes have received scripture portions in the Key 73 outreach.

For two summers, using films and videotape, Cinco Baptist Church of Fort Walton Beach, Florida, has beamed its Vacation Bible School to the entire community by cable television.

Personalia

New Federal Bureau of Investigation head Clarence M. Kelley, police chief of Kansas City, Missouri, for twelve years, has an outstanding record as a churchman, says Pastor Lawrence W. Bash of Kansas City’s Country Club Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), where Kelley has served as deacon and elder.

Fiery fundamentalist Ian Paisley, leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party and member of the British parliament, and his wife won seats in the election of the new Ulster home-rule Assembly. They represent different constituencies.

IN MEMORIAM: L. NELSON BELL

The evening before his death, CHRISTIANITY TODAY executive editor L. Nelson Bell—formerly a missionary surgeon in China—addressed the opening of his denomination’s annual world missions conference at Anderson Auditorium, Montreat, North Carolina. Four days later, on Sunday afternoon, a service of worship and praise to God was held in his memory in the same great stone hall on the Southern Presbyterian summer assembly grounds. There were no other public funeral rites. He was buried the day after his death in an old churchyard at Swannanoa, North Carolina.

The memorial service was conducted by the Reverend Calvin Thielman, pastor of Montreat Presbyterian Church. Two long-time associates, Dr. C. Grier Davis and Dr. Henry B. Dendy, read portions of Scripture. Evangelist Billy Graham, Bell’s son-in-law, read a tract Bell had written in 1961 in which he gave his spiritual testimony. Three members of Graham’s team, Cliff Barrows, George Beverly Shea, and Tedd Smith, presented music along with organist Thomas Stierwalt of Montreat-Anderson College.

Bell died in his sleep in his Montreat home the morning of August 2, three days after his seventy-ninth birthday.

Retired: CHRISTIANITY TODAY contributing editor Gordon H. Clark, from the philosophy department at Butler University, after a teaching career spanning nearly fifty years.

Sister Elizabeth M. Edmunds, 32, a medical student in Philadelphia, has become the first nun commissioned by the U. S. Navy. Ensign Edmunds plans to become a Navy doctor.

Union Seminary in New York bestowed this year’s $5,000 Reinhold Niebuhr Award on National Farm Workers Union president Cesar Chavez.

Lynchburg (Virginia) Baptist College vice-president and academic dean Elmer Towns, author of numerous articles and books on church and Sunday-school growth, has resigned to head up his Institute for Sunday School Research in Savannah.

World Scene

Bolivian president Hugo Banzer Suarez and his wife are among the converts in the revival sweeping his country, according to missionaries. The revival was sparked by 20-year-old Catholic Pentecostal Julio Cesar Ruibal (see March 16 issue, page 40).

Five new churches have been organized among Hindu converts in the northwestern corner of Bangladesh. The country’s 12 per cent Hindu minority is reported to be unusually responsive to the Gospel, thanks in part to evangelical relief efforts.

Wycliffe Bible translation missionary Esther Matteson is in the Soviet Union, having obtained permission to do linguistic research among several of the language groups of the Caucasus.

The executive committee of the World Methodist Council, meeting in Mexico City as part of the 100th anniversary observances of the 50,000-member Methodist Church of Mexico, accepted six new member churches, bringing the total to fifty-nine denominations with about 20 million full members in eighty-seven nations.

At a joint synod of the three-million-member Netherlands Reformed Church and the 880,000-member Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, the first since the schism over liberal theology in 1886, delegates decided unanimously to move toward unity. Conservatives in both churches are opposing the effort because, they say, unity will only strengthen the entrenched liberals.

Evangelical victories in Greece: a three-judge court in Pyrgos acquitted American Mission to Greeks staffer George Constantinidis of charges that he violated laws against proselytizing; missionary Savvas Miltiadis was acquitted in Yannitsa of similar charges after he posted a tract, “What a Christian Believes,” on a town wall; and the nation’s highest tribunal overturned a government agency’s annulment of the right of the Free Evangelical Church to operate a youth camp.

The first-ever meeting of pan-Anglican and pan-Orthodox commissions took place recently in Oxford, England. The thirty-two members discussed doctrinal matters.

The Wheaton, Illinois-based Greater Europe Mission plans to open a seminary in Seeheim, Germany, in September. It will be Germany’s first evangelical interdenominational seminary, says GEM. Teachers will come from both state and free churches. Included will be Chairman Rudolph Bäumer of the No Other Gospel movement of evangelical concern within the state church.

Although largely unreported in the press, plenty has been happening this summer on the Christian youth scene, both inside and outside the institutional church. For instance, a record number of young people are engaged in short-term ministries overseas and at home. Prayer and Bible-study groups are proliferating. Also, there have been some notable events. This month, News Editor Edward E. Plowman visited Jesus ’73 on a Pennsylvania farm (he will report from London in a later issue on this month’s SPREE ’73, a British version of Explo ’72), and Editorial Associate Cheryl Forbes traveled to Houston for the pan-Lutheran Discovery ’73 event. Here are their reports.

It was evening and the believers were all together in one place. Suddenly, sizzling lightning streaks lit up the sky in a spectacular display of atmospheric fireworks, thunder cracked overhead, and the sound of a mighty rushing wind swept upon them. Boom, went the thunder. “Praise the Lord!” went the crowd, arms raised and faces uplifted into the rain.

Pentecost? A scene from Cecil B. DeMille? Neither. It was Friday night at the three-day Jesus ’73 get-together on a 240-acre barley and potato farm outside the village of Morgantown, Pennsylvania. The wind tore down the giant 180-foot-long prayer tent and the smaller press tent nearby (giving rise to remarks about rain falling on the just and the unjust), but nobody seemed very upset. And the rain was an answer to the prayers of many who had sweltered through two heat-record days.

As it was, the worst of the storm bypassed the encampment, and the thousands of worshipers joined Godspell star Katie Hanley, 24, a recently turned-on Christian, in singing “Day by Day.” Minutes later, deaf mute Rita Simpkins, 22, of a rehabilitation school in Virginia, in sign language told friends she was hearing music for the first time in her life. The news spread through the crowd, evoking more hugs and praises. (Friends of Miss Simpkins say she still does not hear normally, but confirm that “something has happened” and she is learning to speak.)

In all, Jesus ’73 drew more than 10,000 from thirty states, a group far smaller than the 50,000 initially envisioned, but far more manageable—and knowable. Most were youths in their early twenties. A number were house-church Jesus people, but many came from institutional churches, including a large contingent of Mennonites from the local Lancaster County area. The majority paid $15 each, a bargain in comparison to ticket prices for rock festivals. Unlike the big secular events, Jesus ’73 not only met its $40,000 or so budget but had almost that much left over. The excess was distributed to a number of Jesus-movement ministries and missionary agencies.

The event was conceived more than a year ago by the Eternal Family, a group of Lancaster County Jesus people, but as preparations became more hectic, management was put into the hands of Mennonite Harold M. Zimmerman, 46, and United Presbyterian John Musser, 46, both members of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship. Charismatic Mennonite Tom Hess, 34, handled programming. They kept the emphasis on Christian teaching and fellowship rather than on evangelistic outreach, a concept endorsed by evangelist Tom Skinner on opening night. “We keep challenging these kids to be reaching other people,” Skinner said. “If we keep that up, we’re going to have the most retarded generation of Christians in the history of the church.”

Skinner, probably the crowd’s favorite in a battery of name speakers and one of the few non-charismatic platform personalities, also cautioned against insincere band-wagoning and Pentecostal pushiness that is divisive. Many in the largely charismatic-oriented audience voiced their agreement. The upshot of it all was that people seemed to accept one another’s varying expressions of worship and faith as valid. Penn State grad student David Martin, 23, expressed a sentiment heard often. He said he was impressed most “by the commonality that we have in Christ. The church is not the Methodist, the Presbyterian, the Catholic; it’s the body of believers.”

The exuberance of youthful styles (black Jesus activist Ted Hayes leading cheers), the sometimes rock-like music (Randy Stonehill), and the roughing-it-of camp life didn’t seem to turn oldsters off. “I don’t know if this is a place for old people or not,” shouted the hand-clapping Sarah Stoltzfus, 66, of Lancaster over the blare of amplified music, “but I just love it.”

“Love,” stated 18-year-old Johanna Forbes of Bowie, Maryland, in summing up the impact of Jesus ’73. She wishes her church could have the same kind of human closeness and God-closeness she found there, another sentiment frequently heard.

State-police troopers, food-concession operators, and neighbors for miles around commented on the orderliness, cleanliness, and friendliness of the Jesus crowd. Area newspapers gave thorough coverage, featuring many testimonies. Mennonite farmer Paul Mast, 34, who hosted the event, said there ought to be more such affairs to show that the solutions to man’s problems are in Christ.

Obedience and discipleship were stressed in teaching sessions, one of the reasons why about 500 gathered for a mass baptism in a stream on Mast’s property (photo, opposite page).

Jesus ’73 closed Saturday night with a galaxy of speakers and musicians on stage. Perhaps the most sacred moment of all was as Andrae Crouch sang softly a chorus, “Jesus, Jesus,” while thousands in small circles held hands and prayed for one another.

A reporter from nearby Reading had gone throughout the camp asking questions. “Why are you here?” “Because we love Jesus,” replied a Virginia couple, adding, “Do you know him?” The reporter said he came away from Jesus ’73 with a feeling of peace and serenity, wondering what it was the Jesus people had found.

“Here is our dome away from home, our Astrochurch,” leaders Herb Brokering and Gerry Glaser declared to more than 19,000 young people in Houston’s Astrodome. From the three major Lutheran bodies (approximately 12,000 from the American Lutheran Church, 4,000 from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and 3,000 from the Lutheran Church in America), the young people gathered in Houston for five days early his month to celebrate the unity—and diversity—of believers and to proclaim that their eyes were “wide open to the mercies of God” (Romans 12:1 from the Phillips translation, the convention’s theme verse).

“Discovery ’73,” the first All-Lutheran Youth Gathering (ALYG)—a major Key 73 event for the three denominations—was a smorgasbord-style event intended to play down denominational differences and emphasize personal similarities. Young people came from across the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean to praise God in fellowship, study, and involvement. There were shirts with such slogans as “hysterical hoosiers for him” and “St. Louis, the home of Budweiser Beer.” Hundreds of kids sporting Jesus buttons and carrying “One Way” Living Bibles met under the slogan, “Expect more from the Bible and you’ll get it.” Other young people simply loafed around hotel swimming pools.

Each evening, the dome events began with rock groups, prayer, and the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed. Clowns and a mime group acted out what speakers were saying. Such choruses as “We Are One in the Spirit” and “For All the Saints” set the spirit of unity on the night that Catholic archbishop Fulton J. Sheen spoke about “our blessed Lord.” “We should not see a superstar,” he told the young people, but “the superscar, the sweet love of Jesus.” He compared Christ to the hub of a wheel with believers as the spokes. “The closer we get to the hub, the closer we get to each other,” shouted the archbishop amid applause and whistles.

Dedicated to the memory of the late ALC president Kent Knutson, Discovery ’73 also heard Mrs. Knutson praise God with alleluias as she and Sheen joined in liturgical prayer.

On another night, amid cheers, applause, and music from his film The Gospel Road, Johnny Cash strode onto the platform “to tell you about Jesus Christ only.” “He’ll take hold of you” if you’ll take hold of him, proclaimed the singer to the largest crowd of the week (nearly 22,000).

Seven theme “tracks”—or sessions on adult evangelism, youth evangelism, creative expression, environmental awareness, justice, women’s/men’s concerns, and war/peace/conscience—at three hotel clusters scattered around the city kept the kids busy in seminars, jam sessions, and small discussion groups. Evangelism sessions, such as one conducted by Jews for Jesus leader Moishe Rosen, recognized the social aspects of witnessing for Christ. After suggesting that street cleaning and house painting provided chances to talk about Jesus, Rosen divided his group into smaller sections of six each to discuss innovative ways to confront communities for Christ. Liberation theme tracks met before small-group sessions to worship in an evangelistic-style “liberation liturgy.”

In the creative expression track young people expressed and developed new ways to worship Jesus. Some wrote new songs, and some even learned to dance “to the glory of God” (professional dancer Marge Champion, leader of the dance workshop, also led an open-air worship service and danced “The Lord’s Prayer” in an evening dome event).

The electronic media in the dome, hall, and hotels created a sense of closeness in the midst of space. The dome’s elaborate scoreboard became a hymnal, a picture screen, a celebration of the resurrection. And the ALYG purchased air time on Houston’s educational television station, KUHT Channel 8, to pipe information, morning Bible studies, and late-night entertainment (11 P.M. to 1 A.M.) into the hotel rooms.

Planning for Discovery ’73 began in November, 1971, after the LCMS and the LCA accepted the ALC’s invitation to participate. Transportation, meals, housing, and other logistical matters went smoothly. The young people (they paid $55 each) had breakfast and lunch at their thirty-seven hotels and motels and ate supper together at the Astro-hall. Yet by the very nature and scope of the program confusion and exhaustion were virtually built-in hazards, so Discovery ’73 was not without complaint.

Many kids came for fun or just to get away from it all, but others came to learn more about what it means to be a Christian in a post-Christian society. To some observers, the fact that much of the audience talked through the performance of Mary Travers (who said during a taping session for television that she didn’t know whether God existed, but that she supposed it didn’t hurt to believe in him) and that three-fourths of the audience walked out on Kris Kristofferson (who followed Travers on the program and who doesn’t claim to be a Christian) underscored the concern for Jesus.

At one point in the concert—held under the banner “Christ Festival”—a disgusted teen-ager yelled, “We want Jesus.” And for the most part, kids got him. Houston’s Astrodome became God’s “Kingdome,” a five-day “Christendome” of love and joy in Jesus. As one girl put it, “every day my Christian life gets higher and higher here. By the time I get back to Minnesota I’ll be so psyched up about Jesus that the results will spill over into my work in the church.” Another girl from Iowa, 17-year-old Peggy Abens, said, “We’ve got to keep it simple. It’s all just Christ.”

The Lutheran Pentecostals

The charismatic movement is a growing, viable force in American Lutheranism. That was the message delivered at the second International Lutheran Conference on the Holy Spirit, held earlier this month at Minneapolis.

The conference wasn’t limited to Lutherans. Methodists, Catholics, Presbyterians, and old-line Pentecostals—all joined by their interest and participation in the charismatic movement—listened as Catholic, Lutheran, and Assemblies of God speakers urged the charismatics to seek a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit. They also heard David Wilkerson, Teen Challenge founder and author of The Cross and the Switchblade, warn of impending persecution for all charismatics—particularly those in the Catholic Church. Wilkerson, 41, an Assemblies of God minister, told the first-night audience of nearly 8,000 that he’d received a vision from God prophesying worldwide economic recession, natural catastrophies, youth rebellion, and persecution. “Watch for the [Catholic] church to pull in the welcome mat,” he warned the Catholic Pentecostals, who so far have had the tacit approval of the American hierarchy.

SIXTEEN MEN

Two received the Medal of Honor. One was killed by his own country’s bombers in an accidental air strike. Several perished in helicopter crashes. Another was gunned down as he ministered to a dying man. And one died as he was offering a Mass in a bunker. In all, sixteen U. S. military chaplains lost their lives in the Viet Nam war. Seven were Catholic priests, seven Protestant ministers, and two Jewish rabbis.

The Protestants included Army captain James J. L. Johnson, 33, a National Baptist, the only black U. S. chaplain to die in the war. Also: Army captain Phillip A. Nichols, 29, Assemblies of God; Army captain William Newcomer Feaster, 28, United Church of Christ; Army captain Merle D. Brown, 32, Evangelical Lutheran; Army major Don L. Bartley, 36, Southern Presbyterian; Army major Roger W. Heinz, 33, Missouri Synod Lutheran; Army major Ambrosio S. Grandea, 34, Methodist.

But another conference speaker, Pentecostal leader David DuPlessis, told the audience he saw no indication of imminent persecution. If any pope persecutes the charismatics, he said, it will have to be someone other than Pope Paul VI.

For the most part, however, speakers and delegates concentrated on spiritual renewal, both personal and congregational. The most popular workshop topics at the five-day conference included an “introduction to baptism of the Holy Spirit,” healing, prayer, the occult, and prophecy.

The conference was convened by an inter-Lutheran group of laymen and pastors but had no official Lutheran sponsorship. Registration exceeded 12,000 Conference officials estimated that 25 per cent were non-Lutheran charismatics, with the rest coming mostly from the three major Lutheran bodies—the American Lutheran Church (ALC), the Lutheran Church in America (LCA), and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS).

The conference was the product of a 1970 prayer meeting of charismatics of all three churches, said former ALC pastor and organizing committee chairman Norris L. Wogen of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The first international conference (held last year in Minneapolis) drew nearly 8,000 charismatics, many of whom were not aware of the extent of the movement within the Lutheran church, he said. Wogen, who speaks in tongues, left his church to take control of the conference steering committee. He described the 1972 conference as “a first kiss … an experience never to be repeated.” Contrasting with the ecstasy of last year’s meeting, he said, the 1973 conference projected concern, serious study, and preparation for church renewal.

Among the groups preparing for this renewal is the Seattle-based Lutheran Charisciples (charismatic disciples). Less than a year old, the group—led by twelve volunteers—seeks to “nurture” Lutheran charismatics and also to explain the charismatic movement to the rather neutral and somewhat cold-to-charismatics leadership of the three churches. Also the product of a joint lay-cleric prayer meeting, the Charisciples estimate that there are 4,300 charismatic families and 650 charismatic pastors within the three Lutheran branches. Charisciple speakers have appeared in Lutheran churches in thirty-one states so far, and the group plans to reach all Lutheran churches—either in person or by mail—by the end of 1973.

The purpose of the massive effort, explained Charisciple coordinator Hans Schnabel, is “to get into the Lutheran Church with the message of the charismatic Christ.” Primarily, the Charisciples want to head off charges that the movement is a threat to traditional Lutheranism. Said Schnabel, a former research director in the Pacific Northwest for the LCMS: “We’re not trying to superimpose our beliefs on others. We merely want to give guidance to the movement.”

Clarence Finsaas, a former Lutheran Brethren pastor who lost his Seattle-area church over the charismatic controversy, estimated that every mainline Protestant congregation in the Seattle area “has at least one charismatic in it, so far as I can tell.” Finsaas, now working with the Charisciples, said weekly prayer meetings draw Episcopalians, Baptists, Catholics, and Methodists as well as Lutherans. One such group, Trinity Fellowship in Seattle, attracts 150–200 to its twice-a-month meetings. It is interdenominational but has a strong Lutheran orientation.

Prayer fellowships are a mainstay in the Lutheran charismatic movement, which to date has been relatively unorganized with little contact between groups. Lutheran Charismatic Renewal, a mimeographed newsletter published in Valparaiso, Indiana, prepared what it called “the first attempt at listing prayer groups with a Lutheran flavor” for the Minneapolis meeting. It lists twenty-two groups from Wisconsin to New York.

Many participants pointed to the ALC as the strongest breeding ground for charismatics. Second in line, they said, was the LCMS, with the LCA far behind in charismatic participation. (Figures quoted at the conference claimed 300 ALC pastors, 300 LCMS, and fewer than 200 LCA. Because of the unstructured nature of the Lutheran movement, however, conference leaders said no exact figures could be given.)

Plans are being laid for a national leadership conference for Lutheran charismatics, probably to be held in Ann Arbor, Michigan, this winter, according to ALC pastor-author Larry Christenson of San Pedro, California, a veteran charismatic leader.

In the meantime, however, Lutherans are discovering that the increasing Pentecostalism in their traditional midst cannot be easily explained away. And they’re discovering that the upraised arms, the speaking in tongues, the singing in the spirit, and the hearty amens are not just external show but rather—to quote those in the movement—the manifestation of a deep desire to see renewal in the church.

BARRIE DOYLE

Prologue And Protest

More than fifty faculty members and staffers at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis issued a strong protest against action taken concerning them at the recent Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod biennial convention in New Orleans (see August 10 issue, page 40). Their statement makes it clear that they reject as binding President J. A. O. Preus’s theologically conservative doctrinal and interpretational guidelines which were elevated to officially binding status by the New Orleans convention. They vowed to stand together in the face of conservative pressures, and they called on others in the LCMS to join them in the protest movement.

In response, executive secretary Ralph Bohlmann of the LCMS Commission on Theology and Church Relations said the professors continue to misrepresent and defy the Synod and to stage publicity-seeking events that only further divide.

The doctrinally divided Council of Presidents met earlier with Preus to review the New Orleans actions and to quiz Preus on the future. Preus assured the synodical presidents that any doctrinal discipline will be carried out according to constitutional procedures.

Meanwhile, about 1,200 “moderate-liberals” (the losing side in New Orleans) met in St. Louis to lick one another’s wounds. Missions executive William Kohn said he thinks that some key doctrinal resolutions adopted at New Orleans are unconstitutional. Former LCMS president Oliver Harms expressed confidence in the Concordia faculty and said he could find no denial of scriptural or confessional doctrine on their part. Liberal leader Sam Roth revealed that steps were being taken to set up a legal injunction against dismissal of faculty members.

Children: Soft On Parents

A $1.1 million libel suit against parents of some members of the controversial Children of God group was dropped in Dallas by the COG with the explanation that it was taking too much time away from evangelism. The suit, filed last January, alleged that during a demonstration outside the Dallas Federal Building in October, 1971, the parents slandered the COG by claiming it is a subversive group, kidnaps young persons, drugs and hypnotizes them, and is part of a racket to extort money from converts.

The suit named the parents “individually and in their capacity as members of the Parents Committee to Free Our Sons and Daughters from the Children of God Organization” (FREECOG). COG spokesmen said the parents’ efforts to discredit the COG were futile, “evidenced by the fact that the Children of God continue to grow and prosper in their work.”

But, says FREECOG spokesman Ted Patrick, COG gave up only after FREECOG issued subpoenas requiring both the appearance of COG founder David “Moses” Berg (who has been in hiding overseas for several years) and the handing over of COG records.

JOHN SAILHAMER

Theology In Court

A Houston jury gave custody of two young brothers to their father after he testified that his ex-wife’s religious beliefs have harmed the boys’ health. Bizarre dietary practices and medical restrictions were cited. The mother is said to be a member of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God. The father, divorced in 1969, has broken with the group. The original settlement gave the mother custody and the father visiting privileges.

Mercy Mission

Five expense-paid rocky Mountain retreats for 900 POW-MIA families, sponsored by astronaut-evangelist James Irwin, have revealed deep-set adjustment problems beneath the hearty, happy exteriors shown by the POWs on their return.

The retreats, paid for by Irwin’s evangelistic association, High Flight, reportedly cost $250,000. (Irwin took out a $25,000 mortgage on his house and got donations from friends but apparently still has nearly $200,000 in unpaid bills.) The week-long sessions took place at a 3,000-acre ranch near Granby, Colorado, and provided entertainment (singer Norma Zimmer), recreation (fishing, hiking, horseback riding), and well-attended consultations with preachers, family counselors, psychiatrists, and attorneys.

Said Irwin’s associate evangelist, William Rittenhouse, of many of the POWs: “[They] had been wined and dined and given everything materially, but [until now] they had received nothing spiritually.”

Good News

The nearly 1,100 attending the biennial convention of the 22,000-member Missionary Church, headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana, heard good news. Per capita giving was $350 in 1971 and $386 last year, and attendance was up. The denomination boasts one active missionary overseas for every 143 members at home.

It’s said that a picture of Ted Patrick is pasted in a prominent place in every commune run by the far-flung Children of God sect. If so, it’s not for reasons of affection. The Children talk about him in the way a mother hen might speak of a chicken hawk. For Ted “Black Lightning” Patrick, 43, is a dreaded enemy who swoops out of unexpected places with parents, spiriting members away and “deprogramming” them right out of the group.

There are laws in this land against child stealing, kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, and deprivation of civil rights. But there are also vague laws that permit the violation of law in order to avoid greater damage or injury. Therein lies an out for parents and relatives who can convince authorities—and juries—that body-snatching is the only way a loved one can be rescued from the clutches of a sect allegedly wielding harmful control over members.

For more than two years Patrick and parents carried out their rescue missions without serious challenge from the law, often with policemen looking the other way or even assisting. As word spread, requests poured in for help in extricating youngsters from groups other than the Children of God, ranging from Jesus-movement ministries and charismatic communities to non-Christian cults and secular communes, and Patrick obliged (see April 27 issue, page 35). He says he has personally conducted more than 100 successful deprogrammings and inspired hundreds of others.

This month he was in a New York municipal court to face his first criminal verdict. The case involved, of all things, the super-straight coat-and-tie New Testament Missionary Fellowship (NTMF), a charismatic community of about forty persons, most of them college students or gainfully employed.

It all started in mid-January when the parents of 20-year-old Wes Lock-wood, until then a student at Yale, telephoned from Los Angeles to Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Voll in Farmington, Connecticut, and announced that Patrick had helped them get Wes out of the NTMF. The Volls then engaged Patrick to help them get their son Daniel away from the NTMF. The Volls, devout Missouri Synod Lutherans, felt their son was becoming alienated from them and acting strangely, and they blamed the NTMF, especially NTMF leader Hannah Lowe, an elderly former Pentecostal missionary.

Shy of his twenty-first birthday by two weeks, young Voll on January 29 was walking along 119th Street in Manhattan when his father and Patrick grabbed him and attempted to stuff him into a car driven by Mrs. Voll. In the struggle one of his fingers suffered permanent injury. Police arrived and hauled everybody off to the station, where Dan Voll filed charges of assault and unlawful imprisonment against Patrick.

The ensuing two-week-long trial, widely covered in the press, was a religion reporter’s dream. Non-institutional Christianity and the institutional church collided head-on in the grimy-green courtroom. Church doctrines and practices were argued and weighed by non-churchmen. The Jesus People, by Erickson, Enroth, and Peters was entered as evidence by both the prosecution and defense.

The trial was both colorful and confusing. Much of the time it seemed that Hannah Lowe and the NTMF were on trial instead of Patrick, with prosecutor Juan C. Ortiz cast in a defense role. When Eugene Voll complained that Daniel had talked about demonpossession and spoken disparagingly of the Catholic Church, Ortiz—son of Christian and Missionary Alliance people in Puerto Rico—threw back similar quotes from Luther’s Confessions.

Defense attorney Patrick Wall, a nominal Catholic, argued that his client was acting only as an agent of the parents, who in turn were convinced that extreme action was necessary to save their son from further harm. On the stand, Eugene Voll, a junior high school principal, quoted Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin and Yale psychiatrist Stephen Fleck as being critical of the NTMF. Hannah Lowe holds dangerous control over the group, he said Coffin told him. He confirmed his son’s account of how the youth became disenchanted with the family’s church and gave up plans to enter the Lutheran ministry.

After joining the NTMF, said Voll, Daniel’s visits home dropped sharply, he destroyed his collection of rock records with the explanation that they might contaminate his younger brother and sisters, and he decided to take a leave of absence from Yale to work in NTMF publishing endeavors. But neither Voll nor the “inside” testimony of Wes Lockwood established proof of anything sinister or high-handed about the NTMF. And under cross examination, Voll admitted he did not know what deprogramming might accomplish.

Ortiz brought to the stand President William McGill of Columbia University, where several NTMFers work and others have studied. He vouched for them and said he opposed attempts to restrict their freedom. We may not like some groups, he said, but “young people are seeking purpose, and sometimes they find it only among each other. We must afford them that right.”

United Methodist clergyman Dean Kelley, author of Why Conservative Churches Are Growing and religious-liberty director for the National Council of Churches, said he has found nothing bizarre, coercive, or secretive about the NTMF. “It is a typical high-demand religious group, of which there are hundreds,” he said. Such groups meet “acute-meaning” needs for many who might otherwise turn to drugs, alcohol, or suicide, he added. Mainline churches are increasingly diverting their attention to other pursuits, no longer imparting the meaning of what life is all about. Thus, said he, someone looking for meaning “might well decide to go elsewhere.” As for using force to extricate his daughter should she join a group he disapproved of, that would be “one of the most severe offenses in her life that I can think of.”

In a sidelight development, it was learned that Patrick spent several hours with assistant attorney general Maurice Oriel just before the incident with Daniel Voll. In his initial testimony, the elder Voll, who also met Oriel that day, indicated that Oriel knew that they were going to try to take the Voll boy by force and even wished them well. But after a recess, he changed his testimony and said Oriel didn’t know. (Oriel has been investigating the Children of God and possibly other groups. He was present at the court proceedings and was seen huddled on occasion with defense lawyer Wall.)

The judge threw out the assault charge (young Voll couldn’t say when or how his finger was hurt) and instructed the five-man, one-woman jury to acquit Patrick if they felt the Volls “reasonably” believed that Daniel faced psychological harm in the NTMF. It took the jurors less than two hours to acquit him.

Judge Wright warned that acquittal is not tantamount to declaring open season for deprogrammers to go hunting at will, but Ortiz and Kelley say it is, and Patrick himself says, “Now we can point to a court case.” (The Volls, however, promised their son that they will never use force on him again.)

Patrick says he will do some lecturing in order to raise his defense expenses, and will probably charge clients a fee in the future (he says he presently works on an expenses-only basis). During a weekend recess he slipped up to Cranston, Rhode Island, to deprogram an 18-year-old girl who had been abducted from the Children of God by relatives. Meanwhile, someone in St. Louis was holding a youngster in a mental institution and wanted him to hurry there.

Another NTMF member, Esther DiQuattro, 31, was abducted in May by her husband, his brother, and Patrick, but Pennsylvania police arrested them. A New York grand jury, however, declined indictment. Other NTMF members have also been under attack (they don’t go out alone anymore), and grand jury action is pending in one case. (The NTMF is non-communal, largely old-line Pentecostal in doctrine and practice, and worship-oriented.)

Patrick got wide national exposure this month in a three-part series on CBS television news. His deprogramming subject seen in that series was Kathy Crampton, a member of an offbeat non-Christian group in Seattle, known as the Church of Armageddon or Love Israel. After several days of interrogation, argument, and prayer, her deprogramming was declared a success. But a short time later she escaped and returned to the Seattle commune.

Patrick now says he will deprogram only those who were “alienated through misuse of the Bible.” (Though born and raised a Methodist, the cigar-puffing Patrick was active in Bible teaching and evangelism at Lee Roberson’s famed Highland Park Baptist Church in Chattanooga, and he co-founded the then Zion Bible College. He moved later to San Diego and became active in cooling racial strife, which brought him to the attention of government officials, who signed him up as a volunteer consultant.)

While some evangelicals hail him as an answer to prayer, other evangelicals are critical. Evangelist Moishe Rosen, fearful that Patrick might be hired by Jewish parents who don’t want their children in Rosen’s Jews for Jesus group, has issued guidelines on how to survive deprogramming.

Second of Two Parts

God in common grace showers humanity with many gifts. Both regenerate and unregenerate men may enjoy many of them. One of these gifts is sufficient light to live lives free of neurosis. In view of this the Christian can learn much from the non-Christian about counseling and psychotherapy.

This was the point of the first in this two-part series. This article takes up the findings of Truax and Carkhuff about the effective counselor. They have found that three characteristics mark the effective counselor, irrespective of his theory of counseling. They are accurate empathy, nonpossessive warmth, and genuineness.

Empathy is the capacity to feel along with the counselee. It involves getting in touch with his feelings and reflecting them back to him in synonymous terms. It is this that makes him feel “really understood.” The counselor does not merely understand the counselee’s ideas; rather, he tunes in on what is going on in the counselee at the feeling level. The effect of empathy is to relieve the counselee of the loneliness of his experience. He feels, At last another human being knows what I’m suffering!

To be effective, however, empathy must be accurate. One must neither overshoot nor undershoot. For example, a counselee may be merely peeved at her husband. For the counselor to say, “It sounds as though you are angry at your husband,” is to overshoot how she really feels. Or if she is in a fit of rage, it would be undershooting to say, “It sounds as though you are peeved at your husband.” To that obtuseness she might well reply, “Peeved? I’m so mad I could kill him!” When the counselor overshoots or undershoots, the counselee is left with the feeling that the counselor doesn’t really understand.

Accurate empathy is not difficult to develop. It is kin to the skill of active listening. This skill is one of three communication skills taught in the Intra family Communication Training Manual (I. C. T. Corp. Simi, Ca.) and also by Thomas Gordon in his book Parent Effectiveness Training. Despite the bad press given to encounter groups, a group is one of the best places to learn how to read feelings and develop accurate empathy.

Nonpossessive warmth is the ability to accept a counselee without condition as a worthwhile human being. Bad behavior is not accepted or condoned, but the counselee is accepted. Warmth is conveyed by attitude rather than word. Does the counselee detect a stiffness or aloofness in the counselor, or does the counselor appear to be relaxed, and to feel comfortable with the counselee?

Truax and Carkhuff make the word “nonpossessive” synonymous with “unconditional.” But the word nonpossessive should also be understood in its normal sense. The counselor must avoid playing the Jewish mother role—smothering the counselee with warmth. Ministers have been warned so long about the dangers of being unaccepting and judgmental, especially of gross sinners, that they sometimes go overboard with warmth.

Unconditional or nonpossessive warmth is something that cannot be produced through study and conscious effort. It is the natural overflow of a life that has developed self-love and self-respect. Unfortunately, some men in pastoral counseling have not learned that they have difficulty loving their neighbor as themselves because they don’t love themselves. Self-reproach and self-hate are bound to stunt the development of nonpossessive warmth.

Genuineness is difficult to define because the best operational definitions really describe its absence. It involves an intimate acquaintance with ourselves and the ability to accept ourselves, the good and bad, without defense or excuse. Sometimes the defense takes the form of a retreat into the pastoral role or a façade, as though the counselee prompted no emotional response in them. Countertransference is the unconscious reaction of the counselor to the counselee that draws the counselor into his game and under his power. Genuineness is needed at this very point. The neurotic is a master at pulling the response from people that serves his ends. The counselor may be genuine and avoid countertransference at the same time if he will say exactly what effect the counselee is producing in him at the feeling level without playing into his hands. The fact that the counselor communicates what is happening keeps it from happening.

An incorrigible teen-age girl was brought to my office by her parents. Her game soon became evident. She would goad adults until they became angry and would lose control. Then she’d back off, be sweet—and take control. I said to her, “B—, when you talk abusively like that I feel like smacking you out of that chair. But that’s exactly what you want me to do, because when I lose control, then you are in control.” Then I smiled and said, “I’m not going to play your game.” She laughed and said, “You really have me pegged, don’t you?”

The neurotic doesn’t know what it means to be genuine—to feel good about his strengths and to be candid about his weaknesses in a nondefensive way. He is committed to presenting a façade that he thinks people will like and that will help him cope with anxiety. Genuineness on the part of the counselor is a model that the counselee desperately needs. Not only does this model show him how to be genuine, but it also encourages him to relate to the counselor in a genuine way, without his façade. The counselor’s genuineness is a way of saying, “It’s O.K. to take off your mask here. I’m not afraid you will hurt me, and you don’t have to be afraid I’ll hurt you.” This does not mean that the therapy will be painless. It does mean, however, that the counselor will be completely honest.

God has made all men, Christian and non-Christian alike, responsive to the counselor who is accurately empathic, nonpossessively warm, and genuine. The Christian counselor, if he is to be effective, must make the therapeutic triad his own—not because he is a Christian but because he is a human being.—ANDRE BUSTANOBY, marriage and family counselor, Bowie, Maryland.

For the christian, belief in the Resurrection is an imperative, a doctrine, a component part of saving faith. The Apostle Paul states this with perfect clarity: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Rom. 10:9).

There is no sadder commentary on contemporary theological deviations than the contortions of those who try to evade, “spiritualize,” or frankly deny the fact of the Resurrection. What some will not admit is that without the Resurrection there is no Christianity.

The “ifs” in Paul’s affirmations of the Resurrection, as found in First Corinthians 15, are arresting (here we are using Phillips’s translation): “Now if the rising of Christ from the dead is the very heart of our message …” (v. 12). Here Paul is asserting that the Resurrection of Christ was the very heart of his preaching, and of that of the other apostles.

This is confirmed in the Book of the Acts, where it is recorded that Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, said: “Christ is the man Jesus, whom God raised up—a fact of which all of us are eyewitnesses!” (Acts 2:32). It may be worth noting too that eyes do not see spirits. The early disciples were witnesses to One whom they had seen after his resurrection.

Peter noted also David’s prophetic witness: “While he was alive he was a prophet.… He foresaw the resurrection of Christ, and it is thus of which he is speaking” (in Psalm 132:11).

Earlier, when choosing a successor to Judas, the apostles agreed: “This man must be an eyewitness with us to the resurrection of Jesus” (Acts 1:22).

In their first clash with the religious authorities following Pentecost, the temple guards and the Sadducees were “thoroughly incensed that they should be teaching the people and should assure them that the resurrection of the dead had been proved through the rising of Jesus” (Acts 4:2).

Later, threatened by the council, they refused to cease preaching Christ crucified, dead, and risen. Their answer to their tormentors was to pray for more boldness to proclaim the message. As a result there came a new infilling of the Holy Spirit, and we are told: “The apostles continued to give their witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus with great force” (Acts 4:33a).

Paul, in his memorable witness to the pagans of Athens, excited both the curiosity and the derision of the philosophers: “ ‘What is this cock sparrow trying to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be trying to proclaim some more gods to us, and outlandish ones at that!’ For Paul was actually proclaiming ‘Jesus’ and ‘the resurrection’ ” (Acts 17:18).

In his subsequent sermon on Mars Hill he said: “ ‘Now while it is true that God overlooked the days of ignorance he now commands all men everywhere to repent. For he has fixed a day on which he will judge the whole world in justice by the standard of a man whom he has appointed. That this is so he has guaranteed to all men by raising this man from the dead” (Acts 17:30, 31).

Paul’s ministry was so fixed on the fact of the Resurrection that when he was arrested in Jerusalem, he cried out to the assembled Pharisees and Sadducees, “It is for my hope in the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial!” (Acts 23:6). All through Paul’s letters there is the triumphant note of the fact and effect of our Lord’s Resurrection.

Peter has the same theme in his letters, “Thank God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that in his great mercy we men have been born again into a life full of hope, through Christ’s rising from the dead!” (1 Pet. 1:3).

Paul’s second “if” is this: “For if there is no such thing as the resurrection of the dead, then Christ was never raised” (1 Cor. 15:13). In other words, man’s hope of resurrection rests in the prior fact of Christ’s having risen.

Paul continues: “And if Christ was not raised then neither our preaching nor your faith has any meaning at all” (v. 14).

Is preaching that explains away the Resurrection, or denies its reality through some legerdemain of “spiritualization,” meaningless? Apparently so. Is faith in a Christ who did not actually rise from the dead so that he could be touched and handled—a Christ who did not eat in the presence of his disciples, a Christ who did not explain the meaning of the Scriptures to men whose hearts were left burning with a new understanding of the Old Testament—is faith in such a Christ useless? Apparently so.

The “ifs” continue: “Further [if Christ did not rise] we are lying in our witness for God, for we have given our solemn testimony that he did raise up Christ …” (v. 15).

One is forced to make a decision: Shall the testimony of men who had intimate personal contact with the risen Lord, men who knew of his Resurrection through the testimony of their physical senses, be accepted at face value? Or shall we believe those who, separated from him by nearly twenty centuries, do not choose to accept this testimony?

That man’s salvation rests in faith in the resurrected Lord is clear in the next “if”: “If Christ did not rise your faith is futile and your sins have never been forgiven” (v. 17).

And finally, “Truly, if our hope in Christ were limited to this life only we should, of all mankind, be the most to be pitied” (v. 19).

Can there be any connection between an unresurrected Christ, or one who rose in spirit only, and the present confusion of temporal with eternal concerns? The confusion of reformation with regeneration? Of humanitarianism with evangelism and missions? There can be!

Paul gives a final solemn warning that seems relevant today. “Don’t let yourselves be deceived. Talking about things that are not true is bound to be reflected in practical conduct. Come back to your senses, and don’t dabble in sinful doubts. Remember that there are men who have plenty to say but have no knowledge of God …” (vv. 33, 34).

The Cross is the central event of history. The Resurrection is the cornerstone of the Christian’s hope, for the open tomb sealed once for all the validity and efficacy of the death of the Son of God for the sins of the world.

Why try to explain it away? Why try in any way to becloud its reality? Had there been a camera present as the stone rolled away and the risen Lord walked forth, it could have recorded the event for all history.

But God does not work that way. He speaks to us today: “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29, KJV).

Ours is the privilege of believing the testimony of those who saw and knew, and of knowing Him today.