Mission in the 70s, edited by John T. Boberg and James A. Scherer (Chicago Cluster of Theological Schools [1100 East 55th St., Chicago, III. 60616] 1972, 208 pp., n.p., pb), Church/Mission Tensions Today, edited by C. Peter Wagner (Moody, 1972, 238 pp., $4.96), and Eye of the Storm: The Great Debate in Mission, edited by Donald McGavran (Word, 1972, 300 pp., $6.95), are reviewed by C. Rene Padilla, associate general secretary for Latin America, International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The missionary enterprise directed from the “Christian” West to the Third World is going through deep waters. Most of the older, larger denominations are speedily reducing the numbers of missionaries overseas. The non-denominational missions are, generally speaking, having to increase their efforts to raise support for a decreasing number of volunteers. In Roman Catholic circles, several missionary agencies and journals have disappeared. Interestingly enough, there seems to be a proliferation of literature on “missions,” of which these three symposiums are but a sample. It has been said that in the history of the Church a keen ecclesiological interest has almost always been a sign of decadence, while a concern for Christology and eschatology signals spiritual vitality and missionary advance. If this is so, should not the proliferation of missionary literature be interpreted as a symptom of the crisis of the (Western) missionary enterprise?

Mission in the ’70s is the result of the “Mission 1971” institute sponsored by several Chicago seminaries as an ecumenical venture in the continuing education of field missionaries and mission administrators. It includes eleven major papers, two “reactions,” and as an appendix an address presented to the Midwest Fellowship of Professors of Missions. Five of the writers are Roman Catholic, the rest Protestant. The subjects range from such theological questions as the meaning of salvation, the aim of mission, and the relation of the Christian faith to other faiths to such pragmatic problems as the decrease in missionary support, the transfer of leadership from churches in the West to churches in the Third World, and the communication of the Gospel across cultural barriers. One major question that the institute faced, however, was the relation between social and economic development and mission. By reading the book one could easily guess what is actually reported on this issue by the editors: “No verdict was reached.… We saw that participation in human development is an indispensable aspect of Christian mission today, but some expressed alarm that it was becoming so dominant as to displace other more traditional missionary tasks. This issue is certain to be with us for a long time” (Introduction).

The overall impression that Mission in the ’70s left on me was that many of the questions its writers raise (whatever one may think of their answers) are certainly the questions that missiologists need to raise today. In the final analysis they can all be reduced to one: What is the Gospel? We may (all too easily) assume that we know all (or almost all) the answers, but an honest facing of this main question in its relation to the Christian mission may show our need to go back to first base. How would our interpretation of the Gospel, for instance, stand up to Carl E. Braaten’s challenge for a theology of mission “with a spine that can hold together the personal and the social, the existential and the political, the historical and the eschatological, dimensions of the Christian faith”? Or how would it come out if it were examined in the light of Warren J. Roth’s claim that Christianity in the West has taken on “a distinctly European character” and that “since the end of World War II, the European and American cultural appendages of the Gospel have become an increasingly heavy burden on those who feel called to carry Christ’s message to people of non-European traditions”? In what may be regarded as one of the best chapters in the book, Ronald Scott comes to a timely conclusion that bears on the same question and will need to be taken to heart by anyone interested in the Christian mission: “Our motivation for the Christian mission must not rest on our cultural orientation, but fundamentally on an awareness of the Gospel and its meaning in the world today, the magnificence of God and His riches in Christ Jesus.”

The second book, Church/Mission Tensions Today, contains twelve essays written by twelve missionary executives who participated in a 1971 Conference at Green Lake (GL ’71) sponsored by the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (EFMA) and the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association (IFMA). The stated purpose of GL ’71 was to deal with issues regarding the form of the missionary organization in its relation to “sending” and “receiving” churches. The concentration of the papers, however, is on the relation between North American missions and overseas churches. The only exceptions are the chapters “Closing Gaps Between Missions and Home Churches” (Gordon MacDonald), and “Churches: Your Missions Need You” (Charles Mellis and Robert Lehnhart).

It was Emil Brunner who stated that “the church exists by mission as fire exists by burning.” This well-known aphorism is quoted in the Introduction (without mention of the author’s name) and becomes a recurring theme throughout the book. The missionary nature of the Church is a premise that no one needs to argue. The problem comes when the attempt is made to define the relation between the “younger churches” that have developed around the world—“the great fact of our time,” largely a result of the missionary movement—and the parent (mostly North American) missionary societies. Now that the “home base” is everywhere and that the existence of the “younger churches” is “no longer based on any significant foreign financial or organizational support, much less control” (Winter), what is the place of foreign missionary personnel (and, consequently, of missionary structures)? Are they not a hangover from the past?

To various of the authors the answer is quite obvious. Robertson McQuilkin, for instance, argues that, since the evangelistic mission of the Church—“proclamation, persuasion, and establishing congregations of God’s people”—will not be complete until every person in the world has heard the Gospel, “the role of the (foreign) missionary evangelist is more needed today than ever.” In a similar vein C. Peter Wagner claims that “the fourth world”—“all those who, regardless of where they may be located geographically, have yet to come to Christ”—is the “top-priority objective of missions” and therefore “the day of the [foreign] missionary will not be over until the present age ends.” Interestingly enough, both Mc-Quilkin and Wagner explicitly agree with McGavran’s statement that church-mission relationships are “important chiefly if they enable effective discipling of men and ethne to take place.” The conclusion is clear: the church-mission question need not be discussed except as it relates to the “top-priority objective of [North American] missions,” previously defined by (North American) missiologists since the “younger churches” have nothing to say on the subject of the Christian mission. It does appear as if at least for these missiologists the main purpose of GL ’71 was to encourage missions not to bother about church-mission tensions but to keep up their good job until the end of the age!

A much more realistic approach to the whole question is needed. Now that the missionary “home base” is everywhere, there are church-mission tensions that may turn either creative or cramping in relation to the Church’s mission, depending on how they are faced. Surely, they will not be solved by being disregarded in the name of a top priority defined a priori in North America. All too often, for instance, the impression is given in the Third World that the expansion of Christianity is tied up with Western imperialism (as is shown by Warren Webster in chapter five). Can this image be changed before all major policy-making for the ministry in the “mission field” is transferred from the Western bases to the nations concerned? Again, if (as claimed by Mellis and Lehnhart) in informing the “sending” churches about overseas missions “it now takes real courage to place integrity ahead of emotional impact in our written communications,” should not for the sake of integrity the breaking of the “communication gap” between “sending” and “receiving” churches become a “top priority objective of missions” now? Or should this also wait until the end of the age? Moreover, what is to be done about the frustration of nationals over the complexity of overseas missionary structures, which, according to Philip Armstrong, GL ’71 brought out?

Encouragingly, a few of the writers (particularly Armstrong, whose chapter is worth the whole book) are aware that there are church-mission tensions that will not be solved by an appeal to platitudes and that “the breakdown of any dichotomy of mission and church overseas is essential for survival.” If there are no more who are so aware, perhaps it is simply because the book reflects the situation at GL ’71: “Strangely enough, most evangelical missions at Green Lake would feel that they have a good working relationship with the national church.… However, nothing became clearer from the panel of international church leaders at Green Lake than their desire to have barriers removed to clear the way for a massive proclamation of the gospel” (Armstrong). By the way, is not the total absence from the authorship of this book of these “international church leaders” to whom Armstrong refers symptomatic of the way (North American) missions are on the whole relating themselves to (overseas) churches?

Eye of the Storm is undoubtedly one of the most stimulating works published in the field of Christian “missiology” in the last few years. Here are, all in one volume, the arguments and counter-arguments of representative church and mission leaders, participating in “The Great Debate in Mission” that has been taking place (almost exclusively in the West) during the last two decades. The editor (founding dean of the School of World Mission and Institute of Church Growth at Fuller Seminary) and the publishers are to be commended for bringing together thirty-one documents on such critical questions as the nature of evangelism and the meaning of church growth. This is the greatest value of the book—that it lets people like J. G. Davies, J. C. Hoekendijk, J. B. A. Kessler, D. A. Hubbard, John R. W. Stott, and Max Warren (to mention a few names) speak for themselves regardless of their theological position. McGavran’s hope is that, by acquainting themselves with the issues, Christians will “help direct their missions into correct channels.”

If the Gospel means anything, it goes without saying that no true Christian can fail to regard the proclamation of the Gospel to all men, conversion, and the planting of churches as essential to the Christian mission. Were McGavran’s efforts entirely addressed to an affirmation of these aspects of mission over against a theology in which mission is completely secularized, I know beyond doubt which side of the “debate” I would stand on, in faithfulness to the Gospel. I must confess, however, that reading this book has confirmed me in a long-sustained conviction that the one-sided view advocated by McGavran is not the answer to the one-sided view advocated by the secularists. The issues are much deeper than they would appear to be from the perspective of the American missiologist. Quite definitely, the choice is not between a view of the Church as something that “has value in itself” and a view of the Church as “an instrument toward making this a better world” or between “discipling the nations or having love for one another” or between “soteriology or ethics.” In both developed and developing countries, a disembodied Gospel—soteriology without ethics—simply will not do. The most urgent need of our “fantastically growing churches” in Latin America, for instance, is to become less concerned with their own (numerical) aggrandizement and more concerned with the application of the Gospel to practical life. The biblical message knows nothing of soteriology without ethics or faith without works. The discipling of the nations of which Matthew 28:19 speaks involves baptizing men everywhere and teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded his apostles. In the light of it, there is no basis for the claim that the Church “must grow in numbers before it can grow in grace” (italics mine). How long should the Church in Latin America wait until it begins to grow in grace? Can a church really exist without koinonia and diakonia? Are the works of faith optional? One wonders if it is not precisely the type of thinking represented by McGavran that has produced the nominal Christianity that characterizes many of the churches in this part of the world. “Church growth” á la McGavran is definitely not the answer to the problems of the Church in Latin America!

Not all the arguments posed against McGavran’s concept of the Christian mission by several of the contributors to Eye of the Storm can be explained as expressions of a secularized Christianity. Far from it! At least to one reader, however, there is in McGavran a blind spot that prevents him from fully acknowledging what his opponents are saying. His own chapters, whether meant as an answer to Hoekendijk, or as a denunciation of a wrong strategy as “the real crisis in mission,” or as a restatement of the right strategy, or as a defense of a definition of mission as “proclamation” over against “presence,” or as a critique of the Uppsala Draft on Mission, are little more than variations on the same theme. One would wish that these chapters had developed the more balanced position contained in his sixth contribution (“Uppsala’s ‘Program for Mission’ and Church Growth”) and particularly in the note at the end of that chapter: “The main goal to be kept in mind is that Christian mission, its theology and its program, must serve the two billion at the point of both physical/social need and their eternal salvation” (italics his).

If these three symposiums prove anything, it is that the greatest need of the Church today is a rediscovery of the Gospel. Without it, mission will cease to be God’s action through his people and be turned into either dialogue or proselytism.

Christians And Social Chance

Liberation Ethics: A Political Scientist Examines the Role of Violence in Revolutionary Change, by John M. Swomley (Macmillan, 1972, 243 pp., $6.95), Ethical Resources For Political and Economic Decision, by Harvey Seifert (Westminster, 1972, 174 pp., $5.75), Commands of Christ: Authority and Implications, by Paul S. Minear (Abingdon, 1972, 190 pp., $4.95), and A Social Action Primer, by Dieter T. Hessel (Westminster, 1972, 138 pp., $2.95 pb), are reviewed by Watson E. Mills, associate professor of philosophy and religion, Averett College, Danville, Virginia.

In recent years the mainstream denominations have been reawakened to the ethical demands of the faith in a way that equals any period in church history. Perhaps the obviously grave ills of our society have made it impossible for the Church to talk only about theology. The traditional role of the minister as overseer of the flock has been radically altered to enable local church communities to take an active part in solving the problems that confront all Christians.

In the midst of this return to the ethical teachings of faith, some writers are content to talk about the ethics of Jesus or of the New Testament. Others write from the vantage point of philosophical ethics, seeking to throw light upon the Christian life.

Dr. John M. Swomley zeroes in on “liberation ethics.” Today virtually all segments of the culture are affected in some way by the demands (and rights) of various minority groups. Swomley claims that all men are involved in evil, if evil is defined as anything that keeps men from becoming genuinely free. This may include personal authority over others, a social structure, or some personal addictive habit. Avoiding the Marxist error, Swomley believes that liberation ethics is not a cure-all that will produce a problem-free humanity. No social system can do that because of the single personal and corporate problem that looms on the horizon: sin. Yet he consistently maintains that oppression results not from men but from the social systems.

Simply put, the goal of liberation ethics is, says the author, the “unity of persons around the idea that each is important enough to be respected and loved by all.” But this simple and noble objective is exceedingly difficult to attain because of entrenched racism and imperialism and the like.

Swomley primarily advances strategies that the oppressed can use without being destroyed in the process. Once a community of oppressed is conscious of its plight, there must be public exposure of the situation. Such a move means that the oppressive power system can no longer continue to function simply on the basis of implied goodness or usefulness. The author discusses other strategies ranging from civil disobedience to disruption. He feels, however, that violence is but a subtle myth coaxing the oppressed into further oppression.

Professor Harvey Seifert opens up the question of resources for political and economic decisions. He has done an admirable job of involving the layman in the ethical arena. His sensitivity to the complexity of the present-day situation is apparent throughout the book.

Although he starts with the social processes, Seifert turns to the relevancy of belief in God. But he warns that many people who pose as reformers operate in ways that demand no fundamental change:

Deeply motivated religious persons will work not only at basic and throughgoing change but also at rapid transformation. A holy impatience results from realization of how diabolical existing evil is and how much every man now living deserves access to God-given resources he does not now have [p. 120].

While not bowling the reader over with excessive pessimism, Seifert clearly sounds a note of urgency.

Chapter five is particularly stimulating; it suggests some ways in which meaningful social strategies can be made a part of contemporary life-styles. “Goals without methods for reaching them are as helpless as a Scrabble player holding a Q without a U,” Seifert remarks.

He rejects the violent politics of the radical left or right because such tactics usually support, multiply, and solidify opposition. What radicals overlook is that when the chips are down, American power being distributed as it is, their cause cannot win. The author does, however, concede that from an ethical point of view there can be a legitimate use of violence—a just revolution. But the risks are high.

The twentieth-century Christian who wants to focus upon the standards for social involvement set forth by Jesus will do well to give serious attention to Professor Minear’s book. He starts where much of contemporary, skeptical biblical scholarship leaves off—with the authenticity of Jesus’ commands. Minear is not ignorant of the niceties of biblical scholarship, to be sure, and he uses redaction and form criticism throughout his study.

He selects a dozen representative commands of Jesus (the twelve that are most specific) and examines each as it developed and was applied to successive situations. He is intrigued especially with the command to “repent,” which is historically, logically and psychologically first since it forms the basis for the other commands. It is the boundary between the enemies and the disciples of Jesus. The author believes that the implications of repentance are spelled out in the other commands.

Dr. Hessel’s book is a how-to-do-it manual for those who seek involvement in social action. The need for such a book became clear to him as he taught a graduate course in “Strategies and Styles of Social Action.” Most books in the area are geared toward a description of the problem rather than particular action plans, he says. Like Seifert, Hessel puts his suggestions into language that is succinct and non-technical, and the average citizen who wants to combat the rigidities of society and its institutions will do well to read this little book. The volume could well be used as a guide for a social-action program in the local church. Pastors will find chapter seven, “And the Church?,” very helpful but perhaps not very comforting.

Hessel does an admirable job of prodding readers to adopt realistic techniques that employ just means within existing situations. He seems to suggest that a concrete good is better than an abstract best. A helpful appendix annotates styles of social involvement found in local churches.

NEWLY PUBLISHED

Answers to Questions, by F. F. Bruce (Zondervan, 264 pp., $6.95). Large selection of questions and answers from F. F. Bruce’s long-time popular column in the British magazine The Harvester. First part covers questions on the biblical text, the second questions on Christian doctrine and biblical subjects. Profound, but also clearly expressed and easy to read.

Synopsis of the Four Gospels, edited by Kurt Aland (American Bible Society, 361 pp., $13.50). Each pair of facing, large-size pages contains, on the left page, the Greek text of the Gospels, and on the right, the English translation (RSV), in matching parallel columns. A very helpful tool for those with even an elementary knowledge of Greek.

Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, edited by Constant Jacquet, Jr. (Abingdon, 278 pp., $8.95). Recently released is the 41st edition of a standard directory, with the title enlarged to reflect increased coverage of the continent. The data for ecumenical-movement participants (denominations and councils) and for Catholics is very useful. But some large and many small evangelical and other groups are omitted or inconsistently treated, doubtless through their own indifference. Since at least half of the Canadian denominations have their headquarters in the United States and many of the rest have sister bodies south of the border, it is good to have a single yearbook serving both countries. Perhaps the next edition can put the denominations in one alphabet instead of two.

Mark: Evangelist and Theologian by Ralph P. Martin (Zondervan, 240 pp., $3.95 pb). A creatively original survey of contemporary scholarship and a suggestion of a new purpose and life-setting for the second Gospel. The concluding chapter is on “Mark’s Gospel in Today’s World.”

Contemporary World Theology: A Layman’s Guidebook, by Harvie M. Conn (Presbyterian and Reformed, 155 pp., $2.95 pb). The most helpful, comprehensive, and balanced short treatment available, embracing not only traditional subjects, such as Barthian neo-orthodoxy and Bultmann’s existentialist interpretation, but also among others the theologies of hope and history. Discusses Teilhard’s “theology of evolution,” dispensationalism, and evangelicalism. In the tradition of Cornelius Van Til, Conn repudiates all theologies that fail to acknowledge biblical inerrancy, and criticizes many of the conservative movements that do. Gives much attention to theology in Asia.

Rock Opera, by Ellis Nassour (Hawthorne, 248 pp., $8.95). How Jesus Christ Superstar went from disc to stage to film—making money all the way. “The greatest story ever sold.” Depressing.

Wisdom in Israel, by Gerhard Von Rad (Abingdon, 330 pp., $12.95). A very important book, the last work by one of the most influential Old Testament scholars of our century. He studies the movement that found literary expression in the Bible in several books, such as Job and Proverbs. Loaded with dubious presuppositions.

The Message of the New Testament, by F. F. Bruce (Eerdmans, 120 pp., $1.95 pb). A layman’s introduction to New Testament theology by the dean of evangelical biblical scholars; simply and interestingly written.

The Fall Into Consciousness, by J. Stanley Barlow (Fortress, 148 pp., $3.75 pb). Discusses freedom and responsibility, guilt, shame, and anxiety in depth psychology from Freud to the present. Attempts to provide an alternative to despair. Little religious content, and what there is is borrowed only from existential theologians.

The Secret Gospel, by Morton Smith (Harper & Row, 148 pp., $5.95). Yet another scholarly attempt (Smith teaches history at Columbia) to discover a “true” Jesus different from the one portrayed in the New Testament. Such “quests” have a curious way of reflecting the times in which they are written. So, not surprisingly, Smith says the best way to classify Jesus is as a “miracle-working magician.” From the beginning heretics have taught, as Smith does, two kinds of Christianity, one for insiders, another for the masses. The true Gospel will survive this latest attempt to undermine it.

Help For the Handicapped Child, by Florence Weiner (McGraw-Hill, 221 pp., $7.95). Describes most of the significant handicaps and diseases along with the major helping agencies. Should be quite useful for pastors, especially as a starter for establishing local contacts.

The Becomers, by Keith Miller (Word, 185 pp., $5.95). Those who appreciated The Taste of New Wine and A Second Touch will not be disappointed by this refreshing discussion of “What happens to a person after becoming a Christian?”

Religion in Sociological Perspective: Essays in the Empirical Study of Religion, edited by Charles Y. Gock (Wadsworth Publishing Co. [Belmont, Calif. 94002] 315 pp., n.p., pb). From the Survey Research Center, University of California at Berkeley, twenty-one rather technical essays in five groups: being and becoming religious; the effects of religion; conformity and rebellion among religious professionals; the origin and evolution of religious groups; and the future of religion.

Is This Really the End? A Reformed Analysis of “The Late Great Planet Earth,” by George C. Miladin (Puritan-Reformed [706a Greenbank Rd., Wilmington, Del. 19808], 55 pp., $1.25 pb). Is there a rapture? Or a seven-year tribulation? A critique of Hal Lindsey’s best-seller, for which the author faults inconsistent use of biblical literalism and neglect of biblical themes. Outlines Reformed thought on the end-times.

Did You Receive the Spirit?, by Simon Tugwell (Paulist, 143 pp., $1.25 pb). A Catholic priest encourages group prayer and the use of spiritual gifts, including speaking in tongues. He disagrees with the attempt to tie sanctification totally to speaking in tongues. Smooth writing, gracious spirit.

The Acts of the Apostles, by William Neil (Attic [Box 1156, Greenwood, S. C. 29646], 272 pp., $9). An excellent commentary for the layman has been added to the “New Century Bible” series. Neil gives good reasons for treating Acts “with the utmost respect as a basically accurate account of what happened, recorded by a man whose evidence we have good cause to trust.”

The Gospel: Live It and Love It, by Rudolph Norden (Concordia, 79 pp., $1.95 pb). A well-written, orderly discussion of the meaning of the Gospel, and its implication for our lives. Good for new adult Christians.

Nigerian Harvest, by Edgar H. Smith (Baker, 318 pp., $5). A history of early Christian Reformed missionaries in Nigeria and the vibrant, growing Nigerian church there now. Very detailed.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible, edited by Herbert May and Bruce Metzger (Oxford, 1,564 pp., $9.50). A slightly revised and enlarged edition of a decade-old study Bible. The RSV is the translation, with the new second edition for its New Testament portion. The notes and general articles seek to be positive but reflect a moderate acceptance of mainstream biblical criticism (JEDP built upon the “creative influence of Moses”; Paul wrote Ephesians but not, “in their present form,” the Pastorals). Users should compare it with the Harper Study Bible (Zondervan), Holman Study Bible, or Oxford’s own alternative, the New Scofield.

Adolescent Sexuality in Contemporary America: Personal Values and Sexual Behavior, Ages 13–19, by Robert Sorenson (World, 549 pp., $20). The results of an extensive and in-depth survey. May be a little misleading because the most conservative parents often refused questioning of their children. This picture of what is happening sexually should lead Christian parents to see the need of sensibly informing their children and helping them understand and conform to biblical sexual ethics.

Laymen Look at Preaching: Lay Expectation Factors in Relation to the Preaching of Helmut Thielicke, by Marvin J. Dirks (Christopher, 326 pp., $6.50). A detailed study of the technique and impact of one of the very few Continental preachers who consistently draw capacity crowds.

Dynamic Discipleship, by Kenneth C. Kinghorn (Revell, 157 pp., $4.95). A readable guidebook for new Christians and those interested in becoming more effective disciples. Pinpoints problem attitudes and suggests constructive steps toward a dynamic walk in the Spirit.

The Methodist Revolution, by Bernard Semmel (Basic, 273 pp., $10.95). Social changes that reduced the need for social revolution in England (democratization, middle-class personal habits, obedience to the state) were the results of the aggressive evangelization and Arminian theology of Wesley and many early followers. Extensive footnoting and bibliography. Well written; valuable interpretation of an era.

First of Two Farts

Charles B. Truax and Robert R. Carkhuff in their book Toward Effective Counseling and Psychotherapy: Training and Practice (Aldine-Atherton, 1967) say that counseling by and large is ineffective. Some counselors and therapists are significantly helpful while others are significantly harmful. The result is an average helpfulness not demonstrably better than the effect of no professional treatment. But among those who are effective counselors, say these authors, three characteristics are common to all. Whether his approach is psychoanalytic, client-centered, behavioristic, or eclectic, the effective counselor possesses accurate empathy, nonpossessive warmth, and genuineness.

Do pastors have anything to learn from this study? Should they examine their counseling practice to see if they possess this “therapeutic triad”?

An attitude prevalent in the Christian community is that the counsel of Christians and non-Christians is worlds apart. It is felt that nothing good can come from unregenerate man, or at least that what comes from him is certainly inferior to what the Christian has to offer. Is this feeling valid?

This two-part article will attempt to demonstrate (1) that non-Christians, because of common grace, have much to teach Christians about counseling and (2) that the therapeutic triad should be found in Christian counseling.

The Christian counseling popular today seems permeated with the idea that unregenerate counselors have little or nothing to offer the believer seeking counsel. The believer, it is said, needs counsel that is uniquely Christian and is derived solely from the Bible. As one school of thought expresses it, competent counselors don’t borrow a little Freud, a little Rogers, and a little Skinner and frost it all over with a few Bible verses. A “totally biblical” methodology is said to be the goal. Interestingly, this “totally biblical” methodology employs many elements in common with professional counseling.

A serious neglect of the doctrine of common grace is evident in the theory of much Christian counseling. Every Christian counselor would do well to read Cornelius Van Til’s booklet Common Grace (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1954). In brief, he has this to say about common grace. It is “a certain positive accomplishment in history that the sinner is enabled to make by God’s gifts to him” (Ps. 145:9, Luke 6:35, 36, Acts 14:16, 17, 1 Tim. 4:10). It “equips human life ever more thoroughly against suffering, and internally brings it to richer and fuller development.” The history of civilization is proof “that man is the co-laborer with God.”

The 1924 Synod of the Christian Reformed Church, parrying attacks on the doctrine of common grace, went so far as to say that when it comes to promoting temporal welfare “the unconverted man can even excel, a regenerated person.… Though fallen and depraved the natural man is still a rational creature.” Although he thinks creation exists apart from God, he is able to understand the operation of this creation. “Looking at the matter thus allows for legitimate cooperation with non-Christian scientists.…” Calvin was of the same mind when he said, “Because God has determined everything, secondary causes have genuine meaning.”

Van Til then concludes, “Accordingly, we need not fear to assert that there is a certain attitude of favor on the part of God toward a generality of mankind, and a certain good before God in the life of the historically undeveloped unbeliever.” We must maintain with Calvin “that he who reads nature aright reads it as the Christian reads it” (italics mine).

We can therefore be “generous” with the unbeliever, says Van Til:

It is when we ourselves are fully self-conscious that we can cooperate with those to whose building we own the title. God’s rain and sunshine comes, we know, to his creatures made in his image.… Then why not cooperate with those with whom we are in this world but with whom we are not of this world? Our cooperation will be just so far as and so far forth.

From what Van Til says I gather that if Truax and Carkhuff read nature aright they deserve our attention. They may interpret creation apart from God, but if they read it aright they will read it no differently than a biblically committed Christian reads it.

Does this mean the Christian pastoral counselor has nothing unique to offer? I answer that a well-trained Christian counselor has an advantage over a non-Christian: he is able to understand man’s spiritual dimension. This is especially important in counseling Christians whose lack of spiritual health impinges on their emotional health. What is more, a man who accepts the Bible as his authority will not be satisfied with what he considers the answers of men. He often will accept answers from the Bible.

This was demonstrated to me by a young man suffering severe depression. He had committed a sin he felt was especially abhorrent. He said he had confessed it but still felt condemned. He believed that he was still God’s child and that God had forgiven him, but he couldn’t forgive himself. I had him read to me aloud Romans 8:31–34. I said, “God doesn’t condemn you, but you condemn yourself. Who on earth do you think you are to condemn yourself when God doesn’t? Are you greater than God?” He broke into a broad grin. My “righteous indignation” based on the authority of Scripture made its point. The depression was broken.

The Christian pastoral counselor is not only equipped to use the authority of Scripture but is also in a position to understand the dynamics of the Holy Spirit’s operation in the Christian, and to be taught by the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2:11–16).

Finally, the Christian counselor is committed to the preservation of the marriage and home, not only because this is his business but also because he honors the authority of Scripture.

This does not mean, however, that Christian counsel is intrinsically better. A poorly trained Christian may do worse than a non-Christian who is trained well. Because of common grace, Christians have much to learn from the non-Christian professional community. In the following Minister’s Workshop (August 31 issue) I will discuss what Truax and Carkhuff have to say about the therapeutic triad.—ANDRE BUSTANOBY, marriage and family counselor, Bowie, Maryland.

Let Bygones Be Bygones?

In the wake of Leonid Brezhnev’s visit to the United States, a large question demands attention: Has the Soviet Union discarded some of the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism, or are Brezhnev and company assuming an expediency role temporarily until such time as they can once again perform as true heirs of Marx and Lenin?

Regarding “present-day society,” i.e., capitalistic society, Lenin said: “… we must make it our business to stimulate in the minds of those who are dissatisfied only with [particular] … conditions the idea that the whole political system is worthless” (Lenin, Selected Works, 1943, II, 103). “… In capitalist society we have a democracy that is curtailed, wretched, false …” (ibid., VII, 130). “… For us the issue cannot be the alteration of private property, but only its annihilation …” (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, 1955, I, 110).

According to Lenin it is legitimate to use “all sorts of strategems, manoeuvres and illegal methods, to evasions and subterfuges …” (Selected Works, II, 62). “… Loyalty to the ideas of Communism must be combined with the ability to make all the necessary practical compromises, to ‘tack,’ to make agreements, zigzags, retreats and so on to accelerate … the inevitable friction, quarrels, conflicts and complete disintegration …” (ibid., X, 138).

The Communist Manifesto says: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution” (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, I, 65). “A Marxist,” says Lenin, “is one who extends the acceptance of the class struggle to the acceptance of the dictatorship of the proletariat” (Lenin, Selected Works, VII, 33). And Stalin in his book The Foundation of Leninism (Moscow, 1953, p. 51) says: “… The dictatorship of the proletariat is the rule—unrestricted and based on force—of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie.…”

These few quotations from the founding fathers of Communism need to be weighed against the agreements signed by Brezhnev and his televised speech to the American people. It is quite clear that either Brezhnev is an arch deceiver and a very dangerous enemy of the whole civilized world, or Soviet Communism has renounced in fact if not by statement the cardinal principles that underlie Marxism-Leninism.

We would like to think, and indeed we pray, that the Soviet Communists have really changed their thinking and that their actions are a literal repudiation of Marxism even if they cannot say this for the record. Time alone will give us the answer to this question. The Chinese have consistently accused the Soviets of betraying Marxist principles, and we know from experience that people often pay lip service to beliefs that they no longer take seriously.

While we wait to see if the leopard has changed his spots, we had better not let down our guard. We should be prepared for the possibility that Brezhnev may be using all of this as a strategem until the time comes to make the kill.

We should not expect more of Brezhnev than we expect and often do not get from Christian leaders. Need we remind ourselves that New England Congregationalism was decimated in the Unitarian defection of the nineteenth century, when hundreds of trinitarian churches were subverted and stolen by apostates. Moreover, every great denomination has in it ministers who do not believe their historic creeds and who yet remain in their pulpits to subvert and to destroy what their ordination vows bind them to support. If these deceivers were ethical they would give up their churches and their seminary chairs.

The United States is gambling that Brezhnev is sincere and is telling the truth. If he isn’t, there will be no enduring peace in our time.

Help That Isn’T

In decisions handed down last month, the U. S. Supreme Court seems to have upheld quite firmly the principle that prohibits direct appropriation of public funds for parochial education at the elementary and secondary levels. This is a principle that has served well the interests of the American people, both religious and nonreligious. The churches of the United States have certainly been none the worse for it; indeed, there is reason to think their prosperity has stemmed at least in part from their having to depend entirely upon private financial undergirding (unlike churches in many other countries that are subsidized in one way or another by the government).

With the cost of education rising so rapidly, there is a great temptation for churches to appeal to the government for help. Such aid could temporarily ease cash-flow problems, but the long-term effects in church-state entanglements would do far more harm than good.

These latest court rulings struck down several parochaid programs in New York and Pennsylvania, including those that provided tax benefits and tuition reimbursement for parents of parochial school children. The rulings represent an especially gratifying victory for Glenn Archer and C. Stanley Lowell of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who have labored diligently for more than a generation.

Little Things

Several months ago, handicapped people from many parts of the United States descended on Washington to air grievances and to demand more consideration from social planners. The government took little official notice of their mini-march at the time, but within the last few weeks there has been action that they will welcome. As streets are rebuilt atop the national capital’s forthcoming subway, curbs are being beveled at pedestrian crossings, making wheelchair travel much easier. Curbs are also being altered in front of large buildings, and ramps erected where there are steps. These are the sort of things that should have been done long ago. Why do they require street demonstrations to initiate? Perhaps if the churches of America had shown the way in their own architecture, progress would have come sooner.

Sauce For The Goose

For a year now many Jews have been exercised about Key 73 and its program of “calling our continent to Christ.” To the extent that they fear Key 73 will put Jews under pressure to conform to Christianity, we have tried to reassure them, reiterating our conviction that the Gospel should be freely and clearly proclaimed, but not aggressively “sold” and certainly not imposed by force. But to the extent that they object to the very principle that Jews, as well as Gentiles, must be converted and believe the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah, we can only reply, lovingly but firmly, that conversion to Christ is of the essence of biblical Christianity, and that to object to the possibility of conversion is to deny both the religious freedom of the individual and the nature of Christianity itself.

Now we learn that the Central Conference of American Rabbis, representing Reform (i.e., the most liberal branch) Judaism, is sharpening its policies on mixed marriages, and demanding as a minimum that children of a mixed marriage be brought up as Jews and that efforts be made to convert the non-Jewish spouse. If even the most liberal Jews feel obliged to try to convert a non-Jewish spouse and to require a Jewish upbringing for children—a situation that necessarily involves a certain amount of emotional pressure—they ought to recognize the right of Christians to appeal to them.

Returned POW: How We Overcame

When one is dying from starvation, a bowl of sewer greens is a gift from God. Before every meal during my captivity, I offered a prayer of thanks. In the past, when others prayed my mind wandered over the day’s events or simply waited impatiently for the prayer to end. But in prison, grace was not a routine endured out of habit, guilt, or pressure. To thank God for life seemed the natural thing to do.

During those long periods of enforced reflection, it became so much easier to separate the important from the trivial, the worthwhile from the waste. For example, in the past, I usually worked or played hard on Sundays and had no time for church. For years Phyllis encouraged me to join the family at church. She never nagged or scolded—she just kept hoping. But I was too busy, too preoccupied, to spend one or two short hours a week thinking about the really important things.

Now the sights and sounds and smells of death were all around me. My hunger for spiritual food soon outdid my hunger for a steak. Now I wanted to know about that part of me that will never die. Now I wanted to talk about God and Christ and the church. But in Heartbreak solitary confinement there was no pastor, no Sunday-school teacher, no Bible, no hymn-book, no community of believers to guide and sustain me. I had completely neglected the spiritual dimension of my life. It took prison to show me how empty life is without God, and so I had to go back in my memory to those Sunday-school days in the Nogales Avenue Baptist Church, Tulsa, Oklahoma. If I couldn’t have a Bible and hymn-book, I would try to rebuild them in my mind.

I tried desperately to recall snatches of Scripture, sermons, the gospel choruses from childhood, and the hymns we sang in church. The first three dozen songs were relatively easy. Every day I’d try to recall another verse or a new song. One night there was a huge thunderstorm—it was the season of the monsoon rains—and a bolt of lightning knocked out the lights and plunged the entire prison into darkness. I had been going over hymn tunes in my mind and stopped to lie down and sleep when the rains began to fall. The darkened prison echoed with wave after wave of water. Suddenly, I was humming my thirty-seventh song, one I had entirely forgotten since childhood.

Showers of blessings,

Showers of blessing we need!

Mercy drops round us are falling,

But for the showers we plead.

I no sooner had recalled those words than another song popped into my mind, the theme song of a radio program my mother listened to when I was just a kid.

Heavenly sunshine, heavenly sunshine

Flooding my soul with glory divine.

Heavenly sunshine, heavenly sunshine.

Hallelujah! Jesus is mine!

Most of my fellow prisoners were struggling like me to rediscover faith, to reconstruct workable value systems. Harry Jenkins lived in a cell nearby during much of my captivity. Often we would use those priceless seconds of communication in a day to help one another recall Scripture verses and stories.

One day I heard him whistle. When the cell block was clear, I waited for his communication, thinking it to be some important news. “I got a new one,” he said. “I don’t know where it comes from or why I remember it, but it’s a story about Ruth and Naomi.” He then went on to tell that ancient story of Ruth following Naomi into a hostile new land and finding God’s presence and protection there. Harry’s urgent news was two thousand years old. It may not seem important to prison life, but we lived off that story for days, rebuilding it, thinking about what it meant, and applying God’s ancient words to our predicament.

Everyone knew the Lord’s Prayer and the Twenty-Third Psalm, but the camp favorite verse that everyone recalled first and quoted most often is found in the Book of John, third chapter, sixteenth verse: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” With Harry’s help I even reconstructed the seventeenth and eighteenth verses: “For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

How I struggled to recall those Scriptures and hymns! I had spent my first eighteen years in a Southern Baptist Sunday school, and I was amazed at how much I could recall; regrettably, I had not seen then the importance of memorizing verses from the Bible or learning gospel songs. Now, when I needed them, it was too late. I never dreamed that I would spend almost seven years (five of them in solitary confinement) in a prison in North Vietnam or that thinking about one memorized verse could have made a whole day bearable. One portion of a verse I did remember was, “Thy word have I hid in my heart.” How often I wished I had really worked to hide God’s Word in my heart. I put my mind to work. Every day I planned to accomplish certain tasks. I woke early, did my physical exercises, cleaned up as best I could, then began a period of devotional prayer and meditation. I would pray, hum hymns silently, quote Scripture, and think about what the verses meant to me.

Remember, we weren’t playing games. The enemy knew that the best way to break a man’s resistance was to crush his spirit in a lonely cell. In other wars, some of our POWs after solitary confinement lay down in a fetal position and died. All this talk of Scripture and hymns may seem boring to some, but it was the way we conquered our enemy and overcame the power of death around us.—From In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Howard and Phyllis Rutledge with Mel and Lyla White. Copyright © 1973 by Fleming H. Revell Company. Used by permission.

The ‘Principle’ Of Relativity

For years some supposedly “enlightened” members of our society have ridiculed “fundamentalists,” “traditionalists,” and “obscurantists” who believe in moral absolutes. Everything depends on the circumstances, they say: the time, the place, the people involved, and so on. But now that the United States Supreme Court—wisely, we believe—has ruled that producers and promoters of pornography do not enjoy an absolute right to make and market their wares but must be subject to the (relative!) community standards of decency and taste, there is suddenly a great hue and cry about the “absolute” principle of freedom of speech. How strange it is that people who have spent so much energy telling us there are no absolutes suddenly feel themselves threatened by a little relativism in the wrong place! An absolute, it seems, has crept in unawares and is not so outrageous after all.

Christians are committed to the principle that there are moral absolutes, although we know that our human institutions, both secular and religious, will never be able to exemplify them perfectly. The Supreme Court’s decision—although certainly not made on a religious basis—allows communities in America to restrict some of the grosser forms of exploitation of human sexuality through pornography. It would seem that local governments are being given authority to evaluate the relative merits of certain forms of entertainment and weigh them against possible social harm they may cause. What could be more reasonable to a moral relativist? Coming from the quarters it does, the uproar about the violated “absolute” of free expression sounds more contrived than convincing.

Feast Or Famine?

In his June 13 allocution on inflation, President Nixon stated, inter alia: “One of the major reasons for the rise in food prices at home is that there is now an unprecedented demand abroad.… In allocating the products of America’s farms … we must put the American consumer first. Therefore, I have decided that a new system for export controls on food products is needed.”

The President refrained from mentioning the fact—perhaps irrelevant to his major concern—that one big reason foreigners are buying more is that two official devaluations and continuing deterioration of the U. S. dollar enable foreign countries to purchase more of our food for the same expenditure of their money. Somewhat more relevant to the domestic situation is a second fact, which the President also left unmentioned: since foreign purchasers tend to spurn many of our industrial products, unless we sell them more, not less, food, we will have drastically less foreign exchange with which to pay for the imports we have come to expect, and in some cases to need. But over and above the problem created by foreigners who are able to buy more and more food from us (for less and less money) there is the problem faced by those nations that have no food and no money.

Americans everywhere—including the staff of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, we hasten to admit—grumble at the price of beef. But Americans are consuming per capita twice as much beef as they did in 1953 (today, over one hundred pounds a year, or over four ounces per person per day), and in 1953 Americans were by no means underfed. Moreover, in 1930 Americans spent 23.4 per cent of their incomes on food. Until recently the figure was 15.7 per cent.

Despite all the grumbling, in the industrialized nations of the West we eat far more than we need; overindulgence in food and drink, combined with a lack of physical activity, condemns millions of Americans to a sluggish and unhealthy existence. But there are countries, indeed, whole subcontinents, where hardly the barest minimum of food necessary to sustain life is available, and where there are no funds to purchase it from abroad. Maharashtra State in India has been in the midst of a terrible drought and famine, and even the onset of the monsoon will not bring immediate relief, as too many destitute farmers have forsaken their lands. In West Africa, an even more acute crisis has developed.

Americans are troubled—and justly so—at the increasingly bad image of the United States in the world at large: that of an affluent, self-indulgent, and fundamentally corrupt society. Of course, much in this stereotype is false and inaccurate. But defending the righteousness of America’s actions or pointing out that others are as bad or worse will not impress many in the world at large.

In his concluding peroration, President Nixon declared: “We are the best-clothed, best-fed, best-housed people in the world.” If that is true, and evidently it is, what justification—other than selfishness, or, more tactfully, enlightened self-interest—can we offer for continuing to “put the American consumer first”? One of the most familiar mandates in the Bible is the command to feed the hungry. Only a few Americans are hungry in the true meaning of the word—and some of those, because they are trying to reduce. But much of the rest of the world is hungry. The rest of the world certainly will not respect America for taking stern measures intended only to protect its current affluence.

This is a time for America and its leaders to look beyond their own immediate concerns, and create a new priority: not feeding the well-fed with quality meats, but feeding the hungry of the world. If the world is too big a challenge, then take a smaller portion of it. There will be problems of all kinds, of course—administrative, economic, and political. But if the attempt is made, they will be the problems of obedience, rather than of selfishness. And America will show that it has given thought to the prophet Micah’s warning: “He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Christians And Others

To what extent should Christians be associated with the practices of other religions? The most common reply among our readers would probably be, “Not at all.” But the question merits some reflection.

The Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians firmly asserts that Christians are not to participate in the religious ceremonies of others (10:14–22). But what about attending religious weddings or funerals of adherents of other faiths? Or, for that matter, attending such ceremonies in professing Christian bodies that one deems heretical? What about visiting a Hindu or Mormon temple, a Buddhist shrine, a Muslim mosque? (Many North Americans are not aware of the perplexity that Christians in other lands may feel when their visiting co-religionists seemingly honor non-Christian religions by their tourist practices.) And to what extent, if any, can a Christian read about or observe occult and psychic phenomena without seeming to endorse some form of paganism?

After making his strong statement warning Christians to stay clear of religious entanglements, Paul immediately writes against an overly rigoristic application of this command. Much of the meat that people in Corinth ate had been, however perfunctorily, offered to idols before being sold. Paul says that when one buys from a butcher or goes to a non-believer’s for dinner, he is not to raise questions about whether the food has been through some pagan ceremony. Eat it and enjoy it, he says (10:25–27). Paul distinguishes between participation in pagan worship and incidental contact, in a nonreligious setting, with pagan cultural practices.

Quakers traditionally tried to avoid paganism more rigorously than other evangelicals. For example, they refused to speak of days of the Sun and the Moon and of the gods Saturn and Thor, using instead First Day, Second Day, and so on. It is hard to imagine that Paul would be as rigorous on this point.

Of course, Christians differ on what is a religious and what is a secular observance. Ancestor honor (or worship; the choice of terms is crucial) in China, emperor worship (or is it patriotism?) in Japan—these are but two major examples from our own time. Missionaries to China who lambasted anything they considered compromise with idolatrous cultural patterns by Chinese were offended when these same Chinese questioned the missionaries’ celebration of Christmas. Jehovah’s Witnesses say that saluting one’s national flag is idolatry. Orthodox Christians disagree, though undoubtedly the distinction between proper patriotism and idolatry of one’s country is not always so clearly made as it should be.

Though Christians cannot construct hard and fast rules as to which contacts with other religions are forbidden and which are permitted, they should be aware of the problem, sensitive to the feelings of their fellow Christians (10:23), and constantly open to God for light to distinguish, as Paul did, between communion with what is false and participation in secular practices that happen to have pagan antecedents.

Waiting For The Answer

The subject of a television interview program responded with mistaken grace to one question by admitting, “I really don’t know the answer to that.”

Looks of horror swept across the faces of the panel of questioners at this heresy: an expert without an answer!

They immediately began to press him for an answer, any answer—a guess. The expert finally weakened and gave a qualified guess—the accuracy of which could be neither challenged nor corroborated—and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

A question no one could answer once arose in a Bible-study group I was attending. Before the next meeting I researched the question (that’s not to suggest I’m always so diligent). However, at the next session I found that the question was no longer important to anyone.

We are an impatient generation. Like little children we want the answer now. It matters less that the answer be right than that there be an answer.

That’s why we love experts so. They save us the trouble of laborious effort to discover the truth. They have immediate answers. If the answers turn out to be wrong, we simply adjust ourselves and head off in another direction.

It seems to me that the answer “I don’t know” is an honorable one. “I don’t know but I’ll try to find out” is even better. Unfortunately, by the time one has the truth the forum may have disappeared. The newspaper reporter may be long gone by the time the politician has the facts to answer his question. The television interview program will have a new victim next week. Most viewers will hardly remember who was on the program last week, much less want to hear the results of his research. Even the Bible-study group may have a different constituency next week.

He who gives an answer carries the day—even if the answer is wrong.

In Acts Luke comments that the Jews of Berea were more noble than those of Thessalonica simply because they listened to Paul’s preaching and took time daily to examine the Scriptures to see if these things were so.

We need to be like the Berean Jews, seeking not just answers but truth—and willing to wait for it.

EUTYCHUS V

HAPPENING

The perceptive and prophetic article by Senator Mark Hatfield (“The Vulnerability of Leadership”) in your June 22 issue merits renewal of my subscription. (Such were not my intentions.…) Senator Hatfield has donned the prophet’s mantle at a time when the Church has, for the most part, discarded it, and stands mute in an allegiance to the state that rightfully belongs only to God. [His] warning needs to be taken seriously: “For the more one gains power, whether in business, economics, government, or religion, the greater the temptation to believe that he stands beyond the scope of transcendent judgment.” It has happened before; it is happening now; it can happen again.

WILLARD STARK

Lutheran Church of Our Savior

Bethany, Okla.

I hasten to commend you for the lead editorial (“The Christian as Patriot”) and for Senator Hatfield’s article. If evangelical Christians had been writing, speaking, and acting out the content of these two articles over the years, their value as total citizens to the nation would have been more evident.

EDWARD MCCLURG

Seattle, Wash.

My personal thanks to you and to Senator Hatfield.… We have been missing this note in our national life far too long and are grateful to you and Senator Hatfield for supplying it. Perhaps we may still be led to repent and it may not be too late.

BOYD NELSON

Elkhart, Ind.

During the present time, leaders seem to be more vulnerable in some respects than in the past. Instant communication of the media makes possible instant reactions of the masses to everyday crises. As a result, the leaders experience pressures unknown in the past. It is imperative, therefore, that they go to the Lord in individual repentance first, as Senator Hatfield suggests, and in corporate repentance using Second Chronicles 7:14 as a guide. CHRISTIANITY TODAY is to be commended for printing this timely and scholarly article.

MRS. CLARENCE LLOYD

Maryville, Mo.

BIBLE BRIDGE-BUILDING

I am writing to express my pleasure at your publication of the article “The Text of the New Testament and Modern Translations” by Gordon D. Fee (June 22). It is a mark of the maturity of your faith that an article such as this is published in a magazine founded on the belief that the Bible is the revealed Word of God.… One of the values of Dr. Fee’s article is that it insists upon the relativity of each of the various responsible translations and versions of the Bible, while at the same time maintaining the usefulness of all of them. Too much ink has been spilled in arguments over words, or in esoteric philosophical disputes regarding the accuracy or authenticity of this or that manuscript, version, or translation of the Bible. The important thing, for Christians, must remain the truth John (and his Lord) tried to communicate so many years ago: the ultimate worth of the Scriptures lies not in themselves but in their witness to the living relationship established between God and man through Jesus Christ and the Spirit of Truth.

Whatever may have been his intentions in writing, I take Dr. Fee’s article to be a helpful contribution, from the conservative evangelical standpoint, to the building of bridges of understanding between evangelicals who believe in biblical inerrancy and some of the rest of us Christians who do not. At the same time, some evangelical readers of his article may be led to temper somewhat their uninformed arrogance in proclaiming the inflexible righteousness of their particular views on doctrine, as these views are derived from particular interpretations of isolated Bible words, phrases, or propositions. A mature understanding of the difficulties of handling fairly the biblical materials will lead an honest student to a healthy humility. This, in turn, may lead to increased mutual sympathy, and ultimately to fuller fellowship between committed Christians of differing views.

PHILIP J. WEILER

United Presbyterian Church

Crookston, Minn.

COMFORTING SENSE

Thank you for the piece on original sin (Eutychus and His Kin, “There Ain’t No Good in Men,” June 22). I remember the great joy of relief and the praises I sang on that day, not so long ago, when I discovered on my own (at least, my Help was not visible to my eyes) that sweet doctrine!

I had never accepted the bullwhip use of it on my or any other’s back. That is, as being held to accountability for my born state of un- or im-perfection. But because I was an eager and ignorant pagan sincerely seeking a better estate, I was beginning to get a crackle-glaze of psychosomatic tremors (from which I shall likely never wholly recover until I am beyond the Wall of the World) from the combined exhortations (canned and face-to-face) of the Self and Collective Reformists, Christian Scientist, Jehovah’s Witness, Herbert W. Armstrong-ist, Socialist, Communist, and, to say the truth now, most of what goes under the heading of Christianity in these parlous times.

I knew, all too intimately, that I wasn’t good! On the other hand, I had a deep tap root of intuition, a huge distrust of all Reformists. But my makeup is such that I mistrust judging when I don’t know what it is I am judging.

So, self-inflicted by all the going “pernicious nonsense” about “human perfectibility,” you may imagine how, like a bird free of the Pharisees, I sang and danced (literally) for joy of the doctrine—I knew the fact too cruelly well! Me reform that? So now I fly like a bird, but a wounded bird. So thanks to Eutychus for comfort and good sense.

MRS. LOWELL GREGORY

Arlington, Tex.

FOR GENEROSITY

There is nothing in our recent history to justify the characterization of Reverend William S. Coffin as the “longtime opponent of the Yale Christian Fellowship” (News, “American Baptists: Piety Revisited,” June 22). In the last few years of significant growth of our fellowship, we have had little but cooperation and encouragement from the Chaplains’ Office. And while I suspect that at times Mr. Coffin has let his “generosity outstrip his judgment” in his dealings with us, there is certainly something to be said for generosity.

SCOTT T. O’BRIEN

Past President

Yale Christian Fellowship

New Haven, Conn.

FOR WHOM TO MOURN

It was with more than passing interest I read your news item (Religion in Transit, June 8) about the torture murder by Satan worshipers in Daytona Beach. The victim was our oldest son. While we miss him, we do not mourn him, because he had accepted Christ as his Saviour. We are told in Romans 8:35–37, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?… We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.… In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” We do mourn for the young people who have fallen prey to the wiles of Satan, although we have been warned about this sort of activity in First Timothy 4:1 (“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of dreams”). Who will take to them the good news of First John 1:9—“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”?

MRS. ROBERT L. COCHRAN

Fresno, Calif.

BEYOND FACTIONS AND CLICHÉS

John Warwick Montgomery spent too much spleen on religion reporters (Current Religious Thought, June 8), characterizing those of us reporting church and synagogue in the secular press as a monolithic group delighting in the agonies of a church whose members no longer agree.

First, anyone reading CHRISTIANITY TODAY or other journals on religion would know that the professional group, Religion Newswriters Association, is as heterogeneous as Bill Willoughby of the Washington Star-News and Les Kinsolving of that and other syndicated papers. Second, the Missouri Synod is a good story because some vital, not simply important, issues are involved, as we try to report. Third, church/synagogue conventions do not elicit yawns from either reporters who choose to report them or editors and publishers who pay them to do so. And last, your correspondent is so partisan—in a story where either side is difficult to pin down and report with any balance—that he falls into the trap of executing the bearer of news because it is bad.

Rather than take the tack he did in his attack on reporters of religion … he might have read more widely and found how many reporters work to describe the LCMS factions beyond the clichés and labels. He uses them with greater facility than we do, while attributing this to others. This is just one of the complex stories many of us will try to report this year and next. It appeals to us because two men of integrity and wit, J. A. O. Preus and John Tietjen, are speaking for historic views and contemporary anxieties.

BEN L. KAUFMAN

Religion Reporter

The Cincinnati Enquirer

Cincinnati, Ohio

WHAT EFFECTS?

With regard to William Kornfield’s article, “The Early-Date Genesis Man” (June 8), it is regrettable that due consideration has not been given to what effects the biblical flood might have had. Given the possible effects of this flood upon the total nature of our world, one must raise the question of why so little, if any, consideration of this flood when trying to bring the Bible and science together. The dating methods themselves may have given the most misleading information presented in this article due to no consideration of the flood.

W. A. SCHREMP, JR.

Sterling Heights, Mich.

Plaudits on William Kornfield’s long-overdue article. As an evangelical and an anthropologist myself, I view it as a healthy sign when such emotionally charged topics as Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man can be discussed in the forum of a Christian magazine. Skeletal evidence of human remains 50,000 years old in association with cultural artefacts are so numerous that they can’t be swept under the rug.…

Kornfield, however, opens up a real bag of worms. It is no trick in making Adam a Neanderthal (who was a hunter), but the trick is getting Cain and Abel out of the cave to becoming an agriculturist and a shepherd respectively (Genesis 4). Using evidence from Shanidar Cave in Iraq (Solecki, 1963), layer D shows Neanderthal skeletal remains at 44,000 B.C. whereas layer B1 reveals the first signs of animal and plant domestication and is dated at 8600 B.C. In fact, full-fledged farming and herding are more precisely dated at such typesites as Jarmo and Ali Kosh at 7000 B.C. (Braidwood, 1967; Wright, Jr., 1967). If Cain and Abel are the legitimate children of Neanderthal Adam, we have a real problem if our purpose is to reconcile Scripture and scientific theory. Other problems, as severe as this one, abound in many of the accounts recorded in Genesis 4–11 as they are compared with the archeological record. This is no news to anyone who has taken the time to critically study the data, which are now fairly well systematized by archeologists working in the Near East.

The answer to this perplexing set of problems is obviously not in attempting to reconcile scientific theory with Scripture. Kornfield hints at what many feel to be the key to understanding the early chapters of Genesis: the “mind-set” of those who recorded this primeval history. Using a different literacy genre than ours, and possessing a different linguistic world-view (Whorf, 1941; Hoijer, 1951), it is only to be expected that the account would be written far different than if a modern-day archeologist wrote it. But this in no way makes it any less the revealed Word of God, the Word given by the Holy Spirit, who stands above both ancient and modern versions of science.

GARTH D. LUDWIG

Hope Lutheran Church

Upper St. Clair, Pa.

IN AGREEMENT

In your article “Demythologizing the Indonesian Revival (March 2) by Ed Plowman, he included a statement Dr. Pearl Englund had made about me, Frank Selan—Mel Tari’s brother-in-law. Dr. Englund made it sound like I disagreed with the story in Mel’s book about Jesus multiplying the food, that Mel had exaggerated the truth. According to her story, Jesus did not miraculously create new food, but merely satisfied us with the little food we have had. Actually these are two different stories, and both are true. The Lord had done this miracle many times in many different ways. I have never met or talked with Dr. Englund; furthermore, I’m in full agreement with everything Mel said in Like A Mighty Wind. I have seen the Holy Spirit do some tremendous things in my life and the lives of many others, like changing water into wine, enabling us to walk safely on the deep river, raising dead people to life, healing thousands of people, especially “the greatest miracle of all,” sinners redeemed and changed daily into the image of Christ. So, I’ll be the last person on earth to discredit the work of the Holy Spirit in my country. I can never go along with the “unbelieving Christians” who try to water down or explain away His precious and wonderful power.

FRANZ SELAN

Jayapuna, Irian Jaya, Indonesia

FROM SPARK TO TORCH

To Dr. Brown, associate editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, high commendation for the live spark he strikes in his review of The Dust of Death by Os Guinness (June 8). His position is well taken in referring to the author’s offered cures for evils in modern culture as “a mixture of pious generalizations and trivial illustrations” and in his plea for further followthrough. This special emphasis by our foremost evangelical periodical on the much over-looked need for more practical, in-depth, Christ-centered guidelines for solving today’s problems is indeed heartening. May this tiny spark grow to many blazing torches.

CHARLES W. JAMISON

Santa Barbara, Calif.

GLOWING EMBERS?

The news story “Revival Afterglow” in your May 11 issue was, to say the least, an unfortunate reflection on revival. While I personally am not conversant with all the facts of the Abbotsford church, I do not believe revival was responsible for the split. More careful research will undoubtedly reveal that carnality rather than revival is usually the cause of splits.… Revival is not an afterglow, like the dying embers of a once brightly burning fire; it is a present reality in the life of a believer who is walking in obedience to Jesus Christ his Lord and Master.

L. R. HAMM

Hillsdale Alliance Church

Regina, Saskatchewan

DEVOTED

I like the article on the Institute of Basic Youth Conflicts (“Bill Gothard’s Institute,” May 25). I think that Bill Gothard intends to do good, but his approach is so absolutist and authoritative that he ends up doing a great deal of harm.… A professor at Moody Bible Institute told me of two Jewish young people who after attending Gothard’s institute, left Bible college because their Jewish parents could not approve of their attending Moody. What scares me the most is the absolute devotion that the people have who attend the institute. There is something positively gnostic about their attitude.

Corte Madera, Calif.

MOISHE ROSEN

SOME NEWS OPINIONS

Under the heading of “News” you cover the event in the British Isles known as SPRE-E ’73 (May 25). However, in this news article, two opinions are expressed in the closing paragraphs.… In each case “one evangelical minister” expresses some negative viewpoint of this event.…

May I suggest that these two paragraphs might equally have been written as follows (with a slight amendment of the budget—for accuracy’s sake!):

As for expenditures, a SPRE-E budget of £348,000 ($870,000) (all but £168,000 of it to come from delegates’ registration and accommodation fees) has raised some eyebrows. “Nevertheless,” says the Reverend David Bubbers, Vicar of Emmanuel Church, Northwood, “the size of the budget should be looked at in the light of the number of participants it is hoped to involve.… The argument that the income of missionary societies will be put at risk assumes that the Christian public is already giving up to the New Testament hilt. Is such an assumption justified?”

The major complaint heard, however, is that planners have imposed SPRE-E ’73 upon British evangelicals without seeking any consultation or advice outside the Graham organization’s inner circle. Rowlandson answers this complaint by saying that consultation was in fact sought “so far as the limited time allowed.” The Reverend Ronald Goulding, secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, says: “There will be a great number of young people who will respond to this irrespective of whether the clergy do or do not, and I believe that only good can come from it. You can be quite sure that we will do all we can in helping towards the success of this great Christian adventure.”

In rewriting these paragraphs, I have named those who have made the statements alleged to them. I believe that this permits a proper assessment of what they say and, at the same time, allows the reader to assess the credence and the weight “behind the argument.” At the same time, it expresses a positive approach which is, surely, the New Testament approach.

M. L. ROWLANDSON

General Director

SPRE-E 73

London, England

The Children of God continue to attain notoriety for their unconventional practices. Recently the media have carried stories about efforts of opponents of COG to help members leave the group. Opponents see the sect as diabolically evil; COG members see themselves as the only remnant faithful to Jesus Christ in these evil end times, and they have supporters outside the group.

What is the truth about COG? How can observers come to such diametrically opposite views of the subject? The explanation, we believe, lies in the fact that COG leaders speak out of both sides of their mouths; one of their statements will contradict another. This is not because it is impossible to coordinate all statements emanating from a group scattered around the world. Rather, it is because the Children of God deliberately set out to deceive outsiders about their true nature. We ourselves have been recipients of what COG calls the “Selah treatment”: sweet-talk given to visitors to COG colonies in an effort to convince them that the organization is harmless.

Recently a number of “Mo Letters”—missives written by COG’s unchallenged ruler, David Berg (alias Moses), to members of the group—have come into our possession. A comparison of what Mo tells his followers in these epistles with what he and they say to outsiders makes perfectly clear COG’s efforts to deceive. This article is devoted to documenting these deceptions.

Recently COG sent out to its mailing list an intriguing “Open Letter to Our Friends” written by Berg. He admits the pressing need for outside support. He also concedes that some statements emanating from COG have discouraged such vital support. However, he excuses himself by attributing the offending statement to his subordinates—the first crack in the solid front presented by COG leadership to the outside world. Declaring that Christians do not have to agree totally on all minor doctrines to work together, he asserts his “personal policy” of “tolerance and broadmindedness” and blames any misunderstanding on remarks by “sincerely zealous, but sometimes sadly unwise, lesser leaders.” He then proceeds to deny certain teachings ascribed to him.

Unfortunately, other writings of his contradict his denials. For instance, Berg categorically denies the “flagrantly defiant and erroneous slogan with which I have never had anything to do whatsoever,” namely, “My family, my family—right or wrong, my family!” What Berg actually said, in his Mo Letter “There Are No Neutrals” was, “You’re either for us or you’re against us … ‘My country, my country, right or wrong, my country.’ ” Is there a substantive difference between these statements, one of which Berg made and the other of which he denies? Or did Berg just forget what he had said earlier? (If so, he does not read his “Mo Letters” as religiously as do his followers, whom he tells to read the same way they read the Bible.) Or is he consciously trying to deceive? Or is there some other alternative?

Berg also asserts that he is “diametrically opposed to the dangerous, erroneous and false teaching … of which I myself have often been very falsely accused” and which he ascribes to “an incorrigible few” of his subordinates “who have disregarded many reproofs,” namely, “That it’s alright [sic] to lie, cheat, steal, and perhaps even commit violence in the name of Jesus as long as it’s good for the cause.” He declares that he never taught this and that it can be found “in absolutely no Mo letter in existence,” and he challenges followers “to prove in writing that I have ever indicated such a thing.…” Berg professes shock that some COGs said on a national telecast in Canada “that they were so loyal to Moses and so obedient that even if he told them to kill their parents, they would do so!” He declares, “I have never even suggested such unquestioning, blind and implicit obedience!”

First, it is strange that followers in a rigidly authoritarian sect would so flagrantly misrepresent the man whom they revere as God’s anointed prophet for the last days and on whose word they have given up everything. Second, numbers of COGs and ex-COGs have reiterated what was said on the Canadian telecast about total obedience to Berg, even to the point of killing on command. One ex-COG testified on NBC’s “Chronolog” program in the summer of 1972:

I was taught in the Children of God I would have to commit adultery, theft, and murder during the last seven years of the world because of the fact that we would be under cover, and there would be things like this that would have to be done in order to sustain our group.

Numerous newspapers have reported COG members were asked if they would kill (their parents or national leaders, for example) if their elder ordered them to do so. Invariably the answer was yes. It is clear that an affirmative answer to this presumably hypothetical question was expected if they wanted to retain their good standing.

And while Berg claims that nothing in the “Mo Letters” supports the teaching of such implicit obedience, the hard evidence indicates otherwise. The “Revolutionary Contract,” which all new members must sign, declares that “instant obedience is imperative.” It elaborates: “You must obey: implicitly, quickly and without question your officers in the Lord, if you wish to remain a member of this Team.…” Elsewhere Berg instructs, “… obedience is not enough.… To ‘submit yourself’ means put your whole body, soul and spirit into complete subjection to the spirit of God in your leader.” Lest one might find “the spirit of God in your leader” an escape clause for Berg, we cite another statement in a “Mo Letter”:

The Bible talks about obeying your parents in the Lord (which is your leadership, not your ungodly fleshly parents). It says obey them in all things, even if they are wrong! If a leader tells you to do something wrong you are justified before God for obeying leadership.…

Now, which is the more valid reading of these statements—the members’ declaration that they would obey every order of their superiors in COG, even one to kill, or Berg’s argument that he never taught blind, implicit obedience?

In his “Open Letter” Berg also denies that he “ever claimed that the final Kingdom of Christ has already arrived on earth.” What he did say was, “We agree with 95% of the radical revolutionaries’ goals, but their goal of utopia, they cannot reach, while we have reached it already.… We are practicing the only pure form of communism …” (“The Rise of the Reactionary Right”).

Nor are Berg’s denials in his recent “Open Letter” the only examples of the deception running through COG’s operation. Berg has instructed his lieutenants to say that he is no longer actively in control of COG. So on NBC’s “Chronolog” program, Berg’s son “Hosea” dutifully declared that his father “does not take an active part in our COG activities.” As if Berg’s recent “Open Letter” were not in itself enough to give the lie to this announcement, several “Mo Letters” verify his active leadership. In “General Letter on Various Business,” designed only for overseers to read, Berg gives detailed instructions to leaders in various places; discussions of money predominate. For instance: they are “never to discuss your finances with outsiders, at least not the specifics, such as Ben’s inheritance.…” Berg sends checks to various leaders, according to this epistle. In it he also instructs his immediate subordinates whom to appoint as overall overseer for the United States. He scolds those in charge of absorbing Linda Meissner’s Jesus People’s Army of the Pacific Northwest for moving too fast and kicking recalcitrant kids off the property before COG had legal ownership of it, since that move left the COG leaders open to trespassing charges. He adds, “I wonder if you would have been so ready to run them out of the building, if you’d known this?” When Berg wrote an emergency letter to send all COGs home for the holidays in late 1971, he threatened elders who did not comply with removal from office. All the members went home.

A flyer designed for outsiders, entitled “What the Children of God Really Believe,” says, “Nothing is kept hidden or secret about their way of life.…” Why, then, the “Selah treatment”? Also, why the following in Mo’s “Pointers for Leaders”: “Don’t tell people more than you have to, to accomplish the needed purpose”?

Berg evidences a paranoid desire for secrecy concerning his own whereabouts. His “Pointers for Leaders” warns, “Always protect your leader’s security! (For example, don’t broad-cast their whereabouts on shortwave!) Remember—it’s a small world, and they’re always out to get the leaders!” Berg coaches his followers on how to answer probing questions about his identity: “ ‘Who is Moses?’—I can’t really tell you! ‘Is he so-and-so?’—I really don’t know—He’s never really told us, and even if he had, he wouldn’t want us to tell.… ‘Is he really your leader?’—Jesus Christ is my leader!” (“Public Relations”). While elders say they do not know their leader’s identity, COG has recently published some of the more innocuous “Mo Letters” as a book entitled LettersFrom a Shepherd, the cover of which lists the author as “David Brandt Berg, also known as Moses.” The strategy shifts to fit the situation.

In “Public Relations” Berg gives his subordinates detailed instructions on how to handle reporters. He tells them not to cooperate with any media that publish hostile stories, but to promise scoops to reporters who treat them kindly, suggesting that the elders “could even furnish them with a few harmless ones [“Mo Letters”] like ‘Diamonds of Dust,’ if they would promise to continue to treat them fairly!” He then provides a list of typical questions and the prescribed answers, along with a demonstration of how to go on the offensive in an interview, speak with conviction, and badger the reporter. After intricate examples of how to deceive reporters, he asserts, “Honesty is usually the best policy in dealing with the Press,” then two paragraphs later explicates his ideal of honesty: “… you can just stall, evade, or lead them off on another track.…” He continues: “Give them a good story. Try not to be negative in knocking the system, its churches, etc.—even public education!… It’s OK to talk like this to each other, but not to outsiders!” Further, “Don’t use what they call ‘bad language’ and four letter words within their hearing!”

MORNING PRAYERS

“… and he was given much incense to mingle with the prayers of all the saints … and the smoke of the incense rose with the prayers of the saints …” (Revelation 8:3, 4).

From this sunrise angle

the chipped cup rim

shapes coffee mist to an ellipse

holding the morning odor

in brief order to the eye

before my nostrils inhale

and make its rising incense

a part of morning adoration

to the Holy God who can

make me a hale fellow.

EUGENE H. PETERSON

What goes for managing the news applies also to what is variously called “procuring” or “spoiling Egypt.” Since COG members do not hold paying jobs, they must try to get free food from local merchants. The colony member assigned to this task is called the procurer. He is given specific instructions on his appearance, dress, and manner: neat haircut, coat and tie, clean, conservative shirt, no jeans or far-out pants and shirts, shoes shined, teeth brushed, mouthwash used. “Don’t be afraid to put on a camouflage to put on the system” (“Procuring”). In many localities procurers represent the group by some name other than “Children of God,” lest COG’s bad publicity inhibit their efforts. Procurers say that the group are Bible-college students, that the ministry is taking young people off drugs and training them in “a certain trade to teach the young people how to become productive members in society” (“Procuring”). Never mind that one of COG’s main teachings is that it is sinful to hold a job in society. Procurers show pictures of their work, but they are selective, as per Berg’s advice: for example, “… lay off the dancing, you’re a Bible oriented group …” (“Procuring”).

The Children of God have had some success in their efforts to recruit from other Jesus-people groups, whom they consider “compromisers.” Again, deception is part and parcel of their method of operating. When Linda Meissner joined COG, she brought with her an underground newspaper re-christened “New Improved Truth.” It quotes establishment newspaper stories on COG, but wherever the name “Children of God” appeared in the original, it is blocked out and a substitution like “Jesus Revolution” or “Jesus Freaks” appears in its place. Nowhere is the paper declared to belong to COG. The mild “Mo Letters” carried in it are ascribed cryptically to M. L. In “Other Sheep” Berg, reacting to published criticism of COG, scolds his subordinates for their excessive exclusivism, which detracts from the effort to bring other Jesus people into COG. Of course, they learned their exclusivism from Berg himself, and what he calls for is not a change of beliefs but only one of tactics. The idea is to avoid doctrinal arguments and condemnations, telling recruits the “heavy stuff” about COG’s view of Bible prophecy only after they are safely within COG’s fold. “You could even read them the lighter Mo Letters designed for babes and the general public!” Another thing Berg would not want prospects to know is that “it may be the Lord’s Will to take otherwise less desirable mothers or fathers, to get the children!—Kibbutzim do” (“Pointers for Leaders”). A strange statement coming from a man who prides himself and his group on being outcasts for whom established society has no use, the foolish and weak whom God is using to confound the wise and strong of this world.

The same deception is employed in dealing with parents of new members. COG leaders make a big point of their instructions that members are to write home weekly. However, we know from conversation with exmembers that this is not encouraged until converts are firmly in COG’s grasp. Further, “Public Relations” makes it clear that the main purpose of allowing members to write at all is to try to get money out of the parents for COG’s use. There is a second reason: to minimize bad publicity. In fact, since the holiday season of 1971, COG has taken to sending members home on occasion—again, for the same two reasons—a move Berg describes as “a masterful stroke of genius” (“by the Lord,” he adds) (“Public Relations”).

Parents who find out where their children are located and come to talk with them are often prevented from doing so. Although numerous cases can be documented, COG leaders publicly deny this. Yet Berg acknowledges this well-known fact in his “Public Relations” letter. However, the letter announces a shift in tactics because of the bad press that this practice incurred. It is necessary, he now says, to take a chance and let parents speak with their children, in private if they absolutely insist. This means risking “kidnapping” of the children by their parents, and so members receive detailed instructions about how to escape from parents and return to the colony.

Nevertheless, the old practice is still often in effect. An English newspaper, Sunday People, set up an experiment to see if COG dealt honestly with parents. A young reporter “joined” COG. The next day an older reporter, posing as his father, came seeking him. The elders denied that his “son” was there and denied even knowing him. While the “father” was being offered coffee, Bible verses, and a demonstration of love, the elders tried to get to the young reporter to let them hide him (Sunday People, Sept. 24, 1972, p. 4). When an English woman tried to retrieve her daughter, she was shoved by Berg’s wife, known in the group as “Mother Eve.” When the woman pressed charges over the incident, a COG elder warned her to drop the case and threatened: “If you don’t you will never see your daughter again.” Mother Eve subsequently fled the country.

One must understand the COG view of the older generation as a whole in order to understand this behavior. Adults are assumed to belong to the System, which manifests itself in government, jobs, schools, and (most evil of all) churches—all of which make up the Great Whore of Babylon. Duplicity is again the hallmark of COG operations. Berg speaks of the “goodwill visitations to local churches” in which COG engaged in the early days in southern California (“Survival”). Yet, referring to the same visits, he crows, “We thumbed our noses at the churches and the Establishment.” Berg’s letters regularly catalogue vitriolic diatribes against the church. Sample:

And the Church?—Ha!—The so-called church … is just an absolute ridiculous laugh!—A little holier-than-thou, do-gooder, social club and status symbol for the self-righteous, sanctimonious, Pharisaical, superannuated hypocrites!—a useless, ineffective, weak and ludicrous, dead and dying, paganistic hangover from the superstitious past! (“Survival”).

Berg writes to a potential donor about “as much as we love them [church people],” but elsewhere he calls them “these d—, fool, so-called Christians” and their churches “the moldy molds of the coffins of the dead”—hardly a place to which to pay good-will visits.

Parents are tarred with the same vitriolic brush. “The Revolutionary Contract” describes parents as “the rotten, decadent, decrepit, hypocritical, selfrighteous, inflexable [sic], affluent, selfsatisfied, proud, stubborn, disobedient, blind, bloodthirsty, Godless, dead, selfish, churchy, unchangeable older generation.” The “Mo Letter” “Who Are the Rebels?” blasts “this recent modern plastic, artificial man-made gadget-filled, money crazy, whoremongering sex-mad—religiously hyprocritical society of the parents”; and the “God forsaking, Bible-hating, anti-Christ selfish peace-defying, law breaking, man killing parents of today.” Berg’s condemnation follows. “You, my dear parents, are the greatest rebels against God and His Word and His Ways.… To Hell with your devilish system. May God damn your unbelieving hearts.… God is going to destroy you and save us.…”

Though COG members early learn proof-texts for home-breaking for the sake of Christ, Berg publicly denies it: “To say that we try to separate ‘children’ from their loved ones is ridiculous! We have actually done more in most cases to bring them back together …” (“Survival”). Yet in the same passage Berg admits that in extreme cases, when parents have threatened or attempted violent action to reclaim their children, COG has sequestered the children—at their own request and for their own safety, he explains. Then comes the threat: “… we have been compelled in several cases to file criminal action and … have [been] … forced to prosecute them to protect ourselves and put a stop to their lies.… Don’t try to stop them [the children] or us!” (“Survival”). No wonder COG leaders value their privacy: “And with such insane parents on the loose, is it any wonder that the poor hounded leaders of some suffering Colonies prefer to be unseen, unknown, or at least out of the reach of such demented fiends …” (“Survival”). What is true for his lieutenants is even more applicable to the chief. He has good reason to prefer “to remain anonymous, and in the utmost seclusion for both my health and safety’s sake when there are such crazy people like those we’ve been describing running around with guns in their hands actually threatening to kill me if they can find me” (“Survival”).

It is always difficult to judge the mind of another man. But it is difficult to read and compare the various statements of David Berg and not conclude that they demonstrate a conscious pattern of deviousness. How this can be squared with the teachings of the Bible that Berg claims to venerate we do not know. If Berg were to confess that he had been mistaken and overzealous in his past pronouncements and to promise to shift from deceptiveness to high Christian ethics, that would be one thing. Until he does, he stands exposed as practicing an unconscionable duplicity.

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

In the winter of A.D. 53–54, the apostle Paul and several of his associates departed from the city of Antioch and headed for the distant central highlands of Asia Minor. It was not the first time the Antioch Christians had said farewell to Paul, for this was his third missionary journey from their Syrian city. Eleven years before, he had gone out from Antioch on his first evangelistic tour with Barnabas and the young John Mark, and later he had traveled with Silas. Now he was accompanied by the half Jewish, half Asian-Greek Timothy and the Gentile Titus—strange foreign Christians who were themselves the products of Paul’s far-reaching missionary ministry.

The evangelistic party followed the Roman trade route from Antioch across Syria and Cilicia, five hundred miles or more into the upper country of the Province of Galatia. There they were joined by Gaius of Derbe, and they visited Timothy’s home area of Lystra and Iconium. Over the remainder of the winter they worked in Galatia and Phrygia to fortify the churches Paul had established on earlier journeys. Paul’s historian, Luke, wrote of that trip, “… he departed and went over all the country of Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples” (Acts 18:23). On his previous visits to this region, Paul had gone to the Phrygian cities of Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe, so the mention of Galatia probably indicates that the gospel had spread northwardly since his last ministry in central Asia Minor.

As the spring of A.D. 54 arrived, they moved to the west and came to the town of Metropolis, where they reached an important fork in the busy Roman road. Behind them to the southeast lay Syria and Palestine, and far along the other road was the fertile Tigris-Euphrates Valley of Parthia and the even more remote land of India. From Metropolis Paul and his group followed the road into the heavily populated Province of Asia, where they descended through river valleys to the city of Ephesus—economic and religious capital of the province and the gateway to the wealth and the wisdom of the East. Located at the heart of a large Greek-speaking population and constantly visited by travelers from all over the Roman world, Ephesus was to become a strategic Christian center from which the gospel would spread far and wide over the empire and beyond.

The story of the apostle Paul’s evangelization of Ephesus and the whole Province of Asia is one of the most outstanding missionary accomplishments of history. If records were kept of all evangelistic triumphs, Paul’s victory at Ephesus would still remain unchallenged, for by the end of a brief two years “… all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10).

Since the dawn of Christianity, the Church has been at its best when it has been the most militantly evangelistic. In those periods when it has made the greatest efforts to expand over the earth it has been refined by the most violent opposition. Such times of persecution have built into it a fierce dedication to take the gospel to every man at any necessary cost.

Unfortunately, the Church has never been able to maintain its most dedicated missionary enthusiasm over more than a few decades at a time. In contrast to its periods of greatness, the Church has been at its worst when it has failed to polarize public opinion about Jesus Christ, has retreated from the arena of open evangelism, and has closed itself behind the walls of its stained-glass sanctuaries.

Megalithic cathedrals, for all their aesthetic value, stand as sepulchral monuments to whole ages of religious feudalism, the crumbling remains of a sad era when the Church was reclusively introverted. Equally elaborate religious organizational structures have gathered about them their huddles of obedient serfs who ask only that the Church feed and protect them while they live and bury them securely when they die. Defensive Christianity places its priorities on visible symbols of power and invincibility, protected by its theological positions behind bulwarks of words, social orders, and claims to divine authority; while whole generations of unimpressed, uncommitted, and unevangelized people go by outside its unscalable walls.

The Church was never meant to be an impregnable fortress, out of reach of the common people. True, it was to be built on a rock, but it was to move out from its solid base of Christian security to proclaim the message of salvation to all men. It was not to be so much a depository of truth as a proclaimer of a heavenly message. It was not to be a far-off mountain hidden in clouds of mystery and religious awe, but an open plain made clear for all men in the light of divine revelation. The Church was to become an outgoing, proclaiming, evangelistic body of mutually loving brothers in Christ, dedicated thoroughly to the one all-consuming passion for the worldwide evangelization of the popular masses.

Jesus Christ commanded His Church to preach the gospel to every person in every ethnic society, but no generation of Christians has ever come close to fulfilling the Great Commission in its own times. Now, with the world’s population at nearly 4 billion and growing at the alarming rate of 70 million people annually, the likelihood of evangelizing the whole world seems increasingly remote, at least with present methods and attitudes.

One of the most illustrative descriptions of the demographic explosion is an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C. In an awesome display of white human skulls mounted on black cloth, the population scientists have shown that in Christ’s day there were only about 300 million people on the earth. It was not until the first English settlers arrived in America, a millennium and a half later, that the earth’s population first reached 500 million. It was another three centuries before the population had grown to 1 billion for the first time. Then, caught in the trap of his own productivity, man doubled his number in the next one hundred years, and in 1930 reached the astounding figure of 2 billion people. From the early Depression until the opening of the Space Age, man then added another billion to the score between 1930 and 1960. The following ten years produced another half billion persons. By the year A.D. 2000, the world apparently will have some 6.5 billion inhabitants, and demographic and ecological experts are saying we will enter the Age of Famines.

It used to be that the prophets of doom were the sidewalk preachers, but now they are the scientists. The apocalyptic climax of history once preached only in revival meetings and supported somewhat extravagantly with claims of divine revelation now is declared by the scientists with charts and carefully researched prognostications. It has become obvious that if the Church is ever to evangelize the world it must greatly increase its level of missionary activity and establish a broader base of operations very quickly, or else be forever too late to fulfill the Great Commission.

The Church, however, has a terrible problem. By some quirk in the evangelical mind many churches appear to be satisfied or at least willing to settle for a token presence in each country rather than a serious attempt to fulfill the actual commands of Christ. They rejoice over a few sheaves of gathered grain, while ignoring the massive harvest still standing in the fields. Their magazines and sermons abound with tales of missionary heroes, great personal sacrifices, and inspirational reports, but they never tell the American people that by and large the Church is only establishing a token presence in each land rather than a pervading witness. They do not say that missionaries often fail to reach the major cultural groups because they spend most of their time working with the more impressionable ethnic minorities who are seeking to improve their social status. Seldom do American contributors learn that much of their money goes into establishing Western institutions and funding a great many busy but not evangelistic activities, such as hospitals, elementary schools, orphanages, and other charitable works that in today’s secular society can often be better sponsored by other agencies.

The Great Commission looms like a monolith above the religious horizon, challenging the Church to dedicate itself to the highest claims of the gospel. It must be understood that there is now no feasible way that the world can be reached by foreign missionaries alone; for even if the whole Church were suddenly to reverse its pattern of cultural isolation and make a serious attempt at total evangelization, we are already past the point of any possibility of making enough converts fast enough to evangelize the world by traditional missionary methods.

The only hope for the total evangelization of the world is to teach the Christian believers of each nation to evangelize their own people and to incite in each country the conditions in which spontaneous lay movements of church expansion may occur. In short, the Church must abandon its stained-glass sanctuaries and take the gospel out into the streets.

It has become clear to many who know the work of evangelical missionary ministry that the present degree of activity and accomplishments simply will not evangelize the world in this generation. There must be a radical change at every level of missionary endeavor if we are to take seriously the demands of the Great Commission.

For too long the work of foreign missionaries has been patterned after Western colonialism or else has built its methods on reactions to that historical period. Even the present emphasis on the establishing of indigenous churches came about as a corrective measure to offset the problems of paternalistic missionary methods. The Church ought to have been indigenously building upon the integrity of all believers from the very beginning, but so many activities were directed by foreigners and so many national believers were limited to unimportant and irresponsible tasks that some corrective measure became necessary. Therefore, there arose the emphasis on the indigenous-church principle that the national church should be self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating.

As the plan has developed, however, there are certain problems. In many countries the evangelical churches have fulfilled the basic requirements of the indigenous-church plan, but still find themselves despairingly short of the total evangelization of their surrounding populations. It is also possible for a national church to be fully indigenous without being based on other New Testament principles. For example, the Chinese communists adopted the indigenous-church principle in their Three-Self Movement, which only led the evangelical churches astray from New Testament Christianity. The indigenization of the church is a necessary step in world evangelization, but it by no means includes all the needed factors for the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

It can safely be stated that no national church will prosper and grow at any realistic rate that is not founded on the indigenous-church principle, set down so aptly by Melvin L. Hodges (The Indigenous Church, Springfield, Missouri: Gospel Publishing House, 1953) and other missionary writers. The missionary is a transplanted example of the Christian life; it is only as the native people of a land, endemic to their society and autochthonal to their culture, become active proclaimers of the gospel that there can be any natural church growth. A national church overly dependent on missionary leadership is like a wig—it looks as though it grew, but it is totally incapable of growing of its own life.

The indigenous-church idea must not be seen as an end product of missions, but as a beginning base from which the real task of the Church may be accomplished. Much of the work of evangelical missions over the past decades has been that of repairing the serious mistakes of the previous hundred years. Now a fresh approach must be based on New Testament principles to make a serious attempt at fulfilling the Great Commission in our times.

What we need is a new matrix, a whole new way of looking at the missionary challenge. If our goal is to establish a token presence in each country, then we have already done quite well; but if the Great Commission demands that every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth have a fair opportunity to accept or reject the gospel of Jesus Christ, then we are lagging almost hopelessly behind.

In search of a workable plan for worldwide evangelization, we must go back to the New Testament and base our global ministry on apostolic patterns and standards. To do this, we turn to the Apostle Paul, who said, “I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting” (1 Tim. 1:16).

In the first century, the Apostle Paul provided both a prototype for the modern missionary and a working model for a practical method of total world evangelization. His methods were especially observable at Ephesus, where after two years in that focal city in the Province of Asia, “… all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks” (Acts 19:10). The sequence of events in Paul’s Ephesian campaign offers us an efficient plan that, if applied to the late twentieth century, could conceivably evangelize the world.

1. A Single Purpose: Underlying all evangelistic activities there must be a unified, cooperative agreement that the primary task of the Church is to fulfill the Great Commission. The Church will not have completed that original assignment until every man, woman, and child on the face of the earth shall have had a fair chance to understand the significance of the gospel, had an opportunity to accept or reject Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord, and had the continued prospect of worshiping God in a community of Christian believers.

The primary purpose of Jesus Christ in the world must never become a secondary cause in His Church.

2. Preliminary Planning: Before missionary activities are initiated in a country, the mission board and the missionaries must thoroughly research the proposed field and choose strategic locations for their vital evangelistic centers. When a national church is involved, the same principle applies that all major moves should be part of a total plan. Particular care should be given to the patterns of social movement so that the natural flow of population will carry the gospel where the evangelists want it to go.

Evangelization on a worldwide scale requires preliminary planning and careful strategy. The planning is as critical as the execution in reaching the world for Christ.

3. Cooperative Teamwork: It is impossible for single individual efforts to reach the world for Christ. Missionaries must unite their activities into cooperative teamwork of interdependent ministries, setting aside all competitiveness with one another in favor of presenting a unified front to the real enemies of church growth.

The apostolic pattern of evangelism requires the teamwork of dedicated people laboring effectively toward a single predetermined goal.

4. A Basic Nucleus: Because the masses are irrational and respond only affirmatively or negatively to symbolic images, individual prospects should first be attracted to a basic nucleus of believers who represent in microcosm what the church is to be when it is grown. Nothing vital should be left out of the preparation of these first believers, for they should exhibit the whole spectrum of apostolic doctrine, religious experience, fundamental practices, and basic priorities.

Before an evangelist can take the gospel to the masses, he must first form a nucleus of properly oriented believers with whom the new converts may identify.

5. Mass Communications: One-to-one witnessing is certainly to be encouraged, but the Church will never reach the whole world without mass evangelism. Somehow the gospel must be communicated to large numbers of people to the point that it becomes an issue in the community. Mass evangelism is most effective when it is operated in a cycle of drawing prospective believers from the masses, assimilating them into the churches, and returning to the masses again for another group of prospects.

To evangelize large numbers of people, the missionary must somehow bring his message to the attention of the public and break down the masses into workable groups of favorable individual contacts.

6. Establish Congregations: The previous stages of the method are all aimed at preparation for the major task of establishing communities of Christian believers in thriving congregations. The Church of Jesus Christ exists in its entirety wherever it is manifested, beginning with two or three believers gathered together. It is in the very nature of the Christian experience to desire to join together in churches.

Effective mass evangelization always requires that the resulting converts be established in responsible Christian congregations.

7. Trained National Leaders: There will never be enough foreign missionaries to evangelize the whole earth. The only way the world can be reached is for the missionaries to teach the people of each country to evangelize their own people and to incite the conditions in which spontaneous lay movements of church expansion will occur. The teaching of pastors and other church leaders must be on a practical level that best trains them and motivates them for fervent service.

If church growth is to result from massive lay movements, it is essential that the people of each country be taught to pastor their own churches, lead their own evangelistic programs, and direct their own national organizations.

8. Maintain Momentum: The natural tendency of a movement is to grow by stages, the phases of rapid expansion coming farther and farther apart until growth becomes insignificant. The missionary cannot allow this to happen to his evangelistic movement, because his goal is total evangelization. He maintains momentum through a vision for continuous growth, the constant development of fresh leadership, a realistic method of financing his operations, and the application of the New Testament ministries of preaching, teaching, and believing for miracles.

The success of world missions is not to be measured against past accomplishments or present gains, but by the fulfillment of the total claims of the Great Commission and the response of the Church to plan and maintain a missionary vision.

9. Overcome Opposition: Sooner or later, an attempt at total world evangelization must come into life-or-death struggles with the other religions and philosophies of the planet. The Church must be sure to establish a strong base of believers and sympathizers before serious confrontations occur, otherwise it may find itself outnumbered and outmaneuvered. The Church must not purposely initiate a violent confrontation, neither should it return violence for violence. The Church cannot be stopped by opposition, for only social acceptance can control it.

When the growing Christian community becomes large enough to be a force in the society, its evangelistic action will provoke a responding counteraction from the major religions of the area. This often occurs when the economy and balance of power are most seriously affected.

10. A Missionary Church: Churches begun on sound missionary principles will themselves become missionary-minded congregations who will share in the concepts of world evangelization and cooperate in the cause. As national churches become increasingly evangelistic in their outlook and practice, missionaries can branch out into other supporting tasks to increase the depth of the evangelistic channel and expand the flow of new converts into the Church.

The only way the world can possibly be won for Christ is for every believer to be an evangelistic witness and for every church to become a center for missionary activity.

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”

Kathryn Kuhlman says she does not consider herself the best-known woman preacher in the world. But she is that. From a home base in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Miss Kuhlman has for more than twenty-five years led a ministry that has had increasing impact and respect. She is especially noted for the many thousands who have come to her great services broken in body and spirit and have gone away whole. Not since Aimee Semple McPherson has a woman religious figure been recognized and appreciated so far and wide.

To many, however, Miss Kuhlman remains something of a mystery. Some who try to understand her cannot. Many others who could will not—unless they are stricken with illness and given up by medical science.

This wide-ranging, exclusive interview with Miss Kuhlman is presented by Christianity Today to dispel some of the misunderstanding that has grown up around her, or at least to present a digest, in her own words, of how she answers questions put to her by both believers and unbelievers. Miss Kuhlman very graciously consented to respond at length to an extensive assortment of questions. What follows is an edited distillation of the exchange.

Question. Miss Kuhlman, you have increasingly represented the last great hope of the desperately ill. What is it like to have such an awesome role?

ANSWER. Helping people is the most rewarding thing in the world. You do not have to be a Kathryn Kuhlman to help people. Every Christian should have as his goal helping people. We were all born to serve.

Q. Your ministry is obviously very gratifying …

A. Last Christmas I got a card from a twelve-year-old girl. I put it at the top of the tree. Doctors had said she might not be living by Christmas. They had suggested a leg amputation because of cancer. She wrote on the card, “I am living to see this Christmas. I still have two good legs because God answered prayer, and you helped.” It was the greatest gift that I received.

Q. But does such a thrilling responsibility ever give you second thoughts about a healing ministry?

A. When I walk out on the platform and I realize that sitting there in the audience are people who have made a great sacrifice to come, and when I realize that for many it is their last hope … and remember something: Your question is probably asked in terms of physical healing. But spiritual healing is far greater. It may be somebody’s last call for spiritual healing. The physical healing is so very secondary. You can well afford to live and die with a sick body. It’s great to see an empty wheelchair, but the new birth is vastly more important. When I realize that there are people, and the destiny of their souls is at stake, that is the most awesome feeling. That’s when the great responsibility is really felt. And when the lights in the auditorium are turned out, I wonder whether I could have done a better job for the Lord. It is not a thrilling responsibility, but awesome, and sometimes so awesome I wish I had never been called to this part of the ministry.

Q. You have repeatedly said you do not regard yourself as a faith healer. Why?

A. I resent very much being called a faith healer, because I am not the healer. I have no healing virtue. I have no healing power. I have never healed anyone. I am absolutely dependent upon the power of the Holy Spirit. When I see a sick child, in a moment like that I sense in a special way how dependent I really am. And it’s just like that.

Q. Miss Kuhlman, you don’t bother to answer skeptics and critics. But would you grant that there are some Christians who have some honest, conscientious doubts about you and your ministry, and if so, do they deserve to know more about what you believe and how you operate than you normally state publicly?

A. I tell you the truth: I answer every question that is asked of me. I do not believe there is anyone in the religious field today who is more honest in answering questions than I am. That is the reason I am talking to you now. I bare my soul to you. I answer the believer and the unbeliever the best I know how. When it comes to answering skeptics, remember that Jesus told his critics in substance, If you do not believe my claims, then believe me for the very works’ sake. If the Lord himself returned in person and did the same works today that he did when he walked this earth, he would have more skeptics than he had when he was here the first time in the flesh. Spiritual things are only spiritually revealed. You cannot force human beings to believe something they do not want to believe. And so, when it comes to the scoffers I just leave them to God.

Q. Do you feel it fair to come under journalistic scrutiny from questioners who may not be entirely sympathetic with your ministry?

A. Sometimes it’s a little difficult for me. Take a reporter who comes into one of the great miracle services. He knows nothing about the power of God. He may be otherwise very intelligent, but it is quite unfair, really, to himself and to the servant of God. And so I leave them also in the hands of God. Recently, however, a reporter who attended a service we had in Tampa came backstage afterward and announced, “I came a skeptic, but I left a believer.”

Q. Was Aimee Semple McPherson any kind of model or inspiration to you?

A. No, because I never met her. But several years after Miss McPherson died, Maggie Hartner and I visited her grave. There we found a young man and a woman who was probably his mother viewing the monument erected to the memory of Miss McPherson. The woman was telling how her preaching had made Jesus so real. “I found Christ through her life,” the woman said. At this point Kathryn Kuhlman thought to herself that if after I am gone just one person can stand by my grave and say, “I found Christ because she preached the Gospel,” then I will not have lived in vain.

Q. How do you conceive your calling? How and when did you get it?

A. Oh, I could preach for hours and hours on that. It was simple. First there was my conversion at that little church in Concordia, Missouri. It was one Sunday morning. I was fourteen. It was my first introduction to the Holy Spirit. Holding the Methodist hymnal I began to shake. With great conviction I did the only thing I knew to do: I slipped out and walked down to the front pew, sat down in the corner, and wept. Not out of sorrow, but because of a great feeling that came upon me. Some spiritual experiences, there are just no words in the human vocabulary to describe them. But it was in that moment that I was born again. And I have never doubted my new-birth experience from that moment.

Q. And your call to the ministry?

A. It was as definite as my conversion. If everybody in the world told me that as a woman I have no right to preach the Gospel, it would have no effect upon me whatsoever, because my call to the ministry was as definite as my conversion.

Q. Where did you begin preaching?

A. In Idaho. Name any little town in that state, and I evangelized it. I would find any little country church that could not afford a preacher and get permission to hold services in it. The very first sermon I preached was Zaccheus up a tree, and God knows that if anyone was up a tree I certainly was. I remember the sixth sermon I preached—I honestly felt I had exhausted the Bible.

Q. In what church or denomination were you ordained?

A. I am a Baptist. I still belong to a Baptist church. I was ordained with the Evangelical Church Alliance in Joliet, Illinois, years and years ago when I went there for a meeting. They were the first to ordain me, and I have continued to hold papers with them.

Q. Are your books audited and your financial statements available?

A. They better be. Why, of course. Bless you, we have perhaps the greatest, finest auditors in the city of Pittsburgh, Snodgrass and Company.

Q. What is the purpose of the Kathryn Kuhlman Foundation?

A. Let me quote our charter: “The purposes generally shall be to foster, promote and sponsor radio-television programs and broadcasts of a religious nature which will tend to further the Christian religion, foster Christian fellowship among people, and help interpret Christianity to the world, and to engage in such other religious, charitable, or educational activities as the board of trustees shall determine.” And by the grace of God, we’re trying to do a good job. When I stand in his glorious presence, my first words will be, “I tried. I made mistakes, I’m sorry, but I tried.”

Q. How effective has your TV ministry been? What has been the response in numbers of letters?

A. I can only tell you that the most unlikely people stop me on the street and say, “I wouldn’t miss your telecast for anything in the world.” I’m thrilled when I get into a cab … and seldom do I ever get into a cab but what, on hearing my voice, the cab driver will say, “Oh-oh, I know that voice—my wife and I watch you on television all the time.” The response is great, but unlike most other religious telecasts because we do not offer any giveaways. People write in only because they are hungry for the Lord. Financially, the telecasts do not pay for themselves. The greatest combination is television and radio. Through radio we teach. Together they form a combination that is unbeatable.

Q. What is the role and place of speaking in tongues and what is its relation to justification and sanctification? Is it a sign or the sign of the Spirit’s control?

A. What you want to know is whether or not I believe in speaking in tongues.

Q. No, we already know that you do.

A. I have to believe there is such a thing as speaking in an unknown tongue, because I believe in the Bible. One just cannot take out what one does not find agreeable. We’re in an hour of great deception. If it were possible, the very elect would be deceived. In our services everything is done according to God’s Word. There is no fanaticism. We believe in speaking in tongues because the Bible teaches it. Everything that happened on the day of Pentecost should be happening in every church in the world in this very hour. These things are natural, not unnatural. Now we have Pentecostal Catholic priests and Pentecostal Baptist and Lutheran ministers and so on. But remember, speaking in an unknown tongue has nothing to do whatsoever with one’s experience of justification. It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul! If you have accepted Christ in the forgiveness of sins, whether you have ever spoken in an unknown tongue or not, you will stand in the wonderful presence of the great high priest, your Christ and your redeemer. The baptism of the Spirit is given for one purpose only: power for service. The greatest evidence of having been filled with the Holy Spirit is the power in an individual’s life after this experience. You may speak in tongues every hour on the hour, but if your life is not measuring up with the power of the Holy Ghost, then I would not give you much for your experience of speaking in an unknown tongue. And it’s just like that.

Q. How do you regard your relation to the institutional church? What role and importance do you personally assign to the institutional church?

A. Practically every Friday I have a miracle service in the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, one of the most influential in the nation. The service begins around 9:30 and runs until about 1:30. They come, Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, every denomination, people from around the world. Everyone forgets his denominational ties; we worship together from the common ground of Calvary. And this should be happening in every church in the United States. I have had a very close tie to the institutional church for as long as I can remember. But if our churches are to remain influential, they must open their eyes and realize the day in which we are living. The Church must do something about the Holy Spirit. I beg of you to please understand the great opportunity. This could be the finest hour for the Church. The Church must realize we are still living in the day of Pentecost. It must not say, We will accept only a portion of God’s Word and forget the rest. I say to every minister: Don’t be afraid of the power of the Holy Spirit. The last thing Jesus did before leaving this earth was to give the Church the Holy Spirit. If the Church refuses, the Holy Spirit will carry on this work outside the Church. But it should not be. We’re on the threshold of the greatest spiritual awakening. Revival is here.

Q. What do you think of the Jesus movement?

A. Everybody should know by now what I think about it. Don’t underestimate the power of our young people today. Of course, there are weaknesses. But let’s not judge the whole bushel by one or two bad apples. I believe this is the last generation before the second coming of Jesus Christ. When Scripture spoke of the last day of outpouring, it spoke of young men and young women. You will not be able to stop this great spiritual wave because it is of God.

Q. How have you overcome the disreputable cloud in which faith healers operate? Has the self-confessed hypocrisy of Marjoe affected you or your ministry in any way?

A. I have not overcome anything because I do not put myself in a class with faith healers. It’s only the news media that have put me in that class. As I said before, I am not a faith healer. I have not been given anything special. What I have is something that any Christian could have if he would pay the price of full surrender and yieldedness. I am absolutely dependent on the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am dependent on the power of the Holy Spirit in exactly the same way that Jesus was when he was here in the flesh and walked this earth. He was dependent on the Holy Spirit, for the manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit in his ministry. That was the reason that before Jesus ever came in the form of flesh he offered himself through the Holy Spirit to be given. Jesus gave to his Church the gift of power, the power to see miracles performed. And when it comes to faith, I have seen miracles performed where there was no manifestation of faith whatsoever. The persons admitted they did not believe. They were awed when they realized they had been healed. We have lost sight of the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you and I have any faith, it is not something we have worked up. The Bible says that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. Our faith is a gift. A faith healer? No, I merely remind you how big God really is.

Q. How about Marjoe?

A. That film has not affected our ministry one bit. I declined to serve on a panel with him. God’s Word does not need to be defended. Oh sure, when I was younger I used to fight at the drop of a hat. I started out in the ministry as a teen-ager defending my wonderful Jesus. (Remember, I have red hair.) After years of experience, I found out that he needs no defense. He will defend himself. As for the Holy Spirit, all we have to do is be faithful to preaching the Word, and he will defend me.

Q. What is your definition of a miracle? How unusual must a phenomenon be to warrant such a designation?

A. Well, what a miracle may mean to you may not mean the same thing to me. I remember a little boy who recognized me on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles and proceeded to tell me how a miracle had once happened to him: he found a quarter when he needed money. To someone else it may be the healing of cancer. Sometimes the supernatural happens, contradicting all known scientific laws. I believe that every birth is a miracle. Do you understand what I mean?

Q. Not really, because the question asked for your definition of a miracle, and you’ve just told us to pick and choose. We gather, however, that you feel miracles to be relative, that this is perhaps more of a semantic problem, inasmuch as “supernatural” is not a biblical term and scientific laws are not divinely inspired. Something is “supernatural” only because someone down the line put a boundary on the term “natural.” But let’s go on. What do you mean by “coming under the power”? What is the biblical criterion for such an experience?

A. I call it “coming under the power” because I do not know what else to call it. I only know that I have nothing to do with it. Two questions I am going to ask the Master when I get home to glory. First, why wasn’t everyone healed (I don’t know why)? And then I want him to explain, regarding the manifestation of the power of God, the “slaying power” of the Holy Spirit. I do not understand it. The biblical criterion is the conversion of Saul on the road to Damascus. All of a sudden he found himself flat on the ground. He didn’t have someone to catch him, either. At least we have ushers.

Q. Do you have many healings from drugs, youth or adult?

A. Yes. Both alike. There have been those healed from drugs just sitting in the audience, without hands being laid on them. That, my friends, is God’s power.

Q. To what extent do you take medication yourself? When should one pray for healing, and when should he seek medicine or conventional therapy?

A. I thank my God for his keeping power. I believe that the fact he keeps me in good health without medication is as great a miracle as though I had been healed from some disease. If you do not have the faith to be healed, then go and see the best physician there is. God heals in more than one way. We work very closely with the medical profession. All healing is divine, but God does not always heal in the same way.

Q. Do you find that being a woman hinders your work in any way?

A. [Laughter] I don’t know, because I don’t know what it would have been like had I been a man. When unpleasant things happen, I just act like it never happened. Let me bare my soul: I do not believe I was God’s first choice in this ministry. Or even his second or third. This is really a man’s job. I work hard, seventeen hours a day. I can outwork five men put together. I get little sleep. I stand at the pulpit four and a half hours at a time without sitting down once, and I can still leave the stage as refreshed as when I walked on. I have given myself completely to the Holy Spirit, and he gives me sustenance. God’s first choices were men. Someplace men failed. I was just stupid enough to say, Take nothing and use it. And he has been doing just that.

Q. Why aren’t there more women preachers?

A. You will just have to ask God. I don’t know. [Laughter] I really don’t know, but I wouldn’t wish this job on any woman, I’ll tell you that. If you think it’s easy, try it.

Q. What do you think of women’s lib?

A. You want to know something? Women’s lib won’t like to hear what I have to say. I’d give anything if I could just be a good housewife, a good cook. Oh, I’d like to be a good cook. I’d like to have about twelve children. It would be so nice to have a man bring in the pay check. I would just love to have a man boss me. It might not last long. But for a little while it would just be great. When it comes to women’s lib, I am still as old-fashioned as the Word of God. I still think the husband should be the head of the family. I know how it was at our house: If Papa said it, it was just as though God had said it. We never had any women’s lib, but we had a mighty happy family. Papa did the work, and Mama ran Papa without Papa knowing it, and it was a beautiful situation.

Q. What do you think of the current physical-fitness kick—health spas, natural foods, dieting, and so on?

A. Let me think about this one a minute.… I see people every day that I think should diet. People write to me about some things, and ask me to pray, when I think they could answer their own prayer. If you’re too fat, do something about it. I believe in doing everything you can to keep in good health. You cannot go out and do everything that is contrary to good health and then look up and ask God to heal your body. He has given us a brain. He has given certain laws. And if we live contrary to these laws, we can expect poor health. We need a baptism of old-fashioned common sense.

Q. How do you feel about abortion?

A. I could never have an abortion and live with myself. There are some things that can be legislated, but an individual still has to live with himself.

Q. What was your purpose in seeing the Pope? What was said between you?

A. It was a beautiful experience. I had received word that if I were ever in Rome I was to send word where I was staying. I did, and an invitation came to the hotel. It could not have happened perhaps even five years ago. I’m Protestant. I am a woman minister. But we were just two human beings. The same purpose. Both love humanity, both wanting to help humanity. As I was announced and came walking toward him, he reached both hands out to me, and then when I came very near he took both of my hands in his hands and looked me directly in the face and said, “You are doing an admirable work.” He repeated the words. I thanked him. I told him I was trying to do the work of our Lord, too. He said he wanted me to know I had his constant prayers and his blessing. The day has come that we need to forget a lot of the differences that are dividing us. If you are a Roman Catholic and born again, cleansed by the blood of Christ, then you’re my brother or sister in the Lord.

Q. What is your interpretation of James 5:14? Do you use oil? Do you regard yourself as an elder?

A. What is prescribed in this verse should be taking place in every church in the world today. Every pastor prays for the sick in his church, but if God ever did raise them up he would get the shock of his life! A lot of our praying is just a form. Why don’t we get back to the Word of God? Anointing oil is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. I do not consider myself an elder. But I have every right to use oil if I wish to anoint with oil because it is the symbol of the Holy Spirit. In our services people are healed just sitting there in the presence of the Holy Spirit, even without the anointing with oil.

Q. How do you interpret Paul’s and Peter’s apparent injunction against women’s speech in First Timothy 2:11 and 12?

A. Oh, this is a good one. Kinda looks like they didn’t believe in women’s lib. But if it were contrary to the will of God that women should preach, Paul certainly would have reprimanded Philip, in whose home Paul visited, for Philip had four daughters who were preachers. Now that’s a house full of preachers, let me tell you.

Q. Isn’t that an argument from silence?

A. All right, but take a look at Acts 2, talking about the last days: “Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” I believe the reason Paul said what he did about women needing to be silent was because in the synagogues of that day women would sit in the balcony and would talk so loudly that the speaker could not be heard. Maybe John’s wife or Saul’s wife would call down and say, “Did I turn off the stove?” Or if they were voting, Elizabeth would call down and say, “Abe, say no. You know I don’t like him.” So Paul said, Let the woman be quiet. That did not mean they were inferior. The Bible teaches that both men and women have their proper places, each with responsibility. The man is the head of the house. That does not mean he is a tyrant. We all know there are differences, and thank God there are differences. But women are not lesser. Some of the great leaders of Hebrew history were women. Personally, I admire Golda Meir. What Golda wants, Golda gets; yet she is sensitive. There are some things that men naturally do and some that women do, but it was Christianity that freed the women from their subservient role. I could never see how women could reject Christ, because he gave dignity to women. I’m still glad I am a woman.

Q. Do you feel that all sick people should come to you? Could they just believe on their own?

A. Of course. They do not have to come to me. I have nothing to do with these healings. Don’t reach out to try to touch Kathryn Kuhlman. Reach out and touch Jesus. You come to these services because there is a oneness and a spirit, and when you join thousands who are in prayer it is so much easier to pray and to believe God. But keep your eyes on Jesus, wherever you are. You can be healed in your own home just as easily as in a miracle service.

Q. What is your comment to Christians who come to your meetings and go away without having been healed?

A. I have no comment whatsoever, because whether or not that one was healed was in the hands of God. At no time was it my responsibility. But I’m human, and you’ll never know how I hurt on the inside when I see those who came in wheelchairs being pushed into the street again. You’ll never know the ache, the suffering I feel, but the answer I must leave with God. But while I was in Kansas City, the Star, a newspaper of great strength, sent a New York-trained, marvelous, lovely reporter whom I got to know. The last night I was there she came to my dressing room, and I told her how grateful I was for the healings but that I wept for the others. Three weeks later I received a personal letter from her telling me that she had had a friend in that last service, an attorney dying of cancer, brought in a stretcher. She told me that he died within a week after that, but that the attorney’s wife related how he had felt that the service was the greatest thing that happened to him. He was not healed, but he accepted Christ for the forgiveness of sins in that service, and death was easy. The reporter reminded me not to weep but to remember this incident. No, I do not know why all are not healed physically, but all can be healed spiritually, and that’s the greatest miracle any human being can know.

Q. Do you think there is any correlation between your ministry of healing and such phenomena as ESP?

A. I’ll be frank: I know nothing about ESP. I have never studied it. I have always felt I had enough to do to study the Bible, and I just lean completely upon the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit.

Q. How do you understand the apparent desire of Jesus and the disciples not to publicize certain healings?

A. I do not know what was in the mind of Jesus. One day I’ll ask him, and I’ll let you know.

Q. Is there healing in the atonement? That is, did Christ die to relieve us of our physical as well as spiritual infirmities?

A. Jesus died for the whole man, body, soul and spirit. God would be unjust had he done otherwise. In the first Passover, the blood was sprinkled, but the flesh of the lamb was to be eaten. We tend to forget about the flesh. What about the bread in communion? It should mean a beautiful miracle service. Partaking of the bread has nothing to do with the soul. The whole man was included in the atonement. In Isaiah we read, “By his stripes we are healed.” I do not believe that anyone can receive a physical healing without also receiving a spiritual healing. The two go hand in hand.

Q. What is your concept of illness?

A. How best can I answer that? Well, maybe by telling you about the little boy who ate too many green apples and who came to his mother complaining of illness. She said, “Oh, honey, it’s all in your mind. You just think you are sick.” Whereupon the boy replied, “But Mama, I have inside information. I’m sick.” When a little boy goes vomiting all over the place, having eaten too many green apples, I’m telling you something: it isn’t just his imagination. It is not just a mental attitude. That kid is sick. I know why the question is asked. Because so very often there are those who like to say that healings are psychosomatic, that it’s all in the mind. The healing of cancer could not be psychosomatic. Nor the lengthening of a limb, or the giving of sight to an eye. Let’s just stop trying to close our eyes to the power of God. Let’s accept God for what he really is. Let’s accept God and his Word at face value. You may not need a miracle today, but there may come a time when you will need that miracle. Accept God’s promises at face value.

Q. To what extent is individual health related to social or cosmic health? Do you feel our social “mind set” has much to do with the physical health of individuals?

A. Most important … all these questions are, they’re right down to where we live. The greatest enemy that an individual can take into his life is fear. It’s just like that. If you are able to conquer that enemy of fear, you have gone a long way to bringing health to a physical body. Life is not built for negative achievements. It’s built for positive contribution, for outgoing love. You can never get rid of your own troubles unless you take upon yourself the troubles of others. When you find yourself oppressed by melancholy, the best thing to do is to go out and find something kind to do to somebody else. For when you dig a man out of trouble, the hole which is left is the grave where you bury your own troubles. Go out and do something that nobody but a Christian would do, and it isn’t long before you forget about your own problems. That is where the mind enters into it. I believe one can talk himself into being sick. It’s amazing how a little pain will increase when you talk about it, dwell on it. The best medicine in the world is hard work. We’ve got pills for everything. We’re pilled to death these days. Sometimes I wish we could put faith in capsules. Remember, the miracle starts from within. You exercise outgoing love, and all the healing resources of the universe will be behind you.

Q. How do you regard faith?

A. Faith is that quality or power by which the things desired become the things possessed. This is the nearest to a definition of faith attempted by the inspired Word of God. It’s almost like trying to define energy in one comprehensive statement. Or try to define an atom: you can’t. So it is with faith. But we know what faith is not. A common error is to confuse faith with presumption. That’s a danger. Faith is more than belief, than confidence, than trust. Above all, it is never boastful, nor contrary to the Word of God. Faith can be received only as it is imparted by God himself. The most common ailment among those who come to our services and write in for prayer is cancer. If I have any faith in praying for the healing of that cancer, that faith is definitely a gift from God. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith. You cannot work it up. You can believe a promise, yet not have the faith to appropriate that promise. Belief is a mental quality, and when we try to believe ourselves into an experience we are getting into a metaphysical realm, and there is a difference. Faith as imparted by God to the heart is spiritual. It is with the heart that man believes unto righteousness. But heart belief is faith or at any rate opens the door of communication between us and the Lord whereby a divine imparted faith becomes possible. Jesus told his believing disciples that if they had just a little faith they could move mountains.

Q. Why do so few people have the gift of healing?

A. Let’s not just take one gift. Let’s get the overall picture of what Paul is saying in First Corinthians twelve. The gifts are essential to the functioning of the Church. The early Church was founded on the supernatural gifts, and we need to get back to the supernatural. Where we find the Holy Spirit we find the supernatural. Should one argue that the gifts were merely to usher in the present dispensation, and not for today, consider Peter: “The promise is to … many afar off.…” We are to desire the gifts that we may serve God better. Love is most important. Why limit your question to the gift of healing? Why are there so few who have been given the gift of wisdom, the gift of knowledge, and so on? And there are far more gifts than those named in First Corinthians twelve. God knows who he can trust with gifts. Some would misuse them.

Q. Do you feel you have the gift of healing? What gift do you have?

A. I would never say that I have ever received any gift. I am leery of folks who boast of this or that gift. The greatest of the Christian graces is humility. All that I know is that I have yielded my body to Him to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and anything that the Holy Spirit has given me, any results there might be in this life of mine, is not Kathryn Kuhlman. It’s the Holy Spirit; it’s what the Holy Spirit does through a yielded vessel. That is one thing I am so afraid of: I am afraid lest I grieve the Holy Spirit, for when the Holy Spirit is lifted from me I am the most ordinary person that ever lived.

Q. Is anxiety the cause of most illness?

A. I have already told you that the most common ailment people come to me with is cancer. Now everyone knows that cancer is not psychosomatic. It could not be. If so, we would not be spending billions for cancer research. We have had healings of cancer; therefore those healed by God were not merely psychosomatic. I admit very freely there are those who are neurotic, who need to be healed mentally and spiritually, who come for physical healing. But these three aspects are all parts of one person. Man was made to be mastered by a higher power, and if you don’t yield you will be mastered by things and circumstances. If you are mastered by the will of God, you will not be defeated in the hour of trial. When we are defeated, we soon find ourselves sick in mind and body.

Q. How much knowledge do you have of medicine and therapeutic science?

A. Practically none. That’s why I have doctors on the platform. One doctor who came to our service wondered how I could take the healings of arthritis so lightly. He regarded them as the greatest miracles, because as a physician he knew there was no cure. I often ask physicians to talk with those who have been healed.

Q. What do you regard as the ultimate goal of your ministry?

A. My purpose is the salvation of souls. Divine healing is secondary to the transformation of a life.

Q. Do you have anything special you would like to say to “Christianity Today” readers?

A. Just one thing. Believe God to the point of action, remembering always that the only limit to the power of God lies within you as an individual. And to the Church may I say: No nation is greater or stronger than its spiritual forces, and the Church today has a great responsibility.

George M. Marsden is associate professor of history at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. He has the Ph.D. (Yale University) and has written “The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience.”