Euro 70: Spiritual Landmark

The German city of Dortmund, which was the center of Billy Graham’s recent Europewide evangelistic crusade, lies in the heart of the industrial Ruhr Valley. This old city was flattened by bombs in World War II. It has risen again from the ruin and rubble and now bears all the marks of our affluent age, including unconcern for God and his Church. The churches of Germany and the rest of Europe are relics of another age, symbols of what the Church was in the days following the Reformation. Religious life is at a lower ebb than at any other time in four centuries. Whether this mission field (it is this in the same sense that Asia and Africa are) can once again become dynamically Christian remains to be seen.

Graham conducted his “Euro 70” campaign at a time when the theological centers of influence and the churches, like their counterparts in North America, lie under the devastating spell of humanism and theological liberalism. With this as a backdrop Graham brought a series of simple evangelistic messages from familiar passages of Scripture. There was no homiletical pretentiousness, no negativism, no presentation of doubts or disbelief—just the positive affirmation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

Although Graham did not press for decisions, well over fifteen thousand were recorded during the crusade. The scene on Saturday night in the Dortmund Westfalenhalle was typical. The hall was packed with people, and seven thousand more had gathered in secondary facilities even before the meeting began. At least half were under twenty-five. After the message hundreds of young people and old massed in front of the podium to confess Jesus Christ as Saviour. It was a dramatic time. There was no other explanation than that God was at work. At the forty halls where the closed-circuit television broadcasts were received, the scenes were similar. Among these was the Palais du Sports in Paris. There God worked mightily, in a city and a country where Protestant Christianity has never had more than a tiny beachhead.

Graham is constantly searching for new ways to reach the masses of people with the Gospel. Euro 70 was something new, and the Graham team did not know whether the effort would succeed or fail. Numerically it was a smashing victory, and it may well set the pattern for further closed-circuit television efforts around the world. The chief obstacle is the language problem. Graham spoke through a German interpreter and was supported by a team of interpreters who brought his message to other Europeans who do not speak German.

The response of evangelical leaders from around Europe makes it clear that Euro 70 gave a heartening lift to those who have felt isolated from their brethren and have carried on their ministry as a tiny minority in a sea of spiritual unconcern. The constantly declining religious situation in Europe is recognized by evangelicals as evidence that what they have been doing for the last hundred years hasn’t worked. The churches have lost ground, and adherents are spiritually flaccid and lethargic.

What lasting impact will this crusade, which touched only a small fraction of the total population of Europe, have on the people and problems of that continent? No one can say. But this much can be said: God’s message went forth with great power and persuasiveness and through his Spirit made its mark in many thousands of hearts (see News, page 38).

Particularly impressive was the large number of young people who made commitments. Although the effects of Euro 70 will never be fully known, some of them will surface ten, twenty, and thirty years from now. Among the many who found Christ during that week there may be future political leaders; there may be new Whitefields, Wesleys, and Grahams; there may be Wilberforces, Shaftesburys, and General Booths who will go out to bring justice and healing to society.

One existentialist student asked Akbar Haqq of the Graham team, “What do you think of Jean Paul Sartre and his view that life is meaningless?” Dr. Haqq replied: “It is—without Jesus Christ.” Under the impassioned and powerful preaching of Graham, thousands of Europeans made the life-changing discovery that knowing Christ is indeed what brings meaning to life.

A Lesson From The Governor

The next time Florida governor Claude Kirk, Jr., speaks out in favor of law and order, his words will have a hollow ring. His behavior in the recent Manatee County school integration crisis has pretty well undermined anything else he might have to say on the subject.

When U. S. district judge Benjamin Krentzman ordered Manatee County to reorganize its busing pattern to provide the same black-white ratio in schools as exists in the county, Kirk suspended the school superintendent and the five-member school board and announced he was personally taking control of the county schools. Then he moved into the superintendent’s office and issued an order forbidding the county to bus its students for the purpose of achieving racial balance. When U. S. marshalls threatened to remove three of Kirk’s aides and Sheriff Richard Weitzenfeld from the school administration building, Weitzenfeld said he had been “directed by the governor to use force, if necessary, to prevent you from leaving in the company of anyone under arrest.”

In joining other Southern governors who have stood in the schoolhouse door to oppose court decisions on school integration, Kirk undoubtedly enhanced his popularity with some Floridians. But in the process he defied a U.S. district court order and ignored the Supreme Court’s refusal to stay the ruling of the lower court. And the irresponsible threat to use force to resist arrest sounds no better coming from a Republican governor than from a Black Panther. Kirk may challenge the court’s order through the proper channels, but he is no more entitled than anyone else to break the law.

It’s too bad that so many school children had to be watching the show. They weren’t in school, but they were learning. And when someday they begin to ignore the laws they don’t like, someone will ask, “What’s the matter with those kids?”

Mod, Mod Mamas

Mother, like the old gray mare, “ain’t what she used to be.” In fact, many modern mamas are discarding that image of a bedraggled workhorse saddled with dishes, diapers, and dirty floors in favor of the vision of a slim, long-haired swinger putting TV dinners in the oven and the final touches on picket signs for her current protest.

The “old gray mare” (if that’s a fair term) didn’t break out of her corral overnight. Suffragettes campaigning for women’s right to vote first opened the gate a crack, though only a few women ventured out. World War II put others out to roam in what had been almost exclusively men’s fields, and, once out, some of them refused to be roped in again. Subsequent inventions—dryers, dishwashers, and garbage disposals—may have opened the gate wide, but higher education for women probably instigated the stampede. Mothers whose intellects and creativity had been sharpened by classroom and profession began to find days of conversation with toddlers (interrupted only by salesmen and repairmen) maddening. They hardly needed society’s sugar-coated enticement to make more money and fewer babies.

But before they gallop off, Christian women might do well to ruminate about their God-given ability to be mothers. Excellent motherhood demands unselfishness—a yoke not easy to bear but worthy, ultimately, of a “well done.”

Bias In Communication

Here and there the chronicler of American religious life finds signs that its influential leaders may be tiring of their long preoccupation with social concerns to the exclusion of the personal Gospel. Sadly, no such signs appeared at the Religious Communication Congress in Chicago last month. One speaker after another urged continued assaults upon contemporary social structures, each equating such strategy with relevant religion. Most still seemed to be under the erroneous assumption that evangelicals lack a social conscience.

Honest study may some day show that evangelicals exercise more compassion than do the theologically liberal churchmen who are so vocal about it. But sociologists of religion currently seem unable to move beyond the measurement of prejudices of some who call themselves evangelicals.

If bias is going to be scrutinized, we suggest that it be done across the board. The Chicago meeting, billed as an inter-faith event embracing conservative as well as liberal views, did little more than provide a platform for the theological and political left. The “welcoming speech” at the very opening session included a disparagement of evangelicals. The next speaker called President Nixon a “robot” and accused Vice-President Agnew of harboring fascist views. He suggested that editors of religious publications turn over an entire issue to draft-dodgers and college dropouts. Another speaker scored “American tyranny.” And so the argumentation went on, with virtually no reference to communication technique.

The only theological balance came in an articulate, scholarly presentation by the Reverend Carroll Simcox, editor of the Living Church. Simcox cited individual Christian motivation as a prerequisite for changes in social institutions.

De-Polluting Ecology Theology

Earth Day was a hybrid holiday, a national jubilee-jeremiad. It focused attention on the crimes against nature that have made ecology an American obsession, and marked a growing anxiety over the pervasiveness of pollution. April also saw the first Environmental Sunday on record, set aside to “highlight the religious dimensions of the ecological problem.” Churches, schools, and seminaries played leading roles in Earth Day observances.

We have already spoken at some length in these pages on the monumental civic, scientific, and theological ferment surrounding the environmental issue. Non-biblical theologizers have thrust before us a view of man that makes him a part, rather than lord, of the created order. Those who urge less human assertiveness over nature fail to understand (or apply) Genesis 1:26–28. Correctly understood, the biblical world view instills a reverence for life and brings the humble acknowledgment that “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” Man is to be a steward—never an absolute owner—of the earth’s resources.

Accompanying this nonbiblical view is a twin pollutant in the ecological movement: the intrusion of political-economic restructure philosophy. This wing of ecology demands the total overhaul of our social and economic systems, and some of its leaders are the same leftists who led the now-ebbing peace movement that gripped the nation as the decade closed.

The Church should shun political-economic involvement in ecology. To become a political force for environmental reform would be to recommit the folly of the sixties, when many churches identified themselves too closely with the revolutionary movements for political and social justice. Because of this, many humanistic and liberal clergy and their denominations alienated blocs of conservatives. It is just that following that the churches now need to make appropriate responses to the environmental crisis.

That radicals are also speaking to these issues does not mean evangelicals should be silent. We rejoice when men of other faiths or of no faith by common grace embrace views that coincide with biblical truth. But as the Church speaks prophetically on the stewardship of resources, it must also firmly reject erroneous views of scriptural teaching regarding man and the world.

Man is to subdue the earth. But far from spoiling it or subverting it to his own ends, he is to be a responsible lord. Evangelical theology can thus best establish the ethical framework needed to solve some of the most baffling problems man has faced since Creation.

‘Saint’ Lenin

On April 22 the United Nations honored Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the patron saint of Communism, with only seven of its 126 members voting against the resolution. Why honor should be paid to Lenin and not to other national heroes, such as George Washington or Winston Churchill, is nowhere explained. Maybe this odd performance is a sign of the senility of the U. N. and its inability to perform the functions for which it was created. Indeed, it may be on the way to becoming an organization whose genius lies in observing the birthdays of strange characters. Perhaps the U. N. should give thought to including Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini in its pantheon and do for them what it has done for Lenin.

What was amusing, if not frightening, was the extraordinary claims made on behalf of Lenin. He is the greatest man who ever lived, according to some. By this standard, Jesus Christ fades into insignificance. No one can fail to agree that Christ and Lenin are antithetical persons, so diverse that comparison would be odious. This much we can say, however: Because Lenin lived, millions die; because Jesus Christ died, millions live.

Fletcher’s Folly

Joseph Fletcher, the most renowned spokesman for situation ethics, addressed 400 people at the Southern Baptist Christian Life Conference in Atlanta recently (see News, April 10 issue, page 45). He was not in the least evasive when he openly declared: “I am prepared to argue that Christian obligation calls for lies and adultery and fornication and theft and promise-breaking and killing, sometimes, depending on the situation.”

It hardly seems necessary to refute Fletcher’s views; even the untutored can pick out the fallacies in his position. What bemuses us about the whole thing is this: How do we know that Fletcher was not misrepresenting his own position in that situation? Whatever his protestations that he was telling the truth, we have no way of determining whether he might not have thought he had good reason to deceive his hearers. Under Fletcher’s system we can never know.

‘That The World May Believe’

Jesus prayed that those who believed on him through the word of his apostles “may all be one … so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:20, 21). Evangelicals cannot be content with sheer spiritual unity, important as it is, because the world is unable to perceive this dimension of reality. To the extent that conscience permits, they should be willing to express their unity in ways that the world can see.

There are many methods of doing this, most of them specialized or temporary. One organization in America that offers a more comprehensive and permanent way of showing Christian unity, without claiming to be a “church,” is the National Association of Evangelicals (see News, page 42).

The NAE is for all followers of Christ who accept the authority of the Scriptures and a few basic doctrines (once almost universally accepted among Christians) such as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the need for regeneration and empowering by the Holy Spirit. It does not attempt to resolve long-standing disputes over the interpretation of Scripture on such points as predestination, baptism, speaking in tongues, holiness, church government, perseverance, the Lord’s supper, and the second coming of Christ. It offers association not only to denominations but also to congregations that are independent, or are in uncentralized fellowships, or are in denominations that do not wish as a whole to join the NAE. In addition, individual Christians can join. The NAE does not restrict its services to members; its commissions and affiliates offer special services to and on behalf of evangelicals who wish to be linked only in some aspects of Christian life and witness.

The NAE differs from the National Council of Churches, another cooperative organization, in at least two important ways. First, the NAE seeks to include only evangelicals while the NCC has a wide diversity of theological positions among its members. Second, the NAE welcomes denominations, congregations, and other organizations, as well as individuals, to membership, while the NCC, as presently constituted, includes only denominations as full members.

Evangelical laymen increasingly feel the need for what one recently described as “more cooperation and brotherly love and less suspicion and competition between individual churches.” The only structures presently available to them are the NAE, the NCC, and the American Council of Christian Churches (which, however, excludes Pentecostals, among others). Congregational and denominational leaders will increasingly be called upon to respond to these desires for cooperative relationships as they try to fulfill the prayer of their Lord for the unity of all his disciples, a unity expressed in such a way that the world can see—and believe.

Skirting An Issue

Women have gone to great lengths to suit fickle fashion. But when Paris dropped hemlines this year, lots of ladies refused to change their habits. It was one thing, they complained, to pare calf lengths thigh high; it is quite another to repair to old lengths. Furthermore, to many women mini skirts meant maxi freedom of movement. Now female freedom has become a movement, and, with shouts of male tyranny, women are declaring themselves independent of designers’ dictates. The long and short of it, they assert, is their determination to suit themselves.

The gals who want to hang up their acquiescence to fashion have uncloaked a truth: appearance does not define character, something God warned Samuel about. Jesus said that those who fit themselves with truth find freedom. By donning the truth that it’s what’s inside that counts, we can all lengthen the fabric of freedom.

Does God Answer Prayer?

There is no reason to think it was planned this way, but America’s space program has had a notable spiritual impact upon the world. Interestingly enough, two moon trips that did not achieve a manned landing were the ones that did the most to remind men of their Creator.

Superstitious people will make much of the fact that it was Apollo 13 that almost didn’t make it, and that the trouble developed on April 13. But if an adverse association of cause and effect is to be made, we might tend instead to look with suspicion at the astronauts’ appropriation of the pagan sign “Aquarius.”

Be that as it may, millions of persons around the world were moved to pray for the imperiled astronauts, and God answered the intercession. President Nixon did well to declare the following Sunday a day of thanksgiving (see News, page 37).

It might be appropriately observed that God began answering the prayers for Apollo 13 before liftoff. The space training program has instilled a high degree of discipline into the astronauts, and it was this discipline that God used to bring back Apollo 13 safely to earth. Discipline unfortunately is a nearly forgotten trait in much of modern culture. In this case it enabled the astronauts to remain calm and collected under the most intense kind of mental pressure.

Worldliness According To James

It’s too bad that when the letter of James was divided into chapters the first break was put right after James’s exhortation to keep ourselves “unspotted from the world.” That way we often miss the particular illustration of worldliness that James himself gives and instead emphasize taboos that are frequently sanctified more by evangelical custom than by exegetical criteria.

The particular worldly problem that confronted Christians in the first century has not yet been conquered even within the Church, much less in the world itself. It is the sin that was known in King James’s time as “respect of persons.” We know it as partiality, or discrimination, or, to be blunt about it, snobbery.

Before protesting that this particular sin is not a problem with us, we ought to consider the straightforward rendering of this divine command in Today’s English Version: “My brothers … you must never treat people in different ways because of their outward appearance.” Which of us has not paid more attention to the apparently rich person who comes to our church than to the apparently poor man? Which of us has not let the color of a man’s skin or the beauty of a girl’s face affect our attitudes and behavior toward that person?

James mentions prejudice as a sin right along with adultery and murder (see for yourself—James 2:9–11). It is good that Christians have almost always spoken forthrightly against adultery and murder and have disciplined those of their number who transgressed. But the same zeal must now be applied to eradicating differences of behavior and (though here the task becomes much more difficult) attitude toward persons simply because of outward characteristics.

Christians who are concerned about not being “worldly” and Christians who are concerned about the ills of society should unite in a campaign to extinguish prejudice from themselves and from the Church. The congregation that tolerates unrepentant acts of discrimination by its members is just as disobedient to God’s Word as the one that tolerates unrepentant adulterers or murderers.

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