What Evangelical Students Think

The students and faculty of Oral Roberts University in Tulsa rolled out the red carpet for 178 collegians from thirty-eight participating schools gathered there last month for the annual meeting of the American Association of Evangelical Students (AAES) and its second Evangelical Student Congress (ESC).

The hospitality, special programs, classy music, and finger-lickin’ food were highlights of the three-day affair—and a distraction to student leader-types who were “all business.” In fact, the ESC passed a resolution asking that “social and recreational activities be kept to a minimum.”

But in the final analysis nobody really seemed to mind the fun and entertainment, since the congress was able to wade through nearly thirty resolutions dealing with everything from student curfew to DDT to the Middle East. After midnight on the last day, delegates even revised three resolutions previously approved because they wanted to make sure the papers clearly grounded Christian action in the Word of God—not just the “Christian experience.” Weary delegates finally adjourned (with a parting gift of oranges and apples from Oral Roberts University) at 1:25 A.M.

AAES president Ken Oman, 21, a junior at Taylor University, kept both AAES and ESC meetings on target. Leaders of schools with a total enrollment of more than 26,000 attended the meetings, which were initiated, organized, and directed by students. The few adults present usually stayed in the shadows. Seventeen AAES member colleges sent delegates; twenty-one other non-member schools were represented. Their delegates could vote on ESC—but not AAES—business.

After a special seminar on “The Christian Student and Contemporary Culture” (including a provocative lecture by Catholic charismatic Kevin Ranaghan, a rap session with several colonies of the austere Children of God, and dialogue with converted student-radical James Wallis, who helped organize a strike at Michigan State University last spring) the students knuckled down to what most had come for: confronting the issues (the congress theme). The main item of AAES business was a favorable vote on expanding its membership, thus allowing evangelical students on secular campuses to form AAES chapters. These chapters must have at least twenty-five members, and must subscribe to the AAES constitution.A doctrinal section upholds belief in the Bible as the unique, divinely inspired, and authoritative revelation of God to man; the Trinity; the substititionary death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ; and the need for personal belief in Jesus Christ for salvation.

For much of the congress the delegates appeared quite sober and formal. But by the last night, protocol wore thin, delegates loosened up (some shed their shoes), and everyone seemed to enjoy the sometimes heated—but good-spirited—debate on the plethora of resolutions mulled over beforehand by five major committees (campus governance, foreign affairs, domestic concerns, Christian witness, and educational direction).

The two resolutions that sent the most delegates’ hands flying in the air for recognition from the chair, and digging into Bibles for pertinent passages, concerned abortion and capital punishment.

O. R. U. Is Accredited

Six-year-old Oral Roberts University in Tulsa received accreditation by the North Central Association of Colleges this month, thus gaining full academic standing.

ORU asked for three years’ approval; it got ten. North Central officials reportedly acknowledged that accredited status usually takes ten to twelve years. The four-year liberal-arts college is oriented toward Pentecostalism but encompasses a broad spectrum of religious persuasion among its 1,033 students and 87 faculty members.

One mandate on abortion, passing easily, reaffirmed the sacred value of human life and urged that members of the medical profession not be required to accept abortion assignments contrary to their conscience. But a related paper, urging severe restriction of “the socially legal” and prohibition of the “illegal practice of murder of unborn candidates to the Kingdom, of God through … abortion” lost rather soundly.

The debate over capital punishment centered on whether it is biblically defensible. A resolution calling for abolition of the death penalty was approved by about three to two. Other measures favored voter registration, condemned the manufacture and sale of DDT pesticide, and called for revamping of the present selective-service system since it “may force upon draftees participation in immoral wars … contrary to principles of Christian love.”

A mandate on U. S. foreign policy that was defeated would have condemned the “expansion of the war by the United States and North Viet Nam into Laos” and called for a fixed timetable for withdrawal of all U. S. and North Vietnamese troops and air power from Indochina.

Another paper approved by the congress affirmed that “the activities of modern war and the offensive militaristic policies of both national and international powers are un-Christlike.” The congress adopted a neutral stance on the Middle East but condemned the “unnecessary slaughter of both Arabs and Jews.”

Turning to domestic issues, the students urged the National Association of Evangelicals (meeting in Los Angeles this month) to accept an ESC resolution asking American Christians to sell unneeded luxuries and give the money to Christian charities or to the poor “as a remarkable demonstration of Christian love.” Their evangelical elders (the NAE) were pointedly told that such luxuries include things like $100,000 homes, Cadillacs, boats, cabins by the lake, and second or third cars. A related mandate urged a negative income tax that would guarantee all Americans with a family of four at least $3,300 annually.

The delegates were hard on the institutional church (though they vowed to work within it) and on Christian colleges that use “societal values” instead of scriptural ones to establish school policy. Such societal values should be dismissed “insofar as they are violating the Christian community,” one resolution said. Another scored the institutional church for too often being unprophetic and enmeshed in racism, materialism, and nationalism “in direct disobedience to God’s Word.” “An orthodox biblical theology and the total Gospel of Jesus Christ necessitate a radical commitment to, and a non-violent activism for, social justice, and the eradication of sin through the blood of Jesus Christ through Christian witness,” said a resolution from the witness committee.

The students asked for the relaxing of penalties against marijuana-users in a statement that also called for uniform laws regarding the drug throughout the fifty states. The congress did not condone the use of marijuana, the paper stated, and rehabilitation and drug education were encouraged.

The students adopted papers on student government calling for student participation “in all administrative decisions affecting the spiritual, academic, and social welfare of the [Christian]

campus.” The congress also approved a Student Bill of Rights protecting assembly, privacy, trial, redress, expression, and personal exercise of biblical Christianity. “There shall be no discrimination on the basis of sex in affairs such as curfews and employment opportunities,” the bill concludes.

For the first time in the fourteen-year history of the AAES, a woman was elected national president. Miriam Helfrink, 19, a home economics major, is a sophomore at Messiah College (Brethren in Christ) in Pennsylvania.

The pretty coed will be assisted by the new vice-president, Dan Franklin, 20, a sophomore at Evangel (Assemblies of God) College in Springfield, Missouri. Franklin, from Clarkston, Michigan, is a biblical studies major. The 1972 convention and congress will be held at Houghton College in New York.

Renaissance At Rensselaer?

Four thousand deacons, ministers, “Jesus freaks,” matronly Sunday-school teachers, and nuns converged last month on Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for a day and a half of “turning on to Jesus.” Their “thing” was celebration, good news, and “ecumenical and spiritual happening” for the Schenectady-Albany-Troy area.

It was a child of the Reformed Church in America’s Festival of Evangelism held in Detroit last spring. Delegates to this festival returned and found considerable support among local Christians (largely laymen) for a local version. An ad hoc task force got its strongest backing from Bishop Edwin Broderick of the Roman Catholic diocese of Albany, and its weakest from the evangelical churches.

Keynote speaker Tom Skinner preached his own unique combination of social revolution and personal salvation. An unchurchly crowd whistled and applauded and stood to “it seems quite odd that those who taught us of the glories of the American Revolution are not interested in having another one … show people that the Liberator has come!”

Less evangelistic were the approaches of Riverside Church’s Ernest T. Campbell and slum priest Robert Fox (a Roman Catholic drawing card), who called only for heightened social sensitivity. Christian disc jockey Scott Ross talked of the Jesus People and the Holy Spirit.

Small discussion groups were as heterogeneously organized as the speakers’ platform. A computer made sure each one had a Roman Catholic, different types of Protestants, an elderly person, a young person, and a clergyman, as well as those who fit no set category.

ROBERT FRIEDRICH, JR.

Personalia

William Culbertson, president of Moody Bible Institute since 1948, will retire soon; informed sources say his successor will be George Sweeting, pastor of Chicago’s Moody Memorial Church.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference official Hosea Williams was arrested Palm Sunday on charges of disrupting services in New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral when he and other demonstrators interfered with a clerical procession.

President Nixon urged a group of 100 clergymen at a White House conference on drug abuse to give youth “some sense of faith” as the best alternative to a life ruined by drugs. Helping youth find faith, he said, could perhaps have more effect than all efforts made by the government in law enforcement, rehabilitation, and education.

The Reverend Joe Hale, director of ecumenical evangelism for the United Methodist Church, has been named secretary of the National Council of Churches’ evangelism section.

Dr. C. Benton Kline, since 1968 dean of the faculty at Columbia (Georgia) Seminary, will succeed Dr. James McDowell Richards as president when he retires this June after thirty-nine years-

Parish pastor John David Newpher of Oreland, Pennsylvania, has been named president of Lutheran (LCA) Seminary in Philadelphia beginning next month.

Former military chaplain and inner-city worker E. B. Hicks has been named executive minister of the newly formed American Baptist Churches of the South, with headquarters in Atlanta.

The Reverend Brian Russell-Jones has been named director of the Belgian Gospel Mission in Brussels, not the Belgian Protestant Information service (BELPRO) as previously announced in these pages.

Deaths

MICHAEL CARDINAL BROWNE, 83, conservative Catholic scholar, a member of the Vatican Curia for eight years, superior of the Dominican Order; in Rome.

LUTHER WESLEY SMITH, 73, former head of the American Baptist Board of Education and leading ecumenist during the 1940s, founder of the American Baptist Assembly at Green Lake, Wisconsin; in St. Petersburg, Florida.

DOUGLAS TOMLINSON, 82, founder of All-Church Press and a leader in religious journalism; in Fort Worth, Texas, of an apparent heart attack.

Religion In Transit

With the expected signature of Maryland governor Marvin Mandel, a state-approved program of financial aid will give non-public schools $12.1 million in direct payments. The hotly disputed bill offers scholarship grants ranging from $75 to $200 for Maryland students in private elementary and secondary schools whose parents have less than $12,000 annual income.

The best two motion pictures of 1970, according to a joint decision by the National Catholic Office for Motion Pictures and the Broadcasting and Film Commission of the National Council of Churches, were I Never Sang for My Father and Kes. The Catholic agency also cited The Wild Child and My Night at Maud’s for awards.

The movie The Cross and the Switchblade starring charismatic actor Pat Boone is the biggest box-office attraction at a plush suburban Fort Worth theater since Airport, according to Religious News Service.

Black and white Christians of Texarkana, Texas, are joining hands in an ecumenical effort to rebuild two National Baptist churches that were recently fire-bombed during racial disturbances.

Dr. William Thompson, a professor at Philadelphia’s Eastern Baptist Seminary, will be editor and Catholic priest John J. Geaney of St. Paul’s College, Washington, D. C., will serve as associate editor of a new ecumenical magazine on preaching.Preaching Today, published bimonthly, will originate in St. Louis.

Miami, Florida’s Metropolitan Fellowship of Churches tabled a request for membership by a local homosexual congregation though a committee found no constitutional barriers to admitting the homosexual body. It meets the church council’s only requirement: proclaiming the lordship of Jesus Christ.

World Scene

The largest crowd ever to assemble in Guatemala’s National Olympic Gymnasium—12,000 persons—gathered on the closing night of Argentine evangelist Luis Palau’s three-week crusade last month. Aggregate attendance was 128,000; many more saw the program on nineteen one-hour telecasts. News coverage was unexpectedly large.

Work neared completion late last month on a huge new hall for mass papal audiences in the south corner of the Vatican. The new complex covers 107,600 square feet, is air conditioned, and will seat 8,000.

Interdenominational Evangelism—in-Depth committees have been formed in forty-five Mexico cities to form prayer cells and training workshops. House-to-house visitation will begin the first Sunday, in May, “Impact Day.”

Baptist churches in Kenya, Africa, last month unanimously approved a constitution forming a national convention.

The Assemblies of God are mounting an evangelism effort this year in Calcutta, the world’s fourth largest city.

Toot-N-Tithe

You pull up to a bullet-proof drive-in window, state your business, and receive clearance. An electric drawer slides out to accept your money. A modern bank? Not exactly, although the teller’s window and accessories came from one.

It’s St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Reading, Pennsylvania. Pastor Samuel C. Jaxheimer installed the security precautions recently, according to United Press International, because the collection plate was too big a temptation to outsiders and the church secretary was endangered when alone in the building.

The electric drawer provoked curiosity—and a few quips. “It’s for your deposit,” advised the pastor. “We take it in but we don’t hand it out.”

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