‘Creative Tension’: The Church-Mission Controversy

NEWS

“I believe this is the greatest time of world evangelism in history,” declared Dr. George Peters of Dallas Theological Seminary. “But the present structure of evangelical missions is colonial and must be dismantled—with care.”

Missions came under close scrutiny from both the sending church and the receiving church at GL ’71—a joint retreat of the Interdenominational Foreign Mission Association and the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association held at Green Lake (“GL”), Wisconsin, September 27–October 1.

The 406 delegates representing 106 missions and related organizations met to discuss “Missions in Creative Tension.” Eighteen key nationals from fourteen countries acted as overseas resource personnel. EFMA and IFMA list a total of 16,582 workers.

“This is a follow-through on the Wheaton Congress of 1966,” said Dr. Virgil Gerber, GL ’71 coordinator and executive director of the Evangelical Missions Information Service, which organized the retreat. “But we aren’t looking for a declaration or pronouncement this time. The main benefit is to give us all a fresh exposure to the problems and possible solutions of church-mission tensions.”

GL ’71 majored in delegate participation through small-group and full plenary discussion sessions. Only three major papers were presented, apart from the daily devotional study by Dr. Edmund Clowney of Westminster Seminary, Philadelphia, on “The Biblical Doctrine of the Ministry of the Church.” The delegates adopted “A Green Lake ’71 Affirmation” on the final day (see editorial, page 24).

In the opening topical paper, the Reverend Jack Shepherd of the Christian and Missionary Alliance listed tensions between sending churches and missions: organizational alignments, administrative participation, personnel problems, finance, and communication. He blamed the structure of mission-church relations as the source of these tensions. He also indicted Bible scholars and seminaries for contributing to personnel problems through inadequate training programs.

Pastors took the platform in one session to plead for better communication between mission boards and churches. “We need to enter into your problems more, if we are going to do a proper job in preparing young people and providing pastoral care for furloughing missionaries,” said pastor James Maxson of California.

The papers generating the most discussion were on relations with overseas churches, presented by Dr. Peters of Dallas Seminary and Dr. Louis King of the CMA.

Debate centered on whether missions should merge completely with their churches overseas (“fusion”) or remain distinctly separate (“dichotomy”). Peters felt that though fusion is an ideal concept, for practical purposes he favored a “synthesis” between the two extremes, which he labeled “partnership of equality and mutuality.”

King decried fusion as harmful to the indigenous church and favored a “modified dichotomy,” which approached Peters’s “partnership.”

“We’ve seen the error of complete dichotomy overseas,” observed the Reverend Byang Kato, former general secretary of the Evangelical Churches of West Africa and now a doctoral candidate at Dallas Seminary. “At the same time, we’ve seen that fusion has stifled indigenous growth, as national churches have become reliant on overseas finance and personnel.”

“By encouraging independent growth of the indigenous church,” Kato said, “evangelical missions have bypassed ecumenical groups in preserving the priorities of evangelism and in training nationals in the Scriptures at grass-root level.”

EFMA executive secretary Clyde Taylor objected to the charge of colonialism made by Peters. “Basically it is a matter of structure and not objective or intent,” he said. “We need mutual trust to work out a solution to mission-church problems.”

The Reverend Howard O. Jones, Billy Graham associate evangelist, who flew in from the Dallas crusade, hoped that GL ’71 would make a spiritual impact on North American churches as they face the challenge of current tensions. He said he regretted the absence of other black Americans at the retreat.

During a panel of overseas leaders on the final day, one spoke of the urgency of training national leadership adequately. He also noted that the attitudes of many rank-and-file missionaries were much less progressive than those expressed at the conference.

New missions activities that are springing up overseas also aroused the interest of the panel. Among delegates from the sending missions were Koreans who raise funds and personnel among the Korean churches and send missionaries to other nations. It was estimated that almost one hundred such agencies exist among the former “receiving churches.”

Similar mission agencies of the CMA churches in various nations met last year and formed a loose association for the exchange of information. There is a need for closer contacts among these and the sending agencies of North America and Europe, delegates said.

At a final wrap-up session, EMIS president Ian Hay of the Sudan Interior Mission pointed out that the history and experience of an area would greatly affect any change in relations.

“The one common denominator that has stood out this week is the great diversity of situations, and the fact that missions and churches must apply principles in the light of these,” he reminded delegates. “There is no one simple answer.”

From Freaks To Followers

The Jesus movement came under the close scrutiny of top evangelical scholars at a two-day conference in Chicago this month. Conference chairman Carl F. H. Henry noted “bright signs” that “the Jesus-freak mood is yielding in many places to a Jesus-follower commitment.”

In a summarizing statement at the close of meeting, which was sponsored by the Institute for Advanced Christian Studies and represented forty-one colleges, Henry declared: “In ever larger numbers these young Christians are seeking a biblical understanding of the experience they have had.”Henry was elected president of the institute by its board at a meeting following the conference. He teaches at Eastern Baptist Seminary in Philadelphia and is editor-at-large for Christianity Today.

He said that from the outset the so-called Jesus freaks openly identified with the God of the Bible, but that “their existential orientation and shallow doctrinal logic left them vulnerable to extreme charismatic claims and to fanatical excesses.”

“Their plea for an uncomplicated Christianity involved more complications than they could foresee,” he added. Henry observed that the lasting nature of the movement was therefore in doubt and that its final character still remains to be clarified.

But in the “Jesus-follower” sequel to the “Jesus-freak” phenomenon, he noted, “the world can at least identify these professing Christians by their radiance, a characteristic that they are determined to match with a spontaneous love.”

He acknowledged that “many of the Jesus followers have deep questions about the institutional church and about the role of the clergy as traditionally conceived.”

These reservations, he said, “cannot be met by simply defending the established patterns of education, or of clericalism. The questions young people are asking require far more than this. While growing numbers of Jesus followers are shunning the pulpit ministry as a vocation, they are eager nonetheless to master the logic of Christian belief and to wrestle the issues of theology and apologetics.”

Dean Calvin D. Linton of George Washington University addressed himself to the theme of the conference, “Christian perspective on the search for reality in modern life.” He said that too often individuals refuse to look within themselves.

“It encourages the most elevated kind of hypocrisy,” he said, adding:

“This, however, is perhaps only a manifestation of the rather endearing fatheaded impulsiveness of the young, and is not to be put beside the calculated, double-faced stance of those adults who have had more years within which to develop and polish their schizophrenia. In other words, the problems of infancy are nothing compared to those of adultery.”

Psychiatrist Armand Nicholi of Harvard Medical School told of interviewing a group of thirty or forty young people who had taken LSD. “I found that each of the drug users was struggling with intense personal conflict, and the promises of what the drug could do in resolving these conflicts far outweighed the risk,” he said. “But because the drugs inevitably fail, we are seeing today a mass disillusionment with the drug scene and a gradual turning from them to more promising pastures.”

Nicholi added, “It is interesting how frequently conflicts with the father and intense ambivalence toward authority occur among the youth we have been discussing. This fact may make Christianity—with its nuclear Father-Son relationship and … its provision of a strong, forgiving, accepting Father—emotionally appealing.”

He said he had seen the lives of many students changed from a completely secular life style to a full commitment to Christ. “Some were leaders of the SDS movement that caused the disorder at Harvard and were forced to leave college,” he noted. “During their time away they embraced the Christian faith.”

‘The Late Liz’: Metamorphosis Of A Rich Alcoholic

Drenching rains failed to dampen the ceremonious world premier in San Antonio last month (September 22) of Dick Ross’s latest movie with a message, The Late Liz, which unfolds the moving metamorphosis of a rich alcoholic.

Liz, which ought to do even better at the box office than its predecessor, The Cross and the Switchblade, because of its solid adult interest and a touch of commercialism, is based on the life story of Gert Behanna, who wrote it as a novel under the pseudonym of Elizabeth Burns.

Anne Baxter, in the title role, contributes to the success of the movie, imitating mannerisms that make her a believable Gert Behanna, though at times she becomes too melodramatic.

Liz is the only child of a dominating millionaire, Sam Burns (James Gregory) who tries to mold his unwilling daughter into an image of himself. Her life degenerates into round after round of alcohol and marriage. Her older son (Reid Smith), a copy of Liz’s brooding discontent, leaves home in disgust after his mother’s third marriage. Her younger son (Bill Katt) is a loving, easy-going youth who brings God home from a South Vietnamese foxhole.

When her third marriage appears doomed, Liz nearly succeeds at killing herself by an overdose of sleeping pills. During a dream while she totters on the brink of everlasting sleep, she awakens to God and everlasting life. From then on she comes to depend on God more and more in a step-by-step discovery of what it means to be a Christian.

The film tells the story convincingly, though the setting has been changed from New York to Los Angeles and the time from World War II to the Viet Nam war.

Perhaps the most regrettable aspect of the movie is that it dwells too much on the “Late Liz” and not enough on “Liz Lately,” leaving out chapters of the autobiography that presented in no unearthy terms the trials of transformation into a child of God. The first two-thirds of the movie dripped with alcohol, sometimes melodramatically, though somewhat effectively. In the last part of the film, however, Liz’s conversion experience and early growth come through with power.

“My life was like Siamese twins. For one to live, the other had to die,” Gert Behanna, now 77, told the packed opening-night crowd, which included a multitude of religious leaders from the area and many of San Antonio’s political and civic leaders. They came partly to see the movie, partly to hear Gert and see her younger son, the Reverend Bardwell Smith, dean of Carlton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Producer Dick Ross and cast members Coleen Gray and Bill Katt were also on hand.

Miss Baxter could not attend because of her starring role in the Broadway musical Applause, based on the movie All About Eve, in which she also starred.

Converted in 1947 at the age of fifty-three, Mrs. Behanna started what became an extensive public-speaking career the following year. Currently she speaks about 300 times a year to church, university, and community groups in the United States and overseas.

After her conversion she turned over the bulk of her fortune to three men for distribution to charitable causes—with the stipulation that she would never be told who had been helped by the money.

Proceeds from the premiere went to the San Antonio chapter of the Salvation Army. Although she says she considers denominations of minimal importance, Mrs. Behanna is now a parishioner of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in San Antonio.

Booking arrangements for Liz call for limited-engagement runs in 200 cities prior to general release in the United States and abroad.

In addition to Miss Baxter, the cast includes Steve Forrest, star of the TV series The Baron, who plays the part of the third husband admirably. He is a cold, unsympathetic plastic surgeon whose main reason for marrying Liz seems to be his desire to meet her rich drinking buddies. Her domineering father is played by James Gregory, and the part of the perceptive minister who helps Liz into her new life is excellently portrayed by Jack Albertson, Tony award winner for his role in the Broadway play The Subject Was Roses.

Joan Hotchkis, best remembered from TV’s My World and Welcome to It, offers welcome relief to a couple of syrupy sweet characters as the lovable drunk, a tragicomic personality.

Liz is definitely a worthwhile movie, generally fast-moving, aimed at adults, delivering its message without preaching.

MARQUITA MOSS

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