Checking Our Stewardship

Contrary to what some Christians think, television was not invented by the devil. Like fire, water, guns, schools, or any other resource, it can be used for good or evil. It has certainly served many good purposes. But its rapidly growing influence is alarming to many.

In a new book called The Plug-In Drug, Marie Winn warns that we must “learn to control it so that it does not control us.” Her thesis is that millions have become addicted to TV with the result that a new generation is largely unable to read, write, speak, or feel properly. If she is right, then families and society at large are in real trouble.

While not writing from an explicitly Christian position, Ms. Winn repeatedly speaks of the spiritual dangers, temptations, and moral problems inherent in uncontrolled television viewing. Unlike much of the current discussion, her study is not concentrated on the quality of programming. Instead, her concern is with the matter of allowing television—good or bad—to dominate children, families, and our whole culture. Perhaps the book tends to make television the scapegoat for too many of society’s ills, but it nevertheless has a broad approach to the subject that could be a good model for responsible Christians. It is concerned with TV’s effects on the quality of all of life. Biblical believers certainly should be concerned with nothing less.

For the Christian, stewardship ought to be a primary consideration. Despite the best efforts of some denominational officials and local church leaders, many think that stewardship is “something you do in November when they ask you to pledge toward next year’s budget.” It is, instead, “something you do” every day, and it involves all the gifts God has given: time, bodies, minds, and skills, as well as money. Many professing Christians have not been willing to face up to their stewardship of time. Television has consumed enormous amounts of their time and has exerted a great influence on many aspects of their lives.

Some of the families cited in the Winn book were so determined to end TV’s control over them that they took their sets outside and smashed them. The trouble with that is that the family may consider it a final solution, forgetting about the millions of remaining TV captives. Home is the place to start, of course, and we commend those who limit their viewing to a few carefully selected programs. They must go beyond this, however.

For a growing number of Christians, the response to the video challenge has been support of an “alternative” station. In areas where existing channels do not allow gospel broadcasting, this may be a wise course to follow (assuming that avenues of appeal have been exhausted and that the new station offers a high quality of fare). But a “Christian” channel is only a small part of the total answer. And it is just as wrong for a person to be addicted to “Christian” television as to any other kind. Even the best of programs must be turned off sometimes to allow for family communication, for devotions, for quiet reading and thinking, for making evangelistic contacts, for healthful exercise and relaxing meals, and for many other practices that contribute to a balanced, productive life.

A few Christians have responded to the medium’s challenge by going to work in it. In addition to those with careers in the religiously oriented part of the industry, a significant number have made very constructive contributions in the much more influential secular part.

Communicating opinions to the elected officials who regulate the medium is important. So is communication with the sponsors of objectionable shows. The avalanche of mail urging the Federal Communications Commission to turn down the Lansman-Milam petition after it had already been denied (August, 1975) proves that Christians are concerned and can communicate their concern (though perhaps belatedly). If a sponsor of a morally unacceptable show had received a tenth of that amount of protest mail, he would probably have turned cartwheels to get scripts changed.

It is time for Christians to take their stewardship of television more seriously. That stewardship must take into account all facets of the TV challenge; it must involve not only what they do at home but also their actions as citizens, neighbors, and consumers. Poor stewardship will simply mean more and more control of our lives by the medium.

Easter Offering For the Martyrs

Christians around the world have watched the activities of the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin with increasing horror and despair. Amin’s butchery makes it evident that Christians as well as Jews can be the object of hatred and suffer persecution and even death.

The fact that Cubans, Soviets, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Sudanese, and Libyans are all involved in Uganda suggests that the conspiracy to eliminate Christians has a framework of reference that goes far beyond the borders of that small nation. It is therefore in the interest of all Christians everywhere to pray that God will intervene to bring about the downfall of Amin and to rescue a martyr church from further devastating losses. But more than prayer is possible. We urge that Christians take the following steps:

• Send Easter cards to The Church of Uganda (Box 14123, Kampala, Uganda), containing a Christian greeting and the assurance that we are upholding these believers in prayer.

• Send letters of protest to President Idi Amin in Kampala. This will be another way of letting him know that people around the world are aware of what is happening and are deeply concerned.

• Send letters of protest to The Honorable Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of the United Nations in New York City, requesting that the United Nations take swift action to condemn Uganda for what has happened and to bring an end to this shameful episode.

These actions may be the greatest gift we can bring to the Risen Lord of the Church this Easter season.

‘Man of the Year’ At Wake Forest

Most Americans had never heard of Larry Flynt until he was convicted on an obscenity charge in Cincinnati recently for being the publisher of Hustler magazine. Those who have used up their superlative adjectives in deploring the comparatively tame Playboy can only say that Hustler is indescribably worse. However, certain students at Wake Forest University, the best known of seven colleges in North Carolina related to the organization of Southern Baptists of that state, had heard of Flynt, and last October they had arranged for him to speak on February 28 and receive—half-humorously, they later said—their “man of the year” award. The next night the president of the state Baptist association, Coy Privette, was invited to speak as “alumnus of the year,” and, as expected, he denounced Flynt as a “merchant of filth.” The student group that sponsored the two speakers was the Men’s Residence Council, whose members are largely those in the college dormitories who are not fraternity members. One report said that about 350 students came out to hear Flynt, fewer than ten per cent of the undergraduates. But only 50 heard Privette’s side.

It would be easy to denounce the obviously embarrassed administration for allowing someone like Flynt even to speak in one of the university’s halls, much less to be honored by an officially recognized student group. But it is more useful to see this incident (which doubtless did nothing to change anybody’s mind about the evils of pornography) as an unusually vivid illustration of the dilemma of people who try to sponsor a Christian college without recruiting a student body that is basically committed to the same ideals. Wake Forest, like countless other church-related schools, is trying to please both church members (hence no dancing, drinking, or mixed dorms on campus, and all the trustees must be Baptists approved by the state association) and to please students, many of whom chafe at the above restrictions. But the students have been permitted to invite whomever they wish to speak to them. (Whether someone like Lester Maddox or some notorious anti-Jewish speaker would be allowed may not yet have been tested.)

There is some question of the propriety of the particular judicial procedures under which Flynt was convicted, but there is no question at all that his work is intentionally and revoltingly obscene. Whatever his legal guilt, for an organization at a purportedly Christian college to honor him is outrageous.

The administration reportedly found out three days in advance that Flynt was coming. It decided not to intervene, apparently thinking that infringement of their open platform privileges would disturb the students even more than Flynt’s appearance would disturb the constituency, people in the pulpits and pews who like to think that their offerings are helping to support a Christian college.

The student newspaper editorialized after the happening that Flynt and Privette were “two men of dubious worth.” Leaving aside their ethical discrimination, theologically they have a point. All men are worthless sinners. If Eldridge Cleaver and Charles Colson could be converted, Larry Flynt could be, too. In our repugnance at his activities we must never allow ourselves to forget that he is not yet beyond the redeeming grace of God.

Nevertheless, the same Scriptures that tell of God’s grace also reveal his righteous standards and our responsibility to uphold them. Pornography horribly perverts one of God’s great gifts to mankind, sexual enjoyment within marriage. Hustler is also thoroughly anti-female. Those who think that a liberal arts education requires exposure to persons like Flynt betray their hostility not only to Christian ethics but also to the traditional concept of a liberally educated person.

Holy Warfare

It’s easy to dismiss the Hanafi takeovers in Washington as the irrational acts of a few demented persons, but that judgment is not necessarily correct. In our culture, religious beliefs are often considered to be relatively inconsequential personal opinions. For many people, however, such beliefs are worth dying for. This can be said of Christians and others, as well as of Muslims, whatever their variety. Millions of Communists have died for principles that never transcend the material. Ought not those who sense a higher reality be expected to have an even higher sense of commitment?

The film Mohammad-Messenger of God seems to offend certain Muslims deeply. One can argue that they should try to understand better and not take it so seriously. Never mind all that. The offense is there, and it reaches very deep. The question is whether we respect the feelings of our fellow human beings enough to sympathize with their concerns.

A similar point has already been raised about the scheduled showing of Jesus of Nazareth, a six-hour depiction of the life of Christ. The program will be aired by NBC-TV on Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday evenings. Commendations have been issued in the name of an interreligious panel of experts including President Bill Bright of Campus Crusade. Spokesmen for NBC, however, told Christianity Today that no early previews are being arranged. A counterpart book features a narrative by William Barclay that Barclay says he based on the film script. (“The script of the film was in my hands when I wrote it, and there are large areas of the book where I did no more than change the script into narrative form.”) Barclay’s text reflects the scriptural record rather faithfully, though he repudiated some fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith in a recent autobiography.

Christians protested vehemently when a Danish filmmaker proposed to portray Jesus as a homosexual. So far as we know, however, these grievances were always expressed peacefully. The route of persuasion, not of force, is of the very essence of Christian protest in matters like this.

What Kind Of Fool?

Only twice before (1957 and 1966) have we had an issue dated April 1. On neither occasion did the editorial writers say anything about April Fool’s Day. But the age of Relevance is here, and we decided to make a definitive theological statement this year.

For a text we turned to the Book of Hezekiah. Passages on fools were easy enough to find, but since the book had nothing specific on the April variety, we discarded it. Why squander time on a hoary document that does not speak to you where you are—right now? So we went on to other sources.

Somehow the Bible missed April fools, too. Nowhere in its 1,353 pages (if you are using the Scofield 1917 New and Improved Edition) are they mentioned. But neither does it say anything about January, February, or March fools as such. For some reason known to the author alone, all the references are general. But there are enough condemnations scattered throughout Scripture to cover all kinds of fools—including those who comb its pages to find citations for pizza parlors and citizen-band radios.

Now, that may not be definitive, but it’s certainly relevant.

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