Fairness in Fundraising

We are reprinting the code of ethics of the Christian Stewardship Council. This code is especially germane now because bill H. R. 41 is before the House Committee on Post Office and Civil Service and is scheduled for consideration next month. The bill would seek to legislate in much the same area as the code (see our issues of May 6, p. 61, and May 20, p. 26). However, we believe that if this bill were to become law (and it still has a long way to go) it would place unnecessary and costly hardships upon most if not all charitable organizations, religious and otherwise, that solicit donations through the mails and on broadcasts.

We realize that the backers make the provisions appear so innocuous; many donors would think that the only reason organizations would object is that they have something to hide. We plan, therefore, in a forthcoming issue to publish an article explaining something of the nature of fund-raising and why there can be perfectly legitimate reasons for opposing the kind of legislation that H. R. 41 would call for.

It is true that, as in any line of endeavor, there are fraudulent or poorly managed charitable organizations. Various ways to expose them already exist and the search for better ways to distinguish the worthwhile from the worthless should continue. In the meantime no donor need give to a group that is hesitant to supply him with the kind of information that the stewardship council code refers to.

Christian Stewardship Council Code Of Ethical Pursuit

The true nature of giving is revealed in the Holy Scriptures as being related both to man’s attitudes toward God and his fellow men. Therefore, an approach to donors toward giving should be made with emphasis upon scriptural motivation. With these basic tenets in mind, the following elements are presented as performance guidelines for membership in the Christian Stewardship Council.

1. Each institution should have a purpose to serve the cause of Jesus Christ in an efficient manner without hindering the efforts of other established and functioning ministries.

2. Each institution should have a Governing Board of active, responsible people who hold regular meetings, create policy and maintain effective control.

3. Methods of promotion and solicitation should demonstrate high ethical standards and good manners befitting the biblical injunction of Luke 6:31, “And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.”

4. Annual audits of financial records should be prepared by an outside professional C.P.A. showing reasonable detail and should be available upon demand. New organizations should have available for their public a C.P.A.’s statement that a proper financial system has been installed.

5. This Council looks with disfavor upon individuals or institutions using methods harmful to the public, such as exaggerated claims of achievements, guaranteed results, and unreasonable promises.

6. As a member organization it shall comply with Federal, State and Municipal regulations.

7. As a member organization it shall employ representatives who will conduct their activities within generally accepted professional standards of accuracy, truth and good taste.

8. As a member organization it shall employ representatives who will have objectives consonant with its program.

9. As a member organization it shall employ representatives on a predetermined standard fee or salary basis and will insist that the employee manage personal data entrusted to him solely for the benefit of the employer. Commission or percentage reimbursements for services rendered are deemed unethical and unprofessional practices in fund raising.

Announcing A New Editor

The Board of Directors of CHRISTIANITY TODAY recently asked Kenneth Kantzer, dean of the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, to become editor of the twice-monthly periodical upon the retirement of the present editor next spring. We are happy to announce that he has accepted the appointment and will begin work at the magazine shortly after the first of next year.

In the next issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY we will publish a fuller report about the new editor. Here is Dr. Kantzer’s acceptance statement:

“Under the able leadership of Carl F. H. Henry and Harold Lindsell CHRISTIANITY TODAY has become the voice of evangelicalism for America and, indeed, for the entire world. It has presented evangelical faith with integrity and effectiveness. I accept the invitation to be its editor as a call from God and will give myself wholeheartedly to this exciting challenge with a deep sense of dependence upon God and upon the prayers of God’s people.

“I anticipate no departure from the theological guidelines set by my predecessors. While by profession and by conviction I’m committed to bringing evangelicals together, I also stand firmly for historic orthodoxy. I’m looking forward eagerly to interaction with the readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.”

The Votes Of Religious People

Albert Menendez is a journalist and political scientist who knows a great deal about religion in America, past and present. He is director of research for Americans United for Separation of Church and State and assistant editor of the organization’s monthly magazine, Church and State. His fascination with his field includes a healthy respect, however, even for those churches and peoples whose views run counter to those of Americans United.

Religion at the Polls (Westminster, $5.95) should become a standard work and stay in print for a long time. The author has accumulated a veritable mountain of data. There is a terseness and economy of words that enables the volume to cover a lot of territory.

Menendez presents a comprehensive picture of the way religious beliefs affect the outcome of American elections. Such an effort has entailed some descriptions of these beliefs and their political clout; this aspect of the book alone makes it a handy reference tool. Special sections are devoted to both evangelicals and the religiously nonaffiliated.

Menendez gets into some areas where reliable statistics are not readily available and he is obliged to engage in some intelligent speculation. To his credit, however, he invariably seeks to be fair and irenic.

The reader can learn much from this book. Evangelicals and others should note that even small religious minorities can have a substantial effect on state affairs and on the course of any democratic government.

Why Work?

We go to work to get the money to get the food to get the strength to go to work to get the money to get the food to get.…

Or so it seems for many people who long for that free time in the evenings, weekends, and holidays. Actually there is a trend away from viewing work as drudgery. Some people assume with Karl Marx that work defines man’s identity. You are what you do. Much of the argument in the women’s liberation movement, especially in connection with equal employment opportunities, grows out of that assumption.

In the heyday of the labor movement work was to be reduced and avoided as much as possible. This attitude even crept into Christian thinking; the Apostle Paul was thought of as one who “merely” made tents for a living. Christians inferred from that that what God really counted worthwhile was something other than a job.

Now, as James M. Houston has aptly noted, “our technological society is marked by the deification of work.” Efficiency, moreover, is the great value of our time. Something we call success is its own morality, and power is its undisguised goal.

All of which creates intense pressure and mental strain that may be even harder for people to deal with than the older burden of physical labor.

We need to define a biblical view of work that relates spiritual fulfillment to the need for productivity. Whether we like it or not, a pagan world largely controls the crucial elements of work. Unless a biblically-shaped view controls this aspect of our lives, Christians will find themselves making accommodations to a system that is a distortion of God’s will for his creatures.

A Tale of Two Trees

Our culture has many unique books, paintings, and symphonies that have no parallels. Michelangelo’s La Pieta and David, Milton’s Paradise Lost, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony all illustrate this fact. The Bible, too, tells us about some originals: the virgin birth of Jesus and his Incarnation. But there are others that many of us have nearly ignored, such as, trees. In Genesis we are told that God planted a garden and in it he placed two trees that “on earth were not their like.”

We refer, of course, to the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These are the only trees in Eden that have names. And they are part of the drama of Adam and Eve. Adam had full charge of the Garden. God gave him only one restriction! He could not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good or evil. But he was not forbidden to eat of the fruit of the tree of life.

Had Adam eaten of the tree of life he would have lived forever. In his innocence he was not inclined toward evil. Nor did he know what the consequences would be from eating the forbidden fruit. But one thing was clear: God’s command. To eat of the tree of life was to live forever; to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was to die.

Adam ate and Adam died. He left us all in a sinful state, separated from God, separated from the tree of life. We would be without hope were it not for the grace of God who has made Jesus, the tree of life, available to us. The person who eats and drinks of him shall live forever. It is the simple story of paradise lost by Adam and paradise gained by Jesus Christ. Adam had to choose between two trees; we have to choose between two persons—Jesus or Satan. But the ends are the same. Choose Jesus for life eternal; choose Satan for death everlasting.

Belden Menkus, free-lance management consultant

Generations of evangelical pastors, teachers of apologetics and homiletics, prophecy students, and itinerant missionaries carefully have built a case for identifying Jesus Christ as the “person” who was the promised Jewish Messiah. In turn they have used this claim as the foundation for presenting the Gospel message to Jewish friends or neighbors. In particular it has been claimed that establishing a conclusive “personal” identification of Jesus as the Messiah was the only way to communicate the Gospel imperatives effectively to the Orthodox Jew.

Unfortunately, the appearance of a personal Messiah—for either the first or the second time—has not been a subject of significant concern to the adherents of Orthodox Judaism for about 1,600 years.

Orthodox Judaism is a religion of observance rather than belief; the dominant post-Talmudic literature has been the responsim that transmitted authoritative rabbinic opinions and decisions on various aspects of ritual observance. Thus, it has been possible to consider oneself observant if one closely followed the traditional rituals of whatever form of Orthodoxy to which one adhered. But a person could be an agnostic or even a near Zoroastrian or other brand of mystic in matters of belief.

True, there have been discussions over the past 1,600 years among Orthodox scholars and rabbis of the nature of the Messiah, but they have been of minor significance. They usually were reactions to the activities of the various false Messiahs (who usually operated in a philosophical frame of reference that was really nationalistic rather than religious) and independent mystic leaders like the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of the Hassidism movement (who appears, incidentally, never to have thought of himself as the Messiah nor to have been particularly concerned with a return to the land), or more recently to Zionism.

The Orthodox have ignored in general the Christian world; it has been something that they endured living within—and little more. Many devout Orthodox Jews still are not resigned to the idea that the present State of Israel might be a divine restoration to the land. Those among the Orthodox who do support the State of Israel are more concerned with assuring group survival (a response of sorts to the Holocaust of World War II and the more recent Arab war of attrition) than with the resolution or fulfillment of theological matters.

The classic Reform Judaism concern with disproving the need for a personal Messiah reflects in part the movement’s emergence from what was known as Wissenschaft des Judentums (the science of Judaism, not to be confused with Jewish Science, which is a variant of conventional Christian Science). And it is in part a general desire among its founders to create a rational form of Judaism that conformed to the then current mid-nineteenth century modern standards for religion, which expressed themselves in a striving for universal justice and peace.

Classic Reform Judaism has emphasized a general improvement of society rather than an eventual appearance of a personal Messiah. Reform has differed from Orthodoxy on matters of adherence to traditional practices and rabbinic authority and not on the nature of the Messiah. Reform rejected any return to the land and the appearance of a personal Messiah as betrayals of the religious mission of Judaism—to be a force for God in the world. (Reform did not even try formally as an organized movement to accommodate itself to the idea of a return to the land until 1937; a small minority is still anti-Zionist.)

In essence, any concern with the personality of the Messiah and with prophetic fulfillment in general is something strictly specific to Christian theological priorities. That does not make these Christian concerns wrong; they simply play little or no role in normative Judaism of any type.

An evangelical apologetic that emphasizes these concerns in trying to relate the Christian message to modern Jews is trying to answer the wrong question—one that is not being asked by the people it wants to reach.

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