CHRISTIANITY TODAY asked several prominent religious leaders two questions: What do you think was the most noteworthy religious development in 1977?; and What do you think will be the most likely candidate for that choice in 1978? Here are some answers:

Hudson Armerding, president, Wheaton College.

I personally feel that the issue of homosexuals in the church was one of the most significant religious developments of the year. I’m thinking particularly of how it was addressed in the United Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches.

I believe that the role of women will become more of an issue in 1978 in the evangelical world. Secondly, there is the Christian world response to the problem in the Middle East; in other words, the relationship between biblical statements and the current status of Israel.

Stephen Board, editor, Eternity magazine.

The story that impresses me about 1977 is accountability, specifically accountability in fund raising by Christian groups, which includes the World Evangelism and Christian Education Fund that was associated with Billy Graham and the big fund raising projects by such men as Bill Bright, Oral Roberts, and Robert Schuller.

In 1978 I think that the most interesting story will be the response of the United Presbyterian Church to various conservative concerns, specifically the question of the ordination of homosexuals. I think that the evangelical element in that body is vocal and influential enough to make a schism possible. That’s the one I’ll be watching.

Russell Chandler, religion writer, Los Angeles Times.

Through a combination of media pressure, public demand, and pending legislation, religious groups are searching to find how much information they should give the public about how their money is raised and spent. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and other major evangelical organizations have been in the thick of this revolution of voluntary versus mandatory disclosure of their financial positions.

How to view homosexual orientation, membership, and ordination in the church will be the major issue of many major denominational conventions. Division among many Christians about how far to go in accepting—if not embracing—homosexuals will dominate religious news for several years.

W. A. Criswell, pastor, First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas.

I believe that the most interesting development is the debate among evangelicals concerning the inspiration of Scripture, occasioned particularly by the publication of Harold Lindsell’s book and the rejoinder to it, Biblical Authority, edited by Jack Rogers.

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The most interesting religious development during 1978 will be the formation of the International Council on Inerrancy as it begins to persuade the evangelical world of the perfection of the Scriptures as they stood in the autographs.

Vernon Grounds, president, Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary.

I think evangelicals ought not to overlook the significance of the Charismatic Congress in Kansas City that was attended by thousands upon thousands of people. Whatever may be our opinion of that movement, we need to recognize that it is a most significant and astonishing phenomenon, which is affecting the mainline denominations and having a tremendous impact on Roman Catholics. We simply have to come to terms with this phenomenon, not by abandoning our own convictions, but by being aware that it is decisively influencing Christendom.

I prefer not to assume a prophetic stance because I think God is the God of surprises. I’ve come to an age that I can say I never could have predicted the resurgence of evangelicalism as a leading force in the United States. So I would rather not respond.

Mark Hatfield, United States senator.

I am impressed by the emergence of countless new fellowships and church communities that take seriously the call of the body of Christ to live out its life as a new community and that are composed of evangelicals, charismatics, social-action mainline Protestants, and Catholics—all of which demonstrate a growing new unity.

I see in 1978 the increasing strength of the new church communities that live out a whole Gospel, pastorally and prophetically, and that give themselves to the purposes of biblical justice in the world.

Maijorie Hyer, religion writer, Washington Post.

I think that the most significant and probably the most interesting is the real schisms that are developing within long-established denominations.

I think that one of the interesting things to watch in 1978 is the continuing liberalizing trend within the Catholic church as younger, more progressive, Vatican II-style bishops assume more leadership.

Dennis F. Kinlaw, president, Asbury College.

The increasing visibility of evangelical Christianity is an alternative to other religious and secular options in our culture and the growing consciousness in the Third World of its responsibility for world evangelism are top on my list.

For 1978, I foresee the further intensification of these two things.

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Martin Marty, associate professor, University of Chicago Divinity School.

American religion, which had been extremely provincial and localized for the past ten years, reentered the larger world. The perceptions of believers here had to include South African repression, Idi Amin’s butchery, the killing by Rhodesian guerrillas of missionaries, the torture of Christians in Korea and Chile, the persecution of evangelicals and Jews in Russia, and the like. The most interesting single development is the new visibility given relations between Jews and conservative Protestants in the United States.

I believe that the most interesting development in 1978 will be that the “free ride” that the culture has given religion the last ten years will be ending. There are signs that the scientific community is reacting against many of the claims among students and devotees of the para-normal; similarly there are public reactions against the promotionalism and even commercialism of the competitive religious forces and the extravagant promises of Eastern religions and American Indian religions. Revitalized Judaism and Christianity don’t always pay off in the lives of the converts and they’ll ask new questions. The most important event that I foresee will be the struggle by self-critical and thoughtful religious groups to come to terms with this climactic change.

William F. Willoughby, religion editor, Washington Star.

The continuing reaction against deprogramming is the most significant story. Almost on a par with it is the growing reaction to religious oppression in Eastern bloc countries.

I think that there is going to be more momentum on the repression of rights in the Eastern bloc countries and I think that as more of it comes into the open, we will see some kind of reaction come against it in Southeast Asia. But particularly, I think we can see this momentum in the revival taking place in the Soviet Union and in Romania.

Kenneth L. Woodward, general editor, Newsweek magazine.

I think that the most interesting religious development in 1977 was the adoption of the born again nomenclature by those who are not traditionally a part of the evangelical world.

I’ll go out on a limb and call 1978 the year of the layman because I think that laypeople in various and often contradictory ways are beginning to assert themselves in church circles. Laypeople are not waiting for clergy to do or say this. The charismatics, for example, are lay-led both outside the Catholic churches and increasingly inside the Catholic churches. And I think all around the country laypeople are increasingly taking church matters into their own hands.

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Consciences And a Crusade

Alerting the world to the plight of prisoners of conscience has been Amnesty International’s (AI) conspicuous accomplishment. People who were imprisoned for simply expressing their beliefs—sometimes explicitly Christian beliefs—were “adopted” by AI.

The significant work of Al in this area got due recognition when the London-based organization received the Nobel Peace Prize at the end of 1977. The worldwide group has stood for peace and freedom to say what one believes without fear of persecution. AI has not espoused the cause of the violent, of common criminals, or of those who have violated their nation’s laws for personal gain or advantage.

While commending Amnesty International on its receipt of the prize, we must sound a note of caution. This esteemed organization stands to lose some of its respect and support as a result of a new campaign launched at the time of the Nobel award. AI announced that it will attempt to abolish capital punishment around the globe. If this drive were concerned only with those who might be killed for their beliefs it would be commendable. No such restrictive understanding has been announced, however. To the contrary, the word from AI’s conference in Stockholm last month was that the organization is taking aim at the death penalty everywhere and under all conditions.

Amnesty International has plenty to do without taking on this new project. As it expands its scope it curiously violates one of the very rules that has brought it respect: it has been non-political. More important, this drive to eliminate capital punishment will violate the consciences (consciences informed by Scripture) of many who appreciated Al’s work in helping the world’s “prisoners of conscience.”

A Sign For Abraham

There was a man named Abraham. God had called him to leave father, mother, relatives, and comfort to become a wanderer over the face of the earth. While on his pilgrimage a peculiar incident occurred, not wholly unlike what you and I might experience today. This incident demonstrates a principle of Scripture: with every new development in the history of redemption God gave confirming evidence to those who were involved that he, not the Devil, was leading them.

God spoke to childless Abraham and promised to give him a numerous posterity and a specific land. The promise of a son was fulfilled in Abraham’s lifetime; the promise of a land was to be fulfilled long after Abraham was dead. God said “I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess” (Gen. 15:7). How could this be?

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Abraham, Scripture says, believed in God and it was counted to him for righteousness. But it also says that Abraham asked and received of God an external, visible, corroborating sign by which he could know that he was neither dreaming nor deceived. Abraham said, “O LORD God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” (Gen. 15:8). This was a good question, and it stemmed from faith, not from doubt.

God told Abraham to bring a heifer, a she-goat, a ram, a turtledove, and a pigeon. Except for the birds he cut them in two. As the sun was going down a deep sleep fell on Abraham and “a dread and great darkness fell upon him” (Gen. 15:12). When darkness came “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces” (Gen. 15:17). What a sight that must have been. How Abraham must have felt chills go up and down his spine. Little did he know when he prayed to God what answer God would give him. He did not completely understand it, but it was something he would never forget. Each evening he could look into the colorsplashed sky and remember what God had done to seal the covenant.

Many of us can also remember how God validated promises to us. By those providential acts we knew that God had spoken to us truthfully. God condescended mercifully to show us what he wanted us to do.

Paul Clasper, faculty of theology, Chinese University of Hong Kong

Burma is not a tourist attraction. You have to want to go there for some special reason. There is nothing in Rangoon to compare with Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, or Bali. The plane to Burma will be filled with a very different type of tourist; they will be younger, poorer, and concerned with deeper issues. But many of them say that their stay in Burma was a high peak in their Asian travels. In Burma there is no cocoa-colonialism. Shabbiness is everywhere and the black market dominates life. But there is a quality of dogged courage and freedom from pretension that makes Burma appear as an oasis of reality in a desert of commercialized unreality.

For those especially concerned with the vitality of the Christian community in Asia, Burma is usually the high spot of their trip. For a decade the church has been cut off from outside contact. No one has gone abroad for theological education or even attended church conferences or seminars for many years. Foreign missionaries were asked to leave in the midsixties. But the church in Burma was well prepared for this demanding chapter of its life. It is one of the best equipped churches in Asia. Its leaders have long had the responsibility for their own affairs; they have moved steadily forward in terms of mission and lay-theological education. Christians in Burma are courageous and resourceful. A visitor from another Asian country once said, “There is always a lilt to life in the Christian community of Burma.”

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A few years ago a group of Chinese Anglicans visited Burma. A member of the group was considering baptism, but he had not yet made a decision. In Burma he decided that was the place in which he must be baptized. He said that he had always felt that when he saw the real thing he would want to identify with it. He knew that in Burma he had seen the real thing and he was ready for the ceremony.

Recently a missionary seminary teacher from a Southeast Asian school was depressed about his ministry and about the ecclesiastical politics in his region. He was on the verge of returning to his native country. A trip to Burma brought him in touch with theological students and faculty members who lived under incredibly difficult conditions, but with a quiet zest and total abandon. He said, “When I saw what seminary training could mean to individuals and to the life of the church, it simply turned me around. I came away from one week in Burma deeply renewed and eager to keep going. I am at my job today because of the impact of those Christians in Burma.” Burmese Christians exude what C.S. Lewis called “good infection.”

A specialist in lay theological education, who has observed training all over the world, recently came through Hong Kong and reported that the most effective lay-theological education to be found anywhere was in Burma. In the Land of Pagodas there is always a deep desire to understand the faith of the Community of the Resurrection. They live daily with the question, why be a Christian in the land of the strongest, most true-to-the-original type of Buddhism?

The church in Burma continues to grow in numbers and in independence. It is a remarkably ecumenical church. Through the Burma Christian Council, Baptists, Anglicans, and Methodists work together. In recent years contacts with the Roman Catholics have been increasingly fruitful. It is a remarkably integrated church. Evangelism and social concern, conservative and liberal tendencies, tribal and national concerns, Ph.D.s and wild tribesmen all have been held together in a fine, though at times fragile, balance.

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Recently the Burma Institute of Theology celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. One of the highlights was the graduation of the first five students with the Masters of Theology degree through the adaptable program of the Southeast Asia Graduate School of Theology.

Anglicans have just celebrated the centennial of the Diocese of Rangoon. Far from phasing-out, the church in postcolonial Burma is an example to the world of courage, adaptability, and priority-keeping.

The first foreign missionary from America to Asia was Adoniram Judson, who reached Burma in 1814. He lived amid incredible discouragements: the death of many children and two wives, imprisonment, the slow response to the Gospel among the Buddhist population, and slogging away at his Burmese Bible and dictionary in the tropical heat. But through all his ups and downs he lived with unquenchable hope. His most famous saying still marks the character of the church in Burma: “The future is as bright as the promises of God.”

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