A conference at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School suggests a close connection.

Trinity Evangelical Divinity School sits just off the Illinois Tristate Tollway, a spoke in a huge metropolitan wheel that leads north from the hub of Chicago. It was a fitting location for a conference concerned about Christianity’s global witness.

Members of Theological Students for Frontier Mission (TSFM) spent a weekend last month discussing premillennialism and amillennialism. At issue was which view of the millennium (Christ’s thousand-year reign on earth) provides the best motivation for spreading the Christian witness.

Richard Lovelace and Michael Pocock were the keynote speakers. Pocock, candidate secretary of The Evangelical Alliance Mission, spoke from a premillennial perspective. Lovelace, professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, defended the amillennial view.

Lovelace said renewal movements result in a revival of concern for missions, Christian literature, Christian educational institutions, social reform, and social justice. He acknowledged that the early church was premillennial. But he stressed that most great missionary movements from the time of Constantine to the twentieth century were inspired by amillennial leaders, largely influenced by Augustine.

Augustine believed the thousand-year reign of Christ, mentioned three times in Revelation 20, could be understood either literally or symbolically. The Reformers, as well, were amillennial. But they were involved in too much political strife to emphasize missions very strongly.

Lovelace said the New Testament reflects a world in which Christians were a minority, and premillennialism seems most compatible with minority status. But prophets such as Isaiah think of the increase of God’s government through his son as having “no end” (Isa. 9:7). Amillennialists see missions as the means for this unending and growing influence of Christ, he said.

One example is Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf, who led the early Moravian Brethren to start prayer watches to pray for the rest of the world. Others include the leaders of the English Clapham movement, who touched the lives of John Newton, William Wilberforce, and Robert Raikes. More effective than marches on Washington would be a united Christian outreach to the world’s spiritual and material needs. Such a renewal could occur only if the laity is mobilized for missions, Lovelace said.

Pocock took a more militant approach in his defense of premillennialism. He separated his view not only from amillennialism, but also from dispensational premillennialism. Those who adhere to the latter, he said, don’t believe Christians can speed Christ’s return (2 Pet. 3:12). They also divide Israel, Gentiles, and the church, losing a sense of the unity of the people of God, he added.

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Historically, he said, amillennialism has tended to go hand-in-hand with state churches and spiritual lethargy. Liberation theology, especially in its Roman Catholic forms in Latin America, sees eschatology as “the very key to understanding the Christian faith,” Pocock said, quoting theologian Gustavo Gutierrez. Ironically, ecumenical Protestants have lost almost all of their eschatological vision and with it their motivation for missions and evangelism, he added.

TSFM, the sponsors of the conference, grew out of a 1980 meeting of 12 seminarians at the World Consultation on Frontier Missions in Edinburgh, Scotland. The organization’s goal is “a church for every people by the year 2000,” an ambitious objective. Some 2.7 billion people in 16,750 groups have yet to be reached by any Christian witness.

The group is trying to mobilize graduate theological students for career frontier missionary service. However, no more than 9 percent of the world’s missionaries will try to reach these unreached peoples. Seminaries are not adequately training people for frontier evangelism, the organization believes. But Jim Beates, president of the eight-member student board, says TSFM already has succeeded in changing the missions program at several seminaries.

Though the organization is still small, it has the zeal of Ralph Winter, general director of the U.S. Center for World Mission and one of four members of TSFM’s senior advisory board.

In A New Book, A Doctor Links Prayer And Physical Healing

Modern medicine has looked on the power of prayer with skepticism. Medical science relegated faith to hospital waiting rooms. Healing has been left up to technology, surgery, and improved patient care.

But in a book due for release next month, Dr. Herbert Benson presents a different view. A pioneer in the field of behavioral medicine, Benson is a cardiologist who heads the behavioral medicine unit at Beth Israel Hospital, one of the main teaching facilities of Harvard Medical School. His earlier books, The Relaxation Response (Avon) and The Mind-Body Effect (Berkley), discussed the health benefits of meditation and the strong influence of the mind over the body.

In his new book, Beyond the Relaxation Response (Times Books), Benson discusses the healing power of what he calls the “faith factor”—a combination of personal belief and the relaxed physical state brought about through meditation. Without advocating a particular faith system, he prescribes daily meditation that evokes a patient’s personal beliefs—a practice more commonly known as prayer.

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“Medical marvels only deal with 25 percent of what physicians deal with in everyday practice,” Benson says in an interview published in the May issue of American Health magazine. “The other 75 percent are related to interactions between mind and body.”

An example of such an interaction is the fight-or-flight response, in which a person’s heart rate, blood pressure, and blood-flow patterns alter significantly when danger is perceived. In another common mind-and-body interaction called the anxiety cycle, worry activates the sympathetic nervous system, which, in turn, may cause such symptoms as backaches, tension headaches, and insomnia. Meditation, Benson has found, breaks these unhealthy mind-and-body circuits by causing the relaxation response—the physiological opposite of the fight-or-flight response.

In the course of prescribing periods of meditation on such neutral words as “one,” Benson and his colleagues discovered that patients meditated more easily on words that fit their religious beliefs. For example, a retired shopkeeper found it difficult to concentrate on the word “one” as a means of controlling his rapid heart beat. His condition worsened until a doctor, discovering that the man was Greek Orthodox, suggested the prayer “Kyrie eleison” (“Lord, have mercy”) for meditation. The man believed deeply in the value of his prayer, and his heart rate came under control. Today Benson recommends that his patients choose a word or phrase from their deepest-held beliefs to use in twice-daily meditation periods.

“I remember an elderly black woman who came to me for treatment for angina,” Benson told American Health. “She was taking medications, but still had painful attacks.

“I asked if she was religious, and she said she was a devout Christian. She chose to use the prayer ‘Jesus saves’ for her meditation. She began to elicit the relaxation response with the phrase twice daily. Although she still needed her medications, her anginal attacks markedly diminished.”

Such response comes as no suprise to Benson, who cites evidence for the power of faith to heal throughout the history of medicine. In addition to dramatic healings at religious shrines or at the hands of modern-day faith healers, he cites the effectiveness of placebos, medicines without curative ingredients given to calm or reassure a patient.

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In fact, he says, belief is the hidden ingredient in every system of healing. In his new book, he suggests that Christians meditate on a line from the Lord’s Prayer, a psalm, the Apostles’ Creed, or a phrase from the Epistles. Benson suggests alternative phrases for Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists.

“The faith factor involves principles and techniques that are not limited to any one religious or philosophical system,” he writes in his new book. “The same basic approach—which has a quantifiable, scientifically measurable effect—can be applied in a variety of specific circumstances and faith contexts.”

From his viewpoint, it is the process of faith rather than the object of faith that brings about what he calls the “crucial element in healing.” It is the mind—not the supernatural—that evokes the cure.

Nonetheless, the doctor’s call to prayer may lead some to reexamine their beliefs and resurrect a neglected habit—prayer. Says Benson: “Frequently my patient says, ‘Thank you, doctor, for telling me to pray again. I wanted to but felt funny about it.’ ”

United Church Of Canada Task Force Recommends Ordaining Gays

A United Church of Canada task force says practicing homosexuals should not be excluded from ordination on the basis of their sexual orientation.

In a 34-page report, the task force argues that homosexuality is not a moral issue but a tendency, similar to being left-handed. “Our sexuality, regardless of orientation, is a gift from God and, therefore, is good and worthy of appropriate expression,” it maintains. “Neither heterosexuality nor homosexuality is the superior state, the former being no more than the orientation of the majority.”

The task force report already has been approved by the United Church’s Division of Ministry Personnel and Education. In August, the church’s general council will consider the report, along with a recommendation that it be adopted.

If the report is approved, the United Church would become Canada’s first major denomination to permit ordination of self-declared homosexuals. The nation’s largest Protestant body, the church was formed in 1925 by the union of Methodists, Congregationalists, and a majority of Canada’s Presbyterians.

In preparing the report, the task force says it examined Scriptures that condemn homosexuality. But it rejected the traditional interpretation of those verses.

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The report recognizes that the issue of an acceptable lifestyle for gay ministers could be a source of controversy. “Some … would want to apply to homosexual relationships the same principles of love, fidelity, and commitment that the church affirms for heterosexual marriage. Others feel that it is too early to determine an appropriate homosexual lifestyle, and that it is up to the gay and lesbian members of the church to take the lead in identifying such standards.”

It concludes, however, that “we would see long-standing fidelity, love, and commitment among the key principles in any partner relationship, ruling out promiscuity for both heterosexual and homosexual persons.”

The document was mailed as an insert in the April issue of The United Church Observer, the denomination’s monthly magazine. Reaction was swift and, in some instances, scathing. Early mail response—though lighter than expected—was entirely negative.

In anticipation of grassroots unrest, United Church moderator Clarke MacDonald sent a pastoral letter to be read in all congregations. Without taking a clear position himself, he pleaded with members to approach the issue with understanding.

The 3,000-member United Church Renewal Fellowship was outspoken in its criticism of the report. The evangelical group rejected the document and the recommendation that it be adopted. It charged that the report reflected an “ongoing erosion of biblical authority” in the United Church of Canada.

Lloyd Cumming, executive director of the renewal group, said he expected the report to drive some exasperated members out of the church. He added, however, that it would also alert others to the theological drift in the denomination and stiffen their resolve to work for spiritual renewal from within.

LESLIE K. TARRin Toronto

More Americans Withhold Taxes To Protest U.S. Military Spending

Two years after Seattle’s Catholic Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen decided to withhold half of his federal income taxes, a religious “war-tax” movement is growing rapidly.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says the type of protest popularized by the Seattle archbishop has increased nearly fivefold in the last three years. Alternative forms of protest also have become more frequent. Some refuse to pay a small amount of tax or withhold federal excise taxes from their monthly telephone bills. Others file a return and write “paid under protest” on the check, or else they file for a refund of military taxes they have already paid.

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Many religious groups are pressing Congress for legislation that would allow “conscientious objectors” to divert all their taxes to “peaceful” purposes. The tax-resistance movement is prompting the IRS to take action against local congregations that support their tax-resisting pastors. In one case, members of the First Summerfield Methodist Church in New Haven, Connecticut, have refused to hand over church records to the IRS, citing the constitutional principle of the separation of church and state.

Trustees of Bethany Presbyterian Church in Cleveland decided in March to refuse IRS demands to pay the penalty against the church’s tax-resisting pastor. Last year, under protest, the congregation began paying the minister’s original tax bills, under IRS rules that demand payment from any individual or group, including churches, that pays a salary to a tax resister.

Such activity is forcing national church bodies to sort out the issues involved in war-tax resistance. A National Council of Churches (NCC) study guide concludes that a vast majority of church members “do not contemplate war-tax resistance at present.” It says most denominations do not endorse such action. However, at least five denominations have formally endorsed some form of tax resistance, according to an NCC survey of member churches.

White estimates of the number of war-tax resisters vary, all show a sharp rise in recent years, IRS spokesman Larry Batdorf says 5,017 taxpayers indicated on returns for the 1982 tax year that they were witholding money to protest military spending, up from 4,383 in 1981, and 1,176 in 1980.

War-tax resister groups say the numbers actually are higher. The National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee says 10,000 to 20,000 people are refusing to pay some or all of their taxes to protest U.S. military spending.

The increased numbers are reflected in the formation of several new alternative funds to which tax resisters give or loan their withheld taxes. The money is used for charities and social services. A recent survey by the Nashua Peace Center in New Hampshire lists about 65 of these funds in as many cities, compared to 43 in 1983, and 36 in 1981.

RELIGIOUS NEWS SERVICE

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