Letters

Women In Ministry: Long Welcomed By The Salvation Army

I appreciated “Women in Seminary: Preparing for What?” [Sept. 5]. All the article lacked was mention of female ministry in The Salvation Army. What seems to be a big question in other evangelical churches was dealt with 121 years ago in the Army. Women have held equal responsibilities since the Army’s inception in 1865 in England.

We say William Booth was founder of The Salvation Army, but in reality it was cofounded by him and his wife, Catherine. Booth even said some of his best men were women! We believe God does call women into the ministry—to the extent that our current general (denomination head) is a woman.

LT. JEFFREY C. WADDINGTON

Concord, N.H.

If the Lord meant for a woman to lead the church in such roles as preacher, elder, pastor, minister, prophet, priest, et cetera, why didn’t he provide early Christians with a scriptural prototype? Where in Scripture can a woman priest be found? A woman (literary) prophet? A woman apostle? A woman elder or pastor? Could it be the Lord didn’t intend for a woman to serve in any of these positions? It makes me wonder.

DR. MICHAEL L. WILSON

West Memphis, Ark.

I was wondering why it took God so long to call women into the ministry.

CLARICE BANDOW

Madison, Wis.

Work: One Dimension

I hope Steve Jolley’s book on “the Christian and work” will be more balanced than his article “Don’t Ask Me What I “Do’ ” [Speaking Out, Sept. 5], Frankly, the question he resents is often a very helpful conversation starter, as long as we recognize how multi-faceted people are and that our work is only one dimension of a complex (and multi-splendored) whole.

ED NEWMAN

Duluth, Minn.

Why would you even print this article? I not only like what I do, but I’m proud of it because the Lord appointed me and is in everything I do. He gives us talents and instructs us to use them. Jolly needs to get a positive angle on his thinking (and writing). If the 9 to 5 job just pays the bills but provides no challenge or room for growth, maybe it’s time to pray about moving onto something better, or at least for a new outlook.

TERESA JOY

News Anchor, KXJB-TV

Fargo, N.D.

I am a seaman (commercial fishing fleet, North Atlantic). To any other sailor, that says a lot about my character. A man does not work long at a job that does not fit his personality. I am an elder in the Church of the Nazarene, but my ministry is on the fishing docks among these seamen, for I am one of them. My work describes me very well. I think yours does, also.

REV. CLIFFORD CHEW, JR.

West Cape May, N.J.

Achieving True Racial Equality

I read Kantzer’s editorial “Fixing History” [Sept 5], and came away with wonder. Is he really serious in his platitudes on race relations between blacks and whites? He slates, “True racial equality and a society free from racism will only be achieved when people regard others for what they are—not for color of their skin.” Why not press the issue? True equality will only be achieved when intermarriage is as acceptable as eating ice cream on a summer’s hot day. Kantzer should bring that question to his class; when the parents of his students find out he really believes in “one blood,” he will note a drop in enrollment.

ANTHONY PAOLICELLI

New Hyde Park, N.Y.

Your well-meant editorial was, in my opinion, largely glib naïveté. Some recognition of racial differences is simply recognition of fact. Miscegenation, the inevitable outcome of the state you envision, is unacceptable to many of us who, in humility, believe we are faithful in our trust, as are those who see it differently.

ELTON CROWSON

Florence, Ala.

Who’s on Board?

Like me, you’ve seen them: those yellow, diamond-shaped signs dangling in rear windshields, announcing CHILD ON BOARD. What do owners of these signs expect? That a maniac plans to run somebody off the road, but will spare their car after being informed kids might be hurt?

If there is such a thing as the judicious maniac, Christians can contribute to driving orderliness by sporting their own plaques.

PRETRIB DISPENSATIONALIST ON BOARD signals a safe hit—after the Rapture. At that point there won’t be anyone in the car. The judicious maniac will do a service by knocking an unmanned vehicle off the road.

But the judicious maniac will be wary of PRESBYTERIAN ON BOARD or EPISCOPALIAN ON BOARD. A lot of Presbyterians and Episcopalians are lawyers. Said maniac will also be careful about METHODIST ON BOARD and BAPTIST ON BOARD. Fewer Methodists and Baptists are lawyers, but they have friends who are lawyers.

MENNONITE ON BOARD, for obvious reasons, will indicate a popular target. This leaves me worried for our Anabaptist friends.

But there may be a solution, one that will make the roads safer for everyone. Since the judicious maniac won’t hit children, all Christians should display the generic diamond: CHILDREN OF GOD ON BOARD.

EUTYCHUS

Barnes’S Balancing Act

Fred Barnes puts us on a very frustrating balancing act in his negative evaluation of Pat Robertson’s run for President when he says, “We do not need religious political candidates. We need political candidates who happen to be Christian [News, Sept. 5].” It was encouraging, however, that he found Roberston well qualified to serve as President. That being the case, I believe we can trust him to do it in a way that would not be a discredit to the Christian ministry.

It is high time we show Hugh Hefner there is a moral majority in this great land of ours that was built on Judeo-Christian morals, and there is no better way to do it than to put Pat Robertson in the White House.

E. W. MORROW

Santa Barbara, Calif.

There are always two views on any issue: God’s and man’s. My own view does not matter. Why do we have to be confined to Republican and Democratic party choices? Why do Christians have to pick between the lesser of two evils? If anyone is afraid to have a Christian run, and win, the presidential nomination, it is because he is afraid God really will speak through that person. We do not need men or women who are religious. We need men and women and children called of God to speak for him in mercy and in truth. I do not know Mr. Robertson, nor have I ever watched “The 700 Club.” I do know Jesus said, “He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.”

BONNIE BAKER

Lenoir, N.C.

Kinlaw’S Golden Apple

Thanks to Dennis Kinlaw for “Evangelicalism’s Lost Cross” [Sept. 5].“Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances” (Prov. 25:11).

PRESTON PARRISH

Boone, N.C.

About Mormon Doctrine

Ronald Enroth’s review of The Mormon Corporate Empire [Books, Sept. 5], though well intended, seems abbreviated and inadequate. Is CT trying to help the Mormon authors sell their book? Enroth observes that the book focuses “… on the secular, not the doctrinal aspects of Mormonism.” In the review, Enroth focuses not on the secular, but on what he calls the authors’ “fascinating,” “sobering,” and “disturbing” doctrinal segments. One would expect a review that discusses specific secular enterprises of the LDS church or an explanation for their “new liquidity strategy” and its implications. Brief references to Mormon doctrine and “prophecy” are akin to pot shots.

Let us not minor in the majors of theological error, lest we be inoculated against a thorough examination with a biblical response. I find the LDS church to be a challenge we need to meet as we speak the truth in love.

W. DOUGLAS GWINN, JR.

Spanaway, Wash.

Enroth’s biased, uninformed views reveal explicitly that he neither understands nor wants to understand the truth about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When he says Mormons are neither Protestant nor Christian he foolishly commits an error. Protestants we are not, because we never broke off from another church. But Christians we are. What does he think the church name implies? Print what you want, but don’t publish half-truths and lies.

BILL HALL

Clearfield, Utah

Updating Mennonite Membership

Regarding the news item “Church Membership Grows” [News, Aug. 8]: Based on the information in the 1986 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, supplied to them by the Mennonite Yearbook office, you are correct in reporting an 18.09 percent loss in official Mennonite Church membership. However, this does not reflect a mass exodus from the church; rather, it reflects a change in official church policy. Up through 1983, membership of district conferences, who considered themselves part of the Mennonite Church but did not participate in official church structures and programs, were included in the official membership. In 1984, their membership was dropped from official calculations. Since 1984, official membership in the Mennonite Church comprises only those district conferences who actively participate in official churchwide structures and programs. Thus the dramatic membership drop.

JAMES E. HORSCH

Mennonite Yearbook

Scottdale, Pa.

Confronting Anti-Semitism

I was interested to read that two nationally respected evangelical leaders “know of no organized opposition within their constituencies to white-supremacist groups” [News, Aug. 8]. Shalom Ministries is a national evangelical radio ministry combating the bigotry and anti-Semitism of groups like the “Identity Churches” through active, unconditional Christian love.

As I studied church history, and found a steady, polluted stream of “Christian” anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust yet continuing today, the conviction grew: Anti-Semitism must become the church’s problem and the Christian’s responsibility. Last year Shalom Ministries played a key role in formation of a Christian Task Force Against Anti-Semitism in the Boston area. Similar task forces are planned across the U.S.

FRANK EIKLOR

Shalom Ministries

Salem, Mass.

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