News from the North American Scene: April 06, 1992

Denominations

Klan Burns Methodists

A cross and a burning flame: That image is dearly loved by many, but not for the same reasons, as United Methodists in southeastern Wisconsin have recently discovered.

They are outraged that the local Wisconsin Ku Klux Klan is likening its cross burnings to the Methodists’ symbol of a cross and flame. “Despite the Klan’s claim that they reflect biblical teaching, the United Methodist Church insists that both the teaching and practice of this hate group is contrary to the witness of Jesus Christ,” said UM Bishop David Lawson in a written denunciation of the Klan sent out to Wisconsin pastors. United Methodists and other church groups joined for a prayer service to counter the Klan activity in the auto-manufacturing towns, where fears of unemployment have fed Klan recruitment.

The Klan had claimed in a brochure “Why Do You Guys Burn the Cross?” that was passed out in Janesville and Beloit, Wisconsin, during a recruiting effort, that there was no real difference between their burning crosses and the Methodists’ emblem. The Methodist symbol was adopted in 1968 and is meant to signify the tongues of fire occurring at Pentecost.

Homosexual Debate Hits Southern Baptists

Just before a Southern Baptist church in North Carolina gave its blessing in early March to the union of two homosexual men, the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee started formulating a plan to stop any such future actions by local churches.

Nearly two-thirds of the members of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina, voted to permit their pastor, M. Mahan Siler, to conduct a service blessing the union of two homosexuals. “We’re taking a stand toward a responsible expression of sexuality,” Siler said. “It’s a stand of support toward persons who want to commit to a long-term monogamous relationship.”

The Raleigh church would lose its SBC membership if the current proposal by the SBC executive committee passes. It would require that congregations oppose homosexuality as a condition of membership. Final vote on the proposal could be taken by June.

“We’ve never faced this kind of aberration before,” Guy Sanders, an SBC executive committee member, told Religious News Service. “I think we need to take a stand as strongly as we can.”

Capital Currents

Abortion Gamble

Prolife congressional insiders say advocates of abortion are taking a major political gamble in pushing the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA) on a fast legislative track this year. First introduced a year ago, the bill would forbid states to “restrict the right of a woman to choose to terminate a pregnancy” before fetal viability or “at any time, if such termination is necessary to protect the life or health of the woman.” FOCA is likely to reach the House and Senate about the time the Supreme Court is expected to decide a case that could undermine Roe v. Wade.

Prochoice advocates hope that outcries over the decision will provide the momentum needed to get FOCA passed. But prolifers believe that strategy may backfire. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) says FOCA is “so extreme” it would “invalidate restrictions that are favored by three-quarters and more of the American people.” Attorney General William Barr says that FOCA “would impose abortion rights well beyond Roe v. Wade.”

Court Refuses Ban, Hangs Up On Dial-A-Porn

Government regulations aimed at protecting children from indecent materials have gotten mixed support from the U.S. Supreme Court. Last month the Court refused to let the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) impose a 24-hour ban on “indecent” radio and television broadcasts. The ban was passed in 1990 to protect children from being exposed to such programming. A lower court ruled the ban was unconstitutional, and the high court declined to review that decision. Still in place are FCC regulations limiting “adult” broadcasts to the hours between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M., when children are less likely to be listening or watching.

However, the Supreme Court has cleared the way for enforcement of a 1989 law restricting “dial-a-porn” telephone services. In late February the justices refused to review a First Amendment challenge to the law, which requires customers to subscribe in advance and in writing to 900 numbers offering sexually explicit messages. The law, pushed by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), prevents minors from having access to dial-a-porn services.

Prayer In The Senate

Senate Chaplain Richard Halverson offered a rebuke to the national press corps through his prayer last month in opening a Senate session. “Gracious Father, investigative reporting seems epidemic in an election year—its primary objective to defame political candidates,” Halverson prayed, according to the Congressional Record. “Eternal God, help these self-appointed ‘vacuum cleaner journalists’ to discover how unproductive and divisive their efforts are.”

The Senate’s opening prayers also attracted press attention late in February, when, for the first time ever, a Muslim cleric substituted for the evangelical Halverson.

In Court

Creationists Win In California

The California-based Institute for Creation Research (ICR) is claiming a victory for all of that state’s private schools, citing a recent out-of-court settlement that recognizes the right of private schools to teach creationism.

A federal court judge in San Diego issued a declaratory judgment in favor of ICR concerning a dispute with Bill Honig, superintendent of public instruction for California’s Department of Education. About four years ago, Honig refused to reapprove ICR for operation because the school refused to teach evolution as fact.

“Creationism was on the verge of being outlawed in California, to the point where Christian schools would have been forced to teach evolution as a fact, especially in science courses,” said Paul Kienel, executive director of the Association of Christian Schools International. “This [decision] could have far-reaching implications for the nation.”

Murder Charges

Retrial For Linscott

Steven Linscott, who in 1982 was convicted of murder, will soon have another day in court in May. As a Bible-college student in suburban Chicago, Linscott was arrested and found guilty of the brutal slaying of a young nursing student. Evidence against him included his account of a dream that bore similarities to the actual crime (CT, Feb. 4, 1983, p. 42).

After his conviction, Linscott took on a new team of attorneys who have consistently maintained that prosecutors knowingly misrepresented the supposed scientific evidence against him. In 1985, Linscott was released from jail after an appellate decision, and the case has bounced around the Illinois court system ever since. Anticipating next month’s trial, Linscott told CHRISTIANITY TODAY, “I am confident that the evidence is on our side, but in an adversarial court system such as ours, there is always an element of risk.”

Financial Crisis

Christian Science Leaders Resign

Christian Science purists say their church may finally get back to its true business after the church’s chairman and several other top officials resigned in mid-March.

Harvey Wood resigned as chairman after the church acknowledged that it had borrowed $41.5 million from its employee pension fund since January 1 to underwrite the Christian Science Monitor newspaper and the television Monitor Channel, and another $20 million from its own endowment fund, according to Associated Press reports. The church also dipped into $5 million left by founder Mary Baker Eddy in her will and was seeking to use another $97 million bequest promised to the church if it would publish a controversial book about Eddy. Church officials had previously rejected the book because it virtually deified founder Eddy, contrary to church teaching.

“Today’s resignations really mark the failure of an attempt to turn the church into something it wasn’t: a secular media empire,” said historian Stephen Gottschalk. The Church of Christ, Scientist, claims 2,600 churches worldwide.

Shadow Of Ptl

Cerullo Out At New Heritage

After more than a year of legal squabbling, the televangelist who stepped in to buy Jim Bakker’s Heritage Village theme park has himself been bought out. Morris Cerullo, who late in 1990 bought Bakker’s South Carolina park, has sold his 49 percent of the stock in New Heritage USA to his former partners, but only after he was sued by fellow stockholders twice in one year (CT, Apr. 29, 1991, p. 40).

Cerullo could not be reached for comment. But reports indicate that the president of New Heritage USA, Yet-King Loy, helped orchestrate the buyout of Cerullo and hopes to open portions of the 2,200-acre park by July 4.

Cerullo was sued by Loy and other stockholders last March after offering discounted memberships to his television viewing audience. He was sued again in April for allegedly using the park’s name to solicit money.

People And Events

Briefly Noted

Elected: Morris Chapman as president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee, the denomination’s top administrative position. The conservative Chapman will complete his two-year term as convention president in June.

Selected: Cecil Sherman, as the first full-time coordinator of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the new organization of moderate Southern Baptists. Sherman, former pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, helped found the new group.

Died: Jamie Buckingham, 59, of cancer. Buckingham authored or coauthored more than 40 books and was editor in chief of Ministries Today and editor at large of Charisma. He was pastor of Tabernacle Church, a non-denominational congregation of more than 2,000 in Melbourne, Florida.

Stephen Paine, president emeritus of Houghton College, in West Seneca, New York, on February 9. Paine, 83, was a founding member of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Sentenced: Five Operation Rescue demonstrators, by U.S. District Judge Patrick Kelly, for assaulting a federal marshal during sitins last summer in Wichita.

Planned: A special prayer project called Meet at City Hall, by a group of ministers led by Donald Wildmon. The meeting, planned for May 7, will focus on prayer for a “moral rebirth” in America.

Resigned: Galen Meyer, as editor in chief of The Banner, the weekly publication of the Christian Reformed Church, to teach Bible at a Christian high school in Michigan.

Arrested: 41-year-old drifter Patrick Lee Frank, in connection with an estimated 20 church fires in Florida and Tennessee in 1990 and 1991.

Abortion

Rescue’S Next Target: Buffalo

Nine months after Operation Rescue (OR) invaded Wichita, the antiabortion protest group has targeted Buffalo for a similar campaign of blockades and protests. Spurred by a personal invitation from prolife mayor James Griffin, OR leaders Randall Terry and Keith Tucci say they plan to arrive in Buffalo April 20. With the battle line drawn, evangelical churches in the city have shown mixed reactions, some opening their arms, and others worrying the activists may stir more trouble than good.

Prochoice proponents have expressed outrage at OR’s intent, fearing another summer like the one in Wichita. There police made more than 2,600 arrests, and the city, county, and state reportedly spent more than $700,000 on law enforcement. OR claims to have “saved” 27 women from having abortions.

Tucci is not sure exactly how many people will turn up in Buffalo. But he says support for the movement ultimately must come from Buffalo’s prolife constituency. He points out that of those who protested during the six weeks in Wichita last summer, only 500 were from outside Kansas. He notes that 1,000 people attended an initial rally in early March to protest Buffalo’s five abortion clinics.

“You throw a party and you hope people come,” Tucci told CHRISTIANITY TODAY. “We have no ability to monitor who is going to come and who is not.” Shortly after OR announced it would take up his invitation, Griffin called Wichita’s Mayor Robert Knight, himself an evangelical, to ask his advice. “I think [Griffin] believes he made a mistake” by inviting OR to Buffalo, Knight told CT.

Griffin said his invitation stands. “I welcome anybody into our city, whether they are prolife or antilife,” he said, but added: “We are going to uphold the law.” Griffin said he doesn’t necessarily believe all the costs the media have attached to OR’s previous protest. “If we can save one unborn child, that is what life is all about.”

What advice would Wichita’s mayor give to Buffalo? “If nothing else, OR required Wichita to consider its deepest community impulses,” Knight said. “Every individual has got to examine what he or she thinks is right and wrong and then stand strong.”

Update

Revival Fires Still Bum After Wichita’S Hot Summer

Last summer hundreds of men, women, boys, and girls knelt together on the sidewalks outside of abortion clinics in Wichita, Kansas, praying for God to save the lives of unborn children. Two months ago more than a thousand of Wichita’s children stood together in a packed Kansas Coliseum to make first-time commitments to Jesus Christ, the climax of a month-long evangelistic campaign called Locker to Locker.

Was there a connection between the two events? Did last summer’s anti abortion activism spark the spiritual fire that touched Wichita’s young people? Local residents differ in their answers, but many Christians there believe God has hit the city with a one-two punch.

“It’s incredible,” says Cindy Baldwin, who, with her husband, led the team of Wichita adults that organized February’s teen campaign. “Revival is coming to Wichita. No doubt about that.”

Locker to Locker was the brainstorm of Joe White, president of Kanakuk-Kanakomo Kamps in Branson, Missouri. White proposed the new teen evangelism model early last year at a meeting of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, and he was promptly invited to try out the strategy in Wichita. White asked the Baldwins to organize the campaign.

A rally led by speaker Josh McDowell trained 3,000 Christian young people, who spent two weeks in their schools inviting friends to a final celebration featuring musician Michael W. Smith and speaker Buster Soaries.

At one point last summer, however, support for Locker to Locker was low. Baldwin says a group of leaders met outside the city to pray and consider whether to continue their plans. Then Baldwin returned to Wichita.

“When I came home, we were right in the middle of the abortion issue,” she recalls, when Operation Rescue (OR) protesters from across the country demonstrated and blocked clinic entrances in Wichita for six weeks starting in August. “There was a breakdown of denominational [divisions] for the first time in Wichita.”

Among other things, a new group called the Alliance of Evangelical Ministers, which got a boost as a result of the protests, pledged their support for Locker to Locker. The OR campaign had first stirred the consciences of local laypeople, then roused more than 80 of the city’s pastors to action as well (CT, Sept. 16, 1991, p. 44).

Gene Williams, who is senior pastor of the First Church of the Nazarene, said that the main impact that OR’s “Summer of Mercy” campaign had on the city’s religious community was to “push us across the Protestant-Catholic line.”

“I’ve never seen anything explode like this,” says Williams of the recent developments that led to Locker to Locker. “I think there is some momentum coming out of this summer and we have hooked onto the momentum of togetherness, and the spectacular aspect of the Summer of Mercy has said to people, ‘We can do anything we want to do.’ ”

The Summer of Mercy had some of its biggest impact on the work of Linda Hale, director of Wichita’s Pregnancy Crisis Center. Accustomed to working with a volunteer staff of about 10 prolife sidewalk counselors, she now helps coordinate more than 200 people who volunteered during the protests and have stuck with it.

“Everything is up at our center,” Hale says. “Volunteers, donations, the number of people waiting to be shepherding-home families, physicians wanting to help us out.” In addition, several new groups have formed to combat abortion.

While many believers remain excited by all the new activity sparked by last summer’s demonstrations, there are some in Wichita’s pews who are glad it is all over. Among them is George Tiller, the physician targeted by OR. Tiller continues conducting abortions, some during the third trimester. “It makes me really sad,” says Hale. “But I just can’t help but think that the constant pressure of people in prayer and the sidewalk counselors are having an effect on him.”

By Joe Maxwell in Wichita.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.