World Scene: April 06, 1992

Australia

Outcry Over Women’S Ordination

An Anglican bishop has ordained ten women in defiance of the Anglican Church of Australia’s official stance. Archbishop Peter Carnley of the Diocese of Perth ordained the women, the first in that country’s Anglican church, before a packed congregation at Saint George’s Cathedral.

Experts say his move will undoubtedly lead to the ordination of other women. “Once you’ve done it, it’s almost the same sort of situation you had in the U.S.,” Jim Solheim, a spokesperson for the Episcopal Church, told Religious News Service.

About a month prior to Carnley’s action, the Sydney Supreme Court issued an injunction that prevented Bishop Owne Dowling of Canberra from ordaining 11 women.

Zaire

Christian Marchers Killed

At least 15 people, many of them clutching Bibles and candles, were killed in mid-February when soldiers opened fire on thousands of Christian marchers in Zaire’s capital city of Kinshasa. The peaceful demonstrators were calling for the reconvening of a national conference to determine the country’s political future, according to a report by News Network International.

Last September rebel soldiers sought to overthrow President Mobutu Sese Seko, ransacking Kinshasa and forcing many missionaries to evacuate the country (CT, Oct. 28, 1991, p. 42).

Evangelism

Graham To North Korea

Billy Graham announced plans late last month to preach in North Korea in late March and early April. At press time, Graham was scheduled to speak in two churches and lecture at Kim Il-sung University, making him the first evangelist from any country to visit North Korea.

Since its inception in 1948, the country has been ruled by communist dictator Kim Il-sung. Only recently has the country opened up to a small Christian population. Graham’s wife, Ruth, attended a missions high school in northern Korea in the 1930s. Said Graham: “I look forward to meeting my fellow Christians there, many of whom have had no contact with believers from other parts of the world. I also hope that in some small way I can make a contribution to more peaceful relations between our two countries.”

Translation

Bibles Completed In 322 Languages Worldwide

The number of languages into which at least one book of the Bible has been translated rose from 1,946 in 1990 to 1,978 in 1991, according to the latest Scripture Language Report issued by the United Bible Societies.

Thirty-two languages received at least one book of the Bible in 1991 for the first time, the largest first-time number since 1987. Complete Bibles were reported for the first time in four languages: two in Zaire, one in Guatemala, and one in Yugoslavia. That increases the number of languages with complete Bibles to 322.

People And Events

Briefly Noted

Killed: American Lutheran Albert Glock, an archaeology professor at Bir Zeit University in Israel, by a gunman January 19. Police have not determined a motive for the attack.

Tim Olson, a missionary with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, by bandits in the Central African Republic. Olson, 24, of Minneapolis, was supervising construction of a Lutheran church there, where he had served since 1989.

Delayed: by the Spanish Parliament, passage of a religious-rights bill that would give the Protestant minority new rights, pending an appeal by Muslims to be included in the bill (CT, Nov. 25, 1991, p. 60).

Died: Long-time ecumenical leader Donald Newby, on February 17. Newby, 66, an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), served as executive secretary of the World Council of Churches, the United Christian Youth Movement, and the All Africa Conference of Churches.

New Zealand

Sister Replaces Murdered Missionary

Diane Goldsworthy, 25, has taken up the missionary cause of her sister. She has joined Operation Mobilization’s Doulos, the ship on which her sister was serving when she and another woman were killed by a grenade during an open-air dramatic performance in the Philippines (CT, Oct. 7, 1991, p.54). “When I found out that Karen was killed, I said, ‘That’s it—I’m going for God 100 percent,’ ” Diane told New Zealand’s Weekly Challenge Christian newspaper.

Social Ministries

Caring In The Chaos

Part of a continuing series examining how Western Christians are helping reshape the former Soviet Union.

Christians who have visited the former Soviet Union struggle to describe the current state of that society. “Total chaos” or “functional anarchy” are phrases they often settle on to describe the multiplying problems of the new Commonwealth of Independent States.

Economic confusion, combined with disintegrating central authority, has contributed to a sharply escalating crime rate. Children are being abandoned. Alcoholism is rampant, and now Soviets must contend as well with drug traffic from Asia.

In that environment, Soviet leaders have thrown open the doors for virtually any kind of social ministry that churches and Christian organizations from the West can offer. Among the many areas in which Christians are working:

Law. One of the most fundamental problems in Soviet society is that no legal systems are in place to address its social ills. “Nobody really knows what the rules are,” says Sam Ericsson, former executive director of the Christian Legal Society. He says he has seen law libraries in which official changes in the statutes were written into the books with ball-point pen.

Ericsson, who is licensed by the Russian bar, is one of several Christian attorneys who has visited with members of the Russian Parliament, justice officials, and others who are attempting to reshape the legal system.

“Right now, America is in; spirituality is in; and rule of law is in. The American Christian lawyer fits all three categories,” he says. “We have a unique opportunity for ministry.” Ericsson says the counsel he has provided is rooted simply in the Golden Rule: “I tell people who are working on writing laws affecting others to make sure they would be willing to live under the laws they are writing.”

Prisons. Prison Fellowship International is serving as a coordinator in this area, providing literature and other resources for various church-based prison ministries. Political prisoners are a thing of the past, says Ron Nikkel, president of Prison Fellowship International. He adds, “There is a lot of bitterness in the prisons. A lot of inmates have fallen between the cracks in this changing society, and we’re trying to help them out.”

Human rights. Christian Solidarity International (CSI) has spoken out on behalf of thousands of children institutionalized as a result of having been misdiagnosed as mentally retarded. Under Stalin, children were routinely institutionalized for such “conditions” as being sons and daughters of alcoholic parents, says CSI president Steve Snyder. He says recent political reforms have done nothing to change this way of thinking.

CSI is also trying to call attention to the 180,000-member Christian enclave in Nagorno-Karabakh that faces mass starvation, CSI claims, because of fighting with Muslim Azerbaijanis. The Washington, D.C.-based Institute on Religion and Democracy continues to monitor KGB activity against the church, which, it says, has diminished greatly but not disappeared.

Medicine. Under the auspices of the Christian Medical and Dental Society (CMDS), U.S. Christian physicians have established relationships with fledgling medical associations in several commonwealth countries. Robert Schindler, a surgeon from Stevensville, Michigan, is coordinating the activity for CMDS, which has sent dentists and physicians overseas to conduct seminars and has sponsored visits by Soviet doctors to the U.S. for further training. For example, a young heart surgeon from Kiev who is vice-president of the Christian Medical Association of Ukraine, is in the midst of a one-year fellowship in cardiovascular research at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston. CMDS is also helping sister ministries in the former Soviet Union in the establishment of Christian clinics and hospitals.

Mental health. The Christian Association for Psychological Studies is helping provide the financial and human resources needed to establish a university in Moscow that will provide doctoral training in counseling and psychotherapy. This approach to psychology was virtually unheard of in the former Soviet Union.

Alcoholism. Mark Elliott, director of the Institute of East-West Christian Studies, regards alcoholism as perhaps the “largest single social ill” in Soviet society. He notes that alcoholism contributes to crime, low worker productivity, family problems, car accidents, and a host of other social maladies. Among those active in this area of ministry is the Salvation Army, which has established a project in St. Petersburg.

By Randy Frame.

Fighting Hunger, Helping Freedom

Aid—mostly in the form of food and medical supplies—is pouring into the former Soviet republics from government, secular, and religious organizations. Though ultimately each has different motivations, for the time being all are intent on helping develop social and political structures wherein religion can be practiced freely. The sense that democracy is on fragile ground in the former USSR has added urgency to all the agencies’ work.

“This is an extremely critical time,” says Dan O’Neill of Mercy Corps International, “because it is out of poverty and desperation that people resort to radical means to solve a problem. There are still plenty of reactionaries around who would like to return to the past. The more we can help, the more we can negate that possibility.”

The long list of Christian organizations providing relief supplies includes Feed the Children, Food for the Hungry, Josh McDowell Ministries, MAP International, Mercy Corps, Samaritan’s Purse, and many denominational agencies.

World Vision recently received a $7.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for aid to Armenia. The Adventist Development and Relief Agency also received a grant worth $12 million to distribute food to people in the Ural Mountains region of central Russia.

Christian organizations say they have taken great care to make reliable connections in the Soviet countries to ensure their goods reach those who truly need them. For in a country so short on many things, they report, there is no shortage of profiteers.

White House

Evangelicals Offer Uneasy Support To Bush

President George Bush has been working hard to mend fences with the evangelical community in recent weeks, but many leaders say much repair work still needs to be done. Bush’s relationship with evangelicals during the past four years has been characterized by a series of peaks and valleys (CT, Sept. 10, 1990, p. 60). However, several incidents this year have deepened the lingering uneasiness many conservative evangelicals feel toward the Bush administration.

Buried in the administration’s 1993 budget plan was a proposal that would require churches and other tax-exempt organizations to report to the Internal Revenue Service the contributions of donors who give more than $500 annually. After loud protests from religious leaders, Vice-president Dan Quayle said last month that the proposal, which had been included without Bush’s knowledge, was now dead. However, a few days later, White House chief of staff Sam Skinner told reporters the measure was still under consideration.

In February, Bush campaign chairman Robert Mosbacher met and participated in a photo session with representatives of the Gay and Lesbian Task Force, who called the meeting “historic.”

Although Bush said in his State of the Union address that he was proposing a $500 increase in the personal tax exemption—a policy strongly pushed by evangelical profamily groups—the measure was not included a week later in his priority package.

Bush has been supportive of “educational choice” that would give financial aid to parents wishing to send their children to private religious schools. But evangelical groups say the administration did nothing to stop the Senate from cutting choice out of the education bill in February.

Despite more than three years of evangelicals’ complaints about the National Endowment for the Arts’ (NEA) funding of objectionable materials, it took the political pressure of Republican challenger Pat Buchanan to force out NEA chairman John Frohnmayer. Conservative Christians, many of whom were hoping for the abolishment of the endowment, said they would watch closely the choice for Frohnmayer’s replacement, which at press time had not been announced.

Overall, in the opinion of Southern Baptist Christian Life Commission (CLC) executive director Richard Land, evangelicals feel “positively ambivalent” toward Bush: positive about Bush’s strong stand against abortion, but ambivalent about continuing “conflicting signals and confusion coming from the administration” on many other social issues.

Hoping to better relations, administration officials have been meeting privately with evangelical groups. Last month, when Bush appeared before the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the administration was open about the purpose of the visit. “If the question is ‘Is this an obvious effort to appeal to evangelicals and to their beliefs and to show that we share their concerns and their beliefs?’ the answer is yes,” presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters.

During his NAE speech, Bush reiterated his support for “traditional values,” including religious liberty here and abroad, educational choice, voluntary school prayer, antipornography efforts, profamily legislation, and opposition to racism. The President also played his strongest card in pledging to veto the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that would prevent states from restricting abortion. (Earlier that day Bush’s re-election campaign garnered the endorsment of the National Right to Life Committee Political Action Committee.)

Still Dissatisfied

In general, evangelicals were pleased by the NAE speech. Charles Donovan, staff director of the Family Research Council (FRC), called it the “best social-issues speech of his administration.” But most were still left slightly dissatisfied. Speaking for many conservatives, the NAE’s Bob Dugan said he was disappointed Bush did not distance himself from the homosexual-rights lobby. And Dugan said he wished Bush had extended his remarks on religious liberty to include an endorsement of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act currently before Congress.

Bush’s words are good, added Donovan, but follow-through is too often lacking. “We’ve learned a hard lesson over the last four years: that is to read more than the President’s lips and try to watch his actions too.”

In fact, that is the message Pat Buchanan has been aiming at conservative Christians, apparently attempting to make political hay out of the uneasiness with Bush. Buchanan’s campaign speeches have particularly criticized Bush on moral and social issues, an area where he may find evangelicals very receptive. An NAE poll released at the convention found that evangelical leaders placed “moral decline” as their top issue of concern. So far, however, Buchanan does not appear to have strong support among evangelicals. The poll found that among the Republican candidates, 88 percent of the NAE leaders favored Bush over Buchanan. However, cautioned one evangelical activist, what the White House needs to be concerned about is not the breadth of evangelical support, but its depth. And that, he said, is still very shallow.

Annual Convention

Nae Looks To Future At Fiftieth Celebration

When Ronald Reagan made his famous “evil empire” speech in 1983, he was speaking to a convention of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). President George Bush alluded to that same phrase last month during his speech to some 1,000 delegates to the NAE’s fiftieth anniversary convention held just outside Chicago.

Such presidential attention could have given NAE’s leadership an excuse to spend their golden anniversary convention gloating over past success. But while the gathering was filled with celebration, speakers and leaders also used the event to peer into the organization’s future.

“Anniversaries are a good time to look back and thank God, but you can’t live there,” said newly elected vice-president David Rambo, president of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The time has come, he said, to “take a fresh look at ourselves.”

The most significant event during the convention was the passage of a first-ever statement of mission, said outgoing president B. Edgar Johnson. While NAE has always had a statement of purpose, Johnson said the new statement of mission is more strategic in nature and will serve as a reference over the next few years for building “new structures” and life into the group, including drawing young men and women with more ethnic diversity as new leaders for the group.

“We are an association that has formed more on denominations than on membership,” Johnson said. “So NAE’s leadership has largely been denominational bureaucrats. The tendency is that older people are representing NAE’s denominations. That isn’t bad, but that means the focus of power has rested in older NAE leaders.”

Evangelist Billy Graham changed his schedule to speak to the gathering, and he urged the group to ensure that it meets the challenges of the future. Graham said NAE has contributed to the current strength of evangelicalism. “Evangelicalism is the strongest force in the world today,” he said.

Graham, along with the closing-night speaker, Peter Kuzmic, director of the Biblical and Theological Institute of Osijeh, Yugoslavia, said the group must continue to champion the basic tenets of evangelicalism.

“Evangelicalism has a future to the extent that we evangelicals ourselves are drawn by the gospel, are defined by the gospel, and are declaring and demonstrating the gospel of our Lord and Savior,” said Graham. He said the world is more hungry than ever for the Christian message. Along with other speakers, Graham encouraged the NAE to work usefully in the former communist countries. “This is the moment for NAE. Seize the moment and move forward with the cross of Christ,” he said.

NAE Executive Director Billy Melvin was honored for serving 25 years at the organization’s helm. He said that during its first 50 years, NAE brought the evangelical community together around “the essential truths of the Christian faith,” while always being “driven by the conviction that the local church is the key to world evangelization.” Said Melvin, “I am sometimes asked: ‘How is NAE doing?’ I often respond by asking, ‘How are the churches doing?’ If the churches are succeeding in their God-given task, then NAE is succeeding.”

Among other convention business:

• New officers elected include: Don Argue, president of North Central College, as president; Leonard Hofman, general secretary of the Christian Reformed Church, as second vice-president; Jack Estep, general director of the Conservative Baptist Home Mission Society, as secretary; and Paul Steiner, president of Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company, as treasurer.

• Ngan Thi Tran, pastor of Chicago Uptown Vietnamese Church of the Nazarene, was given the annual World Relief Helping Hands Award “for a lifetime of service to the poor.”

• Singers Bill and Gloria Gaither were given the 1992 Layperson of the Year Award.

• Wade Coggins, executive director of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association from 1965 to 1990, received the J. Elwin Wright Award for “faithfulness in advancing evangelical cooperation on both a national and international level.”

Church And Media

Schuller Engineers Megachurch Network

Asserting that historic denominational structures have lost their effectiveness, a group of megachurch pastors led by televangelist Robert Schuller has launched a new church alliance. Churches United in Global Mission (CUGM), which currently claims membership of about 80 large churches, seeks to create “an expanding network of Christian churches, from many denominations, uniting to share positively the message of Jesus Christ and his love for the world [and] seeking to address the needs of humanity and our environment.”

Schuller has recently begun using his “Hour of Power” television broadcast to promote member churches, encouraging new believers who watch his show to attend a local church that is affiliated with the new network.

Mainline denominations are “a spent resource,” and the National Council of Churches (NCC) and the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) have “failed” in their ecumenical missions, Schuller told CHRISTIANITY TODAY. “The most creative and effective things [in ministry] are happening on the local level through inspired leaders.” The time is ripe, he says, for a coalition like CUGM that is unencumbered by organizational politics and theological infighting.

B. Edgar Johnson, past president of the NAE, said that “as far as being evangelistic and outreach oriented,” the organization may have come up short in Schuller’s view. “But we have fulfilled a need for a spirit-filled ecumenicity based on a biblical statement of faith.”

Because of CUGM’s broad constituency, members have decided to avoid public debate on political issues or controversial differences of biblical interpretation. They have signed a declaration affirming that CUGM seeks “a spirit of unity that is truly Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Evangelical, and Charismatic.” So far the group has no Catholic or Orthodox members.

CUGM is currently made up primarily of megachurch pastors, a group that had the influence and resources required to launch such an endeavor, organizers say. But membership in CUGM is open to any size church. (Annual dues of $1,000, however, will no doubt make it difficult for small churches to join.) Organizers say no CUGM money goes to “Hour of Power.”

Group members may participate in cooperative outreach programs and conferences that are included on a list of recommended churches made available to “Hour of Power” viewers. CUGM was officially formed in November 1991, electing Schuller president and Don Morgan, pastor of First Church of Christ in Wetherfield, Connecticut, vice-president. A 40-member advisory council of leading pastors has been named.

Denominational leaders have as yet offered little public response to the new group. Members say initial reactions have been suspicious. “They want to know if money is going to support the ‘Hour of Power,’ ” says CUGM member John Calhoun, pastor of the Long Beach (Calif.) Nazarene Church. “Once it’s understood there are no hidden agendas, their response is good.”

John Hiemstra, moderator of the Reformed Church in America, Schuller’s denomination, says he applauds efforts like CUGM “that move us across denominational boundaries.” Hiemstra also acknowledges that “megachurches are often neglected in denominational structures” and that an interdenominational coalition of large-church pastors makes sense.

Most CUGM members probably don’t have to worry about negative denominational response. According to church-growth expert Lyle Schaller, “The denominations cannot afford to oppose CUGM from their own self-interest. They can’t risk further alienating pastors from their largest churches, and in doing so, losing their income.”

Other observers say the formation of a group such as CUGM indicates the changing shape of American church life. Sociologist Jeff Hadden of the University of Virginia sees the old structures passing away. “I think there’s potential of the emergence of a new interdenominational church structure, a national [organization] with international mission.”

By Kevin Springer in Garden Grove, California.

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