Absence of Truth

Absence Of Truth

It takes more than poignant stories and a paying public to meet God’s media standards.

From the beginning, Mike Wamke seemed improbable. He came to evangelical fame through bone-chilling tales of Satanist conspiracies and his preconversion role as a high priest of evil. With this background he became a Christian comedian?

Warnke found other ways to stretch the imagination. Who could believe a leading evangelical who has married and divorced three times since his conversion proudly promoting his latest book, written with his third ex-wife, on surviving divorce? That is just what Warnke did at the June Christian Booksellers Association convention.

The Christian marketplace has blithely swallowed all this. It remains to be seen whether it can swallow the revelations produced in the June issue of Cornerstone magazine. Its 12-page, small-type, footnoted exposé asserts that Warnke made up or grossly exaggerated his Satanist past (see CT, Aug. 17, 1992, p. 50). Worse, Cornerstone reports in numbing detail on repeated adultery and Warnke’s high living. Worst, it suggests that a good many Christian leaders and co-workers knew about the real Mike Warnke and did nothing.

Warnke denies it all, and as of this writing, he has not answered any of the very specific evidence cited against him. Publishers of his books continue to distribute them, while Word, Inc., has suspended the sale and promotion of his recordings pending investigation of possible financial improprieties.

Warnke is not the only evangelical celebrity to face such questions of truth and confidence. Other authors and speakers who claimed bizarre or miracle-studded pasts have been scrutinized and found lacking. They form a pattern that raises serious questions for us all.

Question 1, to Christian publishers and music companies: Do you have a responsibility for the truthfulness of what you publish and the integrity of those who produce it? Publishers cannot and need not investigate every detail of a writer’s or musician’s life. But when allegations arise, they should be examined thoroughly, and, if proven, the products should be withdrawn before public pressure forces the action.

Question 2, to Christian consumers: Will you ever get off your fascination with personalities and personal experience? We criticize the show-biz atmosphere of Christian publishing, television, and music. But our insatiable appetite for poignant stories leads, inevitably, to ever-expanding yarns. When we put more stock in emotion than in truthfulness, we bear some responsibility for the results.

We do not know Warnke, but we know the editors of Cornerstone as prayerful, reliable Christian journalists. We salute them for the evidently careful investigation they have done. Because it is important that our leaders be above reproach, and because our mobile, media-driven society enables leaders to minister far beyond the circles that know them and can hold them accountable, the sad business of investigation is needed. So is a dose of skepticism toward anyone telling stories and taking our money.

Investigation and skepticism are not enough, however. Evangelicalism needs a soul search. We need especially to search in that vast field of independent ministries and businesses that chart their success with computer printouts. Is there a soul in there? Sometimes it seems we skate by with the belief that so long as people like what we offer (go to our conventions, buy our tapes and books, watch our programs, or support our work) we must be all right. We need reminding that it is God we must please, not the paying public.

By Tim Stafford.

The summer of 1992 may be remembered as the summer of RU-486. It was the season in which a pregnant woman from California challenged the Food and Drug Administration’s ban on importation of that abortion-inducing drug. It was also the summer that the Supreme Court backed the FDA ban. It was the summer that Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.) introduced a bill into Congress to force the FDA to lift its import ban. And it was a summer of lopsided congressional hearings in which prochoice activists uttered carefully rehearsed soundbites before network news cameras.

One of those prochoice activists was actress Cybill Shepherd. “Politics has no place in medicine,” Shepherd told a House subcommittee in July. She was right, of course, if she meant politics in its Machiavellian sense: deceit, craft, and cunning in the pursuit of power. But politics has a nobler meaning: the administration of our life together for the common good of the politai, the citizens. That kind of politics has everything to do with medicine.

Unfortunately, it seemed to be power politics that shaped the statements of the ideologues who wrestled for control of public perceptions of RU-486. Their rigid attitudes seem to have prevented a reasoned and informed discussion of the disputed drug. The public lost out, having no easy access to important facts.

Notably absent from media coverage of the issue was reporting on the health hazards of RU-486. Every drug has its side effects. The FDA exists to evaluate the testing of drugs to see whether they are effective and to decide whether the benefits are worth the known risks.

Much of the news coverage seemed to imply that a drug that had presumably been judged safe in other countries should bypass the normal testing time and procedure in this country. One example of such reporting is a video produced by the Women’s Issues Network: “Science Held Hostage: RU486 and the Politics of Abortion,” which will be shown September 21 on TBS. At least three times in this video, Shepherd (again) calls RU-486 “safe and effective.”

Au contraire. Studies published in this country and Europe have not found the drug completely safe or effective. Some of their conclusions: In about 4 percent of cases, a follow-up surgical abortion or D & C is required because pregnancy was not terminated, products of conception were partially retained, or uterine bleeding would not stop. After 40,000 documented RU-486 abortions, French government officials warned that “serious undesirable side effects of the cardiovascular type” were noted when RU-486 was administered with its companion drug prostaglandin. They considered the treatment so “safe” that they advocated having emergency resuscitative equipment at hand when the drugs were used.

Besides the myth of safety, other misconceptions persist about RU-486: That it is a form of contraceptive. (It is an abortifacient.) That it is convenient. (It requires two or three visits, minimum, to a doctor’s office. Bleeding, cramping, nausea, and other unpleasant side effects often last far longer than those produced by a surgical abortion.) That it has a legitimate role in treating disease. (Researchers have their hopes, but there is insufficient evidence to know the drug’s actual usefulness.) That it will give women greater reproductive freedom. (Some feminists worry that because the administration of RU-486 is tied to a physician, the vast majority of gynecologists being male, women who use it will be isolated from the support of other women.)

Abortion is legal in this country. But that does not automatically mean that an abortion-inducing drug should bypass the normal FDA procedures. Many other drugs and devices once thought to be blessings have turned out to be technological tragedies: Never forget the nightmares of DES, thalidomide, or the Daikon shield and early oral contraceptives. Freedom of information and a noble political vision are essential ingredients of true choice.

By David Neff.

Cynics delight in portraying pastors as money-hungry hucksters, and certain TV preachers have done little to contradict the stereotype. But anyone close to the inner workings of churches knows better. In the vast majority of cases, pastors are so reluctant to put a price tag on their ministry that they end up with servants’ wages, not paychecks of plenty. Most work long hours with little or no applause. Not surprisingly, pastoral morale is sometimes a problem.

New findings about pastoral compensation and attitudes should make churches look more closely at how they pay—and treat—their pastors. CTi research (detailed in the 1992 Church Compensation Report) shows that four in ten pastors say they feel underpaid. Another survey of CT readers shows that the median household income of pastors is $14,000 less than that of their lay colleagues in church leadership (elders and deacons).

More is at stake than an occasional threadbare suit. A new survey of pastors done recently by LEADERSHIP journal shows that 20 percent say their low salary has a negative effect on their sense of self-worth.

“The elders who direct the affairs of the church well,” says Paul, “are worthy of double honor” (1 Tim. 5:17, NIV). Honor should not be limited to pay scales, of course. Public praise for a job well done can mean a lot. An expenses-paid retreat or study conference can replenish a pastor’s inner reserves. Churches should be creative in helping their pastors feel valued.

Still, churches should not overspiritualize the salary issue. “Many pastors find it difficult to talk about money,” says Haddon Robinson of Gordon-Conwell Seminary, “and unless lay people take into hand what their pastor should be paid, many pastors will simply not bring up the issue, even though many of them suffer.” In a society that ridicules pastors as flakes or flimflammers, it is time for church leaders to put their money and acts of caring where their good intentions are. If they do, the difference in the morale of the nation’s pastors just might be something to see.

By Timothy K. Jones.

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