Page 5642 – Christianity Today (2024)

Several evangelical leaders in Pittsburgh moved closer to their goal of making their city “as famous for God as it is for steel” by sponsoring the first International Labor-Management Prayer Breakfast last month. More than 1,300 persons—including blue- and white-collar workers, management officials, clergymen, and educators—gathered in the Pittsburgh Hilton Hotel to study how Christian principles can solve labor-management conflicts.

For Wayne Alderson, 52, a former steel corporation executive, the prayer breakfast fulfilled a personal dream. Alderson, who calls himself a “rank-and-file United Presbyterian layman,” had worked for four years with United Steel Workers official Francis “Lefty” Scumaci to bring the breakfast to the table.

During a major address in a three-hour Saturday morning session, Alderson outlined his “Value of the Person” concept, explaining that turmoil between labor and management will end only when each side shows love, dignity, and respect for the other.

Evangelical theologian R. C. Sproul laid the biblical foundations for the idea. He described Alderson’s vision of a “work world reformation” as “doing things God’s way, not man’s way, in the marketplace.”

Reid Carpenter, a Pittsburgh area director for Young Life, and John Guest, an Episcopalian pastor, conducted a seminar on “The Work World and Family.” Sproul, Carpenter, and Guest frequently appear across the country with Alderson. Sproul says Alderson is spending more time at Value of the Person seminars. Last spring, fifty-six front-line supervisors at a New Stanton, Pennsylvania, Volkswagon plant learned the “Value of the Person” concept at Ligonier Valley Study Center, an interdenominational retreat center near Pittsburgh, headed by Sproul.

Alderson has spent four years promoting his “work world reformation.” The cochairmen of the prayer breakfast were George A. Stinson and Lloyd McBride, whom Alderson calls men that “Christian corporation men can really take heart from.”

Stinson is chairman of the National Steel Corporation, the third largest in the nation, and McBride is president of the United Steelworkers of America, the largest union in America, with 1.4 million members. Each man spoke at the prayer breakfast—as did U.S. Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall, who represented President Jimmy Carter. Several Canadian and British officials also participated.

Alderson in the early 1970s was vice-president of operations in a Glassport, Pennsylvania, steel foundry—the former Pittron Corporation, later Bucyrus-Erie. He was promoted to that post immediately after settlement of a crippling eighty-four-day strike at the plant.

The steel executive’s trademark was a personal relationship with the workers. Alderson frequently went into the factory to talk to workers about their personal and work problems. He conducted a chapel service in a storage room beneath a steel furnace, which workers attended on their own time. At first, only a handful of people showed up, but after two years most of the 1,000 employees took part—many of them attending Bible studies.

As a result worker productivity increased and absenteeism decreased. And, most important to management, the company showed a $2 million profit; months earlier it had been struggling. At his own expense, Alderson chronicled this turnaround in a film, “The Miracle of Pittron,” which he shows at his seminars.

But in 1974 Alderson was fired. The company, he says, “was uptight with my involvement with the men” and he adds that management specifically wanted him to withdraw from the Bible studies and prayer meetings. He says he is not bitter over his dismissal, because “it set me free to do what God wanted me to do—to show what can happen when you take God into the world of work through the value of the person.”

Now Alderson supports himself by speaking engagements and seminars. During the work day, he frequently goes to coal mines, steel mills, and factories to talk with workers at the gates. Last month, he tried to reduce tensions during a truckers’ strike in Pittsburgh. Last year, he prayed with United Mine Workers President Arnold Miller for a settlement in the lengthy coal strike.

Reactions to the $20-a-plate prayer breakfast varied. A man complained that Alderson promoted “civil religion.” But Archie Parrish, international director of Evangelism Explosion, described Alderson’s address at the breakfast as “the most powerful, moving thing I have ever heard.”

During the breakfast, Alderson admitted that he is not necessarily trying to convert factory workers. “Christ is at the center of the value of the person approach,” he said later. “But even an atheist or agnostic can accept the worth of the person. An encounter with Christ may come afterwards.”

Alderson plans a second prayer breakfast. He says the marketplace will be “the battlefield of the 1980s unless labor-management conflicts are resolved” and he intends to go on preaching the worth and dignity of the worker. “There’s one thing I have besides my faith that no one can deny,” he said. “And that’s a track record [at Pittron]. That’s why for five years people have been listening to me.”

Reformed Judaism

Conversionist Ardor: Rekindling the Flame

Reform Jews last month announced a program to win converts to their faith—the first such program by a major body of Judaism in modern history. Alexander Schindler, rabbi and president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations (the most liberal of American Jewish groups) requested the proselytizing effort at a meeting of the board of directors of the 1.2-million-member organization of Reform Judaism. In approving his request, the board also authorized creation of a thirty-member commission that will launch the program.

Schindler, as with leaders of the Conservative and Orthodox branches of Judaism, is concerned by a declining American Jewish population, which, according to the American Jewish Year Book, dropped by 100,000 in the last ten years to 5.7 million. He particularly appealed for efforts to convert the unchurched, non-Jewish spouses, and “seekers of truth” who might otherwise drift into cult groups.

In a newspaper interview, Schindler said that Jews tried vigorously in ancient times to convert pagans, but that proselytizing was curtailed when Christianity became the state religion of the Roman empire and when Muslims conquered Jewish land. He said, however, that proselytizing by Jewish groups did not end completely until 400 years ago.

Schindler said that fear of persecution no longer inhibits potential Jewish converts, and that proselytizing should resume. The first steps in the program include establishing information centers, publicizing courses on Judaism, and developing literature.

Evangelists

Thanks, But No Thanks

Southern Baptist evangelist James Robison won’t accept the gift of a college campus in Big Sandy, Texas. Earlier press accounts—based on a news release from the Robison evangelistic association—said Virginia businessman William Menge had given the $10.6 million property to Robison (see the November 17, issue, p. 53). But operating costs at the 1,600-acre, multi-facility campus, formerly the property of Herbert W. Armstrong and the Worldwide Church of God, would total up to $1 million annually. Robison, an association spokesman said, doesn’t want association funds diverted from his current project to evangelize America over prime time television. The Robison association is filming a series of fifteen programs, and $15 million has been budgeted to produce, and then in the coming year air the programs on the top 225 television markets in America.

COMEBACK SUNDAY

The 6,000-member Calvary Temple of Denver is making a steady comeback from bankruptcy. Its indebtedness totaled nearly $10 million when it went into bankruptcy in 1975 as a result of illegal bond sales and financial collapse of an affiliated nursing home operation (See January 3, 1975, issue, page 34, and September 10, 1976, issue, page 67).

Having raised about $4 million and paid in full 800 creditors, the church recently was released from receivership. Last month, members and friends chipped in cash, real estate, stock, jewelry, and even an antique car in a single-offering attempt to wipe out the rest of the debt. Church officials estimated the “Celebration Sunday” collection at $2.7 million—short of the nearly $5 million goal, but enough to pay many of the 700 remaining creditors.

Pastor Charles Blair says his people are anxious to clear the debt. There are investors who really need their money, he says, and the church needs to free its offerings for missionary work. (Under a repayment plan, the church has had to set aside a minimum of $500,000 a year for paying off debts.)

Radio evangelist Lester Roloff of Corpus Christi told the Dallas Times Herald that he wanted the property if Robison didn’t. Menge acknowledged Roloff’ s interest and said that “right now he is the frontrunner over James [Robison].” The businessman plans to use the purchase for “tax purposes,” and will negotiate a lease with one of the evangelists.

Roloff, 64, operates eight charity homes for troubled children, and he intends to move two of these facilities to the former Ambassador College Campus, according to the Dallas press account. Often the subject of controversy, he once spent five days in a Texas jail for refusing to let state welfare department officials inspect his child care centers.

Exiles

Natalia: From Russia With Feeling

During a speech last year at Harvard University, exiled Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn chided Americans for their moral weakness. Last November his wife, Natalia Solzhenitsyn, addressed American Christians at another Ivy League gathering. She wants the American church to support Russian Christian dissidents.

Mrs. Solzhenitsyn spoke for more than an hour to 1,600 people at Dartmouth College; her private secretary translated. In low, impassioned tones, she said American Christians need to show greater concern for persecuted fellow Christians in Russia.

The audience gave Mrs. Solzhenitsyn a standing ovation. The only negative response came during a question and answer session following the speech. Someone wondered why she had not spoken to the plight of Jewish, as well as Christian, dissidents. Mrs. Solzhenitsyn, who heads a committee fighting in behalf of imprisoned Soviet (and Jewish-born but Russian Orthodox) activist Alexander Ginzburg, said that time, unfortunately, had not permitted her to do so.

CORRECTIONS

The following changes should be noted to the religious census listings of members of Congress and governors in the December 1 issue: Ertel (D-Pa.) is a Lutheran, not a Roman Catholic; Lloyd (D-Tenn.) should be listed with Churches of Christ, not with the United Church of Christ; Randolph (D-W.Va.), a Seventh Day Baptist, and Schweiker (R-Pa.), a Schwenkfelder, are Senators (names should have appeared in bold-face type); and Thorsness (R-S.D.) in the Baptist column has been supplanted by Daschle (D-S.D.), a Catholic, as apparent winner in a still uncertain race in mid-December. The deaths of two congressmen occurred after they were reelected: Ryan (D-Calif.), a Catholic, and Steiger (R-Wisc.), an Episcopalian. In the governors listings, Goodwin, Jr. (R-Va.) of the United Church of Christ, should be deleted in favor of Dalton (D-Va.), a Baptist. And Janklow (R-S.D.) should be transferred from the Presbyterian to the Lutheran column.

During a press conference after the speech, Mrs. Solzhenitsyn said Americans may get a false picture of the Russian Christian church when they visit Moscow for the 1980 Olympics. She said that dissenters are being removed from the city, and that KGB agents will be planted in the city to pose as church members who will express satisfaction with the relationship to the state. This was Mrs. Solzhenitsyn’s first major appearance since she joined her husband in 1974.

The Solzhenitsyns live in Cavendish, Vermont, which is less than thirty miles from the Dartmouth campus at Hanover, New Hampshire. Mrs. Solzhenitsyn particularly wanted to encourage local churches in New England to get involved in behalf of Russian Christians.

Mrs. Solzhenitsyn spoke under the auspices of the Dartmouth Area Christian Fellowship, which was described by an elder, J. Robert Beck, as a “charismatic, evangelical fellowship of about 200 persons.” Formed eight years ago out of prayer and Bible study groups on the Dartmouth campus, the DACF meets Sunday afternoons in a college building. Half of its members are students who attend this prestigious college of 4,000.

According to Beck, the Solzhenitsyn speech was a “mutual coming together.” Mrs. Solzhenitsyn had wanted to speak in behalf of Soviet dissidents, but under the sponsorship of a religious group, he said. And since the Dartmouth fellowship sponsors missionaries to Eastern Europe, its sponsorship of the Solzhenitsyn speech was a natural, according to Beck.

After conversations with the Solzhenitsyns, Beck found them to be “committed believers.” He said the exiled Soviets worship in a private chapel in their own home, frequently under the direction of invited Russian Orthodox clergymen.

Tickets for the speech sold for a dollar, and proceeds went to the Russian Social Fund—a nonprofit agency established by author Solzhenitsyn with money from his book royalties. The fund helps support families of Soviet dissidents who have been sent to labor camps.

North American Scene

A family life conference planned by Texas Southern Baptists was canceled after Houston pastor Glynn A. Little publicly criticized scheduled keynote speaker Charles Shedd, popular author and frequent lecturer on family topics, as an advocate of oral sex between husband and wife. Calling oral sex a “heterosexual perversion” in violation of Scripture, Little complained that Shedd supported it in a tape on marriage enrichment. Shedd, who has said a couple’s sex life is their business, withdrew from the conference gracefully to prevent a controversy. However, planners later canceled the conference, fearing the dispute would turn the March conference into a media event.

Members of the Canadian House of Commons were sent a proposal recommending inclusion of freedom of religion and conscience clauses in a future Canadian constitution. The proposal emanated from Vancouver last November at a Religious Freedom Conference, which was sponsored by the Bible Holiness Movement, a tiny Wesleyan denomination of 500 members in Canada and 30,000 worldwide.

Muslim leaders say that Islam now is the third major religion in this country, behind Christianity and Judaism. At a recent conference of religion scholars in New Orleans, specialists said the U.S. Islamic movement numbers 3 million followers or about 1.5 per cent of the population.

Sheldon Vanauken’sA Severe Mercy, which recounts the author’s conversion to Christ under the influence of C. S. Lewis, won top honors in the annual Eternity magazine “Book of the Year” poll. Eerdman’s Handbook to the History of Christianity placed second. About 180 book reviewers and writers were asked to determine “the most significant” books of the previous year.

Minority and inner city staff members of Youth For Christ attended a weekend retreat last month at Fellowship House in Washington, D.C. Glandion Carney, Director of Urban and Minority Development, said the retreat was the first time YFC “staff of color”—including blacks, Hispanics, and Asians—had come together under one roof.

C. Kilmer Myers described himself as a “vulnerable and sinful human being” when he issued his surprise resignation as the Episcopal bishop of California at a San Francisco diocesan convention. Myers, who once joined the Selma freedom marches, had undergone treatment for alcoholism but was expected to remain in his post.

One of the biggest church-and-state battles in years is shaping up in the nation’s capital. At issue is a proposed multi-part “procedure” drawn up by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to test whether tax-exempt private schools, especially elementary and secondary ones, are operating in a racially nondiscriminatory way. Schools failing the test would lose their tax exemptions, and donors could not claim tax deductions for gifts to the schools.

At present, the IRS simply requires tax-exempt schools to adopt a written policy of nondiscrimination, to publish it annually, and to keep minimal records. Critics both inside and outside of government, however, have argued that for some schools the policy exists only on paper, and that the IRS therefore needs tougher guidelines.

Under the proposed procedure, the IRS would assume that a “badge of doubt” rests upon any school founded or “substantially” expanded in the year preceding action on a public school desegregation plan “in the community” or up to three years following its final implementation. A school in this category would be classified as “reviewable.” It would then be required to show “significant minority enrollment” (at least “20 per cent of the percentage of the minority school-age population in the community served by the school”) or pass four of five other tests: (1) “significant” financial aid for minority students; (2) “vigorous” minority recruitment programs; (3) an “increasing” percentage of minority student enrollment; (4) employment of minority teachers and professional staff; (5) other “substantial” evidence of good faith involving minority contacts and participation. Schools that have been found guilty of discriminatory practices by a court would be subject to the same review.

Announcement of the IRS proposal last August sent shock waves throughout the religious establishment. (The bulk of the estimated 20,000 private schools in the United States have religious ties. These include 1,601 Roman Catholic high schools with nearly 900,000 pupils and 8,375 elementary schools with about 2.5 million pupils, according to Catholic records.) Many church leaders warned that the procedure, if adopted, would seriously violate First Amendment rights.

Some 250 persons were invited by the IRS to state their cases at a four-day public hearing, held last month in Washington at a government auditorium on Constitution Avenue. The speakers included members of Congress, other government officials, lawyers, clergymen, school administrators, and parents of private school students. Many praised the intent of the IRS proposal as being in accord with their own opposition to discrimination. Except for a handful of civil rights advocates, though, all the speakers—including representatives of Catholic, Jewish, and major Protestant school organizations—voiced their opposition to the proposal, and some speakers got standing ovations. IRS Commissioner Jerome Kurtz and six other high-ranking IRS officials took notes and promised to give special consideration to certain points with an eye toward possible revision of the proposed procedure.

The main arguments at the hearing:

• Some schools, like Jewish and Amish ones, are racially nondiscriminatory but would nevertheless flunk the IRS test.

• Church schools are extensions of churches, and the government has no right to regulate church affairs.

• The IRS proposal is legislative, and only Congress can legislate.

• The IRS assumption that a school is guilty until it proves itself innocent is contrary to American jurisprudence.

• Compliance would result in financial and administrative burdens that could destroy many schools whose budgets are already stretched thin.

• Key words in the procedure are vague, giving the IRS too much power of interpretation, and some provisions are impractical. For example, the “community” from which a church school’s pupils come may not necessarily have the same boundaries as the community or public-school district where the school is located. Also, a church school’s purpose may be to service its constituency through nurture and evangelism of the young; it would be wrong for the IRS to require such a school to “recruit” from society at large.

Several lawmakers announced that they will press for hearings in Congress early this year. About 100 Representatives signed a letter asking Kurtz not to implement the procedure until Congress has had “a full opportunity to examine all the issues in question.”

Kurtz is under no obligation to wait for instructions from Congress, says an IRS source, but he may decide that it is in everyone’s best interest to seek initial guidelines from Capitol Hill. In any case, says another IRS official, the avalanche of protest has ensured that the proposal will be modified.

So far, more than 115,000 letters, most of them critical of the proposal, have poured into IRS offices—a record for IRS mail—and thousands more have been sent to members of Congress.

The IRS proposal won support from the American Civil Liberties Union and from civil rights units within the Department of Justice and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Chairman Arthur S. Fleming of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission called the plan “a necessary and long-overdue step forward in federal civil-rights enforcement.”

Chairman Clarence Mitchell of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, a proponent of the proposed plan, suggested that some organizations opposing the plan are Christian in name only. “With the procedure, maybe the IRS will be able to get into areas where the Lord hasn’t been able to,” he said.

Cults

Jonestown Unleashes A Shower of Fallout

“For the first week and a half after Jonestown, I did absolutely nothing else but answer the telephone,” said Robert Friedly, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) communications officer.

Telephone calls from church members, who wanted to know the connection between their denomination and People’s Temple cult leader—Disciples of Christ pastor Jim Jones—had dwindled to about three per day last month, said Friedly. But continuing revelations in the press kept the 1.3-million-member denomination in the public eye (See the December 15 issue, page 38).

Press reports in the aftermath of the deaths last November of some 900 People’s Temple cultists in Guyana indicated that the denomination as early as 1974 investigated alleged “strong arm tactics” by Jones against members of People’s Temple. (The Ukiah, California, branch was incorporated as a congregation of the Disciples of Christ in 1965.)

Denominational president Kenneth L. Teegarden told Time magazine that his office had only “bare knowledge” of the Jones operation before the killings. (Time noted that two People’s Temple congregations were among the five largest in the church.) Teegarden also said that no action was taken against the church, since denomination policy did not provide for expulsion of a member congregation. He promised to discuss creation of such a policy at a March business meeting.

The United Methodist Church had its own statement on Jones, who once held a pastorate in a now defunct Methodist church in Indianapolis. Church records indicate that Jones in 1950 applied for membership in what was then the Indiana Annual Conference. The United Methodist Reporter said, however, that Jones was denied membership on the basis of psychological tests that showed him unfit.

Comments and reactions to the Jonestown massacre varied within the ranks of religious leaders. Evangelist Billy Graham told reporters that Jones and the People’s Temple had no relationship to Christianity, being a “perversion of religion, the work of Satan.” Some religious leaders feared that increased government intervention in religion would result from Jonestown.

A number of newspapers were demanding congressional hearings regarding religious cults, but certain political leaders, including President Jimmy Carter, urged against overreaction. U.S. Attorney General Griffin Bell said that the Justice Department wouldn’t begin any widespread investigation of unorthodox cults. That would infringe on First Amendment freedoms, he explained, and he added that investigations would be difficult, since the definition of “cult” is so unclear: “I’m a member of the Baptist church,” he told reporters. “I suppose I’m a cult member.”

Seventeen survivors of the Jonestown massacre were flown back to the United States last month. (A Guyanese official made public his estimate that as many as 700 of the dead had been forced to take poison rather than willingly commit suicide in obedience to Jones.) The seventeen, who were among eighty-eight known survivors, were ordered to appear before a grand jury in San Francisco.

In the meantime, more column inches and air time were being given to People’s Temple. According to an informal survey by CHRISTIANITY TODAY, the major secular media in the United States gave more coverage to the People’s Temple tragedy than to any other single religion-related story in recent memory. That includes the election and death of Pope John Paul I and the subsequent election of John Paul II.

Newspapers particularly gave an unprecedented amount of space to this religion-related story, agreed sources at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Newsweek published a twenty-six page special report, and Time an eleven-page story.

Publishers Bantam and Berkley pushed into print with paperbacks on the subject—within days of the incident. The San Francisco Chronicle assembled a team of fifteen reporters to work with Ron Javers, staff correspondent who was wounded on the Guyana airstrip, and with coauthor Marshall Kilduff, who had been investigating the cult for two years. Bantam published the results. Washington Post editor and reporter Charles A. Krause, who was also in Jonestown, published with Berkley.

At least two religious book publishers also prepared manuscripts for publication this month. David C. Cook will publish the story of Bonnie Thielmann, a People’s Temple defector who, according to the editors at Cook, made a Christian commitment about a year ago. She had been in the Guyanese capital city of Georgetown helping people in the cult who wanted to leave, when the killings occurred at Jonestown.

Doug Wead, a minister and author of eleven books, and former People’s Temple member Philip Kerns, wrote the Logos book. It contains material from interviews with a former Jonestown resident who reportedly was still part of the inner circle in San Francisco.

Although about twenty cult members still remained behind the iron gates of the San Francisco temple last month, two surviving members of the board of directors filed a petition to dissolve its corporate status, according to the Los Angeles Times. San Francisco Superior Court was expected to issue a decree to dissolve the church and take control of its assets, which were reported at $11 million. The petition for dissolution would signal the legal demise of the temple, formed with the stated purpose of furthering “the Kingdom of God by spreading the Word.”

DEATHS

CECIL B. DAY, SR., 44, founder of Days Inns of America, board chairman of the Haggai Institute in Singapore, and a member of the American Bible Society board of governors, on December 15, in Atlanta, of cancer.

Philosophy Shifts From Religion To Science

A History of Philosophy in America, two volumes, by Elizabeth Flower and Murray G. Murphey (Putnam’s, 1977, 972 pp., $30,00), is reviewed by Erling Jorstad, professor of history and American studies, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota.

In this massive work, the first survey since Herbert Schneider’s A History of American Philosophy (1946), two University of Pennsylvania scholars chart the major currents of American philosophical thought from the Puritans to C.I. Lewis (1883–1946). Unfortunately, this leaves out the contemporary scene (including A.N. Whitehead). But the rich, thorough text is reward enough.

Christian readers will applaud the fairness and accuracy with which the authors document their major contention that “the most striking characteristic” of American philosophy “is the complexity and intimacy of the relationships among science, religion, and philosophy.” But they may be less than persuaded by the authors’ contention that these three fields have such intimate and complex ties “that it is often unclear what if any distinction can be made among them.” If anything, this study documents what we know so well: the slow but pervasive decline of interest in theological foundations for philosophical thought after Jonathan Edwards, a decline that by the middle of the twentieth century, led philosophy to regard natural science as its paradigm.

But the several virtues of this work must be commended. Rather than serve up an exhaustive encyclopedia, the authors carefully present their choices of significant movements, dominating figures, and leading academic institutions: the Puritans, early scientific thought, Edwards (a particularly outstanding chapter), the Princeton Scottish common sense school, philosophy in the middle Atlantic and Southern schools (often neglected), Transcendentalism, the St. Louis Hegelians, evolutionism, Peirce, James, Royce, Santayana, Dewey, and C.I. Lewis. Together with Bruce Kuklick’s recent study of the philosophy department at Harvard, we now have exhaustive evidence of how that discipline moved away from its religious roots to its preoccupation with empiricism.

The authors point out (despite their dedicatory loyalty to Perry Miller) that the Puritan world view was not the basis for all subsequent American thought. Instead, they argue, it was the Scottish school of philosophy (whose gifted writers were suspicious of speculative metaphysics) that became the impetus for an American philosophy freed from dependence on either theology or European sources.

Flower and Murphey have also treated the long-neglected subject of American idealist thought as decisive in American philosophy. In the most exciting portions of the book, the authors analyze the searchings by Royce and his school for sophisticated arguments to counter the antireligious claims of science concerning the relationship of God to the world, proofs for the existence of the soul, and the knowledge humans have of the soul. With this work, Royce may be restored to university reading lists, at least in church-related schools.

Less convincing is the authors’ contention that “the central role of philosophy in American thought has been that of a mediator between or synthesizer of science and religion.” It depends, of course, on what you mean by “religion.” What the authors have in mind is more a noble ethical idealism than the encounter between God and man in the Scriptures and the manifestation of that in daily life. The authors do not say that science made religious thought obsolete or quaint. Rather, they lean toward the Jamesian penchant for understanding and endorsing religious belief largely in psychological terms.

Yet the accuracy of the authors’ narrative is unquestionable; the transition from religion to science in philosophy (at least the mainstream described here) did occur. By carefully reading this book, we may learn more fully how and why this transformation took place. And the book should challenge us to rethink our own assumptions about the perennial questions of faith and reason.

The writing style here is eminently readable, the personal judgments of the authors are at a minimum, and the index is unusually helpful. I highly recommend the book.

A New Standard On The Apocalypse

The Book of Revelation, by Robert H. Mounce (Eerdmans, 1977, 426 pp., $10.95), is reviewed by Alan F. Johnson, professor of Bible and theology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

We have not lacked for commentaries on the book of Revelation. But we have lacked, until now, an up-to-date, conservative commentary of the quality of Swete (1906) or Beckwith (1922). Mounce’s treatment, part of the nearly complete New International Commentary on the New Testament, is a model of a good critical commentary. The style is irenic and sensitive; the treatment is balanced, informed, nonspeculative, and lucid. Although the author is currently dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at Western Kentucky University, the commentary shows that he has sharpened his thought through teaching.

Mounce presents no detailed tableaux of the future; rather he attempts to ground the revelation given to John (actual visions, rather than mere literary effect) in the historical, cultural setting of the first century. He views the book as a genuine prophecy, disclosing the future in terms of the time when John wrote it. You can discover the general interpretive position in any commentary on the Apocalypse by turning to the discussion of the beasts. Mounce adopts a futurist view (appearing as early as Irenaeus-second century), with a recent refinement of that position increasingly being adopted by evangelicals called the preterist-futurist viewpoint (similar to F.F. Bruce, Leon Morris, George Ladd, and G.R. Beasley-Murray). The beast is first-century Rome but more than Rome because it embodies the yet future anti-Christ. A typical remark (from chapter 17) runs: “The woman is the great city which rules over the kings of the earth. For John, the city is Rome … Yet Babylon the Great, source of universal harlotry and abomination (vs. 5), is more than first century Rome … John’s words … sketch the portrait of an eschatological Babylon, which will provide the social, religious, and political base for the last attempt of AntiChrist to establish his kingdom” (p. 320). Although Mounce generally follows this view, he also appreciates and draws from other major approaches.

Theologically the author is thoroughly evangelical in his view of Scripture. He adopts a mild and unoffensive premillennial understanding of chapter 20, while at the same time favoring a posttribulational view of the church and the tribulation. Although Mounce admits that his thought has been stimulated especially by Austin Farrer and G.B. Caird, and the preterist-futurist writers mentioned above, the footnotes reveal many views he has accepted from Kiddle, Swete, and Beckwith. The noncanonical Jewish apocalyptic literature widely quoted throughout enriches the historical and literary depth of the treatment, but he often does not make clear whether this material was in John’s mind, or what weight or authority Mounce attaches to it.

I can only mention a few details. The rider on the white horse (6:1) is “military conquest in general” (p. 154; contra Ladd). Both groups in chapter 7 (the 144,000 and the great multitude) are identified with the church; the first represents the believers who live in the last generation before the trumpet judgments, while the second refers to “all believers when in the presence of God they realize the rewards of faithful endurance” (p. 164). Even though he holds that there will be a final series of woes identified with the “great tribulation” (7:14), Mounce still argues that the second group who explicitly are described as “those who have come out of the great tribulation” refers to all the believers of all ages.

I commend Mounce for his judicious handling of the most difficult chapter in the Apocalypse, chapter 11. He identifies the temple, holy city, and so forth, as a reference to the faithful church (contra Ladd who sees here the restoration of the nation of Israel), and concludes that the two witnesses are not individuals but represent a symbol of the witnessing church during the tribulation period.

Following Ladd and others, the trumpets and bowls are on the one hand sequential, or telescopic, rather than systematic recapitulations of one another. On the other hand, the visions are not strictly chronological in sequence: “obviously there is progression, but not without considerable restatement and development of details” (p. 178). Thus Mounce wisely attempts to organize the structure of the book primarily along literary lines rather than chronological sequence.

The glorious woman of chapter 12 is the “messianic community, the ideal Israel,” which in the mind of John is both the historic faithful Israel from whom the Messiah comes and also later the church. Following Charles and other preterists the second beast of chapter 13 is “the priests of the imperial cult or the provincial council” of Asia but is also “the role of false religion … the universal victory of humanism” in the final days (p. 259). Mounce grapples with all the explanations of the number 666 (13:18), and argues that while it likely refers to an historical person, “it seems best to conclude that John intended only his intimate associates to be able to decipher the number” (p. 265). The beast of chapter 17 is Rome and is also the future personal anti-Christ: “He is not a human ruler through whom the power of evil finds expression—he is that evil power itself … Yet he will appear on the stage of history as a man” (p. 316).

Mounce and other preterist-futurists think that the interpreter can throughout the book read Rome into the descriptions of John and also “more than Rome.” Can this really be done? (Certainly 17:9 does not refer to Rome, contra Mounce and other preterists and futurist-preterists.) Have not Mounce and others ignored the almost certainly correct criticisms of Barclay Newman (1963) and Paul Minear (1968), who have pointed out that the recent interpretations of the Apocalypse have turned the original theological treatise of John into a political “tract for the times”? Does not this mixture of preterist and futurist views partially fall under the same judgment and obscure the actual message of John at numerous points from chapter six onward?

Mounce’s handling of the difficult millennial section (20:1–4) has much to commend it. Yet I think portions of the treatment are needlessly ambiguous. Neither premillennialists nor amillennialists will be entirely happy. For example, on one page Mounce concludes that the millennium, though literal, is nevertheless not the messianic age foretold by the prophets, but a special reward limited to the martyrs who gave their lives in loyalty to Christ, which will be realized “in something other than a temporal fulfillment” (p. 360). Elsewhere he says that the millennium is “an earthly reign which follows the second coming of Christ” (p. 351). I find Mounce’s position much closer to Berkouwer’s amillennial interpretation of the same passage than to a premillennial exegesis (cf. The Return of Christ, pp. 291–322). Unfortunately the fine historical study of early millennial ideas by Jean Danielou in The Theology of Jewish Christianity (Westminster) was not mentioned in the discussion.

Date, authorship, literary genre, structure, and so forth, are briefly but expertly discussed in the opening pages. Mounce wisely concludes that either the authorship must be left open or we should accept John, the apostle, as the probable originator of the book (under the reign of Domitian, A.D. 81–96). However, Mounce tends to underestimate the negative linguistic evidence advanced against the view that the author of the Apocalypse could be the same person who wrote the Gospel and Epistles (no reference is made to the unfavorable evidence cited in the exhaustive study of the grammar of the Apocalypse by G. Mussies, The Morphology of Koine Greek as Used in the Apocalypse of John. His discussion of the symbolic language with its affinities and dissimilarities to apocalyptic literature is quite good and sets the tone for his more historical-literary approach to interpreting the book. The journal bibliography is one of the best available, second only to Minear’s in I Saw a New Earth.

Although there is little that is new in the book in either general interpretive option or interpretations, Mounce has brought together in a masterly fashion the best of recent discussions. No one needs to follow the author in all his conclusions to agree that this is an excellent work filled with valuable information and worthy of wide and long use. I predict it will become the standard evangelical commentary on the Apocalypse.

A Reason For Your Hope

The Faith That Persuades, by J. Edwin Orr (Harper & Row, 1977, 150 pp., $1.95 pb), is reviewed by Gerry Breshears, student, Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

J Edwin Orr, a widely traveled lecturer and professor at the School of World Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary, again displays his skill at writing popular books on apologetics. He covers such topics as unbelief, theistic proofs, moral evil, experience, and revelation, by a “method of analogy,” or instruction by anecdote.

Orr introduces his study by tackling “pseudo-scientific fallacies.” In a series of stories, he shows that nothing in science contradicts the hypothesis of God, that science by its very nature cannot explain why anything happens, and that there is evidence for God in witnesses to the resurrection of Christ and in the new birth. He continues with the anatomy of unbelief, challenging the atheist to show the hypothesis of God to be incompatible with the evidence, the skeptic to show that it is inferior to alternative hypotheses, and the agnostic to admit that by professing his lack of knowledge he has already disqualified himself from the debate.

The theme of the book is that “knowledge of God comes to us through divine revelation; it is congenial to reason; and it may be verified through personal experience.” He regards theistic proofs as “persuasive hypotheses,” arguments that are compatible with such scientific theories as the big bang theory of cosmogony. Revelation is couched in verifiable history. Further, a Christian finds support for his faith in experiences of every kind. Our knowledge of God, Orr argues, comes through the inspired Scriptures, which are supported rather than contradicted by science. Faith is not a leap into the unknown “but a confident step into a bright reality.”

Orr’s anecdotal style makes this book an interesting alternative to most apologetic studies. His approach is quite similar to E.J. Carnell’s hypothesis verification and serves as an introduction to more comprehensive works. This helps overcome the inevitable brevity of a wide-ranging, popular treatment. This book is similar to Orr’s 1960 title, Faith That Makes Sense, reproducing some material, but expanding the arguments for God and revelation. The Faith That Persuades is an enjoyable guide for those who wish to learn to give a “reason for the hope that is in you.”

The Visual Dimension Of Religion

Iconography of Religions, by Albert C. Moore (Fortress, 1977, 337 pp., $25,00), is reviewed by William A. Dyrness, associate professor of theology, Asian Theological Seminary, Manila, Philippines.

This is an ambitious book. Moore, a professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand, seeks to present a “systematic approach to the types and meaning of images used in a representative range of the religious traditions of mankind.” That is, he approaches the great religious traditions through a study of their imagery—to empathize through their images, as he puts it—rather than through their rites and writings alone. Yet Moore insists that language is primary in the interpretation of images. Also, language and imagery must be seen in the culture of a people.

This is a promising approach to the study of religion. People are paying more attention to the visual aspect of religion, which has often been slighted in the Protestant tradition. Moore points out that man orients himself in his world through the use of symbols. In the case of religion, he says man needs ritual and images. Moore lists the questions that ought to be asked concerning iconography (the study of images): What are the sacred powers of gods? How are they portrayed and experienced by the worshiper? In what setting? In what relation to the worshiper’s own body?

After an introductory discussion of these questions, the author proceeds to a fast-moving survey of major religious traditions: primal religions (traditions preceding the major religions, but presenting elements basic to all religions), in which he discusses Australian aborigines, Melanesia, and Polynesia; ancient polytheism, including the eternal mythical landscapes of Egypt and the humanized gods of ancient Greece; the spiritual-mystical Hindu traditions with its near relations of Buddhism and Jainism; the East Asian assimilation and development of Buddhism; Judaism and Islam, which he calls prophetic iconoclasm; and finally, Christianity. In each case he notes how major imagery grew out of and reflected the specific religious tradition.

Simply to list these traditions gives some idea of the difficulty of properly introducing the material. Moore had to be selective, but even at that, I found myself overwhelmed with the sheer volume of material. There are more than 600 footnotes and 248 illustrations in the 289 pages of text. Still, he covers the major points in a helpful manner. But a few things call for comment.

Moore, to correct the assumption that “visual images have an independent life of their own,” insists on the priority of language. However, you can agree with the importance—even the priority—of language but still allow images a life of their own. His perspective leads him to focus the discussion on the literary and cognitive aspects of images to the exclusion of their formal and intuitive impact. Of course, he does not avoid all formal references, but he often fails to point out how the images communicate as images. He does not provide for the aesthetic philosophy that the various traditions have engendered, wherein formal qualities communicate in their immediate way what the worshiper feels in his faith but may not be able to put into words. Interestingly, this weakness is most apparent in his discussion of Eastern religions, where the nonrational and intuitive factors are so important. Images function differently here than in Western traditions.

Although there are many illuminating comments on the relation between image and life, Moore applies no consistent, coherent theory of the place of images in the symbolic universe of religion. Here the most interesting chapter is that on primal religions. He describes the idea of dreaming as the key to the aborigine’s sense of time and space and diagrams his symbolic universe around this concept. Why didn’t he follow a similar approach with the other religions? He mentions Clifford Geertz’s discussion of the structure of religion and Berger’s and Luckmann’s on the sociology of knowledge, but he does not apply their views (or any other) consistently.

I found some questionable interpretations. He claims to see Islamic iconoclasm as rooted in its historical position vis-à-vis Christianity and its highly-developed iconography, rather than in the basic Islamic view of religion as absolute, unmediated submission to the will of God, which is symbolized by prayers, fasting, and almsgiving.

The book contains pen and ink drawings, with a few copies of famous works of art, and some photographs. Drawings of simple motifs are satisfactory, but copies of Michelangelo and Rembrandt are not. The very aesthetic qualities that we should note are the first to be lost in a pen and ink reproduction. Moore claims that this book is for students—and not a coffee table book. Fair enough. Why, then, did the publisher use a large artbook format at a connoisseur’s price? I hope that Fortress will print a cheaper edition just for students.

The book is well worth the reading. It would be valuable for missionaries and be good supplemental reading in comparative religion courses. The areas Moore opens and the vistas he offers are so vast and bristling with promise that you can forgive the imperfections.

Books On Praying In The Bible

This evaluation of seven books is by Cecil Murphey, pastor, Riverdale Presbyterian Church, Riverdale, Georgia.

Several recent books have turned to prayer in the Bible as their method of learning more about the subject. John White’s Daring to Draw Near (InterVarsity, 1977, 162 pp., $3.95 pb) is subtitled, “People in Prayer.” He selects ten biblical incidents of people encountering God. It’s a devotional-type, highly readable approach. He moves easily from the biblical setting to contemporary readers. His honesty is impressive—a willingness not to be the final authority on every question he raises.

Although written in the form of meeting some Bible characters—Moses, Abraham, Hannah, David, for example—he neatly inserts teachings about prayer, along with serious questions.

When you see the title Prayers That Changed History by R. Earl Allen (Broadman, 1977, 127 pp., $2.25 pb), you immediately think of Augustine, Luther, Knox and.… But you’d be wrong. Allen writes about thirteen biblical prayers and people who prayed them. Although Allen is not equal to White, it’s brief, sprightly, good reading.

I have mixed thoughts on Praying Jesus’ Way (Revell, 1977, 156 pp., $5.95). I applaud the task author Curtis C. Mitchell set out for himself. He examines all the times Jesus prays in the New Testament, and from that extrapolates principles of prayer for Jesus’ disciples.

The danger in isolating Jesus’ teaching on prayer is that we don’t always get the full impact of the situation. Mitchell sets up “rules” about prayer from these instances. He seems to assume that everything we need to know about prayer can be learned from these verses. He declares, for instance, that we know both what Jesus prayed about, as well as what he never prayed about. He states, for example, that “Aside from the fourth petition of the Lord’s prayer, our Lord never taught us to pray for material things. In actual practice, Jesus rarely, if ever, prayed for material things, either for Himself or for others” (p. 128). Mitchell quotes Paul, and says that he, too, never prayed for material needs. After all, we can’t find that in his epistles. I can’t accept that kind of reasoning.

Or Mitchell also says that “almost shockingly is the fact that Jesus never taught His followers explicitly to pray for the salvation of lost souls! Actually, little of Jesus’ praying pertained directly to the unsaved” (author’s italics, p. 132). If we assume that the prayers the gospel writers included are all he prayed, then I’d agree, but my view isn’t that restricted.

Thomas Corbishley’s purpose in The Prayer of Jesus (Doubleday, 1976, 119 pp., $5.95) is to “get behind the utterances of Jesus to his own spirit of prayer.” A noble task, but I’m not quite sure he pulled it off. Divided into three sections, the first stresses the value and need for prayer. The next section discusses prayer in the light of the “Jesus of history” and not the “Christ of faith.” Finally, he has a brief exposition of the recorded prayers of Jesus. I wish the first two sections had been condensed and the last portion expanded.

The title of Praying the Psalms (Fortress, 1977, 119 pp., $3.50 pb) may mislead readers. This is a collection of meditations on twenty-six selected psalms. Following the ancient tradition of reading and reciting the psalms as well as meditating on them, Leslie E. Stradling produced this little volume. He divides the chapters into three categories: prayers for praise, for times of stress, and for other occasions.

I used a large portion of this book as a devotional aid, along with reading the psalms themselves. I especially appreciated his letting the culture of the ancient Mideast speak for itself in the psalms.

I wish that all his chapters matched the one on Psalm 139, where he rephrases the entire psalm in contemporary language—and does it admirably well. But he consciously rewrote Psalm 30 from a Christian viewpoint. I found this an overall, helpful book.

Paul co*ke in Mountain and Wilderness (Seabury, 1978, 146 pp., $3.95 pb) attempts to survey worship and prayer, beginning with ancient Greece, moving to Abraham, to the New Testament, and then to the early church. He starts with Greece, because the New Testament was written in Greek, and presupposes many of the religious traditions of Greece. I wonder why he didn’t start with the dual concepts of prayer and worship in the ancient pre-Abrahamic world, for the story of early Israel also presupposes such religious traditions.

The book is elementary and co*ke quotes endlessly. It would have been more helpful, particularly in the biblical sections, to have summarized more and quoted less. It reads like an adult church school curriculum and might be helpful on that level.

At first glance Jacques Loew’s Face to Face With God (Paulist, 1978, 191 pp., $6.50) seems like White’s Daring to Draw Near or Allen’s Prayers That Changed History. But it isn’t. Loew begins with Old Testament saints Abraham, Moses, and David, and then jumps to the New Testament for Jesus and Paul. But he doesn’t stop with biblical characters. He discusses Teresa of the Child Jesus from the last century, paints a broad stroke of the Middle Ages, and concludes with Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

His selections seem to have no pattern, other than that each person met God through prayer, in one fashion or another. For Loew, prayer doesn’t mean speaking or meditating, but being aware of God in “a kind of” face-to-face relationship. His emphasis isn’t upon the quality of prayer or great answers, but more tuned in toward those who lived prayer.

Counseling Body, Soul, And Spirit

Christian Psychiatry, by Frank B. Minirth (Revell, 1977, 224 pp., $10.00), is reviewed by David G. Benner, associate professor of Christian ministries, Wheaton Graduate School, Wheaton, Illinois.

Here is another attempt to provide what the author calls “an integration of sound theology and valid psychiatric knowledge.” Minirth has a private practice as a psychiatrist and also teaches at Dallas seminary. He introduces several aspects of psychiatric practice with a brief theological perspective on counseling. This falls far short of the claim on the dust jacket that the book will “allow the reader to utilize God’s principles effectively in coping with every trial life has to offer.”

Minirth begins by summarizing basic principles and concepts of Christian psychiatry and counseling. However, his approach is more correlative than truly integrative. That is, the concepts of secular approaches are put into biblical categories and then comparisons are made. For example, the Parent, Adult, and Child ego states of Transactional Analysis are translated into the biblical categories of conscience, soul, and flesh.

In the middle and longest section, “recognizing emotional problems,” Minirth provides a standard, fairly extensive discussion of the major psychopathologies, along with a brief excursion through the diagnostic process. This may interest the reader who has had no previous exposure to traditional diagnostic categories, but it does not integrate psychiatry and theology. He comes closest when he provides biblical examples of many of the diagnoses. However, this has limited usefulness and is sometimes questionable, as when he calls Paul an obsessive-compulsive.

In the final section, Minirth discusses the treatment of emotional problems. The reader who wants to learn about counseling, however, will find the presentation of four- and five-step treatment plans for various types of problems much too brief. Similarly, the listing of characteristics of the good Christian counselor needs further development. To state that a good counselor is “suggestive and confronting” or “one who interjects Scripture” without extensive discussion of what this means in practice is too superficial.

Minirth’s attempt to present a treatment approach that responds to what he calls the “whole man” is important but is weakened by his unqualified dependence on a tripartite model of man. He simplistically assigns problems as being spiritual, psychological, or physical, depending on whether body, soul, or spirit seems to be the problem.

Although these categories, along with a great number of other biblical and anthropological concepts, have value in identifying important characteristics, it seems inconsistent with the bulk of modern theological and psychological scholarship to treat them as distinct components or parts. Minirth’s allegiance to them is such that he explains why Christians have psychological problems by saying that “the mind is part of the soul, not the spirit.” Explanations of this sort do not help anyone.

One of the best parts of the book is a too brief discussion of New Testament verbs that relate to the counseling process. The five Greek verbs found in First Thessalonians 5:14 (paraceleo, neuthetio, parmutheomai, antechomai, and makrothuneo) provide the evidence for Minirth that no one type of counseling is appropriate for all people. This flexibility is a welcome strength of his approach.

Dear Brother Arthur:

I greet you warmly in Christ. You and I are good friends, and have many concerns in common.

In your recently published Battle for World Evangelism (Tyndale) you have been somewhat critical of the Lausanne Committee in general, and of me in particular. I hope that this open response may be a helpful way to ventilate the issues further, although you will appreciate that I write only for myself and not for the Lausanne Committee.

I understand your book to have a double purpose, namely (1) to trace the tragic decline of commitment to evangelism in the ecumenical movement during this century, and (2) to warn the Lausanne movement against a similar process. Your topic is important. I genuinely applaud your personal dedication to biblical truth and world evangelization. Let me spell out the reasons why on balance I am glad your book has been published.

First, you are entirely right to deplore the ecumenical betrayal of the unevangelized millions, and to attribute it to the loss of biblical authority and the consequent growth of universalism and syncretism. Strangely enough, I myself in 1974 wrote a similar though much shorter sketch, “The Rise and Fall of Missionary Concern in the Ecumenical Movement 1910 to 1973,” which was published in Vocation and Victory, an international Festschrift in honor of General Erik Wickberg of the Salvation Army. And I think you know that at both the fourth and fifth Assemblies of the World Council of Churches at Uppsala and Nairobi, respectively. I pleaded publicly for a return to biblical evangelism.

Second, watchdogs are valuable, in the church as in the home. We need them to warn us of approaching danger, and we would be foolish to ignore their warnings. The Lausanne Covenant itself calls for “both watchfulness and discernment to safeguard the biblical Gospel.”

Third, your paramount concern is that evangelicals will continue to submit to Scripture. You write: “The complete truthfulness and final authority of Scripture provides the essential parameters for evangelicals.” In this the Lausanne Committee is, of course, in complete agreement with you.

Fourth, I welcome your candor. In fact, I constantly long for more evangelical openness. Nothing is lost and everything is gained by candid and charitable dialogue with one another.

At the same time, it seems to me that we also need both precision and penitence. I confess to having been upset by your tendency to generalize and to make dark innuendoes about “the evangelical left,” “the conciliar elements within the Lausanne Committee,” supposed departures from biblical inspiration, and espousals of unbiblical tradition. This kind of vagueness only spreads suspicion.

Next, you disapprove of the penitent note in the covenant. But why? Frankly, I miss this note in your book. You write as if ecumenicals are always wrong, and evangelicals always right, and as if any idea that comes from Geneva must ipso facto be misguided. Surely, however, we need to admit that we evangelicals have also had our blind spots, for example, on slavery and race. You rightly urge vigilance against liberalism; I want also to urge vigilance against prejudice. You think I react too positively to Geneva; I think you react too negatively. Should we not be willing to listen to anybody who wants to speak to us, while agreeing with them only if they agree with Scripture?

Let me stay a bit longer on this vital question of Scripture. In your evaluation of paragraph two of the covenant, you seem to me to blow hot and cold. You begin by saying that it “reasserted the authority and inspiration of Scripture” and you generously describe its statement as “beautiful, powerful and relevant,” so that “evangelicals need not be apologetic or ashamed because of it.” You also rightly say that the covenant must be interpreted in the light of the Congress as a whole, and not in isolation from it. But then you express two criticisms. The first is that nothing is said about the supremacy of Scripture over tradition. In this I agree with you. I think the covenant would have been helpfully strengthened by such an addition; in fact, I wish you had yourself proposed it, since you were there as a participant. Second, you express hesitations about the clause “without error in all that it affirms.” But this was intended as a clarification, not as a loophole, and it was one of the alternatives submitted to the drafting committee by a respected group of theologians from what you would describe as “the evangelical right.”

I come now to the question of Christian social responsibility on which you concentrate. You write that this “has always been a concern among evangelicals,” since “the Scriptures obviously teach both evangelism and socio-political responsibilities.” Fine. You then go on to emphasize the primacy of evangelism. You correctly point out that the Lausanne Covenant itself affirms this, namely, that “in the church’s mission of sacrificial service evangelism is primary.” So at its first meeting the Lausanne Committee faithfully echoed these words in the definition of its purpose, adding that “our particular concern must be the evangelization of the 2,700 million unreached people of our world.” You are unfair and inaccurate to criticize us for disloyalty in this matter. As a member of both the committee and the executive I can say from personal knowledge that we have consistently striven to develop an agenda that reflects a primary commitment to world evangelization.

At the same time, speaking for myself, I think that this distinction between evangelism and social action is often artificial. Although some individual Christians are called to specialist ministries (some as evangelists, others as social workers, and so forth), the Christian community as a whole should not have to choose, any more than Jesus did. In many missionary situations such a choice would be inconceivable. The evangelist could not with integrity proclaim the good news to the victims of flood or famine while ignoring their physical plight, or to Latin American Indians, Filipino peasants, or ghetto blacks while ignoring their exploitation or deprivation.

What then is the proper relation of evangelism to social action? This is the theological question that Lausanne left unresolved and that still needs to be pursued. Your own repeated emphasis is that social action is the consequence of evangelism. Let me concede this for a moment. What is the implication of it? Supposing we go out exclusively to evangelize, and that under the blessing of God converts are won. Presumably they, being the “consequence” of our evangelism, are now free to become involved in social service. But then we ourselves are in the position of those converts, for we ourselves are the consequence of other people’s evangelism. Why then should we not also, on your own premise, engage in social action? I think the logic of your argument brings us closer to one another than you realize.

You quote other evangelical leaders to the effect that service is both the “means” or “bridge” to evangelism (i.e. it is useful because it confronts people with the Gospel) and the “fruit” of evangelism (i.e. it issues naturally from conversion). Thus explained, service leads both to and from evangelism. I accept both these truths, but do not feel able to stop there. It seems to me that Scripture itself goes further, and indicates the kind of “partnership” between evangelism and service that you say you cannot accept. Certainly the “words” and “works” of Jesus belonged indissolubly to one another. In one sense his works made his words visible, were a visual proclamation of the Gospel of the Kingdom, and elicited faith. Christian good works of love have the same nature and effect. You say that the Gospel is completely self-authenticating, and I know what you mean. I, too, believe in the gracious authenticating work of the Holy Spirit. But does not the Gospel lack credibility whenever Christians contradict it by their lives?

In another sense, the works of Jesus were just plain compassion, irrespective of their evidential value. Must we not follow the example of Jesus? I do not build my case entirely on John 20:21, as you imply, but also on the “great commandment” to love our neighbor, which you do not mention.

Brother Art, you say that I have “dethroned evangelism as the only historical aim of mission”: I would prefer to say that I have attempted to “enthrone love as the essential historical motivation for mission.” If we see our brothers or sisters in need (whether spiritual or social), and have the wherewithal to meet their need, but fail to do so, how can we claim that God’s love dwells in us?

I express my sincere love for you in Christ, and my earnest desire to continue this discussion.

Ever your friend and brother,

John R. W. Stott

John R. W. Stott is rector emeritus of All Soul’s Church, London, England.

If you read the critics, you might not suspect that J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the first true epic to come along since Milton revitalized Homer’s and Virgil’s genre, was a monumental work. That its followers, as with Abraham’s seed, are as numerous as the sands. That there are people who meet each week to play Middle-earth games. That maps, calendars, pictures, puzzles, and deluxe editions of the trilogy sell in the millions year after year. I suspect that the critics and the audiences of Ralph Bakshi’s animated version of The Lord of the Rings, released by United Artists, will be just as far apart.

With few exceptions, the critics find it a bad film. The audiences don’t. Walt Disney, Stanley Kubrick, and John Boorman each thought at one time or another about putting The Lord of the Rings on film. Bakshi, the director, hasn’t created a flawless film; here is no Star Wars; neither is it Billy Jack. But considering the sprawl and scope of Tolkien’s story, Bakshi in a somewhat long 131 minutes captures well the atmosphere of an earlier and easier time.

The most compelling aspect of the film comes at the beginning with the recitation of the ring poem and the explanation of how the ring came to Frodo. Black silhouettes against a blood-red background set the tone and put the plot in motion. Those critics who found the film difficult to follow have watched too much television. They could do with a course in Shakespeare, whose popular plots are notoriously complex.

On to the shire. The film moves rapidly, streamlining the birthday party, the story of Gandalf’s search for the truth of the ring, and Frodo’s trip to Rivendell. Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-wights don’t appear. The stay at Rivendell, too, is shortened, as is the first leg of the journey up to the separation of the company.

Some straight lines were necessary. The beginning is as good a place as any to remove Tolkien’s curves, though I wish the battle of Weathertop hadn’t been so underplayed. Bakshi opted for the more subtle aspects of book one and he gave more time to the later battle scenes. But since he already had an unusually long film, why add a scene that doesn’t occur in Tolkien: Saruman giving his orcs a pep talk before the big battle.

Several animation techniques seem distracting at first. The director, to achieve as much realism as he could, staged the action live, and produced his animation from that. No cartoon character has ever used so many facial expressions or talked with so mobile a mouth as does a Bakshi hobbit. Once you get over the surprise, the technique aids your belief that these are real characters. That also goes for the animals. His horses must have been a labor of love. Galloping, eating, sniffing—they move as realistically as any horse John Wayne ever rode.

The director’s hand was less sure when it came to characterization. Here all Tolkien fans will disagree with him—and with each other. Who doesn’t have his mental picture of Frodo, Gandalf, Strider, or Treebeard?

I thought that Frodo and Bilbo were approximately in the right spirit. Certainly Gandalf was as wizardly a wizard as Tolkien intended. Strider’s first appearance was as foul as in the original, though once he removed his hood he resembled a Cherokee or a Navajo more than half-man, half-elf. Gollum looked all that he should—gray, slimy, and all stretched out, though his voice did not evoke the same impression. Most animators rely on good voices to make the characters live. Not so with Bakshi. If he had matched good actors with his superb animation techniques, the result would have been unforgettable.

With Sam Gamgee we have a complete misunderstanding of the hobbit Tolkien intended. Bakshi’s Sam is a silly, simpering pudge of a character. Tolkien began with an unsophisticated, though intelligent, gardener, who grew into the ruler of the shire. I realize that Bakshi filmed only the first half of the story, but with such an unfortunate start, how can Sam become what he ought? For much of the original adventure, Sam carries Frodo (emotionally, and, at times, physically). All the animated Sam could carry is his girth.

There are other minor flaws, for example the drawing of Treebeard and the initial appearance of Galadriel. Treebeard should not have a snout, or short, squat legs and long, spindly arms. Galadriel greets the company with eyelashes so thick that it’s a wonder Sam didn’t get out his hedge trimmers. The most beautiful morning star she is not.

Bakshi should have called the film Lord of the Rings, Part One. Then we would have been prepared for the sudden ending—when Gollum decides to take Sam and Frodo to Shelob’s lair. The last line, though, was an appropriate ending for the film. It went something like, “We shall see what more we’ve got in store. Oh, yes, we shall see.”

I wish that Bakshi had emphasized the cosmic nature of the struggle between the allies of the Dark Lord. Without a strong sense of who controls Middle-earth and why Sauron needs to be resisted, the point of the plot gets lost in the superfluity of characters. Tolkien gives us that throughout the story. Bakshi cut most of the dialogue that indicates the religious nature of the conflict. This is no simple war story. The direction should have reinforced that.

Despite all these drawbacks, and I admit there seem to be a great many, the overall impact of the film is a credit to the story (it’s also an entertaining film). An epic, with its overblown language and stock descriptions, almost inevitably fares ill under close scrutiny. The language and structure look sloppy. But relax and take in the atmosphere. The impression will change.

Tolkien created a sweeping history—almost, you might say, a new mythology. He has helped many younger Christians bring new meaning to the phrase “created in the image of God,” as well as to imagination, even to history. Bakshi’s film will bring that tale to people who haven’t read the trilogy. For those who have, it should send them back to the original. It did for me.

Traditionally, Islam has firmly resisted the claims of the Christian Gospel. Apart from Indonesia, converts throughout the Muslim world are found only in small numbers. The church and the missionary community have been programmed to accept the “inevitability” of meager results from an investment of time and money in Muslim evangelism.

All too frequently the following scenario is typical of a convert’s pilgrimage. Halim Ali is a young man of nineteen dissatisfied with life on the farm. He lives in a small bamboo hut with an extended family of parents, five brothers and sisters, two grandparents, one uncle, and two widowed aunts. Halim’s assigned task is to stand on a wooden plow behind a sickly ox and work the family plot throughout the long hot summer days.

One evening a tall, white-faced man briefly stops by Halim’s home and leaves a packet of Christian tracts. The local teacher is brought in to read this literature to the illiterate Ali family. Interest is sparked in Halim’s impressionable young mind, so he walks five miles to the town where the mission compound is located. There he is overawed by the sight of a large clinic, industrial training center, experimental farm, elementary school, and two beautiful homes (by relative standards) in which the missionaries reside.

Halim shares his desire to become a Christian with local believers. Food and shelter are provided while he undertakes a thorough catechism, which leads him to accept Christ as his Saviour. Soon thereafter he returns to his home and family where he proudly announces to all that he has become a Christian. Reaction is immediate and severe. Halim is regarded as a traitor to family, friends, country, and religion. The options are recant—or flee.

Soon thereafter Halim reappears at the doorstep of the missionary with his tale of persecution and rejection. Within six months he is baptized and given a new name. One year later Halim marries a Christian girl and completes his mission-sponsored teacher’s training course. Consider perspectives:

The missionary rejoices that a brand has been plucked from the flaming fire; the home church in the U.S.A. enthusiastically adopts the support of this courageous young man who has “forsaken all” for his faith; the villagers symbolically bury an old pair of Halim’s sandals in retribution against a despicable outcaste who dared to reject all societal norms and accepted a foreigner’s religion where adherents eat filthy pig meat and worship three gods. Alienation is total.

A New Postulate

International Christian Fellowship entered Bangladesh in 1959. Following conventional methods, its missionaries were unsuccessful in winning Muslims to Christ. In 1973, they established fraternal links with “Simon,” a converted Muslim who had become a zealot for Christ. During the past four years he has won over fifty of his former coreligionists to the Lord. Many of the working principles that have evolved have initially been suggested by Simon. However, the twenty-seven-strong missionary team has unitedly spent hundreds of hours hammering out theory and then plodding on through to implementation. The outcome: Some thirty-seven Muslims have accepted Christ in the past two years. Most of these men are heads of families. All have remained in their respective villages where they are ongoing, witnessing Christians. The work is, of course, in its initial stages and only time will prove its validity and endurability.

Paul’s familiar words in First Corinthians 9:16–23 provide a theological basis for the radical departure from traditional methodology. The flexible and mature apostle felt free to assume diverse roles in order to communicate Christ more effectively. The great intellectual became a slave, a Jew, and even a heathen so that he might “by all means save some.” The ICF approach has likewise experimented with forms and other types of identification, all the while maintaining total fidelity to inspired Scripture. All forms of syncretism or compromise with the integrity of the Word of God are rejected. A summary statement of purpose could be construed thus: “As far as possible, all peripheral barriers to Muslims becoming Christians are to be removed. If there are obstacles to faith, let it be in the area of theological confrontation.” Now to the crucial and somewhat controversial question as to what we have defined as “peripheral.”

The Missionary Role

Regrettably, in many such countries the national church is a small minority of believers engulfed by a sea of Muslims. This condition creates a ghetto complex that allows little motivation for sharing one’s faith. Suspicion is frequently the first response communicated to the inquirer by the national Christian. Thus the imperative of initial evangelism falls heavily on the foreign missionary.

In seeking to relate to the Muslim we think the following adaptations have been appreciated:

• A humble attitude divested of Western superiority and ethnocentrism.

• Usage of the dress styles of the target group, which in Bangladesh is the peasant farmer. This means loose flowing pants or a skirt-like garment called a lungi. The wives wear saris and on occasion have worn the veil covering on trips to the villages.

• Rented homes are as simple as is conducive to physical and emotional health. No property is owned by ICF in Bangladesh. This allows for mobility as well as a lower profile.

• Participation in as many of the following forms as possible.

Form Adaptations

A Muslim has a very high regard for the familiar. His quest for God is pregnant with varied expressions of worship. To be deprived of all such meaningful forms at conversion seems to be an extraneous demand. Some practices will need to be reinterpreted, but this may be preferable to exclusion. The following list is not absolute or exhaustive, but it reflects areas of experimentation with some measure of success.

• Muslim linguistic forms have been used in place of the more traditional Hindu-Christian vocabulary of the church.

• A facility for washing prior to prayer is provided just outside the worship center.

• Believers remove their shoes and sit on the floor during prayer times.

• Wooden stands are used as Bible holders similar to the ones used for the Koran in the mosque.

• Prayer is offered with uplifted hands and often with eyes open in Islamic fashion.

• Chanting of the attributes of God, the Lord’s Prayer, and personal testimony are performed with great zeal and appreciation.

• Embracing is done in brotherly Muslim style.

• No particular emphasis is placed on Sunday, for the Muslim considers Friday the holiest day of the week.

• Fasting is encouraged, but it is clearly explained that the thirty-day fast as practiced in Islam does not lead to merit or acceptance with God.

• In the early stage the missionary takes the role of teacher, but within a short time a convert begins to assume this responsibility.

• The name “Christian” is avoided. It is replaced by “Followers of Isa” (Jesus), which has less negative connotation to Muslim society.

• Organization of churches is proposed along autonomous lines much like the loose-knit administrative structures of the mosque.

• Total financial responsibility for church expenses, workers, and buildings is that of the community of believers. From the beginning, no foreign assistance is allowed.

• Development of a hom*ogeneous Muslim convert church. A Hindu, Animist, or “traditional Christian” would be most welcome to worship in the church, but they would be expected to adopt the practices of the convert believers.

• There is no option of flight for the converts. They are expected to remain in their society and maintain a discreet witness to their family and neighbors, which will add to the body of Christ. In the area under consideration not one believer has fled from his home. Most of the “reproduction” has been done by the converts themselves.

• Spiritual dynamics are emphasized. Fasting, prayer, and study of the Word of God are absolute prerequisites of a healthy church.

In the past four years, over seventy-five Muslims in Bangladesh have become believers. This is almost insignificant when measured against a population of 70 million Muslims. It is important, however, to realize that this probably exceeds the total number of Muslims converted in Bangladesh during the past fifty years.

We are in the early stages of forging a new path in Muslim evangelism. Perhaps a model will evolve that will apply to the larger community of 700 million “Sons of Ishmael” scattered throughout the world.

Phil Parshall has served in Bangladesh with the International Christian Fellowship for the past sixteen years. He received his M.A. degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in 1974 and has written “The Fortress and the Fire.”

Theological method is ultimately far more crucial than differences or agreements on particular beliefs not only because it affects every belief, but also because it determines how false beliefs can be corrected. My deepest concern for theology, therefore, is that it should be evangelical, conservative, and contemporary, in its method.

Preliminary Definitions

The term evangelical today is imprecise. Since the Reformation in the sixteenth century, it has denoted the Protestant as distinct from the Catholic effort to be faithful to the Gospel. It has been used since then for less numerous groups within the Protestant coalition to indicate their efforts at a return to the authentic and original revelation. Although people differ on what they are pleased to call evangelical—for example, I am not altogether pleased to concede Schleiermacher’s claim that his theology is evangelical—nevertheless, it is a noble term indicating faithfulness to the Gospel.

In speaking of conservative I have in mind an essential fidelity to the doctrinal structure of the biblical and Christian tradition. I doubt that a theology lacking a conservative side would deserve the name Christian or evangelical. However much someone may feel compelled to reword or revise the earlier understandings of the faith there must surely be the intention to represent this structure of belief and not some other. By conservative I mean to indicate that there are limits to adaptation that we ought not to transgress because they represent essential elements of the apostolic proclamation. We are expected to be faithful to the stewardship of the Gospel attested authoritatively in the Holy Scriptures, and to bring our own theology and preaching under the judgment of the written Word of God.

By contemporary I have in mind our proper responsibility to the contemporary hearers of the Gospel whereby we seek to communicate the message meaningfully to them and apply it creatively to the modern situation. Generally speaking, the failure to be contemporary is the weakness of traditional orthodox theology, and the failure to maintain clear continuity is the weak spot in liberal theology. But I think there is a widespread desire on all sides to be both conservative and contemporary if possible; certainly it is my own fond wish.

In theological method, therefore, I am convinced that our theology and preaching ought to be bi-polar. We should strive to be faithful to historic Christian beliefs taught in Scripture, and at the same time to be authentic and responsible to the contemporary hearers. On a popular level Francis A. Schaeffer tries to do this.

Two Different Styles In Contemporary Theology

When we look at the bi-polar method more closely, we find less agreement than at first glance. What exactly is a faithful stewardship of Gospel and Creed? Do we mean, for example, the literal authority of the whole canon of Scripture, or something less, a canon within the canon? And as for our responsibility to the contemporary hearers we might ask with Thielicke, “How modern should theology be?” What degree of influence should the situation of modern man be permitted to exercise upon our theological reflections? Can modernity pose questions only, or answers also? Such questions as these force us to go deeper into the matter and begin to expose differences of opinion in theological method. They compel us to decide how we weigh the relative authority and status of the scriptural as opposed to the modernity pole, for example, and help to reveal two distinctive approaches to theology in our day: the classical approach and the liberal experiment. In so doing I am not inventing the categories, though my preferred terminology may be novel, but am following the lead taken by such theologians as Barth, Thielicke, Kenneth Hamilton, and others. I believe that this cleavage in contemporary theology is the most important distinction we can note, and, though the precise limits and exact membership in each group is fuzzy at the edges, I think we should be able to see the two basic families with some clarity.

Style One: The Classical Approach

Classical (conservative, orthodox) theology is characterized by a concentration upon fidelity and continuity with the historic Christian belief system set forth in Scripture and reproduced in creed and confession, with what C.S. Lewis called mere Christianity. Prior to the rise of liberal theology in the nineteenth century, there was quite a consistency of approach to the normative priority of divine revelation in theology over the natural and uninspired thoughts of men and women, despite important differences in the interpretation of Sacred Writ. Certainly for the conservative Reformation the one and only foundation of Christian theology was believed to be the revealed Word of God, uniquely and authoritatively attested in the Bible. Even Aquinas, though he believed that natural theology was a legitimate part of Christian theology, also considered the truth content of faith to come through divine revelation, not through natural reason.

Classical Christians have always sought to exalt the truth of divine revelation, embodied in the Incarnation and attested in the Scriptures, far above the thoughts of mankind. They have considered the Bible to contain didactive thought models to guide their theology, models that were infallibly authoritative because they originated in God’s witness to himself. For this reason they have shown themselves committed to an undiluted, we might say an undemythologized, biblical framework, which enjoyed absolute cognitive authority over them. B.B. Warfield is a good, near-contemporary example:

“The confession of a supernatural God who may and does act in a supernatural mode, and who acting in a supernatural mode has wrought out for us a supernatural redemption, interpreted in a supernatural revelation, and applied by the supernatural operations of his Spirit—this confession constitutes the core of the Christian profession” (Biblical and Theological Studies, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1952, p. 21). Put in a nutshell, contemporary questions are revised in confrontation with the biblical text, not the text in correlation with the questions. The modernity pole is not permitted to compel any substantial revision of the original deposit of faith. Although St. Paul, for example, made every effort to adapt himself to the person or audience he was addressing, he was also prepared to go against and contradict the presuppositions of Jews and Greeks where they were incompatible with the truth. He adamantly refused to compromise the divine mysteries of which he was a faithful steward. This is also the stance of classical Christianity. If the requirements of revelation are opposed to the currents of contemporary thought, then Christians should be expected to swim against the stream, whether from within secularism, Marxism, capitalism, or humanism. We are not called to register, like a theological weathervane, which way the winds of the day are blowing, but rather to sail boldly into them.

At the same time, we must also criticize classical theology for its neglect of the contemporary situation. Of course, it is wrong to let the world set the church’s agenda. But it is also wrong to live in fear of modernity and in neglect of the contemporary situation of modern man as if God were no longer active in it. After all, it is essential to express the Gospel in context, as preachers well know. Even the Scripture itself is an effort at putting the Gospel in first-century terms, which requires readers today to think carefully about its meaning and application. Conservative Protestants often appear to be indifferent to context. It is not good enough to reprint and rehearse the sixteenth century in our generation. We have not been faithful to the Gospel until we have made it our own, and tried to express it relevantly. Conservative Christianity needs to work much harder at formulating creative proposals of the biblical message for today. It is not enough to expose the un-Christian assumptions of modernity unless we are prepared to do this task, too. Somehow, the classical doctrines have to be reappropriated in terms of modern experience, and this can be done without compromise with the help of the God who rules over every age and generation.

Modern conservatism has often become anticultural in a bad sense. Just because we are alert to the sinful potentials in every phase of world culture does not require a moratorium on all appreciation of positive elements in modernity. The modern sense of outrage toward such crimes against humanity as slavery, torture, and hunger, while it has some Christian roots itself, has called a neglectful church back to its own Bible. Modern research into social and psychological dimensions of human experience, too, are surely valuable tools, when used with discrimination, for getting at the intention of the scriptural message. There is no excuse for boycotting these disciplines. Had we not gone through the Enlightenment with its criticism of absolute social structures, for example, we might never have recovered the biblical suggestions about democratic pluralism and the liberation of women. Much of the modern contempt of classical Christianity is due, not to its stand on Scripture, but to its nonessential narrowmindedness in regard to the gifts of common grace that God has freely given us.

Style Two: The Liberal Experiment

Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of modern theology, initiated a new approach to theology. Within its number over the past century and a half have been some of the most creative and erudite Christian thinkers the church has ever known: Ritschl, Troeltsch, Harnack, Bultmann, Tillich, and so forth. The liberal experiment in theology is essentially an effort at contextualization and is not unconcerned, as some critics charge, about maintaining links with the Bible and classical beliefs. Characteristic of the liberal experiment, however, is a deep desire to make effective contact with the beliefs and experiences of modern man. It tends to concentrate upon the receiving “I” of the message (hence Thielicke calls it “Cartesian” and Hamilton calls it “earth bound” and “hermeneutical”). It is concerned with how belief is possible today, and is prepared to make use of an outside criterion as an aid in the understanding of the Gospel: for example, Heidegger’s philosophy, or Husserl’s phenomenology. Let us take some illustrations, being careful to avoid caricature or neglect of the great diversity within this approach.

Schleiermacher himself (d. 1834) took his departure from the religious dimension he detected in ordinary human experience. He sought to form a dogmatic system based on a descriptive analysis of the sense of absolute dependence he saw in man. Religious experience became for him the criterion for assessing the teachings of the past and the means for reinterpreting the faith for modern man. To Karl Barth, Schleiermacher represented perfectly the liberal experiment, which dwelt upon man’s feelings rather than upon God’s revealed Word. Out of this method emerged a theology of immanence and a Christology reckoned as an innate possibility of human nature. Whatever Schleiermacher’s theology is, it is not classical Christianity.

August Sabatier, a French liberal theologian (d. 1901), offers another clear example of the liberal method in theology. In his book The Religion of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit published posthumously in 1904, Sabatier rejected classical Christian belief, which was based on the divine revelation in Scripture, and advocated in its place a religion of man’s moral and spiritual experience, a version of the Quaker inner life.

The use of an outside criteria by which to understand the kerygma allows the Gospel itself to come under alien control.

In the twentieth century we can look at Bultmann’s proposal for theology. When he made his initial call for believers to demythologize the New Testament in 1941, he was not conscious of making a novel suggestion. He was perfectly aware, even if his readers were not, that the process of dismantling the biblical and orthodox framework of Christianity had been going on for a century already in the liberal experiment. To Bultmann, and in this he is simply a liberal, it was self-evident that a person could not sacrifice his modernity even for his faith. Indeed, it would be a treasonable act to force oneself to believe outdated notions. Instead, he proposed demythologizing these ideas, for example, the fall of man, the Virgin Birth, the atonement, the bodily resurrection, the second coming, and reinterpreting them in ways acceptable to the modern spirit, or more accurately compatible with the philosophical thinking of the early Heidegger.

Schubert Ogden is an American interpreter and follower of Bultmann, as well as a leading light in the development of process theology. Because of a certain stridency peculiar to his writings, Ogden lucidly expresses the theological approach I am describing. Like his German mentor, Ogden finds the undemythologized New Testament message “unintelligible, incredible, and irrelevant” and contends that “no one could seriously maintain it.” With Bultmann, he is aware that demythologizing does not simply have to do with details in the text, but requires “the complete destruction of the traditional Christian conception of the ‘history of salvation’.” And why is that? Simply because the demand to demythologize “arises with necessity from the situation of modern man and must be accepted without condition.” Granted, there are perhaps few theologians who would express themselves in so forthright a manner and in a way so disturbing to classical Christians, and I would not want to tar all liberals with Ogden’s brush. Nevertheless, I have not found many of them condemning what he has to say and suspect he is more of an exception in style than in content. From the conservative side, Ogden is an almost perfect example of “apologetic” liberal theology, which tailors the message of Scripture to suit the Zeitgeist, because it does it so self-consciously and undeceptively.

In the popular arena, few books have sold more than Honest to God (1963). It admirably represents the liberal experiment in theology. Because the biblical understanding of God as creator outside the universe is repugnant to modern man, Robinson urges us to think of him as the ground of being. And since the supernaturalism of biblical and creedal Christology causes offense, he suggests we think of Jesus in simply human terms as the man for others. We are asked to accept Jesus as a “window into ultimate reality” rather than the divine son in whom the fullness of the godhead dwelled bodily. By these means the former bishop hopes to win inquirers to the Christian faith.

Earlier I referred to Paul Tillich as one who advocated the correlation of the biblical message with the situation of modern man. The way Tillich presents it, you would get the impression that the modern situation provides only questions and the Bible only answers. But this is not so. In Tillich’s theology the modern situation does most definitely provide answers as well as questions. Indeed his logos-philosophy, derived in large measure from German idealism, acts drastically upon the biblical message. There is almost no biblical exegesis in his three-volume Systematic Theology. Salvation becomes ontological reunion with the impersonal ground of being, instead of forgiveness through the atoning blood of Christ. Jesus becomes the historical symbol of an ontological principle, rather than the Incarnation of the eternal Son of God. Kenneth Hamilton has gone so far as to say that “to see Tillich’s system as a whole is to see that it is incompatible with the Christian gospel.” In a milder vein, it is no exaggeration to say that Tillich created his “system” out of materials at least partly present in philosophy, not in Scripture, and does not acknowledge the authority of the Bible to criticize and judge his thought.

Proceeding much more cautiously in these matters, Langdon Gilkey allows his theology to be heavily influenced by the secular philosophy of history. In his important book Reaping the Whirlwind (1976), after revealing a sound grasp of the biblical and traditional understanding of God’s providence, he finds it necessary to dismantle and reconstruct the historic Christian belief. He asks, “How can the activity of God in social process be understood if history as a whole and political action within it are viewed at the deepest level naturalistically? This entire volume is devoted to an explication of and answer to this question” (Seabury, p. 199). His meaning becomes quite clear in two later statements: “Our effort will be to reinterpret them (the classical concepts of providence) in the light of the modern historical consciousness which we share, and so to modify, if not dissolve entirely, these latter orthodox elements of the conception” (p. 240). “We are seeking to avoid a ‘supernaturalist’ explanation of history and yet to find a valid and significant meaning for the conception of divine providence” (p. 247). It is surely plain that the modernity pole exercises for Gilkey hermeneutical authority over and above the scriptural text, and that he feels perfectly free to reinterpret the sacred text in accord with the modern self-understanding.

A particularly clear example of liberal theological method is supplied by the recent and highly praised book Blessed Rage for Order by David Tracy (1975). The modern theologian, he claims, has a double faith commitment, faith in the God of Jesus and faith in the modern experiment. Because of this double commitment, he is compelled to undertake a “basic revision of traditional Christianity.” The theologian must provide an “appropriate symbolic representation of the faith of secularity.” He claims that most of the leading American theologians today are engaged in this task.

These theologians are not neglecting the contemporary situation as much classical theology does, but rather losing continuity with Scripture and tradition. The modern spirit is exalted alongside God’s Word in the form of a rival commitment. The use of an outside criterion by which to understand the kerygma appears to allow the Gospel itself to come under alien control. Instead of Scripture being the norm, theology is governed by the nineteenth or twentieth century cultural ego.

Evangelical Theology—Conservative And Contemporary

What I seek is a theology that maintains a proper balance of newness and oldness, which does justice both to the authoritative Scriptures and to the needs of the contemporary hearers. After all, the Christian message, as John said, is old and getting older, and yet, paradoxically, is ever new (1 John 2:7). My vision is for a theology that is faithful to what God has said, and responsible to the people who hear it. How can this balance be achieved and maintained?

First, consider the conservative side of theology—the issue of fidelity and continuity with the faith once delivered. As in classical theology, I believe we all ought to stand underneath God’s defining revelation, within the framework of covenantal truth deposited in Scripture. After all, we are not free-thinkers, but those who confess the lordship of Jesus and who are sent out under his authority with his message. Divinely inspired Scripture is and has always been the creative and life-giving source for theology. There are many New Testament texts to guide us here. The central theme of Second Timothy, for example, is one of guarding and continuing in the Gospel (1:13–14, 3:14). To that end Paul urges Timothy to treat the message with utmost respect, and to ensure that it is passed down to the next generation intact (2:1–2, 4:1–5). Its terms are authoritatively set forth in the God-breathed Scriptures, and in the apostle’s own writings and teachings (3:14–17). Timothy needs to be watchful because there is a real danger that the sacred truth deposit will be manipulated and distorted (3:1–9). It is as if Paul were speaking directly to the liberal experiment, and issuing a note of extreme caution.

Another relevant image of Paul’s, which applies here, is that of a stewardship of the Gospel. He regards himself as a faithful steward of the mysteries of God (1 Cor. 4:1–2). As such, he will not consider tampering in any way with the message (2 Cor. 4:2). The trustee or steward does not add or subtract from the lord’s commission, but faithfully preserves and presents it—it is his authority, as well as his glory. Paul proclaimed the Gospel as boldly as he did because he believed it to be founded upon what God had said. There are many texts in the New Testament that command us to stand firm in the truth, to pay close attention to what we have heard, to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints (2 Thess. 2:15; Gal. 1:8–9; Heb. 2:1; Jude 3). We live in a generation that is suspicious of the old and confident in the new. The oldness of the faith is a stumbling block to many people, but it cannot be otherwise. What God has said in the Gospel and in the Scripture is final and definitive. We have a solemn duty to preach it and pass it along. Christian truth does not need to be brought into line with modern thought, but modern man, who needs to be intellectually and spiritually converted to the Gospel message.

The most objectionable feature of the liberal experiment is the way in which it places human wisdom on a par with the Word of God. What possible justification could there be, in view of the New Testament teaching about wisdom in the old age outside of Christ, for using modern man’s understanding of reality as a critical instrument for judging Scripture (1 Cor. 1:18–31; 3:18–23)? By all means let us seek to be relevant—but not at any price. The function of God’s Word is to shatter man’s twisted illusions, not to sanctify them. To modernize, enculturate, or secularize the Gospel is a treasonable act, on a par with Israel’s repeated efforts to join Baal and Yahweh worship.

Paul warns us to beware of philosophy, that is, to guard against being captured by a man-made system of religious speculations that would rival the truth of the Gospel. Today there are themes in culture that call for vigilance and resistance from Christian people. While seeking to respond creatively to our time, we must also exert counter-pressures upon our environment, and avoid capitulating to error. We have a responsibility to expose non-Christian assumptions in the dominant culture. Although this is sometimes done from within the liberal experiment, it is not done consistently or thoroughly. Humanism and secularism are seldom challenged and refuted at basic levels. What excuse can be offered for the persistent tendency to chip away at biblical supernaturalism instead of calling into question modern antisupernaturalism? Why is Bultmann so much admired when he states explicitly that what motivates his proposal to demythologize is his pseudo-scientific conviction of a closed continuum of cause and effect, which renders God’s mighty acts impossible? And why do we give so much attention to such biblical criticism as takes its departure from this kind of secularism? Surely James D. Smart is correct in blaming the tragic silence of the Bible in the modern church with all its disastrous effects on criticism of this kind. No wonder modern preachers schooled in a sub-Christian approach to the biblical documents find themselves robbed of definite convictions and a clear, forceful message. Conversely, it is no accident or secret that the churches that are growing in North America are those in which solid biblical convictions are maintained and proclaimed with no uncertain sound.

Second, consider the contemporary side of theology—the issue of responsibility and authenticity. Earlier I indicted conservative theology for its relative neglect of the contemporary situation. It would be a sad picture if Scripture were seen to be a limit and restriction, without any room left for freedom and creativity. Indeed there is a liberating factor, the reality of the living God who leads and guides his people who are involved in struggles and changes. We have hope in the Spirit of God who abides with the church, and leads us deeper into all truth. Scripture is normative, but it always needs to be read afresh and applied in new ways. And because it is God’s Word, it is new in each situation and fresh to every person. In Wesley, and Carey, and Booth we see Christian leaders convinced of the permanent power of the Gospel, refusing to be shackled by churchly traditions, and willing to break out in new patterns, yet remaining faithful and true to the scriptural revelation. In C.S. Lewis, a man whose influence appears to be still growing, we see one who was able to create a highly original statement of wholly unoriginal doctrine. Faithfulness and creativity can be done!

I am not advocating static conservatism. Fidelity does not consist in simply repeating old formulas drafted in an earlier time. It includes the creative thinking required to make the old message fresh and new. In Christology, for example, we must of course preserve the great truth of the Incarnation over against efforts to demythologize it, but it is also possible to be sensitive to the desire of our generation to be in touch with Jesus’ humanity. In the doctrine of God, we must preserve the truth of God as creator, ruler, and Lord over all. At the same time, why shouldn’t we emphasize the dynamism of the biblical portrait of God? In the doctrine of Scripture, we must certainly uphold the classical confidence, documented in the Bible itself, in God speaking truthfully and authoritatively in all the canonical text. But we can also make a greater effort to be honest and observant in regard to the human side of Scripture as well. I see a kind of theological synthesis possible in which the Bible remains normative, but in which it is read afresh under the illumination of the Spirit who makes it live for us.

I long to see an evangelical theology that is conservative in its guarding of the biblical revelation and contemporary in the task of its application to our generation in the power of the Spirit. It would keep a proper balance of oldness and newness, and be marked by an ability to maintain the classical truth of the Gospel and communicate it without compromise in fresh and creative ways. It is a better dialectic of Word and Spirit that I seek. To achieve this, we need to attend to the Holy Spirit, in whose power the undiluted Word of God reaches sinners. Without that, the bi-polar method cannot succeed. As Ramm puts it, “The evangelical believes that the real touchstone of a theology is its spiritual power, not necessarily its intellectual shrewdness or sophistication or learning” (The Evangelical Heritage, Word, 1973, p. 146).

Clark H. Pinnock is associate professor of systematic theology at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario.

How stands the church in 1979? Such people as Harvard theologian Krister Stendahl, national pollster George Gallup, missions leader David Howard, and Catholic bishop Thomas Kelly have their opinions. So do pastors in places like Waka, Texas, and Nappanee, Indiana. They were among the respondents to this CHRISTIANITY TODAY survey, designed to show where the church “is at” as we enter a new year.

News assistant John Maust traveled the nation by telephone and post, asking persons at all levels of church ministry two questions: What is your greatest concern for the church today, and how might the church begin to deal with that concern in the coming year?

We could not publish all the responses in the space available, but representatives for varying concerns are included. Similar subjects are grouped together first and then other views are grouped according to the ministry or profession of the respondents.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY readers aren’t expected to agree with every observation that follows. We chose people who would represent points on the theological spectrum—from Dwain Epps of the World Council of Churches to soul-conscious conservative John R. Rice. The editors want to challenge readers to ask themselves, Where should the church be headed in 1979?

‘Letting The World Set Our Agenda …’

Charles Keysor, editor of Good News magazine, a publication of the evangelical movement of the same name within the United Methodist Church.

Christianity is being modified to accommodate the fads of our culture. Rather than “leaning against” the consensus, as Francis Schaeffer puts it, we are letting the world set our agenda. In the mainline denominations, this can be seen in the uncritical endorsem*nt of abortion, hom*osexuality, and secular feminism—baptizing as Christian the agenda of the left wing of the Democratic party.

In more conservative circles, capitulation to culture can be seen in the lopsided emphasis on personal experience, material prosperity, and health, and on being content with a fellowship of those with whom we agree—a “ghettoization” of the faithful.

The main defense against that is for believers to know Scripture. Otherwise, they will be seduced into cultural conformity. For this reason, all genuine renewal must be centered in God’s Word, rather than in personal experience, church reorganization, church growth, gifts of the Spirit, social action, or anything else.

Denny Rydberg, editor of the Wittenburg Door, a magazine that often takes humorous but accurate aim at evangelical foibles.

The church is being eaten up by the culture. Christians are being co-opted, not just in the way we do things, but also in our goals and priorities. The church seems almost indistinguishable from any other organization in society. You can’t tell the Christians from anyone else. I think that pastors, church leaders, and laypeople are going to have to ask, “Hey, what are the distinctives of the Christian faith? Where do they run counter to the culture and how are we going to really help people not be conformed to this world?”

Billy Melvin, executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals.

My concern is the measure of infiltration by the world into the church. We have been influenced far more than we would like to admit. This infiltration has dulled our effectiveness, blurred our vision, and caused us to adopt worldly standards of success. The answer is a return to the authority of God’s Word.

David P. McDowell, assistant chaplain at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

My greatest concern is the rise and progress of cultural Christianity. This phenomenon has not only weakened our witness to society but has also led to a certain assimilation of the church into society. The church should redefine what is essential Christianity. Its leaders need to explain the Christian faith in all of its radicalness so that Christians can establish life styles that witness to the reality of Christ vis-à-vis society.

‘More Genuinely Involved With Social Justice …’

Ronald J. Sider, president of Evangelicals for Social Action, author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger, and professor at Eastern Baptist seminary.

A top priority for both the mainline and the evangelical churches should be to become more biblical. That means that mainline churches should get more genuinely involved with evangelism, and that evangelical churches should become more genuinely involved with social justice. Both groups should begin overcoming their ghastly individualism and begin to discover the New Testament meaning of the church.

I don’t think we can make much progress toward living simple life styles or toward getting involved in social justice until we rediscover the church—as a community whose members are living very differently from the rest of the world. The church is being swept into the mainstream of American society. Whatever else you might say about the fundamentalists, at least they knew they were separate from society. Of course, they could become separate in wrong kinds of ways. But the church is different from the world. Its values should differ, for example, from the American attitude that it is a constitutional right to have instant gratification.

We literally need thousands of evangelicals to move back into the city. Individual families shouldn’t do it alone. The movement to the city should be one of community, several families going together to support each other. Community living has its problems. You’re close to each other, and you discover each other’s weaknesses. That’s painful, but valuable.

Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine and a member of Sojourners’ Fellowship, a Christian community living in the inner city of Washington, D.C.

My prayer is that the church be awakened to the need for its own conversion, that churches bound to comfort and fear become communities of compassion and faith. Churches that are guarded by status and guided by the status quo should become bodies that care for each other and for the poor. I am convinced that churches that are uninvolved in struggling to ease the pain and oppression of life must become places where God’s hunger for justice and peace is made visible in the world.

John Perkins, head of Voice of Calvary Ministries, Jackson, Mississippi.

The church should help the poor through holistic evangelism and development projects, giving them pride and dignity, to find a way out of the poverty cycle. It should support indigenous projects and churches in the poor and black communities.

Manuel Ortiz, counselor for “high risk” adolescents at Clemente High School in Chicago and an elder of Spirit and Truth Fellowship, a Christian community of Latinos within the racially tense Humboldt Park neighborhood.

The church needs to identify with the poor and oppressed for spiritual, emotional, social, and intellectual liberation. The churches already in the inner city should recommit themselves to meeting and working with the oppressed people. They should speak clearly and prophetically to the church that has not yet identified with the poor. They must break down the bias, the walls, the insensitivity to the poor, and then educate the church about the poor.

‘Getting More People Involved …’

Alvin Shifflet, pastor of the 300-member First Brethren Church in Nappanee, Indiana, a rural town of 4,000 noted most for its Amish residents and kitchen cabinet factories.

I want more people involved in church ministry. You can take people into the church, but unless they get involved and become committed disciples, you haven’t accomplished much. I’m serving a small community church, but the super-churches are having the same problem of inactive members. The only difference is that with them the problem is magnified. I’m not suggesting a massive revision of church membership lists or “back door revivals,” as they are called. We just need a stronger emphasis on discipleship.

Small group Bible study is the best tool I know for that. When people really begin studying God’s Word, it affects them. They become better disciples and often end up ministering in the church. I can have pastor’s classes and tell new members what I think, but that’s not effective. They’ve got to get involved on their own in Bible study.

Of course, many people aren’t interested in doing that. I guess they’re too busy. So much of our time is spent in maintenance—maintaining the church program or the church building. Perhaps this is a subtle trick of Satan’s that we spend 80 per cent of our time that way. We could spend that time in discipleship. I have a feeling that many Christians are going into the rapture by train—pretty slow.

Robert Schuller, author and pastor of the Garden Grove Community Church in suburban Los Angeles—a “superchurch” that is attended by thousands.

My greatest concern for members of the local church is their commitment to paying the price of lay leadership. The church must be the body of Christ in the community. Its members should look for people who hurt and then love, lift, and help them. The priority for church ministry in the coming year should be evangelism and church growth. A church fails unless it becomes a mission. There is no way an institution can survive if its only objective is to take care of its own people.

Ted Engstrom, executive vice-president of World Vision International.

There seems to be an ever-increasing tendency for the average person in the pew to expect the “professional” to head up the program and meet the needs that are to be found in the local church. As a result, we are experiencing a trend toward large, multi-staff institutional church organizations. There must be a renewed emphasis on the “priesthood of believers” and on the vital role of the laity in carrying on the ministry committed to the church, the Body of Christ. Preachers and professionals must take the lead in causing this renewal.

‘Parents In A New Team Effort …’

George Gallup, Jr., a Sunday school teacher and Episcopalian who majored in religion at Princeton University; is best known as president of the Gallup Poll.

My greatest concern is that our youth are not getting the help or guidance they seek from their parents regarding such issues as sex, cheating in school, alcohol, and drug abuse. Nor are young people receiving much help in terms of their spiritual values, simply because parents are unwilling or unable to discuss basic religious questions with their offspring.

Pastors, priests, and rabbis need to work more closely with parents in a new “team effort” so that parents will be able to discuss key issues with their children with greater spiritual insight and maturity.

Thomas Kelly, general secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops and its service arm, the United States Catholic Conference, ordained a bishop in 1977 and a member of the Dominican order.

My major concern is for family life within the church. The church should discover how it can support and strengthen the family, while combating the forces that are militating against it.

The Roman Catholic Church has embarked on a costly study of family life in America. The study, called A Plan of Action of Family Ministry, is designed to get people involved on the parish level from now through 1990. The program in the local parish will have six emphases: singles and pre-marrieds, married couples, parents, “developing” families, families that are hurting, and leadership couples.

‘Get Back To Soul-Winning …’

John R. Rice, 84, elder statesman of fundamental Christianity in America; worked the revival circuit for years and has edited the Bible-preaching Sword of the Lord newspaper since its inception in 1934.

The churches need to get back to soul-winning—the Great Commission. This has not been a primary concern for most major denominations, though some groups—the independent Baptist churches, for example—have had a great upsurge in conversions.

Soul-winning would have to start with the preachers, and the preachers have to be trained in the seminaries. Unfortunately, most of the fundamental, Bible-believing seminaries are stressing scholarship, not soul-winning. A man who attended one of these seminaries once confessed to me, “They taught us how to load the gun, but they didn’t teach us how to shoot it.”

At the Sword of the Lord, we could find only twenty churches in America that had won and baptized 200 or more converts during 1965. I challenged churches in my newspaper to reach a 200-convert goal in the coming year. About half of them succeeded. Two years later, more than ninety churches had baptized 200 or more members in a single year. Then more than 120 had done it. I expect that more than 300 churches will do so this year.

Their goal is to win souls. They make their services evangelistic and go out to get people in house visitations. I’m not against the great churches of today, but I’m against any church that is satisfied to stay small. That’s not biblical.

David Howard, director of the Consultation on World Evangelism, a conference to be held in June, 1980, in Thailand.

The church must recognize its mission to get the Gospel to the whole world, a mission that has not changed since New Testament times. In our outreach, we must realize our responsibility to the three billion people who still have not had an adequate opportunity to hear of Jesus Christ.

If the church is going to fulfill its mission to the world, it must do so within the context of the given cultures of the world. The church must discover how to make the Gospel relevant to any culture in any time or place. We must keep in mind three cultures: the cultural context in which the New Testament was written, the cultural trappings of the Gospel communicator today, and the culture of the audience that is being exposed to the Gospel. At the same time, we Christians must be careful not to do away with the unchangeable standards in the written Word.

From The Grass Roots

Ronald Gifford, pastor of the growing Blanchard Road Christian and Missionary Alliance Church in Wheaton, Illinois—the area often called the Protestant Vatican by many people in the media.

Here in Wheaton you first have to realize that you’re ministering in a parade. It’s hard to create any sense of community among people who move away so fast, such as students and missionaries home on furlough. You also have to realize that many people in the congregation have their first priorities elsewhere in the kingdom of God. They have fellowship and a sense of ministry at their place of work. Another struggle, a great frustration to me, is that so many people live in Wheaton because there’s no challenge to their faith. You don’t have to interact with non-Christians in Wheaton. The problem is that your faith can go squishy soft. I try to challenge my congregation in my preaching. People who don’t want that kind of challenge don’t come to our church.

I hunger for believers to put down their spiritual roots—for a Spirit-led movement in which believers’ lives are affected totally and their Christianity becomes a joy to live, not just something to put up with. When I speak of a moving of the Spirit, I’m not speaking of something having to do with the excitement of the movement or an emotional froth. We’re so existential, it scares me.

This renewal needs to begin with the pastors. It is a rare moving of the Spirit that will propel the people of God beyond their pastor’s level of spiritual maturity. So my first concern at Blanchard Road is for my own spiritual health. I find that I’m spending more time in prayer and personal reflection. I’m encouraging and discipling my leaders to do the same. I think the result is that the entire church will be affected.

Paul Toms, pastor of the 2,000-member Park Street (Congregational) Church in Boston and president of the World Relief Commission, relief agency of the NAE.

I want to see biblical preaching practiced. I want to see biblical truth come alive and meet the day-to-day problems of people. A way to encourage this is through fellowship groups, where members develop pastoral concern for each other.

Ted Mears, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church near Florence, South Carolina, whose members celebrated the 200th birthday of their church last year.

The church should begin meeting the needs of families that move from the city into residential and suburban areas. For example, my church for 175 years was a small rural church serving a farming community. But in the 1950s Ebenezer became a suburban church of 785 members as the city of Florence grew outward and toward the church.

David Stauffer, pastor of the Church of the Brethren in Waka, Texas, farm and cattle-ranching town of 1,200 located in the Texas panhandle.

The adults in my church are concerned that young people brought up in the church don’t have enough zeal for the Lord, and they don’t understand why that is the case. Most of the people now active in my church are in their fifties or older.

Kenneth Peterson, pastor of the independent Calvary Bible Church in Wichita, Kansas.

The church should keep its spiritual purity and dedication to Christ. Only then will it fulfill the great commission to reach the world with the Gospel. There must be a genuine return to Bible preaching.

Jerold Barnhart, pastor of the Elmore, Minnesota, United Methodist Church where Vice-President Walter Mondale was confirmed in 1941.

The church needs people who will reach out to others of the community in the name of Christ. We do this already, but in the name of other organizations such as the Lions, the Odd Fellows, and the Masons. I call these the “other churches.” They are great competition.

Herbert Bell Shaw, Wilmington, North Carolina, a bishop within the 1.5-million-member African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church.

The church should organize a summit meeting of the leaders of all the major religions in the world. The purpose would be to find out what the other religions have in common with Christianity. This is something the Christian world ought to at least think about. I know there are some things that Christians have in common with those other religions.

Academia

Krister Stendahl, dean of Harvard Divinity School and one of the most respected New Testament scholars in the world.

As I see it, waves of fear and resentment will surge over the United States and the Western world in the years ahead. These will come when we are forced to shrink in our own self-importance, in our consumption of resources, and, perhaps, in our standard of living, as compared to the rest of the world.

This suggests to me something that is the most difficult thing spiritually—namely, for us to learn to diminish, instead of always striving to be bigger and bigger. Our spiritual needs will be enormous when we try to overcome this ingrown way of thinking. It is the model of John the Baptist, when he said, “It is as it should be—that I diminish and he increases.” That kind of grace, to diminish, is the hardest of all to learn. It would be very strange if the church did not help us in this respect.

I am afraid that many people in America grab onto religion these days only as a way of making America stronger or bigger. This is common because of the strong fear that America is going backward. I hope and pray that the Gospel, which has had power to overcome similar ways of thinking in the past, will do so again.

Frances White, coordinator of the counseling major at Wheaton Graduate School.

My greatest concern is the lack of stress on biblical truth. The tendency to replace solid scriptural teaching with culturally relevant, but ever-changing issues, could leave today’s generation without a solid base of objective truth upon which to evaluate social concerns.

As a behavioral scientist, I am keenly aware of the need to address current issues that affect our lives. However, to do this honestly, the church must first guide its members to understand the unchanging truths of Scripture and help them incorporate those truths into their total lives. With this as a base, the church is ready to distinguish between the revealed, absolute truth of God’s Word and temporary, cultural, relative beliefs.

Counseling is becoming accepted within the church today because the needs are so tremendous. With all the cultural changes taking place, people are running into conflicts and issues that they haven’t had to face before. For example, new perspectives on the role of women and marriage relationships have created a new set of problems and a tremendous amount of conflict. People are hurting. And hurt drives them to seek help.

Richard Lovelace, professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

I am hopeful that evangelical renewal groups within the mainline denominations will continue to grow, in the process reviving the churches spiritually and reforming them theologically—bringing healing and unity to the body of Christ without sacrificing evangelical integrity.

My second concern is for the evangelical movement itself—that it continue to be reformed, purified, and reestablished in its original balance of emphasis on spiritual renewal, evangelism, social witness, and church unity. The classical evangelical movement, at least as I have studied it from the Reformation to the nineteenth century, had a strategy of renewing the entire church body. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, evangelicalism has become somewhat separatistic.

William Hill, pastor and director of student ministries at Taylor University, Upland, Indiana.

One of my greatest concerns is that the church of the twentieth century has found its home in the world. This is seen in the million-dollar edifices erected to the glory of man. Television and radio hucksters promise success in business, family affairs, and physical health to those who will contribute to their programs.

The church needs a world vision that will take it out of itself. What life would come to the church if its members became involved in door-to-door evangelism, inner city ministries, and in visiting hospitals, prisons, and orphanages. What a testimony there would be to the world if church members would forfeit a luxurious vacation to spend the time on a mission field.

Denominational Leaders

Joseph R. Flower, general secretary of the Assemblies of God, the largest Pentecostal denomination in the United States with 1.3 million members.

I’m concerned about church growth. Even more important to me is raising the spiritual level of Christians to a deeper devotion to the Lord and a fuller experience in the Holy Spirit, with the manifestation of the Spirit being in evidence.

James C. Sams, president for twelve years of the National Baptist Convention—one of the largest predominately black denominations in America.

The church should try to bring back into its fellowship those members who have strayed away. The pastor should motivate his active members to reach out to those who have left the church.

Herbert A. Mueller, secretary of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the second largest Lutheran body in the United States with 2.9 million members.

Our greatest concern at the moment within the LCMS is the large segment of young adults that, according to the Gallup Poll, have a very low interest in the organized church, and perhaps even in religion. We intend to mount a special program of outreach toward them.

William E. Kuhnle, assistant to the national representative of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches, a denomination of 260,000 members with headquarters in Schaumburg, Illinois.

The church must rely on its biblical foundation in all areas of its ministry. There needs to be a return to the absolute authority of the Bible as a guide for daily and godly living.

Here And There

Richard Halverson, pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Bethesda, Maryland.

I see two serious needs: the need of the world’s unreached masses to know about Christ, and the need of contemporary Christianity to shake off the shackles of secularism.

There are more than two billion unreached people in the world, according to missiologists, and the majority of these are beyond the scope of present witness. The church must take this challenge seriously. At the same time, the church must seek a renewal that will influence our culture for the kingdom of God.

Happily, evangelicals within the major denominations are discovering each other at last and beginning to work together in and through the system to make their witness effective.

Ralph Bell, associate evangelist, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

White Christians need to exhibit more concern about racism and poverty. The cause of racial justice has suffered reverses recently, and the church has remained quiet. Maybe the church can’t help everybody, but it can at least speak out and take creative action to help solve a few problems.

Masses of urban dwellers remain untouched by the black churches around them. A number of young black evangelicals have appeared on the scene, and they ought to be encouraged in their outreach efforts.

Dwain Epps, World Council of Churches representative to the United Nations.

The church should be a major world force for breaking down barriers that separate human beings into conflicting and sometimes warring camps. It should give witness to the unity that all Christians have in Jesus Christ and discover ways, through contact with people in other countries, to demonstrate the common humanity we have.

Margaret Andersen, associate communications officer at Episcopal Church headquarters and member of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in New York.

The church should concern itself with metropolitan issues, or root causes, of problems that can be found in both rural and urban communities. In the human rights issue, I can see any number of root causes—for example, the lack of understanding of human sexuality, of a person’s right to be recognized, of the dignity of life, or of the dignity of dying.

The church can be a conscience. It must help each person to understand the root causes of problems and then to react to those causes.

Donald E. Wildmon, pastor and executive director of the National Federation for Decency, Mississippi-based organization that is combating sex and violence in the media.

The church should become involved in the public area of private morality—prostitution, p*rnography, sex-oriented music on radio, debasing television programming. The church should call its members to action from the pulpits. It should use institutional committees, support other efforts, and pray for its own forgiveness for having neglected to speak to this critical issue. Without personal integrity, society will not fulfill its mission in God’s world. Past history offers plenty of evidence for this conclusion.

Karen Mains, speaker and author of Open Heart, Open Home, a book on Christian hospitality.

Popular Christianity today has a problem. By that I mean that many times we settle for easy forms of Christianity. We settle for words and activities, and we avoid what can be an agonizing search for spiritual realities. But even within this easy, popular form of Christianity, there is a group of people who are hungry for God. These Christians hunger for knowing God by acquaintance, not just for knowing about him.

I would like to lodge something in your imagination—a small touchstone, we might say, by which, if you are so disposed, you may test the ideas and slogans and voguish trends that come your way.

Some such touchstone is necessary, I would think, for anyone who is not content to be a mere fool, and who does not want to be in the tragicomic position of waggling along behind every bandwagon that trundles past. And of course you and I find ourselves at a point in history that has a terribly heavy traffic in bandwagons. More of them are coming at us more rapidly and more noisily than, I should think, at any other time since the expulsion from Eden. You can’t avoid them. They rumble and blare and loom, magnified and amplified by every kilowatt and decibel that the media can muster. A hundred years ago, or a thousand or ten thousand for that matter, mountebanks and wizards and false prophets had to whip up what following they could on the strength of their own voice and their own tricks. Now every jester has an instant, vast, and utterly credulous audience via the talk shows. The audience is credulous, I say, because they have been schooled in the tradition of moral and intellectual democracy, in which every idea is worth exactly as much as every other idea, and in which we are committed to giving equal time, not just on the air or in the columns of newsprint, but also in our minds—equal time, I say, to Isaiah and Beelzebub, for example, or to St. Thomas Aquinas and Mick Jagger, or the Blessed Virgin and Bella Abzug. We see the talk-show hosts, sitting in vapid amiability while their guests blithely dismantle the entirety of history and myth, and we pick up this frame of mind. We take on an earnest, humorless, frame of mind that gravely receives all data as “input,” so that we hear one person telling us about the joys of open marriage, and another about what an emancipation it is to find that one is no longer a man or a woman but a person, and still another going on about what a step forward it will be when we learn to address God as Our Androgyne, which art in Heaven—we hear all this, and our only response is, “What I hear you saying is …” or “I need this input,” or “Heavy,” or some such trenchant comment.

But this will not do. It is not good enough to receive all data as though it is arriving from some cosmic grist mill, all of it to be ground into your loaf. There is wheat and there is chaff. Distinctions have to be made. There is good stuff and bad stuff. And the only way to sort out the good from the bad is to discriminate. There is no question of a moral democracy, any more than there is of a gastronomic democracy. If you eat vegetables, they will do you good; if you eat toadstools, they will kill you. Somebody has to discriminate between the two and tell us which is which. They are not neutral data for our stomachs. Again, there is no moral democracy any more than there is a mathematical democracy. Two plus two equals four, and we may knock our foreheads on the floor and turn purple in the face because this stark datum doesn’t grab us right, or we may shout that our math teacher is an uptight traditionalist and pig—we may adopt this line, I say, but two-plus-two-equals-four remains sublimely unthreatened by our tantrum.

We need a touchstone. We need to learn to discriminate. Your big job in life is to learn the discipline of discrimination, if you didn’t learn it in school. The moral vision that furnishes this touchstone that I am speaking about is that of ancient orthodoxy, or, put another way, of catholic orthodoxy. Now some of you may start in your seats when you read that phrase: “catholic orthodoxy”? The man has gotten his messages mixed up: He thinks he is at the Shrine of Our Lady of Loretto, or St. Perpetua’s Seminary, or somewhere. This is an evangelical audience.

I am aware of this. That is why I say that the moral vision that obtains here is that of catholic orthodoxy, that is, of the dogmatic tradition taught by the apostles, received by the Church, and agreed upon by all orthodox Christians always and everywhere, whether Anabaptist, Reformation, Latin, or Eastern. The Vincentian Canon is a useful way of phrasing it: quod ubique, quod semper, et quod ab omnibus creditum est: what has always been believed, everywhere, and by everyone. Any serious and thoughtful Christian is a dogmatist, not in the sense of being pig-headed or ostrich-like, but in the sense of having a lively awareness that he stands in a defined tradition of received teaching that has been articulated by the holy prophets and apostles, and handed down through the centuries. It is spelled out in the Bible, and guarded and proclaimed by the Church. The Christian vision is a vision of the eternal, that is, of majestic fixities and mysteries that stand in judgment upon our history and our existence. The Word that was Incarnate in the drama played out on the stage of our history was the Word that articulated order out of chaos in the beginning, and that will utter the final summing up at the end.

For this reason, the thinking Christian finds himself in a perpetually ambiguous, not to say peculiar, position vis-à-vis his own epoch. He is, let’s face it, what the loose-jointed marionettes of contemporaneity call “uptight.” That is, he is, in fact, stuck with an attitude that will be sniffing into things, and that wants to ask difficult questions—that wants to take a second and a third look at things, to see how they look when you line them up next to the fixed standard. He is not quite at liberty to let it all hang out: Indeed, he suspects that letting it all hang out is what you get in nurseries with babies screaming and vomiting, or in mental hospitals where they have failed to align their actions with accepted patterns, or at drunken orgies where inhibition and reticence are thrown to the winds.

The christian will be forever asking how this idea or that one fits. Fits what? Fits the pattern, says the Christian—the solemn, blissful, austerely and magnificently orchestrated pattern of glory that we call Creation, or the Dance. The Christian will be forever testing things in the light of the bright fixities that Christian vision perceives and celebrates.

This is the reason why Christians are not ordinarily found in the van of contemporaneity. The Palm Sunday mob is the same in every century, forever throwing down their garments and their palms at the feet of the new prophet, hailing and exulting in things simply because they seem new and promising. “Innovative” and “creative” and “unstructured” are their favorite words, but of course by Friday this crowd has gotten bored by the creatively unstructured innovations, so they crucify the prophet and chase after fresh ones. (The point in this metaphor here is simply the flighty frame of mind of the mob, which will give Christians pause when they hear loud slogans abroad: The prophet in question here, of course, was bringing in something true, but they had no way of discriminating between him and Simon Magus, or any other zealot.)

It is particularly difficult now for Christians to keep their wits about them and their sights unblurred. The sheer tumble and force of novelty that comes at us all makes it nearly impossible to keep clear in one’s imagination—or in one’s moral vision, shall we say—the fixities that arch over the broil of our history and our fashions. Let me mention a few of the items in this tumble as examples of what I mean. We might call them cults, since that is what they are, really.

There is the cult, for example, of the self. You have heard people talking about self-affirmation, and self-discovery, and self-acceptance, and self-identity. The great idea is to discover who you are. Fine. But any Christian will listen to this vocabulary with some wariness, since the vision he is already committed to sees a drastic paradox in this matter of the self. The biblical notion seems to be that we get to point A by heading toward point Z: That is, we move towards authentic self-knowledge by abandoning the quest for self-knowledge. Self-knowledge seems to be more or less irrelevant in this vision. Or at least irrelevant while we are en route to where we are going. Then—ah, then—we get the white stone with our real name engraved on it. This is given to the men and women who overcome, whatever that means. It does not seem to be promised to those who have sought themselves all along the way. I know this sounds like a cavalier oversimplification, and as though I am jettisoning the whole of the behavioral sciences on the strength of one verse of the Apocalypse. That is not quite what I have in mind. The point I am making here is that no Christian can listen with unmixed belief to popular vocabulary about the quest for the self that so ferociously engages our generation.

Again, there is the cult of frankness. “Let’s be honest,” meaning thereby “Let’s tell it like it is. If you think it, say it. Don’t be uptight. Break down the hedges and barriers of convention that obstruct the openness between you and your brother.” Fine. Candor is all to the good. But any Christian will also want to know how we propose to guard the shrine that is the other person. He will want to know, before he opens up the shrine of himself to others, just who has the warrant to come in here. Just as (says the Christian) there are high hedges that stand between you and me physically, so that I have no warrant to possess your body unless I am your spouse, so there are high hedges between you and me psychologically and emotionally and spiritually, and I have to know what the warrant is to enter the shrine of your personality before I barge in. For this reason a Christian will distrust the popular idea, so violently dramatized in the more extreme forms of T-group, that we all have a warrant to know everything about you, just as he distrusts the idea of physical orgies. He does not believe that you can suspend the rules, even for one evening’s experiment, physically or psychologically. And, I should think the same would apply religiously: A Christian will enter only very cautiously into the forms of religious exercise that call for us all to be putting all our cards on the table all the time. Not everybody has the warrant to see your cards, remember.

This notion, surely, is also at work in the contemporary celebration of “open marriage,” where the idea is that we will all be very grown up and very sensible, and get beyond being uptight about some old-timey notions of fidelity and monogamy and so forth: Good heavens, we’re modern men and women now, and know how to handle a variety of sexual relationships.

No, says the Christian. That ain’t the way it is, baby. That ain’t the way it is. And the same notion would be at work in the current cult of p*rnography in magazines and cinema: The idea there is, how emancipated! how modern! how un-uptight. But the Christian, curmudgeon that he is, suspects that this whole Dionysian romp is misbegotten—that there are places you can’t enter with impunity. All religions and all tribes and all myths have known that there are taboos—all of them, that is, except Sodom, Rome in its decline, and us.

Or, third, there is the cult of liberation. Here the notion is, declare your autonomy. Proclaim your emancipation. Smash the chains that tradition has shackled you with. Discard the conventions and taboos written in the holy books, and set about redefining and reforging human existence. If you listen to the rhetoric of some of the forms of lib in our own time, you will hear this eager zest to redefine and reforge everything. Don’t give one moment’s courtesy to ten thousand years of myth and history: It’s all a cynical plot. The human race has missed the boat entirely, and we will do it right.

Well, whatever side of the various lib questions you find yourself on, if you are a thinking Christian and an orthodox one, you will enter into the discussion with solid commitment to the validity of history (since the drama of your redemption was played out in history), and with a great skepticism about the chances of the twentieth century coming upon some emancipating truth that escaped, somehow, the attention of the patriarchs, the prophets, the apostles, the fathers, and the rest of the train of sages and witnesses in history. You will need to move carefully and painstakingly through the data, and you will suspect that the distinction assumed in the Bible between man and woman (for example) is perhaps the richest distinction in the whole creation, and that we blur, or deny, that distinction (it is being attempted now) to our own impoverishment. You will bring, in other words, the touchstone of ancient Jewish and Christian vision to bear upon the hasty slogans of your own decade.

Or again, there is the cult of the unstructured, which I have already mentioned in passing. You have no doubt sat on committees whose job was to plan some event. Sooner or later in the discussion some bright soul pipes up, “I know! Let’s just have it unstructured! That way everybody will be free to …” and so forth. But I daresay you have not sat on a committee where anyone ventured to observe in reply to this suggestion, “Fine, but remember that hell is the ultimately unstructured place.” The City of God is measured out foursquare, with adamantine foundations and jeweled gates, and that is not just an idea from some kooky prophecy chart. It is there, built into the structure of the universe and our existence, and we dismantle things to our peril. Anybody who was not born yesterday knows that it is the structures and the conventions that help us through chaotic and impossible situations, and that gather and bear up our flying emotions. Victory parades, music at marriages or funerals, dances of joy, sonnets of love, liturgical processions: Are these not, every one of them, the structured forms that we bring to raw experience and emotion, and that turn out to be the very thing we needed to enhance and heighten our capacity to experience and articulate the event? If we were all left standing about vaguely in the face of huge experiences, we would soon enough find ourselves reduced to the feeble level (alarmingly common in our own time, alas) of “Oh wow,” or “Outta sight.” That is to real, profound experience what pablum is to pâté: just not as good. Think of the child who has never been taught the simple convention of saying “How do you do.” Every time he has to encounter an adult, he is thrust back on his own unstructured spontaneity, and that is misery for him and everyone else. Or again, think of the feeble and flimsy efforts at bonhomie that go on at get-togethers where nothing is planned. And what would we do with our nuptial joy without the splendid structure of the wedding ceremony, or with our grief without the office for the burial of the dead? Our own era tries, but it is a pitiable spectacle in an arena filled with myriads from every tribe and civilization who knew better—who knew that traditional and ceremonial structures and courtesies and conventions are the very vehicles that bear us along. Our era thinks they are cages imprisoning us. A Christian, of course, will have plowed deep into his imagination the solemn and blissful imagery of the Tabernacle and the Apocalypse, and he will suspect that this is something fairly close to the tap-root of things. In this sense he is a radical—a person who wants to go to the root. He declines to accept the contemporary definition of radical, which means simply violent or sweeping or utopian.

A fifth cult in our time is the cult of the convenient, made possible for us by our stunning advances in technology and medicine. We now have immense mysteries dissolved for us by a pill or a test-tube, or a quick visit to the doctor. Contraception, for example, or abortion, are available on easy demand. It’s all quite bracing. But any Christian, with his imagination suffused with the ancient biblical awareness of the awesome thing that human life is, will want to know just what it is we are manipulating here. Good heavens—babies made or unmade at the popping of a pill.

I am not urging, by the way, that no Christian will use the pill. I am urging that he will always have a salting of skepticism in his imagination about the brisk modern traffic in these things. If you disagree with the pope, you had better have weightier arguments against him than simply the argument that his point of view is inconvenient. How do you shoot down his argument from natural theology? It will take more than shouting, “I have a right to my own body!” A Christian will want to know.

A sixth cult in our time is, of course, the much-celebrated new morality. Here the idea is that we now have fresh light on things, and that no prophets or priests are going to tell us what varieties of sexual activity, say, are legitimate, much less with whom we may enjoy these diversions. We make our own choices now. But a Christian is stuck with all these intractable taboos again. You can’t do this and you can’t do that, until you are as pinched and unhappy as Mrs. Grundy. What’s the matter with Christians? Can’t they live?

And I suppose the answer here is, “Nothing more is the matter with them than has been the matter with Jews and Moslems and Hindus and pagans all down through history who have known perfectly well that the sexual phenomenon was a high and sacred thing, to be surrounded with the most fierce strictures.” Queen Victoria did not make up “conventional morality.” Neither did the Puritans. Neither did the Catholic Church. Nor the apostles. Nor the rabbis. A Christian suspects that it is all built into the choreography of the great Dance, and that all these tiresome taboos are actually cues and clues, nudging us on toward our authentic bliss and wholeness. Follow the yellow brick road. That way lies the City.

That’s the end of my argument. I hope, even if you disagree with me passionately, that you will see my main point, which is that the Christian vision arises from sources, and stretches toward vistas, that are infinitely beyond the power of mere contemporaneity to alter. We didn’t set the Dance going, and we can’t reorchestrate it. We might even, if we are courageous and radical enough, discover that the pattern of that Dance, observed and obeyed so gravely and joyously by the great company of sages, patriarchs, prophets, psalmists, apostles, confessors, and witnesses, and all the ranks of angels and archangels and thrones and dominations and powers, right up to the terrible cherubim and seraphim themselves—that this pattern is the very guarantor of our true bliss and liberty.

After reading our lead article, the CHRISTIANITY TODAY audience may wonder what it all means. Respondents to “What is your greatest concern for the church today?” provide many ideas, but no answer predominated.

A number of valid concerns surfaced from the diversity of response. Among them were the renewed emphasis on evangelism, greater commitment to social programs, and development of family life. In addition, the style of ministry did not always predetermine the response. For example, Denny Rydberg, iconoclastic editor of The Wittenburg Door, and Billy Melvin, something of an establishment spokesman as executive director of the National Association of Evangelicals, both said that the church must avoid its compromise with culture. Metropolitan superchurch pastor Robert Schuller said the church needs the renewal of its laity, as did a smalltown Indiana pastor.

That many of the answers were quite predictable was a sidelight to the article. John R. Rice—who keeps tabulations on converts produced through his Sword of the Lord newspaper—wanted greater emphasis on soul-winning. Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine and a social activist, said the church should focus its efforts on social programs. World Council of Churches official Duane Epps wanted greater unity among church bodies.

To some readers, such predictability might smack of an overall trend in America—a trend Newsweek called “Single Issue Politics.” The writer said that Americans today are pushing their own pet issues, while ignoring other important, but unrelated, concerns. Proposition 13 activists, for example, might mobilize for or against a political candidate depending solely upon that candidate’s stand on tax cuts. It may not matter whether the man has an impressive leadership record. They want to know, “Does he care about my property taxes?”

Evangelicals sometimes feel so protective of their interests and ministries that they regard any criticism of them as a personal affront and an attack on God. There are several levels of polarization within the church—innovation versus tradition, evangelism versus social action, charismatic versus noncharismatic. It would be refreshing if the various players in the church met in 1979 and conceded that they are members of the same team.

Many single parts put together form the body of Christ. We are not all hands, or feet, or legs. Individual Christians probably do best to fill only one niche at a time anyway. No one can be all things to all men. So if there is a single unifying theme to the survey, it might be for church members to have a concern—then act upon it.

The survey respondents apparently thought carefully about their answers, and it is encouraging that some of them practice what they proclaim. Ron Sider encouraged church members to move back to the city; he, himself, lives in inner-city Philadelphia in an aged structure purchased under the government’s “dollar-a-building” program. A Wheaton, Illinois, pastor, who said that renewal must come through church leaders, now spends more time in personal prayer and meditation.

We offer in this article a smorgasbord of opinions. Readers can choose those that apply to them, and then take action. Apathy is not on the menu.

The Alternative To People’S Temple

About two months have passed since more than 900 People’s Temple cultists annihilated themselves in Guyana. The causes will be discussed for many more months, as will the ramifications of it.

The average American, now fearing any religious zeal and not understanding the difference between true Christianity and false religion, could react against legitimate evangelism and discipling.

To prevent this, Christians should be sure that they preach and practice the bedrock essentials of the faith. We need to reaffirm our distinctives and show a conflict-torn world that true peace and fulfillment are to be found in following Christ, not mammon or madmen.

Evangelicals don’t follow cult leaders like Jim Jones of People’s Temple. But we often seem to deemphasize the leadership of Jesus Christ by the hushed tones we use when speaking of favorite preachers or teachers, or by the reverence we accord some denominational confessional tradition.

Evangelicals don’t spit and stomp on the Bible, as did the late Jim Jones. But despite our protestations to the contrary, in practice we can ignore the authority of Scripture. We read books about the Bible, and we should. But we should also read the Bible itself. We listen to narratives (often embellished) of the spiritual struggles and triumphs of others. The lives of faithful Christians, honestly told, can encourage and strengthen us. But we should not depend on them; we should also have active spiritual lives of our own.

People are losing confidence that technology can solve their problems. This has provided openings not only for biblical Christianity but for various aberrations from it and also for aggressive Asian-based religions. And hedonism, newly defined and unembarrassingly defended, is gaining ground again.

Undoubtedly, some of the searching souls who were attracted to the People’s Temple had been exposed to vital Christianity and had rejected it. Even Jesus himself only attracted a few followers in his lifetime. And many who started to follow him turned back.

But probably most of the followers of Jones had not encountered fellowships of men, women, and children who were thoroughly exemplifying the Lordship of Christ—for this life as well as for the next. Adherents of People’s Temple have said that Jones’s work among the poor attracted them. This is an indictment of evangelicals who have compartmentalized life into the sacred and the secular.

Feed my sheep, said Jesus. Often we simply spiritualize such commandments, but the Christian faith is for the whole person, physical and emotional as well as spiritual. The Guyana tragedy challenges us to show that this is so.