Page 5803 – Christianity Today (2024)

Was the Arab oil boycott a blessing in disguise?

That was a hard conclusion to draw when you were waiting in line for gas. At that point one was tempted to grant that from a strictly political standpoint the Arabs had made a smart move. They knew the West had been spoiled by the availability of cheap oil, and that North America especially had come to rely on it for a vast assortment of creature comforts. What better way to gain political advantage than by disrupting a convenient way of life? The Arabs felt that the affluent would be willing to exert extensive pressure on Israel rather than forsake their conveniences.

Whatever the effect of the oil boycott in those terms, it had some measurable benefit for the whole world in a psychological sense. At least a few people have had their horizon broadened enough to realize for perhaps the first time that abundance is not a critical human need. Some may even have begun to sense as a result of the energy crisis that life might even be more meaningful if we did not consume so much. Up until these last few months many young people in the West had never had the privilege of experiencing a shortage of anything! And untold numbers of both young and old have assumed that life is merely a prolonged collection process, the more collected the merrier, and that anything that got in the way was by definition a liability. Maybe the oil boycott showed us some difference between want and need. Maybe we tasted an austerity that is not as repellent as we thought.

U. S. News and World Report noted recently, “Experts see a silver lining of pluses now and in the future—such as families and neighbors drawing closer together, fewer traffic accidents, new housing designed for more efficient heating and lighting, home appliances that last longer and cost less to operate.”

There are also some reports that crime is down somewhat because of the energy shortage (except in the category of gasoline theft!) The number of car pools is up remarkably. “A new tendency to save gasoline by staying home is reflected in booming sales of television sets and materials for crafts and hobbies,” adds U. S. News. Sales of religious books, we might add, have been increasing, too. It will be interesting to see how travel curtailment will affect recreation if there is any substantial gasoline shortage this summer.

We don’t mean to suggest that the energy crisis did not bring genuine adversity. For one thing, many thousands of people lost their jobs because of it—and are still unemployed. Many people around the world who were already in dire economic straits have more recently been worse off than ever. The overall picture is mixed.

The point here is simply that people whose life motto has been “More, more!” have been obliged to reassess their outlook, to their own benefit. They might otherwise not have done so. They are like the child who refuses to try anything new to eat, protesting that he will not like it, but who, when he is forced to try the new dish, finds himself asking for more.

God often allows trouble and sorrow to come into our lives to bring us to our senses. This is true all through Scripture. Perhaps at the present time he has used the oil boycott to speak forcefully to a fallen world for its own good. The Psalmist urged, “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man that trusteth in him.” May not God have brought this thing to pass to prod us to take the first taste and to see that something less than great affluence is closer to man’s ideal state?

The concept of doing more with less, which has been called progressive ephemeralization, has been the basic principle behind the ballistic arts of man and, indeed, behind all warfare. R. Buckminster Fuller notes that it was the principle that enabled little David to slay the giant Goliath. It is also the principle employed in guerrilla warfare—in, for instance, tiny North Viet Nam’s holding off the armed might of the United States. It is the principle behind the current kidnappings and acts of terrorism: highly strategic and risky deeds that involve minute resources but through which enormous demands can be made.

Our environmental deficit, which is growing all the time, behooves us to extend this idea of consciously trying to do a lot with a little into many areas of human endeavor. A fascinating new book by David Hanco*cks, Master Builders of the Animal World, shows what remarkable things can be done even by sub-human species that cannot reason! Why not man? This is where the Church comes in. Christians must develop and proclaim a greater respect for God’s great creation. Science and technology have gotten carried away from ethical dimensions. Christians have the task of reunifying fact and value and of inspiring motivations that are sensitive to the careful use of divinely bestowed resources. Empty lives seek to consume more of this world’s goods as a substitute for the inner peace that only God can provide. Christians must take the lead in scaling down appetites.

For the sake of an ecological turnaround and ultimately out of obedience to God the creator, so be it.

Petrarch: Prisoner Of The World

“If you do not raise your eyes, you will think that you are the highest point.”

—ANTONIO PORCHIA

A colorful procession of robed scholars and statesmen wound its way from the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D. C., to the “Capitoline Hill” on April 8 to reenact the coronation of Francesco Petrarca as poet laureate of Rome six centuries ago. For many it represented a hope that the Renaissance spirit of creativity and individual inquiry might be revived. The march highlighted the “World Petrarch Congress,” a multi faceted commemoration of the death in 1374 of the scholar, Renaissance humanist, canon, archdeacon—indeed, “Citizen of the World,” as the congress planners put it.

Few men have worked as diligently or achieved as much as this scholar of the antiquities who has been lauded as “the father of Renaissance humanism.” Petrarch is to be applauded for his role as inspiration and spark for the new spirit of individualism, curiosity, and sense of history that characterized the Renaissance. Although he long considered and always admired the traditional religious life of the medieval monk, he sought to amend medieval man’s concept of spirituality by integrating in his works the secular and the spiritual. This he accomplished superficially by the use of many mixed classical and biblical allusions, and with more depth by the outpouring of his own spiritual conflict over his love for God and his desire for renown, fortune, and Laura (the woman who inspired his famous sonnets).

The integration was limited, however. Although Petrarch was intimately acquainted with Augustine’s Confessions, he could not wholeheartedly accept the assertion that knowledge of God would bring him fulfillment. By his own admission in the Secretum he “saw the better course, but chose the worse,” thus becoming “chained to this world” by his love for wealth, fame, and Laura. Although he recognized God and the spiritual dimension of life, he set his sights on the temporal prizes rather than the laurels of “the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,” finding himself unable to trust God to give him “all these things.” Thus having essentially rejected the spiritual, he could never fully integrate it with the material, although the struggle to do so continued to receive his attention. In this lies the key to many of the contradictions apparent in Petrarch’s life and works.

Aspirations to the rebirth of the Petrarchan/Renaissance spirit of creativity and individual inquiry lay at the core of the anniversary celebrations. In the words of Folger director O. B. Hardison, Jr., “Petrarch believed in the power of art to redeem and ennoble a society”; and now that, “in this era, man is becoming more aware of the spiritual element in life, he should be encouraged to find himself through the arts and humanities.” Certainly this spirit of re-creation and self-development should be applauded as a happy alternative to the spirit of destructive revolution that pervaded society in the last decade. But if it is to enjoy lasting success, it must be undergirded by a hope firmly fixed upon the knowledge of God, and a desire, through all its creativity, to reveal the integrative force of God’s redemptive act.

The Expanding Sahara

The world’s largest desert, the Sahara, is expanding southward. The rate of growth has increased in the last five years or so because of a prolonged drought across all of Central Africa. Although the media have carried extensive reports about the resulting suffering, comparatively few people outside Africa really have any idea how bad things are. Those concerned have the chance now to-see a graphic portrayal of the problem in a new film, Africa: Dry Edge of Disaster. It has just been made available by the World Relief Commission, overseas relief arm of the National Association of Evangelicals.

The twenty-eight-minute, 16-mm, color, sound film, shot in Central Africa only a few weeks ago, is unusually well done for a film of this type. It manages to put across the inherent beauty of the people despite the agony they are going through.

Surely this situation is a summons to people everywhere to respond generously, whether through the World Relief Commission or through some other agency working in the area. Granaries are empty. Wells are dry. Thousands of refugees are begging simply for a daily ration of millet, which in the United States is used simply for bird seed. Says the film narrator, “Some think the only solution is that millions die.” The producers obviously think otherwise, and we join them in hoping that this film will go a long way toward negating that option.

Early To Rise

Were you to ask the average American today the meaning of “Aaron’s rod,” he would be likely to identify it as the bat used by the Atlanta Braves slugger to break Babe Ruth’s all-time career home-run record. One similarity between the biblical object and the baseball bat is that some had hoped that the latter, too, might work miracles—not to establish Henry Aaron as the greatest home-run hitter in history but to bring baseball out of the doldrums.

Alas, that miracle didn’t occur. Out of the more than 50,000 “fans” who came out for the game in which Aaron swatted number 715, only a handful stayed through the ninth inning. Can all those Johnny-go-earlies really consider themselves fans—i.e., fanatics, persons “possessed by excessive and irrational zeal”? Football, basketball, and hockey fans, many of whom would leave early only if the stadium were in the path of an avalanche, have reason to scoff.

Pay Day Some Day

In these post-April 15 days a lot of American citizens feel relieved, and a lot feel poorer. Prominent among the latter this year is President Nixon, who has had to pay not only his 1973 income tax but a whopping addition to his payments for several previous years. He says he intends to keep his word to pay whatever he was assessed by the congressional committee that examined his earlier returns.

No person of integrity should let the questionable example of the President’s tax maneuvers influence him to relax his own standards. Everyone is entitled to all the deductions the law allows; if there are questionable areas, a ruling can be secured in advance of the deadline. It is far better to settle the matter before, not after, the fact. Taxes now seem intolerably high, but they will keep going higher as long as the citizenry demands more and more benefits from the government.

Most Christians who tithe have their returns audited periodically. This is not a matter for concern if they have deducted only what the law allows. Let them instead be concerned with preparing for the ultimate audit—the life audit that will take place at the judgment seat of Christ, when the books will be balanced and the final and perfect judgment will be rendered.

Kudos For ‘Something Quite Different’

Christians with talents in the arts will be encouraged by the acclaim given Tedd Smith for his appearance last month in the Auckland Arts Festival. That Smith was invited to participate in this major cultural event was itself a boost for talented evangelicals with a creative spirit. Unfortunately, the evangelical community as a whole does not readily lend its support to serious, highly disciplined artistic endeavors, which is part of the reason why the Christian believer today feels culturally alienated. Smith’s success in New Zealand is a tribute to him and also to the programmers of the festival and to the respected critic whose review in the New Zealand Herald is reprinted here, who did not let Smith’s “revivalist fervour” diminish their appreciation of his ability. May it also lend boldness to the truly creative and truly Christian in the days ahead.

Georges Pompidou

The late Georges Pompidou, second president of the French Fifth Republic, maintained a full official schedule almost to the last day of his life, so much so that on the morning of the day he died, April 2, the major Paris newspapers carried nothing to suggest the seriousness of his condition. Although mortally ill, apparently from cancer, Pompidou had courageously continued to carry out his duties. One of his acts near the end of his life was to commute the death sentence of two condemned murderers.

A Roman Catholic, Pompidou was criticized by churchmen for some of his official positions, such as France’s continuing development of nuclear weapons. Under his guidance France made a successful transition from the charismatic and intensely personalistic leadership of General de Gaulle to a more bourgeois style of government—bourgeois in the French sense of the word, implying hard work, cultivation, a certain urbanity, and devotion to traditional moral values though not necessarily to a distinctive religious system. During Pompidou’s short presidency, France achieved remarkable economic growth and a high degree of affluence. Both are now threatened by the worldwide economic malaise that must have increasingly burdened Georges Pompidou’s last days.

Not a heroic figure, Pompidou embodied many of the best traits of the European bourgeoisie. It will be hard for France to find a successor to match his many talents.

The memorial mass for the late president will itself be remembered. More than 7,000 persons, including fifty heads of governments, attended the mass, held in Notre Dame Cathedral. It was conducted in the 800-year-old tradition of the famed church.

Smuggling Reexamined

The Christian’s duty is to obey God rather than man. But it does not follow from this indisputable principle that God wants us to break his moral law in order to work out his purposes. Those who contend, for example, that bearing false witness—orally or by signing false statements—is justifiable as an aid in getting Bibles into Communist lands are really questioning the sovereignty of God. They are arguing in effect that God cannot work out his will in the context of his own plan, that he must stoop to the enemy’s tactics to get the job done (see also letters, page 20). That is a conclusion we vehemently oppose!

When we break one commandment we are guilty of all. Would it be right to kill a border guard, or to bribe a customs agent with sexual favors, to smuggle Bibles?

The lie told by Rahab, often appealed to as a precedent for immoral action in a good cause, is nowhere commended in Scripture. Rahab is lauded in the New Testament for receiving the spies and giving them directions, not for deceiving the king. And let it not be lost on us that she is identified as a harlot in both Hebrews and James.

We oppose the smuggling of Bibles or anything else because smuggling by definition entails deception. “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid” (Rom. 6:1). We heartily endorse the importation of Bibles into Communist countries by any means that does not oblige us to disobey God’s commandments.

On Mountain-Moving

We all recognize the importance of faith in Christian experience, yet few of us try to know much about it. We believe the words of Paul to the Galatians that “the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love,” and we analyze love a great deal these days. But how many of us have gotten beyond bland definitions of faith? We talk a lot about faith, but to what extent do we really try to understand its nature and meaning?

To begin with, we might take an excursion into the Gospels for a better look at those passages in which Christ talks about the kind of faith that can move mountains. In Matthew 17, for example, the disciples are told that even a minimum measure of faith (“faith as a grain of mustard seed”) will enable them to effect a major geographical change. Did he mean this literally, or was he, as some commentators hold, using hyperbole? The context of a similar statement Jesus made in connection with the incident involving the barren fig tree suggests a literal interpretation.

We tend to think about such statements today in terms of their sheer technical possibilities. By doing this we may lose something of the significance of what Jesus was trying to put across. True, what is impossible for men is possible for God. But mountain-moving, though an extremely large task, is not impossible. All that is needed is enough time and manpower. The people of the first century could have done it—some of them may have known about what was entailed in the erection of the mammoth pyramids, and the shifting of a mountain is not really out of that league.

Maybe what Jesus was really getting at was how enough people could be motivated to move a mountain!

Consider another herculean task, the one facing the early church after the ascension of Jesus. Here is a tiny band of ignorant people commissioned to proclaim the Gospel so that it would leave its mark upon the world as nothing else ever had. What a job!

The miraculous thing is that it was accomplished. Christianity transformed human culture. Jesus came to be recognized as the focal point of history. Adherents of the Church exercised vast power over the world.

Judging by its performance, the early Church must have understood the concept of faith a lot better than we do. They certainly did a lot more with it. We desperately need to devote more time in prayer and study so as to discover more clearly the potential as well as the nature of faith and its relation to the course of human events.

Take a moment to consider your church and the community it serves. How many children are retarded to some degree? Of what worth do you consider them? Are they not persons created in the image of God, equally as important as the normal child? Wouldn’t you like to help them learn as much about their Creator as they are capable of learning? Wouldn’t you like to accept and love what is sometimes an unlovely child and show his parents what Christian love really is?

If you decide that an MR program is needed, you then must convince the staff and congregation of this. There are at least these reasons for establishing a program for the mentally retarded:

1. To help the parents. Such a program shows to the parents the love and concern that all Christians should show to one another. These parents may feel overworked, anxious, guilt-ridden; the MR program gives them a chance to relax, freed for a while from the responsibility of caring for the child (this may be especially true for parents of children in the lower functional range). It also enables them to attend the regular church service.

2. To provide a Christian education for the retarded child. Christ came for all, not merely for the intellectually adequate. The MR child should have an opportunity to develop a relation with Christ to his fullest capacity.

3. To aid the MR child in social adjustment. What better place is there for him to learn self-control and other needed lessons in social behavior than in an accepted, loving Christian environment?

Many people, both children and adults, are afraid of the mentally retarded persons. Fear may lead to ridicule. The congregation, young and old alike, should have the problem of mental retardation explained to them, as well as the impact mental retardation has on families.

Following this, a committee of interested people should survey the community to determine the number of mentally retarded children, their levels of retardation, locations of their homes, and so on. Perhaps they will also be asked to find out whether other local churches are interested in cooperating in the program.

Once a definite decision has been made to set up classes for the MR and the money has been appropriated, the community should be made aware of the program. As soon as the parents have been identified, they should be visited by the members of the committee.

I feel that whenever possible the MR child should be taken into the normal Sunday-school class. He is likely to look younger than his age and be able to fit in quite easily with a younger group of children. This procedure will test the success of your efforts to help the congregation understand mental retardation. If you have succeeded, the students and teacher will receive the MR child lovingly into the class. Some qualified person should be available as a resource person for teachers of the normal classes in which MR children have been placed.

If there are MR children who by size, functional level, or frustration level cannot fit into normal classes, one or more special classes should be established. Such a class should be kept small—fewer than ten, in my opinion, with a teacher or assistant for every two or three pupils.

Concordia Publishing House has a leadership training series for teachers of the MR. Also, accompanying this article is a list of fourteen books, any of which will be found helpful.

During the teacher training, have one or more people who work with the retarded come in to tell about the joys and frustrations of their work. Present a realistic picture to the potential teachers, for the work will be difficult and very demanding, though extremely rewarding. Discuss the fruits of the Spirit that are essential for this work—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Have the staff examine available materials and explore methods of adapting regular Sunday-school materials. Brainstorming will lead to numerous ideas for making needed materials that can’t be purchased.

After classes have begun, continue to check on the teachers. Encourage them—they will need it. It’s highly possible that you will have misassigned one or more students or teachers; be sure to keep the program flexible so that changes can easily be made.—VARINA S. FLORENCE, student, M.A. program in Christian education, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois.

Bibliography

BAUER, E. CHARLES, Retarded Children Are People, Bruce, 1964.

BOGARDUS, LADONNA, Christian Education For Retarded Children and Youth, Abingdon, 1963.

BREITENBECK, G., For Parents of Retarded Children, Redemptorist Fathers, 1960.

BREITENBECK, G., For Teachers of Retarded Children, Redemptorist Fathers, n.d.

BUTLER, SCHUYLER V., An Analysis of Educable Mentally Handicapped and Their Role in Church Education, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, 1972.

HAHN, HANS R., and RAASCH, WERNER H., Helping the Retarded to Know God, Concordia, 1969.

JOHNSON, JERRY DON, and JONES, MARTHA, Learning to Know God, Bethany Press, 1966.

KIRK, SAMUEL A., Educating Exceptional Children, Houghton-Mifflin, 1962.

MARTIN, C. LEWIS, and TRAVIS, JOHN T., Exceptional Children: A Special Ministry, Judson, 1968.

PALMER, CHARLES E., The Church and the Exceptional Person, Abingdon, 1961.

PETERSEN, SIGURD D., Retarded Children: God’s Children, Westminster, 1960.

Religious Education For the Mentally Retarded, Kentucky Association for Retarded Children, n.d.

ROBINSON, HALBERT B., and ROBINSON, NANCY M., The Mentally Retarded Child, McGraw-Hill, 1965.

STUBBLEFIELD, HAROLD W., The Church’s Ministry in Mental Retardation, Broadman, 1965.

Hymns Of The Future

Astute observers of the publishing scene have noted that among non-fiction books, runaway best-sellers often fall into one of three categories: (1) guides to self-acceptance or psychological health (e.g., I’m OK, You’re OK); (2) frightening and yet somehow reassuring visions of the future (e.g., Future Shock); (3) occult and fringe religious phenomena (The Exorcist). Orthodox Christian publishers, of course, have scruples about producing for the occult/fringe market (3), and so naturally their efforts tend to center on categories (1) and (2)—for example, The Kink and I and The Late Great Planet Earth.

For decades there has been very little creative innovation in the field that long was the second bread-and-butter item for Christian publishers (after Bibles), namely, hymnbooks. Some would claim that nothing really new has been done in the hymnbook field since the extremely successful Kirchliches Gesangbuch (Cologne) of 1787. Music-publishing is always expensive, and new projects are always risky. The obvious solution is for a hymnbook to combine the two categories already so successful in religious publishing, (1) and (2) above.

The first creatively new venture of this type is soon to be released by Van der Zon (Grand Rapids): Future Hymns of Planet Earth. An example of the way in which imaginative new lyrics creatively combine personal psychological comfort with eschatological curiosity and reassurance about the unknown future is evident in a hymn chosen at random from the book’s hundreds of new selections, “Clock of Ages”:

1

Clock of ages, wound for me,

Let me time myself by thee.

May the frenzy and the fright

That disturb my sleep by night

Be dispelled by Scofield’s art,

We from Lindsey’s lore take heart.

2

Not the doctrines of the creed,

Can appease our psychic need;

Though our faith be firm as rock,

There would still be future shock.

We to prophecies must flee,

Analyzed ingeniously.

3

Harris’ plaintive, “I’m OK,”

Might have helped just yesterday;

But again our spirit fails,

Which promotes Zondervan’s sales.

Clock of ages, wound for me,

Let me time mself by thee.

In addition to the soon-to-be-beloved Future Hymns of Planet Earth, Van der Zon has announced its intention to offer new comfort to secularists too in the continuing political crisis with an all-purpose anthology of civil religious songs, Songs of the State. Details will be released as soon as available.

EUTYCHUS VI

Catching The Spirit

I would like to express appreciation for the excellent news article by David Kucharsky, “Americans United: Parting Shots” (Mar. 1). It spoke eloquently to both the challenge of taking advantage of the affirmation of church-state separation which is now coming from the court system and the contribution Americans United for Separation of Church and State has made to creating that climate. The leadership of Glenn L. Archer has been unusual. The gathering in Orlando was both the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. The task of finding the right executive leadership for this cause is a challenging one.

Those of us who serve on the board of the organization are committed to continuing a vigilant posture concerning our liberties and a rejection of bigotry as a base for our defense for liberty. Your article caught that spirit very well.

JIMMY R. ALLEN

President

Americans United for Separation of Church and State

San Antonio, Tex.

Holding Back

In your editorial of the March 1 issue you call “Bible smugglers” deceivers. By your admonition to Christians to obey first and foremost all of Caesar’s laws you touched on an interesting subject. In the Nuremberg trials people were condemned to death for obeying Caesar’s law; they had not listened to their conscience nor to God’s commandments. No doubt, you agree that there is a limit to our obedience to Caesar, namely, when it is contrary to God’s commandments. Where this limit lies is up to the individual’s conscience and not to rules set by Caesar or some denominational bureaucrat. “Go ye into all the world …!” is one of God’s most urgent commandments. In Paul’s time the only way to preach was by word of mouth. I wonder if he would have held back with Bibles and tracts.

WALTER E. BUEHLER

Issaquah, Wash.

Smugglers may be deceivers, but seemingly the end justified the means for Rahab the harlot. She hid the spies (Josh. 2:4) and gave inaccurate information to their pursuers to the glory of God. Her name is on the honor roll of the faithful (Heb. 11:31).

HORACE H. MOHLER

Dayton, Ohio

When the Lord Jesus Christ said, “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations …” he did not add the qualification, “If the government officials permit.” The church had not been in existence many days when the rulers of the temple, the priests, the captain of the temple, the elders, and the scribes sought to prevent them from preaching in the name of Jesus, and ordered them to discontinue. Of course they refused. And from that beginning to our present time, the Word and true worship of God have both been unpopular in various parts of the world to the extent of extreme brutality to the believers as well as death itself.… You speak of taking the Bible into Communist lands legally, and I do not believe this is either possible or actually going on.

JAMES V. MORRIS

Van Nuys, Calif.

Your recent editorial shows ignorance and misinformation concerning Soviet policy with regard to religious freedom. The Communist countries constitutionally guarantee religious freedom to their subjects including the right to own religious material, especially Bibles. When customs agents confiscate Bibles at borders or declare them contraband, it is they who are breaking the letter and spirit of their law. It is unfortunate that clandestine transfer of Bibles into Communist countries has been termed “smuggling,” a term implying breaking of a law when such is not the case at all. If we were to follow your argument to its logical conclusion, members of the underground church in Communist countries should be called deceivers and rebels for disobeying a clearly stated (but, incidentally, not written) injunction prohibiting Christians from gathering together for study or worship outside a state-designated building, and at state-designated hours!

From first-hand experience (having carried Bibles into Soviet Armenia myself) I also happen to know that so-called legally sent Bibles into the Soviet Union seldom, if ever, get into the right hands. You may be interested to know that Soviet countries are finding the printing of Bibles within the Soviet borders a lucrative business, not because they sell them to their Bible-starved citizens, but they export them for valuable foreign currency exchange.

KENELL J. TOURYAN

Albuquerque, N. Mex.

Multiples Boom

Douglas Stave struck at the core of one of the greatest crises in the local church today in his article “Coming Boom: Paraministry” (Minister’s Workshop, March 15). In fact, the boom is already here. I have been a minister of Christian education in the local church for eighteen years, and a week rarely passes in which I do not have a contact from one or more churches as to where they might obtain a director of Christian education, youth director, children’s director, and so on. I trust that the seminaries, Christian liberal arts colleges, and Bible colleges will heed his admonition. If not, I fear that the local church is going to suffer severely in coming years from a lack of trained ministers to carry on a multiple ministry through the local church.

RAY SYRSTAD

Minister of Education

First Baptist Church of Lakewood

Long Beach, Calif.

As an involved layman, I found “Coming Boom: Paraministry” very interesting in its concept. However, Mr. Stave appears to suffer from a serious case of short-sightedness with regard to abilities or the interests of the layperson within the church. He states, “The associate … agrees that teaching and preaching from the pulpit are of tremendous importance, but he knows that administering and organizing other activities in the church are very important too.” His implication is that the pastor and his professional associates have as their innate gifts the gift of preaching, teaching, or administrating, when in fact, God may have endowed one or more of the laypersons in the congregation with some of those gifts. Never before in the history of the church have laypersons been presented with the tools with which to minister to other persons. Two examples are: first, Regent College in Vancouver, B. C., whose curriculum is geared especially towards training the layperson; and, second, the use of students (who are not college or seminary graduates) within the Inter-Varsity movement on college campuses. Such people would be rather discouraged ministering in the tasks that are left over after the professionals take those that Mr. Stave suggests.

TIMOTHY K. BOWMAN

Seattle, Wash.

A Day S Difference

I read “The Day He Died” with interest (March 29). The new publication mentioned by Roger Rusk entitled New and Full Moons by Herman H. Goldstine is a welcome tool. However, I disagree with Mr. Rusk’s conclusion that the crucifixion occurred on Thursday, April 6, A.D. 30. [Instead] I believe the crucifixion was on a Friday for the following two basic reasons. First, all the Gospels state that the day following crucifixion was the Sabbath (Matt. 28:1; Mark 15:42; Luke 23:56; John 19:31). Second, the Gospels indicate that the visit of the women to the tomb was on the day after the Sabbath—the first day of the week, namely, Sunday (Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:2; Luke 24:1; John 20:1). I feel that Rusk’s theory is unacceptable on three grounds. First, he builds his theory on the basis of one verse that is troublesome to the Friday view, namely, Matthew 12:40: “The Son of Man shall be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights.” Let alone the Jewish custom to count parts of days as whole days, Rusk leaves out the other important Scriptures, namely (1) 1 Corinthians 15:4, where He rose on the third and not the fourth day; (2) John 2:19–22, where Jesus spoke of the temple being destroyed and raised up in three days, not on the fourth day; (3) although the Pharisees stated that Jesus said that he would rise in three days (Matt. 27:63), Pilate granted the Pharisees’ request by securing the sepulcher until the third day, not the fourth day. Thus a Friday crucifixion fits better with the evidence. Second, Rusk needs to give an unnatural meaning to the phrase “day of preparation” as being the preparation for the Passover, but if one looks in Mark 15:42 it states: “And when the evening had come, because it was the day of preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath.” Other Scriptures would point to the day of preparation as being Friday (Matt. 27:62; Luke 23:54; John 19:14, 31, 42) as well as Josephus (Ant. xvi. 6. 2 [163]). Third, to conclude, as Rusk does, that since Nisan 15 was considered a day of convocation and hence a Sabbath is to beg the question. There is no evidence that Nisan 15 was called a Sabbath. Furthermore, to assume that since Nisan 15 was a Sabbath which occurred on Friday in A.D. 30, and hence there were two Sabbaths back to back (Friday Passover Sabbath and Saturday, the regular Sabbath) is substantiated by the plural use of Sabbath in the Greek in Matthew 28:1 is fallacious reasoning. The term Sabbath is frequently (one-third of all of its New Testament occurrences) in the plural form in the New Testament when only one day is in view (cf. Matt. 12:1–12 where both the singular and the plural forms are used—especially v. 8).

HAROLD W. HOEHNER

Associate Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis

Dallas Theological Seminary

Dallas, Tex.

ERRATUM

In a March 15 news story, “William Barclay: Making It Interesting,” we incorrectly reported that the American Summer Institute in St. Andrews (Scotland) was sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation. It is independent.

Something There Is That Doesn’t Love A Wall

The Liberated Wailing Wall: translated—a group of talented young Jewish believers in Christ telling of God’s freedom through song and dance.

Sponsored by Hineni Ministries, Moishe Rosen’s new organization working with Jews, the Liberated Wailing Wall just finished touring the East Coast. The six-member folk-rock group visited Annapolis and Baltimore, Maryland, and Boston, Massachusetts, averaging 300 people per concert. About 400, half of them Jewish, attended the Baltimore concert, which benefited the Israeli Emergency Relief Fund to the tune of over $200.

At the last minute a concert at Brooklyn College, New York, was canceled by the sponsoring Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship because of threats from a vocal Jewish minority. Members of the Wall expressed regret over the cancellation: they often are subjected to threats, they said, and view them as an occupational hazard.

Although the Wall performed in Baltimore for a good Jewish cause, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) found the message of song and dance less than Jewish. Rhythms and melodies feel and sound Jewish, but lyrics like the following were disturbing to some of the Jewish hearers:

As God spoke to our fathers, He’s speaking to their children; He spoke then through the prophets, now He’s speaking through his Son. In Torah and Navi’im, the eye of faith can see Him; if you accept Yeshua, new life will have begun.

Throughout the tour the group was picketed, cursed, and screamed at. In Baltimore several members of the JDL tried to prevent people from entering Northwestern High School to attend the concert. A few Hasidic Jews talked and glared throughout the performance. One of them was invited to help count the money, but the Jews wanted nothing to do with it.

After a prayer for the offering—the traditional Aaronic benediction—a member of the JDL threw eggs and knocked over a speaker, which brought a security guard and later five Baltimore City police cars to cart the teenager off to the police station. (The audience asked the guard not to hurt the boy.) Another “Jew for Judaism” tried to pass out anti-Christian pamphlets, but the security guard stopped him. Some damage was done to the Liberated Wailing Wall’s bus. Beth Sar Shalom, a mission fellowship related to the American Board of Missions to the Jews, sponsored the concert, rented the auditorium, and paid for the security police and work crew.

The minor disturbances did not diminish the enthusiasm of either performers or audience. The concert followed the basic format of the team’s first recording. Lyrics were taken from Psalms and Old Testament prophets such as Isaiah. Stuart Dauermann, who has a degree from Manhattan School of Music, writes most of the Wall’s songs, plays the piano for the group, and is the only member involved full time in music. All the members are in their twenties.

Miriam Nadler spearheads the Wall’s operation. She is a Gentile—the other five members are Jewish—who studied Jewish music for two years in New York and spent over a year in school in Jerusalem. Her husband, Sam, a former dope dealer, handles the group’s evangelistic endeavors, and decides what rallies or concerts to give and where and when the group sings on campuses and street corners. Naomi Green works as a secretary for Hineni Ministries when she is not performing with the group. The other male member of the group, Barry Ellegant, who chants the benediction in Hebrew at the end of the concert, once taught chemistry in a Chicago high school. Steffi Geiser, the group’s sparkplug and initial organizer, serves as art director for Jews for Jesus. She brings life to the Wall’s performances and exhibits much professional showmanship.

According to Moishe Rosen, head of Hineni Ministries, members of the Wall work hard at their music and are committed to it as a means to an end—communication of the Gospel. The group now spends about seven months of the year traveling and singing to Jews about Jesus. Hineni Ministries also is putting together a drama group similar to the Liberated Wailing Wall.

The approach to the Gospel is hardly hard-sell evangelism. The group gives no altar calls but invites those with questions to speak with a group member after the concert. The Wall sings God’s prophecies for a Messiah and states, softly yet strongly, that the Messiah is Jesus.

The Wall not only presents the Gospel in a quiet, entertaining fashion but also explains the problems of being a Jew for Jesus. “Tradition,” one of the group’s best numbers (it is not on the record, unfortunately), describes what happens when a Jew accepts Jesus. Many of the scriptural songs are sung in both Hebrew and English. Even Jews who object to the message admit that the group is authentically Jewish, something the six members strive for. They use amplified folk guitars, tambourine, recorders, piano, finger bells, and a dunbeck, a Jewish drum, as well as close vocal harmonizations.

During the Wall’s latest tour several Jews accepted Jesus as Messiah, said Sam Nadler. Some Gentiles did, as well. Other Jews who heard about Jesus for the first time came back a second time to find out more about him. Although Dan Rigney, Beth Sar Shalom’s minister, knew of no one who accepted Jesus after the Baltimore concert, the team talked to many interested people and answered questions.

The final song of the program, “Hineni,” explains the call of the Wall: “Hineni means I’m ready, Lord. Hineni means I’ll go.” The group sings the message that Jesus and Jewishness are not mutually exclusive and in doing so provides Gentile Christians with much to think about. The song “Jesus’ Holy Name” sums up the message:

I saw Him mourn when Jewish blood was spilled in Jesus’ Holy Name. I knew Jesus before He was a Gentile.… But when the Gentile branches all grew numerous and full, I wondered, would my people understand? I saw Him mourn when synagogues were burned in Jesus’ Holy Name. And I read in magazines and books in stores and stands today how many of my people understand. And ears have heard the word of God and eyes can finally see that Jewishness and Christ go hand in hand.

God’s people have often been deceived by the smiles of their enemies. In the days of Esther, Haman had ten sons who rose up after him to betray the righteous (all ten of the sons were subsequently slain). Joshua was deceived by enemies from Gibeon who disguised themselves as friends. The believers at Jerusalem were no doubt impressed when Ananias and Sapphira presented their offering to the treasurer, but Peter’s discernment showed how wrong they were. The Apostle Paul contended against the Galatian Judaizers with the sanctified tactic of a Metternich and the singlemindedness of a Ghurka commando, and purporting to follow Paul in opposing all such legalism today is a nationwide group known as the Metropolitan Community Church, a church for practicing hom*osexuals.

There are more than twenty MCC congregations across the United States. The founder and present pastor of the Los Angeles church, the Reverend Troy Perry, appeared last summer on a popular television talk show. In that broadcast Perry spent most of his time arguing for the dignity of the practicing hom*osexual. Although his preaching appears to emphasize a conservative interpretation of the Pauline Gospel, the theme invariably distinguishes not between saved and unsaved or churched and unchurched but between “gay” and “straight.” Doctrinally, the church describes itself securely within the orthodox Christian tradition, and MCC elders have emphasized that they are “neither Catholic nor Protestant, just Christian.” What they have communicated to me is that they are more interested in the feelings of sinners than in the clear guidelines of God’s Word; they are more concerned with making hom*osexuals feel accepted as they are than with pointing them to the Saviour.

Unfortunately, most examinations have failed to reckon adequately with the hair-splitting exegesis of MCC leaders, who welcome objections from those who think simply quoting a few verses will win the argument. The following paragraphs are taken from an unsigned, unpublished pamphlet distributed by the MCC in Chicago. I hope my replies will clarify some of the problems, particularly for those Christians who are genuinely seeking the answers from God’s Word.

MCC: On Sodom: “Genesis 18:16–19:11 probably means only that the men of Sodom were anxious to interrogate the strangers to find out if they were spies;—very likely the story does not refer to hom*osexuality at all.… The sin involved was not hom*osexuality but gang-rape.”

Reply: If Lot thought the only sin involved was gang rape, why did he offer the men of Sodom his daughters? Could it be he understood them well enough to know that his daughters wouldn’t be raped at all? A basic hermeneutic principle is to understand the meaning of the passage in light of the reaction of those present in the account. Lot clearly felt the Sodomites wanted to “know” the angels in the same sense that he offered them his daughters. The basic kal form of the Hebrew yāḏa includes the meaning “to know carnally.”

MCC: “To those who insist that the destruction of these cities was due to sexual sins, we can only offer the testimony of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, who state quite clearly that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed for pride, lack of concern for the poor, etc. (Ez. 16:48–50; Is. 1:10–17; 3:8–9; Jer. 23:12–14).”

Reply: The testimony of these three prophets corroborates the traditional understanding of the reasons for Sodom’s demise. In each of the four passages listed, reference is made to unspecified wicked works in Sodom in addition to pride “etc.” Indeed, the prophets seem unwilling to define the “et cetera” for the reason suggested in Ephesians 5:12, where the Apostle, referring to the “works of darkness,” says it is a shame to speak of them! In any case, the prophets speak for themselves. Isaiah 1:13 and Ezekiel 16:50 refer to the Sodomites “committing abomination.” The Kittel Bible has four separate words for abomination in Hebrew, and the one used in these passages has unique to it the idea of the inherent repulsiveness of the act to God. What is described is repulsive and abhorrent to God. It is interesting to note that this word for abomination, tōeva, is also found in Leviticus in the command to abstain from lying with mankind as with womankind; “it is abomination” (18:22). Every reference to Sodom in the prophets and the New Testament refers to the wicked behavior associated with it, which did not bear further elaboration. “Their doings are against the Lord.… They declare their sin like Sodom” (Isa. 3:8, 9; also cf. 2 Pet. 2:1–9).

MCC: “Romans 1:26–28 is only about a particular type of hom*osexual activity and in no way condemns or proscribes the sexual activity of the twentieth century person who is exclusively hom*osexual. It is impossible for a hom*osexual to ‘leave’ the natural use of the opposite sex, because for him hom*osexuality is natural and heterosexuality unnatural.”

Reply: This is a very common argument among gay groups, and certainly the passage deserves a close look. Romans 1:26–28 goes into a detailed description of the para phusin (Gr., “against nature”) lust of the hom*osexual. Verse 25 refers to those who “exchange” the truth of God for a lie, and there follows a description of the “lustful” or “degrading” passions to which God gave them up. In Death in the City, Francis Schaeffer points out the unmistakable reference to hom*osexual practice in this passage and notes that the condition results as men turn from the truth. No one is born exclusively hom*osexual. Conditioning factors of many kinds create reactions and, because of the presence of sin, channel normal drives into para phusin expressions. But drives do not exchange natural functions for unnatural ones; people do. No matter what he may tell you, every exclusive hom*osexual at one time or another chose to conform his behavior to his desires. There is little difference between what Paul describes in Romans 1 and what the MCC is trying to elevate to a respectable level.

MCC: “hom*osexual love is not mentioned or condemned.…”

Reply: Their point here is that in our over-populated world there is room for two persons of the same sex to live together in a trust relationship based on “love.” The MCC is exactly right in saying that hom*osexual love is nowhere mentioned in Scripture; the Bible refers only to lust and degrading passion, as in Romans 1. What the MCC fails to say is that Scripture never approves any form of sexual love within a hom*osexual relationship. The polarity that brings people together God created to function only between a man and a woman.

The MCC encourages non-practicing hom*osexuals to express themselves by relating to one other member of their own sex. Seminars discuss such topics as how to find and hold a partner. Promiscuity and the “gay life” of bar-centered boozing and bed-hopping are discouraged, but hardly with the fervor of Paul’s treatment of fornication (1 Cor. 5).

The MCC criterion for valid Christian living is based totally upon experience and feelings, and through this humanistic determinism the MCC tries to explain what the Bible says about hom*osexuality. Although claiming to believe in the Bible as the Word of God, the MCC ignores the family base in Genesis and, finding no positive biblical references to hom*osexuality, suggests that the Bible is irrelevant to modern culture.

In fact, Scripture effectively refutes the heresy of the MCC. Paul wrote to Corinth to clarify the responsibility of the hom*osexual who has come to Jesus Christ for cleansing and pardon. He leaves no doubt that heterosexual marriage is the only provision for the human sexual drive. “Let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband” (1 Cor. 7:2). In the preceding chapter (6:9–11) he states that he is aware of the presence of converted hom*osexuals in the church and wants them to understand that they are not to degrade their bodies any more (6:18–20). He goes on encouraging them by mentioning in 7:20 and following that there is virtue and value in the gift of remaining single. Other Scriptures corroborate Paul’s injunctions: Proverbs 17:20; 19:3, and also 18:22. “He who finds a wife finds a good thing.…”

As Great High Priest our Lord yearns in abundant compassion over “the ignorant, and those out of the way” (Heb. 5:2). Let us not forget as Christians that the responsibility to demonstrate this compassion now rests with us. And to any who may be struggling with a burden that seems unreasonable, there is encouragement from Scripture: “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Ps. 84:11); also Matthew 19:12 and 29, along with Isaiah 56:4 and 5. Let each work out his own salvation. “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful” (1 Cor. 1:9).

What is our inspiring vision when we again set our minds to evangelize the world in our generation? It is that this troubled earth finally will see the Kingdom of God.

But what exactly do we mean if we speak of the Kingdom of God as the goal of evangelism? Do we think mainly of a spiritual event which takes place hiddenly in the hearts of men, or do we refer to a new order of the world? Would such a new world order become realized here and now, or do we see it as a future event, which we only can hope for? In which way can our evangelistic action contribute to the establishment of God’s Kingdom?

The purpose of this paper is first, in a number of propositions, to redefine on biblical grounds the nature of evangelism in relation to the Kingdom of God; second, to clarify this biblical concept over against its present-day distortions; and third, to indicate the practical consequences which follow for our evangelistic actions in the present situation.

1. The gospel which Jesus preached to the Jews was the “glad tidings” to them as it announced the fulfillment of Israel’s central hope, the final establishment of God’s messianic rule.

The proclamation of the Kingdom of God (the Kingdom of Heaven) forms the heart of the evangelistic ministry of Jesus (Matt. 4:17) and his apostles. Jesus points to the Kingdom as the very reason for his coming: “I must evangelize about the Kingdom of God in the other cities also; for I was sent for this purpose” (Luke 4:43).

Why did Jesus choose this idea of God’s Kingdom as his favorite theme? The German scholar Wilhelm Bousset has rightly stated: “The sum total of everything which Israel expected of the future was the Kingdom of God.” Jesus, therefore, did not introduce a new idea when speaking about the Kingdom. Rather, he referred to the most important concept of Israel’s belief and hope. The Old Testament had left the Jews with one basic problem. On the one hand, Israel had always believed and confessed that her God is already the sovereign ruler over his whole creation. More especially he had chosen Israel to participate in his lordship by becoming a kingdom of priests among all nations (Exod. 19:5–6). On the other hand, Israel also experienced that the nations did not recognize God’s rule. At times God did not even seem to be able to protect his own people from the attacks of its heathen enemies. Was God a king without a kingdom?

The answer which was given to Israel through the prophets was this: It is on account of Israel’s own disobedience against God’s holy commandments that the special Covenant was broken. Therefore God has delivered the Israelites into the hands of the Gentile nations. But God does not give up his intention to make the whole earth the place of his glory and to use Israel to establish his rulership over all nations. The day will come when God again will demonstrate his power and manifest himself as the supreme king of the earth. He will interfere into the course of history and change the lot of his people. This will be on the so-called Day of the Lord. The Day of the Lord stands for the great series of eschatological events, where God finally will restore his people Israel both spiritually and physically. God will pour out his spirit on his people to bring about a spiritual regeneration (Ezek. 37:9–10; 39:29; Joel 2:28–29; Zech. 12:10). He will send the Messiah to be the agent of salvation. Through him God will establish his reign of peace on Mount Zion. This rule will extend to all nations on earth (Isa. 2:1–5; 9:1–7; 11:1–16). Voluntarily the kings will come to Jerusalem to worship the God of Israel and to accept his laws. And thus they will live in peace, justice, and prosperity. This is what the word “Malkut Jaweh,” i.e., the Kingdom of the Lord, meant to the Israelites.

And now we make two important observations:

The first observation is that it is exactly in connection with the prophetic announcement of the “Day of the Lord” where the concept of evangelism is born already in Old Testament times. The word “evangelize” is used for the first time in its typically biblical meaning in the fifty-second and the sixty-first chapters of Isaiah. The prophet receives a vision which he is urged to proclaim to his people. He sees the Lord return to Zion and take up his universal reign (Isa. 52:7–8). The office of the evangelist himself assumes messianic character. He becomes spiritually identified with the expected Messiah, whose ministry again is described as a prophetic function. It is a marvelous message of eschatological salvation which forms the content of this evangelism: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to evangelize [i.e. to bring good tidings to] the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, … to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, the day of vengeance of our Lord; to comfort all who mourn” (Isa. 61:1–2).

Our second observation is this: The same prophetic understanding of evangelism as announcing the Kingdom of God breaking in liberatingly into history is taken up in the New Testament Gospels again. But there are some new elements in the New Testament understanding of the kingdom. Jesus himself called the new elements the mysteries (or secrets) of the kingdom (Matt. 13:11), which he unfolded in his own teaching.

2. The Kingdom which is proclaimed in New Testament evangelism is centered in Jesus Christ.

In the first sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth, Jesus identifies himself with the messianic prophet of Isaiah 61:1. “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord anointed me to evangelize the afflicted.” His startling comment on this famous text is: “Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing!”

This does not mean that the Kingdom as it was expected so anxiously by the Jews is already totally established by the work of Jesus (realized eschatology). There is not that drastic change in history and nature yet which will mark the shalom, the peace, of the messianic kingdom. But his proclamation and his works demonstrate vital elements of it. They are not the Kingdom in full, but they are signs which point to Jesus himself as the bringer of this kingdom. In fact, he is the most important and central element of the kingdom. All the gifts of the messianic Kingdom are contained in the person of Jesus Christ and mediated through his messianic ministry. It is a ministry rather different from the spectacular political expectations of the contemporary Jews, especially of the Pharisees and the Zealots, for it culminates in the vicarious death of the Messiah (Matt. 16:21–27). This appears scandalous even to his own disciples, although it was already predicted in the Servant Songs of Isaiah (especially chapter 53). But this is the peculiar way in which the Kingdom of God was to be ushered in according to the plan of God.

Therefore all evangelism which is carried out by the apostles and the early Church is Christ-centered. In fact, it has rightly been observed that in the writings of Paul and John, the very place which Jesus in his evangelism gave to the kingdom is now filled by Jesus himself (2 Cor. 1:20). It is Christ’s coming, his atoning death, his victorious resurrection, and his glorious return which now form the main pillar of evangelistic preaching to both the Jews and the Gentiles. “For Jews demand signs and Greeks wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor. 1:22).

Christ must, therefore, remain the center of our evangelism as well. And it must be the authentic Christ, as he is proclaimed and taught in the apostolic writings of the New Testament.

The great danger in the churches’ mission today is that they reverse God’s way from the Old to the New Testament. The Old Testament descriptions of the gifts of the Kingdom, liberation and eschatological “shalom,” are rediscovered. But often they are isolated from Christ as the bringer and the Lord of the Kingdom and from the way in which he accomplished the restoration of God’s rule over men. This is the nature of a post-Christian ideology. It is shocking to discover how today some theologians and church leaders even draw parallels between New Testament salvation and that salvation which is brought or promised by present-day ideologies and religions. Jesus, as far as he still is referred to by them, is reduced to the type of liberator who from Cyrus to Mao Tse-tung has many important parallels. This is a terrible distortion of the biblical Gospel of the kingdom. For even if the Kingdom as promised by the prophets were already realized visibly, it would be of no avail to us, if Jesus were not to be found in it (Ps. 73:25).

3. Christian evangelism preaches a kingdom that is realized now by spiritual regeneration.

The second distinct mark in the New Testament understanding of the Kingdom is that its deepest nature is spiritual. This does not renounce the expectation that it one day also will come with visible force, “with power and great glory” (Matt. 24:30), and that it will reshape the whole physical world as well. But its basic structure is not physical (Rom. 14:17). We may define the New Testament understanding of the Kingdom as follows: The Kingdom of God is God’s redeeming Lordship successively winning such liberating power over the hearts of men that their lives and thereby finally the whole creation (Rom. 8:21) become transformed into childlike harmony with his divine will.

This is the reason why the Kingdom of God could never be established by political action. And since sinful man by nature is opposed to the will of God, it cannot even be brought about by moral education. The acknowledgment of God’s rule presupposes a miraculous change of heart which can be achieved only by an intervention of God himself.

At the cross of Jesus Christ, God has made peace between the sinful world and himself. Through the gifts of the Holy Spirit poured out on the day of Pentecost and henceforth bestowed on each repentant believer (Acts 2:38), God makes it possible for men to accept his offer of reconciliation and to live a victorious new life in childlike communion with God (Rom. 8:1–27).

The invitation to receive this wonderful offer is the basic function of Christian evangelism. The evangelist on the commission of Christ himself offers God’s grace to a mankind whose essential misery is its righteous condemnation by God (2 Cor. 5:17–21). And those who aided by the Holy Spirit accept the message of reconciliation are already entering the Kingdom of God (Matt. 10:15; 21:31). Having become members of the invisible Kingdom of grace now, they will, if they endure, most surely be partakers in the messianic rule when the Kingdom comes in power and glory.

This spiritual nature of the Kingdom has always been stressed by evangelicals, even in view of the demands for its social realization. The suffering under the injustice and oppression in the present state of world affairs and the cry for liberation and peace are needs which burn in the hearts of conscientious people at all times and in all cultures. In response to this, new religions and ideologies have emerged, and social and political movements for drastic changes in society have been founded. Today the quest for total renewal is resounding with even greater vigor than before. Some churches are responding to it through so-called church-renewal movements. But the crucial question is: “Renewal which way?” Is it through a return to the word of God or through group dynamics and ideological indoctrination?

More and more influential Christians today are inclined to side with the Marxists, who believe that the reason for all oppression and violence is to be found in the economic laws inherent in our present capitalistic system and the wrong distribution of power in the established world society, especially in Europe and North America. Revolutionary change of all social and political structures would then be the answer. In Bangkok 1973 even the churches were called upon to become “renewed” by ridding themselves of the “captivity of power in the North Atlantic Community.”

Evangelicals will agree that the concentration of executive power and finances can corrupt. Far too often they have not been aware of the social and political side of moral evil and its institutional perpetuation. But the basic fallacy of Marxism and any other kind of humanistic ideology of salvation is that it believes in the inherent goodness of human nature. Therefore the results accomplished by such types of revolutionary renewal are very often the appearance of the same selfish and heartless oppression now shifted into the hands of the revolutionaries of yesterday.

The “renewal” which God has to offer is a far more radical one. It is the renewal of our mind by being regenerated and transformed to the mind of Jesus Christ (Rom. 12:2). This offer by far exceeds all other human solutions. This offer is made in evangelism. The total ministry of Jesus consisted in teaching, evangelizing, and healing (Matt. 5:23; 9:35; 10:7–8). Evangelism has one specific function in this total missionary ministry: it is decisively to ignite the desire for new life in Christ. But as soon as this life is born, it will express itself in the works of love (Gal. 5:6). We should never allow ourselves to distrust the worth of God’s offer through our evangelistic ministry, and secretly exchange our birthright for an ideological pottage of lentils.

Neither should it be argued that such spiritual renewal remains merely internal or individualistic. Perhaps sometimes evangelicals have been tempted to reduce the gifts of renewal to this dimension. But this is a caricature of the true evangelical understanding of the gifts of the Kingdom. If a man is really renewed in Christ, this renewal will start internally in him. But if this new spiritual life develops in a healthy way, it will make itself felt in all spheres of a man’s life and social involvement. The inter-human relations of the Christians are the links between personal regeneration and the transformation of society through the forces of the Kingdom (Matt. 5:13–16). Truly regenerated Christians are better citizens. For their Christian life also generates in them a new spontaneousness and creativity in moral action, a new responsibility in public positions entrusted to them, and the desire to bring about reconciliation, solidarity, and mutual participation. This has already been proved many times in history. I am thinking of the evangelical contribution to the abolition of slavery and the social reforms for the protection of widows and orphans, or the institution of the diaconate of charity.

What practical conclusions should we draw from this insight? There are two:

First, the offer of regenerating spiritual power is to be authenticated by the messenger’s own spiritual life. The whole Christian community needs a new awakening and strengthening of its life by the Holy Spirit. Only then can we be joyful witnesses of the good news of salvation. The Holy Spirit came into our hearts when we were born again, but often we block his working by disobeying God and by neglecting to foster our spiritual lives. Such an inner blockage is broken when the word of God preached to us drives us to repentance and new dedication. Let us, therefore, conduct “missions to missions.” Small cells and regular gatherings like the Keswick Conferences which concentrate on the task of reviving the worker’s inner life by Bible messages, counseling, and prayer should be encouraged.

Secondly, evangelical missions ought to develop convincing models of social and political involvement which are generated and directed by Christ’s redeeming love. The personal contact with the people with whom we share the new life will unveil both their spiritual and their bodily needs. If we approach the latter ones, we should show that the physical, social, economic and political problems, too, are rooted in fallen man’s thirst for God as the fountain of life. On the other hand, true evangelism will show that no single aspect of human life and suffering lies outside the concern of Christ and his Church. Here the doctrine of the different gifts and assignments of the members of Christ’s body should be developed practically. This leads us to our next biblical proposition:

4. Evangelism leads into the Church as the new messianic community of the Kingdom.

One of the intricate questions of New Testament theology is the relation between the Kingdom of God and the Church. There are two extremes in answering this question. The high-church tradition on the one side has tended to equate the Kingdom with the Church. Everything a mission does should contribute to establishing and developing the Church. On the other side there are those liberal theologians who with Loisy maintain that Jesus was so obsessed by the belief in the imminent coming of the Kingdom that he never intended to establish a church.

The biblical answer refutes both of these views. The message of the Kingdom of God is not identical with the doctrine of the Church, nor does it exclude it. The truth is that the messianic Kingdom presupposes a messianic community. It is the specific people of God, destined to exercise the messianic ministry to the rest of the nations.

The Church is not identical with the Kingdom of God. But she is the transitory communal form of it in the present age, and through his Church Christ exercises a most important ministry towards the visible coming of the Kingdom. She is the new Israel, the messianic community of the New Covenant: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2:9).

This is of tremendous importance for our understanding of evangelism. The goal of evangelism is not only to make individual believers. The goal of evangelism is to persuade these believers to be incorporated as responsible members into the Church as God’s messianic community. In the total task of mission, the work of evangelism is continued by the planting of local churches in each nation. Even as a small minority, such a church is to be regarded as the first fruit of Christ’s saving love for the whole people and shall, therefore, be established on a self-multiplying basis (church growth).

This brings us to the task of church education. The task of mission is not only to gather new converts into the churches but to help these churches to grow into their full maturity. This means both to develop the internal life of the church by deepening their spiritual knowledge and fellowship, and to relate the church to the needs of the environment. Bible classes, Bible schools, Christian academies and leadership training centers will have to fulfill a decisive role in educating Christians to become responsible members of their churches rather than sheep who simply are attended to.

New insistence on the role of the priesthood of all believers must not divert our concern for improving theological education for the ministry of the younger churches. Within the next ten years the process of complete nationalization of the ordinary ministry of Third World churches will have to be concluded. This means that they must have a fully indigenous leadership on all levels, shepherds and teachers, who are able to uphold, defend, and spread the Christian faith both in genuine continuity with the historic tradition and in relevant relation to the specific environment of these churches.

Just as evangelical frontiersmen a generation ago sought to refine fundamentalism’s inadequate response to modernism, so many young evangelicals today aim to move beyond neo-orthodoxy and institutional ecumenism by restating the evangelical alternative in a still more adequate way. Richard A. Quebedeaux, author of The Young Evangelicals (Harper & Row, scheduled for publication this month), calls their stance at one and the same time a “revolution in Orthodoxy” and “a thoroughly resurrected Christian Orthodoxy,” and thinks it may soon issue in a vigorous young evangelical movement. Whether or not this prognosis is accurate, their outlook—as Quebedeaux depicts it—will cheer and challenge liberal ecumenists, and delight and distress traditional evangelicals.

The young evangelicals credit their elder-statesmen with properly replying not simply to classic modernism but to neo-orthodoxy as the aggressive adversary-theology of the recent past. Neo-orthodoxy rejected the authority and inspiration of the Bible; moreover, its universalistic tendency sidestepped the conversion question, and accommodated evangelism to reinterpretation in categories of secular social change. Support of socialist programs by denominational and ecumenical agencies precipitated in addition a massive lay revolt, on the grounds that the social activists neither exhibited a biblical basis for their views nor truly represented their church constituencies; membership in non-evangelical churches consequently plummeted and lost social respectability. Evangelical churches meanwhile enjoyed substantial growth but, as the young evangelicals see it, tragically blunted their victory by “too many pat answers,” neglect of the social dimension of the Gospel, and costly compromises with American culture.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY has long encouraged a coordinated witness that would unify evangelicals as the largest segment of the American religious spectrum. But according to Quebedeaux, there are now at least four ideologically competitive subgroups: (1) separatist fundamentalism: e.g., Bob Jones, Carl McIntire; (2) open fundamentalism: Dallas Seminary, Moody Bible Institute, Talbot Seminary; (3) establishment evangelicalism: National Association of Evangelicals, Evangelical Foreign Missions Association, evangelical colleges and seminaries like Wheaton and Fuller, most Southern Baptists and Missouri Synod Lutherans, small to large contingents within ecumenically aligned denominations, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Campus Crusade, Youth for Christ (CHRISTIANITY TODAY is identified as the evangelical establishment’s periodical voice, but Billy Graham as its most prestigious leader); (4) the new evangelicalism: e.g., Edward John Carnell, George Ladd, David Moberg, Vernon Grounds.

Quebedeaux lists as marks of the “new evangelicalism” some trends pointed out by Donald Bloesch: a “fresh understanding” of the reliability and authority of Scripture; a reinterpretation of biblical infallibility and inerrancy and acceptance of higher criticism; emphasis on meaningful sanctification rather than on a legalistic code of conduct following the new birth; marked aversion to dispensationalism and detailed eschatological speculation; fresh interest in social involvement; and freer religious dialogue with non-evangelicals and even non-Christians. To these Quebedeaux adds “increasing friendliness to modern science” as evidenced in the “mounting acceptance of theistic evolution in some form.”

Since they know the modernist-fundamentalist controversy not from experience but only from their studies, the young evangelicals boast that they are “not hung up on it.” While they carry forward “new evangelical” emphases, their agenda includes also a translation of social concern into more concrete sacrificial action, more aggressive dialogue with both ecumenical and non-evangelical leaders, and other noteworthy items.

Quebedeaux concedes that it is difficult to fit the neo-Pentecostal charismatic renewal (Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman, Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, and others) neatly into his analysis, since its has participants in all four subdivisions and among non-evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics as well. But its emphasis on spiritual rather than organizational union, alongside a friendly attitude toward ecumenical structures with a reformist rather than separatist intention, assertedly coincides with the outlook of many young evangelicals. Like Michael Harper, however, they criticize the anti-intellectualism, pietism, elitism, and social detachment of many charismatic enthusiasts.

Despite the outward vigor of establishment evangelicalism—in contrast to declining liberal fortunes—attested by church growth, burgeoning seminary enrollments, expanding publishing houses, vigorous student movements, and eager funding of evangelistic and missionary causes, the young evangelicals are less than gratified. They contend that although the evangelical churches offer ultimate and authoritative answers to the search for meaning and purpose and proffer an inner spiritual reality that liberal churches neglect, they fall woefully short of full Christianity.

Many evangelical and fundamentalist churches converge in their legalistic approach to church attendance, Bible reading, stewardship. They impose on converts a code of do’s and don’ts that confuses cultural baggage with divine commands (in such matters as drinking, smoking, social dancing, gambling, theater-going, and dress), and young people who violate this code are considered unspiritual while influential adult church members are not disciplined for questionable business practices, divorce, and other compromises. They offer a prepackaged plan of Bible interpretation and program of eschatology, especially a dispensational view that, by insisting on the apostate nature of Christendom, requires a judgmental description of the universal Church solely in terms of personal relationships to Christ without a recognizable structural alternative. They consider the ministry to be the most acceptable vocation for Christians, and attendance at any but the “right” schools questionable. Ordination of women is resisted, though trained women are welcomed as educational directors (but paid less than their male counterparts). Worst of all, many evangelical establishment churches pose little challenge to the secular social or political values of their constituencies; they focus on the return of Christ in a way that promotes pessimism over the future of mankind, and subscribe to a strong individualism and an overriding social and political conservatism.

The uneasiness of the young evangelicals over the prevalent evangelical accommodation to the cultural status quo and the uneasiness of the evangelical establishment over the restiveness of the young evangelicals have encouraged a larger liaison by the latter with the ecumenical enterprise, though many are seriously seeking the renewal of evangelicalism. Quebedeaux has served in a united campus ministry at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and was a World Council of Churches Ecumenical Scholar in 1969–70 while at Oxford University researching the charismatic renewal. The young evangelicals see no reason to despair over a possible growth of evangelical influence in the ecumenically affiliated denominations and over a possible transformation for the better of ecumenical structures. They are ready to engage in conciliatory dialogue in quest of more representative evangelical representation in denominational and ecumenical hierarchies, ecumenical campus ministries, teaching posts in ecumenical colleges and seminaries, and editorial posts with ecumenical journals. Ecumenical conscience is thought to be compromised in that it defers to black and women’s minorities but continues to discriminate against the massive evangelical movement.

The judgment readily heaped on the evangelical establishment is sometimes harsh and even excessive; now and again it compromises the claim that “the Young Evangelicals are radical, because in condemning sin they insist on not condemning the sinner. These young men and women recognize the obligation always to accept, love, and forgive as a way of life” (The Young Evangelicals, p. 109; all succeeding page references are to this book). The young evangelicals assert that in evangelical churches “commitment to the Bible’s inspiration and authority has led almost to the worship of the biblical text” and that “conversion to Christ has not meant discipleship” (p. 69). Obviously such sweeping judgments will not evoke confidence and seem to reflect Quebedeaux’s unhappy experiences as a Baptist General Conference layman more than a comprehensive evangelical exposure.

But there is enough legitimacy in many of the complaints against establishment evangelicalism to encourage a spiritual revival. The search for spiritual unity has hardly made impressive progress, legalism still shadows the quest for ethical absolutes, social concern is either excessively cautious or reactionary, and pervasive anti-intellectualism retards development of a rational evangelical apologetic. Some of these concerns, one may comment, would hardly be offset in an ecumenical climate.

The appeal of younger evangelicals to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and to the trend of Fuller Theological Seminary is more understandable than the special appeal to C. S. Lewis for intellectual roots. The deferential characterization of Lewis as a “pipe-smoking, claret-drinking academician” curiously puts a premium upon cultural considerations that Quebedeaux disdains in the negative fundamentalist code. For all that, Lewis’s accommodation of biblical criticism (including fabulous elements in Scripture) and of evolutionary theory is prized as a fore-gleam of basic theological attitudes attractive to young evangelicals. Bonhoeffer is valued especially for his profound understanding of the need and cost of discipleship, as against cheap grace; this is not critically related, however, to his revolutionary underground determination to kill Hitler in the name of Christian love. Fuller Seminary is heralded for building “a truly revolutionary biblical Orthodoxy” (p. 69), and commended for its contributions to the notion of “the complete reliability of Scripture” as meaning something “wider and richer … than infallibility and inerrancy” (p. 76).

A deep criticism young evangelicals make of establishment evangelicals is that they proclaim the slogan “new persons will build a new society” while ignoring man’s social side, or life in corporate society and its structures. Billy Graham is said to have been for a time commendably ahead of his evangelical constituency in his social concerns, especially in his refusal to address segregated crusades. Compared with the views of his brother-in-law Leighton Ford, however, those concerns are now considered a disappointing compromise with “the American way.” Quebedeaux notes that when Graham did take a stand, liberal ecumenists either kept silent or chided him for not doing enough; he thinks young evangelicals should support Graham’s evangelistic crusades but criticize his social and political views. Ford’s “revolutionary evangelism” is commended for correlating evangelism and social action and repudiating “the ‘second-Coming cop-out’ ” (p. 90).

Although the young evangelicals disdain cheap grace, some of their criticisms seem like cheap judgment—judgment that costs them little of the practical involvement and hard decision-making facing evangelical elder-statesmen. They at times assume a fixed stance on certain issues that other ethically sensitive evangelicals consider debatable. The young evangelicals call for a firm rejection of “the hypocrisy of American society and its ecclesiastical institutions” (p. 94). Along with Inter-Varsity and Leighton Ford, the Christian World Liberation Front is commended for supporting “the new kind of evangelism” espoused by the young evangelicals—a tag-line that seems brand-restrictive to the correlation of evangelism with criticism of American policy in domestic and foreign affairs.

It should now be clear that the young evangelicals for whom Quebedeaux presumes to speak have three distinguishing marks: (1) a reconstruction of the traditional evangelical view of the inspiration and authority of Scripture; (2) a special interest in Scripture “as a basis for action in the world” (p. 98), that is, for evangelism relevant to the whole man; and (3) over against the fundamentalist code, a restatement of moral values involved in discipleship. I will not argue the last point, nor the second properly expounded; I have made similar pleas across a quarter of a century, although without so abruptly identifying contemporary cultural indulgences as evangelical morality. The alcohol traffic and the sorry state of the cinema and theater call for something more creative than non-legalistic acceptance. And one no less interested in meaningful personal relationships may be forgiven a smile over the commendation of sensitivity training, transactional analysis, and group en counter at a time when even competent secular scholars express doubts about the adequacy of such techniques. And what is one to do with sweeping generalizations such as that fundamentalism and evangelicalism “have actually been a cause of the contemporary ecological crisis” (p. 127), or that Orthodoxy does not emphasize God’s revelation in nature (p. 128)?

On the issue of evangelical social involvement I share the disenchantment of the young evangelicals with establishment evangelicalism, but without sharing certain excesses or approving certain specifics. “The proper use of political power and economic pressure” (pp. 98 f.) is something evangelicals must indeed learn; it could, indeed, speak to the tobacco, alcohol, cinema, and other interests—including racially and economically discriminatory enterprises. Establishment evangelicals are criticized, however, for “merely treating the symptoms of social injustice rather than curing the disease itself” (p. 98), and Orthodoxy is declared to be “no less heretical than Liberalism for … neglecting the social dimension of the Gospel” (p. 121).

Marxists have long derogated Christianity’s social concern as merely a dispensing of aspirins whereas the overcoming of alienation (i.e., the class struggle) requires major surgery (socialist revolution) to remove objectionable social structures (capitalism). Such an estimate caricatures the tidal wave of human compassion unleashed upon the world by Christianity, oversimplifies the problem of alienation, confuses capitalism with the devil, divinizes socialism, and suffers from utopian enthusiasm. But it does have the merit of attempting that serious social criticism which is readily and tragically neglected by those resigned to the status quo, and it emphasizes the significance of social structures for human justice and injustice. Establishment evangelicals have given Marxists an undeserved advantage by confusing secular capitalism with the Kingdom of God (or at least defending it as if it could do no wrong and were not under the judgmental scrutiny of God as much as any other cultural manifestation) and by not articulating a courageous social ethic that deals with the practices and structures that perpetrate injustice.

The young evangelicals call for “a truly evangelical Social Gospel” (p. 101) that reflects the priorities of racial justice, the politics of conscience, the fight against poverty, and the provision of a healthful natural environment. Surely these objectives are not alien to a healthy evangelical conscience; indeed, proper understanding of the eighteenth-century Evangelical Awakening in England reveals that later fundamentalist and evangelical attitudes have shriveled a proper concern for social change.

But to say that the fight against poverty in America requires above all else “more equitable distribution of wealth, which means … higher taxes—especially for the rich” and on the world level “that the wealthy, developed nations give generously to the poorer, developing countries” (p. 124) reflects, in its heavy reliance on socialist proposals, a disappointing lack of evangelical imagination. If one thinks of perpetuating the structure of poverty, the best way to do so would be to minimize the importance of jobs, education, and literacy. Higher taxes may indeed be indispensable where voluntary solutions fail, and the sick, elderly, and destitute must in any case get immediate assistance. But socialist nations implementing Marxist economic solutions with totalitarian vengeance have hardly achieved utopian results, and in trying to overcome the insensitivities of a capitalist economy it will be well not to idealize utopian proposals that extend human disenchantment. The lack of incentive among the poor is not, as Quebedeaux would have it, “inevitable” (p. 125), nor is poverty likely to be “cured” by corporate political action (p. 126).

The call for “meaningful reconciliation between Christians of seemingly contrary ideologies” (p. 135) has its place, and to insist on proportionate representation for evangelicals in the power structures of mainstream denominations as the price of meaningful reconciliation has merit. The young evangelicals would not only take active part in local ministerial councils and councils of churches, as is already the case, but would do so on the premise of a similarity of commitment.

If the values and priorities of the Young Evangelicals and mainstream Ecumenical Liberals really are similar, continued separation serves no concrete purpose.… These young men of Evangelical persuasion might become an instrument of healing by accepting their Ecumenical counterparts, by saying words to the effect that “We accept you as brothers and sisters in Christ. Let’s pool the gifts our Lord has given us for a more effective witness” [p. 141].

Liberal pastors are encouraged to add evangelicals as staff members (p. 145 ff.), a proposal that recalls the situation in Germany, where ecumenical churches not infrequently have both a liberal and a conservative pastor to satisfy divided constituencies. We are told that ecumenical liberalism “will have to repudiate the notion … that the only heresy is Orthodoxy” (p. 146), a verdict that curiously falls short of even Barth’s denunciation of modernism as heresy. Evangelicals are criticized for insisting on “doctrinal unity in truth” rather than on “experiential unity in the Truth—Jesus Christ Himself” (p. 147), an essentially neo-orthodox and non-evangelical contrast that sheds light on the author’s theological concessions and his notion that charismatic renewal is a hopeful avenue to unity (p. 149).

Some of these proposals are so theologically nave that they do more to extend the cleavage between young evangelicals and their evangelical contemporaries than they do to achieve true unity with non-evangelicals. That evangelicals and non-evangelicals may indeed cooperate for many limited objectives is not at all in question, but that they share the same priorities and similarly understand the body of Christ turns on a semantic illusion.

I share many of the young evangelicals’ discontents: the failure of evangelicals to exhibit publicly the oneness that presupposes doctrinal unity; the failure of the Evangelical Theological Society to develop its insistence on an inerrant Bible into a bold initiative for evangelical theological positions; the failure of evangelical evangelism to speak effectively to national conscience on public issues; the failure of evangelical periodicals to rise above editorial generalities about social injustice and to chart alternatives to unjust structures for which evangelicals should strive in stipulated ways. To these disenchantments one could add others, especially the failure of evangelicals to capture the opportunity to establish a great academic center or university of national renown. One can understand also why precipitous youth tends to overreact out of a sense of regret for opportunities lost, for energy consumed in secondary controversy, for neglect of legitimate priorities while many evangelicals major in minors.

The young evangelicals seem eager for ecumenical acceptance, and this is in part due to a hard line by evangelical contemporaries devoted to the status quo. Quebedeaux thinks the greater attendance of evangelical seminarians at non-evangelical seminaries might result in a token number of evangelical faculty members and a token reward of evangelical clergy by denominational decision-making offices. If elemental justice has any meaning, however, tokenism ought to be unacceptable to an evangelical majority. The proposal, moreover, that young evangelicals become “subversives” for Christ in their home churches is hardly the best way to inspire confidence or to illumine differences within the local churches. When we are told that “the Church, like any other institution, is political” and that it “requires competent and dedicated politicians to bring about needed change” (p. 143), we need clarification, for a “more fully united and renewed church” is as unlikely to be achieved by evangelical as by non-evangelical politicians and bureaucrats, however important official leadership and decision-making may be in the Christian community. The same confusing of the Church with religious political structures seems to lurk in the notion that giving proportionate representation to evangelicals “may be the only way to save those ecclesiastical institutions from a slow and painful decline and death” (p. 146); this is a strange notion, indeed, of the salvation Christianity bears.

Quebedeaux aspires to an emerging Church that effectively integrates “the ethical, theological and experiential—the social compassion of Liberalism, the theological commitment of Evangelicalism, and the supernatural power witnessed and felt in Pentecostalism” (p. 149). This is as futile a road to evangelical renewal as is ecumenical merger, for it perpetuates the inadequacies of the contemporary churches on an alternative pattern. Moreover, it lacks a sure sense of the biblical norm, for social compassion has its authentic criterion in the prophets as messengers of revelation, theology has its authoritative ground in Scripture, and Pentecostalism like all other ecclesiastical manifestations is wholly answerable to the Risen Christ attested in the Bible.

It is in regard to a reliable revelation that Quebedeaux’s vacillating view of the Bible most fails us, whatever may be his intentions to the contrary. Scripture, we are told, is to be considered errant. Quebedeaux makes no persuasive case for our accepting as definitive the selective elements he considers important, rather than the equally fascinating alternatives propounded by other contenders for or against the future of evangelical Christianity. If the young evangelicals are to make a decisive stand for what is best in their own view, they will need to find better anchorage than an act of will reinforced by serviceable selections from the Bible. The problem of biblical authority cannot be handled as cavalierly as Quebedeaux handles it without imperiling both the goals the young evangelicals consider imperative and the foundations on which they presume to establish them.

In conclusion, I think that Quebedeaux’s representation of Jesus as a true radical crucified for his revolutionary activity (p. 117) does less than justice to his mission as Redeemer. Moreover, the confidence in “righteous social change that only political action can bring about” (p. 119) may imply too simplistic a view of fallen history, as does also the overriding implication that a radical Christian response to war and injustice requires pacifism and socialism. What is sound in Quebedeaux is the recognition that Christian faith demands a radical commitment to social justice, a commitment that subordinates confidence in any ideology, government, or system to obedience to the Lord Jesus and conforms to what the Kingdom of God requires of us at this stage in fallen history. But to say with the Post American magazine that “our faith must be distinctively Post-American” (p. 120)—rather than supra-American—is to venture a final judgment upon the nation that God has not yet uttered. Much as one may recognize the indispensability of new national priorities and goals, the young evangelicals seem excessively judgmental in speaking without qualification about “the continued pervasiveness of militarism in our national life” and about “the manifest hypocrisy of civil religion”; after all, Vietnamese mistakes aside, American might repelled Japanese aggression, toppled Hitler, checked Stalin, and frustrated Khrushchev. Civil religion, moreover, is rather inescapable and can be what we make it.

Establishment evangelicals should consider the challenge posed by the young evangelicals a summons to reinforce what is good, to debate what is controversial, and to give a biblical reason for disowning the remainder, so that the present opportunity for evangelical awakening may not be lost upon any of us.

hom*osexuality continues to become more conspicuous in our society as gay liberators carry on their campaign of public persuasion. In this issue the article on the gay-oriented Metropolitan Community Church was written by a hom*osexual who through Jesus Christ has found deliverance from bondage to his sexuality. He unmasks ad hominem arguments used in the attempt to validate a practice that the Scriptures forbid.

Editor-at-large Carl F. H. Henry takes a hard look at a book scheduled for publication this week: The Young Evangelicals by Richard A. Quebedeaux (Harper & Row). Henry examines the views of the young evangelicals, tells where he agrees and disagrees with them, and offers some seasoned advice.

A two-part essay on missions by Peter Beyerhaus begins in this issue. It was written for the upcoming International Congress on World Evangelization, but in this preliminary period it represents only his own views, not those of the congress.

I am happy to report that more than 450,000 copies of my book The World, the Flesh, and the Devil are in print. I’m getting some interesting mail on it. Let me suggest, with all the objectivity I can muster—which isn’t much!—that you read it if you haven’t done so yet.

The education explosion is positively terrifying. More and more people are acquiring more and more degrees. All over the world there is a fascination with the business of building schools and putting people through them. Employers are demanding higher standards of general education for even menial jobs.

The tendency is not without its critics. For example, some in Australia have recently asked whether it is a good thing to shut such large numbers of our youth in schools for such a large proportion of their youth. They ask whether it would not be better to let them get out into the world of commerce or industry with less formal education and more opportunity to adjust to the area in which they will make their careers while they are still at an adaptable age.

At the outset let me make it clear that I am on the side of the educators. Whether this be the result of powerful independent thought or whether I am simply repeating by rote what many educators have put into me, I am for education. I want to see more and better education.

But I recognize that the phenomena of the modern world are forcing us to ask questions. We ought not to hold unthinkingly that education in and of itself is good. We must ask ourselves what we are educating for and whether our education is succeeding in securing those aims.

For the fact is that in the world into which all these better-educated young people are pouring, problems are multiplying. It is true that on the one hand technology is enabling us to produce more attractive gadgets than ever before. Our lives are more comfortable than ever. We have more attractive ways of wasting our time than any previous generation. But on the other hand we are not happy. It is a time of great student discontent. My students offer me more free advice about how to run my college than my generation did its mentors. It is, of course, fair to retort that my students have more to put up with than I had. But that is part of the problem. I, too, have been educated.

But it is not only students who have troubles. All over the world troubles loom large. The energy crisis has brought many problems to a head. The nations seem unable to solve the problem that the rich nations grow richer while the poor grow poorer. Vast amounts are spent on armaments while millions of people live in starvation conditions. One could go on.

Life is a complex affair, and I do not want to fall into the trap of oversimplifying. There is more to it than education. But certainly one thing we would do well to keep in mind in this age is the old accusation that our universities habitually shirk the really significant issues, that they concentrate on means and neglect ends. To the extent that this is true there is a serious lack in all our educational systems.

And that there is a considerable amount of truth in it is undeniable. Our educational institutions (the problem is wider than the universities) are usually good about the production of tools and skills. They can tell us how to make airplanes and how to fly them. But they say nothing about whether we should use them to drop bombs on our enemies or to run a flying doctor service for people in remote places.

As S. Barton Babbage puts it, “If you want a bomb, the chemistry department will teach you how to make it; if you want a cathedral the department of architecture will teach you how to build it; if you want a healthy body the department of physiology and medicine will teach you how to tend it. But when you ask whether and why you should want bombs or cathedrals or healthy bodies, the university is dumb and impotent. It can give help and guidance in all things subsidiary but not in the attainment of the one thing needful.”

One can understand this in part. Too often institutions of learning have been used as means of indoctrinating students with the accepted religion or set of values. It has been an inevitable reaction that we must keep the educational process free from the taint of indoctrination. So no religion is taught. And as religion goes out, so do other studies that might be thought to impose a scheme of values.

The unfortunate result is that the student is largely on his own when it comes to learning how to live. To cite Babbage again, “what he should do with his chemistry or languages when he has acquired them, whether and why injustice and cruelty and fraud are bad and their opposites good, whether faith in God is a snare and a delusion or is the only basis on which human life can be lived without disaster—all these things the students must find out for himself as best he may, for a university education can do nothing to help him.”

In this situation we in the churches are apt to sit back thanking God that we are not as universities. We flatter ourselves that we realize the barrenness of mere knowledge and the importance of values. We teach men to believe. We introduce them to a life of faith.

Sometimes our performance matches our profession. But more often it does not. We are so involved with running our institution that we confuse faith in Christ with membership in the church. A sense of values comes to mean having a high regard for institutional religion and all its works. We call for commitment to Christ and settle for conformity to a conventional code.

We run educational programs of our own. But in our smugness we do not notice that often they are just as bad as the programs in the secular institutions we love to criticize. Our preoccupation with the institution and with the mediocrity that is all we have come to expect of ourselves has blinded us to the fact that we no more than the universities are giving men the education we speak of.

All too often we have withdrawn from the community. We have opted out of life. We read with a pleasant glow in our church history that there were times when the Church gave men a lead in solving social problems. We think of great Christians who have left their mark on whole communities and whole eras. And then we sink back comfortably into our isolationism.

I know that this is not true of the whole Church, just as it is not true of all universities that they fail to give men education in the areas that really matter. But there is enough truth in both to give us cause furiously to think. It cannot be said that this is an age when men give much time to ultimate questions. We in the church of Jesus Christ ought accordingly to be taking seriously our responsibility to our Lord and to our age. We need greater readiness to grapple with life as a whole, life in all its breadth and depth. We must not content ourselves with life in the sanctuary.

That five year-old famine-drought across sub-Sahara Africa is getting worse. It is now spreading into formerly unaffected areas in Ethiopia and Kenya and further into the six other victim nations of the Sahel or sub-Sahara (see September 14, 1973, issue, page 42), according to evangelical relief officials.

Last fall’s hopes that a good rainfall might alleviate conditions in the Sahel region were dashed. Only Ethiopia, Senegal, and southern Mali received enough rain to water parched crops and give temporary relief. “For the rest of the area—nothing,” said George Doud, administrative vice-president of the World Relief Commission of the National Association of Evangelicals, who spent several weeks in the stricken areas.

Much of the current concern is centering on Ethiopia. Although widespread famine in the nation’s northern provinces was reported in the Western press last year, only the recent mutiny by the Ethiopian army and navy forced an admission from the government that the situation is critical. Indeed, there are already reports—amid charges and counter-charges of administration corruption by Ethiopian officials—that between 50,000 and 100,000 died of hunger and related diseases in the northern areas alone. The actual number may never be known, said Kerry Lovering of the Sudan Interior Mission (SIM).

The few rains that did come provided a little relief, said Lovering, and “right now there’s a lull, a temporary respite. Nevertheless we anticipate a far worse situation this year than in 1973.” An Ethiopian government survey team indicated the drought is threatening the southern provinces of the nation—a possibility described as calamitous by relief officials. “The south is Ethiopia’s breadbasket. That’s where most of the population is. That’s where the land is most fertile,” commented Lovering. All indications are, he added, that the drought may be even worse in the south if it hits there. For Christians, that would add extra concern, for most of the country’s Christians live in the south and there are more than 600 churches there.

Meanwhile SIM (known in Ethiopia as the Society of International Missions) continues northern relief operations and is finding a new openness to the Gospel in response to the missionaries’ efforts. It is, said Lovering, an “unparalleled” experience in a particularly difficult field. The first church opened recently with twenty-seven baptized members and 100 new converts. Two Bible schools—one to train church leaders, the other for new converts—also were opened, the first such facilities in the north.

Experienced in Ethiopian needs—it has been there since 1927—SIM is the distributing channel for most famine-relief efforts from other evangelical agencies. Medical Assistance Programs (MAP) of Wheaton, Illinois, has already shipped more than 300 tons of food and medicine (the foods are nutritional supplements; the medicines are supplies ordered by doctors on the field and paid for with MAP funds) and is sending out a volunteer famine-relief team of fifteen Seattle Pacific College students and one faculty advisor to assist missionaries. The students will work on construction and well-digging; one, a registered nurse, is training others in primary medical procedures such as inoculations. Total cost of the team project is $28,000—half raised by the students and $14,000 provided on a matching-grant basis by an unnamed publicity-shy foundation.

Qualified volunteers, said Lovering, must be willing to work anywhere, including non-famine areas. “Many want to work in the famine zone, but could be used better in relieving missionaries for work in drought areas,” he explained. “The missionaries are familiar with language, culture, and needs. The volunteers probably aren’t.” Meanwhile young Ethiopian Christians are pitching in to assist their northern compatriots, leaving school or taking vacations in order to help.

The World Relief Commission—which has already spent $45,000 on sub-Sahara relief and budgeted $100,000 more for 1974—is providing cash to national churches and missionaries for purchase of local foods. (As in most other nations, the price of that food available in the Sahel has skyrocketed because of inflation.) The WRC is also seeking Ethiopian approval for its relief supplies to enter the country duty-free. (Under American law, volunteer relief agencies qualify for U. S. ocean freight subsidies if the goods enter host countries duty-free.) Once approval is granted, said Doud, three fully-equipped, 200-bed, mobile hospitals will be moved in. Other equipment en route or already in Ethiopia includes a helicopter-carried well-digging rig provided by a Swiss Christian pilot and a truck-carried rig supplied by the Evangelical Alliance Relief Fund of Great Britain. All are operated by SIM.

Also assisting SIM’s Ethiopian efforts is the California-based Food For the Hungry (FFH). The organization’s president, Larry Ward, said much will depend on how much rain falls in March and April. Besides southern Ethiopia, new drought pressure points include northern Kenya on the east and northern Nigeria on the west, said Ward; sparse rain could catapult those areas into crisis. FFH has 692,000 pounds of food and medicine in varying stages of shipment—most of it earmarked for Sahel Africa. “Kenya and Ethiopia are as bad as anything I saw in the west,” said Ward, who is just back from a two-week inspection of the area. “The situation in Africa right now is utterly hopeless.”

Food For the Hungry also joined with World Gospel Crusades (WGC) of California and Kings Garden, a Seattle-based broadcast and relief organization, in providing food, medicine, and outreach materials. (WGC head Mervin Russell says his group will provide cassette tape players and gospel tapes to help workers combine outreach with their relief efforts among illiterate and semi-literate tribespeople.) Ward estimates his organization will ship more than one million tons of food to the stricken African countries this year, at a cost of more than $150,000.

Also aiding relief efforts is World Vision. The agency’s Monrovia, California, headquarters has sent more than $150,000 to SIM, and its Canadian wing has sent more than $32,000. More is forthcoming, say spokesmen. Norwegian Lutherans were feeding more than 170,000 in southern Ethiopia with food bought on the open market. However, Church World Service, the relief arm of the National Council of Churches, has taken a wait-and-see position until “guaranteed channels” can be set up and the political situation stabilizes.

Meanwhile, U. S. government aid efforts for Sahel Africa were blasted in a privately funded study of the drought situation. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D. C., said its study found a pattern of “neglect and inertia” in efforts by the U. S. Agency for International Development (AID) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Both were “haunted by rudimentary failures to heed early warnings, to plan in advance, and to monitor and coordinate the rescue efforts,” the study charged. It reported there were more than 100,000 deaths in the sub-Sahara region in 1973 alone. The study made no mention of private, voluntary relief organizations (through which much government aid is channeled).

Ironically, a burst of torrential rains in Ethiopia’s Wallo region caused floods, leaving thousands homeless and ruining cotton and scant food crops.

In another development, to quell increasing restlessness, Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie ordered thousands of peasants to return to the land they sold to nobles at low prices in the midst of the drought crisis. The nobles were ordered to vacate the land, and the peasants were given three years to repay the purchase price. For the most part, however, the peasants either have not tried to go back or have encountered stiff opposition from the new owners. Tens of thousands are still huddled in relief centers. In the meantime, government relief structures are slowly taking shape in efforts to feed several million of the nation’s 24 million inhabitants and to resettle thousands of the displaced peasants.

Long-term relief efforts include plans for building up cattle stock in the agriculture-based economies. But until those plans are fruitful, the famine will continue. And that, say officials, may mean years of death and privation in Africa—and years of appeals for money in North America.

Coming: World Famine?

What with the Middle East powder keg and the drought-famine crisis in Africa (see preceding story) Bible prophecy buffs are having a field day. Increasingly, doomsday talk is creeping into the headlines.

A front-page story in the National Observer, for instance, raised the specter of worldwide famine. American food surpluses simply no longer exist, according to food specialists quoted in the story, and land the government once paid farmers to keep idle is already back in production. Therefore needy nations can no longer count on the United States to help feed them. (Indeed, church relief agencies that traditionally have relied on U. S. government surplus food already feel the pinch.)

Gloom about the future hung heavy over the recent meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco, where some 4,000 scientists heard climatologists agree that planet Earth is in for some big changes in weather patterns that may play havoc with agriculture. There were calls for a global granary and other kinds of sustenance insurance for the world. Others scoffed, saying the problem is instead the population explosion: within decades the world will simply be too populous to feed itself.

Prominent weather scientist Walter O. Roberts in a U. S. News and World Report interview was more specifically ominous. He is looking for a drought to strike North America, probably this year or next, and to last from three to eight years, affecting a 600- to 800-mile-wide stretch east of the Rockies from Mexico into the Canadian prairie provinces. The area includes a large portion of the continental breadbasket.

Relatedly, there are warnings of a fertilizer shortage. Most chemical fertilizers are made of oil and natural gas byproducts. As the energy crunch worsens, so will the supply of such fertilizers, U. S. Senate agriculture subcommittee members were warned in recent hearings. This in turn would set off a reaction resulting in shortages of corn, meat, milk, and eggs, observed Iowa senator Richard Clark.

There are other pressures already at work. For example, speculation and inflation are forcing up prices worldwide, making it harder for poor nations to feed—and govern—their own.

In all of this the Mormons may be on the right track. At last year’s big convention in Salt Lake City the Latter-day Saints were exhorted as they had been for years to set aside an emergency store of food to last at least a year.

Better make that a seven-year supply, say the prophecy people, with some “amens” from the science pew.

‘Urbana’ On The Dunes

More than 400 young people, most of them students from fifteen European Bible schools and seminaries in at least seven countries, attended last month’s annual European Student Missionary Association (ESMA) convention. It was held at a conference center on the dunes of the North Sea coast near Ostend, Belgium. Also on hand were representatives of about two dozen independent mission societies and parachurch movements.

The three-day program, pegged to the theme “I Send—Who Goes?,” was packed with talks on the contemporary Christian scene, Bible-study sessions, consultations with mission representatives, and other conference features. Topics dealt with included Islam (a skit chided missionaries who don’t take time to learn the culture and thinking of the Muslim world), the occult (it’s spreading worldwide), and discipleship evangelism. A Belgian missionary laid the challenge of Europe on the students: he compared Zaire, the former Belgian colony in Africa which has a population of 20 million, of whom 14 per cent are Protestants, with Belgium, which has a population of 9.5 million but a Protestant community of only 5 per cent.

Youth-oriented agencies such as Operation Mobilization, Campus Crusade for Christ, and Teen Challenge seemed to attract the most interest. The so-called underground ministries to Eastern Europe also got a lot of attention. Evangelism-in-Depth’s Bill Aldin offered an explanation: “Unlike some of the older missions, these mission societies do not have to be ‘explained’ to young people; their ministry is very evident.”

A large number of students stood in response to a call for those wishing to commit themselves to full-time church-related vocations. Raising financial support, however, is difficult for those who want to enlist. Few European Christians support independent evangelical missions. Some volunteers spend years drumming up enough support.

Nevertheless, spirits were high as the conference ended on a positive note. ESMA official Eric Gay announced plans for a “European Urbana” missions conference to be held during Christmas week next year. With an expected attendance of at least 4,000 and cooperation already pledged by the European directors of the major Christian youth organizations, it may prove to be the biggest interdenominational youth missions assembly in Europe’s history. Two regional ESMA conferences will precede it next March.

ESMA was founded in 1954 at the European Bible Institute near Paris, a school run by the U. S.-based Greater Europe Mission. Modeled after its U. S. counterpart (the Foreign Missions Fellowship), ESMA is autonomous and led entirely by European students.

ROBERT J. CAMPBELL and BILL THOMAS

NO FARE

Pastor George Bell’s Oakwood Baptist Church in Toronto believes in going the second mile—and further. Even to the point of providing free taxi rides to and from church services for people in the city who can’t get to church because they lack transportation. The church has budgeted $240 a month since December for cabs, but fares have been less than that so far—representing a “very disappointing” response, says Bell. True, a few church regulars trace their first visit to the free taxi service, and average Sunday attendance has increased from 150 to 250 (though not because of the taxi service). The people who come “don’t want to be a burden on the church,” Bell explains. As for the others, it seems that some people just won’t be moved for—or by—anything.

Religion In Transit

Oral Roberts University basketball coach Ken Trickey, a former vice president of the school, was arrested for drunk driving before dawn of the day his team faced Kansas for the NCAA Midwest regional basketball championship (ORU lost 93–90 in overtime). He suspended himself but ORU president Oral Roberts reinstated him “as an act of compassion.” Trickey says he is innocent and will fight the charge.

The 60-member Savannah United Methodist Church of Cleveland, Tennessee, pastored by a second-year seminarian, tried and expelled a layman under a seldom-used UMC provision for lay trials. Byron Donahue, described as a new convert, was found guilty of causing disorder in the congregation by verbally assailing members with Scripture out of context.

Bob Jones University’s attempts to get the Internal Revenue Service to reinstate its tax-exempt status will be ruled on by the U. S. Supreme Court in June, predicted a BJU spokesman. Meanwhile, BJU is entering the textbook publishing field with texts aimed at an estimated 3,000 Christian elementary and secondary schools.

Teacher Max W. Lynch was fired by the Indiana State University Laboratory School in Terre Haute for ignoring requests to stop reading the Bible to his junior-high mathematics pupils.

Editor John Hurt of the Baptist Standard in Dallas editorially urged fellow Southern Baptists to boycott Texas International Airlines because TIA’s magazine ran a story that favored legalized gambling in the state and knocked religious opposition. TIA officials were apologetic, saying they take no stands on issues and explaining that the magazine is a non-TIA publication with a custom cover for TIA use.

Murder for God’s sake: A Mt. Clemens, Michigan, man was sentenced to life imprisonment after beating his wife to death with a baseball bat and severely injuring two of his five children. He testified he decided to kill his family “to save them from Satan” after he read the Bible for several hours. A Fayette, Mississippi, man who shot and killed his wife and six relatives told police a voice he thought was the Lord’s ordered him to kill them.

The director of Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital crisis intervention center, Dr. Hardat Sukhdeo, says 600 to 700 patients are treated there every month to have “evil spirits driven out of them.” It’s not because of The Exorcist, he says. Many are Latins who have long believed in demon possession. Sukhdeo, whose diagnosis is hysteria, treats them with tranquilizers.

There’s a new lobby in Washington: the Religious Committee for Integrity in Government, billed as a non-partisan interfaith committee of Washington-based religious staff persons. It is led by United Presbyterian Josiah Beeman, former aide of liberal democrat congressman Philip Burton of San Francisco.

The Tucson, Arizona, Ecumenical Council may drop its membership clause requiring member groups to “accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour” in order to include Jews and other non-Christian faiths.

DEATHS

HARRIS KARTEROULIS, 74, prominent lay leader in the Free Evangelical Churches in Greece and formerly a high government official; in Athens, after a long illness.

WENTWORTH ARTHUR MATTHEW, 82, founder and head rabbi of the largest and only group of black Jews recognized by Orthodox Judaism, the Commandment Keeper Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation in Harlem, and founder of New York’s Hebrew Rabbinical College; in New York.

Sociologist Andrew Greeley says a nationwide survey shows that more than a third of American adults have undergone a powerful supernatural experience. About 34 per cent of those surveyed reported having had contact with the dead, he added.

The youngest Jewish rabbi in the world is thought to be 16-year-old David Dore of Harlem, a black youth carrying on the Falasha tradition of his grandfather who ordained him last year. The Falashas have their roots in Ethiopia and are recognized as legitimate Jews by world Judaism.

The appointment of Rabbi Morton M. Kanter of Detroit as deputy commissioner of Youth Development in the U. S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare is believed to be the first time an active Jewish rabbi has been named to such a federal post.

Jewish leaders in New York and Philadelphia are using telephone hotlines and special broadcast messages to combat missionary efforts and to spread the message of Judaism.

Acting in accord with a denominational resolution passed earlier, the United Church of Canada’s Department of Church in Society filed a brief with government officials calling for a guaranteed annual income for all Canadians. It would replace old-age assistance and burgeoning welfare plans.

The Federal Communications Commission rejected a petition of the American Board of Missions to the Jews asking for a public hearing on the license renewal of WOR-TV in New York. The station had canceled a telecast of an ABMJ evangelistic film on the Passover last year. “A licensee does not have to present programming which it believes will not serve the public interest,” ruled he FCC.

The forty-third White House religious service was addressed on St. Patrick’s Day by writer-preacher Norman Vincent Peale, his fourth White House service. He preached to President Nixon and 250 invited guests (including Irish ambassador John G. Molloy) on love.

On with the trial: Months ago, lawyer Vincent LaRocca who is also a Catholic priest was instructed by a New York criminal court judge to remove his clerical collar because it might prejudice the jury in favor of his client, a mother on welfare accused of attacking a teacher. LaRocca appealed, and the trial was recessed. A state supreme court ruling last month said he can wear the collar.

That spat between Rabbi Irving J. Block and Presbyterian clergyman William Glenesk over the Arab-Israeli war ended with Block and his 600 Brotherhood Synagogue members moving out of the Greenwich Village building they shared with Glenesk and his 125-member Village Presbyterian congregation in New York City.

Federal judge James F. Battin decreed that Kirby Hensley’s Universal Life Church, which sells honorary doctor of divinity degrees by mail from Hensley’s Modesto, California, home, is entitled to federal tax exemption (including refunds of $10,000 and $1,200 interest). Battin said ULC meets tax-exempt requirements as an organized church, pointing out that courts and the government must not consider the “merits or fallacies of a religion.” Hensley has reportedly issued clergy credentials to 3 million persons and some 10,000 honorary doctorates (at $20 each).

The Virginia Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision denying ministers of the anybody-can-be-ordained Universal Life Church authority to perform marriages in the state.

Personalia

Assemblies of God executive head Thomas Zimmerman was invited to speak at the main Protestant churches in Leningrad on Good Friday and Moscow on Easter Sunday. The churches, Baptist in name, are union congregations of Baptists, Mennonites, Evangelical Christians, and Pentecostals.

Episcopal clergyman Earl A. Neil of Oakland, California, “spiritual advisor” to the Black Panther Party, has been named to the staff of the Episcopal Church’s agency that makes grants to black community groups.

William E. Currie of Hammond, Indiana, pastor of an independent church and teacher at Moody Bible Institute, was selected as general director of the 86-year-old American Messianic Fellowship mission agency.

Anglican vicar David Bubbers is the new general secretary of the Church Pastoral-Aid Society, a 138-year-old home mission society—England’s oldest.

Dr. John R. Sperry, 49, rector of Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories, has been elected Anglican Bishop of the Arctic, a 2.7-million-square-mile diocese—largest in the world. The third in history to hold the post, Sperry is fluently bilingual, having translated the Book of Common Prayer, the four Gospels, and the book of Acts into the Copper Eskimo dialect.

World Scene

A bill expected to have serious effects on most Christian bodies in India was introduced into the upper house of parliament. If enacted it will prohibit virtually every person and group in India from receiving contributions of any substance (in excess of $600) except under stringent conditions.

Nearly 300 Catholic Pentecostal leaders from sixteen countries attended the second annual Latin American charismatic leadership conference in Bogotá, Colombia. They reported rapid growth over the last year. Coordinator Diego Jaramillo, a Colombian priest, said there is increasing emphasis on social concerns. He also estimated that 70 per cent of Latin America’s 10 million Protestants belong to Pentecostal churches, adding that ecumenical contacts with them have been sparse. Meanwhile, Catholic Pentecostals in Auckland, New Zealand, have grown from three to 1,200 in four years, and nationally 2,250 meet weekly in 31 growing groups, according to reports.

Representatives of Ethiopia’s 200,000 Orthodox priests asked for higher pay and more fringe benefits, threatening to strike if their demands were not met. Some priests earn only $1.50 a month. The protests added to the nationwide unrest over economic and political conditions.

The black caucus of the 2.2-million-member Anglican Church of South Africa is pressing for the election of Bishop Alpheus Zulu to succeed the retired Robert Selby Taylor as Archbishop of Cape Town, titular head of the church. The election was set for April 30. Some 75 per cent of South Africa’s Anglicans are black, but whites hold the leadership. Zulu, whose chances are slim, is the only black diocesan bishop.

United Methodists are cooperating with Holt Children’s Services and International Social Service in a program to help nearly 200,000 abandoned children in South Viet Nam. Some are war orphans, some are merely victims of accidents or disease. About 1,000 are children of mixed blood left behind by American G.I.s.

An appellate military court in Seoulhas upheld the convictions of six Protestant clergymen sentenced to long jail terms for criticizing the policies of South Korea’s President Park Chung Hee.

For the first time Baptists in Asia outnumber Baptists in Europe 1.16 million members to 1.15 million. India and Burma have the bulk of Asian Baptists.

The administrative council of the U. S. Catholic Conference, made up of twenty-eight bishops headed by conservative Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia, approved two statements criticizing Brazil and Chile for violations of human rights and asking the U. S. government to examine closely its aid to them.

The Anglican Council of South America was recently organized in Bogotá, Colombia, by representatives from a number of countries. Bishop William Flagg of the diocese of Chile, Bolivia, and Peru was elected president.

Controversy is swirling over a shakeup in Lebanon’s civil service system. For decades top posts have been distributed proportionately along sectarian lines to various Christian and Muslim groups. Under a new nonsectarian policy several top posts have been lost by Maronite Christians to Muslims.

The United Methodist bishops of Rhodesia, Liberia, Angola, Zaire, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone advised their denomination that missionaries should be sent to their lands only as “needed and requested” by African churches. Especially needed are short-termers with technical skills, they said, adding that workers who no longer cooperate with national leadership should be recalled.

Some of the most popular songs around Ethiopia these days reportedly are hymns written by members of an “underground” church—Full Gospel Believers Church, several thousand members strong, many of them young people, but outlawed by the government under pressure from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

A recent projection of the Evangelical Missions Alliance indicates that within 26 years there will be 800 million Christians in occidental churches—but 1 billion in churches of the Third World.

The Church of England has sold an undisclosed number of “unneeded” and unused churches over the past three years for more than $3.3 million; two of the churches alone accounted for almost $2.7 million. Additionally, about twenty churches annually are added to the domain of the Redundant Churches Fund, which maintains historic and architecturally valuable church buildings (more than fifty are now being cared for at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars).

Southern Baptist leaders in the United States teamed with nationals in a series of evangelistic crusades in Nigeria. Up to 12,000 attended nightly for a week at Ogbomosho; 1,800 decisions for Christ were recorded. At Ilorin, a Muslim center, nearly 500 of the 4,000 listeners professed Christ, including a number of Muslims. At Ibadan there were 3,000 professions of faith.

Spanish censors banned a Southern Baptist mission study book containing a fictionalized account of a young girl’s conversion to Christ.

The Liberated Reformed Churches of the Netherlands (unassociated), a group that separated from the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands in 1947, voted recently to create a denominational structure.