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Sitting in a plain folding chair in a plain 1,100-square-foot warehouse, Chris Haro shrugs. “How spectacular is a cold cup of water?” he asks.
The warehouse is home to Haro’s Missionary Book Society. “Warehouse” may be too strong a word to use to describe this space, actually the renovated 110-year-old attic of Haro’s insurance office in Auburn, in California’s Sierra Nevada foothills. Faded indoor-outdoor carpeting covers the floors, and a metal box bolted onto a wheelbarrow sits by the wall. Pallets of boxes crowd the main room.
As humble as a cup of water might be, though, “even a cup of cold water given in my name will be rewarded,” paraphrases Haro with a smile. Thus, Matthew 10:42 has become the statement of philosophy of the Missionary Book Society.
Booking the missionaries
I’ve really enjoyed the ones I’ve had time to read. Books have been a real encouragement to me—to relax and read something in English!
—Senegal
For 11 years, any overseas missionary who asks has received a four-pound box of mainstream evangelical Christian books, free of charge. Missionaries write from Bolivia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Uruguay, Indonesia, Yemen, and many other far away places.
“It’s not spectacular or romantic,” he says of his ministry. Indeed, at first glance, nothing about the enterprise cries out “Extraordinary!” No stranger would pick out the graying, bespectacled Haro, his belly straining against his shirt buttons, as a man with a mission. Just as unassuming are the streaked warehouse windows that look out over a narrow, gravel parking lot. Even the boxes of books Haro sends out yearly to 6,000 missionaries are just plain brown.
To most people in this gold-rush town, Haro is only a happily married businessman who carves stone for a hobby, the father of lour grown children. He keeps the Missionary Book Society under wraps. His reluctance to publicize his service stems from his discomfort at seeming immodest, or having his motives misread. He offers books to missionaries as a ministry, not for personal gain or celebrity. “I do this because I want to please my Father. It’s a form of worship.”
Grateful recipients
Thank you very, very much for this extra-special blessing! The books are all just wonderful—and I can never emphasize enough how great it is to receive spiritual reading material in English.
—Madagascar
When Haro discusses his ministry, his concern for missionaries far from home shines out clearly. “These missionaries are in a different environment,” he says. “They don’t have radios or TVs. They’re not superhuman beings. They just endeavor to do what God wants them to do. But just as God rested on the seventh day, they need a rest too. They need recreation and inspiration.”
The books he sends are remainders, seconds, or out-or-print books—materials he purchases at an 80-percent discount from Christian publishers. Missionaries are offered a choice: books for adults only, or a mixture of adult and children’s books. And Haro has recently expanded his service to include inspirational tape recordings as well.
“One woman wrote me who had been very depressed by two deaths in her family within six months. When she received her book pack, it included three books on death. She received a new peace of heart and strength to carry on.”
He also feels warmly toward an Anglican missionary who was about to quit his ministry. Then the books arrived. “He was inspired to renew his faith, and continue his work in Africa.”
Staying the course
There is virtually no Christian literature here—certainly not in English and a mere scant number of books in Romanian. The cry from the people is great, but red tape and [lack of] money prevent English books from being translated and published here.
—Romania
The Missionary Book Society grew out of Grace Crusaders Free Lending Library, a service Haro began 25 years ago, when Christian books were not available as widely as they are now. This “borrow by mail” ministry grew swiftly from a cubicle measuring 20 square feet to a space measuring 500 square feet.
Then, as now, no donations were accepted or asked for, says Haro. “As the need arose, the money was supplied.”
However, as the years passed, he saw a decreasing need for his library. Even supermarkets started to carry Christian books, and bookstores appeared selling Christian books exclusively. This came as a blessing as far as Haro was concerned.
For years he had questioned his motives for running the lending service. Was he doing it for God, or was he doing it because it made him feel good?
Eventually, Haro decided to provide books only to overseas missionaries. He obtained a handbook listing all the American missionary boards. He indicated that he’d send a free box of books on request, and asked the boards to advise their missionaries of this service.
It was his intention to cut down on the book business. But to his panic and amazement, book requests soon descended on him from all over the world. During this time, Haro received what he believes were signs that he was doing God’s will: a rental house he owned sold for a profit the day the down payment was due on his warehouse; and a publisher agreed to sell him $109,000 worth of books for $3,500. He smiles, remembering his amazement the day he received delivery on that shipment. “Can you imagine a 60-foot semi in my parking lot?”
Currently, about 1,200 boxes a year are sent to missionaries representing 600 missionary boards.
Haro says it’s important to him to send books to missionaries from many denominations because his own background is a blend of Catholic, Baptist, and Assemblies of God.
At 64, Haro no longer questions his motives, although he has entertained the possibility of retiring from this ministry. He knows he can’t keep going forever. He wants to keep the service going, though, and has hopes of someday finding someone willing to take over.
“You have to have a distinct burden for this type of ministry, definitely led of the Lord, and you have to have the finances.” His replacement would also have to share Haro’s eagerness to provide recreation, inspiration, and comfort to missionaries far from home.
“I’m not out to entertain the missionaries,” he says, “I’m out to help them.”
The book pack arrived a few months ago. It arrived in good condition and truly was “a cup of cold water” to refresh us.
—Papua New Guinea
Susan Rushton is a free-lance writer living in Auburn, California.
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I am a single, divorced man—“Stephen” in Craig Keener’s book And Marries Another. I abhor divorce. Having experienced its pain, I hate it more passionately than I did before. But I offer no apology for my state: unlike many American Christians, I have never fornicated. I was never unfaithful to my marriage. Nor did I want the divorce that was forced on me. I am divorce’s innocent victim.
Our churches tend to classify all divorced people in a single category, as if divorce’s sinfulness implies that all of us chose our condition. Let me tell you how this language feels to someone who was divorced against his will: it stings.
My unrepentance on this point is not a claim to sinlessness. Not only would that be bad theology, but it wouldn’t be true—in general, or in my marriage. Still, I cannot repent for a choice that was not mine to make. I daily affirmed and demonstrated my love to my wife.
My wife ran off with her best friend’s husband. I fought the divorce for two years—the legal limit in my state—hoping to get her back. I never stopped loving her, though some years ago I finally abandoned hope of her return.
Our main issues of contention before her affair—when both of us still seemed to love each other—were my refusals to participate in behavior that I believed would compromise my testimony as a Christian and as a minister. These are issues on which my wife and I had firmly agreed before our marriage.
Of course, I now recognize things I should have done better. But I also remain certain that I loved and served my wife faithfully.
Some insist that it “takes two to break up a marriage.” Although most Christians make exceptions for cases like mine, their language suggests that they do not think very hard about the exceptions. The Bible never condemns the spouse of the adulterer for the adulterer’s infidelity. In fact, certain biblical texts, such as 1 Corinthians 7:15, explicitly exonerate innocent parties from the guilt of divorce.
Who besides God has the right to say that I bear part of the blame for the breakup of my marriage? Does my wife’s choice to leave imply that I was a worse husband than a bad husband whose wife remains faithful to him? Or would things necessarily have been different had I been flawless? If so, then what does some people’s unfaithfulness or apostasy say about God?
Some people are divorced because they mistreated their spouses or gave up on a hard marriage. Others, though, are divorced because they were abused or abandoned. Is a trusting wife who is betrayed by her husband’s unfaithfulness less deserving of our support than the victim of another crime? Is a single mother abandoned by her husband less in need of consolation than a widow?
African-Americans have rightly pointed to the insensitivity of white America’s assumptions about African-Americans; women have similarly challenged men’s stereotypes that misrepresent them. I write this column hoping that readers will also learn to be more sensitive in how they speak of divorced people. Think twice before you condescend to us by saying, “Divorced people can be forgiven”—some of us had no choice in our new status, and we are the majority of divorced people in some of your churches.
Sins like fornication or divorce by mutual consent do not leave an innocent victim. But other sins, like rape, murder, robbery—or divorcing a faithful spouse—do involve innocent victims.
Innocence need not imply perfection in all areas of life. But it declares that blame for a broken marriage is not “equally shared.” And no physical, emotional, social, or even moral, flaw in the victim can be used to justify the act under discussion. To be sure, many failed marriages involve both parties in some degree of guilt. But one cannot assume the degree of a person’s commitment to his or her marriage based on the response of that person’s spouse.
I close by addressing the minority of Christians who would rather defend their insensitivity than correct it. My wife acted selfishly but not out of malice. You, however, kicked me when I was down and broke fellowship with me when I needed you most. Perhaps, like Job’s friends, you had to assign guilt to me to assure yourself that such tragedy could never overtake you. But you have acted unjustly. Because of you, I must end this column with the pseudonym Keener gave me in his book—“Stephen.”
Speaking Out does not necessarily reflect the views of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
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There Is No Longer Gay or Straight?
The cover of the July 19, 1993, issue clearly identifies the gay-rights activists as the creators of a climate of hate. The testimony of a marine officer who is the father of a gay son indicated clearly that there was so much hatred of gays in the military that he feared for his son’s life if accepted in the military. The hatred is clearly on all sides.
Stanton L. Jones’s article, “The Loving Opposition,” is less biased than your cover, but does not define what “the high view of Scripture” is that he holds. Is human slavery justified in “the high view of Scripture”?
If slavery has been superseded by grace, cannot also rejection of homosexuality (which may be as much a matter of birth as the color of our skin)? Is it really impossible that Galatians 3:28 (“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female: for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”) could also refer to gays and lesbians?
B. David Hostetter
Wolcott, N.Y.
I have just finished reading the July 19, 1993, articles regarding homosexuality. As a former homosexual, it greatly distresses me that no one seems to be proclaiming the fundamental message of the gospel—freedom from sin! Christ died to set us free from the bondage of sin, so why are we arguing the interpretation of biblical passages pertaining to the wrongness of homosexuality when we should be focusing on the Scriptures in which God promises to set us free from sin, whatever form it may take?
My heart is heavily burdened for those still struggling with homosexuality, because I know they can be free from that bondage, and God knows they can be free.
Name withheld
Your articles and editorials about homosexuality were a wonderful combination of uncompromising biblical doctrine, sound ethics, factual information, and Christlike compassion. You have advocated compassion for individuals faced with agonizing temptations, yet you have rejected the selfish, destructive agenda of the militant and unrepentant self-appointed homosexual “leaders.” I only wish the leadership of my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA), would employ the clear-headed and Christ-centered thinking displayed in these articles.
My only complaint concerns your failure to examine the persecution of the churches in communities where militant gays have gained the upper hand. It would have been illuminating for you to have written a companion piece about Chuck and Donna McIlhenny’s church under siege in San Francisco.
Kent H. Karmeier
Kansas City, Mo.
Your very clear article on the homosexual issue let the main point slip by. The initial paragraph describing “Tom,” who had compulsive drives for anonymous sex and for seduction of teenagers, said it all. All of the other case histories warranted the “Loving Opposition” stance, but Tom’s problem is the reason strong public and legal opposition to the “gay lifestyle” is essential.
The main reason the gay community seeks public approbation rather than privacy is to facilitate promiscuity and recruitment. Masters and Johnson in Homosexuality in Perspective reported that every self-declared homosexual they interviewed in depth admitted to actively seeking to introduce others to the activity.
We should not hesitate to point out to those for whom the Bible is meaningless or modifiable that the “gay lifestyle” as it is currently practiced is a threat to individuals and society for simple sanitary reasons.
Telling the truth about the physical and emotional dangers of participation in the gay lifestyle is also a loving act, even if gays call it hate mongering.
P. M. Webster, M.D., F.R.C.P.C.
Toronto, Ont., Canada
Why the incredible moral outrage and spirited defense against this one particular sin? I think I can name two reasons (neither particularly attractive).
1. It is a sin most of us will never be tempted with.
2. Homosexuals are a minority, and disapproval is widespread—which makes them an easy target.
I believe in the words of the Bible and the power of Christ, who can change lives when they are voluntarily turned over to him. In the meantime, it is the church’s job to love people and do good to them whether or not they choose God’s gifts. So, come on, church! Get over your fear and get used to living in a secular world—with love.
Faith Totten
Spokane, Wash.
Stanton L. Jones claims that gay apologists must deny or grossly misinterpret the Bible to prove that homosexuality is acceptable.
Gay and lesbian Christians do neither when we believe exactly what John Calvin believed about the molesters in Sodom. When we believe what Martin Luther believed about 1 Corinthians 6:9, do we “mistinterpret the texts”? We even agree with Jerry Falwell regarding 1 Timothy 1:9–10 (Fundamentalist Journal, October, 1991).
Did Walter Martin get it wrong when he agrees with us about Moses’ moral laws in The Kingdom of the Cults?
The above “hostile witnesses,” like the rest of the church, have diverse reasons for condemning homosexuality. The Christian world has no consensus as to which verses do and which verses do not condemn us. Until God’s people develop a consensus regarding hermaphrodites, transexuals, divorce, and birth control, how will they ever come up with one answer concerning homosexuality?
Paul R. Johnson
Pomona, Calif.
Scripture Sip Language
A guest speaker at our church recently apologized for his tardiness by quipping, “My directions got a little turned around, and of course you know that only ‘an evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.’”
His good-natured abuse of Matthew 12:39 sent my mind wondering if there weren’t other verses that could be good for an obviously out-of-context chuckle. Imagine posting small signs all over the church building with verses like these:
1 Chronicles 11:9 in the janitor’s closet: “So David waxed greater and greater; for the Lord was with him.”
Isaiah 55:2 in the kitchen or fellowship hall: “… eat ·ye that which is good and let your soul delight itself in fatness.”
1 Kings 18:27 on the pastor’s door when he’s out: “Cry aloud, … either he is talking or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awakened.”
1 Corinthians 15:51 on the door of the.church nursery: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.”
And finally, 2 Chronicles 18:7, dare I say it, on the front of the pulpit? “There is yet one man, by whom we may inquire of the Lord: but I hate him; for he never prophesied good unto me, but always evil …”
I guess these “out-of-context signs” could start to get out of hand. Maybe that guest speaker was right about what kind of people seek after a sign.
Caesar’s coins
Contrary to Jerry Falwell’s charge (“Is Liberty Losing Freedom by Playing Virginia’s Tune?” News, July 19), Americans United holds no hostility toward evangelical Christians. We challenged state tax aid to Liberty University because it violated the constitutional principle of church-state separation. In the past year, we have also challenged government subsidies for schools affiliated with Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Judaism, and the Transcendental Meditation movement.
We did so not because we oppose religious education, but because such public assistance violates the right of taxpayers to support only the churches and church schools of their choice. Government aid, as the Liberty U. incident amply illustrates, also jeopardizes the integrity of the recipient institutions through government regulation.
Falwell clearly has compromised the Christian character of Liberty University in an effort to retain public funding. When state education officials questioned the religious content of an “Old Time Gospel Hour” advertisement for Liberty, the content of the ad was dramatically changed.
This episode illustrates the dangers inherent in any program of state aid to religious institutions. Once church schools become dependent on government largess, the temptation is great to surrender religious distinctives in order to keep Caesar’s coins flowing into their coffers.
To paraphrase Matthew 16:26: For what has a church school profited if it gain the whole world and lose its own soul?
The Rev. Barry W. Lynn
Americans United for Separation of Church and State Silver Spring, Md.
Modernity close to home
I appreciate the soul-searching of thoughtful conservative authors like David Wells in Roger Olson’s book review entitled “The End of Theology?” [July 19].
Regardless of whether evangelical theology has succumbed to modernity or postmodernity in the erosion of “absolute, objective truth,” it still remains popular to blame mainline churches and theology for the Christian woes of American society. I find it refreshing to read that authors in CT and reviewers like Roger Olson are admitting that modernity and postmodernity are trends that impact all theologies—including conservative evangelical theology.
Rev. David Coffin
Trinity Lutheran Church (ELCA)
Malinta, Ohio
Roger Olson’s review of No Place for Truth distracts readers from Wells’s thesis by focusing on intramural hair-splitting (is the enemy modernity or postmodernity?) and by dubiously claiming that Wells must only be interested in “Puritan, Calvinist” theology since he ignores recently published evangelical books on theology.
But Olson misses the point. Wells does note these new works, but the problem is that they, along with traditional works, are being ignored by pastors and laypersons alike because of the contemporary focus on feelings, success, and church growth.
The Rev. Scott Hoezee
Second Christian Reformed Church
Fremont, Mich.
Chill!
I would like to commend Charles Colson [“Sweet Reason and Holy Outrage,” July 19] for urging evangelical Christians to “cool the incendiary rhetoric” in discussions of social and political issues. I have been dismayed at the caricatures some Christians have employed in debates with those who disagree with them.
We all need to practice, to borrow Richard Mouw’s phrase, “convicted civility,” with each other. Only then will the kingdom be advanced.
Kathryn A. Lee
Eastern College
St. Davids, Pa.
Still going!
The book review “Half-full Christianity” [June 21] was half-full regarding Norman Vincent Peale. The last paragraph not only tries to say too much, it is inaccurate.
Dr. Peale preached at Marble Collegiate Church until he was 84. He did not “devote most of his time [after age 84!] to motivational speaking.”
My wife and I recently returned from a four-day conference of 420 ministers and spouses (evangelicals, mostly) in a School of Practical Christianity, which emphasizes preaching, working with volunteers, etc. Several thousand ministers have attended these seminars, which are deeply spiritual and inspirational. This is what Dr. Peale, now into his 90s, has been doing in retirement.
Tyler Johnson,
pastor First Presbyterian Church
Newport, R.I.
Devastating conclusions
As a survivor of satanic ritual abuse (SRA), I’m glad you labeled your conclusions “provisional” [“Memories of Satanic Ritual Abuse,” June 21]. Your conclusions were disappointing, to say the least—devastating would probably be more accurate.
You give very little attention to the most convincing argument in favor of the truth of SRA: the corroboration of the stories of many people, unknown to one another, from many different locations and backgrounds. You dismiss it as the result of invention by experts who share the same educational networks and the same stories. But what about the survivors? How many survivors are party to that network?
I can only speak for myself, but I was not particularly familiar with the topic of SRA when my memories began to return. I have purposely done very little reading about SRA so as not to plant any false memories. My therapist, like any good therapist, avoids leading questions and is very careful not to give me information that I don’t already have. When I come up with a memory, he goes to great (and sometimes frustrating) lengths not to mold or interpret the memory in any way. One day, when he asked me a key question that helped a memory to unfold, I asked him how he knew to ask that particular question. His profound reply was, “Evil is not very creative.”
You concluded that “satanic panic can harm marriages and churches.” True. So can Satanism. So can ignoring Satanism when it is present. Anything that is a lie will bring harm. But there doesn’t have to be panic; there can be a compassionate response and a joining in the quest for truth.
My husband is joining me in that quest, and my marriage is better than ever as the truth of my growing-up years is coming to light.
Please urge your readers to join the survivors of SRA in their quest for truth, without a preconceived notion of what that truth is.
Name withheld
This article grossly underestimates the cunning and pervasive influence of Satan “in his world.” While I do not wish panic to prevail, there is an abundance of evidence that something of this nature is occurring in this country and throughout the world.
Just as the Christian communitity for years kept its head buried in the sand concerning sexual abuse in its own ranks, so it seems there are those bent on repeating this pattern of response when it comes to recognizing and dealing with the reality of satanic ritual abuse.
Having been involved in group therapy with other victims of this type of abuse, I have seen the devastation that satanic and ritual abuse has had on their lives. To discount its pervasiveness seems to be a gross disservice to the Christian community. Evil is evil and stems from Satan through the hands of man.
Tom C. Szuszitsky, pastor
Fence Lake Community
Christian Church
Fence Lake, N. Mex.
I was saddened by the article on SRA because it is another “win” for the Satanists and their god. We know from a police investigator that the FBI does have evidence of SRA. We have seen some of his videos and photos that give evidence.
I want to share what we have personally witnessed: In 1989 God brought into our home a 27-year-old SRA survivor with multiple personality disorder (MPD). My husband and I had never heard of MPD or SRA, but we were willing to reach out to this troubled person, and we have now adopted her as our daughter. In the last three-and-one-half years, we have heard the memories of family and ritual abuse and have watched her relive the memories. None of us who hung in with her put any suggestions in her mind; we didn’t even know anything to suggest! The memories came as the Holy Spirit directed the healing process.
As she turned from Satan to the Lord Jesus Christ, the pieces of her life came together. And the more she talked, the more the satanists threatened her. There have been and continue to be phone calls, personal abuse, and attempts on her life. We have witnessed many miracles of God’s protection.
The opinions of the experts do not shake us. We know what we have seen and experienced. Unfortunately, there are people in high places who cover up the evidence. It is truly a battle not against “flesh and blood,” but against “principalities and powers.” I hope the church of Jesus Christ wakes up and helps these victims who have nowhere to go for true help except to the church.
Susan Weber
Irwin, Ohio
I knew it would be hard to leave the satanic cult I was abused and raised in, but I didn’t know it would be as hard as it has been. Perhaps even more painful than the demonic affliction and the efforts of Satanists to destroy me has been the unbelief of Christians. I thought when I came to the church that I would find a place of healing and safety. The church nearly destroyed me.
If it had not been for my new family and a few people in the church, I would not be alive today. I know two former cult members who were killed because they left Satanism and became Christians. Their church did not believe the threats on their lives. I am glad that the support from my church is growing through the months. Those of us who come out from Satanism risk our lives. Your article will make it even harder for us to get help.
Zy Weber
Irwin, Ohio
Your recent article on satanic ritual abuse did very little either to prepare the church for properly responding to the needs of SRA victims or to encourage those victims to come out and get help from the body of Christ.
It offends me that the church asks people to prove they were abused. Does the church or even the state require emotionally, physically, or sexually abused children to “prove” they were molested before intervening?
The only proof that the church will get (or should need) is the dysfunction and damage evident in the lives of people who are suffering from posttraumatic stress—depression, addictions, flashbacks, and multiple personalities.
No psychotherapist has the responsibility to provide forensic proof. As badly as some victims and therapists may want validation of their memories, a search for details and “facts” surrounding past abuse is secondary to therapeutically working through the effects of the trauma. So also for the church; redemptively loving the victim back to spiritual and mental health takes priority over scouring the distant past for “proof.”
Kim Campbell
Tulsa, Okla.
It takes surprisingly little for vulnerable, hurting persons to be led into the belief that they were abused in a concrete way at some time in their past. A catch-all statement from a therapist (e.g., “You have all the symptoms of an early sexual trauma”) can lead to the development of “memories” and accusations of general abuses, sexual abuse, and SRA. A wounded person is then victimized by this “therapy.”
Deception never heals. It destroys the victims of this kind of misleading therapy, as well as the victims of the false accusations. When family members are among the falsely accused, “therapeutic truth” also destroys the family support system needed for complete healing. I have witnessed the destruction of a family based solely on this brand of “truth.”
Michele Johnson
Eagle River, Wisc.
Can somebody say Amen?
Re: “The City that Wouldn’t Say ‘Amen’” (July 19). If Christians would transfer the time they spend trying to inject prayer into government events to prayer for their public officials, we might get more of the just and honorable government we say we desire.
Donald P. Shoemaker
Fellowship of Grace Brethren Churches
Seal Beach, Calif.
Clarification
The June 21 news article “Overseas Ministries Step Up Fight Against U.S. Ills” reported that World Relief has nearly doubled the percentage of its total budget devoted to U.S. programs from 23 percent in 1987 to 46 percent last year. Those figures mostly represent refugee-resettlement rather than aid to indigenous poor. World Relief aid to nonrefugees in the U.S. remains less than 1 percent of its budget. CT regrets any misunderstanding.
Letters are welcome. If intended for publication, they must include a signature and address. Letters may be edited for space and clarity. Write to Eutychus, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.
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In the fall of 1992, N. T. Wright was the talk of the joint annual conventions of the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature. We didn’t hear his presentation, but we heard all about it.
The Oxford scholar was part of a panel responding to John Dominic Crossan’s methodology employed in his controversial book The Historical Jesus. The first speaker, a Crossan fan, offered some standard words of appreciation. Then several hundred curious scholars perked up as Wright proceeded to tell a story, a sort of postmodern critique of Crossan’s very postmodern book. Wright spun his yarn about a book named “Michelle,” who couldn’t figure out who she was even though she was using Crossan’s methodology of historical reconstruction. She even read the promotional copy on her dust jacket. Alas, her identity crisis was still intact! Poor “Michelle.”
The normally decorous scholars chuckled and laughed aloud all through the presentation.
When Wright sat down (to much applause), it was Crossan’s turn. The Chicago scholar corrected one minor misapprehension on Wright’s part. Then he shrugged and said, “Well, I don’t know quite what to say …”
In his essay beginning on page 22 of this issue, Tom Wright examines several of the recent attempts to reconstruct who Jesus was. No funny stories here, just sober reflection on “The New, Unimproved Jesus.”
DAVID NEFF,Executive Editor
Philip Yancey
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I’ve not yet heard anyone call Bill Clinton the Antichrist, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Not since John Kennedy has a President caused such alarm in evangelical churches. (Remember the scary bestseller, If America Elects a Catholic President?)
Ironically, Bill Clinton is a lifelong Southern Baptist who can knowledgeably discuss the doctrines of original sin and justification by faith. He attends church, speaks warmly of his long friendship with Billy Graham, and points to the Graham crusade in Little Rock as a life-changing event for him as a teenager. Even so, evangelicals opposed his candidacy by a wide margin and have raised strident voices against his policies.
“I just have the feeling the country’s headed in the wrong direction,” said one friend of mine. Many share her uneasiness, for reasons that go far beyond Bill Clinton. The crime rate in 1960 was about 15 percent of the current rate. Promiscuity—in sex, drugs, violence, materialism—has become the spirit of the age. The United States can be considered a “Christian nation” only in the loosest sense. “God will turn his back on America,” said my friend, shaking her head sadly.
All this concern about “the decline of America” got me wondering how much attention God pays to national boundaries. Does God really judge the United States or any other country as a national entity? I have often heard this verse quoted as a formula for national revival: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chron. 7:14, NIV). Yet that promise was given as part of God’s covenantal relationship with the ancient Hebrews; its occasion was the dedication of Solomon’s temple, God’s dwelling place. Have we any reason to assume God has a similar covenant with the U.S.A.?
Certainly the Old Testament shows God dealing with national entities: the prophets called down judgment on Israel and Judah, as well as Philistia and Babylon. But the New Testament seems to introduce a major shift. Jesus stressed “the kingdom of heaven” as the central focus of God’s activity, a kingdom that transcends national boundaries and permeates society so as to affect the whole gradually, like salt sprinkled on meat.
Pentecost got the new kingdom off to a rousing international start, an Ethiopian eunuch soon spread it into Africa, and before long a man named Paul declared himself “apostle to the Gentiles.” Paul cared deeply about individual churches in Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome, but I find no indication that he gave any thought to a “Christianized” Roman Empire. The Revelation of John continues the pattern: that book records specific messages to seven churches but dismisses the political entity of what many conclude was Rome as “Babylon the great, the mother of prostitutes and of the abominations of the earth” (17:5, NIV).
A world of fugitives
Some historians argue that the church loses sight of its mission as it moves closer to the seat of power. Witness the era of Constantine or Europe just before the Reformation. We may be seeing history repeat itself. In 1991, as communism fell in Poland, 70 percent of Poles approved of the Catholic church as a moral and spiritual force. Now only 40 percent approve, mainly because of the church’s “interference” in politics. Modern Poland does not practice church/state separation: a new law says radio and TV broadcasts must “respect the Christian system of values,” and the state funds the teaching of Catholicism in public schools. Yet the coziness between church and government has led to a loss of respect for the church.
At various points in U.S. history (the 1850s, the time of Prohibition, and most recently the Moral Majority movement of the 1980s), the Christian church has marked an ascendancy into politics. Now, it appears, the church and politics may be heading in different directions. I, for one, feel no great sense of alarm over that fact. Our real challenge, the focus of our energy, should not be to Christianize the United States (always a losing battle) but rather to strive to be Christ’s church in an increasingly hostile world. As Karl Barth said, “[The church] exists … to set up in the world a new sign which is radically dissimilar to [the world’s] own manner and which contradicts it in a way which is full of promise.”
If indeed the United States is sliding down a slippery moral slope, that may better allow the church to set up “a new sign … which is full of promise.” Already I see evidence of that trend. Last spring a cover story in The Atlantic Monthly concluded that “Dan Quayle Was Right” about the grievously harmful effects of single-parent families. Meanwhile, sociologist Robert Bellah, after interviewing hundreds of married couples, identified evangelical Christians as the only group who could articulate a reason for marriage commitments that went beyond selfish interests.
“In a world of fugitives,” said T. S. Eliot, “the person taking the opposite direction will appear to run away.” It would be pleasant, I must admit, to live in a country where the majority of people followed the Ten Commandments, acted with civility toward one another, and bowed heads once a day for a nonpartisan prayer. There is much to be said for the social atmosphere of the 1950s. But if that environment does not return, I won’t lose any sleep. As America slides, I will work and pray for the kingdom of God. If the gates of hell cannot prevail against the church, the current political scene has little chance of impeding its advance.
Loren Wilkinson is the writer/editor of Earthkeeping in the ’90s (Eerdmans) and the coauthor, with his wife, Mary Ruth Wilkinson, of Caring for Creation in Your Own Backyard (Servant). He teaches at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
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Evil Whites or Bad Families?
L.A. Justice,by Robert Vernon (Focus on the Family, 254 pp.; $17.99, hardcover);The Coming Race Wars? A Cry for Reconciliation,by William Pannell (Zondervan, 143 pp.; $9.99, paper). Reviewed by John Wilson, a writer in Pasadena, California.
In An Experiment in Criticism, C. S. Lewis argued that we read literature to experience “an enlargement of being.… Each of us by nature sees the whole world from one point of view with a perspective and a selectiveness peculiar to himself.… We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts, as well as with our own.”
Although Lewis’s subject was what he termed “strictly literary reading,” his conclusions apply to other reading as well. Consider the outpouring of books and articles occasioned by the 1992 Los Angeles riots. With few exceptions, to read these responses is to be stunned by their narrowness of vision. Still, however partial and inadequate their testimony, these voices deserve to be heard, for they challenge us to enlarge our own limited vision.
Two Christian responses to the riots provide a case in point: Robert Vernon’s L.A. Justice and William Pannell’s The Coming Race Wars? Both see what happened in L.A. as symptomatic of deep, widespread problems in American society. Both invoke Christian principles. They differ radically, however, in their diagnosis of the riots—and in just about everything else.
Vernon, the son of a career L.A. police officer, was a 37-year veteran when he retired from the LAPD in 1992, having reached the rank of assistant chief. Part one of his book (more than two-thirds of the whole) focuses on two subjects: the riots and the witchhunt conducted against him following unsubstantiated allegations that his religious beliefs were improperly influencing his job performance. (Vernon’s account of this latter affair is the most important section of his book; where were the civil libertarians when the target was a real, live “Christian fundamentalist”?)
In part two, Vernon attempts to identify the “true root causes” of the riots. “Poverty, racism, poor education, lack of job opportunities, and crime are very real concerns,” Vernon writes. “But there are deeper problems that cause these symptoms to appear.” Vernon contends that all of these “symptoms” ultimately derive from the breakdown of the family.
Thus, his proposal for a “federal family czar” who would support the ideal of the traditional family, “condemn behavior destructive to the family,” and ensure that government policies are “family friendly.” Indeed, Vernon concludes, “None of the other issues faced by our government will matter if our families continue to deteriorate. All else pales in importance.”
Why, then, not a federal sin czar, to address the most fundamental cause of our problems: our self-willed estrangement from God? Vernon’s proposal—its utter implausibility aside—suggests the narrow limits of his vision. Traditional family values desperately need to be encouraged—“Dan Quayle Was Right,” as a recent Atlantic cover story proclaimed—but in conjunction with policies that will address those “symptoms” that Vernon disposes of far too easily.
America’s “police state”
From a white police officer we turn to a black seminary professor. William Pannell, professor of preaching and practical theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, disagrees that the breakdown of “family values” is the best handle for understanding the riots.
While many Americans are oppressed by the constant threat of violent crime, with carjacking lately added to the menu, it is the police who most worry Pannell: “We are on the very brink of a police state wherein law and order will mean something far more aggressive than it did when Richard Nixon inhabited the White House.” Indeed, “This is really the generation that will fulfill Saul Alinsky’s dark prophecy of an America that moves into either a radical social change or an indigenous American fascism.”
Rarely has a book been so misleadingly subtitled: instead of “a cry for reconciliation,” Pannell’s book offers an indictment of white society, the white evangelical establishment, and white males, period. It is loaded with outrageous stereotypes and taunting sarcasm. For instance, here is Pannell on the effects of downward mobility on the American middle class: “The antidote for this growing sense of powerlessness among whites is more helpings of the same thing that caused the malady—more doses of the rightness of whiteness. What a burden that must be to have to be strong, nearly perfect, wise, adequate, brave, clean and reverent, exceptional—all those wonderful Boy Scout traits!”
In a later chapter, Pannell celebrates the efforts of practitioners of liberation theology to “rescue theology from the palsied grip of Euro-American scholars and churchmen.” Never mind the fact that the popular appeal of liberation theology in Latin America has been dwarfed by the impact of Protestant evangelicalism, or that “Euro-American scholars and churchmen” were among liberation theology’s most enthusiastic supporters.
In his introduction, it should be noted, Pannell himself acknowledges that his “argument is one-sided in the extreme.… But I believe it is important for me … that I say what I have to say, even if at times it smacks of bitterness and sounds unreasonable. If my words are unguarded, they are at least sincere.” For that very reason, it would be a mistake to ignore Pannell’s message.
Does he speak for all African Americans? No, and he does not claim to, but the reception of his book among black leaders suggests that he speaks for many. The explosive anger, the bitterness at promises unfulfilled—these are widespread in the black community.
Reading Coming Race Wars? we begin to see the world (and ourselves) through Pannell’s eyes. We may protest that the picture is grossly distorted, but such differences in perception can provide a starting point for dialogue and change.
“The primary impulse of each of us,” Lewis wrote, “is to maintain and aggrandise himself. The secondary impulse is to go out of the self, to correct its provincialism and heal its loneliness.” We need to listen to the policeman, to the seminary professor who doesn’t like “cops,” and to many other voices. And we need books that—unlike these two—are themselves the product of such listening.
A History Of Church Shopping
The Churching of America, 1776–1990: Winners and Losers in our Religious Economy,by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark (Rutgers University Press, xiv + 328 pp.; $22.95, hardcover). Reviewed by James A. Mathisen, associate professor of sociology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.
For Easter Sunday 1990, a “Sunday supplement” to our newspaper carried a lead article on contemporary megachurches and the appeal they have for their congregants. “Happy customers from California to Maryland are eating up ‘fast-food religion’ this Easter.” Both intrigued and appalled, I read further that these Sunday services are designed as “a baited hook for the shoppers.”
This Madison Avenue approach to church life has now been elevated to an academic level. Sociologist Roger Finke and his mentor, Rodney Stark, argue in The Churching of America that it is not only appropriate but necessary to understand the church from a marketing perspective. They contend that “economic concepts such as markets, firms, market penetrations, and segmented markets” provide insights for understanding why some religious bodies fail and others succeed.
The result is a fascinating and provocative book—actually, books, since it is really two books wrapped into one. The first is a historical work. Finke and Stark have uncovered a variety of hitherto-unknown demographic sources that enable them to reconstruct likely rates of “religious adherence” since 1776 and thereby provide the basis for their market model. For example, between the Revolution and the Civil War, the rate of adherence more than doubled from 17 percent to 37 percent of the population. The problem is that for groups such as Congregationalists and Episcopalians, their “market shares” were declining from 20 percent to 4 percent, and from 16 percent to 3.5 percent, respectively, over the same period. By 1906, over half of the U.S. population was churched, and that rate inched upward to 62 percent by 1980.
The great rude awakening
Finke and Stark’s historical conclusions will alternately tickle the fancy and arouse the ire of serious scholars of American religion. They don the costume of “dragon slayers” to do battle with two of the most treasured explanations scholars employ for understanding the history of religion in America—secularization and awakenings.
The conventional secularization wisdom, as set forth by Peter Berger et al., says that the future of religion in the U.S. is precarious because of the culture’s pluralism, which inherently weakens the truth claims of any single religious tradition, including orthodox Christianity. Nonsense, say Finke and Stark. Faith in the power of monopoly religion is both bad history and bad economics. Instead, American religious pluralism and the “endless cycle of sect formation, transformation, schism, and rebirth” are positive indexes of active religious markets continuously responding to the changing demands of their consumers. With the “disestablishment” of mainline religion after the Revolution, an “unregulated, free market, religious economy” resulted, and adherence rates boomed for the next three generations.
Besides slaying the dragon of secularization, Finke and Stark tackle “awakenings,” the idea popularized by William McLoughlin and others favoring a cyclical theory of religious expression. Nonsense, say Finke and Stark. Instead, historians Timothy Smith and Jon Butler are closer to depicting the reality that awakenings never occurred or at least were never huge outbursts.
Thus the “Great Awakening” was “actually nothing more (or less) than George Whitefield’s well-planned, well-publicized, and well-financed revival campaign.” What really occurred is that under the influence of Whitefield, Cartwright, Finney, and others, a variety of upstart groups most successfully responded to changing market conditions. Older mainline groups failed to adapt, and the upstarts won the day, often by default.
Church by the numbers
So it is that Finke and Stark’s “second book”—that of consistently and persistently applying the market model now in vogue among “rational choice” theorists in economics and sociology—consists of their interpretation of the “why?” of winning and losing in the American religious economy.
For instance, they point out that if religious monopolies are bound to fail and upstart groups have been the consistent winner, then the worst possible advice Peter Berger could have provided in 1963 was that denominations merge to form cartels, thus “reducing the number of competing units.” Instead, merger is a sign of weakness; Finke and Stark identify “a strong positive correlation” historically between increasing market share and retaining denominational identity.
Theoretically, “rational choice” predicts that religious consumers evaluate the costs and benefits of their options and then consume the religious goods that “maximize net benefits.” Because mainline churches are plagued by “free riders” who contribute little and thereby weaken the shared benefits for all, it turns out that the stricter, sectlike groups are more able to maximize benefits for their adherents, even though the cost of individual membership is high. This is true because each member “benefits from the higher average level of participation thereby generated by the group,” in part because possible activities outside the group would be even more costly.
So, is religion a market, or is it like a market? In one sense, Finke and Stark raise nearly as many unresolved issues as they provide answers. Their rational-choice explanation of Catholicism’s historical success, for example, does not seem to fit their model as well as does their historical contrast of Baptist success versus Methodist failing. And their reductionistic tendencies (i.e., “rational choice” explains all) are certain to trouble both those who prefer more theological and more historical explanations of winning and losing, although for varying reasons. Furthermore, must winning be measured only in numerical terms if “only a few” find the small gate and the narrow way?
The book still succeeds, however, even if one disagrees with its theoretical interpretation, because it supplies such a wealth of historical and sociological analysis in a fashion that is stimulating and thought provoking. For those of us who care about the futures of our congregations and denominations, it is loaded with encouragement alongside warning: To succeed we must understand the choices available in our dynamically pluralistic religious culture.
Return To Hell
Gehenna,by Paul Thigpen (Creation House, 276 pp.; $9.99, paper). Reviewed by Robert Bittner, an editor and freelance writer living in the Chicago area.
Dante Alighieri’s 600-year-old classic, The Inferno, gets updated in this joke-filled retelling of one man’s soul-searching trek to hell and back. The novel begins when Thomas Travis, a professor of historical theology, escapes a gang of thugs on a dark Atlanta street, only to find himself passing through the gate of hell. Well, actually, the man-hole cover of hell. As one character notes, hell has been redecorated since Dante was there.
Trapped in the underworld, Travis learns he is destined to descend through the rings of hell, witnessing the punishments of damned souls—punishments that increase with intensity as he travels farther down. From feeling the hollow longing of souls in Sheol to watching the suffering of souls boiled in molten plastic or drowning in oceans of blood, Travis learns firsthand the difficult fact that life’s sins carry eternal consequences. The story of how he finds God’s grace, even in the lowest level of hell, makes for lively—if sometimes gruesome—reading.
Still, given Dante’s lasting achievment, I can’t help wishing that Thigpen had aimed for more than banter. The satire, which could have challenged readers, simply confirms what many evangelicals already accept. Gehenna will entertain, but the subject matter calls for more than a smile.
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In Zaire, even the poor are millionaires. But they are still poor. The hyperinflation rate means 5 million zaires amount to no more than $1 in U.S. currency.
The economy of this French-speaking Central African nation of 40 million people has collapsed. Unemployment is at 80 percent. Food prices are beyond the reach of many. The U.S. State Department estimates that 5.2 percent of the population is suffering from acute malnutrition. Hospitals are without medicines, and many expatriate doctors have had to leave because of the violence.
Despite local and international pressure, Mobutu Sese Seko, the country’s military ruler of 28 years, has refused to give up power.
Looting, rioting, and fighting are frequent. In February, at least 1,000 people were killed, including French ambassador Philippe Bernard, during a mutiny by soldiers. Ethnic and regional animosity is brewing. The country has 200 tribal groups and is divided into ten regions. By May, at least 150,000 Kasai people had been driven out of their homes in the mineral-rich Shaba province, which the Katanga people always have claimed for themselves.
A Christian land
Ironically, Zaire is predominantly Christian. About 90 percent of the population professes Christianity, with at least 40 percent being Catholic, including Mobutu. A 1972 state decree brought all Protestant churches under one umbrella, the Church of Christ in Zaire, known by its French acronym ECZ. ECZ is made up of more than 80 Protestant denominations; the biggest groups include the Disciples of Christ and Presbyterian churches.
The churches are caught up in the crisis. During the February unrest when infuriated soldiers ran amuck, ECZ’s theological school in Kinshasa suffered extensive damage. The seminary building and student and faculty residences were ransacked, and the library and classrooms were destroyed. One student was killed, others injured.
Life for the average church member is hard. “The people, especially in the urban areas, are suffering seriously due to lack of food and medicines,” says David Dyck, secretary for African Affairs for the Mennonite Central Committee. “Nobody has any money,” says Phillip Wood, a medical missionary in Zaire for 14 years and Canadian director for Worldwide Evangelization Crusade (WEC) International.
At the national level, the ECZ and the Catholic church have been in the forefront calling for change. They initiated a national conference in August 1991 in which churches, with other religious groups, appealed to delegates to “demonstrate a spirit of love, peace, and fraternity” and to “overcome sentiments of revenge, hatred, and division.”
But bickering between Mobutu’s supporters and the opposition gave the government opportunity to suspend the proceedings for “security reasons.”
Thousands of people marched through Kinshasa in February 1992 in a peaceful demonstration, demanding the reopening of the conference. Many were reportedly “clutching Bibles and rosaries.” But Mobutu’s troops opened fire, killing at least 30 people and wounding more than 100.
Mobutu’s information minister, Kitenge Yezu, blamed “radical Roman Catholic priests,” who he said “were totally responsible for what happened as they had been warned not to hold the march.”
The conference eventually reconvened and elected Etienne Tshisekedi, a Catholic, as prime minister of the transition government. For once it looked as if Mobutu’s era had ended. The international community, including Mobutu’s former allies, the United States, France, and Belgium, which in the past gave Mobutu loans and arms—and even sent their troops to help him crush rebels—recognized the transitional government and called upon Mobutu to surrender power to Tshisekedi.
But in April, Mobutu rebuffed the international community when he dismissed Tshisekedi’s government and appointed his own prime minister, Faustin Birindwa. Tshisekedi has refused to surrender power to Birindwa. “The president did not appoint me, and he cannot get rid of me.”
“The country now has two governments, two legislative authorities, two currencies, and two armies,” said a Western diplomat in Kinshasa.
“We are looking very carefully at a way to neutralize Mobutu without sparking a war,” says Tshisekedi. But some say Zaire remains a time bomb that could explode into a Liberia or a Somalia.
Church perseveres
Despite political and economic instability, reports indicate growth of the churches and endurance of believers.
Robert Fetherlin, regional director for Africa of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA), says the church is doing well. “God enables his church to move.”
The CMA experience is echoed by other mission agencies operating in Zaire. “We have good reports. They are struggling on,” says Wood of WEC Canada.
“They are determined not to be discouraged by the circumstances,” says Dyck of the Mennonite churches.
The CMA, which has been in the country for more than 100 years, had to pull out its 25 staff members; since then, only 4 have returned. Fetherlin says the abrupt withdrawal of missionaries may turn out to be a blessing for the CMA-related churches. “I think it may work out well for the church,” he says. “They are standing on their feet.” And the church is keeping pressure on the government. In May, the Presbyterian Community of Zaire pledged to “disobey unjust laws” and asked for United Nations intervention in dealing with Mobutu’s human-rights record. A statement signed by the moderator and general secretary of the Presbyterian Community of Zaire said, “We denounce all of the maneuverings to perpetuate the dictatorship, especially the looting, arbitrary arrests, theft, and violations [of human rights].”
These may be hard days for the people of Zaire, but evangelical leaders on the continent say African Christians must not give in to pessimism, but rather confront their national challenges by faith and prayer. Tokunboh Adeyemo of the Nairobi-based Association of Evangelicals of Africa and Madagascar says, “The future of Africa is not in the hands of secular politicians, economists, developers or financial institutions … but in your hand as a woman or man of God and of prayer.”
By Isaac Phiri.
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GHANA
Ministry Breaks Slavery Bonds
For generations, girls in the North Tongu District of Ghana’s Volta Region have been slaves to traditional fetish priests. Currently more than 1,000 girls are slaves serving priests at two-dozen shrines where idols are worshiped.
Walter Pinpong, Ghana executive director of International Needs (IN), says the shrine priests will obtain girls aged 4 to 8 from families wanting to break a curse that has been placed upon them. Rather than face threats of familial deaths or other disasters, families will relinquish a young daughter. This has been going on for generations, Pinpong says, because when the slave girl dies, the family must replace her.
Girls work from sunrise to sunset tending the land, yet they must find their own food. At puberty they also become sex slaves of the fetish priest. “It’s a deplorable situation of total illiteracy and abject poverty,” Pinpong told CHRISTIANITY TODAY. But Pinpong, 44, is working to change all that.
In a two-year training program, Pinpong and his IN staff have been able to take 41 residents from the shrines and teach mat-weaving vocational skills. In addition, IN teaches the girls how to read, sew, and bake. Once basic living needs have been met, IN introduces a Bible-study program, and several of the girls have become Christians.
Pinpong is negotiating with fetish priests to trade a tractor for the release of some of the girls. “Ultimately, our aim is to see them spiritually free as well as physically free.”
ISLAM
Rights Coalition Watches Muslims
Two-dozen organizations have joined forces to form the Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights in Islamic Countries to publicize persecution of Christians in Islam-dominated societies.
According to Edgar Dass, coalition member and president of the Pakistani-American Christian Association, the new group will “expose countless unfair trials, religiously provoked murders, [and] beatings of Christian leaders and laity.”
“Sudan, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia [have] a growing Islamic fundamentalist movement that is threatening Christians,” says Steve Snyder, president of Christian Solidarity International, a member of the coalition.
One carefully watched case is that of Gul Masih, a Pakistani Christian, sentenced to death last November under that country’s blasphemy law (CT, April 5, 1993, p. 78). Masih appealed his sentence and is on death row awaiting a new trial.
PEOPLE AND EVENTS
Briefly Noted
In Bulgaria, Baptist Union President Teodor Angelov has been elected to head the new United Evangelical Churches, an alliance of 100 representatives from Baptist, Church of God, Congregational, Methodist, and Pentecostal congregations in Sofia, Angelov says the Bulgarian Orthodox Church is disturbed by a growth in evangelical numbers and is behind a media disinformation campaign that accuses evangelicals of everything from terrorism to cannibalism.
• Representatives from 85 Malaysian churches met recently for Missions Fest ‘93, the nation’s first National Missions Conference. The event drew 375 participants interested in serving in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.
• Peter Cameron, principal of Saint Andrew’s College at the University of Sydney, has lost an appeal of a March 18 heresy conviction (CT, May 17, 1993, p. 90) by the Presbytery of Sydney of the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales. The presbytery had found Cameron guilty of making statements inconsistent with the Westminster Confession by preaching a sermon on women’s ordination in which he said the Bible could not always be taken literally.
• Bishop Casimir Wang Milu has been paroled by Chinese authorities after nine years in a Dashaping labor camp. He had been charged with five offenses related to the Vatican-loyal underground Catholic church in China.
VIETNAM
Free Worship Carries a Price
To avoid government interference with worship, about 40,000 Christians in south Vietnam risk beatings and imprisonment to worship in unregistered house churches. Though less than 8 percent of Vietnamese are Christian, the Communist government attempts to control this rapidly growing group by strictly regulating the official Tin Lanh church. In many areas, these churches must receive authorization from Communist officials for dates of worship, length of service, and sermon content.
“The government is very afraid of anyone they cannot control,” says Tom White, mission director for Voice of the Martyrs (VOTM), an international missionary organization.
VOTM reports that one pastor has been sentenced to nine years in prison for refusing to reveal the names of other house-church pastors. He reportedly has converted 30 fellow prisoners to Christianity.
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Charles Reynolds has gained a new appreciation for the plight of Noah. The pastor of First Christian Church in Keithsburg, Illinois, has been contending with a “Great Flood” of his own.
When the waters of the Mississippi River and nearby Pope Creek broke through the levee of sandbags in the town of 750, First Christian—the only Protestant church in town—became one of its victims.
“After the levee broke, I went over to the church in a rowboat, and there were 13 inches of water standing in our sanctuary,” Reynolds says. The basement was completely under water. Four days before the levee broke, church members formed a bucket brigade to evacuate the basement, but the appliances, tables, folding chairs, partition drapes, and new robes still got drenched upstairs, where the water level outside the church reached three feet.
Even more devastating than the damage to the church has been the flood’s effect on church members, says Reynolds. “We have 185 houses or businesses that are under water and unlivable.”
Ecumenical cooperation
Still, where rural Midwest Christians are concerned, optimism and cooperation abound. Unlike some other parts of the world where disaster strikes, there has been little looting or finger-pointing. Instead there has been a massive outpouring of relief.
For instance, Keithsburg’s Catholic church has loaned First Christian its building until repairs can be made. “I believe God will have a rainbow for us when all this is done,” Reynolds says. “Sometimes God uses adversity to build us up.”
Flooding in the upper Mississippi River basin had caused 29 deaths by mid-July, driven more than 30,000 people from their homes, and drowned 6 million acres of some of the world’s most productive farmland. Estimates of the total damage have risen as high as $10 billion.
“In dollar damage, it will exceed anything the Midwest has had before,” says Lloyd Rollins, executive secretary of the United Methodist Committee on Relief. But hundreds of churches and Christian organizations from St. Paul to St. Louis are not waiting for damage estimates. They are already immersed in relief efforts.
Feed the Hungry made emergency flights with a C130 military cargo plane to deliver a water purification system to Des Moines and bring 60,000 pounds of food to families displaced along the Des Moines River in southeast Iowa.
The Salvation Army has been on the front lines since heavy rains caused flooding in April and May. More than 1,000 church volunteers working in six states have given more than 65,000 hours to the relief efforts. Volunteers also have served more than 140,000 meals to victims and relief workers.
World Vision already has distributed $1.65 million in food and supplies.
Nowhere is the flood’s punch more evident than in Des Moines, where the water purification system was ruined by flood waters, leaving the city’s residents dependent on outside sources for potable water.
Thirty pastors in the Evangelical Ministerial Association banded together to offer a practical and spiritual response to the crisis. “We want this to have a distinctly Christian witness and we don’t want to duplicate efforts,” says Bruce Wittern of Easton Place United Methodist Church.
A chaplaincy program for both relief volunteers and those devastated by the flood has offered a Christian presence and encouragement. “The volunteers are getting stressed out and snappy. Some of them are putting in 16-hour days,” Wittern says, “And the people at the homeless sites are really at the end of their ropes.” One volunteer chaplain ended up taking a suicide call from someone despondent over his losses.
The ministerial association also has organized a Christian Executive Relief Committee, which is working with other Christian organizations such as World Vision and World Relief. And churches are distributing “response action forms” that allow church members to designate what they need or what they can do. Wittern says, “Were going to try to match the needs with people who can help.”
More than 2,000 members of 40 churches gathered July 18 for a Flood Relief Rally at First Federated Church in Des Moines. An “altar call” netted 500 volunteers for cleaning projects.
Further downstream, assembly lines of volunteers have been slapping together sandwiches nearly around the clock in the “disaster kitchen” at Edmundson Road Baptist Church in St. Louis.
“We’re preparing about 5,500 to 6,000 meals a day,” says Jim Albers, director for the Missouri Baptist Convention’s disaster relief program. Most are delivered to hungry sandbaggers and other relief workers, but an increasing number are being used to feed displaced homeowners and farmers.
Albers says the response to calls for volunteers has been fantastic. “We’ve been really blessed by enthusiasm and Christian spirit,” Albers says. “But we plan to be here for the duration. We’re a long way from being out of the woods.”
Given the Midwestern bedrock values and fortitude in a crisis, volunteers will be around until they are no longer needed.
By Heidi Schlumpf Kezmoh.
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Pray for Rain is not among the featured bands.
Cornerstone, one of a half-dozen Christian rock music festivals in the country, is celebrating its tenth annual gathering on Independence Day weekend during the deluge of ‘93. Rain falls in torrents during the four-day event in western Illinois, 30 miles from the raging Mississippi River, turning a 575-acre campground into a giant mudhole.
For the music-minded, the $65 entry fee is a bargain. Big names are part of the 60 acts playing on different stages: Phil Keaggy, Rich Mullins, DeGarmo and Key, REZ, Newsboys. Certainly some of the more creatively named bands are there: Cauzin’ efekt, Vigilantes of Love, Fear Not, Lost Tribe.
The music is loud. Very loud.
The Cornerstone festival is an outgrowth of the Chicago-based Cornerstone magazine, affiliated with Jesus People USA. Many of the 10,000 attending—more than half pitching tents on the grounds—are reminiscent of the early Jesus People movement. This on-fire-for-Jesus subculture includes nonconformists sporting mohawk hairdos and rings in pierced nipples and eyelids.
Yet what makes Cornerstone unusual is not the music playing during the night but the evangelical thinkers lecturing during the day. In seven tents, seminar speakers tell truth and expose error. Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead talks about religious liberties; author/professor Ruth Tucker discusses the New Age movement; ethicist Alvin Bowles, Sr., lectures on euthanasia and abortion; Operation Mobilization international director George Verwer shares thoughts on discipleship training and church planting. For the average believer, it is an opportunity to ask questions face-to-face with some Christian movers and shakers.
Bowles says talking to teens with pink and gold hair is disconcerting, at first: “You can’t judge a book by its cover. These people know Scripture and they know the Lord. You can tell by talking to them. They’re not freaky.”
“They’re a little different, but they’re good people,” Whitehead says.
The first seven years the festival rocked in Chicago suburbs before moving outside Bushnell, population 3,800. The move has not dampened enthusiasm or attendance. Many even make the 225-mile trek from the Windy City.
Cornerstone is a boon for the local economy. The Rotary Club sells ice cream bars for civic projects. The United Methodist Church holds a sausage and biscuit breakfast to raise funds for missionary efforts. Entrepreneurial types move onto the campgrounds selling everything from T-shirts to funnel cakes. Half the homeowners between Bushnell and the campground hold rummage or bake sales in front yards.
“It’s almost like experiencing heaven,” says Nelson Myers of Austin, Texas. “Everybody loves the Lord.” For Scott Gorke of Beverly, Massachusetts, the festival provides an opportunity to experience a “24-hour road trip” with friends. It took Don McLeod four days to arrive from Seattle, but he wants to hear Norman Geisler, John Perkins, and Bob and Gretchen Passantino.
The camping experience is a time to draw closer to the Lord and leave behind problems of the city. “It’s all good, clean fun,” says Aleena Thornton of Lake Zurich, Illinois. “There are no fights, no alcohol. Everyone respects the zipper on your tent. It’s the only place where you can see such a variety of Christians all gathered for the same reason—Jesus. You can dress differently and have different-colored hair and still be accepted.”
By John W. Kennedy in Bushnell, Illinois.