Page 5700 – Christianity Today (2024)

Nancy Tischler

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (1)

  1. View Issue
  2. Subscribe
  3. Give a Gift
  4. Archives

A middle-aged man from a proud and wealthy family, well-educated, active in politics, famous in literary circles for his love lyrics, married, with four or more children, suddenly finds his life and his thoughts thrown into confusion. After a lifetime of being a loyal citizen of his town, devoted to the ideals and activities of his community, after having served on the governing council of his native Florence and travelling as an envoy to the Pope, he returns to find himself an exile, charged with fraud and corruption, forbidden entry to his beloved city unless he is willing to be “burned with fire till he be dead.” His wife and children choose to remain in the sanctuary of the city. “Thou shalt leave everything beloved most dearly; this is the first shaft which the bow of exile lets fly,” he wrote. For the rest of his life—twenty long years—this lonely wanderer climbs other men’s stairs and eats the salt at other men’s tables. Loving and wealthy patrons are generous to him, but he can never return to his former life. He carries with him scant but ample baggage: his anger, his love, his great talent, and his faith.

Although many of us in the middle of the journey of life find ourselves in a dark wood, not many know the hell of loneliness, indignation, and disappointment alloted to Dante Alighieri of Florence in his final years. His compensation lay in the deeply mystical experience that took him from the hell of self through the stages of renewal to the ecstasy of the vision of God. His legacy to the world is the complex and beautiful record of this marvelous journey, which has come to be known as The Divine Comedy, or The Comedy of Dante Alighieri the Florentine.

In the final years of his life looking back on the pain and the discovery of those middle years Dante acknowledged the redeeming power of love—not wealth, not talent, not family, not city—but love. Dante’s world was held together by love—as is ours. God’s love led him to create the universe and to place man in it. The medieval man thought that this universe was a three-storied one, and that God was the unmoving Mover of the heavens and the earth. Dante’s religion also was his cosmology, his geography, and his physics. In a thrillingly unified vision of God’s creation, he considered love as the key to all attraction—mental, physical, and spiritual. Thus, love of evil and the material stuff of creation draws man deeper into Hell, a place frozen and dark because of the absence of God’s love, where man gnaws at his fellows, mutilates them, lies to them, snarls at them, a place dominated by that lord of hate, Satan. God does not need to place man in his proper sphere of Hell; the individual’s love of his own peculiar evil draws him there to spend eternity repeating, without joy or hope, the sins he loved on earth.

If man loves Christ rather than Satan, he moves instead to the sunlit home of penitents—Purgatory. As he eagerly seeks both the whip and the bridle, he finds there that the one lashes him to enthusiasm for virtue, the other restrains him from vice. Again the sinful Christian determines by his own faith and failure his abode in the afterlife. Since on earth he divided his love between wrongful loves and rightful ones, he settles first in the place where his particular sin is to be confessed and cleansed. Living with both day and night, the rhythms of earth, he finds himself gradually cleansed of his sins, growing lighter and brighter and more joyful as he approaches purity and holiness. The rhythm of labor and rest, the sense of movement upward, the life of song, prayer, and penitence seems idyllically monastic. It is in startling contrast to the static despair of Hell.

Although the Protestant may reject the basic doctrine of Purgatory, he will find the perception of the psychology and theology of sin and salvation full of insight. The organization of Purgatory like that of Hell is based on the seven deadly sins. Purgatory’s highest point parallels Hell’s; in Dante’s natural history, Purgatory was formed when Satan fell to earth. Hell was a result of the impact and the shrinking from his evil by the very earth. The displaced land rose up to form the seven-story mountain. Psychologically as well as physically it is the counterpart of damnation. Thus, while Hell is founded on despair and hatred of God, Purgatory is based on hope and love of God.

The key to the ordering of the sins in Purgatory is distortions of love. Dorothy L. Sayers spent the last years of her life studying and interpreting and translating this great poem to make it more accessible to English readers. She explained the system of Purgatory in her preferatory notes. The lower section, where the proud, envious, and wrathful do their proper penance, is the farthest from primal innocence, for love has been perverted. Those who should love their neighbor instead seek their neighbor’s harm. Middle Purgatory, where the slothful hurry to their salvation, is the home of defective love—those whose lukewarm love keeps them from exertion for the love of God. Nearest to innocence are the covetous, the gluttonous, and the lustful. Their flaw is the love of God’s creation rather than of God himself. The drunkard, the miser, and the fornicator ignore the primary good and focus their desire on the secondary. The lustful soul is the closest to purity because his is the warmest of sins. His love of the flesh and his desire for another human being can be transferred to a delight in the incarnation and a dedication to Christ far more easily than the man who loves himself.

Dante uses the medieval Roman Catholic understanding of sin and of the psychology of repentance. He pictures the public confession of sin, the repentance (contrition), the penance (satisfaction), and makes each step clear. Although the mountain seems to stand physically in time, the journey from sin to salvation, the return of man to innocence through the redeeming love of Christ, the freeing of the will by the submission to Christ are timeless and universal. Dante studies each of the sins to discover its root causes; he acknowledges his own sins and bows his head in confession of his own pride and lust. His delight in redemption and renewal at the top of Mt. Purgatory is a thrilling moment.

Heaven too is portrayed as a place of love, where the saints of the Church triumphant live in the radiant presence of God. They see face to face and know the truth, remembering no part of earthly life with regret, loving fully without need to possess either things or people. In the light of God’s love, their vision is restored so that they can see and love all things properly. The nine spheres, each with its planet, its supervising angels, and its inhabitants are contained in the mind of God. The image breaks through in Paradise and lives outside time and space. The saints seem to be in the various spheres. But the spheres are only metaphors. All the saints live in the presence of God, in the primum mobile, in the glorious light of his love. In a blinding moment Dante finally experiences God and admits that his mystical moment is ineffable; his art cannot record the truth:

Thither my own wings could not carry me,

But that a flash my understanding clove,

Whence its desire came to it suddenly.

High phantasy lost power and here broke off;

Yet, as a wheel moves smoothly, free from jars,

My will and my desire were turned by love,

The love that moves the sun and the other stars.

Paradiso, Canto XXXIII

This divine love that Dante experiences so richly takes different forms for him, as it does for each of us. His art is his own loving response to God; his love of other artists (such as Virgil) is not adoration of secondary goods, but delight in the image of God shining through human experience. Dante so identified his love of God and his love of beauty that he organized his divine comedy on the basis of the Trinity—three in one. The three parts of the poem, the divisions within the poem, the three-fold interlocking verse form all testify to his delight in the majesty and unity of God’s three-fold nature.

His love of other people follows a parallel pattern. Another human being, Beatrice, serves as God-bearer for him. Using the frame-of-reference provided by his age to explain his experience and his emotions, he discovers in the image of Beatrice a means of access to the love of God. Her intervention for him, her prayers for his salvation, her delight in his redemption culminate in her appearance at the top of Mt. Purgatory, where she crowns him as his own pope and emperor, a free man in Christ, who is now pure and prepared to leap up to the stars (Canto XXXIII).

As we watch the various appearances of the God-bearer Beatrice through the story we come to understand that she is not simply the beautiful wife of a Florentine banker who stirred and snubbed the young Dante and haunted him all his life. She becomes instead a human form through which God speaks to the young man and encourages him to love more than the flesh, to climb the platonic ladder of love to a higher love than lust alone can ever know. In her appearance in the Earthly Paradise she becomes an image of the Church, which encourages man to leave his limited loves for the immortal love of Christ. Like a good wife—the Bride of Christ—she nags man out of his preference for the physical to an adoration of the spiritual. Her admonitions shame him and her love heals him. She is a good mother as much as a good wife, warning the erring child, encouraging him, laughing gently at his confusion, helping him toward his next stage of development.

With Beatrice as his guide Dante bursts into Paradise. There in the presence of the saints he gradually discovers insights into theological truths. With each sphere Beatrice grows more beautiful, her smile more brilliant, until she finally must turn from Dante for fear of blinding him. As divine illumination floods into his life Beatrice becomes (in Sayers’s phrase) a “divine schoolmistress,” leading, explaining, protecting, nudging, hinting, helping the learner to see more clearly. By the time she turns him over to his final guide, the saintly Bernard, she has become unnecessary to his spiritual development and can return to her blessed rest. The human love that she represents can lead mankind to God because it mirrors his love. Not seeking oneself like the proud, nor desiring to possess another like the lustful, the true love is content to lead the pilgrim upward and to release him to the waiting hands of God.

Dante then discovers, as do many people, that we learn love first from human images—fathers, mothers, friends, and mates. The quality of that love may stop with self or lead the beloved on to a larger experience of immortal love in God. The beloved Dante, without rejecting Beatrice, is content to look beyond her to the greatest lover of all: the archetype of father, mother, sister, brother, husband, and lover. And Beatrice is fulfilled in the knowledge that Dante has used her image to see through it to God.

Perhaps the story is old-fashioned and quaint in many ways. Certainly the richly physical view of the afterlife and the detailed account of its geography and inhabitants lead many modems to classify it flatly as fiction. We may argue with the physical nature and origin of Purgatory and dispute the cosmology of Paradise. We may smile condescendingly from our liberated heights at his hopelessly romantic view of women and the idealized notions of the Holy Roman Empire. But we can learn a great deal from him—the psychology of sin, the path to repentance, the nature of free will, the priorities of the Christian life, the reality of evil, and the redemptive power of love. In the poem he quotes the Scripture passage we all know so well: “Faith—hope—love—but the greatest of these is love.” Having lost in the middle of the journey of life all those human loves that are so central to existence, he discovers the fuller meaning of the Scripture. Not the love of a woman, who could die, or the love of a family, which could be lost, or the love of a city, which could fail, but the love of God, who himself is love.

Nancy M. Tischler is professor of English and humanities, Pennsylvania State University, Capitol Campus, Middletown, Pennsylvania.

    • More fromNancy Tischler

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (3)

  1. View Issue
  2. Subscribe
  3. Give a Gift
  4. Archives

This is the text of a statement by Billy Graham being given this month on the “Hour of Decision” broadcast.

Since the beginning of our evangelistic ministry we have been deeply concerned about the financial integrity of our work. We believe we are accountable to God for all money entrusted to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA). We consider ourselves stewards before the Lord.

When we began our evangelistic ministry almost all evangelists were supported by voluntary “love offerings.” Occasionally this led to financial abuses, and in the minds of many people mass evangelism came to be associated with an “Elmer Gantry” image of financial irresponsibility and even dishonesty.

We set out to change this image by forming a small board and setting up a non-profit religious organization. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was formed in 1950. We stopped receiving “love offerings” shortly thereafter and put every member of our staff, including myself, on a fixed salary. All funds received for our ministry go to the BGEA. In 1950 this was a new concept in this type of evangelism; we were determined to have total financial integrity.

When the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was founded we not only prayed that God would provide the finances necessary for our own direct ministry of evangelism, but that he would entrust us with enough financial resources to help missions and other evangelical projects throughout the world. We determined to attempt to tithe all funds that were given to us for evangelism, and dedicate this tithe to help other ministries that supported evangelism, missions, and Christian education. We felt at the time that it was scriptural and that God would honor our efforts and motives. I understand the great evangelist of the last century, D. L. Moody, once said “God will allow millions to pass through my hands for the work of God if none of it sticks to my hands.”

All finances of the BGEA are under the supervision of a board of directors. Our board has twenty-five men and one woman. It includes distinguished lawyers, bankers, businessmen, a seminary president, and distinguished clergy, including two outstanding black clergymen. The entire board meets three times a year. The executive committee, made up of seven men, meets approximately every six weeks for anywhere from one day to two full days. No paid employee, including myself, is on the executive committee. I do not attend the executive committee except by invitation.

We have insisted on the highest possible standards of financial ethics, business procedures, and spiritual principles in the business affairs of the BGEA. We have taken extra precautions to be certain that everything is done with complete integrity so no dishonor might come to the name of Christ. Our books are audited every year by one of America’s best known accounting firms.

About three years ago we asked one of the largest and most distinguished law firms in America to assess our organization and its affiliates in every possible detail, to see if there were any financial safeguards or practices we were overlooking. After a thorough two-year study this firm (which specializes in non-profit organizations) reported that they had rarely found an organization with higher standards and better financial control than ours. One of our board members, for many years the treasurer of Harvard University, stated, “I have served on many boards but have never been associated with an organization that has such high standards of business procedure and financial controls as BGEA.”

I can assure you that your contributions are handled legally and with the highest sense of Christian ethics and spiritual concern. If you designate any gift, we guarantee it will go 100 per cent where you want it to go. For example, several years ago we established an “emergency relief fund” to help the victims of disasters throughout the world in the name of Christ. We take nothing from that relief fund for administrative expenses. Through this fund, for example, we have been able to help earthquake victims in Guatemala and Romania and famine victims in Africa. We have helped in New Guinea, Bangladesh, and many other emergency areas. We believe such relief efforts are commanded by Christ. We also believe countless people are open to the Gospel because of such actions of practical love and compassion.

Earlier, I explained how we decided to tithe our income to other evangelical causes. God has honored this commitment for more than a quarter century. We have been able to help seminaries, Bible schools, missions, hospitals, scholarships for overseas students, relief work, missionaries, evangelists, and evangelical periodicals throughout the world. We have given small and large amounts to hundreds of Christian groups that were being used of God across the world. For example, we help support a halfway house for prisoners in Mexico, a tuberculosis clinic for nomads in the Middle East carried on by devoted missionaries, and a graduate seminary and colleges in several countries of the Far East. We have also provided scholarships for seminary and college students from the Third World, help for refugees from Uganda, and thousands of scholarships for Bible school, seminary, and college students to the Schools of Evangelism in connection with all of our major crusades around the world.

Most people did not know that we helped sponsor and pay for world conferences on evangelism, such as the Berlin Congress on Evangelism (1966) and the historic Lausanne International Congress on World Evangelization (1974)—and we have either totally paid for, or helped in part, at least a score of evangelistic and missionary conferences throughout the world. We gave substantial financial help to the Pan African Christian Leadership Conference in Nairobi last December.

We never have sought to draw attention to this side of our work, believing that this kind of attention might be mistaken for boasting and pride. We took seriously the words of Jesus: “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them; otherwise ye have no reward of your Father, which is in heaven. Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly” (Matt. 6:1–4).

As the years passed we began to see the tremendous need for a special fund to help undergird evangelical ministries throughout the world to a greater extent than we were able to do. Our board of directors also felt that we should take steps to insure the wise long-range investment of gifts that came to BGEA from time to time in the form of stocks, trusts, estates, foundation grants, and a certain amount of undesignated funds. A fairly large percentage of gifts that we receive have no designation. People are giving to us to act as stewards of the Lord’s money and to invest it in his kingdom as God directs us.

So, in 1970 we formed a foundation, which now is called the World Evangelism and Christian Education Fund (WECEF). There are several facts I would like you to know about the WECEF Fund.

1. It is a legally incorporated non-profit foundation registered with the Internal Revenue Service.

2. It is administered by a dedicated board of trustees made up of some of America’s most outstanding Christian businessmen. Its executive committee consists of the former president of the American Bakers Association, the chairman of the board of trustees of the Baylor Medical Center and Baylor University, and the former treasurer of Harvard University, who is also a member of the Wheaton College Board of Trustees.

3. There are no full-time employees of WECEF. No board member receives any financial benefit from it.

4. The money given to WECEF (as to BGEA) is committed to benefit projects in missions, evangelism, and Christian education.

5. In order to be good stewards, the trustees of WECEF have directed the investment of the funds in a prudent manner until distribution.

6. The WECEF Fund is audited annually by a nationally recognized auditing firm, and an official “990” IRS report is filed annually with the federal government.

7. WECEF has been on the public record since its inception—open for all to inspect, but it has not been publicized. For one thing, we felt it was scriptural. For another thing, extensive publicity, we knew, would mean we would be innundated with requests for help that we could not begin to meet. We already knew of far more projects than we could support, and we did not want to have to divert money from worthy projects to employ a large staff to handle such requests.

8. WECEF is the only foundation or fund to which BGEA is affiliated.

The reason I have tried to outline all of this to you is that there has recently been some misunderstanding about the World Evangelism and Christian Education Fund. The Bible says, “Let not your good be evil spoken of” (Rom. 14:16). God has greatly used WECEF, and we have a responsibility to tell you the facts about it. I hope you will pray for its ministry.

In recent years we have thought and prayed frequently about the future of our ministry. God has given us an increasing burden for training other men and women who will do the work of evangelism in the decades ahead. When I entered full-time evangelism I was president of a liberal arts college and a Bible school with 1,200 students in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I have always carried this burden of training others. About fifteen years ago we came very close to building a university. We had the land and a great part of the money offered us, but at that time we felt it would be too much of a diversion from our evangelistic crusades. So after much prayer and soul-searching we decided not to build it.

But Paul told Timothy, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Tim. 2:2), and I believe God is leading us in two major projects to fulfill this vision. First, we are helping to build at Wheaton College in Illinois what I believe is destined to become one of the world’s unique training centers in missions and evangelism. It will draw students and laymen from around the world for intensive courses in training for evangelism. Church leaders from various countries will be able to come for further training. In it will be one of the finest libraries on evangelism and missions in the world. It will also house Wheaton’s growing Graduate School in Biblical Studies and Communications. It will also house the records and memorabilia of our ministry. The first floor is designed so that a visitor walking through will be confronted with the claims of Christ. It is our hope and prayer that people will find Christ every week, just visiting this center. Construction will begin this fall. It will be a continual evangelistic effort long after God has called us to heaven. This institution will be owned, operated, and directed by the board of trustees of Wheaton College.

Second, tentative plans are underway for a Bible training center specifically designed to train laymen in the Bible. It will not be a Bible school in the traditional sense, for there will be no academic credit or graduation diplomas. It would bring outstanding Bible teachers from many denominations and other parts of the world for short periods of teaching. A layman or a student or even a clergyman could go there for a month, or three months, or even a year, and study the Bible in depth. We have felt it should be in a secluded spot where they could have time for long walks, places for quiet and prayerful decision-making concerning their life’s priorities. Many people are converted late in life and cannot take time off to go to a Bible school or seminary, but they could take a month off for an intensive Bible survey study. As far as I know, this would not be in competition with any denominational effort anywhere in the world. A beautiful location in western North Carolina has been purchased and preliminary studies have already been completed. However, since we will not begin this project until the Wheaton Center is finished, it may still be at least three or more years away. Already proposals for other sites in other parts of the country are coming in. Three years is a long time in this swiftly moving world. We are waiting upon God to either open this door or close it. We pray “thy will be done.”

The World Evangelism and Christian Education Fund is committed to help fund both these projects. However, we do not have the full resources needed to build these two great projects and also meet the needs of many other important projects that we now help. We need your increased financial support if this work is to continue. If you desire to designate gifts for either of these two projects or any other evangelistic project, you may do so through your gift to the BGEA. In addition, we need your continual support for our ministry of evangelism through radio, films, and literature. We are having to face rising costs in everything from postal rates to the purchase of television time.

We find ourselves limited to the many visions and dreams that God has given us to touch the world for Christ in our generation. Calls are coming from every part of the world for us to come and proclaim the Gospel and to help in various ways. Unfortunately, we have to write hundreds of letters each year turning down worthy requests. We are limited because of physical strength, time, and finances.

One of the interesting things is that when we go to other countries in response to the command of our Lord Jesus Christ to go into all parts of the world to proclaim the Gospel, our income goes down. I would like to challenge you with the responsibility of the whole world for Christ. When you hear that we are in some other country ministering, I hope you will increase your giving and consider it a missionary contribution. When we go to many parts of the world we bear the team expenses from BGEA and usually have to help substantially in the crusade expenses, especially in the underdeveloped countries whose financial means are limited.

We are living in a very ominous, critical, and serious moment in history. It has been my privilege during the past few months to talk to a number of leaders in different parts of the world from various walks of life. I found a great deal of pessimism.

Yet I am not pessimistic. Doors are open right now as perhaps never before. I am told that as many as 50,000 people a day are becoming Christians. This is an age of unprecedented harvest. If ever we are to pray and give, it is now. “The night cometh, when no man can work” (John 9:4). It is a question as to how long we can remain on television and radio with the same freedom of proclaiming the Gospel as we now have. It is a question as to how much longer we can have the freedom to hold evangelistic crusades in many parts of the world.

We are ready to spend our strength and our energy, if you will stand behind us with your prayers and your financial support. God bless you.

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (5)

  1. View Issue
  2. Subscribe
  3. Give a Gift
  4. Archives

I recently returned from a fascinating and instructive trip to Taiwan, the Chinese bastion of freedom in the Far East. After almost four weeks of intensive investigation I have formed impressions and had opinions solidified about the state of affairs vis a vis the Republic of China in relation to Red China, to the United States, and its position in the struggle for freedom.

Taiwan is certainly not a paradise. It has slums, its educational opportunities are limited, its people work long hours, it has a lower standard of living than the industrial nations of the world, and its medical facilities appear sub-standard when compared with the United States. Sanitation facilities are somewhat primitive in suburban areas and the restrooms at some of the bus stops resemble those of Turkey. But the same things could be said about many other nations around the world. The media in the United States have treated Taiwan unfairly and it’s time someone pointed out the positive and constructive aspects of a small nation that has made astonishing progress in a few decades.

During my journey I talked to various groups in Taiwan. Just about all of them said the same things. I spoke to Taiwanese and mainlander pastors, to university students (Christian and non-Christian), to missionaries, to representatives of the media from the United States including Time, the New York Times, NBC, and the Wall Street Journal, and to government leaders. I talked with a staff member from Senator Goldwater’s office who did research for Mr. Goldwater’s strong statement to the press about the responsibility of the United States to the Republic of China (ROC).

The picture I saw is quite different from that commonly bruited about by religious agencies such as the World Council of Churches, which in its Fifth Assembly in Nairobi spanked Taiwan for lack of human freedoms, and the United Presbyterian Church whose General Assembly adopted a resolution that included an erroneous statement about the lack of freedoms in Taiwan.

The ROC constitution (Religion Article 13) guarantees religious freedom. Unlike a similar guarantee in the Soviet constitution (and none in the constitution of Red China), the people of Taiwan are genuinely free from religious oppression. There are more than eight thousand churches and temples in Taiwan, including 1,246 Buddhist and 3,746 Taoist places of worship. There are 832 Catholic churches and 2,102 Protestant houses of worship. There is a church or temple for every 2,000 people. Billy Graham recently conducted an effective evangelistic crusade in Taiwan. This he could not do in Red China.

On an island slightly larger than New Jersey, there is a population of more than sixteen million people of whom three million came from mainland China since World War II. In 1975 Taiwan ranked ninth in the world in the sale of Bibles. Last year more than six million Bibles were sold. There are 1,000 missionaries representing thirty different nationalities. I met and talked with a Finnish physician and his wife. And one acquaintance landed up in a hospital that had been built by World Vision and is providing high grade medical care not far from Sun Moon Lake, a spectacular resort area on the small island.

Not only do the ROC people have religious freedom; they also enjoy freedom of speech. It is not unlimited freedom of speech anymore than Americans have such freedom. Radio and TV broadcasts do not feature those who might advocate the overthrow of the government. But neither do the networks in America. I talked with two top men who control radio and television outlets that cover the island. They started from scratch and under free enterprise have built media outlets with approximately two thousand employees. There are virtually no houses in Taiwan that do not have television. Television aerials, in fact, are omnipresent and their existence makes it clear that electricity is to be found everywhere.

Taiwan has a mixed economic situation in which privately owned shops abound. And private industry is found everywhere. One of the truly revolutionary developments on Taiwan involved land redistribution. Interesting land reform was brought about without revolution. Approximately 38 per cent of the economic activity of Taiwan is devoted to agriculture. The farmers own their own land and work that land intensively; they produce three rice crops a year. Mechanization is gathering momentum, though the farmers do back-breaking work. Latin America would do well to follow the pattern set by Taiwan.

The island has virtually no industrial resources. Iron and coke, as well as tin, copper, and aluminum must be imported. The ROC has lifted itself up by its own boot straps and produced an industrial society from what was almost exclusively an agrarian civilization. One of the world’s shipyards has been constructed. I saw a 445,000-ton tanker that had just come down the ways. The keel for another one of the same size has been laid. I visited a major steel plant equal to anything found in the West. I visited an export center where I saw the wide variety of products manufactured for sale abroad. The ROC is fiscally prudent and enjoys a favorable balance of trade. One of the great dangers faced by this tiny nation is the possibility of economic strangulation if its sources of raw materials are cut off.

Socially, Taiwan is a mobile nation. Its main means of transportation include a good railroad system (which operates on time), a network of buses, and what seems to Westerners an almost unlimited number of bicycles and motorcycles. Automobiles are expensive and are heavily taxed. But motorcycles are the choice of the masses. I saw hundreds of motorcycles loaded with mom, pop, and/or a young child. Taipei, Kaohsiung and Taichung are the three major urban cities with a combined population of almost four million inhabitants. Air pollution is found in these cities as in any other modern metropolis. The temperature in the summertime rises above ninety degrees almost every day and the humidity keeps pace with the thermometer. The houses are built to let the breezes blow through, and air conditioning among the masses is limited.

Citizens and foreigners are relatively unrestricted in their travel. There are no closed areas except for military installations. I was free to roam as I pleased—by air, by bus, by railroad, or on foot. The ever-present language barrier exists for the foreigner. The written language is a baffler and makes most Westerners distrait. This is also true for the Chinese themselves. Mandarin and Taiwanese are the two major languages. I was interpreted in either of the two languages depending on the groups to which I spoke. I preached in the largest church on the island on a very hot day. It was a Taiwanese language group. I spoke on two different nights to enthusiastic audiences who sweltered under the heat. When the invitation was given at one of these two meetings a dozen people came forward; most of them were young. In a college-age conference a number of non-Christians made decisions for Christ. In Taipei, Dr. Paul Han, the president of a medical school (they have five on the island), interpreted for me at a Sunday worship service. He has a Ph.D. and an M.B.; he worked under and with Dr. John Brobeck, a Wheaton College alumnus who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr. Han is a second-generation believer whose father is a member of the Gideons. He has an excellent understanding of the Bible. The family fled from mainland China when the communists took over.

The political aspect of Taiwan’s life is its most complicated problem and its persistent nightmare. This is true internally as well as externally. Externally its freedom is at stake, and it wants to wrest control of mainland China from the hands of its communist foes. The communist menace is fully understood by the ROC’s governing officials and their hatred of the system is unalloyed. The perennial threat of an invasion of Taiwan by the communists exists and one military spokesman declared that if the communists were willing to pay a frightful price in the loss of life an invasion might occur.

Internally the problem of national democratic elections persists. President Chiang Kai-Shek brought his office with him when he fled the mainland and held it until his death. National elections have not been held because to do so without participation by the mainland Chinese would contradict the foremost ROC claim. The government based on Taiwan claims to be the only legal government of all China. The situation for local government is different: most of the mayors of the cities, including the three largest, are native Taiwanese. A few Taiwanese nationalists make much of this difficulty and complain abroad about mainlander rule. But most Taiwanese seem to accept the present situation. Increasingly the mainlanders are elevating Taiwanese into the national government; obviously it is desirable that this trend continue.

While I was in Taiwan two important events took place. The first was the speech given by Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, a speech that alarmed the government and brought forth a spate of statements designed to keep the Carter administration from deserting Taiwan as the U.S. pursues normalization of relations with the People’s Republic of China. Vance’s failure to give any assurances to the ROC even as he opened the door wide to “normalization of relations” with Red China could only be interpreted as a drastic change in policy. The second event was the desertion of the MIG 19 jet pilot who brought his plane to Taiwan amid the plaudits of millions. It gave the nation a psychological shot in the arm at a time when the Vance speech brought dismay and an impending sense of isolation.

The ROC officials seem to be genuinely puzzled by Jimmy Carter. From their perception of America’s role in the world they see no possible gain for the nation to break diplomatic relations with the ROC and establish them with Red China. They think it incredible that Red China should make demands that the United States must first fulfill if diplomatic relations are to be established. Rather, they feel the United States should set up conditions that the Red Chinese should meet, not the least of which is to grant the people human rights, religious and political freedom. Some high officials expressed dismay about Mr. Carter’s policy for some very specific reasons.

Mr. Carter refused to grant an audience to Ambassador Shen in Washington despite a request to speak face to face with the President. The ROC takes this refusal to mean that Carter does not wish to hear both sides of the story and without the ROC’s story they think he is in no position to make a fair decision. Moreover, they feel that this approach is an inconsistent application of his Christian principles. One official, who has a Ph.D. from the United States, went even further. He expressed how unreasonable it seems to him that Mr. Carter should excoriate the Soviet Union on human rights while he has never said a word about the absence of human as well as religious rights on mainland China. He feels that this failure casts doubt on the President’s Christian profession. He said America’s enemies seem to get preferential treatment over America’s friends. The implication was plain—if you assault America and write the worst things about it and demean it as an enemy you get better treatment than if you act as its friend.

The ROC sincerely believes that the United States has a treaty with it that can be broken only at great loss to the United States. The pledged word of America would then mean less and less to other nations with whom it has treaties. They regard their treaty with the United States as sacrosanct and for a Christian to abrogate it would be eminently unfair from Mr. Carter’s own Christian perspective. Moreover, they believe normalization of relations with Red China will destabilize the Far Eastern situation whereas the status quo will at least prevent aggression in the area. They believe the Japanese will probably obtain nuclear arms if the United States breaches its treaty with Taiwan. And they do not think normalization of relations with mainland China will help the United States in its relations with the Soviet Union. They know the Red Chinese hate the Russians and hotly dispute the ownership of vast tracts of land they share as border neighbors. And while Taiwan has no use for the Russians, it is theoretically conceivable that if the United States were to break diplomatic relations with them Taiwan might be forced into some kind of rapprochement with the Soviets.

The ROC people believe they are true representatives of the free world and particularly of free Asia. Certainly they have shown the world and Red China what can be done by a hardworking, energetic people who feel themselves to be politically, economically, and religiously free, and who are willing to suffer and die for their freedom. Neither Mr. Carter nor the American people should for one moment suppose that Taiwan will capitulate or let down its guard. The ROC will endure any hardships and make any sacrifices necessary to maintain its independence and to keep its freedoms. The ROC is a militant nation and the people in high places make clear they are at war with mainland China and want to resume control of it as soon as possible. Taiwan wants no part of two Chinas any more than the Red Chinese want it. Both Red China and the ROC claim to be the real government of the whole of China. There is little sympathy in Taiwan for United States recognition of both Chinas as in the case of West and East Germany. Since the People’s Republic of China is a de facto government this fact does not seem to alleviate a sort of intransigence when it comes to the two Chinas’ situation from Taiwan’s standpoint.

Some Taiwan officials think Mr. Carter is well meaning but not fully instructed on international matters. They hope he will see the dangers of communism more clearly and keep the ROC as a linch pin in the Far Eastern policy of the nation as it finds itself facing the worldwide communist threat to all democracies. If the United States were to break relations with Taiwan and acknowledge the People’s Republic of China as the de jure and only real government of all China it would create a situation that could have catastrophic consequences. If mainland China were to invade Taiwan it would be virtually impossible for the United States to help Taiwan. It would be an internal Chinese affair in which aid to Taiwan would be considered an act of war against mainland China. And it is easy to imagine what the Third World countries would have to say about Yankee imperialism.

I think the Taiwanese have a good case. I think Senator Goldwater expressed the sentiments of the American people when he recently argued that the United States must keep its treaty agreements with the ROC. We can be sure that if Taiwan goes down the rest of the Far East likely will go down as well. And the Japanese situation will be compromised almost beyond repair. If the Christian faith has any part in molding foreign policy the least it must do is to create the understanding that morality and ethics are essential components of any national policy. It must also make clear that nations that break their word shall in their turn be broken by God’s natural laws and their impartial application by the Supreme Ruler of the universe.

It will be a sad day if President Carter carries out what seems to have been implied in Mr. Vance’s speech. The best thing he can do for the nation and for his administration is to issue a resounding endorsement of the existing Taiwanese policy that goes back several decades and has been recognized by Democrats and Republicans alike, and has proved to be a successful foil to communist desires to take over all of the Far East.

Dale Vree

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (7)

  1. View Issue
  2. Subscribe
  3. Give a Gift
  4. Archives

Harvey Cox, probably the most influential Protestant theologian living in America today, has been a pioneer in Marxist-Christian dialogue. His theology is basically secular and political, which is abundantly amenable to Marxism. He places himself in the tradition of such pre-Reformation and Reformation sectarians as Joachim di Fiore and Thomas Muentzer, for whom Marxists have shown great respect.

We need to recognize three heresies held by Cox to understand his dialogue with Marxism. First, he rejects the doctrine of original sin. Cox’s God is humanistic, and calls man to freedom, responsibility, and control of the natural and social environment. He views original sin as no impediment to man’s ability to master the world; in fact, he regards the Resurrection as the event that marked the dissolution of the power of original sin over man’s Promethean ambitions. According to this novel view, mankind has been liberated from sin, “whatever chains people to the past,” and death, “whatever terrifies them about the future.” Because man has been freed from original sin, he can tame the powers that challenge his ascent to mastering of the world. Cox does recognize that evil still exists, but when looking to the future Cox rejects the orthodox view of the provisional and finite nature of man’s efforts.

Second, with such an unorthodox view of sin, it is natural that the building of the Kingdom of God on earth is central to Cox. Earlier, he identified the coming of the Kingdom with his view of the secular city. He thought that the secular city was a modern equivalent of the “ancient symbol of the Kingdom of God” and that the secular city has some “elements of the promised Kingdom.” For Cox, secularization is associated with the coming Kingdom. It rids us of religious attitudes and destroys any supernatural symbols we have.

Third, Cox regards truth about God to be whatever conforms to his private or political ideas, and he ignores biblical revelation. His God is not the God of Christianity, but the Zeitgeist of the modern era, a “politician-God” active in secular society. This God is not supernatural. Cox offers us a secular God to match secular humanity. Nevertheless, this God does act in secular political history to help people realize the Promethean dream.

What Marxists call the Spirit of the Age Cox calls God or the Holy Spirit. Is this Spirit an active ontological force or merely a collection of ideas that does not interfere with human initiative? Is man free or controlled by an outside force? Does Christianity allow people to be truly free? The issue of freedom is vital to both Christians and Marxists. Christians have repeatedly charged that Marxism is not humanistic because it subordinates man to the inexorable laws of history. Although these laws may be benign and may guarantee man’s success, they deny man his freedom. Marxists have tossed back this argument by suggesting that belief in God leaves little room for freedom. From the moment of creation man is subordinate to and dependent upon God. Christianity stresses that man can do nothing to save himself. To Marxists the God of Christianity is at best a benevolent tyrant. Man may be free to go to hell, but to go to heaven he must submit to God and renounce his freedom. Marxists claim that this is too high a price to pay for salvation. Orthodox Christians claim that enslavement to Christ is perfect freedom. Non-Christians have a hard time understanding that. Cox and others have tried to answer the Marxist objection to the Christian view of freedom. They have sought to dispel the notion that man is merely God’s underling, without discarding the notion of a providential God.

To do this, Cox claims that man is God’s partner and co-worker. Cox’s God is, of course, always on the side of man; in fact, God is man’s servant. Cox thinks that through Jesus God showed his willingness “to become the junior partner in the asymmetric relationship [between man and God].” According to him, the task of the Church and its people is “to discern the action of God in the world and join in His work.” But how do we find that out? How do we distinguish between working with God or in God working for us? Cox answers these questions by saying that whatever supports liberation is the work of God. If this servant-God would not satisfy orthodox Christians, he would not satisfy Marxists either.

Some Christians are so committed to a politician-God who acts that when they seek to heed the Marxist’s demand for human freedom, they get trapped in their own rhetoric. The result is a studied ambiguity. On the one hand they insist on a God who, in some sense, acts as man’s partner; on the other hand they insist that man is totally free and totally responsible for the future of the world. This is obviously contradictory. Any action of God entails a limitation of human freedom. Otherwise, if man truly is free, all talk of God’s action must be figurative. But if God does act, then man is not completely free.

Cox developed this studied ambiguity over a ten-year period. In God’s Revolution and Man’s Responsibility (Judson, 1965) he emphasizes man’s response to God’s initiative. Historical and political initiative lies with God, not man. Man may cooperate with God, but he is the author of change, from which man may benefit. But Cox quickly shifts his ground and stresses human initiative: “Man is that creature who is created and called by God to shape and enact his own destiny. Whenever he relinquishes that privilege to someone else, he ceases to be a man” (p. 48). Man, then, is fully man only when he does not relinquish his destiny to external forces.

However, Cox does not recognize the full force of his claim because the “someone else” he has in mind seems to be, not God, but such powers as fate. The picture that emerges is one where God compels man to be free. God is no longer responsible for what man does with his freedom; man’s destiny is in his own hands. This is a kind of procedural freedom; God does not give man substantive freedoms, such as freedom from war, injustice, and poverty. Rather, he forces man to be responsible for war, injustice, and poverty, and gives man the freedom to work out solutions if he chooses to do so. God does not give man utopia; he merely gives man the freedom, hence the power, to achieve it if he is willing. Yet later it appears that the freedom God bestows on man is substantive after all. Cox claims that God is involved in the various secular, racial, and scientific revolutions of history. And he hopes that God will remake the world. Man remains passive as God thrusts utopia upon him. This may be an attractive vision, but it certainly carries with it an anemic understanding of human freedom.

In The Secular City (MacMillan, 1966), Cox analyzes communism: “For the orthodox Communist there is an inner logic in history which is not dependent on man, a meaning to which man must adjust his personal projects or suffer the consequences” (p. 59). Cox calls this fatalism, that from which God has liberated man. He says that communism is not a “vulgar” materialism that turns man into a robot. No, communism allows man freedom to reject the logic of history, but only at his peril. Cox denies that his own views are fatalistic. But his description of communism is similar to his description of Hebrew prophecy, which he takes as his model for understanding history. Cox says that prophesy provides man with responsibility for his future. But even if the future is not predetermined clearly Yahweh, who sets the rules for the game, so to speak, and not man is the free player here. Cox actually grants man a qualified moral responsibility and a conditional freedom. What Cox means is that people will find fulfillment if they conform to God’s standards; if they do not, then disaster. Structurally, this is analogous to the communist view that people will find fulfillment if they conform to the laws of history. If they do not, then they will continue in their bondage and perhaps destroy themselves. Both views can be seen as benevolent determinism.

Cox’s view of human freedom is exceedingly vague. He says that “the elements of divine initiative and human response in the coming of the Kingdom are totally inseparable” (p. 96, italics added). Note that the initiative here is still divine. Since God works in history, “the issue is whether history, and particularly revolution, is something that happens to man or something that man does.… Is man the subject or the object of social change?” (p. 96). Cox answers that he is both: “the secular city … stands for that point where social movement and human initiative intersect, where man is free not in spite of but because of the social matrix in which he lives” (p. 97, italics added). The initiative has passed from God to man. God merely facilitates man’s initiative.

There is some telltale evidence that Cox is unsure about God’s action in history and that Cox really has no idea whether historical initiative is God’s or man’s. In an article on the church in East Germany, he concluded that “God is doing something in East Germany today …” (Christianity and Crisis, July 22, 1963). But when he revised the essay he altered the phrase to read: “something important is happening in East Germany today.” The word “God” seems to function in Cox’s vocabulary as a metaphor for “something important.” Is God doing something, or is it just that something important is happening?

In his post-Secular City phase, Cox deemphasizes God’s initiative and man’s response, and places exclusive emphasis on the unconditional freedom of man and the unconditional “openness” of history. He still believes in the possibility of speaking in a secular or political fashion about God; however, he warns that such speech about God “has theological dimensions far more baffling than those indicated in The Secular City.” Cox talks of a God of the future who is located not above history but ahead of history, and who anchors or guarantees the possibilities (“openness” in Cox’s vocabulary) of history and human freedom. Although God is responsible for the possibilities of the future, man is responsible for its content. Since God keeps man’s future undetermined, man really has no choice but to take responsibility for it.

Cox argues that the belief in God’s omnipotence must be transformed into a belief in the radical possibilities of history. He correctly perceives that this would meet a major Marxist criticism of Christianity, namely that Christianity does not allow man to take full control of his future. Cox concludes that Christianity “must break its ties with any belief in a fixed plan being worked out in history,” and must understand God as “that unconditionally open future which elicits man’s unreserved freedom in shaping his own future” (On Not Leaving It to the Snake, MacMillan, 1967).

It is curious that Cox should emphasize his hope for the future when he can offer no reason for having any. In The Feast of Fools (Harper & Row, 1969) he admits that hope and fantasy are directly related. He calls for a theology of political fantasy, of a utopian politics. He urges religion to contribute to society’s capacity for self-transcendence. Cox is convinced that religion is not only an opiate but also a cry of the oppressed, a protest, and a potent stimulus for insurrection. When he says that the truth of religion is its capacity to facilitate human liberation, he does not mean truth in its cognitive sense. Rather, religion manifests a pragmatic or instrumental truth, an emotive or noncognitive truth. Its truth is really its ability to motivate: “A ‘religious symbol’ is defined not by its content but by its relative degree of cultural power” (The Seduction of the Spirit, Simon and Schuster, p. 283).

Cox wants to unmask the way religious myths have repressed people and then proceed to reconstruct these myths so they can be used to incite credulous people to insurrection. It goes without saying that orthodox Christians would be insulted by this attempt to use their beliefs as mere tools to mobilize people for political ends.

In the meantime, however, Cox lapses back into his studied ambiguity on the question of human autonomy. In The Seduction of the Spirit he continues his theology of fantasy and hope, but he drops his emphasis on unfettered human freedom and an inactive God and subordinates freedom to his concept of liberation. Liberation does not mean the freedom to create or not create the New Jerusalem; it is the New Jerusalem. It is “paradoxically … both a task and a gift.” What man does with his freedom, whether he builds the New Jerusalem or not, ultimately depends on man: “Man’s only destiny is to use his God-given freedom to shape and achieve his destiny for himself. If he refuses this destiny, then nothing can save him … nothing at all” (p. 38, italics added). Indeed, salvation is not guaranteed, either by grace or human freedom and destruction is a possibility. Salvation is neither otherworldly nor individualistic. Either everyone is saved in this world or no one is.

Whether Cox flounders in a studied ambiguity or makes a clear decision in favor of human freedom, man’s building the Kingdom of God on earth as a means of salvation remains constant. Cox is consistently anti-supernaturalistic. Although he talks about transcendence, it is always a this-worldly transcendence, and he remains a secularist.

Harvey Cox’s dialogue with Marxism is doubly disappointing. From the Christian point of view, he ignores traditional Christian categories, thereby nullifying his desire to speak to Marxists as a representative of Christianity. And from a logical point of view, much of his thought on human freedom is so riddled with ambiguity that he forfeits his claim to significance.

Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.

    • More fromDale Vree

An Interview With Robert Hale

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (9)

  1. View Issue
  2. Subscribe
  3. Give a Gift
  4. Archives

The stage is lit with eerie blue and brown lights. Dancers and singers are dressed in flesh-colored leotards. The music is sickeningly seductive, as is the serpentine choreography. Mefistofele stands on a rock-like mock altar and bids Faust to kneel before him. Suddenly an overlarge chalice appears, and a member of the audience gasps. A black mass of sorts is taking place. The scene: the witches sabbath, part of the opera “Mefistofele” by Boïto. The company: the New York City Opera.

Robert Hale is a ten-year veteran of that company and once refused the role of Mefistofele in that opera. But he is better known in evangelical circles as the baritone half of the Hale and Wilder duo. For several weeks each year he and Wilder do a sacred concert tour in churches throughout the country. This summer, for example, they visited fifty-five churches and conferences in sixteen states. Hale and Wilder record with Word records; they have sung at Billy Graham crusades. Hale is unique among musicians. He has a successful career as what some would call a witness musician. He also has a successful career as an opera singer.

Next season he will perform his first Wagner opera, “The Flying Dutchman,” and will sing the world premiere of a new Gian Carlo Menotti opera, “Juana La Loca,” with Beverly Sills in San Diego. The performance will be nationally televised. During the New York City Opera’s stay in Washington, D.C., in early May he sang two of his thirty-three roles: the comic role of Don Basilio in “The Barber of Seville” by Rossini and Escamillo in Bizet’s “Carmen.” We met in his small dressing room under the Opera House at the Kennedy Center, and talked about both his careers. The following is an edited version of our discussion.

CHERYL FORBES

Forbes. How did you and Dean Wilder get together?

Hale. We first met when we were cast to sing together in an opera at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. We both studied there. I met him at a rehearsal. We discovered we had both attended small Christian colleges and quickly became very good friends. Later that year we were in Chicago again, singing with Boris Goldovsky. I was invited to do a sacred concert at a church there. I asked Dean to come with me, and that’s when we sang together for the first time. Right from the beginning I thought we had a unique situation. We sang together several times in the next two years, while we were also doing a lot of opera. Finally we decided to do a tour together. So the Hale and Wilder team really began in 1966 when we did our first tour. Since then we’ve done over 1,600 concerts together, and made many recordings. We usually tour during January and the summer. We’ve gone all over this country, and to Canada, the Orient, and Europe. It’s been a great way for us to reaffirm our Christian commitment. We’ve also had the advantage in return of hearing a lot of great preachers and ministers at various conferences and churches. It’s been a rich and rewarding time for us.

Forbes. What’s your church affiliation?

Hale. I was raised in the Church of the Nazarene. I’ve been attending an evangelical Presbyterian church. However, I’ve just moved to the San Diego area in California and haven’t yet decided on a church out there.

Forbes. Does it bother you that most evangelicals only know you as the Hale half of Hale and Wilder?

Hale. No. When I first started doing concerts with Dean, Frank Boggs wondered if that was the right decision for me. He thought I might lose my identity by becoming part of a team. But that never worried me. Wilder and I can do unique things in church music. Our voices blend well; we have the same attitudes toward the kinds of music we sing. And we pick all our own music—a very careful process. We want music that reflects our theology and our attitudes toward Christianity, something of ourselves we can give the audience and that in some sense is a challenge to sing.

Forbes. How did you get into opera?

Hale. Through the back door. I sneaked in. I never had any intention of being an opera singer. When I graduated from a small Christian college I was going to be a minister of music and teach school. Incidentally, the school did not encourage voice majors to consider opera. I was told I did not have an operatic voice anyway. On my senior recital I sang only one song in a foreign language. After graduation I served as a minister of music and taught school. It was in my graduate studies and later in Germany while in the army that I finally had a chance to sing my first opera. I was totally fascinated by opera’s marriage of drama and music. David Dekker, U.S. Army Special Services director, was involved with producing The Elixir of Love and asked if I’d like to audition. I didn’t even know any arias at the time, so I sang something from Messiah. I got the part, and found it a satisfying and stimulating experience. Of course, I’ve never done the opera again, and it’s certainly not a part I’d choose for myself today. At that time I was primarily a recitalist. But opera set me free as a performer. I love to communicate with the audience through another character—I’m not sure what that says about myself. So that’s how I got started. I came back to this country, got my M.A. in music, and studied opera in graduate school at Boston University and the New England Conservatory of Music. I didn’t know much about opera when I got out of the army, but I’d heard that the East Coast was the place to be. So I packed up my things and moved there. Then I won several singing competitions. I won the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Singer of the Year competition in 1963. In 1964 I won the Metropolitan Opera Regional Auditions but, unfortunately, got sick and didn’t do well in New York. And I got a Rockefeller Foundation grant, and a few others. When I did the Rockefeller Foundation audition they asked if I’d ever thought about singing for the New York City Opera. Of course I’d been very aware of the company for years through what I’d heard about it, though I’d never seen one of their productions. I had doubts about singing for them. I don’t know. Maybe I was timid or something. I didn’t want to walk in there and ask, “Can I audition for your outfit?” No, I wouldn’t do that. But the Rockefeller people asked if I’d mind if they set up an audition. I said no, they did, and the company offered me a contract. I began my professional career the winter of 1967. I was thirty-three.

Forbes. Do you ever feel the need to justify yourself as an opera singer? I know you don’t publicize yourself as one for your sacred concerts.

Hale. I was reared in a Nazarene church in the back woods of Louisiana—one of five children. My mother, who is now 79, was the stalwart Christian leader in our family. I remember her rocking me to sleep, singing simple Gospel songs like “Constantly Abiding.” That’s the music I was raised with. I wasn’t denied educational opportunities, but there simply was no opera or classical music around. What I knew about music I knew from my church and my home. Where I came from no one would ever have expected me to end up in the kind of environment I live in today. I can’t help believing that a lot of doors were opened for me all along the way, that things came about through providential intervention. As I said, opera was not my chosen career. I happened to have a chance to sing opera while in the service, and just to have something interesting to do I agreed to participate. I found out I had a flair for opera and it gave me a great sense of accomplishment. I began to study and went from there. I think Christians should strive to be the very best and for me the very best is opera. God gave me the talents and gifts best suited for opera. The highest attainment for me is to be a good opera singer, to attempt to sing the better roles, to reach the highest vocal level I can. Every Christian must do the most with what God has given him. It really goes back to the parable of the talents. Occasionally I’ve had Christians in various churches ask why I don’t give up what they consider my secular career as an opera singer and sing for the Lord full time, to spend all my energies on sacred concerts. But that would never be a vocal challenge for me. Even though Dean and I choose our music very carefully it simply is not as demanding as singing opera. I’m entrusted with these gifts. What I do with them is important. I feel very obligated at that point to do my very best and develop my voice to its full potential. I think I’ve done my best. Whether I become a superstar or not is unimportant to me. I’m happy that I’ve been given the opportunity to sing what suits me best. Each of us has to live his life as he thinks God wants him to. Some people don’t see life that way and they want to impose their wishes on others and bind them into their own tight little molds.

Forbes. Is that why you don’t publicize yourself as an opera singer on the evangelical church circuit?

Hale. Not exactly. Although there are a few people who would come just because I sing opera, a great many more would stay away. When people find out I’m an opera singer, they’re usually impressed. But at the same time they say, “just don’t sing any of that stuff for us.”

Forbes. So you don’t put classical music on your programs?

Hale. In small quantities. We usually do a Verdi or Purcell piece or something from Handel or Haydn. The reactions have been interesting. Those are the pieces people invariably mention when they thank us for the evening. But we generally stick to the solid hymns of the church—like the ones the Wesleys wrote.

Forbes. What about contemporary Christian music?

Hale. We’ve done very little of it, though we included some Kurt Kaiser songs in a most recent recording. We can’t sing rock music, and that’s much of what’s being written today.

Forbes. Isn’t it unusual for a singer to be in two very opposite forms of entertainment, in your case opera and witness music? Or don’t you think of your church tours as entertainment?

Hale. When Dean and I first began touring together it upset us when a minister introduced us as the entertainment for the evening, or as Christian entertainment, or told the congregation they were really going to enjoy themselves. I think it still disturbs Dean. But it doesn’t bother me as much any more. Yes, we’re trying to make a statement about our Christian beliefs through our singing, but you can’t get away from the fact that we’re also performing those songs. It was tough to adjust ourselves to applause, particularly after what had been for us a deeply spiritual song. In fact, it’s still a little hard for me to accept. It’s much easier after a rousing, march-like song with a big splashy finish.

Forbes. But both you and Dean are trained singers, performers. You know what vocal techniques to use to get a certain effect, which in turn causes a certain intended response in the audience. Surely you don’t forget all that simply because you’re performing in a church rather than a concert hall or an opera stage.

Hale. No. I wouldn’t be honest if I said we did. We have spent a lot of time learning how to sing. We feel it our obligation as performers to blend all facets of our art in a sacred concert. Perhaps it’s the motivation that’s different.

Forbes. Why? Don’t you want the opera-going audience to believe in the character you’re playing just as much as you want the church congregation to believe in the words you sing? And isn’t that part of being an artist—that you are conscious of and purposeful about how you use your instrument?

Hale. Yes, that’s true. An artist puts all of himself in what he’s singing at the time. I’m happy that we bring pleasure to our audiences. Many of them would never go to a secular concert or opera. And that’s too bad. I think some Christians find it hard to enjoy themselves.

Forbes. Well, what would going to an opera, for example, do for people?

Hale. This goes back to what I was saying before, about Christians striving to develop, use, and share their total capabilities or God-given gifts. I think they also should know the very best they can, too. We should be well educated, well informed, and as well rounded as is possible. And that means knowing more than rock or gospel music. We need to broaden ourselves and expose our children to the purer forms of music—among which are great choral works, chamber music, symphonic music, and of course opera.

Forbes. How would you answer the person who is only interested in things that will bear directly on living a Christian life? It’s hard to see how opera does that.

Hale. That’s a good question—a hard one. I don’t know that I have the answer. In any performer-audience situation both are experiencing the exhilaration of the inner spirit. That’s hard to label either religious or non-religious. For many people the beauty of a God-given talent interpreting inspired music by classical composers is an experience of worship. In every person’s life there is a need for experiencing beauty in art, literature, and music. I think it draws one nearer to God. Beauty never needs justification. As someone once said, “Beauty is its own excuse for being.”

Forbes. What about the person who has little money, or who objects to spending fifteen or twenty dollars on a ticket? That money could go to missions. You just sang in a benefit performance of The Barber of Seville and the tickets were $50 a piece.

Hale. Well, part of that was tax deductible. And there are usually cheaper tickets, such as standing room, special student prices, and reduced rates for senior citizens, for example. But people don’t need to spend a lot of money to enjoy at least the music of opera. Now, opera is meant to be seen live, but you can hear opera live over the Texaco broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera from December to April.

Forbes. You said that you thought Christians ought to be the best educated people they can be, given their native abilities. Do you think a person needs education to appreciate classical music or opera?

Hale. We sing in all kinds of churches, from those in the back woods to city churches. When we sing a piece from Handel those people who have little education appreciate it just as much as those who know the composer. It isn’t necessary to be trained to enjoy beauty.

Forbes. Is that because of the music or the performers?

Hale. I like to think it’s the music, but maybe it’s a little of both. Certainly the emotion of the song will affect someone no matter how many courses or degrees he has.

Forbes. How do you answer those people who say that opera is an immoral profession? Opera plots are so often concerned with rape, adultery, and sin in general.

Hale. Boris Goldovsky, who runs a famous opera institute for young singers, said once in a lecture that opera was the most moral of the art forms. And he’s right. There’s no mistaking the good from the bad characters in opera. The composer and librettist tell us that right away. And eventually the wicked are punished and the good people prosper. Not only are the plots moral, but to sing opera well demands a thoroughly clean and moral life. For me, it’s the one profession in which it is easiest to live a wholesome life. Opera demands too much physically and emotionally. You shouldn’t drink, smoke, stay out late, eat the wrong foods. You need plenty of vitamins, rest, and exercise. Singers are very concerned with their mental and physical health. They have to be. A disciplined life is the life of a singer.

Forbes. As a Christian, is it difficult to play some of the roles you do? A bass-baritone so often is cast as the evil character. You sing Mephistopheles in Gounod’s Faust, for example.

Hale. That’s true, I play some despicable characters. I also play many pleasant and admirable ones. In a real sense opera plots reflect both good and evil in life as it actually is. When I play a character like Mephistopheles I try to be as evil as I possibly can. I must be believable. But that’s not me on stage doing those things. I’m pretending, playing a role. And as soon as the final curtain falls I go back to being Bob Hale.

Forbes. You have no difficulty getting out of roles the way some singers like James McCracken do?

Hale. None whatsoever. When the opera is over so is the role—until the next time. But for that two-and-a-half or three hours I am that character. Yet always in the back of my mind 1 know I’m only acting. Anyone who wants to get a vivid picture of evil need only go to opera. Boito’s Mefistofele is a good example. Tito Capobianco’s brilliant production gives us a horrifying picture of sin, and, I think, shows some theological insight. I think that’s part of what Goldovsky meant when he said opera is moral. It never paints a romantic or pretty picture of evil. It shows sin in all its ugliness, but it does so with artistic taste.

Forbes. Opera right now is competing with the highly technological art of the cinema, and it’s therefore getting more and more realistic. Nudity is cropping up. Last season the Washington Opera’s production of Thais by Massenet included a topless ending to act one. How can a Christian performer avoid this?

Hale. I have never been involved with any nudity in opera. I’m very careful about the roles I choose. Of course, I’m now in a position where I can be careful. When I started ten years ago there wasn’t so much emphasis on realism. A young singer today might not find the same situation. A singer just starting out can’t always refuse roles. But if you’re good enough, and explain why you won’t do certain things, something can usually be worked out. I have on occasion accepted a part while reserving the right to avoid any stage direction that compromises my basic beliefs.

Forbes. Is there a growing number of Christians in opera?

Hale. Yes. I’m meeting more and more. My colleagues know I’m a Christian, but I try not to walk around wrapped up in a supercilious air of piety. And I don’t force my Christian convictions on my colleagues. God made me a singer first, not an evangelist. I witness through my singing and my life. However, there have been times when the situation seemed right to talk about spiritual matters. Then I haven’t hesitated. Some Christian singers I know have alienated their colleagues by an over-zealous attempt to convert them.

Forbes. What do you think of the idea of Christian opera?

Hale. I think it’s a great idea, but I don’t think it will happen. And I can’t see that it would differ that much from opera in the standard repertoire. It would be able to point more specifically to the source of healing for sin. But if people mean by Christian opera another tool for evangelism, with generous financing, I can’t see that working for now. Perhaps in the future young talented composers will be able to bring together good music with Christian plots.

Forbes. What advice would you give someone who wants a singing career?

Hale. You should be very honest with yourself in evaluating your talents and appraising what you actually have to offer in a career. There are several points at which to do this. One is to evaluate the basic talent. Is the voice outstanding? Have people said, “I like your voice; it’s better than everybody else’s,” or something like that. Secondly, you must have musicianship, should be innately musical. And you should love it. Also, you must be healthy, both physically and emotionally. You can get yelled and screamed at and survive it—you don’t have thin skin. Since you know where you stand you can take some tough treatment once in a while. You also know you can endure auditions. Any young singer has to do many auditions before he gets to the place where he doesn’t have to audition for parts any more. To me an audition is more painful than any opera I’ve ever sung in. You’re not accepted when you walk on the stage to audition. Finally, you can’t have any zeros. For example, you’re good in all other areas, but you have tremendous stage fright. Or you often sing flat, or you have a very difficult time memorizing. The best way to evaluate your talents is to go to people who are qualified to judge. Work with them, or sing for them, and let them help you determine what you should do. But most important, you must have lots of drive and determination.

Forbes. So even considering the problems and competition you recommend opera as a career?

Hale. Definitely, provided a person qualifies in the basics I just outlined. I find it a most rewarding existence; my operatic career is my basic calling. At the same time I have never lost the thrill of communicating my faith in God through a simple Gospel song. There has been an added dimension to my career by periodically sharing through sacred concerts the joy of salvation.

Paul D. Steeves is assistant professor of history and director of Russian studies at Stetson University in Deland, Florida. He has the Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and specializes in modern Russian history.

    • More fromAn Interview With Robert Hale

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (11)

  1. View Issue
  2. Subscribe
  3. Give a Gift
  4. Archives

The Forgotten Mountain

Once upon a time there was a rock. It wasn’t any special kind of rock—just the kind you find in profusion beside a rushing stream in Colorado.

A distant mountain spoke to the rock. “I made you, you came from me, you share my nature.” And the mountain said many other things. Things about glaciers and aeons and rushing streams and mountain goats and beauty and order.

The rock, from these words, developed a mountainology, a systematic study of all it knew of the mountain.

One day, many years later, another rock said, “I am quartz. We need a quartz view of the mountain.” So it developed a system of mountainology that was centered in crystalline rocks. Next a rock looked at some other rocks, rolled closer to them and said, “We need a mountainology of the pile.” So these rocks crumpled wildflowers and found a heap of joy.

Some rocks with depressions in them, made both by the mountain and by other stones with protrusions, then said, “We need a mountainology of hollows.” And those with the biggest hollows created a mountainology that said there was no difference between hollows and protrusions.

At the bottom of a great heap of stones, some said, “We need a mountainology for us, too. Everybody piles on us, we carry the whole load. The mountain wants us to blow up the pile.”

And the mountain looked at all the rocks, and the mountain said, “What ever became of mountain mountainology?”

EUTYCHUS VIII

An Implied Rebuke?

On the whole the Chicago Call gives us valuable suggestions, but do I detect in it an implied rebuke to all free Christians and free churches? It may indeed provoke thought and discussion, but it will not dislodge those who really believe in direct access and personal responsibility to Jesus Christ. Such people will continually try to correct past mistakes in theology, will not allow any more than teaching and reminding value to the ceremonies, and will accept common interest as the basis of unit cooperation within the fellowship of their kind and as the limit of cooperation with other kinds of Christians.

WINN T. BARR

Cynthiana Baptist Church

Cynthiana, Ky.

Wishing for Lewis

Thomas Howard’s “Who Am I? Who Am I?” (July 8) was faintly reminiscent of C.S. Lewis in style, but certainly not in substance. In fact, I found myself all through the article wishing Lewis had written it.

My slight dissatisfaction (the article was capable of arousing neither aggressive agreement nor violent opposition) stemmed primarily from two areas of disagreement. First, to me it seems obvious that contrary to being introduced at the Fall, self-consciousness was a prerequisite to the Fall. Cows and apes do not have a fall to look back on precisely because they have no self, no personhood in the image of God, which would be placed in opposition to God (C.S. Lewis would say this much better). Second, granted, I should not be overly introspective; but for the very reason that I am a person, created in the image of God, coming to know who I am is vitally important. I dare say Howard’s relationship to the demands of the Bible and his relationships to the persons of the Trinity (as well as to everyone around him) are directly connected to his understanding (or lack of understanding) of his own identity. Only a person can conceive of a person; only an “I” can be related to a “thou.”

R. E. HOLLIS

Friendship United Methodist Church

Walker, La.

Science Or Scripture?

If the Haas, Wright interview is true to form, then I feel sorry for our Christian young people (“What Christian Colleges Teach About Creation,” June 17). On the other hand, “Where Did I Come From?” causes me to hope that some Christian colleges refuse to allow science (some of it falsely so called) to sit in judgment on the Bible. It appears to me that man’s … strong moral and religious propensities forever separate him from the beasts of the field, and … that man was indeed created in the image and likeness of God.

DON W. HILLIS

The Evangelical Alliance Mission

Orange City, Fla.

Your interview represents quite accurately the views of those who propose theistic evolution as an answer to origins. It is also true that many religiously affiliated colleges teach origins from a theistic evolutionary viewpoint. However, there are also some colleges where fiat creation is favored as an explanation for origins. We would take strong exception to the assertion that “no other approach (than theistic evolution) makes scientific sense.” It is simply not true that as scientists we have no option other than evolution, theistic or atheistic. To accept the assertion that science can consider only an evolutionary explanation for origins is to downgrade science.

ELVER H. VOTH

DONALD E. CHITTICK

George Fox College

Newberg, Ore.

Reader Disservice

You did your readers a disservice by printing the article in Minister’s Workshop, “The Accusing Finger, The Helping Hand” by Cecil Murphey (June 17).

From earliest moments of recorded history, institutions have reflected the characteristics of their leadership. This was especially true with Israel under the judges and kings and is seen in the church and nations today.… People look to their leaders for direction. They must set the example. If they fail, they must step down. That is why Paul set such demanding standards for [leaders].… I am particularly outraged with Murphey’s … exegesis of John 8 comparing the adulterous woman (probably a prostitute) with an ordained man of God, trained in the Scripture and solemnly charged in his installation as pastor. Why not the example of David?… He says, “I am against divorce.” Who isn’t? It’s the old morality of double talk. If he is against divorce, why dilute its significance for the church? How can the church possibly be witness to the sacredness of marriage and be filled with divorced pastors?

Surely the church has something better to offer a watching, doubting world than its own dismal record of failures?

CHARLES TODD, JR.

Chief Executive Officer

Todd Uniform

St. Louis, Mo.

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (13)

  1. View Issue
  2. Subscribe
  3. Give a Gift
  4. Archives

We interviewed Billy Graham recently. The first question we asked had to do with the use of funds by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the foundation Mr. Graham set up a few years ago. He will air this material over the Hour of Decision. In a month or so we will run the second half of the interview, which deals with other matters in depth.

My article on Taiwan appears in this issue. Strong forces are trying to force the United States to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan and establish them with Red China. Morally and ethically it would be a highly questionable decision, especially since President Carter professes to be a Christian who lives by the ethic of the Scriptures. For the United States to break its pledged word would be most unfortunate.

Harold B. Kuhn

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (15)

  1. View Issue
  2. Subscribe
  3. Give a Gift
  4. Archives

Dialogue between organized religion and the social sciences has had wide acceptance during the past two decades. At times, however, mainline Protestantism has sought to go beyond mutual interaction with sociology, and has adopted a paternalistic attitude toward it.

Sociologists have tended to react defensively, sometimes iconoclastically, but generally have maintained a hands-off policy towards the institutional forms of Christianity. Therefore, when a highly regarded sociologist assumed the offensive in dealing with “official” Christianity religious leaders responded with surprise and shock. The sociologist: Peter L. Berger. The book: The Noise of Solemn Assemblies (1961).

This volume, written for the National Student Christian Federation, appeared when theology as a discipline was foundering defensively, and when secularization threatened Churchdom. Berger questioned the expectation of American Protestants that “political action under religious auspices” could achieve much in bringing significant improvements in society.

This seemed to be aimed directly at liberal Protestants. Peter Berger felt that they failed to see what any sociologist can see—ingrained social structures are more than a match for the best intentions and efforts of institutionalized religion.

Berger followed with The Precarious Vision (1961) and A Rumor of Angels (1969). In the former volume, he points out with devastating clarity that religion may, and frequently does, become the most powerful means for sanctifying the illusions of society. He also observes that Christian faith becomes irrelevant if it fails to transcend the fictitious “conventional wisdom” of the society that surrounds it.

In A Rumor of Angels Berger states that any religion excluding the supernatural can do little for man in his present predicament. He identifies what he calls “signals of transcendence.” These signals can be found, he suggests, in the growing awareness of the thinness of secularity as a basis for a worldview.

Those who expected to hear the drop of the other shoe did not wait long. The shoe fell with the publication of two major articles by Berger, and with the Hartford Affirmation, in which his initiative and influence were clearly present.

The first of the two articles was published in The Christian Century (Oct. 27, 1971) and in the Princeton Seminary Bulletin (Dec., 1971). Its full title: “A Call for Authority in the Christian Community.” It was the text of an address delivered to the tenth plenary session of COCU in Denver, Colorado.

In the article, Berger attacks several basic assumptions of mainline Christianity, notably those that rest on the conventional wisdom concerning “modern man” and “modern consciousness,” as determinative for the Church’s authority. He insists that in a frenetic attempt to become “relevant to modern man” churchmen have forfeited their right to be participants in any possible renascence of religion; they have identified themselves with secularized culture.

Berger’s imagery is graphic; he sees the “theologians of secularity” engaged in an ongoing dance around “golden calves” of modernity. He calls for a “stance of authority” to challenge the conventional wisdom of the highly praised cult of secularity, which, in his view, has its own credibility crisis.

This article leaves a great deal unsaid. It does not spell out (except in the most veiled terms) the nature of the needed authority. It does insist that such an authority be found if the Christian community is to overcome its “loss of nerve” and find the way out of its current crisis.

A second article dealing with the causes of the current crisis in organized religion, especially as this is represented by mainline Protestantism, appeared in the special Bicentennial Issue of Fortune (April, 1975). Bearing the simple title “Religion,” this closely reasoned article powerfully focuses the themes Peter Berger had been articulating over a fifteen-year span.

Berger claims that mainstream Protestantism, “reformed” Catholicism, and much of contemporary Judaism have all been characterized by “a monumental failure of nerve.” Why? Men and women of religion have accommodated themselves to a secular culture that also was experiencing a “failure of nerve.” And, thinks Berger, we have a dramatic case of “the blind leading the blind.”

The purpose of this article seems to have been two-fold. First, Berger wanted to prod the mainline denominations to take a hard look at their heritage, with its transcendent dimensions. Second, he sounded a warning to society against permitting by default a new establishment of “the quasi-religion of secularism.”

It was aimed directly at theologians of mainline Protestantism. Professor Berger was a major architect of the “Hartford Affirmation,” which appeared early in 1975. Thirteen themes, stated (with a bit of whimsy, we surmise) negatively and termed “false and debilitating”—a baker’s dozen of theses dear to liberal theologians.

Many reactions to the document appeared immediately. An early attempt to laugh it off soon fell on its face. The more one reads the reactions, the more he senses the significance of the Affirmation, particularly theme ten, which issues the most severe challenge to the conventional un-wisdom of liberal Protestantism, that “the world must set the agenda for the Church.” While recognizing the claims of the world’s need upon the Church, the Affirmation insists that the Church’s perception of her relation to the world must come from God’s vision and mandate.

It seems clear that the Christian world owes a major (and frequently unacknowledged) debt to Rutgers’ professor of sociology for his wise perception of the Church’s task and for his courage in asserting his convictions.

    • More fromHarold B. Kuhn

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (17)

  1. View Issue
  2. Subscribe
  3. Give a Gift
  4. Archives

It was the largest convention ever to hit town, announced Kansas City newspapers last month when nearly 40,000 registrants arrived for “The 1977 Conference on Charismatic Renewal in the Christian Churches.”

Almost half of the participants were Roman Catholics. The others came from a variety of denominational and independent backgrounds. For four nights Arrowhead Stadium, the sparkling 79,000-seat home of the Kansas City Chiefs football team in the southeastern section of the city, reverberated with their singing and jubilant praises to Jesus. On three mornings they gathered in denominational and “fellowship” sub-conferences on the Holy Spirit in auditoriums, halls, and churches scattered across town. During the afternoons they congregated in dozens of workshops and seminars. The event concluded on an upbeat note in Sunday morning worship sessions at the sub-conference sites.

Because of it all, many said they will never be the same. Numerous individuals said they had gained for the first time a deep sense of oneness in Christ with Christians from other backgrounds. Some leaders expressed belief that the conference will have wide influence on Christian unity efforts.

The emotional high point of the interdenominational conference probably occurred on Friday night in the stadium. Presiding Bishop James Patterson of the Church of God in Christ pounded home the need for personal renewal. Cardinal Leon Joseph Suenens of Belgium, a leading figure at Vatican Council II and in the Catholic charismatic movement, spoke gently but powerfully. “The world is dying because it doesn’t know the name of its saviour, Jesus Christ,” said Suenens. This name, he stated, is one “no one can pronounce without the power and the grace of the Holy Spirit.” The trouble “is not that we are Christian, but that we are not Christian enough,” he declared. “We have to be Christianized again … to be a new creation … so that others will see something of the Lord shining through us.”

Then came Bob Mumford of Cupertino, California, an independent Bible teacher who travels widely in charismatic circles. At one point he challenged Christians to drop their fearfulness and defensive mentality. He held his Bible aloft and said: “If you take a sneak look at the back of the book—glory, hallelujah—Jesus wins!” The crowd began cheering. “Glory to God! Jesus is Lord!” Mumford shouted, setting off the kind of thunderous response the Chiefs get after a touchdown. The lights on the giant score-board flashed repeatedly, “Jesus is Lord” and “Praise the Lord.” Next the scoreboard displayed pictures of the face of Jesus and of a crowd with uplifted arms worshiping him. The exuberant audience loved it.

Speakers on other evenings included General Secretary Vinson Synan of the Pentecostal Holiness Church, Episcopal rector Dennis Bennett of Seattle, Catholic lay leader Kevin Ranaghan of South Bend, Indiana, inner-healing advocate Ruth Carter Stapleton of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Catholic priest Francis MacNutt of St. Louis, Lutheran pastor Larry Christenson of San Pedro, California, and Catholic educator Michael Scanlon of Steubenville College in Ohio.

Bennett said he sees three streams of Christianity that are beginning to flow together: the Catholic stream with its emphasis on history and the continuity of the faith, the evangelical stream with its emphasis on loyalty to Scripture and the importance of personal commitment to Christ, and the Pentecostal stream with its emphasis on the immediate experience of God by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In the keynote address, Ranaghan, chairman of the conference planning committee, asserted that divisions among the various Christian churches have been a “serious scandal” in the world. “For the world to believe depends on our becoming one,” he said. It is the will of God, he emphasized, “that we be one.”

At a press conference, Mrs. Stapleton said she believes her brother, President Carter, is a “charismatic” Christian in the way that she defines a charismatic—one who has yielded to Jesus. She also stated that she had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and had exercised such spiritual gifts as healing, discernment, and prophecy eighteen months before she received the gift of praying in tongues.

Mrs. Stapleton’s remark underscored a basic difference of opinion among charismatics. Generally, classical Pentecostals and independent charismatics believe that speaking in tongues is the initial, necessary sign of Spirit baptism. Many charismatics in the Catholic Church and main-line Protestant denominations, however, believe that Spirit baptism can occur apart from tongues. The issue was not an agenda item for debate at the conference.

In a press briefing, Scanlon, MacNutt, and other Catholic leaders said that the charismatic movement is helping to return Catholic theology to its biblical moorings.

The conference was directed by a fourteen-member, all-male planning committee, with chief administrative duties carried out by Charismatic Renewal Services, the main service organization of the Catholic charismatic movement. Two-thirds of the $950,000 budget came from registration fees ($20 per head, with special rates for families). The remainder was raised in conference offerings. Hundreds of volunteers helped out (including 300 who supervised activities of the 900 children at the conference under age 12). Scores of buses shuttled conferees between their hotels, the stadium, and other conference sites.

Ten denominational and fellowship groups co-sponsored the main conference and held meetings of their own: Baptists, Pentecostals, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Mennonites, Messianic Jews, independent charismatics, Presbyterians, Catholics, and United Methodists. After Catholics, the next largest groups were the independents, Lutherans, and Methodists.

Southern Baptists and American Baptists discussed the possibility of organizing a pan-Baptist charismatic fellowship (there are an estimated 10,000 charismatics in each of the two Baptist bodies). The 750 or so United Methodists mulled over plans to organize formally within their denomination. Some disunity was noted over a proposal calling for charismatics to link arms with a non-charismatic evangelical caucus in the church. Leaders advised against it.

Two new fellowships were formed at Kansas City, the result of members of the same denomination discovering each other. One was organized by about sixty members of the United Church of Christ (UCC), a liberal denomination. UCC pastor Robert Carlson of Cleveland said there is “real hunger in the United Church of Christ for some renewal of the spirit.” The new group, he said, can be a channel for such renewal.

The other group was formed by about fifty conference participants who came from Wesleyan-Holiness background. These include the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, the Free Methodist Church, and The Church of God (Anderson, Indiana). The Christian and Missionary Alliance was also represented.

Ex-Nazarene clergyman Warren Black of Kansas City said inclusion of Church of the Nazarene members in the fellowship was significant in light of recent history. He alleged that the denomination has expelled about fifty of its ministers who had undergone the charismatic experience.

One denomination apparently wide open to the charismatic movement is the Episcopal Church. Leaders say one-fourth of the church’s active priests are involved in some way with the movement. In a press briefing, rector Everett Fullam of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Darien, Connecticut, predicted that in ten years “there will be only two kinds of Episcopal churches—charismatic or dead.” The church has lost a member every five minutes for the past ten years, he lamented. To fellow Episcopalians in the sub-conference he confided that the typical Episcopal church is not known as a spiritual-power center in the community where it is located. The denomination needs the unleashing of the Spirit’s power in the lives of its members, he said.

One of the most colorful and best-attended of the sub-conferences was the one on “Messianic Judaism and the Holy Spirit.” There was a lot of singing, Jewish folk dancing, and chanting of “Baruch HaShem! Baruch HaShem!” (translation: “Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!”). The most spirited discussion was not on charismatic issues but on how far Jewish followers of Jesus should go in retaining their Jewish identity. Some leaders warned that culture can become an idol impeding the Holy Spirit’s efforts to bring about unity among believers.

There were other warnings elsewhere. Some leaders said that the unity experienced by charismatics so far has been at the emotional level. Serious doctrinal differences do exist, and they have been passed over too easily, thus posing a threat to future unity efforts, they said. But, replied Ranaghan, he has seen so many barriers and hostilities crumble that he now believes there is a “real possibility of moving together toward some lasting form of Christian unity.”

As for the degree of unity exhibited at Kansas City, Vinson Synan remarked to a reporter: “Of all things God has done in this century, nothing has surprised me more than this.”

Church Roundup

Summer is the time when many denominations hold policy-making sessions. Here are some convention highlights:

Church of the Brethren. Andrew Young, a United Church of Christ clergyman and the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, chided delegates to the annual Brethren conference in Richmond, Virginia, for getting “a little too establishment.” The 179,000-member denomination, with its Anabaptist-pacifist roots, should avoid being shaped by forces around it and should seek renewal, he said. (Young once served a stint as a Brethren Service Worker in Austria.)

The conference directed its general board to find ways in which women and other “under-represented groups” can become denominational leaders, but it rejected by a vote of 613 to 381 a proposal to require quotas of females in church leadership roles. Approved was a paper on marriage and divorce that sets the same standards for Brethren clergy and non-clergy. It allows divorce in some circumstances as a forgivable violation of the intent of Christ’s teachings.

Conservative Baptist Association of America. Celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, the 300,000-member CBA learned that for the first time its annual home-missions income has topped $2 million (with 250 missionaries under appointment). The association of 1,200 churches has 500 career personnel overseas, and foreign missions giving totals $6 million per year. Over 1,500 messengers (delegates) attended the Estes Park, Colorado, meeting.

Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Founded on the frontier in the midst of a preacher shortage, the 90,000-member denomination is now becoming more protective of its ministers’ prerogatives. Commissioners (delegates) at the Tampa, Florida, assembly defeated a proposal to allow lay elders and unordained but licensed preachers to officiate at baptism and communion. The governing body of the church also refused to take a stand against homosexuality and expansion of nuclear power.

Reformed Church in America. The appointment of Arie Brouwer, 42, as general secretary was approved by the general synod at Sioux Center, Iowa. He succeeds Marion De Velder, who retires September 1 after sixteen years in the 355,000-member denomination’s top post. In one of its stickiest issues, the synod affirmed that it was neither legally nor morally responsible for the troubled $5 million securities program of its San Dimas church in California. A commission was authorized, however, to find ways of raising money throughout the denomination to help note holders who suffered hardship because of the situation.

Despite a plea that it declare a year’s moratorium on the issue, the synod asked its district bodies to vote again on a constitutional amendment to permit the ordination of women ministers. The matter has been submitted for several years, failing each time to get the necessary two-thirds approval. Also submitted (but for study and not for a constitutional vote) was a proposal to allow children to participate in the Lord’s Supper before making their public professions of faith. A commission was directed to study a paper “affirming the human and civil rights of homosexuals and lesbians.”

Evangelical Free Church of America. Strong positions against abortion and divorce were adopted at the annual EFCA conference, which drew nearly 1,700 participants to Fort Collins, Colorado. The resolutions upheld the biblical norm of marriage as an “indissoluble bond” and called on the state to “guarantee the rights of the unborn child as it would guarantee the rights of any of its citizens.” The 660 congregations of EFCA were urged to develop “meaningful ministries” to single persons.

United Church of Christ. Just before the UCC general synod met in Washington, D.C., 498 of the 704 delegates returned a questionnaire on sex. Among the results: 65 per cent said they believe “many of the assumptions about human sexuality in the Old and New Testaments have been proved inaccurate.” The Bible’s “shortcomings” in this area, they held, should be criticized by current Christian ethics.

When they got down to voting in the synod the result was about the same. A controversial study on sexuality passed 402 to 210. Since 34 per cent were opposed, a minority report was appended in the published version. The majority advocated a view that the Bible alone is not an adequate guide for morality or sexual conduct. The report, which congregations of the 1.8 million-member denomination are being asked to study, looks askance at traditional interpretations of the Bible’s condemnation of homosexual acts. It also takes a liberal view of abortion, contraception, civil liberties for homosexuals, and sex outside of marriage. In a separate action the synod said it deplored the Dade County, Florida, repeal of a homosexual rights ordinance. The resolution denounced the use of the Bible to “generate hatred” in the controversy.

Avery Post, president of the Massachusetts conference of the UCC since 1970, was named president (the top executive post) of the denomination. The synod authorized a two-year study of the possibility of resuming formal merger talks with the Disciples of Christ. In a resolution on Africa the delegates asserted, “We now believe that withdrawal of business and investments from South Africa is the central expression of the gospel witness.”

Baptist General Conference. The 1,300 delegates to the BGC national meeting in Duluth, Minnesota, sent a letter of commendation to singer Anita Bryant, who has become a national symbol of the drive against the homosexual-rights movement. She was thanked for “being willing to become a rallying point for millions of Christian citizens.” The conference, which reported a nationwide membership of 121,000 and a record attendance of 3,100 at the meeting, assured the singer of “our prayerful support” and of its confidence that “you will join us in expressing Christ-like concern for the individuals in the homosexual community.” A proposed amendment to its bylaws, which would have barred employment of divorced persons in conference leadership positions, was defeated. However, an earlier statement upholding the “scriptural ideal” that marriage is “to be broken only by death” was reaffirmed.

Church of God (Anderson). For the first time, the church’s assembly approved a budget of over $5 million for its international endeavors. In addition to the 4,000 pastors and lay leaders composing the assembly at San Diego, more than 20,000 others reportedly participated in the sessions. James Earl Massey was named speaker on the denomination’s radio program, “The Christian Brotherhood Hour,” succeeding R. E. Sterner, speaker since 1968.

Helping Ugandans

Uganda’s president-for-life Idi Amin early last month did what many citizens of his country wish they could do: he left Uganda. Then he returned, after attending the meetings of the Organization of African Unity in Libreville, Gabon.

He was the only black African leader to be cheered at virtually every appearance in Libreville, the Associated Press reported. AP quoted an unidentified black delegate to the conference as saying, “Amin is a disgrace to all of Africa, but he is also the most popular man on this continent. There is a mystique of bigness and arrogance about him that fascinates the average African. If you elected a king of all Africa, Amin would win.”

The Ugandan dictator took the tri, only after getting assurances that the Anglican Church centenary celebrations would not spark a revolt. During preparations for the nationwide festival he had blown hot and cold, but he never told church officials they could not observe the anniversary. However, he found an excuse not to attend the June 30 service in Kampala’s cathedral, the event’s climax.

Amin reportedly ordered the cancellation of all invitations to non-Ugandans two days prior to the service. Outsiders were there, however, in the persons of Dutch Bible smuggler “Brother Andrew” Vander Bihl and two members of his staff. They entered the country as tourists without credentials from the church, and Anglican officials told them they were the only non-Ugandans attending. They were given places of honor at the three-and-one-half hour service at which former archbishop Erica Sabiti preached. Some 3,000 were inside and perhaps 100,000 outside, according to a report by the Dutch visitors.

Amin’s trip spotlighted the plight of some of his citizens who would not vote for him in any office. At least 3,000 of them are in Kenya now as refugees, and many are in other African states or in Europe. Most of them have fled since the murder of Archbishop Janani Luwum in February (see March 18 issue, page 49, and April 15 issue, page 20). Getting an accurate count of the exiled Ugandans is difficult because many have avoided registering for political asylum with host governments for fear of being identified by Amin agents abroad. Many who need material assistance have been reluctant to go to United Nations or Christian relief offices in Kenya.

Spearheading relief efforts is the (Anglican) Church of the Province of Kenya. Also involved in efforts to provide at least subsistence rations to the refugees are the World Council of Churches, the All Africa Conference of Churches, and World Vision. A unique ministry to students, intellectuals, and professionals is being launched by the African Enterprise organization (American address: P.O. Box 988, Pasadena, California 91102). Led by exiled Anglican bishop Festo Kivengere and administered in Kenya by another Anglican minister from Uganda, John Wilson, the program is named RETURN. Kivengere is seeking over $15 million to finance scholarships for students whose educations have been interrupted, to establish professionals (especially doctors) in new work, and to otherwise prepare leaders for the day when they will be able to return to Uganda.

Latin America: Catholics in Conflict

The following news account is based largely on reports filed by correspondent Stephen Sywulka:

Right-wing terrorists in El Salvador gave the forty-seven Jesuits in that Central American country thirty days to clear out or else be assassinated. “The execution of all Jesuits found in El Salvador after July 21 will be systematic and immediate,” warned a message released to the press by the White Warrior Union, a paramilitary anti-Communist organization.

Spiritual Payoff

Does bingo in a church hall pay off? John J. Capuano, a Roman Catholic pastor in Worcester, Massachusetts, said the weekly games at Mount Carmel-St. Ann Church grossed about $8,000 (of which $1,400 was clear profit) per week last year, but he’s not sure about the pay. In a recent parish bulletin he wrote, “Bingo has certainly helped us financially and somewhat socially, but it is no longer helping us morally or spiritually.”

When the parish’s gambling license expires in October the games will stop, the priest announced. Sometimes only 100 of the 500 playing are from the parish. Capuano said, “The people who came to play bingo weren’t coming to help the church or take part in a parish social. They came to make money.” About $5,300 of the weekly gross went to prizes. Deciding that bingo brings out the worst in players, the priest said he would stop the play because it has become too “hard to keep it innocent and charitable.”

The deadline passed without immediate violence. Many sources, however, said the Jesuits now are in jeopardy not only from the right but also from the left. Their theory is that leftists would welcome the opportunity to create a national disturbance that could be pinned on rightists—and thereby imperil the government of General Carlos Humberto Romero, the new president.

There had been speculation that Romero’s ascension (he was formerly minister of defense) might alleviate some of the tension that had built up between the government and the Roman Catholic Church over social-reform issues. But a June meeting between Romero and church leaders ended in an impasse, and Archbishop Oscar A. Romero y Galdámez and the hierarchy boycotted the new president’s inauguration ceremonies early this month. The boycott, said the archbishop, was a protest against government harassment of the church and the seeming lack of desire by authorities for dialogue and conciliation.

El Salvador has a population of about 4.5 million, 90 per cent of whom are identified as Catholic. The vast majority are landless, and there are hundreds of thousands of impoverished, mostly illiterate peasants, according to press sources. Lately, the Catholic Church has been calling for social justice, especially land reform (church leaders claim the government is protecting major landowners at the expense of peasants’ rights), and the Jesuits have been in the forefront of the controversy. Two priests were killed by terrorists earlier this year (the White Warriors claimed responsibility), another disappeared, some were beaten, and others were expelled (see June 17 issue, page 40). A Jesuit-run university has been bombed six times.

Despite the threats, the priests vowed to stay “until we fulfill our duty or are liquidated.” The government dispatched police and troops to protect churches, a seminary, and schools run by the Jesuits. Romero himself met with Jesuit officials and discussed security precautions for the priests, a number of whom shed their black suits and white collars in favor of civilian garb. Many of the country’s other 200-plus Catholic priests took similar precautions.

Romero did not mention the conflict in his inaugural address. He did say, “I will guarantee the free exercise of all religions, but I hope that the image of God is not confused with other kinds of behavior that provoke disharmony.” He also said he was conscious of the social injustice within the country, and he pledged that the government would try to use “the strength of the strongest sectors to help the weak” and to encourage employment and literacy.

In Guatemala, meanwhile, a breach between Cardinal Mario Casariego and the country’s bishops is widening. Casariego, an old-guard prelate with ties to a rightist political party, recently ordered his clergy to avoid political involvement. Earlier, he had disavowed a pastoral letter issued by the bishops in which they called for fairer distribution of land and wealth and for an end to unjust social structures.

The cardinal’s latest directive was in apparent response to another declaration by his ten bishops. They denied that Communism and class warfare are promoted by clergy supporting human rights, and they said that violence and repression grow out of “ongoing abysmal inequalities and the absence of daring and urgent reforms.” The statement was prompted in part by an attack on the church by Guatemala vice president Mario Sandoval Alarcon (who heads the party favored by the cardinal). Alarcon accused the church of helping the cause of Communism by its emphasis on “renovation” (renewal).

The bishops said that “some want to see the church’s mission reduced to preaching the mysteries revealed by God with no reference to human contemporary problems.” But because of the “excessive inequalities” existing among the people of Guatemala, they said, “the church is engaged in a series of activities that are promoting projects and works designed to make men more aware of their Christian … rights and responsibilities.”

Elsewhere in Latin America, Brazil’s congress by a vote of 226 to 159 approved a constitutional amendment providing for legalized divorce for the first time in the history of the country. The measure, stiffly opposed by the Catholic Church, allows for divorce after three years of legal separation or five years of de facto separation. Just before the vote Cardinal Aloisio Lorscheider warned that divorced Catholics will be barred from confession, communion, and last rites.

Graham: Back to the Bloc

Ten years ago Billy Graham boarded a train in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, after two days of rallies there. A large crowd of Christians came to the station to see him off and to beg him to return. He has not been back to Eastern Europe to preach since then, but he may soon return to that part of the world. This time it will be for a longer stay.

His acceptance of an invitation to conduct “a series of religious meetings” in Hungary was announced last month. It will be the evangelist’s first public appearance in any of the Communist countries since 1967 and his first full-scale evangelistic campaign in any of them. He will go to Hungary at the invitation of that nation’s Council of Free Churches, a federation of eight smaller Protestant groups (see April 15 issue, page 48). Although the larger Reformed and Lutheran Churches are not a part of the council, their leaders reportedly have given the plans tacit approval.

Graham’s trip may involve more than one Eastern bloc country. In announcing that he had accepted the Hungarian invitation, Graham also reported that negotiations are proceeding about the possibility of preaching in the Soviet Union. Baptist leaders from Moscow, in Miami last month for the Baptist World Alliance general council meeting, met informally with Walter H. Smyth, director of Graham’s international ministries. In a statement issued after the session, Smyth reported that the Graham organization “and the Russian brethren are ready to join forces to make such a visit a reality.”

The evangelist is known to have invitations from Poland, Romania, and Yugoslavia, but he has not indicated that he is prepared to accept them now. (Since “official” invitations can be issued by Eastern-bloc churches only after approval by state authorities, the developments are seen as a thaw in government attitudes toward Graham.) In announcing the acceptance of the bid to preach in Hungary he emphasized that he would be willing to “cancel any engagements” to go. Smyth added that scheduling of the campaign in Hungary would not require cancellation of any crusades already planned.

Death

ERNEST D. DICK, 88, noted Seventh-day Adventist educator who served as general secretary of the SDA denomination from 1936 until 1952; in Takoma Park, Maryland.

Smyth was in Hungary and Romania in April and reported a “warm and hospitable” reception after visiting a variety of churches, church-related institutions, and government officials. A delegation from the Council of Free Churches of Hungary met with him during the Baptist sessions in Miami, and the announcement of Graham’s impending visit was released after that. One member of the delegation, council president Sandor Palotay, stopped on the way home to Hungary to discuss the plans with Graham, who was working on a book and vacationing in Europe.

Religion in Transit

A recently published book that explores the religious life of Abraham Lincoln concludes that he became a Christian after his address at the Civil War battlefield at Gettysburg. In A Heart That Yearned for God (Third Century), retired evangelist-scholar Frederick Owen quotes Lincoln as telling friends: “When I buried my son, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated my life to Christ.”

Anita Bryant will be retained as the advertising symbol of Florida orange juice despite her widely publicized campaign against homosexual-rights laws. The Florida Citrus Commission says a study shows she can still sell orange juice. However, she may be forced to change the name of her anti-gay “Save Our Children” group. The Connecticut-based Save the Children Federation, which solicits money for underprivileged children, claims it is losing donations because of the similarity in names. A federal judge last month issued a temporary restraining order against use of the Bryant group’s name.

There are still hard feelings between the Baptists in President Carter’s home town. The congregation of Plains Baptist Church voted to refuse letters of transfer to twenty-six former members who broke away to form a new church, Bottsford Baptist.

A number of church leaders have been pressuring ABC television to dissolve Soap, an “adult comedy” program scheduled to begin this fall. Morally, it’s low, they say. After viewing pilot episodes, a number of ABC’s affiliates publicly criticized the series, and some have declined to run the early programs.

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (19)

  1. View Issue
  2. Subscribe
  3. Give a Gift
  4. Archives

In some arenas of conflict, the best defense is a good offense.

That strategy is apparently being pursued by the Church of Scientology in its latest altercation with the federal government, and it might pay off.

Swarms of FBI agents last month raided church offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and seized cartons of documents that allegedly included material stolen from government files. An FBI affidavit claimed that church spies had infiltrated federal agencies over the past two years, had burglarized government offices, and on at least one occasion had bugged an Internal Revenue Service meeting. The FBI said its information came from a former top official of the church who had turned himself in after escaping from church custody. In defense, the Scientologists:

• Launched legal efforts to have the raids declared illegal, to block grand jury testimony, and to prevent disclosure and circulation of the seized material.

• Filed a $7.8 million damage suit against federal agents who planned and conducted the raids (the church earlier had filed a $750 million suit against the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other government agencies, accusing them of a massive conspiracy against the church).

• Uncorked a media campaign designed to win sympathy for the church (the main theme: the church has stood up against unwarranted government intrusion into its affairs, and the church has exposed corruption on the part of federal officials, so now the government is retaliating against the church.

On July 27 Chief Judge William B. Bryant of the U.S. District Court in Washington quashed the search warrant. He declared it illegal and ordered the government to return all materials taken in the raids. The warrant, he said, was too “general,” allowing the FBI to rummage throughout church property in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Commented a Scientology attorney: “This whole episode bears out the church’s continuing contention that government agencies have been conspiring and acting illegally toward the Church of Scientology.” Government prosecutors said they would appeal Bryant’s ruling. Meanwhile, the documents have been impounded.

The Church of Scientology, founded in Washington, D.C., in 1954 by science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, has had a long history of clashes with the government. These conflicts have involved the church’s finances and its tax-exempt status, its use of mechanical devices known as E Meters to help people rid themselves of psychological problems, and its international aspects. The church has filed many Freedom of Information suits to obtain access to material concerning it in government files, and it has tried to force the government to cut its ties to Interpol, the international organization that collects and disseminates information to police agencies.

The FBI identified its informant as Michael Meisner, until a year or so ago one of Scientology’s top five officials and national secretary of the church’s “Guardian Office.” Meisner and another Scientologist, Gerald Bennett Wolfe, were caught using forged Internal Revenue Service credentials to enter the U.S. courthouse in Washington in June, 1976. Wolfe eventually pleaded guilty to using the fake credentials and was sentenced a year later to two years probation. Meisner, however, changed his appearance and remained a fugitive until he surrendered to federal authorities in late June of this year. Meanwhile, Scientology spokesmen had denied that Meisner and Wolfe were still members of the church. They said Meisner was expelled in June, 1976, “after having blown his legally assigned” post in the church.

Lights Out, Clergy On

When the lights went off during New York’s power blackout last month, government officials appealed to clergy to help calm the city’s neighborhoods. More than a dozen clergymen rode with police in patrol cars and used loud speakers to appeal to crowds in trouble zones. Many, though, drove or walked around on their own. They talked to young people, soothed older citizens who were afraid, and comforted people who had lost their businesses. Most of the neighborhoods that were wrecked were in black and Hispanic areas.

Some congregations, said pastor Samuel Simpson of Bronx Baptist Church, quickly organized community meetings to discuss what could be done to keep things peaceful. He said the clergy of the Bronx plan to draft recommendations on how to handle such a situation in the future.

Black Protestant pastors in Harlem appealed to citizens not to purchase goods taken in the looting that occurred during the blackout.

No churches or religious schools were known to be damaged in the violence, said church sources.

(Meisner’s wife Patricia is currently president of the Founding Church of Scientology in Washington. Church press spokesman Hugh Wilhere last month said the couple had split up “about eighteen months ago” because of Meisner’s “personal problems.” Wilhere also denied that Meisner was ever a national official of the organization.)

For two weeks after he turned himself in, Meisner was grilled by the FBI. He told the following story, according to an FBI affidavit:

An international officer of the church issued an order in 1974 calling for an all-out attack against the IRS through the use of lawsuits, public relations campaigns, and infiltration of the agency. Wolfe was recruited to get a job at the IRS, and Meisner and another Scientology officer went to his office and showed him how to gain access to pertinent agency files. In Los Angeles, Scientologists placed a listening device in an IRS conference room to eavesdrop on a discussion of strategy regarding the church (Meisner said he saw a transcript of that meeting). In March, 1975, Meisner took over supervision of “all covert Scientology agents within government agencies.” He supervised break-ins at numerous offices at IRS headquarters, from which government files involving several agencies were stolen, copied, and then returned by Scientology agents. Meisner and Wolfe forged IRS credentials to gain entry to the courthouse office of a U.S. attorney where other files were kept. They stole a key to the office during a secretary’s lunch break and had it copied. At night they went to the courthouse ostensibly to study in the court’s library, but instead they entered the U.S. attorney’s office and copied many Scientology-related documents. It was during one of these expeditions that suspicious building employees called the FBI.

Fighting The Feds

Former Black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver and his wife Kathleen filed a $4.2 million damage suit against the FBI, the CIA, and a number of other government and police officials. The suit claims the couple’s constitutional rights were violated as a result of illegal activities directed against them and the Black Panthers by the government. Cleaver became a Christian in 1975 during self-imposed exile in France (see July 8 issue, page 14). Now out of prison on bail awaiting trial, he is making the rounds on the evangelical speaking circuit. Last month he announced the establishment of his own evangelistic organization, Eldridge Cleaver Crusades.

Following the break-in incident, the affidavit says, Meisner was called to Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles to discuss the situation. A cover story was concocted for Wolfe, and it was decided that Meisner should change his appearance and keep out of sight. When Meisner threatened to return to Washington on his own, the affidavit claims, he was placed under “house arrest” by church officials. Meisner said he was gagged and handcuffed during this period. He finally escaped and surrendered to federal authorities, who are keeping him in protective custody. The authorities insist that no immunity has been offered him, and they say he will plead guilty to a felony carrying a five-year sentence.

Federal agents arrived at the Scientology headquarters sites in Los Angeles and Washington early on July 8, using crowbars, sledgehammers, and saws and drills to break into locked offices, cabinets, and safes. They wore rubber gloves to avoid making additional fingerprints on the files, and stenographers itemized the materials removed. These included dossiers on the personal lives of judges, prosecutors, and others involved in Scientology litigation, according to press sources. There were files and comments about reporters with whom the Scientologists have dealt, the sources say. Some of the information on judges and prosecutors came from discarded garbage from their homes, the Washington Post reported.

Among the some 20,000 documents seized by the FBI, as described on its 550-page inventory, are the following: a folder marked “U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Agents Directory”; a folder captioned “U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Employment of Psychiatrists” containing a “raw data” report; a file entitled “Locksmith Course” with manuals and data concerning locks; a folder on “bugging” devices; sheets depicting Justice Department and IRS organization charts; “compliance reports” on judges; an eighty-three-page report dated January 6, 1977, on Bo Hi Pak, the former South Korean military intelligence officer who is now a top aide to founder Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church; material marked “This data very covert cannot be used.”

Two weeks after the raid, the Church of Scientology filed the $7.8 million damage suit against the FBI. The suit charges that agents unnecessarily damaged church property, invaded private sleeping quarters and bath facilities, trespassed in areas not covered by the search warrants, and “violated the confidentiality of priest-penitent confessional folders.” Some of the files, according to the suit, were privileged attorney-client documents containing the church’s legal strategy in upcoming suits against the government.

“This raid is clearly an attempt to silence the church,” said press spokesman Wilhere. He told reporters that some of the documents seized by the agents were obtained through Freedom of Information suits. No official spokesman of the church, however, issued a blanket denial that some documents in Scientology files might have been obtained illegally. Wilhere said the church’s lawyers would allow no comment on that topic. He did suggest that “provocateurs” or FBI agents themselves may have planted such documents, if they exist.

If Judge Bryant’s ruling to quash the search warrant is upheld on appeal, the damage amount the church is asking in its suit against the FBI is expected to rise substantially.

This is not the first time the Church of Scientology has been accused of stealing confidential documents. In November, 1975, investigators hired by the American Medical Association alleged that the Scientologists had infiltrated AMA offices to remove documents and leak them to the press. The files detailed AMA political lobbying efforts and finances. Three secretaries were pinpointed as the persons who copied the documents, but the investigators confided that they lacked the legal evidence to prove the allegations. The church, which has had conflict with the AMA for years, denied having any link to the leaks and promptly filed a $1.6 million libel suit against the AMA for a 1968 article in the AMA’s magazine Today’s Health.

In another development last month, the Scientologists announced a $10 million suit for fraud and libel against the American Broadcasting Company and several of its employees. The charges involve a documentary on Scientology and the Unification Church aired by ABC television in September, 1976. The suit charges that ABC had “no intention of creating a fair, impartial, or even objective view of the religion of Scientology,” as had been promised. It also alleges that the show was aired even after ABC had knowledge that it contained false reports and innuendo.

Children, Go Home

Will members of the Children of God be coming home soon?

Maybe, A press release and a photocopy of a “Mo Letter” purportedly written by COG founder David “Moses” Berg has reporters guessing. The documents surfaced in press circles last month. The author confesses that he has erred in many ways, and he blames much of his sinfulness on an inflated ego. In the beginning, he says, the controversial youth group was right in its purpose and strategy of witness. But, he explains, his followers began regarding him as a special prophet, and he allowed his pride to carry himself and the group off course. He directs members to cease all COG operations and use of COG’s name within three months (apparently by the end of September). As part of his penitence, he implies, he will drop out of sight forever.

COG members contacted by CHRISTIANITY TODAY said they had received no such communication as of late July, and they expressed doubt regarding the authenticity of the documents. The documents bore as a return address the post-office box number of COG’s public relations office in London. A cable seeking verification of the announcement was sent there but was undelivered; telegraph officials said the postal box was cancelled on June 25, and no forwarding address had been left. Berg, who organized COG in California in 1968, moved to Europe in the early 1970s and has managed to elude reporters, detectives, and irate parents ever since. He is thought to be living currently in northern Italy.

The style and language of the “Mo Letter”—described as Berg’s final one—is similar to that found in past letters.

If the announcement turns out to be authentic, it is doubtful that COG’s members will all rush home. A number of the colonies scattered around the world will probably continue to function as before but minus the COG name and under full control of local leadership. (For previous coverage of the Children of God, see the following issues: November 5, 1971, page 38; September 15, 1972, page 45; April 27, 1973, page 35; July 20, 1973, page 14; February 15, 1974, page 49; and February 18, 1977, page 18.)

Tolerance, But Away From Home

Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to having homosexual clergymen in their churches or homosexual teachers in their schools, but they believe homosexuals should have equal job rights. Those apparently contradictory positions are two of the findings in a nationwide Gallup poll released last month. The survey of 1,513 adults was conducted just after voters in Dade County, Florida, repealed an ordinance guaranteeing job rights to homosexuals (see July 8 issue, page 36). The defeat prompted “gay rights” activists to launch a national campaign to seek federal legislation barring discrimination in employment.

Those polled were split evenly, 43 per cent each way, on whether “homosexual relations between consenting adults” should be legalized. However, the percentage of those favoring equal job rights was reported at 56 by the pollsters.

Just over a majority, 53 per cent, told the surveyors that they thought a homosexual could be a good Christian or a good Jew. Negative answers to the same question were given by 33 per cent. Of those saying no, only 34 per cent said they thought homosexuals should have equal job rights.

In reporting the results of the poll, the New York Times quoted its polling consultant, Michael Kagay, who said the data suggested “a familiar pattern of attitudes toward nonconforming groups.” Americans may tolerate the abstract idea of equal rights for homosexuals, he said, but do not want to sanction their behavior legally.

Of those surveyed by Gallup, 66 per cent said they believed that homosexuality is more prevalent today than it was twenty-five years ago. The Times report indicated that “a few” public officials in major American cities have announced that they are homosexuals, but it indicated that relatively few people identify themselves as such elsewhere.

One of the largest percentages—77—to give a negative answer in the poll was the bloc which told pollsters that homosexuals should not be allowed to adopt children. Only 14 per cent said such adoptions should be permitted. Gallup reported no significant difference in answers from men and women.

The Porno Jesus

A British film company has signed a secret deal with the Danish film producer Jens Jorgen Thorsen to publish the script of his proposed film The Sex Life of Jesus Christ (formerly The Many Faces of Jesus Christ).

David Grant, head of Oppidan, a London-based film company that has fought in court on a number of occasions for permission to distribute films with “explicit sexual content,” has obtained international rights on the script and plans to publish it in book form in both French and English. He reportedly was seeking an American distributor for the book.

“Something like 300 people have read the script of Thorsen’s The Sex Life of Jesus Christ in [Britain] and not one of them have found the script to be obscene or blasphemous, and the majority opinion is that it is beautiful and brilliant and surrealistic,” says Grant. “A lot of things have been said about it, but nobody has said that it is pornographic. There’s no sex as such in the book whatsoever.”

Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, an evangelical activist against moral corruption on radio, television, and films, expressed amazement that Grant should claim there was “no sex as such in the book” unless he was talking about a heavily edited version of the script. “The Thorsen film script which we had translated is both extremely blasphemous and extremely pornographic,” she insists. (Thorsen reportedly remains at his apartment in France, having failed to gain permission to produce the film in Britain, Israel, Sweden, Denmark, and other countries.)

On a different front, the West Virginia state senate took action to head off pornographic representations of Christ. Portraying him in a “lewd, obscene, or immoral manner” was condemned in a resolution that received overwhelming approval. Democrat Robert Hatfield of Putnam conceded there might be a constitutional infraction but said he felt compelled to offer the resolution because “this country is slowly falling apart.”

Under the measure, Jesus may be shown only as “expressly presented by the Holy Bible or by the teachings of Christian theology.” This led fellow Democrat David Hanlon of Ritchie, an opponent of the measure, to ask: “Are we to say Muhammadans cannot teach children that Christ was a prophet and not the messiah?”

Democrat Si Galperin of Kanawha, who cited constitutional reasons for his opposition, fumed: “Maybe we ought to go further and require everyone to worship Jesus Christ.”

ROGER DAY

Fines For Sixty-Six Lines

Britain’s first blasphemous libel trial since 1921 ended last month in London when by a 10 to 2 vote a jury brought in guilty verdicts against a homosexual newspaper and its editor.

The indictment had stated that the fortnightly Gay News and its editor, Denis Lemon, 32, “unlawfully and wickedly published a blasphemous libel concerning the Christian religion, namely an obscene poem and illustration vilifying Christ in his life and Crucifixion.”

The sixty-six-line poem by English professor James Kirkup, 54, longtime resident of Japan, was entitled “The Love that Dares to Speak His Name.” It purported to describe the feelings of a homosexual Roman centurion toward Christ after His body had been taken from the Cross.

The defense pleaded that the poem was not intended to harm or hurt, “but to express love for Christ—though it was love not in the normal heterosexual sense but of a homosexual kind.” The piece had been misread, misunderstood, and misquoted by the prosecution, said defense attorney Geoffrey Robertson.

Not so, said prosecutor John Smyth. The poem had been understood all too well. To suggest that the central figure of Christianity had a homosexual relationship with Paul of Tarsus, the apostles, Herod’s guards, and Pontius Pilate was blasphemous. “You are being asked,” Smyth told the jury, which included five women, “to set the standard for the last quarter of this century and beyond. If you decide this is not blasphemy by your verdict, and find these defendants not gulty, that will set the standard and open the floodgates.”

The paper was fined $1,700; the editor was fined $850 and given a suspended nine-month prison sentence. Costs of the seven-day trial were to be met by the defendants. Passing sentence, Judge Alan King-Hamilton called the poem “quite appalling in its content and one of the most scurrilous profanity.”

The prosecution had been initiated by Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, described as “the Birmingham housewife who has become the nation’s conscience about pornography,” but it was eventually taken over by the crown (see preceding story).

The defendants are appealing the verdict.

J. D. DOUGLAS

Bangladesh Update

As the neighboring countries of Thailand, India, and Pakistan experience political and social unrest, Bangladesh remains tranquil. The tight martial law administration of General Ziaur Rahman has brought about positive changes in economics, law enforcement, and the use of foreign aid. The man on the street is openly saying that Bangladesh is now in better shape than at any other time since the 1947 partition.

However, other forces are testing the resilience of the Bengali people. In April unseasonal tornadoes touched down in dozens of villages. More than a thousand people were killed, according to official estimates, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless. Standing crops were wiped out. The planting cycle was severely disrupted. A number of Christian missions and relief organizations rushed supplies and medical teams into the affected areas.

In late March, German missionary Hans Werner was attacked and killed by seven hooded thieves in the remote village of Shantikutir. He is the third foreign missionary to be killed while resisting thieves since 1970.

Church-growth theory was applied to the Bangladesh scene by New Zealand Baptist missionary Peter McNee in his book Crucial Issues in Bangladesh, and this has prompted missions throughout Bangladesh to reevaluate their ministries. His well-documented volume won the Donald McGavran award for the most significant book on church growth produced in 1976.

The tribal belt along the India-Bangladesh border continues to be responsive to the Gospel. Sylhet Khasis, Mynensingh Garos, and Dinajpur Santalis are among the most receptive tribes. Norwegian and Danish Lutherans are active in evangelism among them.

New approaches have been tried among low-caste Hindus by the Southern Baptists and International Christian Fellowship. There are signs of positive response from the Namashudras and Muchis.

In Dacca, 100 missionaries met recently to consider new approaches to Muslim evangelism. Stress was laid on minimizing social dislocation; it was strongly felt that the convert should remain in his own habitat. Several Bengali nationals and missionaries reported the formation of small worship groups composed entirely of Muslim converts.

Christian relief and development organizations continue to function in Bangladesh. In HEED (Health, Education and Economic Assistance), one of the largest, 60 foreign workers are teamed up with more than 150 nationals to operate a diverse development program in several areas of the country. Funding (a budget of $1 million last year) and staffing come from eleven evangelical organizations. The North American representatives are World Concern, Medical Assistance Programs (MAP International), and Bible and Medical Missionary Fellowship. Dr. Howard Searle, former director of Emmanuel Hospital Association of India, is the executive secretary.

Twenty-five mission boards are represented in Bangladesh. Of 360 missionaries assigned to the country, 300 are currently on the field. They include 132 Americans, 84 British, and 56 Norwegians.

PHIL PARSHALL

Advance In North Africa

Evangelical work in North Africa is costly. Missionaries cannot operate openly in the predominantly Muslim countries, and mission agencies must therefore restrain publicity about their work back home (a headache to recruiting and development officers). There are comparatively few converts, and those who do follow Christ are often subjected to intense opposition. Under the pressure, some converts turn away. Missionaries are known to withhold baptism for several years—to make sure a convert “lasts.” Still, the Christian community in North Africa is growing.

North Africa Mission (NAM) is quietly developing evangelical leadership in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia through a Theological Education by Extension (TEE) program. A number of TEE students were introduced to the Bible earlier through a correspondence course offered by the mission’s Radio School of the Bible.

Not long ago five young-adult believers were baptized on the coast of Algeria. All have been Christians for five years or longer, all have been enrolled in NAM’s study programs, and all have leadership potential, says a mission worker. One is a second-generation Christian, who chose the faith of her mother over the ancestral religion of her father. One says he wants to become the Billy Graham of his country.

That he is so alone (there are only about 200 Christians in a population of 17 million) does not seem to dampen his spirit.

For the Record

Word Books says its first-print run of 800,000 copies of evangelist Billy Graham’s new book, Born Again, is the largest printing of a hardcover book on record. Word, which is owned by the ABC broadcasting conglomerate, got exclusive rights to Graham’s works (he was formerly with Doubleday) as part of a package arrangement worked out between Graham and ABC last year.

Page 5700 – Christianity Today (2024)
Top Articles
Latest Posts
Recommended Articles
Article information

Author: Lidia Grady

Last Updated:

Views: 6486

Rating: 4.4 / 5 (45 voted)

Reviews: 92% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Lidia Grady

Birthday: 1992-01-22

Address: Suite 493 356 Dale Fall, New Wanda, RI 52485

Phone: +29914464387516

Job: Customer Engineer

Hobby: Cryptography, Writing, Dowsing, Stand-up comedy, Calligraphy, Web surfing, Ghost hunting

Introduction: My name is Lidia Grady, I am a thankful, fine, glamorous, lucky, lively, pleasant, shiny person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.