Page 5338 – Christianity Today (2024)

An evangelical can find much of value in recent Catholic pronouncements, but …

This time it is a 120-page draft of a “Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the Economy” (Nov. 1984). The document aims to set forth a Catholic approach to poverty. In October 1982, the bishops had issued a revised statement on nuclear armament. Both pronouncements received wide public attention and general acclaim from the mass media and the liberal establishment. Not surprisingly, they also drew sharp fire from some evangelicals and fundamentalists as well as from many conservative Roman Catholics and the New Right generally.

Of the draft on nuclear armament, for example, Roman Catholic Michael Novak writes, “I cannot be certain that my own vision of reality is correct. Yet if it is, then this draft statement moves the world very close to war. That is not its motive, clearly. But it may well be its effect.” And on the most recent statement by the bishops, dealing with issues related to the U.S. economy and poverty, a Roman Catholic lay commission has just published what many consider a “Catholic alternative” to the position taken by the bishops (Toward the Future: Catholic Social Thought and the U.S. Economy).

Should They Speak Out?

Not a few have decried the bishops’ endeavor as “a politicization of Christian faith,” like that of many publications of the World Council of Churches. Others see in it a contemporary recurrence of traditional Roman Catholic disregard for the doctrine of separation of church and state.

Neither of these accusations hits the mark. Certainly Roman Catholic bishops have every right to address such issues as nuclear armament and poverty. Americans crave answers to such desperate problems. It is, in fact, their duty as bishops to provide moral instruction and guidance for the faithful in their own communion. And we are confident that loyal Roman Catholics who sincerely acknowledge their authority in faith and morals will take what the bishops have to say with great seriousness.

Moveover, the bishops surely have every right to offer the general populace whatever moral wisdom they believe they have. They are, after all, citizens as well as bishops, and their office does not disenfranchise them as members of the commonwealth. Certainly Catholic bishops have every bit as much right to provide guidance as the World Council of Churches has to speak for liberal Christianity, or, for that matter, as the Reverend Jerry Falwell has to speak for fundamentalism.

Of course, the bishops run the danger of politicizing and thus compromising their spiritual message and universal ministry. Yet in presenting their case, the bishops neatly distinguish between, on one hand, what is “first and foremost”—“belief in Jesus Christ” or the call of Christ, “Follow Me”—and, on the other hand, the “inescapable implication” of their gospel—a commitment to economic justice. In this way the bishops safeguard the integrity of their faith so no one is liable to misunderstand it or draw from their statements that social action is the whole message of the church or even its primary concern. There are Catholics of whom that is not true. Much of so-called liberation theology is really not Christian in spite of its strong commitment to social ethics. It is really preaching quite another gospel—a gospel whose fulfillment is to be found in this life as freedom from want and oppression. How to be free of poverty and oppression is, indeed, good news; but it is not the gospel.

Still, we believe the bishops have not fallen into the heresy of a gospel of social action. Rather, they have taken the quite legitimate role of spiritual and ethical guidance.

Pitfalls

The bishops, however, may not be able so neatly to avoid two other dangers flowing from a politicization of the church’s message. On this matter, the Reverend Jerry Falwell could have taught them a thing or two. In spite of his valiant endeavors to keep separate his role as fundamentalist pastor and his quite different role, as he conceives it, as head of the political organization Moral Majority, he has not really been able to keep them distinct in the public eye. Whenever a pastor or denominational leader speaks, others assume—more often than not quite wrongly—that he speaks as the mouthpiece of the body he represents. This is especially true of Roman Catholic bishops, who by canon law of the church are official interpreters of theology and ethics for the faithful. This can become exceedingly embarrassing for the future when the church commits itself to positions that later experience and deeper insight render unacceptable. Even short memories can recall how past pronouncements on birth control shook the confidence of the Roman church in its spiritual and moral leadership.

Further, the bishops have pronounced in matters concerning which most Americans not only strongly disagree but also feel very deeply. Just because of this, the bishops jeopardize their ability to function as trusted pastors and guides of those in their communion who vigorously disagree with them. Yet they must speak.

On Target

The bishops have said much that desperately needs to be said today. Every Christian should be a peacemaker. Not only should he stand for peace in this world, but he should be willing to work for it. Indeed, he must be willing to sacrifice for it. And the awful threat of nuclear warfare with its unimaginable grief and terrifying devastation surely must stir any rational person to action. Christians—and every morally serious person—should be opposed to the use of nuclear weapons, chemical warfare, and poisonous gases. They should, in fact, strive for the reduction of arms with the clear goal (however unrealizable they may know it to be short of the eschaton) of the elimination of warfare from our entire planet. How else can followers of the Prince of Peace place themselves if they are true to their Lord? And something quite similar could be said about poverty. In our materialistic culture, the poor and suppressed cry to heaven unheard and unheeded by their fellow human beings—and unheard and unheeded, all too often, by Christians living in plenty on the God-given resources of our planet.

But the Scripture is unequivocally clear. True religion before God is not tested simply by pious language and orthodox doctrine. It is marked by visiting the fatherless and the widows in their want. The true sign of the church of Jesus Christ is an active concern for all in need.

These things the bishops are saying, and they ought to be said. It is to the everlasting shame of evangelicals and fundamentalists that they are not voicing these truths with equal or greater clarity and commitment.

But Whatever Happened To Sin?

Nevertheless, we believe that in both the recent statements the Catholic bishops have shot too quickly from the hip—and in both cases have missed the target. No doubt subcommittees studied many aspects of the problems of nuclear disarmament and poverty, yet their strength may have been more sociological than theological. Really nothing is wrong with the bishops’ recent pronouncements that a stiff dose of Augustine, or Reformed theology, would not cure. At root, the good bishops have forgotten the doctrine of original sin, the inherent bent toward evil that plagues our race. As a result, in both areas of pronouncement they have advocated superficial solutions that do not reckon with the complicated realities of the situation. Michael Novak has accurately assessed their statement on nuclear weapons: “The ultimate logic of the bishops’ second draft is unilateral disarmament.” In their analysis, the bishops are banking on the sweet reasonableness of the Soviets not to take advantage of the West’s inferiority in conventional armaments, and not to engage in nuclear blackmail if the West unilaterally renounces the use of any nuclear weapons—tactical or strategic. Neither the Bible nor human history gives us much ground for trusting in the sweet reasonableness of any nation or state—and who would argue that Soviet Russia is an exception?

The case is similar with respect to the U.S. economy and the poor. The bishops’ solution is: less materialism, less luxury spending, less selfishness, and especially larger and better government handouts. The goal is the redistribution of “income and wealth in our society, and even more … on the world scale.” They label it “Economic Democracy.”

Most morally responsible persons would readily agree with the bishops in their approach to materialism, luxury spending, selfishness, and the moral necessity to “guarantee the minimum conditions of human dignity in the economic sphere for every person.”

But many of us are far less sure that large additional handouts by the government constitute the proper solution. Already the government is laying out in welfare programs almost twice as much money as would be needed (if given directly in cash) to raise every man, woman, and child in the U.S. above the poverty level. What is needed is a way of helping the poor and needy that will not drive them into permanent dependence. Alas, the bishops do not help us much on this crucial point.

The bishops need to go back to the drawing boards and do their homework—based on the realities of the human situation.

For the past several years we have heard much about “the vacuum in Christian leadership.” While this means different things to different people, our particular concern is that the best evangelical thinking often is not communicated from scholars to the parish leaders of the church. Scholarly books and conferences, though many, seldom directly affect nonscholars.

We feel an increased responsibility to glean the best thinking from evangelical thought leaders and to disseminate their seasoned judgments widely. We therefore are developing a think tank called the Christianity Today Institute, which will address many of today’s most pressing theological and ethical issues. More than 50 fellows and resource scholars will be involved on a continuing basis, and their work will periodically appear in this magazine in the form of special institute supplements.

We have been working on this project for the past year and sense considerable excitement. Kenneth S. Kantzer has been appointed dean of the institute, and V. Gilbert Beers has been appointed executive director. In November, they led a two-day meeting with carefully selected scholars on the subject “The Christian As Citizen.” Present were Myron Augsburger, Vernon Grounds, Nathan Hatch, Carl F. H. Henry, David McKenna, Steven Monsma, and J. I. Packer. Guests—who interacted in lively fashion—included Charles Colson, Jerry Falwell, and James Wallis.

From the extensive dialogue and research initiated by this meeting, we will publish a 32-page section on the subject in our April 19 issue. (Future institute supplements will cover such topics as “The Church’s Mission for the Rest of the Century,” and “The Sanctity of Life—the Quality of Life.”)

As executive director, Dr. Beers’s primary work over the past four months has been launching the institute. As it fully develops, he will not only work with Dr. Kantzer in producing the periodic 32-page supplements, but he will also draw the very best of these scholars’ writings into the regular pages of CHRISTIANITY TODAY magazine.

There will be more on this as the institute develops.

On another subject, most people have vague ideas about magazine advertising. Upset readers write to us about an ad’s wording or a book’s theology or a seminary’s policies. They don’t notice the small line on the masthead, “advertising in CHRISTIANITY TODAY does not necessarily imply editorial endorsement.” Instead, they assume we write it, design it, and endorse it. Actually, we have one basic control over advertising: acceptance or rejection. Advertisers themselves prepare the finished ads.

We regularly reject ads for a variety of reasons. We ask ourselves, “Do the aesthetics of this ad measure up to minimum requirements?” “Does the copy offend our readers’ intelligence?” “Is the ad theologically sound?” However, decisions do become subjective and difficult. We screen ads, reject quite a few, then trust our readers to make careful judgments.

Some think we should severely limit advertising, saying it detracts from the magazine. But a survey of our subscribers indicates the vast majority appreciates the ads and would like additional ones in their special interests. To most readers, ads provide an important service.

Yes, juxtapositions sometimes clash. It always amazes me to watch Ted Koppel, live via satellite interviewing a head of state, interrupt the world leader’s statements for a deodorant commercial. But commercials pay for satellites, and Koppel, and the possibility of viewership. It’s the same in magazines. Advertising is the reason a full year of CT costs the price of one or two books instead of a dozen or more, and most ads contribute useful information. We want them to benefit you, and we are open to your suggestions and viewpoints.

In the press of “christian business” here at CTi, we have been concerned anew about the reality of spiritual warfare. We “full-time Christian workers” find ourselves vulnerable to special traps, for the father of lies is subtle. He really does pose as an angel of light. He wants to make us think we are energetically going down the right track when we’re actually on a dangerous spur. Of Christian workers of all types, Oswald Chambers observes, “Satan’s great aim is to deflect us from the center. He will allow us to be devoted ‘to death’ to any cause, any enterprise, to anything but the Lord Jesus.”

Sobering words. He goes on to say, “To have our eyes on successful service is one of the greatest snares to a Christian worker, for it has in it the peril of evading the soul’s concentration on Jesus Christ, and instead of being friends of the Bridegroom we become antichrists in our domain, working against Him while we use His weapons; amateur providences with the jargon of Divine providence, and when the Bridegroom does speak we shall not hear His voice” (The Place of Help, p. 23).

How easily we embrace our stirring causes! But when our eyes shift from Christ, the basis of the cause, to the excitement, or perhaps “righteous indignation,” of the cause itself, we have been duped.

As we work “for Christ,” we must ask daily “Is this really for him or for me?” When we can say in honesty, “Your will be done” (even when it may mean personal humiliation or failure of “his” cause), then we invite Christ in to fight the battles.

Peter tells us, “Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith.…”

Amazing! Life Without Television

Recently I visited the home of an old college buddy, and to my amazement discovered he doesn’t own a television. He hasn’t watched one in almost ten years. He says television inhibited communication and creativity in his family. Frankly, I’m amazed his family has maintained at least a semblance of normality without the vital information transmitted by commercials.

How have they survived socially? They have no way of knowing about the mouthwash that kills germs that cause bad breath, the dishwashing liquid that prevents dreaded dishpan hands, or the laundry detergent that protects us from the unforgivable ring around the collar.

How have they managed at home? What do they do when they spill something if they don’t know about the quicker picker-upper? What do they do when they need an antacid that consumes exactly 47 times its weight in excess stomach acid? How can they ever know if their headaches are of the Excedrin or the non-Excedrin type?

Yet, somehow, this family has survived—I daresay, flourished. I met my friend’s children, and as far as I could tell, their teeth weren’t falling out—even without the toothpaste most recommended by the American Dental Association. They seemed well groomed without the shampoo that controls problem dandruff.

During my entire visit I could detect just a single flaw in my friend’s armor. We were laughing about a practical joke we once played, and wouldn’t you know it, his dentures popped right out. What a terrible embarrassment! How could his wife stay with a person whose dentures pop out during a belly laugh? It never would have happened if he owned a television.

Strange thing, though. He picked up his dentures, rinsed them off, put them back in, and—to my astonishment—life went on.

EUTYCHUS

Lindsey, Walvoord, And Armageddon

Were you fair to Hal Lindsey [“Nuclear Armageddon,” News, Dec. 14]? Lindsey was only following the method of interpretation he had learned from John Walvoord in The Nations in Prophecy. In 1967, Walvoord used current events of that year to prove that Armageddon was imminent in 1967. Hal Lindsey used current events in 1983 to prove that Armageddon was imminent in 1983. That device has been used for hundreds of years. The Armageddon passage in Revelation 16 is all past tenses. It had happened.

Both Walvoord and Lindsey treat hundreds of past tenses throughout the New Testament as future in meaning anytime their foregone conclusions require a future tense.

IVAN GROH

St. Catharines, Ont., Canada

The ultimate offense of Hal Lindsey is not found in the hype and pizzazz he adds to his sermons. It is that he takes seriously the Bible’s teaching concerning the literal second advent of Jesus Christ to judge the wicked and save the elect. Ask the members of the Christic Institute if they can stomach even that simple orthodox teaching. My bet is that orthodox eschatology of any school will make those boys gag.

DAVID J. MACLEOD

Dubuque, Iowa

Who’S Changing?

Regarding your January 18 editorial [“Beyond 1984: An Evangelical Agenda”]: You say, “The act of compromise is not sinful; it is usually realistic and often thoroughly Christian.” Name me one time that our Lord and Master compromised.

You say, “The God of the Bible does not seek compulsory worship.” He does not force it, but his very nature demands we worship him or deny him and worship the counterfeit one.

You say, “… the right of parents to provide a Christian education for their children without the handicap of paying twice.” Where were you when there were only a few Christian schools? Did you argue this point forcibly in the ’40s and ’50s when the Catholics complained about double taxation?

You say, “Evangelicals represent a minority.” I know what you mean, but as for me and my family, we’ll stand upon 1 John 4:4. Usually I agree with you; are you changing or am I changing?

VERL E. STOCKTON

Zanesville, Ohio

I affirm Kenneth Kantzer’s statement: “prochoice is a singularly malicious euphemism for the right to murder for convenience,” but was distressed at his alluding to the acceptability, in the name of compromise, of first-trimester abortions. Why should persons be expendable at any age?

Twenty-four prominent medical specialists recently presented a well-received report to President Reagan stating that unborn children are pain-sensitive as early as eight weeks gestation. This, in itself, makes a strong statement against first-trimester abortions.

JAMES HILT

The Chapel of the Air

Wheaton, Ill.

Kantzer said evangelicals should agree to support any governmental action to protect unborn children, and that it may “be possible to outlaw abortions for trifling causes and all abortions beyond the first trimester except to save the life of the mother.” To construe that statement as Kantzer’s or this magazine’s approval of abortion at any stage is inaccurate.

—Eds.

Ct And Issues

I appreciated the Baby Doe issue [“A Legacy of Life,” Jan. 18]. It is clear that people who accuse CT of not addressing certain issues like abortion do not read the magazine.

LLOYD BILLINGSLEY

Poway, Calif.

I am often troubled by the “either-or” positions of the pro-life and pro-choice movements. They often battle each other like Republicans and Democrats. To say that one political party has a monopoly on truth would be mere propaganda. The same is true of the pro-life and pro-choice movements.

Dr. Elkins’s concern for the person over the issue is something that the abortion groups could have more of. He possesses the characteristics and the attitudes that would fit nicely into a third group, which could be called pro-compassion.

REV. WILLIAM D. WOLFE

Mason, Mich.

Dr. Elkins is to be thanked for raising our theological consciousness to the new issues raised by medical technology. Let this be the start of an ongoing discussion in future issues.

The response by Dr. Smedes indicates the need for further clarity on the question. To say theologically “we must always be on the side of healing and preserving human life, whether prenatal or neonatal” is to plunge the doctor into an impossible situation when dealing with an anencephalic, for example. Were we to say “we should normally be on the side …, etc.” would give the Dr. Elkinses of this world the ethical room needed to exert their Christian consciences as God gives leadership.

REV. JERRY BATTS

Christ Community Church of Naperville

Naperville, Ill.

Iowa Evangelicals And The ’84 Senate Race

I must respond to the impression given of the Jepsen-Harkin senatorial race in Iowa [“Election ’84: Some Surprising Winners and Losers,” Jan. 18]. While portrayed as a battle between the villain Harkin and the evangelical Jepsen, many evangelicals here in Iowa perceived it quite differently. Mud was slung from both sides of the fence, and many feel it came from Jepsen’s side first. I fault neither Harkin nor Jepsen on that score, but rather overzealous supporters.

I applaud Jepsen’s pro-life position and his evangelical convictions. But I voted for Harkin for his exemplary moral integrity in leading the fight against major, though largely overlooked, human rights abuses in the Third World, as well as his fight to save the small farmer in the American Midwest. In contrast, Jepsen apparently winked at the horrendous crimes of dictators in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

TOM HARDEE

Orange City, Iowa

Those Hopeless Bookaholics

What utter delight to read Calvin Miller’s “Confessions of a Librophiliac” in the January 18 issue. I, too, am a bookaholic—a hopeless addict, with no desire for reformation. If a severe blizzard is predicted for our area, do I go to the grocery for milk and bread? Never. I rush to the public library for an armload of books. One must have the necessitities of life when shut in!

RUTH JOHNSTON

Fort Wayne, Ind.

Could you please tell me, what is a librophiliac? Do you mean someone who phlees books? I believe the word would be librophobic. But that does not seem to describe Calvin Miller very well.

REV. ANNA D. GULICK

St. Gabriel’s Episcopal Church

Lexington, Ky.

Miller insists on the right to make up both his own words and definitions.

—Eds.

Too much reading is not good. Calvin Miller evidently has not learned this yet.

JOHN GILL

Chattanooga, Tenn.

Missing The Point

Regarding the review of The Killing Fields [Jan. 18]: Clearly, the political biases of your reviewer have blinded him to the impact of this powerful and much-needed film.

In sharp contrast to the present insistence on patriotic trivializations of America’s past wrongs, this is one film that demands sober reflection. Certainly, the use of John Lennon’s “Imagine There’s No Heaven” at the end of the film was itself a trivialization of a highly complex and tragic situation, but to reduce all of Cambodia’s troubles to the atheistic Khmer Rouge is to sidestep American responsibility, which is the point of the whole film.

REV. DANIEL PLYBON LOVE

The Wesleyan Church of Oak Park

Oak Park, Ill.

Twentieth-Century Prophet

The space given to A. W. Tozer’s classic, Knowledge of the Holy [Jan. 18], was appropriate. The books by this “twentieth-century prophet” are selling better today than they ever did in his lifetime.

Tozer himself wrote for publication only 7 of the 19 full-length books bearing his byline. The others, nearly all produced by Christian Publications, were compiled and edited from his editorials in The Alliance Witness or tapes of his sermons.

H. ROBERT COWLES

Christian Publications

Camp Hill, Pa.

An Accurate Evaluation

Leland Ryken’s description of the value of a Christian liberal arts college education [“The Student’s Calling,” Jan. 18] was accurate and articulate. Parents, even more often than undergraduates, think in terms of what education will allow the student to earn rather than what that student can become.

RICHARD J. STANISLAW

Vice President for Academic Affairs

Taylor University

Upland, Ind.

Letters are welcome; only a selection can be published. All are subject to condensation; brevity is preferred. Write to Eutychus, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.

Why the infatuation with management books?

One of the phenomenal publishing successes of all time has been In Search of Excellence, by Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman, Jr. Subtitled “Lessons from America’s Best-run Corporations,” this book was first published by Harper & Row in October 1982 and has since sold more than 2.4 million copies in hardcover and one million in paperback. That is about 3,400 copies each day—a record for Harper’s 157-year history.

And this may be just the beginning. The authors have produced a series of audio- and videotapes that are sweeping the business world, as well as an ‘In Search of Excellence’ desk calendar. In January, the Public Broadcasting System presented a 90-minute TV documentary on the book and its impact.

Both Peters and Waterman have themselves become multinational corporations, jetting around the world to deliver lectures to this group and that, reputedly at $ 15,000 a shot. Their volume stands at the head of the list of a series of best-selling books in the management field that have come to the fore in the past few years. Anyone who takes time to browse the displays at city or airport bookshops will be familiar with Megatrends by John Naisbitt and The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, both of which have made megabucks for their authors and publishers. Yet these are merely the best known. At the time of writing, for example, half of the books listed on Time’s nonfiction best-sellers list focus on management.

Why The Search?

When you consider the figures, it becomes obvious that In Search of Excellence is being read by people outside the board rooms of corporate America. There simply are not that many managers in the business community. (It’s not even certain there are that many readers.)

Among those outside the board rooms reading the book have been church and parachurch leaders. Some denominational executives and parachurch CEO’s have even made it required reading for their subordinates. (Every Evangelical Covenant Church pastor, for example, was urged in a letter from the denomination’s president to read the book.)

How can one account for the success of Search and so many other books on management and management principles? A first and obvious answer is that they fill a gap: many of the people who find themselves in management positions today, whether in business, government, or the nonprofit sector, have had little or no training in management skills. Like Topsy, they just grew into their present jobs—and they are all too conscious of their personal inadequacies.

If this is true of secular corporations, it is even more true of the church and parachurch organizations. Seminaries and Bible colleges do not normally offer courses in management, yet most of their graduates become managers sooner or later. Management courses are sometimes available through the commerce departments of Christian colleges, but pastors and parachurch leaders seldom darken the doors of these departments.

It usually takes three or four years for Christian leaders to realize that their formal education has been woefully lacking in this area; some, alas, never recognize their need. To remedy this ignorance, they begin to look around to see what help is available. They may pick up books like the ones mentioned above, or they may have the good fortune of having a friend in the corporate world who recommends a seminar by the American Management Association or some other group. They may hear of seminars offered by an organization like the Development Association of Christian Institutions in Dallas or Fuller Theological Seminary’s Institute for Christian Organizational Management in Pasadena. Or they may join the Christian Management Association, a Los Angeles-based AMA look-alike for managers of Christian organizations. Seeking to overcome a “handicap” imposed upon them by the lack of educational training, they seek to improve their management skills in whatever ways they can.

Structure Versus The Spirit

Not everyone approves, however, of this new emphasis on management in Christian ministries. Still very much a part of evangelical thinking is the sense that the secular structures of the business world work to limit the free expression of God’s Spirit springing forth from these spiritual enclaves. Indeed, the article on “Spirituality” in the recently published Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Baker, 1985) lists the current interest in administration as one of the primary reasons for the “dearth of spiritual leadership and direction in the evangelical world” today.

Moreover, some feel this particular pursuit of excellence is simply another example of the world’s encroachment on the church—the latest attempt by Christians to ape current secular concerns. A graduate of the Harvard Business School, who had been tremendously helped in the past by a Christian ministry, recently asked to be removed from its mailing list “because I see that you are beginning to use the same principles they taught me in my M.B.A. program.”

But should Christian organizations seek to use bad management principles as they go about serving the Lord? Is there nothing of value for Christian ministry taught in the business schools? Are the principles of management that are to be applied to churches entirely different from those that are to be applied to business and government agencies?

It may come as a surprise to the Harvard grad that the particular organization whose style bothered his Christian conscience used to find it difficult to hire any other than single staff or people who had independent incomes, due to the limited support they received from the Christian community (and in spite of the fact that it was the most effective ministry in its area of specialization). Today staff members are still not overpaid, but at least they are paid a livable wage (and on time).

Biblical Overtones

“Management” should not be a dirty word. It is, perhaps, the best English equivalent of a key New Testament word: oikonomia—usually translated “stewardship.” A “steward” (Greek oikonomos) in New Testament times was essentially a business manager; his responsibility was to manage his master’s affairs faithfully. It was a concept that everyone was familiar with, so it became a key image in the teaching of Jesus, Paul, and Peter to indicate the nature of Christian discipleship and the apostolic mission (Luke 12:41–48; 1 Cor. 4:1–2; 9:16–17; Col. 1:24–26; 1 Pet. 4:10).

Christians do not cease to be human when they commit their lives to Christ. Rather, they share a common humanity with all people. Therefore, it is not surprising that they should learn truth from people who are not themselves believers. The church has done so in the past, to its everlasting benefit, and will doubtless do so in the future. This will come as no surprise to anyone who believes in the biblical doctrine of creation.

One of the striking features of a book like In Search of Excellence is the way it is filled with scriptural teaching without being even slightly aware of the fact. When the authors enumerate eight basic principles followed by the “excellent companies,” what they are really doing is commenting on the residual Christian values in our Western culture. For example, Peters and Waterman’s “Productivity through people” (where excellent companies treat the rank and file as the root source of quality and productivity gain), fits neatly into Christ’s own ethic of viewing people as more important than principle. And their “Close to the customer” (learning from the people you are serving) simply reiterates Christ’s call to selfless giving and to understanding the people we are seeking to serve spiritually.

The gospel has made a profound impact on Western society, and the business world has been touched as much as any other segment (as it has, in common with other institutions, been affected by sin). Thus, it would not be difficult to attach specific Bible texts to each of Peters and Waterman’s principles, although a believer in general revelation and the “image of God” in humankind should not find it necessary to do so.

Reviewed by W. Ward Gasque, vice-principal and professor of New Testament at Regent College, Vancouver, British Columbia Canada.

In Search of More Excellence

CHRISTIANITY TODAY asked Ward Gasque to name two or three other management titles that he considered to be “must” reading. He responded with five (and one magazine). His reasons for selecting each follow:

Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, by Peter F. Drucker (Harper & Row, 1973)

“The ‘Bible’ of modern management studies.”

The Christian Executive, by Ted W. Engstrom and Edward R. Dayton (Word, 1979)

“Attempt to combine contemporary management studies with Christian leadership principles.”

The Organized Executive, by Stephanie Winston (W. W. Norton, 1983)

“A wonderful look at new ways to manage time, paper, and people.”

Theory Z, by William G. Ouchi (Addison Wesley, 1981)

“How successful Japanese businesses operate and how their principles can be applied here in the states.”

Spiritual Leadership, by J. Oswald Sanders (Moody Press, 1980)

“Attempt to systematize principles of Christian leadership as derived from the Bible.”

Harvard Business Review

“This outstanding quarterly journal offers a distillation of management theory and practice in extremely readable form.”

An Excerpt

“Minister or manager? Unfortunately, too many Christian organizations are led by men or women who have a gift for ministry and little training (or perhaps even inclination) for management. Witness the large number of leaders of Christian organizations who are ordained. Of course, ordination does not exclude a person from having management gifts and skills, but it does give an indication of the leader’s basic training and probable bias. This emphasis on ministry or ministering to people may lead the organization back to the same dilemma that the local church faces.

But assuming we have selected the best managers we can find to lead the organization, do we not still have a responsibility to minister to each other? Of course.

Even a tough army top sergeant knows that people are the ultimate key to a successful organization. A great deal of thought and study has been given to how to make people more productive by giving them more satisfying work, by providing adequate remuneration, by placing them in an environment which is conducive to their well-being, and by generally helping them to feel good about themselves, the organization, and their task. Most of the management literature indicates that all of this is done for the good of the organization, or the good of the product. This is probably only a half-truth. Most men and women, be they Christian or non-Christian, enjoy helping others and seeing others operating effectively.

But what about the Christian manager? If he or she is leading an organization made up of members of the same mystical body of which he or she is a part, is there not some special relationship implied?”

The Christian Executive, by Ted W. Engstrom and Edward R. Dayton (Word, 1979).

The Cotton Club

Orion Pictures, directed by Francis Ford Coppola; rated R.

At the center of The Cotton Club is a heart that beats to the rhythm of a distinctly American musical idiom: jazz. Structurally complex, the film is the visual equivalent of a sizzling Duke Ellington tune—as wildly different from any other movie this year as a fugue is from a sweet saxophone solo. Its free-form style supplies an ironic counterpoint to the solemn themes of spiritual bondage and the inevitable perpetuity of evil.

The real “Cotton Club” was, in fact, as sordid as it was exciting. Founded in 1923 by mobster Owney Madden, the infamous Harlem speakeasy played host to a wide variety of celebrities and gangsters. The whites-only audience would carouse amid ersatz Southern plantation splendor while enjoying the finest all-black entertainment the Jazz Age had to offer.

Into this milieu director Francis Coppola introduces two sets of upwardly mobile siblings seeking their fortunes in the competitive atmosphere of the Cotton Club and its environs. The Williams brothers (played superbly by Gregory and Maurice Hines) battle discrimination and fraternal jealousy as they tap-dance their way to the top. But success requires submission to the apartheid policies of management, and despite their growing celebrity status, the two hoofers struggle to maintain a semblance of dignity.

In a parallel tale of captivity, the brothers Dwyer find themselves employed by bootlegger Dutch Schultz after cornet player Dixie Dwyer (Richard Gere) inadvertently saves the homicidal mob boss. Being a gangster’s flunky, however, can make for an abbreviated career, and the musician is reluctant to spend his retirement at the bottom of the river. Unfortunately, working for a psychopath can become a form of involuntary servitude, and when Dixie falls for the boss’s mistress it gets very hot in Harlem.

With slavery as his central motif, Coppola, like a demented bandleader, lays down each sizzling scene like a jazz riff, then takes off in unrestrained improvisation. His style is both nonlinear and expressionistic. Unlike a novel, followed point by point, The Cotton Club must be absorbed like a painting that conveys its thoughts spatially. Its characters—drawn broad and colorful—must be seen, not as caricatures, but as symbols of power and subservience.

Harlem is pictured as a microcosm of the world, where souls are bought and sold in a writhing human marketplace. Dixie and company learn all too quickly that “to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are.” Emancipation, Coppola implies, belongs only to those whose creativity can become a source of personal authentication. That is the kind of moral assertiveness that transcends the spiritual prostitution too often required for success. But evil can only perpetuate itself; it can never offer freedom. The figureheads of power are interchangeable and the rewards they offer are the same.

Reviewed by Harry Cheney, a sound editor at Metro-Godwyn-Mayer.

1984

Virgin Films, written and directed by Michael Radford; no rating.

George Orwell claimed in his latter years that every line he wrote was “against totalitarianism.” Should this system triumph, he believed, all human values would perish.

This is the vision of 1984, a godless world of fear and loathing, of chronic war and shortages, of the Lie and Doublethink, of a materialist puritanism. The tortured hero, Winston Smith, shows that he understands the situation by scrawling GOD IS POWER while being cured of “thought crime.” “If you want a vision of the future,” says O’Brien, kind of a Grand Inquisitor character, “imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever.”

The film 1984, unfortunately, is poorly timed. It arrives on the heels of two years of Orwelliana in the media, much of it futuristic nonsense trivializing Orwell as a novelistic Alvin Toffler predicting which gismos we would be using by now. To their great credit, the filmmakers avoided this sort of thing. Like Orwell, their vision is not technological but moral.

The trouble is, film itself has a totalitarian dimension; unlike a novel, it takes away our ability to imagine for ourselves. And like totalitarianism, film tends to destroy, or at least maim, everything it touches. 1984 is too vast, too diverse, too verbal to be spread thin onto celluloid. Lovers of Orwell’s novel will be disappointed; those who have never read it will be utterly confused.

Though exposition is provided by a voice-over of Winston Smith’s inner monologue, not nearly enough of this emerges. Too many of his hates, fears, and struggles remain hidden. This is also true of Julia, his lover, a lively, resourceful character who here seems almost demented. The expository device of Winston’s journal, used effectively by Orwell, is wasted, as is John Hurt in the lead role.

Richard Burton is simply miscast as O’Brien, who, in the novel, flies from calm speech to ranting megalomania as quickly as a hummingbird. We see none of this. The great Shakespearean actor often seems to be merely reciting. But he is not the problem.

The script is meager and the direction poor throughout. Orwell describes the children of Oceania as veritable terrors, spying on and denouncing everyone. The film depicts them, with few exceptions, as obedient boy and girl scouts.

Better done are scenes of the Two-Minutes Hate, the constant propaganda from the telescreens, forced and fraudulent confessions, the shabby conditions, the omnipresent heretic and enemy of the people, Emmanuel Goldstein, Orwell’s symbol for Judeo-Christian values.

These, of course, are already hated not only by totalitarian governments, where Big Brother is definitely watching over all, but also here in the West, where, unlike Winston Smith, many are learning to prefer Big Brother over God all by themselves. The alteration of the past and the destruction of words were well under way when Orwell began writing. 1984, as Marshall McLuhan once pointed out, is more about the past than the future.

Overall, the film is a major disappointment. It probably means the end of media preoccupation with George Orwell. (People who want to see it should be forewarned that there are several nude scenes.) But if it causes anyone to pick up the novels 1984 and Animal Farm it will not have been in vain.

Reviewed by Lloyd Billingsley, a novelist and screenplay writer in Southern California. His novel, A Year for Life, is scheduled for publication by Crossway Books.

When President Grant lay dying, his old friend, Gen. O. O. Howard, came to see him. Howard told his old chief, under whom he had fought through the Civil War, how much the people of the United States appreciated his work. Grant, restless and wistful, seemed unimpressed. What had impressed him, obviously, was the example of faith and prayer that Howard had long set before his fellow officers and soldiers. “Tell me,” cut in the dying commander-in-chief, “tell me something more about prayer.”

It is a piercingly appropriate request, spurred alike by humility and by hope. Always there is something more to learn about this amazing function and force by means of which, as Tennyson put it, “more things are wrought than this world dreams of.”

Prayer is responsive. At one level it may be ignorance and fear responding to mystery, littleness responding to vastness, guilt of violated taboo responding to a terror-world of spirits manipulated by medicine men and witch doctors. At a different level it may be the disciples of Jesus, awed by his own practice of prayer into a reverential aching of wonder and longing, saying wistfully, “Lord, teach us to pray”

In prayer, God is always there ahead of us. He is the prior fact. He tirelessly cultivates the prayers of his biblically enlightened people. “Call to me, and I will answer you” (Jer. 33:3).

Prayer is purgative. Christian prayer is an invited intimacy with the Father-God who is loving and holy. In his presence, the pride that is discovered is the pride that dies. The resentment that is cancerous is the resentment that is cured. The pettiness that is probed is the pettiness that is purged. Contrite and believing prayer is the soul’s immersion in the sacrificial “mind of Christ,” who on the cross made his pure soul an offering for our sin. “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).

Prayer is expansive. It is Isaiah in the temple, convicted and concerned with his own discovered need, but not resting there—going on, instead, to see with sharpened vision the needs of others near and far, and to say to God, “Send me.” It is the disciples, under the tutoring of Jesus, being told, “lift up your eyes, and see how the fields are already white for harvest” (John 4:35); “pray therefore the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (Matt. 9:38).

Prayer widens the walls of the heart. It gives an interior spaciousness. “Prayer,” wrote S. D. Gordon when the twentieth century was young, “opens a whole planet to man’s activities. I can as really be touching hearts for God in faraway India or China through prayer as though I were there.… A man may go aside today, and shut his door … and as really spend a half hour of his life in India for God as though he were there in person.”

Do you doubt that? If you do, there is no mathematical calculus by which you can be convinced. Those who know the art of the heart, which is loving intercession, will not doubt it. To them prayer is not saying, “Tell you what I’ll do, God; let’s make a deal!” Prayer, on the contrary, is being caught up into the livingness of the “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” and participating in his purpose of reconciliation for proud, ego-centered humans of every ilk.

If S. D. Gordon spoke his world-encircling mind to an earlier generation, George Archer Buttrick confronted our own time when he wrote, “So honest prayer is linked with life. We pray, and then speak the unpopular word.… We pray, and then we both vote and labor against politicians who play both ends against the middle, and thus sidestep the demands of a revolutionary time.… Yet prayer is not committed to any ism, for all isms are transient and open to human sin.… Our activisms are both blind and compulsive without prayer.”

Prayer, then, is mission. It is not an adjunct to mission. It belongs. It is an integral part of it. It brings the world within our ken. It lays the world upon our heart. It broadens our sympathies and empathies into a vital participation in the whole community of Christ’s witnessing servants.

“Howard,” said General Grant, “tell me something more about prayer!”

¹Paul S. Rees has been a pastor and evangelist, and is the author of 14 books. He has served on the boards of several magazines and institutions, including ChristianityToday, Bread for the World, Eternity, and World Vision International

Christians in the British crown colony of Hong Kong are banding together to prepare for rule by the People’s Republic of China. An accord signed by China and Great Britain late last year set the course for the transfer of rule by 1997.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong contains little reference to freedom of religion. Specific rights and freedoms will be spelled out in the Basic Law of Hong Kong. Next month the National People’s Congress of China will select a committee that will formulate the basic law.

A number of groups in Hong Kong have formed study committees to address the concerns of Christians. A group of professionals called Christian Hong Kong Observers will address political and social issues facing the colony. In addition, a group called the Church Renewal Movement Committee was formed last year after a July fasting-and-prayer rally drew 4,000 people to a Hong Kong stadium.

“We Christians are very eager to have our opinions expressed to those who will formulate the basic law,” said Timothy Siu Hung Lau, pastor of Hong Kong Baptist Church and chairman of the Church Renewal Movement Committee. “We don’t know if any Hong Kong people will be on the [basic law] committee, but we would like to have someone on the committee who could present our views.… Because 1997 is a big challenge to the Hong Kong church, as pastors we feel the need to share how to face this challenge and to seek new ways to do evangelism and church development.”

Only 5 percent of Hong Kong’s population are Protestants, with slightly more than 700 Protestant churches operating in the colony. Nevertheless, the city has been the center of the Chinese church worldwide. Hong Kong serves as the center of Chinese Christian publishing and the headquarters of dozens of parachurch organizations ministering to Chinese people worldwide.

The Sino-British Joint Declaration guarantees that Hong Kong’s capitalistic system will remain unchanged for 50 years. China further pledged to protect Hong Kong’s rights and freedoms of speech, press, assembly, strike, travel, choice of occupation, academic research, and religious belief.

Reaction to the agreement has been largely one of relief. Many said the document was more detailed and substantive than they had expected. Yet, for many Hong Kong residents, serious reservations remain.

“Most Hong Kong people are happy about the agreement, but we question the implementation of it,” said Theodore Hsueh, a member of the program committee of the Church Renewal Movement Committee. “This concept of ‘one nation, two systems’ is something entirely new. No government in the world has had experience with this. It is difficult for us to see how a Communist country can include a capitalist system under its own government.

“The Chinese government, its policies—even its constitution—is not stable,” Hsueh said. “In the last 30 years, the constitution has changed four or five times.… Sometimes the government will make a certain statement, but the implementation on the grassroots level may be quite different from the apparent intention.”

The Church Renewal Movement Committee will explore the development of new church models, promote spiritual growth and theological training for full-time church workers, coordinate evangelistic activities, and advocate social concerns. In addition, it will promote unity within the evangelical community.

“We think that in the future, the church pattern in Hong Kong may change,” Lau said. “So we need to find new models for churches, both large and small. We are expecting 1997 to bring some new challenges. But we are working now to meet those challenges.”

Thus far, Hong Kong’s ecumenical movement has presented a stronger, more unified voice for its constituents. Some ecumenical groups have explored the possibility of organizing a religious structure in Hong Kong similar to the Three-Self Patriotic Movement, China’s only officially recognized church. The group would seek to define “normal” Christian activities and to set limits on “unrecognized” church activities.

Hsueh said the evangelical Church Renewal Movement Committee is working hard to counter such an effort. “We feel that if as evangelicals we emphasize unity in the Spirit and in fellowship,” he said, “that should give us a good base to counterattack the attempt to organize a superstructure to control all religious activities.”

A Christian University Files Suit To Protect Its Hiring Practices

In an effort to maintain control over its hiring practices, Seattle Pacific University has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for western Washington. The evangelical institution, which is controlled by the Free Methodist Church, took action in response to a charge by the Washington Human Rights Commission (WHRC) that the university is guilty of employment discrimination.

The lawsuit names WHRC’s four commissioners as defendants along with Seattle resident Orin Church, the focus of the dispute. In 1983, Church sought a job as a warehouse worker at Seattle Pacific University. He was told that only evangelical Christians are considered for employment. The school maintains that such a requirement is integral to maintaining an evangelical environment.

Church, a Catholic, filed a complaint with the WHRC. The commission referred the case to the state attorney general’s office for litigation. So far, the state has not filed legal action against the university.

However, Seattle Pacific University took the offensive and challenged the WHRC’s charges in federal district court. In its suit, the school is seeking an injunction dismissing the WHRC complaint and affirming the institution’s freedom to determine its own hiring practices. The university’s decision to file suit was a legal manuever designed to circumvent the state court system. University officials said the issue does not fall within the state’s jurisdiction. Chi-Dooh Li, one of the school’s attorneys, said the key issue is constitutional, namely, the free exercise of religion.

Dan Wollam, executive assistant to the university’s president, stressed that the school has not been charged with violating any laws. “Federal law states specifically that church-controlled institutions of education may ‘prefer’ employees for all positions, and state law says the same thing,” Wollam said. By serving notice on Seattle Pacific University, WHRC in essence contested the legitimacy of those laws.

If the federal district court does not dismiss the WHRC’s charges against the university, the likely result is the emergence of a test case. In the past, WHRC has chosen not to issue complaints in deference to laws exempting church-controlled educational institutions. Attorney Li said the state has been waiting for what it sees as the right opportunity to test the laws in court.

Wollam said he has mixed feelings about the possibility that Seattle Pacific University will have to fight a lengthy court battle. “Obviously we could do without the costly litigation,” he said. “But another institution might not have as strong a commitment on this issue, and the result might be a compromise.”

The term “heavy metal” was coined to describe the loud, driving, guitar-based music popularized in the late 1960s. Over the years, bands have added new connotations to the term. A group called Black Sabbath combined heavy-metal music with occult symbols and odes to the Devil. A few years later, a band named KISS set new standards for outlandish makeup and lewd lyrics.

More recently, groups like Motley Crue, Ratt, and Twisted Sister have taken themes of generalized rage, sexual abandon, drug abuse, violence, and despair into the homes of millions of young record buyers. Billboard magazine reported that of the 59 albums certified platinum (signifying 1 million copies sold) last year, 10 were in the heavy-metal category. That figure is up from 5 in 1983. With the growing appeal of heavy-metal music, the National Coalition on Television Violence has called attention to the destructive potential of music videos, many of which graphically depict violence and rebellion.

In contrast to those sinister influences, a new heavy-metal band is shattering the stereotypes. A four-member group called Stryper is adding a Christian dimension to heavy-metal music. The band’s members—wearing costumes adorned with chains and metal studs—look like members of other popular heavy-metal groups. Stryper’s latest album was released by the same record company that launched Motley Crue and Ratt. But that is where the similarities end.

The lyrics to Stryper’s songs, and the band’s on-stage performance, distance it from its secular counterparts. During concerts, the four-man band throws Bibles into the audience. In a song called “From Wrong to Right,” Stryper sings: “So many bands give the devil all the glory—it’s hard to understand. We want to change the story.”

Stryper has received coverage in Rolling Stone and other rock music magazines, and was featured on television’s “Entertainment Tonight.” In interviews with the media, band members explain such things as why a reference to Isaiah 53:5 (“… with his stripes we are healed”) is part of their logo.

“When you’re in court, both sides have an attorney,” said Michael Sweet, the band’s 24-year-old drummer and spokesman. “But in rock-and-roll or the entire secular music business today, no one tells God’s side of the story. Nobody stands for what’s right. The number one thing for us is to tell people about Jesus—especially the young kids—in a way they can understand.”

Combining Christian lyrics with rock music is nothing new. Gospel music companies have promoted sanitized hard-rock bands for 15 years. Stryper is different because it records on a secular record label, its albums are sold widely in secular retail outlets, and it appears on stage with secular heavy-metal bands.

Christian rock bands such as Petra, Rez Band (formerly Resurrection Band), Barnabas, and Jerusalem have been largely unsuccessful in selling albums and concert tickets to the unchurched. “The machinery is not geared for us to go into the secular stores and sell our records,” said Ray Nenow, president of Refuge Records, a Christian record company.

Stryper’s Sweet said part of the problem with religious rockers is that their theology is stronger than their music. “If you’re out there in the secular world and you don’t have Christ, you’re not going to see a group because they talk about Christ,” he said. “You’re going to go hear a band because they’re good, and because they have a good stage show. Stryper is trying to stay away from being known as a Christian band. We want to be known as a metal band for Christ.”

Saying their main purpose is evangelism, the four band members—Sweet; his brother Robert, who sings and plays guitar; guitarist Oz Fox; and Tim Gaines, who plays bass and keyboards—have sought to win their listeners’ hearts after capturing their attention. “You don’t have to compromise on the music or the look as long as sin doesn’t mix in with it,” Michael Sweet said. “We’re here to show people you can play rock music, you can look this way, and you can let Jesus be the Lord of your life.”

Their six-song debut album has been selling faster than initial releases by secular heavy-metal bands Motley Crue and Ratt. Released in July on the Enigma label, Stryper’s album has sold more than 50,000 copies. Said Enigma spokesman Rick Orienza: “The music on the album is very powerful. But also, their message is positive in a field that has been glutted with bands with songs about the Devil and negativism.”

Despite widespread praise, Stryper has run into stiff opposition. At a recent concert appearance with two secular heavy-metal bands, members of Stryper were spat on. Some members of the audience shouted obscenities about Christ.

Generally, however, audiences respond well to the band’s high-powered and flashy presentation of the gospel. “The band gets sullen fans of Twisted Sister cheering and poking stubby ‘one way’ fingers heavenward—a refutation of the double-fingered ‘devil horns’ salute of many metal groups,” reported the Los Angeles Times.

Raul Ries, pastor of the 6,500-member Calvary Chapel of West Covina, California, said his church supports Stryper’s evangelistic efforts. “These guys are pulling people out of hell,” he said. “They’ve been coming [to church] here for a year and a half, and we’ve seen a lot of their fruits. They bring a lot of people here to fellowship. I’ve seen what they’re doing in the nightclubs, and I believe these guys really have a commitment to Jesus Christ.”

Dan and Steve Peters, authors of Why Knock Rock? (Bethany) and youth pastors in St. Paul, Minnesota, have been among the most vocal critics of rock music. However, when it comes to Stryper, the Peters brothers say the band’s approach is an acceptable means to an end.

“I don’t think Jesus told us how to look,” said Steve Peters. “I would dress as a clown—and I would dress in just about any outfit that wasn’t immoral—to get on ‘Entertainment Tonight’ and share 10 sentences about Jesus Christ. Stryper is using music to reach today’s people, and they are reaching people at a point of need. I would say what Jesus said to the disciples in Mark 9:40, ‘He that is not against us is for us.’”

Other Christians, however, are less enthusiastic about the band’s approach to evangelism. “I like what the guys say in their music and their interviews, and I have complete support for their sincerity,” said Bob Larson, author of four books about rock music and the church. “But I very strongly object to the whole heavy-metal frame of reference, their stage presence, and the chains, leather, and studs. I question the wisdom of using this kind of imagery, and I worry about the Christian kid who finds in Stryper a reason for looking like things that connote negativism.”

Other critics fail to see any good whatsoever in bands like Stryper. David Noebel, author of The Legacy of John Lennon (Nelson), and television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart say rock music is inherently evil and cannot be used to communicate God’s grace.

Sweet takes such criticism in stride. “I really feel Jimmy Swaggart and myself are going to be able to sit down and talk, because he’s my favorite evangelist,” Sweet said. “I know he’s down on rock [music]. And I don’t blame him, because there’s very little good rock-and-roll left. But I think he will see that God can use whatever he wants to use.”

The Soviet Union may have changed its attitude toward peace negotiations at arms talks in Geneva, but there appears to be no change in Soviet efforts to stifle Christian activity within its borders. Of the 53 known arrests for religious reasons within the past year, three recent incidents have focused attention anew on the plight of believers in the USSR.

Ten members of an ethnic German Pentecostal community in the Soviet Far East were arrested last month after carrying out three hunger strikes that failed to win them passage out of the country. They threatened to begin another month-long hunger strike February 1. The U.S. State Department said 7 of the 10 arrested members were released, but 3 remained jailed under charges of resisting arrest. Viktor Walter, 34, the community’s pastor, was arrested in December and charged with conducting unauthorized religious services and not possessing an internal passport.

Eight of the Pentecostal families irritated Soviet authorities by removing their children from local schools, where atheism is taught. The parents said their children had been harassed, beaten, and taunted by classmates who ridiculed their religious beliefs and ethnic origins. The families, from Chuguyevka, near the Sea of Japan, told authorities they would educate their children themselves.

“The Pentecostals, like the Evangelical Christian Baptists [in the USSR], represent the early Christians in that their life is in the Christian community, and they cannot give the same kind of loyalty to the state as they give to Christ,” said Ernest Gordon, president of CREED (Christian Rescue Effort for the Emancipation of Dissidents). Gordon said the Pentecostals have a strong aversion to cooperating with the government on matters affecting their religious beliefs. He said the recent harassment of the Pentecostals does not indicate a worsening of tensions between church and state in the Soviet Union. Instead, he said, it is “an expression of the continuous persecution of the dissident Christian movement.”

At press time, none of the arrested Pentecostals had been sentenced. But six families face the threat of losing their children because they pulled them out of school. In February 1983, authorities charged five couples with being unfit parents. After this warning, members of the Pentecostal community turned in their internal passports, paid the substantial fees necessary to renounce Soviet citizenship, and submitted a petition requesting permission to emigrate to West Germany on the grounds of ethnic origin and family reunification.

In September 1983, having received no response from the government, 70 Pentecostals went on a hunger strike. Some fasted for 10 days, according to Keston College, a British group that monitors religious persecution in communist countries.

The Pentecostals planned a second hunger strike for January 1984, but changed their plans when they were told by regional authorities that they could leave beginning in March. In April, however, their applications were rejected. The Pentecostals again turned in their internal passports and announced that they would go on a month-long hunger strike beginning September 15. Several were fined about $300 each for failure to possess proper documents. By the time the September hunger strike began, seven men had been fired from their jobs, and others faced the same fate if they did not work during the hunger strike.

A refrigerator repairman was the only one left with a job after the Pentecostals staged their third hunger strike last November. Most members of the community are reported to be living on what livestock they own and what food they can grow. Police searched the homes of 15 Pentecostals when they arrested Walter and two other leaders in December. Bibles, family items, pictures, and $400 in rubles were confiscated.

Other recent developments indicate that the arrests of the Pentecostals are not isolated exceptions to Soviet policy. In November, a Christian rock musician, Valeri Barinov, was sentenced to two-and-one-half years in a labor camp. One week later, he suffered a heart attack. Sergei Timokhin, a member of Barinov’s band, Trumpet Call, was sentenced to two years in a labor camp. He was charged with attempting to cross the Soviet border illegally. After the trial, the official Soviet news agency, Tass, reported that the two were attempting to send abroad slanderous information about “the position of believers in the USSR.” Several witnesses were called to testify at the trial, but none had any solid evidence to support the charges, according to Keston College.

Trouble with Soviet authorities began for Barinov and Timokhin when their band became popular among youth, especially those with drug and alcohol problems. In March, Barinov and Timokhin responded to an anonymous phone call from someone asking to meet them in Murmansk, in the northwestern corner of the country. When they arrived at the Murmansk train station, they were arrested by the Soviet police on grounds of trying to escape from the country.

Barinov, 40, is believed to be alive. During his trial, he announced that he would go on a hunger strike until he could emigrate with his family or until he died. Barinov has three teenage daughters. It is not known where Timokhin, 26, is being held. He is married and has two young children.

Another prominent Soviet Christian, Vladimir Poresh, had his five-year term in a labor camp extended for another three years. A researcher at the Library of the Academy of Sciences in Leningrad, Poresh was active in a Christian youth movement that has gained momentum over the past several years. Two years before his arrest in 1979, he helped start discussion groups dealing with “questions of religious revival in the USSR.”

Poresh, 35, was notified of his new sentence one day before his original term was to expire in August. His extended sentence was meted out not by the Soviet judicial system, but by prison officials, a practice instituted by the late Soviet leader Yuri Andropov. Poresh was originally sentenced for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.” He received his extended sentence under the charge of malicious misbehavior in camp. Poresh also faced three years of internal exile in the Soviet Union and was given an additional three years of internal exile.

A U.S. State Department official would not discuss what plans the United States may have to protest particular Soviet human rights abuses. “Our practice is to make our human rights concerns known to the Soviets on every appropriate occasion,” said the official, who asked not to be identified.

Maryland Church Defrocks A Gay Minister

A Southern Baptist congregation in Bel Air, Maryland, revoked the ordination of a self-professed homosexual after he refused to return his ordination papers.

Calvary Baptist Church had ordained Brian Scott in 1981, shortly after he graduated from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. The following year the church learned of Scott’s homosexuality after he helped found the Gay-Lesbian Christian Fellowship in Waldorf, Maryland. After Scott twice refused the church’s request that he return his ordination papers, the congregation voted 112 to 2 to revoke his ordination. Scott now is a pastor of the Gay-Lesbian Christian Fellowship.

James R. Cole, Calvary Baptist Church’s pastor, said the congregation “did not knowingly ordain a homosexual.… [Scott] has not directly harmed us, but the churches in the Waldorf area are embarrassed [that] Scott continues to call himself a Southern Baptist minister. We do not approve of homosexuality.”

In a letter to Fletcher Allen, editor of the Maryland Baptist news journal, Scott said he joined Calvary Baptist Church in 1976, but transferred his membership to another church in 1981. In the letter, Scott wrote, “[I] repressed my feelings prior to ordination in 1981, … [but] finally accepted myself [in January 1982].”

BAPTIST PRESS

Worldwide Church Of God Fires A Scholar After He Coauthored Book

In recent years, the Worldwide Church of God (WCG) has banished a significant number of its top officials. However, the recent dismissal of George T. Geis is unique because it was not provoked by any of the usual reasons—insubordination, doctrinal disagreement, and financial or sexual misdeeds.

Geis was professor of business at the WCG’s Ambassador College. At 40, he was one of the sect’s top scholars. However, after coauthoring a book with former WCG executive Robert L. Kuhn, Geis was forced to resign his teaching position and his membership in the sect. Kuhn, also 40, was considered fourth in the WCG “pecking order” until his departure in 1979.

A WCG spokesman said Geis resigned voluntarily. But an informed observer asserted that he had been fired. Contacted by telephone, Geis declined to comment.

Geis helped Kuhn write The Firm Bond: Linking Meaning and Mission in Business and Religion (Praeger). The volume includes no references to the WCG. “The Firm Bond is about commitment in business and religion—how to build it and how not to break it,” Kuhn said.

Garner Ted Armstrong, son of WCG founder Herbert W. Armstrong, told the Los Angeles Times that the sect’s leaders “thought they saw themselves in the book.” The younger Armstrong was excommunicated from the sect in 1978.

Despite the WCG brain drain and adverse publicity (CT, Oct. 19, 1984, p. 51), the anti-Trinitarian sect continues to prosper. Membership rose 5 percent over the past year to 78,000 (725 congregations in 56 countries), and income increased 14 percent to $150 million. Circulation of The Plain Truth, the WCG’s free magazine, has soared to 7.5 million. Although radio broadcasts have been discontinued, Herbert W. Armstrong, 92, appears weekly on 425 television stations worldwide.

WORLD SCENE

The number of Jews allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union last year was the lowest since 1965. The National Conference on Soviet Jewry reported 1,314 emigrations in 1983, but only 896 last year. It is estimated that Soviet authorities so far have turned down requests from more than 20,000 Jews. More than 350,000 Soviet Jews have taken steps to emigrate.

The Church of England began 1985 with a drive to attract men into the priesthood. Although some four million Britons are unemployed, the number of men accepted for clergy training dropped from 350 in 1982 to 303 in 1983. Each of the country’s 12,000 parish clergy—as well as chaplains in hospitals, schools, colleges, and the armed forces—is receiving literature to stimulate interest in the Anglican priesthood. In addition, theological colleges with a shortage of students will receive temporary financial aid from the church.

The Sri Lankan government has singled out the Lanka Evangelical Alliance Development Service (LEADS) as a model for future relief efforts in that country. In 1983, violence between the Sinhalese and Tamils destroyed thousands of homes and businesses. The government commended LEADS for the quality of its relief program to 400 families from both factions.

As the Roman Catholic church increases its involvement in social problems, the number of young Latin Americans entering the priesthood is growing rapidly. Thousands of new candidates will help offset a chronic shortage of priests in the world’s largest Catholic region. The Latin American Episcopal Conference reports that the number of senior seminarians has increased from 9,283 in 1970 to 17,279 in 1982.

The Church of Scotland has called for an end to experiments with human embryos. The church’s Board of Social Responsibility said an embryo has a moral status and a moral claim on society. The board also condemned surrogate motherhood as demeaning and said infertility treatment should be confined to married couples. The church’s statement was released in response to a British government study.