Page 5533 – Christianity Today (2024)

Keith Green’s decision to give away his records sharpens the dispute among performers.

Although Keith Green’s third album just might be his finest and most important work to date, many wondered whether it would meet with any success. When it was released last year, few Christian bookstores marketed the record, it received little airplay, and is not likely to be nominated for a Grammy. So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt has aroused considerable controversy—not because of the music, but because of a marketing decision made in the context of Green’s spiritual convictions.

Green was raised in the music world (his mother sang with the Dorseys; his grandfather wrote for Eddie Cantor in the twenties), and at the time of his conversion, the 21-year-old was playing at some of Los Angeles’s finest clubs and writing for Warner Brothers and CBS. In 1977, just two-and-a-half years after he became a Christian, Green released his first LP, For Him Who Has Ears to Hear. He has since become a leading artist among contemporary Christian musicians.

Green was an instant success on the religious music circuit. After his second album, No Compromise, he quickly went from doing concerts for a love offering to demanding, and getting, up to $4,000 a night. (Other gospel concert artists get up to $10,000; some so-called Jesus Festivals make as much as $200,000 profit. It becomes difficult to justify billing such events as Christian “ministries.”)

Green began to struggle with success, the financial “blessing” coming to artists “ministering the gospel.” He has consistently stood against what he calls “comfortable Christianity.” His songs tend to be harsh, at times condemning.

At the same time, he explains. “I don’t think there is anything wrong with a person who’s rich and happens to be a Christian; it’s people who get rich off Christianity.” He raises a significant issue: Is Christian music a ministry or entertainment? If ministry, should people have to pay to hear the gospel?

Green took the question further, posing it to people in every aspect of Christian media, sellers of Bibles, books, records, or anything containing the life-giving message of Jesus Christ. The answer for him was, No, people should not have to pay to hear the gospel. “When I realized my sin in charging people for something I had freely received, I was convicted,” he says. “I had my secretary call all the people I had bookings with and tell them I had sinned, and would come and play for nothing, or whatever they offered.”

He spoke up at the Fellowship of Contemporary Christian Ministries, before nearly every Christian musical group, and told them that ticket sales for concerts and fees for playing were not God’s will. Quipped Green. “It didn’t get me voted the most popular person there.” Then in March 1979 he concluded he was disobeying God’s will for him by expecting people to pay for his records—again because he felt the policy of pricing albums automatically excludes some people from being able to share what God gave to him freely. He began to make his albums available at his concerts for any amount.

This decision created two problems: conflicts with (1) other artists, and (2) commercial interests. By claiming it was not God’s will for him to charge, Green pretty well indicted everyone who did charge. Their response has hardly been joyous. John Styll, editor of Contemporary Christian Music magazine, wondered in a critical editorial if Green should not also give away stereos to those who don’t have equipment to play his records. Green said he would—not a $2,000 system—but he would buy a small unit if someone really had a need, and wanted to listen to his records. Others condemned Green for “biting the hand that feeds him.” Their rationale was simple: “It’s the very system he’s fighting that’s responsible for his fame, fortune, and credibility. The system is therefore not only above reproach, but something basically good.”

The other conflict arose because Green was under contract to Sparrow Records and he couldn’t give those albums away. He had no choice but to put together his own record company: Pretty Good Records (a division of Last Days Ministries).

Green claims a letter written by some early church fathers warns believers of false apostles and prophets: “This is how you will know if someone is a false apostle; if they ask for money, they are not of God.” While it is dangerous to build one’s convictions on an extra-biblical text, it is also dangerous to dismiss out-of-hand the issue of commercialism in Christian music ministries. Such commercialism is increasing. Several secular companies have come out with “Christian” labels—certainly not for the “ministry.” A lot of money is spent, and made, on Christian records and tapes. Lyrics often differ little from those of secular pop tunes, and one is hard pressed to tell the difference in album covers.

And yet, one cannot deny the valid ministries of artists like B. J. Thomas, the Boones, Larry Norman, Andraé Crouch, and others. Crouch’s view is opposite to Green’s; he is equally adamant in his right to expect payment for his work. “The workman is worthy of his wage,” he says, and few people complain about the high cost of tickets to his concerts. The same applies to B. J. Thomas and the others. All point out the high cost of travel, hotels, and equipment—not to mention time spent away from their families. The issue is: How much profit is too much? The answer emerges from the differing perspectives of the artists.

Keith Green thinks of himself primarily as a minister of the gospel who uses his music to communicate the good news of Jesus, and who has a serious commitment to being his disciple. Green and his family live with some 50 others at the Lindale, Texas, commune of Last Days Ministries. Many are converts from Green’s concerts who have come to be discipled. They share all things in common; some work on the Last Days Newsletter that publicizes Green’s new album. Each issue includes an order form, and readers have only to fill it out and send whatever they can to get a record.

The response has been unusually good. Some people have sent extra money to cover the cost for others. For Green, this proves that God will provide, without his reverting to the usual marketing techniques.

On the other hand, some other Christian musicians live in comfortable affluence, driving fine cars, wearing the latest styles, owning above average houses. They reason that by presenting Christ in settings that are appealing to the world, people will be drawn to him. Andraé Crouch expressed a similar thought on his Grammy-winning album, Live in London: “Someone once said, ‘Lord, build me a cabin in the corner of Gloria …’ I don’t even like cabins … ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a Mansion for you!… not made by hands.’” For others who consider themselves primarily entertainers, being well paid is only to be expected as part of God’s “blessings.”

The issue is much larger than performing for fees or free. It goes back to one’s theology, attitudes, and values—things that God judges by standards more severe than outward appearances.

RUSSELL CRONKHITE¹Mr. Cronkhite, a former Christian concert promoter and radio show producer in California, now lives in Florissant, Colorado, where he cooks and does free-lance writing at Christ Haven Lodge.

Have evangelism and social action eaten up time needed for communion with Christ?

Evangelicals are losing out in the logistics of spiritual warfare. Economists once were concerned that a generous supply of paper money in circulation should have sufficient gold cover. Similarly, and without metaphor, there is plenty of preaching, we are dealing the Word as never before—but there is little solid spirituality behind it. Galatians 2:19–20 seems to have lost much of its place of prominence among us and the union of the believer with Christ is no longer a central concern.

There are few seminaries that emphasize the ancient discipline of ascetics (the doctrine of Christian spiritual life) in their curriculum; in fact, the very term seems to have been forgotten. Are evangelicals still the people of prayer (and thus the unseen spiritual backbone of the nation) that they used to be? Or has evangelistic and social action eaten up the hours of silence and of simple communion with Christ? Saint Augustine used to say: He who does not know the Scriptures, does not know Christ. Are we certain in evangelicalism that the extensive reference made to Scripture all the time and in so many ways is also matched by an intense and profound understanding of Scripture?

I am convinced that the deepest problem of evangelicals today (and, for that matter, of liberals and neo-orthodox too) is a decline of spirituality. It shows through where the organizational mentality takes over. Even the lack of commitment to social responsibility, of which evangelicals are sometimes accused, must have its roots in a lack of spiritual life, and can only be repaired by a recovery of this very center. We need to direct our attention to the rebuilding of a biblical spirituality; those with an awareness of social needs especially dare not ignore this concern.

Not only those who groan under their labors but also those who like to work need times of outward as well as inward quiet when they seek the presence of the Lord. We must interrupt our activities with periods of prayer so that peace and perspective may continue to be ours. “The unfolding of thy word truly illuminates; it imparts understanding to the simple” (Ps. 119:130). It is our privilege to turn to moments of stillness. It is here that we find concentration and creativity. Without them, our utterances become superficial. The great things always came out of silence.

Can we expect to live a truly Christian life if it does not arise from fellowship with Christ? Authentic Christian action originates from quiet times set aside for prayer, for communion with our Lord.

In the midst of our busy lives we need to hear the message of Mary, Martha’s sister, who, seemingly unconcerned with pressing duties, listened to the Master. He commended that sense of proportion: “Only one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion which shall not be taken from her” (Luke 10:42). For a loved one we will always have sufficient time. It is in those times spent with him that Jesus will prove the “wonderful counselor” promised to us, and “teach us wisdom in our secret heart.” If you want to go wide, you have got to go deep.

Calling for more quiet, of course, is not calling for quietism nor is it an invitation to the life of a hermit. In a seeming paradox, Scripture proposes a spirituality of the kingdom. Paul, pointing out his life’s theme, wrote: “Him we proclaim, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ. For this I toil, striving with all the energy which he mightily inspires within me” (Col. 1:28–29). The inspiration received served the purpose of missions. Paul’s fellowship with Christ resulted in a love that urged him to help bring people nearer to God. Spirituality then, is the backbone of service. There is no way around the double commandment of love: love of God and love of neighbor.

We have the compelling example of a “spirituality of the kingdom” in the One who would work almost to a state of exhaustion, yet at the same time was a man of prayer. He made himself available to each and all but was able to help them authoritatively because of those times of silence spent alone with his heavenly Father. In the days of utmost stress and strain, when he was surrounded by demanding multitudes, Jesus, “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, rose and went out to a solitary place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).

Let us go and do likewise.

KLAUS BOCKMÜHL¹Dr. Bockmühl is professor of theology and ethics, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

When they do, it’s not because they get much help from fellow Christians.

The universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a denomination of and for practicing homosexuals, started from scratch in 1968 and today has 150 congregations in eight countries, with some 29,000 members. In the last two years alone, about 15 new congregations joined. It’s growing fast, not only because of its attractiveness to homosexuals, but also because conventional churches find it hard to minister to gays. The difficulty stems from the fact that most Christians with homosexual problems don’t dare run the risk of announcing themselves in their local congregations for the purpose of getting help. Nearly every one of some two dozen homosexuals interviewed by CHRISTIANITY TODAY for this article laughed at the very suggestion.

Clearly, homosexuality is near the top of any evangelical Christian’s list of problems facing the country. In recent years, that concern has boiled over into condemnation, hatred, and fear. Frank Worthen, a San Francisco businessman who wrestled with flagrant homosexuality nearly all his life before turning to Christ, then pulling himself out of it seven years ago, now runs a ministry to gays and speaks widely on the subject. He said he has run across only one church that knows how to minister to members with homosexual problems. “We get a lot of refugees from the churches,” he said. In fact, he said, his ministry gets more criticism from Christians than from gay activists.

Richard Lovelace, professor at Gordon-Con well Theological Seminary, said in an interview on the PTL Club television broadcast, “Most of the repenting that needs to be done on this issue of homosexuality needs to be done by straight people, including straight Christians. By far the greater sin in our church is the sin of neglect, fear, hatred, just wanting to brush these people under the rug.”

The homosexual son of a West Coast pastor said, “Christ first said to the adulterous woman: I love you. Then he told her to change. Churches do the opposite. They say: Change, then we’ll love you.”

The fact is, many people are experiencing deliverance from homosexuality. The evidence is too great to deny it. But when they succeed, apparently they do so in spite of condemnation: because someone has first accepted them, sin and all.

A West Coast woman told her story. She and her lesbian friend were at an outdoor flea market, and she bought a bumper sticker that said, “Have a Nice Forever.” The man who sold it to her asked if she knew Jesus Christ. She said no, and the man told her about his own life, his family, and his conversion to Christ. Recalling the event, the woman said, “Finally I butted in and said, ‘Sure God loves you. Why wouldn’t he? You’re dressed nice; you drive a clean Volkswagen; you have short hair and a new baby. You’re not a thief like me. You don’t drink or skip town running from the law like me.’ That guy made me mad. I was a thief, a fence, an alcoholic, a child abuser, and a gay. He didn’t know I was a lesbian. I told him, ‘I’m gay. A homosexual. A queer! Do you know what that means?’ I got so mad I felt like hitting him, so I did. I backhanded him across the chest and he went down. He got up, put his hand on my shoulder, and said quietly, ‘Praise the Lord. What makes you think you have a monopoly on sin?’”

The woman said she could have handled any response but that one. He started talking to her again and she listened a long time. Finally she accepted Christ.

She left her homosexual friend and her lifestyle. She said she has been tempted many times to return, and she did fall once. But after nine years, she believes she has conquered homosexuality.

Fred (not his real name) is a young homosexual who went through Bible college, trying hard, but falling repeatedly into homosexual sin. He was particularly frustrated because he wanted to minister to gays himself, and he did, at a number of places. But each time he was forced to leave when he succumbed to the same sin he was counseling against. Finally he had enough. He went to another ministry, but not before making sure everyone there knew beforehand that he was gay. He believed that was the only way out for him. This is how he described it:

“I remember walking in, and I knew that everyone else knew that I was a raving faggot.… Let me tell you, the first meeting I went to, I never was around so many open gays in my life.… These people openly talked about their homosexuality. I was so happy … for the first time in my life I could openly talk about homosexuality without fear of rejection.” The meeting he spoke of was sponsored by a Christian ministry to gays, which counsels that it is possible, and biblically mandatory, to stop the practice of homosexuality. It also believes the first step is open admission of the problem. The others in the meeting with Fred were Christians who were struggling to overcome their homosexual lifestyles.

He said that when he came to terms with the need to change his life, he read his Bible constantly, trying to figure out whose responsibility it was for the change, his or God’s. (He had already tried and failed, as so many have, to convince himself that the Bible doesn’t condemn homosexuality.)

He said, “One of the keys I got (from Hebrews 3:13) was to openly confess it. Up to that time I couldn’t openly confess it. It had to be brought out, to everybody … so that I was no longer threatened by it. No longer threatened by the fear of exposure. (Only then) I could fight it. But if I’m fighting it all by myself, I’ll fail.”

Despite some serious doubts, Fred married about a year ago. Instead of hiding his problem, he was open about it, and now he finds his wife is his biggest help. He said, “I need my wife to know when I’m starting to fall away, and when she sees my eyes cruising some people, she needs to tactfully pull me back in. I need to know that she knows my problem, and will not reject me when she finds I’m slipping, but pull me back in with love.”

Acceptance and love are two words that are sounded repeatedly in interviews with homosexuals and those who deal with them. Joel Afman, who works with a ministry to gays in Dallas, said that the ability to talk about it openly with other gays is vital: “There’s such a healing, because they have been holding it in for years.”

Mansell Pattison, chairman of the psychiatry and health behavior department at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta, in an article in the December issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, documented 11 cases of men who claimed not only to have resisted successfully their homosexual drives, but changed their basic homosexual orientation to the point where they have developed satisfactory sexual attraction to females. Eight of them no longer have homosexual dreams, fantasies, or physical arousal.

In other words, these eight were cured—something gay activists often claim is impossible. The changes documented by Pattison came without psychotherapy, but by what he called “religiously mediated change.” They sought help from a Christian ministry to gays. A key to their success, wrote Pattison, is that they were welcomed as homosexuals. They weren’t forced to change first. Instead, they were encouraged to submit their lives to Christ, which they did. Then they joined small church groups where, among other things, they learned what the Bible expects. Pattison believes his is the first scientific study of such change, and his article is worth quoting:

“All of our subjects remarked on the fact they soon learned how psychologically immature they were, and how poor their interpersonal relations were.… All the subjects remarked at how surprised they were to experience acceptance, nonjudgmental evaluation, and nonerotic love from both men and women … as a result they began to identify with other mature Christian men, and began to experience and practice nonerotic relationships with these Christian women …

“During this time of psychological maturation there was no demand that they stop being homosexuals (in orientation). Homosexual behavior was defined as immoral and they were expected not to engage in homosexual practice. However, their psychological condition of homosexuality was interpreted as a sign of Christian immaturity. It was expected that they would learn how to be heterosexual as they developed Christian maturity. And in fact that was the case. The subjects did not report any immediate change in their homosexual dreams, fantasies, impulses or orientations. Rather, they reported a gradual maturation into a secure and satisfying identity as a male with high self-acceptance.… They began to experience nonthreatening and satisfying interpersonal relationships with women. As a result, they reported a steady diminution in their homosexual feelings and a steady increase in their heterosexual feelings. Among those subjects who married, they reported that homosexual dreams, fantasies and impulses did not vanish. (They diminished over time.)”

Pattison is extremely cautious about drawing conclusions from his study. The ministry had 300 clients over five years, and reported only 30 cases of claimed changes. From these 30, he chose his 11 subjects. He said the study may indicate that change is easier among younger adults than older ones. The average age of his group was 27.

Nevertheless, Pattison’s findings are significant, because Evangelicals Concerned, an organization of self-styled Christian homosexuals, is adamant about the failure of true homosexuals to be able to change their sexual orientation. All Pattison’s subjects were true homosexuals. The generally accepted measure is the Kinsey scale of zero to six. Zero is no psychic arousal to the same sex, and sexual contact exclusively with the opposite sex. Six is exclusive psychic response to the same sex. Four of Pattison’s subjects went from six to zero on the scale, three went from six to one, one went from four to zero, one went from six to two, one went from five to two and one went from four to two. Gay activists claim only bisexuals can change their orientation. Bisexuality rates three on the Kinsey scale.

In an interview, Pattison cautioned lest anyone get too optimistic about the possibilities of change. He said, “I’m very worried because we’ve got a lot of Christian counselors around who are telling people, ‘Well, just pray about it and you’ll be able to suppress your desires. Act normal and you’ll be normal.’ That isn’t going to cut it in the long run. We’re going to get a lot of boomerang effects from that and I’m very worried about it.” Some homosexuals who have been told to convince themselves they’ve changed, and who may even have married to prove it, are headed for a fall, Pattison believes.

Donald Tweedie, a clinical psychologist in suburban Los Angeles, has counseled about 300 homosexuals in 25 years of practice. He is more optimistic than Pattison about reversing homosexuality, although he doesn’t believe a “cure” necessarily implies a life free from homosexual temptation. He explained that many of his patients have gone on to satisfactory married lives. He sees homosexuality much like alcoholism, an addictive practice.

Many others who have tried to determine its roots don’t picture it like that, but most agree that it’s a learned response, whether conscious or subconscious. (Those who contend it’s something a person is born with are in the decided minority among the experts.)

Tweedie warns of possible pitfalls after miracle cures claimed in the name of Christ: “When a person turns to Christ, he has a new affection and has a whole new set of motivations and a lot of his temptations or pressures seem to be gone. There is usually a phase where we lose our excitement … and at that point old temptations may come back in on us. If you have already borne witness that you’ve been miraculously healed, it’s hard for you to let people know you’re having those kinds of feelings again, and they are tempted to deny them.… Then they find themselves right back in that (homosexual) behavior and assume something about their Christianity didn’t work out.”

Barbara Johnson runs a ministry near Los Angeles for parents of homosexuals. It’s named “Spatula” for the tool needed symbolically to scrape parents off the ceiling after they’ve learned about their child’s problem. She too has found, through a series of brutal circumstances in her own life and through her counseling of others, that God doesn’t always respond on cue. She is critical of what she calls “name it and claim it” Christians who believe that to order up a cure, they need only believe hard enough. For Christmas this year, Johnson passed out small stones to those who attend her meetings, as in “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” It’s to remind parents to accept their children’s homosexuality as sin, albeit an unusual sin, and then work from there.

Frank Worthen of Love in Action, the longest-running of the so-called ex-gay ministries, believes that overcoming homosexuality is extremely difficult. He believes most people who attempt it don’t make it. Yet he’s strongly convinced it can be done, and he offers himself as proof. He ended his homosexual lifestyle in 1973 by converting to Christ, yet his tortuous road out of it very nearly ended in suicide, so overwhelmingly severe were the emotional obstacles. He describes himself as happily celibate, although he does face the problem of keeping his psychic response to women under control, since he is not married.

He said, “I personally think [homosexuals] have an excellent chance of going on to marriage and a family. Not many of them do, however. They’re usually held back by fear, inhibitions and the like. [At Love in Action] we have seen a lot of marriages. I have seen all kinds of people come out of the gay lifestyle and develop a heterosexual response. This isn’t to say it’s easy. It’s never easy. It requires a real heavy commitment to Christ. You actually have to lose your life to save it. A lot of people don’t realize that.”

Several people who have been through the Love in Action ministry mentioned that biblical pattern. For them, the concept of dying to self has a meaning that straight people will never fathom. Another doctrine that pours rivers of warmth into the troubled heart of a homosexual who wants out is salvation by grace. That’s because many who reject the gay life repeatedly slip back into it before they succeed. If they had to work their way to heaven they would never make it. Many of those interviewed for this article testified that the only thing keeping them going was the belief that their past and future sins are already forgiven. If and when they should slip back, their salvation is not jeopordized.

On the other hand, casting significant doubt on the credibility of homosexual change is the tendency of reformed homosexuals to rush out too quickly and set up their own ministries. Many have failed. “This is a very humiliating ministry,” Worthen said. “People shouldn’t do it unless God calls them. They soon find out that … lots of people stumble sexually (providing powerful ammunition for gay activists). They build up confidence in themselves and not in Christ. They get proud and they think they have it made. Some of these ministries are founded on ego, people stepping out ahead of God, not being called to minister and yet wanting to do so.”

In addition, often these ministries are ignored by churches in terms of prayer and financial support, and this contributes to their high mortality rate. Worthen himself is convinced that each month for Love in Action will be its last, given its critical financial needs. It operates half-way houses for men and women homosexuals while they attempt to change. Some come right off the streets of San Francisco, and the majority do not make it, especially since promiscuous sex is so easily available and so close by. Worthen estimates that more than 100 have gone through the ministry, another 2,300 are ministered to by correspondence. Love in Action also has a 12-hour seminar presentation for churches.

Christian ministry to gays demands strong nerves and perseverance. Larry Rosenbaum, 34, attended Yale and the University of Chicago before graduating and fading into the California drug scene in the late sixties. He drifted from commune to commune before linking up with one that seemed to be different, in that they practiced the love and concern the others talked about. They were Christians, and Rosenbaum became one too. He began witnessing to people about the perils of the drug life, but he didn’t mention his other problem. He was gay, and had been for as long as he could remember. When he became a Christian in 1970, he renounced that as well as drugs. Gradually, he felt burdened to witness to gays in San Francisco. (Unlike many, he said he never slipped back into homosexuality after he renounced it.)

He came to the city five years ago, but he found little help. “A lot of Christians were intimidated by the hardness of the city, and it was hard to get them to come out,” he said. Finally he and a few friends hit upon the idea of staging Christian concerts, and they drew good crowds, even though the music didn’t always make the audience more open to the gospel. Gradually, Rosenbaum’s ranks of street evangelists grew to the point where he had some 200 people from 10 churches occasionally on the streets.

Last summer they went for broke. They announced plans for a mass rally during one week in August, billing it as “S.O.S. San Francisco.” They advertised widely for help, and between 300 and 500 people hit the streets each day passing out tracts and sharing the gospel. Rallies and concerts during the week drew sizable crowds. A local television station carried shots of a morning worship and of a man turning to Christ on Castro Street, in the heart of one of the gay sections.

Some 250 new believers were reported, and 20 people spent the next two weeks following up on those conversions. About 300,000 tracts and New Testaments were passed out, and 19 were baptized at Fishermen’s Wharf. Every cent of some $10,000 in expenses came in through contributions. Rosenbaum, his head still spinning, is already preparing another outreach next summer.

The important fact emerging from the CHRISTIANITY TODAY investigation is that Christians won’t get through to homosexuals until they overcome their understandable fears and learn to accept them as people and take the time to develop their trust. That step alone can have unexpected results. Barbara Johnson recalls one of her meetings at which she asked a homosexual to close in prayer. Instead, the man burst into tears, overcome at the notion that a Christian would ask a homosexual to pray at a public meeting.

It will be a while before straight Christians and homosexuals do much praying together, because antagonisms are so great. Sometimes the conflict is intensified when the issues are misrepresented, whether intentionally or not. Such was the case in Dallas in the summer of 1979.

James Robison, the fiery Southern Baptist television preacher, had just had his weekly television program cancelled because, as he explained in numerous interviews at the time, he had called homosexuality a sin on the air. The Dallas Gay Political Caucus had asked for and received response time under the Fairness Doctrine, and then the station unplugged Robison’s show. Robison organized a mass rally, and more than 10,000 turned out to hear him and others rail against the unfairness of the Fairness Doctrine, and to proclaim the right to preach the Bible on television.

The only problem was, homosexuality as sin wasn’t the issue. The gay organization wanted to respond to something quite different that Robison said on his program. On the show, Robison read the National Enquirer, a sensational tabloid that’s seldom quoted for serious purposes. Robison quoted the Los Angeles police chief as saying, “homosexuals are preying on youngsters in increasing boldness …” Robison also referred in his speech to the Chicago mass murders committed by the homosexual, John Gacy, and he said. “Can you imagine burying dozens of boys under your house with whom you’ve committed sexual immorality and tortured to death? It’s becoming commonplace in this country.”

The trouble with such sweeping accusations is that there’s not much solid evidence that homosexuals are any more likely to commit sex crimes than are heterosexuals. This is what the gay activists wanted to respond to, said Campbell Read, a Southern Methodist University professor and the man who asked for equal time. Their side got lost in the dust. He believed Robison was deliberately diverting the issue. Read and others in the Dallas homosexual community were extremely bitter about it. As a result, Robison lost credibility in the eyes of those homosexuals who might have been interested in responding to his gospel message.

A spokesman for Robison said Robison would be the first to admit there are better publications to quote from than the National Enquirer. She also said that despite Campbell Read’s objection, many homosexuals did in fact object to Robison calling homosexuality a sin on the air.

Mansell Pattison, the psychiatrist at the Medical College of Georgia, agreed that there is no persuasive evidence that homosexuals are more likely to be child molesters. In fact, he believes they are probably less so. “By and large a homosexual is looking for a mirror image of himself; he is not looking for a child,” Pattison said. Armand Nicholi, Jr., a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, said he also knew of no study suggesting increased child abuse by homosexuals. He said none of his homosexual patients have been involved in it. He added, however, that neither can one say dogmatically that homosexuals aren’t more inclined; the evidence is just inconclusive.

Anita Bryant has also unwittingly provided ammunition for homosexuals wanting an excuse to fight rather than change. Before her ministry collapsed, she sent out a fund-raising letter appealing for money to establish a counseling center. In her letter she quoted from a note from a homosexual that she said was typical of many she received. The letter said, in part:

“… I went to psychologists, one after another, and they told me I was hopeless. Then I read and heard you on television saying that there is a chance for a homosexual to change if he comes to know Christ. After listening and keeping up with your campaign, I dedicated my life to Jesus Christ. The Lord came into my heart and I gave it all to Jesus. He forgave me for my past and now, through spiritual growth and counseling, I have a spiritual, moral heterosexual life.”

Bryant didn’t quote the first part of the man’s letter, however. It said, “I believe I was a homosexual even though I didn’t really participate.” Most psychologists probably would question whether such a person really is a homosexual, since some homosexual feelings early in life are not unusual. The full letter was obtained by a homosexual activist in Chicago who uses the letter in his speeches to show that claims of Christian cures by conversion are fraudulent.

In an interview, Anita Bryant acknowledged that the letter might not have been the best one to excerpt from, but she said her organization received hundreds like it and she maintained that there are numerous cures that come through trusting in Christ. That issue has thrown a cloud over serious attempts to minister to gays.

In 1975, one of the first popular books appeared that carried testimonies of people who claimed that Christian conversion enabled them to overcome homosexual lifestyles. The book was titled The Third Sex, and was written by Kent Philpott, who organized the Love in Action ministry in San Rafael, California, which Worthen now heads. The revelations of the six troubled people in the book prompted many homosexuals to contact the ministry for help. Unfortunately, four of the six reverted to their homosexual lifestyles not long after the book was published. In 1977, the book reappeared with a new cover, which now said, “These six stories of how homosexuals were changed through Christ will help save your children.” The four subjects were flabbergasted. The book seemed to link them to the antihomosexual hysteria surrounding the fight over homosexual rights in Miami and elsewhere. They felt like pawns, and they grew bitter. They tried unsuccessfully to get Logos International, the publishing company, to withdraw it.

Dan Malachuk, the publisher, defended the book as being accurate when it was published. He also defended the cover change. “We wanted to convey that homosexuals, if they can get to the children, they will. I will never change my opinion of that.” Malachuk said he didn’t mean that homosexuals were child molesters, just that they were trying to reform society to make it easier for children to enter the homosexual lifestyle.

It’s partly because of Philpott’s book that the homosexuals in Evangelicals Concerned do all they can to discredit Love in Action and all “ex-gay” ministries.

Questionable books, emotional sermons, and stirring fund-raising efforts give some justification for Christians with homosexual problems to believe that maybe they shouldn’t change after all, that what they’re hearing from the straight Christian world isn’t accurate. This is one reason why the Metropolitan Community Church is growing so fast.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY learned, however, from those who deal with homosexuals, that change from the homosexual lifestyle is more likely if straight Christians don’t scare them off. That should be a matter of deep satisfaction to the majority of evangelicals who are being shaken by propaganda from the progay side. Tweedie, Pattison, Worthen, Johnson, and others who deal with gays in a Christian context all know firsthand about people whose lives have been transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit, even though such transformation may have come after long counseling therapy. Most of these people, however, don’t want to tell about it. The last thing they want their friends and their children to know is what they used to be. But perhaps it is time for some of these people to come out of the closet, so to speak, and give an account for the hope that is in them, and the grace that has changed them.

Sanctification is the purifying process that prepares us for the glory of God’s presence.

Personal sanctity is not “in” today. We are not yearning to become holy. Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living is not a best seller.

We are busy—busy with other things, like getting and spending, entertaining ourselves, or attending elders’ meetings and church conferences. We are “into” liberation or relational theology, or social action, or biblical authority, or the gifts of the Spirit, or good marriages, careers, total sexual life, losing weight after Christmas, jogging—all for Jesus, of course. And slightly fewer than half of evangelicals read the Bible every day.

We feel, apparently, that attention to such a concern as personal sanctity is dangerously subjective, anxiety breeding, depressing—akin to the antics of the desert hermits in the Dark Ages. And it surely would be painful. It smacks of such unhappy things as self-denial, discipline, mortification (a horrible old idea having to do with putting to death). And besides, present-day psychology, with all it tells us of our need for self-fulfillment and wholeness—and self-indulgence?—would surely disapprove. In short, even at best we are concerned with doing rather than being, with doing without being; we forget that the doing that pleases God rises out of being. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”

Augustine differed from many of us about self-fulfillment: “Thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.” John Donne in his sonnet “Batter my heart,” after complaining that he is like “an usurpt towne” and that his reason is “captive,” cries out:

Divorce me, untie, or breake that knot againe,

Take mee to you, imprison mee, for I

Except you enthrall mee, never shall be free,

Nor ever chast, except you ravish mee.

J. I. Packer agrees in his Knowing God: “What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we set ourselves in life? To know God.… What is the best thing in life, bringing more joy, delight, and contentment, than anything else? Knowledge of God.”

Richard Lovelace, writing of spirituality, says, “But it is seldom recognized to be the indispensable foundation without which all of these (sound doctrine, correct social engagement and soon) are powerless and fall into decay.” Peter seems to be of the same mind: “Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (1 Peter 1:15–16, NIV).

And finally there is that classic passage in Hebrews 12:10–11: “God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

Notice what is affirmed in that passage. First, God has a central purpose in our lives: our sharing in his holiness, being holy as he is holy. Next, we come to that sharing by a painful discipline. Third, the result is righteousness and peace. God’s desire for us. And from elsewhere in the Scriptures, I think we may add joy.

There is another writer who has given us a long and beautiful development of this theme—almost a long exposition of the Hebrews passage. The writer: the poet Dante of the thirteenth century. The writing: one-third of his great poem, The Divine Comedy, the “Purgatorio.”

It will repay us to study this with care. Of course, we must note in the beginning that Dante’s starting point is Roman Catholicism and its doctrine of purgatory. Protestants reject that doctrine, and this is no plea for it. We are declared just by God when we repent and receive Christ’s righteousness by faith. But after we are justified, God sets out to make us inwardly pure, here and now. Dante gives us a magnificent poetical statement of what the author of Hebrews is saying about our purification in this life. Once we make this adjustment Protestants as well as Roman Catholics can find in Dante’s poem a gold mine of spiritual insights.

Before we can come to examine these insights it is necessary to be clear about a bit of Dante’s doctrine and symbolism. For him the child of God, though justified and regenerate and so not lost from God, still has a nature stained, coarsened, damaged by the sins he has committed. He is therefore not yet fitted to dwell in the presence of a holy God, and must be purged and purified before he can come in peace into God’s presence.

What must be purged and purified is one’s love—of God and men. All the evils of man’s heart, for Dante, are evils of love. And this is logical, for if the two great commandments are to love God and man, then all sin must involve some fault in love. The power to love and to direct that love is thus for Dante God’s greatest gift to man and the central element of man’s nature. All that really matters in life is: What have I loved? How have I loved it? How deeply? Thus Dante is writing about a kind of divine hospital where defects of love are cured—a hospital from which none who desires cure is ever turned away, however ill, and from which none ever goes away unless in perfect health.

Now obviously, though Protestants put this purifying in this life and Dante puts it after this life, both agree that we must be holy to come into the presence of God and that God provides a cure for our unholiness. After we trust Christ and are declared just, and before we are made perfectly Christlike at the point of our death, God moves to change us from one degree of parity to another, and to another … What both Dante and Protestants are talking about is sanctification, the process of being made holy, spiritually mature, ripe for heaven.

The symbol Dante uses for this work of God’s grace is a great mountain towering precipitously up above the earth’s clouds and winds and storms into unbroken sunlight and starlight. Clinging to the sides of this mountain are cornices—narrow and without parapets—where the various faults of love are cured. They are the wards of this divine hospital. Souls progress toward perfect health and love by laboriously climbing up the mountain to the levels where, by the disciplines of the place, they are purified. But each stage upward becomes easier, and the upper levels remind one of the Land of Beulah in Pilgrim’s Progress. Obviously for Dante the process of becoming holy is no easy stroll and romp, an afternoon’s picnic. It will cost desire and effort and pain. But as it progresses it will bring increasing ease and joy until the final triumphant cure. Dante would be appalled at our half-expecting the cure without the cost.

Three insights into sanctification can be gotten from Dante, matters on which we can agree. They parallel the statements in Hebrews.

First, sanctification must be to all of us transcendently important. It is God’s will for us. For we deal with a holy God with whom we hope to dwell forever. But he is unimaginably holy—a constantly recurring theme in Dante. Therefore, we must be holy if we are to come into his presence. And he works to this end. What, then, can be more important to us? What deserves more, and more diligent, care and attention? Dante insists upon this insight by requiring that all Christians from peasant to pope toil up that towering mountain. And, of course, we all agree with this at least on Sundays, maybe after a searching sermon (“I really must include that idea in my next New Year’s resolutions”). But we often forget it on the way to work Monday.

Or we trust that God will take care of it all, and expect that he will in answer to a hasty, or even a long, prayer give us a heavenly hypodermic of the fruit of the Spirit—“Lord, give me more love”; zip, and we’re overflowing with it. Or since needles are somewhat painful, a heavenly One-A-Day pill compounded of all the virtues. And so we haven’t to give the matter much thought, and certainly no great concern. God will take care of it all, painlessly.

But Dante, with the author of Hebrews, thinks otherwise. There is, he insists, cost; there is pain in becoming holy. We must give ourselves completely to it. Negligence will increase the cost, but not remove the necessity.

The second insight concerns the methods of purification Dante lays out. They are not all the possible methods; he is not writing a formal treatise. He is suggesting to our imaginations the nature of the process, the cost of sanctification.

One of the methods of sanctification is meditation. Now, of course, we approve of meditation; we even try it occasionally, for a few minutes. Not fasting, though; that would be too much. But Dante has more than this in mind; he thinks of hours upon hours, days upon days. Of meditation upon examples of the appropriate fruit of the Spirit to move us to imitation; and upon examples of the sin to be purged. Meditation on evil? Surely this is contrary to Paul’s admonition to think upon wholesome things. But what Dante has in mind is that we stare so long and deeply at our evil that we shall come to abhor it as God abhors it. Remember! He cannot look on evil (Hab. 1:13) nor be tempted by it (James 1:13). But we? Ah, we can bear to look on evil, and be drawn to it. We can be tempted. But if we are to become sharers of his holiness, we must come to acknowledge our evil and abhor it.

The souls in Dante’s purgatory are frank to own their evil. By contrast, those in his inferno are full of excuses, as we are: “It was only a little lie.” “That’s the way it is in business.” “Everybody does it.” But none of that in sanctification. We are to be holy as God is holy. And the way to become so is to face our evil. Saint Augustine agreed: “I wish now to review in memory my past wickedness and the carnal corruptions of my soul—not because I still love them, but that I may love thee, O my God.” And isn’t there a hint of this in Aristotle when he argued that contemplation of the tragic end of evil purified the soul? Or Holocaust—wasn’t one effect of that movie to be a resolve that such evil would never be tolerated again?

Another method of sanctification suggested by Dante is pain: the discipline of suffering the nature and consequences of sin so that souls might realize its monstrous nature and abhor it. The indolent must endure years of doing nothing in his purgatory; and those too busy with careers, property, politics, or church affairs to give time to personal holiness must worry about them (“What is my son doing with my estate?”) until all this palls and they are ready to think of God. The proud must walk bowed down in postures of humility; the envious with eyes sewn shut from sight of the things that aroused their envy. The slothful—the lukewarm, the easily tolerant, those who would not in life lift a hand for God—must run for their cure ceaselessly.

All of this to make them feel the necessity of coming to know their evil and hate it. Like the child who sickens himself to nausea by some food and finds that he cannot bear the sight of it ever again, so we by suffering the pains of evil must come to nausea and to holiness. For we will not become patient by any divine pill. We will become patient by suffering painful, exasperating circumstances and in them, by the grace of God, being patient. And thus, painfully and slowly, that fruit will come to holy maturity. Dante is saying with great imagination and symbolism what the author of Hebrews says plainly in the passage on discipline.

And there is prayer. Dante has his souls doing a great deal of praying. And we agree. Indeed yes, prayer is an admirable practice that will surely help us on to God. Of course. Also, of course we can’t find more than ten minutes a day for it, provided (of course) that nothing of importance comes along to prevent even that. Dante would not have understood that ten minutes a day; he was thinking of hours and hours of prayer. Or maybe, knowing well the human heart, he would have understood. After all, he had a special place for the indolent and procrastinators.

And if we endure all this, if we diligently give ourselves to this matter of personal sanctity—to hours of meditation, of prayer, of painful discipline—what then? Why, purgation, sanctification, holiness. And joy! Dante makes much of the joy of sanctification. He begins with joy: those beginning purgation sing a psalm about Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and—symbolically—about their own. He continues with joy: the patients in his hospital suffer, but they suffer in hope and in rejoicing at their coming cure. He ends in joy, gloriously.

Three episodes from the poem will illustrate the outcome of sanctification, and its joy. Dante meets one of the popes and kneels to do him reverence. But the pope refuses the obeisance. Here, he says, all earthly titles and honors—including those of the church—are passed away. All that matters now is God. Earthly life, its evil, its concerns, even its legitimate joys and good things, are forever far away and long past. It is a striking picture of a soul in the process of coming to love God with its whole being.

The other two episodes point up the theme of cure and growth even more powerfully, by (I think) deliberate contrast. Both involve Dante’s meeting of poets whom he loved on earth. The love is not evil, but it is earthly and narrowly personal. In these two episodes Dante shows us both the cost and the exalted joy of the purging.

The first occurs at the very beginning of his journey. Dante has just arrived at the mountain’s base, and witnesses the arrival of a group of souls singing their psalm of deliverance. Among them he recognizes a friend, Casella. The two rush to greet one another with an embrace. They converse about their earthly lives and concerns, and Casella sings a secular love song of Dante’s composing. But all this is cut short by the guide. Why this dallying? They are wasting time; there is work to be done—their purging. To be fitted for the presence of God is serious and pressing business.

Consider what Dante is saying. Both men are but a short time removed from earth and its life and concerns. Both are still of the earth. We would call them babes in Christ. They show little love of God, little thought of his holiness, little haste to change. But they have begun; they are facing toward their cure and toward the presence of God. On the way to the second episode Dante shows us what must happen to these ties to the old life. On one of the levels he inquires for any Italians present. This is the reply:

O my brother, each of us is a citizen of one true city;

But you must mean to ask if any of us lived as a pilgrim in Italy.

So—no longer an Italian but a pilgrim and stranger to earth, a citizen of the city which has foundations. Thus must the ties to earthly things fade away from heart and mind.

The second episode is simple and restrained, not impersonal, yet transcending usual human attitudes and actions. It takes place on the top level of purification: sanctification is all but accomplished; souls feel keenly the drawing toward God. Earth and earthly things are but a faint memory. Dante meets a group busy with their purging; one casually reveals his identity. He is the poet Guinizelli, greatly loved by Dante and influential on his writing. Moved to embrace him, Dante nevertheless masters the impulse—he is past embracing now. He tells Guinizelli of his love and admiration. And Guinizelli? He does not even halt in his task of purification; he merely points to another as a better poet than he, and passes on. Gratitude and honor from men for something done long ago on earth are now, here on the verge of coming to God, of slightest concern. The painful cure is almost done, the sanctification almost complete. God is soon to be faced, and joy awaits.

And when at last the purging is accomplished, the cure achieved; when the stain of evil no longer clings to repel the soul from the Holy Presence; when once again it stands in a purity equal to that of Eden, and no slightest weight of sin’s effects presses it back toward earth; then a glorious thing happens. The soul knows intuitively that the work is done, that it is ready to rise. There is no need of a physician’s release. It knows. And the great mountain trembles with joy at another victory, while all the other patients—still suffering, but filled with hope and joy—give a mighty shout of rejoicing and raise the Gloria in Excelsis. And the soul, like an iron filing drawn by a great magnet, rises, rises, RISES toward paradise and the Blessed Vision.

“Blessed Are Those Who Mourn”

Flash floods of tears, torrents of them,

Erode cruel canyons, exposing

Long forgotten strata of life

Layed down in the peaceful decades:

A badlands beauty. The same sun

That decorates each day with colors

From arroyos and mesas, also shows

Every old scar and cut of lament.

Weeping washes the wounds clean

And leaves them to heal, which always

Takes an age or two. No pain

Is ugly in past tense. Under

The mercy every hurt is a fossil

Link in the great chain of becoming.

Quite often pick and shovel prayers

Turn them up in valleys of death.

EUGENE H. PETERSON

Rugged Hearts

In solitude, while meditating

in easy chairs, it seems impossible

not to love.

But in crowds

where we bump and brush against

each other’s prickly sensitivities,

love is practiced, not by the sentimental,

but by the practical, the tough.

When bubbly reasons to love have burst,

when lace is ripped, when paper heart is torn,

only those with rugged hearts remain

to shine in the likeness of God

who is Love.

VIVIAN STEWART

Let’s not consume all our energies arguing about the Word of God, let’s start using it.

Without the Bible world evangelization would be not only impossible but actually inconceivable. It is the Bible that lays upon us the responsibility to evangelize the world, gives us a gospel to proclaim, tells us to how to proclaim it, and that it is God’s power for salvation to every believer.

It is, moreover, an observable fact of history, both past and contemporary, that the degree of the church’s commitment to world evangelization is commensurate with the degree of its conviction about the authority of the Bible. Whenever Christians lose their confidence in the Bible, they also lose their zeal for evangelism. Conversely, whenever they are convinced about the Bible, then they are determined about evangelism.

As the Lausanne Covenant says, we must affirm “the divine inspiration, truthfulness, and authority of both Old and New Testament Scriptures in their entirety as the only written Word of God, without error in all that it affirms, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice.” Incidentally, the expression “without error in all that it affirms” was never intended to be an evasion or loophole (as some have suggested) but rather a clarification. It acknowledges that not everything contained in Scripture is affirmed by Scripture (e.g., the speeches of Job’s comforters whom God later rebuked for not having spoken of him what was right, [42:7]), and it therefore asserts the need for painstaking exegesis in order to determine what the original authors were affirming, and what God is affirming through them. We should be grateful that the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy helpfully elaborated this expression by saying in their “Short Statement” (1979) that Scripture “is to be believed, as God’s instruction, in all that it affirms; obeyed, as God’s command, in all that it requires; and embraced, as God’s pledge, in all that it promises.”

Let me develop four reasons why the Bible is indispensable to world evangelization.

Mandate

The Bible gives us the mandate for world evangelization. We certainly need one. Two phenomena are everywhere on the increase. One is religious fanaticism, and the other, religious pluralism. The fanatic displays the kind of irrational zeal which (if it could) would use force to compel belief and eradicate disbelief. Religious pluralism encourages the opposite tendency.

Whenever the spirit of religious fanaticism or of its opposite, religious indifferentism, prevails, world evangelization is bitterly resented. Fanatics refuse to countenance the rivals evangelism represents, and pluralists its exclusive claims. The Christian evangelist is regarded as making an unwarrantable intrusion into other people’s private affairs.

In the face of this opposition we need to be clear about the mandate the Bible gives us. It is not just the Great Commission (important as that is) but the entire biblical revelation. Let me rehearse it briefly.

There is but one living and true God, the Creator of the universe, the Lord of the nations and the God of the spirits of all flesh. Some 4,000 years ago he called Abraham and made a covenant with him, promising not only to bless him but also through his posterity to bless all the families of the earth (Gen. 12:1–4). This biblical text is one of the foundation stones of the Christian mission. For Abraham’s descendants (through whom all nations are being blessed) are Christ and the people of Christ. If by faith we belong to Christ, we are Abraham’s spiritual children and have a responsibility to all mankind. So, too, the Old Testament prophets foretold how God would make his Christ the heir and the light of the nations (Ps. 2:8; Isa. 42:6; 49:6).

When Jesus came, he endorsed these promises. True, during his own earthly ministry he was restricted “to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 10:6; 15:24), but he prophesied that many would “come from east and west, and from north and south,” and would “sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 8:11; Luke 13:29). Further, in anticipation of his resurrection and ascension he made the tremendous claim that “all authority in heaven and on earth” had been given to him (Matt. 28:18). It was in consequence of his universal authority that he commanded his followers to make all nations his disciples, baptizing them into his new community and teaching them all his teaching (Matt. 28:19).

And this, when the Holy Spirit of truth and power had come upon them, the early Christians proceeded to do. They became the witnesses of Jesus, even to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8). Moreover, they did it “for sake of his name” (Rom. 1:5; 3 John 7). They knew that God had superexalted Jesus, enthroning him at his right hand and bestowing upon him the highest rank, in order that every tongue should confess his lordship. They longed that Jesus should receive the honor due his name. Besides, one day he would return in glory, to save, to judge, and to reign. So what was to fill the gap between his two comings? The worldwide mission of the church! Not till the gospel had reached the end of the world, he said, would the end of history come (cf. Matt 24:14; 28:20; Acts 1:8). The two ends would coincide.

Our mandate for world evangelization, therefore, is the whole Bible. It is to be found in the creation of God (because of which all human beings are responsible to him), in the character of God (as outgoing, loving, compassionate, not willing that any should perish, desiring that all should come to repentance), in the promises of God (that all nations will be blessed through Abraham’s seed and will become the Messiah’s inheritance) in the Christ of God (now exalted with universal authority, to receive universal acclaim), in the Spirit of God (who convicts of sin, witnesses to Christ, and impels the church to evangelize) and in the church of God (which is a multinational, missionary community, under orders to evangelize until Christ returns.)

This global dimension of the Christian mission is irresistible. Individual Christians and local churches not committed to world evangelization are contradicting (either through blindness or through disobedience) an essential part of their God-given identity. The biblical mandate for world evangelization cannot be escaped.

Message

The Bible gives us the message for world evangelization. The Lausanne Covenant defined evangelism in terms of the evangel. Paragraph four begins: “to evangelize is to spread the good news that Jesus Christ died for our sins and was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures, and that as the reigning Lord he now offers the forgiveness of sins and the liberating gift of the Spirit to all who repent and believe.”

Now this message for evangelism, like the mandate for evangelism, comes from the Bible. To begin, let us look at this negatively. First, it does not come from the Scriptures of other religions. We read and study these with respect. Many of us have to confess that we should be more familiar with them and more respectful toward them than we have been. What they contain of truth, beauty, and goodness we ascribe to Jesus Christ, the Logos of God and Light of the World (John 1:1–9). We are ready to quote them appreciatively when they affirm what Scripture affirms—much as Paul in Athens quoted the Greek authors Epimenides and Aratus (Acts 17:27–29). But we cannot accept that they were specially or supematurally inspired like the Scriptures of Old and New Testaments. Nor can they lead their readers to salvation, since they do not bear witness to Christ as the only Savior of sinners, which is the main function of the Christian Scriptures (cf. John 5:39, 40; 20:31; 2 Tim. 3:15).

Second, our message does not come from the tradition of the churches. True, a message has come down to us in the living tradition of the church, as our friends in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches emphasize. Further, we evangelical Christians need a doctrine of tradition that recognizes the activity of the Holy Spirit in illumining the minds of his people in every generation. Nevertheless, we cannot rely on church tradition for our message, for we cannot accept the “two-source” theory of divine revelation, namely that Holy Scripture and holy tradition are independent, equal, and authoritative sources of doctrine. Rather do we see tradition standing alongside Scripture as a fallible interpretation of an infallible revelation. We feel obliged to affirm the supremacy of Scripture over tradition, as Jesus did, when he called the traditions of the elders “the traditions of men” and subordinated them to the judgment of Scripture as the word of God (Mark 7:1–13).

Instead, our message comes out of the Bible. As we turn to the Bible for our message, however, we are immediately confronted with a dilemma. On the one hand the message is given to us. We are not left to invent it; it has been entrusted to us as a precious “deposit,” which we, like faithful stewards, are both to guard and to dispense to God’s household (1 Tim. 6:20; 2 Tim. 1:12–14; 2 Cor. 4:1–2). On the other hand, it has not been given to us as a single, neat, mathematical formula, but rather in a rich diversity of formulations, in which different images or metaphors are used.

So there is only one gospel, on which all the apostles agreed (1 Cor. 15:10), and Paul could call down the curse of God upon anybody—including himself—who preached a “different” gospel from the original apostolic gospel of God’s grace (Gal. 1:6–8). Yet the apostles expressed this one gospel in various ways—now sacrificial (the shedding and sprinkling of Christ’s blood), now messianic (the breaking in of God’s promised rule), now legal (the Judge pronouncing the unrighteous righteous), now personal (the Father reconciling his wayward children), now salvific (the heavenly Liberator coming to rescue the helpless), now cosmic (the universal Lord claiming universal dominion); and this is only a selection.

The gospel is thus seen to be one, yet diverse. It is “given,” yet culturally adapted to its audience. Once we grasp this, we shall be saved from making two opposite mistakes. The first I will call “total fluidity.” I recently heard an English church leader declare that there is no such thing as the gospel until we enter the situation in which we are to witness. We take nothing with us into the situation, he said; we discover the gospel only when we have arrived there. Now I am in full agreement with the need to be sensitive to each situation, but if this was the point which the leader in question was wanting to make, he grossly overstated it. There is such a thing as a revealed or given gospel, which we have no liberty to falsify.

The opposite mistake I will call “total rigidity.” In this case the evangelist behaves as if God had given a series of precise formulas that we have to repeat more or less word for word, and certain images that we must invariably employ. This leads to bondage to either words or images or both. Some evangelists lapse into the use of stale jargon, while others feel obliged on every occasion to mention “the blood of Christ” or “justification by faith” or “the kingdom of God” or some other image.

Between these two extremes there is a third and better way. It combines commitment to the fact of revelation with commitment to the task of contextualization. It accepts that only the biblical formulations of the gospel are permanently normative, and that every attempt to proclaim the gospel in modern idiom must justify itself as an authentic expression of the biblical gospel.

But if it refuses to jettison the biblical formulations, it also refuses to recite them in a wooden and unimaginative way. On the contrary, we have to engage in the continuous struggle (by prayer, study, and discussion) to relate the given gospel to the given situation. Since it comes from God we must guard it; since it is intended for modern men and women we must interpret it. We have to combine fidelity (constantly studying the biblical text) with sensitivity (constantly studying the contemporary scene). Only then can we hope with faithfulness and relevance to relate the Word to the world, the gospel to the context, Scripture to culture.

Model

The Bible gives us the model for world evangelization. In addition to a message (what we are to say) we need a model (how we are to say it). The Bible supplies this too: the Bible does not just contain the gospel; it is the gospel. Through the Bible God is himself actually evangelizing, that is, communicating the good news to the world. You will recall Paul’s statement about Genesis 12:3 that “the scripture … preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham” (Gal. 3:8, RSV). All Scripture preaches the gospel; God evangelizes through it.

If, then, Scripture is itself divine evangelization, it stands to reason that we can learn how to preach the gospel by considering how God has done it. He has given us in the process of biblical inspiration a beautiful evangelistic model.

What strikes us immediately is the greatness of God’s condescension. He had sublime truth to reveal about himself and his Christ, his mercy and his justice, and his full salvation. And he chose to make this disclosure through the vocabulary and grammar of human language, through human beings, human images, and human cultures. He used very lowly anthropomorphisms, speaking of himself as if he were a human being who rolled up his sleeves, enjoyed the smell of burning meat, or changed his mind. Through the apostles he communicated in koinē Greek, the common language of the office and the market place, and was even prepared to overlook, indeed use, the well-known grammatical howlers perpetrated by John in the Revelation. So complete was his adaptation to the human condition that his message never sounded alien. It was homely, simple, appropriate.

Yet through this lowly medium of human words and images, God was speaking of his own word. Our evangelical doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture emphasizes its double authorship. Men spoke and God spoke. Men spoke from God (2 Pet. 1:21) and God spoke through men (Heb. 1:1). The words spoken and written were equally his and theirs. He decided what he wanted to say, yet did not smother their human personalities. They used their faculties freely, yet did not distort the divine message. Christians want to assert something similar about the Incarnation, the climax of the self-communicating God. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). That is, God’s eternal Word, who from eternity was with God and was God, the agent through whom the universe was created, became a human being, with all the particularity of a first-century Palestinian Jew. He became little, weak, poor, and vulnerable. He experienced pain and hunger, and exposed himself to temptation. All this was included in the “flesh,” the human being he became. Yet when he became one of us, he did not cease to be himself. He remained forever the eternal Word or Son of God.

Essentially the same principle illustrated both the inspiration of the Scripture and the incarnation of the Son. The Word became flesh. The divine was communicated through the human. He identified with us, though without surrendering his own identity. And this principle of “identification without loss of identity” is the model for all evangelism, especially cross-cultural evangelism.

Some of us refuse to identify with the people we claim to be serving. We remain ourselves, and do not become like them. We stay aloof. We hold on desperately to our own cultural inheritance in the mistaken notion that it is an indispensable part of our identity. We are unwilling to let it go. Not only do we maintain our own cultural practices with fierce tenacity, but we treat the cultural inheritance of the land of our adoption without the respect it deserves. We thus practice a double kind of cultural imperialism, imposing our own culture on others and despising theirs. But this was not the way of Christ, who emptied himself of his glory and humbled himself to serve.

Other cross-cultural messengers of the gospel make the opposite mistake. So determined are they to identify with the people to whom they go that they surrender even their Christian standards and values. But again this was not Christ’s way, since in becoming human he remained truly divine. The Lausanne Covenant expressed the principle in these words: “Christ’s evangelists must humbly seek to empty themselves of all but their personal authenticity, in order to become the servants of others” (paragraph 10).

The whole question of resistance and receptivity of the gospel has been prominent in the pre-COWE study groups and will be throughout the miniconsultations. We have to wrestle with the reasons why people reject the gospel, and in particular to give due weight to the cultural factors. Some people reject the gospel not because they perceive it to be false, but because they perceive it to be alien.

Dr. René Padilla was criticized at Lausanne for saying that the gospel some European and North American missionaries have exported was a “culture-Christianity,” a Christian message, that is, distorted by the materialistic, consumer culture of the West. It was hurtful to us to hear him say this, but of course he was quite right. All of us need to subject our gospel to more critical scrutiny, and in a cross-cultural situation, visiting evangelists need humbly to seek the help of local Christians in order to discern the cultural distortions of their message.

Others reject the gospel because they perceive it to be a threat to their own culture. Of course Christ challenges every culture. Whenever we present the gospel to Hindus or Buddhists, Jews or Muslims, secularists or Marxists, Jesus Christ confronts them with his demand to dislodge whatever has thus far secured their allegiance and replace it with himself. He is Lord of every person and every culture. That threat, that confrontation, cannot be avoided. But does the gospel we proclaim present people with other threats that are unnecessary, because it calls for the abolition of harmless customs or appears destructive of national art, architecture, music, and festivals, or because we who share it are culture-proud and culture-blind?

To sum up, when God spoke to us in Scripture he used human language, and when he spoke to us in Christ he assumed human flesh. In order to reveal himself, he both emptied and humbled himself. That is the model of evangelism which the Bible supplies. There is self-emptying and self-humbling in all authentic evangelism; without it we contradict the gospel and misrepresent the Christ we proclaim.

Power

The Bible gives us the power for world evangelization. It is hardly necessary for me to emphasize our need for power, for we know how feeble our human resources are in comparison with the magnitude of the task. We also know how armor-plated are the defenses of the human heart. Worse still, we know the personal reality, malevolence, and might of the Devil, and of the demonic forces at his command.

Sophisticated people may ridicule our belief, and caricature it, too, in order to make their ridicule more plausible. But we evangelical Christians are naive enough to believe what Jesus and his apostles taught. To us it is a fact of great solemnity that, in John’s expression. “the whole world is in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). For until they are liberated by Jesus Christ and transferred into his kingdom, all men and women are the slaves of Satan. Moreover, we see his power in the contemporary world—in the darkness of idolatry and of the fear of spirits, in superstition and fatalism, in devotion to gods which are no gods, in the selfish materialism of the West, in the spread of atheistic communism, in the proliferation of irrational cults, in violence and aggression, and in the widespread declension from absolute standards of goodness and truth. These things are the work of him who is called in Scripture a liar, a deceiver, a slanderer, and a murderer.

So Christian conversion and regeneration remain miracles of God’s grace. They are the culmination of a power struggle between Christ and Satan or (in vivid apocalyptic imagery) between the Lamb and the Dragon. The plundering of the strong man’s palace is possible only because he has been bound by the One who is stronger still, and who by his death and resurrection disarmed and discarded the principalities and powers of evil (Matt. 12:27–29; Luke 11:20–22; Col. 2:15).

How then shall we enter into Christ’s victory and overthrow the devil’s power? Let Luther answer our question: ein wörtlein will ihn fällen (“one little word will knock him down”). There is power in the Word of God and in the preaching of the gospel. Perhaps the most dramatic expression of this in the New Testament is to be found in 2 Corinthians 4. Paul portrays “the god of this world” as having “blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ …” (v. 4).

If human minds are blinded, how then can they ever see? Only by the creative Word of God. For it is the God who said “let light shine out of darkness” who has shone in our hearts to “give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (v. 6). The apostle thus likens the unregenerate heart to the dark primeval chaos, and attributes regeneration to the divine fiat, “Let there be light.”

If then Satan blinds people’s minds, and God shines into people’s hearts, what can we hope to contribute to this encounter? Would it not be more modest for us to retire from the field of conflict and leave them to fight it out? No, this is not the conclusion Paul reaches.

On the contrary, in between verses 4 and 6, which describe the activities of God and Satan, verse 5 describes the work of the evangelist: “We preach … Jesus Christ as Lord.” Since the light which the Devil wants to prevent people seeing and which God shines into them is the gospel, we had better preach it! Preaching the gospel, far from being unnecessary, is indispensable. It is the God-appointed means by which the prince of darkness is defeated and the light comes streaming into people’s hearts. There is power in God’s gospel—his power for salvation (Rom. 1:16).

In our day there is a widespread disenchantment with words. People are bombarded with words by advertisers, politicians, and propagandists, until they become “word-resistant.” In countries where television is available, words lose their power because of the greater power of images. After all, what is a word? Only a puff of breath, and in a moment it is gone, so intangible and transient is it.

But the Bible has a different perspective. Behind every word is the person who speaks it, and the authority he possesses or lacks. God’s Word has power for the sole reason that it is God who speaks it. His Word is creative (“for he spoke and it was done” Ps. 33:9), productive (“my word … shall not return to me empty but it shall accomplish that which I purpose” Isa. 55:11), and redemptive (“it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” 1 Cor. 1:21). Still today God honors his Word. Whether we share it with a single individual or preach it to a congregation or broadcast it by radio or distribute it in print, through it he can put forth his saving power.

Not that we have a superstitious view of the Word of God. We do not attribute magical efficacy to the words of Scripture as if they were spells bringing a blessing or a curse. Their power is due solely to the fact that the God who once spoke these words still speaks through what he has spoken. His Spirit still uses the Word as his sword. We should never separate the Word of God and the Spirit of God.

We may be very weak. I sometimes wish we were weaker. Faced with the forces of evil, we are often tempted to put on a show of Christian strength and engage in a little evangelical saber rattling. But it is in our weakness that Christ’s strength is made perfect and it is words of human weakness that the Spirit endorses with his power. So it is when we are weak that we are strong (1 Cor. 2:1–5; 2 Cor. 12:9–10).

Let us not consume all our energies arguing about the Word of God; let’s start using it. It will prove its divine origin by its divine power. Let’s let it loose in the world! If only every Christian missionary and evangelist proclaimed the biblical gospel with faithfulness and sensitivity, and every Christian preacher were a faithful expositor of God’s Word! Then God would display his saving power.

Without the Bible world evangelization is impossible. For without the Bible we have no gospel to take to the nations, no warrant to take it to them, no idea of how to set about the task, and no hope of any success. It is the Bible that gives us the mandate, the message, the model, and the power we need for world evangelization. So let’s seek to repossess it by diligent study and meditation. Let’s heed its summons, grasp its message, follow its directions, and trust its power. Let’s lift up our voices and make it known.

Full-grown oaks are not produced in three years …

“They never taught us that in seminary,” a well-respected minister lamented to his colleagues. They shook their heads in knowing commiseration.

“They never taught me that in seminary,” the frustrated young pastor confessed to the committee.

“No one trained me in seminary for all the leadership predicaments I face. I was trained in theology and philosophy, but I’m hitting ambition, sensuality, greed, and competition,” responded one pastor when asked about the ministry and his preparation for it.

These comments, by no means rare, force all of us, lay and clergy alike, to examine the place of seminary training. What can we expect of seminary graduates? Let’s begin by considering two factors: the purpose of seminary and the student’s priorities.

A seminary must be more than an academic institution. It should equip the whole person for the ministry of the whole counsel of God. Of course, the responsibility for an effective theological education is also the student’s, who should enter seminary with a set of priorities. I suggest five.

The Purpose Of Seminary Education

The purpose of seminary training is to lay the foundation foc a lifetime of ministry. Let me stress that it is the foundation—that is, training in the basics. The foundation of a building gives stability to the entire structure. It is so even in education for the ministry. The seminary course cannot build the entire temple of ministry, but it can lay the primary foundation stones.

There are many aspects to building the foundation. To explore these, consider a different metaphor. Seminary is appropriately named; the word is derived from the Latin word for “seedbed.” A seminary program is like a horticultural nursery in that it is a place of beginnings, a setting for careful cultivation of the tender seedlings. Full-grown oaks are not produced in three years; neither are servants of God.

There is a tendency on the part of students to be impatient during their three or four years of seminary education. They feel guilt and anxiety because they aren’t “out there serving the Lord.” Such feelings can be greatly relieved when it is understood that a lasting work requires extensive preparation. An architect studies the land, the materials, the needs of the people, and the elements of form and function in order to prepare a blueprint. All that work for nothing but a piece of paper! But after that, construction can begin and move on to completion. The time of preparation was worth it.

We need only think of the “schooling” of Moses, Daniel, Ezekiel, Paul, and Jesus himself. God’s message to us time and again is that the shaping and molding of a servant takes time.

The purpose of the years in seminary is to plant and nurture the essential seeds of ministry. The student focuses on the learning of basic principles, precepts, and skills in such areas as biblical knowledge, theology, preaching, pastoral counseling, education, and administration. None of these areas will be thoroughly mastered, but the student should gain a general overview of them. He or she should also accumulate resources to develop later as God directs.

Priorities For Training

A seminary education provides an invaluable opportunity for growing in five high priority areas. These are: (1) growth in one’s relationship with the Lord God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; (2) growth in godly character; (3) understanding of the role concept as Christ’s servant; (4) development of skills for ministry; (5) growth in vision and godly imagination. By the way, an assessment of a seminary graduate in these areas will reveal a great deal about his or her fitness for ministry.

First, and most obviously, the seminary years are a time for cultivation of one’s relationship with God. This can be an intensive experience as the student enters the heady areas of systematic and biblical theology. Paul exhorts us to be “transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). The renewal comes from diligent study of the Scriptures and the implications of such study as they are perceived through theological reflection. The student has the opportunity to love God more fully with his mind. Our knowledge about God must lead to a more intimate relationship with him, or we run the risk of becoming Pharisees. One of my professors demonstrated his love for God in an unforgettable way. He was so moved by the study of God’s omnipotence that he interrupted his lecture to have us all stand and sing the Gloria Patri.

Seminary training provides unequaled opportunity for exploration of personal insights. Daily contact with mature minds and interaction with fellow students in experimental stages of their spiritual formation present crucial times for learning and development of life patterns for future walk with God. Good habits learned early become “ruts of righteousness” (Psalm 23:3) that stand the future minister in good stead.

The second personal priority tor seminary training is the cultivation of godly character. As we grow in our understanding and love for God, our lives will be molded by the Holy Spirit into the image of Christ. God calls his servants to godliness. Paul boldly challenged others to imitate him as a model of Christian maturity. The seminary years are a time when the student can begin the great experiment of structuring his life according to God’s purposes. But it is often true that the spiritual growth of a student is eclipsed by the demands of academic pursuit, field education, family, and personal concerns. But if this tendency is checked and corrected, it will be valuable preparation for resisting the manifold pressures of the ministry. Phillips Brooks said that preaching is the work of conveying God’s truth through human personality. As we acquire the truth of God, so must we acquire the character of God. In the final analysis, it is not so much what we do as it is who we are as persons that matters most. If our lives don’t testify to the reality of our faith, then our other efforts are in vain.

The third goal of a seminary education is cultivation of a role concept as the servant of Christ. Seminaries provide an exposure to a variety of Christian leaders with different styles of ministry. They are models for the student. The demanding challenge for the student is to evaluate these models, and then proceed to integrate and adapt whatever seems to fit his or her personality and call. This process helps to give a sense of self-confidence and direction as the student graduates and enters a field of service. We need not expect the graduate to have one particular style set in concrete, but rather that he or she will appreciate the multifaceted nature of being Christ’s servant.

The fourth priority of seminary is the cultivation of skills for ministry. Some may question why this was not placed first; but unless seminary students as individuals know who they are and what is their calling in life, they are scarcely able to bring to their preparation either adequate focus in determining what skills are necessary or sufficient motivation to master them.

Seminary curricula traditionally have, with disastrous results for the ministry, divided these skills neatly into two separate compartments: (1) the theoretical, and (2) the practical. Depending upon their individual personality traits, students have tended to look upon the former as inconvenient roadblocks to be circumvented where possible and endured when not, and the latter as frivolous snap courses and a waste of time for all serious students.

But the ministry is a great calling that demands diverse capabilities and skills in many areas. It demands the best our minds have to offer. Academic excellence that strives to glorify God is a tribute to our Lord and an expression of our thanksgiving for his grace in Christ. The seminary student should look upon it as a present ministry to God, not merely as a preparation for future work. But a comprehensive understanding of God’s truth is also essential for the survival, expansion, and maturation of the people of God to whom the seminary student will minister. We have only to think of the devastation the false teachers brought to Israel to see the critical need for a sound understanding of God’s truth. Hosea’s warnings sound in our ears, “A people without understanding will come to ruin” (Hosea 4:14).

The disciplines of theology, church history, and Bible, are therefore essential preparation for the ministerial student. They not only give direction for an entire life’s work, but provide the necessary understanding that will enable a minister to function as a “teacher and ruling Ider” in the church. Even Greek and Hebrew cannot be slighted. Granted, the pastor and church worker may never become a linguistic scholar; but if the individual knows nothing of these tools, he or she is limited to the use of third-rate commentaries, dictionaries, and study helps in preparing for biblically based teaching and preaching. In this case, the theoretical becomes extremely practical for Christian ministry.

But the so-called practical disciplines are equally essential, and they represent the area of their training that seminary graduates feel was most neglected. It is essential, that they be able to apply what they learn.

Seminaries are developing excellent courses to meet the needs of practical training. Students should learn basic steps in spiritual growth. They should get training in evangelism, teaching, discipleship counseling, administration, and handling change and conflict.

The fifth priority is the cultivation of godly vision and imagination. There is a sense in which we should be eagerly anticipating God’s next great work. As seminary students mature in their relationship with God, they should begin to visualize what God could do through them. We are too timid and cautious when it comes to godly imagination. We shy away from the risk of attempting great things for God and expecting great things from him, to echo William Carey’s words. At seminary, a student should begin to dream. What needs to be done in this world? How car God use him or her to do it?

Prayer, meditation, and conversations with professors and other students can, as the Holy Spirit leads, unlock creative powers. Cultivation of godly vision infuses preparation time with vitality and purpose.

Growth and develoment in these five areas during the time of seminary training are essential if we are to achieve the goal of ministry—to present every person mature in Christ. Impatience with theological education will be alleviated as students realize the value and purpose of their preparation. A lasting work requires extensive preparation.

The model of Christ is our authority. Jesus spent much time training his disciples They did not immediately become productive members of the kingdom of God. They had to acquire knowledge and skills as well as the development of character—none of which can be rushed.

Look again at that woeful refrain, “They never taught me that in seminary.” What can be expected of a seminary graduate? I ask, did your education draw you into a relationship with God? Did it stimulate the process of transformation into the likeness of Christ? Did it hold up appropriate models of servanthood in Christ and provide basic tools to pursue your calling? Did it enlarge your vision for the grandeur of God’s work in the world? Did it provide a theological foundation and framework to build upon? If it did, surely God has blessed.

Advice and comments from Carl F. H. Henry.

As president of the American Theological Society, how would you characterize the theological stance of the seminaries?

They are largely pluralistic and somewhat activistic, but not anti-intellectual.

What advice do you have for young seminarians?

Remember that during these years of study your primary call is to be a student, not least of all a student of the Word of God. If you have a roommate, opt for one more devout and more intelligent than you are. Sink your roots deeply into a daily devotional life, for those patterns are set in the early years. Unless you feel it to be absolutely necessary, postpone marriage until the last year of seminary work. Learn to type if you haven’t already done so. Do your term papers as if the fate of Christianity depended on your wrestling of the issue. Read the primary sources. If you work for a higher degree, do a dissertation that addresses one of the important issues of the age. Seek a weekend outlet for practical service and training, preferably as an aide and understudy to a dedicated pastor. Be yourself in your ministry, using to the full your distinctive gifts and abilities.

What’s your opinion of the quality of seminary graduates?

There’s a broad range of dedication and ability. The natural and biological sciences, and other disciplines as well, still spellbind many very competent students. But many seminarians see life more comprehensive and whole, although not a few are victims of their earlier learning. Some will be great church planters; others inquire about retirement benefits before they consider even their first church.

What would you like to see done to upgrade theological education?

Screen ministerial candidates more carefully. Tuition help for seminarians by local churches. Discover and reinforce latent gifts of students. Campus programs that promote the cognitive and the practical without disadvantaging either. Equip the clergy to minister to a media age without elevating self-image above Christ’s centrality. Help them to address the conscience of the nation, to move people by great preaching, to live before the community so the Christian lifestyle will attract people. Discontinue any program that makes every preacher think he ought to have a doctorate.

How important to you is your own relationship to the local church and its ministry?

Like many full-time workers, my active local church presence and participation is irregular. Short-term teaching and lecturing take me away six months a year, three of them abroad in a World Vision ministry to seminarians and collegians. But my home church. Capitol Hill Metropolitan Baptist in Washington, D. C., recognizes this work as a fulfillment of ministerial commitment that reaches many distant congregations.

How important is preaching? What is your estimate of the quality of preaching in the churches?

Great preaching, I think, is at a premium today, even in evangelical churches. The sense of God’s lordship over history is lost, the awesome holiness of God is dwarfed, and Christological emphasis is distressingly thin. But here and there ministers powerfully preach the eternal Evangel, relevantly address the crucial problems of the day with biblical fidelity, and restore the bright stars gone dim in the lives of harried parishioners. I wish there were more, and I wish I were one.

Have you any advice for church leaders?

Faithfully do your homework—spiritually, morally, and academically. Maintain a truly Christian home. Speak the truth that needs to be spoken, do the thing that needs to be done, and others will recognize authentic leadership. Don’t aspire to leadership; it is God’s gift. Don’t become beholden to power-wielding religionists; be God’s free man.

What would you advise a bright, young high school student today interested in ministry?

Students should get under the most competent professors who can meet the specific objectives for which they seek an education. I entered college two years after I became a Christian and regarded an evangelical college as the logical place to gain a Christian world-life view. An added boon was that I made many fine evangelical friends and met my incomparable sweetheart. My counsel is that students should learn from the ablest professors in their field of interest and be sure to associate themselves with whatever evangelical student work exists on campus.

How near completion is your major work on God, Revelation and Authority?

So far, four volumes have appeared. Two concluding volumes, five and six, on the nature of God, are scheduled to appear at the end of 1983. I’m currently at work on volume six. The first two volumes are in their third printing, and have already appeared in Korean; volume one has just appeared in Mandarin; and the entire series is being translated into German.

If you could suggest titles/subject/themes for crucial books to be written by evangelicals, what would they be?

I think of five or six: a comprehensive text on Christian theism vis-à-vis the modern philosophies and living world religions; a major work on Christian social ethics; a contemporary systematic theology; perspective on concerns of Christianity and science with one eye on the debate over evolution; a thorough work on the biblical canon and its significance; a fresh text on the person and work of Jesus Christ; a careful study of the problem of revelation and culture.

But scholarly study must go hand in hand with its devotional use.

In one way or another all of us are teachers and students. For better or worse, fathers and mothers are teachers, and the home is still the greatest educational force. No one can effectively practice a profession without in some way engaging in teaching. So also with other occupations. As for Christian ministers, they too are teachers. In listing the gifts of the ascended Christ to the church (Eph. 4:11), Paul said, “It was he who gave … some to be pastors and teachers” (NIV)—in other words, to shepherd and educate Christ’s flock.

Likewise with learning. It too has its universal aspect. To be a Christian is to be a disciple, and discipleship entails obedience to the teaching of a master. For everyone, Christian or otherwise, when learning stops, living may sink into mere existence.

In The Idea of a University, John Henry Newman said: “Religious truth is not only a portion but a condition of general knowledge”—a statement that for the purpose of this article may be adapted like this: “Biblical truth is not only a portion but a condition of all Christian education and the whole of life as well.”

All who learn and all who teach must, as best they can, seek the truth. For no teachers is this responsibility greater than for those who out of their study and research deal with the Scriptures.

Truth! What a great word it is! Next to the words for Deity, there is no more spacious word. Not only is God love, he is also truth. In the Old Testament, truth usually connotes faithfulness and points to the God who is faithful to himself and to his promises. So truth extends to the written word of God. In the New Testament also, truth connotes faithfulness and relates to the written word and particularly to the gospel. In Christ, truth is fully incarnate. Moreover, especially in John’s Gospel and Epistles, we find the word “truth” used in the Greek sense of showing forth the reality and essence of a thing. Indeed, one of the nuances of the New Testament word alētheia (truth) is that of manifesting or revealing what has been concealed. Biblically speaking, God is the God of truth; truth is incarnate in his Son, who said of himself, “I am … the truth”; the Holy Spirit is by Christ’s own definition “the Spirit of truth”; and the Scriptures are by their copious self-affirmation the written word of truth. And both Testaments also present truth in its objective sense—that is, truth as revealed in history and in doctrine.

Here, then, is an axiom: All truth is God’s truth. Whatever is true must accord with reality, and God is the fullness and perfection of all reality. As Augustine said, “Every good and true Christian should understand that, wherever he may find truth, it is his Lord’s.” Therefore, to look at truth biblically can never be restrictive. If God is the God of truth and if all truth is his, then the horizons of truth are not only cosmic; they are infinite. Consequently, in biblical scholarship the search for truth as God has revealed it and the search for its clear expression must go on.

A distinguished literary critic once characterized Tolstoi as the most truth-telling author in Russian literature—a great tribute, but a small one indeed compared with what can be said of the Bible, and of the Bible only: that it is the most truth-telling book in world literature. It gives us the essential truth about God, about humanity, truth about the past, present, and future; truth about everything it deals with.

Now to think about truth compels us to face our relation to it. To affirm the complete trustworthiness of Scripture—namely, its inerrancy—is to affirm that it always speaks the truth. But this also involves recognizing how Scripture speaks the truth. Just as truth has many facets, so Scripture speaks the truth in various ways—in poetry as well as in prose, in the strange symbolism of the apocalyptic as well as in the sober records of history, in the imaginative use of story, in epistles that of all letters are incomparably the most important, and in the unique literary works we know as Gospels. In all these, Scripture uses a wealth of imagery, from metaphor and simile to irony and hyperbole, in its telling of the truth.

Thus to know the languages of the Bible, the results of lower and higher criticism, the insights of biblical theology, and the methods of the latest critical research is not enough. Unless one also knows the Bible as literature, he will be crippled in understanding the truth it presents.

But does the affirmation of the complete truthfulness of Scripture mean that the search for the truth revealed within its pages is over? Perish the thought! As John Robinson of Leyden said in his charge to the Pilgrims when they sailed from Holland for New England: “God has yet more truth to break forth from his Holy Word.… Be ready to receive whatever truth shall be known to you from the written work of God.” Magnificent advice, as timely today as in 1620.

What makes the study of the Bible such an exciting pursuit is the ever-present possibility of having some new insight into truth suddenly reach out from its pages and seize one’s mind and heart. For truth is more than a philosophical abstraction. When in our search for it we find it, lo and behold, it is because it has first found us.

In one sense truth can be “a happening,” and this not only in religion. The history of science is studded with examples of truth suddenly laying hold of searchers for it—from Archimedes, to whom the truth of the hydrostatic principle “happened” when his bath water ran over, to Henri Poincaré, to whom came one of his greatest mathematical insights as he was stepping into an omnibus in Paris. And truth goes on “happening” to many others, not only in science and mathematics but also in biblical studies, in literature and the arts, and in every realm of knowledge. Yet whenever truth “happens” to what Pasteur called “the prepared mind,” as it does time and again, it becomes evident that truth has been here all the time. It may come in a flash of insight, or we may find it through patient research.

But there is one thing we must never say about truth. We must never say that all by ourselves we have originated or made it up. We can make up untruths but never the truth itself. For any man or woman to claim to originate the truth is a great impiety, because truth is always and everywhere God’s truth, and he is its sole Revealer.

The words “always and everywhere” remind us that the Scriptures tell about God’s truth in creation, his covenant relation to his people, his work in redemption, and his sovereign control over all things and all humanity. They deal with every part of human life. Throughout their pages, they testify to our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom Augustine so beautifully said, “Although he is our native country, he made himself also the Way to that country.”

In this time of materialism and secular humanism, every Christian needs to develop the kind of mind that sees the whole of life and culture in the light of biblical truth. Toward meeting this need, biblical scholarship has its obligation. The Scriptures are the primary source for relating faith to the spacious palaces of knowledge. With all its commitment to research, biblical scholarship need never lapse into parochialism; though it deals with particulars, it is obligated to see them all in relation to the seamless garment of learning as a whole.

The close analytical study of the Bible is an absorbing pursuit. But for the Christian scholar and the preacher it must never be allowed to trespass on the devotional use of Scripture. “The word of God is living and active,” as the writer of Hebrews said (Heb. 4:12–13) in a passage that moves from the written to the incarnate Word. “The words of Paul,” said Luther in a vivid figure, “are no dead words; they are living creatures and have hands and feet.” So scholarly study of the Bible must go hand in hand with its devotional use, lest even the best of methodology should lapse into unfeeling dissection of the living words of God.

In a book entitled The House on College Avenue, James Blackwood says of one of the early presidents of Wooster College, “He belonged to the tough intellectual breed of men who yoked piety with learning.” To use the Bible devotionally helps us yoke piety with learning. This kind of use means that we go to the Bible first as hungry and thirsty souls—hearing God speak to us in its pages, claiming its promises, meditating on its words, resting in its comfort, seeking in it God’s direction for our life and work.

For this there is one chief requisite—the discipline of time, that is, keeping inviolate a daily period of prayer and of Scripture reading for their own sake.

“Unless we love the truth,” said Pascal, “we cannot know it,” a statement akin to his aphorism elsewhere in the Pensées that “the heart has its reasons which reason does not know.” In its Christian context, to love the truth is to love the Lord Jesus, who is the truth, and to love the Bible, the written word of truth. When the risen Lord met the disciples on the Emmaus Road, Luke tells us that “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). Later, after he had broken bread with the two disciples and their eyes had been opened to recognize who he was, they hurried back to Jerusalem with burning hearts, eager to tell how they had been with the Lord. Then, in a room whose door was locked, he came to them again and said, “Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” To which Luke adds, “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:44–45). So we see that discerning Christ in the Scriptures is requisite for understanding their central message. A question every Bible scholar should be asking himself is this, “Is my handling of the Bible in my research and in my teaching and preaching bringing me nearer to Christ?”

But in still another way the truth relates to our use of the Bible. It tests our integrity. Paul told Timothy, “Do your best to present yourself to God as … a workman who … correctly handles the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15). In this respect, Calvin set a high standard when he said, “I have not to my knowledge corrupted or twisted a single passage … and when I could have drawn out a far-fetched meaning, if I had studied subtlety, I put it under my feet.” Some clever sermons or articles might wither in the bud if all who expound Scripture were as honest as Calvin was in handling the word of truth.

And what about our receptiveness to the truth, our openness to it, come what may? We must repudiate any kind of what, to coin a word, may be called “aletheiaphobia”—fear of the truth. Sometimes evangelicals tend to be afraid of newly discovered truth. If so, they may have been equating some cherished doctrinal formulation or historical position with final truth. So when some hitherto unrecognized truth, some breakthrough into wide knowledge, faces them, it may seem a threat and they may react in fear or anger. But as Plato said in The Republic: “No man should be angry at what is true.” Why? Because for a Christian to be angry at what is true is to be angry at God.

There is, however, another side of “aletheiaphobia,” and it relates to those of a more liberal persuasion. Prone, perhaps, to accept the new too readily and uncritically as true, they may see in old yet unwelcome truth a threat to their breadth of view. But what if some of the older positions that have been discarded as outmoded or unhistorical should be shown, after all, to be true? Then these too must be accepted, because truth is sovereign.

Truth is never our private possession. It is always to be shared so that others may understand it. To be a biblical scholar or preacher of the Word entails the obligation to express the truth as clearly as one can. Oh, for more scholars and preachers who know the power of plain, simple words and are willing to endure the agony of good writing and speaking in order to make God’s truth clear to others!

One morning in 1953, it was my privilege to have a conversation with C. S. Lewis at Magdalene College, Oxford. While we were discussing the need for clarity in writing and speaking, Dr. Lewis told me about hearing a young parson preach. Very much in earnest, the young man ended his sermon like this, “And now, my friends, if you do not believe these truths, there may be for you grave eschatological consequences.”

“I went to him afterwards,” said Dr. Lewis, “and asked, ‘Did you mean that they would be in danger of hell?’ ‘Why, yes,’ the parson said. ‘Then why in the world didn’t you say so?’” Lewis replied.

Finally, to affirm the authority of Scripture carries with it the obligation of obeying Scripture. To submit to Jesus Christ as the Lord of one’s mind, as every Christian scholar must, requires obedience to his commands, lest we hear him say, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46). An integral part of Jesus’ Great Commission in Matthew 28 is this clause, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” He declared himself to be “the way, the truth, and the life.” He said he “came to seek and to save what was lost,” to “give his life as a ransom for many,” so that we “may have life, and have it to the full.” He made it crystal clear that we must believe in him to be saved. But he also said much about justice and compassion and stewardship and our duty to our neighbors. This too is part of his teaching and of his truth, and we must respond to it.

In his book, Paul’s Attitude to Scripture, E. Earle Ellis tells how an admirer once said to Adolph Schlatter, the renowned New Testament scholar, that he had always wanted to meet a theologian like him who stood upon the word of God. Schlatter replied, “Thank you. But I don’t stand on the word of God; I stand under it.” He wasn’t quibbling about prepositions. The distinction he made is a crucial one, and it goes to the heart of our discipleship as servants of the Word.

For more than a year, Americans asked, when will the “hostage crisis” be solved? When the Iranian Parliament takes up the issue? When America gives in to Iranian demands? When America gets a president who will deal forcefully with those international pirates? If you could have gotten satisfactory answers to all of the above questions you still would not have hit the “real” issue.

The “real” issue regarding hostages and the evangelical church has no connection with the nation of Iran. While the church was right to pray for the safe return of all the Iranian hostages, that is not the primary problem the church must face.

The “real” hostage issue facing the evangelical church was not in Iran, but in what the church is not doing regarding those people it is holding hostage in America. Yes, the evangelical church is guilty of holding hostages. This statement can be documented and names of the actual hostages can be made public. As a group, we call them second-, third-, and fourth-term missionaries.

Before you convene a Senate panel to investigate these serious charges, let me show you how a church goes about taking and holding hostages.

A church starts the process innocently enough by sending young people off to serve overseas in the evangelization of the world. It even underwrites a percentage of their support expenses. It faithfully keeps supplying the same dollar figure, nor the percentage, for the succeeding 10 or 15 years. Each “missionary minded” church in this way “supports” several missionaries—according to their own bulletins and annual reports. This looks very good on paper. It works out very badly for the missionary. Keep reading; you will see from the following interview with a leader from a hostage-holding church why this is so.

Interviewer: Sir, may I ask a few questions about your church missions program?

Church leader: Certainly, ask anything you like. Our books are open; we have nothing to hide. The annual report shows we support 21 different missionaries.

Interviewer: Is that the current number?

Church leader: Yes, that is correct and up to date.

Interviewer: How much does it cost a missionary to live overseas each month? Would $1,200 be an excessive figure?

Church leader: Not at all. Some may run double that figure.

Interviewer: Then why do you set a maximum of $250 for each of the missionaries you support? Can they live on that?

Church leader: Of course not. But we are not the only church involved in any missionary’s support. Our church gives some missionaries only about $50 a month. However, we try to give our own members who are missionaries the maximum $250 per month.

Interviewer: Is that enough? What about when the family increases? What about when the children get older and clothing and education costs increase? What do you do to help them then?

Church leader: Well, we … a … er …

Well, nothing! The church makes them hostages. Yes, the evangelical church in America makes its own missionaries hostages. They are held against their will in this great country until they can drum up enough new support, via galavanting from church to church to minister and gain prayer support. We call them “furloughed missionaries” but they really are “hostages” being held under church arrest.

I write from firsthand experience and can supply names and addresses of at least a dozen others currently living under church arrest.

Khomeini flagrantly violated international law by holding American diplomatic personnel hostage. Evangelical churches are violating Christian law. By failing to make adequate provisions for normal cost of living increases and inflation, evangelical churches are continually making hostages of second-, third-, and fourth-term missionaries.

EUGENE TAYLOR¹Mr. Taylor is a missionary with the Far Eastern Gospel Crusade in Tokyo.

That America’s three presidential candidates should have commended themselves as born-again Christians baffled some of the country’s European allies.

Unlike their transatlantic counterparts. British political leaders generally maintain a decent reticence about their faith. Many would tacitly agree, were a nineteenth-century prime minister’s words adapted to read: “Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of public life.”

Gone are the days when W.E. Gladstone publicly referred to “the impregnable rock of Holy Scripture.” More characteristic in these times is the answer given by Winston Churchill on his seventy-fifth birthday when someone asked if he feared death. “I am ready to meet my Maker,” he replied. “Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”

A biography of Margaret Thatcher says that her father was a Methodist lay preacher, the family were three-times-on-Sunday chapel goers, and that Britain’s first woman prime minister was married in church. That is all; the whole volume has no other mention of religion. Mrs. Thatcher did, however, make a profession of faith when last year she condemned the “heresy” that man is perfectible. This doctrine, she continued, supposes “that if we get our social institutions right … we shall have exorcised the devil.” Her conclusion; “This as a Christian I am bound to shun.” Mrs. Thatcher does not make a practice of such utterances, but that seems all right for starters.

A new dimension has appeared on the British political scene with the unexpected election of Michael Foot as leader of the (Labour) Opposition in the House of Commons. Though his father also was a Methodist lay preacher, Foot is on the advisory council of the British Humanist Association, and a member of the National Secular Society. At 67, he would in the normal course of events be prime minister if the Labour Party wins the next general election (to be held by early 1984).

Apart from dark allusions to the coming of age of Orwell’s Big Brother, many Britons are profoundly uneasy about Foot’s elevation. This was a triumph for the party’s left wing against its moderates. Foot has strong views on many subjects, notably that of nuclear disarmament. More immediate misgivings were expressed when, on his first day as Labour leader, Foot did nothing to stop the ugly scenes in the Commons when some of his supporters physically barred the entrance into the chamber of the queen’s representative. Conservatives’ policies had provoked them, they said.

Previous prime ministers have had agnostic views, but have gone along with all the religious ceremonial inseparable to a church-state relationship. How an avowed atheist would cope with it makes for speculation at once dismal and intriguing.

Mr. Foot so far has kept prudent silence on the issue. Will he keep the nonfaith against the temptations of lukewarm Christianity? Or will the voters spare him the intolerable choice? They may, if they agree with Prime Minister Disraeli, a Jew, who once told an Anglican bishop: “Man is a being born to believe.”

J. D. DOUGLAS²Dr. Douglas is editor at large forChristianity Today. living in Saint Andrews, Scotland.

Current evidence challenges the charge that religious broadcasting is hurting the church.

The so-called electronic church is booming. In a recent “Today” show, Tom Brokaw noted the religious radio-TV audience numbers an estimated 130 million per week. Forty-seven percent of the American people regularly tune in to religious programs; by contrast, only 41 percent of the people attend church services. Clearly more Americans receive religious instruction and spiritual inspiration from the television screen than from the pulpit. On the surface, at least, TV and radio religion are a booming success.

But the “electronic church” has also come under increasing fire as a religious liability rather than a spiritual asset. The liberal establishment has ranged itself solidly against it. Roman Catholics (remembering the halcyon days of Fulton J. Sheen) are more ambivalent, but except for charismatic Catholics, they have not generally extended their blessing. Even some mainstream evangelicals have indicated severe reservations about its contribution to the Christian church—although most evangelicals, and particularly evangelical charismatics, have lent it at least qualified approval.

We must, therefore, raise the question: Is religious broadcasting a help or hindrance to the Christian faith?

Arguments we hear mounted against it are formidable: (1) It offers a cheap grace—a religion that solves all problems in this world and the next with no moral demands upon its devotees. (2) Its gospel is simplistic—only believe and everything will be all right. In this life you can be healthy and wealthy if not wise, and in the next all will be rosy and comfortable (not much is said about hell, which seems, oddly, to disturb some liberals). (3) It avoids the hard issues of our twentieth-century civilization. Instead of facing up to the really important and difficult moral issues, it majors in details of personal religion like pornography, or in nonissues like prayer in the schools and Sunday blue laws. (4) Its message is determined not by moral conviction but by what the traffic will bear. No Elijahs can spring out of the TV circuit, for the Ahabs of this world will not support them financially. In effect, true religion is prostituted and TV religion becomes self-serving religious entertainment that offers the public whatever it is willing to pay for. (5) It weakens rather than strengthens the local church. As John Mariani sums up neatly, if not elegantly: “Preachers on the tube take money out of church coffers and bodies out of church pews.” Mainstream, liberally oriented churches have lost millions of members in the last two decades. And money—big money—does pour into the coffers of the religious broadcasters. Time magazine estimates $51 million to Jim Bakker of PTL; $47 million to Pat Robertson of the 700 Club; $46 million to Jerry Falwell and Moral Majority; $25 million to Rex Humbard; $20 million to Jimmy Swaggart; $11 million to Robert Schuller; and, all told, according to the Wall Street Journal, over a half-billion—each year and growing.

What shall we say to this indictment? Shall we denounce religious radio and TV programs en masse? The problem with this broadside against electronic religious programs is that it may very well fit some, but when intended as a general characterization and condemnation of religious broadcasting as a whole, it is false.

Take the matter of the gospel. The so-called gospel presented by Mormonism, transcendental meditation (TM), the liberal establishment generally, and the legalistic side of Roman Catholicism, is not good news at all, and it is certainly not the Christian gospel. This gospel is the good news that God loves us, and on condition of faith or personal commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, offers to forgive us freely of all our sin. Further, he accepts us into his fellowship, and gives us the Holy Spirit to empower us to live meaningful lives, morally better than we ever could live on our own. The fact is that much of the current opposition to radio and TV religious broadcasting boils down to a single objection: “We don’t like the message.” In reality, the objection is not against religious broadcasting but against the religious views of the broadcasters and especially against their success.

The most serious charge is that contemporary religious broadcasting by its message and its method is hurting the church. But the evidence is all against this charge. Christian Broadcasting Network marketing specialist John Roos discovered that 34 percent of the viewers became more involved in a local church and only 2 percent less involved as a result of listening to religious broadcasts. Another poll by the American Research Corporation in Irvine, California, found a 26 percent increase in church attendance against a 9 percent decrease as a result of listening to religious programs over radio and television. In a study for the National Council of Churches, electronic church consultant Robert M. Liebert, professor of psychology and psychiatry at New York University, declared:

“There is little reason to believe that the electronics are actually pulling people away from churches they would otherwise be attending. Rather, people have left the traditional denominations and their traditional services and then found satisfaction or identity with electronic church offerings … there is some research suggesting that exposure to electronic services moves people to join local churches, and not to estrange themselves from community involvement.” Or as Ben Armstrong of National Religious Broadcasters says, “The liberal groups are apprehensive about the electronic church because we seem to be succeeding.” He adds, “Naturally, people who have been moved by gospel broadcasts seem to have joined evangelical churches, where the sermons, Bible teaching, and basic theological approach are similar to what they’ve heard on the air.”

Of course, this does not mean that all is well in religious broadcasting. The so-called electronic church is not really a church. At best it is but an instrument of the church. It must guard against competing with the local church. In the long run, it must be evaluated in terms of the contribution it makes to the church. Some religious broadcasts, in spite of loose claims, are not Christian in any legitimate sense of the term. Some broadcasters need to give far stricter accounting of their finances—especially when they appeal over the air for funds. Christians must learn to discriminate and exercise responsible stewardship in their support of programs. Spiritual discernment is needed to detect perversions of the gospel and to insure faithful preaching of the Word of God. Good taste is essential so the gospel will not fall into disrepute. Evangelical Christians cannot escape responsibility in these matters, for most religious broadcasting today is made possible by the financial gifts of committed evangelicals. If they pay to support poor quality programs and fail to support better programs, then the good will automatically be weeded out, the poor quality programs will thrive, and the cause of Christ will suffer accordingly.

Radio and television, with current developments of multiple channels and cable lines, present new challenges and unlimited possibility for the Christian church. The already significant role of religious broadcasting has not begun to peak. Its potential for evangelism can scarcely be exaggerated. There are 50 to 60 million unchurched Americans, but they all watch television. Some can be reached through preaching and straightforward evangelistic appeals. More can be won only indirectly by imaginative programs of cultural significance and entertainment. Perhaps an equal number live on the fringe of the nominal church—members, but uninstructed in Christian faith. These, too, can be reached by television. Well-taught Christians can profit from biblical instruction and spiritual nourishment. Bible schools of the air offer large possibilities for instruction of high quality now otherwise impossible in many communities. Wholesome entertainment for the family, programs for children, a Christian interpretation of the news, possibilities for Christian ministry to the local community and to the world at large—all are open to an enlightened and imaginative use of electronic media for the gospel and for the enrichment of our Christian experience and of our lives.

But this will not all come automatically. We must plan for it, and demand it, and work for it, and pay for it, and pray for it—that this marvelous instrument may be used, not for evil, but for good.

Recent changes in interpretation of the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom give rise to a pressing question: “What can I as an evangelical Christian do to preserve this freedom for others and myself?”

If it has truly become a serious question whether a group of religious students can meet constitutionally on a public college or university campus (like any other student group), there would certainly appear to be an urgency that we wrestle with the issues raised. If a church must spend substantial sums to hire an attorney and defend in court its right to release a staff member whom it has discovered to be a practicing homosexual, something in our law or judicial system must be amiss. And most disconcerting of all, if home Bible studies are subject to governmental prohibition, what is free from the long arm of the secular state?

We recognize that these are very sensitive and complex issues on which sincere Christians hold differing presuppositions and beliefs. Moreover, we would unequivocally affirm our own commitment to the historical and constitutional separation of church and state—a principle we believe to be beneficial to both. However, when separation is interpreted to require discrimination against religious persons or practices, rather than governmental neutrality toward particular religious groups, it is incumbent upon responsible Christians to seek to correct the resulting imbalance.

The first thing concerned Christians should do in response to the issues that have been raised is to become adequately informed. Too often we have been guilty of acting on incomplete or even inaccurate information, without carefully thinking through long-range implications and ramifications of our actions. John R.W. Stott, in his excellent little book, ChristianMission in the Modern World (InterVarsity, 1975), advocates the formation of “study and action groups” to respond to such issues. He wisely explains that he “deliberately used the expression ‘study and action groups’ because we Christians have a tendency to pontificate from a position of ignorance, and we need to grapple with the complexities of our subject before recommending some course of responsible action.…” To this we can but offer a resounding “Amen.”

A second observation is that more Christians should become involved in the vocations from which decisions such as these originate. Evangelist Luis Palau has compared Christians to manure, making the analogy that where Christians “pile up” in one place they begin to stink—but when they are spread out, they fertilize the land. There is a lot of wisdom in that. The application in our present context is that if Christians are to be salt and light in the legal and governmental institutions of our society, we simply must become more directly involved in them. Much has been written recently about Christians becoming involved in politics, and it is not our intention here to treat that whole controversial subject. Rather, we are simply advocating that individual Christians should regard law, politics, government, education, and other areas from which these sensitive policies are developed and promulgated as alternate fields for Christian mission.

Though vocational calling into one of these fields may be absent, many avenues remain available to someone concerned that our legal system maintain a healthy, neutral relationship with religion. Those avenues, which are available with respect to sociopolitical involvement generally, would include (but not be limited to) the following actions:

1. Pray. We are commanded to pray for those in authority; while this should not be used as an excuse not to get more personally involved, it is believed that this is one Christian responsibility that is often overlooked.

2. Form or become involved in an existing “study and action group,” either under the auspices of a single church or in connection with Christians from different churches, but with common concerns.

3. Once you feel confident your opinions are based upon adequate information, communicate them to others, including other Christians, politicians, government bureaucrats, administrators, lawyers, judges, and anyone else who is involved or interested. (While it is inappropriate to communicate with a judge about a particular case, it is entirely appropriate to attempt to educate a judge about a current issue.)

4. Where possible, personally meet with individuals involved in pertinent issues, especially those on the local level. For example, calm and reasonable discussion of objections to humanistic sex education or “values clarification” courses with local school officials and administrators can be very productive.

5. Join organizations that exist to respond reflectively and constructively to these issues. The Christian Legal Society (P.O. Box 2069, Oak Park, Ill. 60303), through its affiliate, the Center for Law and Religious Freedom, is one such organization.

6. Encourage Christian young people, or others who may be faced with changes in vocation or avocation, to consider a calling to a ministry in law, politics, government, education, or some related area.

If one understands the Christian mission to include all that God’s people are called into the world to be and do, there are probably few needier mission fields at the present time than our own public institutions. It has been argued that a primary reason for such a need is the relative neglect by Christians in this century of their responsibility to be involved in the affairs of this world as well as the next. But the price of religious freedom is eternal vigilance. If religious freedom as we have known it in America is to continue, it will most assuredly require a return to this age-old battle by large numbers of men and women of evangelical Christian conviction.

Since last year was the year of evangelicals and politics, we are concerned that the political agenda may override the church’s evangelistic imperative. We hope I political differences will not put unnecessary stumbling blocks in the way of anyone’s giving a serious hearing to the claims of Jesus Christ, which transcend politics.

The more that political positions become identified with Christianity, the more danger there is of confusing allegiance to a cause with allegiance to Christ himself. The more that “Christian” reasons are given to bolster partisan positions, the more reasons there are for those who don’t agree with those positions to turn away from life’s most important issue: confession of faith in Christ as Lord and Savior.

“Evangelical” stands for both historic doctrinal orthodoxy and proclamation of the evangel. From all we can discover, the need for intelligent, loving witness of Christ is still critical. What reader of this magazine does not know of someone who at this moment is living independently of Christ’s lordship; of someone who has never experienced release from sin’s guilt and condemnation?

A number of denominations, religious organizations, and concerned lay people are joining forces to call evangelicals to find better ways to evangelize. The American Festival of Evangelism at Kansas City, July 27–30, will serve as a rallying point for Christians who want to mobilize for evangelism. Perhaps “festival” is not the best word to describe the gathering. The program will include hard-hitting analyses of current issues as well as down-to-earth instructional workshops. Now is the time for local churches to plan to participate.

One may think that a couple of days of talking won’t transform churches; but a start has to be made somewhere. If only a handful of people in a church get turned on at Kansas City, who knows what the results will be?

We must not permit evangelical visibility to impede, or to be mistaken for, true evangelism. “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” cried the apostle. “Knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men,” he said. Holy fear must permeate evangelicalism if the people who love to take the label are to live up to its evangelistic tradition in 1981.