Page 5653 – Christianity Today (2024)

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.…”

Thomas Jefferson hadn’t known about teacher certification, approved textbooks, or minimum competency testing when he helped write the Bill of Rights. Otherwise, his brief First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution might have been more specific, dealing with church schools, as well as churches.

As it stands now, however, the courts must decide how the 200-year-old amendment applies to religious freedom in the twentieth century and—due to the present Christian school phenomena—how it applies to state regulation of private and church-related schools.

The rapid growth of private and church-related schools now is matched only by the increasing number of court battles that put the individual states and church schools in direct opposition.

Each faction has a strong case. The states argue that students should be guaranteed a basic education, and they often want to monitor all state schools to make sure that this education is being provided. The monitoring process may involve mandatory annual reports filed by the schools or more direct involvement, such as conforming to public school standards.

The church-related and private schools also want to give their students a basic education—but in their own way and without government interference. They say that Christian day schools are no different from any other church ministry: Government involvement in the church school would be the same as involvement in the church, itself, and violate their constitutional right to religious freedom.

A recent legal bout between the state of North Carolina and sixty-three of its Christian fundamentalist schools showed the church-state controversy in microcosm. In this instance, the state “won.” The state took the Christian schools to court last April after the schools refused to file reports regarding their operations. The forms, which must be filled out completely for a school to be licensed by the state, asked questions about teacher certification, textbooks used, and school supplies. During preliminary hearings, about 2,000 angry churchmen showed up outside the Raleigh courtroom to protest.

Representing the Christian schools was Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, attorney William A. Ball. Ball won the landmark Supreme Court case in 1972 that gave certain Minnesota Amish the right to keep their children from high schools, and he is regarded as a “specialist” in cases of this sort.

In his closing argument at the hearing, Ball told Wake Superior Court judge Donald L. Smith that the required forms were in violation of freedom of religion. In a Raleigh News and Observer report, Ball said, “It’s getting to the point where the state is imposing everything.… When the state absorbs education, then we’ve crossed a very dangerous point.”

Andrew A. Vanore, Jr., a North Carolina deputy attorney general, argued that the regulations were “reasonable.” He said that there was no evidence to show that “any of the regulations imposed in fact violated any religious belief that is deeply rooted in religious faith.” The schools in Vanore’s view simply did not want to submit to any state regulations.

In his early September decision, Judge Smith saw it Vanore’s way. Smith said in a twenty-three page decision that the state has a “legitimate and compelling duty to insure that all students in the state are provided a basic education and competent teachers.”

Smith’s ruling was not entirely rigid. He said the private and church-owned schools would not have to meet exactly the same standards as the public schools: The private schools would not be required to have the same number of teachers, the same quality or quantity of instructional materials, or the same textbooks as the public schools. But Smith still maintained a church school’s obligation to file state reports. Soon after the decision the schools voted to appeal the court order to file reports, and the state appeals court granted them a temporary stay.

Several other church school disputes still are hanging fire in North Carolina. In late 1977 its State Board of Education voted to include private schools in new achievement and competency testing programs.

Church school officials vehemently protested the decision, and the State Board decided to exempt the schools from the program for the 1977–78 school year. The church school leaders wanted to know how the test information would be reported, why socio-economic information about the parents was required on the forms, and who was going to pay for the programs. (Under the program, high school seniors would be tested on reading and writing skills, and passing grades would be needed for graduation. Standard achievement tests would be given at other selected grade levels.)

In June, more than sixty North Carolina fundamentalist schools also refused to pay their first-quarter unemployment insurance taxes. Church leaders claimed that their schools were part of church ministry and thereby exempt under the allowance given to churches.

The church-state controversy is not unique to North Carolina. Court battles have occurred in several states.

Last summer, parents, teachers, and students of twenty Christian schools in Kentucky filed suit in Franklin County Court asking that state standards not be imposed upon them by the Kentucky Board of Education. As with other church-related and private schools involved in similar state regulation disputes, these schools were willing to meet state health and safety requirements. But they were especially opposed to teacher certification and board-approved texts that excluded the biblical version of creation.

These parents are particularly concerned about the upcoming decision of the court, which has taken the case under advisem*nt until mid-September. Only a court order has stopped a Kentucky Board of Education order to crack down on parents of children attending schools that aren’t accredited by the state. Under Kentucky statutes, parents can be charged with encouraging truancy by sending their children to nonaccredited church schools. If convicted, a parent faces a maximum one-year jail term and a $500 fine.

The position of the state is common to that in other courtrooms. Bert Combs, former Kentucky governor who represents the school board, said state regulation is needed to prevent “fly-by-night” schools that inadequately train children who cannot compete with their peers. “If the court rules for them [the church schools],” Combs said, “it would set the precedent that anyone could come to Kentucky and set up a school and teach the Bible and nothing else, and charge as much as you want.”

Grading The Schools

Americans aren’t especially happy with the nation’s public school system, national pollsters are finding out. That may explain one reason for the church school boom. A recent CBS News poll revealed that “there is deep and widespread worry that education in American public schools has not only not improved, but has declined perceptively.”

More than 40 per cent of the 1,600 adults polled thought education today was worse than what they had received. They cited the adverse effect of television, poor teachers, and inadequate parental discipline as reasons for the decline.

In this survey conducted for an August CBS special, “Is Anyone Out There Learning?” many respondents agreed on ways to correct the situation. About 76 per cent favored “back to the basics” education; 82 per cent wanted minimum competency testing; and another 83 per cent said class promotions should be made strictly upon merit—not for “social” reasons.

Of the 1,600 adults responding in the tenth annual Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitude Toward the Public Schools, only 9 per cent gave the public schools an “A” grade for 1978 as compared to 18 per cent four years ago.

“Lack of discipline” was given as the biggest problem facing America’s public school system in the poll. Right behind in a list of ten major problems were dope/drugs and lack of proper finances.

In their request for “better teachers” in the public schools, the Gallup respondents wanted teachers who took a personal interest in each student and his or her problems, rather than just a teacher with better training and knowledge.

Another state witness answered a church school complaint about approved textbooks. Kentucky’s deputy superintendent of public instruction said Christian schools could apply for exemptions from using texts they find objectionable, but that no such requests had been made. (Representing the church schools in the case is attorney Ball.)

Other recent church-state cases include:

• Six northern Minnesota families are fighting court rulings that order them to send their children to public schools; they say compulsory education violates their freedom of religion.

• An evangelical Methodist church official in Dublin, Maryland, is fighting a Maryland Health and Welfare Council order that would require him to fill out a questionnaire on regulations involving church day care centers, camps, schools, and other youth facilities.

• The Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) said that Grove City College (United Presbyterian), Grove City, Pennsylvania, must comply with the Title IX program having to do with women’s rights. HEW attorneys say Grove City must comply since it is a federal institution in the sense that many of its students receive federal scholarship monies.

Certain fundamentalist groups are gearing up for legal battles ahead. Church school supporters already have spawned at least two national defense funds: the Christian Law Association in Ohio and the Christian Legal Defense Fund in Texas. Newsletters, films, and demonstrations have contributed toward making the church school sector formidable.

Indeed, the movement is growing. Even though most Christian schools are run by independent congregations, the number of these schools has tripled during the last ten years. The American Association of Christian Schools, a six-year-old Normal, Illinois, group, even has developed an accrediting system for church-run schools. An estimated half a million students attend these day schools.

Lack of discipline, busing, and declining moral standards in the public schools are common reasons for church school popularity. Critics of the church school movement see the fundamentalist surge as an isolationist escape. They also say the fundamentalists hurt programs of racial integration by separating themselves into white conclaves.

School Tax Credits: Making New Converts

Not all church leaders want Uncle Sam completely removed from the private school scene, as Senator Robert Packwood and other proponents of the controversial tuition tax credit bill found out; he recruited and received support for the bill from key evangelicals.

Floyd Robertson, public affairs director of the National Association of Evangelicals, superchurch pastors Robert Schuller and Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, talk show host and head of the Christian Broadcasting Network, all favored the bill. Even evangelist Billy Graham voiced loud support for this bill that would give federal income tax credit for school tuition.

Evangelical support for the bill was an about face for some people who in the past would have opposed the bill on the grounds of separation of church and state; tax credits—money subtracted from taxes due—would especially benefit students in parochial schools.

Dismay over public school conditions may have caused the turnabout. Graham complained about “the lack of moral and spiritual guidance for the young people in much of our public school system” in a Washington Star article. He said that the tuition tax credit would give parents more freedom of choice regarding the schools their children attend.

Indeed, the tax credit bill may cause parents to look closer at the private and church-related school option. The House version of the bill, passed in June, would provide up to $100 in tax credits for elementary and secondary school tuition and $250 for college tuition. The recently passed Senate bill allows credits, but only for college education, of up to $250 per pupil per year. A House and Senate joint committee will now put together a compromise bill.

But President Jimmy Carter has promised to veto the legislation. He opposes the bill “very deeply” because of its cost and because of the church-state issue.

If Congress overrides Carter’s veto, the bill is certain to face a Supreme Court test. Attorney General Griffin Bell earlier said in a written opinion that the bill was unconstitutional.

Religious groups have taken opposing stands on tax relief to parents of children in nonpublic schools. Roman Catholic, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and Orthodox Jewish educators traditionally have supported such legislation, but now they have been joined by unlikely reinforcements. Some black groups that formerly opposed the bill on grounds that it would encourage school segregation have changed sides. Roy Innes, of the Congress on Racial Equality, says tax credits may stimulate improvement of urban schools and divert power away from the educational establishment to the parents.

The strongest support may be coming from backers of fundamentalist schools. Such schools have tripled in number during the last ten years, according to Arno Weniger, American Association of Christian Schools official.

But the opposition won’t die in this lively debate. Senator Mark Hatfield, who has a large evangelical following, had led the fight against the bill. The National Education Association, the NAACP, and various Jewish groups are fighting the bill; they say it will kill public education and give the private schools windfall profits.

Shortly after the Senate acted on tuition tax credits, it voted down a bill that would have provided $2.5 billion direct aid to nonpublic schools over the next five years. Senator Ernest Hollings, who led the fight to exclude elementary and secondary school tuition credits from the Senate version of the bill, also fought this aid proposal. This time, however, he was backed by both the opponents and the supporters of aid to private schools; they agreed with Hollings that the nonpublic school aid was “undesirable, unconstitutional, and fiscally unsound.”

Army of Virtue

Ethics and morals courses will be included in a new four-year curriculum to begin this fall at the United States Military Academy.

Such courses have never been offered before at West Point, where the honor code (“a cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, nor tolerate those who do”) had always been considered sufficient for maintaining cadet discipline. But last year’s cheating scandal at the academy—the school’s worst, involving 150 students—prompted a reevaluation of that policy.

Lieutenant General Andrew J. Good-paster, who was called from retirement to assume the superintendent’s post, instituted the courses to halt the moral decay that he claims has characterized the army since the Viet Nam War. Cadets must take two ethics courses their first year, and another course will be required each subsequent year. Goodpaster envisions West Point graduates of the program as “missionaries,” armed with virtues that will rub off on their fellow soldiers in the field.

The new ethics curriculum has no particular spiritual emphasis, though West Point chaplain James D. Ford serves on the planning committee that designed the courses. Mandatory spiritual training ended six years ago at the academy when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that its policy of requiring attendance at chapel services was unconstitutional.

Despite the academy’s voluntary worship program, cadet interest in spiritual matters is described as “strong” by one of the school chaplains. Chaplain David Camp, a civilian and one of three assistant chaplains at West Point, says that many of the academy’s thirty-six companies (each company has about 120 men) hold small group Bible studies.

Camp leads a daily 6:20 A.M. chapel service that is attended by 150 to 250 cadets. He also helps with a Saturday night Christian coffeehouse ministry.

Camp, who along with fellow chaplain Dave McDowell is a graduate of Wheaton College, estimates that 40 per cent of the cadets participate in school religious activities, which may include Sunday worship services or small-group meetings. About ninety cadets teach Sunday school classes that are attended by children of post personnel. This Christian education program is rich in tradition—the late President Dwight Eisenhower once taught Sunday school there.

Fall From The Family

(The following update has been distilled from extensive accounts filed by correspondent Joseph M. Hopkins.)

The latest rupture between evangelist Gamer Ted Armstrong, 48, and his ailing 86-year-old father Herbert W. Armstrong, founder and ruler of the 65,000-member Worldwide Church of God (WCG), appears final. Gamer Ted was excommunicated by his father in June following months of bickering and maneuvering within the WCG hierarchy.

Now the younger Armstrong has announced that his new organization—the Church of God International—will celebrate the traditional Feast of Tabernacles in mid-October at a Georgia coastal resort. Gamer Ted has also launched a daily radio broadcast on several stations serving parts of Texas and California. (The WCG is based in Pasadena, California—an area covered by one of the stations—and for years it operated a college near Gamer Ted’s Tyler, Texas, residence.)

In a letter to WCG members last month, the elder Armstrong warned, “The Gamer Ted Armstrong Church has now started a campaign to draw away both whatever sheep and shepherds he can now entice to follow him—to follow a man instead of the living God!” Herbert Armstrong also “marked” his son—meaning that any WCG members who contact or support him likewise may be excommunicated.

The younger Armstrong insisted that he was not starting his own church. In a telephone interview he said, “I am merely continuing the ministry to which God has called me.” He added that he “cannot deny the special gift of God’s anointing” by seeking secular employment.

No WCG ministers have yet joined the younger Armstrong’s rival church, spokesmen from both sides report. However, Garner Ted’s aide, Paul Hunting, said that “a lot of members have written and sent contributions.” Once the apparent heir to the WCG empire, Garner Ted had attracted popularity as the fair-haired host of “The World Tomorrow” show sponsored by the WCG on 500 radio and television stations.

The latest developments cap a stormy period in the WCG, a sect that mixes certain sabbath and law-keeping practices with tight discipline, triple tithing (the annual worldwide income of the church is between $65 million and $75 million, according to a WCG source), and a belief that Britain and America have replaced Israel in God’s plans.

Things began heading for a showdown last April when Garner Ted said the WCG’s 1,100-student Ambassador College would be moved from its posh Pasadena campus to the former branch campus in Big Sandy, Texas. He also resigned as president of the thirty-one-year-old school and named former Big Sandy dean Donald Ward as his replacement.

However, the elder Armstrong exercised his authority by rejecting Garner Ted’s decision to move the college. Instead, he announced that the college would be closed and be replaced by a small ministerial training center (See June 2 issue, page 41). He stripped his son of his executive title and powers, then canceled “The World Tomorrow” television show. WCG legal specialist Stanley Rader said the father’s wrath was particularly triggered by his son’s appointment of Ward as Ambassador College president without the elder Armstrong’s own knowledge or approval.

In June Herbert Armstrong sent his son into six months’ seclusion for him to seek repentance. He accused Garner Ted of too much secularism at the expense of theological content, especially in relation to his son’s television endeavors. He also blamed his son for taking administrative liberties. The elder Armstrong explained these grievances to WCG members in a reprint of a letter that he had written to his son two days earlier. In that letter he told his son, “You are defying and fighting against Jesus Christ, whose chosen servant I am.”

During his banishment, Los AngelesTimes reporter Bert Mann located Garner Ted at a WCG camp in Minnesota. In an interview, he complained that the WCG was “shot through with fear” and suffering from financial difficulties caused by lavish spending. Garner Ted said he “reluctantly agreed” to sign documents giving salaries of $200,000 to his father and $85,000 to himself. (He claimed that his own net worth was only $30,000.)

Herbert W. Armstrong excommunicated his son shortly after learning of the interview. In a letter of explanation to WCG members, he accused his son of diverting WCG mail and funds and for “distorted and false accusations” to the press. The elder Armstrong also cited drinking and gambling problems that he said had overtaken Garner Ted in 1971. He alluded to alleged sexual misconduct by his son in a January, 1972, incident; the elder Armstrong finally acknowledged that he had covered up wrongdoing. About thirty-five pastors left the church at that time, claiming a cover-up in the affair.

Garner Ted defended himself against the charges in a separate letter to WCG members. He also commented: “I am ashamed and embarrassed for my father that he is digging up a past that was forgotten and forgiven.”

In announcing formation of his own church, Armstrong said he had rejected a $50,000 annual retirement income and a luxury Lake Tahoe home, which were offered to him in exchange for an agreement not to reveal “certain confidential information I have concerning the work,” to refrain from religious broadcasting, and to stay away from WCG members.

Deaths

ROBERT T. KETCHAM, 89, pastor, who was instrumental in founding the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches in 1932 and former national representative of that group; in Chicago, after an extended illness.

GLENDON MCCULLOUGH, 56, executive director of the Brotherhood Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention and personal friend of President Jimmy Carter; in Memphis, in an automobile accident.

ARCHBISHOP NIKODIM, 48, high-ranking Russian Orthodox metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod, controversial ecumenist, one of six presidents of the World Council of Churches; in Rome, of a heart attack during an audience with Pope John Paul I.

ROBERT W PIERCE, 64, founder and former president of World Vision International and president of Samaritan’s Purse; in Duarte, California, of leukemia.

Thielicke’S Theology

The Evangelical Faith, Vol. 2, by Helmut Thielicke (Eerdmans, 1977, 477 pp., $13.95), is reviewed by Stephen M. Smith, Ph.D. candidate, Claremont Graduate School, Claremont, California.

In the second of three volumes of his systematic theology, the well-known German professor covers many crucial issues such as the nature and source of revelation, natural theology, the personality of God, the Trinity, and law and Gospel. In the second part of this volume he focuses on God the Son, the form of revelation. Here he discusses faith and history, the place of paradox, the value of the creeds, and the role of the three traditional offices of Christ: prophet, priest, and king.

Many such books orient the reader to the subject by discussing the history of the issue, presenting options, introducing key figures, and reciting dates. Thielicke does not. He presupposes some rudimentary knowledge of theology. For example, we have no separate discussion of the current study of New Testament Christology or an analysis of the history of the creeds. What we have is a Futheran theologian, who is not however in the tradition of scholastic orthodoxy, bringing his rich heritage into dialogue with the nineteenth-and twentieth-century liberal (Schleiermacher), philosophical (Hegel, Tillich), and existential (Bultmann) theology. Thielicke draws from the writings of men like Luther, Kierkegaard, and Martin Kähler.

This is theology done explicitly from the perspective of the person in Christ. Natural reason has been turned in on itself; it must be converted or “radically reoriented by revelation” lest it become hardened. God can only be known in his free act, his word in Jesus Christ. Faith cannot contemplate itself and gain knowledge; faith is the gift that comes by hearing what God has done. To know God in his mighty acts is truly to know God, but not his hidden majesty. Nevertheless we can be freed from our self-seeking subjectivity by the power of the Holy Spirit and hence freed to participate in the objective reality of salvation in Christ. This is the way Thielicke talks of God and what it means to know him. Putting it perhaps simplistically, Thielicke gives a powerful foundation for many of the heartfelt concerns that most pastors have. Here is no attempt to convert us to some sort of rationalism or orthodoxy. His theology combines in a dialectical tension God in his work for me and myself as one who has received new life by his grace.

In the christological section there are several issues to note. Thielicke builds his approach to Christology directly on the concerns of Kierkegaard. With the Dane, he is not afraid to speak of the mode of incarnation and its style as indirect. The earthly life of Jesus Christ was never without ambiguity; even the christological titles “never serve as definitions,” but are “emergency terms” to “trigger questions” and move one toward commitment. Jesus always “maintains the incognito.” The resurrection becomes a crucial turning point suffusing all the Gospel records with the retrospective glow of faith (pp. 345–357). This makes the question of the possibility of “isolating” a so-called historical Jesus hopeless (p. 304).

The way to Christology is through his way to us. The incognito pushes one to decision. The act of faith is paradoxically the gift of the Spirit; the experience of life in Christ is the premise of dogma. True dogma is “faith in the subsequent form of reflection.”

Years ago when I read Kierkegaard and his remarkably stimulating work on Christology, I wished that his concerns would again be renewed and presented for our times. Well, here it is. Maybe Thielicke lacks Kierkegaard’s stunning brilliance but he has used his insights to illumine the New Testament and to question the theological “greats” of our time.

This is not a book to begin with, but after some orientation in nineteenth-century European theology, it is not a book to miss. It is a powerful alternative to the rationalistic orthodoxies that have tended to dull us to a sense of paradox and mystery and that no longer think about Christ through his benefits. Here is theology that undergirds the great revival tradition that has been the distinctive factor in our evangelical heritage. It undergirds our heritage because it refuses to reflect on the faith apart from its meaning for our existence. This is theology for the church in mission.

The format of the translation by Geoffrey Bromiley could have been improved by closer conformity to the German original. Also, many modern books are referred to in the discussion as though they have never been translated, when in fact they have been. Also regrettable is that the many quotations from Luther are cited from the standard German edition of his works even when they are almost all available in the now-completed American edition. The publisher is to be commended for keeping the price down on a lengthy and valuable book, but it should not have been done at the cost of such bibliographical confusion.

The Search For Love

Please Love Me, by Keith Miller (Word, 1977, 316 pp., $8.95), is reviewed by Philip Yancey, editor, “Campus Life,” Carol Stream, Illinois.

Keith Miller claims to find his chief identity these days as a writer, not just as a speaker and church-renewal advocate. And, indeed, in Please Love Me he tackles a formidable literary challenge. The book attempts to weave together an incredibly complex story line while injecting a psychodramatic explanation of the events.

Unlike most of Miller’s other books, this one is not about himself; it tells the true story of Hedy Robinson (a pseudonym), a beautiful girl who becomes a child model, an abused actress, a carnival hawker of reclining chairs, a homemaker-of-the-year in a posh suburban area, and eventually a helpless quadriplegic. Along the way she tries, sometimes unsuccessfully, to fight off the sexual advances of male admirers. The reader is frequently reminded that her saga is a singular quest for the love her father denied to her.

The author and publisher have already absorbed a good deal of flack from bookstore owners and hate mail from readers upset about the allegedly explicit nature of the sex scenes. Actually, his treatment is tasteful, and, as he points out in the foreword, considerably less explicit than many Bible passages. Sex was a major thread in Hedy’s story, but it is obviously new territory for Christian biographies.

Miller says he hoped for total sales of 50,000 copies, but to his surprise that many copies sold in just two weeks. He gets about 100 letters a week from deeply affected readers. The story line is one of the most remarkable in recent evangelical literature. After Hedy is paralyzed in a car accident she still faces two murder attempts and dozens of medical crises. But in her hospital room, through a volunteer nurse, she meets Christ and is transformed. Her healing process, a painful, wrenching struggle, is told in an honest, captivating style. Its realism makes it an exemplary passage of hope.

Fortunately, Miller doesn’t end the story with the warm, happy glow of Hedy’s immersion into the Christian speaking circuit. He spends 100 pages describing her roller-coaster emotions as she’s manipulated and victimized by Christian curiosity-seekers.

As a storyteller, Miller has developed a clean, flowing style. He sets scenes well (sometimes with awkward pacing) and Hedy’s soap-opera-like story rarely lags. Where he fails, in my opinion, is in his attempt to superimpose his psychological interpretation on the events. “Don’t describe, render!” Gertrude Stein cautioned Hemingway, and the advice applies to Please Love Me. The scenes are not allowed to speak for themselves. Almost as if he doesn’t trust the power of his writing, Miller too obviously explains what’s going on inside Hedy’s bruised psyche. At the end, her entire pilgrimage and anguished search are resolved with a vague reference to “the miracle of intimacy.”

Keith Miller wrote Please Love Me as an emotional outlet after his own divorce in 1976. It’s obvious his own struggles are close—too close?—to Hedy’s, which influences the intensity of his writing. He sometimes borders on propaganda for the human potential movement. However, unlike many Christian biographies, Please Love Me avoids using a plot for Christian proclamation and rings true with realism and compassion.

A Survey Of The Life And Ministry Of Paul

Paul, by John W. Drane (Harper & Row, 1976, 127 pp., $4.95 pb), is reviewed by Walter M. Dunnett, professor of biblical studies, Northwestern College, Roseville, Minnesota.

Carefully organized, concise, and well-illustrated, John Drane’s book on Paul surveys the life of the Apostle and his message. A feature worth noting is the plethora of photographs, well-selected and conveniently placed to give added significance to the words of the text.

Drane, a popular British writer and speaker, has used a basic chronological scheme in describing Paul’s life. Chapters one and two cover his background and persecution of the church. His Jewish background was primary, Greek philosophy and the mystery religions having minimal influence on his thinking. Jerusalem, not Tarsus, was dominant.

Chapters three through five sketch the missionary career of the Apostle: first, in opposing the legalists (and his letter to the Galatians); second, in his travels through Macedonia and Achaia (and the letters to Thessalonica); and, third, as a pastor, especially in his work in Ephesus (and the letters to Corinth and Rome).

Chapters six and seven cover Paul’s stay in Rome following his arrest in Jerusalem and his imprisonment in Caesarea. During this period, it appears, came his letters to Colossae, Ephesus, and Philippi. The final section (chapter eight) is a discussion of Paul as “a man in Christ,” a concept Drane calls “the heart of his theology.”

Special issues are discussed in sections of the book marked off from the main text—among others the chronology of Paul’s life after his conversion (basically the problem of harmonizing Acts and Galatians 1–2); the identity of the Galatians to whom Paul wrote and the date of the epistle (A.D. 48 is preferred by Drane); the puzzle of the composition of the Corinthian correspondence; Paul’s views on women in First Corinthians 11 and 14 (11:2–16 was a general principle; 14:33b–35, along with 1 Tim. 2:8–15, was advice to deal with a specific situation); and the problem of the pastoral epistles. In each case an adequate and fair survey of opinions is included, though Drane does make clear his own preferences.

If any fault is to be found with this fine book, it is in the apportionment of space. Possibly allotting nearly eight pages to a discussion of First Corinthians and just over one page to Romans seems disproportionate. Although some discussion is given to critical questions about the pastorals (date, authorship, and such), no space is allotted to a survey of the content of the three letters.

An annotated bibliography of “Other Books on Paul” is appended following the text. There is a healthy representation of various viewpoints (of books done in English) given for the benefit of readers who wish to pursue further study of the life and writings of the Apostle. The reading level appears suitable for the college-age reader beginning a study of Paul’s life, or as a concise review for seasoned readers of the New Testament.

How Do We Tell What’S Right?

The Biological Origin of Human Values, by George Edgin Pugh (Basic, 1977, 461 pp., $20.00), is reviewed by Winfried Corduan, assistant professor of religion and philosophy, Taylor University, Upland, Indiana.

Humanistic understandings of man have had a serious problem: They could not account biologically for the existence of values; they had to attribute their development to conditioning. Pugh seeks to face this problem and to establish an objective basis for human values on both the individual and societal level. This book needed to be written, even though he fails to make his case. The style of the book is kept as simple as the subject matter allows; it is relatively readable by nonspecialists.

Pugh, who has done some pioneering work in the use of computers in defense strategy and is now president of Decision Science Applications, brings his knowledge of systems analysis to the study of values or axiology. The paradigm for his analysis is a value-driven computer system. In this kind of system a computer is able to make choices between alternative courses of action by weighing the quantitative values assigned by the programmer to the result of each choice. Thus a computer may inform a manufacturing company which products to make on any given day in order to maximize productivity and profit. The brain, Pugh argues, functions like a value-driven system. The hypothalamus and primitive sections of the forebrain inform the individual of the value any given action may realize and thereby allow him to make a decision based on the values firmly and objectively established by his brain.

Pugh’s value-driven system has been derived through the process of natural selection in the course of evolution. Survival is the ultimate goal to which all values must contribute. There are primary values that are directly responsible for survival and secondary values that support their realization. Since it is the survival of the species that is at stake, it is not surprising that Pugh recognizes social values concerned with the well-being of the community in addition to the “selfish” values of the individual. There are also intellectual values, those that are used by the person in establishing a rational world model in which to implement the values.

The last section of the book deals with an application of this system to modern social problems. Here the genius of Pugh’s analysis comes to the fore, as he can now approach these problems from a perspective of real values, rather than as merely behavioral or economic goals.

Despite the book’s initial impressiveness, it will probably convince few specialists in the relevant disciplines. A biologist will notice that Pugh’s theory goes beyond the scope of present evidence for the functioning of the brain. Pugh admits that he relies on “information” we may have in the future but do not possess now. As a scientific model his hypothesis lacks parsimony, for in so far as we can predict consequences from it, these predictions could also be made from older and simpler behavioral models.

A philosopher will be dissatisfied with Pugh’s easy answers to difficult questions. His system of innate values is beyond direct access or control by the individual. How, then, can individuals exercise control so as to misjudge their environments and choose lesser valued alternatives? Pugh asserts that our behavior is not determined but guided by rational decisions based on values of which we are merely informed. But he can present no evidence for this claim. Philosophically, Pugh also does not clarify how the intellectual values are consistent with their supposed evolutionary derivation.

A theologian will also feel slighted by Pugh. Pugh claims that his theory is consistent with religion in that many of the values he is attempting to establish are the same ones religion has decreed to be values. But the Christian will not agree with Pugh’s thesis that man will innately do what is right. Wrong actions are not the results of a deficient environment or evolutionary aberrations; in sinning a person may deliberately go against what he knows to be right. Moreover, religion is not merely an alternative hypothesis to account for ethics but is a reality in its own right. Man without God is incomplete; only a source of values beyond man can account for the existence of values that man may or may not follow.

Should Churches Pay Taxes?

Why Churches Should Not Pay Taxes, by Dean M. Kelley (Harper & Row, 1977, 144 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by J. Timothy Philibosian, attorney, Denver, Colorado.

The only sure things are death and taxes.” It seems that Dean Kelley decided to test this proverb with respect to the institutional church. In an earlier book, Why Conservative Churches Are Growing, Kelley disproved the common assertion that traditional religion was dying. Now in Why Churches Should Not Pay Taxes, Kelley examines the issue of taxes and church-state relationships. The conclusion; Death and taxes are not sure things as far as the church is concerned.

The introduction to Why Churches Should Not Pay Taxes clearly establishes Kelley’s purpose. He attempts to popularize a complex subject, doing justice to the intricacies of tax law without making it incomprehensible and burdensome. This is a difficult task, a formidable challenge. Kelley does a respectable job in simplifying the issues and presenting them in a manner that will be helpful to all church leaders.

Kelley’s thesis is that “churches … provide a service or function that is essential to society as a whole, and that tax exemption is an optimal arrangement for enabling them to do so.” The major portion of the book is devoted to an analysis and defense of this thesis. Since this is admittedly a “work of advocacy,” anyone who familiarizes himself with the contents will be able to rationally and logically defend the tax exempt status of the church; “A church that knows what it is doing and why will be less susceptible to intimidation by government or exploitation by outsiders with ulterior motives. It will also be a more effective religious body” (p. 117).

As a lawyer, I am pleased to see that Kelley considers one of the functions of his book to help the church leader recognize pitfalls and know when to consult legal counsel. Laymen (nonlawyers) need to know when issues of religious liberty may be affected by seemingly innocuous laws. A familiarity with Kelley’s book will help us recognize that inaction could lead to a sacrifice of freedom.

Kelley has two other objectives in the writing of this book. First, he states that churches have been needlessly on the defensive. Christians who develop a sound knowledge of the law may work boldly, aggressively, and offensively within its framework. Second, a thorough understanding of the basis for the church’s tax exemption helps a person think positively about this class of nontaxpayers.

Kelley makes an important point when he notes that an exemption is not a subsidy. An exemption does not provide churches with money. If supporters cease their giving, churches will not continue. Government does not dole out money to churches; nor does it have the right to take from these nonprofit organizations.

Many other issues are raised by Kelley. Among these are: a devastating argument against those who claim that churches should make voluntary contributions (“in lieu of” taxes) to the state; an explanation why tax exemption should not be based upon the amount of services the churches provide for the community; a statement that the government might be constitutionally prohibited from taxing churches; a brief examination of the horrors that would result from government involvement in church operation; some of the practical aspects of tax exemption, such as limitations on lobbying and political campaigning (material with which every church leader should be familiar); a sound defense of the special position held by churches over other tax exempt organizations; and an effective warning that churches may lose all their rights and privileges if they are not “impeccably scrupulous in the use they make of money contributed for religious and charitable purposes.” This last point is particularly crucial for church administrators to bear in mind. Fiduciary responsibility demands wise stewardship for both legal and spiritual reasons.

Kelley’s book is not without its weaknesses. One of the best ways to prepare for advocacy is to study the opponent’s position thoroughly. Kelley does not devote sufficient space to developing the counterarguments. Although he does not ignore them entirely, someone unfamiliar with the field would have a difficult time understanding opposing viewpoints using only Kelley’s book. The proposals for reform that are suggested (especially in chapter seven) are simplistic and naive (though admittedly creative). Since they break the flow of the book and seem to go beyond the author’s stated purposes, they would be better placed in an appendix or reserved for another book. Finally, in chapter six Kelley raises a fascinating point that should be more carefully examined. He states that churches must give up constitutionally guaranteed rights in order to retain deductibility. This is an important issue, provocatively raised, yet cavalierly abandoned.

The positive aspects of this book far outweigh the negative. We need to understand the law so that we can respond aggressively and boldly to any attacks. Kelley has done the church a great service in simplifying a complex issue. Ignorance on the part of church leaders is no longer excusable.

Briefly Noted

CULTS. If you are interested in knowing more about a specific religious alternative to or thodox Christianity and how to oppose it knowledgably, or if you want to know more about several groups, you should be in contact with a bibliographical service called Acts 17 (Box 2183, La Mesa, CA 92041). They make available regularly updated computer print-outs listing publications that treat the particular false teaching (out of more than 100 that they keep up with) in which you are interested.

TEACHING METHODS. Tired of using the same methods? The following books provide fresh ideas. For the youth or adult worker. Casebook for Christian Living (John Knox, 128 pp., $4.95 pb) by Louis and Carolyn Weeks and Robert and Alice Evans is an excellent source for case studies and instruction on how to use this method. It should definitely be a part of the church library. Youth Worker’s Success Manual (Abingdon, 80 pp., $3.95 pb) by Shirley Pollock offers a wide range of tips from how to expand audio-visual activities to party ideas. Puppets are the subject of two books. Easy-to-Make Puppets and How to Use Them (Regal, 96 pp., $3.95 pb) by Fran Rottman contains step-by-step instructions for building puppets and stages and writing scripts. Puppet Scripts for Children’s Church (Baker, 111 pp., $2.95 pb) by Jessie P. Sullivan contains puppet scripts intended to teach the children Bible verses. Only minimal practical instruction is given in the introduction. How to implement a children’s church program is the subject of Churchtime for Children (Regal, 112 pp., $1.95 pb) by Jim Larson.

GROWING OLDER brings new spiritual, emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. How should the church respond? The Church and the Older Person (Eerdmans, 227 pp., $6.95 pb) is a major revision of a book that probes that question in a scholarly way. Two social scientists, Robert Gray and David Moberg, integrate research data and practical experience in recommending certain activities and solutions for both the church and the elderly. For a book addressed to the older person, see Looking Ahead (Concordia, 126 pp., $3.50 pb) by Margaret Anderson. She offers a how-to manual for dealing with the problems aging brings, such as health care, financial worries, and retirement. Conversations on Growing Older (Eerdmans, 175 pp., $3.95 pb) by Comelis Gilhuis is a rambling discussion of aging, death, and eternal life. Although the author, a Dutch pastor, does make some significant statements, he tends to spiritualize his answers. Being a grandparent is one of the joys of growing older, and God Bless Grandparents (Augsburg, 124 pp., $3.50 pb) by Catharine Brandt is a book of practical advice for those blessed with grandchildren. For another book telling how to grow old, read I Love Being Married to a Grandma (Nelson, 144 pp., $6.95) by Ken Berven. The book is a warm, first-person account of the Bervens’s relationship interspersed with lessons they’ve learned.

Reproductions of the work of Francisco de Zurbarán, a seventeenth-century Spanish master painter of religious subjects are collected in Zurbarán (Rizzoli, 416 pp., $60). There is a long introduction by Julian Gallego, and 110 (of 516) illustrations are in color.

EATING RIGHT means more than a balanced diet. For many people, it means avoiding additive-laden foods in favor of natural foods. Three books build a case for this option. Rick Kasper presents the “Right-Way-of-Eating” program in How to Be Fit and Free (Regal, 158 pp., $2.95 pb). He believes that one can lose weight and improve one’s appearance by eating the right foods and exercising. He also explains why various foods are good or bad and exposes the weaknesses of several popular diets. Bob Turnbull stresses what not to eat in Deliver Me From Garbage (Revell, 128 pp., $1.50 pb). However, the book includes a chapter each on natural foods, mental garbage, and spiritual garbage. Ethel Renwick’s The Real Food Cookbook (Zondervan, 272 pp., $6.95 spiral bound) provides the recipes and information to put Kasper’s and Turnbull’s admonitions into everyday practice. The recipes sound good. Unlike some similar cookbooks the ingredients are easily obtainable.

WOMEN. Several books written specifically for women have recently been released. Can You Love Yourself? (Regal, 137 pp., $1.95 pb) by Jo Berry is aimed at women having trouble accepting themselves. The book is a practical guide to help a woman achieve self-esteem. For the working wife and mother, there is Total Woman? “I Work!” (New Leaf, 112 pp., n.p. pb). Regina Lambert offers sage advice gleaned from years as an employee and mother of four. Since beauty is always a concern for women, former Miss America Donna Axum offers her advice in The Outer You … The Inner You (Word, 155 pp., $5.95). Over one half of the book is devoted to external beauty and tips for beauty pageant contestants; the remainder of the book emphasizes the inner qualities necessary for beauty. In Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman (Word, 132 pp., $4.95), Anne Ortlund suggests ways women can develop the inner self, the source of true beauty. Women involved in a small group Bible study should consider A Woman’s Workshop on Proverbs (Zondervan, 137 pp., $1.95 pb) by Diane Bloem. Leaders’ manuals and student guides are available. Both men and women can benefit from Harmony (Revell, 159 pp., $3.95 pb) by Diane Blacker. It tells you how to make the most out of life by following God’s principles in Scripture and using the gifts he has given you.

Changes within the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, especially with reference to biblical infallibility, are documented and deplored in The Southern Baptist Convention Issue and Question by William Powell (Baptist Missionary Service [Box 630, Buchanan, GA 30113], 276 pp., $7.95).

CHILDREN. Child evangelism is the focus of Kids and the Kingdom: How They Come to God (Tyndale, 175 pp., $2.25 pb). Author John Inchley discusses the biblical principles governing the spiritual nurturing of children and the practical ramifications of those principles. For a discussion of the moral development of children, see How to Teach Your Kids Right From Wrong (Claretian, 40 pp., $1.50 pb) by Joel Campbell and Patricia Knopp. This Catholic publication is peppered with examples and does a good job of explaining developmental jargon to the busy parent.

YOUTH. Professional youth workers and pastors will benefit from a trio of recently published books on youth ministry. Resources for Youth Ministry (Paulist, 244 pp., $6.95 pb), edited by Michael Warren, is a handy resource aimed at Catholic professionals, but others can profit from it. Written by men and women actively engaged in youth work, the articles present insights into the problems of youth and ways to deal with them. Three articles are on Young Life. The tone is scholarly and the discussion more theoretical than practical. For a more psychological discussion of youth work, see Knowing and Helping Youth (Broadman, 152 pp., $4.95), edited by G. Temp Sparkman. The bulk of the book is devoted to the theories of Erikson, Piaget, and Kohlberg and their application to religious education. The most complete resource book is the revised Youth Education in the Church (Moody, $9.95) edited by Roy Zuck and Warren Benson. This 478-page book presents plans, programs, and ideas for youth ministry. The authors are experts, and they provide a solid theoretical basis for their ideas. It is a valuable revision and expansion of Youth and the Church (1968).

RAISING CHILDREN demands more time and effort than ever, especially if you want to instill Christian values in your children. Several recently released books give parents helpful tips on how to do that. Wayne Rickerson offers a how-to tool in Getting Your Family Together (Regal, 126 pp., $2.95 pb). Parents are responsible for building a child’s self-esteem and establishing biblical values, and he discusses various principles to accomplish these goals. The last chapter gives ideas on how to put his eleven principles into practice. Sheryl Andrews explains her approach to childrearing in Our Children, Our Friends (Nelson, 159 pp., $2.95 pb). In the first section she talks about living as an extended family. The second section focuses on children’s play and how it aids a child’s development. The remainder of the book is spent discussing emotions and undesirable behavior and ways to cope with them. A Patchwork Family (Broadman, 160 pp … $3.95 pb) by Mark and Mary Frances Henry advocates the inclusion of children into the small group program of the church. Suggestions for Bible study and games are included. For more activities to carry out the theories of the above three books, see Fun ‘n’ Games (Zondervan, 252 pp., $4.95 pb) by Wayne Rice, Denny Rydberg, and Mike Yaconelli, cofounders of Youth Specialties, and The Celebration Book (Regal, 177 pp., $2.95 pb) edited by Georgiana Walker.

There have been several books lately on what the Bible has to say about women. If you would like to see what it says about particular women, consider these three titles. A Woman for All Seasons by Jeanne Hendricks (Nelson, 190 pp., $2.95 pb) looks at nine women, including Sarah, Naomi, and Mary. Prime Rib and Apple by Jill Briscoe (Zondervan, 158 pp., $5.95) looks at several Old Testament women, including Eve and Bathsheba. Her Name Is Woman (2 vols.) by Gien Karssen (NavPress, 240 pp. and $2.95 pb each) features about two dozen women in each volume from both testaments, including lesser known ones such as Leah, Jochebed, Sapphira, and Phoebe.

The mystery of preaching is that it is where and when God speaks. God speaks his word in sermons. Calvin said that God uses the ministry of men, “doing his own work by their lips, just as an artificer uses a tool for any purpose.”

Jesus introduces this principle to his disciples in Matthew 10. In verse 7 he tells them, “As ye go preach.…” Later in the same chapter Jesus makes it clear that when they are delivered up, they will be given what to speak, “For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you” (v. 20). Jesus clearly taught that when his disciples spoke, God spoke.

Paul takes up the same theme. In First Corinthians 2, speaking of spiritual trust, he says: “… that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth. (vv. 12, 13).

The thought is repeated clearly in First Thessalonians 2:13: “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.”

Paul often brings this theme forward and stresses that his words are God’s words. He sets a New Testament principle in following the Old Testament example of the prophets who spoke the words of God. Certainly the preacher of today does not speak God’s words in the same sense that the apostles and prophets did. Yet today, the proclamation of the Word of God still carries with it that inevitable “thus saith the Lord,” as it did in times past.

To explain how God acts to speak in the proclamation of the Word is difficult. Paul did not grasp how it happened that God spoke in preaching. His discourse in First Corinthians 1 reveals that Paul thought God had chosen the wrong people to confound the wise by the proclamation of his Word. Indeed, Paul was so mystified at how preaching worked that he notes: “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe” (v. 21).

Later, in Second Corinthians 3, Paul points more directly to the fact that this mystery takes place because God ordains it should and acts to accomplish it. He declares that “our sufficiency is of God” (2 Cor. 3:5). Within the same context, Paul ties this statement to the spoken word: “Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech” (v. 12).

When a pastor believes God is speaking as he preaches, confidence returns to the pulpit, and life flows from God. God is heard. He is present. The apathy of the people is dealt with when God speaks. Hearts look inward. When pastor and people prepare for God’s speaking, eternal business will be transacted.

Not only does God speak through the proclamation of his Word, but he speaks with power. “If we are truly humble-minded,” said Spurgeon, “we shall not venture down to the fight until the Lord of Hosts has clothed us with all power and said to us, ‘Go in this might.’” There is no point in all of the Bible where a person proclaimed God’s Word without power.

God himself in creation spoke a word, a command to nothing and out of nothing. God never ceases to speak the powerful creative word. In the Old Testament, we see the prophet speak his “thus saith the Lord,” and the rain stops, the sun stands still, the fire consumes, the nations fall. Abraham heard the word of God on repeated occasions and believed God for a son. Moses heard the word of God, and led Israel out of bondage. Never do we see throughout the Old Testament the creative word of God void of power.

In the New Testament, the pattern is maintained. Not only is Jesus identified as the Word, but he also claims for himself the power of the creative word when he speaks to the leper, “Ye shall be clean through the word which I have spoken.”

No less does Paul attribute creative power to the proclaimed Word. Paul declares in First Corinthians 1 that the preaching of the cross although foolishness to man is indeed the power of God. But it is this “foolish” powerful proclamation that confounds the wise and brings to nothing the things that are. Paul’s concept of the creative power of the Gospel proclamation is repeated in Romans (1:16) and elsewhere (Eph. 3:7, 8; 6:17; Phil. 2:9, 10). In his instructions to Timothy, Paul exhibits an explicit and implicit faith in the power of the Word as he exhorts Timothy to “preach the Word.”

Words can be meaningless. People can use words dishonestly. But in Old Testament thought, the word of God is defined and validated by creative and powerful action. Power comes to the word. The word demonstrates power in the creation.

It is precisely at this point that the Word works uniquely today. The Word produces action, whether it be seen in new birth, spiritual growth, or social action. Hence, the power of the Word is demonstrated. With God’s power actively at work in his Word, the pulpit becomes a forceful position. The man who answers God’s call to the pulpit will find that God’s creative power will make the proclamation not just successful but spiritually dynamic. Further, when God’s people respect the pulpit, listening to God, there comes to them not just a sermon, but God’s creative power.—PETER TORRY, pastor, Faith Missionary Church, Pomona, California.

It was the worst thing I had ever done as an artist. On the easel before me, in the midst of a just completed abstract painting, was a giant arrow pointing heavenward. In a moment of artistic weakness and evangelistic fervor I had brushed it in.

Why such a crudely pious statement? Frankly, it was an attempt to gratify my hunger to make the painting “authentically Christian”—an anxiety not uncommon in believing artists.

Christian painters know that the evangelical community expects their work to be obviously apologetic in content. Any deviation, whether it be a more subtle expression of the Christian faith or experimenting with contemporary styles of painting, and the artist stands accused of pursuing a frivolous career unworthy of the true disciple. It should be no surprise that this climate has strangled the creative talents of many people. Except for Georges Rouault, a Catholic, there has been no great Christian painter in our century. When painters become propagandists their art suffers. We can see this more clearly by assaying the demise of painting in the Soviet Union. What has happened there parallels in many ways what has happened to twentieth century Christian art.

Painting never has been the Soviet Union’s leading art form (the Western practice of easel painting was uncommon before the 1700s). Rather, its artists have excelled in music, ballet, and literature. But there was a period, about the time of the Revolution, when Russian painters were on the cutting edge of the avant-garde.

Cultural as well as political upheaval followed 1917—a new art for new society. Chagall and Kandinsky rushed home from their exiles to help in reshaping Soviet painting. But the foremost exponent of revolutionary art was Kasimir Malevich. He preached a radical form of abstraction called “Suprematism.”

“If one insists on judging an art work on the basis of the virtuosity of the objective respresentation,” Malevich maintained, “and thinks he sees in the objective representation itself a symbol of the inducing emotion, he will never partake of the gladdening content of a work of art.” He voided the canvas of any hint of the objective world, reducing painting to its barest essential, or “pure feeling” as he called it. This led to the cul-de-sac of abstract art—a white square on a white canvas—that Malevich painted before 1920.

Although he declared “art no longer cares to serve the state …,” his radical ideas closely paralleled the Marxist revolt. In 1920, to celebrate the anniversary of the Revolution, Malevich and his followers repainted the town of Vitebsk. Eisenstein, Russia’s preeminent film maker, described the sight: “all the main streets are covered with white paint splashed over red brick walls, and against this white background are green circles, reddish-orange squares, and blue triangles. This is Vitebsk 1920. Kasimir Malevich’s brush has passed over its walls.”

Yet for all its revolutionary fervor, abstract painting was little understood by Russia’s political leaders, and even less intelligible to the peasant masses. Artists became disillusioned with this confusion. Marc Chagall was heard to quip to a befuddled colleague, “let Marx, if he’s so wise, come to life and explain it to you.”

Lenin was perplexed but tolerant. Stalin, however, was not. A directive was issued in 1934 establishing “socialist realism” as the only accepted style of painting. The First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers set the boundaries of socialist realism, demanding of the artist “a true, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. In this respect truth and historical concreteness of reality must be combined with the task of ideologically transforming and educating the workers in the spirit of socialism.” Political revolutionaries sometimes have Philistine tastes.

After this, painting died in Russia. Artists (at least the accepted ones) are now unabashed servants of the State. Even Malevich knuckled under to the dictates of the government. And his later work is a sad testimony to the atrophy that sets in when art becomes propaganda.

Recently the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in cooperation with the Soviet Union showed some examples of socialist realism. Such pictures as “Lenin in the Smolnyi Institute” reveal a technical ability devoid of even a modicum of creativity. Hilton Kramer, art critic for the New York Times, indicted not only the paintings, but the museum for displaying them. He wrote: “The art is mostly terrible—provincial and poor in quality even when it is not grossly ideological—and would never have been exhibited under these exalted museum auspices on aesthetic grounds alone. The show is a political act, and thus represents a corruption of the museum’s function.”

Before we judge the Russians too harshly, however, let us examine the beam in our own eye. Evangelicals do not have a Ministry of Culture, but recent Christian art in many ways resembles socialist realism. Our message is different, yet the results are remarkably similar.

A cursory glance at the paintings included in Cynthia Pearl Maus’s Christ and the Fine Arts demonstrates this. Although intended for young people, her book contains pictures that most Christians identify with and that are most frequently seen in our churches. Some are masterpieces from another age (Rubens’s “Descent From the Cross”) but others, especially as they approach our time, are mere illustrations (Sallman’s “Christ at Dawn”).

Illustrations are useful and welcome tools, but they are no substitute for art. Norman Rockwell’s pictures are fun to look at, but how many of us would compare them to the magnificent compositions of Rembrandt? The works of Sail-man and Rouault are just as far apart.

Artists are best equipped to solve the problem of how Christian values should be conveyed to modern man through painting. We must allow them the freedom to do so. If evangelicals become more flexible in their cultural tastes, and churches more supportive of the artists (after all, for centuries the Church was the major patron of the arts), Christians will once again produce truly great testimonies to the God we all worship.

Mark Marchak is a painter who lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Analyzing an ‘insidious legacy.’

The debate of two Scotsmen who were born on the same day one year apart marked the high point of eighteenth-century philosophy. Thomas Reid, a devout Presbyterian minister, turned philosopher and waged a full-scale attack on the skepticism of his countryman David Hume. Reid prevented Humeanism from gaining widespread acceptance during his own lifetime. Yet his own thought has suffered from long neglect. Recently, philosophers have begun to recognize the importance of Reid’s ideas.

Reid was born in Kincardineshire on April 26, 1710, entered Marischal College at Aberdeen at the age of twelve, and was inducted to the parish of New Machar in 1737. During his fourteen years at New Machar he read A Treatise of Human Nature by the rising young philosopher David Hume. The position Hume espoused shocked Reid so violently that he committed himself to its complete philosophical destruction. Like Kant in Germany, who was “awakened from his dogmatic slumbers” by Hume, Reid knew that unless Hume’s system was stopped it would permeate the academies, filter down to the ordinary man, and eventually undermine Christian truth claims. Reid obtained a post at King’s College in Aberdeen, and there, in 1752, he began a critique of the elegant skeptic’s philosophy.

There are two standard interpretations of Hume’s work, one naturalistic and one skeptical. According to the former, what Hume said about the nature of reality, the existence of God, the continuity of the self, and the foundation of value seems to deny everything that is affirmed or presupposed by Christianity. According to the other interpretation, Hume neither affirmed nor denied any thesis in metaphysics, theology, or ethics but instead questioned the ability of the human mind to know anything about these ultimate concerns.

The naturalistic interpretation fosters a picture of Hume leading frontal attacks on Christian theism and calling forth valiant defenses of it. However, as Ronald Nash has rightly noted, the really dangerous aspect of Hume’s thought is not the acceptance of naturalism and the rejection of theism but the denial that either reason or experience can establish our most basic beliefs. (An article by Nash entitled “Hume’s Heresy” appeared in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, August 6, 1976.) Hume insisted that we can take as knowledge only what is founded on reason, such as mathematics, or what is founded on experience, such as natural science. If we find a book that advances propositions beyond these limits we should “commit it to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

Hume readily admitted that we generally believe certain propositions that transcend both reason and experience, but he explained that we do so from custom, habit, or instinct—that is, as part of our common human nature or “common sense.” His point was simply that these basic beliefs cannot be proved or disproved, not that there are reasons to think them false. This is the difference between second-order and first-order skepticism. In effect, Hume dismantled the very framework within which our most important beliefs can be—and historically had been—rationally discussed, attacked, or defended.

The disconnection between reason and faith came to be accepted by friends of Christianity as well as by its enemies. Liberalism and neo-orthodoxy, for example, either de-emphasize or deny the place of rational, objective knowledge in religion. Orthodoxy, too, has been influenced by “philosophical skepticism” in that it now fails to exude confidence in the divinely given ability of man’s mind to know transcendent truths. Even when Christian apologetes do undertake the rational defense of traditional theology, the extreme left and right wings of the church think they are attempting to use reason where it does not apply. This is, to use Ronald Nash’s term, the “insidious legacy” of David Hume—not a straightforward assault upon the tenets of the Christian faith but an undermining of the cognitive capacity by which these truths must be properly considered.

Thomas Reid saw Hume’s view of the impotence of reason in religion as a serious indirect threat to Christianity. If not countered, he thought, it would do more damage than all the direct attacks on the faith had ever done. A widespread misconception is that Reid misread Hume, that he took him to be a first-order skeptic who denied basic beliefs about the world, God, the self, and value, and that Reid then busied himself defending these beliefs one by one. This misunderstanding of Reid is based largely upon the activities and writings of some of his followers, such as Beattie, and some of his critics, such as Priestley. It has led many philosophers, including Kant, Copleston, and Kemp-Smith, to accuse Reid wrongly of plunging headlong into a minor local skirmish when the major battle was elsewhere. Ronald Nash expressed a similar opinion in the previously mentioned article. However, a careful examination of Reid’s philosophy reveals that he was not preoccupied with attacking Hume’s skeptical conclusions or even his logic.

Reid realized that since Hume’s logic was virtually unassailable and yet his conclusions were absurd, his basic assumptions about the nature of knowledge, assumptions laid down by Locke and Berkeley, must be false. In a letter to Hume on March 18, 1763, Reid applauded him as the greatest of living philosophers and suggested that he had consistently deduced his skepticism from “principles commonly received among philosophers” that, he continued, he himself “never thought of calling into question, until the conclusions you draw from them … made me suspect them.” It was at this fundamental level that Reid sought to overturn and replace the subtle and dangerous second-order skepticism of Hume.

Skepticism is inevitable, Reid argued, only if two of Hume’s central contentions are true: (1) that the direct objects of mind are ideas or impressions ultimately derived from sense experience, and (2) that philosophical arguments or proofs are needed to justify our most basic beliefs. From assumption 1 it follows that we never know reality in itself but only reality as it appears to our minds via sense experience. This of course implies that our knowledge is ultimately restricted to empirical data and raises the haunting question whether the data accurately portray the external world.

Assumption 2 is a corollary of 1: Since we do not have direct knowledge of reality but know it only as represented by ideas in the mind, it seems that we must justify or rationally demonstrate our beliefs about it. As Hume masterfully showed, every attempt at rational justification ends in utter failure. Hume therefore concluded that reason is powerless to establish its most basic beliefs. He termed this “consequent” (second-order) skepticism to distinguish it from Descartes’s “antecedent” (first-order) skepticism, which doubted each particular knowledge claim at the outset.

When Hume’s type of skepticism shapes religious epistemology, Christianity loses what Carl F. H. Henry calls its “persuasive epistemic credentials.” Henry urges that “Christians must indicate their conviction that Christianity is distinguished above all by its objective truth, and must adduce the method of knowing and manner of verification by which every man can become personally persuaded.… Inattention to systematic methodology will seriously impair this whole range of concern including the relationship of theology to philosophy and to science, the role of apologetics, and even the content of pulpit proclamation” (God, Revelation and Authority, I, p. 213). Reid’s concern over Hume’s skepticism could not be better described.

Reid knew exactly what he had to do. He had to rebut assumptions 1 and 2, from which Hume rigorously and ruthlessly drew his conclusions. At Aberdeen, Reid formulated a systematic critique of Hume and developed an alternative theory of mental activity. When his first major manuscript, Inquiry Into the Human Mind, was ready for publication, he persuaded Hume to read it. At first Hume was cynical, taunting that it would be better if “parsons would confine themselves to their old occupation of worrying one another, and leave philosophers to argue with temper, moderation, and good manners.” But Hume changed his mind upon reading the manuscript. He wrote to Reid on February 25, 1763, acknowledging the book as a genuine challenge to his own views, and complimented the tough-minded parson, saying: “It is certainly very rare that a piece so deeply philosophical is wrote with so much spirit.” This letter signaled the beginning of mutual respect, though Hume often disliked many of Reid’s followers.

The publication of Reid’s Inquiry in 1764 marked the birth of a philosophical system that would hold Humean skepticism at bay well into the nineteenth century and earn Reid the title “defender of common sense.” Reid continued his attack on Hume’s position, organizing and expanding his original ideas, and finally produced his two most famous works, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785) and Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind (1788). The latter work provided a realistic alternative to the moral relativism Hume proposed. But in the former work, a critique of Hume’s theory of knowledge, the debate was won in principle.

The use of John Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding in the schools of the eighteenth century had made the theory of ideas common parlance. After all, what could be more natural than to say that ideas are the direct objects of thought, representing or symbolizing the realities of the external world? Yet this representationalism, which no philosopher in the modern period except Reid seriously questioned, set up a dichotomy between our inner mental life and the outer world from which philosophy and theology have still not recovered. The essential problem is that we never have independent or nonsymbolic knowledge of objects by which to evaluate the adequacy of the ideas or symbols of objects in our minds.

Abraham Heschel points out that the clear implication of this perplexity for religious knowledge is that “we must … give up the hope ever to attain a valid concept of the supernatural in an objective sense” (Man’s Quest for God). He suggests that the ultimate conclusion of this approach is religious solipsism. To the degree that varieties of liberalism and neo-orthodoxy are theological grandchildren of representationalist philosophy they are subject to Heschel’s criticism.

James Hamilton carries the criticism one step further. He indicts the theory of ideas for being “idolatrous” and proposes that “the modern Moses who arose to reject this epistemic idolatry was the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid” (“Epistemology and Theology in American Methodism,” Wesleyan Theological Journal, Spring, 1975).

Reid was quick to detect not only that there are no reasons to suppose assumption 1 is true, but also that it creates more problems than it solves. Reid’s general argument was that the puzzles and paradoxes generated by assumption 1 constitute the reductio ad absurdum of Hume’s position. According to Mortimer Adler, the question of how private ideas in one’s mind can enable one to have knowledge of an independent world of real existence underlines “all the riddles and perplexities of later empiricism” and is “a mystery that has remained unsolved” (“Little Errors in the Beginning,” Thomist, January, 1974). It is to Reid’s credit, then, that he discerned the notion of ideas as independent entities to be a root of skepticism in philosophy and epistemic despair in theology.

Reid was not content to perform the purely negative task of criticizing Hume’s theory of knowledge. He formulated an alternative theory that more adequately explained the cognitive process and avoided the problems inherent in Hume’s approach. Essentially, Reid viewed ideas as the manner in which external reality affects consciousness, and not as separate entities hanging inside the cranium like parts of a perfectly balanced mobile.

Reid also attacked assumption 2 and its implied methodology. He insisted that it is simply inappropriate to ask for independent proof of certain fundamental beliefs, since such proof may proceed ad infinitum. But it does not follow that these beliefs are then blind prejudice, as Hume supposed. They reflect the very constitution of rationality and are known through intuition, not demonstration. These truths cannot be proved and yet form the basis of all other proofs.

When Hume debunked “first principles,” he showed an incredible naïveté about the life of reason. “It is simply no use,” C. S. Lewis argues in The Abolition of Man, “trying to ‘see through’ first principles.” He goes on to say: “If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.” Reid says that to doubt these first principles is to doubt the reliability of reason itself, since it relentlessly tells us they are true. In his Account of Aristotle’s Logic, Reid explains the self-defeating character of Hume’s skepticism:

“It is difficult to give any reason for distrusting our other faculties, that will not reach consciousness itself. And he who distrusts the faculties of judging and reasoning which God hath given him must even rest in his skepticism till he come to a sound mind, or until God give him new faculties to sit in judgment upon the old. If it be not a first principle that our faculties are not fallacious we must be absolute skeptics; for this principle is incapable of a proof; and if it is not certain, nothing else can be certain” (Hamilton edition, p. 713; italics mine).

Ultimately, we must admit a set of common-sense beliefs that we can neither prove nor reject. Reid proposed a careful method for determining what propositions are to count as these beliefs of common sense, or first principles. He drew the first principles of his philosophy from dual sources, the common language and behavior of mankind on the one hand and rational intuition on the other. Study of the former reveals the implicit and explicit commitments that men universally make. Reid felt it would be manifestly absurd to deny in theory what everyone inevitably accepts in speech and action. Appeal to intuition delivers those propositions that are so fundamental that they cannot be established by further reasons or evidence; they are self-evident. Inspection of the common features of language and behavior avoids the charge of popular authoritarianism because it is balanced by intuition. Reciprocally, heeding the dictates of intuition escapes the problem of utter subjectivity since it is guided by the public network of human beliefs. For Reid, these two sources produce the same propositions (about the existence of the world, God, the self, value, and the like) and thus serve to confirm each other. Our common-sense truths are justified until shown unjustified by superior proof. The philosopher’s task, therefore, is to elucidate, not eliminate, their function in human knowledge.

The philosophical system Reid developed in reaction to Hume had a profound historical impact. In Scotland, the followers of Reid, such as James Beattie, Dugald Stewart, and Sir William Hamilton, popularized Reid’s position and extended it to all areas of philosophy. In France, Pierre Raul Royeu-Collard used Reid’s ideas in his attack on Condillac, and Victor Cousin, while minister of education, spread Reid’s philosophy through the schools. Schopenhauer, in Germany, admired Reid despite Kant’s misinformed condemnation of him. Reid was also highly regarded in Italy and Belgium.

Nowhere was the influence of the philosopher of common sense greater than in the United States. Before the Civil War, Reid’s philosophy was brought to America by John Witherspoon and Samuel Stanhope of Princeton, and it became the only intellectual force to oppose New England’s transcendentalism. Ironically, Reid, who was a loyal servant of the Church of Scotland, emphasized the activity of the human mind and freedom of the will and thus provided the philosophical perspective that eventually supplanted Edwardian Calvinism in the young country.

Interest in Reid’s philosophy continued in America long after it had died out elsewhere. This was largely due to the efforts of a group of men who were generally Protestant ministers and who were also common-sense philosophers and became Christian-college presidents. A representative roster includes: Francis Wayland (Brown), James McCosh (Princeton), Asa Mahan and Charles G. Finney (Oberlin), Noah Porter (Yale), and Thomas Upham (Bowdoin). The self-reliant, no-nonsense mentality of America during this period provided a welcoming atmosphere for the non-Calvinistic, free-will theology that was built on the base of Reid’s philosophy. Scottish common-sense philosophy ultimately inspired, among other things, curriculum structure at Christian liberal arts colleges and socially oriented interpretations of righteousness. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, new philosophical movements, notably absolute idealism and pragmatism, gained attention, and the Scottish tradition declined in America, the victim of neglect rather than any devastating criticism.

In recent times, the significance of Reid’s ideas is again being recognized. G. E. Moore, C. J. Ducasse, and R. M. Chisholm have proposed epistemological theories that are clearly Reidian. And Reid’s epistemology is not the only aspect of his work that is being revived. Peter Kivy has written a favorable introduction to Thomas Reid’s Lectures on the Fine Arts. Norman Daniels’s recent work entitled Thomas Reid’s Inquiry credits Reid with a brilliant and original discovery of a system of non-Euclidean geometry some sixty years before that of the mathematicians. In “Human Freedom and the Self,” Chisholm defends a Reidian definition of free will known as “agent causation.” Other examinations of Reid are appearing by philosophers such as Baruch Brody, Tom Beauchamp, and Timothy Duggan.

Despite his historical connection with important Christian movements, the name of Thomas Reid is unfamiliar to contemporary evangelicals. Equally unfortunate is the fact that many Christians, unlike the faithful Reid, often fail to work constructively with the conceptual connection between philosophy and theology. It should be apparent that many current debates between the proponents and critics of Christianity are essentially the same as the one between Reid and Hume. The crucial issue now, as it was then, concerns the ability of the mind to know ultimate truth. Articulation of the total Christian message would be strengthened by a renewal of confidence in man’s divinely given cognitive powers. Only when the battle for the mind is won can Christians hope for victory on the other fronts. That is precisely why the skeptical challenge of David Hume elicited a spirited response from Thomas Reid, the dedicated Scottish minister who became a philosopher of quite uncommon sense.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

The priests are waiting in the wings.

I taught on campus for fifteen years in a Christian seminary. During that time, I watched hundreds of young ministers accept their first preaching post with a congregation. A year or so later, many of them were back in my office. Most of their idealism was shattered. What happened to them? What was happening in the congregations they served?

During those years of teaching, I kept working along the lines of a basic premise. I felt the problem with most ministers was their inefficiency. I reasoned, “If the average minister gave more attention to organization, worked more diligently, and if he dedicated himself more completely to God, then he could emerge triumphant in the local church situation.” Meanwhile, I studied the New Testament more carefully and began to rethink the minister’s actual role today in the congregation. Gradually it began to dawn on me that our basic system of ministry itself is largely at fault.

Let us look for a moment at the current situation. The young minister leaves the college or seminary with the idea of accomplishing great things for God. He tries to adjust to the expectations which the congregation has for him. They want him to preach inspiring messages at every service. They expect him to visit the sick without fail. They want him to lead in raising finances. They expect him to keep up the attendance. They intend for him to be present for the social functions of the congregation. Also, they usually expect him to take an active part in community affairs.… Some ministers are able to work sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. They seldom take a vacation. They are never sick. By extraordinary labors, they are able to thrive with the one-man-ministry concept. They seem to enjoy it. These leaders, however, are not the rule. Their example often places a heavier burden on others, less gifted, who cannot keep up their pace. In some instances, conscientious ministers, who tried to measure up to their example, have gone to a premature grave.…

While the preaching minister is feeling the burden of leadership for the congregation, others in the pews are frustrated in another way. They faithfully attend worship services Sunday after Sunday. Here they are exhorted, row on row, to live better Christian lives, give more liberally to Christian causes, and be more faithful about attending tending church meetings.… The anesthetizing effects of repeated worship services Sunday after Sunday is well known. A congregation begins to operate under an illusion. Having been reminded so many times of their duty as Christians, the hearing itself is equated with the performance.…

Some congregations are frustrated because the preaching minister is constantly involving people in “busy work.” Without consulting anyone, he keeps dreaming up ideas for everyone else to follow. Then, when people do not give him an enthusiastic response, he sometimes thunders at them from the pulpit or finds some subtle way of expressing his disapproval.

To solve the problem of the overloaded minister, some congregations move into a multiple-staff situation. Yet, it should be pointed out, this route is inadequate if the equipping-ministry concept is absent. In fact, adding more staff only makes it easier for a congregation to sit back while they pay others to minister for them. It often perpetuates the whole non-equipping system.

The key, of course, is not to overlook the idea of a paid multiple staff. A growing congregation demands a growing number of professional leaders. Each staff member, however, should be following the equipping-ministry concept. Whether a person serves in education, in music, in clerical work, in counseling, or in evangelism, one of the primary responsibilities of that area of service is to equip others.

Meanwhile, the idea of dedicated volunteers must not go begging. Some folks of retirement age in the congregation welcome a greater responsibility in the church. Many times, they simply need a little instruction and some on-the-field training. Other members are willing to become more deeply involved if they are provided with a genuine opportunity to minister.…

The essential concept of ministry in the church stems from the life and work of Jesus himself. “The son of man,” he said, “came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45). This summary statement is very important in the study of the equipping-ministry concept.

Although the accounts in the four gospels are tantalizingly brief, we know that Jesus practiced an equipping kind of leadership on earth. How did he go about it? First of all, he found others to minister. “He found Philip,” John records, and said to him, “follow me” (1:42). Jesus was constantly in the business of discovering others who could minister. On the other hand, he turned some away because they could not meet the stringent demands of work in the kingdom (Luke 9:57–62).

Jesus also equipped others to minister by loving them (John 13:1), by teaching them (Matt. 5:2), by praying for them (Luke 22:39), and by training them on the job (Matt. 10:5; Luke 10:1). He was steadfast in the work of preparing others to minister.…

The mission of the twelve and the seventy gives us crucial insight. Matthew says, “these twelve Jesus sent out” (10:5). Luke writes, “After this the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them on ahead of them” (10:1), “Called” … “to send.” Here we have a significant key to the ministry of Jesus. He equipped others to have a ministry of their own.…

The apostle Paul also practiced an equipping ministry.… He surrounded himself with those who could later go out on their own. At Lystra, he found Timothy to accompany him (Acts 16:3). Later, Luke recorded other members of the Pauline band: “Sopater of Beroea, the son of Pyrrhus, accompanied him; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy; and of the Asians, Tychicus and Trophimus” (Acts 20:4).

Here was a small congregation Paul took with him as he traveled. Later Crescens and Demas joined the group along with others. Mark, who started with him on the first journey and went home, later returned to the work. After mentioning Demas who deserted the cause, Paul wrote, “Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia, Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you; for he is very useful in serving me. Tychicus I have sent to Ephesus” (2 Tim. 4:9–12).

We see clearly in these Scriptures the kind of equipping ministry which Paul practiced. He found potential leaders as he traveled from city to city. In many cases, they were invited to accompany him, learning as they traveled. Later on, they were directed to their own place of ministry. How else could he be true to the “equipping concept” which he sets forth in Ephesians 4:11?

In his writing, Paul kept in mind those whom he was equipping for ministry. He insisted that Timothy pay strict attention to “scripture” since it is “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16).

The church will always be in debt to Barnabas who helped sponsor Paul in his early ministry. Shunned by the disciples because they knew his [Paul’s] reputation for persecuting Christians, Barnabas paved the way for Paul’s rise in leadership. Here is a real test of the equipping ministry. What happens when we recruit someone whose abilities eclipse our own? Do we encourage them or seek to thwart them in their mission?

In order for a congregation to begin operating on the principles of the equipping ministry, some adjustments may need to be made.… Fundamental to our thinking must be the radical idea presented in the New Testament—every Christian is a minister of Jesus Christ. Peter refers to his readers as a “royal priesthood” and calls them to the responsibility of declaring “the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). In the book of Revelation, John spoke about the ascended Christ who has “made us a Kingdom, priests to his God and Father” (1:16). The idea of every Christian being a minister for Christ has yet to dawn upon the American church.

Meanwhile, we continue to be hampered by the “one minister-one congregation” concept of ministry.

Faced with the idea of an equipping ministry, some preaching ministers go through a kind of identity crisis. If everyone is a minister, they reason, then what is important for me to do? They ask, “What distinctive role do I have with a congregation?”

This attitude misses the whole point. The work of the preaching minister takes on new lustre when he is fulfilling his rightful vocation. He is the one who has usually received special training for his work. He is a “professional” in the best sense of the word. There will always be the need for a paid career ministry in the church.

His work now is to set about helping others in the congregation to minister. He must know something about the spiritual qualifications and the capabilities of each person he “equips.” He should love people for their sake. Most congregations refuse to follow someone who does not love them. He now sets out on his tremendous task of preparing those in the congregation for their ministry.

The equipping-ministry concept refuses to negate biblical and sociological principles of leadership. It is not a leadership leveling process. Every person has a different degree of leadership. Every shared leadership within the church is certainly a biblical concept, but the idea of “mutual influence” is not. Some have more influence than others. Paul had more influence than Barnabas. Peter, James, and John evidently had the most leadership ability among the twelve. The writer of Hebrews is not denying the concept of the equipping ministry when he admonishes his readers to “remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God” (13:7).…

The longest journey begins with a single step. The preaching minister who is accustomed to making all decisions must gradually begin to relinquish some power to others. A “ruling elder” may need to do the same. Members of the congregation who have been the “sheep” must work together for the purpose of “building up the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12).

Early attempts to bring about an “equipping ministry” in the life of a congregation may be checked by “starts” and “stops.” Most of us do not change overnight. Churches must have time to adjust to a new style of leadership. I am thoroughly convinced, however, that the equipping-ministry concept, given a fair chance by the American churches, can unleash new impetus for the gospel which most of us have only dreamed about. Furthermore, I believe it can change the world.

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Christianity is more than a black-bag technique.

When I finished my doctoral program in clinical psychology, I assumed that the techniques of psychology were well suited for helping people deal with personal problems. But because I was a Christian, I tacked on two disclaimers. First, although I believed the methods of psychology were useful to a Christian counselor, I insisted that the theories behind the methods were often opposed to Scripture and therefore had to be rejected. Second, I regarded the resources of Christianity as welcome additions to the Christian therapist’s little black bag of techniques. However, I clearly distinguished between psychological problems and spiritual problems. For solving psychological problems, I believed that Christianity was often helpful but rarely essential; for handling spiritual problems, however, I knew that only Christianity would suffice.

This line of thinking received a gradual jolt as I began to encounter something unexpected in my counseling. People came to me complaining of surface problems that I had to dig through to find the root difficulty. As I reached in to deal with this underlying disorder, I found myself touching something that I couldn’t classify as a diseased psyche curable by my professional methods. What I discovered beneath the complaints was simply a person—an uptight, insecure, confused person who felt lonely and empty. Probing more deeply, I noticed that this person had a lot of foolish ideas about life that took no real account of God, and that he or she had a stubborn inclination to do wrong and an equally stubborn unwillingness to admit being wrong.

It became clear to me that bringing about a transformation in this person (who beneath the surface differences bore a disturbing similarity to me) was a rather different sort of project than curing a mental disease; it required far more than psychology could offer. At that point I shifted from regarding Christianity as helpful but not essential in solving personal problems to insisting that a personal relationship with Christ is a necessary foundation for dealing with all problems, psychological or spiritual. Three years ago I resigned from secular employment as a psychologist to enter private practice, where I could operate from my new perspective without conflict. And since then I have experienced another shift in my thinking, not really a change but rather a natural progression in my belief that Christ is the indispensable core of effective personal adjustment.

I now see that to move toward becoming confident, self-accepting, giving, gentle, calm, mature people, all of us need three elements in a counseling experience. First, we need supportive encouragement from a community of others who are interested and involved in our lives. In biblical terms we need koinonia fellowship. Second, we require exhortation, which includes both clear directions on how to respond to every situation in biblical fashion and a regularly and lovingly applied kick in appropriate quarters to motivate us to do so. Third, we all need enlightenment to see how our thinking has been warped by a foolish culture that learned its ideas from its Prince. We believe nonsense like “money makes a man important,” or “sex is the route to personal fulfillment and joy,” or, worse still, “having things go as I want is essential to my happiness.” When we live according to such ideas, our lives become disordered: Anxiety, ulcers, broken marriages, and the like are the results of living these lies. We need to be enlightened to recognize where true worth and joy can be found.

I think that in the absence of organized malfunction, psychological problems stem from and are maintained by inaccurate ideas about life (which our sin nature warmly receives), ineffective behavior patterns (which our sin nature argues are effective), and a lack of the sense of community (which our sin nature seeks in all the wrong places). Therefore we need enlightenment to think right, exhortation to do right, and encouragement from a caring community of fellow believers as we go about the difficult business of living right.

Where can these three things best be obtained? Can I provide them in my private office? If so, for how long? Should people come to see me for the rest of their lives to be continually enlightened, exhorted, and encouraged? Do I really think I have all the spiritual gifts needed to provide people with all three of these elements? Is some form of group therapy the best way to create a caring community? These questions are a bit unsettling to a private practitioner, but they must be asked. And the answers I’ve come up with have impelled the most recent progression in my thinking.

Scripture says a great deal about these three elements and also tells us where God intends us to find them. The writer to the Hebrews tells Christians never to stop gathering together, to spend time encouraging one another (Heb. 10:24, 25). In other words, local Christian gatherings are supposed to provide opportunities for encouragement. Paul told Timothy to exhort and enlighten (teach) the believers in his local church (1 Tim. 4:12). Many other passages suggest that encouragement, exhortation, and enlightenment are a primary responsibility of the local church.

The local church is a community of people who share a unique life and express their shared life in love for one another. Members of this group share their Spirit-granted abilities with the others. Some are called upon in a special way to exhort and stimulate others to godly living. A few are qualified to enlighten the others through the teaching of Scripture. All the ingredients of counseling are in the local church and are there by God’s design.

I have therefore arrived at the following view of counseling: Effective biblical counseling requires encouragement, exhortation, and enlightenment. God intends the local church to provide these elements. Counseling therefore belongs ideally in the local church and not in the private professional office.

Am I then hanging a “for rent” sign on my office door and moving into the pastor’s study? No. I don’t consider private counseling wrong. I rather see it as less than the best, something that exists and will probably continue to exist because churches are generally not doing a very good job of enlightening, exhorting, and encouraging. My concern is to help churches do a better job so counseling can move into the local church where I think it belongs. Counseling in a local church involves more than hiring a full-time minister of counseling or sending the pastor away on a three-week crash course. To become complete counseling communities, churches must develop and mobilize their resources to provide the three needed elements.

Let me sketch a proposal I have for moving in that direction. Suppose a handful of people were carefully selected by the governing body of the church to be trained in the skills of one-to-one exhortation. The course would be taught by an experienced Christian counselor. I think that a six-month course with one three-hour session each week would provide adequate training. Course content would include such matters as how to identify problem areas, what biblical principles apply to conflict areas like marital problems, and feelings of depression, and how best to communicate these principles and motivate people to follow them. Call these people Level II Counselors (Level II: Counseling by Exhortation). Make their names public to the congregations and encourage people to schedule time with them on their own or through the church office.

Draw upon these Level II Counselors to organize and direct a weekend workshop at the church dealing with the skills of encouragement: such matters as how to listen, how to convey compassion, how to recognize someone who is hurting, how to respond when someone shares a burden. Every member of the church would be invited to come because encouragement is the business of all Christians, not just the pastor or trained counselors. This workshop would be regarded as training in Level I counseling: Counseling by Encouragement.

During Level II training, the course instructor would be keeping an eye out for someone who displayed an unusual gift for counseling and seemed especially burdened for the needs of people. This person would be asked to pray about pursuing further training in counseling at church expense (not only for training but also for family financial needs), with the understanding that he or she would return to the church as a full-time Level III Counselor (Counseling by Enlightenment). This counselor would need to understand psychological functioning in some depth: how childhood experiences channel our thinking in wrong directions, where feelings come from, what controls behavior, how to unravel the tightly woven knots of foolish thinking, how to figure out the real causes behind surface problems, and so on.

Current opportunities for such training are, in my judgment, either unnecessarily long or too short to equip someone to counsel. One must either go through a long professional training program (two to three years for a master’s degree or four to six years for a doctor’s degree, after four years of undergraduate training) or be content with weekend workshops or courses in pastoral counseling varying in length from one week to several months.

I propose a one-year training program, requiring full-time residency and offering, in addition to classroom instruction, extensive opportunities for counseling under supervision. At the end of that year the trainee would be equipped to handle the most nonorganic problems in the congregation. His role would include supervision of Level II counselors, organizing more training in Level I counseling, and serving as a back-up person for problems that Level II counselors felt they could not handle.

As a first step in moving this vision from the drawing board to reality, I am currently A teaching a pilot course in Level II counseling at a local church in south Florida. Our goal is to develop this church into a model of a complete counseling community. It is my prayer that many churches will eventually take part in training that will help them provide:

• loving, supportive encouragement to their people who are struggling to live for God in a world opposed to him (Level I);

• clear, practical exhortation to solve all conflicts in a manner consistent with Scripture (Level II);

• sensitive, skilled enlightenment to replace foolish ideas about life with wisdom from God (Level III).

As biblical counseling moves into the local church, perhaps we will come to understand better the absolute sufficiency of our Lord Jesus Christ for every personal need.

Let me sum up my thinking with a few general comments. The most critical dimension of life is our relationship to God. How well do we know him? Are we participating in his life? Do we experience his reality, his love, his wisdom? It is crucial to realize that our nonorganic personal problems decrease as our knowledge of God increases. Counseling should be thought of as one more way of helping people enter into a deeper, closer relationship with the Lord. If that is what counseling really amounts to, it clearly belongs within the framework of the local church. C. S. Lewis once expressed a similar thought:

“God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body.

“Consequently, the only really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together. Christian brotherhood is, so to speak, the technical equipment for this science—the laboratory outfit” [Mere Christianity, Macmillan, 1960, p. 144].

D. Bruce Lockerbie is chairman of the Fine Arts department at The Stony Brook School, Stony Brook, New York. This article is taken from his 1976 lectures on Christian Life and Thought, delivered at Conservative Baptist Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado.

Christianity is only part of right-wing ideology.

Shortly after midnight on June 29, 1968, a special assignment team of Meridian, Mississippi, Police Department sharpshooters and FBI agents opened fire on Thomas A. Tarrants, III, as he was about to place a bomb at the home of a prominent Jewish businessman. Tarrants, the leader of the Ku Klux Klan terrorist activities in Mississippi during the mid-1960s, ran through a hail of gunfire and fled from the scene of the attempted entrapment but was captured after a wild chase and bloody gun battle. His arrest and conviction brought to an end a reign of terror by Mississippi’s White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the most violent right-wing terrorist organization in the United States. For several years Tarrants and his cohorts had waged terrorist war on Jews and blacks who spoke out for integration. They had bombed synagogues, the residences of NAACP officials, and the houses of Jewish leaders in the deep South.

After Tarrants’s conviction he was sentenced to thirty years in Parchman State Penitentiary, known as one of the worst prisons in the United States. When he escaped he was recaptured several days later and placed in maximum security—on death row in fact. There he continued to read right-wing philosophy and other literature, including Hegel, Nietzsche, Count Arthur DeGobineau, and Francis Parker Yockey, the basic philosophers who influenced Fascist thought. A student at a Christian college in Mobile, Alabama, and a church member, Tarrants also began to reread the Bible, a book that he had often used to fortify his racism.

Gradually the words of the New Testament began to reveal to him the sinfulness of his life. He became a Christian in the summer of 1970. The changes were immediate and dramatic. Tarrants publicly renounced his right-wing involvements and beliefs as incompatible—in his own words “diametrically opposed”—to true Christianity. On December 13, 1976, he was placed on a work release program in Oxford, Mississippi, where he continued his college education at the University of Mississippi. Will Norton, Jr., a free lance writer, interviewed Tarrants on the various aspects of terrorism in today’s world, and how it impinges on a Christian world and life view.

Question: How would you describe your right-wing radical associates?

Answer: Ideologically, I would describe them as neo-Nazi. They were anti-Semitic, anti-Negro, anti-Communist, embraced a conspiratorial theory of history, and were prone to action rather than reflection. They, of course, would own these views, but would prefer to describe themselves as “Christian American patriots,” which, in all fairness, is the way they see themselves.

Q: What was their theology?

A: The great majority were fundamentalists.

Q: Born-again fundamentalists?

A: No. Definitely not. They held many of the doctrines of fundamentalism and had a form of religion, but they did not have a living, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Their Christianity was nothing more than a religious component of their right-wing ideology. Christianity is not an ideology nor a component of an ideology; it is a relationship with Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. However, it must be said that they really believed themselves to be Christians.

Q: What did radicals of the right read, Tommy?

A: The rank and file read the organizational papers and magazines. An example is The Fiery Cross, a periodical published by the National States’ Rights Party. Then there are books that are advertised in these periodicals: for example, The International Jew by Henry Ford, founder of the Ford Motor Co., The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, purported to be the minutes of a meeting of a group of international Jews whose avowed purpose is to dominate the world and gain ultimate power, White America by Ernest Cox, who builds a case for integration being the cause of the decline of powerful nations of antiquity, and The Inequality of the Races by Arthur De-Gobineau. There is a whole body of literature on the alleged Jewishness of communism, on the inferiority of blacks, and on Communists in the U.S. government.

Q: What about the leaders?

A: They read everything the rank and file read, as well as such works as Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler, Imperium by Francis Parker Yockey, and Hegel, Nietzsche, and others.

Q: What were some of the personality traits of right-wing radicals?

A: They were not Jekyll and Hyde people. They had a mind-set that was apparent at all times if you knew what to watch for. Disenchantment is the best word to describe them. They were frustrated. They often lacked success, excitement. Many of them were suspicious of people. As a rule, the rank and file were high school graduates or less, but the leaders often were fairly well educated.

Q: Did they all show a capacity for the explosive anger that has been the stereotype for “rednecks”?

A: Yes. There seems to be a psychological base for a radical, and, though individuals may differ, the capacity for explosive hostility is basic to all radicals, right or left, no matter how well educated. Even the leaders, when frustrated by racial matters, would become extremely angry about an apparent triviality.

Q: What kind of equipment did you have for terrorist activities?

A: As far as weapons go: Army issue automatic rifles, Thompson submachine guns, M-3 submachine guns, hand grenades, large supplies of ammunition and explosives. Surplus military equipment was very common. To be more specific: combat boots, fatigues, army tents, rations. There were other weapons that were not U.S. military surplus: shot guns, Winchester rifles, scoped rifles for assassinations. For example, we had a 22 calibre rifle equipped with a silencer that was carefully engineered. Special loads of ammunition were used so that even if you could hear the click of the trigger, the projectile would travel silently because it traveled slightly slower than the speed of sound. The projectile was drilled in the tip and a deadly poison inserted that would insure death.

One of my weapons was a Manlicher Schonauer, custom made in Austria. I could hit a target the size of a man’s head at 600 yards with little effort. Also, we had mortars, bazookas, machine guns, primacord, dynamite, and cyanide stored in various caches around the country. Many of these weapons were stored in cosmoline, a preservative grease, to keep them as good as new until that great day for which the radical right is waiting.

Q: Were you an expert marksman?

A: Marksmanship was one of my hobbies. Some people play tennis or golf; I practiced shooting. I spent a great deal of money on ammunition and weapons.

Q: Frank Watts, the FBI man who led the special team that apprehended you, told me that he knew you were an expert marksman because when you opened fire with a submachine gun at the Meridian police, your bullets did not rise.

A: I had considerable practice with submachine guns. I got to be quite good.

Q: We have talked about some of the equipment used by radicals. I’m sure these items were important, but what was the most crucial element for a successful terrorist operation?

A: Secrecy. The terrorist operates from a posture of secrecy. He makes plans without anyone knowing what he is going to do. In almost any given situation there are a large number of attractive, low-risk targets that the terrorist can select. Because of this it is virtually impossible for police to have stakeouts that would prevent this sort of thing. | There is no way to guard every possible place where he might want to strike. Thus, the terrorist has virtually free reign. When I first became involved in terrorist activities, I operated alone. No one knew my plans. So it was I impossible for lawmen to anticipate where I would strike next. More important, no one could inform the authorities of my activities.

Q: So how were you apprehended?

A: When I was operating in Meridian, Mississippi, two persons who were not a part of the inner circle of our terrorist organization helped us plan the bombing of the home of Meyer Davidson, an outspoken Jewish leader. They were informers and secretly conveyed the plans to the FBI. As a result my terrorist career was brought to an end by a police ambush.

Q: Earlier you had been forced underground when you were apprehended possessing a submachine gun. How did you elude capture and continue to operate?

A: Dedicated right-wingers assisted me. One of them here in Mississippi owned a secluded lodge out in the country, which he made available to me. Also, there were people in the Klan who were known only to one or two leaders. So the FBI did not know who they were. They would make their homes open to people who needed shelter. Then, in North Carolina there was a safe haven where I was able to stay. It was a sanctuary for people who were conducting clandestine activities. Often when the pressure got great in Mississippi, I drove to the mountains of North Carolina and lived as if I were visiting friends or relatives.

Q: Why did the Klan become dormant for five or six years?

A: It suffered a number of serious setbacks in the 1960s. Right-wing extremists were convicted for the murders of Colonel Lemuel Penn in Georgia, Mrs. Viola Liuzzo in Alabama, and the three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the firebombing of the home of Vernon Dahmer, and my arrest. These defeats were systematic blows to the very roots of the Klan’s strength. People began to understand that the Klan was a violent organization—some of the members of the Klan hadn’t fully realized that, people who were recruited and vocally expressive against blacks, Communists, and Jews. They didn’t understand that the leadership meant violent business. As these cases arose and were successfully prosecuted, it was proven that the Klan leadership was responsible for encouraging and even planning violence. It weakened the Klan from within by turning away a lot of Klan people who were not seriously committed to violence.

Also, it showed that the Klan was a vulnerable organization. It broke the secrecy and mystique of it. In the past it was a highly secret, mystical, underground organization. Through these trials people were able to see what the Klan was like and to see that it was not invincible or ubiquitous.

The strength began to wane with the successive prosecutions. Then, the social climate changed in the U.S. The Viet Nam War ended, and rioting in the streets subsided. Integration was tolerated more. There was less social intensity for the Klan to exploit. The issues of concern that had prompted Klan action were largely diffused. Sociologically, you might describe the Klan as a bacterium. When the temperature goes below a certain point, a bacterium becomes dormant. Then, when the temperature rises, the bacterium becomes active and begins to multiply. This is the way the Klan works. When social conditions are just right, the Klan begins to thrive and develop. When the necessary conditions are no longer present the Klan becomes dormant. The Klan never ceases to exist, but it goes through cycles of being dormant and active.

Q: What is the future of the Klan?

A: Unfortunately, the future of the Klan seems to be good. Time magazine ran an essay on the Klan last June. The Klan is experiencing significant growth. The social conditions that incline people to listen to the Klan—social and economic insecurity—are evident, both in our society and in the world. There continues to be population growth and food shortages throughout the world, dramatic instability in the global climate is again part of our lives, and the attitude toward human life has deteriorated. Moreover, technology has increased the possibility for terrorism geometrically.

We’re seeing growing oppression of the middle class by excessive government taxation—and the resulting tax revolt. The American military decline has concerned many. The increasing polarization of the races because of integration and busing, white resentment at civil rights abuses, and, in some cases, civil rights advances by the blacks. All these issues are beginning to press on the middle class. There is increasing distrust of government and our leaders. So people tend to accept the kind of things the new Klan has to offer.

Q: What does the Klan have to offer?

A: This is a complex age and people feel more secure when they can explain, or at least understand, what is going on around them. This causes people to be more inclined to accept simple answers. That’s what the Klan offers. It already is beginning to exploit these major areas of concern. Klan leaders have realized the futility of using outright violence to gain their objectives now. So they have developed new strategies. They have shifted their approach to appeal to middle-class Americans as a political group that is willing to work within the system. David Duke is a prime example. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University. He is articulate and personable in his leadership of the new Klan. In fact, a black civil rights lawyer and liberal sociologist recently told me that they were absolutely enthralled by Duke when they saw him on television. He has great charisma, which appeals even to those who do not appreciate his perspective.

So the new Klan is more subtle, and its appeal is much greater than it was in the 1960s. The real power base in America is the middle class. So as the Klan begins to tap into that power, it will grow. At heart, however, the Klan is still the same organization. If it were to gain power today, its leaders would not continue to advocate the same nonviolent approach, but would probably begin to use violence again. The only thing that keeps them from being violent now is that it is not expedient.

Q: What specific public policy should Christians advocate?

A: First, a sophisticated and well-governed intelligence system is needed in the hands of the FBI. It used to have this authority, but many people are afraid of such things and have outlawed most infiltration, investigation, and electronic surveillance. Yet, I believe abuse of the system can be avoided with proper supervision.

There are a number of well-meaning people in the government who want to institute protective policies in the name of democracy or libertarianism. However, these policies almost insure great damage to democracy. We must be careful to not be so preoccupied with democracy as an abstraction that we create conditions that will damage the concrete, practical outworking of it in the real world.

You see, we’re in a very dangerous situation today because Congress has practically emasculated the FBI. So investigations of radical groups are extremely difficult. The radical right and the radical left have not yet realized that the FBI does not have the authority to infiltrate their organizations with informers. When they come to this realization they will become more inclined toward acts of violence. That was one of the main factors that restrained the radical right during the 1960s. There would have been a lot more bombings and political assassinations if it had not been for the well-developed FBI intelligence system. Our constant concern was the possibility of being monitored by electronic equipment or informed on by undercover agents that the FBI had. This hindered acts of terrorism that we would not have hesitated to pursue.

Second, a good research program is needed to identify the social factors that are giving rise to the climate in which the radical right and the radical left can thrive.

Q: You have outlined some possible solutions to terrorist activities. However, the preponderance of literature indicates that we are moving more toward an authoritarian society in which an elite can control the activities of all people. If that is the case and we are at the same time giving bugging, surveillance, and infiltration rights to the FBI, won’t we be helping to create an extremely monolithic society?

A: There certainly is some truth in that, but there are not many options. If terrorism is allowed to increase, counter-terrorist action eventually will be produced by the government. This will give rise even more rapidly to an authoritarian society.

One of the greatest dangers in dealing with terrorism is overreaction. My proposal is an attempt to prevent such an overreaction. Men of integrity who are well supervised are vital for the survival of such a program.

Q: Did the churches play a role in the Klan?

A: Not so much by what they did as by what they did not do. I believe it was Edmund Burke who said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” That same principle applies to Christianity: All that is necessary for Satan to triumph is for God’s people to remain silent in the face of evil. Unfortunately, this has sometimes been unwittingly fostered by the evangelical tendency to emphasize the personal aspects of the Gospel to the exclusion of its social aspects. This is especially true of the church in the South regarding the race issue.

Only a few ministers spoke out; even fewer condemned racial pride. God’s people, especially those in leadership positions, need to take a strong, clear position that racism is sin and racist organizations are un-Christian. The failure to do this has allowed the Ku Klux Klan to go largely unchallenged in its claim to be a Christian organization. In fact, every Klavem (the Klan term for a local chapter, the basic organizational unit) has a chaplain who, not infrequently, is a Baptist minister.

The Klavern meetings are held in a room with an American flag and an altar. A Bible is on the altar open to the thirteenth chapter of Romans. The Klan considers that chapter to be its code. The meetings are opened and closed with prayer.

Q: How do you see the churches involved in the Klan today?

A: There is entirely too much of an affinity between conservative politics and evangelical Christianity. I call this unholy alliance “the religion of Americanism.” Christianity cannot and should not be aligned or identified with conservatism, liberalism, or any other “ism.” Unfortunately, in many circles the terms Christian or evangelical are seen as synonymous with conservative or reactionary. By tolerating this alliance we make it easier for ideologists to claim to be Christian. This clothes the “isms” with a certain respectability that can easily blur the radical distinction between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world, and leads to a tolerance of the more extreme forms of “isms.” Thus, the churches, by not diligently maintaining a nonpolitical stance, play into the hands of ideologists and ideologies. There is a need to be distinctly Christian in the fullest and truest sense.

Q: What is the average Christian’s responsibility concerning terrorism?

A: At its roots, terrorism is a spiritual problem. It is a symptom of a godless philosophy of life. As such it is merely another tool that Satan uses to create confusion in the world. As a Christian realizes that terrorists are often influenced by evil forces, it becomes clear that spiritual warfare is involved. If terrorism becomes an active force in a community, Christians should certainly speak out against it. But more importantly we should pray, first for the victim and second for order and justice and peace in the land. Through the intercession of God’s people, the rulers can then prevail. I believe Christians can do more on their knees to combat terrorism than can be done by anyone else in any other way.

Correction: In the original printed version of this article, Will Norton Sr. was shown. The interview was in fact conducted by Will Norton Jr.

In Rolf Hochhuth’s thought-provoking play The Representative there is a memorable passage in which a young Jesuit in the Auschwitz death camp is protesting the massacre of Jews. Responds the camp doctor, himself a renegade priest, “It was your Church first showed that one could burn a man like co*ke. In Spain alone, and without crematoria, you incinerated three hundred and fifty thousand, and nearly all alive.…”

Terrorism in the Christian era began with Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents (Matt. 2), but there the target was limited. No such restraint characterized the Crusaders’ action in Jerusalem when in the summer of 1099 they indulged in indiscriminate slaughter of Muslims and Jews regardless of age or sex—and all done ostensibly in the name of the Prince of Peace. Soon afterwards began the series of inquisitions that lasted four centuries, when the church adopted savage measures to drive out demons in the name of a faith undefiled. A modern Irish atheist, indeed, could adduce sound historical backing for his demand that violence be got off the streets and put back into the churches where it belonged.

It is difficult to define terrorism or always to distinguish it clearly from violence. Terrorism depends on who is talking. One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter. John Vorster’s odious regime in South Africa purports to base its apartheid policy on biblical principles, but so too does the World Council of Churches Program to Combat Racism (PCR). PCR grants help support what many people regard as a different but equally odious brand of terrorism. As a speaker euphemistically put it in the 1966 Geneva Church and Society Conference: “Christians might be called upon to participate in acts of revolutionary violence.” Either this means killing others or it does not. Does this view, which Vorster has dismissed as a return to the cold steel mentality of the Middle Ages, debar Christians from condemning when “acts of revolutionary violence” lead to the murder of, say, missionary families in Rhodesia? This has nothing to do with any Just War theory. The PCR has caused bitter disunity in WCC member churches, evidenced recently when the Salvation Army suspended its membership in the council. Others have pointed out that antiracism should be color blind—and that the council would be equally well employed in combating atheism.

As a technical description, “terrorism” is historically linked with the French Revolution, and subsequently in Russia with dissident groups. The latter could be curiously fastidious (“if Dubassov is accompanied by his wife, I shall not throw the bomb”). Mussolini early declared war on Christianity, proclaiming the “holy religion of anarchy.” Hitler called terror the means to easy victory over reason.

Although terrorism is still a feature of right-wind dictatorships, its affiliations since World War II have been chiefly with the left, from Stalin’s Soviet Union to the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. A frightening note is that no matter where individual or group terrorism goes, the state has been there before it.

Communism, aiming at world domination, supports group terrorism as a matter of political expediency. Fishing in troubled waters is commendable—so long as they are foreign waters. In training and equipping foreign terrorists, Communists have adapted an old piece of cynicism: “Where we Communists are in the minority we claim freedom to dissent in the name of your principles; where we are in the majority we deny such freedom in the name of our principles.” Iron Curtain countries are largely free from terrorist activity because it needs an environment in which it can organize and operate. In states where civil rights are suppressed no terrorism is permitted except that which is officially sanctioned by the regime. This may involve anything from near-genocide and torture to thuggery and harassment. Ex-President Peron of Argentina, at the other end of the political spectrum, found those tactics rebounding on his own head. During his long exile in Spain he had encouraged dissident groups in his homeland, but when he returned as president in 1973 he could not restrain the monster he himself had unleashed. Over a twenty-six-month period thereafter, as an Argentinian source has indicated, the country registered 5,079 terrorist incidents.

Worldwide terrorism has involved many lands and many nationalities, from Stockholm to Soweto, from Sydney to Santiago. It is man-made, unpredictable, often part of no pattern, and alarmingly random. In the hands of individuals or groups, terrorism is commonly the despairing gesture of those who see no prospect of success by persuasion. Its goal might theoretically be world revolution but it settles for provocation, taunting to overreaction. It shows no respect of person: During the past decade, U.S. ambassadors on three continents have been killed by groups or mobs. Not even in the world’s most peaceful capitals are diplomats now immune from sudden attack.

As always, however, it is the common people who suffer most. Newspapers regularly report modern massacres of innocents who, peaceably going about their business—in a Belfast restaurant, a Lufthansa jet plane, or a Tel Aviv market place—have their lives senselessly taken away. Perhaps the frightful carnage of twentieth-century wars has devalued human life, at the same time as modern technological advances have opened up ever more lethal and sophisticated ways of achieving barbarous aims—what Thoreau might have called “improved means to an unimproved end.” Anthony Storr has put it well in his book Human Aggression (1968): “We are the cruellest and most ruthless species that has ever walked the earth.”

Terrorism can escalate from inauspicious beginnings, with idealists championing causes that take them out of themselves, resolved to “rend the flowery lies from worlds vile with hypocrisy.” Alas, orderly revolutions are almost always in practice a contradiction in terms. Resistance tends to make moderate men extremists, wild men wilder. A vicious circle is initiated, new leaders come to power, power corrupts, drastic measures are called for lest it slip away—and new injustices provoke new rebellions. Somewhere along the line, those with reasonable grievances give up when the right of opposition is so abused by some that it is not exercised by others. We learn all too slowly that the opposite of what is wrong might itself be wrong.

Terrorists come in a bewildering variety of guises, despite an American finding that more than 95 per cent of hijackers are in the eighteen to forty-five age group and buy one-way tickets in cash. There are malcontents and madmen, criminals and opportunists, hired mercenaries and espousers of causes irredeemably lost. There are acts of terrorism leveled at the wrong target in the name of nationalism (South Moluccans holding school children hostage in Holland) or religion (extremist Muslims incinerating 400 moviegoers in Iran). Other actions begin quietly enough, but things go wrong, horror is piled on horror, victims are done to death and, in Paul Tournier’s phrase, “the dance of violence goes round endlessly.”

Sometimes a tortuous logic is employed. “If I shoot at your toga, and there happens to be a man inside,” Red Brigade leader Alberto Franceschini told an Italian judge, “I’m sorry, but there’s not much I can do about it.” There is, moreover, a growing tendency to disclaim accountability to civil courts on the grounds of having engaged in what the IRA calls “political acts” (a specious but dangerous philosophy that could justify a multitude of crimes). In 1972 the Japanese terrorists who came eight thousand miles to slaughter or wound 101 passengers at Lod Airport in Israel said they were trying to revive “spiritual fervor” in their Arab allies who were flagging in the cause. This may have been because mainline Arab groups, modern pioneers in the field, are belatedly recognizing that terrorism ultimately is self-defeating. Things have changed since 1970 when skyjackings by the Palestine Liberation Organization were so common that a Christian traveler in the Middle East evolved a surefire formula for safe journeying: “Fly United Arab Airlines,” he would urge, “they don’t hijack their own people.”

Skyjacking seems nonetheless to be once more on the increase: fifteen incidents in 1976, thirty-one in 1977, and figures for 1978 picking up after a lull. Contrary to expectations, the incidence of terrorism is not decreasing. The West German federal prosecutor, ambassadors of Britain, Turkey, and Yugoslavia, several Spanish police chiefs, and Italy’s most prominent statesman have been among recent victims. Italy, indeed, is reported to be having a terrorist boom, with the 702 incidents of 1975 having rocketed threefold over the past year. “Kill one, frighten ten thousand” is an old Chinese slogan (a million would be nearer the mark, opines a British observer).

An insidious feature of terrorism is that it glorifies and condones murder in the name of principle. To say that the principle is not always clear is irrelevant. Never really answered was the hijacked TWA captain’s plaintive but profound question: “Tell me, please, what are we being killed for?” Can we visualize a world in which terrorists could live peaceably?

Terrorism, some would argue, may be justified because of social deprivation, injustice, or by the vision of a homeland apparently lost irrevocably, but even those who see violence as an inescapable feature of the human condition recognize the need for a strong stand against terrorism. Such a stand, at least in one area, was at the heart of measures approved in the summer of 1978 by the U.S.A. and six other nations. These would block air service to countries that harbor airplane hijackers. In the future the seven will ask the country granting them permission to land whether it will return plane, passengers, and crew. If the response is unsatisfactory, no plane from the signatory nations would fly to that country, and its planes would in turn be refused landing rights by the seven. This will go some way toward endorsing John F. Kennedy’s 1961 appeal to the United Nations: “Let us call a truce to terrorism.” It looks as though this may be done only by adopting the consistently firm stance: Never give in, no matter who. It would be anomalous to resist tyrants in time of war and to encourage them at other times.

Original sin, nevertheless, does not allow any of us to slip into a them-us mentality, nor does a careful reading of the Sermon on the Mount. Too readily we assume we are on the side of the angels forgetting that these enemies of society are products of a world which we, all of us, have helped formulate.—J.D.D.

Learning From Louise

In an unpretentious letter to The Lancet last month two British doctors formally announced to their colleagues that “a 30-year-old nulliparous [one who has not previously borne a child] married woman was safely delivered by caesarian section … of a normal healthy infant weighing 270 grams.” What made the birth remarkable was that it came “after the reimplantation of a human embryo”—the world’s first test-tube baby. The attendant doctors told pressmen that this was not an open invitation to other women whose Fallopian tubes are blocked irreparably, and that they had not been “concerned with anything else but helping an infertile couple.”

This is a little disingenuous. The ship of science has sailed boldly into uncharted waters, and it made waves that affect us all. Out of this significant scientific achievement, this act of compassion, all sorts of moral questions arise. Is this variation from normal conception a violation of God’s plan? Does it really “countenance technological larks when half the world is hungry”? Does such a mode of breeding make a child “a pure consumer item”?

Stanley M. Kessler, chairman of the (Conservative) Rabbinical Assembly’s Bio-Ethics Committee, sees in the development a “Brave New World” syndrome “where the laboratory technician can become as God, deciding which conception in vitro shall be womb-implanted and which shall be washed down the drain. Which shall live? Which shall be kept from life?” All this involves profound questions addressed to a society confronted with both artificial insemination and liberalized views on abortion.

While science hails its triumph and a slightly bewildered church ponders the implications, the parents of Louise Brown have reportedly sold exclusive rights to their story to a London tabloid for about $600,000. That may ultimately be the saddest feature of all.

Enfants Terribles In Our Churches

I wish to suggest a new rite (sacrament, ordinance) of the church: the infant baptism of adults.

This is no sudden flash of cognition, no whim. As is fitting for such a fresh and radical concept, I have pondered the idea for several years. Nor is it a latter-day attempt to bring baptists and paedobaptists together. Nothing short of the Rapture, including Eutychean intervention, could accomplish this.

Here’s how it would work.

Herbert Elder is fifty-three years old, has been married for thirty years to Charlotte Elder. They have three children, one of whom is still at home.

Herb has decided that he wants to divorce Charlotte and marry Linda Younger (age thirty-seven, married ten years, two young children).

At this point he applies to his pastor for infant baptism. If his request is granted, the Sunday morning service is scheduled, and at the same time Herb is welcomed into the cradle roll department.

If Linda is also a member of the church, she follows a similar procedure, perhaps being baptized as an infant the same Sunday as Herb. In the case of paedobaptistic churches, infant infants may also be scheduled for baptism.

While I have chosen a lay example, the same pattern would be followed for baptizing ordained infants.

-You don’t like my light approach to a terrible contemporary problem? Then tell me about a church that takes a serious, biblical approach.

EUTYCHUS VIII

Against Killing Culture

I appreciated reading the interview with C. Peter Wagner and Ray Stedman, “Should the Church Be a Melting Pot?” (Aug. 18). Having served as a missionary among American Indians and from personal experience, I find myself agreeing almost completely with C. Peter Wagner. I have never felt that God expected anyone to worship him in an uncomfortable situation. The people I served among were most comfortable singing their Indian hymns and praying in their native tongue. In fact, they are more comfortable with an Indian pastor than a white missionary who is often paternalistic in his approach and knows little or nothing about the American Indian culture. I fully agree with Wagner that “culture is not sinful.” It has been my observation that white missionaries have tried to kill the culture in order to make American Indians (and others) act and worship like whites when they worship. I suspect that our attempts at trying to “hom*ogenize” God’s children in worship are really in effect “judaizing” them.

DAVID FLICK

First Baptist Church

Elmore City, Okla.

I view some of Dr. Wagner’s statements with dismay.… We believing or Messianic Jews represent a minority in the Christian church and to adopt into our worship a methodology foreign to the majority is to isolate ourselves from the rest of the members of the body of Christ. How, if this is done, can we understand Paul’s reference in First Corinthians 10:32 to the three distinct categories of humanity? And if I as a believing Jew am made to feel different from the rest of the body of believers, I think that this should be regarded as sinful behavior. Also, Dr. Wagner, I believe, contradicts his previous statements when he says “that the entrance of the Gospel into any culture has to change part of that culture.” I do not suggest that a believing Jew forgets his heritage. By the same token, the majority of Jews today are traditionalists with little, if any, knowledge of practices of orthodox or even conservative Jewry. Philippians 3:13, 14 should be our new base from which we develop into new creatures in Christ. May I suggest that what is vital in today’s church, in many instances, is a return to Bible teaching which incorporates God’s plan for the Jew and makes believing and seeking non-believing Jews welcome.

FRIEDA G. ZUCKERMAN

Whittier, Calif.

Present At Prague

I read with interest your article “Peaceful Prague” (News, Aug. 18). I would like to make one small correction. You mentioned that at the last Assembly in 1971 “there were no Americans.” I was one of the few Americans who did attend. I did so unofficially in order that our point of view could be represented and to maintain fellowship with people with whom we disagreed but with whom we are still united in Christ.

HOWELL O. WILKINS

Asbury United Methodist Church Salisbury, Md.

A Vote Against Canned Worship

I appreciated very much Mr. Howell’s article “Let Worship Be Worship” (Minister’s Workshop, Aug. 18), and its practicality. And I appreciate your increasing emphasis as a magazine on material we can practically use. There is a point about leading worship that I have noticed as a pastor myself and an observer of many others leading worship … And that is, simply, the worship leader should be worshiping, too. I see many leaders up there almost commanding the people to get with it, ridiculing them, perhaps, for not singing with gusto or something else. A leader is a guy who does something first, and then others see him and follow. How many of us pastors really worship while we are leading worship? I see it as similar to the difference between canned and real laughter. We have canned praise, canned prayer, canned specials—even canned sermons. And that … lack of freshness is all too evident. Are we pastors coming to our services wanting and ready to worship, or are we there to fulfill our image and merit our wages? Whichever it is—it shows.

MILES FINCH

New Life Christian Center

Polson, Mont.

Reversed Decision

When my July 21 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY arrived, it was to be my last due to financial reasons. However, when I opened the magazine and started reading the outstanding articles pertaining to South Africa today, I was astoundingly made aware of the fact that I couldn’t afford to be without the C.T. magazine at any cost.… Thank you for making me aware and interested in the situations of the South African people. Being made aware, as a Christian, the situation demands a response. We have a responsibility to our Lord and to the truth of the Gospel message, to bear one another’s burdens.

PRISCILLA M. PELUSO

Loomis, Calif.

As a black Christian, I was impressed by the sharp and clear-cut analysis of the South African problem. In the light of your recent editorial change, one thing remains unchanged: the continued excellence of your magazine. Keep up the good work!

KEITH BOSEMAN

Moody Bible Institute

Chicago, Ill.

It is not easy to convey the many-faceted problems and joys of being a Christian in South Africa; as a Christian and third-generation South African, I would like to congratulate CHRISTIANITY TODAY on the good effort. However, it is ironical that writers familiar with the history and present conditions of the United States should be surprised when they see another “remarkable renewal movement” in a different part of the world. Have renewal movements in America been less remarkable? For me and numerous black and white South Africans, Jesus is our peace, and he has broken down the walls of fear and distrust between us.

HEATHER HORNING

Lancaster, Penn.

Merci Beaucoup

Thank you for your news article (“Evangelical Feminists: Ministry Is the Issue,” July 21) concerning the Evangelical Women’s Caucus. It is tragic that the EWC has adopted the name “evangelical.” In my opinion there is a huge chasm between this caucus and evangelical biblical Christianity. These people must realize that a woman becomes a woman not by joining some pseudo-Christian feminist group but by becoming what God wants her to be. Dr. Francis Schaeffer has said “… women’s insistence on equal rights, in a poor sense, has brought them to the position of having fewer and fewer men who are men. And then the cycle continues and the women are hungry and hurt.” If the women of the Evangelical Women’s Caucus wish to harangue us some more about women’s rights that is their privilege, but they should do it under a banner other than that of evangelical Christianity.

J. SCOTT SUSONG

Bethel Independent Presbyterian Church

Houston, Tex.

For Your Information

With much interest I followed John Warwick Montgomery’s critique of Helmut Thielicke in “Thielicke on Trial” (March 24) and Helmut Thielicke’s “Response” concerning their dispute over the Free University of Hamburg (June 23). Montgomery may be right calling the Free University of Hamburg the “first independent, evangelical university in Germany.” However, I would like to point out that for eight years, now, an independent, government-accredited, evangelical seminary has thrived in neighboring Switzerland: Freie Evangelisch-Theologische Akademie, Basel (Free School of Evangelical Theology—FETA).

DAVID E. POYSTI

Biebergemünd, West Germany

Uneven Calibre

I was surprised to find two back-to-back, ably written articles in your June 23 issue of such biblically uneven calibre. The article entitled “The Yoke of Fatherhood” by Thomas Howard was much appreciated, even though certain areas of compromise were not (for example, the lingering implication that hom*osexual union might not be totally condemned of God). The affirmation of our need to let Scripture judge us and thus the necessity of shouldering God-given responsibilities in the roles of husband-father and wife-mother was refreshing. However, the adjacent article, entitled “Parents and Prodigals” by Virginia Stem Owens was destructive in implication. It was not only unbiblical but also antibiblical in its pessimistic view of parent-child relationships.

ROBERT P. TEACHOUT

Taylor, Mich.

Wrong Treatment

Our concern for television programming is justified (Editorials, “Decent Speech on the Airwaves”, May 19). However, our course of action is following the wrong path. We are treating the symptom, not the disease, when we bring pressure on the advertisers or the programming executives. Simple logic dictates that conclusion.…

CHARLES G. BEEKLEY

Ashland, Ohio

Correction

Harold O. J. Brown’s book mentioned in the August 18 issue is entitled “Death Before Birth” and not “Life Before Birth.” We are sorry for the error.