Page 5072 – Christianity Today (2024)

You’d hardly call it an auspicious beginning: four freshman college students rehearsing quartet music amid the porcelain, chrome, and live acoustics of a dormitory restroom at Oakwood College, a small Seventh-day Adventist school in Huntsville, Alabama. A sudden flush ushers in a new dimension as Mark Kibble steps from a stall to add a fifth part to the harmony, and the evening’s performance is sung by a quintet rather than a quartet. Later the lineup is extended to a sextet, and Take 6, then known as Alliance, is born.

Nine years later, the a cappella jazz/gospel group, with its sacred lyrics married to complex voicings of jazz chord structures, is being touted as a “vocal phenomenon.” They cart off Grammy Awards and Dove Awards, honoring their unique vocal styling, and they pick up unsolicited endorsem*nts from the likes of Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Anita Baker, Whitney Houston, and Beach Boy Brian Wilson. They share the stage with Stevie Wonder, tour with Al Jarreau, sing backup for Johnny Mathis, Smokey Robinson, Kenny Rogers, and Joe Sample. Bill Cosby writes them into an episode of the “Cosby Show,” Domino’s Pizza and Levi’s jeans enlist their voices to sell products, Candice Bergen’s “Murphy Brown” opens with their vocal gymnastics.

Two-Level Wonder

But Take 6 is really a phenomenon on two levels. While people are certainly talking about the sextet’s musical excellence and unique approach to vocal music, they are also talking about their no-compromise stand for their faith.

• Critic’s choice. The intricate rhythmic shifts and complex vocal arrangements (with chord structures similar to big-band voicings) are not written down, even though all six guys read music proficiently. Instead, they are learned by rote—melody, harmony, a little doo-wop, vocal emulation of band instruments, and, of course, the ubiquitous finger snaps. Yet even such involved productions come off sounding smooth and spontaneous.

One reviewer described their vocal prowess like this: “Full-toned falsettos rocket above the purring tenors, which in turn are anchored by moving bass voices.” Says another: “You’ll hear perfectly in-tune glissandos, shakes, and ornaments; great dynamic control and tempo changes … a wealth of textures and styles, with sparkles of humor thrown in, to perk up the weariest ears.”

Although it’s true that some critics lack discerning ears and may praise most anything, accolades such as these are not isolated. Quincy Jones, producer of Michael Jackson’s multimillion-selling albums, pretty much speaks for the entire music industry when he refers to Take 6 as “gifted” and “spiritually centered.” “I haven’t heard singing like this since the days of the Hi-Los,” he says. (Others make comparison to Manhattan Transfer, the Nylons, or even the King’s Singers.) Or, as Jones has more succinctly expressed it, “Simply put, they’re bad.” Meaning, of course, good.

• Strong foundation. Anyone who understands the dynamics of pride knows that unbridled praise can be precarious. Second tenor David Thomas has expressed the dilemma Take 6 now faces: “With Stevie Wonder and Quincy Jones behind us, we’re working extra hard just to keep our egos on the ground.” So, how do they handle the sudden surge of popularity? Isn’t there an inevitable temptation to pride?

“I think that the spiritual groundwork was laid early on, before we were thrust into the limelight,” tenor Mark Kibble suggests. “The long weekends that we spent together in rehearsal, constant prayer, and devotions has carried over into what we do now. We are still the same people; we haven’t changed. Keeping God in the forefront keeps things in perspective.”

“Keeping God in the forefront …” I paraphrase a Take 6 quote I ran across, something bass Alvin Chea said. The gist was: “We don’t talk at people, we just relate what Christ has done for us. We try to do what we call the silent sermon. We live what we preach.”

Tenor Mervyn Warren stresses that, for him, this ministry involves far more than “just singing a song to somebody.” He speaks of the responsibility he feels to let people see the kind of life he leads. “The questions frequently come later on, after we’ve spent time with someone. They will come back and say, ‘What is it about you that’s different?’ Or, ‘How are you able to handle your life like that?’ And that’s when we have the opportunity to sit down and say, ‘Well, it’s because of our relationship with the Lord.’”

A Stable Faith

When asked, “Where did the members of Take 6 get their sense of conviction?” they invariably point to the strength of their families’ practice of their faith.

Baritone Cedric Dent refers to his family’s observance of morning and evening family worship, “which,” he wants to stress, “is a compliment to my parents. That has probably been the most stabilizing thing in my life.” Mervyn speaks highly of the rest and reflection that has come to him through observance of the Sabbath. “Even now, as an adult in the work world, it has become crucial for me to have a day set aside to forget about other things and concentrate on the Lord.” Mark points to his grandmother’s godly influence. “Every morning before I would go to school she would read me a devotion. Even when I didn’t want to hear it. I never strayed very far from what my grandmother taught me.” Tenor Claude McKnight refers to Proverbs 22:6, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” He alludes to his own rebelliousness and God’s persistence. His conclusion could well speak for the whole group:

“The Lord knew what he wanted me to do. He just had to have me go through some things and then slap it on me. That’s why I’m very humbled by all of this. To get a big head by anything that Take 6 could do would be very foolish.”

Cedric agrees. For him, the acceptance Take 6 has enjoyed is not something about which to be proud, but about which to be obedient. “The Lord has opened doors for us to perform to a larger sector of people and not confine ourselves to just a church audience. I often think of Jonah, unwilling to go to Nineveh, because it was so wicked. But that was exactly where God wanted him to go. I use that example just to say that Take 6 is being open-minded to go wherever the Lord will send us.”

The opportunities have certainly opened up for the group. Their well-publicized convictions have sparked curiosity. Why aren’t they singing secular music? Why don’t they drink? Why do they avoid certain amusem*nts? “People seem to appreciate our convictions,” Mark says. “They appreciate the fact that we are living clean lives and showing them a better way. Someone came up to me and said that he was inspired to clean up his life, to stop taking so many drugs. We may never see a lot of the people whose lives have been changed, but it’s not our responsibility to see that. It’s only our responsibility to be used.”

By James Long, senior editor of CAMPUS LIFE magazine.

ARTBRIEFS

CAN Do

For Karen Mulder and Phillip Griffith, networking is another word for fellowship—especially in encouraging often-alienated Christian artists. Founders of Christians in the Arts Networking (CAN), Mulder and Griffith tell Christian artists they are not alone and their work can have an impact on society.

CAN’s 2,100 members in 28 countries can find out who is doing what kind of work, and where, by contacting CAN in Massachusetts. “We want to promote communications among Christians in the arts as well as create a bridge between the church and the arts community,” Griffith told CT. “We want people to think about the biblical standards for an artist’s life and work.”

Griffith got the idea for CAN in 1983 from reading about Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of bones. “I began to feel that the artists were like the dry bones—separated from one another and the church, but God was bringing them back together to take their place in the church and the army of God.”

Mulder and Griffith spend much of their time globetrotting in search of interesting bones. Last year, a dance conference in Australia, a cultural exchange trip in China, and lectures in a half-dozen U.S. cities crammed CAN’s agenda, and Mulder put together a slide show to use in CAN’s networking forays. “Alone at night with this tremendous wealth of creativity before me,” she recalls, “I was often in tears for the diversity, brilliance, excellence, and simplicity of Truth well expressed.”

Not bad for a valley of bones.

On the Road with the Jesus People

During the sixties’ turmoil of 20 years ago, a new breed of young Christians emerged called “Jesus people.” Maturing physically and spiritually, they established communities in various parts of the country, with ongoing ministries to the poor and disadvantaged.

Now Jesus People U.S.A. (JPUSA), the Chicago-based community, has produced a docudrama video tracing the early years of the national movement up to the present. Many Are Called but Few Can Stand It follows a group of Jesus people traveling across the U.S., bringing their enthusiastic witness to an institutional church they perceive as dead.

Written and directed by Mike Hertenstein, the 90-minute video was shot over the course of a year using a cast composed mostly of JPUSA members. It is JPUSA’s first foray into drama; earlier videos have centered on music, and on Rez Band in particular. The video is scheduled for release later this summer and will be distributed through JPUSA’s Cornerstone magazine and Christian bookstores.

Dancing to a Different Drummer

If actions speak louder than words, which actions speak loudest? If you’re” like many people, ballet doesn’t leap to mind. But for the Asaph Ensemble, classical dance and music do the job well.

Part of the Virginia-based Christian Performing Artists’ Fellowship, Asaph strives to bring the gospel to a relatively overlooked group: secular performing artists. Anyone who has seen A Chorus Line will know what they are up against. Through choreographed versions of works such as Mozart’s Requiem (performed last May in Washington’s Kennedy Center), ballerinas, opera soloists, and professional orchestra musicians join forces to reach out to secular people who (they hope) populate the audience. Admission is free. If the good news isn’t clear enough via the topnotch performance, the conductor spells the message out, invitation and all.

“We are not professional theologians,” executive director Patrick Kavanaugh said in a Washington Times interview; “Christ has given us a job to do.” Part of that job is for dancers with names such as Reluctance, Reserve, and Exuberant to tell of the trial of faith through thought-provoking choreography. Robert Strum, director of dance, has shaped the group’s act to the music of Stravinsky; in December, Asaph will perform Handel’s Messiah.

“The Old Testament exhorts us to dance unto the Lord,” one performer says. “When God says to dance, I have to do it.”

By Dan Coran and Carol R. Thiessen.

The Power of Myth, by Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers (Doubleday, 233 pp., $19.95, paper; the video series: Mystic Fire Video, P.O. Box 30969, New York, N.Y. 10011; six tapes, $149.95 [$29.95 each]). Reviewed by Terry C. Muck.

Forty years ago New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann made myth a four-letter word for conservative Christians. That made Joseph Campbell’s life work, resensitizing religious Westerners to the importance of myth, all the more difficult. Using a 38-year teaching career at Sarah Lawrence College, a score of scholarly and semi-scholarly books, and finally a PBS television series with Bill Moyers, Campbell spread the word myth like graffiti across America’s consciousness. In the end, Campbell served us better than Bultmann.

Taped three years prior to Campbell’s death in 1987, the video series and accompanying book are a fitting climax to the career of a man most would identify as the world’s leading mythologist. Using an extraordinary range of examples from the world religions and religious art, Campbell demonstrates and explains the role myth plays in everyday life. In response to thought-provoking questions from host Bill Moyers, Campbell teaches one overall lesson: myth is a good and necessary bridge to the eternal.

Remythologizing

Campbell’s concern was that our secular age has lost all contact with the transcendent dimension of life, largely because we let science debunk myth. Consider, he says, the architecture of Europe in the Middle Ages. In almost every town the highest building was a great Gothic cathedral stretching heavenward in a symbolic attempt to touch the hand of God himself. Next in height came government buildings, and then squat merchants’ huts. Look at our modern cities. In New York it is the World Trade Center that reaches heavenward, and in Washington, D.C., monuments scratch the bottom of the clouds. In their shadow, if they can get that close, sit smallish, square churches. Can there be any better paradigm of what has happened to religion in modern life?

Campbell’s point is a good one and has obviously struck a responsive chord in American viewers and readers. The television series, “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” was enormously successful. The accompanying book, The Power of Myth, which is little more than edited transcripts of the television series, has been on the New York Times best-seller list for over a year. The videocassette series has sold 17,000 copies at $149.95 a set and is still pumping. And the whole package has so piqued interest in myth that books Campbell wrote 20 and 30 years ago are again in demand. Obviously, interest in myth is alive and well in people’s hearts. Considering the secularized ills of the day, it is pretty obvious that Campbell’s advocacy of remythologizing is a far more fruitful line of inquiry than Rudolf Bultmann’s demythologizing.

An Insubstantial Transcendence

Unfortunately, both Bultmann and Campbell miss the boat—but for widely divergent reasons. Bultmann wanted to “demythologize” the New Testament; to do this he threw out all the “unscientific” parts of the story and so missed the point of The Story. Campbell, on the other hand, laments the loss of myth from modern consciousness. Religious truth, he insists, is incomplete without a sense of the transcendent—which can only come through stories laden with meaning that go beyond the capacities of our intellects to understand. To make this valid point, he goes too far in three respects.

First, he disparages the indispensable rational element in religious faith. “Fastening on theology and systems means the decline of religion,” he says. Had he said fastening exclusively on the rational element, he would be more convincing. None of the great Christian theologians have denied the essential nature of mystery and transcendence. The key is always the balance between the rational and the mysterious. Campbell defines myth well—“the interface between what can be known and what can never be known.” Yet he seems to identify all of religious faith as residing in this intellectual purgatory, and that won’t do.

Second, Campbell identifies Western religion as rational (thus in decline) and exalts the mysterium of Eastern faith traditions. By focusing so heavily on Eastern mythology, Campbell disparages the uniqueness of the Christian story—God incarnate in history in the person Jesus Christ. Instead, he trots out and puts on a pedestal all the beautiful Eastern myths of Krishna, Vishnu, Brahma. Beautiful, yes; but they are quite different from the unique contribution of Christianity—a mysterious combination of the divine and the mundane. Where in history is there a better example of the “interface of the known and the unknown”?

Third, he seems to go beyond simply extolling Eastern philosophy and actually to embrace Eastern monism as well. “We all have God in us,” he says at one point. “God is a thought, a name, an idea. God is a reference to that which ends all thinking.” Well, God is all these things, but most of us would feel more comfortable if high on the list of things God is, Campbell had added that God is a person, capable of relationship with individual human beings.

At one point Bill Moyers asks Campbell about the meaning of the universe. “It’s just there—that’s it,” was Campbell’s reply. Perhaps what would have helped this beautifully produced series and book more than anything else would have been an assertion that religious myth points to a meaning with a tad more content than just that.

A Theological Sermon

The Sermon on the Mount: A Theological Interpretation, by Carl G. Vaught (State University of New York Press, 217 pp.; $34.50, hardcover). Reviewed by Walter W. Wessel, professor of New Testament, Bethel Seminary West, San Diego, California.

This book represents material originally presented to an adult Sunday school class by Carl Vaught, professor of philosophy at Pennsylvania State University. His approach to the Sermon on the Mount is not the ordinary one. He shows little or no concern with the sources of the sermon. He assumes it is a unit, presented by Jesus in its present Matthean form. His interest is in exposition, not dissection.

Vaught divides the sermon into the following parts; divine perfection and Christian maturity; the past and the future; five practical problems; six expressions of perfection; and final considerations about God’s kingdom.

Three things in particular are impressive about Vaught’s work. One is that he insists on interpreting the sermon theologically. This frequently results in in-depth study of theological terms and ideas. (A good example is his well-informed discussion of the righteousness of God and the kingdom of God.) Another impressive feature is his knowledge of the Greek text. He works comfortably with tenses, voices, syntax, and so on, where these are important, if not crucial, for a clear understanding of the text. A third commendable feature of the book is the excellent summaries at the beginning of each chapter. It is in these that Vaught’s conviction of the unity of the sermon comes through most strongly. What he identifies as logical and theological connections and transitions are, for the most part, convincing.

Not all is right with the book—his discussion of temptation surely is wrong, and his word studies do not always bear the weight of the theological point he wants to make (e.g., the meaning of blepō [p. 77] or of eis [p. 132]). However, I found the book to be a stimulating exposition of the sermon, containing many valuable spiritual insights. I would recommend its reading by any and all who seek illumination of this important part of the Word of God.

Beyond Good Intentions: A Biblical View of Politics, by Doug Bandow (Crossway, 271 pp.; $9.95, paper). Reviewed by Reo Christenson, adjunct professor of political science at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

In Beyond Good Intentions, Doug Bandow, a Senior Fellow at a conservative think tank, the Cato Institute, and a nationally syndicated columnist with Copley News Service, makes a valiant effort to identify and apply biblical principles to politics today. A careful scholar and thoughtful analyst, much of his book will command respect even from his critics.

Bandow believes the Bible provides general principles rather than specific answers to most modern problems. Since there is no clear “biblical agenda” for our times, we usually must seek “prudential” answers to our public problems. Also, he believes Christians should be political activists—the “salt” of the earth and a “light unto the world.” But they should remember that their first responsibility is to live in a Christian manner and advance the gospel of Christ. So far, so good.

But while Bandow seeks a “Biblical philosophy of government that can unite all believers, whether on the Right or Left, rather than a religious litmus test that will only divide them,” his prescriptions, unfortunately, fail his own test.

Less Is Better

When he applies his biblical principles, a pronounced antigovernment bias emerges, which will not sit well with either camp.

Politically conservative Christians will approve of many of his positions: support for educational vouchers; opposition to abortion; commitment to minimal government; a generally negative stance on welfare, “comparative worth” legislation, foreign aid, government regulations, high marginal tax rates, and government subsidies. Also, his enthusiasm for free trade and a free-market economy will gratify, as will his respect for nuclear weapons as a deterrent to aggression. (He is careful not to condemn social security or Medicare.)

But politically conservative Christians will be less pleased with his opposition to aid for the contras, or with his antagonism to controls on p*rnography, on drug abuse, and on efforts to reintroduce prayer into public schools.

A major problem is that Bandow’s attempt to apply the Mosaic code—prepared for an agricultural and theocratic society light years removed from our industrial, technocratic, nuclear age—is pursued with far more confidence than most Christians would find justified.

For instance, while condemning p*rnography as morally evil, Bandow says “there is no Scriptural mandate to ban sexually explicit materials” for adults and suggests the apostle Paul would not jail p*rnographers. Are we really to believe that America, which was legislatively and judicially intolerant of p*rn from 1787 to the 1950s, was thereby less Christian than when p*rn became the unfettered cultural disgrace it is today? And where does Scripture even indirectly distinguish between what may be sold to children and what to adults?

Although conceding that “drug policy is more a matter of reason that revelation,” he would deregulate even the most dangerous drugs for adults because current enforcement efforts are ineffective and attempts to legislate morality generally do more harm than good. How many Christians want to toss in the towel on the drug epidemic long before we have exhausted many enforcement options available to us, or believe Scripture even remotely advises this course?

Bandow comes down hard on those who would raise taxes on the rich to redistribute wealth. Such action smacks of “envy” and “covetousness.” Although he insists that Christians should seek justice, no injustice seems involved (worthy of public concern) when hosts of people become multimillionaires by means that contribute nothing to the public good. (One responsible observer found that only one super-wealthy person in seven had won that wealth by a socially beneficial activity.) Apparently he cannot believe it is deeply offensive to some people’s sense of justice when income differentials are outrageous. The greed of the wealthy does not concern Bandow—just the greed of those who want the wealthy to pay what they can so well afford to pay.

Bandow suggests that what these dissenters are seeking is economic equality. I know of no one who believes all incomes should be equal, but many thoughtful people believe tax burdens should fall most heavily on those who can most easily bear them. An unchristian view? As for the inevitable incentive argument, what entrepreneur with a bright idea for a new or improved product or service ever declined to develop it because marginal tax rates were 50 percent instead of 28 percent? The potential market is what’s crucial.

Necessary Regulation

Environmental protection is the area where Bandow’s bias more seriously undermines his antigovemmental thesis. Everything we know about acid rain, the destruction of the ozone layer, the greenhouse effect, and threats to our underground water supply tell us that government will have to play a much larger role in our economy than he envisions if the future of the planet is not to be endangered. Loving our neighbor as ourself surely means profound concern for the well-being of our children and grandchildren.

Scripture does not forbid us—and perhaps even encourages us—to take governmental actions that discourage entrepreneurial malefactors, promote economic justice, and do whatever is needed to protect our environment—even if this requires more government than Bandow’s interpretations of Scripture permit.

David Howard is international director of World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF), an organization of 59 regional and national bodies representing 100 million evangelicals around the world. WEF relocated its headquarters to Singapore in February 1987. CHRISTIANITY TODAY spoke with Howard about the growth of the church in that small but influential city-state.

What is the status of the church in Singapore?

A recent front-page article in Singapore’s major newspaper, the Straights Times, discussed a government survey indicating that Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in the country. The article reported about 19 percent of the current population is Christian, compared with about 9 percent ten years ago. That would include Catholics and anyone who calls himself or herself a Christian. But in Singapore, those who call themselves Christians are usually what we would call evangelicals.

The most interesting part of the survey was where those Christians are found. In most non-Western countries, the Christian church is strongest in the lesser-educated strata of society. In Singapore, it’s exactly the opposite. This survey said that 41 percent of the university graduates are Christians. Thirty-eight percent of those in professional, managerial, and executive jobs are Christians.

What about the rest of society?

The professionals are primarily Chinese, who make up about 76 percent of the population. Indians are about 4 percent, and they also are found among the professionals. And this is reflected in the churches.

The Malays, who make up most of the working class, are about 14 percent of the population. They are almost all Muslims, and the church has not been very effective in reaching them with the gospel.

Why this growth pattern?

When I ask believers, “How did you become a Christian?” their answer is almost always the same: They were led to the Lord through Bible studies in high school or college—studies conducted by groups such as Youth for Christ, InterVarsity, and Navigators. Missionary studies of church growth in Singapore have shown the same. Conversion takes place most often during teenage years, in high school. These young believers go on to the university and are further discipled.

Most converts are the first Christians in their families. According to the survey I mentioned before, people are leaving Buddhism and Hinduism about equally for Christianity and secularism. Islam is holding its own.

What challenges does the church in Singapore face?

Christians there are in danger of being affected by materialism. Singapore is a very affluent society, and most of the Christians, coming from the middle and upper classes, are relatively comfortable. In any part of the world, affluence can leave believers unwilling to make the sacrifices that may be necessary for the growth of the church.

A second danger I see is that of insensitivity to the social needs of other people. Singapore doesn’t have a lot of poverty. The government has been tremendously effective in its economic policies.

The closest thing to poverty in Singapore is found among the foreign workers, who come from Thailand or Malaysia to do construction jobs for the growing city, sending money back to their families. The church has not done enough to try to reach these people and to do something for them both spiritually and physically.

What are some other characteristics of the church in Singapore?

There is a good missions consciousness. About 250 Singaporeans are serving as missionaries in other parts of the world.

Singapore Christians, however, are also big on three or four-week mission trips to India or the Philippines, to build a church or a school building, or to sing and have gospel meetings. Church leaders in Singapore point to the danger that Christians view these trips as fulfillment of their missionary obligation. Unfortunately, these trips also use large amounts of money—much more than what is currently going into long-term missions.

But I’m pleased with the aggressiveness of the church. It is still growing. It’s made up largely of young people, first-generation Christians, who still have that first love and evangelistic enthusiasm.

TV evangelist Jerry Falwell, saying religious conservatives are now a fixed political bloc in America, announced plans to dissolve Moral Majority, the controversial lobby he and allies on the Religious Right founded 10 years ago.

At a press conference before the opening of the annual Southern Baptist Convention in Las Vegas, the fundamentalist leader told the Religion Newswriters Association that his Washington-based political group is no longer needed because “the Religious Right is solidly in place.”

Falwell said he feels the Religious Right is “winning,” with victories for Ronald Reagan and George Bush and a more conservative Supreme Court, even though the broad agenda he espoused is far from being in place. Religious conservatives, he said, now account for more than 20 percent of the U.S. electorate and have been persuaded that “it isn’t a sin to vote.”

Mobilizing Christians

Moral Majority spent more than $69 million in the last decade, Falwell said, with most going to register voters, back conservative candidates, and press its views on such social and moral issues as abortion, p*rnography, and hom*osexual rights. Falwell said his group also concentrated on influencing 50,000 pastors of evangelical churches.

At its zenith in 1984, Moral Majority claimed up to three million backers and spent $11 million, he said. But the group, which became a lightning rod for opponents of the Religious Right, lost momentum in recent years and saw its budget drop to about $3 million in the current fiscal year.

Moral Majority was a frequent target for liberals. And even conservative godfather Barry Goldwater accused Falwell and his followers of trying to impose their fundamentalist values on U.S. society and violating the principle of church-state separation.

Leaving Politics?

The 55-year-old minister also said the closing down of Moral Majority by August 31 is another step in his own” master plan” to withdraw entirely from politics and concentrate on his broadcast ministry (the “Old-Time Gospel Hour”), Liberty University, and the Thomas Road Baptist Church he pastors, all based in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Falwell has been phasing out his political activity in recent years, previously handing the presidency of Moral Majority over to Atlanta businessman Jerry Nims, but remaining as chairman of the organization’s board of directors.

That came within months of the time when Falwell temporarily took charge of the scandal-ridden PTL ministry. Shocks from that religious Watergate caused six months of paralysis for Falwell’s own ministry, the evangelist said, and caused a drop in revenues and consequent layoffs.

But the evangelist told reporters his own operations have rebounded so well that revenues for the fiscal year, ended June 30, 1989, exceeded $140 million, compared to $88 million the prior year.

“Those ministries that ought to survive have survived,” he declared, pointing to the organizations of Billy Graham, Charles Stanley, and D. James Kennedy as well as his own.

Falwell says he will still speak out occasionally on moral and social issues, but ruled out reactivating Moral Majority or a similar group under any foreseeable circ*mstances.

By Richard Walker, in Las Vegas.

In Georgia, it’s okay to open legislative sessions with prayer, but don’t try it at high-school football games. The U.S. Supreme Court justices, without comment, declined to review an appeals court decision that organized prayers before football games in Douglas County, Georgia, violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment. School officials had appealed the decision, saying prayers are just as allowable at football games as at the opening of state legislative sessions. The Court’s refusal to hear the appeal lets stand the lower court ban on the prayers.

In another church/state case, the justices refused to block a lawsuit being brought against the Unification Church by two ex-members who say they were brainwashed into joining the group. The church had argued that the lawsuit violates its constitutional rights to the free exercise of religion. Several other church groups joined the Unification Church in raising concerns that the trial would set an inappropriate precedent of state interference in church affairs. “Absent violence or other [illegal] conduct, the state cannot leave unorthodox religious organizations to the not-so-tender mercies of a jury,” attorneys for the Unification Church said. The Court’s rejection of that argument now clears the way for a jury trial.

And, in a five-to-two decision, the Court ruled against the Church of Scientology in its dispute with the Internal Revenue Service. The Court said the IRS could deny income-tax deductions to church members for payments received for training services and auditing sessions designed to increase spiritual awareness. Writing for the majority, Justice Thurgood Marshall said such payments could not be deducted because they were given “in return for goods or services” and with the “expectation of [a] quid pro quo.”

On the abortion front, the Court let stand $88,000 in penalties against a Texas clinic charged with deceptive advertising. Because the clinic opposed abortion, yet advertised in the Yellow Pages under “Abortion Information and Services,” a state jury fined Mother and Unborn Baby Care of North Texas, Inc., and ordered that in future ads the clinic proclaim that it is not an abortion clinic and does not provide abortion referrals. Without comment, the Court turned down a review appeal from the clinic.

WORLD SCENE

ENGLAND

Graham Links Continents

Billy Graham’s “Mission 89” in London last month used satellite links to beam the crusade to 238 locations throughout the British Isles and to 28 African countries.

Total attendance at the London meetings was expected to exceed 200,000. Each satellite link in Britain was organized as a separate crusade, with a total of 5,500 churches involved throughout the nation. Live and delayed broadcasts in Africa reached an estimated nightly audience of 23 to 30 million.

Graham noted a spiritual change in Britain since his first visit there in 1946. Then, he said, people thought technology would improve their lives. “Today there is a concern that materialism hasn’t brought the deep sense of satisfaction which people are looking for.”

POLAND

Religious Freedom on Rise

As Poland’s Solidarity political party continues to make gains, the church in Poland also is experiencing more freedom. Recently the Roman Catholic Church was officially granted legal status. And according to Konstanty Waisowski, president of the Polish Baptist Union, the fruits of the negotiations between Catholic and government officials will apply to all denominations in the country.

At the same time, a national chapter of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, the worldwide student organization with which InterVarsity Christian Fellowship is affiliated, has been officially registered in Poland. A full-time Polish student worker has been appointed.

EL SALVADOR

Peaceful Change of Power

For the first time in the history of El Salvador, power has passed from one elected leader to another. Alfredo Cristiani was sworn in as president on June 1, after winning elections the month before. Cristiani takes over a country brutalized by a decade of civil war that has left 70,000 dead. He hopes to help negotiate an end to the violence between government troops and left-wing guerrillas.

Meanwhile, the evangelical church continues to grow amid the political instability. According to CONESAL (Fraternity of Salvadoran Evangelicals), more than 22 percent of the country’s population can be considered evangelical. CONESAL says, however, the church in El Salvador remains in need of strong leadership and biblical training.

ALBANIA

Faith Out of Sight

Albania is described as the world’s worst abuser of religious liberty in a new human rights study carried out by the Puebla Institute, a private human rights monitoring group. “There is absolutely no institutionally sponsored public expression of faith of any kind in Albania today,” said the report, entitled Religion in a Fortress State.

There are no places of worship; all religious property remains confiscated; religious education is banned as are religiously sponsored hospitals and charitable institutions. The Puebla Institute reports, however, that Albanians secretly practice religion, holding worship services and baptizing children without the benefit of clergy.

Albania was once a haven for religious minorities. But beginning in 1944, the Communist Party sought to replace religion with communism and a personality cult based on party leader Enver Hoxha, who died in 1985. Albania recently resumed diplomatic ties with some Western nations and granted visas to several American clergy. This has raised faint hopes of a freer climate, according to the institute, but “this liberalization is so slight as to be almost undetectable.”

SUDAN

Relief Convoys Get Through

Warring parties in the African nation of Sudan have agreed to allow the delivery of food to areas most affected by the civil strife. Government troops and the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) agreed to allow the United Nations to deliver food, using a plan that could become a model of cooperation for other areas of conflict, such as Afghanistan, Angola, Ethiopia, and Somalia.

Heavy rains have slowed “Operation Lifeline—Sudan,” but already 60,000 tons of a targeted goal of 100,000 tons have reached southern Sudan. Millions of civilians in southern Sudan are believed to be facing starvation. More than 200,000 starved to death during last year’s massive famine.

World Vision International plans to distribute 18,000 tons of food in the Sudan in the near future. After being expelled from the country by the government in 1988, the relief agency has based its operations in nearby Kenya and is now working through Norwegian Peoples’ Aid.

WORLDWIDE

Believers Gain Ground

The ratio of non-Christians to “Great Commission Christians” has been shrinking steadily and is now only four to one, according to missiologist Ralph Winter. The category of Great Commission Christians refers to “those believers who take seriously the Great Commission,” and is being used by the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization’s Statistics Task Force. In the year A.D. 100, the ratio was 360 to 1.

Writing in Mission Frontiers, the bulletin of the U.S. Center for World Mission, Winter bases his conclusions on figures published in the World Christian Encyclopedia. Winter has also revised his figure for “unreached people groups,” a category of missions statistic which he pioneered, to a best estimate of 12,000. Figures had been quoted as high as 16,000 and as low as 3,000 for those groups with no indigenous witnessing church.

Last summer the ruling body of the United Church of Canada opened the door for practicing hom*osexuals to serve as clergy in the 860,000-member denomination. And while opponents of the controversial action have not left the denomination in large numbers, they have not ignored the issue either. At least three patterns of opposition have developed:

• Working within the United Church, the Community of Concern (COC) now claims to represent close to 1,500 congregations and ministers. By dint of sheer numbers, the COC hopes to persuade next summer’s general council to back away from gay ordination.

• Some large and influential United churches are declining to support the COC, but are developing “positive” pro-family programs, for example, to tackle the gay issue.

• Some 75 United Church ministers out of 3,000 have left to affiliate with the 167-year-old Conference of Congregational Christian Churches of Canada (CCC). In the process, they have swelled the tiny, six-church, Ontario-based group into a nationwide denomination.

COC executive director Gordon Ross says his group is currently surveying the United Church to determine the real strength of opposition to gay ordination. According to Ross, four of the church’s twelve regional conferences have voted not to ordain practicing gays, and at least two others were expected to follow.

Additionally, the COC theological education committee is preparing a brief for the church’s ministry division. That brief will very likely press for approval of clergy-training alternatives to denominational seminaries, which do not discourage hom*osexual practice.

While the COC disclaims “fundamentalist” labels, Ross says the hom*osexual ordination issue has helped evangelicals and traditional liberals in the United Church to find common ground. If the theological education committee makes headway, evangelical schools such as Vancouver’s Regent College and Toronto’s Ontario Theological Seminary may emerge as acceptable alternatives to the denominational institutions.

One of the churches choosing to work within the United Church is Toronto’s 2,000-member Kingsway-Lambton United Church. Leaders there recently put together a “Focus on the Family” weekend designed to reinforce traditional family values. The weekend utilized Canadian Focus on the Family resource people.

The church’s senior minister, Harry Denning, believes such activities effectively respond to the kind of gay activism that undercuts family values.

By Lloyd Mackey.

NORTH AMERICAN SCENE

GAMBLING

Pursuing the Jackpot

Millions of Americans are seeking their fortunes through various forms of gambling, according to a New York Times/CBS News survey. Sixty-three percent of those questioned said they had placed at least one bet in the past year; 23 percent reported playing the lottery weekly.

The poll also found widespread public acceptance of gambling, with 77 percent approving lotteries and 43 percent approving legal sports betting. Gambling is accepted even among religious people, according to the poll. More than half of all Protestants—and nearly half of those who said religion is very important to them—reported having gambled at least once in the last year.

CONGRESS

Washington Waxing Spiritual?

U.S. Senator Claiborne Pell (D-R.I.) has sent spiritual shock waves across Washington, D.C., with a proposal recommending that a congressional commission study ways to “promote personal excellence and the highest levels of human potential.” Two of the commission members, Pell stipulated, must have training in “extraordinary human performance research.”

It was Pell who last year requested that a Senate hearing witness close the session with Transcendental Meditation. Pell denied his current proposal is designed to promote any “religious belief or any philosophical system.” But critics charge it is a plug for the New Age movement.

Meanwhile in the House of Representatives, Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-Calif.) has introduced the “Community Life Amendment,” which, among other things, would establish “the right of the people to allow voluntary school prayer and the teaching of the Judeo-Christian ethic in public schools.”

UPDATE

CBN Law School Approved

The Board of Governors of the American Bar Association (ABA) has granted provisional approval of the Christian Broadcasting Network University (CBNU) School of Law. The ABA action puts an apparent end to a struggle that has gone on since 1986, when CBNU acquired the law school from Oral Roberts University and the ABA’s approval of the school was rescinded.

Earlier this year, nearly 50 CBNU students filed a lawsuit charging the ABA with violations of civil rights and antitrust laws because of its refusal to accredit their school. Without ABA approval, students are denied access to the bar examination in 43 states and the District of Columbia. A district court judge dismissed the case.

In 1987, the ABA accreditation committee expressed concern about the school’s religious orientation. An ABA site-team visit in April of this year questioned law school dean Herb Titus extensively on the school’s religious beliefs. But an ABA council determined in June that CBNU “substantially complies with the Standards for Approval of Law Schools.”

ABORTION

“Necessity” Defense Wins Out

A North Carolina district judge acquitted six abortion protesters of trespassing charges last month after their attorney used the “defense of necessity.” The attorney argued that a February demonstration in front of an abortion clinic was necessary to save human lives.

The decision, rendered by Mecklenburg County Judge Bill Constangy, has proved highly controversial in North Carolina and around the country. Observers say it was the first time in the state a judge allowed the necessity defense in an abortion protest case. Constangy is being accused of bias in the case because he allegedly sports a bumper sticker that reads, “I am a Pro-life Democrat.”

To date, no judge has allowed the necessity defense in a jury trial of an abortion protest case. Judges in a bench trial have considerably more freedom to determine the legitimacy of evidence and arguments.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Withdrawn: From consideration as head of the Department of Health and Human Services Family Support Administration, Robert Fulton, the personal choice of Secretary Louis Sullivan. Fulton came under fire from prolife groups who alleged that while in state office, he failed to stop—and indeed covered up—an Oklahoma program that denied medical treatment to handicapped infants based on their “quality of life potential.”

Named: As executive director of the Evangelical Foreign Missions Association (EFMA), Paul McKaughan, most recently the associate international director of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. McKaughan will succeed Wade Coggins, who will retire next March after 15 years in the position. EFMA members support some 13,000 missionaries in more than 140 countries.

Sold: Over 140,000 copies of the book Out of the Blue, written by Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser (as told to Jerry Jenkins). Published by Wolgemuth & Hyatt, the book spent nine weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, getting as high as number five.

Granted: Retirement pension for Raleigh Washington, pastor of the Rock of Our Salvation Free Church in Chicago. Washington, 50, was dishonorably discharged from the U.S. Army in 1980 a day short of the 20 years required to receive a pension. Washington, whose church was featured in the March 4, 1988, issue of CT (p. 21), last month rejoined the army for one day in order to receive his pension while his case is reconsidered.

A group of dissident Episcopal bishops, clergy, and laity has formed an “Episcopal Synod of America” as an orthodox island in a more liberal Episcopal sea. Meeting June 1–3 in Fort Worth, Texas, up to 2,000 Episcopal traditionalists formed a “church within a church” to give themselves a more powerful lobbying voice. The synod created a legal entity—complete with officers, delegates, a constitution, and an annual meeting—that does not violate Episcopal canon law. Delegates elected Fort Worth Bishop Clarence Pope as president.

The synod was organized by the Evangelical and Catholic Mission (ECM), a caucus of Episcopal traditionalists who opposed the ordination of women and liberal trends in the 2.4 million-member denomination. When the ECM learned of the September 26, 1988, election of Barbara Harris as the Episcopal suffragan (assistant) bishop of Massachusetts, they announced the synod, saying, “The final crisis of the Episcopal Church is upon us.”

Most of their concerns line up with an evangelical agenda: biblical orthodoxy, personal morality, marital fidelity, and a stand against radical feminist theology. Aside from Harris, they are upset with other events taking place within the church, such as Newark Bishop John Spong’s announcement that he had worshiped before a Buddhist shrine last November, and plans in some dioceses to bless same-sex marriages.

Liberal Trend?

The synod got little public reaction from Presiding Episcopal Bishop Edmond Browning until he sent out a May 19 letter to all Episcopal clergy saying that he “affirmed” the synod but rejected their conclusions that the denomination is disintegrating and in crisis.

The view from Fort Worth differed. London Bishop Graham Leonard, long a foe of women’s ordination, said the trend toward liberalism in the 70 million-member Anglican Communion, of which the Episcopal Church is but one segment, has gone on for 25 years.

“There is a massive realignment taking place throughout the world in all the churches,” Leonard said, “between those who believe the gospel as it is revealed and those who believe the gospel should be modified to suit each successive generation.” Leonard, along with other foreign bishops at the synod, told the traditionalists that Anglicans from around the world look to them for leadership. Leonard, 68, is due to retire in two years.

The synod divided the country into six districts, assigning each an ECM bishop. They will be aided by 20 retired bishops. Although Pope estimates that as many as 45 percent of all Episcopalians side with them, ECM has a mailing list of only 11,000. However, 16,000 people have signed a declaration of common faith in line with biblical orthodoxy and a male-only priesthood. Any parish can join the synod by a vote of its vestry; whole dioceses can join the synod through a resolution adopted at diocesan conventions.

Synod delegates passed several resolutions, including a controversial one on “episcopal visitors” that is sure to create comment at the September House of Bishops meeting in Philadelphia. The resolution basically makes it easier for traditionalist bishops to visit congregations under the jurisdiction of a female bishop or a male bishop opposed to traditionalist views. This crossing of diocesan lines may provoke an uproar similar to when London’s Leonard visited an Oklahoma congregation in 1986 and confirmed several of its members over the protests of its diocesan bishop. The six active diocesan bishops at the synod said they were prepared to take similar action on behalf of traditionalist congregations.

“If we have to choose between canonical obedience and conscience, we’ll be forced to choose conscience,” said Eau Claire, Wisconsin Bishop William Wantland.

Synod organizers said they were not interested in schism, as the history of splinter movements in the Episcopal Church has not been a good one. In fact, several bishops from various splinter or “continuing” churches, as well as older denominations such as the Reformed Episcopal Church, attended the synod in hopes of finding ways to link up with the traditionalists. Organizers said they wished they had convened the synod 12 years ago to help stem an exodus of one million persons from the Episcopal Church in the past two decades.

“The hour is late. Very late,” said Quincy, Illinois, Bishop Edward MacBurney. “It is, in reality, the bottom of the ninth. We were either to field a team or we would lose the game by forfeit.”

By Julia Duin, in Fort Worth.

At a meeting perhaps as notable for its location as its action, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) gathered last month in Las Vegas and continued on a course directed by conservative leaders.

Jerry Vines, pastor of First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, was re-elected to a second term as president of the 14.8 million-member denomination, defeating moderate candidate Daniel Vestal of Atlanta, 10,754 votes to 8,248. Vines’s election marks the eleventh consecutive year a conservative candidate has held the top office.

While Las Vegas odds makers were laying 2-to-1 odds for Vines’s re-election, moderates went into the convention hoping a low turnout and a site far from conservative Baptist strongholds would work in their favor. But instead of the expected 16,000 to 18,000 messengers, 20,202 had registered when the vote was taken, and the election went to Vines.

“I believe the issue of the Bible is settled in Southern Baptist life,” Vines said at a press conference after the election. “Southern Baptists, every time they have had an opportunity to do so, have overwhelmingly affirmed we believe the Bible is without error.” While controversy is not over nor all problems solved, Vines said, administrators and trustees of Southern Baptist institutions “clearly understand the direction which Southern Baptists want to go.”

Moderate candidate Vestal said he believes the issue dividing the convention is not belief in the Bible, but freedom. Those who voted for him do not want liberalism taught in seminaries, he said. “The question is: Will we be a noncreedal denomination that will allow freedom and openness, or are we going to have a forced conformity? Are we going to disenfranchise and exclude the great numbers of Southern Baptists who will not participate in this political move?”

Though he said he was “willing and available” to be a candidate in 1990, Vestal said he was not ready to make a commitment to run again for president. He said he plans first to return to pastoring his church, which will continue to support the SBC.

Avoiding Divisions

Upon his election at last year’s convention in San Antonio, Texas, Vines had called for Southern Baptists to set aside divisive issues and return to a unifying emphasis on missions and evangelism. Continuing that theme, convention speakers frequently extolled soul winning, while SBC messengers (delegates) took to the streets of “Sin City” in a variety of outreach efforts to bolster church planting efforts in the Las Vegas area (see article below).

The day before the convention opened, the SBC executive committee sidestepped one potential point of serious conflict. At Vines’s request, the committee postponed consideration by the convention of a proposal to establish a new political lobby in Washington, D.C. Last February, the committee voted to recommend that the SBC create the Religious Liberty Commission to “represent the stated positions of the Southern Baptist Convention” to the government and other bodies, and to inform Southern Baptists of religious-liberty issues and appropriate ways to influence decision makers. Conservative leaders have been critical of actions of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, of which the SBC and eight other Baptist bodies are members.

The creation of the new commission would in effect displace the Baptist Joint Committee (BJC) as the convention’s voice in Washington. Such an action requires the approval of a majority of messengers at two consecutive SBC annual meetings. The executive committee postponed consideration of the matter until the 1990 convention in New Orleans.

Though little controversy surfaced on the convention floor, discussion of the BJC revealed the tensions that have divided the SBC between so-called conservative and moderate factions in recent years. For example, one day after approving a $137.2 million budget for 1989–90 (down from $145.6 million for the past year), convention messengers were asked in a motion from the floor to reconsider the budget, a move designed to clear the way to cut $200,000 of the Southern Baptists’ allocation of $391,000 to the BJC.

During extended debate, former SBC president Adrian Rogers, speaking in favor of reconsidering the budget, said, “We have marched around this issue so many times … the body now needs to speak.” The convention, however, left the budget unchanged and continued funds for the BJC.

For moderates, who generally support the BJC, the vote was a bright spot in an otherwise dull convention. “The Baptist Joint Committee has some hidden support in the denomination,” said Stan Hastey, executive director of the Southern Baptist Alliance, a moderate group. “There are many theological fundamentalists in this denomination who do not go along with the national political agenda of the fundamentalist leaders in the SBC.”

Potential Problems

Conservative leaders also avoided convention discussion of two other potential controversies. The first involves a “memorial,” or message, from the Baptist General Association of Virginia (BGAV) delivered to the SBC, which questions the direction of the convention. The moderate-controlled BGAV could choose to withhold funds from the SBC, or even sever ties with the convention, if it is not satisfied with the response of the SBC to the issues raised in the message. The BGAV memorial was referred to the SBC executive committee and was not considered by the convention at large.

The second potential controversy centered on remarks made by Curtis Caine of Jackson, Mississippi, a trustee of the SBC Christian Life Commission. At the commission’s annual meeting last September, Caine allegedly called Martin Luther King, Jr., a “fraud” and said “apartheid in South Africa … doesn’t exist anymore and was beneficial when it did.” A motion to remove Caine immediately from the commission was postponed to the 1990 convention to allow for an investigation into the affair and the legal ramifications of any action, and to allow Caine time for response.

By Ken Sidey, in Las Vegas.

The Cross and the Casino

Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas has witnessed many unusual events, from super-hyped boxing matches to motorcycle jumps over its towering fountains. But seldom—if ever—has it been the site of an evangelistic rally. So when more than a hundred people knelt, sang, and prayed around a 12-foot wooden cross near the templelike entrance to the casino, traffic stopped and TV cameras converged.

The scene ended a three-mile march by several hundred Southern Baptists down the city’s famous “Strip” of casinos and hotels. With Arthur Blessitt, a California evangelist who has dragged the cross in more than 100 countries, leading the way, the marchers handed out Bibles and tracts to people on the sidewalks.

“We’re not here to close down the Strip,” one marcher said. “We’re just planting seeds.” While most on the street merely looked on with curiosity or avoided the group, one tourist, who said he got off his bus one stop early to find out what was going on, said he accepted Christ after talking with one of the marchers.

Prior to the convention, almost 1,800 conventioneers, including SBC president Jerry Vines, went door-to-door through residential Las Vegas, conducting evangelistic surveys and handing out tracts. Their work was coordinated with efforts by Nevada Baptist officials to launch 25 new churches or missions in the area during the next year.

One of the reasons Las Vegas was chosen as the site for the 1989 convention, Baptist leaders said, was to encourage church planting in the West. More than 100,000 households were contacted in two afternoons of witnessing; organizers reported 470 people came to faith in Christ during the outreach.

Commissioners (representatives) to the general assembly, the highest lawmaking body of the 2.9 million-member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (PCUSA), typically debate political and social issues at their yearly meeting till the early morning hours. But at the 201st general assembly, held last month in Philadelphia, business sessions ended on time. One was even canceled.

Perhaps acrimony gave way to celebration, as the denomination marked the bicentennial anniversary of its first general assembly, also held in Philadelphia. Or perhaps commissioners were overcome by the spirit of the moderator they elected to represent the church for the next year, the affable Joan Salmon-Campbell, member of the clergy and a trained musician described by Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary professor Richard Lovelace as “a charismatic that you don’t mind being charismaticized by.”

But the most likely explanation for this year’s relative calm was that commissioners were in a referral state of mind. Various task forces are in the midst of major studies on some of the denomination’s most hotly contested issues. Several commissioners expressed concern about “prejudicing” the progress of these efforts, thus setting the tone for referral.

Looking To 1991

A task force on human sexuality that is due to address several issues by 1991, including hom*osexual ordination, was the major target of referrals. Commissioners originally voted against a proposal to reaffirm opposition to the ordination of practicing hom*osexuals in the meantime.

But Kenneth Hall, the church’s immediate past-moderator, expressed concern the action would be interpreted as advocacy of hom*osexual ordination. And in the final business session, commissioners approved a resolution stating that the general assembly is “bound by previous actions until they are changed by Constitutional means.”

Another group due to report in 1991 is a task force on Social Witness Policy, which is attempting to articulate a theological basis for Presbyterian social action. Renewal leaders within the denomination generally believe the church in recent years has sacrificed theological reflection for political action.

But, said Harry Hassal, a long-time leader in renewal circles within the PCUSA, “This assembly was less political than any I’ve attended this decade. It did not seek to answer every political question on the international agenda.”

The body did resolve to intensify efforts to encourage divestment in South Africa, and called on the governments of El Salvador and the U.S. to “observe human rights and democratic freedoms of all Salvadorans.” It also affirmed the struggle of Chinese students for democracy, supporting the U.S. government’s response to the crisis there.

Compassion And Pietism

Hassal said the 1989 general assembly was marked by “compassion and pietism.” He cited as examples commissioners’ approval of measures designed to address the problem of homelessness and to help smaller congregations (under 250) to minister more effectively. Also, commissioners passed a resolution urging Presbyterians to protest “derogatory references to God and to Jesus Christ” on the part of national TV networks.

Theological conservatives were by and large pleased with the developments on the theological front, including approval of a proposed draft of a “Brief Statement of Faith,” a contemporary “Apostles’ Creed.” Commissioners also approved a major statement articulating the church’s vision. The statement identifies as the denomination’s two priority goals “doing evangelism and developing congregations” and “doing justice.” Commissioners authorized the raising of $13 million for overseas missions and $ 15 million (over the next five years) for domestic evangelism.

Renewal leader Matt Welde said he believes some of the motivation for the emphasis on evangelism is due to the “survival syndrome,” the fear that the denomination will eventually decline itself out of existence. But he added that many in top leadership positions in the church are coming to the sincere conviction that “people are lost outside of Christ.”

Failed Effort

Abortion opponents found little at this year’s meeting to applaud. The special organization Presbyterians Pro-Life (PPL) distributed a paper on the final day of the meeting, stating, “[W]e must name the beast which has devoured this Assembly, and that beast is wickedness.”

PPL unsuccessfully opposed a resolution criticizing the organization Operation Rescue. The resolution alleged that Operation Rescue and similar antiabortion groups are guilty of “harassment, personal abuse, intimidation, and violent attack” in their efforts to prevent women from obtaining abortions.

Commissioners did, however, approve a resolution calling for support of women in crisis-pregnancy situations, support that would enable them to “carry out their pregnancies to full term if that is their decision.” A major church dialogue on abortion is scheduled for November.

In one of its final actions, the general assembly passed a resolution chastising PPL for misleading and inaccurate portrayals of positions taken by this year’s assembly. According to the resolution, these concerns will be communicated to commissioners at next year’s general assembly.

By Randy Frame, in Philadelphia.

The essential goal of the ecumenical movement is to achieve visible unity of all Christians worldwide. Indeed, in his address to the recent World Council of Churches (WCC) conference on mission and evangelism, Eugene Stockwell, director of the WCC’s Commission of World Mission and Evangelism (CWME), observed that Christians are “split into a thousand and one churches, sects, groups, and communities,” adding, “This is a scandal, pure and simple.”

The CWME has met about once a decade since 1910 to rearticulate its understanding of mission and evangelism. Over 100 countries were represented at this year’s conference, held May 22–31 in San Antonio, Texas.

A brief exchange on the final day of the event illustrated why some believe the goal of visible unity is a pipe dream. Speaking on behalf of the Orthodox contingent, Bishop Antonius Markos of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Kenya expressed Orthodox Churches’ opposition to women in church leadership. Moments later, a woman took the floor to say she was deeply hurt by Markos’s statement. Markos responded that he was sorry if anyone was offended by this “expression of our faith.”

The exchange revealed that some expressions of faith might be incompatible with others, and that some expressions may not be as welcome within WCC circles as others.

Evangelical Issues

The list of what evangelicals within the WCC want is a short one, consisting essentially of upholding the uniqueness of Christ and the authority of Scripture. Evangelical participants and observers in San Antonio widely agreed their voice was heard in San Antonio and is being heard increasingly within ecumenical circles, particularly at the grassroots level.

About 70 percent of the some 270 conference delegates came from Third World countries, where, according to David Claydon of the Anglican Church of Australia, evangelical influence is strong. “The effort that evangelicals have put into evangelism [in Third World countries] is now paying off in the ecumenical movement,” said Claydon, who will give a report on the San Antonio meeting to the Lausanne Conference on World Evangelization this month in Manila.

‘I’ve never seen such freedom among delegates to use the term evangelism,” said WCC staff member Raymond Fung. “A psychological barrier has been broken. People feel they can use the word and still fit in.”

The evangelical presence was evident also in a three-page “message” statement, which identified as the two most significant trends of the meeting its “spirit of universality” and its “concern for the fullness of the gospel.” The statement included a call to Christians everywhere to join in “proclaiming the good news of God’s redeeming love in Jesus Christ.”

In addition to the message statement, delegates offered four sets of specific recommendations coming from each of four streams of emphasis pursued in San Antonio. One of the four sections examined stewardship of the earth. Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, who directs the WCC’s program on Church and Society, said he regarded as a major contribution of the San Antonio meeting the official broadening of the CWME’s concept of mission to include such concerns as ecology and the just distribution of land.

Evangelical View

Alexander John Malik, bishop of Lahore and moderator of the United Church of Pakistan, was among the most vocal proponents of evangelical concerns at the World Council of Churches’ World Conference on Mission and Evangelism in San Antonio. He discussed with CHRISTIANITY TODAY what he considers the WCC’s strengths and weaknesses.

What can evangelicals learn from the ecumenical movement?

The struggle for justice and peace is not merely a political matter, but a biblical matter. Christians should be trying to make this world a better place. Sometimes evangelicals feel a little uncomfortable interacting with the principalities of this world.

I feel uncomfortable with evangelicals who regard themselves as the only custodians of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God is working everywhere, including within the World Council of Churches, to bring people to Jesus Christ.

Do you have reservations about the World Council?

Yes. The World Council is aggressive in speaking out against oppression and injustice. But when it comes to evangelism, especially in the context of people of other faiths, suddenly the mission becomes passive, as if we are unsure of the centrality of Jesus Christ.

Our mission to spread the good news of Jesus Christ should not be a passive one. People who have experienced Christ in their lives cannot sit back. They are on fire. They go and represent him in word and deed and can do nothing else.

Is the uniqueness of Christ sufficiently upheld within WCC circles?

The direction of the WCC is determined by those who participate in its functions. In my involvement, I try to see that the uniqueness of Christ is upheld. We hear the view from some that all religions are equal.

It is true God is one. But as perceptions of that reality differ, we believe in different gods. The Christian perception is that God has revealed himself in a historical person who came to earth as a baby, became a model, was crucified, and rose from the dead.

Other forms of religions existed in the time of Jesus. But he made the claim, “I am the way, I am the truth. Nobody comes to the Father except through me.” It may sound arrogant. But it is the truth. Either we believe this or we do not.

Should there be dialogue with other faiths?

I am not opposed to dialogue. And the World Council is correct that there should be sensitivity to other beliefs and cultures. But our purpose in that dialogue should be to invite others to accept Jesus Christ as God, Lord, and Savior. Whether they accept the invitation is up to the Holy Spirit. It does not depend on our clever words or strategies.

Letter To Lausanne

Over 150 conference participants signed a letter “from those with evangelical concerns” to the Lausanne II conference in Manila. The six-page letter affirms that the San Antonio gathering gave “ample opportunity for evangelical concerns to be voiced and to find expression in conference documents.”

The letter expresses concern about the lack of participation in San Antonio of black-led churches and denominations in the West. It acknowledges “major concerns” regarding “the relation of evangelism and social responsibility to witness in the context of those of other faiths.” It also includes a proposal to hold the next Lausanne meeting jointly with the next CWME world conference.

Peter Beyerhaus, of the Evangelical Church in Germany, said the proposal of a jointly held conference would most likely meet with little acceptance at Lausanne. Beyerhaus, who has been active in the Lausanne movement and has served as an adviser to the theological commission of World Evangelical Fellowship, said he was generally pleased with the official articulation in San Antonio of issues related to evangelism. But he questioned whether it represented the WCC at large.

“The victory may be a temporary one,” said Beyerhaus. “There are very influential powers within the WCC who would like to have this changed.”

Continuing Concerns

Beyerhaus said that, while the World Council meeting produced an acceptable statement on evangelism, he was bothered by some of the statements made by CWME director Stockwell in his conference address.

For example, Stockwell referred to people of other religions as “sisters and brothers.” He added that “in our encounters with people of other faiths we cannot deny that many of them have arrived at having a profound relationship to God.” Christopher Duraisingh, an Indian who will replace Stockwell later this summer, has been criticized by evangelicals for holding views similar to Stockwell’s.

Beyerhaus also challenged the legitimacy of the “very aggressive and onesided political demands” that came out of San Antonio, including support for the Palestinian intifada. Indeed, Orthodox Bishop Markos voiced concern about “tampering with the language of the Bible” in order to make it conform to the “ideology of [a] particular culture, denomination, or movement.”

Biblical conservatives, including the Orthodox, feel that some of the CWME’s official statements in San Antonio were essentially political and lacked sufficient theological grounding. As one observer put it, “They look like something that would come out of the United Nations.”

Despite his continuing concerns, however, Beyerhaus acknowledged the San Antonio conference revealed that the wee “is not insensitive to strong evangelical convictions and that certain allowances to these convictions can be made in their public pronouncements.”

By Randy Frame, in San Antonio.