Page 5676 – Christianity Today (2024)

Uruguay, like most Latin American countries, has been in a state of turmoil in recent years, but you would never know it by walking down Montevideo’s bustling main street, the Eighteenth of July Street. Pushing, elbowing your way along the crowded sidewalk any night of the week, you encounter handsome, well-dressed couples, young and old, holding hands, stopping to window-shop, and lining up for movies, apparently as carefree as anyone anywhere.

It’s difficult to imagine that during the last decade or so, this country was torn by terrorist attacks, retaliation by the government, and then a take-over by a military regime which rules with an iron hand … shooting and arresting first and asking questions later. There has been a great amount of criticism of the military government. U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance declared in February that Uruguay was one of the three worst violators of human rights. The Organization of American States decided not to hold its next General Assembly in Montevideo because of the government’s human rights record. The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a church-related agency, charged that between mid-1972 and the end of 1977, over 60,000 Uruguayans had passed through the jails. That is one out of every forty-five residents. At least half of them, WOLA declared, were submitted to psychological and physical torture.

But you would never suspect this background by observing what seems to be a tranquil people concerned only with making a living and getting some pleasure out of life. What does seem believable is that Uruguayans are materialistic. Uruguay is said to have the third highest standard of living in all of Latin America. There is no poverty when compared with many Latin American nations. With the materialism there is atheism. A Gallup poll showed that 30 per cent claim to be atheist. Even religious holidays are known by secular titles. Holy Week is called “Tourism Week” and “Beer Week.” The day of the “Immaculate Conception” is called “Beach Day.”

The Roman Catholic Church and the mainline Protestant churches have lost influence, and there are some observers of the scene who say the reason is that the leaders got involved with the left-wing terrorists influenced by Communists from the outside. They say that when a priest or a preacher puts down his Bible and takes up a gun, he loses his right to spiritual leadership. And when religious leaders work for the overthrow of the government, they can expect the government to impose restrictions on them. During the violence, three U.S. embassy officials were kidnapped by the terrorists. One American was killed. The first ransom demand was not for money for the release of prisoners, but for a field hospital, an indication of the long-range plans. An American who was there through the turmoil says you have to understand the climate of fear that existed, in order to understand fierce government crack-down.

Emilio Castro, who was president of the Methodist organization in Uruguay and a leader of the ecumenical movement, had to leave the country because of his association with the Tupameros—the terrorists. (He is now a World Council of Churches executive in Geneva.) An evangelical missionary said the Methodists had over forty churches in Uruguay a few years ago, but that there are no more than twenty-five functioning now. He said attendance at Methodist churches is probably only 15 or 20 per cent of what it was a decade ago. Catholics have lost their leadership, too, for similar reasons.

Uruguay has lost moral leadership that would normally come from political leaders, also. Nobody wants to get involved in politics, and couldn’t anyway, because the military government will tolerate no opposition … from political parties, the press, or anyone. The government is containing terrorism, but providing little leadership beyond that.

Surveying the Latin American picture, evangelist Luis Palau and his team decided Uruguay was the place and April, 1978, was the time to test a concept of reaching and influencing an entire nation for Christ. Palau said, “We feel that there is such a vacuum of spiritual leadership in Latin America that it is the perfect time for evangelicals to move in and in the name of the Lord take nations for Christ.”

The motto for the Uruguay crusade was “Let All of Uruguay Hear the Voice of God.” To accomplish this, crusades were set up in six cities: Colonia, Paysandu, Rivera, Minas, Melo, and Montevideo. Before and during the crusades, there were 108 television programs and 661 radio programs. Almost every night, following the big rally, the evangelist had a half-hour live television program called “Palau Responds,” in which he answered telephone calls from viewers. One of the meetings in Montevideo was broadcast live to the entire nation on a network of thirty-one radio stations. Palau called it “just an overwhelming saturation, like I don’t believe any country has been saturated, ever. We’ve done a lot in other times and other countries, but never like this.”

The availability of radio and television time is one of the reasons Palau believes this is the day of opportunity for evangelicals in Latin America. A few years ago, evangelicals could not even dream of getting radio and television time, but the mass media are wide open now.

Along with the big rallies and the radio and television programs, Palau incorporated two unique features in his crusade: establishment of new churches and operation of family counseling centers. The goal was to open 250 new house churches. Through pre-crusade efforts, over 140 new house churches had been started. This was before Palau arrived for the crusade push.

The counseling centers were open during the day in each crusade city and supervised by team member Jim Williams. Many persons with problems would not go to the stadium, but they did go to the counseling centers. By the end of the Uruguay crusade, Williams estimated 600 persons had come to the centers for help.

Palau believes all of this had an impact far beyond the persons who attended meetings, or even the 8,000 who responded to invitations to accept Christ. Estimated cumulative attendance was 101,000. He believes the results will be felt for years. Existing evangelical churches have been rejuvenated and encouraged. Some churches are expected to double in size because of the new crusade converts. The churches have learned to work together, whereas they have worked separately in the past, local leaders said. And the evangelical image has been changed.

The evangelist remembers his boyhood days in Argentina when evangelicals were considered third class citizens and suffered from an inferiority complex. He says they were a “despised minority, treated as though they were nothing and didn’t amount to anything.” Part of his mission has been to show the non-Christian world that evangelicals are respectable people, intelligent people, up-to-date, and willing to question things. He believes the Uruguay crusade helped to change the image, so that middle and upper classes listened. In some cities he had luncheons with leading businessmen, and teas with the wives of community leaders. Members of the press sought him out for interview, which was a turnaround from the days when he had to try to find a reporter to try to get some news coverage. In Montevideo, a newsman told one of the crusade leaders: “You know, you people have always been in a little corner. What are you doing up front, suddenly?”

Another evidence of the changed image was the visit of the Montevideo Catholic bishop’s representative. At the beginning of the last meeting, the bishop’s secretary came to the little office used as a prayer room at the Sports Arena. He brought greetings and apologized for the fact the bishop was not able to attend crusade meetings personally. He said he was in favor of Palau’s work and hoped to attend meetings sometime in the future.

Palau and his team believe the Uruguay crusade is a good model to follow in other countries. They believe that if an entire country can be reached, so can an entire continent. While in Montevideo they took a day to plan strategy. They divided Latin America into three zones and assigned team members to each zone with a mandate to analyze the situation and to use all media to make sure every single Spanish-speaking person in all of Latin America has heard the Gospel by the end of 1980. They also tentatively planned a Congress on Latin America for 1980 in Guatemala City. It would bring together evangelical leaders from twenty-four or twenty-five countries, the United States, Canada, and Spain to coordinate plans for seizing spiritual leadership for the evangelicals.

Already, the Palau team is encouraging Latin American evangelicals to get into politics, education, business, and the media. In Montevideo, Bill Conard conducted a week-long journalism school and handed out ninety-seven diplomas. As a result, approximately fifty believers were forming a Christian Communications Fellowship, with specific goals for influencing the media. They are a start toward the new evangelical leadership Palau believes can emerge to fill the vacuum left by the government, the Catholics, and the liberal Protestants. He is convinced this is not just a dream.

Whether or not he is right depends on a number of things: whether Latin American evangelicals take up the challenge, whether the evangelical world supports the idea with prayer and finance; and whether the political situation waits. It may be a race against time. One of the sayings about those bright young people walking the streets is that they look forward to graduating and then migrating. If the government doesn’t provide some kind of future to fulfill their aspirations, the country could see another upheaval. Evangelist Luis Palau admits there is no time to waste, and he says, “It’s an exciting period, but you feel a little bit desperate that we may not be moving fast enough, or we may not have enough motivated people.”

Little to Celebrate In Czechoslovakia

This is a big anniversary year for Czechoslovakia, but Christians in that East European nation may not do much celebrating. Czechs are observing the thirtieth year since Communists took over after World War II and the tenth year since the Alexander Dubcek “Prague spring” movement was crushed by a Warsaw Pact invasion.

The sixtieth anniversary of Czech statehood is also being observed in 1978, but citizens look back on the last half of that national life as a particularly hard time for the churches. Communists have often given the religious community as much trouble as the Nazis in World War II. Since 1948 the Marxist authorities have held ecclesiastical leaders on short leashes, and few have ventured to cause any problems for the government.

President Gustav Husak’s visit to West Germany last month—his first trip to Western Europe since he took over after the Soviet-led invasion—caused some observers to wonder if Czechoslovakia might be planning to end its isolation from much of the free world. Husak went to Bonn to promote trade, but he was met by some reminders that Western church people are aware of his repression of religion. His government has, however, opened a dialogue with Roman Catholic authorities that has resulted in some changes for that church. While 70 per cent of the population of over 14 million is considered to be nominally Catholic, the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia is more tightly controlled by the government than most churches elsewhere in Eastern Europe.

Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek, 78, was formally named archbishop of Prague early this year after serving for years as apostolic administrator. The appointment to the long-vacant post indicates that the Vatican’s diplomatic contacts with the Communist government have produced some of the points it has been seeking. At the same time that the filling of the post of archbishop was announced, the Vatican announced creation of a new diocese of Trnava. This makes the ecclesiastical map correspond more closely to the political map. The appointment of a prelate of Tomasek’s age—despite the Vatican’s current policy of seeking bishops’ retirement at age 75—pointed up the age factor in the country’s clerical leadership. Only fifty to sixty priests are being graduated from seminary each year, according to a recent report in The New York Times. Many pastors are required to serve five or six churches since there is such a severe clergy shortage. Some former pastors are unable to function in churches because the government has banned them.

Although the church does operate two small seminaries, it is not allowed to sponsor other educational institutions. Thus the traditional recruiting ground for Catholic religious workers—the parochial school—is denied to the Czech church. According to the Times report, some priests have been seized in recent crackdowns on unauthorized private Bible classes.

The salaries of priests (and other ministers) are paid by the state, and men with more than twenty-five years of experience get as little as $120 a month, less than unskilled laborers. The government also controls the Catholic press. The result of all this stranglehold on the official apparatus of the church, said the Times article, is the emergence of a “network of so-called subterranean churches—a nether world of religious worship that is increasingly becoming the target of police surveillance and suppression.”

No Stadium Rites

Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu wants a certain amount of trade between his country and the United States, but he is not particularly interested in importing any American preachers. He made that plain during a state visit to Washington last month as he fielded questions at the National Press Club.

“Would evangelist Billy Graham be welcome to preach in Romania?” he was asked. In response, the Marxist leader recited Romanian church statistics and asserted that “citizens are free to perform their rites.” He then said: “If we reach an agreement with your government for Romanian priests to preach in stadiums here in the United States, so shall we allow that in Romania.” His comments prompted some laughter and applause from the luncheon meeting of journalists.

Ceausescu’s reply was in line with his other comments on human rights. He insisted that Romanians have equality and need no “outside interference” in their internal affairs.

While the Catholics have been having their troubles, spiritual descendents of fifteenth century reformer John Hus have also had their share of difficulties. A declaration signed by thirty-one lay and clergy leaders of the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren has recently reached the West, outlining the restrictions on religious freedom under the Husak regime. The appeal to the Czech National Assembly was published in New York in Religion in Communist Dominated Areas, a journal edited by Czech refugee Blahoslav Hruby. The signers’ denomination is the largest Protestant one in the provinces of Bohemia and Moravia and one of the largest of the Protestant groups in Czechoslovakia. It has 272 congregations with 240,000 members. The appeal specified, however, that just 5 to 7 per cent of them are active in congregational life. The document spoke of the decline of religious freedom since 1969 and said that while the violations cited were in the denomination of the signers, they are “of general validity.”

Ten areas of concern were mentioned in the declaration, but religious education of children was the one that best demonstrated the state’s tight control. “In 1969–70 approximately 10,700 children were registered in our church for religious education,” the appeal said. “Within six years that number declined to 575 children in 1976 in the entire area of Bohemia and Moravia. Not one single child from the twenty-one Prague congregations is registered. Also, the number of children attending Sunday school has dropped sharply, although not quite as tragically as in [weekday] school.” The document charged that children who are not members of the Socialist Youth League are denied opportunity for higher education. It said parents are not registering their children for religious instruction for fear they will be barred from secondary school and college.

The paper details a variety of methods that state authorities use to try to discourage parents from enrolling their children in religious courses. Often parents are summoned to appear before local government committees and asked to explain their reasons for wanting the students to take the courses. The youngsters themselves are also targets of campaigns to cut down on the religion enrollment. In one area, said the document, eighth graders were required to fill out a questionnaire with the following questions: “Do you believe in God? Why do you believe? Do you go to church? Do you decide yourself or do your parents force you to go? Does your grandmother force you to go? What do you say about the Pope’s blessing Hitler and his arms?”

Ecumenical activity of Czech Christians is also severely limited, the thirty-one signers of the declaration alleged. “Only the activity of the highest ecumenical organization—the Ecumenical Council of Churches—is permitted, “they said, “but [it is] controlled by the officials of the [state] Ministry of Culture. Other ecumenical efforts on the congregational and parish level, such as joint meetings with other churches, joint prayers, practical cooperation, are restricted and purposefully suppressed, with the exception of annual weeks of prayer and of the joint work on the translation of the Bible.”

Drafters of the appeal noted that Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren contacts with churches abroad were tightly controlled and that few members were allowed to participate. Czech authorities have frequently denied entry visas to foreign churchmen trying to visit the country. Even World Council of Churches general secretary Philip Potter “failed to obtain entry visa” for a planned visit, the declaration reported.

“It is encouraging,” said the appeal, “that the voices of freely elected representatives are still heard” on some occasions at denominational general assemblies. However, the paper pointed out that efforts by state authorities to manipulate assembly decisions “seriously violates the church’s autonomy.” Two denominational journals which “had published contributions which were regarded as attacks against the state system” were affected by “harsh financial sanctions,” said the declaration. Another magazine, one for youth, was discontinued by “a decision by the Ministry of Culture.”

Both the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren and the (congregationalist) Church of the Brethren are members of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. The WARC’s Geneva-based news service last month devoted a page in its dispatch to construction of a new congregationalist building in Bratislava. Members of the Modlitebna church, from children to the elderly, gave 200,000 hours of volunteer labor to erect the sanctuary that will seat 350. There are only 180 persons on the membership rolls, but assistance came from members of three neighboring congregations, and some financial help came from abroad, said the report. The WARC listed membership in the denomination, formerly known as the Unity of Czech Brethren, at 10,000 in thirty-one congregations.

Big Shift To Big Sandy

Television evangelist Garner Ted Armstrong announced last month that the undergraduate program of 1,100-student Ambassador College in Pasadena, California, will be shifted to Big Sandy in East Texas. The school was established in 1947 as the main educational wing of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God (WCG). Garner Ted, 48, also announced that he was stepping down as president of the school but would remain as vice chairman of its board.

At one time the WCG had three college campuses, all sharing the Ambassador name. Then came leadership and financial crises in the WCG. A campus in England, opened in 1960, was shut down four years ago. Many of its 250 students were absorbed by the U.S. campuses at Big Sandy and Pasadena. The thirteen-year-old Big Sandy operation, which had a peak enrollment of 650 students, was closed last year and merged with the 800-student Pasadena campus.

Garner Ted said the move was based in part on a need to separate the physical plant, funding, administration, and other operations of the church and college. A major block to accreditation would thus be removed, he said.

Garner Ted told reporters that the church has suffered “an identity problem” in some quarters, with the church taking “a back seat” to the college. The move will help overcome the problem, he suggested.

WCG spokesmen said the decision was also based partly on a need to expand WCG headquarters and to develop a graduate school of theology, a marriage and family counseling center, and an expanded theological publishing endeavor.

Donald Ward, former dean at the original Big Sandy school, was named to the presidency of Ambassador.

The need for building up the church’s image has been underscored by sagging membership gains. In 1973 the WCG reported 7,000 new converts, but during the two years following a major schism in 1974, nearly 5,000 members were “disfellowshipped.” Gains achieved by the baptism of new converts were minor. The 1977 net gain was less than 1,000. No statistical statement has been published since May, 1976, when the WCG reported 65,000 members. Income for 1975 was set at $66.8 million.

Headquarters staffers are optimistic, however. Robert Kuhn, special assistant to Garner Ted, says free distribution of the WCG’s slick-paper magazine, The Plain Truth, has reached 600,000 in high foot-traffic locations (out of a total circulation of two million). Garner Ted, he points out, is rebuilding the radio and television ministry, which has slumped badly since 1975, when “The World Tomorrow” broadcast was aired from 500 radio and television stations worldwide. Armstrong is concentrating on fewer but bigger stations now. (The younger Armstrong has emerged as the chief spokesman and prime mover of the WCG since his father Herbert, 85, was stricken last year with a heart ailment.)

One WCG instant-success story involves the one-year-old Quest magazine, described as a sophisticated “human potential” journal published by the WCG’s Ambassador International Cultural Foundation, which Kuhn administers. The publication has soared to a $2-per-copy circulation of more than 400,000, including an overseas distribution of 100,000 copies, says Kuhn.

JOSEPH M. HOPKINS

Scientology: Matters of Law

Arthur Maren is out of jail—at least for now. Maren, 36, director of public relations for the Church of Scientology, was released last month from the District of Columbia jail, where he had spent seven months on contempt charges. The publicist was jailed last July 29 for refusing to answer questions before a federal grand jury that was investigating allegations of criminal activity by church members. Prosecutors contended that church members had infiltrated government agencies and illegally obtained confidential files pertaining to the church.

By law Maren could not have been held any longer than the grand jury’s term, which expired in mid-April. It was still uncertain late last month whether Maren would be hailed before a new grand jury. If he is required to appear, and if he still declines to answer questions, he may be sent to jail again.

Maren’s plight is part of a web of events going back to June 11, 1976. Late that night two Scientology members—Michael J. Meisner and Gerald Bennett Wolfe—were discovered inside the U.S. courthouse in Washington, D.C., in possession of forged Internal Revenue Service credentials. Wolfe eventually pleaded guilty to using the fake credentials and was sentenced to two years probation. Meisner, however, became a fugitive, then surrendered to federal authorities a year later. He told the FBI that his superiors at Scientology headquarters in Los Angeles had wanted him to stay in hiding. To enforce their decision when he showed signs of wavering, he said, they placed him under “house arrest.” They gagged and handcuffed him, he said, but he managed to “escape.” The authorities placed him in protective custody and grilled him (see August 12, 1977, issue, page 32).

Meisner said that he had been one of Scientology’s top five officials and that beginning in March, 1975, he supervised covert Scientology agents and activities within government agencies. He alleged that church officials had infiltrated the Internal Revenue Service, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the tax division of the Department of Justice in an effort to obtain documents about the church possessed by these agencies. (The controversial church and various government agencies have clashed on numerous occasions since its founding by L. Ron Hubbard in 1954, and the church has filed many Freedom of Information suits to find out what the government files say about it. Much of the material in the files is inaccurate and has resulted in violations of members’ rights, claim the Scientologists.)

A number of files were removed from government offices by Scientologists, copied, and then returned, according to Meisner. He told how Scientologists had bugged an IRS conference room in Los Angeles to eavesdrop on a discussion of strategy regarding the church. Meisner said that he had seen a transcript of that discussion.

(Scientology leaders denied that Meisner was ever a national official of the church, and they said he had been removed from membership in June, 1976, “after having blown his legally assigned” post in the church.)

Armed with the information that Meisner had provided, more than 100 federal agents raided Scientology offices in Los Angeles and Washington early last July and confiscated thousands of documents. Federal judge William B. Bryant, acting on a Scientology motion, ruled that the search warrant used in the Washington raid was illegal because it was too broad, and he ordered the confiscated documents to be sealed pending appeals. A Los Angeles judge issued a similar order, basing his decision on the Washington ruling. This meant that prosecutors were greatly limited in what they could show the grand jury.

In December, however, an appeals court reversed Bryant, saying that his opinion “ignores completely” restrictions put on the search and seizure by an affidavit that accompanied the warrant. In its thirteen-page opinion, the appeals court also said that it had made a “cursory” examination of the documents taken in the Washington raid. They included “apparently original documents from the Internal Revenue Service” and “copies of Central Intelligence Agency documents marked ‘secret,’” noted the court.

Meanwhile, Maren had refused to answer three questions before the grand jury and had gone to jail. He was asked whether he had discussed plans for Gerald Wolfe to develop a cover story regarding the courthouse breakin, whether he had discussed plans for bugging an IRS conference room, and whether he had read or discussed a transcript of bugged conversations by IRS officials, all within certain time boundaries. Maren refused to answer on grounds of confidentiality of the ministry and on grounds that the nature of the crime being investigated had not been proven to be serious enough to override his constitutional rights. Judge Bryant rejected his arguments.

The National Council of Churches (NCC) filed a brief with the court in Maren’s behalf. The brief argued that religious workers should not be forced to testify before a grand jury unless the government can show that they have personal knowledge about a particular “probable” crime, that the information can be obtained only from the church workers, and that the testimony would serve a “compelling and overriding societal interest.” (An NCC spokesman noted that the issues raised in the case are similar to those in the case of two Episcopal Church workers jailed for refusing to testify before a grand jury in New York in connection with some bombings, presumably by Puerto Rican terrorists.)

In a related incident, Linda Polameni, 34, a Church of Scientology member, was arrested on September 12 as she left the building in Los Angeles that houses the main southern California offices of the California attorney general. She was indicted three weeks later on charges of stealing government documents. A Scientology lawyer attempted to have the indictment dismissed on grounds that photocopying of documents does not constitute theft, according to a Los Angeles Times news story.

Miss Polameni apparently had been under suspicion as an “infiltrator” for some time. Her boss, Patti Kitching, who is a deputy attorney general, and another deputy, William Pounders, said that they had put together a package of “both accurate and false information” on the Church of Scientology as part of a plan to nab her. (Ms. Kitching was handling a matter related to the tax-exempt status of the church, and Pounders was handling a Church of Scientology suit against the attorney general’s office.)

A grand jury transcript shows that government agents placed Miss Polameni under surveillance from several vantage points. They testified that they observed her photocopying classified files from Ms. Kitching’s office and then placing the copies in her purse.

Confiscated along with the photocopies was a diary that was introduced to the grand jury as evidence. A January, 1977, entry said: “By June, 1977, be well into the cycle, creating a whole new game. By the end of 1977 be ready to move out of the AG’s office. Big money.” Then came a June entry: “Found materials needed so I can terminate project. Need to isolate and locate area so all cycles can be finished.”

Prior to joining the attorney general’s staff, Miss Polameni worked as a secretary in the major frauds section of the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, said the Times.

In March of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the appeals court ruling in the matter of the documents seized by the FBI from Scientology offices. Thus the ruling stands, meaning that prosecutors can study the documents and present them as evidence to a grand jury.

Scientology leaders insist that their church is a victim of harassment by government agencies, that misinformation about the church has been scattered throughout government files, and that government authorities and newspaper reporters have infiltrated the church to damage it. The church in recent years has maintained a steady counterattack through multi-million-dollar damage suits against government officials and certain publishers.

Where Women Are

A survey of 60,000 American women “of all faiths and incomes” indicates that 47 per cent of them do not consider premarital sex sinful but 73 per cent are against extramarital sex, according to McCall’s magazine, which sponsored the poll. Nine of ten women questioned expressed belief in God, reports the magazine, and 59 per cent said that they attend religious services at least once a week. However, only 17 per cent identified their church, temple, or synagogue “as the principle influence of their morality.” Observes McCall’s: “In times of stress, priests, ministers, and rabbis are virtually the last people they turn to for guidance or comfort.” The magazine suggests that it is a case of women being turned on to God but turned off to organized religion. It quotes one woman as saying, “Religion is for the birds. Jesus Christ is for people.”

Issue Of The Year

The Bond That Breaks: Will Homosexuality Split the Church?, by Don Williams (BIM Publishing Co. [Box 259995, Los Angeles, CA 90025], 1978, 176 pp., $4.95 pb) and Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? Another Christian View, by Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott (Harper & Row, 1978, 160 pp., $6.95), are reviewed by Tim Stafford, west coast editor, “Campus Life,” Palo Alto, California.

For the past twenty years a small homosexual minority has become visible. They have been received with a degree of tolerance, rather than repression. Because of that homosexuals have made their own communities, particularly in large cities. But tolerance has not been enough. Homosexuals want full acceptance. In Miami, they demanded and got an ordinance prohibiting any discrimination against homosexuals, even in private religious schools. That launched a national debate.

The legal issues were complex. Could civil rights be denied citizens who had committed no illegal actions? On the other hand, weren’t the civil rights of parents being threatened by an ordinance telling them they had to accept homosexuals as their children’s teachers?

But beyond the legal questions, homosexuality itself was being debated. The same question has been, and is being, thrust on the major Christian denominations. Churches have tolerated homosexuals—that is, they have left them alone, so long as they made no issue of their presence. You don’t see evangelists invading homosexual communities. But that, too, wasn’t enough. Homosexuals want the right to be ordained, which is in effect asking for the church’s blessing.

To some Christians nothing could be more blatantly political. They see Christians responding to political force, not to the voice of God. If some minority demanded it, some people say, we would form a task force to consider whether our heads should really be attached to our bodies.

But there is more to the issue than that. With the increased visibility of the gay community has come increased awareness of the utter loneliness and frustration that a person with homosexual feelings can have. By most estimates 2 to 5 per cent of the male population feel persistent, strong homosexual attraction. These men, and a smaller number of women, are sprinkled everywhere, including conservative churches. Any pastor who does much counseling must be aware of them. In writing a regular column on sex and love, I have received many letters from them. The confusion, frustration, and self-loathing in many of those letters is unmatched in anything I have ever read. It is no wonder that the gay community has won many with its promise of acceptance and openness, and with its models of homosexuals living exemplary, creative lives. And it is no wonder that evangelical Christians are asking questions about what the Bible has to offer homosexuals. Compassion and understanding are terribly needed. So is hope—for the common testimony of the letters I have received is that they did not ask to have homosexual desires, and no amount of prayer has succeeded in taking those desires away. The church seems to offer only threats of hell and a “grit-your-teeth-and-endure” morality.

So the compassion in Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? Another Christian View by Letha Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott is welcome. One of several books on homosexuality being published by Christians this spring, it is sure to raise a storm of controversy. The reason is simple: The authors, well-known in evangelical circles, argue that for those who have exclusively homosexual drives and cannot change the most Christian solution is often a committed, permanent homosexual relationship. They view a person with what they call the homosexual condition—someone who is primarily attracted to his or her own sex—as no more sick or immoral than someone who is left-handed.

To do so they must, of course, go against all traditional biblical interpretation. They are willing to do so because, they say, traditions can sometimes keep us from loving our neighbor, as they apparently did for the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Scanzoni and Mollenkott know evangelicalism well enough to realize that many will treat them as Samaritans for writing this book, but they are willing to take the risk. I can’t help admiring their courage.

They write in a good Protestant tradition, reevaluating traditional interpretation while holding to the authority of the Scriptures. They don’t suggest that some biblical commands should be ignored because an ethic of love is more important. Instead they assume that a correct understanding of the biblical commands will identify the meaning of love. Most of the people who hate this book will be, I suspect, people who have not read it. One can disagree strongly with its conclusions—I do—and yet wish for more books like its well-documented, compassionate, and courageous style.

Scanzoni and Mollenkott draw extensively on the findings of social scientists. Several facts are generally accepted by such scholars. No one knows exactly what causes homosexuality. No one cause has been firmly established. Hypotheses about the quality of homosexuals’ parents, for instance, are on shaky ground. Many whose interest is exclusively homosexual have not chosen that drive; apparently they have had it from a very early age. Many men and women are attracted to either sex, and can choose either homosexuality or heterosexuality. But for those whose exclusive interest is and always has been their own sex, psychologists have found change next to impossible. You might as well try to make a healthy heterosexual start preferring homosexual intercourse.

Scanzoni and Mollenkott then pose these questions: does God condemn a person for an orientation he had no choice in and cannot change? Does the Bible demand a standard of him that is much harder than that which it demands of heterosexuals? By insisting that he give up all sexual contacts, is the church driving him away from a community where he can find love and help and toward a community where sexual contacts are promiscuous?

What does the Bible say? There are seven or eight passages in Scripture that refer to homosexuality, and Scanzoni and Mollenkott consider them all. They convincingly show that the sin of Sodom described in Genesis 19 was not the sort of homosexuality lived by most modern homosexuals. It was homosexual rape—quite probably not even committed by people with a homosexual orientation, since the account makes it very clear that the whole male population of Sodom participated. Such behavior, they point out, is common in prisons, and it has more to do with humiliating the victims than with sexual urges.

They agree, on the other hand, that the prohibitions of Leviticus 18 and 20 refer to homosexual activity. But they point out that the same passages also prohibit such “sins” as intercourse during a woman’s menstrual period. Nearly all Christian marriage counselors now consider the latter acceptable and some even encourage it. How can we be sure which commands are still in force?

One way is to look carefully at the New Testament to see which Old Testament laws were regarded as eternally normative by Jesus and the apostles. Here I found Scanzoni and Mollenkott less persuasive. They make the case that the three principle New Testament references to homosexuality—Romans 1; First Corinthians 6, and First Timothy 1—prohibit specific, perverted kinds of homosexual practice current in the Roman world.

They quite correctly insist that Romans 1:26 and 27 be read in context. The passage convicts not a small minority of homosexual perverts but every man, homosexual or heterosexual, for his rejection of the truth. More importantly, they claim that “the key thoughts seem to be lust, ‘unnaturalness,’ and, in verse 28, a desire to avoid acknowledgment of God. But although the censure fits the idolatrous people with whom Paul was concerned here, it does not seem to fit the case of a sincere homosexual Christian. Such a person loves Jesus Christ and wants above all to acknowledge God in all of life, yet for some unknown reason feels drawn to someone of the same sex, for the sake of love rather than lust. Is it fair to describe that person as lustful or desirous of forgetting God’s existence?” They also point out that the passage refers to men and women “exchanging” natural relations with the opposite sex for lustful relations with their own sex. Does this apply to the person who has no natural attraction to the opposite sex to “exchange”?

They carry this argument to First Corinthians 6 and First Timothy 1 by suggesting that the two Greek words usually translated “homosexual” are technical words that refer to particular kinds of homosexual activity—perhaps male prostitution or the perversion of young boys. They cite some lurid examples from first century accounts of Roman life to suggest the kind of perversion Paul might have referred to. They quote with approval J. Rinzema, who explains that “the Bible writers assumed that everyone was heterosexual and that in times of moral decay, some heterosexual people did some strange and unnatural things with each other.” They add, “Since the Bible is silent about the homosexual condition, those who want to understand it must rely on the findings of modern behavioral science research and on the testimony of those persons who are themselves homosexual.”

But the Bible’s silence on the homosexual condition does not really alter its general condemnation of homosexual actions. The Bible is generally disinterested in the condition we are in when temptation comes to us; it speaks to our response. Greedy people are not excused because they had wealthy upbringings; they are asked to give up greed. Adulterers then as now must often have been fleeing difficult or impossible marriages; no doubt some adulterers sincerely and deeply loved each other. But they are not excused. A compromise is not offered; they are not urged to make their relationships as permanent and loving as possible. Rather, they are to break them and stick to their marriage partners.

There is no reason to believe that Paul was unaware of lasting, loving homosexual relationships nor of what we call the homosexual condition. Paul lived in a society where homosexuality was commonly accepted. He could easily have mentioned exceptions to his blanket condemnation if he had wanted to. Instead, First Corinthians 6 makes the condemnation absolute: To ensure that no one is left out, Paul refers to both the active and passive partners in the relationship, or so most scholars understand the Greek.

In the Romans 1 passage Paul is not telling us the progressive, existential choices of a sinful individual. He is giving us a description of God’s wrath directed toward an age that has rejected him. Because mankind has rejected what is natural in relationship to God, he has given us up to impurity. Our futility without him is expressed in many ways, and most vividly in the corruption of the natural, i.e. God-made, way that men and women relate to each other. Although it is true that the main point of Romans 1 is not antihomosexuality but antiidolatry, homosexuality is seen as a powerful perversion of what is most good and most basic to man as God meant him to be.

If Paul had written, “men exchanged generosity for selfish greed” we would not be bound to read that as though all greedy men had once been selfless idealists, or that only those born generous were condemned for leaving their natural state. Paul would mean that God meant men to be generous. But the mark of sin was such that they did not pursue “natural” generosity, but greed.

This does not imply that people with either greedy or homosexual drives are guilty of sin. But they are responsible for how they respond to those drives, as all of us are responsible for how we react to all kinds of temptation. The responsibility for people driven by homosexual urges is far from easy. But is it impossible that they can live full lives without expressing their sexual drives through intercourse? Scanzoni and Mollenkott don’t spend much time on that possibility, since they consider permanent homosexual relationships an acceptable choice. But in reviewing Helmut Thielicke’s position on homosexuality in The Ethics of Sex (unlike them Thielicke sees homosexuality as a disruption of God’s plan, but thinks that in many cases the best possible solution to a bad situation involves urging permanent homosexual relationships), Scanzoni and Mollenkott quote his rejection of celibacy as a widespread option because “celibacy is based upon a special calling and, moreover, is an act of free will.”

Is celibacy truly an act of free will? That assertion could be disputed by millions of unmarried people who, though they would happily exchange that special calling, have used it for the kingdom of God. I am thinking particularly of single women missionaries who have been as responsible as any other group for the spread of the Gospel through the world. Besides, Jesus is very specific in Matthew 19, a passage I wish Scanzoni and Mollenkott had chosen to comment on. After asserting the total, unbreakable commitment of heterosexual marriage, Jesus is asked by his incredulous disciples whether it is possible for anyone to live up to such a standard. Jesus indicates that not everyone is supposed to be married. But the only alternative he cites is that of the eunuch. Perhaps he used that term, still harsh today, to stress God’s approval of a state with low status in that society (and in ours). He cites three reasons for remaining unmarried: “There are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs who were [psychologically or physically] made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19:12). He does not slight the first two categories, which certainly could include those who, for various unknown reasons, have strong homosexual urges. Instead, he joins them to a category of those who have chosen that role for the sake of the kingdom. They are all in the same state and can be used (and nourished) by God equally.

Most Christians combat homosexuality by stressing how wonderful heterosexual marriage is. The trouble is that marriage doesn’t appeal to someone whose desires are overwhelmingly homosexual. It might be better if we again took up the plain biblical assertion that chaste singleness is a wonderful, useful, satisfying state. Today our culture greets such a statement with disbelief, since we think that urges cannot be indefinitely repressed and that those with unexpressed sexual urges are quite sure to be unhappy. Christians have been quite feeble in disagreeing with that belief, preferring to stress Paul’s rather oblique statement in First Corinthians 7 that it is better to marry than to burn. But in that same chapter Paul stresses that though marriage is a wonderful gift, so is singleness. Perhaps we are reaping the harvest of our inattention to that strong, clear biblical message. Without a high view of singleness, we do not have much hope to offer the person who has no erotic interest in the opposite sex.

Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? suffers because it offers no understanding of sexuality, only homosexuality. Although the Bible has relatively little to say about homosexuality, seeing it as a sign of a broken and disordered world, it has a great deal more to say about sexuality, beginning in the unbroken world of Genesis 1 and 2. Passing by Eden, passing by Matthew 19; Ephesians 5, and other passages that indicate what sexuality is meant to be, Scanzoni and Mollenkott concentrate on passages that explicitly mention homosexuality. This is a little like writing a theology of stealing without mentioning the principle of honesty.

Don Williams particularly criticizes that kind of theology in his new book, The Bond That Breaks: Will Homosexuality Split the Church? He compares it to “trying to understand a tree by starting with the branches. Forgetting that the branches come from the trunk, we can dispose of them one by one without ever understanding their origin or their interrelationship.” His book, though considerably less tidy than Scanzoni and Mollenkott’s, gives a far more thorough Christian understanding of sexuality and homosexuality. Williams, a pastor and part-time professor at Fuller seminary and the Claremont colleges in southern California, has had ample time to consider the issues in the homosexual debate. He served on the Task Force on Homosexuality for the United Presbyterian Church, and was one of the five members who supported the minority report opposing homosexual ordination.

Williams’s interpretation of the biblical data follows Karl Barth, as most evangelical Christians writing on sexuality have. He stresses the creation account in Genesis 1:27, where man is made male and female, reflecting the image of God. Although Scanzoni and Mollenkott compare homosexuality to left-handedness, Williams compares a homosexual pair to two right shoes. They lack the complementary oppositeness that is God’s will for all erotic love, that expresses God’s image, and that contains the potential for a lasting, continually intriguing relationship.

To a reader unfamiliar with this theological interpretation, Williams may seem to be making much of little. A few descriptive verses in Genesis are expanded into a complete understanding of sexuality, and an implied prohibition of any other options. This understanding of Genesis 1 is so generally accepted in the theology of sexuality that Williams probably can’t remember how it sounds to someone who hasn’t encountered it before. In any case, he doesn’t argue for it as effectively as he might. He seems to jump ahead of himself in making sweeping conclusions.

However, the logic of his position becomes clearer as he marches through all the biblical passages on homosexuality. They all fit together, along with passages on heterosexual love, sins, and marriage, and have as a common key those first two chapters in Genesis.

For instance, though agreeing that the crime of Sodom was homosexual rape, Williams’s belief that homosexuality is a disruption of the order and beauty of creation, and particularly of the image of God in man, allows him to explain that Sodom’s homosexuality is exhibit A in the case against the total corruption of that city. Thus, it is basic to the biblical assumption that Sodom is as sinful as man can be, to be mentioned by biblical writers whenever an extreme example of degradation is needed.

The prohibitions of Leviticus 18 and 20 can also be grounded in Genesis 1 and 2, since homosexuality violates the sexual norm there. Other prohibitions such as the one against intercourse while a woman is menstruating cannot be grounded in Genesis 1 and 2, and so can be understood as completed in Christ and no longer relevant.

In the New Testament Williams gives a careful, contextual discussion of all the passages Scanzoni and Mollenkott considered. He succeeds, to my satisfaction at least, in answering their questions. (Some of the objections I raised in reviewing their claims I owe to him.) He continues to stress Genesis’s man-woman sexuality as the biblical norm. The fact that some people have without choice strong homosexual urges he sees as a sign of the fallenness of our world. One interesting point he makes is that homosexuality is found most often in cultures where masculinity is a heroic, inflexible ideal. The hypothesis offered is that men who for some reason sense themselves inadequate to match that ideal try to “borrow” masculinity from other men. In cultures where men are noncompetitive and cooperative homosexuality is low. Williams seems to believe that some of our male stereotypes are a result of our fallen nature and contribute to homosexuality. Thus families that stress strong masculinity in an attempt to combat homosexuality may be encouraging it.

There are many places where Williams could be questioned. For instance, I wondered how single people fit into the image of God as male and female, a rather crucial theological question since it includes Jesus, the “image of the invisible God.” Not everyone fits the ideal pairing of Adam and Eve. But are they therefore less than the image and glory of God?

Still, Williams gives us a consistent way to understand our sexuality, a way that agrees with nearly all current evangelical thinking. If Scanzoni and Mollenkott are going to be ultimately convincing to evangelicals, they will have to offer an alternative.

Williams does not believe that there is any such thing as a constitutional homosexual—that is, one who is naturally homosexual and cannot change. He admits that most social scientists categorize homosexuals this way, but he believes there is no compelling evidence to back up their claim. (In some cultures, all men have relations with both men and women—a fact Williams cites as an indication of the flexibility of our sexuality.) Borrowing such static categories as constitutional homosexual and imposing them on the Bible is cultic, he claims; he compares it to Mormonism, which adds to the canon of Scripture and thus dictates a particular, variant interpretation. “When the social sciences have the first word, the Bible may have the second word, but the social sciences will be the final arbiter as they select what of the Bible is relevant for us.” Constitutional homosexuals are not recognized in the Bible, Williams asserts, because they do not exist. In fact, they contradict the Bible’s assertion that all men and women are meant to live in relation to the opposite sex.

Instead, Williams insists that our sexual attraction is dynamic, learned behavior. We are not heterosexual or homosexual at birth; we are merely male or female. We have as a society and as individuals great choice in what we can do with that condition. But God has made it clear what choice is right. He has commanded us to live as male or female—that is, not to pursue a unisex ideal—and as male and female—as people whose erotic focus is the opposite sex. Williams is confident that homosexuals can change to a heterosexual orientation, though perhaps painfully and slowly. He believes that many have changed but have hidden the fact because of the shame in most churches of being known even as former homosexuals. Although Freud admitted himself powerless to change homosexuals, Williams is not willing to consider Christ and his church on those same terms.

Williams concludes with an appendix that critiques the Task Force Report on Homosexuality of the United Presbyterian Church. His forceful criticisms will be of special interest to Presbyterians, but his analysis and his answers to seventeen questions posed by the majority report form an invaluable part of the book for any reader.

We ought to remember that Luther began with theses, not a theology. Scanzoni and Mollenkott have not offered an alternative to the way we have been thinking about sexuality, but they have tried to ask some important questions. Is the Homosexual My Neighbor? should not persuade many evangelicals to accept its distinctive thesis. It should lead to a more thoughtful consideration of how good news applies to homosexuals.

That is how the Presbyterian dilemma has affected Williams; he has been forced to think out his position more carefully. But I hope that for Williams and for all evangelicals a position will not be the end of the question. We need not only theological answers. We need pastoral answers.

Williams begins his book with five vignettes from his own life, describing experiences he had with homosexuals. The point he says is to show that his book is not “merely academic. The crisis now facing us in the ‘homosexual question’ is a crisis that has touched my life.”

But he never comes back to those people who so desperately needed help. Williams did not promise pastoral counsel, so I am perhaps unfair to wish for it. But I did put his book down wondering how the homosexual debate would affect those who sit in church Sunday after Sunday, and who wonder what is wrong with them and what they can possibly do about it. I hope this debate will end with a movement by Christians to thoughtfully, lovingly, personally, and biblically answer their questions.

How Long The Days?

Genesis One and the Origin of the Earth, by Robert C. Newman and Herman J. Eckelmann, Jr. (InterVarsity, 1977, 156 pp., $3.95 pb), is reviewed by Russell Mixter, professor of zoology, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois.

In dealing with interpretations of Genesis 1, which recur in each generation of thinkers, the authors are doubly expert. Both have degrees and have done research in the physical sciences and possess a thorough knowledge of theology. Newman is associate professor of New Testament at the Biblical School of Theology in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, and Eckelmann, formerly research associate with the Center for Radiophysics and Space Research at Cornell University, now is pastor of a church in Ithaca, New York. They write for nonscientists but include much material that scientists can evaluate. They compare the various views on the age and origin of the earth so that the reader may know why certain theories are held. Both Scripture and science are considered for “either set of data taken alone will not necessarily give the complete picture, nor even a correct picture”; also “tradition should be no more than suggestive in seeking a proper interpretation of the Bible.”

Chronological evidence from scientific data, whether astronomical, such as light travel-time, the expansion of the universe, or stellar structure, suggests the earth is billions of years old. Observations from meteorites and lunar material, radioactive calculations and nonradioactive data (amplified in an appendix by Daniel E. Wonderly) support such a conclusion. The evidence continues with a discussion of the solar system’s mass, angular momentum, orbital regularity, and chemical nature.

The model selected for the origin of the solar system is the one held by most investigators today, the star formation model (condensation from a cloud of interstellar gas), rather than the close approach theory or the interstellar capture theory.

Following such a conclusion the authors thoroughly discuss the various interpretations of chronology in the Bible, aided especially by the classic work of William Henry Green, a professor at Princeton seminary in the nineteenth century, whose complete paper is in the appendix. It is agreed that the genealogies are incomplete, that to claim that the “day” of Genesis 1 “always means a twenty-four hour day cannot be substantiated by a survey of its actual use.” Newman suggests that “each day opens a new creative period, and therefore each day is mentioned in Genesis 1 after the activities of the previous creative period have been described, but before those of the next period have been given.”

A detailed analysis of Genesis I follows. The authors remind us “that the Bible does not tell us as much as we might like to know about certain subjects.… Nevertheless it clearly teaches that everything but God is directly or remotely God-created.” Hebrew phrases are interpreted and their correlation with the author’s preferred scientific theory stated: “Genesis 1 gives a description of what the various creation events would have looked like to an earthbound observer had one been present to see God’s work.”

In an appendix, R. John Snow, who taught mathematics and is now a pastor in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, analyzes the length of the Sixth Day. By deciding how long the recorded events of day six would take and interpreting the phrase “now at length” in Genesis 2:23, Snow affirms that it is unreasonable to believe that day six was limited to only a few hours.

The book has this admirable statement: “It is not to be expected that these suggestions are the ‘last word’ for investigation even in this particular area of the relationship between science and Scripture.”

A Multitude Of Authors

The Equipping of Disciples, edited by John Hendrix and Lloyd Householder (Broadman, 1977, 264 pp., $6.95), is reviewed by C. E. Cerling, pastor of education, Hopevale Memorial Baptist Church, Saginaw, Michigan.

Right now, discipling is a popular theme. The whole process of discipling, however, is the subject of debate. What does it mean to disciple another person? Hendrix and Householder have a unique approach to this subject. They selected biblical passages dealing with discipleship and asked men from various backgrounds to write on each passage.

Each chapter of the book includes a theological interpretation of an aspect of discipling, a biblical interpretation, and a practical application. The practical interpretation is given by people in the fields of education and behavioral processes. The result is 247 pages with 95 authors.

Nevertheless, this should not be taken as a condemnation of the book. Any book with that many authors must have something good to say somewhere. The strongest portions of the book are the theological and biblical interpretations. Almost every chapter has something worthwhile in those areas, and preachers should find some helpful material there.

Here is an example of the editors’ methods. Discipling means training people to face crises. Theologically one is confronted by God, judged as to the strength of his faith, and challenged to exercise it. The biblical application was the feeding of the 5000, which showed how a crisis is both a test of faith and an occasion for faith. Part of the practical section dealt with the stages a person goes through in a crisis. For people to benefit fully from a crisis we must permit them to go through each stage. Another aspect of the practical section showed how people could be trained to meet crises through roleplaying.

The practical section of the book, however, is extremely frustrating. Many of the authors write only a single paragraph. Yet they frequently suggest directions that could profitably have been developed at length.

Christ Versus Secularism

The Cosmic Center, by D. Bruce Lockerbie (Eerdmans, 1977, 158 pp., $4.95 pb), is reviewed by Larry M. Lake, chairman, department of English, Delaware County Christian School, Newton Square, Pennsylvania.

Living as Christians in a wicked world, we need to be reminded that the world’s ways are not God’s ways. We who are ministers or teachers need clear examples and a philosophic framework with which to demonstrate this to our hearers. In this book, Bruce Lockerbie of the Stony Brook School applies his skills as a teacher and expositor to clarify the menace of secularism and to point again to Jesus Christ as the center of all things.

In five well-planned chapters, Lockerbie diagnoses the secular condition, documents its worsening infections, identifies its root problem as idolatry, presents the Christian cosmology as seen in Colossians, and shows us the weighty implications of being Christians in a post-Christian world.

His warnings against the secularizing effects of civil religion are painfully clear and will provoke many of us to clear our shelves of idols. His assessment of our so-called religious heritage in America should affect the way we teach history and help us avoid confusing patriotism with religion.

The book discusses secular humanism and the fatal blow that biblical theology can deal such philosophies. In this context, The Cosmic Center helps us focus on Christ even as we see the decay all around us. “This understanding, that Christ stands at the center of history, delivers the Christian from an otherwise cold, cosmic philosophy, a theology derived from belief in a depersonalized universal magneto. Instead, we worship a God who cares for his cosmos” (pp. 110–111). The mystery of the Incarnation is explored here from many angles, yet Lockerbie allows it to remain a mystery.

As in The Liberating Word: Art and the Mystery of the Gospel (Eerdmans, 1974), Lockerbie skillfully uses his broad knowledge of art, philosophy, theology, and poetry to clarify his thesis. We learn about the nature of the wisdom God gives, and that Christianity “announces, as Calvin Seerveld says, ‘with scandalous intolerance’ that only by confessing that Jesus of Nazareth is also the Incarnate Lord of the universe can we begin to know and understand that universe” (p. 118). We are shown the outlines of a philosophy of Christian education that encompasses the universe, but deals compassionately with individuals.

“The Christian must be biblically informed; his attitude and actions must take into account what Scripture declares to be mankind’s condition before God, and God’s reconciling grace in Jesus Christ. But the Christian isn’t called to be limited to Bible study. An integrated Christian mind is compelled to study and learn more about men and the nature of the universe—to study art, politics, physics, and every other area of human knowledge—because all these belong in the realm where Christ is Lord.… Such thinking must be free from narrow-mindedness, purged of the dross of parochialism or sectarianism totally open to the truth that sets one free” (p. 120).

Lockerbie reminds us of the enormous challenge we have in teaching, evangelizing, and in carrying out all the responsibilities God has given us. We must in turn present this challenge to those who depend on our guidance and teaching, and then joyfully work with them, confident that we serve the one who is the center of all things.

An Exciting Concordance

Modern Concordance to the New Testament, edited by Michael Darton (Doubleday, 1977, 796 pp., $27.50), is reviewed by Robert Brow, associate rector, Little Trinity Anglican Church, Toronto, Canada.

I received this exciting concordance as a Christmas present, and I use it often. It is based on a linguistic grouping system first worked out in French. The result is 341 New Testament theme groups, each headed by the different Greek words that express the theme, the number of times each word is used, and then a list of all the related texts in English for easy comparison. You don’t need Greek, but a first-year student can profit from the additional index that leads from any Greek word into the theme where it occurs. New Testament scholars will find the themes important for advanced work.

Last night reading James 2:1, I was struck by the word “partiality” in the Revised Standard Version. The English index of the concordance referred to the theme grouping under “Favouritism.” There I found seven transliterated Greek words that express such ideas as having favorites, making distinctions, and respecting persons. I then read the twelve texts that express these ideas, which was exactly what I wanted. I checked what I would have got from Young’s Concordance and found I would have missed three important connections. In larger themes the difference would be great.

The book does not quite live up to its claim that it is “a complete and accurate Concordance to the New Testament in any English translation.” It seems just about right for the Jerusalem Bible, since all references are given in that version. It misses a proportion of words from other translations. Thus in the reference to James 2:1, the New English Bible uses “snobbery,” which does not come in the English index. That is not as serious as it might seem, since almost any synonym would get you into the correct group.

Occasionally, the arrangement has failed me. I was interested in the idea of teaching, and I quickly found a rich mine of eleven Greek words, including didasko (97 times), didaskalos (59 times), and di-daskalia (21 times). Unfortunately, I missed the equally large number of references to learning gathered under the head of “Hear—Listen—Learn.” Obviously the 261 texts concerning disciples were relevant to the theme of teaching, but in the English index the connection was not made under “Teach” or “Teacher,” though it was made under “(Be) Taught.” For an exhaustive study a check of cognate ideas in a thesaurus would ensure a complete coverage. If you want to enrich your minister’s preaching, this is one of the best gifts you could give him.

Periodicals

An enormous potpourri of more or less scholarly material is itemized in the quarterly ADRIS Newsletter. Announcements of meetings and notices of books, articles, and fugitive matter go on for page after page. Theological librarians and scholars in a variety of disciplines would almost always find several pertinent items. Subscribe by sending $5 (for four issues per year, starting with the fall number) to the Department of Theology, Loyola University, 6525 N. Sheridan Rd., Chicago, IL 60626.

The Epworth Pulpit is a bimonthly tabloid launched by some Nazarenes, but since the third issue (January, 1978) it includes members of three other Wesleyan-holiness denominations among its editors. Three of the articles in the January issue convey its interests: “Phineas Bresee [a Nazarene founding father] and the Poor”, “Was John Wesley a Liberation Theologian?”, and “John Woolman, Man of Conscience.” One year subscriptions are only $1.50, a good price. Write Box 5161, Kansas City, MO 64132.

A chorus of many voices is chanting in unison today that I must at all costs love myself; that self-love needs to be added to love for God and neighbor as a much-neglected commandment; and that dire consequences will overtake me if I refuse—frustration, depression, hostility, inertia, and much else besides. A whole new literature is growing up around this theme. In 1976 we had The Art of Learning to Love Yourself by Cecil G. Osborne (Zondervan), and in 1977 Loving Yourselves by Ray Ashford (Fortress), Celebrate Yourself by Bryan Jay Cannon (Word), and Love Yourself by Walter Trobisch (InterVarsity).

I intended to write a column on this topic when John Piper got in first and cast his “one small vote against the cult of self-esteem,” in his article Is Self-Love Biblical? (See the August 12, 1977, issue, page 6.) I appreciated what he wrote. But then I also appreciated the points made in the letters section in the following issue. Now that the dust has settled a bit, maybe the time has come to stir it up again. I shall begin with a negative critique, but then I shall try to affirm positively and biblically what, it seems to me, the advocates of self-love are really after.

The way that some writers are arguing, namely that we are commanded to love ourselves just as we are commanded to love God and our neighbor, is untenable for at least three reasons.

First, and grammatically speaking, the command “love your neighbor as yourself” is not a command to love both my neighbor and myself, but a command to love my neighbor as much as, in fact, I love myself. That is, self-love is not a virtue that Scripture commends, but one of the facts of our humanity that it recognizes and tells us to use as a standard. The best commentary is the Golden Rule: “do to others what you would have them do to you” (Matt. 7:12, NIV). We know instinctively in every situation how we would like to be treated; so let this knowledge determine our treatment of others. We can be sure that this is the right interpretation partly because the Ten Commandments stipulate our duty to God and our neighbor, and partly because Jesus summarized them in terms of love for both. He said: “the first and great commandment is.…; and the second is similar …”; he did not say “the second and third are similar.”

Secondly, and linguistically speaking, the verb used is agapaō; agapē love (a term popularized by C. S. Lewis) always includes the ingredients of sacrifice and service. Indeed, agapē is the sacrifice of self in the service of another. This is extremely meaningful when we are seeking to love our God and neighbor. But how can we sacrifice ourselves to serve ourselves? The concept is nonsensical. Agapē love cannot be self-directed; if it is, it destroys itself. It ceases to be self-sacrifice, and becomes self-service. This may sometimes be quite proper (as in Eph. 5:28, 29), but it is then not true agapē. It is precisely because we should preserve a high doctrine of agape, portraying the love of God (his for us and ours for him) that we should resist the current fashion of self-love as inappropriate. Besides, our Lord’s new commandment is not to love others as we love ourselves, but to love others more than we love ourselves, namely as he has loved us (John 13:34).

Thirdly, and theologically speaking, “self-love,” that is, directing one’s concern and service toward oneself, is the biblical concept not of virtue but of sin. Indeed, a mark of “the last days,” of the interim between Christ’s comings in which we live, is that “men will be lovers of self … rather than lovers of God” (2 Tim. 3:2,4). True, the Greek word here is the weaker one, and the contrast is between philautoi (self-lovers) and philotheoi (God-lovers). Nevertheless, the evils of the day are attributed to a misdirection of our love from God to self, and so also (in the context) to money and pleasure. Paul Vitz, in his courageous and perceptive book Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-worship (Eerdmans 1977), is biblically correct that “to worship one’s self (in self-realization).… is, in Christian terms, simple idolatry operating from the usual motive of unconscious egotism” (p. 93). He is referring to what he calls “selfist humanism.”

All of this, however, does not dispose of the question. It may be no more than a game of semantics. For the advocates of self-love, however misguided they may be in their language, are concerning themselves with a topic of great theological and psychological importance, namely what a Christian’s self-image should be.

It is significant that through most of his little book Walter Trobisch uses “self-love” as a synonym for “self-acceptance,” and then writes: “Self-love used in the positive sense of selfacceptance is the exact opposite of narcissism or auto-eroticism” (p. 15). Right. But he also concedes the difficulty, namely that the term “self-love” can equally well mean “self-centeredness” rather than “self-acceptance.” He quotes Josef Piper: “there are two opposing ways in which a man can love himself: selflessly or selfishly” (p. 14). This being so, is it not extremely misleading to use the same expression (“self-love”) for diametrically opposite concepts?

We should be able to agree that selfdepreciation is a false and damaging attitude. Those who regard a human being as nothing but a programmed machine (behaviorists) or an absurdity (existentialists) or a naked ape (humanistic evolutionists) are all denigrating our creation in God’s image. True, we are also rebels against God and deserve nothing at his hand except judgment, but our fallenness has not entirely destroyed our Godlikeness. More important still, in spite of our revolt against him, God has loved, redeemed, adopted, and re-created us in Christ. Anthony Hoekema is surely right, in his excellent little work The Christian Looks at Himself (Eerdmans 1975), that “the ultimate basis for our positive self-image must be God’s acceptance of us in Christ” (p. 102). If he has accepted us, should we not accept ourselves?

We cannot, therefore, agree with Cecil Osborne’s statement that “there must be something truly wonderful about us if he (God) can love and accept us so readily,” identifying this “something” as “that portion of himself he has planted deep within” (p. 138). Thielicke is much nearer the truth when, echoing Luther’s fourth thesis, he writes: “God does not love us because we are valuable; we are valuable because God loves us.”

The problem we all have in relating properly to ourselves is that we are all such mixed-up kids. We are the product on the one hand of the fall, and on the other of our creation by God and recreation in Christ. This theological framework is indispensable to the development of a balanced self-image and self-attitude. It will lead us beyond selfacceptance to something better still, namely self-affirmation. We need to learn both to affirm all the good within us, which is due to God’s creating and recreating grace, and ruthlessly to deny (i.e., repudiate) all the evil within us, which is due to our fallenness.

Then, when we deny our false self in Adam and affirm our true self in Christ, we find that we are free not to love ourselves, but rather to love him who has redeemed us, and our neighbor for his sake. At that point we reach the ultimate paradox of Christian living that when we lose ourselves in the selfless loving of God and neighbor we find ourselves (Mk. 8:35). True self-denial leads to true self-discovery.

The International Herald Tribune is printed in Zurich rather than Paris now, but it continues to be spread throughout Europe daily with a wide variety of American and international news, so that one can sit on the top of a snow-covered Alp in the midst of a blizzard and become suddenly informed as to what has been going on in the last hours, days, or months in very distant parts of the world. Amazing how human beings take all this rather for granted! My eyes were looking out at peaks almost 11,000 feet high, my body was sitting in the warmth of a heated room with snow blowing wildly against the window panes at an altitude of about 7,000 feet, but my mind was off in the midst of a situation in an African country, which consists of a tiny grouping of islands, horrified with what that particular day’s paper had reported. Facts were listed including the statistics that 300,000 people make up this country which a few years ago became “free.” The “freedom” was demanded, suggested, by various people, and then given by the French government. The “freedom” from French rule has produced in something like five years, statistics which lumped in this report gave facts such as “There are only three doctors left to serve 300,000 people.” “Fifty per cent of all children born die before they are five years old.” “The last dentist left the country two years ago.” “The per capita annual income is the lowest in the world, $60 a year.” The article went on to tell of the age of those who are ruling the country. Voting age commences at fourteen, and some of the officials are seventeen and eighteen years old. An official from a foreign country came to offer aid, but the two teenage officials he was given to talk to could neither read nor write, and he found it impossible to communicate with them so he left with his mission not accomplished.

The snow flakes whirled in dizzying patterns as the wind blew, but my mind whirled with the twisting patterns human beings have made as they have blown about the word “free” into blizzard-like drifts, changing what it would have been without the storm power of false winds. I thought of the people who had ranted and raved, insisted and pushed, screamed and forced, and had “won.” Not for themselves, but for so many thousands of other people whom their victory had affected, they had won freedom to be miserable, freedom to suffer, freedom to be without medical help, freedom to be ruled by uneducated teenagers, freedom to be ignorant of nutrition or medicine, freedom to be without education in any area, freedom from knowledge, freedom from ever being exposed to truth, freedom to be tortured or killed by the whims of whoever had sudden power. How destructive can “freedom” be? The destructiveness of “freedom” stares at us from the newspapers daily!

What a brillant screen is the word ‘free’ to hide the misery of final destruction.

Am I trying to say that colonial rule has ever been anything close to perfect? A thousand times no, but so many hundreds of thousands of people in the world are being spilled out of the frying pan into the fire, to sizzle without the “spiller” caring a whit, and the spilling process is being piously labeled, “the giving of freedom.” No matter what results are, the use of the word “free” satisfies those who scan the verbal camouflage without examining the reality of what is really there under the screen of words. What a brilliant screen is the word “free” to hide the misery of destruction.

The destructive twist to the meaning of the word “freedom” commences in the hearts of people. Come a moment to a serious discussion I was having with a twentieth-century young man when he nodded his head and proclaimed with a strident certainty, full of unrecognized human pride and egoism, “I understand the teaching. My questions are answered—but how can I bow? I can’t bow. I want not only to go on in an interesting life in my own will, but I want to continue comparing one teaching and another. I enjoy the search. If I bow, that freedom will be over.” It was really a cry of wanting the freedom to be “master of my own soul,” or the freedom to be an observer, a critic, a reporter making judgments from a vantage point of being uninvolved, free to theorize continually, freedom to be a critic of true truth, to listen to God speak and consider it with the attitude of a columnist reporting last night’s opera. What he had was the same thing as the people of that island nation of Africa—the word was freedom, the reality was misery. Freedom from God is everlasting misery.

Jesus speaks clearly to the Jews who had believed him, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31, 32, NIV). There are discussable theories as to what path needs to be taken for freedom to be real under human governments, but true freedom is meant to be a cutting of chains and a substitution of something that will not disappoint, that will not destroy, but that will give a constructive fulfillment that is lasting.

With a Shake Of the Fist

When an author wins a Pulitzer Prize for her first book the sensible reader will vote with the majority. What other analysis is possible than that Pilgrim at Tinker Creek is in places a beautifully written and moving book? Or that Annie Dillard deals with such difficult questions as the meaning of nature, the role of death and birth in the universe, the problem of pain, and the nature and image of God; that she approaches them with a unique eyesight.

The difficulty is increased when the author explains her work, as she does in this issue (see page 14). Yet, a reviewer can fall back on the statement that writers are less dependable than an outsider, being both too close and too removed from her own work. Also, that what a writer writes is more important than what a writer says about what she writes.

Dillard’s descriptions of nature and the aspects of nature on which she concentrates reveal a particular view of God that does not necessarily match that of biblical revelation. She takes the Old Testament into account, particularly the book of Job. She asks the same questions. But Dillard leaves out the New Testament almost entirely.

Since Dillard might say that the nature of a person is revealed in his work, it is important to get an accurate picture of her picture of nature. In some sense it is pantheistic. She sees God animated in nature; yet she also sees him as quite apart from his creation; you can’t have it both ways.

Dillard’s views on God and his work are implicit in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. There is little straightforward philosophy or theology. She is much more explicit in Holy the Firm, particularly in the central chapter, “God’s Tooth.”

That the world was created by God is never denied. But when Dillard asks “whatever for” she is really asking about the nature of God. She views nature as bleak, dark, almost wicked. Just when the day looks inviting, she reads about parasites who feast on a man’s guts. Or she watches a praying mantis eat her mate as he mates her. Or she thinks of cockroaches who devour human hair and nails and rats who gnaw a child’s flesh. This is what God made, she says. But how can we rejoice and be glad in it?

All of this healthy questioning should not go unheeded. She provides a balance to the treacle that sees every slug as beautiful. Yet in forcing us to face the problem of pain in a world made by a presumably good God she stacks her case by ignoring some basic Christian doctrines. First, the fall. Second, that nature is herself a creature, just as man is. Third, the Incarnation.

God told us to care for nature; we were born to be gardeners and animal tenders. When we disobeyed God we failed at that just as much as at obedience. We brought nature down with us. And, as Paul tells us, it too waits to be redeemed. The seeming irrationality of nature is a result of the fall. We may not like it; we may not understand all that it means. But we cannot deny it, or impute to God any unrighteousness that belongs to us alone.

Of all the passages on the nature of God in Pilgrim, the most telling is in “The Waters of Separation,” the final chapter. Dillard draws a parallel between an ancient Eskimo tale and God:

“A young man in a strange land falls in love with a young woman and takes her to wife in her mother’s tent. By day the women chew skins and boil meat while the young man hunts. But the old crone is jealous; she wants the boy. Calling her daughter to her one day, she offers to braid her hair; the girl sits pleased, proud, and soon is strangled by her own hair. One thing Eskimos know is skinning. The mother takes her curved hand knife shaped like a dancing skirt, skins her daughter’s beautiful face, and presses that empty flap smooth on her own skull. When the boy returns that night he lies with her, in the tent on top of the world. But he is wet from hunting; the skin mask shrinks and slips, uncovering the shriveled face of the old mother, and the boy flees in horror, forever.

“Could it be that if I climbed the dome of heaven and scrabbled and clutched at the beautiful cloth till I loaded my fists with a wrinkle to pull, that the mask would rip away to reveal a toothless old ugly, eyes glazed with delight?” (p. 273).

Later in that chapter, where the New Testament enters her thinking, in a tone of irony Dillard comments on the peace and happiness that God gives. Read between the lines, she says, and you might find it. But her conclusion: we are “dealing with a maniac.”

Can Annie Dillard possibly think that God is like that old woman? That he sits laughing at our distresses, drunk with lust? That he is crazy? She seems to answer yes in Holy the Firm. As she looks at the universe and sees sorrow piled on pain, she asks, “The works of God made manifest? Do we really need more victims to remind us that we’re all victims?… Do we need blind men stumbling about, and little flamefaced children, to remind us what God can—and will—do?” (pp. 60, 61). Is this the fault of God?

No Christian should walk around with an unreasoning optimism. If our consciences have been seered by God’s holy light we must recognize pain and evil. And then work, where and when we can, to change it. But that is different than asking who is to blame, a question that seems to get us nowhere.

But what of the things we can’t change? What of the praying mantis and its habits? Dillard looks at these seeming aberrations of nature as evil. But an insect has no moral concept of evil, no way of thinking, no soul. Man can be evil; can nature? These are questions she needs to face.

God, Dillard says, has a stake in the universe. Agreed. But just what the stake is she never tells us. That stake and the answer to the question “Does God care?” were given in the Incarnation. What we know of pain and irrationality God knows, because Christ does. Have we suffered? What is that compared with Christ’s suffering? Does nature suffer? Look how it reacted to the crucifixion. Do we weep? Did Christ when he saw his creatures fall? All that sounds pat. It looks pat in print. But to understand it from the inside out takes a lifetime of commitment.

Dillard wants to love God, though she admits that he is “less lovable than a grasshead, who treats us less well than we treat our lawns.” We can agree that at times it may seem that way, but seeming and reality are two different things. And we return again to the Incarnation. And to biblical revelation.

Throughout Pilgrim and again in Holy the Firm Dillard insists that all we can know of God is what we see in nature. And that is the weakness of her argument. Orthodox Christianity teaches that we have a trustworthy guide to understanding God and for knowing his will, the Bible. God made us rational human beings; we can think; we have language. He reveals himself through these means. We don’t need to look at nature alone to learn of God. We can understand what we see in nature because of the Bible. And because of the Incarnation.

At times that may strike us as insufficient. We may shake our fists at God; Dillard’s books are her way. But faith demands that we accept the witness of the writers of the Bible that God is who he says he is. Ultimately, that is the question to decide.

CHERYL FORBES

Annie Dillard’s Way of Seeing

Since the 1960s American culture has been marked by the resurgence of a popular brand of neoromanticism. We have fled urban blight and searched for calm and simplicity in a country lifestyle. We have rediscovered the vanishing wilderness and become conservationalists. Annie Dillard’s romanticism, however, is of a deeper sort. She writes in the tradition of the great nineteenth-century writers: her heightened moments of consciousness within nature are akin to Wordsworth’s “spots of time.” Like Blake and Rimbaud, she is a voyant—a seer whose imaginary eye transforms prosaic details of this world into visions of another universe. Like Emerson, she ponders how a transcendental reality may participate in the nature we know. And she has followed Thoreau by living an at times ascetic life as an amateur naturalist.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek and Holy the Firm indicate that Annie Dillard’s nature experience is also religious. She calls readers to discover the intense joy of really seeing the created world. Her frequent allusions to the Bible, along with a wealth of other reading, place her personal observations within larger and larger contexts, pulling the reader along on a metaphysical quest.

Dillard claims that she is not a scientist, but an explorer of her neighborhood; the world of these two books is spatially limited. Tinker Creek and the cycle of the seasons during one year in Virginia make up the framework of a nature diary in the first book. She also deals with the process of her own consciousness as she moves between observation and poetic vision. Moments of insight into the mystery of nature lead Dillard to a new understanding of what writing is. “Seeing is of course very much a matter of verbalization. Unless I call my attention to what passes before my eyes, I simply won’t see it.… My eyes alone can’t solve analogy tests using figures, the ones which show with increasing elaborations a big square, then a small square in a big square, then a big triangle and expect me to find a small triangle in a big triangle. I have to say the words, describe what I’m seeing” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, p. 30). To see is to perceive connections between everything in this world and thus is a metaphoric act.

Dillard uses religious language to describe this perception, which involves an apprehension of the divine presence in the world and a creative, artistic act. (Coleridge would have called these two aspects of seeing the work of the primary and secondary imagination.) In order to see, one must yield the self in an act of faith; one receives a gift in return. Illumination follows.

Time, particularly our consciousness of the present moment, intrigues Dillard. The present is “an invisible electron,” but when the poet-observer is able to transcend her time-bound position to experience eternity within the present moment and to capture that moment, then it is the scandal of particularity. The creative perception of the poet parallels the scandal of particularity of the Incarnation, but all of us have the potential of perceiving the eternal in our time-bound midst.

The intricacy and fecundity of nature also cause Dillard to meditate about the underlying reality of the universe. In the end she is drawn to a hymn of praise for the creator of this world she loves so much. “And like Billy Bray I go my way, and my left foot says ‘Glory,’ and my right foot says ‘Amen’: and out of Shadow Creek, upstream and down, exultant, in a daze, dancing, to the twin silver trumpets of praise” (p. 271).

Even as Annie Dillard experiences time and decay in her first book, few doubts enter her mind about the reality of her own glimpse of the sacred at work within nature. In fact, she sees herself as a co-operator with God.

“Hasidism has a tradition that one of man’s purposes is to assist God in the work of redemption by ‘hallowing’ the things of creation. By a tremendous heave of his spirit, the devout man frees the divine sparks trapped in the mute things of time; he uplifts the forms and moments of creation, bearing them aloft into that rare air and hallowing fire in which all clays must shatter and burst. Keeping the subsoil world under trees in mind, in intelligence, is the least I can do” (p. 94).

Holy the Firm depends upon this notion of a holy “subsoil world,” which is only alluded to in this passage from Pilgrim. It may refer implicitly to God as the ground of all being; in any case, “holy the firm” is a metaphor for an insight that enables Dillard to resolve doubts about the reality of her nature experience when an awful accident threatens her joy.

In form, Holy the Firm is a spiritual diary in prose poetry, though its opening is strongly reminiscent of one of Rimbaud’s Illuminations. Only three days are covered in this diary, but they are a paradigm of the romantic experience of joy: joy lost and consolation.

The nadir of the book comes as the result of a plane crash that causes the burning of Julie Norwich, a young girl who lives in the vicinity of Dillard’s Puget Sound home. The accident points up the fragility of beauty. Dillard now asks whether there is any metaphysical reality undergirding our world of time and space. In asking this question, she also asks whether her nature experience has been only an illusion. The resolution to this crisis is a mystical one. To Dillard’s question, “But how do we know—that the real is there?” comes first the realization that the love of the real is preferable to the knowledge of the illusory and that all of us must be reminded of what God chooses not to do. Then comes the moment of mystical transformation as the writer walks home after buying the bread and wine for the next communion at her country church.

“Here is a bottle of wine with a label, Christ with a cork. I bear holiness splintered into a vessel, very God of very God, the sempiternal silence personal and brooding, bright on the back of my ribs. I start up the hill.

“The world is changing. The landscape begins to respond as a current upwells” (Holy the Firm, p. 64).

The world becomes translucent. As Dillard looks at the sea, she sees Christ being baptized and the drops of water falling from him take on microcosmic symbolism. “I deepen into a drop and see all that time contains, all the faces and deeps of the worlds. […] And I am gone” (p. 67). In this statement of the classic mystical loss of self, Dillard experiences the essential spiritual unity of the world. Taking ideas from the esoteric Christian and Jewish traditions, she believes in God’s participation in the world: in a holy firm, or foundation below the salts and earths, marking God’s presence in nature, and in Christ as the link back to a transcendent God.

With its pantheistic overtones, Dillard’s intuitive view of the spiritual unity of the universe makes everything sacred and restores to the artist the exalted task of making the world blaze to the glory of God. The artist becomes a Christ figure.

The thought and experience of Annie Dillard are not unique; they are rooted in the romantic and mystic traditions. She makes, however, a personal restatement of the need to see the world as a poet sees it, and her prose poetry is that of a fine writer. Holy the Firm is unified on the metaphoric scale by a number of images. Taking from the orthodox tradition the practice of salting a child to preserve her for God, Dillard makes Julie Norwich a symbol of that child. A dead moth, immolated in the flame of a candle, becomes linked to the crucified Christ and the sacrificing artist. Dillard reformulates with feminine imagery the romantic view of the artist as God’s visionary. She will be God’s chaste bride, his nun, and she will bear Julie Norwich’s suffering. This vocation is a consuming one; the consolation is God’s love.

“Held, held fast by love in the world like the moth in wax, your life a wick, your head on fire with prayer, held utterly, outside and in, you sleep alone, if you call that alone, you cry God” (p. 76).

PATRICIA WARD

Patricia Ward teaches French and comparative literature at Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

Let’s not dispense with logic.

In the Middle Ages philosophy and theology were happily wedded and seemed destined to a long and happy life together. With the dawn of the modern era, however, the marriage appeared to be in trouble. Philosophers began to see theologians as muddle-headed and superstitious. Theologians viewed philosophers as increasingly secular and short-sighted. The strained relationship managed to hold together through the seventeenth century, but in the eighteenth, philosopher David Hume’s suggestion that most theological writing should be thrown in the fire signaled the inevitable divorce. The two disciplines have gone their own ways since then. They speak to each other only on rare official occasions when it is awkward not to do so.

My purpose here is not so ambitious as to attempt a reconciliation. As a Christian philosopher, I wish to consider one small part of the broken relationship by examining the way in which some theologians have expressed a particular doctrine, that of the transcendence of God. Philosophy has always emphasized clarity of thought, and modern analytic philosophy especially is committed to the avoidance of linguistic ambiguity and confusion. Some theologians, especially those with an “existential” outlook, cause philosophers to stumble not over the doctrine of transcendence itself but over the language in which it is conveyed.

The doctrine of the transcendence of God is at the heart of Christianity. No one can deny it and be a Christian in any traditional sense. The God whom Christians worship transcends man and his world. He is, as the Apostles’ Creed proclaims, the maker of heaven and earth. So although the world may be viewed as his handiwork, he is always distinct from the world. And although man was created in God’s image, man is not God, nor is God man. The failure to make these distinctions has been regarded by Christian orthodoxy as heresy.

Theological discussions of the ways in which God is transcendent must run into thousands of pages. But most of these explanations fit into three broad categories. One is that God is transcendent in that he is not a part of the world of space and time. God will never be found as an object occupying a particular location, as, say, the President might be found at the White House. Another explanation is that God’s transcendence is seen in the fact that his qualities and activities surpass those of all the other beings we observe. God’s love is greater than that of any man and his creative activity more pervasive than any other’s. Neither of these two explanations poses a problem for the philosopher, though the question of how we are to conceive of an agent who has no physical body is of some interest.

The third position is often put forward by theologians with an existential bias. This one involves an attack on traditional rational categories, and it therefore falls squarely within the realm of the philosopher’s interest and judgment. These theologians claim or imply that because theology deals with God, its language is exempted from the usual linguistic and logical rules. God is so radically other than man that he is beyond the natural man’s thought. Theology, they say, is sui generis, it is unlike all other systems of thought, and therefore theological explanation is a unique type of explanation.

Their explanation of God’s transcendence runs as follows. God transcends the world in that he is inconceivable; that is, he surpasses our thought. Our frail minds with their finite rational abilities cannot conceive of God. In his Church Dogmatics (Volume II, Part 1) Karl Barth asserts that the sufficiency of our thought forms collapses altogether in relation to God. He says that we are not capable of conceiving God, that God is invisible not only to the physical eye of man but also to the spiritual eye. Barth then asserts, however, that God is visible as the invisible and expressible only as the inexpressible. Faith somehow involves seeing what cannot be seen, expressing what cannot be expressed. This is an attempt to bring into focus the radical difference between a holy God and sinful men. The Scottish theologian T. F. Torrance goes even further than Barth in this. Torrance claims that if we are to have a knowledge of God, we must not impose our own patterns of thought on him but must allow our minds to fall into subjection to what Torrance calls the “divine rationality.”

These thinkers, and others like them, imply that God is transcendent in a way that the natural man cannot logically understand or express. Thinking or speaking of God is impossible. Now this may sound pious or humble to some, and therein lies at least part of its appeal. I would like to suggest, however, that the piety here is somewhat confused. The virtues of piety and humility are not enhanced by intellectual and linguistic confusion.

It is difficult to get a clear picture of exactly what Barth is saying about our knowledge of God and his transcendence. Is he attempting to say that God is visible only to the eyes of faith or only through the revelation of his son Jesus Christ? That can be said clearly and directly. Is he saying that man is sinful and that God is holy? This too can be clearly expressed and responded to. It is not inexpressible. Barth appears to insist on forcing upon us all sorts of offensive contradictions, such as “visible as the invisible” and “expressible as the inexpressible.” Then when we finish making our way through this, we are told that God is not really expressible as the inexpressible but is expressed in Jesus Christ.

Now in order to make a significant assertion one must differentiate between what is so and what is not. If God is not expressible, then he is not expressible. Not in contradictions, not in paradoxes, not in poetry. If he is expressible and has been expressed clearly in the life and words of his son Jesus Christ, then this fact can be expressed to human beings in language. Christians can put forward the claims of the Gospel and call for a response. Barth needlessly offends the intellect with his contradictions. If the Gospel is expressible, then it can be expressed. If not, then all proclamation, all attempts to express the Gospel, ought to cease.

The problem with Torrance appears to be even more serious. He appears to claim that God’s transcendence means we cannot conceive of him. And yet we have a “knowledge” of God. The point is not that we realize there are things that we do not yet know but may someday discover or have revealed to us. The claim here is stronger than that. It is the contradiction that one can now know something that one cannot now know.

This sort of claim offends the philosopher. It is tantamount to saying that it is possible to conceive of that which lies unconditionally beyond the conceptual sphere. What would we think of a geometer who claimed that the circle is really square and even insisted that this concept is central to geometry? We would not take him seriously, no matter how impressive his credentials. But Torrance appears to make an assertion that is at least roughly like this. And then we are told that the philosopher must suspend his disapproval of contradictions at this point because God is God. God is above or beyond logic, and we can therefore make significant self-contradictory assertions when speaking of him.

Philosophers reject this. Not because they are proud or impious, though doubtless some are. They reject it because they are committed to clarity of thought and language. And theologians need to realize that this kind of attack on logic can be very destructive to theology itself. If theologians wish to debate with one another (to say nothing of debating with philosophers), they must adhere to certain minimal logical rules. To allow contradictions is to allow such statements as “God both is and is not x,” “God can make an x that both is and is not y.” All debate about the Resurrection can be resolved by the now meaningful assertion, “Jesus did and did not rise from the dead” and out the window along with the debate goes the distinction of truth from heresy.

As I said earlier, it is simply a fact about human language that in order to make a significant assertion we must distinguish between what is the case and what is not. Statements that are self-contradictory are compatible with anything at all being the case; hence they cannot be assertions.

They cannot be judged true or false in that they assert nothing about which this judgment can be made. Theologians are concerned about distinguishing truth from falsehood. It follows that theology needs to avoid contradiction, even when speaking of a transcendent God.

Theologians who insist on removing the criteria of meaningful assertion demean their own enterprise. They force themselves into a position of accepting all sorts of strange and fanciful claims about God and religious experience. The contemporary scene abounds with false prophets who appeal to the irrational. I would like to suggest that only by applying basic logical principles can serious theologians close the door against the endless absurdities of free thinkers who claim to be Christians.

Reason should not be viewed as the dry and dusty tool of the secular philosophers. It is an indispensable tool for all of us who labor with our intellects. This leaves the theist with two alternatives as he tries to explain the transcendence of God. If he continues to insist that self-contradictory talk is a necessary constituent of theism, then theological distinctions are left to personal preference, temperament, or caprice. He may, on the other hand, hold that all that is really important to Christian theism can be stated clearly and without contradiction, that the claims of Christ can be proclaimed clearly and human beings can be asked to make a decision in terms of those claims. To say this is both logically and theologically sound. It makes logical sense to assert that God is more merciful and kind than any human being while at the same time insisting that his mercy and kindness are not conceptually different from human mercy and kindness. The wish to make these attributes different in kind is tantamount to doing away with these words. However great God’s mercy and kindness are, to convey any truth about them requires that they remain mercy and kindness. One may wish to go on and assert that God’s mercy and kindness amount to much more than we could ever explain, that, in the song writer’s words, “the love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.” This is a perfectly acceptable logical and theological point. If we assert this “unexplainable remainder,” however, we must be consistent and leave it unexplained if we wish to retain the rational integrity of our theology. To attempt to explain it as a matter of a “divine logic,” or as an expressing of the inexpressible, is to suspend the basic principles of sound discourse. It is to make theology a kind of intellectual no man’s land. Kindness and mercy can be only kindness and mercy. A word cannot transcend its own conceptual content.

Theologians who wish to emphasize that Christian truth calls for a response, or that the knowledge of God is a personal knowledge, should say so. But they must remember that they are talking about truth and knowledge. Talk of an “existential” or “heart” knowledge of God is clearly understandable. When, however, the theologian demands that we suspend ordinary logical principles, he demands too much. He removes theology from the realm of meaningful philosophical, theological, or common-sense analysis. But if we cannot understand or analyze a claim we cannot act upon it; we can neither accept nor reject it. Even evangelism requires rationally coherent claims that people can act upon. “Come, let us reason together,” said the ancient prophet.

A Survivor Of Babel

He flexes his lips,

tenses his jaw,

clenches his tongue & uvula

but makes only silence–

silence & the rasp

of tissue, pop of spittle

Somewhere his voice

is filling a stranger’s throat

& mouth

words he should speak

are clearing a stranger’s lips–

& only its distant whisper

tickles his ear

EUGENE WARREN

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.

You need more textbooks than the Bible.

The other day I received a letter from a Lutheran colleague informing me that his congregation was opening a Christian school for elementary grades and asking “prayers for us as we undertake this important Christian witness.” Now, my ecumenical spirit and my charitable leanings told me to pray for him in this educational venture; on the other hand, my own deep misgivings about so-called Christian schools restrained me.

A 1967 CHRISTIANITY TODAY article claimed that “the most exciting development in education today is the rise of the Protestant Christian school.” Among the reasons for organizing these schools, according to the author’s survey, were a superior academic environment, strong Christian influence, and Bible-centered curriculum. A number of pastors admitted that they hoped to promote church growth through the recruitment of parents who had become fed up with public education. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Bible reading and prayer decisions, the introduction of sex education, and the teaching of evolutionary rather than creationist views in science courses, private Christian schools grew at a rapid rate. The article claimed that “the Protestant school exists in the interest of the Christian witness in the world; the school is an instrument for subjecting the secular world to the reign of Christ.” A far-reaching court decision was not mentioned in the article—the Supreme Court’s decision on school integration and its attendant legislation on busing. The fact that the examples of fine new Christian schools came from places like Charleston, South Carolina, Selma, Alabama, and San Antonio, Texas, did not seem particularly significant to the author. There was no mention of race in the article.

A later story, “Creed and Color in the School Crisis,” appeared in a 1970 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. This article drew an obvious parallel between the rise of Protestant church schools and school busing decisions, particularly in the North and West. It was noted that a few mainline Protestant denominations (United Methodists, for example) have forbidden their congregations to form private schools, integrated or otherwise, which would compete with public education. It was also noted that the National Association of Christian Schools (NACS) and the National Union of Christian Schools officially discouraged racial discrimination on the part of their member schools. Some of the other Christian school organizations were not so firm in their resistance to the use of Christian schools to avoid racial integration, leaving the matter to the discretion of the individual school. As one now drives across the country and sees so-called Christian schools and academies springing up in church recreation halls, abandoned restaurants, and prefabricated housing, one can’t help but wonder if more than a desire for Christian education motivates those who are part of this new education phenomenon.

Admittedly, there are Christian schools worthy of the name, and there are shoddy, racist, superpatriotic pretenses unworthy of either the designation of Christian or of school. The National Christian School Education Association (NCSEA) and its parent body, the National Association of Christian Schools (NACS), appear to set rigorous membership and accreditation requirements that not only stress an evangelical, racially inclusive Christian faith, but also a sound educational program. But any private Christian school, educationally adequate or not, raises some serious theological and ethical issues.

First, there is the unavoidable question of race. Surely there are few Christians today who would attempt to support segregation or white supremacy by Scripture. Our Christian faith compels us to witness, as individuals and as churches, to the Lord who treated all people as children of God. Despite claims to the contrary, the meteoric rise in the number of Christian schools has paralleled the desegregation of public schools.

“It’s not a question of race,” the headmaster of a local Southern Baptist school assured me; “it’s a question of quality education.” We have heard that before. As I grew up in the South, it was rarely a question of racism; it was always a question of “state’s rights” or “constitutionality” or the “Biblical belief in racial purity.” Although many private Christian schools piously proclaim an open door policy, their cost and location inevitably make them all-white institutions. De facto segregation exists in the vast majority of Christian schools even in the face of de jure inclusiveness. Would parents be as eager to send their children to these private schools if the racial proportions were the same as in their local public schools? You know the answer. A survey of literature from the NACS and the NCSEA had no statement on the race question. What kind of witness in the world do we have when we proclaim brotherhood and love, yet organize institutions that promote racial and class exclusiveness?

Further, there is the question of academic standards in these private schools. The Christian schools in my area do not have a monopoly on high academic achievement. Like many private schools before them, they often trade parental approval for rigorous education. “My child made C’s in public school and is making all A’s at the academy,” a mother told me. Her child is one of fifty students in the school where annual tuition is nearly $2,000. The school’s income is derived entirely from student fees. Is it any wonder that improved grades often come with the switch to private Christian schools? Sometimes private schools have boasted of higher standardized test scores among their students, as compared to public school students. Most educators would regard these higher scores as more a credit to the parents than to the schools. Children who come from relatively affluent, advantaged homes always tend to do better on such tests.

A Christian school in our town meets in a large prefabricated steel building. None of its teachers are accredited by any state or private agency. It has no textbooks or other educational aids (“The Bible is all we need,” its headmaster proclaims). And yet it advertises “Quality Christian Education” as its goal. Accelerated Christian Education, Incorporated, of Garland, Texas, now markets audio-visual kits for use in Christian schools. The kits contain tapes and workbooks designed for the education of individual students, led by parents or untrained personnel, rather than by qualified teachers. In a recent interview in The National Observer (Jan. 15, 1977), Dr. Billy Melvin of the National Association of Christian Schools, expressed concern about the inadequate qualifications of some teachers: “It’s not enough just to depend on the Bible for instruction, as important as that is.” But Dr. A. C. Janney of the American Association of Christian Schools said in the same article that his schools frequently “… decided to sacrifice educational background for Bible orientation. We turned to Bible school graduates without formal educational qualifications because we can always take care of the academic things but not the spiritual.”

A major problem for private education, Christian or otherwise, is cost. Education is a frighteningly expensive undertaking. At the time when many Roman Catholics are finding that their parochial schools are becoming an unbearable burden on parish budgets and of questionable value in Christian nurture, it is disheartening to see Protestants buying into the business of education. A survey of Christian schools in my state revealed tuition costs ranging from $700 to $1,200 per year. Multiply that by several children per family and you have a sizeable drain on any family’s budget. Where does the money come from? I have heard more than one minister complain that most of the money comes from funds that would otherwise be given to church missions. “My church is in an area where the public schools are 70 per cent black and where two-thirds of my church’s kids go to private schools,” a fellow minister told me. “When church budget time comes around, parents tell me, ‘Look, we’re already paying for a good Christian education. That’s our tithe.’” Is Christian education a luxury that only the rich can afford?

Our founding fathers were convinced that democracy could survive only among an educated populace. Churches got into education mainly in those areas where no one else cared enough to go; frontier missions, education for minorities, women, the poor, and the handicapped. As education became the right of all Americans, churches withdrew from primary and secondary education. It would be tragic if Christians turned their talents to educating the children of the affluent and began competing with the more universal aims of public education. And if Christian schools tried to solve their financial problems by appealing for state aid, the results could be even more tragic.

In too many communities, parents who are talented, educated, committed Christians have withdrawn their children (along with their time, talent, and prayers) from the public schools without a thought for their responsibility as their brother’s keeper. Without children in the public schools, they have little interest in the needs of public education, from passing bond issues to setting curriculum. Certainly, there is much wrong in today’s public schools—mostly the same things that are wrong with our society as a whole. Christian parents have good reason to feel alarmed over many recent developments in public education. But who will improve it? What kind of society will we have if all Christians abandon the public schools? Hats off to President Carter and his family for their stand on this issue.

My friend requested my prayer for “this new Christian witness.” To whom will his new private school witness? What will that witness be? Obviously, the only witness will be to those children whose parents already share his particular Christian theology. That is a new definition of “letting your light shine.” I am afraid that the only thing the witness will say to the rest of the world is, “It is impossible for Christians to raise their children in today’s world without withdrawing them from the world. The Christian faith cannot compete with contemporary secular ideologies. Secularity, immorality, scientism, and materialism are stronger than our Gospel and therefore we must isolate our children in a theological and intellectual hothouse to shield them from these contemporary challenges to our faith.”

That is not what I want to say. Roman Catholic schools have not been called parochial over the years for nothing. Parochialism is the enemy of evangelical witness in the world. You can’t convert the person whom you do not know. Much of the private Christian school movement is a cover-up for a haphazard approach to Christian education within our churches. True, twentieth-century America is often hostile in subtle and sophisticated ways to the Gospel. But there are more creative, more courageous, more biblical responses to the problem than by simply moving the game to our own secluded ball park where we make all the rules.

For my own children I want a good, full education. But, true to my evangelical roots, I am skeptical of the final efficacy of education in general. It is sad to see Christians accepting the same old liberal, Western, secular faith that claims that education is the god that cures all problems. If there is one thing we should have learned in the past few years, it is the severely limited capacity of education to cure our deepest problems. Christians used to be more skeptical of facts, figures, reason, externally imposed authority, and indoctrination. I’m not going to ask a teacher to do for me or for my children what I am called as a Christian to do in my home and my church. Too many American parents hire professional teachers, counselors, coaches, and babysitters to do their jobs. My church and I will teach my children to pray, to worship, to read the Bible, to counter secularity’s false claims, to keep the state in proper Christian perspective, and to witness to the light that shines in the darkness. For me intelligence is not defined as the mere acquisition of facts and figures. Intelligence is the ability to live with all sorts of people, to confidently face challenges to one’s faith, to learn from the heart as well as the head. In other words, I want more for my children’s nurture than a public or private school can give them.

How can I give my children this Christian nurture without opting for a private Christian school? First, I can work in the public schools in my community for better use of my tax money and a better education for all of God’s children, and I can claim the work I do there as Christian witness. When I see the parents of children at my local school having bake sales and rummage sales to raise money for their school, I can’t help wondering how much that time and effort would mean if applied to the needs of our public schools. We can use our time and talents in better ways than in competition with public education. We need more committed Christians who are public school board members, teachers, coaches, and volunteer workers. I know of more than one minister who has offered his services as coach, counselor, or teacher of a noncredit religion or ethics course and has been received with open arms by beleaguered school officials. One such minister doubled the size of his church’s youth group through contacts made with youth at the school. That is witness. I also know of many public school teachers who see the public school as a mission field and look upon themselves as missionaries, who heal, witness, and help. The literature of Christian school organizations implies that parents who really love their children and that teachers who are really Christians will withdraw from the public schools and make the needed sacrifices to provide true Christian education. Such self-righteousness may be needed to keep Christian schools afloat, but it insults those Christians who see their commitment to public education as a Christian witness.

Second we can support Christian teachers and students in our public schools. It is tough and demanding. Rather than withdraw during a difficult crisis in school integration, a church started a group for high school students, where school problems were shared and prayed about. The group looked upon itself as salt in a sometimes unsavory environment. That is witness. Similar Christian groups could provide valuable experiences for Christian teachers.

No, colleague, I cannot bring myself to pray for your new private Christian school. I will pray for you, but not for your school. And I pray for myself and for all of us in these difficult days that we will be a light in a dark world.

Make It As Sure As You Can

Once there was a spider who lived in a tree. The webs he wove were the strongest, the glossiest, the stickiest webs that a spider could ever construct. Many bugs and beetles, many ants and other insects found themselves caught, quick-dried and stored away in his loaded larder.

One thing alone troubled his tranquil existence. Close to his tree ran a railroad track, and each morning when the train whooshed by, his whole house shuddered and shook. Sometimes he even lost a few of the tasty tidbits he had intended for a treat.

“That’s the last straw!” he screamed one day when he found part of his house torn away. “I’ll put a stop to that train! It won’t trouble me anymore!”

That night he spun a long glossy filament that rolled out and out and out. When the wind gave a stronger puff than usual, he leaped into the air and went flying across the tracks to the tree on the other side.

Now his evil plan began. Back and forth, back and forth from tree to tree he ran, weaving the strongest, the glossiest, the stickiest web any spider could construct. None had ever been so fine, none so strong, so tough, so utterly unbreakable!

“I’ll seal it with a seal,” he muttered as he glued it doubly fast. “I’ll get some of my friends to guard it as well. They’ll make it as sure as they can.”

The next morning the “Hwooooo-hwoooo” of the train could be heard. It was the Lagos Express. And it was coming awfully fast.

“Hurrah!” laughed the spider. “What a wreck this will be!”

“Hwoo-hwooo,” called the train.

“Haw! Haw!” laughed the spider.

“Hwooo-ooo,” the train warned.

Hwoo—WHOOOOOOSH.

“As sure as you can,” said Pilate.

EILEEN LAGEER

Eileen Lageer is the administrative assistant of the overseas department, Missionary Church Headquarters, which is in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

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.

Any reader who comes across the prose of Annie Dillard in Harper’s or Atlantic Monthly or in her books finds an eloquent blend of facts, theological ideas, and visual images. The power of her prose is undeniable. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, now selling widely in paperback, won the Pulitzer prize. Holy the Firm, her new book, more directly addresses theological ideas.

Annie Dillard deserves analysis. In her own words, she departs from such British rationalists as C. S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton; yet she firmly rejects agnosticism and worships in Christian churches. The following interview was conducted by Campus Life editor Philip Yancey at Dillard’s office on Puget Sound. Dillard speaks for herself. Assistant editor Cheryl Forbes and writer Patricia Ward evaluate Dillard’s books in Refiner’s Fire (page 28).

Question: Annie, when I mention you to my friends, I get one of two reactions: either a sign of appreciation from a fervent admirer or a puzzled “Who?” It seems most evangelicals are in the second category.

Answer: Well, I admit I am consciously addressing the unbeliever in my books, though I have great empathy for evangelicals. I was raised Presbyterian, in Pittsburgh, and during my development I had only one short fling of rebellion against God.

For four consecutive summers I had gone to a fundamentalist church camp in the country. We sang Baptist songs and had a great time—it gave me a taste for abstract thought. But I grew sick of people “going to church just to show off their clothes,” so I quit the church. Instead of quietly dropping away, I wanted to make a big statement, so I marched into the assistant minister’s office. I gave him my spiel about how much hypocrisy there was in the church. This kind man replied, “You’re right, honey, there is.”

Before leaving, I said, “By the way, I have to write a senior paper for the school—do you have any C. S. Lewis books?” He gave me an armful and I started a long paper on C. S. Lewis. By the time I finished I was right back in the arms of Christianity. My rebellion lasted a month.

Q: You have gained stature in the publishing world so quickly. It’s amusing to be with publishers who think they have the whole literary scene predicted and portrayed on graphs and charts. Then out of nowhere comes a young woman with her first book, which gets the Pulitzer Prize. Were you shocked?

A: Sure, but what excited me more was the acceptance of the first chapter from Pilgrim for Harper’s magazine. That day I was happy. I was out playing softball when the phone call came. I ran in, ate an apple very quickly, and called everyone I knew. Twenty-four hours later I got happy all over again. The Pulitzer came much later—over a year later.

Q: You did, however, become a public person suddenly. How did that affect you?

A: It was confusing at first. Offers came in from everywhere: offers to write texts for photography books, to write for Hollywood, write ballets and words for songs. And I received hundreds of invitations to speak and teach.

That whole business is a dreadful temptation for an artist. I thought about it, and finally made my choice by turning down an appearance on the Today show. Now I give only one reading a year, and virtually no other public appearances. I have chosen to be a writer—and I must stick to that; the craft demands my full energy.

Q: Did you get many personal letters from readers of Pilgrim?

A: Yes. One man, a professor of theology at a Catholic university, wrote that he resigned his job immediately after reading it. Another woman, a devout Catholic, was a book editor for The National Observer. She wrote a very sympathetic, intelligent review for her paper, discussing the religious angle thoroughly. On the same page with the review, the paper ran her obituary; she had died shortly after finishing the review.

Many people who responded with the most warmth were struggling with cancer or some similar burden.

Q: You seem easily moved by people. And yet, you write about them only rarely; you prefer objects and nature. Why? Don’t they fascinate you in the same way?

A: Oh yes—they do. I just don’t think I’m good enough to write about people yet. I’d love to try some day.

“There is one church here, so I go to it. On Sunday mornings I quit the house and wander down the hill to the white frame church in the firs. On a big Sunday there might be twenty of us there; often I am the only person under sixty, and feel as though I’m on an archaeological tour of Soviet Russia. The members are of mixed denominations; the minister is a Congregationalist, and wears a white shirt. The man knows God. Once in the middle of the long pastoral prayer of intercession for the whole world—for the gift of wisdom to its leaders, for hope and mercy to the grieving and pained, succor to the oppressed, and God’s grace to all—in the middle of this he stopped, and burst out, ‘Lord we bring you these same petitions every week.’ After a shocked pause, he continued reading the prayer. Because of this, I like him very much. ‘Good morning!’ he says after the first hymn and invocation, startling me witless every time, and we all shout back, ‘Good Morning!’” (Holy the Firm, pp. 57–58).

Q: I have heard that you have come in contact with rigid fundamentalists. How do they affect you?

A: I have great respect for them. When I lived in Virginia, I did readings for the blind at a nearby Bible College. Fundamentalists have intense faith. Many educated people think them naïve. But fundamentalists know they have chosen the narrow way; they know the social scorn they face.

You must remember, however, my prime audience is the skeptic, the agnostic, not the Christian. Just getting the agnostic to acknowledge the supernatural is a major task.

Q: Your latest book, Holy the Firm, differs greatly in structure from Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. It’s a fraction of the length, more narrative in style, more abstract, more directly theological. Many people consider it less penetrable. What did you hope to accomplish?

A: I chose an artistic structure. I decided to write about whatever happened in the next three days. The literary possibilities of that structure intrigued me. On the second day an airplane crashed nearby, and I was back where I had been in Pilgrim—grappling with the problem of pain and dying. I had no intention of dealing with that issue at first, but it became unavoidable.

I kept getting stuck. Those forty-three manuscript pages took me fifteen months to write. In Pilgrim I would get stuck for three days at a time and I would just plow through. But in Holy the Firm the problems were enormous. The question I constantly faced was, “Can it be done?” After the second day’s plane crash … how could I resolve anything on the third day?

I would have to crank myself up to approach the stack of manuscript pages. Then I’d read what I had written on the last pages and even I couldn’t understand it. I don’t live on that kind of level.

Q: People who know you through your writings probably assume you do live on that level, don’t they?

A: Yes, that’s an unfortunate error. As a writer, I am less a creator than an audience to the artistic vision. In Holy the Firm I even inserted a disclaimer. I said, “No one has ever lived well.” I do not live well. I merely point to the vision.

People, holy people, ask me to speak at their monasteries and I write back and say no, keep your vision. In The Wizard of Oz there’s a giant machine that announces “Dorothy!”; behind the curtain a little man is cranking it and pushing buttons. When the dog pulls back the curtain to expose the little man, the machine says, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! Look at the light show.”

So I ask the monks to keep their vision of power, holiness, and purity. We all have glimpses of the vision, but the truth is that no man has ever lived the vision.

Q: With the exception of Jesus.

A: Of course!

Q: How does your own vision penetrate your life? You don’t write much about ethics.

A: No, I don’t write at all about ethics. I try to do right and rarely do. The kind of art I write is shockingly uncommitted—appallingly isolated from political, social, and economic affairs.

There are lots of us here. Everybody is writing about politics and social concerns; I don’t. I’m not doing any harm.

“About five years ago I saw a mockingbird make a straight vertical descent from the roof gutter of a four-story building. It was an act as careless and spontaneous as the curl of a stem or the kindling of a star.

“The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped. His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second per second, through empty air. Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant, white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass. I had just rounded a corner when his insouciant step caught my eye; there was no one else in sight. The fact of this free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree that falls in the forest. The answer must be, I think, that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there” (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, pp. 7–8).

Q: You write as an observer, perched on the edge, but also immersed in the world. You ask us to see it with new, enlightened eyes. But how are your powers of observation affected by what has happened to you in the last few years? Can you maintain an innocent gaze when you know you could make a pile of money on your walk through the woods or on your trip to the Galapagos Islands, or even on your visit to the hospital to visit the plane crash victims?

A: That’s not been a problem. I’d certainly not walk in the woods thinking I’d write a book about it. That would drive you nuts in no time.

Q: In Holy the Firm, you lived those three days knowing you’d write a book about them.

A: True. I started it as a poem. I merely waited to see what was going to happen and I wasn’t looking at my reactions. I simply needed a certain amount of events—whatever might happen—to make a minor point: that days are lived in the mind and in the spirit.

Q: In other words, what we perceive happening in a day is really just the surface layer; something much greater and more profound is occurring behind the curtain.

A: Yes. How does the world look from within? And that brought in the concept of Holy the Firm.

Every day has its own particular brand of holiness to discover and worship appropriately. The only way to deal with that was to discover the relationship between time and eternity. That single question interests me artistically more than any other.

If you examine each day, with the events and objects it contains, as a god, you instantly have to conclude there are pagan gods. And if you believe in a holy God—how does he relate to these pagan gods that fill the world? That is exactly the same question as the relationship between time and eternity. Does the holy God bring forth these pagan gods out of his love?

Here I depart from the British rationalists like C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and George MacDonald. I am grounded strongly in art and weakly in theology. There is a profound difference between the two fields. If I wanted to make a theological statement I would have hired a skywriter. Instead, I knock myself out trying to do art, and it’s not so airtight. It isn’t reducible to a sealed system. It doesn’t translate so well.

Q: Then that’s why in your books you give us both hope and despair, anger and love.

A: I guess. I must stay faithful to art. I get in my little canoe and paddle out to the edge of mystery; it is unfortunately true that words fail, reason fails; and all I can do is to create a world which by its internal coherence makes a degree of sense. I can either do that or hush. And then I learn to make statements about that world, to furrow deeper into the mystery.

Every single thing I follow takes me there, to the edge of a cliff. As soon as I start writing, I’m hanging over the cliff again. You can make a perfectly coherent world at the snap of a finger—but only if you don’t bother being honest about it.

Q: You seem driven to that mystery. You describe the beauty of nature with such eloquence in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek—but just as I’m exulting, you strike me with its terror and injustice.

A: As I wrote Pilgrim, I kept before me the image of people who are suffering. They were right there in the room as I wrote the book. I could not write a cheerful nature book or a new version of the argument from design—not with a leukemia patient next to me. I had to write for people who are dying or grieving—and that’s everybody. I can’t write just from any fat position.

When I worked on Holy the Firm and the plane went down, I thought, Oh no, God is making me write about this damn problem of pain again. I felt I was too young, I didn’t know the answer and didn’t want to—but again, I had too.

“In the Koran, Allah asks, ‘The heaven and the earth and all in between, thinkest thou I made them in jest?’ It’s a good question. What do we think of the created universe, spanning an unthinkable void with an unthinkable profusion of forms? Or what do we think of nothingness, those sickening reaches of time in either direction? If the giant water bug was not made in jest, was it then made in earnest? Pascal uses a nice term to describe the notion of the creator’s, once having called forth the universe, turning his back to it: Deus Absconditus. Is this what we think happened? Was the sense of it there, and God absconded with it, ate it, like a wolf who disappears round the edge of the house with the Thanksgiving turkey? ‘God is subtle,’ Einstein said, ‘but not malicious.’ Again, Einstein said that ‘nature conceals her mystery by means of her essential grandeur, not by her cunning.’ It could be that God has not absconded but spread, as our vision and understanding of the universe have spread, to a fabric of spirit and sense so grand and subtle, so powerful in a new way, that we can only feel blindly of its hem. In making the thick darkness, a swaddling band for the sea, God ‘set bars and doors’ and said, ‘Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.’ But have we come even that far? Have we rowed out to the thick darkness, or are we all playing pinochle in the bottom of the boat?” (Pilgrim, p. 7).

Q: C. S. Lewis said something like this about nature; you don’t go to her to derive your theology. You go to her with your theology and let her fill those words (glory, redemption, love) with meaning.

A: I like that.

Q: Yet I get the idea, in Pilgrim especially, that you did go to nature to derive your theology.

A: In a way, that’s true. I approached the whole chaos of nature as if it were God’s book. From it I derived symbols and themes that gave me some structures for truth.

Q: But only God can tell you about God. Nature merely tells you about nature. What if something you learned from nature contradicted Scripture?

A: If I thought I had to make the choice between God and nature, I would choose God. But I don’t think I have to make that choice.

Q: When you studied nature, you came away with a simultaneous sense of awe and horror?

A: It can’t be reduced to those terms. In Pilgrim I wrote about the vita positiva and the vita negativa. The rich, full expression of God’s love bursts out in all the particulars of nature. Everything burgeons and blossoms—and then comes a devastating flood. There is spring, but also winter. There is intricacy in detail, but also oppressive fecundity as nature runs wild. It all starts collapsing; I see sacrifice and then prayer and everything empties and empties until I’m at the shores of the unknown where I started—except much more informed now.

Q: Chesterton said about nature that it’s wrong to refer to her as mother nature. She’s really sister nature, a separate, parallel creation to man with all his flaws and inconsistencies. She’s half good and half bad.

A: Well, I sure as heck deal with that. I don’t have a summary sentence for my view. It’s all in the books somewhere.

“That something is everywhere and always amiss is part of the very stuff of creation. It is as though each clay form had baked into it, fired into it, a blue streak of nonbeing, a shaded emptiness like a bubble that not only shapes its very structure but that also causes it to list and ultimately explode. We could have planned things more mercifully, perhaps, but our plan would never get off the drawing board until we agree to the very compromising terms that are the only ones that being offers.

“The world has signed a pact with the devil; it had to. It is a covenant to which every thing, even every hydrogen atom, is bound. The terms are clear; if you want to live, you have to die; you cannot have mountains and creeks without space, and space is a beauty married to a blind man. The blind man is Freedom, or Time, and he does not go anywhere without his great dog Death. The world came into being with the signing of the contract. A scientist calls it the Second Law of Thermodynamics. A poet says, ‘The force that through the green fuse drives the flower/Drives my green age.’ This is what we know. The rest is gravy” (Pilgrim, pp. 180–181).

Q: The group you referred to as the British rationalists, notably Lewis, would explain this planet as the condemned planet, an outpost of the universe where evil runs rampant. Perhaps that’s why he makes the statement that you can’t get your theology from nature. You are on the canker sore planet and you may come up with a canker sore theology. Do you view the universe as filled with God’s love and the earth as a marred exception?

A: That’s nuts. We live in the age when we have the photographs of earth from space. Here is one absolutely beautiful sphere floating among the others. There’s more beauty in the variety and richness of life here than on the other planets. As an artist, that picture from space has to affect my view.

Q: I’m sure their reference is to worlds in other dimensions, that the holy world is more real than this world.

A: Perhaps. But this world merited the Incarnation. If everything is a symbol of spiritual reality, then earth’s beauty means something. The classical orthodox definition of beauty is that beauty is the splendor of truth. Beauty and goodness and truth are a triad.

The beauty of this world can’t be brushed away. It is true there is sin and pain and suffering, but to call the earth a blot in the universe is evasive. If you carry that through to its conclusion, then God should never have created the world; it was all some horrible mistake.

Q: Lewis uses the analogy of Christ’s incarnation as a diver plunging into the depths to rescue a pearl without a glimmer of light and pulling it back into the light.

A: Yes—I love that image of God emptying himself.

Q: So we’re really back to your one key question of time and eternity. Just how involved is God in this world?

A: I believe, often, that nature participates in the essence of God himself and if he removed his loving attention from it for a fraction of a second life would cease.

Q: You referred in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek to the Law of Indeterminancy in physics. If randomness is the rule, what part does God play? Isn’t it true that his law strengthens the concept of God the sustainer? If he weren’t here, it could literally fall apart at any moment. There must be wisdom behind it.

A: And yet you have to be very careful how you state that, because it borders on superstition. I believe that ultimately the people praying in the monasteries are keeping the whole thing going—metaphorically, at least—but there’s a huge danger within any religion that it will lapse into superstition.

Q: Do you believe in miracles of the supernatural, nature-interrupting sense?

A: Of course, I have no problem with them at all. I’m a long way from agnosticism. I can’t imagine now how I could have had a problem with them at one time.

To me the real question is, How in the world can we remember God? I like that part of the Bible that ticks off kings as good and bad. Suddenly there comes this one, King Josiah, who orders the temple to be cleaned up and inadvertently discovers the law.

This happens after generations of rulers and following God through the Exodus. Somehow they had forgotten the whole thing, every piece of it. Recognizing that, the king tears his clothes and cries.

A whole nation simply forgot God. We think, how can we forget—we who have seen God? Is it right of God to insist that we wear strings around our fingers to remember him?

This notion of recollection is a pressing spiritual problem—not only how can we remember God, but why does he let us forget? I’m always forgetting God—always, always. That famous prayer, “I will in the course of this day forget thee; for forget thou not me” is sometimes thought of as a warm Christian joke. I don’t think it is so warm. I think that is a lot to ask.

“The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought. The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise. I return from one walk knowing where the killdeer nests in the field by the creek and the hour the laurel blooms. I return from the same walk a day later scarcely knowing my own name. Litanies hum in my ears; my tongue flaps in my mouth Ailinon, alleluia! I cannot cause light; the most I can do is try to put myself in the path of its beam. It is possible, in deep space, to sail on solar wind. Light, be it particle or wave, has force; you rig a giant sail and go. The secret of seeing is to sail on solar wind. Hone and spread your spirit till you yourself are a sail, whetted, translucent, broadside to the merest puff’ (Pilgrim, p. 33).

Q: There is another side of God. One of the strange sights in Scripture is Jesus weeping over unreceptive Jerusalem. “Oh that I could gather you under my wings,” he says. A very strange statement for an omnipotent God. He has limited his actions on earth; he refuses to coerce.

A: I often wonder why God didn’t make things clearer, why he spoke in a still, small voice. And I get angry at God when I see so many good people who appear to lack an organ by which they can perceive God. I blame God for that; but that’s just the way he chooses to go about doing things. I often think of God as a fireball—friendly—who just rolls by. If you’re lucky you get a slight glimpse of him.

Q: But if you actively look for the fireball he can be found. Nature can be one vehicle, as Pilgrim shows.

A: The sixteenth-century British mystic named Juliana of Norwich wrote Revelations of Divine Love, which I’ve only had the courage to read once. Its main idea, God’s love, is the most threatening of all, because it demands such faith. Q: You have described yourself as hanging onto the edge of a cliff, grappling. Yet I just read a review of Holy the Firm in New Times that paints you as the predetermined Christian with pat answers. To the reviewer, you were not hanging on the cliff: you were still very much on solid ground and he was over the cliff, unbelieving.

A: That’s the trouble. Agnostics don’t know what in the world is going on. They think religion is safety when in fact they have the safety. To an agnostic you have to say over and over again that the fear of death doesn’t lead you to love of God. Love of God leads you to fear of death.

Agnostics often think that people run to God because they are afraid of dying. On the contrary, the biblical religion is not a safe thing. People in the Bible understood the transitory nature—the risk—of life better than most people. They weren’t using religion as an escape hatch. Faith forces you to a constant awareness of final things. Agnostics don’t remember all the time that they’re going to die. But Christians do remember. All our actions in this life must be affected by God’s point of view.

“What can any artist set on fire but his world? What can any people bring to the altar but all it has ever owned in the thin towns or over the desolate plains? What can an artist use but materials, such as they are? What can he light but the short string of his gut, and when that’s burnt out, any muck ready to hand?

“His face is flame like a seraph’s, lighting the kingdom of God for the people to see; his life goes up in the works; his feet are waxen and salt. He is holy and he is firm, spanning all the long gap with the length of his love, in flawed imitation of Christ on the cross stretched both ways unbroken and thorned. So must the work be also, in touch with, in touch with, in touch with; spanning the gap, from here to eternity, home” Holy the Firm, p. 72).

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.

Publicity surrounding the recent Haldeman version of Watergate and the forthcoming Nixon version makes one wonder if Americans are not only fated to have lived through that sordid period but are now doomed to continually relive it. For evangelicals, one especially interesting aspect is the entry into their ranks of two prominent figures from Watergate, Chuck Colson and somewhat lesser known Jeb Magruder, who has been serving as a vice-president of Young Life, an evangelistic organization primarily oriented to high schoolers. Word Books is this month issuing Magruder’s story, “From Power to Peace”, which tells what he learned through his role in the tragedy of Watergate. Prominent evangelical politician Mark Hatfield, United States Senator from Oregon, has written the foreword to Magruder’s book and we are pleased to share excerpts from it with our readers.

Jeb Magruder was close to the vortex of political power in Washington; he ran the day by day details of President Nixon’s reelection campaign, headed Nixon’s Inaugural, and was regarded as a rising young star among Washington’s politically influencial personalities. But within the course of a few months, he found himself in federal prison. From reading newspaper stories during those years, that is probably what you know and remember about him.…

Watergate was rooted in deception, dishonesty, and face-saving ambition, a process in which Jeb Magruder, by his own admission, played a large role. The power of this book, by contrast, is its openness, its forthrightness, its humility, and its honesty. It is refreshing and salutary to read such words by one like Jeb Magruder. More important, they stand out as a testimony to the spiritual transformation which has occurred in his own life.

You will not find a sentence of self-justification in this book about Jeb Magruder’s participation in Watergate; that is because he acknowledges the wrong in what he did, and is free to say so in ways that are not calculated to evoke pity. He writes neither to be recognized as a martyr nor to gain some public reprieve for his actions. This in itself is a refreshing departure from many of the post-Watergate chronicles written by its various participants. The heart of Jeb Magruder’s story, however, is his personal discovery of faith in Jesus Christ, and his decision to orient his life as one of Christ’s followers.…

The discovery of evangelical Christianity by the secular media in the past couple of years has tended to make celebrities out of new converts who previously were well-known to the public from politics, entertainment, or sports. There is a danger in this trend; being born-again can be reduced to the level of looking like a popular fad, and the full meaning of following Christ in all of one’s life can be overlooked and ignored. There is also a danger to the particular “celebrities” who are chosen by the Christian community for its admiration; a new form of pride, ambition, and face-saving can be nurtured in them as an unintended result. Jeb Magruder has become aware of these dangers, and this sensitivity is reflected on these pages.…

When history is written, the sweep of dramatic public events becomes the focus of attention. During the Watergate years of 1973 and 1974, the newspaper exposures, the congressional hearings, the grand jury indictments, the impeachment proceedings, and the resignation of Richard Nixon were set forth as the most historic happenings of those days.

But there is another history of that time which revolves around the inner lives of those caught up in this sweep of events. In the case of Jeb Magruder, this history is every bit as important and revealing. It tells us of the possibilities for those attitudes, values, and ambitions which were at the core of Watergate to be overcome in the lives of individuals through the experience of a personal and vital faith. This is a history which urgently needs to be known.

Watergate was not merely the result of the sins of individuals. It revealed to us the dimensions of political corruption within our political system, as Jeb Magruder’s account makes clear. But the foremost truth communicated by this book is the potential for a life subtly dominated by the ways of Watergate to be drastically altered, and even revolutionized, through allegiance to Jesus Christ.…

Copyright 1978 by Jeb Stuart Magruder.

Baseball In Chicago

There were many advantages to the Washington, D. C., area—museums, concert halls, and restaurants. But if you are a baseball fan, as I am, you were left with an empty mitt. People in Washington are football crazy and many of them are openly hostile to baseball. A local news commentator even went so far as to repeatedly ridicule the great American past-time.

But in Chicago I have found a baseball home. I come from a long line of Cubs fans, and though the team may be jeered in Cincinnati or Los Angeles or New York, it provides some exciting moments and proves that cynicism is not a way of life in Chicago anyway.

Take last year. The Cubs led their division from the end of May (when I moved to this area) until the beginning of August, when they rapidly fell toward the cellar. At one point the team had won eight straight games and Rick Reuschel was the National League’s pitcher of the month. Fans had more than pennant fever; they had World Series visions. They still had them when Philadelphia won the eastern division. They just transferred them to this year—“The Cubs will be great in ’78.”

Or take opening day at Wrigley Field this year, the first time I had ever attended an opening day game. The Cubs have the habit of losing their opener, but the team is unpredictable and 45,000 standing-room-only fans watched Larry Biitner win it for the Cubs in the bottom half of the ninth with a home run on the first pitch. When he came up to bat most of the crowd expected extra innings. As we watched the ball soar in a beautiful arc over the center field wall we were almost too stunned to cheer. You just never know with that team. Or with baseball.

As George Will pointed out in his recent column on baseball, it’s a game with no limits of either time or space. What other game cheers a player for getting the ball out of the playing field? Or that refuses to end in a tie? Baseball satisfies the desire in man for an uncertainty that will reach a tidy conclusion. You know when you take your seat and the umpire yells “Play Ball” that you will leave the stadium with a winner and a loser. Somehow that’s a comforting thought. (Even the umpires are comforting if maddening at times. There’s no doubt who’s in charge when you’re at a baseball game.)

The people who attend major league games are as interesting as the game itself. Last year I saw formally coiffured women, one of whom sat knitting throughout the game and never dropped a stitch. This year I noticed three women in fur coats (the weather was nippy), some austere business men who never opened their mouths, grandmothers, and lots of teenagers. And men did not outnumber women. It’s our society in microcosm.

Just as baseball is an American tradition, so is the annual spring baseball editorial for CHRISTIANITY TODAY. David E. Kucharsky, now editor of the Christian Herald, established that. I respectfully follow his lead.

On long, hot summer days when you’d rather be outside than in, listening to a baseball game (which you can do while you work) is the next best thing. It’s a companionable, easy-going game, like old shoes or baggy blue jeans—not brand new, but too much a part of you to throw away.—C.F.

Recently I was asked to speak at our neighbor seminary, the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Shatin, in the New Territories of Hong Kong. Walking from the train station you pass numerous small shops and a series of cluttered garages, cross a series of bridges, and then head out through some rice fields. The path winds up into a deep ravine. Finally the gleaming white walls of the seminary emerge in a clump of golden bamboos. Back in these mountains it would be easy to feel you were in the interior of China, so different is the scene from bustling Hong Kong.

This school has always taken the Chinese heritage seriously. The Norwegian missionary, Karl Reichelt, one of the finest authorities on Chinese Buddhism, once taught here. The library contains one of the best collections of the Taoist scriptures to be found. The lecture that afternoon dealt with the Chinese apprehension of the Gospel and what might be the contribution of the Chinese Christians to the body of Christ. Late in the discussion an older student, who was a secretary for a large Hong Kong firm, spoke of his emerging understanding of both Christ and the Chinese heritage. He said that it was only recently that he had really come to see how it was through Christ, and really because of Christ, that he could fully appreciate, appropriate, and criticize his Chinese heritage. I was intrigued by the quality of his thoughtful testimony. So I asked him where he had gained the most help in this new integration which was taking place.

Somewhat to my surprise he answered very quickly and said that, by far, the most helpful source had been the writings of C. S. Lewis. Immediately many other Chinese young people began to nod and smile and say that this was also their experience. C. S. Lewis seems to be in a class by himself in terms of helpfulness to these Chinese youth at the very point of Christ and Chinese culture.

This is amazing. C. S. Lewis was no specialist in Asian studies; he never traveled the overseas ecumenical circuit; he was constitutionally against jumping on the latest bandwagon; he showed little interest in the organization, committees, or even the theology of the World Council of Churches. Of course, he wrote logically, understandably, and with good illustrations; and these qualities are appreciated by the Chinese. He was often described as a “rational romantic” and these adjectives are also frequently used of the Chinese. He had great appreciation for the mythic and the poetic, and this would be immediately sensed by the people who have produced more poetry than any other of the world’s peoples.

There is, to be sure, his lengthy discussion of The Tao, or The Way, in his The Abolition of Man. Most of all, there is his firm and sensitive grasp of the great myths of humanity being the God-given “good dreams” sent to prepare and point to the Myth-Fact of Jesus Christ; this completes, without destroying, the deepest insights and aspirations of various nations. He writes from the fully Catholic and fully evangelical center that knows that grace completes without destroying nature.

As I plodded back through the bamboos and the rice fields, and past the greasy garages I gave thanks for the disciplined imagination and dedicated labors of this Oxford and Cambridge professor of renaissance literature. For Westerners he has helped to unfreeze the imagination; for Asians he has shown how Christ challenges but completes their God-given cultural heritage.—PAUL CLASPER, faculty of theology, Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Jesus And Junk

“A dollar bill with Jesus’ picture on it? You must be kidding.”

“No, honest. It’s called the ‘Jesus dollar,’ and it’s to remind people that ‘In God We Trust.’”

“What does it look like?”

“A regular bill. Except that instead of Lincoln, it has Sallman’s head of Christ.” “Weird. Is it worth a dollar?”

“You pay 29 cents for it.”

“Can you spend it?”

“Of course not.”

“Not even in a Christian bookstore? Or the offering at church?”

“It’s a witnessing tool.”

“Like, leave it instead of a tip?”

“Maybe leave it with a tip.”

“I bet that waitresses jump up and down for joy when they find a dollar they can’t spend on top of a dime they can.”

“It also says ‘U R Loved’ and ‘U R 4 Given’ on it.”

“Wild. And what’s the signature, in place of—let’s see—Azie Taylor Morton, whoever she is.”

“B. A. Freeman.”

“You know, a friend of mine says that what goes over with Christians is Jesus and junk. But this thing makes Jesus look like junk. I can see an Elvis dollar, even a Jimmy dollar—”

“Half-size.”

“Right. But not a Jesus dollar.”

“In place of the great seal of the United States, it has the one-way finger.”

“Did you ever think that’s only one finger removed from an obscenity?” “Today lots of things are.”

EUTYCHUS VIII

Exquisite Pain

I would be remiss if I didn’t write to thank CHRISTIANITY TODAY for bringing to its readers Philip Yancey’s exquisite article, “Pain: The Tool of the Wounded Surgeon” (March 24). I smiled and wept as I experienced its truth, insight, pain, beauty, understanding, joy, reality, promise, and hope. It made the wisdom, plan, and love of God for us in this realm and in the one to come a little less past finding out.

CATHARINE SCOTT

Old Saybrook, Conn.

When I read Philip Yancey’s well-written article I felt a tinge of regret that I have elected to let my subscription expire this year. But then I read Dr. Daniel Hinthorn’s editorial “When Does Life Begin?” and began to feel that my decision was justified. I certainly hope that Dr. Hinthorn’s understanding of medicine is better than his understanding of theology and biblical interpretation. Finally, after reading John Warwick Montgomery’s attack on Helmut Thielicke (Current Religious Thought), I knew I had made the right decision. Montgomery will wear out a lot of his toyland axes trying to chop down that giant Sequoia!

KEN FRERKING

Campus Lutheran Church

Columbia, Mo.

Congratulations and appreciation to Philip Yancey and to CHRISTIANITY TODAY. I have read, marked, and shared with my congregation some of the insights drawn from [his article]. Part of my ministry is in the area of hospital chaplaincy. There we are continually exposed to the “why” of pain, its relation to God’s will for a life, and so forth. This contribution is a real help to me in this complex issue.

BILL STOLBERG

Bethel Evangelical Methodist Church

Ridgefield, Wash.

How to Win Subscribers

I wish to comment briefly on three particularly fine articles, which have appeared in recent issues of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

“Sex and Homosexuality” by Bennett Sims (February 24) is a splendid tract on the issue. Although I think that the bishop falls short in his practical applications of the church’s response to homosexuality, he nevertheless exhibits a keen, closely-reasoned biblical analysis of the problem.

“God’s Chosen People,” a book review by Richard Pierard (March 24) is another illuminating piece. Although Pierard comes down (perhaps unnecessarily) hard on the book The Light and the Glory, he nevertheless dissects errors in the book’s theology in the finest tradition of a master carver. One can only stand in awe of his ability to cut up what at first appears to be a fine fowl of a book.

“Were the Puritans Right About Sex?” by Leland Ryken (April 7) delivers a tremendous barrage of body blows to a commonly accepted viewpoint. He has marshalled such impressive evidence that detractors will have a hard time answering him.

This is the kind of writing that will command respect, if not agreement, by everyone to both the right and left of CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s position—and which should serve to pick up a few new subscribers as well.

RON BOYDSTON

Glen Ellyn, Ill.

What Did Jesus Look Like?

On my desk is a copy of your March 24 issue. As I gaze at the cover, I no longer find the desire to look inside. The cover picture of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, may be a classic in today’s art, but to me it stops short of blasphemy. I doubt that William Blake knew the revolutionary Jesus. It is hard to believe that people could put their total faith and trust in someone who is here portrayed as a pale, anemic, nambypamby, with golden hair flowing girlishly over his shoulders.… To me, this picture does not exemplify my Jesus.

RICK BAKER

Park Hills Baptist Church

Austin, Tex.

Radio and The NCC

In your March 10 editorial “Broadcasting: Room to Grow” you commend the proposed change in purchase time policy which the Communications Commission is bringing to the National Council of Churches Governing Board this May. The editorial characterizing our position was accurate as far as it went. However, it left out the most important element. We support “the right of any religious organization to purchase time from stations and networks,” but this time should be “beyond participation in the representative programming of the religious community.”

Our basic emphasis remains the same: that all radio and television stations have an obligation to serve the total community to which they are licensed, and that this means stations are obligated to provide sustaining (free) time for programs representing the religious diversity of the community. We even believe that “stations and networks have a responsibility to provide free as a public service station personnel, production time, and promotion, as well as adequate air time for these programs.” We most certainly are supporting the right of any religious organization to purchase time above and beyond, but we feel this should not free stations from their primary responsibility to operate in the public interest with respect to the religious life of the community in which they are licensed to serve.

WILLIAM F. FORE

Assistant General Secretary for Communication

National Council of Churches

New York, N.Y.

No Bolt

I was astounded to read the suggestion that those persons who signed the original Chicago document of November 1977, concerning the ordination of self-affirming homosexuals will, and I quote, “bolt the denomination if the 650-plus delegates at this year’s General Assembly adopt the Task Force recommendations” (News, “United Presbyterians Bracing for Battle,” Feb. 10).

May I set this matter straight by stating unequivocally that as a Moderatorial Candidate, nothing could be further from my mind. Nor was there anything said at the November meeting to indicate that any of those present would “bolt the denomination,” or even entertain the thought of generating a split within the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. for whatever reason. To the contrary, we will use our best endeavors to be a force for reconciliation in the spirit of the language of both the majority and minority reports that “those who in conscience have difficulty accepting the decisions of this General Assembly because of homosexuality should express that conscience by continued dialogue within the church.” This, I feel you must agree, hardly suggests “bolting the denomination.”

VAHE H. SIMONIAN

Pasadena Presbyterian Church

Pasadena, Calif.

More From Young People

Thank you so much for printing “Song of the Lyre” and “John Bunyan’s Christian at 300” (Feb. 24). It is heartwarming to know there are such talented Christian young people in our colleges.… Please print more from such young people, so we can pray for them and look forward to their becoming Christian apologists.

ELIZABETH C. PAYNE

Lexington, Va.

Calvinism On Trial

When I turned to your Book Review section in the February 10 edition, I was pleased to see a review of Edward Hinson’s Introduction to Puritan Theology. What I found, however, was not a review, but a philippic against Calvinistic theology. While I am unashamedly a Calvinist, I would have been equally disappointed to read such a “review” from a Calvinist of such a work as Grace Unlimited. Surely, this is a poor excuse for journalism. The reviewer gives a total of four paragraphs to the contents of the book, while he takes aim in the remaining material (the overwhelming bulk of material) at the Calvinistic doctrine of the Atonement, and Dr. John Owen in particular. It is evident that Grider has not taken time to read Owen himself, and one wonders what Dr. Owen’s response might have been. “A living dog is better than a dead lion.” Finally, as respects Grider’s sentiments expressed in the final paragraph, I would only say that such negativism is unfortunate. He who cuts himself off so curtly from the Puritans cuts himself off from one of the richest quarters of theological and devotional literature available from the Anglo-American perspective.

THOMAS N. SMITH

First Baptist Church, Tanglewood Community

Sand Springs, Okla.

Doomsday, Good and Bad

I am as dissatisfied with Gary Wilburn’s criticism of Hal Lindsey’s book and movie “The Late Great Planet Earth” (Refiner’s Fire, “The Doomsday Chic,” Jan. 27), as I am of the movie itself. It seems to me that all the hub-bub about biblical prophecy in our day has the intended effect of moving the listener either to futurism (dispensationalism), or its opposite pole, the historical (reformed) view. As if no other positions are tenable. I for one believe the reemergence of Israel as a nation, after more than two millenia of time, is positive evidence that we live in the days of the fulfillment of all the Bible prophecies. It matters not that this is doomsday thinking. If it is right, it must be said.

Lindsey is to be supported in his overall view of a possible catastrophic end to world civilization culminating in Armaggedon, in our time. Where Hal Lindsey goes astray is his treatment of the specifics of Bible prophecies. I refer to his habitual statement of theory as proven biblical fact. A case example would be his view that a Jewish temple must be built on the site of the Dome of the Rock, even if it takes an earthquake to clear the way. Theory yes; biblical fact, no. Worse yet is his explanations of Revelation 9:16. That this passage presents a picture of 200,000,000 red Chinese invading the Mideast is not biblical fact. It is not even good theory. It is in my estimation finely ground, exquisitely textured baloney.

GENE GANO

Greenwich, Conn.

Who Leads The Arts?

I appreciated your Refiner’s Fire column on “The Rolling Stones: The Darker Side of Rock” (Feb. 24). It spoke clearly of the Stones’s contribution to adolescent rebellion in the sixties. Aside from a few errors, like the widely circulated one about a man being killed at one of their concerts while they sang “Sympathy for the Devil” (Meredith Hunter was stabbed by Hell’s Angels at the Stones’s December 6, 1969, concert at Altamont during the song “Under My Thumb”), the article was factual and informative.

Perhaps, though, this article should have been written a few years ago. The Stones haven’t been a force in music since 1970, just around the time that Altamont destroyed the Woodstock myth and brought the Haight-Ashbury dream to a grinding halt. And in the eight years since then, much has happened. Besides the pseudo-Christian songs like “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Let It Be” there has been a new rash of darker music. Perhaps an examination of more recent musical assaults is in order, especially now that the term “born again” has become ubiquitous in celebrity magazines and the media has pronounced this “the year of the evangelical.” Black Oak Arkansas is a popular band whose leader claims to be a “Christian” but he prances around bare-chested on stage singing sex-laced anthems. The group, Kiss, features members in Halloween makeup with names like Vampire who breathes fire and spits blood in front of sell-out crowds of prepubescent followers. And what about all the new nihilistic “punk rock” groups like The Dead Boys, The Damned, and Johnny Rotten and The Sex Pistols. These groups claim to believe in absolutely nothing. The buttons and t-shirts which sell at their concerts say, “I’m vacant … and I don’t care.” These groups are much more influential than the arthritic Rolling Stones.

I’m as concerned about music and its effect on young people as any parent or pastor. Perhaps what is really wrong with most media art forms today is not that Satan “owns” them, but that we Christians long ago lost hold of our leadership in the arts, and they have not yet been reclaimed for use in glorifying their rightful creator, God.

LARRY NORMAN

Street Level Artists Agency

Hollywood, Calif.

How to Handle The Word

Thank you for your editorial on the importance of reading the Scriptures in public services (“Public Reading of the Word,” March 10).

Visiting a liturgical church as exchange preacher last year, I was impressed with the practice that church had of reading three Scriptural passages in every worship service: an Old Testament Scripture, a psalm, and a New Testament Scripture.

I returned to my church to begin a practice of reading at least an Old Testament Scripture and a New Testament Scripture in every worship service. The practice has been well received.

We who hold high views with regards to the Scriptures need to demonstrate our beliefs by our practice as well as our professions. Some of us who claim the highest regard for the Word are guilty of handling it most carelessly and indifferently.

ROSS R. CRIBBIS

Columbus Avenue Church of the Nazarene

Anderson, Ind.