Page 4826 – Christianity Today (2024)

Stopping religious lunatics is difficult under American law—and should be.

Even before David Koresh led his adherents to their horrific deaths in Waco, I heard Christians at my church ask sharply, “Why didn’t someone stop that lunatic sooner?”

Following the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, allegedly perpetrated by an Islamic fundamentalist sect, mainstream religious believers asked, “Why do such groups go unchecked? Why don’t we just stop cults?”

Ironically, far less menacing individuals have been imprisoned for their activities as religious leaders. Jim Bakker, for example, is serving a lengthy prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy. Our courts punish such offenders—who, despite their crimes, do some good in their Christian work. Yet the same courts do little or nothing to crack down on psychotic and sociopathic religious leaders who eventually bring about horrendous suffering.

If we can put Jim Bakker behind bars, why can’t we stop hostile and potentially violent religious groups? Why not stop religious groups who reportedly abuse and control the minds of their adherents? Why tolerate leaders who may repeat the heinous crimes of Jim Jones or Charles Manson?

These are all good questions. But other questions also demand answers: Where do we draw the line declaring certain religious groups illegal? What should we require them to do? Disband? Stop practicing their beliefs? Stop believing their beliefs? And which religious groups should be targeted? Only violent fringe cults? Or should we include peaceful polygamist communities? Finally, whom should we appoint to monitor, judge, and police problem religious groups? Religious leaders? Government officials?

So we are left with a problem: Is there a way to stop Koreshlike lunatics under the law, yet maintain religious freedom for all?

Sort of. The answer lies partly in understanding how we analyze free religious exercise in our legal system.

Neutrality toward religion

In the American legal system, the free-exercise provision of the First Amendment to the Constitution provides a commitment to neutrality in religion. The First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.…”

Many believe the Supreme Court has been inconsistent in applying the First Amendment to religious groups and individuals. However, almost all justices have historically agreed that theology and doctrine are matters of opinion and should be invisible to any court or legislature. In 1871 the Court articulated this view in Watson v. Jones: “The law knows no heresy and is committed to the support of no dogma.”

This means that no legal claims or causes of action exist, civil or criminal, for thinking crazy thoughts about God. Even if every other American citizen disagrees with a person’s religious beliefs, that party has an unqualified legal right to be theologically wrong. Freedom of belief is absolutely protected from government interference.

Restricting religious practice

If no court or legislature may prevent or punish religious beliefs, what about religious practices? Do people have unqualified immunity from governmental authorities, no matter how negligent or criminal their behavior, so long as they act with religious sincerity?

Clearly not. Absolute protection ends with belief. Religious believers may have the freedom to hand out literature on public streets. But they may not legally blast their message over a loudspeaker at three o’clock in the morning in a hospital zone. Although the Supreme Court has held that certain religions may sacrifice animals, no one may lawfully sacrifice humans.

Government may indeed restrict religious behavior if a legislature narrowly drafts laws for the purpose of achieving a compelling government interest. Government may, in some cases, also restrict religious behavior if the interests of certain religious practitioners are outweighed by the interests of those who will suffer if their practices continue. Thus, those practicing religion in America do not have blanket immunity under the First Amendment.

Stopping the lunatics

If courts and legislatures may restrict certain religious practices, why don’t they stop violent religious cults? The key word is stop. That word presupposes police action taken before any damage is actually done. Here are three reasons why stopping any religious practice is difficult under the law.

1. Freedom of religion. Stopping a religious practice in America is difficult because we prize our freedom to worship as we choose almost as highly as we prize our actual religions. On the whole, any attempt by government to scrutinize religion, including religions we recognize as cults, is suspect.

2. Due process. Even if a private party or government official can leap the high hurdle of proving that a religious practice should be stopped because of competing public interests, the procedural mechanisms for stopping another party’s acts are cumbersome. This is because we Americans have another prized constitutional doctrine—due process. Due process is essentially the fundamental right of everyone to receive notice and an opportunity to respond when another party accuses him or her of wrongdoing.

There are few procedural means of preventing others from acting. In the civil arena, a party can obtain an injunction, a court order restraining a party from a certain act or compelling the party to act in a certain way. In criminal cases, the government can arrest someone. Injunctions and arrests must be based on circ*mstances that would lead a person of reasonable caution to believe that irreparable harm will be done, or that a crime is being committed, which can only be stopped by judicial or police action. Mere suspicion is not enough to support either an injunction or arrest.

Moreover, the burden of proof is especially heavy on the party seeking a civil injunction. Why? Because injunctions and arrests deprive a person of freedoms before they have an opportunity to argue their side in court. Due process rights are intended to ensure against depriving us of our constitutional freedoms, including religious freedom.

3. “We” may become “them.” It is difficult to stop religious persons or groups from behaving in certain ways because “we,” who sometimes wish that the government would restrict the behavior of certain religious groups, may someday become “them,” the prospective subjects of scrutiny and regulation.

Consider again the question, “Why don’t we just stop these cults?” This question implies three sets of actors. First, the “we” who consider ourselves noncultists and who complain about the activities of a fringe group. Second, the cultists—the “them,” the ones to be stopped. Finally, the “somebody,” presumably the governmental authorities who are to stop the cultists.

Yet we believe the government is the worst arbiter of religious subject matter. The government neither understands nor should inquire into theological issues. If we ask the government to act against another religious group, what is to stop the government from acting against us in the future? After all, the government is constitutionally required to be blind to distinctions among religions.

Almost all Christian denominations have some aspects that would fit into the many vague definitions of cults. Dissenters outside a given denomination may want to demand that the government investigate aspects of that denomination. It is for this very reason that we create such safeguards in our legal system as due process and governmental neutrality toward religion.

Upon reflection, most Americans would have it no other way. Many of the same believers I hear clamoring about the need to “stop” cults are the same people I hear complaining about government intrusion into their own religion. Most Christians who expect the government to stop other religious groups would cry “First Amendment” at the top of their lungs if their church became the target of government scrutiny. The premium we Americans place on religious freedom and due process, and our fundamental distrust of the government’s ability to critique religion make the regulation of religious behavior difficult if not impossible.

Think before you speak

Religious believers of all kinds must consider how they would want the courts to act toward them if they were the subject of governmental scrutiny. Before Christians blurt out a question such as “Why doesn’t someone stop these cults?” they should consider a few other questions:

How would they react if federal agents were in their church parking lot on Sunday morning taking down license-plate numbers? How would they feel if undercover agents were sent into church worship services, wired with electronic devices to tape the service and confessionals? How would they respond if they found that a member of their congregation was a federal agent who had joined to gather information about the church?

Outrageous? Such governmental scrutiny does occur. All of the above happened to an Evangelical Lutheran Church of America congregation, a Presbyterian church, and a Roman Catholic parish in Arizona because of those churches’ participation in the Sanctuary movement, an interdenominational movement to give politically endangered, but illegal, aliens food and shelter through the local church. Certain of the Arizona churches sued the U.S. government for a declaration that the covert acts of the government were wrong and were a violation of constitutional rights. The churches won after taking their case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Abusive and undue governmental scrutiny or regulation could happen to any religious group.

Thus far in our history we have chosen by our laws to avoid extensive scrutiny of religion by the government. Other nations, such as the former Soviet Union or Albania, have opted for a more restrictive policy toward religion. By choosing our system, we Americans sometimes experience the tragedies of religious lunatics gone amuck. That, however, is the price we have chosen to pay for our religious freedoms—for our deliberate choice to grant one another the right to be wrong.

Loren Wilkinson is the writer/editor of Earthkeeping in the ’90s (Eerdmans) and the coauthor, with his wife, Mary Ruth Wilkinson, of Caring for Creation in Your Own Backyard (Servant). He teaches at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

A host of new public-interest law firms are helping American Christians fight for their religious liberties

Late in 1992, 14-year-old christine Fisher was given a writing assignment—“What Christmas Means to Me and Why”—for her computer class at Hill Country Middle School in Austin, Texas. Her teacher, Tom Roudebush, promised the class he would select the best essays for the school’s newspaper.

Christine was excited when she learned that her essay had been chosen. Principal Joe Bartlett, however, sent word that he could only publish the essay if Christine agreed to some changes. He wanted “It is also the day that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth” altered to “It is also a day that people celebrate love.” When Christine’s father talked to Bartlett, he was unbending, citing “legal reasons.” He said he was not censoring Christine, but using “editorial license.”

Ten years ago, the Fishers would probably have dropped the issue. Evangelicals did not sue or fight the system. But times have changed. Like thousands of other Americans, Christine’s parents contacted the Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending religious rights. Rutherford attorneys called school authorities, politely but firmly clarifying the law: A child’s right to free speech includes the right to discuss religious beliefs, and that right is not surrendered at the school door. They also suggested that if school officials were unyielding, they would be sued.

Christine’s essay was published in the next issue of the school newspaper.

In former times, the students, teachers, and administrators at Country Middle School would all have learned the same lesson: Do not mention Christ at school, even if the topic is the meaning of Christmas. Now they learn a different lesson: You get what you fight for. The culture has turned 180 degrees, pointing evangelicals right toward the courtroom door. Once known for quarreling over doctrine, conservative Christians are ready to fight for their legal rights.

The most obvious symptom of evangelicals’ willingness to fight in court is the rapid multiplication of organizations like the Rutherford Institute. An alphabet soup of new public-interest law firms offers free, expert legal help, not only with public-school disputes, but in conflicts over tax exemptions, zoning for churches, abortion protests, the freedom to evangelize in public places, and regulations that penalize Christians for their resistance to what they consider immoral lifestyles.

The newest and already one of the largest organizations is Pat Robertson’s American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), founded with a splash just three years ago on the new and impressive campus of Regent University in Virginia. Actually, the ACLJ is Robertson’s second try. In 1985 he founded the National Legal Foundation, then dropped it during his run for the presidency. (The NLF has struggled on.) The ACLJ is modeled on the ACLU, both in name and method. Jay Sekulow, a brash adult convert to Christianity who oversees ACLJ’s legal work, hopes ultimately to exceed the ACLU’s size. “The ACLU has something going for them that we don’t,” he says. “They are not only big, they are in power. Their philosophy is in power.”

With a budget of $6 million compared to the ACLU’s $30 million, and with little help from the kind of high-priced law firms that donate time to the ACLU, the ACLJ is far behind. They are not kidding, however, about their desire to grow. Robertson’s first hire was not a lawyer, but fundraiser Norm Berman. “This is an exciting product to market,” Berman notes drily. Like virtually all the evangelical groups, the ACLJ depends on direct-mail donors, who often learn about the organization from a Christian radio or TV program. Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network is a big asset. Berman says the ACLJ’s budget is growing at 10 percent a month; he has never seen a like response to direct mail and does not have any idea where the top is.

The ACLJ’s specialty is the Big Case. They choose clients with the hope of taking them to the Supreme Court and won’t touch a case if the facts are not ideal for setting precedent. Thirty-seven-year-old Sekulow has already argued half a dozen cases before the Supreme Court and aims to appear there many more times. He is not shy about flying in a “SWAT” team of expensive lawyers to argue for a child’s right to sing “The First Noel” in a Christmas pageant.

The Rutherford Institute is older—it was founded in 1982—and sets its sights more on the grassroots. Fittingly, it operates from a nondescript office on the rural outskirts of Charlottesville, Virginia. Founder John Whitehead is a craggy individual who started the organization in his basem*nt, possessed of a vision but few backers. He got the idea while in seminary, having left his law practice after reading The Late Great Planet Earth and being converted to Christianity. A teacher asked him for help when school officials told her to take off a cross she wore; Whitehead studied the issue, grew interested, and never looked back.

For years he and his family barely survived on minimal support, but his vision has finally taken hold. The organization’s mailing list has grown from 15,000 to 150,000 in the last three years, and he expects this year’s budget to reach $11 million, with 55 employees and nine staff attorneys across the country. Whitehead himself seldom enters a courtroom; he puts his energies into writing and leading the organization. “He has an unerring sense for the underdog,” says Alexis Crow, Rutherford’s legal director. The Rutherford Institute tries to help each and every individual who contacts them—2,000 per month.

The Christian Legal Society, though much smaller in size and budget, is a third influential player. Its Center for Law and Religious Freedom, located at the organization’s headquarters near Washington, D.C., has only two staff attorneys, but it draws on the volunteer help of lawyers and law professors across the country. CLS is best known for working with Capitol Hill in drawing up legislation (such as the “equal access” law guaranteeing student religious groups the right to meet on campus) and for gathering an eclectic group to present friends-of-the-court briefs on significant cases. Their reputation for fairness can draw together groups as diverse as the National Council of Churches and the Family Research Council.

Half a dozen smaller or more specialized organizations have also sprung up. The Home School Legal Defense Association, for example, provides free legal help for members who are home schooling their children. The Christian Law Association specializes in the needs of fundamentalist churches, helping them to write their constitutions so that they will be able to defend their distinctive operations in court. Donald Wildmon’s American Family Association has five attorneys working mostly in religious rights (with a subspecialty in fighting p*rnography). Some groups are small and struggling; others can barely keep up with growth. The overall picture is clear: Evangelical Christians (often in league with conservative Catholics) are rapidly building legal organizations to help them shape America.

A HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT

One might think this explosion of organizations explains the rise in religious lawsuits: more lawyers, more suits. But the organizations don’t set the trend; they are a symptom of it. Ask why Christians are heading for the courtroom, and religious-liberty attorneys give a ready answer: because so many institutions have turned hostile.

Sekulow says he used to encounter Christian concern over using legal machinery, but “not anymore. It’s hard to be concerned about legal machinery when a fourth grader is told she’s allowed to do a book report on any book she wants, or any story she wants [so] she picks a Bible story and the student is humilated in front of her class. It’s not hard to be irate about that.”

The literature of Christian religious-rights organizations is full of stories like Christine Fisher’s: tales of children told they could not read their Bibles on the school bus; of employees who were disciplined or dismissed for talking about their faith; of families that fell under the suspicion of child-protection agencies because of their views on Christian parenting. “We’re out of step with society,” comments Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense Association. “People who are out of step with society get persecuted.” These feelings have intensified with a Democratic administration. The Rutherford Institute says their calls and letters tripled within a month of last November’s election.

It is hard to make a case that evangelical Christians are being systematically victimized. They look too robustly middle class for that. Unquestionably, however, attitudes toward religion have changed. Once public faith was viewed as a bulwark of society; now it is suspect.

“See You at the Pole” is one example. An informal, nationwide day for high-school students to gather for prayer before school would once have been viewed with pride by school authorities. Now it is often seen as a source of divisiveness and a threat to “community.” In a number of locations, school officials simply refused to let students gather to pray. In Corpus Christi, Texas, for example, students at three schools were ordered to disperse and threatened with suspension. School officials have not backed down, despite the Rutherford Institute’s threat of a suit.

The shift in culture was observed by Justice Scalia in a recent Supreme Court case Sekulow argued, Lamb’s Chapel. Noting that the state of New York claimed a religious meeting (a showing of James Dobson’s film Turn Your Hearts Toward Home) was of value “only to those who already believe,” Scalia said that when he was growing up “it was thought that … what was called a God-fearing person might be less likely to mug me and rape my sister. That apparently is not the view of New York any more.” The acid-tongued Scalia asked the lawyer representing the government, “Has this new regime worked very well?”

Religious-liberty attorneys are sure the religiously hostile regime is not working well. David Llewellyn, president of the small, activist Western Center for Law and Religious Freedom headquartered in Spokane, Washington, complains that “our legal system now is presupposing that there is no God, that there is relativism at the core of the universe.” Relativists tend to see moral standards as prejudice, he says, a stance that undermines the foundations of society. Nevertheless, Llewellyn and others expect hostility toward religion to continue, indeed, to increase—and, they note, conservative judges appointed during the Reagan and Bush years are not necessarily helping. In fact, some of Reagan’s appointees have delivered disastrous Supreme Court decisions. “Most conservatives are economic conservatives, not moral conservatives,” says Llewellyn. That is why many religious-rights attorneys lacked enthusiasm for Robert Bork’s run for the high court.

There is a second reason why evangelicals are fighting in the courts: government’s increased reach. Hardly any religious institution is untouched by government funds or regulation. Colleges, schools, radio stations, hospices, charities, and churches all receive indirect subsidies, tax incentives, or are required to measure up to some government standard, from collecting payroll taxes to providing handicapped access. The more the government controls, the more likely its power will conflict with religious rights.

For example, an Episcopal church in Manhattan wanted to tear down their seven-story office building and build a new one, expanding their programs. But because the city considered both the historic church and the adjacent office building “landmarks,” the church was denied permission. Or take Murrah, Utah, where zoning ordinances banned “religious activities” in private homes. Or Toledo, Ohio, where the director of a childcare center was told she might obtain a Small Business Administration loan if she “promised not to mention God” in her program. Or Southern California, where John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church was sued after a man the church had counseled committed suicide; the case turned partly on whether the church met state licensing requirements for counselors. (The church ultimately won in a case that was appealed to the Supreme Court.)

“When the government becomes such a huge part of our cultural life,” observes University of Chicago law professor Michael McConnell, “so that it controls the schools, it controls the practice of medicine, it controls much of higher education, it controls television channels, it controls funding for the arts, and has so many employees, and has so much property, at that point if we say that the government is going to be scrupulously secular, it ceases to be so neutral.… It’s much more imperative now than at the founding [of the United States] to ensure that the understanding of neutrality is not secular, but pluralistic.”

The Aclu As Friend, Enemy

For many evangelical Christians, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has a well-earned reputation as the unfailing bad guy. They turn up wherever nativity scenes are forced off courthouse squares, wherever cities are sued for having a cross in their official seal, wherever parents are assailed as censors for objecting to school reading lists. No wonder, then, that conservative fundraising letters often portray their organizations as David going toe-to-toe with the ACLU Goliath.

Religious-rights attorneys see a more complicated picture, however. “The ACLU is not always the enemy,” lawyer Jay Sekulow carefully points out. It is, in fact, sometimes an ally. It usually depends on which of the Constitution’s religion clauses is at stake.

The First Amendment to the Constitution declares that “Congress shall make no law [1] respecting an establishment of religion, or [2] prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The first of these two clauses is called the “establishment” clause; the second, the “free exercise” clause.

In free-exercise cases, the ACLU will usually side with religious-liberty organizations—as they did, for example, in the Smith case, supporting the religious rights of Native Americans. The ACLU and evangelical groups share the belief that religious freedom for small, marginal groups is crucial. Arguing the other side on such cases are the “majoritarians”—people who do not want rights expanded, who believe that a democratic government should have the power to do what it pleases in most circ*mstances, even if inadvertently constricting religion. That is how Smith was decided against religious rights by a conservative court.

The Christian Legal Society has been working with the ACLU and other groups, both liberal and conservative, to overturn Smith through legislation. It appears that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act has a good chance to be passed by Congress this year and signed into law by President Clinton. It restores “free exercise” to the pre-Smith standard, putting the burden of proof on the government to show that it cannot live without a law restricting certain religious practices.

When an “establishment” case is involved, however, the ACLU usually clashes with evangelical religious-liberty organizations. That was the issue in Zobrest—the claim that paying for a sign-language interpreter in a religious school (a subsidy required by law in any other school, public or private) meant that the state was “establishing” a religion. This strict-separationist view was upheld at every level of the judiciary until the Supreme Court overturned it by a narrow 5-to-4 decision.

Religion must never depend inadvertently on government support, strict separationists say, or even—in any organized form—take place on government property. For example, strict separationists, like the ACLU, would admit that before-school student prayer meetings are a “free exercise” of religion, but they believe such prayer meetings should be illegal lest the government “establish” or support a religious cause by letting its buildings be used for it. Religious-liberty lawyers see this as a thinly veiled attempt to to squeeze religion into the small (and getting smaller) space untouched by the government’s money.

By Tim Stafford.

In a society where religion is viewed with hostility, and an expanding government threatens to overrun independent organizations, Christians are bound to find themselves in a fight. The courts, after all, are designed as a refuge for unpopular minorities, and evangelicals are not the first to use them as such. Critics, though, complain that these Christian groups are looking for more than protection. They claim evangelicals are fighting to impose their views on others—to make America less free, not more.

Christian religious-rights attorneys disagree strongly; they insist they are fighting for everybody’s rights. “It comes to fairness,” Rutherford’s Whitehead says. “If you don’t want others ramming their views down your throat, you can’t ram your views down theirs.” He points to cases in which the Rutherford Institute has represented Hare Krishnas who wanted a vegetarian alternative at the school cafeteria, and Jews whose home synagogues were outlawed by zoning restrictions. “Our agenda is not to have a Christian nation, but to enable religious people to survive.”

Evangelical religious-rights organizations do, however, have specifically Christian purposes in mind. One is to defend Christians who have no other defense. “I don’t think we’ve ever gotten a call from a rich religious person who was in trouble,” says Alexis Crow of the Rutherford Institute. Many of their clients, she says, are poor or poorly educated.

Religious-rights organizations also tie their goals to Christian evangelism. They want to insure that the gospel stays in public life, instead of being relegated strictly to home and church. “The gospel can take care of itself,” insists Keith Fournier of the ACLJ, SO long as it gets a chance in the marketplace of ideas. He says they are only asking for a “level playing field.”

Strict separationists don’t buy it. “This level playing field is really at some level preposterous,” says Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. “There are so many methods by which people can communicate their ideas. The Religious Right has vast access to radio and TV on a 24-hour-a-day basis. Their words are not being silenced.” He believes the real agenda is different. “I have no doubt that the goal of Pat Robertson’s organization is to create what amounts to a theocracy in America.”

CHRISTIAN AMERICA?

There is indeed interest in recreating “Christian America,” but it is subtler than Lynn suggests. One way to probe it is to ask what attorneys think of bringing back pre-1962 school prayer. Nearly all would agree with Sekulow: “I don’t want it. Mandatory school prayer does not fall within the protection of the First Amendment.” But because they don’t want school-dictated prayers does not mean they don’t favor prayer in school. They want schools where no one is forced to pray or told what to pray, but where people who want to pray are accommodated—not simply told to pray in the privacy of their homes and churches.

It was commonly reported that, in the Weisman case, the Supreme Court outlawed graduation prayers. “Not so fast,” said both the Rutherford Institute and ACLJ, and launched information campaigns to disseminate their understanding of the decision. The ACLJ sent packets to thousands of schools and went begging for a case to test in court. In their view, graduation prayers remain legal so long as students, not school officials, take the initiative. If a student is chosen by his or her peers to lead in prayer at their graduation, that would be merely free religious speech, they say. Those who did not want to participate would not have to—they could just politely sit through it.

“We’re not naïve … that one year one of those students who gives that prayer could be a Muslim,” notes Sekulow. “I could tolerate a 30-second [Muslim] prayer. In America we learn that the price of freedom is sometimes you hear things you don’t like.”

Strict separationists disagree vehemently, believing that the essence of Weisman is that no one should be obliged to sit through a prayer of any kind at a government-sponsored event. The issue is more than symbolic—it has to do with the kind of religious landscape our public institutions allow. Will the public square be stripped of all religion? Or will it offer opportunity to all believers of any faith, or no faith, to promote their beliefs publicly?

In the short run, a “level playing field” is all that religious-rights organizations seek. In the long run, however, they expect to make a larger difference. Sekulow says, “If we put our message out on the marketplace …, if we really believe what the gospel says, our light will outshine the others’ darkness. Truth will prevail.” Keith Fournier, ACLJ’s executive director, referring to early Christian centuries, says, “We’re in the business of converting empires.”

Historically, evangelical Christians shied away from courtrooms. Legal action was considered worldly: it is hard to build the kingdom of God by suing people.

But then, evangelicals sometimes held an almost privatized version of faith—ironically, much like the view of religion the ACLU holds. The old view was that politics is a dirty business—one Christians should stay out of. Today it is the opposite: If you are not fighting political battles, you could be accused of insufficient commitment.

The turn to law contains more than a hint of belief in the political illusion: that through influencing the government we can create a comfortable environment for the gospel. Yet, in its long history, the church has experienced many disasters using political power.

Ours was once a de facto Protestant nation, with schools and civil religion endorsing a vague Christianity. Now, in a far more religiously varied nation, the government has proclaimed itself religiously neutral. The definition of neutral is critical. If neutral means rigorously secular, then Christians are going to feel increasingly marginalized as the government grows. But if neutral means treating all beliefs equally, then evangelicals will feel at home—they have generally thrived in a free market.

Evangelicals eager to fight in court are, in a way, registering their faith in our democracy. They are acting as citizens, asserting their right to participate fully in civic life. That is good, so long as they do not confuse American citizenship with God’s kingdom, or forget that victories won in court do not necessarily win people’s hearts. William Bentley Ball, the Roman Catholic viewed by many as the dean of religious-liberty attorneys, says that courtroom fights are necessary. But, he insists, “the ultimate answer is persuasion by good example, by attempting to explain.… And a great deal is going to depend on prayer.”

Loren Wilkinson is the writer/editor of Earthkeeping in the ’90s (Eerdmans) and the coauthor, with his wife, Mary Ruth Wilkinson, of Caring for Creation in Your Own Backyard (Servant). He teaches at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Healing The Health-Care System

How should Christ’s mandate that we care for “the least of these” guide our national debate on health-care reform?

If the ambitious Clinton health-care plan becomes law, credit should probably go to the massive failure of our current haphazard patchwork of private and public “insurance.” Actually, the Clinton plan joins several Republican proposals, all conceived under the same lament: the system is indeed broken.

Consider this case for health-care reform:

Mr. Swanson (not his real name) is a 55-year-old man who recently lost his job at a small, engine-building company. He has severe high blood pressure and diabetes requiring four different medications. He makes an appointment to see me because he lost his insurance with his job and cannot afford to see his doctor or fill his prescriptions. I am a primary-care physician at a county hospital. My examination shows us what happens when a patient cannot afford medication. Mr. Swanson’s blood sugar level is twice normal, his blood pressure is dangerously elevated, and he has had exertional chest pain for several weeks. He tells me his medications were costing him $120 a month.

I put him back on his medicines, add aspirin and nitroglycerin to keep his arteries open, and send him to our cardiologist to begin evaluation for heart disease. The cardiac catheterization reveals life-threatening blockages in both the left and right coronary arteries, so Mr. Swanson has an angioplasty, a procedure that uses a balloon to widen the arteries from the inside. Mr. Swanson’s blood pressure and diabetes come under control. He begins occupational therapy and looks for another job. His hospital bill is over $10,000, which he cannot pay.

Could it happen to you?

If you think your health status is much more secure than Mr. Swanson’s, consider our current situation:

• 35 million people in this country do not have health insurance at all, even if they work full-time.

• 20 million people, including some reading this editorial, are underinsured and have poor coverage.

• Even those of us who think we have good insurance sometimes find it fails us when we need it most (loss or changes of job, disabling illness, pre-existing condition, or an employer switching to a less comprehensive plan).

Everyone is vulnerable. Many of us are one serious illness away from our own personal health-care crisis.

So reform is needed, and President and Mrs. Clinton deserve credit for pushing the debate forward. But what should reform accomplish? As Christian citizens, we ought to insist on at least these five goals:

1. Care for those in need. The primary focus of reform should be to provide health care to anyone in medical need, regardless of ability to pay. Providing care for those who need it is one of the strongest ethical principles found in the Bible. Our Lord clearly articulates the requirements to care for and comfort the sick and to treat “the least of these” decently (Matt. 25:40).

2. Improve doctor-patient relationships. The Great Physician healed persons, not cases. He looked at the sick and the lame, listened to them, talked to them, and touched them. Good health care requires personal relationships. The doctor must know the patient’s case, and that does not always happen from only reading charts. Being physically and emotionally available and then staying with the person over the long haul is the hardest thing about being a doctor. But it is crucial for both patient and doctor. The high current rate of physician and patient “turnover” due to changes in health plans should be decreased.

3. Promote prevention. We often prefer high-tech care to more fundamental preventive and primary care. We opt for dramatic surgery over quitting smoking or having yearly mammograms. But as Dr. David Larson of the National Institute for Healthcare Research has shown, “those who follow biblical values live longer, enjoy life more, and are less diseased.” The new health-care plan must encourage and promote healthy living or health-care costs will double in six years to more than $1.5 trillion yearly.

4. Change economic incentives. This is really a matter of stewardship and priorities. I am paid more for putting in three stitches or looking at a hemorrhoid through a plastic scope than I am for spending a half-hour counseling a patient who is trying to stop using cocaine. The current system tempts physicians in training to think more in terms of procedures than persons. Spending time with patients is not presently a cost-effective way to pay back those $100,000 medical school debts.

5. Be honest about the cost. True reform will be costly and inconvenient. When we increase access to health care, costs will initially increase despite spending caps and other cost-containment strategies. Under President Clinton’s plan, the cost will be an estimated $350 billion annually between 1995 and 2000. We cannot expect smokers to pay for much more than one-third of the cost. (You can’t really tax sins, you have to tax the sinner!) Jesus did not give the responsibility to care for the health of others just to sinners who are smokers. All of us sinners will have to pay up.

Evaluating the plans

How far do the current plans go in meeting these goals for reform?

The Clinton plan includes an overall structure to control costs and ensure access, a very generous core benefit package, with universal health benefits coverage through a Regional Health Alliance. Business would pay 80 percent of the cost of insurance with some provisions for smaller employers. Also included are insurance reform, medical-malpractice reform, and slowed price increases on prescription drugs.

Each consumer alliance group of 500,000 consumers would have powerful bargaining potential in negotiations with health-care providers and insurance companies. Increased competition among specialists for patients within the alliance and a focus on training more generalists would probably lower physician salaries. Claim forms would be standardized, saving money on paperwork. The plan contains features of cost containment that have already been implemented in HMOs and other forms of managed care.

The Chafee and Hastert plan on the Republican side encourages purchasing cooperatives like Clinton’s “alliances,” but would give the cooperatives less power. These plans avoid saddling businesses with most of the bill for reform, but coverage for the uninsured would be phased in or left to the states rather than assured up front. The Hastert plan and the plan of Gramm and McCain offer the interesting option of allowing us to set up individual tax-free Medical Savings Accounts to pay for the first part of expenses each year. Others support a single-payer plan in which the government is the nation’s health insurance company.

Most desirable would be something less ambitious and costly than the Clinton plan but more aggressive than the Chafee and Hastert plan. An appealing asset of the Clinton plan is its assurance of medical care for the poor and uninsured. The Republican emphasis on controlling costs and encouraging individuals to pay for their own medical care so far as possible is also attractive. Single-payer plans should be dismissed: They do too much violence to the present system, running rough-shod over the positive aspects of our many-faceted and innovative medical infrastructure.

If we are to end up with a system that is significantly better than what we now have, legislators will have to set politics aside. Neither side has come up with the perfect plan, but both parties have introduced innovative concepts that deserve debate. What is most encouraging (and ought to compel Christians to enter the debate) is that politicians and everyday Americans have mutually focused their attention on the health-care system. We are finally thinking about what it might be like to be Mr. Swanson.

By consulting editor David Schiedermayer, associate professor of internal medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin and a primary care, physician.

A Holy Disturbance

The 1993 Parliament of the World’s Religions has come and gone, fulfilling its advance billing as “the greatest gathering of religious leaders ever in terms of diversity.” The d-word did not disappoint. The spectrum stretched from Buddhist to Bahai, from Muslim to Mormon, from Unitarian to Zoroastrian. Though convened to promote world peace and religious harmony, the meeting was marked by raucous debate and name-calling, as representatives of the various religious groups excoriated one another for bigotry, intolerance, and crimes against humanity.

From the perspective of historic Christianity, the week’s most significant event was the walkout of Orthodox Christians. In good conscience, they said, they could not participate in a religious assembly with groups that professed no belief in God! Who provoked this Orthodox protest? Was it the Zen Buddhists, the Fellowship of Isis, or the Covenant of the Goddess, whose devotees held a ceremonial Full Moon dance along the shores of Lake Michigan, chanting, “We are one with the soul of the earth”?

When Saint Paul encountered the rather less bizarre religious syncretism of ancient Athens, his “spirit was provoked within him” (Acts 17:16). Rather than adding still another altar to their already crowded pantheon, he preached a sermon on God as Creator and Judge and Jesus as Redeemer and Lord.

Thank God for the Orthodox who still sense a holy disturbance in the face of modern neopagan idolatry and refuse to connive at it. Paul would be proud.

By senior editor Timothy George, dean of Beeson Divinity School, Samford University.

Next July, Charles Swindoll will become a commuter. Already the motorcycle-riding senior pastor of First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton, California—not to mention a popular author and radio preacher—he has accepted an invitation to add another line to his already-crowded business card: president of Dallas Theological Seminary. Here Swindoll talks to CT about how he plans to lead Dallas from a distance—and where he will lead it.

Presidentelect Charles Swindoll says get ready for a kinder, gentler Dallas Seminary.

Dallas Theological Seminary is known as the flagship of the dispensational movement. How would you evaluate the state of dispensational theology? And what is its future there?

I’m going to be very vulnerable with you: I think dispensations is a scare word. I’m not sure we’re going to make dispensationalism a big part of our marquee as we talk about our school. I like to think of Dallas Seminary as first and foremost a biblical school. And when you take the Scriptures as they are, dispensations take care of themselves. Most people are dispensationalists, but they don’t know it.

I’m a 1963 graduate of Dallas. Most graduates I’m in touch with were not rammed into a mold or made to sign on the dotted line. The scuttlebutt has always been that at Dallas you’re going to get dispensationalism crammed down your throat. Usually it’s coming from people who have never been in the school. The word is out that Dallas is where you go if you’re a little extreme on dispensationalism. That’s not true at all.

When Lewis Sperry Chafer, the founder of Dallas seminary, used the term dispensationalist, he had something very specific in mind. He probably wouldn’t recognize the dispensationalism being taught today at Dallas. Do you think the term is going to disappear as well?

It may, and perhaps it should. I grew up with the old Scofield Bible. I’m more in that camp than any other. But in the progress of revelation, there is the need to fit terms so they make sense, to use words that do not frighten or create misunderstanding.

Will Dallas ever make friends with charismatics?

I don’t believe we would view the charismatics as enemies, so making friends sounds like we’re now not friends. I’m confident Dallas will never be a charismatic school.

But if you read my newest book, Flying Closer to the Flame, you’d probably think it sounds like a softening of my position on the Holy Spirit. I think the school without knowing it has probably operated from a standpoint of fear—fear of being misunderstood, of things getting out of control, of losing doctrinal distinctives. I don’t think we need to be afraid. There’s wider room for interpretation than we may have allowed.

What areas should be given wider room?

I look at my own life. I’m in a worship service and the fellow next to me lifts his hands in praise, which happens in most churches today. There was a time when I had a lot more things figured out than I do now. I would have felt awkward. It doesn’t bother me for a minute now.

As I look back, my analysis is I was probably afraid. “What if something happens and I don’t know how to control it?” Now I don’t feel the need to control a lot of things.

In The Beauty of Spiritual Language, Jack Hayford says that speaking in tongues is not necessarily a precondition for fullness in the Spirit. If that’s the case, what are the barriers between evangelicals and charismatics?

The primary barrier would be extrabiblical revelation. Now, Jack’s a good friend, and I love him dearly. He’s taught me as much about worship as anyone else. But I think he would have room in his theology for extrabiblical revelation, of God speaking outside the Scriptures and beyond the Scriptures. I have trouble with that.

At the same time, I have a place in my theology for the work of the Spirit in our emotions. I think God honors the whole person. What else is joy than an emotion? What else is peace if not a feeling? And conviction is a feeling. Those are things we at Dallas really believe in. Interestingly, we’re also the ones who have said for years that you can’t trust your feelings. But one way of knowing God’s will is to let the peace of Christ rule in your heart. You feel restful, at peace. It’s an emotion. The Spirit prompts those emotions. I never made a major decision in my life where emotions were not involved.

Evangelicals have traditionally said things like, “I think the Lord is leading me to do this.” How is that different from extrabiblical revelation?

Those who embrace the idea of extrabiblical revelation may or may not mean an audible voice, but it is an absolutely firm realization that this is “what God told me we ought to do.” It’s a prophetlike declaration. It sounds right until you get to the point where it doesn’t make good sense.

Does that mean that God does not reveal his will specifically? No. My coming to California was a major step away from all of my roots—my family, Cynthia’s family—but there was that sense of call and excitement. And I sought the mind of several men and women I respect. There were green lights along the way. Rather than a direct signal, we got a long answer to a short question.

The dispensational community has been split over the lordship salvation debate. What is behind the controversy?

I think it’s a concern because of the number of individuals who express a superficial faith. In Mark 4 we read of the seed falling on rocky soil; the sun comes and scorches the plant because there’s no root. Those who espouse lordship salvation emphasize the importance of sincere faith in Jesus Christ, in him alone, in his death and resurrection, as the very basis of eternal salvation. It grows out of a desire to move people away from a quick and superficial kind of belief.

Now, having said that, I am not a lordship salvation person. I preach the importance of dedication to Jesus Christ. I talk about the works that follow faith. But I believe eternal life is a gift and that I receive it not by anything I do, or am, or promise to become. I take the gift that God offers. I think the result is that my life becomes changed, and slowly but surely I’m growing toward maturity. And I think works follow, but I can’t find biblical reasons to emphasize to a sinner who is lost, out of hope, without life, doing anything but taking a gift. At that point, it’s the work of the Spirit of God within that individual to bring him or her to maturity.

Both sides share the same high goal—that those who say, “I’m giving my life to Jesus Christ” would begin to evidence a changed life. And I think the lack of evidence of that is proof that there was not faith to start with. So, I don’t know in what camp you put me, but I would say that the proof of the faith comes in the life. Faith alone saves, but the faith that saves is not alone.

How do you struggle with the role of being a celebrity in the church?

I don’t like it. Celebrityism makes me self-conscious and uncomfortable. I’m a family man, a pastor, a friend to our staff, a leader. It’s true that doors have been opened to us for ministry in books and radio, but if you were to visit the Fullerton church you would find the flock there unenamored. They’re as surprised as I am about my popularity.

I believe God honors this kind of authentic ministry. The world cries for it. We all want mentors who are real. Which is part of the reason I’m not leaving to go to Dallas. I think it adds credibility to ministry to still be engaged in it, wherever I may be serving.

As you approach your first year as a seminary president, how do you feel?

I’m way over my head, having never done this in my life. I will be a learner for the first few years.

Interview by Michael G. Maudlin

The scene was an emotionally charged prolife rally, the kickoff of a petition drive to overturn a new proabortion law.

I was the last speaker of the evening. The crowd’s excitement was at its peak. But as I rose to the podium, when the name of my organization was announced, part of that excitement turned to dismay. I am a vice-president of Feminists for Life.

Many people react negatively to the term feminism. To them, it means angry women who hate men and mock the family. But this is as unfair as believing that all prolifers bomb abortion clinics. In fact, if we adopt Gloria Steinem’s definition of a feminist—“Anyone who recognizes the equality and full humanity of women and men”—most of us are probably feminists, too. This was a radical innovation two thousand years ago, when the first Christians proclaimed the equal value of all people.

I became a feminist over 20 years ago, in response to a culture that treated women as frivolous, gossipy creatures, endearingly silly, whose chief delight was the buying of hats. Today most of us believe women to be as intelligent and capable as men and see women’s careers as appropriate, especially before and after their child-rearing years.

But if prolifers balk at “feminism,” establishment feminists have an even harder time with “prolife.” Yet, historically, feminism has vigorously opposed abortion.

Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and other early feminists saw abortion as proof of women’s powerlessness and inequality. Anthony’s newspaper stated, “When a man steals to satisfy hunger, we may safely conclude that there is something wrong in society—so when a woman destroys the life of her unborn child, it is an evidence that … she has been greatly wronged.”

A century later, prolife feminists still charge that abortion is a convenience for sexually exploitative men, who find it easier to pay for an abortion than to be responsible for the life they helped to begin. In fact, abortion makes it easier for everyone—the woman’s boss, her school, her landlord, her family, her church—to ignore her plight and the impositions it might cause them.

Even worse, abortion means death. And social engineering built on death can never be just. If it is “a woman’s right to control her body,” this right must first mean that she is protected from all forms of violence. This right must be hers no matter where she lives—even in her mother’s womb.

But true feminism has something to say to the prolife movement as well. Sometimes prolifers hate abortion so much they begin to hate the woman who is tempted by it. But she deserves our help and love as much as her unborn child does.

History’s most famous pregnancy was a difficult one: a peasant girl, pregnant out of wedlock, finding shelter in a stable in a friendless town. In our cities today there are many women like her, women for whom pregnancy is a frightening burden, prey to the wheedling, sympathetic voice of the sellers of annihilation. In this lonely place, will we be like Caesar’s tax collectors, concerned only that there be one more name for the census? Or will we be wise innkeepers, searching our resources, offering whatever we have to share?

Ultimately, we are not called to save her unborn child; the mother is the one appointed to be the child’s protector. Our job is to find ways to be her servant so that she can love her child to life. Far from dreamy theory, this involves concrete and unglamorous action. It may mean volunteering at your local pregnancy center, offering hope to women in need, or even opening your own home to a pregnant woman. It may call you to political action, seeking not just limits on abortion, but also strengthened child-support laws, compassionate maternity-leave policies, and adequate, accessible medical care.

Prolifers need not fear feminism; feminists need not fear the cause of life. Prolife feminism is the natural flower of both movements: over a century of saving babies by serving their mothers, and helping them to choose life.

Frederica Mathewes-Green, vice-president for communications of Feminists for Life of America, has written for World, Policy Review, and other publications.

Speaking Out does not necessarily reflect the views of CHRISTIANITY TODAY.

Give Yancey a Pulitzer!

Philip Yancey deserves a Pulitzer for his article on forgiveness (“Holocaust & Ethnic Cleansing,” Aug. 16). Aquinas, the angelic doctor, could not have done better.

Dan Lyons, Director

Catholic Communications

Bloomsbury, N.J.

Yancey’s is a simple message and yet powerful and true. Promoting hate and bitterness only fuels the discontentment of all people.

Marian Grace

Irvine, Calif.

The unbiased, gentle manner in which Yancey wrote broke my heart. I am going to take the article with me when I travel overseas to Croatia. Pray that God will give me wisdom as I present it to others.

Sandy King

Burlington, Ont., Canada

Colson’s reasonable approach

Thank you for printing “Crime, Morality, and the Media Elites” [Aug. 16], Charles Colson’s address to members of the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Once again, he has hit the nail on the head. If Christians are to be credible participants in public discourse about the social, moral, and religious issues that tend to polarize members of our society, we would do well to follow Colson’s thoughtful and reasonable approach to those with whom we disagree.

Gloria J. Kittock

Minneapolis, Minn.

Female deities never freed women

I cannot contain my enthusiasm for Elizabeth Achtemeier’s article “Why God Is Not Mother” [Aug. 16]! She confirms and develops all my resistance to the woman-as-god ideology, particularly in terms of practical implications. I especially appreciate her wisdom in indicating that the old female deities never freed women from anything; instead, their worship promoted women’s roles as prostitutes and breeders. In contrast, Judaism made women the center of family life. Achtemeier’s insistence that biblical inspiration is nothing to be trampled over for the sake of current mores is well taken.

Cynthia Barraza

Glendale, Calif.

I have no more trouble perceiving Mother God as transcendent and distinct from me than I do Father God.

Achtemeier makes the same mistake as some she calls “radical feminists”: identifying transcendence with the masculine, and immanence with the feminine. Such connections are not necessary; evangelicals should challenge that identification. Many Christians need a Mother God who is both with and beyond the created world.

Reta Halteman Finger, Editor

Daughters of Sarah

Chicago, Ill.

As we welcome the birth of our third child, let’s see if we understand Achtemeier regarding male and female language for God. Genesis presents God as male, rather than female, so that the distinction is maintained between God and the creation. So are we to believe that Kari is organically, genetically related to our children, but John is distinct from them?

A further puzzle occurs to us: Genesis portrays a God who speaks the world into being. Male or female sexuality seems to have nothing to do with this. Why could not a female, or neuter, God do this speaking? Isn’t it more the speaking, rather than the maleness, that safeguards the Creator/creation distinction?

Kari and John Stackhouse

Winnipeg, Man., Canada

At last you have given us a cogent, biblically sound piece from a woman who manages to be both brilliant and theologically astute! I pray the result will be much-needed and overdue damage control from the heady, misguided and misguiding “biblical” feminist corner.

Elaine L. Stedman

Grants Pass, Oreg.

Is not there a difference between God revealing himself in masculine terms and God revealing himself as a male? He never invites us to think of him as a male, and those who seriously study the divine self-disclosure do not visualize a man in a long beard when thinking of God.

Thomas L. Cowdry

Tucson, Ariz.

‘Be Ye Vulnerable’

Our pastor is leading our church into new levels of intimacy, bond building, and self-disclosure. He has even begun to share his own struggles from the pulpit. But only to a point. “I’ll confess my sins, but not my faults,” he admitted.

Other staff members are catching the vision, too. In fact, the youth pastor has become so transparent I haven’t seen him in weeks.

The real test came for me when I was asked to lead our home Bible-study group into new depths of sharing and intimacy. I was reluctant, but was willing to take the risk. I explained to our group that our assignment was to become intimate through honest confession.

It was up to me to get the ball rolling. What did I have to lose, besides my reputation? I cleared my throat and began. “I’ve never cleaned behind our refrigerator. My cholesterol is over 240. I rarely floss my teeth. I routinely sneak 12 items through the 10-items-or-less checkout line.”

The group gasped in shock. Then an embarrassed hush fell over the room. The silence was crushing, but I went on. “I bring my own popcorn into movie theaters.”

“Are the ‘No Food Allowed’ signs clearly posted?” somebody asked.

I hung my head and said, “Yes.”

When I was done, everyone stared humbly at the floor. I, however, was quite pleased at my mastery of becoming vulnerable.

Ezzo program a blessing

I have nothing but good to say about Preparation for Parenting [“Brave New Baby,” News, Aug. 16]. Because of Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo’s program, I have a child who slept through the night at five weeks. I was highly disappointed by the slanted nature of your article. There was not one example of families for whom this program has been a blessing. When a program that reminds us to get back to biblical basics as we raise our children to love God comes along, we should be careful not to destroy its pure intentions, while examining it fairly and by God’s Word.

Kendra Fletcher

San Francisco, Calif.

We applaud the Ezzos for seeking to apply Scripture to this important area of life. However, we believe it can be done with more charity, more liberty, and more accuracy.

Stan and Debbie Reeves Auburn, Ala.

I am grateful to Tom Giles for tackling this difficult and controversial story. The major appeal of Preparation for Parenting is that it offers an easy, cut-and-dried approach to parenting complete with guarantees, and it contains just enough truth to mask what is personal opinion. What parent would turn down a method that practically guarantees peace, harmony, friendship, and a decision for Christ?

Name withheld by request

Santa Maria, Calif.

I am appalled at the Ezzos’ ethnocentric slam on parenting/mothering in the Two-Thirds world. The Ezzos seem unaware that God is supracultural.

Deborah Crough

Yaounder, Cameroon

I have been a medical missionary in Nepal for 25 years, specializing in pediatrics, maternal and child health, and public health. The sort of “biblical teaching” espoused by the Ezzos harks back to the dogmatic directions given by pediatricians in the 1940s. These artificial feeding schedules so that mothers (and doctors) could “control” their children have now been discredited.

Suckling on demand is nature’s (God’s) way to “control” the amount of milk an infant needs from its mother. What a marvelous custom-made mechanism God has put into place! We tamper with it at our own peril.

Suckling on demand is the best way to establish an adequate amount of breast milk. The chance of lactation failure is much higher if a baby is placed on a schedule. Furthermore, if there isn’t enough breast milk, eventually the baby either starves or the mother resorts to formula feeding. In poor, developing countries, the risk of death for a bottle-fed infant less than six months old is 25 times greater than for a breast-fed infant. I fear the possible consequences should the Ezzos’ type of advice for mothers be exported to developing countries.

Cynthia Hale, M.D.

Loudenville, N.Y.

Discerning between church and state

Hurray for Philip Yancey! His column “Why Clinton Is Not Antichrist” [Aug. 16] may ruffle some feathers, but affirmed again for me the role of the church. The church must not try to persuade government, but live righteously so as to give hope to the world. The more distinction we have between church and state, the more the world can see the work of Christ through the church. Changing the laws of the land will not transform the lives of people.

Pastor Dave Graybill

First Mennonite Church

Johnstown, Pa.

In his otherwise discerning article, how could Yancey have omitted reference to the one great command of our risen Lord: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” “Discipling” a nation is neither “Christianizing” nor passively “being.” It requires aggressive prayer, planning, and hard work toward the goal of seeing Christ incarnated (“church” planted) within access of every person.

It profoundly disturbs me that many Christians in America are either trying to Christianize the nation in the sense Yancey effectively debunks or passively trying to “be” the church. While Christians in many truly hostile situations around the world are aggressively bringing multitudes to Christ and gathering them into new congregations, we’re suffering for our half-hearted obedience to the one very specific command of our Lord concerning nations.

Dr. James H. Montgomery

Dawn Ministries

Colorado Springs, Colo.

Yancey states that Bill Clinton is a lifelong Southern Baptist. But the Washington Times states that “Mr. Clinton began attending Baptist services after he lost his first race for re-election as governor of Arkansas.” Yancey said nothing about Bill Clinton’s policies on abortion or hom*osexuality. But the Southern Baptist national conference issued a statement calling Clinton a prodigal son and urged him to return to the fold.

LaNell Sado

Arlington, Va.

I am pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church, the church where President Clinton is a member. I have “filtered” through letters, calls, articles for the last two years. I have been able to maintain communication with the President from a conservative, evangelical perspective [though] my “brethren” have not always appreciated, understood, or supported my unique position.

Dr. Rex M. Horne, Jr.

Immanuel Baptist Church

Little Rock, Ark.

TV controls no solution

As much as I abhor the overdose of violence and sleaze on television, the notion that stricter government censorship or new government guidelines could correct the situation is even more abhorrent [“Why Trust TV Execs?” Editorial, Aug. 16]. Letting the government sanction a certain amount of TV murders, adulterous affairs, and other unsavory acts would limit the already stifled creative spirits in Hollywood, and worse, stall the consumer uprising, which is the key to bringing about real changes. Tighter controls will only issue a challenge to “artists” to fulfill sleaze quotas and push the new limits.

Valerie A. Loop

Mossyrock, Wash.

The struggle at King’s

Your News story [Aug. 16] on The King’s College touched upon some of the financial challenges while missing the real dimensions of the organizational and spiritual struggle.

I recall my arrival at King’s in 1986. Control over the day-by-day affairs of the college was in the hands of a tight clique surrounding Samuel Barkat, vice-president of academic affairs and professor of psychology. Under their control, faculty dissent was regularly quashed, subbiblical theology was honored more than dishonored, and immorality had made tragically uncorrected inroads.

Although President Radandt tried to work with the old crowd of insiders, he concluded that it couldn’t be done. So, he proposed to bring in a new vice-president of academic affairs. However, Barkat and the old crowd decided to declare war and proceeded to do everything they could to make miserable the life of the president and anyone who they perceived as siding with him. Their bloodlust for the life of the college evidently still runs hot.

Prof. Tony Carnes

The King’s College

Briarcliff Manor, N.Y.

Guarantor of orthodoxy?

In your news article “Christian Leaders Admonish Hinn” [Aug. 16], it is reported that “James Robison says he brought [a warning about the word-of-faith doctrine] to Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Larry Lea, but none of them heeded the warning.”

First, on what basis has James Robison been catapulted into the role of guarantor of evangelical orthodoxy?

Second, the implication that Jimmy Swaggart was an unrepentant proponent of the word-of-faith doctrine is very misleading. I remember hearing Swaggart’s radio sermons in the late 1970s on the theme of God’s “power of attorney” being given to Christians. But in the early eighties, Swaggart gave plenty of evidence that he saw the error of the “name it-claim it” teaching. This is most clearly evidenced by the article “Hyper-Faith: A New Gnosticism,” published under his name in his organization’s magazine, the Evangelist (May 1982).

David R. Bundrick, National Director

The Assemblies of God

Springfield, Mo.

Letters are welcome. If intended (or publication, they must include a signature and address. Letters may be edited for space and clarity. Write to Eutychus, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188.

In the fall of 1992, Joseph Loconte seemed like a Godsend toct’s editors. (In spite of our dictionary, we capitalize Godsend in this column because we believe Joe was indeed sent.)

Joe was at that time working on a master’s degree at Wheaton College, and CT’s news department was fast turning into a mutual farewell party. During late summer and fall, all three of CT’s news editors discovered greener (for them) pastures. For two, the opportunities were rural, less expensive, and wholesome for rearing children. For a third, the opportunity was a stimulating professional challenge (with a more robust salary).

As a graduate student, Joe needed rent money. He showed up at our door, offering to work part-time. Joe had several years’ newspaper experience and free-lance clips from the Christian Science Monitor and the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner. In addition, he had been a policy researcher and writer-editor at the Heritage Foundation. How could we say no?

During his nine months at CT, Joe was like the proverbial city news bureau police reporter chasing down squad cars and ladder trucks. He addressed everyone as Sir or Ma’am, but his questioning was never shy. He got the facts.

Joe’s graduate study focused on the philosophical and historical basis for religious rights. His enthusiasm for the intricacies of public policy as it impacts the church makes him one of the more distinctive conservative evangelical wonks we have met. Now back at the Heritage Foundation, Joe is deputy editor of Policy Review.

In this issue, Joe turns his attention to the much-talked about “culture wars.” Can we step back from the brink of a shooting war? Joe asks. His report begins on p. 74.

DAVID NEFF, Executive Editor

Most CT readers, I imagine, know the name of Oswald Chambers, author of My Utmost for His Highest, a daily devotional that has sold by the hundred thousand since first it appeared in 1927. Some will know that more than 30 other books bear Chambers’s name, most of them still in print, and all on the same theme, the supernaturalizing of natural life through a living relationship to Jesus Christ as Savior, Master, and Model. Many have acquired a taste for the distinctive flavor of Chambers’s material—cool and sharp, clinical and exuberant, pithy and searching, childlike, ardent, and profound: salt, mustard, pepper, and vinegar for the too-bland Christian life.

“The O.C.,” as the troops in Egypt called him, was a bright Scottish Baptist of wide literary, artistic, and philosophical culture. His evangelical theology was unremarkable save that he embraced the Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification and saw it as verified in his own experience of “baptism in the Spirit” in 1901. From 1906 he worked without stated salary for the Pentecostal League of Prayer; this was the holiness organization under whose auspices he and his wife ran the Bible Training College from 1911 to 1915, when he left for Egypt as a YMCA chaplain.

Though appreciated by those who knew his ministry, he was never in the mainstream. In his twenties he had written: “I feel I shall be buried for a time, hidden away in obscurity; then suddenly I shall flame out, do my work, and be gone.” And so it was.

McCasland’s biography chronicles the outward life of this remarkable man. Intense devotion, selfless service to others, habitual gaiety, and a steady refusal to worry about either money or circ*mstances were the hallmarks of Chambers’s character, just as the wisdom that these qualities reflect was the hallmark of his teaching.

Chambers lived and died as his heavenly Father’s happy child; as preacher, teacher, counselor, husband, father, and friend, he was all of a piece, and it is easy to see why those who knew him loved him. All who have a taste for Chambers’s writing will find much in these pages to delight their hearts.

When the entire stock of 40,000 Chambers books perished in the 1941 London blitz, his widow thought God was winding down the O.C. ministry. In terms of ongoing reprints and sales, she was wrong; but are these devotional droppings of three generations ago, dated as they are by alliterative adornments that alternate between the apt and the awful, really significant for Christians today?

I suspect their importance is actually increasing, for the limpid boyishness of Chambers’s rhetoric expresses very mature and profound insights into the new life in Christ, where our own self-conscious bafflegab about spirituality reveals us as floundering beginners. Read some Chambers, and see if you do not agree with me.

J. I. Packer is CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s visiting scholar, and the author of Knowing God (InterVarsity) and Concise Theology (Tyndale).

The last few Sunday mornings I have begun the day by reading from John Milton’s Paradise Lost. The language is thrilling, the images ethereal, the themes exalted. Then I proceed to church, a congregation that sings “praise songs” accompanied by a keyboard and guitars. Without fail, someone requests the children’s favorite, “Our God Is an Awesome God,” which contains the eminently forgettable line, “When He rolls up his sleeves He ain’t just puttin’ on the Ritz.”

For me, the jarring descent from Paradise Lost to “Awesome God” has come to symbolize a major dilemma of aesthetics. How does one appreciate high quality without becoming a snob? About some things, I have no snobbery: I wear hand-me-down clothes, stay in budget motels, and drive a boxy, practical car. But I can instantly sniff the difference between coffee brewed by Mr. Coffee and that brewed by Braun. And when it comes to music, I’ll always vote for Bach and Mozart over songs built around three major chords and a dull phrase repeated over and over.

How do we encourage Bach while not quenching the spirit of “Kum Ba Yah”? How to appreciate Milton without scorning gospel tracts? How do we recognize high quality of any type—physical beauty, intelligence, athletic ability—without devaluing those who lack such gifts?

Our world rewards the gifted at the expense of the ungifted. Stand outside a kindergarten playground and watch how children treat playmates who seem clumsy, ugly, or dense. Adults continue the pattern, paying professional athletes $5 million a year and teachers $30,000. We choose young girls of promising beauty, then starve, pad, and carve them with a plastic surgeon’s knife to transform them into Supermodels, who will then leave less-endowed women (99.9 percent of the female population) with a permanent self-image crisis.

The church has wavered back and forth on the issue of values. Those who followed the ascetic way solved the problem by renouncing all sensual pleasures. They ate diets of bread and water, lashed themselves with whips, and rigorously practiced celibacy. Jerome, an outstanding proponent of this school in the late fourth century, had a stunted aesthetic sense, but he had much time for prayer, worship, and acts of discipline. He sublimated his sexual drive translating the Hebrew Scriptures, which resulted in the Vulgate version used for the next millennium.

Augustine, Jerome’s contemporary, took a different approach. He had a keen eye for beauty and worked to improve his body, mind, and soul. Augustine believed in the essential goodness of created things; the Latin phrase dona bona, or “good gifts,” appears throughout his City of God. The trick, as he saw it, was to maintain a careful balance between the values of the City of God and the city of man. “The world is a smiling place,” he preached once in a sermon.

Naked stylites who live on poles and ermine-draped bishops who live in palaces point to different ways of resolving the aesthetic dilemma. Today, some churches play Bach on organs more magnificent than Johann himself could have imagined. Others accompany “Awesome God” with a 40-piece orchestra. Still others ban instrumental music altogether. I once attended a wedding in which the scratchy strains of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” came from a turntable positioned well outside the sanctuary; a long extension cord allowed the church to heed the denominational proscription against such music.

The risks of goodness

In light of church history, I doubt anyone will soon devise a neat formula to solve these matters. But I do believe that Christianity, and only Christianity, has two essential contributions to make.

First, the good things in this world are remnants that have been spoiled. Augustine stressed the essential goodness of created things; but there is an implicit risk as well. Every good thing in this world contains within it the potential for exploitation and abuse. Think of sex, of food, of our planet’s grand resources. Power, beauty, and brilliance are all good things, qualities possessed by our Creator, but human history amply demonstrates what can happen to these in the hands of human beings who have tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Second, even spoiled things can be made good. I have observed in art museums that saints are rather ugly, portrayed with gaunt faces, aquiline noses, and scraggly hair. I do not know whether they chose a path that led them to sainthood because of social ostracism, or whether their appearance suffered as the demands of sainthood took a physical toll.

Regardless, saints by definition bear out a lasting truth of the Sermon on the Mount: God judges by different standards, and the poor and lowly, who suffer disadvantage in the city of man, have an actual advantage in the City of God.

I take comfort in the fact that Christianity, while honoring God’s good gifts, still finds an esteemed place for those who lack them. In the City of God, a paralyzed Joni Eareckson Tada leaps and dances with Olympian grace. And as for my original quandary about music in church, I am trying to learn a lesson from C. S. Lewis, who wrote this about his (Anglican!) church:

I disliked very much their hymns, which I considered to be fifth-rate poems set to sixth-rate music. But as I went on I saw the great merit of it.… I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren’t fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.

Loren Wilkinson is the writer/editor of Earthkeeping in the ’90s (Eerdmans) and the coauthor, with his wife, Mary Ruth Wilkinson, of Caring for Creation in Your Own Backyard (Servant). He teaches at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

New Light On Paul And Women?

Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul,by Craig S. Keener (Hendrickson, 350 pp.; $14.95, paper).I Suffer Not a Woman: Rethinking 1 Timothy 2:11–15 in Light of Ancient Evidence,by Richard Clark Kroeger and Catherine Clark Kroeger (Baker, 253 pp.; $12.95, paper). Reviewed by Robert Yarbrough, associate professor of New Testament at Covenant Theological Seminary, Saint Louis.

In 1992, CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s readers chose Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood as Book of the Year. This pair of new studies is sure to send some of Recovering’s contributors scurrying back to the drawing board.

The Kroeger’s work is admittedly light- to welterweight compared to Keener’s. The Kroegers argue that in 1 Timothy 2:12 (“I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”) Paul was not laying down transcultural truth. Rather, he was opposing a local, false doctrine of gnostic flavor that “acclaimed motherhood as the ultimate reality.”

In other words, say the Kroegers, Paul prohibited women from teaching this particular doctrine only, not from informed ministry of sound Christian doctrine in general. They argue that Paul allowed—indeed, encouraged—women’s involvement in full parity with men in the apostolic, pastoral, and prophetic offices of the church. And churches should do no less today.

It is Keener who puts his finger on a fundamental problem with this. He points out that the Kroegers’ central thesis is based on evidence dating from well after the New Testament era. There is no sure proof that the gnostic myth Paul allegedly opposed even existed when he wrote 1 Timothy.

Since the general thrust of Keener’s arguments puts him in the Kroegers’ ideological camp, it is significant that he is reluctant to endorse either the basis or specific outcome of their study.

A question of context

While the Kroegers’ work is comparable to Keener’s in length and scholarly appearance, it pales by comparison in substance. Keener, a young New Testament scholar, sets a high standard on a number of counts.

The specialist will marvel at the sheer range of ancient and modern literature he has incorporated. And his interaction with both primary and secondary material is both informed and illuminating. Despite such erudition, the discussion is eminently readable.

Keener’s independent judgment and distinctive tone are no less commendable. He declines to follow evangelical doyens like F. F. Bruce and Gordon Fee who argue that 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 is non-Pauline. He upholds Paul’s authorship of the Pastoral Epistles. His discussions often crackle with a desire to edify, not just haggle, and he seeks to be fair to opposing views in dealing with subject matter that commonly tempts writers into one-sided advocacy rather than even-handed investigation.

Keener’s thesis is that four key New Testament texts used to repress women in the church need to be interpreted more carefully in light of ancient culture. One of these texts is the same passage treated by the Kroegers (1 Tim. 2); the others are from 1 Corinthians (11:1–16; 14:34–35) and Ephesians 5.

When ancient cultural conventions are rightly understood, seemingly patriarchal Pauline texts take on more nuanced meanings.

The difficult head-covering passage in 1 Corinthians 11, for example, meant that women should not bring reproach on the gospel or their family; that they should not “destroy symbolic gender distinctions by pioneering unisex clothing”; and that they should be sensitive to local custom lest they cause others to stumble. For the modern setting, 1 Corinthians says “nothing” (Keener’s emphasis) that “suggests wives’ subordination.”

The book concludes with a poignant appeal for mutual submission in marriage. It also argues that a more egalitarian profile is essential for the integrity of the church’s witness to a secular world increasingly hostile to traditional understandings of sex roles in marriage and ordained ministry.

Who speaks for Paul?

Although presented with grace and verve, Keener’s study resembles other recent treatments of Paul in downplaying the church’s studied opinion over two millennia of its history. Keener fails to account for how, if he is right, everyone else can have been so wrong. This is especially true in light of earlier centuries’ relative nearness to the New Testament’s linguistic world and cultural point of view.

Keener also accepts the perennial U.S. myth of its own social progress. In his euphoria over women’s recent gains in personal and social autonomy—gains he wants to see replicated in church practice—he fails to weigh how much has been lost as well. Social scientists are recognizing that family breakdown is now at crisis proportions and that recent “gains” in adult self-determination and alternative family structure carry a high price tag—particularly for women and children. Today’s egalitarian social ideal, for which Keener seeks to find support in the New Testament, may on closer scrutiny mean less “justice” and “equality” than Keener assumes.

Among disputable exegetical moves is Keener’s repeated recourse to the claim that Paul used arguments whose substance he did not necessarily endorse. Paul’s desire was to communicate and persuade within the parameters of his audience’s outlook, Keener suggests, not necessarily to convey truth as he saw it. But who determines, if Paul’s own words do not, when Paul is arguing as the inspired apostle and when as an audience-accommodating diplomat? In rare cases, we may be forced to supply meaning for opaque Pauline allusions (1 Cor. 15:29, perhaps), but such passages are less common than Keener suggests.

These criticisms ought not disparage but rather promote interaction with Keener’s well-argued and formidably documented claims. His work dignifies the tone and clarifies the substance of a debate that often verges on the bitter—and that is far from settled.

Shedding The Dunce Cap Of Relativism

Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong: Moral Illiteracy and the Case for Character Education,by William Kilpatrick (Touchstone, 366 pp.; $11, paper). Reviewed by Doug LeBlanc, who writes about popular culture and education for World magazine.

William Kilpatrick has declared war on trendy education. Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong begins with a cannon blast—“Educational fads come and go, but some stay long enough to do substantial harm”—and keeps firing.

Kilpatrick, a Catholic layman and professor of education at Boston College, is a crucial leader as evangelicals and Catholics jointly fight the common enemy of relativism. He has already attacked cultural relativism in his books Psychological Seduction and The Emperor’s New Clothes, but Why Johnny could be his most influential work.

The book demolishes the idiocies that have prevailed in moral education since the 1960s. Kilpatrick demonstrates why a “nondirective method” of moral education—which urges students to make their own equally valid choices in a jungle of relativism—has actually encouraged youths to experiment with drugs, sex, and lawlessness.

Ct Talks To

William Kilpatrick

Has character education fallen out of favor because it Is more demanding work for teachers, students, and parents?

I certainly think that’s one of the reasons. In the late sixties and early seventies, educators convinced themselves that there was an easier method, which I call the decision-making method: students would make up their own minds about right and wrong. The important thing that got left out was the whole business of habit formation, which is essential to character formation. Moral education is not just a matter of talking or having discussion or debate; it’s a matter of practice and habit.

Might television be a more dangerous threat than education fads because it commands so much devotion from American families?

It’s already done a great deal of damage, in my estimation. The thing about television is that, unlike the schools, the television set is omnipresent. It’s like Big Brother in 1984-you just can’t get away from it. And because of its pervasiveness, it shapes the way we think and alters the way we perceive reality.

Does a character-education reform movement rest with parents finding the courage to be countercultural about TV and music?

Definitely, because they certainly can’t wait for the entertainment industry to reform itself. That could happen over time with enough pressure, but in the meantime, you’ve got to worry about your own children. That means turning the television set off, going to the library, bringing back some books, and instituting the practice of family reading. That means parents choose the models and morals that come into the home, rather than some distant scriptwriter.

Kilpatrick clarifies the difference between morality and vague Values Clarification models: “A value is essentially what you like or love to do. It is not an ought-to but a want-to.”

Kilpatrick does more, however, than demonstrate the failures of value-free moral education. He advocates character education, a superior model that worked for generations and has gained renewed respect.

In the classroom, Kilpatrick writes, character education involves “a conscious effort to teach specific virtues and character traits such as courage, justice, self-control, honesty, responsibility, charity, obedience to lawful authority, and so on. These concepts are introduced and explained and then illustrated by memorable examples from history, literature, and current events. The teacher expresses a strong belief in the importance of these virtues and encourages his/her students to practice them in their lives.”

According to Kilpatrick, character education involves telling stories that convey morality implicitly, not explicitly. “Imagination rules reason, and not the other way around,” he writes. Hence, the key to character education is to help young readers feel affection for virtues. At Boston College, for example, he contrasts “The Lifeboat Exercise” of Values Clarification—in which students decide who must die among a group of sketchily drawn characters—with the personal stories in A Night to Remember, a film about the human drama on a sinking ship.

“I’ve watched students struggle with the lifeboat dilemma, but the struggle is mainly an intellectual one—like doing a crossword puzzle. The characters in the exercise are, after all, only hypothetical,” Kilpatrick explains. “When they watch the film, however, these normally blasé college students behave differently. Many of them cry.… What does the story do that the exercise doesn’t? Very simply, it moves them deeply and profoundly. This is what art is supposed to do.”

Because art can have such a powerful effect on its audience, Kilpatrick urges parents to be aware of the stories shaping their children today. He observes that movies, rock music, and television have replaced parents and teachers as character educators.

Here Kilpatrick makes one of his most radical proposals: that parents read aloud to their children as a warm family ritual. He provides a 114-item “Guide to Great Books for Children and Teens,” ranging from Beauty and the Beast (“just the right antidote to our modern obsession with looks, surface charm, and casual sex”) to several novels by Charles Dickens. His list is free of ideology and suffocating political correctness: Harriet Tubman, Mark Twain, and Anne Frank all find a welcoming from Kilpatrick. He does not fit People for the American Way’s stereotype of Christians as book burners.

Why Johnny Can’t Tell Right from Wrong will scare parents whose children are the guinea pigs for eduational trends. If that fear inspires any parents to replace “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” with family readings from 1984 (another book Kilpatrick recommends), we may still have a chance to shed the dunce cap of relativism.

A Shame That Heals—And Wounds

Shame and Grace: Healing the Hurts We Don’t Deserve,by Lewis B. Smedes (HarperSanFrancisco/Zondervan, 170 pp.; $16, hardcover). Reviewed by Donald McCullough, pastor of Solana Beach Presbyterian Church in San Diego and author of Finding Happiness in the Most Unlikely Places (InterVarsity).

Perhaps it’s the preacher in me, but I expect a book, like a good sermon, not only to say something but to do something. Hence, a book about judgment should lead to repentance. And a book about grace should lift the reader into the joy of God’s acceptance. By this standard, Lewis Smedes’s Shame and Grace is a good book. Writing with both an informing clarity and a healing graciousness, his style aims at a broad audience, but his years of disciplined thinking as a scholar reveal themselves in helpful definitions and important distinctions.

What is shame? According to Smedes, it is not guilt, embarrassment, or depression; rather, it is “a feeling that we do not measure up and maybe never will measure up to the sorts of persons we were meant to be.”

This feeling presently enjoys notoriety, and around it has grown a cottage industry of pop psychology eager to release us from its destructive clutches. But not all shame is bad, offers Smedes. “A healthy sense of shame is perhaps the surest sign of our divine origin and our human dignity.… We are closest to health when we let ourselves feel the pain of it and be led by the pain to do something about it.”

The burden of Smedes’s concern, however, is with unhealthy shame: the undeserved shame that is a “false message from our false self.” Our false self, he explains, is an image of what we ought to be that is concocted out of false ideals imposed on us by others.

The healing of our shame begins with the experience of grace. “The surest cure for the feeling of being an unacceptable person is the discovery that we are accepted by the grace of One whose acceptance matters most.” Smedes describes grace with a winsomeness that helps us to experience that acceptance.

Part of Smedes’s effectiveness may be attributed to the fact that he deals only with the experience of grace rather than the doctrine itself. “Describing the reality of grace,” he contends, “is like explaining quantum physics in a paragraph or shrinking Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to the length of a sound bite.” Thus he declines to speak of “theories or doctrines of atonement.”

Yet, is it enough to speak only of the experience of grace? Do we not need a more objective grounding? Feelings of being accepted may indeed be liberating, but feelings are fickle.

Smedes does stress, albeit briefly, that the most outstanding demonstration of grace is found in the work of Christ. But one wishes he would say more about the solid foundation on which feelings of acceptance can be built: We are saved (healed!), finally, not by feeling but by faith.

Nevertheless, this shortcoming does not overshadow Smedes’s extraordinary gift of translating complex theological ideas into understandable language. Most books today fall into one of two categories: either they are written by scholars for other scholars, or they are written by pastors and laity for a general audience. Few scholars attempt to bridge the gap between learned reflection and practical help for ordinary people. Smedes not only attempts this work of translation, but he succeeds in a way that moves readers toward a personal application.