Page 5229 – Christianity Today (2024)

Until a few decades ago, it was generally agreed that the most important part of the legacy from one generation to another consisted in a kind of wisdom: In what does the good life consist? What is worthy of one’s commitment? What is more important than self-gratification? What is good or honorable or true?

The second part of that legacy consisted of knowledge and skill; teaching a younger generation how to make a living, how to master a profession, how to become a productive citizen. But through it all, education was seen as a moral endeavor, not because it sought to indoctrinate but because it was a sharing of things that people held to be important. Teachers had authority not only because they were experts in their disciplines, but because they had common commitments and took seriously the important questions and the responsibility of their answers before a younger generation.

The collegiate tradition in this country grew out of such an understanding of education. In the colleges that were founded in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there was an ethos, an atmosphere of expectation, embodied in ceremonies, traditions, and courses, in which all of these things were fused and passed on. Education was the institutionalization of what we as a people deemed to be important. And through that process, we sought to prepare oncoming generations for their role and responsibility in society.

The wisdom that underlay such preparation was a distillate of the Bible and of the classical tradition, and it included a strong dose of literature. Through those courses and subjects one encountered life vicariously. Reality was served up not in piecemeal fashion but in and through the larger conflicts and tensions, aspirations and dichotomies, hypocrisies and hopes of the people portrayed in that literature. Virtue had a role—not in a preening self-regarding sense, but as the embodiment of certain qualities of life and of their importance for the body politic, qualities such as fidelity, good will, patience, discipline, restraint, promise keeping.

This was a legacy that took precedence over self.

But times have changed. We have lost the confidence to share those dimensions of life, to express those opinions, to give vent to our deepest longings in behalf of others as our own mentors once did.

The result is that authority has retreated to that which is more certain, known, and demonstrable. A more comprehensive and holistic view of life has given way to specialization. The shared outlook which that wisdom represented has fragmented. And in many academic disciplines there has been a retreat from the attempt to relate values and wisdom to what is being taught.

Obviously, in all of this something is missing. Education no longer seems to be the institutionalization of what we think is important to society. Instead, what we are emphasizing today, largely by default, is careerism. We seem to be turning out people who are bent upon exploiting careers for their own ends rather than upon service through their professions for the sake of society.

And that is exactly what we are bound to do if we do not educate the heart. Without virtue, without the education of the heart, expertise and ambition easily become demonic. How can society survive if education does not attend to those qualities that it requires for its very perpetuation? Witness the decline of the sense of service in the field of medicine or law or nursing or even the ministry.

More and more people are acknowledging the need for a new wisdom, a wisdom that is compatible with contemporary knowledge and our new pluralism, and that grows out of an appreciation of our common heritage. There is a growing realization that we can no longer operate under the popular conceit that the mere aggregation of individual pursuits and successes will somehow redound to the best interests of our commonweal.

To speak of virtue in education does not necessarily entail being ideological or doctrinaire. Nor does it imply being moralistic. But in our concern to avoid these excesses and intrusions we have tended to evacuate the field of value and meaning altogether. And in our understandable honoring of the freedom of others we have allowed our students to conclude that we don’t much care.

By James T. Laney, president of Emory University, Atlanta.

Solid promises in the infallible Scriptures point definitely to the second coming of Christ.

Yet human efforts to predict the time of the Return definitely have been anything but solid throughout history. Already in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul had to face the problem. Believers who were dead sure that Christ’s return was just around the corner needed to be told that “the day of the Lord” would come unexpectedly, “like a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2).

During the Middle Ages there were countless individuals who, through study of Scripture and current events, felt certain they could accurately predict the arrival of the End. One of these was Gerardo of Borgo San Donnino, a follower of the Benedictine abbot Joachim of Fiore (ca. 1135–1202). Joachim taught that all history could be divided into three 40-generation periods, an Age of the Father (the Old Testament), an Age of the Son (the New Testament era), and a forthcoming Age of the Spirit (to be marked by the full realization of the gospel). Consequently, Gerardo was so confident in this scheme and in his own ability to discern the signs of his times that he offered the year 1260 as the date when the “radical turn” to the Age of the Spirit would occur.

During the Reformation era a combination of intense spiritual struggle and momentous political events led many to speculate on the end of the world. A study of Daniel 12, for example, convinced the radical Reformer Melchior Hofmann that his own day was “the time of the end.” Hofmann believed that the armies of the Muslim Turks, which menaced Europe for several decades at the start of the sixteenth century, were the biblical Gog and Magog. And so he confidently asserted that in 1533 he would be imprisoned for six months in Strassburg, and then the Lord would return. The first part of his prediction was fulfilled, but not the second. Followers of Hofmann occupied the city of Munster in Northern Germany in 1534, because they believed the Holy Spirit had directed them to take up the sword as a sign of the End.

Such apocalyptic speculation was not limited to fringe groups, however. Martin Luther, for one, frequently expressed the opinion that the End was very near, though he felt it was unwise to predict an exact date. Christians, he said, no more know the exact time of Christ’s return than “little babies in their mothers’ bodies know about their arrival.” But in January 1532 he could still give the opinion that “The last day is at hand. My calendar has run out. I know nothing more in my Scriptures.” Later he made several similar statements.

“Certainty” about the Second Coming has been a major feature of American Christian life as well. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, many Americans felt the events of the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon, and the outbreak of warfare in Europe heralded the end of the age. One of these was the distinguished Christian layman Elias Boudinot of New Jersey, a leader in the Continental Congress, a confidant of George Washington, and the first president of the American Bible Society. In 1802 it was obvious to him that Napoleon’s restoration of religious freedom in France amounted to “the resurrection of the Witnesses” foretold in the Book of Revelation. When Napoleon threatened to invade Britain, Boudinot thought the end could not be more than 50 years away.

The most famous American prediction of this sort came from William Miller (1782–1849), who studied the Book of Daniel for two years and concluded that Christ would return in 1843. Aided by the enterprising publicity efforts of Joshua V. Himes (1805–95), Miller gained thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of followers. But when 1843 passed, and then when the final readjusted date of October 22, 1844, came and went, there was much disillusionment. In the wake of this “Great Disappointment,” some of Miller’s followers reinterpreted that date spiritually as the time when Christ entered the heavenly temple to inaugurate a new phase of his saving work. And that reinterpretation figured in the rise of the Seventh-day Adventists.

The verdict of history seems clear. Great spiritual gain comes from living under the expectation of Christ’s return. But wisdom and restraint are also in order. At the very least, it would be well for those in our age who predict details and dates for the End to remember how many before them have misread the signs of the times.

By Mark Noll, professor of history at Wheaton College (Ill.).

• We deny that a proper understanding of the love and justice of God warrants the hope of universal salvation.
• We affirm that the life of a human being begins at conception (fertilization) and continues until biological death; thus, abortion (except where the continuance of the pregnancy imminently threatens the mother’s physical life), infanticide, suicide, and euthanasia are forms of murder.
• We deny that killing in self-defense, in state-administered capital punishment, or in wars justly fought, is necessarily a violation of the sanctity of human life.
• We affirm that in the marriage pattern ordained by God, the husband as head is the loving servant-leader of his wife, and the wife as helper in submissive companionship is a full partner with her husband.
• We deny that hom*osexual practice can ever please God.
• We deny the kingdom of God can be established by the power of civil governments.
• We affirm that God, who is just and loving, has a special concern for the poor in their plight.
• We affirm that mankind’s dominion over the earth imposes a responsibility to protect and tend its life and resources.

OBITUARY

Louis Lehman Dies At 72

Well-known pastor and radio preacher Louis Paul Lehman collapsed during a Christmas Eve service at his Grand Rapids, Michigan, church. He was pronounced dead shortly after midnight at a local hospital.

The 72-year-old pastor of Calvary Undenominational Church was performing a 45-minute skit in front of 2,500 churchgoers. When he collapsed, Lehman was walking toward a Christmas tree on stage, carrying a paper chain that he and one of his granddaughters had made.

Lehman became a Christian at age six in a Sunday school class at Chicago’s Moody Church. He started preaching at the age of nine, and three years later he and his parents began traveling around the Midwest, where he preached in tent meetings. At age 15, he founded Franklin Gospel Tabernacle in Franklin, Pennsylvania. He was ordained as a Baptist minister at age 17, and for the next 40 years he was heard over more than 80 radio stations.

“The ministry is a calling, rather than a career,” Lehman wrote. “It is a passion, not just a profession.”

He pastored Calvary Undenominational Church in Grand Rapids from 1952 to 1964, when he resigned to assume a full-time position as radio preacher and Bible conference speaker. He retired in 1983, but was later called back to Calvary when its pastor became seriously ill. Lehman served as the church’s interim pastor until his death.

SOUTHERN BAPTISTS

A New Mission Agency

A group of conservative Southern Baptists has created a missions organization, called the Genesis Commission, to recruit and finance like-minded pastors who will plant Baptist churches.

“About eight months ago I felt led to start an organization to plant churches,” said Bill Darnell, a former Memphis pastor who serves as executive director of the Genesis Commission. “We’re targeting Mexico for church planting work, using national pastors indigenous to their areas. We’d like to start thousands of churches [in many countries].”

Darnell said the Genesis Commission will not compete for support with the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board. “I think there’s so much money in this world, we’re petty and little when we think this way [about competition]. If we’re winning people to Jesus, that’s the bottom line.…”

However, Foreign Mission Board president R. Keith Parks views it differently. “The only support we have comes from Southern Baptists,” he said. “If they [the Genesis Commission] go to the same Southern Baptists for support, I can’t see it as being anything else than direct competition.”

The 14.5 million-member Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has been divided since 1979 by a power struggle between conservatives and moderates. But SBC president Adrian Rogers said the formation of the Genesis Commission is not related to the power struggle.

NATIONWIDE POLL

Sexually Active Teens

A poll conducted by Louis Harris and Associates indicates that more than half of all American teenagers are sexually active by the age of 17. The poll, conducted for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, also found that one-third of teenagers have never discussed sex with their parents.

“Almost three out of every ten teens, aged 12 to 17, say they have had sexual intercourse,” said Humphrey Taylor, president of the Harris polling organization. “… The proportion increases with age, from 4 percent of 12-year-olds and 10 percent of 13-year-olds to 46 percent of 16-year-olds and 57 percent of 17-year-olds.”

According to the survey, teens begin sexual activity at a younger age if they come from families of lower socio-economic status, have below-average grades, do not attend school, are unemployed, live with only one parent, or have parents who are not college graduates.

The teenagers polled cited social pressure as the chief reason most teens do not delay sexual intercourse. Girls mentioned peer pressure most frequently, followed by pressure from boys. Boys cited social pressure first, followed by sexual needs and curiosity.

The survey results are based on in-person interviews with 1,000 American youth, aged 12 to 17, during September and October 1986.

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

Died: Hulda A. Maier, widow of the late Walter A. Maier, founder of “The Lutheran Hour” radio program. Mrs. Maier died December 27, her 96th birthday, in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She helped edit many of her huband’s 31 books and assisted in responding to many of the hundreds of thousands of letters he received every year. She also authored articles and booklets of her own.

Dismissed : By a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, a lawsuit contending that rock singer Ozzy Osbourne’s music drove a teenager to commit suicide. Superior Court Judge John L. Cole rejected the plaintiffs’ assertions that hidden lyrics in the song “Suicide Solution” exempt the recording from First Amendment protection. The attorney representing the parents filing the suit said he would appeal for a dismissal of Cole’s ruling.

Increased : The number of unmarried American couples that live together. The number of such couples topped the 2 million mark for the first time last year, according to the Census Bureau, reaching 2.22 million. The figure for 1985 was 1.98 million.

Upheld : By the Supreme Court of Canada, an Ontario law that requires most retailers to close on Sunday. The province’s Retail Business Holidays Act sets fines of up to $10,000 for nonexempt stores that do business on Sundays. The law is supported by church and organized labor groups. But large retail chains and some religious groups, including the Canadian Jewish Congress, oppose the law.

Fabulist Walter Wangerin has been writing sonnets on the sly. But with the publication in April of A Miniature Cathedral and Other Poems (Harper & Row), fans who fed on The Book of the Dun Cow’s mythic prose will get to taste Wangerin’s passion for form—rhyme schemes, meters, and acrostics.

The poems, the earliest of which date from August 1967, are evocative and sensual: “I march to trumpets and endorse the idiot / Confusion of snare drums when I perform; / Trombones are the tide behind, and women giddy at / The slashed red of my howling uniform.” And when, as in his short stories, Wangerin speaks as or about a child, he finds his most authentic voice. The adult poet and the occasional excursion into black dialect are less accessible, but the child is universal: “Had you, too, / For lies to bite Fels Naphtha soap—and chew?” And all this framed in classic forms.

“I like to do it,” says Wangerin about the challenge of poetic forms. “My son threads the opposition on the basketball court, like a squirrel slips past their knees, then lays the ball precisely where it ought to be, on an imaginary shelf at the ten-foot rim, where it sits one still, sarcastic second, then drops. And Matthew, after such a leap—he laughs. This is the same laughter that I laugh silently after the poem that dropped well. The sounds of words falling, with their senses, into an impossible harmony new in that poem, though instructed by old patterns—that simply delights me.”

Granted that a poet can find as much joy in a well-thrown word as a child can in a well-tossed ball; but there is little joy in this poetry. Readers who have followed the careers of Chaunticleer and Pastor Orpheus have noted Wangerin’s dark vision (see “Wince with Wonder,” CT, Dec. 12, 1986, p. 60). In the epilogue to this collection, Wangerin addresses the pious seventeenth-century poet George Herbert: “You praise his Presence, George; I’ll prod / Around and rummage in his Absence.”

Apparently Wangerin wants to divide up the theo-poetical turf to avoid reblazing a trail by optimists already well trod. Echoing Isaiah 45:7 (he often echoes Isaiah), Wangerin writes: “Forget almighty / God, who maketh weal and woe together, / Indiscriminately, just as flighty / As a pigeon dropping slops wherever / Wind and whim decide.”

Whether Wangerin’s God is absent or indiscriminate matters little, for this poet’s iris admits only the shadows: a suitor afraid to speak; a husband displaced by an infant; a parent bereft of a child; a brother linked by blood to an institutionalized pyromaniac. Even a summer’s-end thunderstorm becomes a threat of personal doom as “The lightning struts / On crooked spider’s legs comes trembling cross the fields / The body black above it.… Crush this skull, be done! Be done!” And his graphic poems of the Incarnation—of the fetal Christ kicking in the womb, of Mary delivering Jesus “on her knees,” pushing “him head-downward to the scalloped earth”—are layered between tales of dying foxes fleeing the hunt and wolves tricked and killed. His nativity hymn four times echoes the traditional text, Hodie Christus Nautus Est: “In terra canunt angeli” (On earth the angels sing); but it is bitterly reversed by the coda, “Et lamentantur archangeli” (And the archangels lament).

Never one to stint on words, Walter Wangerin’s poetry is, like his prose, abundant, rich, and dark. These poems will provide ample insights into his melancholia. They may, however, provide fewer insights into life and the universe, where (I suspect) the archangels sing more Glorias than laments.

An Excerpt

Ashes, Ashes

“Listen! When Mike my brother made a fire Of bedsheets in our room with matches he Was not supposed to have, I knocked him down;

I broke his nose; and while he scrambled round

My back like a fat spider, my one free

Hand beat the flames and we become a choir

Of little curses one against the other,

And when the sheets were black I had become

His savior. I saved him. Since then he’s slept in some

Clinic and eaten clinic food and Father

Said he’s as well as can be expected what

With the circ*mstances which are that he’s not

Well at all but insane and he’s my brother—

—Walter Wangerin, Jr.

By David Neff.

There are two great risks in writing about a scandal unfolding as rapidly as the Iranian-contra connection. First, what I write today may be quickly outdated. I am reminded of the Civil War soldier sentenced to hang for desertion. The night before his execution, he wrote his fiancée with the sad news. The next day he was unexpectedly pardoned, and immediately posted a letter to his love—but alas, between the arrival of the first and second epistles, she married another man.

The second risk is not having all the facts. During Watergate, I discovered a vast gulf between reality and news reports. TV cameras may never blink, but they’re often selective.

Some things, however, are safely predictable. Replete with shadowy arms dealers, secret Swiss bank accounts, and “safe” houses, “contragate” will be around a while. We can expect months of pontificating by pundits and politicians, while those with aspirations for ’88 will either lick their wounds or lick their chops, depending on their party.

Some people may go to jail; some will write books. The Reagan revolution will be slowed; and not incidentally, a lot of newspapers will be sold.

But beyond its titillating tidbits, the scandal raises a host of serious issues, including who is running our foreign policy, and is it legitimate to deal with terrorists. The public seems especially outraged that all this was done in secret, misleading Congress, the press, and our allies.

Americans have always idealistically assumed that the business of democracy is conducted publicly, fondly remembering such assurances as Woodrow Wilson’s “open covenants … openly arrived at.” When we discover secret dealings, our confidence is shattered.

But, shocking as it may seem, it is fair to ask: Is open disclosure a realistic policy? Can government always tell the truth?

In 1971, after Henry Kissinger arrived for his well-publicized trip to Pakistan, reporters were told that he was ill. In fact, Kissinger was spirited away in the night and flown to Beijing to meet with Zhou Enlai. Today it would be called “disinformation.” But the lie was essential: Any leak would have derailed the opening of relations with China.

Such deceptions are not limited to national security. In August 1971, Nixon and key advisers knew the U.S. government would no longer establish the price of gold. But we denied it for days: a premature announcement would have put billions in the pockets of speculators.

In the current controversy, the wisdom of dealing with Iran will continue to be debated. But whether the decision was wise or not, once it was made, should the United States have announced it to friend and foe alike? The policy could only succeed in getting hostages released and in opening relations with Iran if kept absolutely secret. That required deception.

Theologians have debated such issues for centuries. After all, Rahab, the Old Testament harlot who lied to protect Israel’s spies, is listed in Hebrews’ great “cloud of witnesses.” And while Saint Anselm argued that a lie could never be justified, most of us would agree with Corrie ten Boom, who lied to protect Jews from Nazis.

Thus, the Iran controversy raises painful questions. How does government in the nuclear age balance what are sometimes conflicting demands—on the one hand, the disclosure expected in a free society; on the other, its first biblical duty, the preservation of order in a chaotic, fallen world?

Few issues are as black or white as we would like. Most are shades of gray. Consequences of some decisions are more damaging than others; statesmen must often make poor choices rather than worse ones. And actions that achieve order in one situation might well invite chaos in the next.

In today’s world of high-stakes relations with governments both moral and immoral, it is not as easy as idealists might wish to marry moral absolutes and public policy.

If this is true, the current Iran scandal presents several sobering lessons for Christians, who in recent years have enthusiastically waded into the political marshlands.

First, the realpolitik of the nuclear age, as well as human sinfulness, are powerful reasons for never marrying the gospel with any political movement. Of course, we may make common cause on issues such as abortion, peace, p*rnography, and the like. We should seek to influence government as an instrument of God’s righteousness. But we dare not claim it for Christ, lest when the political ship sinks, as all eventually do, the gospel goes down with it.

In the past six years, many Christian movements have enjoyed their identification with a president who may well be the most popular chief executive of the century. That’s fine. But, as events of recent months testify, the tides of public favor ebb and flow. Those who live by public opinion polls also die by them.

God gave Caesar the sword and Peter the keys to the kingdom. While wielding the sword, the state may have to choose a lesser among evils; but as the witness of the kingdom of God, the church can never compromise his absolute righteousness.

Second, the Iran scandal should give pause to those who believe that electing Christians will solve our national ills. The ethical dilemmas inherent in government will not just go away. Christians in public office must agonize over them as much as their secular counterparts—except their agony is often greater.

Third, those who had put much hope in this—or any—presidency should not despair. When in A.D. 410 the news reached Augustine that his beloved Rome had been destroyed, he replied calmly, “All earthly cities are vulnerable. Men build them and men destroy them. At the same time there is the City of God which men did not build and cannot destroy and is everlasting.”

The Iran arms controversy is just cause for sorrow. We grieve that our foreign policy has been damaged, the public trust abused. We must redouble our prayers for our nation’s leaders. But we must remember as well that our ultimate trust is elsewhere—in the city “man cannot destroy.”

Fatal disease

As when medical men examine an illness, and ascertain that it is fatal, they make this pronouncement, “He will die, he will not get over this,” so from the moment of a man’s birth, it may be said, “He will not get over this.”

—Augustine of Hippo in a

sermon (47, 3: NPNF VI:412)

Declared “redundant”

A while ago it was announced that a church in [the Anglican bishop of London’s] diocese, St. Mark’s in Mayfair, was being declared “redundant,” and that a secular use—probably a restaurant—was contemplated The local well-heeled and highly articulate residents were appalled at this sacrilege, and they appealed to the bishop to stop it. His reply was suave and devastating: had they been in the habit of attending the church in question, the issue would never have arisen.

—Kenneth Slack in

The Christian Century

(Nov. 5, 1986)

Risk taking

If we refuse to take the risk of being vulnerable, we are already half-dead. If you are half-dead, you don’t have to starve with the people of Ethiopia. You don’t have to share the terrible living conditions of old people struggling to exist on dwindling, inadequate social-security payments in our overcrowded, hostile cities. You don’t have to smell the stench of filth and disease and hunger in the favelas and barrios.

We are not all called to go to El Salvador, or Moscow, or Calcutta, or even the slums of New York. But none of us will escape the moment when we have to decide whether to withdraw, to play it safe, or to act on what we prayerfully believe to be right.

—Madeleine L’Engle in

A Stone for a Pillow

Trivial pursuit in church

Trivialization in the church, as in society, results in a loss of the ability to think. Christians are lured to view the world as the world views itself—uncritically and without a basis for understanding. Many of us find ourselves “getting along by going along.” And the Christian community slowly, imperceptibly “moves two inches a year toward total decline.”

—Don McCrory in Eternity

(Oct. 1986)

Look at your hands

You need only ask at night before you go to bed, “What did I do to Jesus today? What did I do for Jesus today? What did I do with Jesus today?” You have only to look at your hands. This is the best examination of conscience.

—Mother Teresa in Jesus, the Word to be Spoken

Who has the road map?

I’m appalled at the aimlessness of most people’s lives today; fifty per cent don’t pay any attention to where they are going; forty per cent are undecided and will go in any direction; only ten per cent know what they want, and even all of them don’t go toward it.

—Katherine Ann Porter in

Ship of Fools

Training routines

The best training is to learn to accept everything as it comes, as from Him whom our soul loves. The tests are always unexpected things, not great things that can be written up, but the common little rubs of life, silly little nothings, things you are ashamed of minding [at all]. Yet they can knock a strong man over and lay him very low.

—Amy Carmichael in

Candles in the Dark

Simple—or simplistic?

A friend of mine is a professor at an Ivy League school. He told me about a conversation he overheard.… The head of the astronomy department was speaking to the dean of the divinity school. The astronomy professor said, “Now, let’s face it. In religion, what it all boils down to very simply is that you should love your neighbor as you love yourself. It’s the Golden Rule, right?” “Yes, I suppose that’s true,” replied the dean of the divinity school. “Just as in astronomy it all boils down to one thing—‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star.’ ”

—Bruce Larson in

Faith for the Journey

No dead ends with God

The glorious truth is that, to a Christian walking in the will of God, there is no such thing as a dead-end street.

—Margaret Clarkson in

All Nature Sings

Curious alchemy

I can see that Jesus drew men and women into the Kingdom by promising them two things: first, trouble—hardship, danger; and second, joy. But what curious alchemy is this that He can make even danger and hardship seem joyous? He understands things about human nature that we grasp only dimly: few of us are really challenged by the promise of soft living, by an emphasis on me-first, or by a life of easy compromise.

—Catherine Marshall in

A Closer Walk

The “show-me” state

Most of us, in our desire for meaningful faith, seem to be saying to God: “Show me, and I’ll believe!” This approach never works. God has made it very clear to us, in the life and teaching of his Son Jesus, that the process must be reversed. He is saying to us: “Believe in me, and I’ll show you.”

—John Powell, S.J., in

Through Seasons of the Heart

The elusive term new-age music means different things to different

ears:

Thousands of happy consumers hear meditative instrumental music to help them unwind after a rough, upwardly mobile day.

Critics hear an uninspiring, bland mixture they call “yuppie Muzak.”

Cult watchers hear the echoes of the new-age religions and holistic therapies with which some of the artists identify.

And retailers hear that familiar and near-sacred sound: the ringing of cash registers.

In its beginnings, this new genre was connected to nonrational religious world views and was designed to take you inside yourself to connect with the universals and absolutes within. But not all new-age artists are interested in accessing inner space. Many are simply drawn aesthetically to this fusion of jazz, classical, and folk elements.

Listeners likewise are mostly unideological. They simply like their music pretty, peaceful, and packaged on state-of-the art, audiophile-quality compact discs, chrome cassettes, or virgin vinyl.

Out Of The Health-Food Stores

The dawn of new-age music was a 1964 album by Tony Scott called “Music for Zen Meditation,” and over the next two decades there came increasing numbers of cult classics. But now, new-age works have come out from behind the counters of health-food stores into the musical mainstream. There are new-age music radio shows, such as “Music from the Hearts of Space,” which airs on 197 public radio stations. There are new-age music TV shows, such as “New Visions,” on cable station VH-1. And this year there will even be a Grammy Award for best new-age recording.

Even as new-age music’s religious connections are fading, its popularity is growing. Radio-programming consultant Lee Abrams explains its success: “It will appeal to two types of people: first, to those who grew up with progressive rock in the late 1960s and early ’70s, it is the next step in their personal musical evolution; second, to the person who may not have progressive rock roots and likes nice atmospheric music to relax to, but finds Mantovani awfully old and boring.”

The premier label of the new-age music movement is the independent Windham Hill, founded a decade ago with a few dollars and a dream. Last year Windham Hill grossed $25 million, and may bring in $30 million or more this year.

Now the whole music industry is dancing to a new-age tune. Recently Billboard reported that major labels such as RCA, MCA, and Capitol have “moved quickly into this lucrative new area.” There are also a host of new independents with names like Relativity, Living Music, Open Air, Celestial Harmonies Higher Octave, and Spirit Music.

Christian Competition

Christian recording companies are also getting into the act by starting their own new-age-type labels. Now at your local Christian bookstore you can probably find Sparrow Records’ Meadowlark label; Maranatha!’s Colours label, and the latest entry, Benson’s Shalavah (the name is a derivative of a biblical word for tranquility).

Meadowlark led the pack out of the gates with six releases in 1985. The label also leads in the number (14, with 2 more per quarter to come) and in overall quality of its releases.

Sales have been steady in Christian bookstores, but Sparrow is also making sure its Christian instrumental music crosses over into secular outlets. A distribution deal with Capitol Records takes Meadowlark titles to the general record market, while a separate deal with new-age Narada Distributing takes the releases into health-food stores, motivational clinics, and meditation centers.

“This is not gospel music,” Billy Ray Hearn, who is the president and founder of Sparrow Records, told Advertising Age. “It’s instrumental jazz done by Christian people who have a feeling for contemplative music.”

And although unchurched consumers may not hear the gospel message proclaimed in the lyrics (there are no lyrics), they can—if they care to—read the albums’ liner notes, which usually contain the artists’ thanks to God.

Meadowlark’s tunes have been popular at jazz radio stations, heard as background music for ABC and CBS, and they have even been featured fare for Audio Environments, Inc.—which is a competitor of Muzak, Inc.—in the institutional background music business.

Small Bucks

Sparrow reports the Meadowlark line is selling briskly, with sales roughly equal in Christian and general markets. And although neither Sparrow nor Capitol is divulging sales figures, it does not take much for a new-age recording to break even.

Hearn told Advertising Age that recording costs average $3,000 to $10,000. This compares to an estimated $250,000-plus spent on recording an album like Amy Grant’s “unguarded,” or the $1,000,000-plus spent to make some secular albums.

“They all recoup their recording costs right away,” said Hearn of the Meadowlark releases. Hearn and Sparrow invested their savings in selling the new label, with an initial marketing budget that reached six figures.

Picks

Among Meadowlark’s best are two albums by today’s most popular Franciscan, John Michael Talbot (“The Quiet” and “Empty Canvas”), two albums of ethereal synthesizer sounds by Richard Souther (“Inner Mission” and “Heirborne”), a polished and praise-filled release by Justo Almario, former Roy Ayers and Mongo Santa Maria woodwinds man (“Forever Friends”), and an intriguing and pleasing set by Jeff Johnson, one of Christendom’s more creative contemporary artists (“No Shadow of Turning”).

The Colours label features nine titles aimed more squarely at the Christian listener. The earliest releases relied heavily on music owned by Maranatha! Music, the musical arm of Calvary Chapel, which taught a whole new generation of Christians a whole new way to sing praises to the Lord.

Like other Maranatha! releases, Colours is distributed by Word. According to Roland Lundy, executive vice-president of Word’s Record and Music Division, “The idea behind Colours is to give people an opportunity to have good Windham Hill-type music from a Christian company and a Christian perspective.”

Many consumers, says Lundy, “have shied away from Windham Hill products because they’re unsure what it all means. But they feel very comfortable buying Maranatha!’s products.” Among Colours’ best are two from Tom Howard (“The Harvest” and “The Hidden Passage”), a collection of newly rendered hymns by Harlan Rogers and Smitty Price (“Timeless”), and Phil Keaggy’s “The Wind and the Wheat.” The latest Christian new-age label to appear is Benson’s Shalavah series, with six releases, accompanied by Bible-study booklets. Among these are an album of harp and flute music, a set of piano solos, and some neo-new-age Christmas carols.

But check out the samplers first. Like Windham Hill, all three labels offer collections that include cuts from each of the available releases (Meadowlark’s 1985 and 1986 samplers, Colours’ “Spectrum” and “Pallette,” and Shalavah’s “A Touch of Shalavah”). These allow the listener to sample the menu before ordering a full multi-course meal.

By Steve Rabey, an editor for Compassion International and author of The Heart of Rock and Roll (Revell).

The Wrong Road to Utopia

Churches on the Wrong Road, edited by Stanley Atkins and Theodore McConnell (Regnery, 1986, 270 pp.; $7.95), and Shepherds Speak: American Bishops Confront the Social and Moral Issues that Challenge Christians Today, edited by Dennis Corrado and James Hinchey (Crossroad, 1986, 225 pp.; $12.95). Reviewed by Doug Bandow, senior fellow of the Cato Institute and syndicated columnist for the Copley News Service.

While America has drifted right politically, many church leaders have moved left, treating everything from disarmament to poverty as matters of theology. In Shepherds Speak, 18 Catholic leaders illustrate this growing trend as they grapple with a variety of controversial issues.

Several of the essays deal with controversies within the church itself, but the book’s most interesting writing involves the major policy issues of the day. The authors pronounce their views to be based on more than just currently fashionable political theory: “When the United States Catholic Conference addresses the question of El Salvador, or the impact of budget cuts on the poor,” writes Archbishop John Roach of St. Paul/Minneapolis, “it must be very clear that these actions are rooted in, directed by, and in fulfillment of a theologically grounded conception of the Church’s ministry.” Yet the volume’s many essays only demonstrate how difficult it is to transform general scriptural principles into specific policy prescriptions for a secular society.

For instance, in his discussion of capital punishment Rene Gracida, bishop of Corpus Christi, admits that “the Christian’s moral judgment on the rightness of using the death penalty cannot be based directly and simply on Sacred Scripture.” Thus, Gracida is forced to make essentially public-policy arguments—that the punishment is not “absolutely necessary to protect society,” among others—to back his call for abolition of the death penalty.

The chapter on the arms race does not even cite the Bible, and Joseph Cardinal Bernardin’s discussion of poverty is similarly flawed. Aside from occasional references to a papal address, Bernardin sounds like any liberal social scientist; his assertions as to the necessity of wealth redistribution and government economic regulation are backed by political rhetoric rather than scriptural passages.

The Illusion Of Perfectibility

It is this tendency to turn the eternal message of Christ’s salvation into just another program for a human utopia that disturbs the variety of intellectuals and churchmen who contributed to Churches on the Wrong Road. For, writes Edmund Fuller, churches now seem to be moving toward “some idea of the temporal perfectibility of humanity, the advent of a New Man, a new Adam, through human agencies.” Such is not, of course, the message of the eternal Christ; instead, these “goals tend to become political and economic ideologies,” Fuller warns.

Some of the authors raise practical objections to political activism by religious leaders. The Reverend Canon Edward West, for instance, complains that history has shown that “the clergy so often take the ‘wrong’ side.” But the book does not focus on the relative merits of different policy options.

Instead, the commentators’ most serious concern is over the effect of the church’s growing worldly entanglements on its spiritual role. Clerics are increasingly tying crime and other problems “to collective rather than personal causes,” writes Jesuit James Schall, and speaking “of sanctity in terms of politics, wherein the burden of good and evil is unobtrusively shifted to a corporate whole and its structure.” Personal liberation is then sought through ideological movements rather than Christ, undercutting such basic theological tenets as Christ’s divinity. Yet “it seems rather absurd to be a Christian if Christian orthodoxy contains no abiding doctrine not derived from the political ideologies,” Schall concludes.

Does this mean that the Christian faith has no relevance to public policy? Of course not. But a godly society will come about only through the spiritual transformation of individual lives. “Christianity has no political, social or economic solution to the ills of the world,” observes University of Michigan historian Stephen Tonsor.

Thus, it is “the Gospel, the Good News” that “I want my church to speak out about,” writes Madeleine L’Engle in the concluding essay in Churches on the Wrong Road. “It is impossible to listen to the Gospel week after week and turn my back on the social issues confronting me today. But what I hope for is guidance, not legislation,” she adds.

Church leaders should not remain silent in the face of social injustice; the contributors to Shepherds Speak rightly want to promote Christian values in the worldly institutions around them. But Christ’s message—upon which the church is based—cannot be enforced by government. Clerics should follow L’Engle’s advice: preach the gospel, week after week. Only when individuals begin to follow Christ will they also begin to solve such problems as poverty, racism, crime, and international conflict.

Genetic Engineering For Beginners

What Are They Saying About Genetic Engineering? by Thomas A. Shannon (Paulist Press, 1985, 103 pp.; $4.95). Reviewed by David B. Fletcher, associate professor of philosophy, Wheaton College, and coauthor of a forthcoming book on bioethics in evangelical perspective.

In vitro fertilization, surrogate mothering, embryo transfer, gene surgery, recombinant DNA technology, and other new developments in biotechnology are enough to baffle and worry those who wish to keep abreast of crucial social developments. Falling under the general term “genetic engineering,” they arise from the recent explosion in scientific knowledge about genetics. Because the issues are so new and the technological possibilities are both complex and awe-inspiring, the average thinking person needs basic orientation to this seemingly forbidding territory.

Paulist Press’s “What Are They Saying About …” series has met a similar need, particularly for its Roman Catholic readership, in such diverse areas as mysticism, Christian-Jewish relations, the end of the world, Mary, the social setting of the New Testament, virtue, and peace and war. In this recent addition to the series, Thomas Shannon, social ethicist at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, informs the reader about the current genetic engineering technologies while providing groundwork in the philosophical, religious, social, and ethical issues that bear on them.

Surprisingly in such a brief book, Shannon spends almost half of his pages on these background issues before discussing genetic engineering specifically. For Shannon, there are “thematic” issues, or “general ethical questions,” that span the various specific concerns in this area. These include the basis on which one would intervene into an individual’s genetic structure; criteria to justify such an intervention (behavioral, social, medical, political, and economic); who is to set the criteria; risks and benefits of intervention; the sort of future we are planning; and the relationship between genetics and behavior. Shannon then very helpfully addresses society’s different understandings, models, and roles of the scientist and the scientific enterprise, and discusses whether knowledge ever should be restricted for social and moral reasons. Considering the impact of genetic intervention on the future and our descendants, he suggests that our attitudes toward our descendants depend on our eschatology; an apocalyptic view will lessen our concern with the environment and the genetic legacy we pass on to our descendants.

A prominent view on the relationship between biology and behavior is that of sociobiology, pioneered by E. O. Wilson, that rather than being noble and freely chosen, altruistic behavior is but the expression of genetic programming. While Shannon is skeptical about such reductionism, he holds out hope that “a better understanding of the biological basis of behavior would … help us establish a more adequate understanding of human responsibility.”

Our evaluation of issues in genetic engineering depends on our value framework, says Shannon. Therefore we must ask, What is “nature”? Does it set limits to what we can do, as many people maintain, so that any attempts to improve upon nature are seen as Promethean rebellion? Or is an alternative understanding preferable? What is “health”? Is it merely physiological function or does it have social and cultural dimensions? To what extent can humans validly claim to be cocreators?

Looking briefly to Scripture for a perspective on technologies such as genetic engineering, Shannon interestingly suggests that the Book of Genesis ambivalently contains two attitudes toward technology: technology as a means of salvation (represented by Noah’s ark), and technology misused (symbolized in the Tower of Babel).

Although Shannon is more prone to display different options than to argue his own views, he questions society’s drive to perfect intelligence and power, rather than to foster the virtues of kindness, compassion, mercy, or decency, and he warns that given our record on such matters, we may be expected to attempt such abuses as the use of gene-splicing technology to create subhuman slaves from human and animal genes.

Among specific genetic engineering technologies he addresses is recombinant DNA research, the splicing of genes from different organisms to create new organisms. This has proved useful in agriculture, and in health care, bacteria have been designed to mass produce the critical drug interferon. This research has spawned a perhaps uneasy, multimillion-dollar partnership between academia and business, a partnership Shannon encourages us to watch.

He also addresses new birth technologies, including sperm banks, amniocentesis, in vitro fertilization, embryo transfer, sperm separation for sex selection, and surrogate mothering. Unfortunately, Shannon slights other crucial areas, including genetic screening and counseling, and although he mentions amniocentesis, he says little about the arguments for and against selective abortion of genetically affected fetuses.

It is also unfortunate that Shannon generally reports on specific technologies without going into sufficient detail about different kinds of cases, and rather than do serious analysis of the issues, he is content to sketch the main positions. Religious perspectives are raised only cursorily, and conservative positions such as those of Paul Ramsey or Jeremy Rifkin are seen as “panicky.”

As a brief, readable, and fair introduction to genetic engineering, Shannon’s book is of considerable value. He raises important, often-neglected questions—including the extent to which cultural values subtly shape the agendas for research, the seeming irresistibility of the technological imperative (“if it can be done it should be done”), and the responsibilities we have to future generations.

The Bible In Two Worlds

Between Faith and Criticism: Evangelicals, Scholarship, and the Bible in America, by Mark A. Noll (Harper & Row, 1987, 255 pp.; $19.95, binding). Reviewed by Donald K. McKim, associate professor of theology, University of Dubuque Theological Seminary (Iowa), and author of What Christians Believe About the Bible (Nelson, 1985).

A key question for evangelicals today is how to relate to biblical criticism. To understand why evangelical responses vary, we can turn to this interesting study by Mark Noll. Here we learn how evangelicals have interacted with critical biblical scholarship over the last century. Noll shows the breadth and diversity of evangelical views guided by the central conviction that Scripture is the Word of God.

The context of the story is two communities. One is the world of the professional biblical scholar who must be rigorous and honest to be heard in the academic community. The other is the community of faith where churches nurture their own convictions and interpretations of Scripture. In the last century, these communities have often clashed for those scholars who seek to live in both at the same time.

Noll impressively documents evangelical entry into the intellectual marketplace as full partners in the academic discussion of Scripture when critical views of the Bible were introduced. Biblical critics like Charles A. Briggs were challenged directly by Old Princeton scholars such as B. B. Warfield (1880–1900). Noll tells how evangelicals retreated in light of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy to the fortresses of faith (1900–35). He details how they moved into the wider world through graduate education in universities such as Harvard, and through new professional organizations like the Institute for Biblical Research, while publishing companies such as Eerdmans broke new paths with major biblical commentary series (1935–74). Today, evangelicals are shown meeting the challenges of new questions in the midst of critical biblical studies.

One important element in the growth of evangelical biblical scholarship has been the influence of British evangelicals. They have given Americans models of conservative yet highly responsible professional biblical scholarship. This tradition extends from Lightfoot, Westcott and Hort, to F. F. Bruce and I. H. Marshall. Noll notes that British and American contexts differ and their emphases vary. But under British influence, American evangelicals are “drawn to a study of the Bible which attempts to find an appropriate place for believing criticism in the church.” This has been a key legacy.

Inerrancy And Criticism

Noll finally defines the challenges to evangelical scholarship in its clash with critical views over the “truth” of Scripture. One evangelical response is “critical anti-criticism,” which sees the inerrancy of Scripture as “the epistemological keystone of Christianity itself.” Another response is “believing criticism,” which maintains that “evangelical interpretations are, in principle, reformable” so “biblical inspiration is compatible with reinterpretations of venerable positions.” Noll describes the potentials and perils of the latter approach. The cases of Robert Gundry (CT, Feb. 3, 1984, p. 36) and Ramsey Michaels (CT, July 15, 1983, p. 35) display the difficulties “believing critics” can face.

According to Noll, larger frameworks including the issue of inerrancy must be considered. Some evangelicals have maintained Scripture’s authority while not trying to defend its errorlessness. Others fully embrace a careful doctrine of inerrancy, but then discuss further great issues. Noll personally opts for this second scenario as having “more potential than the first.” But he calls evangelicals of each persuasion to “move beyond the external examination of Scripture to an internal appropriation of its message.”

This is a valuable book on many levels. Along with much else, it shows that evangelical responses to critical scholarship in America have not been uniform, just as evangelicalism itself is not a monolithic structure. Such knowledge should encourage evangelicals of all shades if they are told they betray their heritage by being open to critical concerns. Evangelicals need not fear losing their faith before the scrutiny of biblical criticism. Nor should they be afraid of engaging in full and vigorous study of Scripture from the perspectives and commitments of their evangelical faith.

“It’s hard to raise money for someone’s failure,” concedes J. Allan Petersen, founder of the well-known Christian ministry Family Concern. Yet that is exactly what Petersen has been doing over the last four months, and with a fair degree of success.

Petersen said he felt a strong calling from God to organize “The Second Mile” campaign, an effort to aid people who cumulatively lost millions of dollars in a failed investment more than a decade ago. The bad investment was a nursing facility for the aged known as Life Center (CT, Sept. 10, 1976, p. 65).

A Failed Dream

The nursing home was the dream of Charles Blair, pastor of the 6,000-member Calvary Temple in Denver. But Life Center and two related entities (Blair’s church and his foundation) filed for bankruptcy in 1974. Investors recovered a small portion of their losses when the nursing home property was sold. But as of last year, some 1,100 people had yet to recover a total of more than $6 million in losses. Some of these were elderly men and women who had put all their savings into Life Center.

Blair was convicted in 1976 of 17 counts of securities fraud. In a brochure prepared for The Second Mile campaign, he acknowledges his mistakes: “As President of the corporation, I was ultimately responsible for its failure.” In the past, Blair has conceded that methods used to promote the sale of Life Center securities were the methods “of the world.” (In one instance, a Life Center salesman got a widow’s life insurance settlement within 24 hours of her husband’s death.)

Blair was not sent to prison because a judge believed a jail term would limit his opportunity to reimburse creditors. Various suits have been filed against Blair through the years. And the Denver-based Christian Conciliation Service issued a paper in 1984 stating that while Blair had been legally absolved from any debt, he had a moral obligation to repay creditors.

Serious Questions

Petersen said he has been a friend of Blair’s for several years, and that he has shared Blair’s concern “for the hurting investors of Life Center.…” He said he had some serious questions before deciding to spend nine months of his time on The Second Mile campaign. But he concluded that Blair “is an honest man. He has weaknesses like we all have. He has gotten nothing out of this himself, and it’s cost him a fortune.” Petersen added that over the years Blair has helped some Life Center creditors “quietly behind the scenes.”

Petersen’s first step was to contact by mail the 1,100 Life Center investors, asking them to forgive all or some portion of the debt, and many did so. When The Second Mile campaign was officially launched in October, the goal was to raise $3,924,000 for 787 people. By Christmas, $1,500,000 in cash was in hand, and an additional $600,000 had been pledged.

Petersen’s main “strategy” has been merely to contact a wide spectrum of Christian leaders to inform them of the need. Among the 24 people listed on the campaign’s National Committee of Concern are television pastor Jerry Falwell; evangelist Leighton Ford; National Association of Evangelicals executive director Billy Melvin; evangelist James Robison; former World Vision president Ted Engstrom; and Pat Robertson, who pledged $100,000 on behalf of the Christian Broadcasting Network “and its various partners.”

Those who have spoken at Calvary Temple to call attention to the campaign include author Tim LaHaye; Campus Crusade for Christ founder Bill Bright; U.S. Sen. William Armstrong (R-Colo.); evangelists Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, and Rex Humbard; and Korean pastor Paul Yonggi Cho.

During one Sunday morning service, $375,000 in cash and pledges was raised. In addition, people have donated cars, jewelry, coin collections, and real estate. Gifts in kind are sold for cash. Petersen describes the effort as the “most amazing thing I’ve ever been associated with in all my years of ministry.”

Reaching The Neediest?

The campaign is not without its critics. Some are concerned that the money is not being given to those who need it most. Petersen said the most desperate among the creditors have received priority. But Denver writer and actor Bil Rodgers, who heads a committee formed on behalf of Life Center investors, knows of one needy woman who has received only a small percentage of the more than $100,000 she invested.

Explaining seeming inequities, Petersen said attorneys for the campaign advised against giving money to the 20 or so creditors involved in a lawsuit against Blair. He also said he had no control over designated gifts, including a large sum given to reimburse Calvary Temple for its losses.

“There are some people who will be unhappy no matter what is done,” he added, saying some creditors have been “vicious and venomous” in their judgment of Blair.

For his part, Rodgers lauds Petersen for “putting his reputation on the line.… [He] deserves a lot of credit for the money coming in.”

When the first half of the campaign ended late last year, 432 creditors had received all their money. The rest received at least 5 percent of their investments. The campaign resumed last month and will end on April 5. While hoping to reach his goal, Petersen said; “Even if the campaign is only three-fourths successful, I say, ‘Wonderful.’ I will know I gave it my best shot. Anything people get will be better than nothing.”