Page 5259 – Christianity Today (2024)

Theologically, this period of 30 years has been strange and turbulent. It began with a small evangelical movement and dominant theological figures; it is ending with a large evangelical movement and few established thinkers. Between then and now lie the decades that belonged to Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, Tillich, and the Niebuhrs, giants whose voices are now stilled and whose influence has faded. Their successors could well have come from the evangelical world, but a vigorous, creative evangelical theology has not appeared to seize this moment.

Thirty years ago leadership was provided either by those who articulated a characteristically different way of evangelical thinking—such as Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, John Murray, and J. Oliver Buswell—or who symbolized its growing ability to play on the same academic turf as everyone else—such as E. J. Carnell and Bernard Ramm. Thus were the seeds of discord unwittingly sown, seeds that have now produced deep internal disarray, for the responsibilities to Athens (the academy) and Jerusalem (the people of God) have become loyalties that are often in fierce competition with one another.

The laity 30 years ago was more doctrinally conscious and theologically literate than it is today. Indeed, the combined effects of “relational theology,” charismatic experience, and the self movement might have eliminated theological interest altogether but for a group of remarkable—and remarkably patronized—popularizers: C. S. Lewis, whose pungency kept evangelicals thinking; Francis Schaeffer, who kept alive the reality of a Christian world view; Martyn Lloyd-Jones, who showed that theology could and should be preached; John Stott, whose seminal writings have shown how wholesome the Bible can be; and J. I. Packer, whose Knowing God in particular demonstrated that beneath all the evangelical fizz there is a deep spiritual hunger.

In the absence of fresh systematic writing from America, translated imports, such as G. C. Berkouwer and Helmut Thielicke, have taken on special significance, as have reprints from the Reformation period onward. Dictionaries have had to take up the slack, too, such as Colin Brown’s The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and, most recently, Walter Elwell’s Evangelical Dictionary of Theology.

In this period of fragmentation, when there has been little corporately owned theological understanding, particular issues have taken on a life of their own, often following erratic and even bizarre courses. Most troublesome have been the debates about Scripture (and inerrancy), women (and ordination), and evangelical commitment (and who may and may not be considered in the movement).

Some theologies, however, have been written. Donald Bloesch’s Essentials of Evangelical Theology is a good update on key themes; Millard Erickson’s recent three volumes of Christian Theology is also an able contribution. But pride of place must go to Carl Henry’s six volumes, God, Revelation and Authority. It is a powerful, vigorous assertion of an orthodoxy whose toughness and stringency are precisely what evangelicalism needs to hear but apparently has been unwilling to read. That says only a little about Henry (whose style unfortunately does oscillate between being racy and being Teutonic) and much about evangelicalism.

It also raises an interesting question. There are rumors of various systematic theologies in the works. The time is undoubtedly ripe for theologians to capitalize on the rich harvest of biblical studies of recent decades, the maturing awareness of evangelical responsibility in culture and society, and the absence of serious competitors in the wider theological world. But if these theologies are written, will anybody read them?

This is a question of overall survival for twentieth-century evangelicalism. Given the pressures it must face, both from academia and our secular culture, it can hardly perpetuate itself intact if it reduces itself to being merely “born-again religion,” sheared of a doctrinal structure, ethical seriousness, and a comprehensive world view.

By David F. Wells, Andrew Mutch Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Carl F. H. Henry

The theological moorings of contemporary evangelicalism are anchored in the works of Carl F. H. Henry, whose contributions to Christian thought and interpretation are of unrivaled stature. Henry’s conversion at age 20 was followed by intensive study at Wheaton College and Northern Baptist Theological Seminary. From 1947 to 1956, he served on the faculty of the newly established Fuller Theological Seminary. And for the next 12 years, he was editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY, establishing a fortnightly journal counterpoised against the more liberal Christian Century. His greatest written contribution to evangelical theory and application is his six-volume God, Revelation and Authority.

He continues, at age 73, to teach and lecture worldwide to serious students of theology. He has sought to shape and encourage coordinated evangelical initiative. In his autobiography, Confessions of a Theologian, Henry writes, “The coming decade of decision will be marked either by evangelical penetration of the world, or by the world’s penetration of the evangelical movement.”

Bernard L. Ramm

In the 1950s, barely more than two decades after the infamous Scopes trial, American evangelicals remained confused and anxious about the relation of their faith to science. Bernard L. Ramm’s Christian View of Science and Scripture was instrumental in assuring them the Bible and biology were compatible.

Ramm has been a particularly prolific theologian, writing more than 15 books on apologetics, biblical interpre tation, and specific doctrines such as sin and Christology. He continues to be out in front of evangelical thought, though it remains to be seen whether evangelicalism will follow the pro-Barthian lead of his recent After Fundamentalism as it so appreciatively followed his earlier writing.

J. I. Parker

James Innell Packer’s student interests at Oxford University signaled the mix of personal traits that would distinguish him as a thinker and writer years later. He enjoyed the warm emotional rewards of playing jazz clarinet with the “Oxford Bandits.” But he studied the cerebrally demanding disciplines of Latin and Greek.

Packer’s early books included “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God and Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. They initiated his rigorous defense of biblical inerrancy and revealed his indebtedness to the Puritan articulation of the faith. But it was Knowing God, published in 1973, that combined intellectual depth and a pastoral sensitivity for the demands and joys of daily experience. The book proved that vital, straightforward theology could be written to a wide readership.

Packer currently maintains a heavy lecturing schedule, speaking both to lay audiences and fellow theologians.

Frederick Fyvie Bruce

In 1951 the Tyndale Press published Scotsman F. F. Bruce’s The Acts of the Apostles: Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary. According to I. Howard Marshall of the University of Aberdeen, the appearance of this book marked “the decisive date in the revival of evangelical scholarship and in its recognition by other scholars.”

Before this time Bruce had taught at Sheffield University and divided his writing between essays for scholarly journals and more popular books for the Inter-Varsity Press. He later taught at the University of Manchester and served (remarkably) as president of both the Society for Old Testament Study and the Society for New Testament Studies. His influence spread abroad through his many books (in the 1970s alone, he published more than 500 books and articles) and his role as editor of major reference materials such as the New International Commentary on the New Testament.

Gleason L. Archer

Gleason Archer’s A Survey of Old Testament Introduction is familiar territory to thousands of seminarians and Bible-college students. Seventy-six thousand copies have been sold to English-speaking students; the book has been translated into French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian, as well.

Now professor emeritus at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Archer taught full-time at Trinity and at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Archer, who earned degrees in classics, comparative literature, law, and divinity, including a Ph.D. from Harvard Graduate School, is an avid coin collector, who specializes in ancient Greek, Roman, and oriental coins.

Thirty years ago, evangelicals had a President with whom they could identify (Dwight D. Eisenhower), several trustworthy seminaries (Fuller and Dallas, to name two), a world-renowned evangelist (Billy Graham), and a sense they represented the grassroots religious values of the country.

What they did not have was a magazine. The liberals had The Christian Century. But where could the evangelical pastor go to see his viewpoint expressed with intellectual credibility and depth?

That was the question Billy Graham and L. Nelson Bell first asked themselves in 1954. “We need,” Graham said later, “a new strong vigorous voice to call us together that will have the respect of all evangelicals of all stripes within our major denominations. It has come to me with ever increasing conviction that one of the great needs is a religious magazine … that will reach the clergy and the lay leaders of every denomination.”

Thus, in 1956 the first issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY came off the presses and was delivered gratis to nearly 200,000 pastors. The premier issue had an article by Carl F. H. Henry, editor of CHRISTIANITY TODAY for its first 12 years, on the difference between the concept of freedom in the West and in Communist countries. G. C. Berkouwer, systematic theologian from the Free University of Amsterdam, wrote about the changing climate of European theology. And evangelist Billy Graham contributed an article on biblical authority in evangelism.

In the over 500 issues that have been published since then, the editorial purpose of CHRISTIANITY TODAY has remained essentially the same: To disciple the evangelizers by offering concerned Christians insightful commentary on the critical social, political, and theological issues affecting the church in the twentieth century. Or, as Henry put it in Volume 1: “To articulate historic Christianity and its contemporary relevance.”

Keeping the magazine true to this purpose were Henry’s successors, the editors of CHRISTIANITY TODAY: Frank Gaebelein (co-editor 1963–66), Harold Lindsell, Kenneth Kantzer, and V. Gilbert Beers. Coming under their watchful eyes were issues as diverse, yet uniformly important to evangelicals, as the problems of racism and sexism, the trustworthiness of Scripture, the role of social action in evangelization, and the separation of church and state.

To be sure, “the look” of CT changed over the years—but only to keep up with a movement no longer in its infancy. American evangelicalism has positioned itself as a viable force for change in both the religious and secular worlds, adding new dimensions to Henry’s mandate of “contemporary relevance.” Its sphere of influence has broadened to include television and radio; politics; social action; as well as increased numbers of mission agencies and missionaries, Parachurch agencies, and institutions of higher education. And thus there is the ongoing need to carefully, clearly, and in a contemporary way, communicate biblically oriented thoughts and ideas to an ever-expanding evangelical leadership.

This special anniversary section is devoted to documenting briefly how the face of evangelicalism has changed over the last 30 years. We have commissioned ten writers to take a critical look at specific areas of evangelical involvement, noting both accomplishments and the many challenges that remain. Along with the analyses of biblical scholarship, higher education, theology, media, Christian education, missions, evangelism, preaching, and Parachurch ministries, we have included short biographies of a few of the people influential in each of these categories. (Space did not permit us to recognize all who have distinguished themselves.) Helping us in the selection of these names were CHRISTIANITY TODAY’s senior editors and contributing editors, along with fellows and resource scholars of the CT Institute.

Not mere sentimental retrospective, the overviews and profiles offered here serve as a guide to the next 30 years—exhibiting in a historical context those practical lessons and personal qualities that may keep the evangelical movement from suffering a midlife crisis, and which, instead, may help it become a more vital instrument of spiritual and societal change.

As the twenty-first century beckons, the church faces a dual challenge.

Anniversaries and other milestones often lead us to ask questions about the future. Birthdays not only bring celebration and merriment, but also the inevitable question, “What lies ahead?” One can hardly reflect on the past without imagining what awaits us in the years to come. So permit us, just this once, to prognosticate.

Unfulfilled Promises

When CHRISTIANITY TODAY made its debut 30 years ago, theological liberalism had become discredited and no clear successor had arrived on the scene. After 30 years, we can agree that the older liberalism is indeed in shambles. And while it might be safe to predict there will be no single dominant theology within the next generation, theological conservatism will continue to gain respectability.

Perhaps, too, the founders of this magazine already saw the demise of an earlier hope that technology would destroy disease and want on planet Earth. Already the atomic bomb had destroyed, once and for all, the fond hopes of social Darwinists. Social critic Bernard Iddings Bell gave the world not ten decades or even ten years, but at best a few months to solve the threat to mankind created by nuclear warfare. And the greatest optimist of the preceding generation, H. G. Wells, had produced his Mind at the End of Its Tether, reversing all his glorious predictions of a coming utopia—false prophecies that now sound strangely unreal.

Thirty years later, there is little to suggest we should be less pessimistic. Regardless of one’s position on nuclear arms, the bomb is merely buying us a little more time. Though the superpowers have managed to deploy only words and sanctions in their battle (aside from an occasional misguided missile or bullet), other nations have been less fortunate. More than 90 wars have been fought during the last 30 years. And in spite of breakthroughs in disease control, and giant strides in food production, nearly half of this planet’s inhabitants face a daily struggle against hunger and sickness. If that’s not enough gloom and doom, some astronomers tell us there may be a runaway star or black hole that could wander into our path, snuffing us out of existence.

Faced with a threatening universe (and a more threatening social structure), modern humans flee to the safe nest of their own private worlds. At the beginning of our modern era (1611), John Donne declared with foresight: “’Tis all in peeces, all cohaerence gone … and all relation; / For every man alone thinkes he hath got / To be a Phoenix, and that then can bee / None of that kinde, of which he is, but hee.”

During the past three decades we have watched man isolate himself from the concerns of his personal and global neighbors. Responsibility for others is rejected. Personal freedom, rather than commitment, characterizes marriage and family issues. As a result, divorce is the option of choice when relationships falter. Unwanted pregnancies have become less of a problem because abortion, once a taboo, is now respectable. And though most parents would like to turn back the clock, permissiveness reigns when it comes to rearing children. This freedom from responsibility to all but oneself is growing and will continue to afflict our society. It will be fostered by a secularism that rejects religion and knows no alternative.

The Church Of The Future

But evangelicalism, likewise, will continue to grow. As people find no enduring grounds for meaning in their secularistic philosophies and no eschatology that provides any ultimate hope, they will turn to other sources. Many will look to the cults, and many more to Eastern religions, largely due to the influx of Asians in America. Outreach-minded Protestant denominations and Parachurch agencies will experience solid growth as they meet the needs of a searching public.

American Catholicism will also grow for the same reason: it offers an alternative to an ultimately bankrupt secularism. The rapid and immense immigration across the southern border will give the Catholic church tremendous potential for growth. Roman Catholicism of the future, however, will never be the same Catholicism that dominated Europe for so many centuries. It is rapidly becoming a pluralistic religion—more like its Protestant alternative.

Rapprochement between conservative Protestants and charismatic Roman Catholics will continue at a more rapid rate. It will come in politics first, already foreshadowed by the unthinkable (but practical) union between the Moral Majority and American Catholics (Catholics are the largest single religious group within that body).

If the separatists and fundamentalists can make common cause with Roman Catholics, we can similarly expect the more conservative elements among evangelicals and Roman Catholics to discover common values. As they do, they will work together to achieve mutual goals in government and society.

Other social movements affecting the church will continue in directions already set. Racism will not disappear entirely. Yet the consciences of evangelicals have been ignited, and they know racism is wrong. The church will support efforts to bring harmony through equal opportunity and fair treatment of racial minorities.

The role of women in the church will become increasingly important. We cannot expect over one-half of the church to remain graciously patient with their second-class status. We predict more denominations will open their doors to women in leadership positions, though the debate over ordination will continue.

As the population ages, so will the church. Retirement age will creep up to 75. Youth pastors will be supplemented or even replaced by senior citizen pastors. Retired members of the congregation will take over the labors formerly cared for by married “unemployed” women. As with the question of women in leadership, the church will recognize its need to use every Christian’s gifts if it desires to carry out the Great Commission.

The threat of nuclear war will continue to hang over planet Earth, intensified by the Vietnams, Central Americas, and Afghanistans that will surely continue. Just as World War II was followed by a continuous train of lesser wars that have never ceased, they will not stop in the next 30 years. We can hope that Russia and the United States and their uneasy partners will work out a modus vivendi. Yet someday another conflagration will come. No doubt it will begin as a conventional war. The unanswered question is: “Can it remain on that level?” And if it does not, what then? The church has struggled with the nuclear question and will remain divided on the issue of disarmament.

It is against this backdrop that the church must function during the decades to come. But the lessons of history give us reason to be optimistic. Adversity always strengthens the people of God as they depend more fully on him. Specifically, we believe the next 30 years will present tremendous challenges in missions, education, and evangelism.

Into The Next Century

The nations of the Third World will grow in national pride as well as in poverty, making more difficult than ever the entrance of American missionaries. However, missionaries from the Third World will increase in number and find greater acceptance around the world. Missionary sending agencies will concentrate on teaching and equipping Third World Christians who will become the global evangelists of the next century.

A great danger evangelicals face in the next 30 years is penetration from secularism. This will come partly through secular control of the power structure of the Western world and partly from the growth of the church through successful evangelism. Secularism will affect the church by its antagonism to a biblical supernaturalism and by its insistence upon a false freedom from responsibility that is so devastating to moral life. Ironically, the more successful the church is in its evangelistic program, the greater the threat from the materialistic secularism that has permeated our society.

The key to meeting this challenge is doctrinal and moral instruction of its converts. Here evangelicalism can be grateful for strong and growing seminaries across the land. Unfortunately, its colleges have not done so well, enrolling scarcely 100,000 of the 12,000,000 college students today. Unless there is a radical change in government support of private college education through tuition rebates or other devices, Christian private colleges cannot compete with the public community colleges and universities dominated by secular materialism. If Christian colleges close their doors (many will), and if we do not find ways to strengthen Christian students on secular campuses, the growth in evangelical churches will be mere froth. Eventually, the movement will be weaker than before.

The greatest challenge to the church during the next 30 years, therefore, is the need for both evangelization and discipleship. We are surrounded by a materialistic, self-centered, pleasure-seeking society of individuals. As Christian witnesses, we must enter that environment to reach the lost. To the degree that we are successful in introducing them to the Savior, our task of discipleship becomes all the more urgent. It will be wonderful to fill our churches with new believers. But it is equally important to nurture them in the faith. If we win the battle for evangelism but lose the battle for discipleship, we have lost the church of the next generation. If we win the battle for evangelism, but lose the battle for discipleship, we have lost the church of the next generation.

Thus, on this occasion of celebrating the past, we call on the church to look ahead. For the past 30 years, this magazine has chronicled a movement that, in spite of occasional setbacks, has met the needs of its age. We look forward to continuing the story.

By Kenneth S. Kantzer

The morning worship service at Pittsburgh’s Fourth Presbyterian Church is almost over. Even so, some of the worshipers are just arriving. During the singing of the final hymn, four black children wander into the sanctuary. They casually stroll down an aisle, looking for a familiar face. They are not out of place; no one is embarrassed.

James Stobaugh, the church’s pastor, glances over his hymnal at the newcomers. His slightly chubby, boyish face seems incongruous with his stately robe. He squints and grins. He knows these children, and he knows they belong here.

Black children own Stobaugh’s heart. It started in his own childhood in southern Arkansas. He vividly remembers wiping the steam from his school bus window and seeing black children waiting with tattered, hand-me-down schoolbooks. He remembers an elder at his church blocking the path of a black youth, telling him “niggers are not welcome.” He recalls asking his mother if his beloved Mammy Lee could sleep in his room. Her response: “Nigras do not sleep in white people’s houses.”

At James Stobaugh’s house, they do. He and his wife, Karen, have four children, three of them adopted and of mixed race. By the time he came to Fourth Presbyterian in September of 1983, four other rural and suburban Presbyterian churches had expressed an interest in him; they liked his preaching and his credentials. But each time they met his family, their interest waned.

“They said some people in their congregation weren’t ready for that,” Stobaugh says. “That’s unconscionable. It’s scandalous that the church of Jesus Christ would choose not to have fellowship over race.”

Stobaugh remembers when he told Fourth Presbyterian about his family situation. The church responded by welcoming him as its new pastor. Since then the gray stone church, grayer with decades of steel-mill soot, has been his home.

Arriving in Pittsburgh, Stobaugh found a church in trouble. Officially, membership was at 178, but weekly attendance was only about 35. “Our choice was to survive for a few years and die,” he recalls, “or we could become radical and risk everything to do God’s work. I chose the latter path.”

He instituted an unusual requirement: to be members at Fourth, people had to become involved in some missions or ministry activity. “We wanted membership to mean something,” he says. “We almost lost the gamble.”

Long-time members, including some big givers, decided to worship elsewhere. The official roll has fallen from 178 to under 100. But weekly attendance has gone from 35 to over 100.

As Fourth has grown, it has come to reflect the diversity of its pastor, himself a study in contrasts. “Confessionally, I’m a charismatic,” he says. “But I’ve been raised on the milk of tradition and I love liturgy and order.”

At Fourth, staid, traditional Reformed Presbyterians sit next to neo-Pentecostals. Stobaugh has added charismatic elements to the worship service, including contemporary “praise” music and healing services. There have been disputes with the various factions in the church, but Stobaugh emphasizes to them what they have in common. It is another characteristic of the church that bears its pastor’s mark: a vital interest in serving their community.

The east-side neighborhood around the church seems tame enough. The small, rustic building blends into its surroundings, as in a portrait. The distinctive, aged homes crowd one another. The streets are too narrow for fast traffic, so the birds are easily heard. In summer, green, leafy trees block the sun, but not the breeze. They provide a sense of containment, of security.

Fourth Presbyterian stands at the edge of Shadyside, one of the city’s wealthiest communities. But just two blocks away is Garfield Hill, one of the city’s poorest sections.

Behind the church’s closed doors lie the insecurities that accompany economic decline. The nickname “Steel City” is almost a cruel joke. Pittsburgh’s transition to a white-collar economy has meant the loss of thousands of jobs.

The effects of such decline are never subtle. “People go home and drink,” says Stobaugh. “They turn to drugs, they abuse one another in the home. In our neighborhood we have all the problems.”

Some 70 percent of the church’s parishioners are on public assistance. But church members also include a former vice-president of National Steel and a computer programmer with a six-figure income. “It reminds me of the early church,” says member David Steele, orthopedic specialist for the Pittsburgh Steelers. “It’s a very strange mixture. But we’re all drawn together by the love of Christ.”

This love has reached out. Fourth provides volunteers for a food closet and soup kitchen. A friend of the church, an executive with Nabisco, keeps them supplied with cookies. Another friend, a minister with a Ph.D. in psychology, uses Stobaugh’s office two nights a week to do free family and marital counseling.

Stobaugh coordinates an outreach to interracial families. The church is used by a Narcotics Anonymous chapter; hundreds attend meetings two nights a week. In winter, homeless people sleep in the basement.

Working with an organization called Jubilee Housing, volunteers from Fourth Presbyterian restore abandoned houses in Garfield. Poor people then buy these houses for whatever monthly payments they can afford. A lot of the work is done by young people Stobaugh refers to as “Joe’s kids.”

“Joe” is Joe Bellante, Fourth Presbyterian’s “street worker.” He was formerly employed by organized crime—“an enforcer type,” he says. “I made sure people paid their bills.” He once held the barrel of a gun in another man’s mouth and considered it routine.

Bellante now supervises weightlifting clubs at local high schools. He holds Bible studies with students. On Wednesday evenings more than a hundred of “Joe’s kids” gather to sing, worship, and pray.

Stobaugh says Bellante’s unorthodox and disorganized style “bugs the dickens out of the Presbyterian in me. But I have to understand that I like to go by the book and he’s a street person. I can’t argue with results.”

He and Bellante, with the other people who make up Fourth Presbyterian Church, worship and work in less than ideal conditions. Sometimes Stobaugh wonders if he’s “been there” too long. He struggles with his own attitudes of cynicism and sarcasm about comfortable suburban churches. He craves fellowship with other urban pastors. But his commitment has stayed firm. Twice in its history, Fourth Presbyterian has relocated away from urban dilapidation, toward suburban comfort. Stobaugh doesn’t want it to happen again. “We’ll die before we move out, if I have anything to do with it.”

By Randall L. Frame

It’s homecoming time on many campuses, including the one where I serve as president.

These are wonderful, long-awaited days, with graduates and former students greeting friends, reminiscing about college experiences, and sharing news of life since the last reunion.

Occasionally the successes of these graduates astound their former teachers (“failures” seldom attend homecoming events). Almost every year I hear a colleague say something like, “What a surprise! Who would ever have thought she would accomplish so much.” Or, “I never expected he would amount to much of anything, but just think what great things he’s been able to achieve!”

Such talk bothers me. After all, these former students were young people gifted and committed to Jesus Christ when we admitted them. We gave them an education. And, with God’s blessing and guidance, they should have done well!

There should have been no surprises.

Jesus, too, put in a homecoming appearance. But, oh, how he shocked and surprised his former classmates and teachers.

Actually “shocked” is too mild a word. The home-town folk in Nazareth were outraged (Luke 4:14ff.). In fact, Jesus’ remarks at his one and only homecoming so provoked his listeners that they turned into a lynch mob bent on killing him.

But why? What had he said or done?

As he sat down to deliver his homecoming sermon at the synagogue that Sabbath day in Nazareth, Jesus took his text from the fifty-eighth and sixty-first chapters of the prophecy of Isaiah, passages popularly understood to refer to the expected Messiah. He challenged the commonly held notions of a sociopolitical messiah with military might and political power, one who would mete out vengeance on the Roman oppressors, restore wealth and prosperity, and establish a chauvinistic international dominance for Israel.

Instead, Jesus dwelt on the spiritual and redemptive aspects of the Messiah’s work. He spoke of the Messiah’s compassion for the poor and the oppressed. He identified with the needy. He stood the messianic expectations of the synagogue leadership upside-down.

But even more to the point, and in an unmistakable and inflammatory way, Jesus asserted his claim to be that divine Messiah. Insistently, he made his own claim central—he sought to be the focal point of God at work in human history right then and there. And that, the home-town crowd could not handle from the carpenter’s kid. All homecoming hospitality vanished. Murderous hatred rose within them.

It was not his miracles and other accomplishments that turned them against him. It wasn’t even his revisionist notions about the kingdom of God. It was his messianic claim that was so blasphemous and so infuriating. Death was what he deserved.

Some homecoming!

We must judge the citizens of Nazareth harshly. They were spiritually blind, morally outrageous, and murderously impetuous.

However, I must pause to examine carefully my own response to Jesus’ homecoming claims. Of course I affirm the orthodox Christological formulas—but am I properly responsive to his lordship? Is my own understanding of the kingdom free of my own carnal agenda and self-serving preconceptions?

In many ways, I too can say: “All these things I have kept from my youth.” Yet what is there that I may still lack?

Am I ready to give a positive and obedient reception to him and to his claims?

By his grace I want to be able to say an enthusiastic yes!

Women In Ministry: Long Welcomed By The Salvation Army

I appreciated “Women in Seminary: Preparing for What?” [Sept. 5]. All the article lacked was mention of female ministry in The Salvation Army. What seems to be a big question in other evangelical churches was dealt with 121 years ago in the Army. Women have held equal responsibilities since the Army’s inception in 1865 in England.

We say William Booth was founder of The Salvation Army, but in reality it was cofounded by him and his wife, Catherine. Booth even said some of his best men were women! We believe God does call women into the ministry—to the extent that our current general (denomination head) is a woman.

LT. JEFFREY C. WADDINGTON

Concord, N.H.

If the Lord meant for a woman to lead the church in such roles as preacher, elder, pastor, minister, prophet, priest, et cetera, why didn’t he provide early Christians with a scriptural prototype? Where in Scripture can a woman priest be found? A woman (literary) prophet? A woman apostle? A woman elder or pastor? Could it be the Lord didn’t intend for a woman to serve in any of these positions? It makes me wonder.

DR. MICHAEL L. WILSON

West Memphis, Ark.

I was wondering why it took God so long to call women into the ministry.

CLARICE BANDOW

Madison, Wis.

Work: One Dimension

I hope Steve Jolley’s book on “the Christian and work” will be more balanced than his article “Don’t Ask Me What I “Do’” [Speaking Out, Sept. 5], Frankly, the question he resents is often a very helpful conversation starter, as long as we recognize how multi-faceted people are and that our work is only one dimension of a complex (and multi-splendored) whole.

ED NEWMAN

Duluth, Minn.

Why would you even print this article? I not only like what I do, but I’m proud of it because the Lord appointed me and is in everything I do. He gives us talents and instructs us to use them. Jolly needs to get a positive angle on his thinking (and writing). If the 9 to 5 job just pays the bills but provides no challenge or room for growth, maybe it’s time to pray about moving onto something better, or at least for a new outlook.

TERESA JOY

News Anchor, KXJB-TV

Fargo, N.D.

I am a seaman (commercial fishing fleet, North Atlantic). To any other sailor, that says a lot about my character. A man does not work long at a job that does not fit his personality. I am an elder in the Church of the Nazarene, but my ministry is on the fishing docks among these seamen, for I am one of them. My work describes me very well. I think yours does, also.

REV. CLIFFORD CHEW, JR.

West Cape May, N.J.

Achieving True Racial Equality

I read Kantzer’s editorial “Fixing History” [Sept 5], and came away with wonder. Is he really serious in his platitudes on race relations between blacks and whites? He slates, “True racial equality and a society free from racism will only be achieved when people regard others for what they are—not for color of their skin.” Why not press the issue? True equality will only be achieved when intermarriage is as acceptable as eating ice cream on a summer’s hot day. Kantzer should bring that question to his class; when the parents of his students find out he really believes in “one blood,” he will note a drop in enrollment.

ANTHONY PAOLICELLI

New Hyde Park, N.Y.

Your well-meant editorial was, in my opinion, largely glib naïveté. Some recognition of racial differences is simply recognition of fact. Miscegenation, the inevitable outcome of the state you envision, is unacceptable to many of us who, in humility, believe we are faithful in our trust, as are those who see it differently.

ELTON CROWSON

Florence, Ala.

Who’s on Board?

Like me, you’ve seen them: those yellow, diamond-shaped signs dangling in rear windshields, announcing CHILD ON BOARD. What do owners of these signs expect? That a maniac plans to run somebody off the road, but will spare their car after being informed kids might be hurt?

If there is such a thing as the judicious maniac, Christians can contribute to driving orderliness by sporting their own plaques.

PRETRIB DISPENSATIONALIST ON BOARD signals a safe hit—after the Rapture. At that point there won’t be anyone in the car. The judicious maniac will do a service by knocking an unmanned vehicle off the road.

But the judicious maniac will be wary of PRESBYTERIAN ON BOARD or EPISCOPALIAN ON BOARD. A lot of Presbyterians and Episcopalians are lawyers. Said maniac will also be careful about METHODIST ON BOARD and BAPTIST ON BOARD. Fewer Methodists and Baptists are lawyers, but they have friends who are lawyers.

MENNONITE ON BOARD, for obvious reasons, will indicate a popular target. This leaves me worried for our Anabaptist friends.

But there may be a solution, one that will make the roads safer for everyone. Since the judicious maniac won’t hit children, all Christians should display the generic diamond: CHILDREN OF GOD ON BOARD.

EUTYCHUS

Barnes’S Balancing Act

Fred Barnes puts us on a very frustrating balancing act in his negative evaluation of Pat Robertson’s run for President when he says, “We do not need religious political candidates. We need political candidates who happen to be Christian [News, Sept. 5].” It was encouraging, however, that he found Roberston well qualified to serve as President. That being the case, I believe we can trust him to do it in a way that would not be a discredit to the Christian ministry.

It is high time we show Hugh Hefner there is a moral majority in this great land of ours that was built on Judeo-Christian morals, and there is no better way to do it than to put Pat Robertson in the White House.

E. W. MORROW

Santa Barbara, Calif.

There are always two views on any issue: God’s and man’s. My own view does not matter. Why do we have to be confined to Republican and Democratic party choices? Why do Christians have to pick between the lesser of two evils? If anyone is afraid to have a Christian run, and win, the presidential nomination, it is because he is afraid God really will speak through that person. We do not need men or women who are religious. We need men and women and children called of God to speak for him in mercy and in truth. I do not know Mr. Robertson, nor have I ever watched “The 700 Club.” I do know Jesus said, “He that is not with me is against me: and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.”

BONNIE BAKER

Lenoir, N.C.

Kinlaw’S Golden Apple

Thanks to Dennis Kinlaw for “Evangelicalism’s Lost Cross” [Sept. 5].“Like apples of gold in settings of silver is a word spoken in right circumstances” (Prov. 25:11).

PRESTON PARRISH

Boone, N.C.

About Mormon Doctrine

Ronald Enroth’s review of The Mormon Corporate Empire [Books, Sept. 5], though well intended, seems abbreviated and inadequate. Is CT trying to help the Mormon authors sell their book? Enroth observes that the book focuses “… on the secular, not the doctrinal aspects of Mormonism.” In the review, Enroth focuses not on the secular, but on what he calls the authors’ “fascinating,” “sobering,” and “disturbing” doctrinal segments. One would expect a review that discusses specific secular enterprises of the LDS church or an explanation for their “new liquidity strategy” and its implications. Brief references to Mormon doctrine and “prophecy” are akin to pot shots.

Let us not minor in the majors of theological error, lest we be inoculated against a thorough examination with a biblical response. I find the LDS church to be a challenge we need to meet as we speak the truth in love.

W. DOUGLAS GWINN, JR.

Spanaway, Wash.

Enroth’s biased, uninformed views reveal explicitly that he neither understands nor wants to understand the truth about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When he says Mormons are neither Protestant nor Christian he foolishly commits an error. Protestants we are not, because we never broke off from another church. But Christians we are. What does he think the church name implies? Print what you want, but don’t publish half-truths and lies.

BILL HALL

Clearfield, Utah

Updating Mennonite Membership

Regarding the news item “Church Membership Grows” [News, Aug. 8]: Based on the information in the 1986 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, supplied to them by the Mennonite Yearbook office, you are correct in reporting an 18.09 percent loss in official Mennonite Church membership. However, this does not reflect a mass exodus from the church; rather, it reflects a change in official church policy. Up through 1983, membership of district conferences, who considered themselves part of the Mennonite Church but did not participate in official church structures and programs, were included in the official membership. In 1984, their membership was dropped from official calculations. Since 1984, official membership in the Mennonite Church comprises only those district conferences who actively participate in official churchwide structures and programs. Thus the dramatic membership drop.

JAMES E. HORSCH

Mennonite Yearbook

Scottdale, Pa.

Confronting Anti-Semitism

I was interested to read that two nationally respected evangelical leaders “know of no organized opposition within their constituencies to white-supremacist groups” [News, Aug. 8]. Shalom Ministries is a national evangelical radio ministry combating the bigotry and anti-Semitism of groups like the “Identity Churches” through active, unconditional Christian love.

As I studied church history, and found a steady, polluted stream of “Christian” anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust yet continuing today, the conviction grew: Anti-Semitism must become the church’s problem and the Christian’s responsibility. Last year Shalom Ministries played a key role in formation of a Christian Task Force Against Anti-Semitism in the Boston area. Similar task forces are planned across the U.S.

FRANK EIKLOR

Shalom Ministries

Salem, Mass.

Back in June, over 200 friends of CHRISTIANITY TODAY—including past and present board members and editors—came together to mark the magazine’s thirtieth birthday. Stories of the original vision of L. Nelson Bell and his son-in-law Billy Graham to create an evangelical “voice” were enlivened by personal, often humorous, anecdotes; and reminiscences of the early-years involvement of such giants as Harold John Ockenga and Carl F. H. Henry once again set in context the auspicious beginnings of the magazine.

Recounting the efforts of these and others in the development of CT and, more specifically, in the formulating of the movement it represents, is the purpose of this special issue. But as with any special issue, there are special problems. How, for example, do you recognize all of the men and women whose commitment to God and his truth not only set the evangelical movement into motion but kept it on track?

Obviously, the answer is you can’t. And so, what is presented here is a representation of that past commitment as well as the challenges awaiting future generations of the faithful. “The early vision has been more than served,” telegraphed Billy Graham from Amsterdam to the anniversary celebration. “And now we must think and pray about how we face the next generation.

In closing, Graham addressed that future as it concerned the magazine. “It is my prayer,” he concluded, “that the magazine will always stay on the cutting edge of the issues … a rallying point for evangelicals throughout the world.”

Managing Editor

Ernest Hemingway once described his home town of Oak Park, Illinois, as “a village of broad lawns and narrow minds.” But modern Oak Park is trying to reverse Hemingway’s adjectives with a valiant attempt at broad-mindedness. The woodsy Chicago suburb recently devised a cash merit system to reward citizens who choose against segregation.

It works like this: If you own an apartment building occupied by members of one race only, you can earn a $1,000 bonus by letting the village help you decide on your renters for the next five years. They will seek out minority families to move into all-white housing, and white families to move into all-black housing. The planners hope that landlords will want to integrate their properties as it suddenly becomes profitable.

The new law reminds me of a fair housing proposal described in Harper’s magazine over a decade ago. “Let’s face it,” began the author, “appeals to morality and high ideals never convince Americans to change their views and behavior patterns. The only way to produce change is to make it financially worth our while. Then you’ll see some action.”

The author went on to present a national program far more sweeping than Oak Park’s. What would happen, he asked with tongue not quite in cheek, if Congress passed a law granting a $4,000 annual tax deduction to any family who lived next door to a member of a minority race? (The treasury could actually save money by slashing far less effective fair-housing programs.) Overnight, the free market would work miracles of racial reconciliation.

Property values would rise, not fall, when a community integrated, and minority races would thus become the most sought-after residents. Advertisements like this would appear in local papers:

“$1,500 cash to any black or Hispanic family willing to move to the 700 block of Conwell Street! Will pay all moving expenses. Free prizes from local merchants!”

The cash-for-morality approach, first suggested whimsically in a magazine article and now openly legislated in Oak Park, offers a quintessentially American solution to a social problem. It combines naïve ingenuity with the old-fashioned profit motive. Will the most hardened bigot be able to resist a lucrative cash incentive?

Oak Park made the local news again not long ago when former President Jimmy Carter made a fund-raising appearance there on behalf of a Christian organization called Habitat for Humanity. A few months later he returned to Chicago wearing blue jeans and a work shirt: Carter was once again contributing his carpentry skills to help rebuild dilapidated inner-city houses. News cameramen could not seem to get enough footage of the former world leader wielding a hammer in the slums of Chicago.

Habitat for Humanity offers a different approach to social problems than that under experiment in Oak Park. The organization operates not in affluent suburbs but in squalid patches of aging cities where no one wants to live. People don’t receive cash bonuses; rather, volunteers like Jimmy Carter work long hours without pay.

The poverty families selected to live in the rehabbed houses work alongside these volunteers, building up “sweat equity” and learning how to make basic home repairs. No one realizes any investment gain or tax savings; Habitat grants no-interest loans to the new owners.

Local organizations manage the properties. In places like Chicago, they attempt to resettle the communities around the rehabbed houses. Committed Christian couples, mostly from middle-class backgrounds, move into the neighborhood, offering role models for the poor and bringing a social stability to the area.

Two approaches to the same problem got me thinking about the whole issue of social change. Both the Oak Park City Council and Habitat for Humanity share common goals: good, reasonable housing for the poor, and some way to break through the discrimination deadlock. But their techniques for reaching those goals differ greatly.

Oak Park hopes to “fix” its society with a carefully controlled plan to change the environments, and, ultimately, the value systems of various minority groups. To accomplish that goal, they rely on a powerful motivator: human greed. Their plan is creative and rational—an example of the kingdom of this world at its best.

Habitat for Humanity, in contrast, is working to produce a far more radical change among a smaller group of people. They desire to change not only the human environment, but the human heart. They believe it is not enough for people with resources to invite in well-screened representatives of minority groups.

Rather, people of resources must go, voluntarily, to the places of need, and give their time, and their sweat, and their families, and their love. Even greed is not a strong enough motivator to accomplish that sacrifice. It requires instead the Christian commitment of people willing to take a risk with no prospect of reward in this life—in other words, the kingdom that is not of this world.

Within a few months’ time, Chicagoans saw two different news clips of Jimmy Carter: the distinguished former President speaking at a dress-up affair in Oak Park and then the same man swinging a hammer on the west side of Chicago. Mr. Carter has had his feet in both kingdoms. A few years ago he could have ordered up housing for thousands with a stroke of his pen. Now he helps out the poor like anyone else: in person, one nail at a time.

As I watched the ironic juxtaposition of the news reports of Carter’s visits, I could not help wondering which approach gave him most personal satisfaction. One thing troubled me, though: Why is it that when a former President comes to town to build houses for the poor, hundreds of people will pay $50 to dress up and hear him talk about it, but only a handful will take their hammers and join him?

Re-Bonding: Preventing and Restoring Damaged Relationships, by Donald M. Joy (Word, 1986, 167 pp.; $11.95, hardcover). Reviewed by John K. Testerman, a physician who practices family medicine in Glendale Heights, Illinois.

When he was the young father of two sons, Donald Joy asked himself whether he would rather have a son who was sexually promiscuous or one who would arrive at the church with a pregnant bride. Joy’s answer: he “would rather have to deal with a monogamous impulse that jumped the gun” than to have a son who was an irresponsible playboy.

(Joy does not consider premarital sex in a bonded relationship to be promiscuity—“fornication” in the biblical sense. He considers such behavior to be poorly timed bonding behavior.)

At that time he reacted out of instinct, but now the Asbury Theological Seminary professor believes he has come to an understanding of biblical teaching and human nature that justifies his choice.

In Re-Bonding, Joy applies to broken human relationships the ideas he developed in his previous work, Bonding: Relationships in the Image of God (Word, 1985). In that book, he drew on the work of anthropologist Desmond Morris, developing the theory that human pair bonding, as seen in courtship and marriage, is an almost instinctive process established by the Creator, analogous to birth bonding between infant and mother or pair bonding in animals. According to Joy, human pair bonding occurs as the courting couple passes through 12 successive stages of increasingly intimate behavior, beginning with the “Where have you been all my life?” discovery and culminating in sexual intercourse.

According to bonding theory, if bonding steps are skipped or rushed through, an unstable pair bond will be formed. Indulging in sexual intercourse prematurely, says Joy, short-circuits the bonding process, resulting in neglect of earlier bonding steps and a weak pair bond. Could this be one cause of the high divorce rate?

In Re-Bonding, Joy discusses biblical teachings on marriage, divorce, promiscuity, pornography, adultery, and premarital sex in the framework of his bonding theory. Promiscuity—sex as commodity (what the Bible calls “fornication”)—damages the capacity of the person to form healthy pair bonds. (Joy cites one popular study of 100,000 women that correlates early sexual experience with “(1) dissatisfaction with their present marriages, (2) unhappiness with the level of sexual intimacy, and (3) low self-esteem.”) Unfortunately, both the sexual predator and his victim may become impaired in their ability to form intimate relationships.

Joy points the way for hope and healing for those so scarred, for couples seeking to strengthen a weak bond, and for those grieving over broken relationships.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY TALKS TO Donald M. Joy

If an engaged couple is involved sexually, would you advise them to stop their sexual involvement until the wedding?

I find they want to stop it, and I affirm that. My prediction is they cannot stop unless they are separated.

I’m amazed at the deep spiritual sensitivity wired into human sexuality. It’s pretty universal. Even among the heathen, there’s reverence for their sexual feelings and the attachment they feel for someone else.

After a bonded relationship splits up, how long a recovery period do you advise before a person begins to form another bonding relationship?

I don’t think I’ve seen anybody ready to begin another relationship in less than six months. More often, it’s about three years. There’s a withdrawal time after the death of a bond. It has to be looked at as a grieving process.

Most people in our culture feel obligated to get people hooked up again with somebody else after a major loss. This is something that the Christian community ought to confront. We need to create islands of recovery for people coming off a relationship.

How can a person in a relationship assess whether a marital bond is irreparably broken?

I’m increasingly attentive to the Greek word for “hardheartedness.” In Matthew 19, that is the only justifying condition under which divorce is inevitable.

If, instead of condemning people who have been damaged, we put our energy into identifying what leads to hardness of heart and learning to measure it, then we would make a really positive contribution to healing in our faith community.

What advice do you give a person with a promiscuous past who has now been converted?

Most of these people have early patterns of trouble or abuse. They have early roots of low self-esteem. The only cure that I have seen work is what can be called “reparenting.”

“Reparenting” simply means that some people recognize some deficits in their past. They have grown up with some “skin hunger.” They were not affirmed. They were not touched, and they’re on the make to try to compensate. Now these people contract with me to be their father and their mother and to walk with them while they own these feelings.

A Matter Of Definition

The biblical terms translated “adultery” and “fornication” need to be distinguished, says Joy. In contrast to fornication, which is sex without bonding, adultery is double bonding, the formation of bonded sexual relationships in addition to the marital bond.

With these definitions applied to a careful study of the New Testament texts on divorce and remarriage, Joy criticizes the interpretations popular in many conservative churches as well as the rules derived from them. He points out, for example, that the Bible never speaks of adultery as “grounds” for divorce, but instead as a result of divorce. The popular understanding of the texts results in arbitrary regulations.

Joy is correct in his criticisms and his call for reassessment of our handling of divorce and remarriage. However, some of his novel reinterpretations of the so-called divorce texts are unconvincing—although they will intrigue readers interested in this subject.

Joy’s proposals have already had a major impact on at least one denomination. At the June 1985 Free Methodist General Conference, the Book of Discipline references to divorce and remarriage were completely rewritten along lines proposed by Joy.

God created man for intimate relationships, Joy believes, with sexual intimacy functioning best in an exclusive, monogamous, bonded relationship. He sees the biblical teachings on sexual morality not as arbitrary proscriptions to test our obedience or will power, but as descriptive law—a sort of owner’s manual on the proper care and maintenance of the human machine, graciously provided by the Creator for our happiness and fulfillment. This view of God’s law underlies the whole book.

Many Christians have suspected that there are “reasons behind the rules.” Now Joy has placed the biblical teachings on sexual morality into a comprehensive theoretical framework that appeals both to the conscience and to common sense.

The Good News of the Kingdom Coming: The Marriage of Evangelism and Social Responsibility, by Andrew Kirk (InterVarsity Press, 1985, 164 pp.; $5.95, paper). Reviewed by Doug Bandow, a senior fellow of the Cato Bandow, a senior fellow of the Cato Institute, a public-policy think tank based in Washington, D. C.

Andrew Kirk, associate director of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity, wants to develop “a new consensus about the scope and meaning of the gospel.” What kind of faith, Kirk asks, both reflects the God illuminated by Christ and relates to the real lives of everyday people?

Kirk is critical of the theologies dominant among church leaders today, liberals and radicals included. However, he focuses his attack on Western evangelicals, charging them with “perpetrating an unbiblical divorce between ‘spiritual’ salvation and liberation from evil structures and systems in the world.”

The at-times exasperating analysis that follows is sure to disquiet the complacent. For example, asks Kirk, has “mass-evangelism”—the Western-style crusade—“let Christians off the hook of building costly bridges to modern people”? The answer is not clear, but the question is serious. Individualized discipling relationships, particularly between middle-class churchgoers and the underprivileged, are probably embarrassingly scarce.

Moreover, what is the true role of the church? For many members it is “little more than a special kind of voluntary association to which one pays a subscription fee for the right of participating when one feels like it,” worries Kirk. Such a church, he says, “is not compatible with a community called by Jesus to serve the good news of the kingdom for the poor.” And he’s right.

Finally, contends Kirk, social action is “an integral part of” evangelism. In one sense he is absolutely correct; we are not to “love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18). However, Kirk then links the message of salvation through the risen Savior to the economic doctrines of the buried Karl Marx, an analysis that is flawed in three important respects.

Not Of This World

First, he seems to think that because Christians are to express God’s love in practical ways, that the “new created order” of God’s kingdom applies as much to the world today as it does to heaven tomorrow. Although Kirk ingeniously tries to explain away the plain meaning of Jesus’ statement that his kingdom is not of this world, Christ’s ministry was devoted to meeting spiritual needs. He never tried to reform worldly institutions and never appealed to secular authorities to help implement God’s kingdom. As important as our work on earth may be, “our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:18–20).

Second, Kirk wrongly claims that “there is a biblical imperative to redistribute wealth” and proposes a program of income redistribution, wage controls, and state ownership of “the means of production.” Yet if the acquisition of wealth is itself wrong, why does God promise that “your barns will be filled to overflowing” when you “honor the Lord with your wealth” (Prov. 3:10)? A Christian is to be generous with the less fortunate and is not to trust in earthly goods, but this neither requires believers to live below the poverty line nor authorizes them to forcibly redistribute money from non-Christians.

Third, Kirk completely misunderstands the nature of both capitalism and socialism. Neither system “has begun to achieve what it has promised,” he says, but at least “Marxism has exalted collective freedom—the freedom to enjoy a basically dignified life.”

In fact, socialism yields neither dignity, nor freedom, nor prosperity; in statist systems the gulf between working and ruling classes is particularly great because political power determines economic status. In contrast, free market societies not only deliver an unprecedented degree of material wealth to their peoples, but also provide individuals with the widest opportunity to pursue their chosen goals, spiritual as well as economic.

Although Kirk has written an interesting and provocative book, challenging Western Christians to eschew consumerism and revitalize their churches, he spends far too little time on these themes. Unfortunately, he devotes too much time to doing what he criticizes Western evangelicals for doing: confusing a “culture-bound expression of the gospel with the unchanging message found in the New Testament.”

Gods and the One God by Robert M. Grant (Westminster, 1986, 216 pp.; $18.95, cloth). Reviewed by Robert E. Webber, associate professor of theology at Wheaton College (Ill.) and author of The Church in the World: Opposition, Tension, or Transformation (Zondervan).

Throughout history Christian scholars have been interested in probing the origins of the Christian faith. Luke, the author of Acts and the gospel that bears his name, tells us, “I myself have investigated everything from the beginning” (Luke 1:3).

Today, nearly 20 centuries after Luke’s investigative reporting, a new group of scholars has emerged to write a social history of early Christianity. Robert Grant’s Gods and the One God is first in a series of nine new books that will probe early Christianity from a sociological perspective. This ambitious project by Westminster Press includes such titles as The Moral World of the First Christians and The New Testament and Its Social Environment.

What makes this new series significant is not only its emphasis on social history, but the collaboration of scholars across disciplines. These books represent the results of literary studies and of historical scholarship of Rome, Christianity, and Judaism.

The purpose of this series is to study early Christianity as living Christian communities. The question is not just what Paul or John or Justin or Irenaeus said, but to ask how the Christians of the various communities of faith lived, believed, and behaved.

Life Among The Polytheists

Robert Grant’s contribution is to try to understand the formation of the Christian concept of God amid the polytheism of the first several centuries.

In reading the New Testament, especially the Book of Acts, we cannot escape the numerous references to various gods and goddesses. The infant church was surrounded by such influences as the cult of Aphrodite at Corinth, Zeus and Hermes at Lystra, Athena and the unknown God at Athens, Artemis at Ephesus, and the Baal of Sarepta.

The special question of Gods and the One God is how the Christian doctrine of the Trinity came about. Grant explores the origin of the Christian concept of God, the early Christologies, and the ancient pneumatologies.

He then concludes with an exploration of the unique concept of Trinitarianism.

Grant has a remarkable grasp of both Christian and non-Christian sources of the first five centuries of the Christian era. He is at home with the Fathers, the philosophers, pagan religions, emperors, and the social and cultural milieu of the time.

However, not all scholars will agree with Grant’s interpretation of the data. He argues cogently for a distinction between the raw underdeveloped ideas of the faith and the later, more sophisticated theological doctrines. Thus, for example, he finds a concept of divine triad in the primitive faith that, through debates and interaction with philosophies of the time, became a fullblown doctrine of the Trinity.

The book is worth reading simply for its scholarship. But there is another reason to read this book: Many Christians’ comprehension of the faith will benefit greatly by understanding the early church. Scholars are gradually recognizing that Christianity as a historical and social movement can be best understood when the first-century literature is studied in the context of the Jewish background and the early Christian developments of the first five centuries.

Gods and the One God, as well as the eight other books in this series, opens a new arena of engagement. I fully expect conservative scholars to accept the challenge. The nine books of this series are a good place to start.

A modern scribe writes God’s Word with feeling.

Calligrapher Tim Botts will do almost anything for a good devotional time. Thus, out of the artist’s personal attempt to bring Scripture to life has come a bold venture in contemporary calligraphy: verses from The Living Bible bathed in colors, strokes, and images to make the reader feel God’s truth.

To many, calligraphy conjures images of medieval scribes copying the Scriptures in monastic solitude. But Botts, whose first book, Doorposts (Tyndale), has just been released, shatters such preconceived notions. His biblical art began as an experiment when his personal devotions hit bottom. “Often when I studied the Bible I felt lazy,” he explains, “like I was just going through the motions. So I decided to keep a sketchbook of verses. Putting something on paper that expressed God’s Word made me ask, ‘What are these words saying? How can I show what they mean by the way I write them?’”

For Botts, showing what Scripture means demands experiencing its meaning first—physically, if possible. Devotional times have found him working under self-inflicted limitations—even pain. To feel some of the suffering of Hebrews 2:18, Botts did not rest his arm on the table, but held his brush vertically. That hurt. The resulting slightly erratic lettering was executed in complementary colors, which, when placed next to one another, appear to vibrate with an irritating effect.

Another time the right-handed artist used his left hand to simulate a child writing out Deuteronomy 6:7–9, from which comes the title Doorposts: “Teach these commandments to your children and talk about them when you are the Bible to someone who might not be familiar with it,” he says, “and that’s why diversity, more than anything else, marks my work. In Doorposts, I want people to get a sense of the big picture in the Bible, the full range of human emotions.”

Getting The Big Picture

Botts himself began to get a sense of the big picture at an early age. Accepting Christ as a child, then reaffirming his faith in high school, he sought out fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University where he studied graphic design. He joined Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship, where fellow students affirmed his role as a Christian artist.

At Carnegie he got turned on to calligraphy under the guidance of Arnold Bank, then recognized as the best in the field. Bank saw Botts’s flair and took him on as an apprentice. Now, some 20 years later, Botts has dedicated Doorposts to his mentor, who died only months before its publication.

There were other important influences on Botts’s work, including the three years he spent in Japan teaching English for a Brethren mission. That experience opened up a new way of thinking about use of space and natural forms. “A lot of American artists wouldn’t have the guts to do this,” says Botts of his interpretation of Romans 1:20, in which an abstract array of colors representing nature dominates the piece. “They’d want to fill the page with lettering. But the verse is saying how nature tells us about God, so I decided to keep the lettering off to one side, Japanese style. Space is precious to the Japanese, so they celebrate it.”

Leaving Japan 14 years ago to work for Tyndale House, Botts came to rely for inspiration on Tyndale’s Living Bible. “The words are highly emotive,” he says. “Reading them has many times brought tears to my eyes. I’ve been able to feel what Scripture is saying before I tried to convey that in my art.” In turn, he hopes many will consider God’s revelation anew in Doorposts. “Just as the psalmist says we should sing a new song to the Lord, I think the artist needs to make a new statement. I’m trying to do something for our time, something that might capture the attention of people who would never pick up a Bible.”

He remembers a woman attending one of his calligraphy classes who was taken by his work. “Are all of these things really in the Bible?” she asked. Assured they were, she said, “Well, I’ll have to go home and read my Bible.” To which Botts quietly answered, “Amen.”

By Robert Kachur, assistant editor of His magazine.

Yabba-Dabba-David and Goliath

A generation generation that grew up with The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, and a host of other animated characters, will be intrigued by Joseph Barbera’s latest project. In the most ambitious assignment his Hanna-Barbera Productions studio has ever undertaken, Barbera is currently engaged in producing animated Bible stories on videocassette. The first 6 in a projected series of 26 were released last spring, and they are captivating a new generation—but this time the stories are true and the settings are historical.

Distributed by Abingdon Press, which is also publishing companion books, the 30-minute videocassettes telling the stories of David, Daniel, Samson, Moses, Noah, and Joshua are available only in Christian/religious bookstores or by response to commercials on religious television.

Barbera became interested in the project 18 years ago because he wanted people to know the stories and the truths they exhibit beyond a simple, superficial knowledge. He talked about his new animated Bible stories in a recent interview.

Why have you remained interested in a project for which you first had the idea nearly 20 years ago?

The stories are so good that everyone should know them. I thought they should be brought home to families in an exciting and interesting way, but one that doesn’t disturb the story or its truths.

The stories are seen through the eyes of three young twentieth-century archaeologists who time-travel to biblical times. Why did you use contemporary characters in the narratives?

We’ve seen how Bible stories can appear ponderous and preachy and become turnoffs, so we wanted to bring a contemporary note to them. We thought it might be interesting to see things through the eyes of contemporary teenagers who serve as observers. The only actual interaction takes place with Noah’s Ark. There was no way we could tell that story from their viewpoint unless we had them involved with the ark.

Do you think children might be confused because the teenage characters in your stories aren’t really in the Bible?

I’ve asked myself, “How many kids ever read these Bible stories?” And the answer is, out of a hundred, maybe one—maybe none. No one is reading the stories; television has bred into kids—even adults—such a short attention span. So I felt we had to find a way to tell the stories that would hold their interest. We’re able to provide visual excitement to do on a screen what no book can do today, because the kids are not reading. But I believe that by staying with the truths of the stories, which is what we’ve done, the “window dressing” won’t hurt them.

What kind of research did you do?

When you get involved in Bible stories you must be careful. We did a lot of research to give families a look at the way it was. At the time of these stories, you know, the Sphinx and the pyramids and the temples were all new. The people wore certain clothes—the heat even dictated what they wore on their heads.

So many things had to be considered: How were the wagons built? What kind of armor did they wear? How big was Goliath? Now that was something we really worried about: we didn’t want to make him too big and therefore ridiculous. We had to find out what kind of armor he had on, what kind of helmet—how his head was exposed so a stone could hit him in the forehead.

Do you see the stories as having spiritual as well as dramatic content?

No one can deny their great dramatic content; believe me, they are violent. Censors in animation and the networks wouldn’t put some of them on the screen. But our method allows us to do the stories the way they are. And I hope there are some subliminal morals and messages, like in the Moses tape. After they’ve crossed the Red Sea, Moses says the problem wasn’t Pharaoh—it was the people’s lack of faith. It is my hope that these kinds of messages will be picked up and stick.

By Peter Crescenti, director of public relations at C. W. Post Campus, Long Island, New York.