Page 5491 – Christianity Today (2024)

We were sitting in a little sidewalk cafe north of Athens. In Sounion, which perches on the tip of the cape southeast of Athens, are the ruins of the once-lovely temple dedicated to the sea god Poseidon, and we wanted to see them. The apostle Paul must have sailed past this cape on his second missionary journey and looked up to see the tall white columns gracing the top.

Sidewalk cafes are friendlier and more informal than tourist hotels, and this one was no exception. Sitting at a neighboring table was a genial English couple, who struck up a conversation about all they had seen. “You know,” they commented, “one wonders, after traveling around this place, if a man named Paul didn’t live here after all.”

The mind goes back in time 2,000 years to an ancient Athens that was smaller and more beautiful than the Athens of today. It was “a provincial university city, the home of art treasures” (Otto F. A. Meinardus in Paul in Greece). It was dominated by the Acropolis with its magnificent temples, the largest and most magnificent being the famous Parthenon. These buildings had already been standing for several hundred years when Paul arrived.

An ancient proverb declared that there were more gods in Athens than men, and wherever the apostle looked there were gods—in temples, in niches, on pedestals, on street corners. Paul even discovered a temple to the unknown god.

Seeing the city wholly given over to idolatry, Paul’s spirit was “exasperated” (NEB). He disputed with the religious leaders, with devout persons, with those he met in the marketplace. Then he took on certain philosophers of the Epicureans and the Stoics. Some of them derisively called him a babbler, or in Greek, a spermologos—literally a “seed-picker”—an Athenian slang term for those who loafed about the agora picking up odds and ends.

In the days of Paul, the Council of the Areopagus had authority over all matters pertaining to the religious life of the city, and it was because of this that Paul was invited to appear before them. Here he delivered his famous speech that changed the course of history, though the change was not sudden but gradual. When he spoke of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; others said they wanted to hear him again on the matter.

But when Paul left Athens, he left behind at least two believers: a woman named Damaris, about whom we know nothing, and Dionysius, the Areopagite. Then silence fell. We know only that a small Christian community did develop, and it grew in spite of the paganism that continued to flourish around it. By A.D. 408–50, several temples in Athens had been converted into churches. During the reign of Justinian (A.D. 527–65) the Parthenon itself was turned into a church, and remained one for 200 years. At about the same time, the Erechtheum atop the Acropolis was also converted into a church.

There are churches in Athens today dedicated to the apostle Paul, though it is not Paul but his first Athenian convert, Dionysius the Areopagite, who is venerated as the patron saint of Athens.

Today, 2,000 years later, the temples are in various stages of ruin. And who can name the gods to whom they were erected? Who can name the members of the Areopagus? Who, aside from scholars, knows the form of government in Greece at that time? Yet, “After traveling around here, one wonders if a man named Paul didn’t live here after all.”

Conflict in Northern Ireland erupts onto North American television screens with enigmatic intensity and frequency. The names of hunger-striker Bobby Sands and fundamentalist preacher-politician Ian Paisley are well known. The issues that gave them their prominence are less clearly understood.

Perhaps some North American evangelicals are uneasy about the war in Northern Ireland, sensing that Protestants there share with them common roots of theology and, in the case of the Scots-Irish, of ethnic background. Certainly many North American Catholics acknowledge a commitment to the “green” side of the Ulster conflict and contribute generously to the support of the outlawed Irish Republican Army (IRA). How, if at all, should American evangelicals react? Should they respond with solidarity—or embarrassment—to the situation of their coreligionists across the Atlantic?

Since 1969, more than 25,000 people have been injured, and over 2,100 have died violent deaths in Ulster. This rural province contains a population of only one-and-a-half million, six counties, two medium-sized cities, and covers an area a little larger than Connecticut. In Belfast, 30,000 people relocated their homes in the five years following the onset of violence in 1969 as they sought refuge in Protestant or Catholic residential suburbs. The British government has paid compensation claims totaling hundreds of millions of dollars for bombed property and personal injuries and death. Every week brings continuing news of sectarian assassination of Protestants by the IRA and of horrifying revenge killings. One Western rural area near the frontier with the Irish Republic has currently about 50 unsolved political murders, and the families of isolated Protestant farmers live in daily fear of the IRA’S bullet and booby-trap bomb.

Religious leaders, both Catholic and Protestant, are closely identified with the conflict. In the case of the Roman Catholic church, it is for failing to excommunicate convicted IRA terrorists, and for giving succour to hunger strikers. Extreme Protestant churchmen, like Ian Paisley, blend religion and politics, provoking widespread appeal among a mass of Protestants, saints and sinners alike.

The key to even a basic understanding of the Irish conflict is in the history and religious geography of the country. The Republic, with its capital in Dublin, has a population of about three-and-a-half million, of whom less than 5 percent are Protestants. Northern Ireland, on the other hand, part of the United Kingdom and with its provincial capital in Belfast, has a split of about 65 percent Protestant and 35 percent Catholic. Whereas the Protestant population of the Republic has been declining for over a century, the Catholic population of Northern Ireland has been growing slowly for 50 years.

The concentration of one million Protestants in Ulster is explained by colonization of that part of Ireland, which began in the seventeenth century at precisely the time when the celebrated Mayflower settlers were establishing themselves at Plymouth Colony. Colonists from England were mainly Anglicans; those from Scotland, Presbyterians. Both were equally glad to homestead on the lands of displaced Catholic native Irish—land granted to them by the British Crown and secured for them in the face of violent opposition by English and Scottish armies.

In the 13 American colonies, the native Indian population was decisively beaten by the settlers and thorough conquest precluded a nasty minority problem like Ulster’s. By contrast, in the northern part of Ireland a numerically significant native Irish population survives, its historic disaffection nurtured by a continuing sense of grievance and injustice.

The settlement patterns of 300 years ago are still largely intact in rural areas, with Presbyterians (28 percent) concentrated to the immediate south and north of Belfast, and Anglicans (23 percent) to the south and west of Northern Ireland. Methodism grew out of Anglicanism, and the distribution of Methodists (5 percent) follows that of the Anglicans.

Roman Catholics are most heavily concentrated in the south, west, and northwest of the province and in Belfast, where they make up about 30 percent of the city’s population. Smaller groups—like Baptists, Congregationalists, Plymouth Brethren, Pentecostals, and Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterians—are found throughout the mainly Protestant areas within about 50 miles of Belfast.

The seventeenth-century settlement was planned by the British Crown to secure the north of Ireland in the hands of loyal Protestants and prevent its exploitation by the Catholic French as a strategic base from which to invade Britain. Just as the late medieval population settlement bore the birthmarks of international religious and political conflict, so 300 years later politics and religion still unite to blight and mar the island. Indeed, when Ireland was divided in 1920, the frontier separating the two parts of the country was drawn around Northern Ireland to encompass the maximum number of Protestants. It is not surprising that Protestantism has been the dominant religious force in the North, and, conversely, that Roman Catholics there have felt themselves to be a precarious minority. Paradoxically, the situation of Catholics in Northern Ireland is mirrored by the minority position of Ulster Protestants in the island as a whole.

Evangelical Christianity in Northern Ireland is numerically quite strong—one estimate puts its numbers at from 60,000 to 100,000. Evangelicals are sparsely represented in the Church of Ireland (Anglican) and receive little support from their church authorities. In Presbyterianism, on the other hand, evangelical numbers and influence have been growing steadily for the last quarter century. Today about 35 percent of the Presbyterian clergy would take a broadly evangelical view. Tracing their roots even beyond the 1859 Revival, most evangelicals are strongly committed to the fundamentals and are tirelessly active in organized Bible study, gospel campaigns, and in the support of overseas missionary work and other traditional forms of evangelical activity.

In many Protestant towns and villages, street meetings are a visible sign of evangelistic vitality, and up to 100,000 children are enrolled in Sunday schools across the province. More novel forms of evangelistic expression are also being developed. These include a Christian film ministry reaching an international market, effective outreach to prisons, and a range of city ministries based on the Belfast YMCA. Charismatics have been gaining in strength and confidence in the last 10 years, too, and have to their credit many attempts to glorify Christ in the midst of conflict.

There are some close links between evangelicalism in North America and Northern Ireland. Christian bookstores throughout Ulster are heavily stocked with literature from the U.S. and Canada. Indeed, the links with North America go back to Dwight L. Moody and his preaching visits to Ulster in the late nineteenth century.

Theologically, the northern Irish brand of evangelical Christianity has always been strongly separatist, polemical, and characterized by denominational jealousies. The Presbyterian and Anglican churches are Reformed in theology and amillenial in their eschatology. Premillenial eschatology, on the other hand, has wide currency among most evangelicals, and in the case of the Plymouth Brethren is usually translated into abstention from political participation. The historic “peace denominations” are represented only by the Quakers, who are generally evangelical in theology. Though few in number, their untiring work for reconciliation between the two communities has won them respect and appreciation from all sides in the conflict.

Evangelicals are drawn for the most part from the middle and lower middle classes, and with a predominantly rural background a generation or two ago, most are socially and politically conservative. There is virtually no tradition of social radicalism among Protestants in Northern Ireland. A major paradox in their world view is that, while they readily and generously give to mission and social concern agencies in the Third World (with some exceptions, mainly among the Methodists), they have been notably indifferent to social inequalities at home.

In the North, despite their numerical strength and the fact that they account for perhaps 20 percent of regular Protestant church-goers, evangelicals, surprisingly, lack theological weight commensurate with their numbers and activity. This may be so because they are minorities in the Presbyterian and Anglican denominations and in Methodism, and they have only occasionally obtained leadership positions in denominational councils. The smaller church groups, Baptists, Brethren, Pentecostals, and Free Presbyterians, are normally thoroughly evangelical. Once again, however, their considerable potential influence is dissipated owing to their separateness. Some evangelicals from different denominations find common focus through organizations like Inter-Varsity, and movements like the YMCA and Keswick. But even then, there is a sense of separateness as their awareness of spiritual unity is diminished by frequent reminders of denominational shibboleths.

The theme of minorities is important in the conflict in Ireland. Protestants are a minority of about 22 percent in population of the island as a whole. And as we have seen, evangelicals often have a greater awareness of their isolation than of their strength. Catholics in Northern Ireland, outnumbered two to one, have every reason to see themselves as a minority. Indeed, in Belfast where Catholics are very heavily outnumbered by Protestants, they have sometimes feared liquidation in a kind of sectarian pogrom. Protestants, on the other hand, often perceive their Catholic neighbors as potentially or actually seditious, committed to the erosion or overthrow of the very constitutional basis upon which Northern Ireland is established.

Fifty years of reciprocal suspicion has meant that until the 1970s most Catholics in Ulster were second-class citizens, as illustrated by their social class and occupational profiles. Mutual suspicion and the fear engendered by mistrust and social precariousness have combined to produce a kind of religious tribalism often found in more traditional societies. To be a Protestant, or a Catholic, in Northern Ireland is not simply a theological fact; it is indicative of a total world view that translates itself into sectarian politics.

Some element of sectarian tension has always been a feature of social life in Belfast and in rural frontier areas. It has frequently erupted into civil disturbance and violence. The last century saw nine such outbursts, and the current “Troubles” are the fourth in the last 80 years. Sadly, therefore, sectarianism is a dominant feature of society in Ulster, a social phenomenon made worse by the educational policies of the Catholic church which, insisting on separate education and a dual system of schools, continues to ensure the social and cultural isolation of Catholic and Protestant children.

Just as the sectarian issue is a dominant feature of social life in Ulster, so the land frontier with the Irish Republic, “the Border” as it is known, is the most important political reality in Ireland today. For the Nationalist movement, for Catholics in Northern Ireland, and hence for the Catholic church, the Border is anathema. It is a symbol of the occupation of part of the island by what they see as a foreign army, an unceasing inspiration to the IRA, outlawed in both parts of Ireland. And neither of the main political parties in Dublin, their histories permanently marked by their civil war in the 1920s over the partitioning of the country, has been able, until recently, to break out of traditional postures toward Northern Ireland. Even today some 600 IRA terrorist suspects, wanted for violent crimes in Northern Ireland, are living in the sanctuary of the Irish Republic, which steadfastly refuses to allow extradition to Britain.

But the Protestant view from Belfast is vastly different. More than any other political institution, “the Border” is sacred. It is regarded as a bulwark against Republicanism and Catholicism. It is seen as a kind of stockade protecting a Protestant fortress. Ultimately most Protestants, evangelical or otherwise, cling to it as their guarantee of freedom of worship and conscience. Many insist that it must be protected at all costs if Ulster’s Protestant and evangelical heritage is to be preserved.

To illustrate the basis for his dogmatism, the Protestant in Ulster will point to the 1937 Constitution of the Irish Republic, which lays claim to the territory of Northern Ireland; denies divorce to Protestants and Catholics; and is the basis of a legal system severely restricting access to contraception by all, Protestants and Catholics alike. Further, he will point to the shrinking Protestant community in the Irish Republic, and to inexorable Catholic policy on inter-faith marriages, which, insisting that children of such marriages be brought up in the Catholic faith, has led over 50 years to a kind of slow genocide of the Protestant population there.

The evangelical will probably refer also to the struggle against enormous odds by new believers in the Irish Republic. Some officers there in the Irish Army were recently forced, on pain of army discipline, to sever all links with Campus Crusade for Christ, the organization responsible for leading them to Christ while at university. Further, in November 1981 a recently formed evangelical church established by born-again Roman Catholics in county Roscommon in the Irish Republic was the focus of national attention after the local Catholic bishop orchestrated a national mass media campaign to pressure its members to return to the Catholic church. These recent illustrations, and many more, would be cited to reinforce the assertion that for much of rural Ireland, religious pluralism is virtually unknown and the parish priest and his bishop are the officers of a monolithic Catholicism that continues to play an almost medieval role in community life.

This is the background against which the hard-line views of Ulster’s one million Protestants must be evaluated. They have an almost paranoid fear of Dublin and its claims over their territory. They bitterly resent being used as a “political football” by American politicians fishing for the Irish vote in the United States. They deeply distrust the British and are convinced that successive London administrations are determined to “sell out” Northern Ireland to Dublin. They see ecumenism as a ploy in the hands of Catholic churchmen determined to erode Protestanism, destroy the gospel, and establish their hegemony over the Protestant people of Ulster. The murderous terrorist campaign of the Provisional IRA, causing death and destruction to the lives and livelihoods of so many Protestants, appears to them to have the covert support of many Catholic clergy and some bishops. Small wonder that Protestantism in Northern Ireland feels under siege.

The political groupings in the North of Ireland that existed to maintain the constitutional link with the British Parliament and Crown are known as Unionist. Unionism has long been synonymous with Protestantism—at least in the sense that for 50 years Unionist parties refused membership to Roman Catholics. And Unionism has always been closely aligned with the Orange Order, a 200-year-old Protestant fraternity with some 1,500 local branches and a membership of about 90,000 (about 32 percent of Northern Ireland’s adult male Protestants). The Orange Order is avowedly religious. It exists to protect and maintain the Protestant faith, and is currently led by Martin Smyth, an evangelical Presbyterian minister. It is not difficult to see that for Catholics living in Northern Ireland, Protestantism and Unionism are closely identified. The gospel of justification by faith and commitment to the authority of Scripture appear to be theological dimensions of an integrated politico-religious world view.

Until 1972, Northern Ireland had its own Parliament; during its 50-year life, the only party in power was the Unionist party. Its permanent majority led to great frustration among the elected representatives of the Catholic population who were politically impotent. Because Catholics were seen as disloyal and in fundamental disagreement with the very basis of the state, they were virtually excluded from executive-level employment in central or local government, and they experienced severe discrimination in employment and in the allocation of state housing. These frustrations boiled over in the late 1960s, when, encouraged by the civil-rights movement in North America, political activists formed the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association to press for equity for Catholics by nonviolent means, and to draw attention to abuses in employment and housing. By 1973, as a result of their efforts major legislation and the setting up of monitoring agencies had eliminated those abuses.

Out of the collision between the civil-rights movement and the Northern Ireland Unionist Administration grew the Provisional IRA, and, in 1972, the abolition of the Belfast Parliament. This led to direct rule by British politicians appointed by the British government. But the aims of the IRA are nothing short of abolition of the Northern Ireland state, and the establishment of a Cuba-style revolutionary socialist republic in Ireland. And in pursuit of those aims, their campaign of indiscriminate murder, violence, and political propaganda continues. During one week in November 1981, the IRA carried out five murders. These included Robert Bradford, an evangelical, who had been a Methodist minister and was a Unionist member of the House of Commons at Westminster. No event in the last five years so infuriated and incensed Protestant opinion in Northern Ireland, and frustration at the ineffective security policy of the London direct-rule administration was at an all-time high. In this atmosphere, the recent accords between the London and Dublin governments, in the view of most Protestants and almost all Unionists, only add political insult to the massive physical injury inflicted by the IRA. It is an attitude epitomized by Ian Paisley when he called British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a “traitor and liar” in the House of Commons.

The security situation and fear of imminent sellout by Britain provide the context in which the role of the Reverend Ian Paisley must be seen. Dr. Paisley (the doctorate is an honorary award from Bob Jones University) is the most powerful politician Ulster has seen for 50 years. He is an elected member of both the British Parliament in London and the European Parliament, as well as being the leader of his Democratic Unionist Party (established in 1971 as the Protestant Unionist Party). He is the head of his own denomination, the fast-growing Free Presbyterian Church, which he founded about 30 years ago.

Paisley is an inveterate opponent of ecumenism, and his first political grouping, established in the mid 1960s, was Ulster Protestant Action, which was established to fight what he saw as a “Romeward trend” in the Presbyterian church. His Martyrs’ Memorial Church in Belfast is probably the largest Protestant church built in Ireland in the past 50 years. It is the stage each week for his strange blend of fundamentalism and excoriation of the British administration in Ulster. His Democratic Unionist Party now has achieved considerable power in local government across Ulster and has made Sunday observance a main plank in its political platform. Accordingly, several towns have been forced to close their sports complexes on Sundays following controversial and highly unpopular decisions. Paisley’s enormous following among the Protestant population is constantly reinforced by his evident compassion for the victims of IRA gunmen, and his weekly schedule often includes attendance at several funerals.

Paisley explains his theology as Reformed. As a preacher he claims a prophetic mandate, and as a politician he believes he wields the magistrate’s sword. Pointing to what he regards as the singular blessing of God on his political career and claiming recently that he spends “more time in prayer than perhaps any other Protestant minister” in Northern Ireland, Paisley is imbued with a conviction and sense of destiny that is reminiscent of a medieval crusader. Certainly his politics and religion intermingle in a perplexing and often frightening manner. His followers include many thousands of ultra right-wing evangelicals and tens of thousands of theologically nondescript Protestants to whom he offers a resolute leadership more notable for what it opposes than for what it affirms.

The emergence in late 1981 of Paisley’s “Third Force” is a particularly menacing development with its claims of nearly 100,000 armed volunteers, many of whom are commanded by ministers in his Free Presbyterian Church. It is remarkable that Paisley—who places such stress on the doctrine of separation when applied to fellow Christians—can without qualm completely set this aside in the political realm. Politically, and among the Protestant paramilitary organizations, he has some strange bedfellows.

Escalating IRA violence is enabling Paisley to consolidate his political leadership, largely at the expense of the more moderate, but poorly led, Official Unionist Party. And his claim that close to half the members of the Third Force are Presbyterians causes alarm in the ranks of the Presbyterian church. As the Belfast Telegraph newspaper recently put it, “The battle is on, not only for the heart of Unionism but also for the soul of Presbyterianism.” Many Protestants, however, find his rhetoric and political opportunism an embarrassment. They are profoundly disquieted by his anti-Catholic stand, feeling that the gospel of Jesus Christ is tainted by association with his provincial politics. Not for nothing has he been called “The unmitred pope of a pope-hating people.”

In recent weeks, there have been signs of a growing cleavage among evangelicals within the Presbyterian tradition, and a number of moderates have called for Christians in Northern Ireland to forsake the political idols of Ulster Protestantism and turn their backs on violence as a means of protecting themselves. Paisley, of course, is only the latest in a line of Protestant Unionist politicians whose aim has been to protect the economic and social advantage of Northern Ireland’s Protestants. How unfortunate it is that the gospel of Jesus Christ is harnessed to such a partisan cause. Certainly the mutual succour of politics and Protestantism in Northern Ireland for almost a century has quarantined evangelical belief within the Protestant population and has contributed to the coming together of Catholicism and Irish Nationalism.

Evangelicals in Northern Ireland are clearly intimately bound up in the conflict there. What is the way forward for them? It would be easy to sit in judgment from afar and mildly tell them what they must do. But that would be offensive and insensitive. The settler ancestors of the one million Protestants of Northern Ireland have occupied their farms and towns for much longer than the average American family has been in the United States.

Ulster’s Protestants value their freedom of worship and conscience as highly as any American. They have a high regard for the rule of law and are indignant and afraid when IRA gunmen seem to strike at will from the sanctuary of the Irish Republic and carry out their frequent murders with terrifying randomness and efficiency. Proud of their British heritage, they are fiercely loyal to the Crown and are determined to repulse every antidemocratic attempt to sever their province from the United Kingdom. How, they might indignantly ask, would Americans react if Mexican terrorists sought to intimidate the population of Texas and remove it from the Union? Would they suggest that U.S. citizens there should be repatriated and that Texas should be handed over despite the democratic wishes of its population?

But evangelicals in Ulster have many lessons to learn from the conflict. Christianity in Ulster needs to be depoliticized. The churches need to become more truly biblical; they must explore and preach what it really means to follow Christ and to love one’s (Catholic) neighbor. They need to learn how to represent Jesus Christ and his gospel in such a way that men and women are free to accept Christ without being expected to buy a package of political and social attitudes. They need to question some aspects of Paisley’s doctrine of the state and his rationale for tying Christians to political commitments. Similar arguments were used to justify the Crusades of the Middle Ages, the Spanish Inquisition, and Cromwell’s theocracy.

We would all do well to remember that the Lord who said to Peter, “put up thy sword into thy sheath,” told Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world, else would my servants fight.” The spiritual history of Ireland, North and South, would have been very different if Christians had chosen the path of peace and had prized loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ over maintaining economic and social advantage. Christians in many countries have yet to learn to heed Peter’s lesson, set out so clearly in his first epistle.

Arthur Williamson teaches at the New University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. His field is social policy. He is coeditor of Violence and Social Services in Northern Ireland (Heineman Educational Books, London, 1978).

Through his financial dealings with the poor, Robert Lavelle tries to stake a Christian claim in people’s lives.

Wander through the Hill District of Pittsburgh. You will see parts of it that look like a slum: an inner-city ghetto. Burned-out and boarded-up buildings testify to businesses that have fled the area for more lucrative locations. Vacant lots reveal the vicious cycle of slum housing: the landlord who quit trying to keep it up, the tenants who gave up, the city inspector who preferred a bribe to real inspection, the drug addicts who moved in after the tenants moved out. Declared unfit for habitation, the house went down under the wrecking ball of the city’s demolition crew. You might witness a corner drug sale if you watch carefully. The numbers runner slips by.

As you continue your wandering in this area, though, you see signs of hope, of growth, and of life instead of death. You come to one of the few bright spots, an attractive building at the corner of Herron and Centre Avenues. It is Lavelle Real Estate and Dwelling House Savings and Loan.

If you are 12 years old, looking for models, you might look to the kingpin of drug sales. But you might also look to Robert R. Lavelle, the bank executive in the nice building who waves to the kids as they walk by, who sometimes finds them jobs, who visits their homes if their parents are among those who are struggling and buying a house with one of the mortgages he provides to poor black families who otherwise cannot obtain credit. The larger banks downtown would think twice before ever offering a mortgage to someone in a slum.

Officially Robert R. Lavelle is executive vice-president and secretary of Dwelling House and president of the real estate company. In practice, as a Christian applying his faith to his work, he has shaped a wide-ranging inner-city ministry, with a special emphasis on economics and housing. The key characteristic of his work is that 80 percent of his bank loans go to people who would be unable to obtain credit from other banks. “We take the person who has had problems with his credit and we try to teach him, and we give a chance to the person who normally isn’t given a chance,” he explains. He does it all in obedience and thankfulness to the One who changed his life at the age of 47.

Lavelle had done good works prior to his conversion to Christ in 1964, but his motives were different then. The son of a Church of God evangelist and a praying Christian mother, he resisted the faith of his parents until his mother’s death helped him see what he was missing in life. She was a semi-invalid after his father’s death, and would gently remind her son that though he treated her well, was a good father to his own two sons and a faithful husband to his wife Adah, he lacked one thing.

“It was the effort to attain goodness on my own strength that led me to become a Christian. I had quit doing all the things you were supposed to quit doing. I had quit smoking. I had quit drinking. I didn’t have to quit running around with other women; I always had only one wife. I guess I was one of those good Pharisees. I did good things,” he recalls, “yet I didn’t have peace, and I wasn’t happy. I couldn’t quite identify it, but it seemed like I wasn’t getting credit for the things I felt I should be getting credit for.”

Lavelle’s capacity to help exploded in the years after his conversion. His savings and loan business attracted Christian support from many who heard his testimony and placed their savings with his organization. His own vision for inner-city ministry expanded as he saw that Christ provided answers to the wide range of problems he grappled with each day as he ran two businesses in a ghetto.

Christ is the answer, he is quick to acknowledge, but that truth must be demonstrated and not merely stated, otherwise the slogan sounds simplistic to those who do not know Christ. “We need somehow to put that in the framework of everyday living and everyday existence. If Christ is the answer, his life shining through me, other people will see the good works that I do and glorify God in heaven. And the only way that Christ can get this glory is by Lavelle making sure that no one gives him credit for whatever it is that might be done that is helping someone else to have a better life. So I have to say that Christ is the answer, but he is the answer as he works through my life, as I acknowledge him as Lord, and as I make sure that others understand that it isn’t me in my strength doing this. If it were me in my strength, I would not be doing it.”

Lavelle carries out this commitment in business primarily by making his skills available to people in need, to people who would be turned away by other lending institutions because they do not have enough income or are a poor risk. Occasionally customers wonder why, and he winds up with an opportunity to share the reason for the hope that is in him.

Lavelle’s location in the heart of the Hill District ghetto is essential for his work, though he has been pressured by federal government regulators and others to move to a “better” location where there are fewer black and poor people. He stubbornly insists on staying where he is surrounded by people in need—“for educational purposes, to teach people,” he says. “Since 85 percent of learning comes from what people see, then you have to be in the community where people can see you. You can’t be in Washington, you can’t be downtown, you can’t be in one of those buildings where there are guards who keep you from getting in unless you sign your name, state your purpose. Here people can walk in.”

Much of his time is spent counseling people, explaining the responsibilities of home ownership to families with low incomes. Sometimes he winds up being an all-purpose social worker as well. “This morning I had a call from a young man who has had a life of dope, prison, problems, alcohol; a veteran,” Lavelle says, thinking of an example. “This young man was always willing to have the benefits of power without paying the price, and that got him into dope and alcohol and a lot of other things.”

He worked with the man several years, sponsoring him for parole after a prison term, providing him with a job, then helping him obtain other jobs. “He was always standing on the fence between his old life and his new life.” Lavelle helped the man buy a home for his family, counseling him when he fell behind on payments. “Each time he falters, each time he’s given a chance to make another start, it seems like there’s a strengthening quality and growth, and each time of positive action is seemingly a little longer than the last time.”

Not all the homes he finances with Dwelling House mortagages require such intense counseling. Others who fall behind on payments may receive an evening or weekend visit from Lavelle for a time of prayer and discussion. What does he say?

“I know you and I know that you have a concern for these children, that you’ve done something for them when you provided this house. We made this loan to you. You signed that you would pay on the first of each month. Now you’re providing them with a house, and that’s fine, and they do need this roof over their heads. But they need something more than that. They need a parent with integrity, who’s going to be an example of honoring his obligations, keeping his word.”

The idea is to appeal to self-respect. Lavelle seldom forecloses on home buyers who fall behind on payments, preferring to counsel and encourage. Thus his delinquency rate is higher than that of most other lending institutions. But his foreclosure rate is lower. “We only have a foreclosure when there is total abandonment,” he says. “I tell a person that if the only thing he has money for is to eat, then I’ll pay the mortgage; but I won’t let one pay for anything except food ahead of the mortgage.”

The impact of Lavelle’s ministry is difficult to measure. Home ownership has increased to 40 percent. But how do you evaluate changed lives? His example is also hard to measure. He stands in the gap, as commanded by the prophet Ezekiel: “We’re here so that these kids—you can see the buses coming now to take the kids home from school—can see a business with all the accouterments of success that they would normally equate only with a drug pusher and a numbers runner and the pimp and the prostitute and the loan shark and the alcohol dispenser and the after-hours spot. They are the only people these kids ever see with the nice car and the good living. It seems like people can’t grasp the fact that if you’re going to help people, you have to be where they are. Wherever the person who needs the help is, that is where you have to be. It’s the Jericho Road story: the man who needed help wasn’t transplanted to the church, to where the priest was going. He needed help where he was.”

For all his efforts to help poor people, though, Lavelle also has a practical, economic side to his character. “I still have to have all the technical knowledge necessary to run these businesses,” he says. “I know about the law of supply and demand, diminishing return, Gresham’s Law—you name it. I know them and I have to observe them. But I’m still saying that we must respond to needs.”

Other lending institutions have noticed this practical side and have invited Lavelle to join them, offering much higher salaries and benefits than he enjoys through Dwelling House and Lavelle Real Estate. He takes an annual salary of $7,400 from Dwelling House. His real estate company salary is $15,000 when the market is good, though he lost money in 1980. Sometimes the temptation to flee to a larger bank beckons. “It would be more comfortable, yes, with all the fringe benefits and all the back-up people and the guarantee of pension and all that. If we get a two-week vacation this year, it will be the first time we have been away for two consecutive weeks in 20 years because we can’t do it. I can’t have any excuse.”

His goal for the Hill District is 90 percent home ownership, which he thinks is the key to many of the problems of the inner city. “When we provide home ownership (equity) to poor and black people, the economics of their areas change from dope, numbers, prostitution, pimps, and loan sharks, to home ownership, good city services, police and garbage collection, quality schools, viable businesses, and jobs,” he says. “Home owners, since they pay the taxes for the school board, can demand quality schools where teachers teach instead of just keeping order. There are no troubled schools where the homes are owned. People demand the right resources.

“Home owners require business in the area. There are no businesses in black communities because there is no home ownership. Then you have jobs from businesses moving in. Kids can learn the system, earn money, and stay out of trouble. Home owners demand the government to be the government. The police protect instead of exploit. The police in this community just want their rakeoff from the dope pushers and the runners and the pimps and the prostitutes. Then you have garbage collection, regular, in a courteous manner, instead of strewn all over the place.”

He is skeptical about the ability of government to accomplish a lot on behalf of poor people, though he adds that some programs have been helpful on a short-term basis. He suggests that the government should put deposits in lending institutions that agree to counsel and help low-income families buy homes, avoiding the creation of a new bureaucracy. The urban affairs committee of the U.S. Savings League has approved the idea in the past, with some debate.

“Many people objected to the idea—the risk,” Lavelle explains. “I replied that our unwillingness to take the risk any longer is the reason government steps in and we get the laws, bureaus, programs that bloat government spending, pay large salaries, and often provide no significant return to the people.”

To reach his goal for widespread home ownership, Lavelle depends on Christians throughout the country who share his vision and keep savings accounts with Dwelling House by mail, some as small as $100. Inflation has discouraged some from joining him because he offers the normal 5½ percent interest rate. He does not try to compete with other lending institutions by offering high-yield certificates because he would not be able to keep mortgage interest rates low enough to give poor people a chance at home ownership.

But he continues to see steady, slow growth in the number of savers (approximately 3,000 now), with $7 million in assets. He is not sure why more Christians do not save with him, considering the interest in recent years among evangelicals in ministry to the inner city. “I think it’s part of the system under which we live,” he speculates. “It’s not possible for people to conceive of a profit-making institution like ours since our society sets up nonprofit organizations and government agencies to perform these services. And they just think that that is how we solve these problems, that we do not get personally involved with them.

“To see a business sharing, caring, and sacrificing so that someone else’s good will comes about without regard to what that might do to the bottom line is just not conceived of as being a practical thing. Therefore, people are able to dismiss it from their minds because they don’t see it as real. Yet they don’t inquire as to the reality of it, nor do they test it to see. It’s easier and more comfortable not to test it, but if they were to test it and see that it is true, they would have to join it or reject it, and they’re not comfortable with either of these options.”

Lavelle faces other obstacles to his goals. Robberies have pushed his insurance rates up. Savings and loans are generally facing economic difficulties, losing more deposits than they are gaining, sometimes merging or turning to the federal government for aid. The troubled list maintained by the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation keeps growing. Somehow Dwelling House continues to thrive.

“How can an institution like Dwelling House with $7 million in assets continue to survive?” he asks. “The answer, as I see it, lies in Acts 5 where Paul and James and John were being beaten in the marketplace, witnessing to Christ Jesus who was crucified and risen and ascended, and forbidden to teach and preach in his name by the Sanhedrin. They said that they must obey God rather than man. Then Gamaliel, the teacher and one of the leaders of the Sanhedrin, said not to put these people to death because, if what they were doing was of God, the Sanhedrin might find it was opposing God himself. If what they were doing was not of God, then it would fall of its own weight.

“That’s really where I feel Dwelling House Savings and Loan and Lavelle Real Estate are. If it is of God, no one will be able to prevail against us. And if what we are doing is not of God, then it will fall of its own weight—and it should, because there is no valid reason for us to exist.”

Russ Pulliam is an editorial writer and columnist for the Indianapolis News, Indiana.

If this boycott fails, network executives will continue their disregard of moral standards on the public airwaves.

Reporters who have been following the activities of Donald Wildmon, chairman of the Coalition for Better Television, have persistently misjudged him. He has been referred to as an “ayatollah of the airwaves” (Newsweek), as a “religious fanatic” (Chicago Sun-Times), and as a censor by just about everybody who doesn’t agree with him.

He is none of the above, of course. The United Methodist Church, in which he ministers, has little of theological substance in agreement with fundamentalism; and Wildmon himself is beating no fundamentalist drum. Rather than fanatically promoting any particular religious view, his doctrine is one of common sense about common decency on television. Judeo-Christian morality undergirds his coalition to be sure, but it is no more than the same morality that has been the cement of Western civilization as a whole. Wildmon is not a censor: he advocates not censorship but economic pressure in the open marketplace. It is the most common strategy known to capitalism.

On March 4, Wildmon called for a boycott of the products of NBC and its parent company, RCA (CT, April 9, p. 74), because, he said, it has refused to stop exploiting sex, violence, and profanity in its television programming. He said the boycott will remain in place until NBC agrees to: downplay drug use; stop portraying alcohol as universally used, and begin showing the real consequence of its overuse; downplay violence, and show its consequences; portray sex from its Judeo-Christian perspective; prohibit the advertising of feminine hygiene products; cease from profanity; treat fairly the merits of the free enterprise system; and show Christianity more realistically.

What made Wildmon’s boycott announcement—and most of his public statements to date—so effective was the absence of diatribe and demagoguery. Much of what he had to say in Washington was merely the quotation of what commentators in the secular news media had themselves already said about the degradation of human values on television. One need not believe in United Methodism, or fundamentalism, or in any religion at all to recognize the common sense of what Wildmon seeks to bring to the public’s attention.

We might have preferred a somewhat different grocery list. We might wish that the coalition’s boycott were directed at advertisers who sponsor degrading programs, rather than at RCA’S retail products and services. We are not so upset with RCA selling television sets as we are with NBC selling moral erosion on television programs. And it seems a shame that the boycott must be directed against the one network whose chairman, Grant Tinker, has had the most sensible things to say about the need to improve television’s taste.

We trust Wildmon and his board considered all this when they determined that a boycott of RCA is the surest and most legitimate way to force the changes they seek. No doubt many evangelicals would feel that a slightly better time and place might have been chosen for a showdown. But it would be a shame if evangelicals who so thoroughly support the moral values for which Wildmon is battling were to drag their feet because of such reservations.

Last year Wildmon threatened a boycott of advertised products. Although he pulled back at the last minute, the impact on networks and advertisers alike was surprisingly strong. Now he has finally cast down the gauntlet. He has called for a boycott and he must produce one. If his threat is empty, network executives will no longer have to regard seriously the complaints from people who would like to see moral standards on television raised. Donald Wildmon has defined this issue clearly, sensibly, and soberly.

Concerned evangelicals ought to take seriously this call to stand against TV promotion of immorality and unbiblical values. Here is an opportunity for those of us who complain to do something about the situation. We believe the boycott deserves our support.

“Nonprofit Postal Privilege”: A Bargain Price

The price of your favorite magazine is going up and up and up. Inflation, of course, hits religious publications like everything else. But new postal rulings threaten to put as many as 10 percent of all nonprofit magazines out of business. Since early in the nineteenth century, the U.S. government has offered reduced postage rates to nonprofit organizations. Originally, the government only charged out-of-pocket costs to handle their mail, but even this minimal charge had fallen far below real costs during the past century and a half.

In 1970, the government began a 16-year program to increase postage rates gradually until nonprofit publications eventually would be paying all such costs. With the budget crunch of 1981, Congress (partly through clerical error, we are told) rolled the last six increases into one, jumping rates immediately to the 1987 level. The result proved to be a devastating blow to the finances of many magazines. Now Congress debates a coup de grace that will require nonprofit publishers not only to pay all out-of-pocket costs, but also a considerable portion of the overhead (e.g., post office buildings). And with increased postage costs come increased subscription rates. Many magazines will not survive.

Should The Government Foot The Bill?

The U.S. government solved this postal dilemma in the past by simply charging nonprofit publications only a part of the total cost of mailing expenses. But should American citizens pay the bill for private nonprofit organizations? Let them foot their own bills.

Not so! the American people have responded. Throughout the entire two centuries of its history, this nation has freely voted to subsidize religious and other nonprofit organizations. Why? Because nonprofit organizations perform services greatly to the advantage of the American people. Such services fall under education (private colleges and universities), public health (cancer or tuberculosis societies), relief of the poor and destitute (World Vision, World Relief), aid to the handicapped (March of Dimes, children’s homes, retirement centers, organizations to assist cerebral palsy victims), political and social causes (Anti-Defamation League, Salvation Army), morals (churches), and minority causes that protect our pluralistic democratic society. Such charitable organizations raise many billions of dollars each year to spend on causes “in furtherance of the national good.” The nonprofit share of the total overhead postal budget for 1983 will be $615 million. Uncle Sam is getting one of the best bargains in his 200 years of government spending; for a pittance, the American people gain benefits and services that otherwise would cost them astronomical amounts of money.

But, some reply, we don’t want that kind of bargain. We would rather pay the bill personally and choose for ourselves what services we want.

Actually, the American people are doing just that. The Constitution does not require the government to subsidize nonprofit postal rates. The American people have voted this subsidy freely because they want these services. They know they are getting a bargain; they believe it is only just to help nonprofit organizations in this way, and they wish to encourage their fellow citizens to give generously to these worthy causes. They know that by such encouragement they will get far more of those benefits than they could ever buy for themselves through taxation. Never could they get so much for so little.

Does The Government Support Religion?

Some, however, object that to secure these benefits, we have to support causes that run contrary to our deepest personal convictions—like religion.

Thank God, so far, at least, the majority of the American people have felt differently about this. From the earliest days of our nation, our people have held that religious convictions are the best support of morals and basic altruism. On the whole, religion in America has brought good to the American people.

Does this mean that our government has directly subsidized particular religions all along? Not really. Our American Constitution is clear that government must not pick out one religion and support it over against any other religion, or even against no religion at all. But if religious groups perform services the American people desire, the government is free even to reimburse them directly for their services. The fact that they perform these services as part of their religions does not make them cease to be services. The government is paying for services it wants, not to support special religious doctrines. So, for example, the government supported GI’s in Christian colleges—not because it wished to support the special doctrines of such colleges, but because it wanted the education they provided for GI’s. It got that education at an unbelievable bargain.

Why, then, should the American government provide postal relief for nonprofit organizations? Because by their services such organizations take an immense burden off the back of the American taxpayer. And quite simply, the American people know a bargain when they see one. Some of these services the government could not buy with any amounts of money.

Our political leaders in the nineteenth century also saw the wisdom and value of providing a wide range of educational and religious reading material to the public at large. They encouraged this dissemination of knowledge for the good of the country by providing minimal postage rates. This important element in the country’s overall welfare has been largely overlooked in the current debates about postage subsidies.

Just as they did 150 years ago, our people today stand in great need of the kind of literature that will inform, inspire, train, and educate. And we believe, once again, our political leaders should recall that same sense of commitment to broad values essential to the health of a democracy. The original decision of our forefathers to provide reduced rates for educational and religious literature distributed through the mail proved to be wise statesmanship.

Nor does this support violate the principle of separation of church and state (properly understood). The American government does not grant its subsidy to foster any specific religion—or even religion over against no religion—but rather as a recognition and an encouragement of services highly prized by the American people. Uncle Sam is getting a great bargain!

Readers may wish to write their Congressman to urge him to vote for support of favorable postage rates for nonprofit organizations.

Psst! Anybody Listening?

Few people today have had the experience of using a party-line telephone—that wonderful institution our grandparents enjoyed. You never said anything over it that you wanted kept secret.

During World War II there were signs in schools, factories, churches, and restaurants: A SLIP OF THE LIP MAY SINK A SHIP. They were a constant reminder that our enemies might be listening, and that a careless conversation could have disastrous consequences. The same is true today. Many of us are sharing a party line with Russian spies who regularly listen in on long-distance phone conversations. Overheard gossip could adversely affect someone in the electronics industry, the space program, or the military.

There is a positive side to this situation. If Russian spies are listening to our phone conversations, we can use the opportunity to give them a message. For example, when you call Aunt Millie or Uncle Jack in Sheboygan, you can discuss how thankful you are to live in a country where men and women are free to travel, to change jobs—and where free speech and a free press are a reality. You could emphasize the fact that Americans admire the Polish people, decry what has happened in Afghanistan, and are well aware of what Russia is doing with yellow rain. Discuss things that will tell the spy that many Americans are morally strong and spiritually committed. If you complain about food prices, be sure you also mention how thankful you are that there is plenty of food on supermarket shelves.

You might want to try a more direct approach: “Hello, Aunt Millie,” and “Hello, Russian. Why don’t you stop eavesdropping?” Or, “Hi, Comrade. Aren’t you glad you’re here in the good ol’ U.S. of A.?” Take advantage of the opportunity to get a spy to read the Bible. Make it a practice to quote chapter and verse in your conversations. Your spy will be puzzling over Bible verses for hours. You might even put together a selection of verses that could send a powerful message into the heart of the Russian spy network in the U.S.

Some vindictive people—not Christians, of course—might start giving special “American” recipes over the phone that, if cooked and eaten, would be guaranteed to put a spy out of commission, or at least “on the run” for a while.

The important thing is to remember that, like it or not, you are on a party line with Russian spies. If you can’t do anything else, you can at least make every effort to bore them.

EUTYCHUS XI

Knee-jerked Vengeance

Does Mr. Marsden seriously believe [“A Law to Limit the Options,” Mar. 19] that the American Civil Liberties Union, which manufactured the Scopes incident in the first place, cares about the various creation models held by evangelicals? Even had the Arkansas law been more inclusive than what Marsden calls the “most conservative of the literal interpretations,” the ACLU would have knee-jerked with precisely the same speed and vengeance. Clearly they don’t care how we present our case, only that we present it at all. The ACLU has demonstrated that it is dedicated to eliminating the few vestiges of Judeo-Christian heritage that remain in American public life. It is inconceivable to me that a Christian would knowingly assist their efforts.

The Arkansas law, though weak at points, offered a broad framework within which creation-science could have been presented. That opportunity is now gone.

TONY LEGRAND

Visalia, Calif.

Evangelicals Unite!

I agree with most of what Richard Neuhaus wrote in his article, “Who, Now, Will Shape the Meaning of America?” [Mar. 19]. Those who count themselves evangelical had better stop arguing among themselves and unite on some moral issues. While they vacilate, the abortionists, pornographers, homosexuals, and evolutionists are persuading our young people that the Bible is an old fogy’s book and there is no God.

E. F. PARTRIDGE

Montgomery, Ill.

Deceptive Allure

“Liberation Theology: European Hopelessness Exposes the Latin Hoax” [Mar. 5] was at best a glaring visual and verbal relapse to tragic and unfortunate days gone by.

One need not be a liberation theologian to recognize the deceptive allure of a flawed attempt to debunk the popular movements in Latin America via Eastern Europe. Theologies of liberation are created within particular revolutionary situations. Latin American liberation theology is understandably Marxist and anti-American. The Eastern European theological expression now emerging is, as it must be, far different. Such is the nature of the theologies of liberation, and though they may be mistaken in whole or in part, we surely do them an injustice if we “expose” one culturally informed theological expression by relying upon events occurring in a totally different historical context.

MICHAEL KNOSP AND DAVID FOUNTAIN

Cambridge, Mass.

I cannot accept either Benjamin’s perception of the relationship of liberation theology to the Polish situation or his general evaluation of the state of affairs in Eastern Europe in general. It is unfortunate he did not reflect upon his material a little more thoroughly before writing.

It is not responsible to talk of queues for food in all Communist countries. Upon my last visit to Hungary, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables were readily available in Budapest, Szekesfehervar, and on Balaton. Fresh oranges were piled high, and coffee was available.

Even in 1979, everyone—Hungarians, Czechs, and East Germans—saw Poland as the poor sister. Then Poles came in huge busloads across the Oder River on shopping sprees in the “oasis” of the East German marketplace.

On the church scene, of course, there are other distinctions. In West Germany the state collects taxes for all but the free churches (Baptist, Methodist, etc.). In East Germany, all the churches have involuntarily become “free” churches and have begun to thrive after substantial adjustments in numbers and methods of operation. In Czechoslovakia, all church buildings are state owned, and all pastors are paid directly by the government—even in the “free” churches. In 1980 they received their first pay increase since the system’s inception in 1949. In Hungary, a combination of state support for the “established” churches and unofficial payments from nebulous church treasuries supports the ministry of the Reformed Church. Others may function differently. In each of these countries, the churches traditionally have played, and continue to play, obviously different roles. Any effort to describe them “monolithically” obscures reality.

REV. JAMES A. DWYER

Sunnycrest United Methodist Church

Marion, Ind.

Wrong Focus

It is disappointing that in reporting on Evangelica’s special issue on the problems surrounding Seventh-day Adventism’s extrabiblical authority [“More Problems for Ellen White,” Mar. 5] the focus was on peripheral matters and completely overlooked the central thrust of Evangelica’s challenge: that Ellen White’s claims of divine revelation should be rejected because (1) her theology denies the New Testament gospel of justification by faith alone on the basis of Christ’s finished work of Atonement, and (2) God has given his full and final revelation in his Son, recorded in the New Testament by the apostolic witnesses. This is the real issue at hand, and if more Christians were aware of it, fewer would become entrapped in Adventism and other quasi-Christian cults of this nature.

ALEXANDER LABRECQUE

Evangelica

St. Joseph, Mich.

Inaccuracies

Your assertion that our research center is one of the “other groups” formed recently to promote the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov emigration is in error [“Siberian 7: A Desperate Situation,” Feb. 5]. The Research Center for Religion and Human Rights in Closed Societies and its publication, Religion in Communist Dominated Areas, have championed over the years the rights of various religious denominations and of many individuals. The bill (S. 312) to grant permanent resident alien status originated in our research center in February, 1980.

Nobody has worked more devotedly for the Siberian Seven and for the bill than Jane Drake of Montgomery, Alabama, the founder of SAVE. It was Mrs. Drake, and not the State Department, who asked former President Carter to telephone the Seven on January 14. The most realistic hope for the Seven is the passage of S. 312 in the near future, which will have an enormous impact on the issue of human rights in the USSR.

REV. AND MRS. BLAHOSLAV S. HRUBÝ

Research Center for Religion and

Human Rights in Closed Societies

New York, N.Y.

Good cover pictures encourage people to read the articles they illustrate. We thought we had a winner in the painting of Uncle Sam on the cover of our March 19 issue. So many have asked who was the Uncle Sam model for that painting that I thought you might be interested in the story behind the picture.

Richard Neuhaus’s speech delivered at the Harvard Club in New York City raised the issue of who will determine the direction of America during the last two decades of the twentieth century. In the recent past, liberal leadership of the mainline denominations has provided that role for our country. Today its leadership is faltering. Who will take its place? If evangelicals (both in and out of the mainline denominations) would work together, they could assume that role and provide guidance and intellectual leadership for our nation during the next generation.

We wished to portray Uncle Sam cutting out the pattern for the future of America, and we wanted a model who not only looked the part but also symbolized in his character the rock-ribbed integrity we covet for our national leaders. I know of no one who fits that image better than Dr. Hudson Armerding, president of Wheaton College (Illinois). We asked him to pose for a photograph in full dress costume. He agreed, and we were happy with the painting. We hope you were, too.

We hope you will read the story of Robert Lavelle in the current issue. This Christian bank executive puts into daily practice what many evangelicals have been urging—the duty of the Christian private sector to come to the assistance of the poor and needy, particularly those hurt in recent federal budget cuts.

A sadder tale stems from Northern Ireland. In this troubled area of the world, concerned Protestants and Roman Catholics alike have felt at a loss for ways to quell the violence. Without glossing over the complexities of the situation, Arthur Williamson tries to sort out the issues and help us understand what keeps this land in turmoil.

Finally, Edwin Olson takes on a highly controversial topic—the evolutionist/creationist debate. We will devote an issue to this topic next fall, but here, Olson tries to define terms and uncover the real questions. If you think the debate among evangelicals appears acrimonious, take a look at secular scientific writers Robert Jastrow and Isaac Asimov. More than anything else, evangelicals need to sort out what are the real issues and determine where their biblical faith is at stake and where only traditional interpretations of Scripture are involved. Until we do so, the debates will continue to generate more heat than light.

Fantasy: A Reader’S Passport To Reality

Fantasy is a world better entered into than understood. It is as varied as cloud shapes on a summer day. As a literary genre, it covers everything from supernatural/horror stories to the low fantasy of sword and sorcery, and from animal fantasy, such as Walter Wangerin’s excellent The Book of the Dun Cow, to high fantasy like that of Tolkien or Lewis.

Good fantasy pulsates with power. It touches a reader’s beliefs, his way of viewing life, his hopes, his dreams, and his faith. In the hands of a careful writer it can drive home spiritual truth as nothing else can. In that light, it is encouraging to see newer writers tackling this form.

Charles Beamer in Lightning in the Bottle (Nelson) and John White in The Iron Sceptre (IVP) have done precisely that, just as Charles Williams did in All Hallows’ Eve (Eerdmans) a generation ago.

Beamer is a former English teacher and educational consultant. The first book in his fantasy series, The Legends of Eorthe, was Magician’s Bane. It was all that a first novel often is: a little too moralizing and a little too imitative. But Lightning in the Bottle strikes a very different and more pleasant note. It reveals a significant amount of artistic growth on Beamer’s part, with moral lessons less preached and more shown. And the story stands more on its own than it does in the shadow of Narnia.

The principal characters are Jodi and Martin Westphall, Eric Vanover, Richard Brogan, and Jon, a mute. These youngsters go to Eorthe, a dimensional twin to Earth, to participate in a conflict between those who seek the King, who is the Lord of Light and the book’s Christ figure, and the forces of darkness, personified in Jabez and Sarx, sorcerer sons of Ingloamin, Lord of Darkness. Although this sounds a bit dualistic, Beamer steers clear of that by making the King the son of Abba, Father of Light and Creator of Eorthe and Earth. Ingloamin is but a created thing of the void.

The children are sent to recover the stolen Lightning in the Bottle, a symbol for the Eorthians of faith in Abba and the King. Their quest is aided or hindered from all sorts of strange sources—a wind god named Win-dor, wolvors, bogloams, and fearsors. The Leohtians, or Light People, are the most original and memorable of the lot.

John white, who is an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Manitoba, is the author of several nonfiction works. His first novel, The Tower of Geburah, unfortunately falls into a category of children’s books enjoyable only to children. The Iron Scepter, however, has less of that limitation as White, like Beamer, shows signs of growth as a novelist—although to a lesser degree. He retains at least two irritating little quirks: he inserts himself into the narrative (just because Lewis did it in Narnia doesn’t make it a good thing to do), and he has chosen inappropriate, or at least illsounding, names: “Anthropos,” a kingdom in White’s fantasy world, whose symbolism is painfully obvious; “Gaal,” pronounced according to the book’s index as “Gahl,” the Christ figure; and “Theophilus Gorgonzola Roquefort de Limburger V,” a flying horse. All of the names aggravate more than illuminate.

Apart from that, the story is agreeably interesting. The children are Kurt, Wesley, and Lisa Friesen, and their cousin, Mary McNabb. The conflict is between Kardia, King of Anthropos, and Mirmah, the Lady of Night and Empress-to-Be of the Darkness that Swallows the World. The resultant story is illuminated by spiritual insight and truth.

It is obvious that parallels to both Narnia and Middle Earth are abundant in both books: children who answer a call to go into another world to battle evil; the involvement of their battle in some kind of epic quest; at least one child who starts “bad” and ends “good”; a villain who stands in the place of a deeper, more evil force; evil that is overcome not by might nor power, but by belief in the book’s Christ figure; and so on.

This is not to say that these books are merely pale imitations of other works. Look, for instance, at the formulas used by detective fiction, romances, thrillers, and some “literary” novels. What counts is the author’s ability to put something unique and living within the formula.

To varying degrees, Beamer and White both have created that unique something within their novels. The books are readable and well worth their price of admission. If they are at times irksome, they are also at times awesome. Each has a good appendix to keep up with names, places, language oddities, and other items of interest. Quite frankly, I look forward to what both these men will produce when they hit their stride.

All Hallows’ Eve is totally different from the Beamer and White novels. For one thing, it is a reprint—long overdue—of a Charles Williams classic. Also, it is horror, not high, fantasy. Its secondary world is not a place of monsters, heroics, and Christ figures, but rather a dismal/glorious (depending on your view) place where one’s true nature reigns supreme. It is the City, a place close in nature to purgatory, and it lies spiritually superimposed on London just after World War II.

Two of the novel’s characters, Lester and Evelyn, are dead. In the City, the inner realities of their earthly lives work themselves out, pointing Lester to ever-higher realms and Evelyn to ever-lower. Entwined in this is Father Simon, a sorcerer, who intends to break the boundaries of the City by sending his illegitimate daughter, Betty, there permanently. The conflict that ensues with its climax on All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween) makes for a highly dramatic novel rife with spiritual imagery. Be sure to read T. S. Eliot’s introduction. It offers valuable insight into both the meaning of All Hallows’ Eve, and Williams as a person.

Reviewed by Larry E. Neagle, a free-lance writer in Fort Worth, Texas.

Like Ships In The Night

Toward a World Theology: Faith and the Comparative History of Religion, by Wilfred Cantwell Smith (Westminster, 1981, 206 pp., $18.95), is reviewed by Bruce Demarest, professor of theology, Denver Seminary, Denver, Colorado.

A Harvard authority on world religions, Wilfred Cantwell Smith, advances a relativistic model of the leading faiths: a Christian is one who participates in the complex of Islamic religious life—and so on. This means, first, that there is no one religion higher than any other, and second, that God is at work in Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic religious history.

Postulating the model of “corporate critical self-consciousness,” Smith insists that religious knowledge involves that which can be personally experienced by all (the subjective pole) and that which can be scientifically analyzed (the objective pole). To avoid provincialism, it is necessary to participate in the consciousness of those of other faiths. For example, one should understand what the temple ritual means to pious Hindus and what fetishism and ancestor worship signify to African traditional religionists. Only then can a person begin to construct a theology that is truly global.

Faith, according to Smith, is a universal quality of human life. Faith is not assent to truths; rather, it is a way of viewing one’s neighbor and the world. Instead of Christian faith or Buddhist faith, one must speak of faith in a generic sense. Since God is at work in all religions, and since faith is a fundamental human quality, Smith concludes that a person is saved by participation in the life of one or another of the world’s religious communities. Thus, God saves Buddhists through the teachings of the Buddha and Hindus through the poetry of the Gita. Smith argues that this generic approach to religion enables modern man to be a compassionate pluralist without being a nihilist, and it offers a viable basis for building a peaceful world order.

The evangelical Christian will disagree with many of the author’s conclusions. Smith argues that as a rational animal, man is capable of securing all truth by application of the scientific method. One finds no acknowledgement of sin or the need for special revelation to impart truths beyond human apprehension. Indeed, Smith does not appeal to a single text of Scripture to support his case.

The Bible, furthermore, never links salvation with mere participation in a religious community. Paul regarded his early life in Judaism (Gal. 1:13–16), and the Thessalonian Christians saw their experience in traditional religion (1 Thess. 1:9–10), as conditions of darkness rather than fight.

Finally, the Christian understanding of God, man, sin, and salvation differs so radically from the Hindu and Buddhist views that the situation is not unlike ships passing in the night. We ought to avoid a narrow provincialism, but when conflicting claims are presented, we must make a choice. If one view offers a coherent explanation for the miraculous works and resurrection of Christ and others fail to do so, the inquirer has good reason to accept the supported view and reject contradictory alternatives.

In sum, Smith’s scholarly study is wanting at crucial points. It does, however, confirm the aphorism, “There is nothing like comparative religions to make a person comparatively religious.”

Using The World Christianly

Bent World: A Christian Response to the Environmental Crisis, by Ron Elsdon, (IVP, 1981, 170 pp., $4.95), is reviewed by Martin LaBar, professor of science, Central Wesleyan College, Central, South Carolina.

Ron Elsdon, according to the cover and contents of Bent World, is an Irish geologist, of some prominence in his profession. He has obviously done a lot of work in writing Bent World, which is thorough, scholarly, and well documented—without being unreadable.

I found the book to be really two books in one. On the one hand, the middle half says essentially nothing about Christianity, but documents present problems of the world. A chapter each is concentrated on metals, energy, cities, and food. These chapters contain a lot of statistics, but unfortunately, these will soon be out of date. Nonetheless, they do present the difficulties in a comprehensive manner.

On the other hand, there is a Christian response to the environmental crisis. The first chapter sketches the environmental views of a diverse group (a commission of the World Council of Churches, the National Evangelical Anglican Congress, Paul Ehrlich, J. R. W. Stott, Lynn White, Jr., and others). The last three chapters, on the effects of sin, the implications of salvation, and what Christians can and should be doing, are the best part of the book. It is difficult to imagine a more thorough use of the Bible in examining our relationship to the environment, and Elsdon has suggested things Christians can do. Especially, he wants us to be Christian in our attitudes toward material things and other people, and to question the status quo. We have not been a peculiar people.

Bent World is more thorough in relating Scripture to the issues than Earthkeeping (Loren Wilkinson, ed., Eerdmans), a book covering similar topics. It is also less expensive, though Earthkeeping is better written and more thorough in examining the historical roots of our attitude towards nature. Both deserve a place on the bookshelves and in the minds of Christians of our time.

Briefly Noted

Spiritual maturity has always been the goal of Christian nurture, even if it is not always attained. It is no different today, and several factors have heightened the push toward clarifying what that means. For instance, there is a new attitude among Christians toward psychology and what it has to offer; we have leisure to think about such things; material possessions have failed to give satisfaction; and the general insecurity of the times forces us inward. From the many (almost too many) books that attempt to show the way, the following selection presents those that have something to offer:

General. Something of an introductory theology of spirituality is The Heart of the World (Crossroad), by Thomas Keating. It is not too deep, but it does go in the right direction. More directive is Toward the Heart of God (Winston), by John Dalrymple, which describes the journey inwards and then out again. It is quite well done and shows the truth of Dag Hammarskjöld’s statement, “The longest journey is the journey inwards.” Transcend (Crossroad), by Morton Kelsey, is a full-blown guide to the spiritual quest that adds valuable insights from psychology (especially Jung). Although its 22 chapters are not woven totally together, it still provides much-needed help.

Three books deal with Christian meditation: Word into Silence (Paulist), by John Main, describes the Christian meditative experience, then offers a 12-step meditative program; Beyond TM (Paulist), by Marilyn M. Helleberg, is along the same line but more psychologically and practically oriented; Alone with God (Bethany Fellowship), by Campbell McAlpine, is a twopart manual covering pre-meditation and meditation from a wholly biblical perspective (Eastern parallels and psychological twists are absent).

Louis Dupré writes a searching, but all-too-brief introduction to mysticism in The Deeper Life (Crossroad). More detailed, but looking decidedly Eastward, is The Mirror Mind (Harper & Row), by William Johnson. This book looks directly at Zen meditation and Christian prayer, allowing them to flow constructively into each other. A collection of the late R. C. Zaehner’s essays is available as The City Within the Heart (Crossroad). The book provokes thought, as one would expect from Professor Zaehner. Paul Tournier’s The Whole Person in a Broken World (Harper & Row) is now available in paperback to help a new generation of seekers.

Navpress offers a nine-booklet set called Studies in Christian Living, covering the whole of Christian life from “Knowing Jesus Christ” (the first booklet) to “Achieving Victory” (the ninth). They are helpful, but sometimes have too little content. The ninth, for example, has 23 virtually blank pages (to be filled in by the reader) out of a total of 32. Although not specifically about spirituality, Gariy Friesen’s Decision Making and the Will of God (Multnomah) ought to be mentioned. It gives helpful guidance on how to discern God’s will and make decisions where there are no clear biblical guidelines. It is wise and careful in its suggestions.

Special Emphasis. Numerous attempts have been made to isolate the key element in spirituality. Sometimes it is overstated, sometimes it is not. The following group of 11 books offers a variety of answers to the question, “How do I become spiritually mature?”

In Living God’s Way (Kregel), F. E. Marsh says prayer is the secret of the spiritual life. There is much practical wisdom offered in support of this idea, but the either/or thrust upon the believer (either self or Christ) ignores the help psychology can give in redeeming rather than abandoning the self. The Promise of Paradox (Ave Maria), by Parker J. Palmer, celebrates the contradictions that are at the heart of human experience. To acknowledge these is to reach a new understanding of what it means to be spiritual, yet human. Bernard J. Tyrrell says healing comes through enlightenment in Christotherapy (Seabury). Using the insights of Frankl, Glasser, Dabrowski, and others, Tyrrell suggests that true spirituality comes from a loving response to the Christ-value, answering our most important prayer: “Lord, that I may understand.”

Dr. Messenger’s Guide to Better Health (Revell), by David L. Messenger, ties physical and spiritual health together in a sensible, down-to-earth way, stressing diet, exercise, and emotion. I might even start jogging myself! John W. Drakeford shows how to have stability when things begin falling apart in The Awesome Power of Healing Thought (Broadman). He uses Paul’s advice in Phil. 4:8 as a starting point: “Think on these things.” Richard J. Foster suggests that simplicity is the answer in Freedom of Simplicity (Harper & Row). This marvelous and helpful book shuns simplistic solutions in favor of simple ones that touch the bedrock of reality. Have You Felt Like Giving Up Lately? (Revell), by David Wilkerson, says it is by not giving up through the power of faith that you may heal your hurts. Donald Deffner sees the inner quest as a search for freedom in Bound to Be Free (Morse Press). Freedom is defined according to what it leaves behind, what it embraces, and what it requires.

Improving Your Serve (Word), by Charles R. Swindoll, develops the theme of selfless living as the essence of Christian servanthood. Tested by Temptation (Kregel), by W. Graham Scroggie, shows how to be fitted for Christian service by understanding properly what temptation is and how to overcome it. Richard J. Nouw suggests that action in our needy world is the key to spirituality in Called to Holy Worldliness (Fortress): we will then be agents of victory.

Personal Statements. Robert C. Girard has written a highly original and personal account of his own struggle toward spirituality in My Weakness: His Strength (Zondervan). It is easy to recognize bits of oneself in what Girard says and to be helped by his suggestions. The Promise of Hope (Abingdon), by William M. Kinnaird, is a collection of short, personal notes that tell of struggle, pain, and victory. Kinnaird’s honesty cannot help but benefit people in similar circumstances. A Cry for Mercy: Prayers from the Genesee (Doubleday), by Henri J. M. Nouwen, contains prayers written during Nouwen’s second stay at a Trappist monastery in upstate New York They are filled with freshness and insight—usual with Nouwen’s works. From another Trappist monastery, this one in Colorado, comes W. Paul Jones’s diary, The Province Beyond the River (Paulist). Its style is reminiscent of Nouwen’s earlier A Genesee Diary, and he, too, writes with insight and spiritual understanding.

The Lutheran tradition has broad, ecumenical application.

Many evangelicals oppose public allegiance to historic documents that pull together the heart of Christian doctrine. Their fear is that these “confessions” take the place of authority in the church that should be held by the Bible alone, not by any human statement. They look with suspicion not so much on the documents themselves (e.g., the Westminster Confession, the Belgic Confession, the Augsburg Confession) as on “confessionalism.”

These are people who think that simply affirming an ancient creed not only does not save anyone, but may actually be a hindrance to conversion. They view these statements of faith as having been powerless to maintain orthodoxy in some large denominations. They see how even Roman Catholic encyclicals and councils permit a high level of doctrinal tolerance and change.

But deep down, this evangelical antipathy to confessions rests on the firm belief that no one human document can do justice to the Bible. Paradoxically, many evangelical institutions and organizations try to guarantee their orthodoxy by requiring annual subscriptions to statements of faith that are interdenominational “confessions.”

As an evangelical Lutheran, I want to defend the value of our confessions and show why it is important that Lutheran clergymen subscribe to them at their ordination.

Lutherans see their confessions as statements of the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Unlike the Catholic understanding, the Lutheran view does not recognize doctrinal development. Rather, Lutherans look to a single core of confessions. One confession expands upon another, but it is not an addition. All confessions derive their authority from the Bible, and thus, Lutherans look at their confessional allegiance as biblical.

They do no more than Peter did when he confessed that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, God’s Son. One who subscribes to a historic confession of faith acknowledges the Bible as the source of the church’s teaching. These confessions show that one strand of truth stretches from the original apostolic witness to the church today.

Three ancient creeds comprise the heart of the Lutheran confessions: the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian. The first two were probably constructed from forms already in use in apostolic times. When a Christian affirms allegiance to these creeds, it is far more than a contractual agreement. As part of the liturgy, they are essential to the believer’s devotional life. That is why Martin Luther wanted the Apostles’ Creed recited eight times a day!

Lutherans also recognize documents from the sixteenth century as authoritative expressions of the apostolic faith: Luther’s Small and Large Catechisms (1529), the Augsburg Confession (1530), the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531), the Smalcald Articles and the Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope (1537), the Formula of Concord (1577), and the Preface to the Book of Concord (1580), a collection of these documents.

Melanchthon’s Augsburg Confession, a guideline for many non-Lutherans as well, is the centerpiece of these confessions. When its four-hundred-fiftieth anniversary was observed in 1980, it appeared that the “ecumenical parousia” was going to materialize. The most intriguing response came from Rome where it was hinted that the Pope might recognize the Augsburg Confession.

More fuel for the ecumenical fires was provided by Vincent Pfnür’s discovery that Melanchthon and Eck in fact came very close to agreement during some behind-the-scenes negotiations in the summer of 1530 at Augsburg. Eck, who later refuted the document, apparently agreed with Melanchthon on all but 2 of the first 19 articles. Pfnür, a Catholic theologian at the University of Münster, implied that Catholics and Protestants had therefore unfortunately and unnecessarily been separated for four-and-a-half centuries.

The anniversary also brought reminders that Calvin himself had subscribed to a later edition of the Augsburg Confession (1540). But overlooked was the fact that this edition minimized the characteristic Lutheran understanding of the real presence in the Lord’s Supper.

So, the ecumenical possibilities in 1980 came to nought. Regardless, Lutherans have never understood the confession as an isolated document anyway, but rather one fleshed out by the other sixteenth-century statements. These subsequent documents in fact circumscribe the ecumenical possibilities of Augsburg. For example, Melanchthon in his Apology to the Augsburg Confession rendered rapprochement with Catholicism impossible by insisting on the total moral depravity of man and justification as God’s activity in Christ alone, excluding all human contribution. While resembling Catholics in baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the Lutherans did not endorse the transubstantiation theory. In his Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope, Melanchthon rejected the papacy as a divine institution, but affirmed the validity of the ordained clergy and of bishops as spiritual but not secular leaders.

Luther himself wrote three confessions. His “Small Catechism” is a compendium of doctrine, widely recognized for its brevity, clarity, simplicity, and profundity. He prepared it originally for poorly educated priests, to explain the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Lutherans now use it for family devotions and to prepare for Communion. The “Large Catechism” includes Luther’s sermons for priests who had little Bible knowledge and lacked preaching skills.

It is in the Smalcald Articles, however, that Luther’s real thunder sounds forth. He covers basic doctrine, but also attacks the Mass, false repentance, and the pope as the Antichrist. While Catholics are aware of these barbs, some ecumenically minded Lutherans are embarrassed by them. Lutherans do not see these confessions in a narrow denominational sense. They consider them to be statements applying to the church at large, because they are based on the pre-Reformation church fathers. They are restatements of the Apostles’ Creed demanded by the Reformation.

Lutherans do not put the confessions on a par with the Bible, but repudiate this kind of “confessionalism.” They do not replace biblical faith with a sixteenth-century version. The Bible is central and the sola Scriptura principle obtains for Lutherans just as much as for other Protestants. In matters of conversion and instruction for church membership, doctrines must be demonstrated from the Bible. Because Lutherans understand the confessions to be doctrinally derived from the Bible, they accept them as a basis for church teaching. They never insist that we must first accept the confessions without examining the biblical evidence for their correctness.

Of course, the writers of the confessions never intended to put the church into an exegetical straitjacket. But they did intend to say that the doctrine revealed through the prophets and apostles remains true and valid for Christians until Jesus comes again. Strictly speaking, no new doctrines have been revealed since the apostles. The confessions were intended to be not only biblical and apostolic, but also catholic—one faith for all times.

To confess these confessions publicly was costly for the Lutherans. They had to be willing to stake their lives on them. Within a generation of Augsburg some of the princes who signed it lost their thrones. They committed themselves to something far more significant than a political ploy to break the back of Rome. They saw themselves as standing before Jesus as Judge on the Last Day.

By placing their fives and fortunes on the fine they proved that they believed the confessions to be more than theological theories. They believed they were divine truth.

Confessions abbreviate, but they also preserve, the apostolic faith. They are not a postapostolic phenomenon, but are rooted in the practices of the apostles and the early Christians. Saint Paul observed that the Lord Jesus Christ himself made the good confession before Pontius Pilate. Paul’s son in the faith, Timothy, did the same before many witnesses (1 Tim. 6:12–13). Lutherans maintain this tradition.

Dr. Scaer is professor of systematic theology at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

When i stepped out of seminary three years ago, I was ready to win the world for Christ. All I wanted was a church to preach in and a congregation that could be easily managed, leaving me lots of time to study. That is exactly what I got. I also got a $20,000 salary with excellent fringe benefits, a home of my own, two cars, two children, and a congregation that loves me.

By any stretch of the imagination I should be quite content. But I’m not. I considered possible solutions to my restlessness and lack of satisfaction, and found they fell under three general headings: the church and the denomination, professional goals, and Christ’s basic call. Each has much to offer, and it would be helpful if all ministers put them on the table occasionally.

From the standpoint of the church, I could recognize what an ideal situation I am in. My parish area population exceeds 25,000, and there are fewer than two dozen churches. The growth potential is tremendous. This church, with a lot of planning and hard work, could become one of the largest and best-financed in the Midwest. Since church growth is the new measure for pastoral success, and if in 10 years I am pastoring this church with over 2,000 members, who is to say I could not become one of America’s great preachers?

Or, I could move to a larger church. This is instant success. If I were not any good, why would a larger church call me? The logic is impeccable. I have been groomed by both seminary and society to move up the corporate ladder—so why shouldn’t I do just that? Also, I would not have to do all the calling required to grow a church from “scratch.” And I would get a nice raise in salary.

Denominational work also looks attractive. There are often excellent opportunities available to advance within the structure. Once a person moves from the pastorate to denominational employment, everyone assumes him to be an expert in his field and so he is in demand in all the churches, not just one. In fact, becoming involved on the denominational level must be more within the Great Commission since the influence I could have would extend far beyond the boundaries of the local congregation. I would be going into “Samaria and the uttermost parts.” Surely that accomplishment would give me the contentment I am seeking.

There is another side to the picture, however. The solution to my problem might also involve professional goals and aspirations. Perhaps I could go back to school, at least on a part-time basis at a nearby seminary. Or I could move to a campus for advanced studies. Obviously, no one succeeds without a doctoral degree. It is a prerequisite for being pastor of a “super” church. Receiving that degree would certainly give me a deep sense of personal accomplishment and acclaim. I would then be recognized as an expert. In addition to the title of “doctor,” the work and the sacrifices would surely earn me at least three extra stars in my crown in heaven.

But none of these options guarantees me a rewarding, enriching, and fulfilling career as a minister of Jesus Christ. What are my alternatives through him? What would Jesus have to do with me—a suburbanized, comfortable, slightly overweight, overeducated, underexperienced pastor with a too-high estimate of himself?

Answers come quickly, but implementation is not easy. One answer is: “If you would be perfect [or complete], go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” I don’t even want to preach on the rich young ruler again because he is too much like me. Hearing that answer causes me to go away sorrowful. It hurts!

It is extremely difficult not to trust in things. I don’t know what I would do if I did not have all those beautiful books on my shelf (for people to “ooh” and “ahh” over). I need them for study and to prepare sermons.

I have worked too long for my house. It is not big, but it is the only thing I have of any real value. Besides, where would my family and I live? Don’t give me any lip about lilies and foxes—they get wet when it rains! Anyway, I give to the poor by tithing to the church.

But is there another way for me besides following a specific command of the Lord? The painful answer comes all too quickly: “I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you.” I could live as he lived, or at least with the same motives he had. This also raises a problem. Since my denomination says this command does not mean we must observe foot washing, then it must refer to Jesus’ total lifestyle.

It is here that my confession really begins. I am not sure I want to be like that. Platitudes are nice, but to give careful consideration to the consequences of living a life totally committed to preaching the gospel to the poor, proclaiming release to the captives, giving sight to the blind, setting free those who are downtrodden, and proclaiming the favorable year of the Lord is downright frightening. The only place a lifestyle like that leads is to a cross. And I am not quite ready to face a cross with “not my will but thine be done.” Why can’t I just stay comfortable? Why can’t I just live out my life in parish maintenance? Why can’t I be mediocre, colorless, yet happy and contented?

The answer, again, is very simple, yet hard to hear: Jesus wants me to take up my cross and follow him. And if I take it up, I must be willing to be crucified on it. I must follow my Savior wherever he leads. I know I shall never be free until I go his way willingly. I know, I know, I know!

But I don’t want to change; and that is my confession. (I am sure there are many other pastors who feel as I do.) My prayer then becomes: “Lord, give me the desire to follow you joyfully, so that I will never walk away sorrowfully.”

Mr. Sennett is pastor of the Dublin Baptist Church, Dublin, Ohio.

I think that this experience you are having of losing your faith … in the long run belongs to faith; or at least it can belong to faith if it is still valuable to you, and it must be or you would not have written me about this.”

A pastor writing to a young parishioner away at college? Not at all. Instead, the opening sentence of a letter sent by fiction writer Flannery O’Connor to a young poet who wrote to her expressing his faith struggles. Her letter to him is one among hundreds contained in The Habit of Being, a collection of O’Connor’s correspondence from 1948 to 1964, the year of her early death.

O’Connor’s career was complicated by her struggle with lupus, the debilitating disease that eventually killed her. In her letters she wrote about its effects with honesty and self-deprecating humor: “I’m informed that it’s crutches for me from now on.… I will henceforth be a structure with flying buttresses.” The courageous encounter with illness manifested in her letters is reason enough to read the book.

Her letters are anything but dull. Restricted from extensive travel because of her illness, O’Connor’s lively correspondence sustained friendships that became increasingly important to her. Editor Sally Fitzgerald notes that the letters offer a “self-portrait in words.”

Unapologetically Roman Catholic, O’Connor was by no means provincial in matters of faith. She constantly fought against being cast in the role of apologist for the church in her fiction. To novelist friend John Hawkes she wrote: “People are always asking me if I am a Catholic writer and I am afraid that I sometimes say no and sometimes say yes, depending on who the visitor is.” Her special province as a writer, she believed, was grace. And she shared Bonhoeffer’s abhorrence of “cheap grace.” She noted that her later stories concerned themselves with “the presentation of love and charity or better call it grace, as love suggests tenderness, whereas grace can be violent.…”

The Habit of Being will delight even readers unfamiliar with O’Connor’s fiction. Her letters reveal a keen sense of the absurd and an appreciation of the caprices of human personality. Whether describing the farm help, her neighbors, or visitors to her home, O’Connor demonstrated an unerring ability to spot the comic in human affairs. She told of a man who phoned and announced, “I have written a novel,” and asked if he could come and discuss publication possibilities. Though O’Connor had “never heard of him but that is not unusual,” she consented. He turned out to be “87 years old with a wife about 40 who calls him ‘sweetheart.’ He is writing a book about ‘a modern woman.’ My mother asked what was a modern woman. ‘One without scruples,’ he says.”

Although O’Connor had justifiable confidence in her talent, she confided doubts and dry spells to her friends. She sent the best critics among them drafts of her work, inviting serious review and suggestions for improvement. Once she had finished a story or novel to her satisfaction, however, she was ready to take on all comers. At first puzzled, she was finally resigned to the fact that many critics found her fiction depressing. One reviewer faulted her novel The Violent Bear It Away for not offering the reader courage and hope. Commenting, O’Connor wondered why he had settled on those two virtues. Why not include as well charity, peace, patience, joy, benignity, long-suffering, and fear of the Lord?

O’Connor believed it was unfair for readers who knew she was a Christian to expect her work to be full of sweetness and light, and wished her critics would stop demanding her novels to provide gifts that only faith can give. She recognized that the medium of grace is often “the imperfect, purely human, and even hypocritical,” and that it was not only possible, but extremely likely, that people will turn their backs on grace. Though she believed that at its roots, grace meant “healing,” she was concerned that many modern believers romanticized the work of grace. “This notion that grace is healing omits the fact that before it heals, it cuts with the sword Christ said he came to bring.”

She had even less tolerance for interpretations of her fiction that made what were to her ridiculous attempts to uncover deeply symbolic meanings in every phrase. She insisted that her intention was chiefly to tell a story and to tell it well. Sometimes she resorted to devastating humor to make her point. A young teacher once asked why the hat of one of her characters was black. She replied that most countrymen in Georgia wore black hats. “He looked pretty disappointed. Then he said, ‘Miss O’Connor, the Misfit represents Christ, does he not?’ ‘He does not,’ I said. He looked crushed. ‘Well, Miss O’Connor,’ he said, ‘what is the significance of the Misfit’s hat?’ I said it was to cover his head; and after that he left me alone.”

In her letters, O’Connor could be more direct about her convictions than in her other writings. These convictions were deeply felt and strongly affirmed, perhaps never so powerfully as in a letter to a fellow writer, discouraged because of criticism. While the words apply to writing, they are relevant to anyone who believes vocation is, at heart, a faith matter:

“No matter how just the criticism, any criticism at all which depresses you to the extent that you feel you cannot write anything is from the Devil and to subject yourself to it is … sin. In you the talent is there and you are expected to use it. Whether the work itself is completely successful, or whether you get any worldly success out of it, is a matter of no concern to you.… The human comes before art. You do not write the best you can for the sake of art but for the sake of returning your talent increased to the invisible God to use or not to use as he sees fit. Resignation to the will of God … means that you leave the outcome out of your personal considerations.”

There can be no doubt that in Flannery O’Connor’s case, a “talent increased” was returned to her Creator.

Mr. Gibble is associate pastor of the Ridgeway Community Church of the Brethren, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Cinema

WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY?

Screenplay by Brian Clark and Reginald Rose; directed by John Badham.

Ken Harrison is a talented sculptor whose dream dies hard—with the sickening crunch of metal and glass as his car jams underneath a carelessly driven truck. The story of Whose Life Is It Anyway? proceeds six months later when the artist, still hospitalized, learns he will never again use his legs, arms, or hands. A quadraplegic, he considers himself no more than “an object that has to be taken care of the rest of my life.” In clear and rational mind, Harrison the sculptor wants to leave the hospital and die.

This forthrightly polemic film takes the despairing sculptor’s side of the argument. Richard Dreyfuss, as the broken Harrison, turns in another first-rate performance. He is pitted against John Cassevetes, who portrays a physician totally (and blindly) committed to his Hippocratic Oath.

Whose Life is a provocative film, rendering a disturbing statement with cogent logic and emotional intensity. Oddly, it is also an entertaining movie. Dreyfuss’s character is, as Cassevetes puts it, an “intelligent, articulate, wonderful person,” brimming with vitality and humor.

As an artist, the sculptor should know the value of the immaterial and nonutilitarian. Love cannot be molded with fingers like the sculptor’s clay, or hope caught in a museum’s glass box. These things of the heart and soul and beyond the five physical senses of crippled (or healthy) bodies. They are also useless. They exist for their own sake, outside any question of their utility. We grow to love the Dreyfuss character because he exemplifies many of these noble human traits. His courageous determination to die inspires a stubborn urge to live. Though Harrison’s body may indeed be useless, this indomitable man still has much to offer us.

So it is that this motion picture, in spite of itself, delivers a persuasive apologetic for life—even life under terrible and grievous circumstances.

A final note: although this film has no specific Christian message, it ably demonstrates how intangibles like ideas and convictions can be made compelling. One hopes Christian film makers will take it as an object lesson.

RODNEY CLAPP