Page 4372 – Christianity Today (2024)

The man who succeeds Pope John Paul II as leader of the world’s biggest church must neither “polarize” nor “divide” the church, according to one of the world’s leading Catholic theologians.

In an exclusive interview with Ecumenical News International (ENI) during the Third Parliament of the World’s Religions (PWR), which is taking place in Cape Town until December 8, Hans Kung, a prominent Catholic theologian and philosopher, shared his vision of the next pontiff.

Although Kung did not directly criticize Pope John Paul, he suggested that the successor to the current pontiff would need to have a very different personality. “He should be a pope who is not polarizing and dividing the church, who is not presenting a contradictory position between his foreign policy for human rights and justice on the one hand and [on the other hand] a domestic policy [within the church] which suppresses human rights and justice.

“We want a pope more on the line of Pope John XXIII who is not hindering reforms but who is leading those reforms we sorely need,” a reference to John XXIII’s convening the Second Vatican Council after becoming pope in 1958; the council led to a major reform of the Catholic Church.

In particular, Kung said, the Catholic Church needed to tackle the problems of sexual morality, “especially this impossible encyclical Humanae Vitae [a papal document forbidding Catholics from using contraceptives] and celibacy [according to which Catholic priests may not marry] which deprives our parishes more and more of priests and is leading the church into a rather catastrophic situation.”

Kung welcomed a recent agreement between the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation on the doctrine of justification, one of the main points at issue between the two traditions since the time of the Reformation.

In his doctoral dissertation, which was published in 1957 and which compared the Protestant understanding of justification with the Catholic tradition, Kung concluded that the doctrine of justification could not be a reason for the continuing separation of the Catholic Church from the churches of the Reformation.

“Forty years ago, I said that a mutual understanding between Lutherans and Catholics was possible. It took the church four decades to realize that,” Kung said in his interview with ENI.

The Swiss professor, whose license to teach theology at Catholic theology faculties was revoked by Rome in 1979 for his unorthodox thinking and views on issues that include papal infallibility and contraception, added: “I am happy that my views on justification have finally been accepted as correct. I hope to be justified and confirmed [by the Catholic Church] also in other issues.”

Today, Kung is president of the Global Ethic Foundation in Tubingen, Germany. He was the author of the draft for the Declaration towards a Global Ethic, the document of the previous PWR that took place in Chicago, United States, in 1993. Kung spoke to ENI immediately after a lecture on a global ethic as part of the PWR program.

A global “ethic,” he said, was a minimum of common values and attitudes, which could be affirmed by all religions, and be supported by non-believers.

This was important today, where societies found themselves in a crisis of orientation as a consequence of globalization, liberalization and secularization.

However, Kung warned against moralizing.

“Moralizers make morality the sole criterion for human action. It is especially not allowed to exploit moral arguments for your own institution, especially as happens in churches or so-called Christian democratic parties who use moral arguments simply to justify their own interest group.”

Kung criticized “this kind of moralism” within his own church.

“I do not want to criticize the Vatican and a certain person there, but this stance against the pill, for a religious position in the abortion issue, or defamation of hom*osexuals, everything that was said against women, especially the ordination of womenﾗall this has caused great damage to morality. It is the wrong kind of moralizing.”

Christians did, of course, have to take a stance on certain issues, “but you cannot solve these problems by issuing a declaration to find consensus.”

“I am sure that the next pope will no longer be able to maintain opposition against the pill, the ordination of women and all the other divisive issues,” he said.

Related Elsewhere

See our earlier coverage of the Parliament of the World’s Religions:

“Help Us Develop Our Souls, Mandela Tells World Religious Leaders | Former South Africa president awarded by Parliament of the World’s Religions” (Dec. 8)

“First United Nations ‘Spiritual Summit’ Planned | 1,000 of world’s spiritual leaders to meet in August 2000″ (Dec. 8)

“Goodbye, Dalai | China Pressures South Africa President To Refuse Meeting With Dalai Lama” (Dec. 2)

The Parliament of the World’s Religions South Africa site has a program of the meeting and daily highlights.

Joan Brown Campbell, the retiring general secretary of the National Council of Churches in the United States (NCC), remains optimistic about the future of the NCC despite what has been, by all accounts, an extremely difficult year for the nation’s biggest ecumenical agency.

In an interview with ENI about her nine-year tenure as general secretary, Campbell, 68, acknowledged that the council’s much-publicized financial problems remain a serious challenge.

But Campbell, an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and former director of the US office of the World Council of Churches, defended her tenure as a time in which the council had faced up to a long history of financial difficulties.

The council’s problems include widely-criticized financial management systems and a deficit reaching almost US$4 million. Major restructuring is planned in order to close the deficit and solve the financial problems.

The NCC’s financial troubles largely dominated headlines about the agency’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations last month, particularly when the United Methodist Church temporarily suspended its financial support of the council in October.

“Unfortunately, that [the financial crisis] became the story of the fiftieth,” Campbell said, adding that she expected the UMC suspension to be lifted, and noting that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) had recently pledged $300 000 to help the NCC cover its deficit.

“A businessman would say a $4 million deficit in a budget of $70 million is not high tragedy,” Campbell told ENI, but added that “there was enough blame to go around” about the council’s financial problems, and that she was not sparing herself from any criticism. “It’s equally well-shared,” she said.

Campbell noted that her tenure was “bracketed” by two suspensions—at the end by the United Methodists over the issue of finances and, in the beginning, from 1991-93, by the US Orthodox churches, which were unhappy with a number of NCC policies and public pronouncements. Campbell was widely credited for improving relations with the Orthodox churches, as well as with the predominantly black denominations among the NCC’s members.

Still, many of those unhappy with the state of the NCC during Campbell’s period of office have been within, rather than outside, the US ecumenical movement. United Methodist Bishop Roy Sano of Los Angeles, for example, recently told the Los Angeles Times that Robert Edgar, an ordained Methodist minister who will succeed Campbell as NCC General Secretary in January, was “going to an institution that is such a mess, some people think we should close it down.”

Campbell said it was possible that her efforts to make the black and Orthodox churches “feel at home” may have contributed to a feeling among the bigger mainline Protestant denominations—the council’s biggest financial backers—that their influence within the NCC was waning somewhat.

But Campbell said that the large US mainline Protestant churches might be nostalgic for an earlier time when they represented “the churches of the predominant [US] culture,” which was overwhelmingly white and Protestant.

“The hegemony of the mainline churches is over,” Campbell said, referring to an increasingly diverse religious, cultural and ethnic arena in the United States. “But they’re still reluctant to give that up. And it’s not the fault of the churches themselves. It’s embedded in the culture.”

While celebrating the diversity of the 35-member NCC, Campbell said some of the council’s problems were endemic to Protestant-based organizations in general.

“Protestants are not big on authority, and that plays out here,” she said, noting that the NCC had some 200 internal committees, resulting “in too many centers of power and control.” It also meant, she said, that “the [NCC] general secretary has responsibility but not commensurate authority.”

Asked what continued relevance the NCC had in a time when ecumenism was now largely taken for granted locally in the United States, Campbell said that was a question only NCC-member denominations could answer. “Do the churches want national councils? Are they necessary?” she said. “I would say they are, particularly on issues of national policy. The churches are strengthened when they speak together.”

When asked if she felt she had been judged by a double standard because she was the council’s first ordained female general secretary, Campbell said it was true that the most persistent criticism of her tenure—that she was not a good manager—was one commonly made against many women executives.

But, recalling her farewell speech at the NCC general assembly, Campbell said the NCC had proved it could treat an ordained woman “with real equality.” The NCC had viewed her as strong enough to “take any and all criticism”; she had not been patronized; and was “never done any favors” because of her sex.

Campbell said the highlights of her tenure included:

1. The decision by the Orthodox churches to reaffirm their commitment to the NCC and the US ecumenical movement;
2. Improving relations with the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC), a predominantly gay and lesbian denomination, even though the MCC has not been admitted into the NCC;
3. The NCC’s work in helping rebuild predominantly black churches during a series of arson attacks earlier this decade;
4. The mission earlier this year by Campbell, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and an ecumenical delegation to secure the release of three US prisoners held by the Serbian government.

However, Campbell added that the high-profile moments are not necessarily the ones she would savor or remember the most. She recalled there were numerous times “away from the cameras” when religious leaders and others were “able to transcend their differences, find common humanity, and cross some divides that normally aren’t crossed.”

Campbell’s retirement from the NCC finds her taking up a new position, as director of religion at the Chautauqua Institute, a New York state summer educational program. She hopes to attract a more racially and culturally diverse pool of preachers and lecturers.

Campbell said the new position played to her strengths. “At heart,” she said, “I’m an educator.”

Chris Herlinger is ENI’s United States correspondent and information officer for the Church World Service (CWS) Emergency Response office.

Copyright © 1999 Ecumenical News International.

Related Elsewhere

See “NCC to undergo major restructuring to solve financial woes | Newly elected secretary faces an organization with a $4 million shortfall” (Nov. 18)

Read more about the National Council of Churches’ fiftieth anniversary at its Web site.

Bush and Gore out-Jimmy-Carter each other in US News

“We haven’t seen anything like this since William Jennings Bryan,” religion and politics quotemeister John Green tells U.S. News in its December 6 issue. No, he’s not referring to Bryan’s role in the early Evolution Wars—the most likely reason you’ll hear Bryan’s name invoked these days—but for his 1896 presidential campaign. “It’s been generations since so many politicians have talked so much about Jesus—and their personal relationship with him,” writer Franklin Foer begins his article, “Running on Their Faith.”

There’s surprisingly little media cynicism here. “When candidates make public displays of religion, a common reflex is skepticism: American politicians have always found votes in church. But with the governor and vice president [Bush and Gore], there is evidence of devotion,” Foer writes. “There is a bigger point than piety here. For both frontrunners, their political agendas are bound to their religious agendas.”

Foer describes how Gore’s spiritual background—a mix of conservative Baptist revivalism bred in his youth and undergraduate days and “Protestant ultraliberalism” learned at Vanderbilt Divinity School—results in a social justice-oriented campaign that’s supportive of faith-based charities and even teaching creationism in schools. Bush, on the other hand, “is the first major politician to emerge from the new milieu of suburban megachurches.” His ideas on racial reconciliation and his embrace of self-help theories are straight out of Promise Keepers. (Extended interviews with Bush and Gore on faith are posted exclusively on the U.S. News Web site.)

Though he never comes out and says it, Foer’s main argument is how, despite all the warnings about religious extremism, Gore and Bush both owe their moderate streaks to their deeply held faith. The candidates who are more vocal about their faith aren’t mentioned, but those who aren’t saying much of anything—Bill Bradley and John McCain—are discussed and given a sidebar. Especially interesting is Foer’s take on the silence of Bradley, once very well known for his faith. “Liberal activists—with the notable exception of African-Americans—tend toward the secular side of the spectrum. Bradley has subtly played to these voters, emphasizing that religion is private business.” As Foer quotes one Bradley aide, “There’s still a sizable segment of our party that isn’t comfortable with politicians who wear Jesus on their sleeves.”

Bradley backslides his way to the White House

Bradley’s silence—and apparent renunciation of the orthodox Christianity of his teens and 20s—is also the subject of “Unborn Again Bill Bradley,” in the December 1999/January 2000 issue of The American Spectator. The article, by Paul Sperry, is a mirror of the kind that sometimes appear in the gay press, “outing” some politician or public figure who’s deemed not supportive enough of the hom*osexual movement. Only this time, it’s a conservative magazine outing a candidate for being a closet evangelical: “The younger Bradley wasn’t just religious in the sense of going to church on Sundays and saying grace before supper. He was an evangelical. A full-fledged member of the Religious Right. A true believer.” The article pulls out the evidence: Bradley’s participation in a Billy Graham crusade in London, his teaching Sunday school during his Princeton days, his boostering of Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA), his bestselling evangelistic tract for the American Tract Society (selling 300,000 copies). In light of this, recent statements are just plain weird. A campaign aide now says Bradley was never a born-again Christian. And he’s apparently become a utilitarian universalist: “People everywhere in the world seem more than ever to yearn for inner peace, a oneness with themselves an their world,” Sperry quotes Bradley as writing. “Christianity offers one way to achieve it; Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Confucianism, Hinduism offer others.” Now Bradley puts “accepted” Christ and “converted” to Christianity in quotes—”as if to say: Those are their terms,” Sperry notes. Bradley claims that he walked away from “the absolutism of fundamentalists” during the civil rights struggle, particularly when hearing an Oxford minister defending white Rhodesian power. Sperry finds the story “a convenient and noble ending to what, in the worldly eyes of many of his backers, could be construed as an ignoble chapter in his life.” The article tells a sad story of an evangelist’s walk away from the faith (though FCA founder Don McClanen still thinks Bradley might secretly be one), but left unanswered are some political questions, such as whether evangelical voters should be concerned about a consciously ex-evangelical in the White House.

Rolling Stone kicks the Christian Coalition when it’s down, then gets nicey-nice

If U.S. News sees George W. Bush as the harbinger of a new spiritual openness among politicians, the view eludes Rolling Stone. In “Whimpers on the Right,” an article in the November 25 issue about the state of the Christian Coalition, Bush comes off as the candidate “who chooses not to play the pandering game” with Pat Robertson’s organization. “The Texas governor delivers a well-received speech … but this is the same stump speech he gives everywhere in the country. … One can read a harsh message from the Republican establishment between the lines of Bush’s rhetoric: This is what you get, folks—take it or leave it. If you expect to maintain any influence, you’ve got to elect the candidate we give you and hope for the best. Pat Robertson certainly seems to have gotten the message. … With a verbal wink in his voice, he explains that, of course, Bush has to run in the center to get elected, but—wink!—he can be trusted to do the right thing.” The rest of the story, not posted online, is exactly the kind of Christian Coalition story you’d expect from Rolling Stone: an “edgy” recounting of its many recent woes, a few quotes from loony Christians at the Road to Victory conference (“I think Clinton is with the devil,” one explains. “Where do you think he got that charisma? God doesn’t give you that charisma.”). A lionization of Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State (a “minister with a rumpled, academic mien and, some might say, the patience of Job. … He has methodically tracked Christian-right preachers and corrected their self-inflated claims.” Stop. Please.) It’s exactly the kind of Christian Coalition story you’d expect from Rolling Stone—until the abrupt U-turn at the closing:

While the grassroots Christians have their full share of hatemongers and loons, most of them are earnest, mild-mannered people seeking a seat at the table after many decades of social and political exclusion. … In fact, they have never been as powerful and threatening as their media reputation. Mainly, they were used. … The troops were gulled into following false leaders, seduced by cynical politicians, and victimized by innocent illusions. If they awake and get beyond narrow intolerance, it will be good for the country and also good for them. If so, they were entitled to more respect—sympathetic tolerance at least—from their enemies, too.

Big guns fire at Policy Review, but at least they’re not war guns

Rolling Stone counts the Cal Thomas-Ed Dobson-Paul Weyrich “let’s back off of politics” movement as another bell tolling for the Christian Coalition. In August, Cornell University professor Jeremy Rabkin used the movement to illustrate the problems with the term culture war. His Policy Review article, “The Culture War That Isn’t,” is one of the most talked-about articles of the year—and the hottest article Policy Review has yet published. Now, in the December 1999/January 2000 issue, comes the moment many of us have been waiting for: the letters. There’s not a positive one among them. “Having served on the Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, I remember shedding blood in battles that Rabkin says never happened,” writes Jacob Neusner. “He had better come down from his blind perch in the ivory tower and smell the moral napalm,” writes conservative Catholic radio host W.A. Borst. Weyrich himself writes an infuriated, incredulous letter: “Only a lunatic professor could miss it. … One wonders if the good professor ever wanders about his own campus.”

Rabkin’s response is excellent. “I did not expect my article to provoke such angry responses,” he writes. “Evidently, my critics are so committed to the culture war that they can’t stop shooting—even at their friends.” He then agrees with his critics’ main points—which are all some form of “our culture is going downhill fast.” But, he asks,

What follows from these perceptions? The ‘war’ metaphor suggests that conservatives should be able to rally the stout-hearted American majority for a successful cavalry charge—or at least, a determined blockade—against the forces of cultural aggression. But … the majority is already consuming all that debased popular culture—and doing so without coercion by leftist cabals in government or in schools. … We shouldn’t pretend that we can rally that country to [the] effort as easily as we rallied an earlier generation against communism. … For all the problems our country now faces, its civic life is not a condition of ‘war.’

Rabkin’s letter has other excellent points. Unfortunately, the Policy Review Web site won’t post the letters section until February 1. (Frustrated? Send e-mail.) Until then, tide yourself over with Rabkin’s original essay.

Ted Olsen is Online and Opinion Editor of Christianity Today

Related Elsewhere

Previous Amassed Media columns:

Evolution Wars (Dec. 8)

Video Games Are Bad … No Wait, They’re Good. No Wait … (Nov. 23)

Hooray for Holywood (Nov. 17)

There Be Gold in Them Thar Fills, Claims Charisma (Nov. 10)

Amy Speaks, but Doesn’t Have Much to Say (Nov. 8)

Why The New Republic Likes Millennialism (Nov. 3)

Ed Gilbreath says he has always been fascinated with the National Baptist Convention, sometimes called “the mother of black denominations.” As he was growing up in Rockford, Illinois, he saw the powerful and dynamic role that black Baptist churches played in the African-American community. More recently, as an adult living on Chicago’s west side, he was curious how this venerable institution could stand behind its president as the facts about his scandalous behavior unfolded.

And as a journalist, he saw the Lyons affair (and the way the denomination was recovering its equilibrium) as an opportunity to open a window for CT‘s readers into a temporarily weakened institution that has provided strength, courage, and hope to millions (see “Redeeming Fire,” pg. 38).

“African-American religion is not always taken seriously in our society,” Ed says. “People think the music is great and that it’s a nice thing for blacks to have, but they just don’t get its deeper meaning.” He wants CT readers to realize that the African-American tradition is valid, rich, and real.

As he covered September’s contentious NBC convention in Tampa, Ed was intrigued by the strange blend of political excitement and passionate worship. He was also impressed with the intelligence of the preachers. “They were sharp, thoughtful communicators and thinkers,” he says. “I’d like to go back every year and hear that preaching. It’s an art. It’s a science, too.”

Ed’s byline will be familiar to long-time readers of this magazine. After graduating from Judson College, Ed spent nearly four years in CT’s marketing and editorial departments learning the craft of putting out a magazine. He left CT in October of 1995 to work with New Man magazine in Orlando, Florida.

But Ed was eager to return to Chicago, to family, and to the annual round of the seasons. So last June, when it became possible, CT and its sister publication LEADERSHIP welcomed Ed back as one of our key writers and editors.

Family is important to Ed and his wife Dana, and if all goes according to plan, just a few days after you receive this magazine in the mail, Ed and Dana will welcome their first child into the world. Ed is proud of his reporting and writing about the NBC. But that’s nothing compared to what he will feel as a first-time dad.

Copyright © 1999 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Revelation Revealed

David J. FidatiOrrstown, Pa.

Kraybill’s “Apocalypse Now” is presented beautifully. Too bad the only illustrations you could find were from the more hysterical approach, but then careful thinking has never made very good pictures or sold many books.

Lynn MillerBluffton, Ohio

Kraybill’s “Apocalypse Now” is the best article on Revelation available. It is sound biblically, full of helpful insights, and practical. In a day when some writers are reaping large rewards from playing games with the apocalypse, it is refreshing to read an article that provides a good antidote.

Brian NelsonWest Lafayette, Ind.

I found Kraybill’s essay condescending and arrogant. He implies that modern dispensationalists had never considered his enlightened view before leaping to their sensationalistic literalist hermeneutic. There is a lot of phony scare-mongering spread by wacko date-setters, and I agree that we must be cautious. But we must never become scoffers who make fun of biblical prophetic truth.

Signs of Christ’s return are increasing in frequency and intensity. World economies are merging through global networking in cyberspace. World militaries are uniting under the United Nations. World religions are growing tolerant of the concept that there is no absolute truth. All of the these signs indicate that the sand in earth’s hourglass will soon run out and that a literal fulfillment of God’s final prophetic book, the Revelation of Jesus Christ, is shortly at hand.

It will be thrilling to see the surprised look on the faces of my misguided preterist brothers when they discover that Revelation’s prophecies were never intended to be allegorized as “political cartoons.”

Dale JohnsonYakima, Wash.

The updated seven letters [“You’ve Got Mail“] were brilliant. Each one spoke to me as pastor of a mainline, evangelical, suburban congregation with rural roots, charismatic touches, urban concerns, and a desire to reach seekers. I do note, however, that only one of the seven authors was introduced with a word about her spouse. I hope that telling us that Susan Wise Bauer’s husband is a pastor wasn’t a way of making her letter more acceptable. Her letter was outstanding.

Harry J. HeintzTroy, N.Y.

Ronald Reagan, Antichrist?

It saddens me that Christianity Today showed approval of listing Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II as “Antichrists We Have Known” (photos in print copy) by allowing this picture to be published.

Penny RhoneyBeaumont, Tex.

There must be some explanation for the display of such a bizarre mix of unrelated individuals under such a sweeping title. I am appalled that your magazine would include an item like that, out of context and with no disclaimer or comment. I suspect you have upset at least the British, the French, the Russians, the Catholics, and the Republicans all in one go.

Anne HamlinCambridge, Mass.

Several readers wrote to register outrage at our picturing Ronald Reagan among several world leaders, past and present, as “Antichrists We Have Known.” Our intent was to highlight those who have been targeted for this ignominious moniker. We did not mean to suggest that the esteemed former U.S. president or the pope deserved that title or the association with some of the others pictured. We apologize for the confusion. –Eds.

Addicted to Caesar?

George W. Bush’s support for “charitable choice” and school vouchers [“Bush’s Faith-based Plans,” Oct. 25] can only threaten the independence of religious institutions, making them addicted to Caesar’s gold, and undermine the First Amendment principle of church-state separation that undergirds religious freedom. Would Jesus have accepted Rome’s coin?

Edd DoerrAmericans for Religious LibertySilver Spring, Md.

This piece was apparently written by a sup porter of George W. Bush. There was not one hard question nor one honest answer. The candidate is proving himself as one who will say and do whatever we the voters want to hear in order to get elected. We already have a President like that, and it’s time to get rid of him and those like him.

Ed LauderbackBerkeley, Ill.

Loving the Sinner

Thanks for Jody Veenker’s expose of the gay basher Fred Phelps [“Called to Hate?” Oct. 25]. However, she was wrong in claiming that the gay community hates conservatives because they believe that hom*osexuality is a sin. A prime example is the way they defend Anthony Campolo, who personally believes that hom*osexuality is wrong, but who takes great pains to explain that gays deserve the same respect as other who may disagree about religion.

Paul R. JohnsonPomona, Calif.

Two Sides of One Coin

As I understand it, the Lutheran/Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification [World Report, Oct. 25] doesn’t say that the Reformation-era condemnations on justification no longer apply, but something more interesting: that they condemned extreme positions that the other side didn’t hold.

Any biblical doctrine on justification has to explain Eph. 6:8-9; but it also has to explain Eph. 6:10 and James 2:24. Catholics say that they never doubted that it was all a work of grace (in fact they use the term “actual grace” to describe God’s gift of our actions and “sanctifying grace” to describe God’s gift of sanctification) but may have confused the Lutherans by using “justification” to refer to the “act of being made righteous,” our sanctification as well as the initial imputed righteousness. Lutherans say that they never doubted that only a living faith, that is acted out, will save. Maybe, as C. S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity, asking “whether what leads the Christian home is good actions, or Faith in Christ … [is] like asking which blade in a pair of scissors is most necessary.”

Don SchenkAllentown, Penn.

Columbine’s Heroes

Jeff LearyFlint, Mich.

Thank you for your articles on Columbine. As parents of a Columbine student, all we can say is that this whole tragedy has been comparable to living inside a Frank Peretti novel. As more stories are shared we stand in awe of our mighty God and his complete sovereignty.

Tim and Stephanie PriceLittleton, Colo.

Your writer took me to an emotional state that was very painful as I read about how frightened these kids were as the shooters approached them. She also touched my heart with an understanding that I yearned for in all this. She helped me grasp some small understanding of how God shined through all of that evil. It made me realize that I need to pray daily for all of our kids, especially those who fight so many battles within themselves daily.

Valerie EndicottBremerton, Wash.

The Forum Debated

It is encouraging to note that some Christians, however few, recognize that gay and lesbian individuals are as deserving of our love and respect as anyone else who is created in the image of God [“Just Saying ‘No’ Is Not Enough,” Oct. 4]. An approach to this issue which stigmatizes, alienates, and demonizes hom*osexuals will only perpetuate an ugly ideological war in which everyone loses. Regardless of our differences, we must accept that we are all earnest, complex individuals looking for the truth. We can only find it if we make Jesus’ two great commandments, and his example, the guiding principles in all that we do. Some of the ideas presented in this forum represent a giant leap forward in the debate.

David AllenIthaca, N.Y.

May your sympathetic and intelligent panelists who participated in your ct forum on hom*osexuality and public policy please explain why hom*osexual Christians are absolutely bound to God’s creational in tent, whereas we discover just a few pages further [“You’re Divorced—Can You Remarry?“] that heterosexuals are not so bound?

Gay and lesbian people are being turned away from salvation in Jesus Christ by the hypocrisy of evangelicals.

Richard Davis and Milton RomineSan Francisco, Calif.

The Canadian author, Lee Bryant, and I were somewhat startled to read about ourselves in CT’s forum on hom*osexuality, and especially so because some details are inaccurate; Lee wrote honestly and openly in her two books, Come, Fill the Cup and The Magic Bottle and readers know her story. But this brief item in CT’s current issue will be read by many who are not familiar with that. Aged 72? No—she is still in her sixties, and a very hale and hearty sixties at that. She has done a lot of research for her next book, addressing Christianity and lesbianism. Next weekend she will be conducting a women’s retreat. She is currently a facilitator in an Alpha course and also teaches a home Bible study group.

I, Betty, was reported as “feeble and likely to die soon,” which surprised us both. To be with Christ, Paul assures us, is “far better,” but please, don’t rush me.

Betty L. GardnerWaterloo, Ontario, Canada

Mary Van Leeuwen suggests, quite correctly in my judgment, “that one of the major questions is how to think about domestic partnerships.” Although Van Leeuwen does not explicitly condemn existing hom*osexual domestic partnership legislation, she makes it clear through a series of illustrations that other types of domestic relationships are equally worthy of public support. In other words, hom*osexual domestic partnerships (which all participants in the forum agree “are not scriptural and are incompatible with the holiness to which God calls Christian disciples”) are, indeed, receiving preferential treatment. Christians should oppose these unjust preferential arrangements and should not hesitate to state their opposition publicly.

John Vanden BergCalvin CollegeGrand Rapids, Mich.

Floyd’s Alma Mater

Lauren F. Winner’s fine article on Carlisle Floyd’s opera, Susannah [Oct. 4], is marred by a serious error. The world premiere in 1955 was not at the University of Florida but at Florida State University, where Floyd was a professor from 1947 to 1976. For musicians and sports fans the two schools should not be confused.

Virginia C. ThomasTallahassee, Fla.

Whom God Has Joined

I appreciate your question and answer feature in the Directions column [“You’re Divorced—Can You Remarry?” Oct. 4]. The issue has affected the social fabric of the Christian community like few others. I was also glad to see that the New Testament was seen as the place to get the answer.

It is disappointing that Gary Burge left out one of the most significant statements on the issue: “What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder” Matt. 19:6.

Ray ShankRochelle, Va.

Burge is entitled to his belief that Jesus was granting the right of remarriage to those who divorce for the cause of spousal adultery–“unchastity”–but his answer to those seeking guidance is neither complete nor intellectually honest. The grounds for exception from Jesus’ condemnation of divorce and remarriage may have referred only to premarital sex in the context of a culture very different from ours.

The Greek word for unchastity was capable of conveying a wide range of meaning, including Burge’s interpretation of adultery. But it could also convey the concept of premarital sex, raising the question about which meaning Jesus intended. Because of the way marriages were contracted and consummated in Jesus’ culture, had he not stated this exception as he did, Jewish men who found themselves in the situation that Joseph thought himself to be in would have been forced to consummate and maintain their marriages to women who had been sexually unfaithful during the betrothal period.

We know that he used the word unchastity as separate and distinct from the word adultery, but we have no evidence that Jesus used it to include adultery in its meaning. Burge’s conclusion seems to involve a risky leap of faith and he should have acknowledged that at least some uncertainty is attached to his answer. Such an admission would undoubtedly temper his readiness to interpret the other passages garnered as support for the right to remarry.

Ole Lillestolen, PastorBethany Lutheran Brethren ChurchEast Hartland, Conn.

Burge ignored the force of vow-taking in the wedding ceremony. How does God view vow-breaking? Marriage is profoundly theological in that it should foreshadow the marriage of Rev. 19:7, rather than merely provide convenient fulfillment of desires here and now.

Arlie D. RauchGlendive, Mont.

Is God able to provide renewal and new hope? Of course he is! But let us not think that he does so by violating his own laws. That we can point to situations where Christians have remarried in obvious violation of the Scripture, and observed that the new marriage “worked” or was “a blessing,” is to only fall further into the ends-justifies-the-means rationalization of our secular activities.

It is profoundly disappointing that, when called to take an unpopular stand, both Burge and Christianity Today chose to provide the soothing answer that many living in sin wanted to hear. It is not I who called such relationships adultery, it was Jesus. In 2,000 years, I see nothing to make me believe that his standard has changed.

Christopher R. DeLucaSan Bernardino, Calif.

Boone’s Metal Mission

I read with interest your article on Pat Boone by Edward Gilbreath [Oct. 4]. Apparently he has changed his code of dress to reach those in the Metal Mood and feels good about this change. I am wondering: has he won any of them to the Lord Jesus?

Irving Ball, ChaplainRetirement Village at Copper LakeEdmond, Okla.

Big Brother Bully?

It is high time that Christians in this country take a good look and ask themselves earnest questions about materialism [“Keeping Up with the Amish,” Oct. 4]. I certainly believe that America, as a Christian nation, is suffering from that evil more than ever before. Nations of the Third World are getting deeper and deeper in debt with the Western Christian industrialized nations, under the leadership of the USA.

I read the Wall Street Journal daily and one writer said the following: “It seems to me that we are standing on the shoulders of those nations whose heads are under water.” Very little has been said about how we treat lesser nations. Let’s not forget that the West and Christianity are one in the minds of most people around the globe.

H. D. SchmidtLoma Linda, Calif.

Clarifications

In your news article “Baptist Leads Peace Movement” [Oct. 4], you refer to Angola as being in West Africa. Angola is in southern Africa and not west.

Wilfred ManyangoLiberty Corner, N.J.

Contrary to the article by Tony Carnes, “The Anti-Madams of Asia” [Oct. 4], Zothan Saimi Ralte is not an American Baptist Missionary in Thailand. The Vocational Center she developed was funded initially through donations from various mission organizations related to the Thailand Baptist Missionary Fellowship. The Center is independently operated by Mrs. Ralte at this time.

Edythe McCartyInternational Ministries, A.B.C., U.S.A.Central Baptist Theological SeminaryKansas City, Kans.

An Attitude of Gratitude

Alma ClarkOak Harbor, Wash.

Culture War Casualties

Perhaps the idea of the Religious Right being finished is up for debate [Sept. 6], but as a public school teacher, I am finished with the Religious Right.

The loss of prestige by the Christian teachers within the school has been a tragic consequence of the Christianity vs. Culture war. One witnessing relationship I had been building was fatally sabotaged by the attacks of Christian parents to ward this non-Christian coworker. After the attacks, an attempt at mentioning the gospel was greeted with waved hands and the proclamation, “Don’t give me any of that hypocritical garbage!” Why are respect and a willingness to listen so out of fashion with the Christian right?

This year, my room mother is Jewish. I have to admit—it’s a relief.

Frank D’AlessandroLawrenceville, Ga.

As a Christian and a preacher, I simply cannot lament the decline of the Religious Right. Though many of the leading voices no longer claim to be speaking for the whole church, these brothers and sisters are certainly welcome at the table of Christian dialogue and public discourse. But to the extent that they still (naively) present their culturally bound interpretations of the Bible, manifest little understanding of the diversity that marked early Christian thought and practice, confuse public morality with Christian piety, and cast the church’s role primarily in terms of morality police rather than alternative community, they eat from a rather selective menu. The church deserves a better diet.

David L. Matson, Ph.D.Torrance, Calif.

The “Religious Right” are not so much religious conservatives as social conservatives who are also religious.

Patrick NarkinskyNewport News, Va.

Brief letters are welcome. They may be edited for space and clarity and must include the writer’s name and address if intended for publication. Due to the volume of mail, we cannot respond personally to individual letters. Write to Letters, Christianity Today, 465 Gundersen Drive, Carol Stream, IL 60188; fax: 630-260-0114; e-mail: cteditor@christianitytoday.com.

Copyright © 1999 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

The majority of staff and board members of East Gates Ministries International, which supports Bible publishing in China, has resigned in the past year amid controversy involving Nelson "Ned" Graham, East Gates president and the youngest of evangelist Billy Graham's five children.

During a lengthy interview with Christianity Today, Ned Graham confirmed that he had abused alcohol and spent an "inappropriate amount of time" with two women on his staff. He denied that either of those relationships involved sexual contact.

After Ned Graham replaced the board members who had resigned with his sister Ruth Graham McIntyre, brother-in-law Stephan Tchividjian, and business leader Peter Lowe, East Gates withdrew its membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA). Membership in ECFA requires that a majority of board members not be related by blood or marriage, which is no longer the case for East Gates.

In addition to those difficulties, Ned Graham has had ongoing marital problems. Four months ago, a Washington State court completed a divorce between Graham and his wife after 19 years of marriage. In its November 6 issue, World magazine first reported the divorce action, in which Carol Graham alleged that her husband not only abused drugs and alcohol and had inappropriate relations with other women, but also that he engaged in domestic violence and used p*rnography. Graham denies the latter two charges. Early on, a local judge issued a restraining order against Graham, but the order has since expired. During the CT interview, Ned Graham described his misconduct as "all the pretending, strutting my hour on the stage, [but] the curtain got peeled away; I had the lingo of grace and mercy down but not the understanding."

In her own interview with CT, Carol Graham recalled the period leading to the divorce as "absolutely one of the worst times of my life." Carol Graham and the couple's two sons continue to live in the family home.

"We pray for their Daddy every night. I want the children to know that I cared about their Dad. I never stopped loving him."

East Gates appointed Graham as president in 1991, giving him full control of the fledgling ministry. For the several years under Graham's leadership, East Gates forged a new ministry frontier in China, where a rapidly growing church had an urgent need for more Bibles. The ministry recorded income of $1.1 million in 1998. (On average, not-for-profit organizations annually receive more than $350,000 in direct public support.)

In the meantime, Graham says, he became ever more dependent on alcohol and developed hypoglycemia (low blood sugar). East Gates board members say that in May 1998 they decided to intervene. Graham was granted "board-approved time away" to deal with his alcohol dependency. After tests at the Health Recovery Center in Minneapolis, Graham took a holistic approach, cutting out caffeine, sugar, simple carbohydrates, and all alcohol.

On his return, Graham faced significant problems at work and in his family. Tensions in his marriage and at East Gates offices escalated when Graham began spending extended time with a young woman who had recently joined East Gates. He also had an ongoing intensive friendship with another female staff member. Several board and staff members questioned Graham on the appropriateness of both relationships.

In October 1998, on returning from China, Graham was met at the Seattle airport and served with divorce papers. Two months later, the East Gates board considered a motion to place Ned Graham on administrative leave for his lack of accountability, but the motion failed. In the aftermath, both board and staff members began to resign.

Grace Community Church in Auburn, Washington—which counted Ned Graham, his wife, and their two sons as members—revoked Graham's ministerial credentials, directing Graham to stop using the title reverend. He has since left that congregation for another church.

Despite the turmoil, Graham carries on the ministry of East Gates with the expectation of launching new training projects in China. Still, Graham has not officially and openly communicated with his donors about his personal difficulties. "God is not a little bit sovereign," Graham tells CT. "I am no white lily on the field. I am a sinner saved by grace. This is real life, down to my toes."

Since the divorce, Carol Graham has returned to full-time work as a nurse. She tells CT, "I am a middle-aged woman and the reality is that I have nothing. I had an agenda: I wanted to be happily married and wanted to be a family. It just didn't work out that way.

"I recognize that God is working his best out for my life. I can't say this isn't measuring out. You have to look at the character of God."

Meanwhile, Graham's sister Gigi Tchividjian has joined the office staff. And Ned Graham, who continues as East Gates president, is preparing to publish a book of his father's sermons and to distribute copies in China. He particularly agrees with one passage: "The loss of a marriage relationship may cause grief as wrenching as death."

Ned Graham photo by Greg Schneider

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The Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT), the largest state convention of Southern Baptists, has rejected the national Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) statement of beliefs because of the statement’s call for wives to “submit graciously” to their husbands.

The BGCT affirmed the 1963 SBC Faith and Message statement during its annual meeting on November 9. The action distances the state convention from the SBC—the nation’s largest Protestant denomination—by refusing to adopt the revised statement on marriage and family, which was adopted at the SBC’s annual meeting in 1998 (CT, July 13, 1998, p. 31).

NOT SUBSERVIENT: The motion was passed by a show of hands with little op position, a convention official reports. An effort to amend the motion by substituting an affirmation of the 1998 SBC revision failed by a similarly lopsided vote.

“That amendment, though it spoke about family and had some decent things in it, also had in it some barbs that were intended to hammer women about subservience,” says Ft. Worth pastor Clyde Glazener, according to the Associated Press. Glazener, 64, was elected president of the 2.7 million-member BGCT on November 8.

Glazener told the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram that conservatives who pushed for the 1998 marriage and family section are using the Baptist Faith and Message not as a guide line but as a creed to try to get all Baptists to conform to their views. “They are trying to hold people’s feet to the fire and walk lockstep with them,” Glazener says.

SBC RESPONDS: “I am grateful that the BGCT leadership has made crystal clear for the sake of Texas Baptist churches where they stand on family and church issues,” says Paige Patterson, SBC president and a Texas native. “Now it is up to the churches to decide with whom they agree—with a liberal, culturally acceptable view of family and church, or with a Christ-honoring, Bible-believing perspective.

“I have every confidence that the majority of Texas Baptist churches will go with Christ and with the clear instruction of the Bible,” Patterson says.

Richard Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, says in a statement, “I find it curious that the BGCT, while affirming the inerrancy and full authority of Scripture, would question the Baptist Faith and Message’s article on the family … which is little more than a paraphrase of the Apostle Paul’s teaching.

“As for me and my house, we are going to stick with the Apostle Paul,” Land says.

INERRANCY QUESTION? Most Southern Baptist leaders see the BGCT’s action as a violation of biblical teaching. But not all evangelicals would agree.

“This is an inappropriate use of the notion of inerrancy,” says Gary Burge, professor of New Testament at Wheaton College.

“The place of women in the Bible is an interpretive, hermeneutical question. It is not an inerrancy question.

“There are countless evangelicals who embrace inerrancy and an egalitarian view of women,” Burge says.

With reports from Baptist Press.

Copyright © 1999 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

With the dramatic Iguassu Falls as their backdrop, scholars and missionaries gathered in October for lively discussions about mission strategy, theology, and cultural conflicts.

The 159 participants in the Iguassu Missiological Consultation came to Foz do Iguassu from 53 countries to examine the way Christian mission is changing at the turn of the millennium.

Set on the border between Brazil and Argentina, Iguassu Falls is a two-and-a-half-mile wide waterfall system of 275 cataracts.

The rugged terrain around the Iguassu Falls is also where actors Robert DeNiro and Jeremy Irons reenacted a bloody incident from Latin America’s colonial history for the 1986 motion picture The Mission. The actors played a Jesuit missionary and convert soldier resisting Portuguese conquerors bent on murdering the native Guarani and stealing their land.

That history of imperialism still lives in the memories of some who attended the consultation, sponsored by the Singapore -based World Evangelical Fellowship (WEF). Seattle-based anthropologist Miriam Adeney told attendees the parable of the mouse who danced with the elephant and was squashed—despite the elephant’s enormous good will. Dozens of speakers and discussion participants invoked that image to explain their feelings toward North America and its missions organizations.

MISSIONARY AS MARKETER? Peruvian missiologist Samuel Escobar was unable to attend the consultation because of family illness. But in a paper discussed at the meeting, he criticized the “managerial missiology” practiced by certain North American groups. “The distinctive note” of this approach to missions “is to reduce Christian mission to a manageable enterprise,” Escobar wrote. Practitioners of this approach focus on the quantifiable, measurable tasks of missions and ask pragmatic questions about how to achieve goals. Escobar called this statistical approach “anti-theological” and said it “has no theological or pastoral resources to cope with the suffering and persecution involved because it is geared to provide guaranteed success.”

Joseph D’Souza, chair of the All India Christian Council, also indicted missiological trends that “have tended to turn communication [of the gospel] into a technique where we market a product called ‘salvation.’ The consumer is the sinner and the marketer is the missionary. In the bargain, what is missed is redemptive living in society.”

This managerial approach is “a major leap onto the secular stage of strategic planning,” according to a monograph from retired Eastern College professor James Engel. In the event’s opening address, consultation director William Taylor quoted extensively from Engel, who was among the first to foster evangelical adoption of marketing principles.

Engel noted the “darker side” of plans to complete the task of evangelism by A.D. 2000. “Quantifiable results soon became a virtual obsession,” Engel wrote. “Organizational public relations machinery geared up to fever-pitch reporting the numbers allegedly reached through crusades, the media, and intensified personal evangelism initiatives.” Engel is concerned that such efforts do not produce “definite evidence that the kingdom of God is being exemplified” among peoples reached in this way.

The discussion sometimes seemed divided along First World-Third World lines, but statistical and strategic approaches to mission had their Latin American defenders. Rudy Giron, former chair of the indigenous Latin American missions movement Comibam, said such approaches help him envision the task of evangelization. Giron credits the approach with the growth of the missionary movement in Latin America.

Research can aid the task of evangelism, said Steve Hoke, vice president of the Anaheim, California-based Church Re source Ministries, which grew in part out of the church-growth philosophy developed at Fuller Seminary’s School of World Mission. “If all truth is God’s truth, we can borrow principles from marketing. Jesus was very felt-need-oriented in his approach.

“Doesn’t it make sense to look strategically at fields that may be white unto harvest, or where, perhaps, we have neglected to sow?” Hoke asked.

WINNING IS NOT EVERYTHING: If missiology is sometimes too marketing-oriented, it is also sometimes too magical. Paul Hiebert of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School outlined the persistence in modern life of mythic cosmic dualism in literature, sport, government, business, religion—and even missions. Whether in football or evangelism, the universe is seen as the battleground between equal, opposing forces, Hiebert said. The outcome of the battle is uncertain, and winning is everything. In contrast, the biblical world-view sees God ruling over all, including the evil powers. “The very existence of Satan and sinners are a testimony to [God’s] mercy and love,” he said. There is cosmic struggle, but the outcome is certain and winning is not everything.

Hiebert applied this world-view analysis to the way spiritual warfare is often waged. Missionaries who try to deliver populations by praying against evil spirits sell human sinfulness short by treating people as the hapless victims of invisible forces rather than as moral agents responsible before God.

NEW DIRECTIONS: The consultation affirmed newer models of mission that contrast with the paternalism of the past. The 2,275-word Iguassu Affirmation, signed by participants at a closing Communion service, reverses the traditional flow from First World to Third World and advocates a vision “from people of all nations to people of all nations.” (The text is available from the www.ChristianityToday.com archives.)

Participants also endorsed the development of missions movements in every country where there is a mature Christian church and explored the meaning for missions of the Christian teaching that God is Three in One.

Copyright © 1999 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Two months before the referendum on a state lottery in Alabama, Pastor Ed Litton wondered how actively his 3,700-member First Baptist Church of North Mobile should oppose the issue.

Then he read about a church in Biloxi, Mississippi, that voted to sell its building to Beau Rivage Casino. “What I saw is a clear message that gambling ultimately corrupts even the most sacred institutions,” Litton says.

Disturbed by the incident, Litton convinced his church’s finance committee to give $25,000 slated for a new church van to an anti-lottery campaign. That donation proved to be a wise investment as Alabama voters on October 12 rejected a state lottery 54 to 46 percent. Alabama is only the fourth state—after Arkansas, North Dakota, and Oklahoma—to block a state lottery.

The surprising defeat is being credited to the efforts of Alabama’s Christian community, which united support across racial and denominational lines. “The reason we won is because of the church,” says Jim Cooper, a deacon at an evangelical Presbyterian church and chairman of Citizens Against Legalized Lottery (CALL), a political action committee organized to fight the lottery.

Churches and their ministers sponsored anti-lottery rallies, preached sermons against gambling, produced signs and T-shirts with anti-gambling slogans, and held round-the-clock prayer vigils on election day.

“It was a spiritual movement that took place in this state unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” says Gary Palmer, president of the Alabama Family Alliance, who took an unpaid leave to campaign against the lottery.

$150 Million For Education:

Before the election, ministers considered themselves in a David-versus-Goliath battle with pro-lottery forces.

Governor Don Siegelman was elected in November 1998 by promising a state lottery to raise $150 million for college scholarships, pre-kindergarten education, and computers in every classroom. In a state eager to repair its underfunded educational system yet reluctant to reform its tax structure, Siegelman touted the lottery as Alabama’s best chance to improve its schools.

Polls predicted the lottery passing by an overwhelming margin—as much as 60 percent, according to one survey.

Pro-gambling forces had three times as much money as their opponents to push their agenda. Lottery ads argued that millions of Alabama dollars being spent on Georgia and Florida lotteries and Mississippi casinos should stay in the state to benefit Alabama’s school children. Add to that a Bible Belt culture that has become soft on gambling, and it was almost a sure bet that voters would approve a lottery.

Churches Unite:

But some in the evangelical community believed the lottery could be defeated with a broad-based campaign. While Christians would accept a message based solely on the evils of gambling, those outside of churches had to be convinced in other ways. “I felt all along if the people were properly educated they would vote against it,” says Palmer, who used a study on the social and economic effects of gambling to support his position.

Gambling opponents attacked the idea that an education lottery would benefit the poor, who are more likely than higher wage-earners to play the lottery. For example, the National Gambling Impact Study Commission reports that people who earn less than $25,000 a year are four times more likely to become pathological gamblers than those who make $50,00 or more per year.

Palmer and Cooper were instrumental in raising more than $1 million for the anti-lottery campaign and encouraging churches to speak out against the lottery.

At first some churches were hesitant. “Many churches were very nervous about it because we had been beaten over the head with a bogus concept of separation of church and state,” says Litton, whose church was one of the first to contribute $25,000.

Because Internal Revenue Service tax codes allow churches to contribute up to five percent of their general-fund budget to political causes, several of Alabama’s larger congregations also anted-up thousands of dollars to CALL. The funds paid for radio, newspaper, and television ads, including one showing political cronies dividing lottery dollars in a smoke-filled room.

The anti-lottery cause also benefited from some timely news items. A scandal involving fixed speeding tickets and some of Siegelman’s top aides fostered further mistrust between voters and public officials.

And a newspaper article stirred many ministers into action. Throughout the campaign, Siegelman tried to push the lottery without offending people who believed gambling was wrong. But an Associated Press article said Siegelman was “asking Alabama voters to ignore their church leaders and get in line with other Southern states that are bucking the Bible Belt image and cashing in on gambling to help pay for schools and college scholarships,” which weakened Siegelman’s tightrope. “That really fired up a lot of churches who were kind of sitting on the fence at that point,” Palmer says.

Credibility Issue:

After the victory, critics now wonder if churches will be as vocal for education as they were against the lottery. “I think there’s a real credibility issue at stake here,” says Jim Evans, pastor of a suburban Birmingham Baptist church and director of the Interfaith Alliance of Alabama. He believes churches will respond to the challenge. “It’s almost as if Christian people, in opposing the lottery and thinking through all the implications, really sort of discovered how social and political arrangements impact poor people, and I’m thinking there may be some follow-through.”

Briarwood Presbyterian pastor Harry Reeder III, whose suburban Birmingham church gave $75,000 to support the anti-lottery effort, agrees. “What God gave us was not just a victory to restrain moral decline. What he gave us was an open door for transformation,” Reeder says.

But while the evangelical community enjoyed unparalleled support in opposing the lottery, it will be hard-pressed to reach a consensus on the best way to fund education.

Cooper supports Lieutenant Governor Steve Windom’s plan to give tuition and fee waivers to college freshmen who attend in-state schools and meet certain criteria, including at least a 3.0 grade average, a minimum 20 score on the American College Test, and a household income of $50,000 or less. “This helps those who are truly in need, which the church ought to be for 100 percent,” Cooper says.

But many Christians who opposed the lottery may not support the education plan with its current income cap, says Palmer, who believes the ceiling should be set at $75,000.

The Christian community may have to bend a little on this one, Cooper adds. “I’m a realist and eventually I would like to see the cap removed altogether,” he says. “But I think this is a good place to start.”

With the Dalai Lama’s name still on the lips of celebrities Oprah Winfrey, Harrison Ford, and Richard Gere, the Tibetan Buddhist leader ended a two-month U.S. tour in September, leaving in his wake a growing flock of Americans, including some Christians, attracted by pop Buddhism’s buffet of low-commitment, high-touch beliefs.

“The world of American religion is going through enormous change,” University of Chicago sociologist Stephen R. Warner recently told Religion News Service. “It will be increasingly difficult to distinguish Christians and Buddhists.” But are lines between the two religions really blurring?

GOD-FREE SPIRITUALITY:

“Now it’s becoming the in thing to be spiritual,” says Buddhist teacher Jagad Guru Paramahamsa. “It’s more cool, modern, and progressive to be spiritual. But without God.”

The Dalai Lama’s recent book on pursuing lasting happiness has topped bestseller charts for more than a year. His latest title, Ethics for a New Millennium (Riverhead, 1999), has been praised by some book critics because it proclaims tolerance and peace without religion.

In a book review in the Chicago Tribune, critic Richard Bernstein says the Dalai Lama’s message of spirituality without a deity is “the perfect way to satisfy the spiritual hunger of people living in a scientific and secular age.” Buddhism, which has 358 million followers worldwide, is nontheistic. It focuses not on an individual’s relationship with God, but rather on a person’s incremental spiritual progress, achieved through ethical conduct and eventual reincarnation to a higher state of existence.

Patty Campbell, 52 and a United Methodist, drove from Arkansas to Indianapolis this summer with her son to see the Dalai Lama. “I’m a Christian and I think you can take the good parts of what he says and use them,” she tells Christianity Today. “You don’t have to give up your own religion.”

Many Catholics, Presbyterians, and Methodists attending ceremonies with the Dalai Lama during his stopover in Indiana agreed with Campbell, saying the Dalai Lama is a wise man to be revered and respected as much as Pope John Paul II.

A recent flood of books—including Going Home: Jesus and Buddha as Brothers (Riverhead, 1999) and the Dalai Lama’s The Good Heart: Buddhist Perspectives on the Teachings of Jesus (Wisdom, 1996)—has created a new context in which some Christians are attracted to Buddhist teaching and practice.

Buddhist author Thich Nhat Hanh writes that although Buddhism and Christianity have many fundamentally opposed beliefs—reincarnation vs. one life; nonbeing vs. a personal God; liberation vs. love of God as the motivation for doing good to others—they still have much in common.

Hanh compares the two religions to a mango and an orange. “When you look deeply into the mango and the orange you see that though they are different, they are both fruits.” Hanh says academics have been dismantling the barrier between the two faiths in an attempt to move away from absolute moral truths and inject Christianity with “the fluidity and personal depth of Eastern religions.”

But many Christians are not eager to erode the theological boundaries between Christianity and Buddhism. Johan Candelin, chairman of the World Evangelical Fellowship’s Religious Liberty Commission, is among the few evangelicals ever to meet with the Dalai Lama. “The fact that many Americans are interested in Buddhism is to me no reason to look for common ground with Buddhism, but to ask ourselves if we present Christianity in a relevant way today,” Candelin tells CT.

HUMAN RIGHTS AGENDA:

Religious freedom is among the most relevant common concerns for Christians and Buddhists worldwide. In both India and China, the world’s two most populous nations, Buddhists and Christians face chronic discrimination and at times persecution. Strife has arisen between Buddhists and Christians, especially in Sri Lanka. “We need to love them and share interests like human rights with them and also in a humble way share with them about Jesus,” Candelin says.

Tibetan Buddhism, which the Dalai Lama leads, is central to Tibet’s struggle for independence from China’s Communist regime. Tibetan independence is a popular cause in North America, supported by music and film stars such as Michael Stipe, Natalie Merchant, Steven Seagal, and Uma Thurman.

The heady mix of hip spirituality, celebrity, and human rights is irresistible for some Americans. Jim Eckman of Issues in Perspective, a “Christian thinking journal,” attributes the growing appeal of Buddhism among Americans to a growing fascination with the “extravagant expression of the mystical.”

“When the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, he became not just world famous, but a symbol of a nonviolent, meditative philosophy of existence,” Eckman says. “He embodies the transcendence that people are looking for.”

Candelin observes that popular spirituality changes often. “The time we live in is a time when people run after trends,” he says. “Today it might be Buddhism or New Age. Tomorrow it is something else. But the message of the Cross is the same forever.”

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