Page 4834 – Christianity Today (2024)

Pray for Rain is not among the featured bands.

Cornerstone, one of a half-dozen Christian rock music festivals in the country, is celebrating its tenth annual gathering on Independence Day weekend during the deluge of ‘93. Rain falls in torrents during the four-day event in western Illinois, 30 miles from the raging Mississippi River, turning a 575-acre campground into a giant mudhole.

For the music-minded, the $65 entry fee is a bargain. Big names are part of the 60 acts playing on different stages: Phil Keaggy, Rich Mullins, DeGarmo and Key, REZ, Newsboys. Certainly some of the more creatively named bands are there: Cauzin’ efekt, Vigilantes of Love, Fear Not, Lost Tribe.

The music is loud. Very loud.

The Cornerstone festival is an outgrowth of the Chicago-based Cornerstone magazine, affiliated with Jesus People USA. Many of the 10,000 attending—more than half pitching tents on the grounds—are reminiscent of the early Jesus People movement. This on-fire-for-Jesus subculture includes nonconformists sporting mohawk hairdos and rings in pierced nipples and eyelids.

Yet what makes Cornerstone unusual is not the music playing during the night but the evangelical thinkers lecturing during the day. In seven tents, seminar speakers tell truth and expose error. Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead talks about religious liberties; author/professor Ruth Tucker discusses the New Age movement; ethicist Alvin Bowles, Sr., lectures on euthanasia and abortion; Operation Mobilization international director George Verwer shares thoughts on discipleship training and church planting. For the average believer, it is an opportunity to ask questions face-to-face with some Christian movers and shakers.

Bowles says talking to teens with pink and gold hair is disconcerting, at first: “You can’t judge a book by its cover. These people know Scripture and they know the Lord. You can tell by talking to them. They’re not freaky.”

“They’re a little different, but they’re good people,” Whitehead says.

The first seven years the festival rocked in Chicago suburbs before moving outside Bushnell, population 3,800. The move has not dampened enthusiasm or attendance. Many even make the 225-mile trek from the Windy City.

Cornerstone is a boon for the local economy. The Rotary Club sells ice cream bars for civic projects. The United Methodist Church holds a sausage and biscuit breakfast to raise funds for missionary efforts. Entrepreneurial types move onto the campgrounds selling everything from T-shirts to funnel cakes. Half the homeowners between Bushnell and the campground hold rummage or bake sales in front yards.

“It’s almost like experiencing heaven,” says Nelson Myers of Austin, Texas. “Everybody loves the Lord.” For Scott Gorke of Beverly, Massachusetts, the festival provides an opportunity to experience a “24-hour road trip” with friends. It took Don McLeod four days to arrive from Seattle, but he wants to hear Norman Geisler, John Perkins, and Bob and Gretchen Passantino.

The camping experience is a time to draw closer to the Lord and leave behind problems of the city. “It’s all good, clean fun,” says Aleena Thornton of Lake Zurich, Illinois. “There are no fights, no alcohol. Everyone respects the zipper on your tent. It’s the only place where you can see such a variety of Christians all gathered for the same reason—Jesus. You can dress differently and have different-colored hair and still be accepted.”

By John W. Kennedy in Bushnell, Illinois.

Unified strategy dooms prohom*osexual law.

In April, Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell sent a communique to city council members urging swift passage of “Domestic Partners” (DP) legislation. In essence, the bill called for legal recognition of domestic partners—that is, hom*osexual couples, living under the same roof.

Marriage between hom*osexuals is not recognized as legal in Pennsylvania. But the legislation called for same-sex partners of city employees and residents to have access to pension, health benefits, and death benefits traditionally reserved for married couples.

Though similar legislation has passed in other cities, Philadelphia’s version was unique in that it was limited to hom*osexual couples, as opposed to unmarried heterosexual partners.

Uphill battle

Early on, 13 of the city’s 17 council members favored the bill. With the mayor’s unequivocal support, the legislation seemed unassailable. Nevertheless, proponents of traditional family values felt it was a battle worth fighting.

Shortly after Rendell had the legislation introduced, the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia contacted Bill Devlin, director of the Philadelphia Christian Action Council (PCAC), to discuss a strategy. “At that time,” says Devlin, “the odds were a hundred to one against us.”

Soon, however, a three-pronged plan was in place. It called for a multicultural, multiethnic, religious coalition to rally opposition to DP. Representatives of the city’s African-American churches and even a Muslim cleric soon signed on with Catholics and the mostly white evangelical church represented by the PCAC.

The strategy’s second prong addressed attitude and style. “We looked at how this issue was handled in other places, such as Oregon and Colorado,” says Devlin, “and made an intentional choice to make ours a very positive, life-affirming effort.”

Rejecting what he called a “Rambo Christian” approach, Devlin says the coalition sought to avoid appearing

overly judgmental. It sought to gain support through “principled persuasion” as opposed to power. The principled persuasion focused not on arguments from the Bible, but on what was best for children, for families, and for society as a whole. Opponents also addressed practical matters, observing, for example, that while the awarding of benefits presumes relationships of commitment, hom*osexuals typically move frequently from partner to partner.

Turning the tide

Finally, the strategy called for flooding the city council with phone calls, letters, and postcards. The archdiocese printed one million postcards, with messages calling the DP measure a “tragic mistake” for the city and a “direct attack on the natural arrangement of family life.”

A quarter of a million signed postcards were hand-delivered to City Hall; an unknown number of others were mailed. Devlin, two black Christian leaders, and Philadelphia’s Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua were among those who testified against the measure before the city council. Bevilacqua said, “This proposed legislation extends legal recognition to a sexual relationship which I, and I sincerely believe the overwhelming majority of the citizens of this city, consider immoral.”

Not long afterwards, the city council president came out against the legislation. Then, citing the well-organized public opposition, Rendell decided to call off the effort.

Devlin attributes the success of the effort in part to reporters who asked “fair, respectful questions.” Not as encouraging was the difficulty in mustering support from the white evangelical community, as opposed to Catholics and blacks used to social action.

Overall, the support was great enough to stop the legislation. The battle, however, may not be over. Supporters of the legislation, including Rendell, are expected to introduce a new plan later this year.

By Randy Frame in Philadelphia.

These are lean years for Christian colleges, but few have faced tougher financial times than The King’s College in Briarcliff Manor, New York. Founded in 1938 by evangelist Percy Crawford, King’s is waging a battle for its survival. Amid doubts about the school’s future, enrollment has plummeted from a high of 860 in 1980 to an estimated 230 this fall. King’s, which depends heavily on tuition income for its solvency, has responded in part by greatly reducing its staff and faculty.

To make matters worse, earlier this year the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools informed King’s that its accreditation would not be renewed based on concerns about the college’s overall viability. As a result, several students have transferred.

Paul Neuman, the school’s director of communications, says King’s would be on the road to recovery if the sale of its Briarcliff Manor campus could be completed. King’s already has assumed the mortgage on a new campus in Sterling Forest, New York, which it had planned to occupy by June. An Irish sports and cultural association wants to buy the Briarcliff campus. But a small community group—voicing concern about noise and traffic—has delayed the sale by requesting an extended environmental impact study, forcing King’s to default on the Sterling Forest loan.

Some contend that the school in recent years has lost the confidence of alumni and churches that traditionally have supported King’s by sending students and dollars. In the past, allegations have surfaced regarding the integrity of the leadership at King’s, particularly Friedhelm Radandt, who has been president since 1985. David Diehl, who taught at King’s from 1967 to 1988, was forced out after refusing to sign a statement expressing confidence in Radandt’s integrity.

A turning point for Diehl and others came in 1987 when Radandt dismissed Samuel Barkat as vice-president of academic affairs. Barkat later resigned his faculty position in protest. Diehl alleges that Radandt’s handling of Barkat was part of a pattern of “dishonest and unchristian” treatment of various faculty and staff members. Those who challenged Radandt’s leadership style or decisions, says Diehl, were routinely “targeted” and forced out. Among Radandt’s most vocal critics was psychology professor Agnia Assur, who, like Diehl, refused to sign what she considered a loyalty oath to Radandt. In 1988, after her contract was not renewed, Assur took her case to the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

An AAUP panel sided with Assur, saying her academic freedom had been denied when she was dismissed merely for speaking out against Radandt.

Neuman expresses full confidence in the integrity of Radandt, calling him “a moral giant” who has been “grossly misrepresented” by “hatemongers who wish to see this college fail.”

King’s remains accredited by Middle States through the 1993–94 academic year, and the decision to remove it next year is under appeal. Addressing the financial outlook, Neuman says aggressive fundraising has reversed declines in giving. “We’re 180 degrees out from where we were this time last year.”

Pastors turning to corporate America for help.

One of the hottest new annual conferences, “The Church in the 21st Century,” began quietly two years ago, and news of it has spread almost entirely by word of mouth. Designed to focus on rapid and complex changes in American Christianity, the meetings are sponsored by Leadership Network, a Tyler, Texas-based organization that has grown to prominence in short order.

What makes Church in the 21st Century unique is its emphasis on entrepreneurial leadership and management skills successful in large businesses. Management maven Peter Drucker, a speaker at the first conference in 1991, is as apt to be quoted as Saint Paul. And corporation CEOs lead more workshops than pastors or denominational officials.

Last month’s conference in Orlando, Florida, drew a capacity crowd of 325 to hear Leith Anderson, author and pastor of the pacesetting Wooddale Church in Minnesota; Fortune 500 business executive Max De Pree; human-development consultant William Bridges; researcher-trend analyst George Barna; psychologist Larry Crabb; and United Theological Seminary president Leonard Sweet. They and others spoke on handling transitions in culture, in organizational structures, and in the personal and professional lives of leaders.

“Leadership Network began with no agenda,” said Bob Buford, Leadership Network’s chairman who is also CEO of Buford Television in Tyler. “There’s no denominational tie-in … nor do we get into doctrine or theology.”

Responding to opportunity

About a dozen years ago, Buford, now 53, met with Christianity Today, Inc., executives Harold Myra and Paul Robbins to determine how to help pastors. Deciding that “no one was paying much attention to the large churches,” Buford asked 25 megachurch pastors to meet in Glen Eyrie, a Colorado retreat center.

They had no agenda, no speakers—only Drucker’s key management questions: Who is the customer? What does the customer value? Although the meetings initially were by invitation only, the Leadership Network concept evolved three years ago.

Now, in addition to Church in the 21st Century conferences, LN holds forums (limited to 25 invited persons) for groups of pastors, Christian education directors, business administrators, pastors’ spouses, children’s-ministry workers, and other groups in churches of 1,000 or more; topical “summit” conferences that model corporate leadership and resources for groups of about 100; and “foundation” conferences designed for groups of several hundred highly motivated and affluent leaders who, Buford says, “want to multiply their productivity for the kingdom.”

Drawing interest

Network president Fred Smith, Jr., 47, says LN is based on Jesus’ parable of the talents. “We think the Master is entrepreneurial,” Smith explained in an interview. “He said, ‘Handle your resources, work your talents.’ We want to get the Master a better return on the giftedness of people. We want to be a broker between what God has designed them to be and what they are.”

Apparently a growing cadre of church workers buys that concept, although LN has used a soft sell—it has never advertised nor sought media attention. “This is the one conference I wouldn’t want to miss,” said a pastor at the three-day event in Orlando. Other attenders mentioned networking, keeping up with cultural trends, and “gaining a vision” as reasons they came.

Seminary and denominational officials “are very curious about what we do,” Buford said. “But I don’t know of any resistance.” Indeed, in the opening address, United Methodist seminary administrator Sweet acknowledged that old ways of doing ministry are not working in a “postmodern world,” where the “centers [and] middles are not holding.” Yet, he challenged leaders to achieve a “paradoxical harmony” by bringing together apparent opposites, like “white chocolate,” local/global, larger/smaller, ancient/future, medium/message. “Faith yokes yesterday to today,” he said. “Christ is the unity of opposites.”

Next year’s conference, “Tomorrow’s Church—the Best of Both Worlds,” will be June 26–29 in Minneapolis.

By Russell Chandler in Orlando.

But conference gives little credence to Scripture.

America and Russia are two trains on separate tracks going in opposite directions in terms of moral values, representatives from the two countries realized at a July conference in Moscow.

American theologian Carl F. H. Henry and Russian Orthodox priest Georgi Edelstein were two leading voices for religious values at the conference to discuss how high moral standards are relevant to a more stable and just society. Participants, however, were more willing to play the role of agnostic than spiritual seeker.

“Russia is at a crossroads and is open to new ideas and developments,” said Michael Matskovsky, director of the International Center for Human Rights, cosponsor of the event with World Vision’s Christian Resource Center (CRC). “At this point, determining the questions is more important than having all the answers.”

Peter Deyneka, Jr., of the U.S.-based Russian Ministries, said, “America is moving from a consensus of Judeo-Christian moral assumptions to an exclusion of those assumptions, and we are suffering the consequences.

“In the United States as in Russia, religious people agree on the need for spiritual and moral values. In Russia, unlike America, nonreligious people as well as religious people see the need for moral and spiritual renewal.”

Edelstein, an Orthodox priest, lambasted the Russian Orthodox Church’s patriarchy and its resistance to change, blaming it on the influence of Communist and KGB infiltration in the church.

“Repentance is our biggest need,” he said. “The beginning of moral revival and renewal will be our ability to repent of our past.”

A case for Scripture

Of the Russian participants, only Edelstein lobbied for a scripturally based morality. “There is only the morality based on the Bible, no other. There is no such thing as communist morality.”

Boris Nazarov, president of the Information Center on Russia and Human Rights, said, “The state should serve the individual and not the reverse. Russia’s tragedy is that the individual served the state.” He added that human rights should include self-determination, the right of the unborn child, privacy rights, and the banning of capital punishment. The “Golden Rule,” he said, should be the foundation of all human rights.

Henry stressed that no stable society is possible without shared values. “In both countries, materialism has too often shaped our values, whether in education, politics, literature, or mass media.” He told the participants they need to understand they are linked to the transcendent source. “In the absence of the transcendent, man nominates himself as the royal pretender.”

In a concluding press conference, CRC director Sharon Linzey said, “All the speakers and participants agreed on the need for moral values in the organization of a just society.”

The question left mostly unanswered by the Russian participants is whether the source of those moral values will be the Scriptures.

Just days after the conclusion of the conference, the Russian legislature voted to amend a 1990 law (see “Nyet to Religious Liberty”) to prohibit independent activities of foreign religious organizations and workers.

That such a debate over basic religious freedoms is taking place on the heels of a major conference on moral and religious values indicates the Russians are still deeply perplexed over how to rebuild their society after Communist rule.

Nyet To Religious Liberty

A July 14 decision by the Russian Parliament to amend the 1990 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations would prohibit independent activities of foreign religious organizations, their representatives, and individual religious workers who are not Russian Federation citizens. The list includes missionary, publishing, production, advertising, and commercial activities.

The measure requires foreign religious groups to affiliate with Russian organizations or churches, or to obtain state accreditation. If he signs the bill, Russian President Boris Yeltsin would jeopardize Western aid. Ifhe vetoes it, Yeltsin would offend the 60 million-member Russian Orthodox Church.

The Russian Orthodox Church has become concerned over proselytizing efforts of such groups as the Mormons, Hare Krishnas, and the Unification Church in the past five years. There are more than 300 Western religious organizations in the country, many operating with no ties to existing Russian groups. Orthodox Patriarch Alexi II insisted that religious “choice must not be imposed on us from the outside.”

Russian Parliamentarian and Orthodox priest Gleb Yakunin labeled the amendment “discriminatory, antidemocratic, and counter to international human rights.” He said it is designed to “muzzle all competing organizations” in their preaching activities.

Protestant church leaders in Russia sent a letter to Yeltsin saying that “forbidding the cooperation of international religious organizations and their leaders dooms our nation to isolationism and to greater spiritual famine.”

Some suggest the underlying reason for the law is cultural insensitivity by Western Christians.

“It’s a very real message that Americans may have to back off,” says Ivan I. Fahs, a professor from Wheaton College in Illinois who attended the recent Moscow moral values summit. “They are a bit upset, not so much at the proselytizing as with the big pockets of foreigners.”

Fahs says Americans who have come to Russia and rented huge stadiums for evangelism rallies, stayed in lavish hotels, and eaten expensive meals have caused resentment. “I think the Russians have a point,” Fahs says. “If we are going to minister to them, we can eat their food.”

U.S. politicians also have called on Yeltsin to veto the bill. In Washington, five members of Congress, led by Sen. Richard Lugar, asked Yeltsin to “stand against any movement back in the direction of religious intolerance.”

By Brian F. O’Connell, News Network International, in Moscow.

ROMAN CATHOLICS

Parishioners Evicted from Church

Defiant parishioners of Saint Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, have been escorted by police from the church they occupied for 13 months.

Worcester diocesan Bishop Timothy Harrington, 74, had ordered the brick church closed last year because of structural safety concerns. But 45 churchgoers, many of them elderly, began around-the-clock occupation of Saint Joseph’s on May 25, 1992. They slept in sleeping bags on pews and on air mattresses on floors.

They also kept holding services, although Harrington never responded to weekly pleas to provide a priest to say Mass. Harrington had ordered the French Canadian church to merge with another one about a mile away, saying $700,000 in needed plaster and brick repairs at Saint Joseph’s would be too costly. Parishioners had raised more than $600,000 in pledges for repairs, but Harrington said he was “reluctant to impoverish the people of Saint Joseph with a debt I did not feel you could handle.”

The issue came to a head June 22 when a Superior Court judge agreed with Harrington and found the church members in contempt of court.

OREGON

Anti-Gay Rights Measures Pass

Two cities and four counties in Oregon passed antihom*osexual-rights initiatives in June. The measures—some approved by as much as a 3-to-1 margin—prohibit local governments from promoting hom*osexuality and bar laws protecting hom*osexuals from discrimination.

The measures were part of a new strategy by the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA), which failed last year to win statewide approval of a more strongly worded initiative, Proposition 9. “All the editorial pages are still against us—big time,” says Lon Mabon, the organization’s director.

The alliance is targeting communities where Proposition 9 carried a majority of the votes in the November 1992 balloting.

The measure, dubbed “Son of 9,” was approved by majorities ranging from 56 percent in the city of Canby to 73 percent in Douglass County. Mabon says several more communities will vote on such measures this fall.

HIGHER EDUCATION

The Ultimate Christian U.

In secular academia, “Christian scholarship” is often regarded as a contradiction in terms. Outside the evangelical subculture, Christian scholars by and large feel they get little respect.

D. Ray Hostetter’s solution to the problem is to create the ultimate Christian university, complete with the whole gamut of master’s level and doctoral programs. According to Hostetter, president of Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania, that university would rival major secular universities in terms of “quality and intellectual climate.” Based on a Christian world view, it would integrate all major fields of learning.

In a 24-page paper, Hostetter recently outlined his vision for a group of some of the world’s most prominent evangelical scholars.

George Marsden, history professor at Notre Dame, said the venture would face “deeply entrenched and powerful institutional and cultural forces” arrayed against a Christian university’s efforts to gain recognition. Nicholas Wolterstorff, professor of philosophical theology at Yale University, cited evangelicals’ responses to evolution and higher biblical criticism as having done the most damage to the movement’s intellectual credibility.

The biggest problem that stands in the way of Hostetter’s dream is money. In his paper, Hostetter estimates it would take $25 million just to get the university off the ground and “manyfold that amount” to develop it fully.

Although Messiah College has authorized Hostetter to continue his efforts, for now the vision is still a dream.

TELEVISION VIOLENCE

Wildmon Targets New Cop Show

Boycott-minded Donald Wildmon (CT, Aug. 19, 1991, p. 14) has a new number-one enemy: Steven Bochco’s “NYPD Blue,” scheduled to debut in September on ABC.

Wildmon, president of the American Family Association, says in full-page ads in USA Today, the New York Times, and other newspapers, “It is time to draw the line.”

Wildmon went to war when Bochco announced that his new series would be the first R-rated show on network television. Wildmon is seeking a petition drive, and advertisers and affiliates already are edgy, with some vowing to drop out if changes are not made. Bochco has boasted that the show will break nudity and profanity barriers.

“NYPD Blue” is facing objections from another front—the federal government—for violence. A Senate judiciary subcommittee headed by Paul Simon (D.-Ill.) summoned television executives in June and warned them to tone down the murder and mayhem depicted on the tube or face legislative restrictions.

Networks responded by promising to implement a “parental discretion” warning system before and during violent shows in the fall. Only one has been deemed deserving of their label—“NYPD Blue.”

PEOPLE AND EVENTS

Briefly Noted

After repeatedly criticizing Ronald Reagan during his eight years as President, the National Council of Churches (NCC) has recruited him as a fundraiser. Reagan, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford will cochair a Christian unity project designed to raise $10 million for the organization. In 1981, the NCC said Reagan’s domestic policies “threaten the vision of America as the model and embodiment of a just and humane society.”

• The U.S. Senate by voice vote on June 30 confirmed President Clinton’s appointment of Boston Mayor Raymond Flynn as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. Only Sen. Jesse Helms, (R-N.C.) who, like Clinton, is a Southern Baptist, voiced opposition on the grounds that “the United States has no business sending an ambassador to any religious entity.” Several denominations and groups opposed the appointment (CT, April 26, 1993, p. 52) because of church/state concerns. Flynn, a prolife Democrat, also was opposed by two-dozen women’s-rights and population-control groups.

• John Carter Adams is the new executive director of Olive Branch Mission, Chicago’s oldest social agency for the homeless. Adams was general manager of the New York Bible Society for ten years.

• Tampa Bay Theological Seminary in New Port Richey, Florida, will become a branch of Dallas Theological Seminary next fall. Professors from both schools will share duties at the Tampa branch.

• First Baptist Church of Atlanta pastor Charles Stanley, who is heard nationally on “In Touch” television and radio broadcasts, announced in July that his wife of 38 years had filed for “separate maintenance.” Stanley, who asked his congregation to pray “that God would heal [his] marriage,” will continue his pastoral and broadcasting activities.

• Trustees at Multnomah School of the Bible in Portland, Oregon, have approved changing the name of the school to Multnomah Bible College for its undergraduate division and Multnomah Biblical Seminary for its graduate division.

• Kenneth E. Zindle resigned June 30 as bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s (ELCA) Slovak Zion Synod following allegations by two women of sexual harassment. Zindle said the charges were baseless and he leaves “in disgust for the way that this matter has been pursued.” The Slovak Zion Synod is the ELCA’s only synod organized on an ethnic rather than geographic basis.

• Thomas Blevins, head of the ELCA’s Department of Synodical Relations, resigned his post July 9 following charges of sexual abuse filed by the denomination’s Northwest Washington Synod. Blevins, 52, denies allegations made by a woman in January.

• Thad Gaebelein has been named headmaster at the Stony Brook School, a Christian preparatory school on Long Island founded by his grandfather, Frank Gaebelein, a former CT editor.

• Bruce Dunn, host of “Grace Worship Hour,” on radio since 1951 and on television since 1974, died July 15 of a heart attack. Dunn, 74, had been pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Peoria, Illinois, for 40 years.

EXODUS INTERNATIONAL

Ex-hom*osexuals Find New Purpose

In contrast to the ongoing explosive debate about hom*osexuality in other arenas, a conference last month attended by nearly 600 people involved in the Christian ex-hom*osexual movement Exodus International seemed tranquil. Exodus, an umbrella organization for 70 groups in 33 states and several foreign countries, offers healing and support for men and women trying to overcome hom*osexuality.

“It was worth it—I got a sense of something I didn’t have at all, getting to know who God the Father is,” said 26-year-old Roger Tritapoe, a former prostitute from Virginia. “There was hardly any father relationship with my dad, an alcoholic, so it’s hard to get in touch with God as Father.”

Unlike Exodus conferences in San Diego last year and in Toronto the year before, there were no protests by hom*osexual organizations. In contrast, this year’s participants at Asbury Theological Seminary only had to contend with curious rural Kentucky teens asking about hom*osexuality.

Seminars at the conference included how to counsel transvestites, genetic factors in hom*osexuality, and marriage for former hom*osexuals. Attendees included pastors, clinicians, and former hom*osexuals.

By Angela Winter Ney in Wilmore, Kentucky.

IOWA

Carrier Rejects ‘Sinful’ Mail

A substitute postal carrier’s refusal to deliver copies of Time and Newsweek he considered “sinful and decadent” led to his resignation from his route in June.

Gordon Yoerger, a Roman Catholic, informed his postmaster that he would deliver all of his mail June 15 except copies of the two magazines. Time’s cover showed a scantily clad child prostitute; Newsweek’s cover photo featured two lesbians.

When he returned from his route, he was informed that he would have to deliver the magazines the next day or be dismissed. He quit. According to Yoerger, “If keeping my job meant delivering my customers into the mind of Satan by tempting them to sin at least in thought, I could not in good conscience do it.”

Yoerger explained his actions in a letter to the Moville Record. “In the end, I think that no one, not even the United States Post Office, is above moral necessity.”

Hammering fists, stomping feet, and shouts of “black revolution” marked a June meeting of African-American evangelical leaders at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. A symposium on “The Challenges of Contemporary American Evangelicalism: An African-American Perspective” drew 175 to “pass the torch” from one generation of scholars and preachers to another.

One participant said the torch felt more like a stick of dynamite.

Harsh words and accusations marked sessions as leaders from Boston, Houston, Detroit, Philadelphia, and Chicago discussed urban poverty, the rise of black Islam, lily-white religious education, and the black church’s rocky relationship with mainstream evangelicalism.

Eugene Rivers of Harvard Divinity School told the assembly he refuses to call himself an evangelical. “You just say that E-word when you want The Man to give you some money.” Rivers criticized black leaders who place white evangelical approval above black need. “Young black kids are dying, and nobody has a workable program or a policy to lead us in dealing with it.”

“White folks are unwilling to empower black people,” said Clarence Hilliard, chairman of the Commission of Social Action for the National Black Evangelical Association (NBEA). “Look at the top. We ain’t there. We need to learn to do for ourselves.”

“Urban ministers—and black and white churches—work in isolation from each other,” said Bill Krispin, head of the Center for Urban Theological Studies (CUTS). “Centuries of sin and alienation divide us.” CUTS inaugurated the William H. Bentley Institute for Black Evangelical Studies at the symposium. The institute is designed to foster studies of black history, ministry, and theology and encourage grassroots urbanministry programs.

“We want to be reformers, and the NBEA needs some reforming so it can move ahead,” said H. Malcolm Newton, the institute’s first director. “A lot of people see the NBEA as dormant. A lot of us are second-generation NBEA. The gray hairs aren’t willing to give it up. But now we’re on the scene, ready to take over. If NBEA is to be alive and vital, the leadership must change.”

By Rebekah Schreffler in Beaver Falls, Pennsy lvania.

Televangelist calls word-of-faith ‘New Age.’

Christian Research Institute president Hank Hanegraaff and evangelist James Robison have taken televangelist Benny Hinn to task for his teaching of the word-of-faith doctrine, telling Hinn that if he does not change his ministry, it eventually will fail due to false teachings.

After meeting with both leaders, Hinn has apologized to his congregation, eschewing the faith message he has been preaching for almost a decade.

In interviews with CHRISTIANITY TODAY, both Hanegraaff and Robison detailed their roles in bringing Hinn to a change of heart. Hanegraaff, author of Christianity in Crisis, says Robison phoned him to say he had “called Benny Hinn and told him that if he didn’t change now, his ministry would go down the tubes.”

Robison confirms, “I told Benny that every time I prayed for him, the Lord showed me his displeasure over what he was doing. I didn’t want to see Benny continue in his slaughter of the innocent sheep.” Robison says he brought the same message to Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Larry Lea, but none of them heeded the warning. Hinn, says Robison, reacted differently.

“Benny went to pieces and was very contrite,” Robison says. “I told him God didn’t anoint him to preach erroneous teachings and perform extravagant theatrics like knocking people down, waving his coat around, and blowing on people, and, if he continued, his ministry would be destroyed within three years.”

You gotta have faith

Hinn, pastor of the 7,000-member Orlando (Fla.) Christian Center, greeted his stunned congregation in June with his renunciation of the faith message, which includes positive confession, the prosperity gospel, and the divine right-to-be-healed concept. Under such teachings, followers are told God wants them to be “healthy and wealthy.” The right amount of faith will secure anything, from a cure of cancer to a new, expensive automobile. To be in debt or to be sick shows a lack of faith.

In front of a jolted and teary-eyed congregation, Hinn censured the “word-of-faith” movement. “It’s faith, faith, faith and no Jesus anywhere. We have to have faith in Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. So, where do I stand on faith? Stop seeking faith and start seeking the Lord! The word-of-faith message is New Age and it doesn’t work. I’m going to stop preaching healing and start preaching Jesus.”

In a July interview with CT, Hinn delineated the way faith teaching has harmed him. “I was heavily swayed by Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland. And, none of them talked about salvation. It’s all faith. The faith message is a message of lack, without the Spirit anywhere.”

In his June sermon, Hinn, seemingly resolved to “right the wrong I’ve been teaching and doing,” continued his strong denunciation of word-of-faith teaching. On “prosperity,” Hinn asserts: “The very word itself has been twisted around and has become a major business in the ministry. Money, money, money. It’s almost like going gambling!” And Hinn lambastes both healing, his ministry’s cornerstone, and positive confession.

“I once said if my daddy knew what I know, he wouldn’t have died of cancer. [But] it was God’s will to take my father home. I became so convinced I was right. God had to shake it out of me.”

Bruce Barron, a Pittsburgh scholar who has followed the faith movement for a decade, says, “The health and wealth gospels are, in their extreme, a symptom of a deeper problem, that being an ongoing tendency to elevate redeemed humanity at the expense of God’s transcendence and sovereignty. This inclination can take its form by placing humanity and human powers at the center of the universe, and placing God at man’s disposal.”

Robison is convinced of Hinn’s turnaround. “I told Benny that what I hear God saying is that he anointed him to lead people into his presence with abandonment to [God’s] will. I think Benny will do that this time.”

“There has been a hunger inside me for the past few weeks,” Hinn says softly. “I really want Billy Graham to pray for me.”

Still skeptical

Hanegraaff, though encouraged by Hinn’s changes, says he still has concerns. “I told James [Robison] that at the risk of sounding cynical or skeptical, I have seen Benny [repent] before, so I’m not sure if he’s sincere.”

Hinn has recanted the faith message before (CT, Oct. 28, 1991, p. 44; CT, Oct. 5, 1992, p. 53), and Hanegraaff has reason to be wary. Hinn has publicly threatened his critics, including Hanegraaff, in the past, once saying he wished God would give him “a Holy Ghost machine gun” to destroy them.

According to both Hanegraaff and Robison, there is only one way for Hinn to demonstrate his rectitude. “The real test,” says Hanegraaff, “is whether Benny will pull his books. In other words, will he continue to sell books that promote the very thing he says he is turning away from?”

“Benny must demonstrate repentance and a turning away from what he has been teaching and doing, including pulling his books,” Robison says.

At Thomas Nelson, Bruce Barbour, head of the company’s book division, says pulling books from store shelves is not a decision made by a publishing house alone. “We don’t publish Thomas Nelson books, we publish authors’ books. If one of our authors has a problem, we want to react clearly.”

Hinn, later, said he and Thomas Nelson came to an agreement. Lord, I Need A Miracle is being extensively revised, Hinn said, deleting all references to word-of-faith teaching. Good Morning, Holy Spirit has no faith teaching in it, and only one editing change is needed in The Anointing, according to Hinn.

Hinn says that on future books, he’s enlisting sound counsel. “I’m having Dudley Hall [a Robison associate] work on my books with me,” he says, “not only on what I’ve already done, but on future ones.” Hall is working on Hinn’s new book, The Blood, published by Creation House and distributed by Word, which is owned by Thomas Nelson.

This latest Hinn confession has coincided with a new round of media scrutiny. In the summer 1993 issue of Cornerstone magazine, William Watkins, a former managing editor of Thomas Nelson’s book division, recounts his unsuccessful attempts to correct Hinn’s unorthodox theology in his first two books. And the July issue of The Quarterly Journal published by Personal Freedom Outreach says Hinn has shown a “propensity for exaggeration” and details further his “personal mythmaking” about everything from circ*mstances of his childhood to details of healings. Earlier this year, “Inside Edition,” the tabloid TV show, planted a woman who faked a healing on one of Hinn’s broadcasts. In the August issue of Charisma magazine, Hinn says he has instituted new procedures in which physicians will closely question those individuals who claim healings so as to verify their claims. In addition, Hinn reports he has stopped wearing his Rolex watch and now drives a Lincoln instead of a Mercedes.

Recently, some Christian retailers have begun to react harshly to word-of-faith books. Steve Adams, president of Evangel, Inc., says his recent decision to get rid of books by faith teachers was a matter of knowing what God’s Word says. “Our industry needs to police itself against unscriptural and heretical teaching. That’s why I took Copeland’s, Hagin’s, and Hinn’s books off my shelves. It’s aberrant teaching.”

Bookstore owner and Christian Bookseller’s Association (CBA) chairman Jim Reimann says, “We can carry any book that has a correct view of who Jesus Christ is, from the biblical standpoint.

“We [as an industry] need to search the Scriptures and determine what is biblical, then compare what we’re offered to sell in our stores and not sell what is unbiblical.” Reimann does not sell books by Hinn, Copeland, or Hagin.

CBA board member Winston Maddox, of Evangelical Books and Bibles, also recently stopped carrying books by Hinn, Hagin, and Copeland. “We need to examine all our teachers and we must ask ourselves: Does any teaching utilize only a small part of the Bible and neglect the whole … and are the practices meant to glorify God or the teacher?”

By Perucci Ferraiuolo.

Does a new curriculum for families build up the parent-child relationship, or put infants at risk?

Medical professionals around the country are sharply questioning a new Christian education curriculum, Preparation for Parenting, which is suspected of contributing to inadequate weight gain in some newborn infants.

On the market since 1987, the curriculum has gained a significant foothold in churches. The authors, Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo, estimate that about 500 churches in the United States are currently using their program and nearly 40,000 copies of the manual were sold in 1992. A Northridge, California-based firm, Growing Families International (GFI), distributes the Ezzos’ curriculum and sponsors their radio program, airing at least monthly on about 90 radio stations across the country.

Yet, the marketing success of Preparation for Parenting has not come without controversy. Some physicians and nurses are concerned that the rigidity of the feeding program the Ezzos’ advocate may put some newborn infants at risk of inadequate weight gain, especially in the first weeks after birth. In addition, the program has caused strong disagreements in a few churches, leading at least one to drop the Preparation for Parenting program.

The Ezzos wrote Preparation for Parenting to teach parents how to use “a biblical mindset” in raising children from infancy. “Working from a biblical mindset,” they say, “automatically assumes a routine that leads to order.”

The Ezzos say putting babies on a “parent-controlled” feeding schedule is a major part of establishing that order. They are strongly critical of “demand feeding,” the idea that newborn infants should be fed when they signal readiness.

The Preparation for Parenting manual, which sells with audiotapes for $29, says, “Demand feeding is based on a philosophy that denies man is made in the image of God and now exists in the condition of depravity.”

What went wrong?

A Southern California woman, Lori Raders, was 35 and about to have her first child when she started using Preparation for Parenting. She recently had moved to a rural area of California and could not afford to call her friends frequently to ask them about parenting. There were only 29 people at her church and few new parents nearby.

A friend obtained the Preparation for Parenting book and tape series for her through the mail. She and her husband listened to the tapes and went through most of the book “step by step.”

“The parenting skills sounded so good,” she says. “They have it biblically based and it seemed really easy.” Raders followed the program and put her baby on a feeding schedule, as recommended. When the time came to schedule her son’s two-week checkup, she was unable to get an appointment with her doctor. Believing the baby was healthy, she assumed it would be okay to bring him in at three weeks.

“When my doctor saw him,” Raders recalls, “he said, ‘He needs to be admitted right away into the hospital.’”

“I wasn’t developing enough breast milk,” Raders says. “His weight had dropped almost two pounds since birth and his temperature was 103. He was severely dehydrated.

“I was devastated. I felt like the stupidest person in the world. I thought that if I was breast-feeding according to their plan, my baby would be okay.”

Raders is one of at least five mothers whose infants have experienced significantly low weight gain while they were following Preparation for Parenting guidelines.

Some health-care professionals say Preparation for Parenting may have contributed to the health problems of the Raderses’ infant. They believe some advice on feeding in the curriculum is flawed and is likely to contribute to health problems in infants whose parents follow its guidelines to the letter.

The Ezzos also forbid debate in their classes and tell parents not to initiate conversations about the curriculum outside class. Some professionals fear these rigid rules may keep parents from talking about the Ezzo program with their own doctors.

Gary Ezzo, who holds a master’s degree in Christian education and is pastor of family ministries at Grace Community Church, in Sun Valley, California, insists there is no basis for linking his curriculum to health problems in babies.

Enough food?

Preparation for Parenting encourages parents to schedule feed their newborn infants every three to three-and-a-half hours from the first week after birth. However, according to several health-care professionals, schedule feeding a breast-fed baby too early may interfere with a mother’s production of milk.

Jeannette Newman Velez, a certified lactation educator and registered dietician specializing in public-health nutrition, says, “It is quite possible that a mother who adheres to the Ezzos’ parent-controlled feeding schedule will experience a decrease in milk production due to inadequate breast stimulation.”

Nancy Williams, a certified childbirth educator and lactation consultant, says the Ezzos fail to make provisions for cases in which their approach may not work, such as with “sick, small-for-gestational-age, or prematurely born infants.”

A California-based registered nurse who asked to remain anonymous to protect the identity of her patient has worked with one set of parents who used the curriculum. The parents brought in the child at three days and the baby checked out fine. Between that period and the two-week checkup, the mother spoke to the nurse twice.

The nurse said, “I told her she needed to feed the baby when the baby was hungry.” When the mother brought the baby in for its two-week checkup, the child weighed two pounds less than at birth. The nurse says, “The baby was in poor condition … Neurologically the baby was lethargic.”

Ezzo insists GFI should not be held responsible for these or other health problems. “We will not assume responsibility for someone who does not read the book and listen to the tapes.

“There are so many variables that are involved in successful breast-milk production that you simply cannot state, ‘They fed every three hours—that must be the problem.’”

Robert Bucknam, a Colorado pediatrician and coauthor with Ezzo of On Becoming BABYWISE, says, “In the cases where babies have had health problems, there were probably other causes.”

Are Ezzos Culturally Insensitive?

According to the Ezzos, there are five “historical feeding philosophies.” One of these, “primitive feeding,” is the breast-feeding practice of “primitive societies and in the lower economic classes of Third-World nations.” Their explanation for why this approach is inappropriate for North Americans has been faulted as being culturally insensitive.

They write, “We have all seen the National Geographic scenarios of bush women slinging their babies as they move throughout their daily activity. Mothers in such societies are not worried about meeting the mortgage payment or whether Johnny will make the school bus. There is only one consideration: daily survival.”

The Ezzos say, “Primitive societies are the end of the human spectrum because of depravity, not the beginning. You cannot bring Third-World maternal disorder into a complex American society. There is no justification for Christians to look at godless societies to discover how to biblically parent.”

Diane Komp, professor of pediatrics at the Yale School of Medicine, disagrees, saying, “There are troubling ethnic implications to this statement that smacks of xenophobia. [They] need to be careful about the overuse of the term Third World and primitive for practices that are common in the Afro-American and Hispanic communities.” Jeannette Newman Velez, a registered dietician who has worked with many low-income families, says, “I find it very disconcerting and irresponsible that the Ezzos overlook the fact that a large number of women may geographically be in the United States, but live in Third World conditions.”

Gary Ezzo told CT, “There’s no light in these [primitive] societies. So why are you looking to a godless society to find out how to biblically parent?”

Making changes

Ezzo told CT that the fourth edition of Preparation for Parenting, due out this fall, will have changes and clarifications.

Ezzo has asked Nancy Williams to write part of the new edition. He says she is “one of the top lactation consultants” in La Leche League. Ironically, in his third edition, Ezzo frequently refers to the La Leche League in negative terms, saying, “La Leche League International has led the charge” toward demand feeding, which he asserts is based on unbiblical principles.

While writing the current edition, Ezzo did not actively consult any lactation experts or other health-care professionals, except his wife Anne Marie, a registered nurse with a background in pediatric nursing.

Ezzo says health-care professionals have been exposed to his curriculum and “raised no red flags.” CT also has contacted several doctors who use and endorse Preparation’s principles.

Still, Ezzo is clarifying information regarding the amount of time parents should wait between feedings.

Desensitizing parents?

For some, the problem with the Ezzos’ materials is not merely a matter of scheduled feeding. They also fear that Preparation’s teachings on crying and its emphasis on “control” might lead to some parents being insensitive to some of their babies’ other needs.

Preparation for Parenting tells parents to “learn how to assess your baby’s cry in order to respond properly.” It tells parents, when their baby cries, to “take time to listen, think, and pray.”

At the same time, it includes statements like: “The mother or father who picks up the baby every time it cries lacks confidence in decision-making.”

William Sears, a pediatrician and professor at University of Southern California School of Medicine, says, “They tell the mother that you do not respond until it’s time. In time, that’s going to develop a distance between that mother and baby. Those parents could miss medical problems.”

Cliff Penner, a clinical psychologist who holds a master’s degree in theology and writes a column for Marriage Partnership, says the materials overemphasize putting parents “in control.” “Psychologically, it sets up an adversarial system right from the start. There is an emphasis on discipline, law, punishment, judgment, on our position of power, and on control.”

Focus on the Family conducted an evaluation of Preparation for Parenting and another book by GFI. A letter sent in May to Lisa Marasco, a concerned mother, says, “Although the Ezzos’ work contains many worthwhile thoughts and suggestions … we believe there is reason to fear that some of their proposals—notably those having to do with controlled feeding schedules for infants—could actually result in child abuse if applied legalistically, inflexibly, and without regard for circ*mstances and the special needs of children.”

The only way?

Jenni Beeman, a mother in Montana, had been demand-feeding her infant through his first two months. But then, she says, “he began to get a little hungrier and started to thin out, and I thought, I must be doing it wrong.

“I had similar problems with my first child and was beginning to receive pressure from family members to do something.”

Members from her mother’s church shared Preparation for Parenting materials and encouraged her to schedule feed her baby. Beeman also contacted GFI and received an introductory tape and newsletter. “They use compelling Scriptures in the newsletter,” Beeman says, “to inspire families to raise children according to the Ezzos’ program.” After a month on the program, her baby lost two pounds. The parents discontinued schedule feeding and began supplementing feedings with formula.

Scott Bauer, Church on the Way’s executive director of ministries, says, “The printed materials were very dogmatic about a schedule-fed baby. Parent-directed feeding is the way, the Bible way, children are fed.”

The Focus on the Family letter on the program notes, “The authors’ claim that their particular program represents the one and only correct and biblical approach to parenting seems to us unnecessarily narrow.”

Ezzo says he did not want to create the impression that his is the only biblical approach to parenting. “There’s no biblical issue governing feeding babies. It’s an area of freedom.”

However, Preparation for Parenting paints another picture, saying, “Working from a biblical mindset and practicing demand-feeding can never be harmonized since the two are incompatible philosophies.”

Use of Preparation for Parenting has led to strong disagreements in some churches. The curriculum was discontinued in one prominent Southern California church, and teachers in at least one other church toned down its language and modified some of its principles.

Preparation for Parenting was formerly taught through the Pasadena, California, Lake Avenue Congregational Church. But according to pastoral assistant Ray Syrstad, “strong differences of opinion among members of the children’s ministry staff” led the church to discontinue using the materials in 1991.

The materials currently are taught in other prominent Southern California churches, including Church on the Way, in Van Nuys, Calvary Church Santa Ana, and Grace Community Church.

Some of these churches endorse the curriculum provided that flexibility is strongly emphasized, something they say the curriculum itself does not do. At Church on the Way, Preparation for Parenting is taught in a modified format. “The principles of the Ezzos’ material are biblical and practical,” says Bauer. “We needed to modify the harshness and the dogmatic approach.”

At Grace Community, where Ezzo is on staff, John MacArthur, senior pastor and well-known author, issued a “no comment” through his secretary, when asked his opinion of Preparation for Parenting.

Joan Wagner, former director of early childhood ministries at Lake Avenue Congregational Church, says that in person, the Ezzos encourage flexibility in their approach. “[But] their written materials do lend themselves toward a formula approach.

“I wouldn’t want [Preparation for Parenting] just out there in the community because of the chance for excess and no chance to monitor those that might be given to that excess.”

Ezzo claims that by the end of the year, 200,000 parents will have gone through Preparation for Parenting and that “99 and three-fourths of a percent” of the people who use his materials are “extremely successful.”

However large the number of current or future users and however high their success rate, Preparation for Parenting may not be the choice for everyone.

Indeed, evidence suggests in some cases it may be the distinctly wrong choice. But, to borrow advice from Focus on the Family’s letter, “[I]ts principles should be implemented only in conjunction with generous measures of common sense, intuition, and natural parental affection.”

By Thomas S. Giles.

Classic and contemporary excerpts

Civil persuasion

[C]ivility, which I take to be a strong virtue and not simply wimpishness, requires that we not try to cram our beliefs down anybody’s throats, whether we be Christian or non-Christian or even anti-Christian. But that we all try to articulate as persuasively as we can, what it is that we believe, of course in the hope that others will be persuaded.

—Richard John Neuhaus in Rutherford magazine

—(Feb. 1993)

Happiness now

People seem to believe that they have an inalienable right to be happy—“I want what I want and I want it now.” No one wants to wait for anything and, for the most part, no one has to anymore. Waiting is interpreted as pain.… People walk into my office and say they are Christians, but I see no difference except that they want to be happy and now expect God to make it so. The problem is that, in this country, you can have what you want when you want it most of the time.… People like the fact that they can buy a 50-foot tree and instantly plant it in their yard. Why on earth would anyone want to wait on relationships or wait on God?

—Psychologist Kim Hall,

interviewed in The Door

(Sept.–Oct. 1992)

The groaning creation

[I]n order to proclaim the greenness of Christianity we do not need any new doctrines or theology. We need simply to return with a new eye and new attention to the Scriptures—to the prophets and psalmists of the Old Testament who proclaim God’s continuing concern for all his creation; to the Gospel writers who portray Jesus as the man who communes with the wild beasts and who stills the storm; to St Paul who writes of the cosmic mission of Christ and who sums up the Christian approach to nature in that wonderful passage in his epistle to the Romans in which he portrays the whole created order groaning and in travail for its deliverance and liberation.

—Ian Bradley in God Is Green:

Ecology for Christians

Christ was no bore

The dogma we find so dull—this terrifying drama of which God is the victim and hero—if this is dull, then what, in Heaven’s name, is worthy to be called exciting? The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being a bore—on the contrary, they thought him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him “meek and mild,” and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies. Those who knew him, however … objected to him as a dangerous firebrand.

—Dorothy L. Sayers, quoted

in Dorothy Sayers: A Careless

Rage for Life, by David Coomes

The need to speak the truth

And I have a strong natural inclination to speak of every subject just as it is, and to call a spade a spade.

The Autobiography of Richard Baxter, abridged by J. M. Lloyd

Thomas, ed., N. H. Keeble.

Human drama gone awry

According to most philosophers, God in making the world enslaved it. According to Christianity, in making it, He set it free. God had written not so much a poem, but rather a play; a play he had planned as perfect, but which had necessarily been left to human actors and stagemanagers, who had since made a great mess of it.

—G. K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy

Unmerited superiority

We are not happy because we are unforgiving, and we are unforgiving because we feel superior to others.

—Carlo Carretto in

In Search of the Beyond

Hurried interpretations

God makes his will visible to men in events, an obscure text written in a mysterious language. Men make their translations of it instantly; hasty translations, incorrect, full of mistakes, omissions, and misreadings. Very few minds understand the divine language.

—Victor Hugo in Les Misérables