Page 5631 – Christianity Today (2024)

The Democratic National Committee and evangelist Ruth Carter Stapleton traded computerized lists of names of past and potential contributors recently, in a curious intermingling of religious and political fund raising.

Patricia Segal, the Democratic committee’s direct mail specialist, told the New York Times that her organization had traded lists with more than 150 profit and nonprofit groups in the last two years. This “even-steven” trade of 5,000 names, addresses, and zip codes each was “routine,” said Miss Segal.

The President’s sister since had sent two fund raising appeals to the Democrats’ 5,000; she is involved in building a $2 million retreat center, Holovita, near Dallas, Texas. The Democrats have given up on Mrs. Stapleton’s supporters, however. After one test fund raising appeal, which “didn’t really work,” according to Segal, no other mailings were sent … perhaps a monetary way of showing that religion and politics don’t necessarily mix.

Nearly five years ago, Cornelia Lehn asked her employer, the General Conference Mennonite Church, not to remit the military tax portion of her paycheck to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Lehn, then curriculum editor working in the denomination’s offices in Newton, Kansas, said she could no longer contribute money to support the military structure of the United States on grounds of conscience.

What began as one person’s request emerged as the central issue at the denomination’s midtriennium conference last month in Minneapolis. Over 700 General Conference Mennonites argued the question: should Christians and their churches pay taxes that go to support the military?

Some Mennonites have advocated “war tax resistance,” and a few refuse to pay the military portion of their income taxes (see Nov. 3, 1978, issue, p. 58). A number wanted the denomination to stop entirely its collection of taxes from church employees that would be spent by the military. But others shied away from denominational tax resistance, saying it would put the church in direct violation of federal law and of biblical injunctions to “honor the king.”

So in a compromise of sorts, they adopted a final resolution approving war tax resistance—but as it could be obtained through proper government channels. They mandated their church during the next three years to “engage in a serious and vigorous search to use all legal, legislative, and administrative avenues for achieving a conscientious objector exemption from the legal requirements that the conference withhold income taxes from the wages of its employees.”

The issues of militarism and war taxes have been building for some time in the Mennonite Church, one of the so-called historic peace churches of the Anabaptist tradition that was known for its nonviolent, civil disobedience in the sixteenth century.

The 60,000-member General Conference Mennonite Church, the second largest of more than a score of Mennonite bodies in North America, stated in 1971 that, “We stand by those who feel called to resist the payment of that portion of taxes being used for military purposes.” At the 1977 triennium sessions, delegates ordered a congregational study of civil disobedience and war tax resistance. Early in 1978, an attitude survey on church and government was conducted, and two study guides were prepared. In recent months, Mennonites have taken part in nationwide peacemaking conferences, and one denominational official was arrested while taking part in demonstrations at a nuclear weapons facility.

Denominational leaders have been uncertain how to reconcile activist and conservative factions among them. Some feared that if radical actions were taken at last month’s conclave some of the group’s 300 congregations might leave the conference. Others were less skeptical.

Conferees were disagreed on whether the church’s refusal to remit employees’ military taxes to the IRS would, in fact, violate the law, as Elmer Neufeld, denominational president, thought it would. In opening the meetings, Neufeld said, “We had said we would support tax resisters (in 1971), but now we are asked to take action that would put the conference body into violation of the law.”

A Harvard theology professor disagreed. “We are not being asked to violate the law but to test the law,” said Gordon Kaufman. “The law is not correct until it has been declared correct by the Supreme Court and it has not been so declared. In this country, it is a matter of civil responsibility to test the law.”

Kaufman saw this testing as fundamental to the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition that “the church is not to be an agent of the state. We are a peace church—or say we are—yet we are collecting taxes for military purposes.” (The denomination thus far has not withheld war taxes from employees’ wages. Lehn’s request was denied by the general board on grounds that it would be illegal for an employer to act as a tax collector for the IRS).

The demands of the war tax resistance faction were watered down somewhat by an amendment process. Duane Heffelbower, a California attorney and member of the denomination’s administrative council, suggested a direct encounter with the government, if no provisions were made for allowing the church war tax exemptions. A first draft of the final resolution had called for a direct test of the First Amendment—which would include the option of honoring employees’ requests that their military tax not be withheld—should a three-year inquiry into legal avenues for war tax resistance prove fruitless.

This “civil disobedience” clause was deleted after some debate, however, and was amended to read, “If no relief can be found within the three-year period they shall again bring the question to the conference.” Hence, no immediate church-state confrontation was foreseen.

Heffelbower thought the search for war tax exemptions would be successful anyway. “The government appreciates people of principle,” he said. “The problem of government is to know when it has met such people, for the tax laws have attracted a great number of crackpots.”

Consultation on the Implications of Jonestown

The following special report was filed by Henry Soles, Jr., a black journalist minister, and television producer. He attended the conference described below (much of which was closed to outside news media) as a delegate and on assignment forCHRISTIANITY TODAY.

When cult leader Jim Jones’s dream of carving a Marxist utopia from the Guyana jungles ended in a nightmare of suicide and murder last November, shock waves ripped through the world religious community. United States church leaders tried to disassociate themselves from Jones and his pseudo-Christianity.

Black church leaders, however, were particularly bothered by the implications of Jonestown. The People’s Temple in San Francisco opened in 1971 in a rented building in a predominately black area. Jones’s followers, who at one time numbered 20,000, were estimated to be 80 percent black. Though Jones and virtually all of his ruling hierarchy were white (he often used the phrase “we blacks” in speeches to predominately black audiences), most of the Jonestown victims were black.

Because of this disturbing affinity among some blacks for Jones, more than 200 of the nation’s black leaders—mostly clergymen—attended a two-day conference last month, billed as “A Consultation on the Implications of Jonestown for the Black Church.”

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the National Conference of Black Churchmen (NCBC), cosponsors of the conference, invited the delegates, who traveled at their own expense, to San Francisco’s historic Third Baptist Church, reputedly the oldest black church west of the Mississippi. There the delegates explored the meanings of People’s Temple, Jim Jones, and the catastrophic deaths of hundreds of black people in Guyana for the mission, history, and self-understanding of the Black Church.

Keynote speaker for the conference was Kelly M. Smith, president of the NCBC—a group formed in the sixties by blacks mostly from mainline denominations who wanted a greater voice in church affairs. Smith made note of the fact that the People’s Temple hierarchy was virtually all white, and he labeled Jonestown “a tragedy perpetrated upon the black masses by unscrupulous and unprincipled white leadership.”

“This is not the first time,” Smith stated, “that trusting blacks have been led down a path of deception to their own destruction by persons who stand outside the black experience.”

Smith, assistant dean at Vanderbilt Divinity School, challenged the black church to “dress the wounds” caused by Jonestown, and to “address the issues … [to] pause and listen.”

And listen the delegates did. The parade of speakers included Guyana Information Minister Shirley Field-Ridley, who defended her country’s often-criticized handling of the tragedy. For the most part, however, speakers called attention to the “life-affirming nature” of the black church and the role it has played in addressing the concerns of blacks.

Scholars, primarily from the behavioral sciences, discussed the sociological, psychological, and theological context out of which cults grow. C. Eric Lincoln, Duke University sociology professor, analyzed the nature of cults, sects, and the institutional church. Interspersed between the major addresses and scholarly reports were inspirational sermons delivered in the traditional black preaching style.

During conference discussion, one question repeatedly surfaced: why did Jones exert such influence over black Americans and, in particular, blacks in the Bay area? During his heyday, Jones had been endorsed by a number of black leaders, including California lieutenant governor Mervyn Dymally and state legislator Willie Brown. In 1977, California Governor Jerry Brown attended a celebration of the late Martin Luther King’s birthday at People’s Temple, selected as the meeting site by sponsoring black community leaders. (Not all black leaders were sympathetic; for example, San Francisco pastor Roosevelt Brown stood outside People’s Temple every Sunday morning for six months pleading with members not to go in.)

Illusion Of Benificence

Hannibal Williams, pastor of San Francisco’s New Liberation Presbyterian Church, explained that Jones “created the illusion that he was the benefactor of the poor,” and thus attracted to his church the poor, the dispossessed, and the alienated—although a number of middle class blacks also followed Jones.

Williams, an early and fearless Jones critic, contended that he had been subjected to repeated threats of violence by Jones and Jones followers. He called Jones “the new plantation boss” who co-opted San Francisco civil rights groups by buying memberships for his followers in those groups, thereby creating his own power blocs. Williams believed Jones was “demon-possessed” and a “false prophet.”

According to Amos Brown, pastor of the Third Baptist Church, Jones’s attraction grew because “the black church in the Bay Area didn’t have the economic and political clout that Jones amassed through chicanery and public relations.” Indeed, Brown pointed out, Jones had staunch allies in the local press, among the white business establishment, and local politicians.

SCLC president Joseph Lowery supported Brown’s argument. He noted that “whiteness still represents a symbol, a seat of power,” and that “the resources available to white leadership are not available to black leadership.”

Calling Jonestown “the ultimate manifestation of the depersonalization of black people,” Pacific School of Religion psychologist Archie Smith said many blacks gravitated to People’s Temple because they found group support and social involvement.

According to some observers, Jones had wanted to become the undisputed kingpin of San Francisco’s black community. To accomplish this, he first needed to win the allegiance of pastors of the city’s largest black churches. One of his tactics in wooing them was to send stacks of flattering letters to the pastors.

For the most part, this plan backfired. Only a handful of San Francisco black pastors fell in behind Jones. The vast majority warned their members to shun People’s Temple. While many parishioners heeded their pastors’ advice, others joined People’s Temple anyway. Many blacks were attracted by Jones’s much-reported “fake healings.”

An elderly black woman gave the conference delegates an impassioned account of her experience with Jones and bogus healings. She met Jones shortly after he set up operations in San Francisco. Jones had informed her that she had cancer, though doctors found no such condition. He prayed for a cure, while holding one hand on her head and the other over her mouth. The woman said Jones pretended to pull from her mouth a cancerous tumor, but what she discovered was a “marinated chicken liver.” Upset by this fake miracle, the woman said she began spreading the word that Jones was a false prophet.

Speakers’ attacks on Jones prompted one complaint during a question and answer period. One conferee (who, it was later found, was a People’s Temple member) said the speakers completely overlooked the good Jones did.

Affirming Black Symbols

But the black church, itself, also came in for criticism. San Francisco State University professor Raye Richardson, a sister of a Jonestown victim, blasted the black church as a “tool of whites.” She accused it of “joining hands with the state, and of not validating black women.” Richardson said that her sister once described “the peace and serenity” of Jonestown, and said that Jones used black symbols to affirm black values—something, Richardson said, many black churches don’t do.

Her remarks sparked a ringing defense of the black church from H.H. Brookins, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He acknowledged that “black religion is sometimes misused and distorted,” but said the church “has a life instinct … Jones had a death instinct.”

Like conference organizers and many delegates, Brookins blamed government negligence for much of the Jonestown tragedy. “Did officials simply look the other way because most of the people involved were black people?”

A milder criticism of the black church was voiced by Kelly Smith. He said that too many times “when our community has needed a prophetic voice, we have provided a pathetic echo. Like our white counterparts, we, too, have often neglected to fight for our people. Jonestown challenges us to rise up to the fullness of our potential.”

Bay area pastor Don Green described the two-day meeting as “educational and inspiring.” Green, member of the Bay Area Black Pastors’ Ecumenical Conference, the hosts, said local pastors had been spurred to aid the families of Jonestown survivors and to meet for discussion of the issues relevant to the poor and blacks in the Bay area. Conference organizers promised that a conference report would be distributed to the delegates’ respective denominational headquarters. They hoped the conference proceedings would stimulate dialogue among local congregations regarding the implications of Jonestown.

Meanwhile, Bay area clergymen from various church groups filed a joint suit against People’s Temple. They sought to free funds to pay burial expenses for Jonestown victims and to reimburse families of survivors, who have already paid large amounts for funeral expenses.

What, then, should be the mission of the black church in light of Jonestown? To enrich the life and fellowship of the church as the family of God, said Lowery and Smith, and “expand the churches’ resources to deal with the poor and the helpless.” Lowery urged the delegates to “put on the shoes of sensitivity to human need” and to preach one gospel that is “both spiritual and social, and both evangelical and prophetic.”

Before his demise, Jones frequently predicted an impending fascist-inspired race war between blacks and whites. But at the close of the San Francisco conference, Lowery’s message to black churches was one of healing: he called for a holistic gospel that would minister to the needs of all society.

A French-inspired plan, implemented last August to end the fighting in Chad between nomadic Muslim tribes in the north and Christian and animist tribes in the south, fell apart last month. Under the plan, President Félix Malloum, a Christian, brought in rebel Hissen Habre as prime minister. Cabinet posts were evenly divided between southern blacks and the so-called Arabs. An attempted coup by Habre last month was inconclusive. Habre’s forces appeared to have the upper hand in downtown areas of the capital, N’Djamena. A dozen or more missionaries were evacuated to Paris from N’Djamena and parts of the northern sector. But elsewhere, early this month, missionary activity appeared unaffected.

The text of the last and most complete of the Dead Sea scrolls was finally published in Hebrew last month after ten years of work. The seven other scrolls, found in a cave near the Dead Sea by a Bedouin youth in 1947, were deciphered and studied during the 1950s. But the 28-foot “temple scroll” was not uncovered until the 1967 war, under the floor of a shop whose Arab owner had been involved in purchase of the earlier documents. The scroll deals with reconstruction of the temple and with teachings of the Essene faction of Judaism that forbade divorce and polygamy and that support celibacy.

CORRECTION

In the March 2 news story about the lawsuit between leaders of two organizations active in Bible smuggling, the reference to evangelist John E. Douglas (p. 53) was garbled. CHRISTIANITY TODAY staff members who interviewed Douglas mistakenly assumed that the two events being discussed—the departure of L. Joe Bass from the Douglas organization and the 1959 arrest incident—were connected. The 1959 event took place after Bass left the Douglas organization. Furthermore, Bass denied that he was forced to resign, and Douglas, in a deposition in California last month, also denied under oath that Bass’s resignation had been demanded.

Two denominations in Australia, the Presbyterian Church and the Uniting Church of Australia, are bickering over rights to use the title “Australian Inland Mission” (AIM). The name has strong historical associations. John Flynn—“Flynn of Inland”—was probably the best known Australian Presbyterian of this century. His “outback ecumenism” and personal friendship with patrol ministers of other denominations led to the formation of the United Church of North Australia, which, in turn, influenced the formation of the Uniting Church, comprised of the Methodist Church and major elements of the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches. Both denominations are claiming bequests made out to the AIM.

Archbishop of Canterbury, Donald Coggan, spoke out last month against what he called pitiless strikes. “What we all need is a change of heart and mind, what Christians call repentance,” he said. Recent strikes have disrupted hospitals, schools, and garbage collection. Disaster lies ahead, he warned, for a people whose passion is to grab and not to give.

The Evangelical Alliance has assumed a major role in Britain’s National Initiative in Evangelism (NIE), recently begun as a ten-year evangelistic effort involving most of the nation’s churches. The archbishop of Canterbury presided at a launching service for the NIE last month. The Evangelical Alliance is calling a National Congress on Evangelism for April 1980, to be held in Wales. The congress program and evangelistic effort are being planned by Clifford Hill, Alliance secretary for evangelism and church growth.

Last month marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Italian-Vatican treaty, signed by Benito Mussolini and Pope Pius XI. Some believe the concordat, currently under joint revision, should instead be abrogated, but the Christian Democrat and Communist parties are calling only for revision.

Finnish authorities recently seized 2,500 Bibles, concealed in three autos, that were destined for the Soviet Union. A new customs agreement with the Soviets names the Bible as contraband. The customs agreement, reluctantly signed by the Finns at Soviet insistence, has been protested by the Arrangements Committee of the European Helsinki Group as a violation of the Helsinki agreement.

Churches in the (East) German Democratic Republic (GDR) have decided to form one body that would include all the Lutheran state churches. The resulting United Evangelical Church in the GDR would merge the five provincial churches of the Evangelical Church of the Union and the three of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church. The merger is scheduled in stages beginning in 1981.

Christians of the Sgaw Karen tribe of northern Thailand, aided by Swedish Baptist missionaries, reported a breakthrough to the animistic Pwo Karen tribesmen early this year. Six Pwos were baptized in the Yuam River of the Mae Saraing area; these new Christians now can work within the tightly-knit clan system to evangelize their evil spirit-worshiping relatives.

Japanese television this week completed airing a series of thirteen weekly evangelistic telecasts over a Tokyo channel. The series, which took the Pacific Broadcasting Association a year to produce, was sponsored by a group of evangelical pastors and laymen. Church members gave out handbills to housewives outside supermarkets to promote the telecasts, and letter responses are being referred to local churches for follow-up. Believers in Nagoya plan to sponsor the series there in the fall.

The Aymara Indians of Bolivia have formed a missionary association to sponsor their own missionaries to Navajo Indians in the United States. The Aymara tribe, which has had little contact with the outside world, numbers about one million and has been extremely responsive to the Christian message. In recent years, reports indicate an average of one Aymara church has been established each week, a rate that has brought evangelism among the Aymara close to saturation level.

The president and the secretary general of the Colombian Evangelical Federation have protested a growing backlash in that country against all non-Roman Catholics, triggered by the Jonestown tragedy in Guyana. They say in a report: “We refuse to be indiscriminately compared with sects in Colombia for which we are not responsible.” They also restate Protestant beliefs, including “respect for life and the human person.”

Last month an area in eastern Bolivia half the size of Ohio was under three to six feet of water. An estimated 10,000 families lost their homes or crops. Aid was being channeled through ANDEP, the association of evangelicals in Bolivia. The World Gospel Mission, Assemblies of God, and Mennonite Central Committee were among those distributing aid.

Sentenced in mid-1978 to six months’ imprisonment, three Romanian Christians filed an appeal. The verdict last month: their sentences were upheld and increased to six years. Gypsy evangelist Ion Samu, his brother, and an assistant pastor of the Gypsy church in Medias were arrested for holding an evangelical service in a village near Medias.

Personalia

R. Ronald Burgess was selected as convener of the Coordinating Council of Professional Religious Associations in Higher Education, which consists of a variety of Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish professional groups that address ministry concerns in higher education. Burgess, an Assemblies of God pastor and religious affairs coordinator at Memphis State University, reportedly is the first evangelical ever elected to the post.

Singer Anita Bryant placed first for the second consecutive year in the Most Admired Woman Poll of Good Housekeeping magazine. Readers cited her courage and faith in her ongoing opposition to the hom*osexual rights movement.

Edward L. Hayes, professor and academic dean at Conservative Baptist seminary in Denver, was named executive director of Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center near Santa Cruz, California. In July he succeeds William D. Gwinn, who resigned after fifteen years as director of the 73-year-old interdenominational camping and retreat center.

Singer Johnny Cash was given Youth for Christ’s “Man-of-the-Year-Award” during the organization’s annual staff conference. The award, which has been given only three other times in YFC’s thirty-five-year history, recognizes persons making a significant contribution to worldwide youth evangelism. Cash was cited specifically for his involvement in the YFC television special “Where Have All the Children Gone?”

Deaths

EMANUEL A. DAHUNSI, 61, called one of the most influential church leaders among nationals in Africa; general secretary of the 300,000-member Nigerian Baptist Convention, pastor, and Bible translator; on January 30, in Ogbomosho, Nigeria, in an auto accident.

FRANK P. WHITE, 49, United Presbyterian Church consultant who pioneered efforts to show denominations how they can influence corporations in which they have investments, a founder of the ecumenical, social action agency, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility; on February 5, in New Hampshire, in an auto accident.

When the ailing former president of Algeria, Houari Boumédienne, quietly left for Moscow last September to receive medical treatment, his personally run regime quickly ground to a halt. The taciturn, iron-willed Boumédienne had acted as his own party chief, premier, and defense minister while systematically weeding out potential rivals.

When Boumédienne lapsed into a six-week coma in November and died at year’s end, the remnants of the Council of the Revolution, formed during Algeria’s 1954–1962 war for independence, gingerly began to put together a new collective leadership. The eight men shelved their differences, postponed basic changes, and closed ranks behind army colonel Benjedid Chadli of Oran as a new compromise president.

They were not the only ones to put off change during a traumatic national transition. An embryonic Christian church, on the verge of steps toward visible, organized status, put its plans on ice.

Christian influence is almost nil among Algeria’s 18 million citizens, of whom about 99 percent are Muslim (and 60 percent under 18 years of age). There are no self-sustaining churches. Observers estimate there are about 200 open believers and perhaps the same number of secret, isolated believers. There are at least three worshiping groups.

These believers are largely the fruit of the efforts of the North Africa Mission (NAM), which opened its work in Algeria in 1881. The United Methodist Church entered a couple of decades later, but concentrated on the French colonials. In subsequent years missionaries traveled and evangelized widely but gave little attention to church development. The success of NAM-sponsored Bible correspondence courses, begun in 1961, and radio broadcasts aroused resistance. The ministries were ousted in 1964, and transferred to southern France.

Under general director Abe Wiebe, NAM has recently set its sights on establishing twenty-five national churches during the next ten years in the North African countries of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya. And the Christian fellowship in Algeria’s capital city, Algiers, was all primed to be the first.

Among its individual believers (single young adults or lone Christian members of Muslim households), the Algiers fellowship contained two engaged couples—a promising breakthrough in a land of arranged marriages. Algerians had assumed Sunday school leadership, and three Algerian men were being considered as elders in the group. But in the uncertainty after Boumédienne’s death, the fellowship concluded that elders should not yet be named.

Their hesitation was in part based on reports from their sister fellowship in Oran of increased government restriction.

The Oran group—mostly young people—had met in a wooded area some eight miles from the city on Friday mornings throughout the summer and fall without being disturbed. With the onset of colder weather, worship was held in a home in Oran. Recently two Algerian secret police agents visited the home and told its residents that house meetings attended by more than nine persons required official authorization. When the believers asked if they could apply for the authorization, the agents said they would return later and tell them.

At about the same time, the secret police individually called in six believers and their employers for questions. Some sample questions: Have you sung together after Boumédienne’s death (thus violating the period of mourning)? Is your group a church or a gathering (churches are forbidden)? What are the names of other Christian believers? Are married couples present when mixed groups (young men and women) meet? Why do you not return to Islam? Those interrogated were treated courteously.

Since the government scrutiny began, Christians have taken added precautions to satisfy government requirements. Mixed groups have always been chaperoned by married couples (this is demanded by Islamic culture). The Oran group has read, not sung, hymns after the president’s death. The fellowship was split among three homes, with unmarried males and females segregated. Two services in each home were contemplated to keep attendance under the limit at any one time. It was decided to temporarily discontinue inviting non-Christians to the services. Memorization of Scripture passages and hymns was encouraged in case Bibles and hymn books should be confiscated or believers confined.

Missionaries as such are not permitted in Algeria, but several members of NAM work there in a variety of jobs. Government authorities showed special interest in foreigners meeting with the Oran fellowship. Their continued presence, always insecure, appeared more precarious than ever.

The Apostle Paul targeted Cyprus, the isle of Aphrodite, for his first missionary outreach. In recent years, however, the island more often has been the scene of Greek-Turkish confrontation.

Salamis, the first city visited by missionaries Paul, Barnabas, and John Mark, fell under the occupation of Turkish troops during the 1974 invasion. Turkey took control of 37 percent of the island, mostly in the north. As a result, more than 200,000 Greek refugees resettled in the southern portion of the island. (Cyprus is 78 percent Greek.) The ancient city of Paphos, Paul’s other stop, is under Greek control.

The Turkish-occupied north now functions as a self-proclaimed, but unrecognized, entity, while the Greek sector represents the official Cypriot government. And though the island has been an area of international crisis, at least its Greek section shows signs of healing. Wide-scale evangelism—as in Paul’s day—is taking place there.

Cyprus has reaped benefits from the tragedy of the Lebanese civil war. Numerous business enterprises, banks, and other organizations have moved from Beirut—the former hub of Middle East business activity—to Cyprus. Nicosia, Limassol, and Larnaca have become the shopping centers of the Middle East.

Several Christian institutions also moved from Lebanon to Cyprus: Middle East Christian Outreach (MECO), Operation Mobilization, Living Bibles International, Southern Baptists, Youth With a Mission, and Campus Crusade for Christ (recently moved from Iran). Trans-World Radio presently broadcasts through medium wave (AM) Cyprus Broadcasting facilities in Persian, Arabic, Armenian, and English languages.

These religious groups have enjoyed extensive religious freedoms, which open doors for evangelism in Cyprus and allow a base for outreach to neighboring lands. Archbishop Chrysostomos of the autocephalous (self-ruled) Orthodox Church of Cyprus remains tolerant of evangelical groups, as was his predecessor, the late Archbishop Makarios. Approximately 70,000 Gideon New Testaments were distributed recently to soldiers in the National Guard, and an element within the Orthodox Church has begun an outreach to young people who are attracted by extreme political ideologies.

The strongest evangelical body right now in Cyprus is the Church of God of Prophecy (Pentecostal). The Presbyterians rank second, with roots in the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., for years the main group from outside—which ran two academies on the island. Presently, the Presbyterian Church is associated with the Evangelical Church in Greece. The Brethren, though small in number, have an active, evangelistic fellowship. The Logos bookstore in Limassol disseminates evangelistic books and films in several languages.

For the most part, however, the Turkish-occupied north has remained unaffected by the evangelistic thrust. Access to the area from the south is limited to United Nations observers or to those prepared to take the circuitous route of entry via Turkey.

CORRECTION

In the news story of John Todd in the February 2 issue, the figure that appeared regarding the number of persons at a meeting in a Maryland restaurant should have been “nearly 300.” Also, the meeting in the Somerset, Pennsylvania, church took place “last March” rather than as indicated.

What began as a twenty-fifth birthday party for Youth for Christ (YFC) in Brazil evolved into a cosmopolitan celebration. More than 3,500 young people, ages 15 to 25, attended the Generation 79 Youth Congress in Saõ Paulo last month; represented there were most of Brazil’s twenty-two states and twenty nations in all. A 160-member South Korean delegation attended, as did young people from Switzerland and Germany.

Paul Overholt, missionary and president of Brazil’s Youth for Christ organization, said, “The original idea was to celebrate YFC’s 25th anniversary in Brazil. The vision grew, however, and we decided to invite teenagers from all over the country.” Werner Burklin, YFC director in Germany, was executive director of the week-long conference, which had been in the planning stages for two years. The congress featured addresses by evangelists Billy Graham and Luis Palau, and YFC International President Jay Kesler. Martin Homan of Germany and Leo Janz of Canada also spoke during inspirational services. Over 450 Brazilian pastors attended special seminars during the congress, and special music was presented by singer Evie Tornquist, the Palermo Brothers, and several Brazilian musical groups.

Perhaps what made the congress unique, however, were the preliminary logistical problems that had to be solved. Burklin (who also planned the Eurofest Congress in 1974) and other YFC officials had to find accommodations, sanitary facilities, and meeting space for the 3,500 young people.

All this was accomplished by the selection of the Anhembi Convention Center as the meeting site; the floor of its main building covers ten acres. The mayor of Saõ Paulo, a sprawling metropolis of 9.5 million population, authorized most preparations for the congress. Besides reducing the rent for the convention center by $60,000, he gave permission for the teenagers to sleep on the floor of the main hall. Once bedded down for the evening, the boys and girls were separated by a partition; some joked, however, that it didn’t keep out mosquitos.

Arrangements were made to provide 72,000 meals, and over 300 temporary showers and 72 toilets were installed. Three flatbed trailer units were pulled together to form a large speakers’ platform. The World Home Bible League donated a New Testament to all participants—100 of whom arrived after a ten-day trip down the Amazon River and a long bus ride from the north.

The congress theme was “United in the Body of Christ,” and the young people studied God’s purpose for the church and how individual members fit within that church. Russel Shedd, a veteran missionary to Brazil, led morning Bible studies in Colossians, and afternoon seminars included “Christianity and Spiritism,” “Evangelizing in Rural Areas,” and “Youth and Sex.”

Kesler spoke at a closing worship service, and Brazilian evangelist Nilson Fanini asked the young people to make total commitments to Christ. More than half of the 4,000-member audience knelt to signify their surrender to Christ. Manoel Simoes, Brazilian director of the 700 Club television ministry, called Generation 79 “one of the largest and most strategic events for Christian youth … in the history of Brazil.”

Graham wrapped up the Generation 79 Congress with a public rally. While 39,000 Brazilians watched a Grand Prix auto race elsewhere in the city, more than 60,000 filled Morumbi Stadium for Graham’s evangelistic message, which was translated into Portuguese by Fanini and into Korean, Japanese, and Chinese over separate loudspeakers to large ethnic groups from those nations.

In his fourth visit to Brazil, Graham began his message, repeating, “God bless Brazil, God bless Brazil.” The crowd applauded with enthusiasm. When an altar call was given, more than 2,000 Brazilians indicated their decisions to make a Christian commitment. Trained counselors distributed literature, and registered the names and addresses of the inquirers for follow-up by local churches.

The Brazilian news media treated Graham kindly, particularly in regards to his financial matters. Another well-known American evangelist was criticized last year by the press for his alleged high style of living and for taking a collection at each of his public meetings: the Brazilian public often cannot understand why “rich” Americans need to take offerings.

So, to avoid criticism, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (which donated large amounts for Generation 79 funding) took no public offering in Morumbi Stadium. Brazil’s leading newspaper, O Estado de Sao Paulo, ran a lengthy article that explained that Graham receives no remuneration from his public meetings, and that the BGEA paid all expenses for the Sunday meeting.

Brazil’s Tupe television network planned to show videotapes of the Sunday meeting free of charge; it has a potential viewing audience of 80 percent of Brazil’s 110 million population.

Graham, who had warned in a press conference against “moral decadence,” concluded his Sunday message, saying “My prayer is that God will multiply the great efforts of Christians in Saõ Paulo to witness and win people of their state for Christ.” Already Brazil has one of the fastest growing churches in the world.

Last November William Craig led the opposition in the Irish Presbyterian Church to the church’s continued membership in the World Council of Churches (WCC). Long-standing objections to WCC membership had been further aggravated by grants to the Patriotic Front guerillas in Rhodesia and by the murder there of Ulster missionaries. The Portadown minister’s motion to suspend membership in the WCC carried by a large majority at a specially convened assembly. That decision will be reviewed at the annual meeting of the General Assembly in June, but by then Craig will be appearing in a different role: last month he was elected moderator for the coming year.

Many were surprised by Craig’s election, especially the moderator-elect himself. “It was quite a shock to me,” he said. For many evangelicals, however, both inside and outside the ranks of Irish Presbyterianism, the shock was a pleasant one. Craig, who has been thirty years in his present pastorate, is well known for his parish ministry, but also for an evangelistic concern that has involved him in a wider outreach.

Stirring up evangelism in the churches will clearly be a primary aim during his year of office. But Craig will also face the more thorny issue of inter-church talks. On this matter he has made his position clear: “My principle is that I will not be taking part in anything that would obscure or militate against the gospel of grace.”

Missing Code Language

The code words for Protestants coined by Pope John XXIII, “separated brethren,” never appear in this section. Instead concern is expressed for the rapid growth of “free religious movements” and their proselytism. The bishops believe that Latin Americans belong to the Catholic church because “the continent was evangelized during the colonial period.” However, both ecclesiastical and secular historians often question the evangelization carried out by Spanish conquerors who, they say, came for gold, glory, and God, in that order.

The document’s stance toward the “free religious movements” is: study their appeal to the masses, and especially their “lively liturgy, felt sense of brotherhood, and active missionary participation.” Months prior to the Puebla conference, priests questioned leading evangelical preachers and movements in Latin America about their methods, for reports to the bishops.

But a tightening within the Catholic community in Latin America is also indicated. Catholics should be warned, says the document, about other religious forms and “the distortions they carry regarding a living expression of the Christian faith.”

Banned liberation theologians had a greater influence on the conference than was grasped by many conservative bishops. Progressive bishops brought thirty-eight sympathetic theologians who met in an outside think tank while the sessions were in progress. Bishops solicited their suggestions, and sometimes returned with sections composed by the excluded liberation theologians for incorporation into the final document. Exulted Brazilian liberation expert Hugo Assmann: “We were not condemned here as we had expected. Instead this document goes farther than the one put together in Medellín in describing the process of economic cause and effect in Latin America. And finally, they recognized here, by referring to ‘differences of opinion,’ that we are a real force in the church.”

Liberation theologians plan to use the parts of the document with which they agree, and forget the rest. They also hope to get the jump on the popular interpretation of Puebla by releasing a small booklet in each country of Latin America, explaining the conference and its conclusions.

“But,” complained Pierre Primaeau, a French Canadian priest working at CELAM headquarters in Bogotá, Colombia, “these theology of liberation people work with grants from the World Council of Churches. The Catholic Church certainly doesn’t give them funds for their centers in Costa Rica and other places. This is not fair. We are happy to participate in ecumenism, but not this kind.”

Cardinal Sebastiano Baggio, liaison between the Vatican and the Latin bishops, commented cheerfully at the close of the conference, “This came out much better than I had expected.” The document had been unanimously approved by the voting bishops. Some observers believe, however, that that was because everyone saw his own preferences expressed somewhere in the declaration: each could push into his own spiritual waters, while ostensibly remaining faithful to the Pope, his teaching, and the Roman Catholic Church.

WILLIAM CONARD

The Roman Catholic Church in Latin America once resembled a trim, taut, ecclesiastical ship. But lately it has drifted apart like a cluster of lifeboats. Charismatic renewal groups, liberation theologians, social activists, and conservatives have tried to function as the mother ship, but at the expense of church unity.

Reconciliation of factions, then, was a primary goal for the 180 voting bishops who attended the third Latin American Conference of Bishops (CELAM) last month in Puebla, Mexico. Their task was not easy. At CELAM II, held eleven years ago in Medellín, Colombia, a liberal minority had drafted strong documents on social action that evolved into the controversial “theology of liberation.” The late Pope Paul VI, who attended CELAM II, had selected the conference theme for Puebla: “The Present and Future of Evangelization in Latin America.”

Pope John Paul II picked up on the theme of evangelization during an address at the conference meeting site, the Palafox Seminary. (When speaking of evangelization, Roman Catholic theologians refer not just to preaching the gospel and conversion but also to all of the gospel’s effects on society.) John Paul said that evangelization must focus on the divine Christ—not a political prophet as preached by some who have incorrectly interpreted the Medellín documents.

He insisted that there is only one church, under the see of Peter, with one channel of teaching. The church, he said, is essentially spiritual, not temporal in its influence and mission. He called for unity among bishops, and for the priests to be obedient to the bishops.

On the temporal plane, the pontiff insisted that the church remain aloof from political ideologies; instead, it should aim for “integral liberation for man.” He asked that special attention be given the family, the serious shortage of candidates to the priesthood, and to young people.

John Paul’s conservative message was packaged with enough diplomatic finesse to satisfy both liberal and conservative factions. Interviewed immediately after the speech, archbishop Helder Camara of Brazil, a kind but firm progressive, said that the Pope had done a marvelous job. Archbishop Alfonso López Trujillo, general secretary of CELAM and a marked conservative, expressed the same view.

Some, however, sharply criticized the Pope’s cool attitude toward liberation theology, and his outright denunciation of Marxist social analysis. Attempts were made in the press to explain this by saying that he has not yet transferred his frame of reference out of socialist Poland, so was not qualified to address the situations of Latin America. Others accused the conservative López Trujillo of giving the Pope one-sided information. Nevin Hayes, auxiliary bishop of Chicago and president of the U.S. Bishops’ Commission for Latin America, disagreed: “The Pope was well informed on the situation here, and has heard from several spokesmen. He said what he wanted to say.”

By all official reports, the conference ran smoothly. However, cross- and counter-currents were visible. Brazilian Cardinal Evaristo Arns was so anxious to have his viewpoints expressed that he prepared and distributed an introduction to the final 8,000-word document. His version caused a commotion but was not accepted.

At a press appearance, Pedro Arrupe, general superior of the Jesuits, fielded questions about relations between Jesuits and parish clergy and the Jesuits’ reportedly soft stand on socialism. A Peruvian bishop complained that Jesuit confidants of Peruvian President Morales Bermudez had given the president his leftist ideas. Arrupe admitted that the church had failed to influence positively three important leadership groups in Latin America: intellectuals, political figures, and the traditional ruling families of the continent. He was convinced that the most significant change in the church since Medellín was its espousal of the poor.

Indeed, the overriding concern of the entire conference was the poor of Latin America. Their economic and social situation drew far more attention than their spiritual condition.

An increasing dependence on lay ministers, due to the serious shortage of priests, was seen as a strong development coming out of the Puebla conference. In Oaxaca, the Pope publicly ordained twenty Indians, half as preachers and the others as qualified to celebrate the mass in areas without a priest. Andres Dauhajre, of the Dominican Republic, said, “This is great reassurance for a method that is already being used successfully in many countries of Latin America.”

Can the church insure that all these people will transmit Catholic doctrine faithfully? Commented Eve Gilchrist, a nun from New York, “By structurizing lay participation in the church, it [church doctrine] should be fairly safe from easy distortion.”

Rebel bishop Marcel Lefebvre, a conservative who still advocates the Latin mass, was watching the Pope in Mexico, and it may have been in the interests of a speedy reconciliation with him that John Paul II pointedly stated that lay people could never take the place of celibate, regularly ordained priests.

Ecumenism and dialogue with non-Catholics rated low priority in Puebla. Representatives of Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, and Methodist churches, as well as a Jewish leader, attended as observers and collaborated on the Commission for Non-Believers. Bertoldo Weber, a Lutheran pastor, said that first drafts of the commission’s document exhibited a very aggressive attitude toward Protestants. At his insistence a more relaxed position was taken. However, the Jewish rabbi was not invited by the bishops to participate in a press conference of non-Catholics. He mused, “Their failure to include me was a strong personal lesson.”

Panamanian Cardinal Marcos McGrath admitted that ecumenical mutual respect had not progressed far among the masses, and that only at high levels between Catholic and mainline Protestant church leaders is there much contact. He, as well as Mexican bishop Genaro Alamilla, blamed Protestants for creating trouble by publicly condemning images, the Virgin, and the Pope.

“The basic problem,” said Cardinal Avelar Brindao, primate of Brazil, and a former CELAM president, “is with the prosyletizing Protestant sects—such as some Baptists, Pentecostals, and others—not with the denominations.” According to him, the evangelistic work of the Protestant church should be education, family training, and social help. When asked if he would welcome a crusade by Billy Graham in Brazil, the cardinal replied, “He has good points and bad.”

All of the Protestants at Puebla expressed concern over the evident mariolatry in the Pope’s messages as well as other documents. Exclaimed a Methodist theology professor, “If this devotion to Mary grows, it will make interaction with Catholics very difficult.” An Andean bishop who has publicly defended evangelicals against false political accusations said, “This conference will not be the basis for further ecumenical dialogue. Our relationships will remain just about where they are right now.” The bishops’ final statement, in the section on “Dialogue for Communion and Participation,” confirms that observation.