Page 5645 – Christianity Today (2024)

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Choir members from Calvary Baptist Church of Jamaica, New York, swayed as they sang black gospel hymns prior to the installation of M. William Howard, Jr., as new president of the National Council of Churches (NCC).

And perhaps that was appropriate. As the youngest person and the second black president of the NCC, Howard may do some moving and shaking of his own within traditionalist elements of the largest ecumenical body in the nation. It’s thirty-two-member Protestant and Eastern Orthodox denominations claim some 41 million people on their rolls.

Howard, 32, grew up in Americus, Georgia, a place he calls “one of the toughest anti-civil rights towns in the nation.” He attended a segregated high school, took part in black demonstrations during the turbulent 1960s, and became a disciple of the late Martin Luther King, Jr.,—killed during Howard’s senior year at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Howard came through these experiences without forming a hatred for whites. Instead, he says that he developed an “openness to people.” Tall and thin, polished in speech and manner, Howard graduated from Princeton Theological Seminary and became the pastor of First Baptist Church of Princeton, New Jersey. He was named director of a leadership training program for black pastors and laymen within the Reformed Church in America.

But Howard hasn’t forgotten his upbringing. “If I were to say that picking cotton in the hot sun in southwest Georgia, and hearing grandmothers being referred to as ‘girl’ by teen-age, white men has not informed my ministry, I would be telling you a lie.”

Indeed, the American Baptist clergyman has become a specialist in racial justice while serving in several leadership capacities within the NCC and the World Council of Churches (WCC). Before his election as NCC president, Howard was moderator of the controversial Program to Combat Racism—the WCC agency that gave $85,000 to the Patriotic Front of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), which is fighting the bi-racial, interim government in Rhodesia. Howard asserts the monies were for humanitarian purposes only and that he supports the grant “fully.” (He was not with the WCC when the grant was issued.)

As with several other black leaders, Howard has said there are “political prisoners” in the United States—men who, he says, often commit criminal acts against property: “They are driven by some of the limitations imposed upon them by structural injustice.” Howard is a close friend and supporter of Ben Chavis, the imprisoned United Church of Christ official who was convicted along with the so-called Wilmington Ten in a firebombing incident during racial disturbances in 1971 in that North Carolina city.

As leader of the council for the next three years, Howard promises to strengthen existing NCC racial and social justice programs. At the same time, he will pursue the “biblical mandate for unity.” Howard was pleased when the NCC governing board members held a Bible study at their meetings last spring—a first for the NCC.

He is disturbed by criticism of the NCC as a “monolith.” “It is encouraging,” Howard says, “to see liberals and conservatives debate and struggle with the issues on the assembly floor, then affirm each other on a personal level off the floor.” He says many church people who come to NCC meetings with pre-conceived notions about its secularism or liberalism are “literally shocked when they find out how members of this body really struggle to be faithful to their understanding of the Gospel.”

But many evangelicals may feel uncomfortable right now with Howard, not knowing what exactly to expect. Howard notes his commitment to evangelism but says he is not part of the evangelical movement. He has a “tremendous respect” for liberation theologians.

“In many ways the church can’t speak with its mouth if it’s not speaking with ministry to people where they hurt,” Howard said in an interview. “I come from a tradition where words and action are synonymous.”

John Maust

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There was a revolving door last month when governing board members of the National Council of Churches (NCC) met in New York. The board elected new leaders for the 1979–1981 triennium, including president M. William Howard. (See box.) But at the same time, it watched the hasty exit of council official Lucius Walker—fired as head of the Division of Church and Society.

The NCC executive committee voted to dismiss Walker on grounds of “fiscal mismanagement”; Walker’s division was $228,000 in the hole at the time of the firing and council financial reserves had to be drawn upon heavily to cover the deficit.

Committee action against Walker took place in a closed-door, three-hour session prior to the governing board meetings, but it touched off a minor controversy and promoted tighter NCC control of agencies’ finances.

Walker had been warned nine months earlier to straighten his financial house; ten division staff members were abruptly dismissed two months ago in a budgetary cutback. At that time Walker, 48, blamed his problems on “belt tightening” by the denominations that fund his programs.

Walker’s explanation had expanded by convention time; he stayed around for the three-day conference and held court with reporters. A black American Baptist pastor with experience in the civil rights movement, Walker said the council had underfunded his division and was guilty of a marked “shift to the right.” Sympathizers said the council was abandoning its concern for racial and justice programs when it dismissed Walker.

Outgoing NCC president William P. Thompson flatly denied those charges in a press conference. “His [Walker’s] problem was in raising adequate funds,” Thompson said. The stated clerk (executive director) of the United Presbyterian Church said Walker “implemented certain programs for which funding was not assured.”

In the past, leaders of NCC agencies have functioned almost autonomously of NCC control. They have raised funding for their own divisional programs from church denominations and federal grants. But in a move to prevent future embarrassments, the NCC executive committee voted to take greater control over member-agency funding.

At the suggestion of general secretary Claire Randall, the committee voted to appoint a fiscal controller: Stephen Feke, now the assistant general secretary of finance. Scheduled to begin his duties January 1, Feke will make sure that division leaders have pledges to cover the costs of their budgeted programs. Any NCC agency with a history of budget problems will have to get Feke’s approval for any expenditure over $500.

The NCC will operate on a $25 million budget next year, one-third of which is supplied by member denominations (the rest comes from regional and local ecumenical groups, from foundations, and from corporate and individual donors).

In debate on the floor at the conference, energy (rather than financial) reserves attracted the most interest. The 165 governing board members who showed up (out of 252 total) delayed action on a proposed energy policy statement. The statement, which condemned nuclear energy production as risky, was too controversial for some board members.

Others were confused by the statement because of its length. By definition, policy statements are to be “concise.” Holding the forty-three-page document labeled “The Ethical Implications of Energy Production and Use” during a working group session, one board member asked energy committee chairman Joel Thompson: “What exactly does this say so I can know how to vote on it?”

Lutheran Church in America president James Crumley suggested, and the board approved, reducing of the statement to a “study document” to be sent back to the denominations for further study. The document will be shortened by energy committee members, and acted upon in San Antonio, Texas, at the spring semiannual meeting.

One member of the energy committee (one of the projects costing the financially troubled Division of Church and Society large sums of money) said the delay was “another example of the church’s dodging the issues.” The nuclear industry had been concerned by the statement; reporters of at least four industry publications covered the conference. Some NCC officials said they had been lobbied by industry representatives who asked them to oppose the statement.

Debate on other issues was less heated. One Lutheran Church in America board member complained, “There doesn’t seem to be the spirit here like there was in the sixties.” As has been the custom in past triennium meetings, the board members approved without opposition the entire slate of officers given them by the nominating committee.

Among those elected was Claire Randall, reelected to another term as general secretary. Elected as third vice-president was Bishop Maximos of Diokleia, chief ecumenical officer of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America. Nominating committee members wanted to get more Orthodox members into the NCC hierarchy. (Voted into membership was the small American branch of Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Church, bringing the total membership to thirty-two denominations.)

Human rights was the category under which most other governing board actions fell. Martin Ennals, general secretary of Amnesty International, addressed a banquet gathering as did Ben Chavis, one of the imprisoned so-called Wilmington Ten, speaking in absentia through a media presentation.

Resolutions were passed in support of Haitian refugees who are being deported from the United States and in condemnation of the Somoza regime in Nicaragua. The board condemned human rights violations in Kampuchea (Cambodia), and called for a boycott of all Nestle products, saying the company promotes its baby formula in Third World countries as a substitute, rather than a supplement, to breast feeding, causing infant malnutrition.

Other NCC board action:

• Passed an open meetings amendment that gives the public access to most NCC meetings. NCC officials must give advance notice of all meetings. NCC information officer Warren Day praised the bill “for its teeth” and lobbied for its passage when opposition began forming against it prior to the conference.

• Asked member denominations to make available upon the request of donors copies of their financial audits.

• Asked that the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., be declared a national holiday.

• Adopted a policy statement that backs the right of religious groups to buy broadcast time from stations and networks. The NCC formerly endorsed a single position that religious groups should receive free time as a public service.

• Approved a policy statement affirming the sovereignty and human rights of American Indians, noting the American churches’ “sinful complicity” in the destruction of Indian economies and Indian natural and human resources.

• Endorsed the Equal Rights Amendment and approved the NCC’s policy of not holding board meetings in states that have not approved the amendment.

- More fromJohn Maust

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Can a denomination or its fiscal agency be held liable for damages and debts sustained by, say, a local church or a college related to the denomination but not controlled by it?

The answer to that question may emerge from a monumental legal struggle in California that involves the United Methodist Church (UMC). And a preliminary sounding of the U.S. Supreme Court has worried leaders of many denominations.

Problems for the UMC began last year with the bankruptcy of Pacific Homes—a network of fourteen retirement and health care facilities in California, Arizona, and Hawaii, headquartered in California. Before a court-appointed trustee took over management in November, 1977, Pacific Homes was related to the UMC’s Pacific and Southwest Conference, a link that had existed for sixty-five years.

Several lawsuits totaling more than $400 million were filed by the trustee and by residents and bondholders of Pacific Homes. The suits named the regional conference, the UMC itself, and the UMC’s central funding agency—the General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA), based in Evanston, Illinois—and alleged a breach of contract, fraud, negligence, mismanagement, and the like.

Judge Ross G. Tharp of San Diego Superior Court handed down a ruling last March that exempted the UMC from a $266 million class action lawsuit filed by about 160 of the 1,800 residents of Pacific Homes. Curiously, though, he ruled that the GCFA should stand trial. If the UMC could be sued in the case, said Tharp, the action could “effectively destroy Methodism in this country.”

The reason? Judge Tharp apparently foresaw the possibility of individual church members being held liable for any judgment against the denomination. By retaining the GCFA as defendant, Tharp in effect made it possible for judgment to be brought against the UMC but without jeopardizing its members. (A state appeals court would later remove the judge from further litigation in the case, citing his alleged bias against the GCFA as revealed in a letter by Tharp to attorneys. However, Tharp’s decision naming the GCFA as a defendant was not affected by his removal.)

The GCFA then appealed its case to the United States Supreme Court. In its brief, the GCFA argued that under Methodism’s “connectional” system of church government, neither the denomination nor any of its agencies can be held liable for organizations not under its control. A contrary ruling, it implied, would alter the church’s system of government and interrelationships, thereby raising “serious constitutional questions of religious freedom” reaching far beyond the UMC.

No GCFA employees, offices, or other property are located in California, and the GCFA has never had any involvement with Pacific Homes, the brief insisted. The GCFA brief warned of the “chilling effect upon the free conduct of religious activities” that would result from opening the door to litigations against “international religious systems and their major boards and agencies” when “the alleged acts or omissions had their inception in a peculiarly local setting, like a parish church, a home, a college, hospital, or other institution bearing a denominational name.”

The San Diego court, in its brief, had declared that the GCFA does business in Caifornia as the central treasury and fiscal agency of the church. It had declared the policy of the UMC “irrelevant.”

In a one-line response in mid-October, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal—in effect, leaving intact the lower court decision but without necessarily indicating agreement with it.

If convicted, the GCFA could enter a new appeal that could reach Washington and force the high court to deal definitively with the issues involved. Still, a number of religious leaders are alarmed about the implications of permitting the GCFA to be brought to trial in the first place.

Meanwhile, the amount of the suit has been amended upward by $100 million. The residents who brought the suit have appealed the decision that omits the UMC as a defendant.

Of more immediate concern is the financial crisis confronting the 477-congregation UMC Pacific and Southwest Conference: It spent $1.2 million last year trying to keep Pacific Homes afloat. The conference is the guarantor for more than $12 million borrowed by Pacific Homes, and its legal defense costs are running close to $1 million. The end is nowhere in sight.

Katherine Yurica

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An academic power struggle began last month at Melodyland School of Theology in Anaheim, California. In a written declaration to Chancellor Ralph Wilkerson, the school faculty asked for a major reorganization of the school and that it be given a separate identity from the church pastored by Wilkerson.

According to sources at the school (who asked that their names be withheld), the faculty and school president J. Rodman Williams have been laboring over reorganizational issues and proposals for some time.

On Monday, October 31, a four-point program was laid before Wilkerson that had been signed by nineteen professors and staff members. The strongly-worded document requests that the office of chancellor be eliminated and that the authority of chief executive be transferred to the president.

While expressing gratitude to Wilkerson for his leadership in starting the school, the proposal in the first place effectively eliminates his control over it. Secondly, the reorganizational plan requires that finances of the school be separated from those of Wilkerson’s church, Melodyland Christian Center.

Thirdly, the faculty proposal calls for a new board that would retain only president Williams—an apparent attempt by the faculty to bring worldwide representation to the board of directors. The proposal also would require substantial fund-raising and publicizing activities on the part of prospective members. The four-point program concludes with the request that the name of the school be changed.

The faculty also signed a statement showing an intent to form a corporation, tentatively called the Charismatic Theological Center. Spokesmen point out, however, that “a separate identity does not necessarily mean separation.”

After receiving the proposal, Wilkerson and the board of directors suspended classes for one week and gave the faculty members two days to decide whether they wanted to resign and start a new school or return to Melodyland.

On Tuesday of the same week, approximately 400 students and faculty attended a meeting during which president Williams explained the four-point reorganization program. His comments spawned a number of impromptu speeches—both pro and con.

By Friday afternoon, however, a spirit of prayer and reconciliation replaced much of the strife of the four previous days. Students held prayer meetings, and the faculty and administration sought guidance and wisdom.

In addition, Wilkerson sent a telegram to each faculty member, extending the contract of each to the end of the current school year. The faculty members then agreed to return to class and expressed willingness to negotiate the four-point program with Wilkerson. As a result, the school reopened Monday, November 6—exactly one week after the controversy began.

Despite the apparent reconciliation, a spokesman for the faculty said, “We have the full intention of completing the rest of the academic year based on evidence of ongoing implementation of these points (the four-point proposal) initiated by good-faith negotiations and a continuing open dialogue.”

Wilkerson apparently has begun an effort toward dialogue. He said that he spent twenty-five hours in student and faculty discussions during the week of controversy.

It is still unclear how much Wilkerson intends to negotiate on the four points, however. Corporate by-laws limit his ability to act in some instances, he said. And on other points he is unwilling to negotiate at all. Wilkerson stressed that the school corporation and school finances already were separate from the church. “Each has its own CPAs and books,” he said.

If faculty members remain discontent after the current school year, they can resign, Wilkerson said. He hinted that not every teacher’s contract will be renewed for the 1979 school term.

Wilkerson is fond of recounting the prophecy of a church elder seven years ago, to “build a school and build it now.” So began the Melodyland School of Theology. Wilkerson said that Melodyland church had poured over $5 million into the school. The school has grown from 120 students in the fall of 1973 to its present 500-student enrollment. It operates on a one-million-dollar annual budget and has an international student body in both bachelor’s and master’s degree programs.

But according to president Williams, it was this growth and impact of the school on the international charismatic movement that prompted the reorganizational demand.

Another problem, Williams said is the school’s accreditation status. The school has candidacy status with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, and an associate membership with the Association of Theological Schools. Those groups, according to Williams, have much concern about “too close a relationship between the church and the school.”

The school of theology is draining his church financially, Wilkerson said. “We’ve (the church) contributed half a million dollars to the school budget this year alone. I’ve mortgaged my home and contributed $50,000.” Construction was halted recently on a half-completed, 90,000-square-foot classroom building. But the Melodyland complex is valued at $9.5 million by Wilkerson’s estimate, considerably more than its debts.

For this very reason, faculty members say the burden for the school’s financing should be lifted from Wilkerson’s shoulders: They say the school should be allowed to raise its own funds.

As the leader of his discontented faculty, president Williams affirmed that problems at the school are not theological in nature. “The school affirms the full infalibility of the Scriptures,” he said. “I know this faculty very well, and I take full responsibility for its theological stance—I believe it’s solid.”

“The real issue,” Williams said, “is an organizational structure that is too restrictive for a vision embracing the whole world. I view the confrontation as a healthy sign, and I have faith in the processes of negotiation and dialogue. Greatness is born of travail and of dreams.”

- More fromKatherine Yurica

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His forehead sweating under television floodlamps during a pre-election debate, California state senator John V. Briggs declared: “We have the people, we have God, we have right, and we’re going to win it.”

As sponsor of the so-called Proposition 6 referendum, Briggs may have been right on the first three counts. But his last statement proved wrong. His bill—which would have given California school boards the power to fire teachers and other school employees who practice or advocate hom*osexuality—lost by one million votes.

Proposition 6 was only one of several November election referendums that attracted church interest. In many cases, individuals and groups carried the name of God and church into the campaign fray. In scattered cases, some evangelical candidates for political office were supported on the basis of their Christian identity.

Potent election issues—including abortion, hom*osexuality, gambling, and p*rnography—sometimes divided church groups. In Seattle, Washington, for example, separate church associations took opposite views on a hom*osexual rights bill. Each brought out financial artillery for the election battle.

In many cases, the issues made the candidate. Anti-abortionists in Iowa, for instance, were partially credited for the defeat of liberal Democratic senator Dick Clark, a United Methodist, by Republican Roger Jepson—a Lutheran who took a strong campaign stand against abortion.

Parting Over The Issues

Campaigning may have been fiercest in California, both for and against Proposition 6. Supporters and opponents of the bill each spent over $1 million.

Senator Briggs, a self-described “born-again” Christian, claimed the support of about 500 mostly fundamentalist California churches. Several Baptist denominations and the Assemblies of God supported the bill.

But leaders of Methodist, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and Jewish groups advised against the bill—saying either that it infringed on hom*osexual rights, that it unfairly singled out certain sins, or that existing California laws already protected children against hom*osexual teachers.

Reflecting on the loss of Proposition 6, Briggs’s campaign manager Steven Bailey said church support was needed sooner: “They [the churches] don’t understand that campaigns have to be put together in July and August, not in October.

The Church Council of Greater Seattle, representing twenty-two mostly mainline denominations, successfully opposed a bill that would have removed gay rights from housing and employment ordinances. It sponsored a pray-in at a Seattle park, hired a staff person to lead “education programs” in member churches, and conducted media campaigns saying the bill would take away rights of hom*osexuals.

The smaller Seattle Association of Evangelicals supported the bill, as did Alexander Burghard, pastor of Judson Baptist Church, who rallied about 300 churches under the name Church Leaders for Community Standards. But this support came too late for the bill, which lost by a 2 to 1 vote margin.

Dade County (Miami area), Florida voters rejected a broadened version of the hom*osexual rights ordinance that they had rejected seventeen months earlier. Again, singer Anita Bryant led the opposition. This time, though, the campaign on both sides was more low key, and campaign expenditures were down 90 per cent.

The defeat of a parimutuel betting referendum in Virginia was significant because church leaders brought in political pros to fight beside them. Richard Hobson, state legislator and Episcopal layman from Alexandria, organized lawmakers, law officers, and church leaders into the “Virginians Opposing Pari-Mutuel Betting”—a group that hired veteran political strategist Dennis Peterson to conduct a media and voter mobilization campaign. The Sunday before the election, pastors in 8,500 pulpits called for the defeat of betting on racehorses. Television evangelist Jerry Falwell raised about $50,000, bought media spots, took out full-page newspaper ads, and mailed letters to 100,000 Virginians in opposition to the bill.

Outgoing Florida governor Ruben Askew, a ruling elder in a Pensacola Presbyterian church, rallied Florida voters to defeat by 2 to 1 a proposition to legalize casino gambling. Askew said gambling would encourage organized crime “the way blood attracts sharks.” Casino backers spent over $2 million in the campaign.

Other election issues included:

• Drinking: Michigan voters raised the legal drinking age from 18 to 21, as did Montana voters to age 19.

• p*rnography: By a 3 to 1 margin, South Dakota voters rejected an antip*rnography bill, which opponents (many of them Protestant church leaders) criticized as having too harsh penalties, questionable due process in the courts, and vague and obscure wording.

• Abortion: Oregon voters refused to cut off state funds to finance abortions for women on welfare.

• Women’s rights: A Roman Catholic bishop and Mormon church officials helped defeat a measure asking the Nevada state legislature to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Florida voters nixed an equal rights amendment to their state constitution.

Choosing Between Believers

Anti-abortionists figured in the collapse of Minnesota’s liberal Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. Republican Rudy Boschwitz (Jewish) and David Durenberger (Catholic) won Senate seats, and Albert Quie, a twenty-year-veteran House member, took the governor’s chair. All came out against abortion.

Quie, a Lutheran active in Washington’s prayer breakfast movement (he offered to serve Charles Colson’s prison sentence in the Watergate aftermath), campaigned vigorously on the issue. His supporters distributed 250,000 leaflets to churchgoers throughout the state on the Sunday before election day, and they made 200,000 election-day telephone contacts to get out the vote, according to campaign sources.

The fledgling Right to Life Party in New York rang up 120,000 mostly church-inspired votes for its gubernatorial candidate, Mary Jane Tobin, a Catholic. As a result, the party has qualified to list candidates for all offices on the state ballot for the next four years.

Some campaigns pitted believer against believer. In the North Carolina Senate race, incumbent Republican Jesse Helms—a Southern Baptist well known for his born-again views—survived a bruising challenge by Democrat John Ingram, a United Methodist. Both candidates appeared on the “PTL Club” television show. On the Sunday before the election, Helms—who spent a record $7 million on his campaign—attended a dedication service at the 1,300-member Calvary Church (independent Presbyterian) in Charlotte, where evangelist Billy Graham gave the main address. Graham publicly acknowledged Helms’s presence but later told reporters that he didn’t mean to imply an endorsem*nt. “In fact,” he said, “I saw Mr. Ingram just the other day. He came up to my home [in Montreat] and we had a long talk and drank tea together.” Religion cropped up throughout the bitter campaign, with Ingram’s supporters angrily insisting that their man was just as much a Christian as Helms.

In Oregon, Republican officeholders created their own campaign organization after ex-Four Square preacher Walter Huss, a rightist, captured the chairmanship of the state’s Republican Party. Among other things, Huss said he preferred that candidates be Christians, a remark that alarmed the state’s sizable Jewish community and embarrassed party regulars. He was openly critical of the political stance of well-known evangelical Mark Hatfield, who had trounced him in the 1966 Senate primary.

In Virginia, Republican John W. Warner and Democrat Andrew Miller openly courted the church vote in their bid for a Senate seat. They campaigned among black church leaders, and both showed up for a service at the big Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, where Jerry Falwell introduced them to his television audience. In the end, Episcopalian Warner won.

In another development, New Hampshire governor Meldrim Thomson, Jr., a Republican and Conservative Baptist who mixed religion with politics (he ordered state flags to be flown at half-mast on Good Friday, for example), was defeated in his bid for reelection.

A Religious Analysis of the 96th Congress

The Ninety-sixth Congress will be more conservative, more youthful, and more Republican than its predecessor, according to analyses of last month’s elections.

It will not be any more Catholic, though, CHRISTIANITY TODAY has found, in its biannual religious census of Congress. Roman Catholic representation remained the same for a total of 129, equalling last year’s record high (up from ten years ago).

Although 20 per cent of both House and Senate seats will have new occupants, no major shifts occurred in religious-affiliation listings. Episcopalians show an increase of five, Lutherans three, and Baptists two. The Jewish contingent on Capitol Hill is stronger by three persons, matching a similar gain in the 1976 elections. Presbyterians, who lost eighteen seats in the last two elections, this time managed to hold their own with sixty. United Methodists, however, lost six seats, and there are five fewer members of the United Church of Christ.

(Because of the difficulties encountered in trying to pinpoint the exact Baptist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran denominations cited in affiliations, these groups have been listed generically in the census, compiled by special Washington correspondent Douglas Crow.)

Another clergyman was elected to Congress: Democrat William H. Gray III, pastor of the 3,000-member Bright Hope Baptist Church in Philadelphia. He joins several ordained congressional incumbents who were reelected to the House: Catholic priest Robert F. Drinan of Massachusetts, United Methodist Robert W. Edgar of Pennsylvania, John Buchanan of Alabama (Southern Baptist), and delegate Walter Fauntroy of Washington, D.C. (Progressive National Baptist). Buchanan is a Republican; the others are Democrats. In Wisconsin, Catholic priest Robert J. Cornell was ousted from his House seat by Republican challenger Toby Roth—a Catholic layman. The only ordained minister in the Senate is John Danforth of Missouri, an Episcopalian whose seat was not up for grabs this year.

In the census, which follows, Senators are listed first in bold face, then House members; an asterisk (*) denotes an apparent winner:

BAPTIST (57)

Byrd (D-W.Va.)

Cochran (R-Miss.)

Ford (D-Ky.)

Hatfield (R-Oreg.)

Helms (R-N.C.)

Humphrey (R-N.H.)

Johnston, Jr. (D-La.)

Morgan (D-N.C.)

Talmadge (D-Ga.)

Thurmond (R-S.C.)

Ashbrook (R-Ohio)

Andrews (D-N.C.)

Barnard (D-Ga.)

Bevill (D-Ala.)

Bowen (D-Miss.)

Brinkley (D-Ga.)

Broyhill (R-N.C.)

Buchanan (R-Ala.)

Burlison (D-Mo.)

Carr (D-Mich.)

Carter (R-Ky.)

Collins (D-Ill.)

Collins (R-Texas)

Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.)

Daniel (D-Va.)

Deckard (R-Ind.)

Diggs (D-Mich.)

Fauntroy (D-D.C.)

Ford (D-Tenn.)

Gingrich (R-Ga.)

Ginn (D-Ga.)

Gore (D-Tenn.)

Grassley (R-Iowa)

Gray, III (D-Pa.)

Hance (D-Texas)

Hefner (D-N.C.)

Hightower (D-Texas)

Hinson (R-Miss.)

Hubbard, Jr. (D-Ky.)

Hutto (D-Fla.)

Ichord (D-Mo.)

Jenkins (D-Ga.)

Jones (D-N.C.)

Long (D-La.)

Lott (R-Miss.)

Lowry (D-Wash.)

Mathis (D-Ga.)

Mattox (D-Texas)

Mollohan (D-W.Va.)

Natcher (D-Ky.)

Pepper (D-Fla.)

Perkins (D-Ky.)

Runnels (D-N.M.)

Thomas (R-Calif.)

Thorsness (R-S.D.)*

Wilson (R-Calif.)

Whitley (D-N.C.)

CHRISTIAN CHURCH

(DISCIPLES) (6)

Bafalis (R-Fla.)

Bennett (D-Fla.)

Evans (D-Ga.)

Skelton (D-Mo.)

Whittaker (R-Kans.)

Winn, Jr. (R-Kans.)

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE (3)

Percy (R-Ill.)

McClory (R-Ill.)

Rousselot (R-Calif.)

CHURCHES OF CHRIST (4)

Flippo (D-Ala.)

Hall (D-Tex.)

Latta (R-Ohio)

Williams (R-Ohio)

EASTERN ORTHODOX (5)

Sarbanes (D-Md.)

Tsongas (D-Mass.)

Mavroules (D-Mass.)

Snowe (R-Maine)

Yatron (D-Pa.)

EPISCOPAL (70)

Byrd (I-Va.)

Chafee (R-R.I.)

Danforth (R-Mo.)

Exon (D-Neb.)

Goldwater (R-Ariz.)

Heinz, III (R-Pa.)

Kassebaum (R-Kans.)

Mathias (R-Md.)

Matsunaga (D-Hawaii)

Pell (D-R.I.)

Proxmire (D-Wisc.)

Roth (R-Del.)

Simpson (R-Wyo.)

Stevens (R-Alaska)

Wallop (R-Wyo.)

Warner (R-Va.)

Weicker, Jr. (R-Conn.)

Alexander (D-Ark.)

Andrews (R-N.D.)

Anderson (D-Calif.)

Anthony (D-Ark.)

Ashley (D-Ohio)

Behind The Old Testament Canon

Prophecy and Canon, by Joseph Blenkinsopp (Notre Dame, 1977, 209 pp., $12.95), is reviewed by David E. Aune, professor of religion, Saint Xavier College, Chicago, Illinois.

Canon criticism” is a relatively recent trend in biblical scholarship that examines the way the biblical canon determined the framework for the development and interaction of Israelite, Jewish, and early Christian traditions. One of the first contributions to this renewed emphasis on the significance of the biblical canon was Brevard Childs’s Biblical Theology in Crisis (Westminster, 1970), in which the author insisted that the canon is the most important context for a truly biblical theology. Childs demonstrated how the biblical interpreter could deal creatively with successive developments of various biblical traditions through the Old Testament to the New Testament. In Prophecy and Canon, Joseph Blenkinsopp, professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, makes an important and distinctive contribution to this emerging area of biblical studies.

As an Old Testament scholar, Blenkinsopp is leery of reducing canon criticism to the problem of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Instead, he chooses to limit his discussion to the boundaries of the Jewish canon of Scripture, which reached final form by the first century A.D. This limitation has many advantages, including the promotion of serious contemporary dialogue between Jews and Christians.

The central thesis of Blenkinsopp’s book is that the infra-canonical tension between normative order (Torah) and the independent and self-authenticating claims of free prophecy is a constitutive element in the origins of Judaism. Dependent on Julius Wellhausen’s critical judgment that the traditional order of law, then prophets, should be reversed, Blenkinsopp contends that one of the more important impulses toward canonization was the claim of free prophecy to promulgate an inspired reinterpretation of Israelite tradition. The formation of the Torah canon in the last days of the monarchy, and its expansion toward the end of the Persian period, is viewed as a response to the threatening claims of free prophecy. Blenkinsopp views the third division of the Hebrew canon, the Writings, as a cross-section of the various ways in which prophecy was absorbed, scribalized, and clericalized in the post-exilic period. The Old Testament canon, then, is a witness to the diversity and complex internal developments of the faith and life of Israel.

Blenkinsopp has succeeded, within the framework of Old Testament critical scholarship, in describing a creative and innovative approach to understanding the theological developments underlying the formation of the Jewish canon. Blenkinsopp makes one rather serious factual error. He traces the “myth” of the final Jewish canonization of the Scriptures at Jamnia, ca. A.D. 90, to the Christian scholar H.E. Ryle in 1892. Although Blenkinsopp is quite right to reject the notion that a Jewish council at Jamnia canonized all or part of the Hebrew Scriptures circa A.D. 90, the first scholar in modern times to formulate that hypothesis was the great Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz in a monumental thirteen-volume work published 1853–1876. Even earlier, the great Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza proposed the basic idea without referring to Jamnia explicitly.

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The Case Against Abortion

Death Before Life by Harold O. J. Brown (Thomas Nelson, 1977, 168 pp., $5.95). is reviewed by Haven Bradford Gow, Arlington Heights, Illinois.

Brown, who teaches theology at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, sharply criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion rulings and provides a theological and philosophical case for the sanctity of human life. The best feature of the book is its trenchant analysis of the basic presuppositions and implications of the Court’s abortion decisions. For example, in Roe v. Wade, the Court said it simply could not resolve the perplexing question of when human life begins. That question, contended the Court, remains an “open question” to medical authorities, legal scholars, and theologians. Yet, the question of when human life begins is not a theological or legal question but a medical or scientific one that must be answered by scientists. They generally agree that life begins at conception. (An editorial in the September, 1970, issue of California Medicine states the “scientific fact” that “human life begins at conception and is continuous, whether intra- or extra-uterine, until death.”)

In its pernicious abortion ruling of January, 1973, the Court also contended that abortion is merely a private matter, which concerns only a woman and her physician. The Court in effect accepted as true the much-used argument of many women that “we have a right to do whatever we want with our own bodies.” Brown acknowledges that, in general, we have a right to control our own bodies, but also observes that that right does not and should not mean we may use our bodies to injure others. For example, we do not have a right to use our bodies to batter people or to rape women. Brown summarizes his position: “The right to control one’s own body, like all other rights, involves a measure of responsibility. Prior to sexual intercourse (except in the case of rape) the woman has the right to refuse intercourse. If intercourse is going to take place, the woman has the option of contraception (as does the man). But if conception has occurred, a new human being has been brought onto the scene and the woman’s right has run up against a new responsibility.”

Furthermore Brown contends that it is untrue to say that the fetus is simply a part of a woman’s body. The cells of any part of a woman’s body—the appendix, for example—carry the same genetic code that is present in every other cell of her body, and so the appendix is undeniably a part of a woman’s body and can be removed. The cells of an unborn baby within a woman, however, have a genetic code totally different from the cells of the woman’s body; in short, the fetus is a separate, growing life.

People who want to examine and discuss the explosive issue of abortion on a rational basis will find Brown’s book valuable. But the problem with too many proabortionists is that they do not want to listen to reason. This timely and informative book will probably fail to convince the people who most need it.

How To Help The Church

The Passion for Life: A Messianic Lifestyle by Jurgen Moltmann (Fortress, 1977, 126 pp., $5.95), Mutual Ministry: New Vitality for the Local Church by James Fenhagen (Seabury, 1977, 141 pp., $7.95), A Church for an Open Future: Biblical Roots and Parish Renewal by Jack Lundin (Fortress, 1977, 125 pp., $4.25 pb.), All That We Are We Give by James Fairfield (Herald, 1977, 166 pp., $3.95 pb.), A Community of Believers: Making Church Membership More Meaningful by Charles Deweese (Judson, 1978, 109 pp., $4.95 pb.), Calling the Church to Discipline: A Scriptural Guide for the Church That Dares to Discipline by Roy Knuteson (Nelson, 1977, 136 pp., $5.95), Why the Local Church?: New Testament Teaching on the Purpose of the Local Church by Lawrence Pote (Master’s, 1976, 105 pp., $2.45 pb.), and Acceptance: Balancing Our Differences in Grace by Lawrence Pote (Master’s, 1977, 54 pp., $1.50 pb.), are reviewed by Philip Siddons, pastor of the Wright’s Corners United Presbyterian Church, Lockport, New York.

In the proliferation of “how-to” books on the church, only a few are genuinely helpful. Most authors either take an aspect of church life and try to make it a panacea for all situations, or they attempt to cover everything and end up saying nothing. There are, however, excellent books that can aid church leaders.

Moltmann in The Passion for Life says that your ability to become involved with other people is the basis of community. In contrast to the tendency of isolationalism, Christians should be a people who not only tolerate others, but befriend them. The key, says Moltmann, is an ability to forget or deny yourself (see my article “Climbing Out of the Existential Ditch” in CHRISTIANITY TODAY, Aug. 12, 1977, p. 8). Because Jesus sacrificed his life for us, we have value, and we ought to help other people understand how important they are. “The basic characteristic of the life of Jesus is not the consolation of the beyond, not even the hope in the future, but his becoming human, becoming flesh, his healing of life, accepting of the oppressed, and making alive the frozen relationships between human beings,” writes Moltmann. Allegiance to Christ means that we should love each other. He uses the German state church as an example. Christians silent in the face of injustice, he says, really cooperate with it. Just as Jesus befriended a diverse group of followers, so should we.

Moltmann includes an interesting discussion on the festive aspects of eucharistic worship. He also comments on the ecumenical movement. We used to talk to all parts of the church, he says, maintaining that all parties should talk not merely about the cross, but should stand under it. Only then will discussions be fruitful. His prison camp experiences in Germany illustrate what he preaches.

Are you and your congregation on a pilgrimage together? If so, says Fenhagen, you’ve got a healthy, growing church. The minister should not be the answer man. Instead he should willingly lead the congregation in his and their pilgrimage. Mutual Ministry provides practical suggestions on bridging the gap between the clergy and the laity. He includes models for handling conflicts and developing relationships. Seminary students, pastors, and leaders need to read this book.

A Church for an Open Future tells the story of an experimental congregation, the Community of Christ the Servant, located just outside Chicago. The church, begun in 1968, risked change, and grew as a result. Lundin raises interesting questions about Sunday school and about education in the family, though he offers few practical suggestions to achieve family-centered religious education.

It is easier to change church structure than your own life. Fairfield in All That We Are We Give applies Christianity to how we live, which, in his case, means living a simple, focused life. He includes helpful discussions on finding your talents, getting out of debt, how to choose a career, and how to set goals. Fairfield urges the local church to help its members plan a life compatible with Christianity.

Baptists, says Deweese, are becoming too secular. The solution in A Community of Believers is to stiffen membership requirements, dropping the “careless admission standards” that he claims exist in Baptist denominations. He wants churches to use covenants, which would raise the ethical standards of parishioners and make the local church accountable for the way its people live. A good idea, but I saw the dark cloud of legalism billowing between his lines.

I sensed a similar legalism in Knuteson’s book, Calling the Church to Discipline. It adopts a hard, get-tough attitude about enforcing biblical morality. Church leaders not only fail to adopt a necessary chain of command, says Knuteson, but they also remain silent about ethics. He urges Christians to separate themselves from the “apostates.” Knuteson peppers the book with numerous, but bland, examples of how discipline helps the church.

Pote in Why the Local Church summarizes the importance of teaching correct doctrine. The local church, he says, should be the religious center in the community. But he writes in generalities only. Reading his book Acceptance is more profitable. He writes it for lay people and would help persons dealing with a rigid traditionalism. Using Jesus’ parables and Paul’s teachings, he reinforces the importance of forgiveness and mature Christian tolerance in a Christian community. Just as we are forgiven by God through Christ, so we should be quick to forgive and accept others. The Bible doesn’t mention every ethical matter, so there is the occasional need to agree to disagree. The local church should first teach biblical principles, rather than a set of rules for living.

John R. W. Stott

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Some barriers are cultural rather than theological.

There are between 600 and 700 million Muslims in the world, and Islam has been more resistant to the Gospel than any other ethnic religion. Indeed, Muslims regard Islam as superior to Christianity: “As Christianity superseded Judaism, so Islam has superseded Christianity,” they say. Now too there is a resurgence of Islamic faith, even in the West. In the United States, for example, the Muslim Students’ Association claims 117 campus groups, while in England the Ahmadiyya sect is investing about two million dollars on a program to “evangelize” Britain, including “committed Christians.”

At the same time, especially in situations of social change, there is among Muslims a new openness to the Gospel. We await with great expectation, therefore, the outcome of the North American Conference on Muslim Evangelization that was to be held October 15 and 21 in Colorado Springs. Jointly sponsored by the North American Lausanne Committee and by World Vision International, and directed by Donald McCurry, it was to bring together 150 key men and women deeply concerned to bring the Gospel to Muslims.

In the Middle East the largest Christian contact with Muslims is that of the ancient Orthodox Churches. But, generally speaking, these churches do not see themselves as having an evangelistic task. “We have coexisted beautifully with Islam for 1300 years,” an Orthodox Archbishop said to me a few months ago. He hoped that such peaceful coexistence would continue. But it was being disturbed by “Protestants” (a big enough umbrella to cover even Jehovah’s Witnesses), who were distributing propaganda tracts in the villages; it had to be explained to the Ministry of the Interior that they were “agents from the other side” (i.e. Israel). The Orthodox Churches were letting their light shine, but not preaching. “Are any Muslims coming to Christ through this light?” I asked.

“Many buy and read Bibles, and want to become Christians, but it is forbidden.”

“You mean that baptisms are forbidden? But are there no secret conversions?”

“No, definitely there are no conversions at all; the government does not allow conversions.”

“I expect the Archbishop means that the government allows no open conversions,” I persisted, “but surely the government cannot legislate for the work of the Holy Spirit?” My point was not conceded, however.

An exception to this Orthodox nonexpectation of Muslim evangelization is Dr. Charles Malik, well known to readers of CHRISTIANITY TODAY as a former contributor and as a past president of the United Nations General Assembly. He has recently retired from the chair of philosophy in the American University of Beirut. “I am a Trinitarian Christian,” he had said to the architect designing his house, “and I wish this to be reflected in the building.” He is a Chalcedonian Christian, too. So one side of his home is fitted with a series of three windows, each with three panels, while the windows on another side contain both a central cross and two stone supports symbolizing the two natures of Christ.

We sat on the terrace in the hot sunshine, beneath the Chalcedonian windows, drinking Turkish coffee and listening uneasily to the intermittent gunfire in the middle distance. Malik spoke with passionate conviction about the necessity of defending Christianity in Lebanon. “There is nothing like it anywhere in Africa or Asia, this long Christian tradition rooted deeply in the soil of our Lebanese villages. Surely Western governments are not so bankrupt of wisdom that they will allow a Christian culture to be destroyed for the sake of Arab oil?” I then asked him how he could see the Muslim world penetrated for Jesus Christ. “There must be missionaries,” he replied, “humble, suffering missionaries, to live there, to witness there, to suffer there, and to die there. There is no other way.”

I think I detect among evangelicals a new sensitivity, both theological and cultural, in our attitudes to the evangelization of Muslims. The bad old days of bitter polemic against Mohammed and Islam are, I hope, over. Even direct confrontation between Bible and Koran, between Jesus and Mohammed, is not likely to prove the most fruitful approach. Instead there is a humble desire to build bridges. Bishop Kenneth Cragg writes of “the Christian potential of the Koran,” and of the “convertibility” of those elements in Islam that are not incompatible with the Gospel. He wants to persuade Muslims that “Christ is the conclusion of their own logic.” Another brother, a national of a Middle Eastern country, although determined not to compromise any biblical essentials, has yet developed “seven fundamental principles” that he sees as common to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These include the great truths that God created and loves man, that man is separated from God by sin, that sin can be removed only by faith not by works, and that Jesus is the Saviour who died and rose to redeem us. Each of his seven propositions is supported by appropriate quotations from Towrah (the law), Zabur (the Psalms), Injeel (the New Testament), and Qur’an.

The highest barriers that keep Muslims from faith in Jesus are cultural rather than theological, however: “people reject the gospel not because they think it is false, but because it strikes them as alien. They imagine that in order to become Christians they must renounce their own culture, lose their own identity and betray their own people” (Pasadena Statement 1977). The very word Christian is associated in a Muslim’s mind with all that he abominates most—the memory of those brutal Crusades, the materialism and moral decadence of the West, and our (to him) incredible espousal of Zionist imperialism. It is inconceivable to him that he should ever betray his Islamic inheritance. To become a Christian would be treason as well as apostasy, and would deserve the death penalty. So the question is whether a whole new way of presenting the Gospel can be developed. Can we show that “however much new converts feel they need to renounce for the sake of Christ, they are still the same people with the same heritage and the same family” (Willowbank Report), and that “conversion does not unmake, it remakes” (Kenneth Cragg)? Is it possible to conceive of converts becoming followers of Jesus without so forsaking their Islamic culture that they are regarded as traitors? Can we even contemplate Jesus mosques instead of churches and Jesus Muslims instead of Christians? It is with radical questions like these that the October conference was to grapple.

Neither theological bridges nor cultural sensitivity alone will win Muslims to Jesus Christ, however. The only way to a Muslim’s heart is love. “We Christians have lived alongside Muslims in this country for over 1,000 years,” an Egyptian Christian said to me in slightly broken English, “but we still hate and despise their religion. We ought rather to show our Christianship by our active love.”

Hassan Dehqani-Tafti, himself a convert from Islam and now Anglican Bishop in Iran, has expressed it admirably in his autobiography Design of My World (1959): “Words alone cannot bring the Muslim to the foot of the Cross.… Christians must show in their lives how Christianity is in truth the incarnation of the love of God. Most of the Muslims I know who have followed Christ have done so because of the sacrificial life and sustained love of some Christian friend. You cannot bring the Muslim to Christ unless you love him personally.”

John R. W. Stott is rector emeritus of All Souls Church, London, England.

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John V. Lawing, Jr.

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It was almost like a conspiracy. All day Sunday before the world premiere of Born Again the television treated us to previews of Disney’s The Shaggy D.A. The film showed Dean Jones climbing out of a dog house—not necessarily the best preparation for seeing Jones as Nixon’s former hatchet man, Charles Colson.

There is no reason, of course, why an actor cannot successfully move from light comedy parts to serious film work. Dean Jones is an accomplished performer and it may be that he will yet make that transition.

Please understand: Jones commits no disaster. There are no embarrassing moments of obvious incompetence. He knows how to move comfortably in front of a camera and how to deliver his lines naturally. Nevertheless, I confess that Jones failed to make me care about Charles Colson. I did care about Colson when I read the book, yet I was unable to identify with the Jones portrayal of him. I didn’t feel either the anxiety of his spiritual distress or the fear of his physical intimidation in prison.

(As you read this, please remember that I’m the unrepentant reviewer who was so embarrassed by Michael Moriarty’s flat performance in “Holocaust” that I mercifully refrained from mentioning it. He received an Emmy for it.)

However, Director Irving Rapper brings forth fine performances from a number of the cast members. Jay Robinson, an old pro in films, is superb as Colson’s Jewish law partner, David Shapiro. He has some of the best lines in the film and is thoroughly believable as a skeptical Washington lawyer. Robinson is convincingly confused but compassionate about Colson’s Christian conversion. Colson’s former political enemy and present Christian brother, Harold Hughes, plays himself effectively. Hughes, a salty, rumpled, hulk of a man, dominates the screen whenever he appears. No doubt he had a great deal of practical acting experience in that thespian hothouse known as the United States Senate.

Another commanding presence in the film is that of Raymond St. Jacques as Jimmy Newsome, the powerful black prisoner who befriends Colson in prison. He shines as the “policeman” peacemaker within the prisoner community. His being paroled against probability but after prayer with other Christian prisoners is one of the genuinely touching moments of the film.

Two important characterizations in the film are poorly handled. Dana Andrews as Tom Phillips, chairman of the board of Raytheon, seems to confuse spiritual peace with ennui. As he witnesses to Colson about his faith he seems to project weary resignation rather than peace and joy. And Harry Spillman as Nixon impersonates rather than acts. The impersonation is not without merit, but the part calls for a believable dramatic presentation of a tormented man. Spillman fails us.

There are several special problems that a Christian film like this faces. The first is how to make God-talk real. For reasons that remain mysterious to me, Christian conversation has an ethos of unreality about it when it comes from the soundtrack of a technicolor movie. Even when the dialogue is unassailably accurate, it seems somehow unreal.

In Born Again it might have helped if the non-God-talk had been more realistic. The transcriptions of the White House tapes have given us all a rather clear understanding of the earthy, scatological nature of the oval office conversations. Somehow the force of that doesn’t come across in the film.

A second special problem for Christian conversion movies is how to treat the “old man.” How do we deal with the preconversion person? Christians commonly say things like: “The old John Doe is dead. He died at the cross.” There may be some theological truth to that, but the fact remains that there is continuity between the preconversion and the post-conversion person.

Conversion to Christ changes the theological content and direction of a person’s life but it does not usually change his personality. Before his conversion the Apostle Paul was an aggressive, dynamic, somewhat arrogant protector of the Jewish tradition. After his conversion he became an aggressive, dynamic, somewhat arrogant disseminater of the Christian faith.

It is a special problem for Christian dramatists to show the change brought about by conversion while preserving the personality. The problems of language or personality are not successfully solved in Born Again.

The whole Watergate episode was and remains for me a hopeless mass of confusion. I admit I have a problem with dates and chronology. I share the problem of a Methodist minister I know who was attempting to calculate how long he had been married. He turned to his wife and said, “We were married in ’53 and our daughter was born in ’54. Or was it the other way around?”

Born Again provided no help to me in sorting out that confusing period. In fact, the cinema techniques of flash-back and crosscutting from one scene to another increased rather than decreased the confusion.

It’s difficult to know how to assess a film like this. If we take executive producer Robert Munger at his word that “this is a commercial film made for its dramatic and entertainment impact upon the audience” the film rates no more than a bare “C.” If we place it in the genre of Christian conversion movies, it would rate an “A.”

John V. Lawing, Jr., is assistant professor of journalism at CBN University, Virginia Beach, Virginia.

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Douglas Livingston

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Gaius sighed wearily. Outside the air was fresher. In the room he had just left the voices were loud. The night air muted the sound. Lights flickered in the windows of rooms opening onto the court. But the clear stars were not dimmed. He thought of the mountains where the air would be fresher still, cooler, sharper. Sitting in the quiet of the hills with the warmth of the dying fire would make a man content. He sighed again. Perhaps someday he could afford a manager, and, then, time with the pastured flocks and nights under the stars.

A pounding on the heavy door brought him back to his present responsibilities. As the pounding continued he called out, “Yes, I’m coming.” But he did not hurry. The place was full anyway. This census business was beginning to tire him. A full house had its financial advantages, but demands of it week after week seemed more than it was worth. The help grumbled with overwork. He had not had a single afternoon in over a month to get away from the city and into the hills. A man had to have time alone, to relax, to renew himself with the energy of the earth through his feet. No, the Roman census with the increased business it brought was no blessing to him.

He opened the small window in the door. There were six men on horseback. Immediately a voice commanded, “You. Be quick. Open the door.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Gaius answered, ignoring the order, “we don’t have a single room. Even the chair by our fire has been claimed.”

“Let us in. There must be room somewhere. We can’t stay in the streets.”

Gaius should have left the door firmly shut. He knew that. But it wouldn’t be safe for anyone to wander the streets this late. He hesitated, and was lost, though he began, “Have you tried …”

“We’ve tried everywhere,” cut in the impatient speaker. “Let us into your courtyard, if nowhere else.”

Gaius unbarred the door, but he stood in the doorway regarding the group. Three of the men looked as though they might be of some importance. The other three he took for slaves. The speaker dismounted and made to enter around Gaius. The innkeeper still hesitated and then turned to lead the men into the court. How could he leave them to the streets all night? he argued with himself.

Indicating a corner of the yard where they could sleep, he led the slaves and their horses to the stables. The smell of the warm beasts and the heavy scent of fresh hay greeted him. Contentment seeped into him as he helped the slaves settle the horses in. Animals seldom had trouble making room for more, he mused.

He lingered in the stable. Here was a society he loved. The years as an innkeeper slipped away. He was a boy—tagging along with his uncle to the pastures, unaware as yet of the complexities of the world of adult responsibility. All there was for him was the hills; the hills where he came to know the stupidity of sheep and the danger from a hungry predator; the hills of fierce storms and whims of wind that shoved clouds about the burning sky. Sitting beside a pool pulling brambles from a sheep’s coat, or gazing at the sun sinking below the horizon—there he had known satisfaction. That was his real life: hours of solitude, days of reflection. Sheep were only animals, but they were capable of showing affection. Their nuzzles of appreciation were better payment than the silver paid for a night’s lodging. The greedy hunger of a new lamb at its mother’s tit* had made him happy as he watched. He could still feel the pressure of the orphan lamb he had spoiled and petted, insistent against his leg for attention. And he had never forgotten the shock and sickness he felt when he came across a half-eaten carcass the first time. The blood had been so red against the white wool. Such was the violence of the hills, but it was part of the whole scheme of being—of living and dying. He had felt at home in the mountains and the cycles of their years.

What strange things chart a man’s destiny. Marrying Suzanne, confident he could forget his Roman patrimony and the problems that caused with his Jewish grandparents, forget the harsh sound of soldiers’ feet on the cobbled streets, forget the tiring rush of the city. A shepherd forever, until the sudden death of Suzanne’s father, and in a single night his life was redrawn. He and Suzanne moved into the life her father, and his father had followed. Only occasionally was he bitter, less so as the years passed; but the longing for the life of the hills never left him.

He heard a commotion in the courtyard. Sighing again, he turned from his reverie and became innkeeper again. The voices were muffled, but he could hear a tentative knocking over the growls of the men in the yard. Gaius hated turning people away more than the fatigue of serving their needs. People weren’t able to take care of themselves in the streets in these times. The luxuries of civilization exacted their price. When the three men saw him, they eased their grumbles and turned to the wall. The knocking, to his aggravation, continued.

Gaius crossed the court and opened the window. Peering out he saw two figures, a taller one supporting someone bent over. Cautiously he unbarred the door. If this were a ruse there were enough strong arms at hand to stop any robbers.

“How can I help you? I haven’t a room left in the place. There are people sleeping here in the yard.” Then he added apologetically, “The census, you know.”

“Yes, the census.” The voice hinted of great weariness, but it was controlled. “If you could let us even stay in the courtyard for the night.”

The bent figure—it was a woman, Gaius could see now, a young woman—sagged against the man. He strengthened his support as he said, “My wife. She is about to give birth. There is no room anywhere. Even your court …”

Gaius opened the door wide. “Step in here, please.” He took the woman’s arm. She felt tense, as if struggling to bear her pain in silence. “The stable will be protected and warm. It is clean. Come. This way.”

With the gentleness of a lover, Gaius guided the lady to the stable. The slaves started to attention when they entered, but seeing it was only the innkeeper, they returned to their sleeping positions near their masters’ horses. Toward one corner was an empty stall, unused but laid with fresh bedding. As soon as the lady was seated, Gaius became the solicitous host.

“Rest here. I’ll return shortly with some blankets and food.” He turned away as the young woman bent over to suppress a moan.

He hurried across the court, stopping to bar the door. The sky was clear and brilliant with stars. In the kitchen he roused Anna, the serving girl, to prepare a cold supper of cheese and bread and wine. Then he went to his own rooms.

As he entered, the soft light of a night lamp cast mellow colors on the face of Suzanne. He paused in the doorway. Seeing her lying there in the unguarded trust of sleep, he knew she was worth this life. His love reached out and held her. Her hair was dark against the bedclothes. They rose and fell just perceptibly with her slow breathing. In the muted light he could imagine her as she looked the night after their wedding. He warmed to her, his beautiful Suzanne. He went to the bed and kissed her closed eyes. She stirred and almost woke. “Suzanne.”

Oh—gaius.” She smiled through her sleep and caressed him with her eyes. Then she was fully awake and sitting up. “Is anything wrong?”

“No, just more people.” Before she could reply he hurried on, “But one is a woman, already with the pains of childbirth. She may need your help.” “Where is she? We don’t have a corner left.” “I’ve put them in the stable. It’s warm and …”

“The stable! Why we must let them have this room.”

“No, Suzanne. This room will not be taken for any guests. The stable is a fine place. It’s warm and clean and quiet. We can make her comfortable in the straw.”

Suzanne was already dressing. “I’ll take care of the mother. Have you seen to food and light and …”

“Go to the woman, my love. I’ll look to the other matters.” He took her in his arms. Neither of them was young, but he held her as he had years ago, and the strength of their life together made the years as nothing. She was a good midwife. The woman could have no better help.

Gaius gathered pillows and blankets. He met Anna and told her to bring lights first and then to serve the supper in the stable. He led the way across the court. The sleeping figures did not stir.

Suzanne was bent over the woman talking in low tones. The man stood nearby. He turned to Gaius as the innkeeper approached. “This is very good of you and your wife.” The voice was strong but not loud, and Gaius thought he recognized a northern accent.

The innkeeper busily made a pallet of sweet-smelling straw. His wife helped the woman to it. Then he made a bed at a little distance for the man. Anna had returned with food. Gaius served the man, whose eating seemed more out of politeness than hunger. Gaius dismissed the girl with a word to return in an hour.

Child-bearing could take time. He prepared himself for a long night. He glanced at the women. They exchanged whispers. How beautiful my wife is, he thought, bending over that young girl with the confidence and strength of her maturity. No, he thought again, the woman could find no better midwife, even in a palace.

He turned his attention to the man. “Your wife will be fine. It’s only too bad the census had to be taken at such a time for her. But Rome doesn’t wait for the birth of one child. I dare say, not even for an emperor’s child. You are from Galilee?”

“Yes, from Nazareth. But it is right that the child be born here in Bethlehem.”

“Bethlehem is a good place. Home of kings. My Suzanne’s family have lived here for a long time. They are of the house of David, as is my mother’s family. You’re here for the census, aren’t you?”

“Yes, my wife and I are both descendants of David.”

“What work is it that your son—I’m sure it will be a son—will inherit? By the look of your young wife, this must be her first child.”

“I am a carpenter. And, yes, this is Mary’s first child.” He looked to where his wife was reclining.

Gaius was impressed with this younger man’s self-possession at the birth of his first child. He seemed to have a sureness beyond his years: not arrogance, but a comfortable maturity. The two men grew silent, each caught away in his own thoughts.

Gaius was again in the hills. The sheep would look like grey rocks on the dark hills. The sky would make him aware of his smallness in the great universe. The companionship of the other shepherds would give him peace in the fire and the human contact they would share.

He thought of his uncle, his mother’s brother, who had taken them into his home when his Roman father had gone down with his ship. Belonging to two worlds had its advantages. But somehow, at bottom, he had felt neither Roman nor Jewish. In the cities it sometimes mattered. But never in the hills. And having been once to Rome as a small child with his father, he did not desire the unending stone and constant noise of the bad-smelling cities. Someday … someday.

He was brought back to the present by a moan. The woman Mary was obviously in labor. Suzanne was quiet and efficient in her ministration and encouragement.

Gaius turned to the carpenter. “Let’s go outside for awhile.”

Reluctantly the man turned and followed Gaius. They stood in the courtyard. It was after midnight and the world was incredibly silent. The stillness felt kinetic, as if a great power held the universe quiet. Time seemed suspended.

Then Suzanne was at his side. “Please, waken Martha and have her come to assist me.” She turned to the other man. “Joseph, your son will soon be here. Wait here in the court, until you hear his first cry.” She squeezed his arm and then smiled at Gaius before returning to the stable.

Gaius went to the kitchen. The serving girl was sleeping. He roused her to waken Martha, and ordered her to go herself also to aid his wife. Then he returned to his vigil with the man Joseph.

The stars moved west. The silent world slept on. Finally, suddenly, a cry broke the stillness. Joseph turned to the stable door, but did not move toward it. Gaius clapped his shoulders and smiled. “That sounded like a healthy cry. Shall we go see your new son?” And he suddenly realized that everyone had spoken all night as if there had been no doubt that the child would be a son. He smiled ruefully to himself and led the new father to his family.

The dawn showed in the east. Birds had been calling for some time. Gaius, with Suzanne, was crossing the courtyard, which slept in dark shadows, when the knocking sounded. “Go on to bed. I’ll be with you in a moment,” he said to his wife.

He went to the door. “Who’s there?”

“Gaius? It’s Andrew. We’ve come to see the child.”

“The child?” Gaius was busily unbarring and opening the door. “How did you know about the child? Come in. Come in, Andrew. Judah. Benjamin. Joshua. It’s good to see you. But how did you know about the child?”

“Gaius, you won’t believe this, but tonight a messenger from God appeared to us in the hills. He told us that the Messiah had been born here in Bethlehem. He said as a sign we would find the Saviour sleeping in a manger. Your inn just seemed like the place we were to come, seeing that we don’t know anyone else who would open their door to strangers, and shepherds at that, at this time of night. Do you have a newborn child here?”

But Gaius was hardly listening as he looked at his friends. Could it be that this child, born in his stable, was indeed the Messiah? Andrew was, of all men, the skeptic. He obeyed the laws as was his religious duty, but with little enthusiasm or devotion. If any man would be careful in ascribing to messengers a supernatural origin, it would be Andrew. And then—with a stab of jealousy—why should he have missed it? If he had not been here, wouldn’t he have been with them? Had he not been here, perhaps the child would have been born in another place, and the messenger would have come to other shepherds. Why shepherds? Why his friends? Why his inn?

Whatever might have been he would never know. But that he had been at his work when the couple came to the door had given him a privilege of service no one could have asked for.

Mutely he led them to the stable. There, by the light of the lamp, they could see Mary as she lay in Joseph’s arms. She seemed at such peace, sleeping after her ordeal. Joseph put his finger to his lips. In the manger the baby’s face could just be seen peeking from the swaddling clothes. Although he was quiet, his eyes were open.

Good Friday Thoughts on Christmas

Betrayal, trial,

A friend’s denial,

And birth leads to a cross.

Frankincense, myrrh,

Bright gold, warm fur,

Are in the end but dross.

Manger and star,

Wise men from far,

And great joy unrestrained;

A birth indeed,

But in that seed

The ending was contained.

He came to die

On cross hung high,

His love for man to show.

Did babe foresee

The nails, the tree

Where kings would not bow low?

JAMES A. HOUCK

The shepherds stood a little distance from the family. Mary stirred, opened her eyes, and smiled a welcome to the men.

“We were sent by an angel.” It was Andrew, but an Andrew held by awe. “Is this truly our Messiah?”

Mary looked into Joseph’s face. The carpenter nodded assent. “Yes,” he said. “His name is Jesus.”

There was a noise of people awakening in the courtyard. Gaius turned from the stall and went out into the growing light of the morning. He nodded to his guests who had slept in the stony court. He passed through the kitchen and left orders with Anna to see that the morning service was completed. Then he went to his bedroom.

Suzanne lay awake, waiting for him. He undressed and lay down beside her. He still did not speak, but he took her in his arms with great gentleness and reverence.

She nestled her face in his chest. Then she said, “He is a beautiful boy. He will make a fine, strong man.”

“Did you know they say he is the Messiah?” His voice came as from a long way off.

“Mary told me. It’s a very strange story. It is almost too much to believe, but somehow I do believe it.”

“An angel came and told Andrew and the others about him.” He could feel her surprise in his arms. “They are with them now.”

There was a time of silence, and the comfort of their love was around them.

Then, very softly, Suzanne asked, “Gaius, are you sorry you were not in the fields with them?”

He was silent, full of wonder at her love that knew his most hidden thoughts. His arms tightened around her. With his chin he caressed her hair. Lightly he kissed her eyes, and finally said, “No, my love. If we should be allowed to make a place for the Lord to be born, it is enough. Today we will move them into the inn. But surely it will not be a finer place than the room you made for them in our stable.”

G. Douglas Young is founder and president of the Institute of Holy Land Studies in Jerusalem. He has lived there since 1963.

- More fromDouglas Livingston