Page 4540 – Christianity Today (2024)

About 80 Peruvian evangelicals claim they have been falsely convicted in the government’s haste to break the back of terrorism.

Wuille Ruiz Figueroa’s day in court before a ski-masked judge did not come until six months after antiterrorist police arrested him. The state produced no evidence against the Methodist lawyer, who worked as a counselor for incarcerated women. He pleaded innocent to charges of possessing subversive propaganda, but Peru’s law against terrorism restricted his defense. In 1993, the judge found Ruiz, now 38, guilty. Peru’s Supreme Court reaffirmed the 20-year sentence.

Ruiz’s case is typical of the plight of evangelicals in Peru, who consider themselves victimized by antiterrorism laws. The case reminds lawyer Alfonso Wieland of the church’s continuing need for a legal team to defend human rights. Wieland, 34-year-old executive director of the Peace and Hope Association, estimates that as many as a quarter of the approximately 4,000 people convicted of terrorism are innocent, among them some 80 evangelicals.

Since 1980, in its quest to impose communism, the Maoist Shining Path insurrectionist movement has been responsible for the deaths of more than 30,000 people in Peru. The terrorists often razed entire villages in poor rural areas populated by evangelicals. Nearly 90 percent of the country claims affiliation with the Roman Catholic Church.

TERRORIST EVANGELICALS? In 1984, leaders of Peru’s evangelical alliance, conep, responded to the widespread suffering by founding the Peace and Hope Association as the alliance’s social relief arm, providing emergency food, clothing, and legal help to hundreds of displaced Peruvians.

Concurrent with guerrilla violence, the army massacred hundreds of civilians suspected as terrorists. Those who treat the wounded, feed the hungry, and give shelter to individuals needing a bed—actions that evangelicals consider their Christian duty—violate laws against “terrorist collaboration.” A repentance law, which offers plea bargains to accused terrorists if they identify other terrorists, invites enemies of evangelicals to implicate them—with no questions asked.

President Alberto Fujimori’s strong-arm tactics to end the siege included the 1992 establishment of special antiterrorism tribunals. Wieland says that Ruiz’s case typifies the justice these courts deliver. Some say the conviction rate is as high as 97 percent. Sentences range from 20 years to life.

MINISTERING TO EVANGELICALS: In 1995, with no other evangelical organization fighting for human rights, Peace and Hope narrowed its focus to legal counsel and prison ministry. Today its staff of five lawyers and a social worker, plus a network of pastors and lay volunteers from ten denominations, provide legal and spiritual support for evangelicals, both in the courtroom and in the prisons. Last year, Peace and Hope secured pardons or acquittals for 15 prisoners. High-profile defendants that Peace and Hope lawyers have represented include Juan Mallea, a taxi driver accused of 10 murders and freed in 1994 (CT, April 25, 1994, p. 46).

The government’s measures, however ruthless, ultimately worked. With Shining Path and the smaller but equally violent Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement largely crushed, terrorism no longer poses a daily threat to Peruvians. Peru is thriving as foreign investors are rebuilding what had been destroyed. While some observers maintain that Shining Path’s threat justified sweeping government action to stop the guerrillas’ wave of murder and sabotage, Peace and Hope lawyer German Vargas criticizes indiscriminate killings of civilians who happened to live in an area with a reported Shining Path presence. “To think that to defeat terrorism it’s not important how many innocent people might fall is the same logic Shining Path uses to justify its terrorist actions,” Vargas says.

Wieland agrees that the government used unnecessary measures, including the “faceless” terrorism tribunals that served no practical purpose after the 1992 capture of Shining Path leader Abimael Guzman. Ski masks and one-way mirrors concealed judges’ identities in an effort to avert reprisals.

STILL BEHIND BARS: A morning in Castro Castro maximum security prison on Lima’s fringe is a stark reminder that Christians still are paying a long-term price for the government’s overzealous pursuit of suspected revolutionaries. Thirty Peace and Hope workers frequent the prisons. The group sponsors craft and writing contests to encourage creativity amid the monotony of incarceration.

While Peace and Hope ministers to the spiritual and social needs of all prisoners, it offers legal assistance only to evangelicals whose cases its lawyers research and conclude to have been wrongfully convicted. Many whom Peace and Hope defends are evangelicals who converted through the thriving prison fellowship, supported by the organization but led by inmates themselves.

The past year has brought reforms that encourage Wieland, including the end of “faceless” judges. In August 1996, Peru’s Congress unanimously created the “Ad Hoc Commission” to review questionable convictions. It recommends pardons to those convicted with insufficient evidence. Of the 2,375 cases submitted for review, the commission has heard approximately a third and recommended 310 for final presidential approval. This commission considered Ruiz’s case in November. But a ruling could take months.

Peace and Hope lawyers contend these reforms do not go far enough. “The legislation that permitted these severe punishments in the first place is still in place,” Vargas says. “Torture is an ordinary matter of course.” Despite constitutional guarantees that the accused is innocent until proven guilty, terrorism trials reflect the de facto reality, he says. And since the Ad Hoc Commission does not overturn sentences but rather commutes them, terrorism still mars the records of those it frees.

While Ruiz awaits the commission’s decision on his case, he writes devotionals and leads the Christian community in Cellblock 1B of Castro Castro. He dreams of his wife, Silvia, and 5-year-old daughter, Esteli, neither of whom he may touch. And he prays.

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The King’s College, which closed more than three years ago (CT, Nov. 14, 1994, p. 66), has emerged from bankruptcy under Campus Crusade for Christ ownership and hopes to take advantage of a remarkable spiritual, social, and economic comeback in New York City by opening a campus in the Empire State Building.

The college, then in nearby Briarcliff Manor, peaked in the 1970s, but started to decline and finally collapsed into bankruptcy with more than $25 million of debt, mostly from the mortgage of a new suburban campus (CT, Dec. 12, 1993, p. 60).

But King’s President Friedhelm Radandt used a marketing study to convince Stan Oakes of Campus Crusade for Christ that New York City needed a Christian college because of ongoing renewal. At the time, Oakes himself was hatching a plan for a network of colleges under Crusade’s International Christian University. He needed a model college with accreditation and a headquarters.

“New York City has a growing church, a lot of optimism, and a growing unity,” Oakes says. In exchange for ownership of King’s and campuses in the Empire State Building and in suburban New York, Campus Crusade for Christ settled the debts. King’s will retain Radandt as president but will operate as part of Crusade’s International Christian University under the leadership of Oakes.

CITYWIDE RENEWAL: King’s College’s decline mirrored the disastrous 1960s and 1970s in New York City. Stricken by crime, economic catastrophe, and weak leadership, the city became a byword for trouble.

Radandt reflects that the larger church had also abandoned the Big Apple. “We didn’t equip people in the city church at The King’s College,” he says. “That was a failure. God had to bring us to a point of humbleness before we could recognize it.”

But the city—and its church, too—revived. Bankruptcy, job losses, and demographic flights have been replaced by budget surpluses, employment growth, and massive in-migration.

The renewal of King’s rides on an increased demand for education by a renewed New York church. Suburban Nyack College also has branched into the city. And New York has 70 Bible institutes training more than 3,000 students.

New York remains more Catholic (42 percent) than Protestant (30 percent), but the numbers do not capture the strong movement into evangelical Protestantism. A recent City University of New York (CUNY) survey indicates at least 18 percent of New Yorkers (1.3 million) belong to evangelical churches.

EVANGELICAL DIVERSITY: The New York church is also probably the most ethnically mixed in the world, reflecting the fact that 34 percent of New Yorkers are recent immigrants. Tamil, Pakistani, Indonesian, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, and Hispanic congregations have started recently in the city.

More than one-third of Hispanic church leaders in training joined their churches within the past three years, according to a Columbia University study. In one poor, south Bronx district, a new Hispanic church is founded every month.

The hopes at King’s lie in students such as Caroline Miranda, who came from a drug-infested block and now directs the daily business of Operation Exodus, an educational ministry for Hispanics. She is typical of the new Hispanic Christian in the New York mix. Her parents are from El Salvador and Colombia, her church is mainly Puerto Rican, and her mentor, Operation Exodus founder Luis Iza, is Cuban. A board of directors includes immigrants from Cuba, Egypt, China, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic—and one Mayflower descendant.

Half of the Asian immigrants in the city identify themselves as Christian, according to Andrew Beveridge of CUNY. Evangelical Koreans have started more than 350 churches and 15 colleges and seminaries in the city.

King’s steering committee cochair Roderick Caesar, Jr., typifies the new African-American leadership—more evangelical, upwardly mobile, and education-minded. Caesar leads an 800-member congregation, a 400-student Bible institute, and 18 affiliated churches. He is also cochair of the local Promise Keepers. “You need to feel the power of God today,” Caesar says. “Something is happening.”

UNEXPECTED CONVERTS: King’s also hopes to gain support from New York’s highly educated professional and creative residents who have increasingly turned to God. Two groups stand out: Russians and young Manhattanites.

Mitch Glaser, president of Chosen People, began meeting Russian Jewish immigrants during street evangelism. “To my surprise, the first night we held a Russian Bible study, 30 people showed up,” he says.

In Brooklyn, Greg Zhelezny, a young immigrant from Ukraine, led several hundred Russians, mostly Jewish, to establish a new church. “In the Soviet Union, we had been cut off from religion and our Jewish identity,” Zhelezny says. “We have so much to learn.”

In Manhattan, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, which specifically targets young business and creative professionals, has blossomed into an 2,100-strong church from a Bible study. More than one-third are Asian.

Church founder Tim Keller speaks the language of his audience by mixing references to hip city culture, corporate anxieties, and the Bible. But Keller had been wary of coming to New York.

Samuel Ling, a Chinese-American church leader, took Keller on a tour of a Hindu temple, a high school with students from 136 nations, and upscale Fifth Avenue. Keller recalls, “I found myself becoming awed and stirred by the arrogance, fierce secularity, diversity, power, and spiritual barrenness of New York City.”

Christian New Yorkers face such challenges with a new optimistic attitude. In 1957, evangelist Billy Graham faced Gotham warily “with fear and trembling” in preparing for a crusade. His return in 1991 marked a turning point in the church’s visibility as 250,000 people packed Central Park in the largest religious assembly in New York City history. Today, God’s good news is echoing down the alleys and the valleys of New York into God’s classrooms.

Copyright © 1998 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Eighty-five Bible-toting inmates at a Texas prison are taking part in the nation’s first faith-based prison pre-release program run 24 hours a day by an independent Christian organization.

The unusual experiment in church-state cooperation is the first time a state prison system has allowed a private Christian organization—Prison Fellowship International of Reston, Virginia—to take over an entire prison wing.

The goal of the round-the-clock volunteer program is to transform inmates spiritually and keep them from returning to prison.

“We want to change the inner man through the love of Jesus Christ,” says pastor Don Bentley, a Prison Fellowship employee. “Until you do that, all you have is a polished-up convict.”

The InnerChange Freedom Initiative—an intense blend of studying the Bible, teaching Christian values, and mentoring by church volunteers—is the first program of its kind in the United States. Houston-area church volunteers will work with inmates before and after they leave the minimum security Jester II Prison Unit between Sugar Land and Richmond southwest of Houston.

RIGOROUS SCHEDULE: Rising before dawn, the men make up their bunks inside their gray seven-foot-square cubicles. Each has a reading light. Some inmates display pictures of Jesus, crosses, or other religious symbols.

Encouraging signs are posted in different locations. “If It Is to Be, It’s Up to Me,” one message proclaims. Another states: “The Only Antidote to Pride Is the Grace of God.”

At 5:30 a.m., inmates attend a mandatory worship service. Praying, hymnsinging, studying the Bible, learning life skills, and working at prison jobs follow. The day ends at 9 p.m.

Prison Fellowship, founded by Charles Colson, has allocated $1.2 million for the first two years to pay for programming of the pilot project and hiring of five full-time staff members. The Texas Department of Corrections is not out any extra expense, although the state provides the space, food, and guards.

Eventually, 200 inmates are to take part in the prerelease program. Groups are added in increments. Three sections have been received so far, and another group of 30 is due to join this month.

“Prison Fellowship wants to hike us up to 300 men, but the board will have to approve that,” says Warden Fredrick Becker, a Methodist layman who has high hopes for the Christian effort.

The program makes efforts to teach basic virtues such as love, charity, self-sacrifice, honesty, and integrity. “Those things are just words to most of those inmates,” Becker says. “They’ve never experienced them in their own families.”

UNLOCKING THE GOOD: On a recent morning, men dressed in prison whites and many carrying Bibles sang “Victory in Jesus,” then listened intently as Pastor Bentley preached from a Bible spread before him.

“Many of you are here because of pride,” Bentley said. “If you are a pompous and arrogant jackass, God is going to hold you accountable.”

During a midmorning Lifeskills class, Jester II prison chaplain Jerry McCarty carried on the theme.

“This is a boot camp for getting into heaven,” he said. “We want to unlock the good person potentially inside you.”

Brandishing a Bible above his head, McCarty declared: “This is the owners’ manual. Christianity is not just for old women and little children. It’s for he-men, too.”

Inmates who volunteer have committed a wide range of crimes, including murder, assault, drug-trafficking, embezzlement, and hot-check writing.

“If we had only altar boys and first-time offenders it wouldn’t be a true test,” Becker says. “I’m glad to say that the average man in the program is a third-time offender, and some are fourth- and fifth-time offenders.”

Faith-based prison programs are gaining more acceptance across America, according to Reggie Wilkinson, president of the American Correctional Association.

“The Christian programs are more prominent in the Bible Belt,” says Wilkinson, director of the Ohio prison system. “But prisons everywhere are letting faith groups in because of the need for the community to be involved in rehabilitating our prison population.”

CHANGES EVIDENT: Some skeptics see the program as another version of “jailhouse religion,” a term used to describe prisoners who seek easier prison time by embracing faith while behind bars, then toss their Bibles in the trash after they leave.

“A lot of people who have been in the prison system a long time just play games with religion,” says Bentley. “They know what people want to hear and give it to them, but aren’t really serious.”

But the rigorous schedule of Christian activities weeds out those who are not serious, Bentley believes.

Patterned after methods that have sharply reduced recidivism in Brazil and Ecuador, the program aims to reduce the 48 percent return rate of convicts to Texas prisons. Statistical evidence on whether it is working will not be available for at least three years.

But the inmates, top prison officials, church volunteers of InnerChange, and veteran prison guards believe results are immediate.

“I’ve already seen changes in their habits and attitudes,” says Sgt. Levi Peterson, 47, a prison guard for 13 years, who is not a part of the InnerChange effort. “When you get a group of inmates of different cultures and backgrounds to study together and read the Bible together, it’s going to make a difference.”

McCarty, the prison chaplain, concurs.

“We are stuck with anecdotal evidence now,” he says. “But we see the look on their faces, the spring in their step, and the brotherhood that is forming. We see very definite changes.”

ROUGH BEGINNING: Walter Kasper, an inmate convicted of drug possession who became a part of the original group of inmates in InnerChange, says things have not always been harmonious among InnerChange participants.

“We had some real bad actors in our first group,” he says. “We were a hodgepodge of 37 that stepped off the bus. Now our group is down to 20.”

Many dropped out because they did not realize what a grueling schedule they would follow. Others were asked to leave because they could not adjust to the group environment and the rigid rules, Kasper says.

Texas Gov. George W. Bush strongly supports the program, one of several initiatives he has championed in which faith groups join with government agencies to help welfare reform, house the homeless, and help inmates after their release from prison.

Bush visited the Christian prison wing in October with Colson and joined the inmate choir in singing “Amazing Grace.”

Ultimately, inmates will be asked to put the brotherly love they are taught into action. At the midpoint of training they will go out into the community, build houses for the poor, and try to apologize and make restitution to those they have committed crimes against.

NO ACLU OBJECTIONS: A few groups, including Americans United for Separation of Church and State, have objected to the Christian program, saying it violates constitutional principles. But Texas leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union are not concerned.

“It follows all guidelines, and we have no problem with it,” says regional aclu director Diana Patrick of Dallas. “No one is coerced to be a part of it, and no special benefits are given.”

Becker contends there is no violation because the program is entirely voluntary. Although Christian-based, it is open to all faiths. Two Muslims joined the first group, for example.

One Muslim, Joseph Williams, has converted to Christianity. But the other Muslim, Darryl Brown, continues to read the Qur’an and say Islamic prayers five times a day.

“They respect my faith,” Brown says. “There are a lot of guys here who are truly sincere; and they are walking the walk and talking the talk.”

About 200 volunteers are working in the program, but 350 will eventually be needed. Semiretired Houston attorney Jack Allen spends about 20 hours a week meeting with 14 inmates to evaluate their progress.

“After they get out we will continue to work with them for six months, minimum,” he says. “They can come to us for help.”

Allen says he cannot predict whether the program will succeed.

“We are just starting down the road,” he says. “It will take more than my ability to change these folks. But if the inmates work with those trying to help them, it could be effective.”

Judy Indermuehle, a real-estate agent and member of Sugar Creek Baptist Church who volunteers as a phonics teacher, had misgivings at first.

“Now I look forward to it every day,” she says. “This is the church’s first opportunity to affect prison life. And it’s a wonderful opportunity.”

Copyright © 1998 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Government officials and online service providers announced plans at a December summit to protect children from Internet obscenity, but some conservative Christian organizations believe the gathering amounted to little more than family-values window dressing.

The three-day “Internet/Online Summit: Focus on the Children” assembled government, school, library, computer-industry, and child-advocacy group leaders in Washington, D.C. While representatives did not agree on the best way to restrict youth from viewing p*rnography geared to adults, Vice President Al Gore announced a “zero tolerance” policy on Internet p*rnography depicting children and the creation of a “tip line,” where parents can report child p*rnography.

Online providers are supporting the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children “CyberTipLine” initiative. Parents will be able to notify authorities of incidents of child p*rnography and child predators in cyberspace. The line will serve as a clearinghouse for tips on enticement of children for sexual exploitation, as well as information on the possession or distribution of child p*rnography. The new Web site is www.missingkids.com/cybertip and the center’s hotline is 1-800-843-5678.

During the Clinton administration, as the use of graphics on the Web has increased and Internet technology has developed, the number of Justice Department agents patrolling cyberspace has risen from a handful to more than 100, and FBI arrests have led to the convictions of more than 100 online child predators.

Gore also unveiled a public education campaign to teach parents how to protect children surfing the Internet. While online providers say parents have primary responsibility to monitor the computer behavior of their children, at the summit several announced pre-emptive plans in an effort to prevent government intrusion.

For example, America Online unveiled a package of initiatives to make online navigation safer for children. AOL, the largest online service in the world with 10 million subscribers, will soon feature a permanent parental controls button on the welcome screen that enables adults to lock children out of anything but approved areas, chat rooms, and Web sites. In addition, AOL will activate a button to allow members to report inappropriate chat room, e-mail, and instant-message activity immediately.

SCREENING NO PANACEA: The Vice President did not heed the requests of profamily organizations to increase government restrictions to protect children. Instead, Gore’s public-education campaign will rely on parents to monitor the online behavior of their children.

However, according to a new survey by FamilyPC, few parents avail themselves of commercially available parental control software designed to combat access to p*rnography. The survey of 750 families whose children use the Web showed only 26 percent use some form of parental-control software—mainly controls built into their Web browsers or offered by their Internet service provider. Only 4 percent had purchased parental-control software such as Cyber Patrol, SurfWatch, or Net Nanny on their own.

With only a few mouse clicks, anyone can access one of an estimated 72,000 p*rnographic sites on the World Wide Web. Many of them are illegal sites because they meet the definition of hard-core obscenity, depicting such behavior as incest, bestial*ty, and mutilation.

Screening technology alone is inadequate, critics contend, and further legal regulation of indecent content is necessary. “No screening technology blocks all sites containing harmful sexual content,” says Morality in Media (MIM) president Robert W. Peters.

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? Cathy Cleaver, legal policy director of the Family Research Council, says 70 percent of Internet access by children occurs outside the home. She says public schools and libraries—which commonly offer uncensored, unsupervised access to the Internet—must be part of the solution.

Although computer users must typically provide a credit card number before gaining unrestricted access to a commercial Web site, p*rn cover pages frequently offer free samples to titillate before payment. And while cyberp*rn providers warn viewers that they must be at least 18 or 21, there is usually no age verification process.

And the problem goes beyond purchased images. For example, unregulated news groups and unsolicited e-mail are two ways p*rnographers can target potential customers.

Online services claim that regulating Internet content is impossible and would run afoul of First Amendment protections. But profamily groups disagree. Cleaver blames the industry for failure to remove hard-core, “clearly obscene” p*rnography.

“The onus should be on the Internet service providers that knowingly permit harmful material—not the parents,” MIM’s Peters says.

Even though many conservative Christian groups lambasted the summit, the antip*rn group Enough Is Enough helped to organize it. “This is a good first step in the very long journey toward protecting children from exploitation online,” says Donna Rice Hughes, the organization’s communications director. Hughes says Enough Is Enough gave Gore the “zero tolerance” idea.

Nonetheless, Enough Is Enough, along with many other profamily groups, vowed to hold law enforcement and industry service providers accountable to ensure that measures introduced at the summit come to fruition.

NO PROSECUTION POLICY? As for “adult” p*rnography, the Supreme Court nullified the indecency provisions of the congressional Communications Decency Act (CDA) last June. But American Family Association governmental affairs director Patrick A. Trueman notes that the Court left provisions restricting obscenity intact. Obscenity is defined as hard-core graphic material that is obsessed with sex, obviously offensive, and lacking in serious value. Trueman criticizes the Clinton administration for refusing to prosecute any Internet-related hard-core p*rnography cases since then.

“The Clinton administration has a ‘no prosecution policy’ for Internet obscenity crimes,” Trueman says.

After CDA, Clinton reiterated that his administration is “committed to vigorous enforcement of federal prohibitions against transmission of p*rnography over the Internet.” He first pledged to enforce vigorously federal obscenity laws during his 1992 campaign against George Bush. But Peters says that overall, federal obscenity prosecutions have fallen from a high of 78 during President Bush’s first year in office to a low of 17 during the past year under Clinton. He questions whether enforcement is really a priority.

“The summit goal will not be achieved unless there is a radical change in the policy in place at the Justice Department, the FBI, and the offices of U.S. attorneys,” MIM’s Peters says.

Copyright © 1998 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Affiliates of Sun Myung Moon, controversial leader of the Unification Church, have a history of supporting and courting conservative evangelicals. Now, according to published reports, financial support has been filtered to Liberty University from Moon-related enterprises. But Liberty founder Jerry Fallwell told Christianity Today that the source of the funds does not influence his ministry.

“If the American Atheists Society or Saddam Hussein himself ever sent an unrestricted gift to any of my ministries,” Falwell says, “be assured I will operate on Billy Sunday’s philosophy: The Devil’s had it long enough, and quickly cash the check.”

While Moon may not be the Devil, Christians contest Moon’s claim that he is destined by God to complete an unfulfilled mission of Jesus. Moon claims Jesus failed as the Messiah because he did not wed and have children. The divorced 78-year-old Moon says he and his current wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, 53, are the “true parents of all humanity.”

$3.5 MILLION GIFT: In November, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Women’s Federation for World Peace (WFWP), which is headed by Moon’s wife, contributed $3.5 million to Christian Heritage Foundation (CHF) of Virginia for “educational purposes” in 1995.

WFWP chair Susan Fefferman says Falwell spoke monthly to a group of professional women forging Japanese-American friendships. Fefferman says that in return WFWP provided scholarships for “many, many students” through the CHF. She told CT that Falwell “made it clear” that he represented CHF and the $3.5 million could be sent there on behalf of Liberty.

CHF cofounder Daniel Reber says CHF solicited funds from WFWP in 1995 to help finance missions projects, not to service the school’s indebtedness. “Not one penny of the Women’s Federation grant was ever used to assist Liberty in its reduction of debt,” Reber told CT.

Reber and Jimmy Thomas purchased and forgave $5 million worth of debt to help Falwell’s financially troubled school in Lynchburg. CHF also gave $500,000 to complete construction of the dining hall, which had been halted because of nonpayment of contractors.

Reber had worked as a fundraiser for Falwell’s Old Time Gospel Hour and started CHF in 1987 with Thomas, who had been chief financial officer of Falwell’s Moral Majority. Both Thomas and Reber had been on Liberty’s board of directors until last year. CHF is a private, independent charitable foundation that distributes Bibles and Christian literature to Communist and Third World nations.

Meanwhile, according to a Washington Post report, another Moon-related organization, News World Communications, provided an unsecured $400,000 loan to Liberty in 1996 at 6 percent interest, significantly below market loan rates. Falwell spokesperson Mark DeMoss says Liberty did not know of the Moon connection because the loan came via a broker. DeMoss says the Moon connection is unimportant because the loan was a “business transaction.”

In a related development, Liberty last month disclosed that A. L. Williams is the unnamed benefactor who provided $15 million to settle Liberty debts (CT, Dec. 8, 1997, p. 61). The announcement came in part to counter rumors that Moon had been the anonymous supporter. Williams earned millions selling term life insurance and earlier had provided most of the funds to build the school’s football stadium, basketball arena, and athletic center.

NOTHING ‘SINISTER’: Due to ongoing financial problems (CT, Feb. 3, 1997, p. 74), Liberty had been placed on probation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools in December 1996. sacs lifted the probation in December 1997 following the school’s reduction of debt.

Falwell says there is nothing “sinister or clandestine” about CHF’s contribution to the school.

“Liberty does not have firsthand knowledge of how CHF is funded, or, for that matter, the source of any Liberty donor’s funds,” Falwell says. “The donor’s source of income is generally irrelevant to Liberty.”

But Paul D. Nelson, president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, says ministry and academic boards must exercise prudence when receiving large contributions.

“Donors come from all walks of life, and it can get very fuzzy as to how the money was earned,” Nelson says. In the worst-case scenario, typified by the Foundation for New Era Philanthropy scandal that involved 180 evangelical groups and schools (CT, Oct. 27, 1997, p.86), recipients must return illegally obtained funds even if the money has already been spent.

Falwell, 64, says that he addressed several groups where Moon has been in attendance, including a Uruguay meeting in 1995. Falwell says he does not compromise truth when speaking at such meetings.

“I preach for the Moonies, for the Mormons, for the Catholics, for the Jews, for the Buddhists,” Falwell told CT. “I’ll preach in hell if they promise to let me out.”

CONSERVATIVES ATTRACTED: Moon’s attempts to build influence with conservative Christians has been ongoing for years (CT, Feb. 5, 1988, p. 46). At a 1996 conference, for example, Ralph Reed, Beverly LaHaye, Gary Bauer, and Robert H. Schuller all spoke at a Moon-sponsored Family Federation for World Peace event.

“Conservatives find Moon attractive because they share many of his moral and political values,” says James Beverley, theology and ethics professor at Ontario Theological Seminary. “Those similarities are significant enough that questions of theological differences are put on hold.” Beverley, who has studied Moon for two decades, also notes that speakers at such events often have their trips to exotic locales fully financed in addition to receiving generous honorariums.

SOULS LED ASTRAY? Frederick H. Miller, who operates True Light Educational Ministry in Shirley, New York, has documented Falwell’s contacts with Moon, which he says began in 1984.

Miller, a 1989 graduate of Falwell’s Liberty Home Bible Institute, says he tried to meet with Falwell for four years to urge him to dissociate himself from Moon’s ventures.

“Anyone attending and speaking at a Moonie function should be considered an endorser of the movement,” Miller says. “How many poor souls has Reverend Falwell led astray by endorsing and being constantly pictured and quoted in Unification Church publications?”

Beverley agrees that speakers need to clearly distance themselves from Moon’s theology when attending events his organizations sponsor. “The involvement is used by Moon and other Unification Church leaders as an endorsem*nt that Moon is the Messiah and the returned Jesus Christ,” Beverley says.

In December, Miller finally met with Falwell, showing him evidence that he had been featured numerous times in Unification Church promotional materials. Now, Miller believes, Falwell has had a change of heart.

“He had no idea he was being used for recruiting purposes,” Miller told CT. “He’s agreed not to speak at another Moonie function.”

However, Falwell says that while he does not endorse the Unification Church’s beliefs, he will keep speaking to groups that receive Moon funds, such as the Washington Times Foundation. Falwell says his speaking philosophy remains unchanged. “I’m a minister to the heathen,” Falwell told CT, citing recent appearances with Hustler publisher Larry Flynt. “I go a lot of places other preachers won’t go as long as I don’t have to restrict my message.”

Copyright © 1998 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Nearly 2 million visitors have thronged to evening services at Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida, since revival erupted on Father’s Day in 1995.

“It’s just as fresh to me today as it was two and a half years ago,” says evangelist Steve Hill, who has been guest preaching at the church since then. During that span, 122,000 have signed “decision cards” indicating conversion or rededication.

A year ago, the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry opened with 120 full-time students, split evenly between revival converts and those who experienced renewal, according to Michael L. Brown, the school’s dean. Brown says that by the fall 1997 semester, the school, which offers a two-year theology degree emphasizing missions and evangelism, had 511 students from 46 states.

Revival leaders also have taken their message on the road, leading two-night rallies in Dallas, Saint Louis, Toledo, Memphis, Birmingham, and Anaheim. “Our goal is to bring this revival to key cities in the U.S.,” says Hill, “and these meetings are a divine opportunity for people who have been revived to bring their unsaved family members to church without going inside a church.”

In the 2.4 million-member Assemblies of God (AG), revival has broken out in dozens of congregations around the country. “The impact has been powerful,” says Thomas Trask, the denomination’s general superintendent. “Many, many of our pastors have gone [to Brownsville] searching, looking, and believing, and they have witnessed the power of God. It has done something for their own hearts and lives.”

The treks are not limited to AG churches. In fact, the Brownsville revival’s duration, the number of people it is attracting, and the ripple effect it is having in churches in the United States and around the world, are leading some to draw comparisons with historic Pentecostal revivals in the early years of the century. And in recent months, Pensacola has replaced Toronto (CT, Sept. 11, 1995, p. 23) as the hot spot for revival-seekers. “This is probably the most important revival to come out of a local church since Azusa Street,” says Pentecostal historian Vinson Synan.

VOICES OF OPPOSITION: Not everyone is singing hallelujahs. As it has proceeded, the revival has been the subject of intense media scrutiny, some of it negative. Meanwhile, there is a heated theological debate in many circles about what is happening in Pensacola and whether it is of divine, human, or even satanic origins.

“I don’t really see it as a revival at all,” says Christian Research Institute’s Hank Hanegraaff, who has become the most visible of Brownsville’s many critics, calling it a “counterfeit revival” (CT, Aug. 11, 1997, p. 54). Hanegraaff did not mention Brownsville in his book Counterfeit Revival (Word, 1997), but he has hammered the revival in his national Bible Answer Man radio broadcasts, as well as in the November-December 1997 issue of Christian Research Journal, in which he criticized the church for “serious distortions of biblical Christianity … an overemphasis on subjective experience … nonbiblical spiritual practices, Scripture twisting, and false and exaggerated claims.”

In November, the Salem Radio Network invited Hanegraaff to debate school dean Brown, whose own book, Let No One Deceive You: Confronting the Critics of Revival (Destiny Image, 1997), calls Counterfeit Revival “an unscholarly, often inaccurate, highly judgmental, and at times, even slanderous work.”

STEPS TOWARD RECONCILIATION: Following the often heated debate, the two men met privately for nearly three hours. The meeting resulted in forgiveness and fellowship instead of fisticuffs, along with a commitment to continue the dialogue.

Although Hanegraaff says he had been to Brownsville four times, his December 3 visit was different. He met with Brown, Hill, and Brownsville pastor John Kilpatrick, and he even spoke to students at Brown’s school, where he received a warm reception and a standing ovation. Kilpatrick has also invited Hanegraaff to preach at one of Brownsville’s Sunday services, an offer Hanegraaff says he is considering.

The dialogue has not changed anyone’s mind, but it has cooled some of the rhetoric. “One of the things we wanted to model was that we could discuss these things in a manner that would honor Christ instead of in a way that would drag his name through the mud,” says Hanegraaff, who left Brownsville with warmer feelings toward revival leaders and at least a few reservations about his earlier denunciations. “I don’t know,” he told CT. “It’s a difficult thing for me to try to assess on a lot of levels.”

Brown says he and Hanegraaff emerged from their talks sharing common views on at least three points: “We are brothers who are going to spend eternity together; we are passionate for the fundamentals of the faith; and we want to see disciples, not just converts.”

MONEY QUESTIONS: In November, the Pensacola News Journal, which had previously published dozens of mostly positive articles about the revival, ran a five-day series of 30-plus stories entitled “Brownsville Revival: The Money and the Myths.” The Journal called revival-related businesses “a multimillion-dollar retail industry conducted within the walls of the church.” The series raised important questions about nearly every aspect of the revival and questioned the integrity of Hill and Kilpatrick. It accused Kilpatrick of orchestrating the revival and firmly disciplining dissenters and alleged that Hill fabricated parts of his dramatic testimony.

Revival leaders say the series contained “misquotes, serious misrepresentation of facts, and misleading misquotes.” They responded by issuing a six-page, 47-item rebuttal of some of the paper’s charges and paying for two advertisem*nts.

The most disturbing charges in the articles (available at the paper’s Web site at: www.pensacolanewsjournal.com) involved leaders growing wealthy from millions of dollars spent by revivalgoers on books, manuals, audiotapes, videotapes, and other products. The paper reported that only Brown had appropriately paid state sales tax on his books and cassettes sold at tables inside the church, a situation revival leaders say was caused by their inability to get a definitive determination from state tax officials about what they owed. (In a December 21 article, the paper reported that the remaining three ministries had made lump-sum 1997 tax payments.)

Still, questions remain about hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on personal residences, offices, vehicles, and other expenses. The paper says that during its investigation, Hill submitted incomplete financial reports, and that Kilpatrick refused to divulge any financial data for either the church or his Feast of Fire Ministries.

AG superintendent Trask says decisions about financial disclosure are up to each congregation but adds, “My philosophy has always been openness, and I’ve encouraged John [Kilpatrick] to be open.” Trask says finances will be a topic of discussion with Kilpatrick and Hill at an imminent meeting of a “covering committee” established to offer guidance to revival leaders.

The 43-year-old Hill claims the revival’s money problems are a result of honest mistakes. “I admit that I am na•ve in some areas of ministry,” he says. “I’m young. I’ve never been thrust into an arena like this.”

None of four revival-related ministries is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. ecfa president Paul D. Nelson, who calls the Pensacola newspaper’s charges “serious,” confirms that Hill’s Together in the Harvest Ministries has begun the application process. Kilpatrick says his Feast of Fire Ministries will apply for membership as soon as its first audit is completed. Nelson says he has not received applications from the ministries headed by Brown and music minister Lindell Cooley.

No state or federal investigations related to finances at the church have been implemented.

REVIVAL IN THE AIR: Nothing is slowing down revival leaders in Pensacola. “This has been the greatest year of my life,” Hill says.

Brown says criticism of revival naturally accompanies works of God. “We tend to sanitize past revivals and demonize present revivals,” he says. “When a baby is being born, things are a little bloody and messy, there’s a whole lot of noise, and there are a lot of doctors running around. But that doesn’t mean the child isn’t going to be healthy in a few days.”

For Trask, the revival—with all its controversy and challenges—is a welcome alternative to the AG’s plateaued membership of the late 1980s and early 1990s. “The Assemblies of God was raised up as a revival movement, but we had moved away from that,” he says. “We had become content. We had become careless.” In the past two years, the AG has reported significant increases in the number of conversions, water baptisms, and Spirit baptisms. Giving to foreign missions is also at an all-time annual high of $117 million.

Still, Trask’s main concern is that revival leaders “don’t try to perpetuate something that God wants to put a stop to,” a possibility that grows with each new revival-related venture.

Copyright © 1998 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

GOD GAVE THE INCREASESaints are never giantsWho hoped to do God favors.They are only soulsWhose needs took rootIn shallow dust,Becoming redwoods grownFrom dandelion spores.

—Calvin Miller in A Symphony in Sand

DOWNSIZING GODOur evangelical culture tends to take the awesome reality of a transcendent God who is worthy to be feared and downsize Him so He could fit into our “buddy system.” The way we talk about Him, the way we pray, and, more strikingly, the way we live shows that we have somehow lost our sense of being appropriately awestruck in the presence of a holy and all-powerful God. It’s been a long time since we’ve heard a good sermon on the “fear of God.”

If God were to show up visibly, many of us think we’d run up to Him and high-five Him for the good things He has done.

—Joseph M. Stowell in Moody (Nov./Dec. 1997)

THE RIGHT KIND OF FEARThe remarkable thing about fearing God is that when you fear God you fear nothing else, whereas if you do not fear God you fear everything else.

—Oswald Chambers inThe Highest Good

READING AHEADIt is a good thing that we are not God; we do not have to understand God’s ways, or the suffering and brokenness and pain that sooner or later come to us all.

But we do have to know in the very depths of our being that the ultimate end of the story, no matter how many aeons it takes, is going to be all right.

—Madeleine L’Engle inGlimpses of Grace

THE BIG PICTUREGod’s mercy was not increased when Jesus came to earth, it was illustrated! Illustrated in a way we can understand. Jesus knows.

—Eugenia Price inShare My Pleasant Stones.

SIN’S GOOD NEWSTo deny sin is bad news, indeed. The only good news is sin itself. Sin is the best news there is, the best news there could be in our predicament.

Because with sin, there’s a way out. There’s the possibility of repentance. You can’t repent of confusion or psychological flaws inflicted by your parents—you’re stuck with them. But you can repent of sin. Sin and repentance are the only grounds for hope and joy. The grounds for reconciled, joyful relationships. You can be born again.

—John Alexander inThe Other Side (Jan.-Feb. 1993)

THE GREATEST DRAMA EVER STAGEDThe Christian faith is the most exciting drama that ever staggered the imagination of man—and the dogma is the drama. That drama is summarized quite clearly in the creeds of the Church, and if we think it dull it is because we either have never really read those amazing documents or have recited them so often and so mechanically as to have lost all sense of their meaning. The plot pivots upon a single character, and the whole action is the answer to a single central problem: What think ye of Christ?

—Dorothy Sayers in Dorothy L. Sayers: A Careless Rage for Life

NO PLACE FOR FAITHAt its best, our age is an age of searchers and discoverers. At its worst, it is an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it. The fiction that celebrates this last state will be the least likely to transcend its limitations, since, when the religious need is banished successfully, it usually atrophies, even in the novelist. The sense of mystery vanishes. A kind of reverse evolution takes place. The whole range of feeling is dulled.

—Flannery O’Connor inMystery and Manners

FALSE GODSThe soul of the covetous is far removed from God, as far as his memory, understanding and will are concerned. He forgets God as though He were not his God, owing to the fact that he has fashioned for himself a god of Mammon and of temporal possessions.

—Saint John of the Cross inThe Dark Night of the Soul

LOVE IS THE CUREBitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sickens life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eyes.

—Harry Emerson Fosdick inRiverside Sermons

PERVERSE PURSUITSThe world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

—Omar Bradley in a speech(Nov. 10, 1948)

Copyright © 1998 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

As a conservative Protestant raised in a Rockwellesque New England farming community, Sandra Bowden is acutely aware of the Protestant preference for words over images. As an artist, it has caused her no small concern that her signature motif has always been fragments of words layered into every work of art she signs.

“At one point I had to deal with some very distressing questions. Here I had spent my whole life in a church focused on words,” Bowden explains. “I used to think, ‘What have I done? Isn’t this art just compounding the whole problem?’—until I began to ‘get’ the theology properly. By the Word of the Lord the heavens were made; Jesus as the Word-made-flesh points far beyond the physical [emphasis hers]. So the Word must have a power beyond cognitive thought, beyond logic. That’s the mystery I’ve spent a lifetime hunting for in my art—that veiled kind of expression which doesn’t explain itself right away.”

Choose any work from Bowden’s prolific output and you uncover fragments of Hebrew calligraphy and segments of timeworn antique Bibles or commentaries, and in as many as 40 languages.

LAYER UPON LAYERFascinated by the form and historical weight of Hebrew, Bowden began studying it in 1972 with an orthodox rabbi. In 1980 she made the first of four visits to Israel and immersed herself in ancient Israelite culture, archaeology, geology, and ritual—admitting she is “always the student, but never a scholar.” What eventually emerged was her Israelite Tel Suite, cross-sectioned profiles of Canaanite cities conquered by Joshua in the thirteenth century b.c. Concealed archaeological features or important artifacts layered into the strata of Tels Megiddo, Hazor, Gezer, and Lachish relate directly to Old Testament references. Tel Megiddo, for example, is overlaid with a royal lion seal mentioning King Jeroboam. Excavations of Tel Gezer, part of Solomon’s dowry, revealed Israelite burial sites and a potsherd inscribed with an agricultural calendar.

Bowden later researched colors mentioned in the Torah, attempting to identify historically accurate dyes that could have made Joseph’s coat, or the hues of precious gems used in the ephods of the levitical priests.

Bowden’s work crosses boundaries between synagogues, churches, and seminaries particularly well; her primary clientele on the east coast is, in fact, Jewish. Her ambassadorial finesse has allowed her to forge close ties with Jewish art dealers and rabbinical mentors over the years at annual Judaica conferences and synagogue art exhibits. “Probably the most significant meal I ever had in my life,” says this attractive, well-traveled grandmother of four, “was Shabbat supper with a Jewish couple in Israel. This was not ‘put on’ for me. This was every Friday night.

“The world stopped; we ate ceremoniously, and they sang songs they had sung in their families for generations. They were absolutely in love with God. At that point I understood that differences could only be resolved by Jesus.”

Yet, Bowden confesses, “In any Christian setting I can show all the Jewish stuff, but in the Jewish setting I am more careful. I’ll still use Greek text, gorgeous Bibles from the 1850s layered underneath Hebrew and English, even Vietnamese. But I won’t show crucifixion imagery. If I’m in a Jewish show I’ll have a binder that explains my Christian background. The work is strong enough—it has enough integrity that I don’t have to hide my Christian faith. But I would never make Jewish people uneasy by evangelizing [overtly]. My life is a testimony in front of them.” And, as Bowden insists, “We share a common text”—figuratively as well as literally.

By now, Bowden’s penchant for layering has extended into the very paper that forms the foundational base of each work of art; she claims she is “going medieval.” Recent works are set on paper made from a blend of shredded Bible commentaries. The diptychs, reminiscent of pages from illuminated manuscripts, or medieval altarpiece panels, seem to float over Torah pages and English translations of the Ten Commandments, shining out from gilded sheaves of paper.

A PROCESS OF PERSONAL INQUIRYBowden is also front and center in the dialogue regarding contemporary Christian art. She is an active advocate for Christians in the Visual Arts and has been involved in CIVA since the group’s founding. Her ambassadorial role as CIVA president since 1992 has taken her to the Vatican, Jerusalem, Berkeley, Montreal, and New York City. This year, after moving her home studio from New York to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, along with her entrepreneurial husband, she has begun preparations for CIVA’s twentieth anniversary celebration in 1999.

Because the foundation underlying all her work is the eternal God, this artist feels free to ask unlimited questions. “Sometimes art is a process of personal inquiry,” Bowden says. “My work is a record of questions I’ve had all my life, and the work continually raises new questions. I just follow it along.” Apart from the fact that her natural curiosity and rabbinically insistent questions never cease, Bowden seems to have an infinite number of ideas for future series. But then, since the source that unifies all her work is the infinite God, who should be surprised?

For more information, contact CIVA, P.O. Box 18117, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55418-0117.

The Muse of the Mountains, by Wendy Murray ZobaWhat do the mountains sound like?

Jerry Smith, musician and artisan, knows. They sang to him. Smith heard the Great Smoky Mountains when he visited western North Carolina for the first time. “I drove into these mountains and was moved as deeply as anything that has ever happened to me in my life,” he says.

Leaving college, girlfriend, home, and dog, Smith moved from northeastern Ohio to Asheville, North Carolina, for the muse was calling him. He heard it again when he walked into the student union center at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina (where he subsequently enrolled), and heard David Holt, head of the Appalachian Music Program, playing the banjo along with fiddler Lynn Shaw and John McCutchin on the hammered dulcimer.

“I was immediately drawn to the hammered dulcimer,” Smith says. “I sat down behind this dulcimer player and watched him play. I was flabbergasted.” Smith, who had never studied music and couldn’t read it (and still can’t), asked where he could purchase this trapezoidal instrument with its 40 to 100 strings, played with mallets. The reply was, “You couldn’t buy one anywhere.” Still, the suggestion was made that he could order information through the Smithsonian Institution. So he sent 50 cents and received a brochure that explained (more or less) how to make a dulcimer.

LIKE DANCING WITH YOUR HANDSSmith built his first hammered dulcimer out of plywood and cement nails. (A hammered dulcimer should not be confused with a mountain dulcimer, which has three to six strings and is plucked.) His second dulcimer was better, and he decided to try playing it. “First of all, it worked. That surprised me,” he says. “I was also surprised at how easy it was to play. Every time I pulled it out I was surrounded by people. I couldn’t play beans on it, but everybody thought I was a genius. I would get a melody in my head and then find the notes on the dulcimer.

“Playing a dulcimer is like dancing with your hands. You’re dancing the melody out. It’s the most wonderful way to play a musical instrument,” Smith says. Today, some 23 years later, he has built more than 670 dulcimers and has a waiting list.

Smith has made three recordings—a “trilogy”—that bring expression both to his spiritual longings and to his love for the mountains. The first, The Strayaway Child (1981), produced with Tom Fellenbaum, bespeaks, in classical Celtic hymns and jigs, the restlessness of his heart during his pre-Christian days. Though “The Dancing Dog/Blarney Pilgrim” ends discordantly in nonresolution, it segues into “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” which suggests, says Jerry’s wife, Lisa, that “he felt he was ‘straying away’ from something”—as if the mountains were crying.

Heart Dance, the second in the trilogy (1986), was recorded after Smith’s conversion and suggests a gentler but more resolved longing. Both his father and a close friend had recently died, giving the music a quiet, reflective feeling.

Lisa Smith accompanies her husband on the lute for the third recording, Homecoming (1992), which begins and ends with “What Child Is This?” The Brentwood Musiclabel has recently taken over all three recordings.

Smith continues to be consumed with building dulcimers in the workshop behind his house, and he has turned down attractive offers for special projects in order to keep his heart close to God’s. “I’m trying to experience his joy, hear him, and worship him,” he says, “because I know the kind of joy and the kind of peace this music can bring to people.”

Copyright © 1998 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

GOD’S LONG SUMMER: STORIES OF FAITH AND CIVIL RIGHTS, by Charles Marsh (Princeton University Press, 276 pp.; $24.95, hardcover). Reviewed by Randy Frame.

Those who read Charles Marsh’s God’s Long Summer will no longer be able to hear unqualified statements about how grand life was in the fifties without considering such sentiments at best hopelessly na•ve and, at worst, morally repugnant. With vivid description and chilling analysis, Marsh evokes the violence and oppression in the South of the civil-rights era.

The reference in the title is to the summer of 1964, a season that in many ways served as a cradle for the movement toward freedom. Though this pivotal summer functions as a regular reference point, the book is organized primarily around five detailed character studies. All five persons are motivated by their understanding of Christian faith, yet the presuppositions, values, and goals that inform their behavior during God’s long summer and beyond could not be more disparate.

We meet Fannie Lou Hamer, a poor, uneducated black woman from rural Mississippi who found herself in the national spotlight at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. Having led a nonviolent movement aimed at gaining fair political representation for all, she became vice-presidential-hopeful Hubert Humphrey’s “project.” Humphrey had been dispatched by President Lyndon Johnson, who referred to Hamer as “that illiterate.” Humphrey’s options were to extinguish the fires of discontent within the party or risk seeing his name dropped from the ticket. Hamer looked him in the eye and said, “Now if you lose this job of vice president because you are right, everything will be all right. God will take care of you. But if you take [the vice-presidential nomination] this way, why, you will never be able to do any good for civil rights, for poor people, for peace or any of those things you talk about. Senator Humphrey, I’m gonna pray to Jesus for you.”

We meet Sam Bowers, who, as Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, believed that God had called him to eliminate “heretics,” by which he meant primarily Negroes and Jews. In reference to accusations that his militant activities included planned killings, Bowers publicly boasted, “A jury would not dare convict a white man for killing a nigg*r in Mississippi.”

We meet Douglas Hudgins, a highly educated and esteemed pastor of First Baptist Church of Jackson (Miss.) who would never dream of committing an act of violence, but who preached that the gospel had nothing to do with civil rights. Marsh writes that “the success of Bowers’s violent mission depended largely on the kind of Gospel Hudgins eloquently preached to white Christians in the spacious sanctuary of First Baptist Church.”

We meet Ed King, a white man who, like Bowers, grew up reaping the full privileges of his race and thinking nothing of it. But during his senior year of high school, a tornado hit his hometown of Vicksburg, Mississippi. He saw that the firetrucks and ambulance could not negotiate the mud-ridden streets of black communities, and his eyes were opened for the first time to racial injustice. His commitment to civil rights would cost him, among other things, his relationship with his parents.

Finally, we meet Cleveland Sellers, whose diagnosis of the problem paralleled Hamer’s and King’s, but who, after giving peace a chance, advocated a form of black power that opened the doors to violence while closing the doors to whites.

In his treatment of each of the five, Marsh’s theological and moral values come to the surface, but not in an excessively judgmental way, and certainly not in ways that compromise his essential commitment to an accurate and fair telling of the facts. By taking this approach, the author allows readers to explore their own thoughts and arrive at their own conclusions.

Many will find the results haunting. Haunting because we realize that this painful era is not as far removed from our own day as we’d like it to be. Haunting because we can no longer dismiss racist ideologies as mere ignorance; they are in fact highly developed theologies. Haunting also because of an ironic yearning for the turbulent sixties, during which it seems the moral choices were clearer than today’s. But this book is haunting most of all because of the bits and pieces of ourselves we see in each of the five characters. Thus, Marsh’s work speaks directly to the development of our own moral lives.

Fortunately, despite his essentially objective approach, the author ultimately allows the now-deceased “Mrs. Hamer” to emerge as the heroine. “Undoubtedly,” Marsh writes, “she would look upon the deracinated Hudgins and the villainous Bowers with indignation and outrage. Yet her table would not be closed to them.” He adds, “In the end, Mrs. Hamer shows us that in loving we become the people we are supposed to be.”

Short NoticesHISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHBy Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, and Michael D. PetersonScarecrow Press528 pp.; $89, hardcoverReviewed by Gregory Mathewes-Green, a priest of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese and pastor of Holy Cross Mission, Baltimore.

The recent growth in awareness of the Orthodox Church has preceded the availability of reliable resource materials in English. Now, however, that unfortunate situation is being remedied. Among other new releases in the field, the Historical Dictionary of the Orthodox Church goes some distance toward filling a real need. Accessible to the layman as well as the academic, entries in the volume are drawn from the liturgical, theological, and ascetic life of Orthodoxy. Some helpful drawings are included, such as the simple illustration that accompanies and makes clearer the entry on “icono-stasis.” Perhaps most valuable is the concluding bibliography, almost a fifth of the book, broken into 12 categories.

I resist the four-star commendation for two reasons: the inordinately high price, though I grant that such is irrelevant to the book’s scholarship; and the authors’ penchant for some odd editorial choices. (For example, should the somewhat important modern lay theologian Lot-Borodine receive more print than the extremely important Mark of Ephesus?) Nevertheless, this volume will be a useful reference for both Orthodox and non-Orthodox readers.

Copyright © 1998 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Our ancestors in Christ did not, by and large, learn the faith from the works of professional theologians. Their faith came by hearing (and reading), most often through the hearing of sermons.

As part of its occasional series of spiritual classics, CHRISTIANITY TODAY offers this vivid and and image-rich exposition of justification by grace, delivered by Charles Haddon Spurgeon on April 5, 1857, at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens, England. Earlier generations of Christians were in the habit of reading printed sermons. This one is condensed from the New Park Street Pulpit, Vol. 3, No. 126.

“Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”
—Rom.3:24

No scene in sacred history gladdens the soul like Calvary. Nowhere does the soul find such consolation as on that spot where misery reigned and agony reached its climax. There grace dug a fountain, which ever gushes with waters pure as crystal, each drop able to alleviate the agonies of mankind.

We have, this morning, a subject that may be the means of comforting God’s saints seeing it takes its rise at the Cross and runs on in a rich stream of perennial blessing to all believers. We have in our text, first of all, the redemption of Christ Jesus; secondly, the justification of sinners flowing from it; and then thirdly, the manner of the giving of this justification, “freely by his grace.”

First, then, we have the redemption that is in or by Christ Jesus.

The figure of redemption is very simple and has been frequently used in Scripture. When a prisoner has been made a slave it has been usual, before he could be set free, that a ransom should be paid. Now we, being, by the fall of Adam, prone to guiltiness and virtually guilty, we were by the irreproachable judgment of God given up to the vengeance of the law; justice claimed us to be his slaves forever unless we could pay a ransom, whereby our souls could be redeemed. We were poor as owlets. We were bankrupt debtors; all we had was sold; we were left naked, and poor, and miserable, and we could by no means find a ransom; it was just then that Christ stepped in, and, in the stead of all believers, paid the ransom that we might in that hour be delivered from the curse of the law and the vengeance of God and go our way free, justified by his blood.

Let me show you some qualities of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. He has redeemed the multitude; not me alone, nor you alone, but “a multitude that no man can number.” Christ hath bought for himself some out of every kingdom, and nation, and tongue, under heaven; he hath redeemed some of every rank, from the highest to the lowest; some of every color—black and white; some of every standing in society, the best and the worst.

Now, this ransom was all paid, and all paid at once. When Christ redeemed his people, he did not leave a single debt unpaid, nor yet one farthing for them to settle afterwards. The sacrifice of Calvary was not a part payment; it was a complete and perfect payment, and it obtained a complete and perfect remittal of all the debts of all believers that have lived, do live, or shall live, to the very end of time. On that day when Christ hung on the cross, the whole of the demands of the law were paid there and then by Jesus, the great high priest of all his people. And he paid it all at once too. So priceless was the ransom, so munificent the price demanded for our souls, one might have thought it marvelous had Christ paid it by installments. King’s ransoms have sometimes been paid part at once, and part in dues afterwards, to run through years. But not so our Savior: once for all he gave himself a sacrifice and said, “It is finished,” leaving nothing for him to do, nor for us to accomplish. Christ nailed that receipt to his “It is done, it is done; I have taken away the handwriting of ordinances, I have nailed it to the cross; who is he that shall condemn my people, or lay anything to their charge? for I have blotted out like a cloud their transgressions, and like a thick cloud their sins!”

And when Christ paid all this ransom, he did it all himself! Simon, the Cyrenian, might bear the cross; but Simon might not be nailed to it. That sacred circle of Calvary was kept for Christ alone. Two thieves were with him there; not righteous men, lest any should have said that the death of those two righteous men helped the Savior. No disciples shared his death; Peter was not dragged there to be beheaded, John was not nailed to a cross side by side with him; he was left there alone. He says, “I have trodden the wine press alone; and of the people there was none with me.” The work was completely done by himself, without a helper.

And it was accepted. It was a goodly ransom. What could equal it? A soul “exceeding sorrowful even unto death”; a body torn with torture; a death of the most inhuman kind; and an agony of such a character that tongue cannot speak of it, nor can even man’s mind imagine its horror. It was a goodly price. But say, was it accepted? There have been prices offered which never were accepted by the party to whom they were offered, and therefore the slave did not go free.

But this was accepted. When Christ declared that he would pay the debt, God sent the officer to arrest him, the payment was made, and Christ was locked up until the acceptance should have been ratified in heaven. Let your minds picture the buried Jesus. He slumbers in that narrow tomb. Now is the crisis of this world; it hangs trembling in the balance. Will God accept the ransom, or will he not? An angel comes from heaven with exceeding brightness; he rolls away the stone; and forth comes the captive, with no manacles upon his hands, with the grave clothes left behind; free, never more to die.

If God had not accepted his sacrifice, he would have been in his tomb at this moment; he never would have risen from his grave. But his resurrection was a pledge of God’s accepting him.

Second, let me address myself to the effect of the ransom; being “justified freely by his grace through the redemption.”

Now, what is the meaning of justification? Justification is a forensic term, employed always in a legal sense. A prisoner is brought to the bar of justice to be tried. There is only one way that prisoner can be justified; he must be found not guilty—proved to be a just man. If you find that man guilty, you cannot justify him. The Queen may pardon him, but she cannot justify him. He is as much a real criminal when he is pardoned as before.

Now, the wonder of wonders is that we are proved guilty, and yet we are justified. Can any earthly tribunal do that? No; it remained for the ransom of Christ to effect that which is an impossibility to any tribunal upon earth. We are all guilty. Read Romans 3:23—”For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” There the verdict of guilty is brought in, and yet we are immediately afterwards said to be justified freely by his grace.

Now, allow me to explain the way whereby God justifies a sinner. A prisoner has been tried and condemned to death. He cannot be justified, because he is guilty. But now suppose that some second party could be introduced who could take all that man’s guilt upon himself, who could change places with that man and by some mysterious process become that man—the righteous man putting the rebel in his place and making the rebel a righteous man. We cannot do that in our courts. If I were to go before a judge, and he should agree that I should be committed for a year’s imprisonment instead of some wretch who was condemned yesterday to a year’s imprisonment, I might take his punishment, but not his guilt.

Now, what flesh and blood cannot do, that Jesus Christ did. Here I stand, the sinner. God says, “I will condemn that man; I will punish him.” Christ puts me aside and stands in my stead. When the plea is demanded, Christ takes my guilt to be his own. When the punishment is to be executed, Christ says, “Punish me. I have put my righteousness on that man, and I have taken that man’s sins on me. Father, consider that man to have been me. Let me endure his curse, and let him receive my blessing.”

This marvelous doctrine of Christ’s changing places with poor sinners is a doctrine of revelation, for it never could have been conceived by nature. No earthly monarch could have power to consent to such an exchange. But the God of heaven had a right to do as he pleased. In his infinite mercy he said, “Son of my love, you must stand in the sinner’s place.” This is the way we are saved, “being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus.”

And now, let me further explain some of the characteristics of this justification. As soon as a repenting sinner is justified, his sins are cast into the depths of the sea. The man stands a guiltless man in the sight of God, accepted in the beloved. “What!” say you, “do you mean that literally?” Yes, I do. That is the doctrine of justification by faith.

But I am going a step further. The moment the man believes in Christ, he becomes righteous, he becomes meritorious, for, in the moment when Christ takes his sins he takes Christ’s righteousness, so that, when God looks upon the sinner who but an hour ago was dead in sins, he looks upon him with as much affection as he ever looked upon his Son. He himself has said it—”As the Father loved me, so have I loved you.” He loves us as much as his Father loved him. Can you believe such a doctrine as that? Does it not pass all thought? Well, it is a doctrine of the Holy Spirit whereby we must hope to be saved.

“But,” says one, “no one is justified like that till he dies.” Believe me, he is. If that young man over there has really believed in Christ this morning, he is as much justified in God’s sight now as he will be when he stands before the throne. The glorified spirits above are no more acceptable to God than the poor man below, who is once justified by grace. It is a perfect washing, it is perfect pardon, perfect imputation; we are fully, freely, and wholly accepted, through Christ our Lord.

Just one more word here: Those who are once justified are justified irreversibly. As soon as a sinner takes Christ’s place, and Christ takes the sinner’s place, there is no fear of a second change. If Christ has once paid the debt, it will never be asked for again; if you are pardoned, you are pardoned forever. God does not give man a free pardon and then afterwards retract it and punish man: that be far from God. He says, “I have punished Christ; you may go free.” And after that, we may rejoice that “being justified by faith we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

And now I hear someone cry, “That is an extraordinary doctrine.” But it is a doctrine professed by all Protestant churches, though they may not preach it. It is the doctrine of the Church of England, of Luther, of the Presbyterian church; it is professedly the doctrine of all Christian churches; and if it seems strange in your ears, it is because your ears are estranged. It is the doctrine of Holy Writ, that none can condemn whom God justifies, and that none can accuse those for whom Christ died.

Third, I now close with the manner of giving this justification. There are some whose mouths are set awatering for this great gift of justification, some here who are saying, “Oh! if I could be justified! But, Sir, can I be justified?” Yes, poor soul, if you desire it; if God has made you willing, if you confess your sins, Christ is willing to take your rags and give you his righteousness forever.

“Well,” says one, “must I be a holy man for many years, and then get it?” Listen! “Freely by his grace”; “freely,” because there is no price to be paid for it; “By his grace,” because it is not of our deservings.

“But, O Sir, I do not think God will forgive me unless I do something to deserve it.” I tell you, if you bring in any of your deservings, you shall never have it. God gives away his justification freely; if you bring anything to pay for it, he will throw it in your face.

If I could preach justification to be bought by you at a sovereign apiece, who would go out of the place without being justified? If I would preach justification by walking a hundred miles, would we not be pilgrims tomorrow morning, every one of us? If I were to preach justification by whippings and torture, there are very few here who would not whip themselves severely. But when it is freely, freely, freely, men turn away. “What! am I to have it for nothing at all, without doing anything?” Yes, Sir, you are to have it for nothing, or else not at all.

“But may I not go to Christ, lay some claim to his mercy, and say, Lord, justify me because I am not so bad as others?” It will not do, Sir, because it is “by his grace.”

“But may I not offer this plea, I mean to be better?” No, Sir; it is “by his grace.” You insult God by bringing your counterfeit coin to pay for his treasures. What poor ideas men have of the value of Christ’s gospel if they think they can buy it! A rich man once, when he was dying, had a notion that he could buy a place in heaven by building a row of almshouses. A good man stood by his bedside, and said, “How much more are you going to leave?”

“Twenty thousand pounds.”

Said he, “That would not buy enough for your foot to stand on in heaven; for the streets are made of gold there, and therefore of what value can your gold be?” Nay, friends, we cannot buy heaven with gold nor good works, nor prayers, nor anything in the world.

But how is it to be got? Why it is to be got for asking only. As many of us as know ourselves to be sinners may have Christ for asking for him. Do you know that you want Christ? You may have Christ! “Whosoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely.” But if you say, “No, Sir, I mean to do a great many good things, and then I will believe in Christ,” then you will be damned if you hold by such delusions. I earnestly warn you.

“But are we not to do good works?” Certainly you are; but you are not to trust in them. You must trust in Christ wholly, and then do good works afterwards.

“But,” says one, “I think if I were to do a few good works, it would be a little recommendation when I came.” It would not, Sir; they would be no recommendation at all. Let a beggar come to your house in white kid gloves and say he is very badly off; would the white kid gloves recommend him to your charity? “No,” you would say, “you are a miserable impostor; you do not want anything, and you shall not have anything, either! Out with you!” The best uniform for a beggar is rags, and the best uniform for a sinner to go to Christ in is for him to go just as he is, with nothing but sin about him.

I do not say this to urge any man to continue in sin. God forbid! If you continue in sin, you must not come to Christ; you cannot; your sins will hamper you. No, Sir, it is repentance; it is the immediate leaving off the sin. But neither by repentance nor by leaving off your sin can save you. It is Christ, Christ, Christ —Christ only.

But I know many of you will go away and try to build up your own Babel-tower to get to heaven. Some of you will go the ceremony way: you will lay the foundation of the structure with infant baptism, build confirmation on it, and the Lord’s Supper. “I shall go to heaven,” you say. “Do not I keep Good Friday and Christmas Day? I am a better man than those dissenters. Do I not say more prayers than anyone?” You will be a long while going up that treadmill before you get an inch higher.

Another one says, “I will go and study the Bible and believe right doctrine, and I have no doubt that by believing right doctrine I shall be saved.” Indeed you will not! You can be no more saved by believing right doctrine than you can by doing right actions.

“There,” says another, “I like that; I shall go and believe in Christ and live as I like.” Indeed, you will not! For if you believe in Christ he will not let you live as your flesh likes; by his Spirit he will constrain you to mortify its affections and lusts. If he gives you the grace to make you believe, he will give you the grace to live a holy life afterwards. You cannot believe in Christ unless you renounce every fault and resolve to serve him with full purpose of heart. What have you to do but to believe this and trust in him?

Faith is like this: There was a captain of a man-of-war whose young son was very fond of running up the ship’s rigging; and one time, running after a monkey, he ran up the mast, till at last he got on to the maintruck. Now, the maintruck is like a large, round table put on to the mast, so that when the boy was on the maintruck he had plenty of room; but the difficulty was that he could not reach the mast under the table; he was not tall enough to get down from this maintruck, reach the mast, and so descend. He managed to get up there, but he never could get down. His father looked up in horror. In a few moments his son would fall down, and be dashed to pieces on the deck! The captain shouted, “Boy, the next time the ship lurches, throw yourself into the sea.” It was his only way of escape; he might be picked up out of the sea, but he could not be rescued if he fell on the deck. The poor boy looked down on the sea; it was a long way; he could not bear the idea of throwing himself into the roaring current; he thought it looked dangerous. So he clung to the maintruck with all his might, though there was no doubt that he must soon let go and perish.

The father called for a gun, and pointing it up at him, said, “Boy, the next time the ship lurches, throw yourself into the sea, or I’ll shoot you!” The boy knew his father would keep his word; the ship lurched, over went the boy, splash, into the sea, and out went brawny arms after him. The sailors rescued him and brought him on deck.

Now we, like the boy, are in a position of extraordinary danger, which neither you nor I can possibly escape of ourselves. Unfortunately, we have got some good works of our own, like that maintruck, and we cling to them so fondly that we never will give them up. Christ knows that unless we do give them up, we shall be dashed to pieces at the last. He, therefore, says, “Sinner, let go of your own trust, and drop into the sea of my love.” We look down and say, “Can I be saved by trusting in God? He looks as if he were angry with me, and I could not trust him.”

Must the weapon of destruction be pointed directly at you? Must you hear the dreadful threat—”He that believeth not shall be damned?” It is with you now as with that boy—your position is one of imminent peril, and your slighting the Father’s counsel makes peril more perilous. You must do it or else you perish! Let go your hold! That is faith when the poor sinner lets go, drops down, and is saved; and the very thing which looks as if it would destroy him is the means of his being saved. Oh! believe on Christ, poor sinners; believe on Christ. You who know your guilt and misery, come, cast yourselves upon him; come, and trust my Master and you shall never trust him in vain; but you shall find yourselves forgiven, and go your way rejoicing in Christ Jesus.

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