Page 5009 – Christianity Today (2024)

Classic and contemporary excerpts.

Righteousness Exalts A Nation

Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

—Thomas Jefferson in Notes on Virginia; Manners

Getting Beyond Discussion

Let us cease arguing about the existence of demons and concern ourselves with what the demons are actually doing.

—Donald Bloesch in Theological

Notebook (Vol. 1)

The Word That Enriches

Abraham Lincoln did not have the education to read the King James Bible when he started doing so, and its language wasn’t the language he and his neighbors used. But he pushed in a direction opposite from the one we are tempted to take today: he got his education from the Authorized Version. None of us is educated enough to read and understand the Bible. What a presumption it is to think that we are, or that we should bring its language any more than its ideas (if they could be separated) down to our educational level!… [B]ecause Abraham Lincoln did not have [a] Bible paraphrase, we have “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right …”

—Kent Gramm in The Christian

Century (Mar. 23–30, 1988)

We Need Good Sight To Avoid Being Fall Guys

Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for, because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.

—Peter Marshall in Mr. Jones, Meet the Master

Wrong Credit

God if He be good, is not the author of all things, but of a few things only, and not of most things that occur to a man.

—Plato in The Republic

Freedom Gone Wrong

Self-fulfillment soon grows into a quest for self-indulgence with a vocabulary of I, Me, Mine and self-indulgence, in turn, soon becomes unbridled. The self-indulgent pursuit of pleasure embraces tolerance of hom*osexuality, addiction to eroticism, addiction to drugs and alcohol, habitual divorce, vandalism and lawlessness. Thus liberty becomes libertinism. It is a dictatorship of permissiveness which enslaves its citizens, a dictatorship whose decrees are endlessly purveyed by the media.

—Kitty Muggeridge in

Gazing on Truth

Away With Gossip

I once formed a mutual encouragement fellowship at a time of stress in one of my pastorates. The members subscribed to a simple formula applied before speaking of any person or subject that was perhaps controversial.

T—Is it true?

H—Is it helpful?

I—Is it inspiring?

N—Is it necessary?

K—Is it kind?

If what I am about to say does not pass those tests, I will keep my mouth shut! And it worked!

—Alan Redpath in A Passion

for Preaching

Life In The Ordinary

The culture conditions us to approach people and situations as journalists do: see the big, exploit the crisis, edit and abridge the commonplace, interview the glamorous. The Scriptures and our best pastoral traditions train us in a different approach: notice the small, persevere in the commonplace, appreciate the obscure.

—Eugene H. Peterson in

LEADERSHIP journal

(Winter, 1986)

Life Is Fleeting

The time God allots to each one of us is like a precious tissue which we embroider as we best know how.

—Anatole France in The Crime

of Sylvestre Bonnard

The Fickle Crowd

Oliver Cromwell, who took the British throne away from Charles I and established the Commonwealth, said to a friend, “Do not trust to the cheering, for those persons would shout as much if you and I were going to be hanged.” Cromwell understood crowd psychology!

—Warren W. Wiersbe in

Be Satisfied

So Much Dirt

I was riding along a highway the other day and saw a sign, “Dirt for sale.” I said, “They ought to hang that over every rack of paperbound books in the drugstores of America.” Not since Manhattan Island was sold for $24 has there been so much dirt available for so little money as now.

—Vance Havner in On

This Rock I Stand

Divine resources for a changed life are always available.

Some time ago I came to realize that I did not love the people next door. They were, by any standards, dangerous and unpleasant people—ex-bikers who made their living selling drugs.

They had never tried to harm my family, but the constant traffic of people buying drugs, a number of whom sat in the yard while shooting up, began to wear down my patience. As I brooded over them one day, indulging my irritation, the Lord helped me see that I really had no love for them at all, that after “suffering” from them for several years I would secretly be happy if they died so that we could just be rid of them. I realized how little I truly cared for nearly all the people I dealt with through the day, even when on “religious business.” I had to admit that I had never earnestly sought to be possessed by God’s kind of love, to become more like Jesus. Now it was time to seek.

But is it possible to be like Jesus? Can we actually have the character of the heavenly Father? We know God shows sincere love for everyone and is consistently kind to even the ungrateful. Jesus likewise showed himself to be merciful, freely forgave injuries, and was glad simply to give, expecting nothing back.

It is possible, I now believe, to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14). Ordinary people in common surroundings can live from the abundance of God’s kingdom, letting the spirit and the actions of Jesus be the natural outflow from their lives. The “tree” can be made good, and the fruit will then be good as a matter of course (Matt. 12:33). This new life God imparts involves both a goal and a method.

His Heart, Our Heart

As disciples (literally students) of Jesus, our goal is to learn to be like him. We begin by trusting him to receive us as we are. But our confidence in him leads us toward the same kind of faith he had, a faith that made it possible for him to act as he did. Jesus’ faith was rooted in his gospel of heaven’s rule, the good news of “the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 4:17). Heaven is a deeply significant word. From Abraham (Gen. 24:7) onward, it signified to the people of Israel the direct availability of God to his children, as well as his supremacy over all that affects us. From heaven, “the eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous, and his ears toward their cry” (Ps. 34:15; also 1 Pet. 3:12).

Jesus was concerned to pass on to his followers this reality of heaven’s rule that undergirded his life. When he sent his 12 friends out on their first mission, he told them it was like sending “sheep in the midst of wolves.” It would be butterflies against machine guns. Nevertheless—imagine sheep being told this!—there was no need for them to fear. Two sparrows cost a penny. Yet not one falls upon the earth “without your Father’s will.” Heaven is so close that even the hairs on our heads are numbered. “Fear not,” Jesus tells us, “you are of more value than many sparrows” (Matt. 10:16, 29–31).

Avoiding Dreary Substitutes

Living under the governance of heaven frees and empowers us to love as God loves. But outside the safety and sufficiency of heaven’s rule, we are too frightened and angry to really love others, or even ourselves, and so we arrange our dreary substitutes. A contemporary wording of Jesus’ comparison of God’s kind of love, agapē, and what normally passes for love might be: “What’s so great if you love those who love you? Terrorists do that! If that’s all your ‘love’ amounts to, God certainly is not involved. Or suppose you are friendly to ‘our kind of people.’ So is the Mafia!” (Matt. 5:46–47).

Now reflect: Has your heart gone out in generous blessing to someone who has insulted or humiliated you? Can you work without thought of gain for the well-being of someone who openly despises you, maybe has told you to drop dead? Are you enthusiastically pulling for the success of someone competing with you for favor, position, or financial gain?

A much-used doormat says: “Welcome, friends!” Could yours also genuinely welcome enemies? When you lend a dress, a stereo, a car, or some tools or books, are you able to release them with no hope of seeing them again, as Luke 6:35 suggests we should? I do a good bit of my own mechanical and carpentry work, and I have a good supply of tools—which neighbors soon discover. I am glad for opportunities to lend a chain saw, an ax, a crescent wrench, or pliers, for I see them as a true spiritual exercise in abandonment to God. I am learning to love others in these little things, and it helps me to be ready to trust him in things that truly matter.

The Golden Triangle

If this life of faith and love from heaven is the goal of the disciple of Jesus, the natural fulfillment of the new life in Christ, how can we enter into it? While it is in one sense a result of God’s presence within us, the New Testament also describes a process behind our “putting on” the Lord Jesus Christ. It is repeatedly discussed in the Bible under three essential aspects, each inseparable from the other, all interrelated. This process could be called “the golden triangle” of spiritual transformation, for it is as precious as gold to the disciple, and each of its aspects is as essential to the whole as three sides are to a triangle.

One aspect or side of our triangle is the faithful acceptance of everyday problems. By enduring trials with patience we can reach an assurance of the fullness of heaven’s rule in our lives.

James, the Lord’s brother, began his message to the church by instructing us to be “supremely happy” when troubles come upon us: “When all kinds of trials and temptations crowd into your lives, my brothers, don’t resent them as intruders, but welcome them as friends! Realise that they come to test your faith and to produce in you the quality of endurance” (1:2–3, Phillips). When endurance or patience has been given full play in the details of day-to-day existence, it will make us “perfect and complete, lacking in nothing” (v. 4).

Certainly James learned this from Jesus, his older brother, during more than 20 years of sometimes rancorous family life (John 7:2–8). We must never forget that for most of his life Jesus was what we today would call a blue-collar worker, a tradesman, an independent contractor. His hands had calluses from using the first-century equivalents of hammers, drills, axes, saws, and planes. He was known in his village simply as “the carpenter.”

There James saw him practice all he later preached. We know what it is like to “do business with the public.” So did Jesus. Every single thing that Jesus taught us to do was something he had put into daily practice. In the trials of his everyday existence, in family and village life, he verified the sufficiency of God’s care for those who simply trust him and obey him. And, at least in retrospect, James understood. Once he saw who his older brother really was, he realized the power of patience in the events of daily life—manifested above all by an inoffensive tongue (James 3:2)—as the path in which God’s character is fulfilled in our lives.

Opening Our Lives To The Spirit

The second side of our triangle is interaction with God’s Spirit in and around us. As Paul points out, the Spirit allows us to “walk in” the Spirit (Gal. 5:25). This all-powerful, creative personality, the promised “strengthener,” the paraclete of John 14, gently awaits our invitation to him to act upon us, with us, and for us.

The presence of the Holy Spirit can always be recognized by the way he moves us toward what Jesus would be and do (John 16:7–15). When we inwardly experience the heavenly sweetness and power of life—the love, joy, and peace—that Jesus knew, that is the work of the Spirit in us.

Outwardly, life in the Spirit manifests itself in two ways. Gifts of the Spirit will enable us to perform some specific function—such as service or healing or leading worship—with effects clearly beyond those of our own making. These gifts serve God’s purposes among his people, but they do not necessarily signify the state of our heart.

The fruit of the Spirit, by contrast, give a sure sign of transformed character. When our deepest attitudes and dispositions are those of Jesus, it is because we have learned to let the Spirit foster his life in us. Paul confessed: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). The outcome of Christ living within us through the Spirit is fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal. 5:22–23).

Both gifts and fruit are the result, not the reality, of the Spirit’s presence in our lives. What brings about our transformation into Christlikeness is our direct, personal interaction with Christ through the Spirit. The Spirit makes Christ present to us and draws us toward his likeness. It is as we thus “behold the glory of the Lord” that we are constantly “transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18, NASB).

The Disciplines Of Christlikeness

The third side of our triangle is made up of spiritual disciplines. These are special activities, many engaged in by Jesus himself, such as solitude and study, service and secrecy, fasting and worship. They are ways in which we undertake to follow the New Testament mandate to put to death or “make no provision for” the merely earthly aspects of our lives, and to put on the new person (Col. 3).

The emphasis in this dimension of spiritual transformation is upon our efforts. True, we are given much, and without grace we can do nothing; but our action is also required. “Try your hardest,” Peter directs us (2 Pet. 1:5, NEB). We are to add virtue to our faith, knowledge to our virtue, self-control to our knowledge, patience to our self-control, godlikeness to our patience, brotherly love to our godlikeness, and agapē to our brotherly love (vv. 5–7).

In Colossians 3, Paul urges us “as the elect of God, holy and beloved” to renew our inner selves with organs (“bowels” in KJV) of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearance, forgiveness, and agapē (vv. 12–14). We should not only want to be merciful, kind, unassuming, and patient persons, we are also to make plans to become so. We are to find out, that is, what prevents and what promotes mercifulness and kindness and patience in our souls, and we are to remove hindrances to them as much as possible, carefully substituting that which assists Christlikeness.

Many well-meaning people, to give an example, cannot succeed in being kind because they are too rushed to get things done. Haste has worry, fear, and anger as close associates; it is a deadly enemy of kindness, and hence of love. If this is our problem, we may be greatly helped by a day’s retreat into solitude and silence, where we will discover that the world survives even though we are inactive. There we might prayerfully meditate to see clearly the damage done by our unkindness, and honestly compare it to what, if anything, is really gained by our hurry. We will come to understand that for the most part our hurry is really based upon pride, self-importance, fear, and lack of faith, and rarely upon the production of anything of true value for anyone.

Perhaps we will end up making plans to pray daily for the people with whom we deal regularly. Or we may resolve to ask associates for forgiveness for past injuries. Whatever comes of such prayerful reflection, we may be absolutely sure that our lives will never be the same, and that we will enjoy a far greater richness of God’s reality in our lives.

In general, then, we “put on” the new person by regular activities that are in our power, and we become what we could not be by direct effort. If we take note of and follow Jesus in what he did when he was not ministering or teaching, we will find ourselves led and enabled to behave as he did when he was “on the spot.”

The single most obvious trait of those who profess Christ but do not grow into Christlikeness is their refusal to take the reasonable and time-tested measures for spiritual growth. I almost never meet someone in spiritual coldness, perplexity, and distress who is regular in the use of those spiritual exercises that will be obvious to anyone familiar with the contents of the New Testament.

Like Stars In A Dark World

The three sides of the golden triangle of spiritual transformation belong together. No one of the three will give us a heart like Christ’s without the other two. None can take the place of any other. Yet each, connected to the others, will certainly bring us to ever-increasing Christlikeness.

In Philippians 2 the apostle draws all three together in one grand statement: “You must work out your own salvation in fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you, inspiring both the will and the deed, for his own chosen purpose. Do all you have to do without complaint or wrangling. Show yourselves guileless and above reproach, faultless children of God in a warped and crooked generation, in which you shine like stars in a dark world” (vv. 12–15, NEB).

When we accept moment-to-moment events and tribulations as the place where we receive God’s provision, we patiently anticipate the action of his Spirit in our lives. In hope we do our best to find the ways in which our inner self can take on the character of the children of the Highest. This is the path of radical change—change sufficient to meet the needs of the world and prepare a people to be the habitation of God.

Singer and composerKen Medemahas spent years running to and from God.

Last year, Ken Medema gave a 45-minute lecture at a workshop for the Wheaton College music faculty. Or more precisely, he sang the lecture, using the coffee table he sat behind as both lectern and percussion instrument.

Medema, pianist, singer, and composer of contemporary Christian music, urged the music faculty at the Illinois college to help students not just think about music, but to help them think in music by becoming intimate with its expressive forms.

At another point in the weekend, the sightless Medema invited faculty to call out three random notes and three words—any words—around which he promised to improvise, a feat he manages at almost every appearance at the churches and conventions where he performs. As music conservatory dean Harold Best remembers, the composition Medema created not only used the three notes artfully, but “incorporated fugal analogues from, first, Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, and second, Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, with a third section that wove together melodic strains from both. And of the three words, out of which he improvised a wonderful libretto, he saved the third to come as the piece’s very last word—which made it all quite stunning.”

“Music needs to be like conversation,” Medema will tell you when asked about his unusual presentation to the faculty “as natural to a musician as eating or breathing.”

Ascending the steps to Medema’s second-story apartment in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, it is no surprise to hear strains of music floating from his window, blending with the noise of a hilly street crowded with cars and nineteenth-century Victorian houses. Medema is in his den, hearing for the first time a just-released video of one of his performances, while his publicist and assistant, Beverly Vander Molen, fills him in on the visual action that his sightless eyes have to miss.

Music forms a tangible presence in the Medema household (which includes his wife, Jane Smith, and their 11-year-old daughter, Rachel). The most notable fixture of the room off their kitchen—in most houses a dining room—is an ebony grand piano, where Medema spends much of his time composing. Down the hall, another room, with a mattress and throw pillows, a wicker sofa, and a stereo system, reminds one of a typical den—except that in the middle of the floor is Medema’s Yamaha D×7 synthesizer, ready whenever the urge to play sneaks up on him.

And there, surrounded by music, in the midst of the doubts and questions that sometimes trouble him, Medema often experiences something, he says, that makes him “realize again the calling of God.”

“It happened this summer,” he remembers. “I was traveling back from Lausanne II [where Medema had been music and worship leader] and one morning I couldn’t sleep. I got up, put on a recording of the Call [a rock group with secular airplay and subtly Christian lyrics], and I knew, when I heard their song ‘Uncovered,’ that I have spent all these years in some ways running to and from God. I realized that every time I ran from him I was always seduced back by the story, by the promise, by a glint of sunlight down the road.”

Not only do the sounds of music fill Medema’s waking hours, he seems to think in notes and melodic phrases as easily as most people think in words or images. Music is like a second language for Medema. “There’s something about his mind, his imagination, and his musical ear working in consortium that is amazing,” says a fellow musician and friend. Medema’s darting, aimless blue eyes have never seen a musical score, but if anything, blindness has honed his musical sharpness and sensitivity.

To watch him in concert confirms the impressions about Medema’s peculiarly passionate relationship to rhythm and melody. He seems to listen out loud, to give voice and movement through his words and his fingers to a world of sound within. Usually Medema uses a synthesizer, an electronic drum machine, and a grand piano. At times he layers pop melodies over Latin-flavored backbeats. At other times he juxtaposes blues riffs with soft balladlike refrains, assembling a patchwork of keyboard, vocal, and percussive sounds. His baritone voice can belt out jazz-tinged rock or softly draw out the lines of an old hymn.

He even pushes the tonal qualities of his piano to the limit, occasionally reaching into the soundbox to pound or strum the exposed strings with one hand while chording its keys with the other, providing a haunting, rhythmic background for a song about the Gerasene demoniac’s meeting with Jesus.

Medema’s fascination with music stretches back into his childhood. “When I was eight,” he remembers, “some people asked us to store their piano for them. After a few weeks of listening to my persistent pounding on that thing, my parents decided I should have lessons.” Since then, music has been much more than a hobby for Medema; it has been a means of primal expression. Music also gave him an early entrée to social acceptance. As the only “blind, ugly, fat, baby-faced classical musician in my neighorhood,” he says, he soon discovered that writing pop songs brought him a measure of popularity.

Medema grew more serious about performing in 1970 when he began composing original material for his work as a music therapist in a psychiatric hospital. “My concern was to create the right environment, a climate where music would draw people out of themselves, where music would be therapeutic. We went into a room and we started making music, either banging on rhythm instruments or singing songs or playing in a little band together. In a sense, I’m doing now what I did as a music therapist.”

In 1973, shortly after his first recording with Word Records, Fork in the Road, Medema made composing, recording, and performing a full-time preoccupation. With 120 concerts a year ever since—mostly in churches—Medema has also kept busy with over a dozen recordings, first for Word, then the GlorySound label, and finally, Briar Patch Music (his own label, based in Grandville, Mich.). The years of composing and recording have had one constant: The styles Medema has made his own have never stayed the same.

To see the crowded cabinet of compact discs in his den is to glimpse an eclectic range of influences. Asked to identify the styles that have shaped him, Medema has difficulty being brief: “Bach, Mozart, Bartók have all been very strong influences … the driving rhythms of Bartók especially. When I was a kid I listened to a lot of jazz—Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck. And there are folk influences—the gentle sort of guitar strumming of Peter, Paul, and Mary or Pete Seeger, and the wonderful story-telling qualities of that music. In terms of pop music, I would name Peter Gabriel, Sting, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Winter, Bruce co*ckburn.” Early American folk hymns—songs like “I Will Arise and Go to Jesus,” and “Brethren, We Have Met to Worship”—have also left an imprint on his music. Medema has absorbed the essences of an almost haphazard array of musical expressions.

Medema’s musical technique is complemented by the biblical images that fill his lyrics. Early recordings are filled with obvious biblical allusions. “Those songs were very much oriented to a personal salvation ethic,” he reflects. “But I very much feel that the track I’m on now is toward less God-talk and more what I call people-talk. Sunday’s God seems not to know a whole lot about Monday. We need instead to look at Monday’s realities in the light of Sunday. I guess that makes me real cagey about God-talk. I don’t trust a lot of it, even my own.”

The “people-talk” of Medema’s recent songs includes regular references to social injustice, American militarism, and Third World oppression. He can often now be found performing at benefits for Bread for the World and Habitat for Humanity, or singing at anti-apartheid rallies. “My dream,” he says, “is that social concern is the place the church and world meet. It’s a logical place for the two to come together and say, ‘Let’s work on that together.’”

Although he was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, of “very devout, churchgoing Christian Reformed parents,” he has been distancing himself somewhat from conservative theology at the same time he has been increasingly attracted to social causes. This change has made him something of an enigma to evangelical audiences. He defines himself as evangelical only in the sense that the root of the label means “good news”: “An evangelical is a person who is preoccupied with the fact that there is good news, that there is hope.”

Medema admits that his faith now has more affinities with liberalism, a fact not lost on the churches where he performs. “I am in many fewer Southern Baptist churches now, but in a whole lot more mainline Presbyterian churches.”

“My sense about the ‘onlyness’ of Christianity,” Medema continues, “is one of questioning. But I do associate classical liberalism with a lack of excitement and evangelical fervor. I certainly am excited about my faith in the way evangelicals are, and I’m enough of an evangelical to want to ‘spread the word.’ I want to tell people about it.”

Medema realizes that by omitting explicit references to Christ “dying for sins,” he may be losing an essential element of the message of Christianity. But his current definitions of Christian faith may not be the final word. Medema’s theology, like his music, has undergone consistent change, and the images and questions so creatively expressed in his music may yet carry Medema back to his theological home.

For all his questioning and soul-searching, Medema still feels committed to the church, does concerts under its roofs, and feels called to unsettle lukewarm Christians’ complacency with what he terms his “preoccupation with shalom and Jubilee.” Indeed, he regularly helps to lead the small band of worshipers that gathers every Sunday at the church where his wife is associate pastor, San Francisco’s Delores Street Baptist Church (Southern Baptist). There, or at a large gathering of Christians, or before a concert designed to mobilize action against apartheid, Medema is likely to be found singing his questions and convictions, much as he does in one of his poignant songs:

When my disappointment turns to understanding,

When a hated enemy becomes a trusted friend,

When the life I wanted gives way to one much better,

When a bad beginning becomes a hopeful end,

Words of praise are all I can say.

And when the words have died away,

Then my heart will still be praising you.

For you are the mystery of love in whose life I live and move,

And I will praise you night and day,

And that is all that I can say.

The average convert to Islam is 31 years old. Why does Christianity attract mostly teens?

Jim was the assistant manager of a sporting goods store where I worked during my graduate studies at Northwestern University. He was in his early forties, had been raised in a Jewish family, and had served in Vietnam. I expected him to be particularly resistant to the gospel.

Much to my surprise, Jim began to ask me about my personal beliefs after he learned I was studying comparative religion. For several months we discussed religion in general and Christianity in particular. One evening, as we were seated with three other employees in the store break room, there arose a discussion over the Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart affairs. One employee had come to the conclusion that all “born-again” Christians were probably secretly involved in immoral activities. When I took issue with this statement, I was interrupted by Jim. “Wait a minute,” he said, amazed. “You make it sound like you are one of those born-again Christians.” When I replied that according to my understanding of the New Testament term I was indeed born again, he protested loudly: “No! No! You can’t be!” Amused, I asked him why not. His response? “Because what you say makes sense to me.”

I believe that Jim was responding to alterations I had begun to make in my approach to nonbelievers—in particular, to those who are older than 25.

In the late 1800s, Edwin Starbuck conducted ground-breaking studies on conversion to Christianity. Ever since then, scholars, attempting either to verify or disprove his findings, have repeatedly demonstrated them to be accurate. Most observers agree that what Starbuck observed is to a large extent still valid. From these studies we learn two significant things: the age at which conversion to Christianity most often occurs, and the motivational factors involved in conversion.

Starbuck noted that the average age of a person experiencing a religious conversion was 15.6 years. Other studies have produced similar results; as recently as 1979, Virgil Gillespie wrote that the average age of conversion in America is 16 years.

Starbuck listed eight primary motivating factors: (1) fears, (2) other self-regarding motives, (3) altruistic motives, (4) following out a moral ideal, (5) remorse for and conviction of sin, (6) response to teaching, (7) example and imitation, and (8) urging and social pressure. Recent studies reveal that people still become Christians mainly for these same reasons.

What conclusions can be drawn from this information? First, the average age of conversion is quite young. Postadolescent persons do not seem to find Christianity as attractive as do persons in their teens. Indeed, for every year the non-Christian grows older than 25, the odds increase exponentially against his or her ever becoming a Christian.

Second, the reasons people become Christians appear to have at least as much to do with sociological factors as with purely “religious” factors (for example, conviction of sin). But are older persons motivated by these same factors? My friend Jim, for instance, was not subject to social pressures from any religious source. Extremely independent, he did not seek to imitate anyone. Having experienced much of the world and having served with the Special Forces in Vietnam, he had few (if any) conscious fears. And he was very cynical with regard to morality.

Islam’S Older Converts

My research at Northwestern University investigated religious conversion from another angle. Rather than duplicate the efforts of earlier scholars who limited themselves to the Christian experience, I explored the phenomenon of conversion to another missionary religion—Islam. I examined the published accounts of 60 Western converts to Islam and personally interviewed 10 others. The results contrasted sharply with Starbuck’s statistics.

The average age of a Western convert to Islam is approximately 31 years, almost double that of the convert to Christianity. Several persons were in their forties, fifties, and sixties. Islam seems to appeal to a much older group of people. This age difference made the subject of motivating factors of great interest as I investigated why Muslims are apparently reaching an age group in Western societies that Christians are not.

From the testimonies and interviews, it became evident that there are at least five reasons why Westerners choose Islam over Christianity and other religious alternatives. The first is simplicity; the precepts and requirements of Islam are perceived as being much less complicated than those of Christianity. A sincere proclamation of the shahāda (“There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his Messenger”) is all that is required to become a Muslim. Afterwards one must participate in the daily prayers, the Fast of Ramadan, the pilgrimage to Mecca, and almsgiving, but these are not complicated actions and require no engagement in theological or philosophical speculation.

The second factor is rationality. Islam is considered to be a supremely rational faith. The Muslim is not asked to give credence to allegedly “irrational” concepts such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Resurrection of Jesus. Islam presents itself as the natural religion, the faith that one would naturally follow if it were not for the corrupting influences of the Devil and the idolatrous religious systems in which many persons are raised.

Equality is the third factor. The universal brotherhood and equality of all Muslims is a cardinal tenet of Islam, and this is apparently very attractive to Westerners. Muslims take pride in the ceremony connected with their pilgrimage, in which members of every race, class, and ethnic group stand side by side, identically clothed, all worshiping together the One God, Allah.

Fourth, Islam is practical. It is considered a this-worldly religion in contrast to Christianity, which is perceived as abstract in the extreme. Muhammad left his followers a political, social, moral, and economic program founded on religious precepts. Jesus, however, is said to have advocated no such program; it is claimed that the New Testament is so preoccupied with his imminent return that it is impractical for modern life.

Finally, Islam lacks a priesthood. The absence of a spiritual “hierarchy” has attracted many Westerners who have rejected the idea of anyone negotiating with God for them or who have been disappointed and embittered by the scandalous conduct of some Christian leaders.

It seems that postadolescents are motivated to seek religious answers to life’s questions for different reasons from those that compel teenagers to turn to Christ. I would like to suggest that one of the reasons older persons do not convert to Christianity is that Christians have emphasized almost exclusively those aspects of their faith that have the greatest appeal to teens. Materials aimed at a youthful audience should not be dispensed with, of course. But new tracts, booklets, musical recordings, and audio-visuals aimed specifically at an older audience should be produced, and the motivational factors gleaned from the testimonies of Western converts to Islam can aid in the creation of those materials. (This is a form of evangelical contextualization, applied within a “home missions” context.)

Winning Mature Converts

Each of the five factors we have discussed is present in biblical Christianity, and a presentation of the gospel that emphasizes all or several of these may prove to be effective in winning “the older generation.”

Simplicity. The gospel of Christ is exceedingly simple; indeed, in some respects it is even simpler than the message of Islam. It has often been forgotten that salvation in Christ is indeed by faith alone. In the sixteenth century, the Reformers’ insistence upon this soteriology effectively won young and old alike. Perhaps a similar phenomenon could be produced today if Christians would return to such a message of simple power and strip away denominational, cultural, and ethnic additions. Followers of Christ must be able to distinguish between essential and nonessential aspects of their personal beliefs, and honestly and openly communicate these distinctions to nonbelievers. Mastery of the principles expounded in Romans 14 is essential if Christians wish to communicate the gospel in its radical simplicity.

Rationality. Christianity is an eminently reasonable faith, although it contains teachings that may seem irrational to modern men and women. (It may be the presentation of these doctrines by Christians who do not thoroughly understand them that makes them appear so illogical.) Throughout the centuries, apologists have been able to cast the Christian faith in highly rational terms, and many today seek to do the same. At the same time, certain questions need to be asked about more difficult aspects of the faith: What is actually necessary that a person understand to be born again? Cannot many of the more difficult theological points be left for the postconversion discipleship process? And if one does consider it essential that concepts such as the Trinity be explained before conversion, are the common presentations of these teachings adequate?

I have spoken thus far only of theological issues. But through the centuries, many ritual practices have been added to biblical Christianity; most, if not all, must be classified as nonessential. Some have contributed to the reputation of Christianity as an irrational faith. Some may need to be discarded if the basic message of the New Testament is to be revealed in all its power. Of course, there will always be an element of what Paul says the world calls “foolishness” in the gospel (1 Cor. 1:18–29). This is part of God’s plan to “confound the wise” and is thus unavoidable. But I am arguing for the elimination of accretions that have become unnecessary stumbling blocks.

Practicality. Christianity has often been accused of being too “otherworldly” in that it has failed to offer viable political, economic, judicial, and social programs for the world order. The teaching of Jesus that his kingdom “is not of this world” has been interpreted to mean that earthly life must merely be endured, and that Christians cannot expect to accomplish lasting reform before the return of Christ. But does the New Testament really offer no guidance for shaping political or economic policy? Does it contain no judicial or social precepts that may be applied in today’s societies? True, neither Jesus nor Paul spoke in detail of political or economic ideologies. But since both spoke out of a Jewish background and context, direct allusions may have been unnecessary. Christians must understand that their faith is rooted in Old Testament Judaism and that the Mosaic Covenant and Law (which contain highly specific political, economic, judicial, and social precepts) can give guidance even today. The fact that such ideals exist as an intrinsic part of Christianity can go a long way toward establishing the credibility of the faith in these areas.

Equality. Universal brotherhood is also a precept found in the New Testament. Paul states in Galatians 3, for instance, that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” It is true that historical precedent is against Christianity at this point, for Christians have not been united since the earliest years of the faith’s existence. While there is perhaps little that the individual can do about this situation on a worldwide scale, steps can be taken on the local level to offer explanations for the condition in which Christianity finds itself. An apologetic needs to be worked out that expresses in simple terms the reasons for the existing divisions within the Christian church (culture, race, doctrine, etc.) as well as reasons for the hesitancy of many Christians to adopt an ecumenical attitude.

Anticlericalism. As for Islam’s lack of human mediators, most Protestant Christians should not feel inferior to Muslims. But there needs to be a renewed emphasis upon the New Testament doctrine of the priesthood of all believers (1 Pet. 2:9). The Reformers emphasized this point and found that it appealed strongly to Europeans in the sixteenth century. The seventeenth-century Pietists, the Brethren, the Quakers, and others continued to espouse this and attracted many followers. High-church denominations may have difficulties with this point, but it would be to their advantage to examine whether entrenched hierarchical systems of church polity might not be hindering them from attracting new members.

We have seen that Christianity possesses each of the factors that Westerners have found to be attractive in the Muslim faith. But this is not a thesis intended for classroom discussions; it is one that needs to be experimented with and implemented. The church needs groups of believers who will devote themselves to the over-25 age group and “field test” various approaches.

There is an element of haste involved, for the average age of America’s population grows older with each year, and the kinds of people evangelicals encounter will be increasingly like my friend Jim. If the church wishes to retain its foothold in this country, the time to begin a shift in evangelistic strategy is now.

Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell has spent 20 years charting the strange career of a fallen angel.

Not too many people would want to spend 20 years with the Devil, but historian Jeffrey Burton Russell has. And after writing five books on the Evil One, he says he is ready to move on.

An early scholarly interest in the history of heresy led Russell to an interest in medieval witchcraft, which has led him to his most recent preoccupation. Russell, who teaches at the University of California-Santa Barbara, set out to write a single book on the history of the concept of the Devil, but ended up writing five (all published by Cornell University Press). The first four covered the periods from antiquity to the New Testament (The Devil), the early Christian tradition (Satan), the Middle Ages (Lucifer), and the modern world (Mephistopheles). The Prince of Darkness, released in 1988, is a more popular treatment that summarizes and “corrects” the history covered in the preceding four books.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY talked to Russell to get an idea about how the church has formed its ideas about the Devil and how these have changed over the centuries. Russell, who describes himself as a traditional and ecumenical Christian, keeps an open mind about the exact nature of the Devil, but takes him very seriously.

Does the Devil have horns?

The typical iconography of the Devil has him as a tall, saturnine figure dressed in red with horns, cloven feet, and a tail, with a sinister expression on his face, and sometimes holding a trident or a fork. The horns are an ancient symbol of power associated with gods and goddesses throughout the ancient Middle East. They represent power, fertility, and growth, and are associated with fertility cults.

A tail and the cloven hooves go along with the horns in the sense that they represent bestial*ty. The Devil lost his angelic form and has become something lower than angels, even lower than humans; he has become bestial.

The color red comes from both Egypt and Canaan as a symbol of the desert, the symbol of death and sterility. The trident is the most difficult to track down, but there is iconographical evidence that for some reason the Devil gets associated with either Neptune or river gods in late Roman art, and so you sometimes get the Devil as blue, holding a trident.

What about the idea that demons have batlike wings and angels have feathery wings?

This is not as simple as I thought it was, to tell you the truth. I had a number of conversations with an art historian friend of mine who also specializes in the Devil. The beautiful, feathery angelic wings and the ugly, batlike demonic ones do not become clear in the iconography until the illustrations of Dante’s Inferno and Milton’s Paradise Lost by Gustave Doré in the nineteenth century. But before that, in medieval and early modern art, there is not as much of that as one would think.

Why are demons supposed to smell like sulphur?

Demons have all kinds of unpleasant smells, and I don’t think it requires any deep historical or psychological roots to understand that. If you go back and look at the church fathers, the demons are assaulting Christians’ minds and senses. And the demons do it by making a horrible racket, a horrible noise; they do it by pounding and shaking on the door of the hut; they do it by emitting horrible screams; they do it by emitting foul odors. It is all part of the effort to frighten and intimidate us.

How recent is the practice of giving demons the names of particular sins, like the spirit of lust or the demon of pride?

In the Middle Ages there was certainly a tendency to speak of demons of pride. It is not until perhaps as late as the nineteenth century that you get almost whimsical dictionaries of demons: this demon is responsible for lust and this demon for avarice and so on.

Going back to the church fathers, there is some basis for this in Evagrius of Pontus who had the sophisticated psychological idea that demons are attuned to our sins. For example, as soon as you would open your mind to the sin of avarice, as soon as you would be tempted by some deal that would get you a lot of money, then that action would open a hole in your soul’s defenses, and the demons are primed to go in. Sometimes Evagrius does speak as if there were special demons who go after avarice and others with all of the other specialties.

You note that little is said about the Devil in the Old Testament, and then, all of a sudden, much is said in the New Testament. What is behind that shift?

In the Old Testament there is a tension between the idea that the Lord is absolutely powerful, that everything that happens is the will of the Lord, and the idea that there are spiritual forces obstructing or battling the work of the Lord. The most striking example of the tension is the difference between 2 Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1 that both portray how David takes a census, which is, of course, against the covenant. In the earlier version (2 Samuel), it says the Lord provoked David to undertake this census. By the time of 1 Chronicles, which is a couple of hundred years later, it is changed to read that Satan incited David to do the census. We must also keep in mind that satan in Hebrew is a common noun meaning an obstruction, a blockage, something that gets in your way. In the Old Testament it is used mostly as a common noun. It is not until the intertestamental period that Satan really comes forth as a very powerful and independent personality.

In the Jewish writings beginning about 150 to 100 B.C., there is a major shift toward the apocalyptic. The world seems to be in very bad shape. The end must be near. Powerful forces of evil are rising up, and there is going to be a vast battle between good and evil. In this intertestamental literature the Devil or devils or demons become increasingly vivid and terribly powerful. The New Testament writers are born into a period where this is very much in the air, and it becomes a part of their world view.

How are we to understand the demon possession mentioned in the Gospels, and how does it relate to illness?

We must be careful first to understand the Gospel world view, then to understand our own world view, and finally to try to make a connection while recognizing that the world views are different. It is too simplistic when some biblical scholars say these accounts of curing people by casting out demons are really some kind of physical cure.

Most people today don’t have demons. When I get sick I don’t go for an exorcism. I go down to the clinic and get antibiotics. That is our world view.

Their world view is very different. There is evil—not only illness, but earthquakes, storms, and so on—that is explained in terms of hostile forces beyond human control. In the first-century world view it is natural to assume that these things come from the Devil. It is Satan and his legions who are assaulting us. So how do you help someone who is suffering? You cast the demon out of him.

Did the early church and other Christians throughout history uphold this idea of demons possessing individuals?

Definitely. The apostles cast out demons. Holy men and women—monks, martyrs, hermits—also have such powers. In fact, one way of demonstrating that someone is especially holy is the person’s ability to do what we would call miracles, mainly healing miracles. This goes right on through the early church, through the Fathers, through the Middle Ages, and right down to the present in some sectors of Christianity.

The desert fathers saw the primary tactics of Satan as individual temptation. Was there any sense that the Devil also worked on a corporate level, that he controlled certain structures?

Definitely. For example, the Devil controlled the Roman Empire. Any secular authority who was hostile to Christ or to Christianity is deemed to be under the control or influence of Satan.

That probably changed when the Roman Empire became Christian.

It is funny to see that within about a ten-year period the Roman Empire stops being the visible manifestation of the kingdom of Satan on earth and becomes the visible manifestation of the kingdom of God on earth.

You mentioned that one of the problems with medieval scholasticism was that in its diabology it moved too far away from experience. What do you mean?

The tendency of the great scholastics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with Aquinas being the most obvious example, was to try to pin down every conceivable detail of theology. You have people trying to define exactly how many demons there are, what ranks of demons there might be, who is in charge of what, how you deal with them, and so on. They built intricate systems that grew increasingly complex and intricate, which eventually got top-heavy and fell down. Toward the end of the thirteenth century and the fourteenth century, the whole realist-scholastic synthesis collapsed. They were trying to pin things down intellectually which were no longer rooted in people’s experience.

The Devil played a big role in Luther’s thought. But diabology did not really change much in the Reformation.

The diabology of Luther and Calvin, particularly Luther, is virtually identical with late medieval diabology except for a couple of things. First, Luther takes the Devil, I think, more seriously and more personally. He existentially experiences the Devil far more than any other Christian theologian with the possible exception of some of the early desert fathers.

The other change is the proliferation via the Lutheran churches of little pamphlets on Scripture, including pamphlets on the Devil. And in these catechisms, Luther’s doctrines are reflected and the Devil and the demons are given a powerful role indeed.

Yet some of the popular protections against the Devil were taken away by the Reformation.

I think this is important. The medieval Catholics had a sense that, yes, the Devil was important, but we are part of a community of saints, in which the saints are helping us. If we feel the Devil getting after us, we can call on the saints, and they will call on Christ, and he will help us out. Whereas the Protestants, by downplaying the community aspect of Christianity and by up-playing its individual aspect, put the individual in his closet face-to-face with the powers of darkness—and that is a very scary thing.

You spend a number of chapters talking about the effect of secularization, the Enlightenment, and science on cultural conceptions of evil. But in the realm of popular religion, was Satan still prominent?

The first answer is yes: popular belief in the Devil continues through the time of the Enlightenment and into the present. But the answer is also no, because when the scientific, secular world view starts percolating down as it does after the French Revolution, there is a huge change. With the educated middle classes, there is a rapid decline in popular belief in the Devil and demons from roughly 1800 onward.

How does today’s church handle this subject?

The intellectual leaders of the churches for the most part tend either to deny or avoid discussions of demons and diabology, the big exception being Cardinal Ratzinger. Yet people are finding that the public theology of the churches is not doing a terribly good job of addressing the problem of evil. As a very regular churchgoer, I virtually never hear preached from the pulpit anything about evil or about sin.

A hot topic in some Christian circles today is the idea of praying against territorial spirits—that certain cities or areas have a particular demon. These Christians have prayer marathons to cast it out. Is there a historical precedent for this?

Definitely. Interestingly, one must go back centuries in the Christian tradition to find it. The territoriality of angels and demons plays very little if any role in mainstream Christian theology. After the fourth or fifth century, you find it rarely referred to. But in some of the church fathers, Origen particularly, you find the idea that each nation or community has its own angel and its own demon. So there is an angel of the Persian Empire and a demon of the Persian Empire. There is an angel of the Roman Empire and a demon of the Roman Empire, and so forth.

One reason the desert fathers are going out in the desert is that they maintain the cities have been purified or exorcised. As Christianity grows, more and more areas are liberated from the Devil, so where does he go? Well, he has to escape into the desert where there are not any churches. And so the desert fathers are, in effect, going after him where he lives, tracking him and hunting him down.

How has your view of evil and the Devil changed over the course of your study?

I ended up with the same answer that God gave Job. Where were you, you silly little college professor, when I was laying the foundations of the earth?

I think I have changed in that I started with more hope of ending up with a coherent diabology and have ended up not believing that one is possible. That is to say, whatever is going on or not going on is beyond our powers to define. So, I have become, let’s say, humbled in this experience, probably wiser than I was.

At the end of The Prince of Darkness you affirm that you do believe in some personal Devil, or at least you are open to that being a possibility.

I am definitely open to it. I do believe that there is some force beyond the individual human personality; beyond the darkness that exists in each one of us, there is some force that pulls us as a race toward evil.

As a traditional Christian, I would call that the Devil; other people might call it something else.

Using Paul’s tactics for spiritual warfare is more important than ever.

Stroking the soft fur of the tiny black-and-white kitten, Steve Newberry and his teenage friends carried the playful animal to a secluded spot in the Missouri countryside. Putting the kitten in a sack and hanging it from a tree, the four boys took turns hitting it like a piñata until the animal was dead.

They had killed and mutilated many animals before as part of satanic rituals. This time three of them sought to enter a new level of devotion to Satan—they turned on Steve. Jim Hardy struck the first violent blow. Immediately the other two Carl Junction High School boys joined in swinging their baseball bats in a frenzied bludgeoning of Steve. Afterward, they dragged Steve’s limp body to a cistern and dumped it. The boys were soon apprehended, and one of them, Pete Roland, confessed to the horrific December 6, 1987, murder.

Their motive? A sacrifice to Satan. Jim Hardy claims that Satan had promised him a surge of power for the ultimate proof of his loyalty—taking the life of a human being. In a nationally televised interview, Pete Roland similarly claimed that Satan promised him power in return for killing. All three boys, who turned 18 in prison, are serving life sentences without parole.

From the Night Stalker slayings of Richard Ramirez to the drug-cult murders in Matamoros, Mexico, satanism is gaining increasing publicity for its frequent tie to ritual killings. Police officers throughout the country are now receiving training in identifying crimes related to the occult.

But is there anything to it? For the Carl Junction boys, certainly many of their murderous ideas came from the satanic themes in the heavy-metal music they listened to. Horror movies, drugs, and alcohol were probably also contributing factors. But the boys themselves attribute their lust for killing directly to Satan. They referred repeatedly to voices inside their heads urging them to kill. Because they believed they heard the voice of Satan himself, they sought to please him.

Now, more than ever, we need to take a fresh look at Scripture to inform our understanding of the unseen world of demons and angels. According to Paul in his letter to the Ephesians, all Christians are engaged in a dangerous struggle with this unseen dimension (6:12). How do we detect their hostile activity? How do we protect ourselves and our children from their influence?

Satan’S Kingdom

The Bible never explicitly addresses the origin of evil spirits or their ruler, Satan. The biblical writers are far more concerned about the fact of their existence than with speculations about how they rebelled against God. Yet there is a unanimous opinion that Satan is not an equal with God. While Satan and his forces oppose God, there is never a hint he could possibly win. The end is certain; God is sovereign.

Nearly everyone living in the Mediterranean world during the Old and New Testament eras—Jews, Greeks, Romans, Asians, and Egyptians—believed in the existence of evil spirits. Rather than questioning the existence of demons, people sought ways to control these spirits and to protect themselves. Most people, regardless of religious background (even among Jews), believed magic was helpful.

It was in this environment that Jesus ministered and the early church came into existence. Jesus and the early Christian writers shared their peers’ belief in evil spirits, but with some important modifications. They believed there was only one true God, the God of Israel. They believed that the “gods” of pagan religions were really the manifestation and working of demons, opponents of the one true God working a deceptive influence. They believed that these evil spirits were organized under the leadership of the one prime adversary—Satan. Further, the early Christians believed that the practice of magic, witchcraft, and sorcery—popular among the common people—represented the work of Satan and his forces.

In addition, Scripture assumes some kind of hierarchy within the realm of the hostile supernatural powers, but it never gives any delineation of the chain of command. Satan is “the ruler of the kingdom of the air” (Eph. 2:2, NIV) and he has within his sphere of authority a vast group of powers, dominions, thrones, angels, demons, unclean spirits, elemental spirits, and rulers.

The Scriptures never portray evil spirits as possessing their own bodies; rather, they work their influence in the lives and bodies of people. For instance, John tells us that Satan “entered into” Judas in order to betray Jesus (John 13:27). The account of the Gerasene demoniac (Mark 5:1–20) demonstrates that a person can be afflicted by more than one evil spirit at a time, perhaps even hundreds. All of the exorcism stories also portray evil spirits as intelligent and capable of exercising will. They frequently talk to Jesus, usually expressing their fear, by speaking through their victims’ vocal apparatus. Satan is depicted as a clever strategist constantly plotting against the purposes of God.

Demons On The Loose

The best way of summarizing the activity of evil spirits is to say that they stand for everything that is contrary to God’s purposes and the welfare of his people. Whereas God creates life, the forces of darkness are bent on destroying life; Jesus claimed that the Devil was “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). Whereas God is holy and seeks virtue in his people, Satan’s hosts are evil and seek to promote every imaginable vice.

The powers work on every level—from influencing individuals to exerting control over the social order. Since his success with Adam and Eve in the garden, the classic activity of Satan and his powers is the activity of enticing individuals to act in ways contrary to the revealed will of God. This has garnered him the title “Tempter” (1 Thess. 3:5). While the Bible does not describe in a precise way how Satan tempts people, it appears that he does so through exploiting each person’s inner tendency toward evil (what Paul calls “the flesh”).

Part of his method entails the use of deceit. Jesus says, “When [Satan] lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44, NIV; see Rev. 20:10). Satan can poison what people believe to be true about themselves and God.

Through temptation, deceit, and other methods, “the god of this age” tries also to blind unbelievers to the good news of Christ’s redeeming work on the cross (2 Cor. 4:4). Some people have been victimized to such an extent that an evil spirit (or group of spirits) may exercise an exceptionally high level of control over their lives. The Gospels and Acts refer to these people as “demonized.” Jesus and his disciples engage in a spiritual intervention for such people through which the spirits were “cast out.” The New Testament epistles, however, stress the need for believers to draw on their close relationship with Christ and the power of his Spirit as the primary means for resisting the influence of evil spirits.

The Bible speaks of the work of evil spirits as extending even to entire nations. The Book of Daniel reveals that evil spirits were assigned both to Persia and Greece (Dan. 10:13, 21). While the New Testament does not elaborate on this idea, it does refer to the Devil as “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11) and “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4). Satan and his forces can exert their influence on the social, economic, political, and even religious order within a culture. This is what John and Paul have in mind when they speak of “the world” or “this age.”

The apostle Paul was convinced that the powers of darkness were active in non-Christian religions. He sternly warns the Corinthians to avoid participation in pagan sacrifices, since “the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons” (1 Cor. 10:20, NIV). Paul thus urged the Corinthians to “flee from idolatry” (10:14).

Throughout his ministry, the apostle Paul struggled against perverted understandings of Christ and his atoning work that crept into the churches. Paul implies that the false teachings influencing the churches at Colossae and Corinth were demonically inspired (2 Cor. 10:4; 6:14–17; Col. 2:8). In principle, it appears from Paul’s teaching that Satan works especially hard at perverting common perceptions of the true nature of the gospel.

Missions and the Demonic

The concept of “power encounter,” in which evangelism is seen as a battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, has emerged across denominational lines as an increasingly significant part of evangelical missions strategy. J. Dudley Woodberry, professor of Islamic studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, notes that “exorcism seems to be a significant part of conversions from Islam, particularly from the people we would call folk Muslims, where they are already in many cases involved in some kind of demonization, be it real or imagined.”

Samuel Olson, pastor of the nondenominational Las Acacias Church in Caracas, Venezuela, experienced his first “power encounter” while working in a drug rehabilitation center. While praying for a 15-year-old addict, Olson watched the boy curl up in a ball and crawl around the floor, all the while talking to Satan. The boy claimed that he had given his life to the Devil a couple of years before and that he could not give up this allegiance. Back then, Olson was frightened, not sure what to do. In his counseling ministry today, he averages three exorcisms a week.

In Africa, many Christians are turning back to practitioners of traditional religion (animism, spiritism) in times of crisis. Missiologist Timothy Warner, of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, points to the early church practice of exorcism of demons and a clear renunciation of Satan as an integral part of their ritual of conversion and baptism. “It’s tragic that on the mission field, particularly, we haven’t had this dramatization of turning from Satan and giving ourselves to the Lord. We have them squeak by on some minimal act of affirmation of Jesus, and it’s no wonder they go on having problems.” Warner thinks the problem is that “our world view says that spirits are not real.” Missiologist C. Peter Wagner agrees: “Many Southern Baptist missionaries are seeing tremendous acts of God out on the mission field, but say that they can’t talk about it here [in North America].”

In 1982, Fuller’s School of World Mission brought power encounters to the classroom with “MC510: Signs and Wonders,” taught by Wagner and John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard movement. The controversial course was suspended in 1985, primarily due to objections raised by Fuller’s School of Theology about the classroom being used as a “lab” where healings and the casting out of demons took place. Fuller reorganized the course in 1987, moving the practicum to local churches.

Fuller now has five courses related to the subject, and many “Signs and Wonders” alumni have initiated similar courses across North America in the past few years. This renewed interest in the role of the demonic in the world has trickled down into the pews so that many churchgoers are now re-evaluating what they think about the issue.

Arthur D. Moore is staff writer for Evangelical Missions Information Service in Wheaton, Illinois.

What Did The Cross Accomplish?

The New Testament clearly teaches that Jesus’ death, resurrection, and exaltation marked the decisive victory of Jesus over Satan and the powers of darkness (Eph. 1:20–22; Phil. 2:9–11; Col. 2:15; Heb. 2:14). The author of 1 John expresses it succinctly, “the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the work of the devil” (3:8).

Nowhere in the New Testament is Christ’s victory over the powers of darkness given fuller expression than in Colossians 2:15: “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (NIV). Having sought to frustrate the redemptive plan of God by instigating the death of Christ on the cross, the powers of darkness unwittingly became mere instruments in God’s hands. Christ rose from the dead and assumed the position of “head” over a new body—a body of people in union with himself who would now spread the message of redemption all over the world.

Nevertheless, the forces of evil continue their hostile activity. The Cross represents the major victory of the war, but the battle continues. There is a vital difference, however, between before the Cross and after. With respect to believers, the powers have indeed been “disarmed.” By virtue of Christ’s victory on the cross and our identification with him, believers share in his present power and authority over the powers.

Are Believers Immune?

The New Testament teaching is clear that becoming a Christian does not bring about an automatic immunity to the influence of evil spirits. Becoming a Christian links one to a new resource for dealing with these hostile forces. Jesus teaches his disciples the possibility and necessity of “abiding” in him, like a branch in a vine, in order to be infused with his divine enabling power (John 15:1–8). In a similar fashion, Paul constantly affirms our identity as being “in Christ.”

Evil spirits are thus weakened in their ability to influence Christians only insofar as believers realize their position in Christ and draw on the divine power that is theirs in Jesus Christ. Just as Christ holds a position of superiority to the powers, so too believers have a position of superiority and authority over the forces of the Devil. Paul tells the Colossians, “You have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every [demonic] power and authority” (Col. 2:10, NIV).

Being a Christian does not make one a guaranteed victor every time a demon exerts influence. The apostle Paul envisions the real possibility of Christians “giving a place to the devil” in their lives (Eph. 4:27). This is as close as Paul comes to the concept of someone being “demonized.”

Discerning The Demonic

How can a person detect the direct influence of Satan or an evil spirit as opposed to an environmental influence or one’s own bent toward doing evil?

In the Gospels and Acts it appears that Christ, the apostles, and ministers had little trouble detecting the work of evil spirits in the lives of demonized people. Their physical conditions (unusual muscular strength, physical debilitation, or illness), bizarre behavior (like living among tombs), extreme reaction to Christ or the use of his name and authority, and the direct response of the demon using the person’s vocal apparatus in reply to Christ (or a follower of Christ) appear to have been foremost among the evidences. Many would contend that the same evidences of intense demonic influence can be seen in certain people today.

Some contend that people involved in satanism and the occult open the door to demonic control; in most instances, such people actively seek communication with demons. It also appears from the evidence of Scripture that those who persistently and willfully continue in certain patterns of sinfulness may experience increasing amounts of direct demonic influence.

Yet we should not limit our perception of Satan’s activity to these more dramatic forms. Satan and his spirits can influence people even if they do not experience voices in their heads and roam graveyards. While Satan may often work in a direct and immediate way in people, he also asserts his sway more indirectly through exploiting “the world” and reinforcing the appetites of “the flesh” (our inclination toward evil). Thus we need to speak of varying levels of his influence.

Engaging In Spiritual Warfare

Paul claims that all of us—not just a few involved in deliverance ministries—struggle against wicked spiritual forces of evil (Eph. 6:12). He urges us to recognize that the only way we can succeed in this struggle is by appropriating the power of God.

In Ephesians 6:10–20, Paul portrays spiritual warfare as primarily concerned with Christian conduct—not with exorcism or eradicating structural (institutional or societal) evil. It is practical instruction for the day-to-day living of all Christians. Spiritual warfare is therefore resistance. It is a defensive posture. It involves appropriating the power of God to make progress in eradicating moral vices that already have a place in one’s life.

Spiritual warfare also takes the offensive. Paul calls the soldiers of Christ to advance on enemy territory by proclaiming the gospel.

Many commentators have observed that the only offensive weapon in Paul’s list of spiritual armor is the sword (Eph. 6:17). The sword is linked with the Spirit of the Word of God. In a related sense, the footgear of the Christian needs to be “the readiness to announce the Good News of peace” (Eph. 6:15, TEV). According to Paul, the primary aggressive action the Christian is called to take is to spread the gospel—the good news of salvation through Christ.

Ephesians 6:10–20, the classic spiritual warfare passage, is often viewed in individual terms; that is, each individual Christian should pray and ask God for strength to do battle. But Paul actually depicts the “arming” in corporate terms. All of Paul’s admonitions in this passage are plural.

More important, however, is the fact that Paul urges believers to pray “for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18).

If Paul were to summarize the primary way of gaining access to the power of God for waging successful spiritual warfare, he would unwaveringly affirm that it was prayer. Paul models this activity in his two prayers recorded in Ephesians 1 and 3. In essence, Paul prays that God would endow his readers with power so that they could successfully resist the temptations of Satan and be divinely enabled to proclaim the gospel fearlessly in spite of demonic hostility.

What Does The Future Hold?

There is a message of hope for all who have come to know Christ. The grievous persistence of evil in the world, largely instigated by the Devil and his powers, will soon meet its end. Jesus promised to return “with great power and glory,” setting in motion a series of events that would include consigning the Devil and all his angels to the torment of an eternal fire that was prepared for them (Matt. 25:41).

This is still future. The church today is yet in the middle of the battle. God has given us access to his own power to be conquerors in every skirmish. It remains for us to discern the spiritual nature of our struggle and rely on the power of God.

As God revealed to Elisha’s servant the vast army of heavenly angels that fight for the people of God (2 Kings 6:17), perhaps it would be good for the contemporary church to have at least a momentary revelation of the opposite—the hordes of demonic spirits bent on our destruction. Perhaps we would take the spiritual nature of our struggle more seriously, and through prayer appropriate the power of God to resist sin and proclaim our gospel of deliverance.

Arguments for self-administered euthanasia quickly turn gruesome under close scrutiny.

Earlier this year, Dr. Jack Kevorkian used his “suicide machine” to help 54-year-old Janet Adkins, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, take her own life. Many criticized the doctor, but few condemned the Oregon schoolteacher for her desperate act.

Could it be we have mistaken confusion for compassion?

The most common arguments for approving assisted suicide center on the notion of a person’s right to avoid suffering, and his or her right to make a rational decision to seek “aid in dying.” Research, however, reveals that nearly all suicide is aided or quietly approved by someone close to the desperate individual. Without subtle messages of approval, few would take their lives.

And among the terminally ill, suicide can be prevented if people are treated for depression. Even among the debilitated, the will to live is robust and will help the body to fight disease and prolong life.

If depression and subtle messages are key factors in suicide, how can we talk so blithely about the individual autonomy and rational choice of people like Janet Adkins, especially when we learn from a televised interview that her husband, Ron, had great difficulty handling his wife’s illness? In light of this, Rita Marker, director of the International Anti-Euthanasia Task Force, has raised some serious questions: Did Janet Adkins find herself “in the untenable position of handling both her illness and her husband’s emotional needs”? asks Marker. Once experimental treatments proved worthless, no one in her family questioned her interest in assisted suicide. “Instead,” writes Marker, “there was a rush to help carry out the decision.… What must have gone through the mind of Janet Adkins when her husband was so ready to help her die?”

What went through Janet Adkins’s mind must also go through the minds of many terminally ill persons when they hear physicians, ethicists, and commentators speak in favor of legislation that would permit “aid in dying”—“You have a duty to get out of the way of the living.”

Those who support assisted suicide apparently assume things that would have sounded foreign to the ears of earlier generations—assumptions like “no one should suffer.” Suffering is considered a pointless evil; and it is reasoned that a painless, assisted suicide should be readily available. Of course, this view of suffering and the gruesome prescription for its relief would have seemed hideously one-sided to earlier generations. For in 1990 this hedonic principle combines with a second assumption—that the only reality worth discussing is that which one can see. Earlier thinkers believed that suffering had a meaning beyond the merely measurable, that it was a divinely appointed opportunity for learning or purification.

A third assumption is the notion of individual autonomy: “It was her life, and if she wanted to die, that was her business.” This “wisdom” would have seemed foolish to our forebears, who knew that life was a series of opportunities for service. When suffering arrived, they knew it was not a time for exit but for entrance into a new context of service.

The Adkins case did not, of course, raise any new ethical difficulties. What is new is the near disappearance of the Christian cultural thought patterns that prevailed until the eighteenth-century Enlightenment.

Apparently, the do-your-own-death culture is at our door. For those of us who see God as both Creator of life and Conqueror of death, the divine call to share this vision is becoming even more urgent.

By David Neff.

Seen in even the most favorable of lights, Nelson Mandela remains an ambiguous hero. On the one hand, he is an angel of light for millions: implacable enemy of the monstrous evil of apartheid, courageous and self-sacrificing, seemingly without bitterness after 27 years in prison. But on the other hand, he is a figure whose political allegiances and personal heroes ought to scare the daylights out of us: an unrepentant admirer of the terrorists Castro, Khadafy, and Arafat; a man who admits that his African National Congress has tortured and murdered its own in exile.

But there has been little sense of ambiguity, and practically no caution, exhibited in the reception he has received in this country, especially from its religious leaders. Typical was the “service of praise, thanksgiving, and commitment” at the Riverside Church in New York City earlier this summer. Gathered in his honor was what one ecstatic journalist described as “more ecclesiastical brass than the Council of Nicea”: the leadership of the Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim communities, plus Ms. Audrey Shenandoah, clan mother of the Drondoga Nation. They came robed and vested in the full splendor of their clerical regalia to play “dueling accolades.”

We have nothing against honoring men or women who have paid dearly for their beliefs, but as our youth occasionally remind us, let’s get real. Mandela was praised for his “incandescently clear witness,” and described variously as “God’s servant,” “the moral leader of the world,” and “a drum major in the music of freedom.” In a rambling prayer, the ever-quotable Reverend Jesse Jackson compared Mandela’s prison witness to the apostle John’s vision on Patmos; his faith and courage to Daniel in the lion’s den and the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace; his release to Jesus risen from the dead; and his suffering to the servant prophesied in Isaiah 53, by whose “stripes [God] is healing us.” And so it went.

While evangelicals are not immune to this kind of foolishness (we tend to reserve our beatification for major donors), the religious and political Left is particularly susceptible. It is the same thing that infected the American journalist Lincoln Steffens when he visited the newly formed Soviet state and, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, exclaimed, “I have been over into the future—and it works.” It is another instance of what Samuel Johnson said of a second marriage: “the triumph of hope over experience.” And it has happened again and again in this century. A political movement or messiah has appeared on the scene, been uncritically embraced by the political and ecclesiastical Left, and then been exposed eventually as somewhat less than honorable.

It is as though the theological Left suffers from spiritual AIDS: the immune systems have broken down and the body can no longer tell the difference between what will kill and what will heal. They seem not to have learned that when biblical authority is abandoned, something else will always come in to fill the vacuum: the spirit of the times for the Spirit of God, zeitgeist for Heiliger Geist; a new messiah for God’s Messiah.

We have rejoiced at Mandela’s release, but his “victory tour” leaves us more than a little nervous about his (and the religious community’s) ultimate goals. We hope they will come to their senses soon, but in the meantime, evangelicals in South Africa and around the world must not make the same mistake of letting a symbol distract us from the more important cause: the dismantling of apartheid in a manner that brings peace, dignity, and prosperity to all South Africans.

That will come not through slogans and clenched fists, but through hard work, continued political pressure, and church-based models of reconciliation and grace.

By Ben Patterson, contributing editor.

“There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils,” C. S. Lewis wrote in The Screwtape Letters. “One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.”

Therein lies the dilemma we faced when assembling our cover-story package on Satan and demons. We wanted to avoid both lurid sensationalism and ostrichlike denial. Seeing a demon behind every psychic complaint or so sanitizing the world that we ignore its dark and shuddering realities are both dangerous.

Although we have steered clear of the gruesome details of Satan worship and witchcraft, we did not flinch at portraying the reality of one described in Scripture with searingly vivid imagery, and with names like Deceiver, Slanderer, Accuser, Destroyer. We need to know enough about the Evil One to realize that we cannot meet cosmic evil with with mere education, polite sermons, or positive thinking. “We are not contending against flesh and blood,” wrote Paul in Ephesians, but against “the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

This means that evangelicals need to reappropriate the Bible’s gritty recognition that the presence and reality of the demonic affects how we do ministry and carry on our witness. In a time like ours, when people dabble in counterfeit spiritualities and have hair-raising brushes with evil, and when evil clearly assumes institutional and social proportions, we need to know how to recognize and resist the work of the Adversary. We need to remind ourselves that the New Testament’s talk of demons and spiritual warfare is more than exaggerated metaphor. We must consider what it means to put on the spiritual armor Paul describes.

Most of all, we remember Paul’s words that on the cross, Christ “made a public spectacle” of the principalities and powers and “led them as captives in his triumphal procession” (Col. 2:15, NEB). Like Martin Luther, we stand alert, wary, but not afraid. “One does not gain much ground against the devil,” he wrote, “with a lengthy disputation, but with brief words and replies, such as: ‘I am a Christian, of the same flesh and blood as is my Lord Christ, the Son of God. Settle your accounts with him.’ Then the devil does not stay long.”

By Timothy K. Jones

From the closed second-story window of the Upper Room, a coffeehouse ministry at 41st Street and 8th Avenue in Manhattan, the pavement below seems to glitter as if speckled with thousands of tiny diamonds. The sidewalk’s sparkle is in keeping with the reputation of the New York theater district that surrounds it; the area is a colorful cornucopia of bright marquees, sequined gowns, and long, black limousines.

But cautiously descend the cracked, cement stairs, push open a heavy, metal door, and harsh reality roars in your face. The “diamonds” on the sidewalk are, ironically, another kind of treasure: crack vials—hundreds, maybe thousands, of tiny glass containers that, moments before, held one of America’s most dangerous drugs. Look up from the sidewalk, and there, amid New York’s glamorous night life, one meets the denizens of the city’s seamy side.

In a nearby corner, a man urinates, then walks away, pants still unzipped, eyes glazed and wild. A stooped, wispy woman with a shiny, black rain hat smashed down over her ears paces while mumbling incoherently about welfare and someone named Ralph.

Across the street a teenage boy, wearing baggy shorts and a ripped, red T-shirt, slumps against the wall of the Port Authority bus terminal. He is sitting beside a piece of soiled cardboard, scrawled with a message: “AIDS—Can’t Work—Help Me.” Exhaust fumes from exiting buses and taxis swirl around him. He gags and retches.

No Strangers To The Heat

This is “Crack Alley,” crossroads of America’s drug traffic. Only the brave—or the addicted—dare tread here. It comes as no surprise that the pastor who cooked up the idea of a coffee house set in the middle of this frying pan in Hell’s Kitchen is no stranger to the heat.

The Upper Room was one of the first outreach ministries initiated by Times Square Church, located ten blocks up at 51st and Broadway, when it opened in October of 1987 (see CT, Feb. 5, 1988). The church’s pastor is David Wilkerson, well known as the author of the best-selling The Cross and the Switchblade, and founder of Teen Challenge, a successful Christian drug rehabilitation program.

Wilkerson’s vision grows out of his belief that America is, even now, under divine judgment. “The Upper Room is more than just an outreach to drug addicts and the homeless,” he says. “I believe it is a window of God’s grace to the church—a window that shows us he will take care of us when the trouble and hard times ahead come upon us in full force. If we who are just his servants care so much for the homeless and the broken, then how much more will he care for all of us, his children?”

Ministry In A Melting Pot

On this particular day at the Upper Room, Dana Machado, an attractive young woman with white-blond hair tied in a ponytail, is in the kitchen stirring a vat of eggs, preparing the Wednesday prayer breakfast. After the people eat, she explains, they will go back to the streets until afternoon, then return to eat sandwiches and coffee and to participate in a Bible study.

Dana rummages through the shelves looking for tomato paste for tomorrow’s spaghetti lunch. In her search she discovers some canned fruit and immediately empties it into a large pot of cooked Cream of Wheat.

When she passes the word that the food is almost ready, another worker opens the door. Human skeletons have been lined up outside for almost half an hour. As they slowly shuffle in, the room fills with a peculiar odor: an acrid mix of melting rubber soles, old sweat, and sickness.

A gap-toothed, elderly black man, wearing a tattered army jacket and ripped, black sneakers, smiles weakly and nods his thanks as the steaming food is delivered to his table.

Others slump, heads to one side, eyes closed, oblivious to both food and noise. But that seems not to matter to Bill Willis, who often teaches the Bible study in the afternoon and is delivering this morning’s devotional message.

“We don’t turn people away up here,” BiH says. “Everyone has a curiosity about Jesus. Especially hurting people. I give them a chance to see he’s real. I tell them to take their Bibles with them when they leave us and read and pray while they’re out on the streets—and then to come back to get some more. And they do.

“When we see changes in these people,” he adds, shaking his head in quiet awe, “they are really big changes. Night-and-day changes.”

De Roy Walden’s life is one of those night-and-day transformations. Homeless and a habitual crack user, he used to wander the halls of the Port Authority bus terminal, looking for trouble.

When talking about his new life, his eyes glow with a fierce light. “When I came to him, when I found him,” De Roy says, “I tasted the Lord’s goodness. I just couldn’t get enough of him. I’d run into Port Authority after coming to the Upper Room, grab a corner, and read the Bible and pray all night. I just wanted him so bad.”

Since kicking crack, De Roy has new plans. He wants to get a job, maybe enter Bible school or a Teen Challenge program. “Maybe even preach. We’ll see,” he smiles. “People I used to hang out with at the bus terminal have respect for me now. They come up to me and want to talk about the Bible.”

On this particular morning, the director of the Upper Room, a former drug addict named Jimmy Lilley, stops by to greet his motley congregation of AIDS sufferers and crack users. As he shakes hands, he calls many of them by name. Jimmy, who is missing several fingers on one hand, is affectionately known to friends as “Nubs.”

“I was a drug user during the sixties,” he explains, “but this crack stuff is worse. It’s a real killer. We’re still looking at the same basic problem, though: sin,” he says, looking you squarely in the eye.

“I was confronted straight ahead about sin. Nobody tried to sneak in a side door with me. So I don’t do that with the people I try to reach.”

When asked why the Upper Room ministry has been successful in steering drug addicts toward Christ, Jimmy pauses and glances at his glassy-eyed parishioners.

“These people have got to know you love them,” he finally explains. “You can’t just preach at them. You’ve got to be a real person—with Christ’s love burning in your heart—to reach them.

“It’s like digging for gold,” he says. Shifting metaphors, he adds, “You’ve got to dig these people out, like a farmer getting his soil ready. You’ve got to look past the dirt and see the harvest.”

No Street Game

A slight woman politely refuses breakfast but stands outside in the hallway, listening to Bill as he begins his morning message. She has stringy brown hair, and is wearing a faded denim skirt, a T-shirt, and hose with several runs. She says her name is Tabitha.

Up close, however, her light growth of facial hair gives away her secret: Tabitha is really a man. After Bill finishes speaking, she (or he) smiles, and says in a hoarse falsetto, “I love these people. They’re the real thing. They really want to help you.”

He then anxiously explains that he is not a Christian. “Not at all. Something always holds me back.” He leans against the wall, tugs at his stockings. “But maybe someday. I’ll keep coming here, though. It can’t hurt, can it?”

Today’s breakfast-table conversation centers on Kerry, a young girl living on the streets who has been hospitalized. She was beaten and left for dead in the bus terminal last night. Just yesterday a worker was pleading with her to give her life to God.

No one wants to say who did it, but several people hint that even the authorities who are supposed to protect them cannot be trusted.

“No one’s safe from anybody anymore,” one man mumbles, staring out the window. “This is the only place where I feel safe, you know?”

When asked if they know David Wilkerson, many of the street people shake their heads no. But they do know about Times Square Church.

“They won’t play street games with you, though,” offers a young girl. She says she went forward for prayer during Bill’s Bible study several weeks ago and hasn’t touched crack since.

“They’ll just tell you what they tell you here: ‘You can get right with God, before it’s too late.’”

By Joy Roulier Sawyer, a free-lance writer living in New York City. Names of some of the Upper Room’s clients have been changed.

There is a power in Christian community that we sometimes forget, but when we see it, it is a thing of beauty. Three unrelated experiences brought this power vividly to my attention.

The Indian ambassador to the United States was our guest on the Asbury College campus. He was a significant man, by central Kentucky standards, and I wanted to share him. So we invited various important people in our area to have lunch with him.

One of these luncheon guests was the editor of the most influential daily paper in our area. I did not know him, and I had no reason to believe he had ever been on a Christian college campus before. After a delightful meal and a question-and-answer session with the ambassador, I saw to it that I left the dining hall with the editor.

As we emerged onto the campus, he asked, “When do your classes change? I would like to see your students.” I said it was only a matter of moments. “Let’s wait,” he said. So we did.

As the students began pouring out of the classroom buildings, he took his camera from his shoulder and said, “Wait for me if you can. I want to take some pictures.” He moved around, framing and focusing his shots.

When he returned, he said, “They are different, aren’t they?”

“What do you mean?” I quickly responded.

“They dress differently.”

“Oh?”

“But it’s more than that,” he continued. “They look at you.” Then he paused a moment. “Do you know the one thing I never expect to meet on the university campus? It’s eye contact with anybody. You walk alone down a 50-inch sidewalk and meet another person. At 15 or 20 feet you size each other up, and as you meet you carefully look the other way.”

Never Look A Panhandler In The Eye

As I stood with my guest on that sidewalk, I had a flashback. In memory, I was on Third Avenue in New York City under the elevated in the Bowery. A newly made friend, a state senator’s son from Florida, was with me.

My companion had just found Christ. His new life was different from his old one. Part of his past included years spent operating a gambling den under a house of prostitution in Alaska. Since he had sought Christ in one of my evangelistic meetings, I had him traveling with me, hoping that our fellowship would give me opportunity to help him learn more about the Christian life.

Suddenly my friend stopped and spun toward me. I had been busy watching the panhandlers as we walked. You can imagine my surprise when I heard him say: “Dr. Kinlaw, don’t you know you never give a panhandler your eyes unless you intend to give more? When you give a panhandler your eyes, he already has his hand halfway in your pocket.” Then, out of memories of bitter experience, he concluded, “Don’t ever give anybody your eyes unless you are ready to give more.”

The memory of that closing line came rushing back to me as that editor of a large, secular daily said simply, “They are different. They look at you.”

A Wall Of Saints

Once, while reflecting on that editor’s observation, I remembered another experience.

I was in the administration building at Wheaton College. In front of me was a large wall covered with names—the names of all of that college’s students who had gone overseas to serve Christ. I realized what a production line for Christian workers that institution had been. There were some names I knew: Jim Elliot and Ed McCully and Nate Saint—people who had given all. No doubt others unknown to me had made such sacrifices.

That day, I had no question about the importance of the chapels, the classes, and the missions conferences that those students had experienced. But in my heart I really wondered if part of what made these people what they were wasn’t just the fact that they had experienced the kind of Christian community where one could begin by just giving one’s eyes.

DENNIS F. KINLAW

Animals Aren’T Brothers

Your trilogy of articles, “Animal Lib” [June 18], lacks balance. While any Christian would abhor cruel treatment of animals, they are not, as Loren Wilkinson quotes Saint Francis, our brothers and sisters. Paul says the flesh of men and animals is not the same (1 Cor. 15). Christ gave his life for human beings, not animals. True, those for whom he died will have care and concern for the animal kingdom; but they may also eat the animals. Romans 14 gives us the freedom to choose what we eat. None of your writers mentioned the fact that Noah was instructed to take seven pairs of the clean beasts into the ark with him. Just for sacrifices? I think not.

Pat P. Darnell

Hot Springs, Ark.

Many Christians who profess a personal relationship with Jesus Christ are also against the idea of animal liberation. It has aroused my cynicism to realize that most Christians who get arrested for saving unborn fetuses care not a whit for living, breathing animals who are daily tortured, maimed, and killed to satisfy humankind’s lust for fashion, food, and amusem*nt. It has always seemed to me a contradiction. Hats off to CT for providing a well-balanced, fair portrayal of animal rights.

Annette L. Ravinsky

Philadelphia, Pa.

I was surprised that Tim Stafford omitted a crucial statement by Jesus: “Ye are of more value than many sparrows.” For Christians, this should settle the question of whether man is simply another animal, with no greater planetary importance than any other species.

I’m strongly in favor of the animal-rights movement in general, but if animal welfare must sometimes give way to human needs, there is nothing illogical or unchristian about that.

Reo M. Christenson

W. Carrollton, Ohio

None of your articles addressed God’s use of animal skins in the Bible. I find it difficult to feel guilty when I follow the pattern established by Yahweh.

Rev. Timothy L. Munyon

First Assembly of God

North Platte, Neb.

As a logician, I must comment on Andrew Linzey’s erroneous interpretation of Genesis 1:29: “I have given you” is not equivalent to “I have given you nothing but.” The prohibition he finds is thus a product of eisegesis, not exegesis.

David F. Siemens, Jr.

Mesa, Ariz.

It’S Still “Demon Rum”

In response to Howard A. Snyder’s essay “Demon Rum on the Run” [June 18], I have a pessimist’s view of the new nonalcoholic malt beverages being produced. My first reaction to the billboard advertising “Sharps,” with the slogan “keep your edge,” was much to the contrary. This appears to be the legal avenue for adolescents to acquire a taste for beer. This way they still support the breweries, experience the adult party environment, and enjoy the taste of beer so that upon becoming of legal age they may step into the real alcohol scene without skipping a beat.

Jack Scott Stanley

Christian & Missionary Alliance Church

Clearfield, Pa.

I wonder how Snyder could have concluded his article against even the moderate consumption of alcohol with “Let the church be the church.” The head of the church, our Lord Jesus Christ, not only drank but even made wine and served it at a wedding! And he wants his church to continue to drink it in his Holy Supper.

Rev. Edward G. Olson

Olson & Goodman, Inc.

Stetsonville, Wis.

“Nonalcoholic” beer is not nonalcoholic. Regardless of how 1 percent [beer] may be rationalized—it is not alcohol free. And how many recovering alcoholics who have not tasted beer for some time will now relapse is anyone’s guess. I see no pure motives here by health-conscious brewers, but rather the morality mindset of businessmen who export cigarettes to Asia or a particular race or sex. This is not progress; it is the liquor/beer industry with their feet in other markets pushing their low-grade poison.

Rev. Ronald Buchinski

Rescue Mission

Utica, N.Y.

Time to Make a Decision

Should we or should we not invite unbelievers to “come forward”? That was the question that almost stumped us at last month’s elders’ meeting. Our pastor told us he was planning a series of evangelistic sermons and wanted the elders to assist with the altar call.

“The altar what?” Ralph Vedman asked. Ralph used to be an atheist but was led to Christ through an InterVarsity chapter at the university. Ralph knows discipling, but he has probably heard nary a verse of “Just as I Am.”

Undaunted, Pastor pressed on. “Sometimes I sense there are people in the congregation who are ready to make a commitment to Christ, but by the time I pronounce the benediction, they’re out the door.” He then explained how in the earlier years of his ministry he asked for heads to bow and eyes to close, and while the organist played softly (and tenderly, no doubt), he spent a few moments inviting sinners to come to the altar.

After hearing how it worked, one of the younger elders said she thought it made sense to nudge some of our unsaved attenders to invite Christ into their lives. But the older elders were against the idea and weren’t about to yield. They said it had always seemed a little spooky when they were kids, that they were pretty sure it was an unbiblical concept to begin with, and that even if it weren’t, it was the kind of thing evangelists resorted to at those big outdoor crusades. They were clearly unwilling to step forward on this one.

When the pastor asked for a show of hands from those in favor of altar calls, Ralph jumped to his feet: “That’s it! Why don’t you go ahead and ask everyone to close their eyes, but then just ask those who think they’re close to making a decision to raise their hands so you can pray for them?” Everyone thought it was a splendid idea, so we’ll try it next month. But something tells me it won’t be long before we have an altar call.

EUTYCHUS

Alka Seltzer To The Rescue?

Bravo: to Sen. Mark Hatfield for stirring some down-to-earth, but savory ingredients of reconciliation into the foreign-policy stew; to George Weigel for prescribing a stern recipe of realism; to Professor Lawyer for a balanced diet of carrots and sticks, and to CT for serving up a platter of morsels tickling to the palate in its June 18 issue [CT Institute, “An Agenda for Global Reconciliation”].

Alas, the senator’s serving of Special Forces cum Peace Corps as reconcilers needs more time in the oven; Weigel’s course of preemptive strikes against terrorists, promotion of SDI, and developing the Third World on the cheap all taste more like yesterday’s soup du jour than today’s; Lawyer’s reference to “musty-smelling Third Worldism” is as welcome as a garnish of red herring; and CT’s invitation to endless questions makes the dinner guests wonder if it’s time to go home and grab the Alka-Seltzer. But if invited to dinner again, I’d send in my acceptance by return mail.

Harold Bratt

Bethesda, Md.

I strongly suggest Senator Hatfield spend more time in Washington and less in Fantasyland! His proposals are sheer folly: (1) The so-called uprisings in Soviet-bloc countries were orchestrated, staged, and initiated by Moscow. They are not as we’ve been led to believe. (2) Moscow is now in the process of improving its relations with its Arab neighbors—as it desperately needs oil. (3) The USSR needs its Cuban ally to “export” revolution to Central and South America. (4) The Israeli incursion into Lebanon, 1982–83, uncovered numerous amounts of Soviet weapons and materiel, and enough arms to equip a standing army of over one million.

No, Senator, the Cold War is not over. Far from it!

Yishael Allon

Ogden, Utah

The Wrong Questions?

You asked National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) chairman John Frohnmayer the wrong questions [News, “Taking Aim at Art,” June 18]. You should have asked whether the NEA was wrong to spend tax dollars on the Mapplethorpe exhibit, the Serrano “body fluids” works, or any of the several other NEA-sponsored projects that have included graphic depictions of hom*osexual sex acts, child p*rnography, and blasphemy. You would have learned that he refuses to condemn the NEA’s approval of any of these, and refuses to say he will not approve such grants in the future. Many who have tried to work with Frohnmayer now realize to their dismay that he not only won’t solve the problem, he is making it worse.

Richard T. Dykema

Assistant to U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher

Washington, D.C.

A Horrible Fellow!

Horrors! What a horrible fellow C. S. Lewis turns out to be [Books, June 18]. First he refused to pen a seamy, kiss-and-tell account of his B.C. relationship with Mrs. Moore (assuming the rumors are true), dragging Mrs. Moore and her family through the mud, thus depriving us of a lot of gratuitous titillation. And he actually performed mundane tasks without complaint to help someone—a sure sign of a twisted personality. Then we find he wrote some foolish things during adolescence, not too surprising for those of us who have experienced this phenomenon ourselves. I have but one question for Virginia Stem Owens: Why does she think this book “had to be written”?

Roy L. Landreth

Southwest Christian Studies Center

Prescott, Ariz.

In her review of this titillating psychobiography, Owens warns readers that “logical inconsistencies appear often in Wilson’s interpretation of facts.” But Wilson’s facts are wrong. I counted over 50 errors, distortions, and outright falsehoods. Evidently Wilson meant what he said on page 236: “In books it does not really matter where fantasy ends and reality begins.…”

Kathryn Lindskoog

Orange, Calif.

Lewis—in my opinion the greatest Christian writer of our century—was brutally honest with his assessment of others and himself. He was only a human being, like all of us, but he was chosen by God to influence the lives of millions through his writings. I wonder how many lives A. N. Wilson has influenced?

S. Craig Bogard

Aslan Youth Ministries

Red Bank, N.J.

A book with serious errors and a bad interpretation should not, in fact, be written. Wilson’s is such a book.

Wayne Martindale

Wheaton College

Wheaton, Ill.

Right Book, Wrong Title

Thank you for the article on the Lamb’s Players [Arts, May 14] and the mention of one of the books we did with Lamb’s. However, the “how-to” book referred to is totally separate from the 15 Surefire Scripts. Titled Developing a Drama Group, the 265-page cloth-bound book covers all aspects of drama production. The people at Lamb’s did a superb job in putting this book together, and I want to be sure it gets the recognition it deserves.

DeWayne Herbrandson

World Wide Publications

Minneapolis, Minn.