by Steve | May 1, 1979 | Archive - 1979
Archive: What is Theology Coming To?
by Rev. Dr. Thomas C. Oden, Professor of Theology and Ethics Drew University, Madison, New Jersey
Condensed from the new book, Agenda for Theology: Recovering Christian Roots © 1979 by Thomas C. Oden. Reprinted by permission, Harper & Row Publishers, Inc.
… I once had a curious dream that rekindled my deepest theological hopes. The only scene I can remember was in the New Haven cemetery, where I accidently stumbled over my own tombstone only to be confronted by this astonishing epitaph: “He made no new contribution to theology.” I was marvelously pleased by the idea and deeply reassured. Why? Because I have of late been trying in my own way to follow the mandate of lrenaeus “not to invent new doctrine.”
No concept was more deplored by the early ecumenical councils than the notion that theology’s task was to “innovate” (neoterizein), which to them implied some imagined creative addition to the apostolic teaching, and thus something “other than” (heteros) the received doctrine(doxa), “the baptism into which we have been baptized.” What the church fathers least wished for in a theology was that it would be fresh, self-expressive, or an embellishment of purely private inspirations, as if these might stand as some decisive improvement on the apostolic teaching.
Yet from the first day I ever thought of becoming a theologian I have been earnestly taught that my most urgent task was to “think creatively” and to make “some new contribution” to theology eventually. So you can imagine that it took no small effort to resist the repeated reinforcements of my best education in order to overcome the constant temptation to novelty. And you can understand how relieved I was to see such a lovely epitaph prefigured in a dream. …
Suppose Christian teaching were considered essentially under the category of fashion. That in fact seems to be the way much “media theology” has functioned in the last quarter century, searching breathlessly for the next new mushroom in the meadow. And we in ministry have colluded with it. Much of the energy of Christian teaching recently has gone into the effort, first, to achieve a kind of predictive sociological expertise about what is the “next new cultural wave” coming (politically, psychologically, artistically, philosophically, whatever), and then, having spotted an “emergent movement” cresting in the distance, to see if we might get some small foothold for Christianity on that rolling bandwagon so we can enjoy at least a brief ride as long as it lasts.
Does this describe recent theology fairly? Again and again when I have asked audiences of pastors that question, I have been reassured that the description is not at all unfair. …
Suppose theology were fashion and we were fashion designers. Let us go all the way and imagine that we are in the company of Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin, Givenchy, and Dior, assembled in Paris to discuss possibilities for next year’s theological market. Suppose we, sensing a crisis of boredom, had set our heads on inventing some astonishing novelty in theology. What would be the most novel, unheard-of, and outrageous new possibility for modern theology? It is quite evident: orthodoxy. We would say: Is it not about time for a reappearance of orthodoxy?
Why? Well, because the excesses of rapid change in our industry almost require it, because people are becoming tired of everything that has paraded itself before them for decades as ever more frenetically modern and even more up to date than the last up-to-date thing. It is clear, since all that has become tiresome, that the least modern option is now our best bet, and that, by definition, is orthodoxy. In fact, one might say, with a wink, if theological fashion is to recover, it must turn to orthodoxy.
The point of our analogy is not to show that Christian theology is like fashion or that it should begin with market research, but rather that even if it is conceived only on this lowest level of critical sensitivity, at some point the designers would have to come full circle back to the classical models. But Christian teaching, of course, is least understood when it is conceived as fashion. Fashion appeals to the spirit of novelty; Christianity transmutes the very idea of novelty.
I have been confidentially taken aside and gently warned by worried friends that my recent fixation on ancient ecumenical orthodoxy[1] is really … well, let’s face it, intolerable. Orthodoxy by any other name would smell much sweeter. They have cautioned me that the whole idea is unmarketable, will have no effect, and will be wasted effort. They have anxiously pleaded with me to say whatever curious or crazy thing I have to say but, please, in some language less embarrassing to the modern consensus than that of orthodoxy.
All this is amusing. Whether orthodoxy is high or low on a Nielsen chart strikes me as a subject for a vaudeville act or an extended situation comedy. Classical Christianity has always been far less concerned with high acceptance ratings among its human audiences (even with esteemed academic audiences) than with its single divine Auditor. This does not imply that Christianity should masochistically wish for low ratings or hope desperately to be ignored, as it has on some occasions. But neither can it congratulate itself on the fleeting applause of the majority if that should imply a backdoor sellout of its historical memory.
Rather than prudishly stomping away from this vaudeville show or abruptly switching off this situation comedy, (the popularity rating of orthodoxy), I would prefer to watch it play for a while and see whether it might be unexpectedly entertaining. Suppose we imagine a theologian, fresh out of graduate school, who has determined to begin the construction of a massive new doctrinal system solely on the basis of extensive market research into the needs and hungers of the current cultural audience. (Don’t laugh; it could be done.) The samples are meticulously gathered and calculated, fed into the computer, and the results eagerly awaited. (Yes, I admit the p remise is ridiculous, because it turns theology into something that it decidedly is not—namely, public opinion analysis and salesmanship. But bear with me and see if we can learn something even from a disreputable premise.) Now our focus will be an assessment of the current cultural momentum as the sole basis of doctrinal definition.
Our young genius double-checks his figures to see if they are correct. A surprising readout is beginning to burp out of the computer. It indicates that there apparently exists a deep itch in our society to settle things down, ask how things got this way, recover our identities, and see if we might be able to conserve and renew our more stable moral, political, and religious traditions. Further examination of these data reveals something more than a minor trend to nostalgia or sentimentality, the subtle influence of some incipient fascist trend in politics, or the validation of some backlash theory. They appear to reveal an immense appetite for historical identity and roots in a compulsively mobile society whose magic words are change, now, and breakthrough.
He runs the punch cards back through the computer thinking that it might have made a mistake, perhaps a reversal of key components of the equation. But no, on second run again it is confirmed: The actual audience for our new theological construct is amazingly different from the one we thought was there on the basis of our listening to Bultmann ‘s description of “modern man,” Tillich’s concept of “correlation” with the “kairos” of our times, or the process theologians’ estimates of the Zeitgeist.[2]
All of these standard portrayals render a profile of an audience that is extremely dissatisfied with the encumbrances of tradition, insatiably thirsting for “fundamental change” based on a wholly this-worldly rejection of all super-naturalisms and so on. Our clever young theologian then discovers to his astonishment that other eminent public opinion analysis—Gallup, Harris, Yankelovich—are all coming up with similar conclusions. The actual audience being discovered out there is one that is preeminently characterized by the hunger for continuity, stability, the freedom to sustain and enhance traditional values, historical identifications, and old-fashioned ways. This comes as quite a shock, because we were prepared to construct a quite different theological system.
In order to sharpen our portrayal of theology’s amiable accommodation to modernity, I will describe a particular individual, an ordained theologian whom I have known for a long time, whose career in some sense can only be described as that of a “movement person.” If I appear to go into needless detail about this person, it is nonetheless useful to get some sense of the specifics of what we mean by an addictive accommodationism. In all his pursuit of movements, his overall pattern was diligently to learn from them, to throw himself into them, and then eventually to baptize them as if they were identical with the Christian center.
Now in his mid-forties, our subject took his first plunge into “movement identity” almost 30 years ago when, at 16, he joined the United World Federalists to promote world government through various educational and church groups. From 1953 (when he attended the Evanston Assembly) to 1966 (at the Geneva consultation on Christianity and the Social Order), he was involved in ecumenical debate, promotion, and organization. His deepening involvement in the civil rights movement began at about 17, later intensified by his attendance of the national NAACP convention in 1953 and by subsequent participation in marches, demonstrations, pray-ins, sit-ins, letter campaigns, and other forms of political activism.
More than a decade before the Vietnam War, our “movement theologian” was an active pacifist, struggling to motivate the antiwar. movement during the difficult McCarthy days. The fact that he understood himself as a democratic socialist and theoretical Marxist during the McCarthy period did not make his task any easier. He spearheaded the first Students for Democratic Action group to be organized in his conservative home state in the early 1950s. By the mid-1950s, he was active in the American Civil Liberties Union; in the pre-1960s women’s rights movement, as an advocate of liberalized abortions; and as an opponent of state’s rights, military spending, and bourgeois morality. His movement identity took a new turn in the late 1950s, when he became enamored with the existentialist movement, immersing himself particularly in the demythologization movement, writing his doctoral dissertation on its chief theorist.
The early 1960s found him intimately engaged in the client-centered therapy movement. Later he became engrossed in Transactional Analysis and soon was actively participating in the Gestalt therapy movement, especially through Esalen connections.
His involvement deepened in the “third force” movement in humanistic psychology, struggling to move beyond psychoanalysis and behaviorism, as he contributed to its journals, and experimented with its therapeutic strategies in his theological school classrooms. This was supplemented by a several years involvement in the T-Group movement associated with the National Training Laboratories, which he tried to integrate into his religious views. In the early 1970s, he joined a society for the study of paranormal phenomena, taught a class in parapsychology, and directed controlled research experiments with mung beans, Kirlian photography, biorhythm charts, pyramids, tarot cards, and the correlation of astrological predictions with the daily ups and downs of behavior.
My purpose in reciting this long litany is not to boast, for indeed I am that wandering theologian, less proud than amused by the territory I have covered. Rather, the purpose is to recite a straightforward description of what at least one theologian conceived to be his task in successive phases of the last three decades. So when I am speaking of a diarrhea of religious accommodation, I am not thinking of “the other guys” or speaking in the abstract, but out of my own personal history.
I do not wish contritely to apologize for my 30 years as a movement person, because I learned so much and encountered so many bright and beautiful persons. But I now experience the afterburn of “movement” existence, of messianic pretensions, of self-congratulatory ideal ism. It is understandable after this roller-coaster ride, that I would be drawn to a “post-movement” sociology of continuity, maintenance, and legitimation, hoping to ameliorate the “movement psychology” of immediate change. The very thinkers I once excoriated as “conservative” (the Burkes, the Newmans, the Neo-Thomists) I now find annually increasing in plausibility, depth, and wisdom.
The shocker is not merely that I rode every bandwagon in sight, but that I thought I was doing Christian teaching a marvelous favor by it, and at times considered it the very substance of the Christian teaching office. While Christian teaching must not rule out any investigations of truth or active involvement to embody it, we should be wary lest we reduce Christian doctrine to these movements and should be better prepared to discern which movements are more or less an expression of Christ’s ministry to the world.
It was the abortion movement, more than anything else, that brought me to movement revulsiveness. The climbing abortion statistics made me movement weary, movement demoralized. I now suspect that a fair amount of my own idealistic history of political action was ill conceived by self-deceptive romanticisms, in search of power in the form of prestige, that were from the beginning willing to destroy human traditions in the name of humanity, and at the end willing to extinguish the futures of countless unborn children in the name of individual autonomy. So, reflected in the mirror of my own history, I see my own generation and my children’s generation of movement idealisms as naively proud and sadly misdirected, despite good intentions. If I have grown wary about movement people, it is because I am wary of the consequences of my own good intentions.
Meanwhile, my intellectual dialogue has been embarrassingly constricted to university colleagues and liberal churchmen. When I discover among brilliant Roman Catholic, neo-evangelical, and Jewish brothers and sisters a marvelous depth of historical and moral awareness, I wonder why it has taken me so long to discover them, what was it about my liberal Christian tradition that systematically cut me off from dialogue with them, and why my tradition has been so defensive toward them. All these questions are subjects for further historical and sociological investigation, but they arise out of a vague sense of grief over lost possibilities and out of confusion that a tradition that spoke so often about tolerance and universality could be so intolerant and parochial.
[1] Ancient ecumenical orthodoxy: The historic Christian faith, traditionally held by the church’s mainstream, based on Scripture, as summarized in the confessions of the church, and illuminated by the understandings of Augustine, Luther, Calvin, etc.
[2] Zeitgeist: spirit of the present times.
by Steve | Mar 28, 1979 | Archive - 1979
Archive: God With Us Again
By Paul Mickey, Chairman, Good News Board of Directors
Recently I was being entertained in the home of a United Methodist family. The husband (John) was a life-long Methodist layman and had been infrequent in his church attendance in the past decade. We drove to a nearby pizza place, placed an order, and sat at a table to wait.
Shortly, John turned to me and said, “Paul, I know you’re a religious man and teach in a seminary but I need to check something with you. I have a lot of dealings with Jews and Arabs in my work; we often talk about religion and religious differences. My Jewish friends want to know especially the differences between Christians and Jews. Oh, they believe Jesus lived and all that good stuff; they’re not arguing that. But isn’t the real difference in the resurrection? I have always believed that.”
In response to this layman’s basic testimony, I replied, “Yep, John, I think you about have it put together, as I see it. There are, for me, two distinctive differences—and in other ways there are a number of basic similarities. One is, as you say, that we Christians believe Jesus not only lived a good life but that He was raised from the dead by the power of God.
“A second basic for the Christian is that we believe that Jesus was the Son of God; He was the Messiah of the house of David. He came fulfilling the Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah, the Savior.”
We continued in our conversation about Jewish and Christian distinctions. Finally I added, “I have always remembered my college professor in New Testament saying that Christians are honorary Jews—not by birth but by faith, because we are adopted into the family of God as sons and daughters, brothers, and sisters of Jesus. And I believe that.”
That set off a thought reaction in John. He recalled, “A couple of months ago I was with a Jewish scientist and an Arab oil producer. We were talking about the same thing and to my amazement the Arab and Jew agreed that they both could point to ‘Father Abraham’ as the common family ancestor.”
“Yes,” I added, “I think that’s right. We are more tied together in this world than many of us realize. It’s amazing how God works through Hagar, Sarah, Jesus, and us—if we are open by faith.”
When the pizza arrived, our conversation began to turn toward food and entertainment. But before leaving, John turned for a final reassurance: “Then you’d say, Paul, that the resurrection is the most important for the Christian and next to that our belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God?”
“That’s it, John; that’s the Gospel in a nutshell.”
As I have meditated on our conversation and John’s Gospel sharing in the midst of international commerce and the rising and falling of nations, I take encouragement in the simple yet profound message of the Gospel and of Easter. Jesus Christ … “designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (Romans 1:4, RSV)
by Steve | Mar 8, 1979 | Archive - 1979
Is the mysterious shroud of Turin
A Relic of the Resurrection?
by Rev. Dr. John C. Wilkey, Pastor, United Methodist Church Pittsfield, Illinois President, Central Illinois Conference Council on Finance and Administration
Is there factual proof that Christ’s crucified body underwent an amazing energy transformation at the moment of the Resurrection? I believe the Shroud of Turin provides this evidence. I have had an interest in the shroud for many years but have become firmly convinced of its authenticity as a result of reading two new studies. These investigations were made by Robert K. Wilcox (Shroud, Macmillan, 1977), former religion editor of the Miami News; and Ian Wilson (The Shroud of Turin, Doubleday, 1978), also a newspaperman and an Oxford history graduate. In addition there are older, Roman Catholic books on the shroud, including Edward Wuensche I’s Self-Portrait of Christ (1956), Pierre Berbet’s A Doctor at Calvary (1953) and Peter Rinaldi’s It Is the Lord (1972).
What is the Shroud of Turin? It is a piece of linen cloth measuring 14½ feet in length and 3½ feet in width. It is kept in the Cathedral of Turin, Italy. Imprinted on the cloth is the frontal and dorsal image of a man approximately 5 feet, 11 inches in height. His hands are crossed at the pelvis. There is a large, bloody wound on the wrists and one on each foot. The entire body is covered with wounds made by the Roman flagrum or whip. The man’s hair is matted with blood from scalp wounds caused by sharp objects such as thorns. The face is bruised; the nose is probably broken. In the side is the largest wound; it was probably caused by the common Roman spear used by execution squads. This wound shows not only blood but a clear fluid (“water”) stain as well. The man is bearded, which indicates he was Jewish; Roman and Greek men were nearly always clean shaven. The man’s hair is bound into a pig-tail in back; this is a little known but common custom of ancient Jews. The shoulders bear marks which were caused by carrying a rough, wooden beam.
The evidence is overwhelming that the image is that of Jesus of Nazareth after His crucifixion. While there were thousands of crucifixions in antiquity, the New Testament accounts mention the flogging, the wound in the side, the nailed hands and feet, the bruised face, the cap of thorns, and the bruised shoulder from carrying the cross beam. This could be no other person than Jesus.
The Shroud of Turin is known positively to have existed since 1357 when it was exhibited in Lirey, France. It was nearly destroyed in a fire in 1532. The fire did burn 24 holes in the cloth which was folded up at the time. These have been patched with duck-foot shaped pieces of newer cloth. The fire did not damage the image itself.
The shroud is an object of controversy even today. Opponents of its authenticity, including both Catholics and Protestants, charge that the shroud is a 14th century forgery. They base their arguments on a lengthy document of Pierre D’Arcis, bishop of Troyes; Lirey was in his diocese. D’Arcis claims to have found an artist who admitted painting the shroud for money.
However, in opposition to the D’Arcis document, several factors support the shroud’s authenticity. First, the image on the shroud is a negative; the natural lights and shadows are reversed, as on a photographic negative. It was not until 1898 when the first photograph of the shroud was taken that this fact was discovered. When the negative of the shroud photograph was developed, a positive image appeared, showing a face and body of almost photographic exactness! How would a medieval forger know how to do this in the 14th century? And even if he knew how, why would he paint something that could not be appreciated until half a millennium later? Furthermore, scientific tests made on the shroud in 1973 show conclusively that there is no paint on it. However the image got on the cloth, it was not painted!
Two big questions are raised by the shroud: Where was it before 1357? and, How did the image get on it?
Both Robert Wilcox and Ian Wilson have a fascinating and convincing theory about the shroud’s whereabouts before the 14th century. There was a well-known face of Christ on cloth in the Syrian town of Edessa in the 6th century. In 943, this cloth or “Mandylion” as it was called, was sold by the Muslim emir of Edessa to the Byzantine Emperor, Romanus Lecapenus, who brought it to Constantinople. Soldiers of the Fourth Crusade reported seeing the Mandylion there in 1206. Shortly after, the Crusaders sacked the city and the Mandylion disappeared. The Knights Templars, a militant religious order who were in the Fourth Crusade, were later accused of worshiping a strange “head.” Copies of this “head” are obviously made from the face of the Shroud of Turin. The Knights Templars were suppressed by the pope in the 14th century, and one of them, Geoffrey DeCharnay, was burned at the stake in 1307. It was another Geoffrey DeCharnay, probably a nephew of the old Templar, who turned up with the shroud in Lirey in 1357.
But the Mandylion was only a face, not a full body image. Not so, says Wilson. The Mandylion was referred to by a strange and unique Greek word meaning “folded in four.” The shroud, when folded in four, shows only the face of Christ. The Mandylion, I am convinced, was what we now know as the Shroud of Turin.
How did the cloth get from Jesus’ tomb to Edessa? The early church historian Eusebius tells about Abgar V, King of Edessa, who heard of Jesus and sent for Him to come and heal him. If we theorize that the messengers from Abgar arrived after the crucifixion, they would have sought out the apostles. The linen shroud would be an embarrassment to the apostles for two reasons. First, it had touched a dead body and was therefore unclean. Second, as Jews, they abhorred images. So the apostles might have given the burial cloth to the Syrian messengers to take to Abgar. Edessan tradition says that the cloth was later stored in the city wall and forgotten until the 6th century.
The other question is more intriguing: How did the image get on the shroud? Wuenschel and older Roman Catholics theorized that the image was a “vapor-graph,” made by ammonia gasses from the “aloes” (see John 19:39) produced in the damp atmosphere of the tomb. Experiments with aloes do produce a brownish stain similar to that on the shroud. But vapors never rise in straight lines, so any image produced by this process is always badly blurred. The image on the shroud is quite clear.
Ian Wilson, after conferring with two Air Force Academy physicists at Albuquerque, New Mexico, has a more convincing theory. Dr. John Jackson and Dr. Eric Jumper believe the image was burned or scorched by some flash of pure energy from within the shroud, similar to the images scorched on objects in the nuclear blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It must have been that at the moment of the Resurrection, Jesus’ body was transformed by some energy process unknown to us, but which scorched the image onto the cloth. This is a theory I find quite convincing after studying the evidence.
Then what significance does the Shroud of Turin have for us? Some regard it as only a medieval forgery. Some think it is but another bit of traffic in “holy relics” so characteristic of pious, unsophisticated Catholics. But I believe it is a genuine piece of evidence which corroborates the testimony of the New Testament.
The shroud gives us a reliable picture of the physical appearance of Jesus of Nazareth. For centuries, the question of His personal likeness has intrigued artists, theologians, and common Christian folk. I believe the shroud shows us what Jesus looked like.
But more important, the shroud is a piece of historical evidence from the central fact of Christianity: the Resurrection. Let me be quite clear, however: I do not accept the Resurrection because of the shroud. I accept it in faith based on Scripture. But the shroud supports faith and the written Word. It is factual evidence against Bultmann, Willi Marxen, and others who speak of the Resurrection as a myth or legend.
The shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ which underlines the truth of our New Testament faith. More and more scientists accept the authenticity of the shroud, and of the Resurrection which it proclaims. Isn’t it tragic that so many theologians and preachers deny what science now supports?
by Steve | Mar 7, 1979 | Archive - 1979
Archive: Good News Serves as a Forum
By Charles W. Keysor, Editor, Good News Magazine
The following editorial was written by a frequent contributor, Riley Case, pastor of Wesley UM Church, Union City, Indiana, a member of the Executive Committee, Good News Board of Directors.
Good News, the Forum for Scriptural Christianity within the United Methodist Church, comes into its share of criticism. In recent weeks we have not only been accused of literalism, fundamentalism, racism, ageism, sexism, intolerance, witch-hunting, McCarthyism, and scholasticism (whew!), but also of being connected with the new Far Right, and dedicated to negating the church’s commitment to social justice.
For a movement whose stated desire is to exalt Christ and promote Scriptural Christianity, that hurts. It gives cause for self-reflection as to who we are, and what we are really about.
It is admitted that Good News does take a conservative stand on many issues. That is to be expected, since a great part of the constituency of Good News is conservative in nature (and it could be argued that so is a great part of United Methodist laity). Where else in the church can a conservative voice be spoken? Therefore, part of what Good News does is to supply balance. It is hard to imagine that “official” church magazines (such as response, New World Outlook, or engage/social action) would ever allow a fair case to be made for a limited use of capital punishment, for abortion as morally offensive (a view not inconsistent with the UM Social Principles), or for the idea of a limited free market as a strategy for development in third world countries. Part of our purpose for being a forum is to offer a place where United Methodists can express some opinions which simply are disallowed by boards and agencies of the church; (we are not nearly as pluralistic a denomination as we claim to be).
At the same time, it should be stated emphatically—to both friend and critic—that Good News was not called into being to promote any social agenda. We do not exist today for that purpose.
Good News people are united by the deep desire for “Scriptural Christianity,” a phrase borrowed from John Wesley. It suggests an appreciation for the rich heritage that is ours through the historic Wesleyan understanding of the faith as being first and primarily defined by the “plain truths” of Scripture. Since 1966, the heart of the Good News concern has been our conviction that this church has lost its theological moorings, and, therefore, in many instances has strayed away from its own rich heritage.
“The Junaluska Affirmation,” created by Good News, is the attempt to clarify officially what we understand today to be the essence of that rich heritage. “The Junaluska Affirmation ” states clearly the official position of Good News. Therefore, we ask that any who want to criticize the Good News movement start first of all with that statement.
Beyond a basic theological unity at the heart of our faith, there is a great deal of diversity within Good News. There are not many issues on which Good News people can easily and accurately be categorized. In the magazine and within the Good News constituency we discuss freely, and sometimes vigorously argue, subjects such as speaking in tongues, healing, methods of evangelism, inerrancy, and the nature of the second coming. That is another purpose for being a forum. We are often reminded that much of this kind of discussion does not take place in areas of the church’s official life.
The same is true with social issues. While a great part of the constituency of Good News is conservative in nature, we see no necessary links between evangelical theology and conservative politics. We do not have an official position, nor is there consensus within Good News, as to what that position might be on many of the current social, political, and economic issues. There is part of the Good News constituency that is quite liberal—perhaps even “radical” (in the sojourners sense)—on these issues. Social conservatives, on different occasions, have been challenged from Good News platforms to examine the basis for their convictions.
Some say our stand for racial and economic justice has not been strong enough. That may be true. God is our judge. Perhaps it needs to be emphasized—both to friend and to critic—that we do not believe apartheid is the will of God, that racism is too much a part of all our lives, that oppressive political, economic, and ecclesiastical systems, whether of the right or of the left, are inconsistent with the Gospel. Our argument with some of the church is not over the goal of justice, but rather over the strategy used to achieve that goal, and the theology on which some social justice advocacy is based.
An example is the quota system. We are not sure that the church at large, or groups that are being represented by quotas, are best served in the long-run by a legalistic system of quota representation. We believe a case can be made that this communicates legalism, paternalism, and tokenism-the very attitudes that we are trying to overcome in the church. We hope it is still possible to discuss such issues without being accused of un-Christian motives. And we are convinced that the UM Church will be healthier because Good News has created a forum where views lacking in the official church can be honestly aired and discussed.
by Steve | Mar 6, 1979 | Archive - 1979
Archive: St. George Fights a New Dragon
By Charles W. Keysor, Editor, Good News Magazine
Credit, they say, should be given where credit is due.
And much credit belongs to a bold, innovative UM minister, Rev. Don Wildmon, founder of the National Federation for Decency. Credit is also due Mississippi Bishop Mack Stokes for granting a special appointment enabling Don to head up NFD.
Last summer I visited this organization’s office in the Wildmon home in Tupelo, Mississippi. One result of that visit, and subsequent contacts, is the interview published on page 11 of this issue.
Don deserves praise because he is a Christian of uncommon principle and courage. When he realized what television was doing to his children, his parishioners, and his country, Don became deeply troubled. His concern developed quickly beyond futile hand-wringing and despair. Soon he began to fight. He rallied other Christians and enlisted their cooperation in a movement which is now nationwide.
He didn’t waste time piddling on the periphery. Instead, NFD went straight for the jugular vein of the enemy—TV’s advertising income. Minimizing emotion and maximizing hard facts, Don boldly and successfully confronted such corporate giants as Ford, Sears & Roebuck, CBS, ABC, NBC … and the advertising agency elite. He is a new St. George jousting with the dragons of Madison Avenue. He is a latter-day David facing down the corporate Goliath.
What sort of man would dare to do this?
What sort of minister would leave the institutional security of a guaranteed appointment and fringe benefits to pursue “the impossible dream?”
One whom God had stirred into action.
A man whom “God thrust into the game, ” as the Reformer John Calvin once described himself.
A man whose faith produced an intense “hunger and thirst after righteousness.”
Church history recalls many men and women of radical faith. Their personal challenges differed according to the times. But some common denominators can be seen across the Christian centuries: (a) each was stirred unusually by the Spirit of God; (b) each was indignant to see the fallen world brazenly defying the revealed will of God; (c) each, in his or her own way and time, followed God while the world scoffed, fumed or said, “so what?”; (d) each was a doer of the Word, not only a hearer; (e) each accomplished something significant for God’s Kingdom of righteousness; (f) each personified the Spirit’s admonition through Paul: “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” (Romans 12:9, NIV)
I urge you to support Don Wildmon and the National Federation for Decency. Give him your prayers and your dollars. Get active in his vigorous, commonsense crusade. Who knows, God may be able to redeem even the “idiot box” in your living room!
