by Steve | Nov 30, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: Stalking the New Mister Wesley
THE WESLEY WORKS PROJECT edited by Frank Baker (Abingdon Press)
The Church today is only beginning to discover the amazing legacy that John Wesley left to Christianity. Simultaneous with this rediscovery, scholars of the past half-century have been busy correcting some inaccurate stereotypes of Methodism’s founder. The “new Wesley” is proving to be a significant mentor/guide for personal spiritual formation and for the corporate renewal of the Church. One of the most important aids in the renaissance of Wesley studies has been the Wesley’s Works Editorial Project.
In the past, understanding of Wesley has suffered because no definitive edition of his works has been available. For many years, the best edition of Wesley’s works was Thomas Jackson’s 14 volume set, prepared in the years 1829-1831 (and still available from the United Methodist Publishing House). But Jackson’s Works and even the so-called “Standard Editions” of Wesley’s Journal (ed. Curnock, 1909-16), Letters (ed. Telford, 1931), and Sermons (ed. Sugden, 1921) suffer from numerous textual and historical inaccuracies and frequent editorial intrusions. Moreover, in the years subsequent to the publication of these sets, a host of manuscripts and published materials has been discovered that sheds greater light on Wesley.
In 1960 an international team of scholars began an examination of over 450 items published by John and Charles Wesley. Oxford University Press agreed to undertake publication of the projected 33 volumes of the new Wesley’s Works. But economic restraints forced Oxford to abandon the project in 1982. Thanks to Abingdon Press, the expanded and definitive edition of Wesley’s Works is alive and well.
The five volumes published to date bear the unmistakable imprint of Dr. Frank Baker, editor-in-chief of the project. Not only has Baker been responsible for the preparation of an authentic text for each of Wesley’s publications, but his painstaking textual criticism has led to the identification of all variant readings for some 2,000 editions published in Wesley’s lifetime. The end product is a text that is easily read and easily understood. There is no question that this edition of Wesley’s works will find its place alongside the most noteworthy collections of Christian writers.
Here, then, is a brief appraisal of each volume, presented in the order of publication:
The first volume of the collected Works to appear, The Appeals to Men of Reason and Religion and Certain Related Open Letters, was published in February 1976 and edited by Gerald R. Cragg. This volume reveals Wesley as a Christian apologist, polemicist, and constructive theologian with few peers in his day. In response to the accusations of enthusiasm, fanaticism, and antinomianism, Wesley boldly demonstrates his grounding in the central Anglican tradition.
While the occasional reader of Wesley will find these polemical writings hard going at times, Cragg has made an invaluable contribution to our understanding of Wesley’s place in the Anglican tradition. This first published volume of the Works received the Library Association of Great Britain’s coveted award for the best index of 1976.
In 1980 the first of a planned seven volumes devoted to Wesley’s Letters was published. This initial volume, covering the formative years of 1721-1739, was quickly followed in 1982 by a volume of Letters from 1740-1755. These two installments, both edited brilliantly by Dr. Baker, represent the first new presentation of Wesley’s correspondence in 50 years.
By any standard this new collection supersedes all previous editions. For example, more than one-fifth of the 270 Wesley letters in the new 1740-1755 volume did not appear in the Standard Edition of Telford. In the same volume, the inclusion of 146 letters received by Wesley (and abstracts or quotations from 270 more)—many of them hither to unpublished or inaccessible—enables the reader to hear both sides of the epistolary conversation.
In both of these Letters volumes, the various dimensions of Wesley’s own personal life—his relationships with family and colleagues, his concerns for the expanding Methodist revival, his evolving life of faith—are revealed with meticulous care and sensitivity. Baker’s introduction to Wesley’s Works in the first volume of Letters leaves virtually no question unanswered. These two volumes of Letters are essential reading and afford one of the most accurate self-portraits of Wesley currently available.
A Collection of Hymns for the use of the People called Methodists, published in 1983, was edited by two widely recognized Methodist hymnologists, Franz Hildebrandt and Oliver A. Beckerlegge. While this is probably the least well-known of the five published volumes, it may have the greatest appeal to the lay audience.
One of the remarkable features of early Methodism was its birth in song. This collection of hymns, originally published in 1780, was a primer of theology for the Methodist people and a manual both for public worship and private devotion. A thorough study of this volume could prove to be one of the most important experiences in any person’s pilgrimage of faith.
Sermons, 1–33 was edited by Dr. Albert C. Outler, the world-renowned Wesleyan theologian. This first volume of the sermons helps us see Wesley as a prominent Anglican theologian dedicated to spiritual renewal and nurture and to rediscovery of a balanced view of the Christian life. In an introduction which sets forth the rich fabric of Wesley’s sources and thought, Outler provides the necessary background for the reader to grasp the content of Wesley’s Sermons.
The breadth of Outler’s documentation is sometimes staggering, ranging through the entangled mazes of classical and Christian thought. But in these sermons you will find the distillation of Wesley’s theology in the form he most preferred. Every Methodist pastor and lay leader would benefit from a careful study of this volume of Wesley’s Sermons.
Abingdon recently approved plans for at least six more volumes of Wesley’s Works in addition to the publisher’s initial five-volume commitment. Our Methodist leaders are now sensing the value of the project. Clergy and laypeople need to support this monumental endeavor which is certain to benefit the cause of Christ for years to come.
Reviewed by Dr. Paul Chilcote, UM minister and John Wesley fellow
by Steve | Nov 29, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: A Church on the Move
Orthodox faith and some slightly unorthodox methods spell growth at Aldersgate UMC
by Eddie Robb
Aldersgate United Methodist Church began with eight members meeting for worship in the pastor’s home and using cereal bowls for offering plates. Now, seven years later, the church has a membership of 1200, and it’s still growing. No one is more surprised than the pastor.
“Everyone tried to talk me out of taking this appointment,” recalls Reverend Terry Teykl. “My friends just didn’t think it had much of a future.”
From outward appearances, the pessimism was understandable. College Station, Texas, the home of Texas A&M University, already had a strong UM church. It was located next to the campus and was well attended by students. Most of the professors and town folks belonged to First Church, in neighboring Bryan, Texas. With these two large churches and several smaller ones, it seemed the needs of the college community were being met.
“I was scared,” Teykl admits, “but I felt like there was room for another Methodist church, if it tried a bit different approach.”
Apparently the bishop agreed. Texas Conference Bishop Finis Crutchfield (now retired) appointed Teykl to begin the new work. The church was established on May 24, 1979 (Aldersgate Sunday). Thus the name.
Most folks around Texas still thought of College Station as a small, sleepy college town. The fact is, it had changed. From 1970 to 1980 the population grew to 32,000, a whopping 111 percent. Though still tiny by big-city standards, College Station had become the sixth fastest growing area in the United States.
“We had great dreams,” Teykl reminisces, “but I never expected what God had in store for us.”
Now, over 1000 people crowd into the gymnasium-style sanctuary every Sunday morning. (According to church sociologist Lyle Schaller, that puts Aldersgate’s attendance in the top one percent of all American Protestant churches.) Another 400-500 come back on Sunday evenings for a charismatic-style praise service.
The numbers are impressive. But the real story is what is happening spiritually. “There’s more dedication to prayer in this church than in the last 15 churches I’ve been associated with,” explains administrative board chairman Dr. Mike James, a professor of civil engineering at Texas A&M.
Prayer is obviously important at Aldersgate. The church holds regular prayer meetings, but they are not the usual Wednesday-night variety. The last Friday of each month, members gather for an all-night prayer vigil. In addition, every weekday morning the doors open at 6:00 for prayer. It lasts for an hour.
The importance of prayer at Aldersgate is evidenced even in the church’s architecture. Enter the pastor’s study, open the right door, and you’ll discover a prayer closet—a small room with a world map on the wall, a desk, and a well-used Bible. Similar rooms are scattered throughout the building. The pastor’s prayer closet, he says, “helps me keep my priorities right.”
Prayer and small groups
In his Doctor of Ministry studies, Teykl researched the small-group methods of John Wesley and of Paul Cho, pastor of the world’s largest church, located in Seoul, Korea. Cho’s church emphasizes small groups meeting in homes and corporate prayer, and is growing at the rate of 12,000 new converts every month. Not surprisingly, prayer and small groups are also at the heart of Aldersgate’s growth.
Twenty different “house churches” meet weekly. The size of the groups varies. Some have as many as 50 people, while other groups average 6-8 people each week.
“Here is where we minister to one another,” comments Auby Brown, a layman and part-time director of church life. ” For the first few years we had to meet in homes because we had no building. Now that we have a building, we don’t want to give them [the house churches] up,” he adds.
The house churches emphasize prayer, Bible study, sharing, and personal accountability. “They are very much patterned after John Wesley’s class meetings,” Brown says.
Until last fall Aldersgate worshipped in a school gymnasium. “That was wild!” exclaims one member. “Every Sunday morning we had to move everything in. Cribs. Pulpit. Piano. Communion rails. Cross. Everything. You cannot imagine how much work it was.”
Now Aldersgate is housed in a beautiful $1.5 million complex. The spacious 32,000-square-foot building is located on 10 acres along Texas State Highway 6, across from a new regional mall on the growing edge of College Station.
The members are proud of their new facilities. Yet, one gets the feeling that the people already look back nostalgically to those schoolhouse days when everything had to be set up for worship each week.
Aldersgate’s newest addition is a giant-size Jacuzzi. It sits in a courtyard just outside the pastor’s study. Visitors are understandably surprised to see a hot tub at church. Teykl quickly explains, “Oh, it’s for baptisms. A lot of our new members come from non-Methodist backgrounds and prefer immersion.”
In fact, fully 36 percent of Aldersgate’s members join by profession of faith. Another 38 percent come by vows from another denomination. That is a phenomenal figure, and a key reason why the church places a high priority on membership classes.
“We want membership to mean something,” explains Teykl. Everyone who joins Aldersgate must attend four training sessions taught by the pastor’s wife, Kay. New members are received one Sunday each month.
Such a large influx of new members from non-Methodist backgrounds does pose some problems, admits board chairman Mike James. “The first thing we have to do is give new officers and board members a crash course in Methodist polity [government],” he says.
Truly Methodist?
From zero to 1200 members in seven years, with an average worship attendance over 1000-Aldersgate clearly is a dynamic congregation. Yet not everyone is happy about Aldersgate’s success. Rev. Morris House, district superintendent, is grudging in his praise for the church.
“I’m for it from the standpoint that the church is serving people,” House said. “As far as being a true Methodist church, it isn’t. We’re praying to make it more Methodist.”
Yet, Aldersgate members wonder how they can become more Methodist. “We pay our apportionments,” said one member. “We use Methodist literature. We’re not mavericks; we’re revivalists. And we are fully submitted to our denomination.”
Nevertheless, Aldersgate is viewed skeptically by some, especially by the clergy. Some ministers see the church as a threat to the Methodist appointment system. One minister asked pointedly, “Who will we send there after Teykl? And where will we appoint him?”
It is true that Aldersgate is not a typical United Methodist church. Worship services tend to be less formal, especially on Sunday evenings. The 400-500 people who gather for the evening praise service often clap to the music and raise their hands while they sing. A piano, two guitars, and a violin are the standard fare. Testimonies and spontaneous prayers are often heard, and occasionally someone speaks in tongues.
I’ve always had a vision for a different kind of church,” Teykl says. “I did the routine for 11 years, and I felt like a change was in order.”
Teykl’s vision for Aldersgate, in addition to the emphases mentioned earlier, includes a strong missions program. The young church pays all its denominational apportionments, and beyond that it supports two Evangelism Explosion workers—one in Monterrey, Mexico, the other in Caracas, Venezuela.
Sometimes it’s easy for churches to give to foreign missions and ignore needy folks in their own backyards. Not so with Aldersgate. Each year the church helps several hundred needy people. “We’ve got a Biblical responsibility to care for the poor,” Teykl states firmly. “We take that mandate seriously.”
Apparently they do. The church has a half-time staff person whose sole assignment is to minister to the poor. Last year Aldersgate gave over $70,000 to impoverished families.
If the vitality of a church can be measured by the ministers it sends out, Aldersgate scores well there too. In the church’s seven brief years of existence, 39 of its young men and women have answered the call to fulltime Christian ministry. Six are now in seminary. “And one’s already out of the chute.” says Rev. Teykl. (That’s Texas talk for “already serving a church.”)
At age 38, Terry Teykl finds himself senior minister of one of the larger UM churches in the nation. Nobody is more surprised than he. He entered the ministry late. After graduation from seminary (summa cum laude) his first seven years were spent in a small rural church in Central Texas.
“I was very happy serving where I was,” he says with a grin, “but I guess the Lord had other ideas.”
Rev. Edmund W. Robb III is pastor of the United Methodist Church in The Woodlands, Texas, just north of Houston. Since founding the Woodlands UMC eight years ago, Robb has seen the church grow to more than 1,300 members. In the mid-70s he was Associate Executive Secretary of the Good News movement.
by Steve | Nov 29, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: ‘Seven Churches of Methodism’ Attacked, Defended
By James S. Robb
“We contend that the United Methodist Church is not one church, but seven.” With that bold assertion, two professors from Duke Divinity School put forward a new theory on regional tension in the church that has set off a blaze of media publicity—and church controversy.
The theory, released this fall in a study entitled “The Seven Churches of Methodism,” was formulated by Dr. Robert L. Wilson and Dr. William H. Willimon. The “seven churches” to which the professors refer describe the different styles and substance of United Methodism in different sections of the country, such a s the South and the Northeast.
The professors’ argument is simple enough. “Regional differences are rarely discussed openly because the church’s leaders want to maintain unity,” they wrote in the study. “The quadrennial General Conference maintains a facade of togetherness. National church leaders and bureaucrats tend to perceive regionalism as a threat to church-wide funds and programs.”
Continuing regionalism
Yet, despite the wish of many to the contrary, Wilson and Willimon state, “We believe that the evidences for continuing regionalism can be seen by anyone who is willing to probe beneath the surface.”
Viewing the denomination as a collection of unique regional “churches” instead of a giant unified body is a new idea. The theory has attracted impressive publicity. The Washington Post, for example, ran a half-page on the matter. Numerous other papers, such as The Los Angeles Times and The Cincinnati Inquirer, ran stories.
But not everyone is impressed. An official UM commission and an unofficial caucus are up in arms about the study.
Wilson’s and Willimon’s study contains “implicit and subtle racism and sexism,” according to the official Commission on the Status and Role of Women. The commission charged that the study was poorly done and is inaccurate. Further, the commission is planning to discuss the matter with Duke University.
Black Methodists for Church Renewal, the unofficial black caucus, also criticized the study. They said it “completely overlooks the uniqueness of the black church and the importance of race as an issue in United Methodism.” The caucus took the step of setting up a task force to respond to the study.
What the two groups are apparently reacting to is a section in the study that explains why regionalism needs to be looked at: “During the past quarter of a century Methodism has increasingly organized itself on the basis of racial, language, and sexual criteria as if these were the only significant differences within the denomination. … The failure to identify and to take account of our very real differences has resulted in an inability to mobilize to serve regional issues.”
In an interview with Good News, study co-author Robert Wilson said he was puzzled by the heated opposition from the two groups.
“We thought we were writing about regionalism, not racism and sexism,” Wilson said. While he said he doesn’t have any objection to the caucus and commission in general, “There are other things in the world besides issues based on gender and race. And that’s not to denigrate those two items.”
Wilson said, “By and large, the response has been positive.” Since the study’s publication he has gotten about five letters on it every day. One West Coast pastor who wrote agreeing with the study’s findings had transferred from the Midwest to the Far West, and he said United Methodism in the two areas is indeed very different.
Yet, many church officials evidently feel threatened by any mention of nonnational loyalties. One church-agency staff member told a secular newspaper reporter, “It’s clear the authors [of the study] are still fighting the Civil War.”
According to the study, the “seven churches of Methodism” and their major characteristics are as follows:
- The Yankee Church: New England Methodism, which has never been a strong area for the church. The church there is traditionally liberal, recently pessimistic, and rapidly shrinking.
- The Industrial Northeastern Church: New York and the mid-Atlantic area, where Methodism has lost 22 percent of its members and where it is in danger of extinction in the major cities. Gives much attention to social issues.
- The Church South: One of the areas where the church hasn’t lost strength. Conservative in theology and practice. But the church there is not keeping up with the rapidly expanding population.
- The Midwest Church: Heartland of Methodism, the church there is still strong despite a 10½ percent drop in membership. Tension is caused by the contrast between a conservative laity and a more liberal clergy.
- The Southwest Church: Optimism and growth prevail in Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. The biggest churches are there, but failure in reaching the ever-growing Hispanic population is a problem.
- The Frontier Church: The church in the Rocky Mountains is declining, but is hardy and sometimes innovative.
- The Western Church: In America’s Far West, Methodism is fairly weak and sinking (23 percent membership loss in 12 years). Liberal leadership doesn’t reflect the views of the many conservative clergy and laypeople.
To the commission and caucus criticizing the study, co-author Wilson says, “Hey, friends, there’s another agenda in the world besides yours.”
by Steve | Nov 29, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: Beyond Self-Improvement
It’s time America’s new religious upsurge went beyond spiritual self-indulgence, says renewal specialist Richard Lovelace
Developing the spiritual life is a growth industry today.
- Popular religious literature would displace other forms of non-fiction if it were allowed on best-seller lists.
- Lay people who have heard about personal commitment to Christ and the fulness of the Holy Spirit on television are urging their pastors to speak on these subjects.
- Scholars probing the roots of denominations are studying how to recover the spiritual strength of these movements which began in a blaze of religious experience.
- Even futurologists, scientists, and business leaders are admitting that the moral dilemmas created by technology force us back to religion, both for ethical guidance and for November/December 1985 courage to face the future.
In the church, the zealous activism of the 1960s has been overtaken by a new interest in evangelism, worship, prayer, and contemplation. Since the Jesus Movement of the late ’60s, young converts have been pouring into seminaries, tripling the size of some evangelical schools. The number of Protestant candidates for the ministry is up 30 percent.
The influence of evangelical students and the apparent conservative shift toward Protestant orthodoxy have begun to affect the shape of American seminaries. Many have begun to hire evangelical faculty, academic deans, and presidents.
Harvard Divinity School, a bellwether of American intellectual life which has been pointed to the left for almost three centuries, is now trying to endow a Chair of Evangelical Studies to be occupied by an evangelical. No wonder New York Times editor Kenneth Briggs has suggested that the theological leadership of the American church in the late 20th century, once occupied by neo-orthodox figures such as Reinhold Niebuhr, is shifting now to progressive evangelicals.
The effect of all this ferment in the life of the church has been no less startling. A recent Presbyterian moderator, Dr. Howard Rice, devoted his moderatorial year to the theme of prayer and spiritual renewal. A zealous activist in the Civil Rights struggle and other justice issues in the 1960s, Dr. Rice had to reorder his priorities when illness halted his movements, put him in a wheelchair, and forced him to center on his relationship with God.
In a series of prayer retreats across the country, Dr. Rice drew church leaders back into Scripture-reading, meditation, and prayer. A denominational mission paper reported the results with baffled respect: “Nothing happened. God was worshipped.”
But this headline has ironic overtones. In Scripture and in past religious awakenings, when God was truly worshipped, plenty happened! Not only did thousands become converted and spiritually concerned; society was powerfully changed for the better. But while some leaders of the electronic church have become activistic enough to frighten their political opponents, most of those involved in the new wave of spiritual interest seem passive and introverted. The Wall Street Journal put it this way:
Old Time Religion: An Evangelical Revival Is Sweeping the Nations, But with Little Effect Millions Quit Mainline Churches for Born-Again Sects that Focus on Inner Self, Shunning the Sinful World.
The article continued: “The spirit of religious awakening is once again moving across the land, but unlike a similar great religious awakening two-and-a-half centuries ago that helped sow the seeds of the American Revolution, the current evangelical revival has so far sowed little except curiosity among unbelievers and self-doubt among many faithful. ‘I heard on one of those TV evangelism shows that 33 percent of all Americans are born again,’ says Douglas Gallagher, pastor of the Broomfield Baptist Church, near Detroit, and an evangelical. ‘But if that is true, why is the crime rate still so high? Why is there still so much use of narcotics? Where is our impact?’ ”
Some of the apparent passivity in the new religious surge may really be constructive action focused on setting one’s own house in order. Bill Enright, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, comments in the same Wall Street Journal article:
“Two years ago I went on a retreat with the officers from my church and they all said they wanted more sermons that would give them a practical guide on how to live the Christian life in their families, their business, their friendships. Too often the church in the past has been esoteric, talking above the people rather than at their level.”
Whatever the reasons, even the conservative revivalists who are said to have influenced the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections have had trouble mobilizing troops for activities outside the church. “Robert Billings, [a] leader of Moral Majority,” according to the Journal, “says it is difficult to get people steadily involved in anything but their own spiritual lives. ‘We get all excited about an issue and go out and organize, and then three weeks later we are back inside the four walls singing Amazing Grace.’ ”
One of my students wrote recently praising Charles Colson’s second book, Life Sentence: “Colson’s realization that the Christian faith goes beyond mere self-improvement … proves that spiritual rebirth is not only possible and true but that it is the key to effective social action … I feel that too many evangelicals have become unwitting victims of the societal trademark they so vehemently decry, the ‘me generation.’
“It seems they get so wrapped up in this and that course, and that method, tape series, etc., on how to be a better Christian that it becomes the end rather than the means. Their concern seems mostly to center around self, although they hope that their spiritual growth will automatically osmose into those around them.”
This is not a new problem. And its presence does not discredit the reality of the current religious upsurge. Previous evangelical awakenings also went through growing pains and spiritual adolescence. John of the Cross, one of the great doctors of Christian spirituality, said that worldly self-interest constantly tries to re-enter the experience of the new convert, masking itself in impressively “spiritual” forms of pride, avarice, envy, and gluttony.
Nevertheless, the goal of authentic spirituality is a life which escapes from the closed circle of spiritual self-indulgence, or even self-improvement, to become absorbed in the love of God and other persons. The essence of spiritual renewal is “the love of God … poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5). “My love,” said St. Augustine, “is my weight.”
The substance of real spirituality is love. It is God’s love moving into our consciousness in warm affirmation that He values and cares for us with infinite concern. But His is a love which also sweeps us away from self-preoccupation into a delight in the unlimited beauty and transcendent glory of God himself, and moves us to obey Him. It is a love which awakens us to cherish the gifts and graces of others and labor to perfect these.
Paul tells us that this love is a far more reliable measure of spirituality than our gifts or works or theological comprehension, and that this love is one of the few things which lasts forever (I Corinthians 13:8, 13). And Jesus said that the highest fulfillment of the will of God in our lives is to love God with heart and soul and mind and strength, and to care for others as we care for ourselves (Mark 12:30-31).
Obnoxiously self-assertive
In the nonreligious world, self-knowledge and self-fulfillment are considered to be the core of human achievement. The classical Greek counsel was “know thyself.” Humanistic psychology and the human-potential movement, forces which helped create what Tom Wolfe called “The Me Decade,” have stressed the creative force in each individual which must be set free. Yet, the search for these goals has produced a lot of people who are at best self-preoccupied and at worst obnoxiously self-assertive.
Religious forms of self-improvement can also generate nervous self-concern and spiritual pride. If spiritual growth is built on repressed guilt, or if the means of growth is a set of laws to be followed or an intricate and arduous path to be mastered, spiritual self-centeredness will result.
Biblical self-knowledge and self-fulfillment have their focus outside the self. As John Calvin said, we can only discover ourselves by discovering God.
Realistic self-examination leads to an awareness of our limits, which also drives us to consider God. “Our poverty, ” Calvin wrote, “conduces to a clearer display of the infinite fullness of God. … Thus a sense of our ignorance, vanity, poverty, infirmity, depravity, and corruption leads us to perceive and acknowledge that in the Lord alone are to be found true wisdom, solid strength, perfect goodness, and unspotted righteousness. … Nor can we really aspire toward Him till we have begun to be displeased with ourselves.”
“Feeling good about yourself’ is a primary goal of much popular psychology. But for Biblical religion such a goal is, at best, only a way station on the road to knowing God and, at worst, a deceptive trap. Only by fixing our attention on God can we accurately know ourselves-both the graces He has given us and the depth of our needs.
If we compare our lives with those of other human beings, it may be November/December 1985 easy for us to say, ‘Tm OK.” But if we measure our goodness by the holiness of God, that is another story.
Encountering the God of the Bible can be a deeply unsettling experience. The holiness of God is, as Rudolf Otto says, mysterium tremendum et fascinans—a tremendous and fascinating mystery.
God may be comfortably known and worshipped at a distance. But a more direct vision of His glory produces holy fear and awe, not so much of His power as of His purity.
This was Job’s experience when God spoke to him out of the whirlwind: “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6, NIV).
Isaiah reports the same result of his vision of God’s holiness: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5, RSV).
Even though self-despising is often pathological, and self-acceptance is surely a proper goal of both psychological stability and personal renewal, the Bible proclaims that self-fulfillment cannot be found apart from encounter with God. And, as Johann Tauler put it, “The pathway to God lies across the track of your own nothingness.”
Those who are traveling on that path, and find themselves undergoing “the dark night of the soul ” as God purges them from sin in the furnace of conviction, cannot be reassured by easy flattery about their gifts and potential or the quick-fix offer of cheap grace. And rightly so. For faith in Jesus which is not built upon a deep hunger and thirst after righteousness is shallow and fruitless.
The Great Awakening, that tremendous spiritual upsurge of the 18th century, motivated an explosion of activity which remade American society and led to the birth of a new nation infused with Christian principles. But there were deep roots to this activity which are often lacking in modern activism, both among evangelicals and socially concerned liberals. Much religious life in the 20th century seems to lose track of the One who is supposedly at its center: God.
In the 1960s, for example, God became so peripheral to much religious activity that it came as no surprise when some theologians announced that He was dead. Religious social activism not rooted in love for God is driven by love for idols. It pretends to come from concern for others or for God’s kingdom, but actually it is motivated by the worship of humanity or disguised forms of self-glorification.
Health and wealth
On the other hand, evangelical religion as an aid to self-assurance, health, or wealth short-circuits the soul’s path toward contact with God, which is the heart’s deepest desire. As Augustine observes, “Many cry to the Lord to avoid losses or to acquire riches, for the safety of their friends or the security of their homes, for temporal felicity or worldly distinction, yes, even for mere physical health which is the sole inheritance of the poor man. … Alas, it is easy to want things from God and not want God himself, as though the gift could ever be preferable to the giver.”
Only in the truly God-centered way of life will we find authentic spiritual renewal. If God is the ultimate reality of our lives, and if our main purpose in living is “to glorify Him and to enjoy Him forever,” then it is only realistic for us to live our lives increasingly with God at the center.
Richard Lovelace is professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is a regular columnist for Charisma magazine. He has authored several books including Dynamics of Spiritual Life: An Evangelical Theology of Renewal and Renewal as a Way of Life from which this article is excerpted (© 1985 by Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of the USA and used by permission of lnterVarsity Press).
by Steve | Nov 28, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: UM Missions: Which Way to the Future?
By James S. Robb
Good News talks to leaders of the official mission board and the new Mission Society
For years the debate raged.
On one side towered the denomination’s official mission agency, the General Board of Global Ministries. Armed with a glorious history of spreading the Gospel and a multimillion dollar budget, the board had come under fire over a number of its recent policies. Global Ministries officials maintained the board had merely changed to meet a changing world. It was faithful to its mission, they said.
On the other side arose disgruntled evangelicals and traditionalists. Upset by steady erosion in the number of UM missionaries overseas and by the mission board’s perceived commitment to political causes, the evangelicals missed few chances to petition the board for policy changes. Send out more missionaries, they requested. Concentrate on winning persons to Christ. But Global Ministries officials generally countered that they were concerned about the whole person, not just the soul.
In 1974 concerned evangelicals organized themselves into the Evangelical Missions Council to lobby for reform (EMC was part of Good News from 1976 to mid-1984). A separate group of ministers from large “tall steeple” congregations beyond the EMC circle also attempted to bring change. Regularly since the mid-’70s, the mission board and the evangelicals got together for “dialog,” usually at the Global Ministries headquarters at 475 Riverside Drive in New York City. Yet, after many years of meetings, neither side had substantially changed its views. It looked like a permanent stalemate.
Then suddenly a quiet revolution ignited. Deciding they could wait for change no longer, a group of 29 large-church pastors and 4 missions professors met in November, 1983. They announced they were forming a “supplemental” mission board, the Mission Society for United Methodists. The new society would send out more United Methodist missionaries, they pledged.
The Mission Society wasted no time in gearing up for action. It hired Rev. H. T. Maclin, Southeastern Jurisdiction representative for Global Ministries, to be chief executive. Rev. Virgil Maybray, head of the now-disbanded Evangelical Missions Council, was chosen for the number two staff slot. Headquarters was set up in Decatur, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.
In its first year of existence, the Mission Society raised several hundred thousand dollars and survived considerable opposition from Global Ministries and others who insisted that the official agency have the field to itself. Then this May, the society “sent forth” its first 10 missionaries. Dozens more may depart next year, and hundreds may be sent within a decade.
Meanwhile, Global Ministries isn’t sitting by quietly. Led by Dr. Randolph Nugent, general secretary, and Miss Peggy Billings, head of the board’s international work, the board denies that it is uninterested in converting persons to Christ. It’s also responding to many of the charges leveled against it and attempting to limit the success of the Mission Society.
Many United Methodist pastors and laypersons find themselves bewildered by the new situation. Questions abound. Was a second mission board necessary? What are the goals of both boards? Who is going to send how many missionaries? Do churches have to choose sides?
To help United Methodists find the path to the future, Good News recently interviewed top executives from the Mission Society for United Methodists and the official Board of Global Ministries at their respective headquarters.
Why was the Mission Society formed?
“The policy of the Board of Global Ministries is to support programs and not the sending of personnel,” flatly states Mission Society Vice President Virgil Maybray. “That wasn’t the basis on which God operated. He believed in sending people. He sent his Son—a person. Ultimately that’s what we have to do, send a person.”
According to Mission Society officials, the United Methodist Church simply has too few career overseas missionaries. From more than 1,500 in 1968, Global Ministries now claims just 460; this does not include short-term missionaries or foreign nationals. The drop disturbs Maclin and Maybray.
They say many smaller denominations are sending more. For example, the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination, with less than three percent of the membership of the United Methodist Church, manages to field 1,099 overseas missionaries.
“The Board of Global Ministries’ policy, as they have said many times, is the empowerment of the indigenous church and enabling it to stand on its feet,” explains Maclin. “There is an element of truth in that. We do want the church overseas to stand on its own feet, to be autonomous and to be the church.
“But what about the 300-million-plus people in the world who do not yet have even the first verse of Scripture translated into a language that is understandable to them? Or how about the one to one-and-a-half billion that have yet to have reasonable opportunity to hear and heed the Gospel message?”
Global Ministries leaders deny they aren’t interested in sending missionaries. Peggy Billings, head of the board’s World Division, states, “There is and always will be, as long as there is a Board of Global Ministries, the need for people from the United States to be in mission in other places.”
But although Global Ministries says it would like to send more overseas missionaries, there is no talk of a major expansion. Mission Society people believe the need is so great they could not wait any longer while asking Global Ministries to send more missionaries.
Why doesn’t the Board of Global Ministries send more missionaries?
According to Nugent and Billings, the board is sending as many missionaries as it can on its income.
“Sometimes the church doesn’t understand the economic cost of its mission,” Nugent says. “God does some amazing things with the resources that are there. But at the same time, people are expensive.”
Global Ministries spent $86 million in 1984. The World Division, which is responsible for overseas missionaries, was allocated $29 million of that, or about a third of the total.
Of the $29 million, $13.9 million underwrote overseas missionaries. In addition to career overseas missionaries, this amount covered funding of short-term missionaries, foreign nationals directly on the payroll of Global Ministries, and brief overseas mission experiences by Americans, plus some increased funding for missionary pensions.
Billings says she realizes the World Division’s overall budget “really sounds incredible. But when you break it down, and you find out it now costs $18,000 a year to support one U.S. person in mission abroad (and that includes travel, education, and so forth), then how many folk can you get?”
In fact, she says, the increases in income the board has gotten haven’t kept up with rising costs. Under normal circumstances the present financial situation would have caused the board to further reduce the missionary force. “But we had made a decision that we don’t believe that should happen,” Billings states. “So we will maintain what we call the ‘present level,’ the 1985 level, on into the future.”
In addition to the $13.9 million that subsidized missionaries, the board’s World Division made cash grants of $12.7 million in 1984. Much of these funds went as block grants to Third World Methodist churches. Global Ministries officials say these grants, and not just missionaries, are necessary.
Mission Society leaders see a different explanation for Global Ministries not sending more missionaries. “Their philosophy of missions is such that it does not provide for the sending of more missionaries from the United States,” ventures Maclin. “They see missions in terms of [sending] a few from here, but also to enable people all over the world to be in mission [through cash grants]. There is a degree of validity in that.
“But at the same time,” he says, “a great deal of their effort has gone into funding programs of wide varieties, some of which have been highly questionable.”
Critics have pointed to a number of Global Ministries’ programs as being unacceptable. For example, last year the board gave more than $50,000 to an organization known as the World Student Christian Federation. Although the name makes the group sound quite religious, its own literature eschews discussion of God in favor of various far-left political causes. As reported in a 1983 article in Good News, resolutions passed by WSCF at a 1980 meeting elicited this response from Lutheran Bishop James Crumley: “As I look at these resolutions, I’m wondering whether this is even a Christian organization.” Ruth Harris, a Global Ministries staffer, defended WSCF in this way: “Their work is rooted in the conviction that Christian young people must be involved in the crucial issues and frontiers of the world’s life.”
Also in this vein, complaints have been made by Good News and others that the board spends excessive amounts on its headquarters operations. In 1984, Global Ministries spent just over $15 million to pay the salaries, fringe benefits, and travel for its more than 473 non-missionary employees. Board officials point out that many of these staff members are involved in such laudable activities as managing hunger relief efforts, missions education, and raising money to build U.S. churches.
What are the goals of the Mission Society?
Very simply, the Mission Society for United Methodists is in the business of sending Missionaries—long-term, short-term, foreign, and domestic. Consequently, the society is determined to send as many as possible as soon as they responsibly can.
“Before the office ever opened,” reminisces Maclin, “I had thought that if we were rolling and beginning to send people out after a three-year start-up, it would be a very reasonable time. We have actually done it in less than half that time, which is to my way of thinking almost nothing short of a miracle.”
The first 10 Mission Society missionaries were “sent forth” in Dallas in a May consecration service. The five missionary couples were assigned to: the Ghanaian Methodist Church, the Colombian Methodist Church, Scripture translation work in Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, and to the Four Corners Native American Ministry in New Mexico. Four of the couples are already on the field.
The formation of a new organization interested in sending more United Methodist missionaries has obviously struck a nerve in the church. In its 1984 maiden year the Mission Society managed to raise $289,000. Furthermore, the society has received an astounding 458 inquiries about missionary service. Of those, 158 have actually applied. Moreover, 29 of these are near acceptance. If the Mission Society can find enough places of service, the 29 could join the 10 already in place within a year.
The variety and quality of those who have inquired about missionary service has the Mission Society leaders amazed. There are 77 pastors and spouses, 12 agriculturalists, 10 medical doctors, 10 nurses, 14 teachers, and 4 psychologists, among others.
While Maclin is pleased that 10 missionaries are already commissioned. he mentioned that a research committee of his board had set some ambitious goals.
“They envision by 1992, somewhere in that era, we could have 200-300 missionaries serving,” he reports.
To those who consider their goals impossible, the Mission Society officials point to the new Presbyterian Church in America, An evangelical spin-off of the main Presbyterian denomination, the PCA has just 170,000 members and is less than a decade old. But the new denomination already supports more than 430 missionaries.
Is the Mission Society finding places to send its missionaries?
The key to their success, Mission Society leaders agree, is finding places to send their missionaries. “We’ve got several places that are opening now,” says Maclin, “but because of the past difficulties that we have encountered in announcing beforehand, from now on we are saying nothing about these areas until such persons have been sent forth and have actually arrived on the field.”
By “past difficulties” Maclin is referring to a major controversy that erupted this summer. The society “sent forth” its first 10 missionaries in a May service, and publicly announced where they were headed. One of the couples, Max and Patricia Borah, were invited to work with the autonomous Methodist Church of Ghana, West Africa, by the church’s president, Rev. Jacob Stevens.
In June, Stevens got a letter from Rev. James Lyles, of the Board of Global Ministries’ Africa section, telling Stevens that inviting missionaries from other groups “ruptures relationships and does violence to the structure and connectionalism of the United Methodist Church.”
Stevens took the letter as a threat. He told The United Methodist Reporter, “I said in the letter [responding to the board’s letter] I have tried the Board of Global Ministries for many years, asking for doctors, teachers and many others, and it didn’t work. So now the Mission Society comes along and breaks things open. I ask you, if Global Ministries can’t help and somebody else in the United States can, why shouldn’t we take it?”
A similar situation erupted concerning Florencio and Maria Guzman who were assigned by the Mission Society to help the tiny Methodist church in Colombia, South America. After it was announced where they were headed, a Global Ministries official met with the Methodist bishops of Latin America. The bishops, in turn, strongly advised the Colombians to revoke its invitation to the Guzmans. One of the Latin American bishops, Bishop Roberto Diaz of Costa Rica, said their statement was due to pressure from Global Ministries. The charge was denied.
“You have to recognize just how independent [the Latin American bishops] are,” Peggy Billings told the Reporter. “We can’t tell them anything.” As in the case of the Ghana church, the Colombians held firm.
The perceived interference from Global Ministries especially irritated Mission Society leaders because Global Ministries has no work in either Ghana or Colombia. In any case, the incidents made the society decide to keep destinations of future missionaries secret until they actually arrive.
Although Maclin and Maybray indicate other overseas Methodist churches will be asking for Mission Society personnel, they admit that the opposition from Global Ministries has had a chilling effect on many foreign church leaders. “That’s part of the reason why the Mission Society made it [our] number-one policy to send missionaries to unreached people groups,” explains Maclin.
The society hopes to send its first missionary to one of these “frontier” areas in 1986.
How is Global Ministries answering the criticism it has received?
The Board of Global Ministries is trying to explain itself better to the denomination and actually to adjust some of its policies in response to criticism. Directed by the 1984 General Conference, board officials are conducting a series of dialog sessions with Mission Society representatives moderated by the UM bishops. The dialog has so far failed to bring the two sides much closer together. Global Ministries officials won’t discuss the Mission Society directly while the talks are continuing. Yet, they are anxious to discuss some of the criticisms leveled by the Mission Society and others.
One of the most frequent criticisms deals with a perceived leftist tilt to the board’s theology. Especially criticized has been the board’s admiration for liberation theology (a Latin American theology which weaves together Christian teaching and radical political ideas). Last year the Mission Society circulated a pamphlet attacking liberation theology. In January of this year Bishop Roy Sano, president of Global Ministries’ World Division, called the brochure an “act of blasphemy.” Liberation theology has to be seen as the work of the Holy Spirit, he stated.
Following this line of thinking, the board has made dozens, or even hundreds, of large cash grants to radical political organizations. In 1981, for example, Global Ministries gave $25,000 to the African National Congress, a revolutionary group trying to overthrow the South African government. Last year the board gave Clergy and Laity Concerned $15,000 to protest the placement of U.S. cruise missiles in Italy.
Those and similar incidents have led many United Methodists, especially evangelicals, to worry that Global Ministries has forsaken traditional Wesleyan theology.
Explains H. T. Maclin: “Many people have been aware, bishops included, of the drift of our church, particularly in the area of mission, in the direction of a kind of theology that borders on universalism. But they’ve not really done anything [about it].”
Global Ministries staffers deny they are universalist (the belief that everyone will be saved no matter what their faith or practice).
“That is not true,” emphatically states Global Ministries head Randy Nugent. He claims the board is “very Christ centered.” He says the board is “absolutely” committed to personal evangelism. “I mean, you know God calls us to have changed lives, so all of that is who we are.”
Betty Thompson, who heads Global Ministries’ Education and Cultivation division, points out that the board itself wrote the denomination’s current mission statement, which has an evangelical ring to it. “In the midst of a sinful world, through the grace of God, we are brought to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. … We call persons into discipleship,” the statement reads (paragraph 103, 1984 Book of Discipline).
Global Ministries is now in the process of drafting a new mission statement, which should make its theology clearer.
In their defense of the board, Nugent and Peggy Billings implicitly acknowledge that the board’s style in the past has opened it up to criticism. “If you, for example, [ were just] looking in, you wouldn’t know that we have testimonies,” says Nugent. “You wouldn’t know that people talk about the effect of God in their lives daily. That doesn’t come through—that’s hard. [But] that is the reality.”
Yet, Nugent realizes the board has seemed almost indifferent to spiritual concerns at times. He wants to correct this impression. “There was a great deal of clarity in the early days when we talked about [salvation], about ‘the hell from which people were being saved,’” he says. “I think there’s still a lot of hell out there—I mean hell. But I think in this whole area of appeal, I think we are clearer, and we need to be more clear about what it is from which people are being saved.”
Nugent also agrees that the board needs to stress more holiness of lifestyle. “There is a wholeness and a wholesomeness that I think traditionalists and evangelicals might want to see, and yes, we understand that.”
Billings, in a clarifying statement, adds, “I think that people are not overtly trying to be more pietistic. If so, that would be a charade. And it would be simply a cosmetic response to the criticism that we are not evangelical.”
Yet the Mission Society’s Maclin is highly skeptical about how Global Ministries people use words like “salvation” and “hell.” He charges, “There are those who have taken the classic and the historic words of the faith and, without telling their listeners, have changed their meaning and are using them in ways which were certainly not inherent in the understanding we’ve had. … ”
Maclin was echoing a charge made by Council of Bishops president Ole Borgen at the 1983 Good News convocation. Bishop Borgen said one example of new meanings being put to old words was “Salvation, which no longer indicates a new relationship with God, but just as much any kind of ‘salvation’ within the socio-political realm, such as ‘liberation,’ ‘justice,’ political power, etc.” The Global Ministries leaders agree that in the past couple of decades the board sometimes got caught up with an emphasis on social change. Peggy Billings underlines the impact the decades of the 1960s and 1970s made on the board, as well as the whole nation. She specifically refers to the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam struggle, and the women’s movement. “The deep theological issues that were underneath those social events meant that we can’t continue to live our lives the way we have always lived our lives,” Billings says.
“I think that we have gone though virtual revolutions in terms of society. And the church was caught up in that. What is now happening is an integration [of social and spiritual concerns],” she explains. Adds Nugent, “In our working out of [social and spiritual concerns], there were times when they were not as integrated as they are coming to be.”
While now agreeing that the board has to re-emphasize spiritual matters, Billings says, the board won’t retreat from its social emphasis. “It’s a real world. And it’s not neat; it’s not absolute. Your mission and your theology of mission has got to respond to the real world.”
In answer to other, more concrete criticisms, the board is trying to respond. For example, a common complaint has been that persons applying to be missionaries have been treated carelessly. The board has added a number of safeguards, including a complaints desk, to ensure that applicants are not ignored. Billings says they are also reconsidering their policy of writing such narrow job descriptions for missionaries, which have convinced many would-be missionary hopefuls that they could never qualify.
Even the Mission Society leaders feel the board has made progress in adjusting some attitudes. “Correspondence with missionaries indicates that they are benefiting from the existence of the Mission Society,” states Virgil Maybray, “just because of the change of attitude at the Board of Global Ministries. [Global Ministries] has done some things that some missionaries can’t remember [happening recently], such as coming to the field and saying, ‘What do you think?’ ”
The Global Ministries leaders are excited about some of the new thrusts they are pursuing. For one thing, they hope to do much more within the United States to reach groups of people that the church can’t seem to attract, such as working class persons migrating to the South from the North. Another new program is cooperating with the Christian church within communist China in sending Christian teachers into the country.
Will Global Ministries and the bishops ever accept the Mission Society?
Speculation about how long denominational officials will try to freeze out the Missions Society has to be sketchy. That’s because Global Ministries staffers won’t talk to the press about the Mission Society while the dialog sessions with the society are continuing. But Maclin and Maybray have some thoughts on the matter.
The Mission Society leaders are frustrated, but not shocked, by the opposition they have faced. “I don’t know that it caught me by surprise,” states Maclin, “I think I came into this fully aware of what might happen, and what indeed has happened.
“I recall before I left, I shared my thoughts with a staff member of the board. His statement to me has been borne out 100 percent when he said to me, ‘You know you’re going to be up against a bunch of street fighters. They’re guerrillas here.’ Exactly right,” Maclin agrees in retrospect. “Dead on!” The opposition has been intense. Besides the Ghana/Colombia controversy, Global Ministries enlisted the help of the Council of Bishops early last year in an attempt to stop the Mission Society from getting off the ground. Bishop Jesse DeWitt, then-president of Global Ministries, wrote the bishops, saying the new society “discredits the entire system” and calling for help in opposing it. Although four out of the five regional “colleges of bishops” stated opposition to the Mission Society, the effort partially backfired. Bishops from the North Central, South Central, and Southeastern jurisdictions spent much of their statements criticizing Global Ministries for being narrow and unresponsive.
At the 1984 General Conference, held some months later, the bishops’ official address criticized the formation of the Missions Society and urged Global Ministries to stress evangelism. The bishops also released a report discussing the church’s ecumenical relations which criticized Global Ministries, noting a “reluctance to deal constructively with concerns of a large segment of the United Methodist constituency.”
Later, the entire General Conference voted to disapprove the organization of the Mission Society. Yet, the delegates also authorized the two mission agencies to engage in talks; so the Mission Society was not considered entirely illegitimate. Furthermore, a move to order an investigation of Global Ministries failed by just 67 votes. The General Conference actions left both sides feeling partially affirmed.
Maclin and Maybray point to the quiet support they have received from bishops. “The bishops have two opinions,” states Maclin. “They have a private opinion, then they have a public opinion. And the two are seldom ever one and the same. I think a number of bishops privately support the basic goals and aims of the Mission Society.” Yet publicly, he says, the bishops feel obligated to affirm only the institutional line.
Mission Society officials are distressed that many bishops don’t treat them as well as they do entirely non-Methodist groups like OMS and Wycliffe. A big issue, say society officials, “may boil down perhaps in part to the famous seven last words of the church, ‘We never did it that way before.’ ” Maclin and Maybray also realize that “there are some bishops and certainly many pastors who feel we weaken ourselves by being divided.” In answer, Maclin states, “Yet the fact remains, we are divided.”
Church history shows a pattern of upstart church organizations being fought for a couple of decades, then finally made an official part of the denomination. In the church of England, the Church Missionary Society was founded, much like the Mission Society for United Methodists, as a supplement to the official Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The new Anglican society was bitterly opposed at first, but within two decades it became larger than the older organization and was accepted.
Within the United Methodist Church itself, the group that has become United Methodist Women began unofficially as a supplemental missions organization. Though opposed when first organized in 1869, within a dozen years it was accepted and acclaimed. Today the UMW is at the very center of the UM missions establishment. But still, the Mission Society leaders aren’t counting on anything.
“We live from day to day,” says Maclin, “month to month, and just trust that God will eventually make what we’re attempting to do, in a supplementary way, a major undertaking of the church at some point in the future. I don’t see this as a short-term effort. I think it will probably go well beyond the time that Virgil and I are here. I’m sure we would both like to see an acceptance. But given the state of things at the present time, I’m not greatly encouraged.”
For now, although Global Ministries leaders are refusing public comment, the word in the halls of their New York headquarters is that they already realize the Mission Society can’t be stopped. Staff members appear to be resigned to, though still unhappy about, the society’s ability to raise funds and place its personnel overseas.
Must United Methodists choose between the two mission agencies?
No, say Mission Society leaders. Maclin and Maybray realize they can’t win if it comes to choosing sides. They say United Methodists can, and many do, support both agencies.
Maybray amplifies the point further. “One of the bishops [told] his preachers that they were to look upon the Mission Society as a third option. I wrote to him and thanked him. I said we’d be happy. Now obviously first is World Service, next are Advance Specials [second-mile missions giving through Global Ministries], and then us. Fine! We’ll settle for that.”
James S. Robb is the executive editor of Good News.
by Steve | Nov 28, 1985 | Archive - 1985
Archive: Let’s Admit That Prison is for Punishment
By Charles Colson
After I addressed a state legislature, advocating alternatives to prison for non-violent offenders, a bewildered representative accosted me. “As a fellow conservative, Mr. Colson, how can you be against punishment?”
It’s a question I’m often asked—and a telling commentary on the attitudes of so many who consider prison and punishment synonymous. This serious confusion can undermine our most basic concepts of justice.
As a Christian, I most certainly believe in punishment. Biblical justice demands that individuals be held accountable. Throughout the history of ancient Israel, to break God’s law was to invite swift, specific, and certain punishment. When a law was broken, the resulting imbalance could be righted only when the transgressor was punished, and thus made to “pay” for his wrong.
Though modern sociologists take offense at this elemental concept of retribution, it is essential: If justice means getting one’s due, then justice is denied when deserved punishment is not received. And ultimately this undermines one’s role as a moral, responsible human being.
C. S. Lewis summed this up in his brilliant essay, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment,” which assails the view that lawbreakers should be “cured” or “treated” rather than punished. “To be punished, however severely, because we have deserved it, because we ‘ought to have known better,’ is to be treated as a human person made in God’s image,” says Lewis. In this Biblical sense, punishment is not only just, it is very often redemptive—to the offender, the victim, and society at large.
This is why the distinction between prison and punishment is so crucial. Prisons, though necessary to confine violent offenders, can hardly be considered redemptive.
And while punishment is clearly Biblical, American penal philosophy is not based on the Biblical principle of just desserts that Lewis cited; it is founded on a humanistic view that crime is an illness to be cured.
The pattern for American prisons was established two centuries ago when well-meaning Quakers converted Philadelphia’s Walnut Street jail into a facility where offenders were confined in order to repent and be rehabilitated.
Though a number of those early “penitents” simply went mad, the idea caught on and flourished. Soothed by the comforting illusion that these miscreants were in reality being “treated,” the public conscience could ignore the harsh conditions of their confinement. In keeping with this philosophy, such places came to be called, not prisons, but penitentiaries, reformatories, and correctional institutions.
This illusion was reinforced in the 20th century when a school of liberal sociologists argued that crime was not the individual’s fault, but society’s. Societal failures like poverty, racism, and unemployment were to blame.
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark summed up this fashionable view when he asserted unequivocally that poverty is “the cause of crime.” President Carter echoed it when he blamed ghetto conditions for widespread looting during New York’s 1977 power blackout.
If the criminal was but a victim of the system, prisons were therefore places for him or her to be vocationally trained, “socialized,” and educated. Society, which had caused the disease of crime, would now cure it—and so ever-increasing thousands were packed into institutions as wards of the state.
Thus two centuries of the “humanitarian tradition ” left America with more than one-half million of its citizens incarcerated—the third largest per capita prison population in the world—as well as the staggering recidivism statistics of the 1970s: 74 percent of ex-prisoners re-arrested within four years of release. Prisons proved themselves not places of rehabilitation, but breeding grounds for further crime.
It’s a travesty that in this so-called Christian nation, we consistently ignore the most basic of Christ’s teaching: sin comes from within the individual (Mark 7:20). It can’t be foisted off on germs, genes, a bad neighborhood, or some impersonal entity called society.
Crime is the result of morally responsible people making wrong moral decisions, for which they must be held accountable. The just and necessary response to such behavior is redemptive punishment, which may include, as the Bible prescribes, restitution or community service, stiff fines, loss of rights, or in cases where the offender is dangerous, prison. But let’s not kid ourselves any longer. Prison isn’t to cure the individual. It’s to lock him or her up.
President Reagan got to the heart of the issue in his 1981 speech to police chiefs of the nation:
“Controlling crime … is … ultimately a moral dilemma—one that calls for moral, or if you will, a spiritual solution. … The war on crime will be won only when our attitude of mind and a change of heart takes place in America, when certain truths take hold again and plant their roots deep in our national consciousness, truths like: right and wrong matters; individuals are responsible for their actions; retribution should be swift and sure for those who prey on the innocent.”
But we continue building more prisons and filling them up. Why? Because public passions discern no difference between prisons and punishment. As long as that mindset flourishes, the Biblical concept of justice cannot. And it will be society which will suffer the real punishment: $80,000 per cell for new prison construction, and spiraling crime and recidivism rates as well.
Charles Colson is the director of Prison Fellowship and the author of Born Again, Life Sentence, and Loving God. The preceding was reprinted by permission from Jubilee, the monthly newsletter of Prison Fellowship Ministries, © August 1985.
