by Steve | Mar 12, 2018 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, March-April 2018
Royal Faith
By Steve Beard-
There is an intriguing scene in Season 2 of the wildly successful historical drama, The Crown, on Netflix. For the uninitiated, the award-winning series revolves around the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, the now 91-year-old sovereign of the United Kingdom.
At the beginning of episode six, Elizabeth (played by Clare Foy) is studiously watching Billy Graham preach on television in 1955 while sitting with her mother in Buckingham Palace. The Queen Mother (played by Victoria Hamilton) finds Graham to be more than an acquired taste for the upper class British religious sensibilities. She appears perturbed that the public is captivated by a man who learned his trade “selling brushes door-to-door in North Carolina” and that British subjects turned “out in droves for an American zealot.”
“He is not a zealot,” Elizabeth responds.
Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II and Matt Smith as Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh in The Crown a Netflix Original. Photo source: Robert Viglasky | Netflix
“He’s shouting, darling,” her mother replies. “Only zealots shout.”
Much to the chagrin of the palace staff, Elizabeth asks that an invitation be extended to Billy Graham for a visit. In The Crown, Graham (played by Paul Sparks) fittingly preaches in Windsor Chapel on what it means to be a Christian: “As I was thinking about what to preach about today, I considered various topics which speak to me personally, but I thought that I would start with a simple question. What is a Christian? The Bible tells us; Colossians 1:27 says that a Christian is a person in whom Christ dwells. It’s Christ in you, the hope of glory. It means that you have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That encounter has taken place. You have received Christ as savior. And that is what a Christian is.”
“I enjoyed that very much,” Elizabeth tells Graham after the service. “You do speak with such wonderful clarity and certainty.” She admits her “great joy” at being “a simple congregant, being taught, being led … to be able to just disappear and be…”
“A simple Christian,” Graham says to assist in finishing her thought. “Yes,” Elizabeth replies, “Above all things, I do think of myself as just a simple Christian.”
Script. Off script. Of course, that dialogue was all from the creative mind of The Crown creator David Morgan. We actually don’t know much about their encounter except from what we learn from Graham. “When we filed into the Royal Chapel, I looked around to see the location of the pulpit. I was stunned to realize that the chapel had no pulpit, just a place to stand. I carried a thick sheaf of handwritten notes on extra paper and was forced to leave them behind when I got up to speak,” the evangelist recalled in the pages of Billy Graham: God’s Ambassador, a memoir of Graham’s photographer Russ Busby. “I had prayed so much about this moment that I knew however simple and full of mistakes my sermon would be, God would overrule and use it – but I’ll tell you, I could really feel my heart beating.”
Paul Sparks portrays Billy Graham in The Crown. Courtesy of Netflix.
The earlier mentioned tense exchange between mother and daughter in The Crown may have utilized a tad too much artistic license in the screenwriting technique of having the Queen Mother give voice to the many naysayers within British society who were overtly skeptical of Graham’s message and style. His visit was an overwhelming cultural moment and a headline-grabbing experience. Great tension and passion surrounded his rallies. There were more than 30,000 posters with the face of the evangelist and the simple message: Hear Billy Graham!
“No one in Britain has been more cordial toward us than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” Graham wrote in his autobiography, Just As I Am. He is now 99 years old and living in Charlotte, North Carolina. “I believe one reason for the Queen’s spiritual interest was the warm faith of her mother, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother,” he wrote. (The Queen Mother died in 2002 at 102 years of age.)
The unscripted reality is that there was an undeniable special connection between Graham and Queen Elizabeth. “I always found her very interested in the Bible and its message,” he wrote. “After preaching at Windsor one Sunday, I was sitting next to the Queen at lunch. I told her I had been undecided until the last minute about my choice of sermon and had almost preached on the healing of the crippled man in John 5. Her eyes sparkled and she bubbled over with enthusiasm, as she could do on occasion. ‘I wish you had!’ she exclaimed. ‘That is my favorite story.’”
While the relationship was warm between certain members of the royal family and Graham, the young fiery evangelist was still acquainting himself with becoming the preeminent international Christian evangelist.
In Prophet Without Honor, Graham biographer William Martin gives a taste of the reception the evangelist received from the British press. The London Evening News, for example, called Graham an “American hot gospel specialist” who took “his listeners strolling down Pavements of Gold, introduces them to the rippling-muscled Christ, who resembles Charles Atlas with a halo, then drops them abruptly into the Lake of Fire for a sample scalding.” Other media outlets dismissed him as “Silly Billy” and peppered him with questions such as, “Who invited you over here, anyway?” “Do you think you can save England?” and “Don’t you think you’re needed more in your country?”
During his first visit to England, Graham learned that his bright ties and socks proved to be a distraction to the understated British society. On his second go-round, he was very concerned about making the right impression by arriving with a new fedora and a conservative dark coat. He also asked his wife, Ruth, to not wear lipstick since some of the church leaders viewed it as worldly.
“Bill stooped from being a man of God to become a meddlesome husband and ordered my lipstick off,” Ruth wrote in her diary. “There was a lively argument – then I wiped it off. He got so busy getting the bags together I managed to put more on without notice.” She later commented, “It doesn’t seem to me to be a credit to Christ to be drab.”
When the Grahams arrived in Waterloo train station, they were met by a “perfect mob,” recalled Ruth. William Martin quotes an eyewitness who stated that “women screamed and fainted, babies and children were passed over the heads of the crowd, newspaper stands were overturned, and burly railway policemen were swept aside….” Ruth remembers, “The press of the crowd was so terrific that Bill and I were instantly separated. Cheers went up, and the air was filled with ‘God bless you’ and ‘Welcome to England.’”
A Royal Faith
Long before Billy Graham appears in The Crown, the creators had already given slight indications of Queen Elizabeth’s sincere Christian faith. She is shown kneeling next to her bed in prayer and inquiring of her elderly grandmother, Queen Mary, about the divine “calling” of royalty. “Monarchy is God’s sacred mission to grace and dignify the earth,” Elizabeth’s grandmother tells her before her consecration. “To give ordinary people an ideal to strive towards, an example of nobility and duty to raise them in their wretched lives. Monarchy is a calling from God. That is why you are crowned in an abbey, not a government building. Why you are anointed, not appointed. It’s an archbishop that puts the crown on your head, not a minister or public servant. Which means that you are answerable to God in your duty, not the public.”
Once again, these are the scripted words of The Crown’s creators. Nevertheless, Queen Elizabeth has used her Christmas address each year to publicly profess her faith with her own conviction. “Christ not only revealed to us the truth in his teachings,” Elizabeth proclaimed in 1981. “He lived by what he believed and gave us the strength to try to do the same – and, finally, on the cross, he showed the supreme example of physical and moral courage.”
As the Queen of the United Kingdom and the head of the Church of England, Elizabeth has never been timid about admitting her allegiance to Jesus Christ. “To many of us our beliefs are of fundamental importance,” she said in 2000. “For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. I, like so many of you, have drawn great comfort in difficult times from Christ’s words and example.”
Although she oversees a nation that is better known for empty cathedrals than religious revival, the Queen remains a beloved world leader who speaks eloquently, humbly, and respectfully from a heart of faith.
“For me, the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace,” she said on Christmas in 2014, “is an inspiration and an anchor in my life. A role-model of reconciliation and forgiveness, he stretched out his hands in love, acceptance and healing. Christ’s example has taught me to seek to respect and value all people of whatever faith or none.”
Steve Beard is the editor of Good News. This article was originally published in the March/April 2018 issue of Good News.
by Steve | Mar 12, 2018 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, March-April 2018
By Duane Brown-
One of life’s great blessing is to have clear vision, and few things are more frightening than the prospect of losing one’s sight. During the summer of 2013, I began losing my vision. For nearly six months I stubbornly ignored the problems. After multiple exams and prescription changes, the doctor said cataracts were growing in my left eye. I had surgery to remove the cataracts and replace my existing lens with an implant. What a transformation! My vision was restored almost instantly and now it’s the best it has ever been.
At times, I have lost my missional vision as God’s redemptive change agent for a lost world. There is a great spiritual harvest awaiting God’s Church. Jesus said, “I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for the harvest” (John 4:35). It’s easier, however, to fashion for myself a world that fits my personal likes and tastes. Like blinders on a horse, I focus on the things in my world that are important to me. As the famous comedian Flip Wilson often said, “What you see is what you get!”
Too many North American churches settle for mission only in their local community and are not guided by a strategic Acts 1:8 model (“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”) that involves local and international outreach. Churches may also function in ways that focus mostly on serving the physical needs of others with scant attention to proclaiming Christ and making disciples. That’s why TMS Global, the agency for which I serve, seeks to mobilize believers and churches to make disciples, especially among the least reached peoples. Through our training and coaching called “Activate,” churches often receive a restored vision of their world.
Our training utilizes raw data to demonstrate the reality of the world’s spiritual needs. For instance, while many know that some 7.3 billion persons inhabit the earth, they are unaware that a staggering 2.2 billion persons have never heard the name of Jesus to them. While speaking to a pastor about this astronomical number of unreached, he disagreed, saying it is too high an amount. I responded, in effect, by asking if one billion persons is convincing enough to him that there really is an overwhelming need.
The Activate training also examines how God sees the world. We see the world as one comprised of countries with political and geographical borders. God, however, sees the world as more than 16,000 distinct people groups, with their own distinct history, language, beliefs, and identity. Of that 16,000, more than 3,000 are considered unengaged and unreached, with no Bible in their language, no church in their community, and no critical mass of serious Christ followers.
An examination of exactly where churches are sending cross-cultural witnesses can be revealing. Most church mission committees believe they are doing their part by supporting a cross-cultural witness, regardless of location. As one pastor said to me, “We send checks to support church planters in another country.” That is important. Yet, what most don’t know is that nearly 97 percent of the cross-cultural witnesses supported and sent around the world serve in “traditional” mission fields, locations in which Jesus is already known. Most cross-cultural witnesses do not serve among the 2.2 billion unengaged and unreached peoples who have never heard of Jesus. (I am thrilled that TMS Global sends approximately 30 percent of our cross-cultural witnesses to the unengaged and unreached.)
When all the data is combined – populations, people groups, and where cross-cultural witnesses are sent – a church’s vision for outreach can change drastically. Churches begin to realize the most strategic work for them is to be intentional about mission outreach among the unengaged and unreached. As we have often discovered, when a church adjusts its missional energy to meet a world that has yet to see Jesus, the church’s vision of its role in global outreach becomes much clearer.
Duane Brown is the senior director of church ministry at TMS Global (tms-global.org).
by Steve | Mar 12, 2018 | Magazine, Magazine Articles, March-April 2018
By B.J. Funk-
God and his creation were on good terms. Throughout the first chapter of Genesis we can almost hear nature clapping loud approval after each “God saw that it was good” statement. The Creator masterfully painted the flowers with deep red, gold, and violet stripes of perfumed paint, leaving heavenly scents as he moved from one area of the garden to the next. Then, he put together a plan and presented it to the two other parts of the God-head.
To them he said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” Then, to his creation he said, “Get ready. We’re going to do a new thing, and we want all of you to watch.” Colorful birds chirped their approval, while dogs barked with excitement and baby monkeys ran up and over tree branches, swinging from limbs and then cuddling up to their mothers. God reached down and gathered a handful of dust, and from this unlikely source, the God-head created man.
God looked at this man and said, “My, my, isn’t he perfect!” He could not stop staring. As he gathered this son in his arms and looked at his face, he saw in this child a reflection of his glory, one that would possess the same attributes He had: patience, love, forgiveness, kindness, and faithfulness. God danced around the Garden, gently caressing this beautiful wonder, while singing love songs to his boy. But, God wasn’t finished. The son was lifeless. He rested in his father’s secure embrace, but he was lifeless. God wanted a relationship with this new creation, and for that to happen, something extraordinary had to occur.
So, God placed his breath close to the son’s nostrils, breathed on him the breath of life and whispered, “LIVE!” Not until then, but only because of then, man became a living being.
That first man, Adam, stretched and yawned as though waking from a deep sleep. God carefully placed him down on the thick grass carpet and watched with delight as Adam tried to stand up and walk. Each time he fell, his Creator laughed and helped Adam to his feet, until Adam was able to walk in the garden alone. With the same care and diligence, he then created Eve.
It was the beginning.
Almost as quickly as they were created, however, the two even more quickly disobeyed God and brought death to the beautiful garden. They would be responsible for the fall that came to the garden and subsequently to all humanity born after them. Listening to the serpent’s lies would have long-lasting effects.
By chapter three of Genesis, God revealed his master plan to bring these two – and all of humankind – back to God. Centuries later, he would send another Son, a second Adam to restore and redeem what Satan had stolen.
Move down the centuries to a tomb, cold and dark and not at all ready for death. It is the morning of the third day. Jesus, stretched out on the slab, was bloody with visible wounds. The result of the painful hammering of the nails, the depth of the gashes from the whips and the cuts all over his head from the crown of thorns had left his body only slightly resembling the man he was. But, God looked at him and thought, “My, my, isn’t he perfect!” God still saw in this beloved Son a reflection of His glory.
But, God wasn’t finished. The Father picked up His Son, cradling him in his arms and placed his breath close to the Son’s nostrils. Then, God breathed on him the breath of life and whispered, “LIVE!” Not until then, but only because of then, the Son opened his eyes and looked around.
It was finished. The reason Jesus came to earth had been accomplished. He stood up in the tomb, his legs getting used to his beautiful new body. At first, when he tried to walk in the close quarters of the tomb, his Father walked with him. Perhaps he even danced with him as the realization of their togetherness sealed God’s promise. God whispered to his beloved Son. “It’s over. Well done.” And, with those words, the Beloved walked through the open tomb and into the garden. It was the new beginning. And God saw that it was good.
by Steve | Jan 12, 2018 | January-February 2018, Magazine, Magazine Articles
Renfroe
By Rob Renfroe-
Imagine that there was a package under your Christmas tree with your name on it. The paper was bright and colorful. The bow was beautiful with just enough glitter that it sparkled in the glow of the lights on the tree. With packaging like that, you could hardly wait to see what gift your parents had picked out for you.
Imagine the package was the same catcher’s mitt your parents gave you last Christmas. It didn’t fit and you had chosen not to use it. In fact, it was the same mitt your parents gave you four years before. Imagine how disappointed you would be.
Imagine that, and you are imagining “the gift” that a new group called “Uniting Methodists” has given the church. It is represented in one of the three proposals given to the Council of Bishops by the Commission on a Way Forward (page 18). Go to their website and you’ll see that the packaging is beautiful. There’s a new name, a new look, and some new faces. What’s not new is the solution the Uniting caucus is offering to resolve the problems that divide us. In fact, it’s the same solution the “centrists” brought to the 2016 General Conference and four years before that: change the Book of Discipline so that pastors could choose to marry gay couples or not and annual conferences could ordain practicing gay persons or not. This is the same solution that was rejected by the majority of delegates in 2016 and 2012. Now, repackaged and glowing, it’s under our tree again, presented as the latest and greatest idea for saving the unity of the church.
What’s also the same are some of the unconvincing arguments that have been used previously to promote “the local option.” For example, many pastors, some of very large “centrist” congregations, have said to me, “Our lay people disagree on whether we should ordain and marry gay persons, but they get along and remain in the same congregation, loving each other and doing the work of Christ. Why can’t the denomination do the same?”
My response is always the same, “So are some of the pastors on your staff marrying gay couples and some not? No? Then your congregation is not handling the issue the way you’re proposing for the denomination. What would happen in your congregation if you began to marry gay couples and other pastors on your staff refused to do so? Your people would pick sides and become divided. Maybe not all, but many. And a large number of your people would leave your congregation.” That’s exactly what would happen if the same old local option was approved by the denomination, regardless of the packaging.
What’s also the same is the certainty by some of our pastors that they can create a compromise without involving the two sides who are most dissatisfied with our current situation — the progressives and the traditionalists. The Reconciling Ministries Network and the United Methodist Queer Clergy Caucus have denounced the Uniting solution as unjust and doing harm to LGBTQ+ persons. It’s clear they cannot accept it. Both Good News and the newly-launched Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA) have stated that they cannot live in a church that allows its bishops, pastors, and churches to promote what they believe to be unscriptural. But just like those previously pushing the local option, the leaders of Uniting Methodists felt no need to ask either group for input on a compromise that they (the progressives and the traditionalists) are expected to accept should it pass.
What’s not new is the disrespect that the “uniters” show for traditional believers in the Central Conferences and in the U.S. We have been exceedingly clear – many, if not most of us, cannot live in a church that allows its pastors, bishops, and annual conferences to promote what we believe is contrary to God’s Word. And that’s what the United Methodist Church will allow if the local option is adopted.
When Good News was asked to present our perspective to the Commission on a Way Forward, I pointed out that the “local option” did not receive enough support even to come to the floor of General Conference in 2016 in Portland. “It may be hard for progressives and centrists to understand, but many, if not most, traditionalists cannot participate in a church that allows its pastors and bishops to promote something they believe to be sinful even if they themselves are not required to do so,” I wrote.
With more than 1,800 in attendance at its first gathering in Chicago in 2016, the WCA passed a statement to the bishops which included the following: “A plan that requires traditionalists to compromise their principles and understanding of Scripture, including any form of the ‘local option’ around ordination and marriage, will not be acceptable to the members of the Wesleyan Covenant Association…”
How can you claim to be “uniting” when you ignore the traditionalist/evangelical movement within United Methodism that has said it cannot live with your solution? We’ve said, “The old catcher’s mitt doesn’t fit us and we won’t use it.” But instead of doing the hard – and respectful – work of trying to understand our values and creating a new solution, Uniting Methodists have offered the same old gift that we have told them doesn’t work for us.
What’s also not new is the lack of transparency exhibited by the “Uniting” effort. Its claim to be “clarifying” is off-putting, to put it politely. To be transparent, the “uniters” should be clear about their ultimate goal. Many who support Uniting Methodists, including those with the highest profiles, are working for this compromise to hold the church together until the consensus changes and all pastors are expected to marry gay persons and all annual conferences ordain practicing homosexuals. As one Uniting leader told me, “It’s just a matter of time. The culture is changing. Young people don’t even know why we’re having this discussion. They are the future, not older folks who favor the current position.” What Uniting Methodists is proposing is not a compromise that resolves our differences; it is a strategy to hold the church together until the church’s position changes altogether.
If there’s nothing new to see here, why the new push? Why repackage the same old ideas in hopes that many people will think they’ve been given a new gift? Perhaps they believe the Africans will change their minds about biblical standards and sexuality. Perhaps they believe evangelicals will deny their principles. Perhaps they believe LGBTQ+ advocates will accept a solution which they believe to be injustice. And what has been rejected before on several occasions will be embraced not as the same old catcher’s mitt, but as the lovely new gift we have always wanted. It’s hard to believe that leading centrists are that naïve.
A very different rationale is possible. The bishops’ commission, to resolve our problems, will have to present a plan that puts enough distance between progressives and traditionalists that both sides can support it. (One that has been discussed coming out of the Commission on a Way Forward involves creating three ideological/theological jurisdictions – progressive, centrist, and conservative – each with different positions regarding sexuality, marriage, and ordination.)
If the church is to divide into two or three different groups, each new entity will want to take as many churches, pastors, and people with it as possible. The “middle” group will want to reach as many center-right and center-left people as possible. How do you do that? You present yourself as Christ-centered, mission-minded, open-hearted, and willing to make room for everyone, which is exactly what the Uniting Methodist website does. (Honestly, its leaders whom I know personally are as they describe themselves. We simply disagree profoundly on the inspiration and the authority of the Bible.)
But “centrists” who lean left or right, will need to do some soul searching before they jump into a middle jurisdiction that adopts the local option. Those who are center-left will need to ask themselves how long they will put up with injustice. Will they be joining with Uniting Methodists in a pragmatic decision to step into the slow arc of history that is moving in the right direction? Or will they be joining a group of pastors who are willing to accept injustice for who knows how long because to promote change right now would disrupt and divide their churches?
Those who are center-right need to be clear that what the Uniting group is offering is no compromise. And it will not stop the fighting, at least not right away, not within the jurisdiction in the middle. Progressives who remain in the center will continue to push until those in the middle have adopted a thoroughly liberal sexual ethic. When the position changes, center-right pastors who chose “the middle way” will find themselves abandoned and far from home. If center-right pastors cannot accept a progressive sexual ethic in the future, the best time to decide not to remain with the centrists is now – not after they have joined the Uniting caucus because it seems safe and reasonable only to watch the inevitable drift to a progressive position they cannot abide.
Well, it’s very confusing. But one thing is clear: if you liked last year’s catcher’s mitt, you’re going to love the Uniting plan. But if you’re hoping for something new under the tree, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
by Steve | Jan 12, 2018 | January-February 2018, Magazine, Magazine Articles
Photo courtesy of charity: water.
Scott Harrison grew up as a “good Christian kid.” His family was happy, until they weren’t. When a carbon monoxide leak in their home destroyed his mother’s immune system, Scott began to take care of everything around the house. At the age of 18 he escaped into music and became a nightclub promoter in New York City. This launched him into a life he would later call morally, spiritually, and emotionally bankrupt. For nearly ten years he smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, got drunk every night, attended strip clubs, gambled, and took just about every drug except heroin.
One night, at a New Year’s Eve party in Punta del Este, Uruguay, the noise all became too much. “Although it looked glamorous on the outside, there was a long decline in my happiness,” he says. “I remember just feeling so unhealthy about it all. The next day the party was still going, but I just wanted the music to stop.”
Back in New York with a desire to find his way back to a very lost faith, Harrison sold nearly everything he owned and decided to commit a full year to serving others rather than himself. After countless organizations turned him down due to his past, one finally agreed to allow him to volunteer his services as a photojournalist on a trip to Liberia.
Photo courtesy of charity: water.
On this trip, Scott encountered individuals whose deformities left them outcasts and sometimes fighting for their lives. The surgeon on the ship, Gary Parker, worked to bring them new life and hope through the surgeries he provided. As he was documenting these stories, Scott learned that one of the major sources of the sickness for these people was unclean water. Jarred by this realization, he went back to New York with a plan.
Utilizing his skills as a former nightclub promoter, Scott threw a party for his 31st birthday. With a club donated for the cause and 700 people enticed to come for the open bar, he charged a cover fee of $20 and raised over $1500. They sent the money to a refugee camp in Uganda and followed up with the guests about what they were doing there. With the donations, they built three wells and fixed three more.
Photo courtesy of charity: water.
This was the beginning of charity: water. People all over the world began donating their birthdays to raise money for clean water. In order to make sure all donated funds go directly to building and repairing wells, Scott set up a second account for an overhead fund and found alternate donors to cover those costs. He also added GPS coordinates to the sites, provided pictures of the projects for Google maps, and put locals in charge.
Since its inception in 2006, charity: water has funded 24,000 projects and provided water to 7.3 million people.
-Courtney Lott is editorial assistant at Good News.
by Steve | Jan 12, 2018 | January-February 2018, Magazine, Magazine Articles
The Rev. Jeanne Audrey Powers died while traveling in Switzerland on September 29, 2017. She was 85. The obituary from the Minnesota Annual Conference was on target: “Always on the leading edge of historical shifts in culture, Rev. Powers was a global-level advocate for a more progressive, inclusive faith, focused on inclusive language, relevant liturgies, LGBTQ struggles, and opening leadership opportunities to women, young people, and people of many cultures.”
Let us mark her passing by expressing heartfelt respect for Powers – even though Good News was on the opposite side of key issues within United Methodism. Over the years she served in various capacities, most notably with the General Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, and the World and National Councils of Churches. Her obituary properly notes,“Until her death, she was a driving force in the Reconciling Ministries Movement and she came out as a lesbian during her sermon at its national gathering in 1995.” She was 63 years old at the time.
While she was widely praised throughout the UM Church for the courage of her decision, the Good News board of directors stated its belief that her public declaration was “openly defying the witness of the United Methodist Church” and “raising the challenge as to whether United Methodism can and will effectively enforce its own Discipline.”
Despite Good News’ opposition to her announcement, the Rev. Powers was a faithful paying Good News subscriber until her death. Last year, she called our offices to check on her subscription and kindly reminded us that she was on “the other side” but also said she loved our magazine because she felt we did a good job of explaining difficult issues. For the editorial team, this was a treasured comment.
Powers was an unapologetically liberal lioness, but she was also gracious, fair-minded, and intellectually curious. During her twilight years, we were able to let her know our appreciation of her consistent readership. In this day and age, we are gratified when progressives like Powers are willing to read publications outside their echo chamber. Conservative evangelicals are best served when they do the same.
Recently, we were startled and disappointed to read one of our leading United Methodist bishops publicly admitting “having given up Christian Century (too predictably liberal), Christianity Today (too Calvinist) and First Things (too predictably conservative) long ago” and only subscribing to a Quaker publication. We have no need to criticize this leader’s desire to winnow down his reading list. We trust that he is a vigorous thinker and lifelong learner. We would simply ask that the subscription decisions be reconsidered. Of course, this is an important issue to us. We gain a lot from journals of opinion – as would UM clergy and laity. Although we are an independently-supported magazine with a decidedly evangelical and traditionalist viewpoint, we put a premium value on fairness, charity, and reliable journalism. We welcome readers – the ones who agree and the loyal opposition.
“I have chosen to swim against the stream in many areas of controversy [in the church] because I truly believe that the Church is the Body of Christ, called to share its message of healing, reconciliation, and yes, salvation,” said Rev. Powers. “I do not choose the Church simply because I want to belong, but because I believe in its transforming Spirit.”
We did not agree upon many things, but we share a belief in her words above. Despite our differences, we will always be grateful for her graciousness and eager willingness to read broadly. Jeanne Audrey Powers, RIP.
– Good News.
