Christian Ethics Today A Journal of Christian Ethics Volume 22, Number 2 Aggregate Issue 93 Spring 2014

“The voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’” Isaiah 40:3; John 1:23

ARTICLES Sociological Sources of Agnosticism Tony Campolo...... 2 Jimmy Carter and the Demise of Progressive Evangelicalism Randall Balmer...... 4 The Birth of the Baptist (Anti) Environmentalism Aaron Weaver...... 6 Developing a Moral Vision for Climate Change Ingrid Lilly...... 11 The Real Origins of the Religious Right Randall Balmer...... 13 A Short History of Christian Matchmaking Paul Putz...... 16

ESSAYS FROM EXPERIENCE A Different Kind of Saint Walter B. Shurden...... 19 Bill Hull’s Twenty Questions Walter B. Shurden...... 22 Wisdom from J.M. Dawson James Dunn...... 26

VERSE They Did Not Know James R. Wade...... 27 Wondering How Jesus Felt Richard D. Kahoe...... 27

BOOK REVIEW Sessions with Revelation by David Sapp Reviewed by Bo Prosser...... 28 Generous Justice by Timothy Keller Reviewed by Darold Morgan...... 28 If I Had Lunch with C.S. Lewis by Alister McGrath Reviewed by Darold Morgan...... 29

Editor’s Column Remember Those Who Are In Prison Patrick Anderson, editor ...... 30

KUDZU by Doug Marlette structure of the dominant secular, and Foundation studies which reported need of you” (1 Corinthians 12:14- often sophisticated associations, that that Millennials3 are spiritual, but not 23). Sociological Sources of Agnosticism nurtured for them a kind of agnosti- religious. They seem willing to accept Any reader of Emile Durkheim’s By Tony Campolo, PhD Eastern University cism or atheism. George Santayana, the postmodern tendency to believe sociological classic, The Elementary one-time professor of philosophy at that there are truths and realities that Forms of the Religious Life, knows Harvard University, once said, “They transcend the categories of logical how important liturgy is. Durkheim here is a field of study within the zealous believers take literally what constructed reality,” and they dis- do not really reject God. They simply empiricism. Some even may acknowl- makes the point that collective rituals Tdiscipline of sociology that fails is recorded in Mark 16:17-18, where count it as lacking validity. What they bid Him a fond farewell.” edge that there are spiritual forces at build into the participants a strong to get the attention that it deserves. It Jesus told His disciples that signs of fail to acknowledge, however, is that I had watched the young woman work in the universe that could be sense of solidarity and regenerate their is called the sociology of knowledge. their faith would be that they would their own lack of belief is also socially to whom I referred at an earlier time called God. Those Millennials with commitments to what they believe. Its students examine the reasons why be able to “cast out demons” and constructed and could likewise be dis- in her life when she was part of an whom I have had the most frequent Collective rituals, says Durkheim, people believe or disbelieve what “speak in new tongues.” Of special counted. intensive church youth group when encounters may even call themselves keep alive for religious people that they do. Those who are versed in importance for them was that Jesus Let me tell you about a young she was a “true believer,” drift away Christians, and affirm that Jesus is which must never be forgotten. the literature of this specialty often went on to say, “They will pick up graduate student who was once a “true from her church. As she discon- a living reality in the world today. Centuries before Durkheim wrote refer to a book by Peter Berger and snakes in their hands, and if they Christian believer,” but who, over a nected from regular involvement with Some call themselves part of the Red his classic work, Jesus instituted a Thomas Luckmann, entitled The drink any deadly thing, it will not period of several months, separated Christians who shared her beliefs, I Letter Christians movement4, and ritual when He gathered together with Social Construction of Reality.1 Because hurt them.” Thus, among these herself from the community of fellow watched her faith erode. She said that affirm the words of Jesus, highlighted His disciples in what is referred to by these two writers explain, in very lucid unusual believers was a pervasive believers that maintained the plausi- church didn’t do anything for her. in red letters in many Bibles. But Christians as an “upper room.” He fashion, how social environments pro- belief that snake handling was a way bility structure that had once made She explained that as she listened to then, many of these same Millennials broke bread with them and offered vide us with our perspectives of the of validating their faith. believing in God a viable reality. The sermons, it was “déjà vu,” that she castigate the Church for not living them wine. He told His disciples that world, they make the case that what This reporter, in order to have social consciousness of this one-time had heard it all before. When asked up to Christ’s teachings. They drop regularly they should get together we believe about what is real and what authenticity in what he wrote, chose committed Christian gradually erod- about church, she let it be known out of church, saying, “Jesus is great, to eat the bread that represented is not real in terms of our religious to live among these snake handlers ed. It wasn’t long before she took on that, when it came to church, she but the Church sucks.” These young His body, and drink the wine that beliefs are convictions that have been the consciousness of the secularized had “been there and done that.” This people fail to realize that faith in Jesus represented His blood, in order to established sociologically. None of us society in which she had chosen to do graduate student failed to see that is a communal thing. Their attitude remember Him. Paul reminded the possesses the kind of objectivity that her thinking. Soon she was convinced being removed from the plausibility makes me unbearably sad, because I Corinthian church that, as often as we would like to think we do, and as The more intimate the that God was irrelevant to her every- structure wherein her faith might have know that without the revitalization they came together and ate the bread our cross-cultural understanding of group, and the more day life, and then into believing that been regularly reinforced, reaffirmed, of faith commitments that comes and drank the wine in this manner, the world expands, we likely realize God did not exist. In this case, it was and revitalized made it almost inevi- from what the Greek New Testament they would remember Christ’s death that had we been born at a different intensely its shared crucial that the other members of her table that secular sociological forces called koinonia,5 these disengaged until He returned (1 Corinthians time and in a different place, what we beliefs are held, the family join her in her skepticism and would make her, eventually, into an young people will soon be answering 11:26). By implication, I am pro- believe to be true or not true, especial- be for her a plausibility structure that unbeliever. She could not understand that question about religious affilia- posing that when persons stop ly about God, would be different. more those beliefs supported her unbelief. that, within this new state of social tion asked in another Pew Foundation regularly coming together for Holy Many sociologists argue that faith become unquestioned by It is so easy for intelligent, well- consciousness, she would have a hard study with the word, “None.” Communion, they eventually will stop is a communal product. It is created members of the group. read people, such as this young time thinking that she ever did believe Jesus certainly had His own believing what is core to Christian and maintained in the context of a woman, to believe that they have “that religious stuff” in the first place. problems with organized religion. faith, namely, the sacrificial death of community of fellow believers, which become what Karl Mannheim, one Again, let me say that being a Nevertheless, He was a faithful Christ on the cross for our salvation. sociologists like Berger and Luckmann of the leaders in the field of the believer is highly contingent upon attendee of services at the synagogue In conclusion, what I have been refer to as a “plausibility structure.” and become a participatory observer Sociology of Knowledge, would have being part of a subculture that in whatever town He happened to trying to say is that only those who What outsiders might view as unrea- in their worship services. The faith of called “the detached intelligentsia”2 upholds belief in God and enables be on the Sabbath (Mark 4:14-16). ignore the insights from the Sociology sonable becomes readily plausible, these snake handling Christians was In other words, that such unbelievers the individual to stand against the Certainly the writer of the book of of Knowledge fail to see that belief as given the ongoing and strong support so intense and convincing, however, come to think of themselves as hav- onslaught of the world view being Hebrews understood the necessity of well as unbelief is a social construct, of other members of the group. The that after a period of a few weeks, he ing risen above the “unsophisticated propagated by the dominant culture. church gatherings when he instructed and that for those who want to go more intimate the group, and the became caught up in their “plausibil- masses” and negatively judge how It can be said that in a secular society, Christians not to forsake gather- on believing in God and in His Son’s more intensely its shared beliefs are ity structure.” In a striking conclu- social forces exercised within a faith true believers in God are countercul- ing themselves together for worship gift on the cross, being in regular held, the more those beliefs become sion to his television documentary, I community made those seemingly tural persons, while those secularized and spiritual edification (Hebrews Christian fellowship is vital. And for unquestioned by members of the watched as the reporter himself was naïve people into believers in religious agnostics who live around them are 10:25). The Apostle Paul clearly told cultured unbelievers, I say, “be not group. “handling” rattlesnakes. He had, if convictions that they themselves had actually the conformists. the Corinthian church that no single proud and think that your unbelief is Not too long ago, I saw a demon- only temporarily, become enmeshed discarded. However, these same seem- Most of us have either read member of Christ’s body can ever say of your own making.” ■ stration of this on a television docu- in their intensive fellowship and taken ingly objective observers of the belief about or heard about those Pew to the rest of the body, “I have no mentary produced by a newspaper on their beliefs. What was real to systems of others fail to recognize reporter. This reporter had decided them had become real to him. that social forces operative in the to do a series of articles on an intense When I describe this sort of thing dominant secular society had become Footnotes and bibliography for articles in this issue can be found Pentecostal group living in the back to my atheist or agnostic friends, they the plausibility structure that makes on the web version located at www.christianethicstoday.com hills of West Virginia, whose mem- usually smile and say, “See! Religious God irrelevant to what goes on in bers were into snake handling. These belief is nothing more than a socially everyday lives. It was the plausibility

2 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 3 to restore evangelical voters, after a inaccurately—for rescinding the tax- evangelicalism in favor of a political dalliance with Carter and progres- exempt status of Bob Jones University agenda virtually indistinguishable Jimmy Carter and the demise of progressive evangelicalism sive evangelicalism, to the familiar and various “segregation academies.” from the Republican Party itself. ■ By Randall Balmer precincts of the Republican Party and The 1980 presidential election a notably more conservative political represented a turning point in U.S. Our weekly feature Then and agenda. And they were prepared to go political history. The Reagan landslide Now harnesses the expertise of to extraordinary ends to do so, includ- heralded not only the Republican American religious historians who care immy Carter rode to the White the crusade against godless commu- in 1971, Carter said, “The time for ing an embrace of Ronald Reagan, a capture of the White House and a about the cities of God and the cities JHouse in 1976 on the twin cur- nism. racial discrimination is over.” As gov- divorced man with episodic church Republican Senate, but Carter’s defeat of humans. It’s edited by Edward J. rents of his reputation as a “New Progressive evangelicalism, how- ernor, he reformed the state penal attendance, and blaming Carter— also signaled the eclipse of progressive Blum and Kate Bowler. South” governor and a resurgence of ever, mounted a comeback in the system and ratcheted up support for progressive evangelicalism in the early early 1970s amid the final years of public education. An evangelical him- 1970s. Progressive evangelicalism, the Vietnam War and the corruptions self, Carter campaigned for president which traces its lineage to 19th-cen- surrounding the Nixon administra- on themes consistent with progressive tury evangelicals and to the com- tion. A few evangelicals gravitated evangelicalism: military restraint, a mands of Jesus to care for “the least to the forlorn 1972 presidential less imperial foreign policy, human of these,” represented a very different campaign of George McGovern, rights, racial reconciliation, afford- version of evangelical activism from the Democratic senator from South able healthcare, and equal rights for that of the religious right. Dakota, opponent of the Vietnam women. In the wake of the Second Great War and former Methodist semi- Carter’s ability to pursue those Looking Forward.... Awakening in the decades surround- nary student. I recall skipping my goals was hampered by a stub- ing the turn of the 19th century, own chapel at Trinity College in bornly sour economy, the Soviet evangelicals in the antebellum period Deerfield to attend McGovern’s invasion of Afghanistan, and the The Fall Issue of Christian Ethics Today will be a unleashed their moral energies to address in Edman Chapel at Wheaton taking of American hostages in Iran. reform society according to the College on October 11, 1972. But However, he managed to renegotiate special issue. norms of godliness. They enlisted in Wheaton students greeted McGovern the Panama Canal treaties and shift peace movements, criticized capital- with jeers and catcalls, an indica- American foreign policy away from ism, and sought to eradicate slavery. tion that progressive evangelicalism reflexive Cold War dualism toward an The subject will be “peace-making in global They supported prison reform to was hardly hegemonic among evan- emphasis on human rights, thereby rehabilitate criminals and public edu- gelicals. Several Wheaton students securing the release of political pris- settings” written from a variety of international cation as a way for children of the less hoisted a huge “Nixon” banner and oners. He advanced the cause of affluent to improve their lot. They paraded around the chapel. peace in the Middle East far beyond perspectives by former students of Glen Stassen. supported equal rights for women, The year following McGovern’s that of his predecessors (or succes- including voting rights. defeat, however, Ronald J. Sider gath- sors), and he appointed more women Stassen passed away earlier this year. His influence To a remarkable degree, the ered 55 evangelicals at the YMCA in and minorities to office than any pre- has reached far and wide, and the essays which evangelical agenda of social reform Chicago over Thanksgiving weekend. vious president. endured into the early decades of The document coming out of that At the same time that Carter will be published are written as a tribute to his the 20th century, when its program meeting, the Chicago Declaration was pressing an agenda informed expanded to include, in addition to of Evangelical Social Concern, con- by, and consistent with, progres- significant contribution to peacemaking through a women’s rights, the rights of work- demned militarism, persistent racism sive evangelicalism, however, other ers to organize. William Jennings and the yawning gap between rich evangelicals were organizing against long and distinguished career. Bryan, the three-time Democratic and poor. At the behest of Nancy him. Politically conservative evan- nominee for president, is most often A. Hardesty of Trinity College, the gelicals, who had tilted toward the remembered for his less-than-stellar declaration also included a statement Republican Party in the 1950s and Look forward to these special articles written from performance at the Scopes trial of on women’s rights. “We acknowledge 1960s, had been thrown off-balance 1925, but a more accurate portrayal that we have encouraged men to by the Watergate scandal and the the Mideast, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Europe. of Bryan would place him squarely in prideful domination and women to corruptions of the Nixon administra- the tradition of progressive evangeli- irresponsible passivity,” the declara- tion. With the approach of the 1980 calism. tion read. “So we call both men and election, however, they had regained Evangelicals, obsessed as they were women to mutual submission and their footing and began organizing, with dispensational premillennial- active discipleship.” In 1977, Sider paradoxically, to defeat Carter, their ism in the early decades of the 20th published Rich Christians in an Age fellow evangelical. century—Jesus will return at any of Hunger, one of the most popular Why? The simplest explanation is moment—drifted toward political evangelical books of the decade. that politics trumped piety. Despite indifference. During the Cold War, Enter Jimmy Carter. In his inaugu- their evangelical affiliations, leaders they joined many other Americans in ral address as governor of Georgia of the Religious Right were eager

4 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 5 by open hostility toward environmen- servatism, as seen in the rise of the tive leaders including Bailey Smith, talism and the modern environmental Religious Right and, more spe- Jimmy Draper, Adrian Rogers, Paige The Birth of Baptist (Anti)Environmentalism: movement. Newly-elected President cifically, the mobilization of the Patterson and Paul Pressler served on Ronald Reagan was viewed as the Jerry Falwell-led Moral Majority, was the boards of other Religious Right Reagan, the Religious Right and Government Regulation driving force behind an emerging instrumental in securing Reagan’s organizations.19 By Aaron Weaver anti-environmentalism movement. defeat of President Jimmy Carter in While Southern Baptist conserva- On the campaign trail, Reagan vilified the 1980 election. In recent years, tives were becoming politically active environmentalists as extremists and several scholars have noted that this as part of the Religious Right and ollowing World War II, the mainline Protestant denominations, papers and pamphlets on environ- refused to meet the leaders of environ- politically-organized resurgence of Reagan Revolution, they launched a FUnited States experienced funda- including the United Methodist mental issues to thousands of pastors mental groups.10 Upon taking office, Christian conservatives was motivated movement to take control of the insti- mental social and economic changes. Church, Episcopal Church and and laity. In Texas, Southern Baptists Reagan immediately challenged the by opposition to government regula- tutions and agencies of their denomi- Historian Adam Rome has described Disciples of Christ, passed resolu- actively pursued pollution control environmental movement through tion. Historian Randall Balmer has nation.20 Controversy consumed this post-war period as a time of mass tions affirming many of the goals legislation — becoming in 1967 one executive orders, speeches, press argued that the Religious Right was the Southern Baptist Convention consumption, affluence, moderniza- of the environmental movement. of the first Christian groups to do so. releases and cabinet appointments.11 not founded as a response to Roe v. throughout the 1980s as conservative tion, suburbanization and scientific Prominent ecumenical partnerships Although these Southern Baptists in Historian Mark Dowie has described Wade, the landmark Supreme Court leaders pursued their strategy. While discovery.1 Over time, Americans such as the National Association of the Lone Star State called on individ- Reagan as a “counterrevolutionary” ruling on abortion rights. Rather, the SBC confronted numerous envi- became aware of the environmental Evangelicals and the National Council ual Christians and churches to change who was “determined from the outset what most motivated Falwell and ronmental issues from 1967-1979, consequences of unrestricted growth of Churches approved resolutions urg- their lifestyle choices, they consistent- to turn Americans away from environ- other key Religious Right leaders were little attention was given to any envi- and unregulated industrial expansion. ing ecological concern and action.4 ly emphasized that government played mentalism.”12 In fact, one of Reagan’s the efforts of the federal government ronmental issue during the 1980s. As Out of this new awareness, a popular Several denominations, such as the the most important role in solving first acts as president was to have the in the mid-1970s to regulate private a denomination, the SBC mentioned concern for a clean and well-balanced United Church of Christ, went a step the pollution crisis. Texas Baptists solar panels that President Jimmy Christian schools that had racially the environment just once during environment emerged and began to further and developed environmental adopted a report that declared, “Only Carter had installed removed from the discriminatory policies. Paul Weyrich, this decade of in-fighting. Coming in form throughout the 1960s into a advocacy programs.5 through government can much be roof of the White House.13 who is regarded as one of the found- the form of a resolution, this singular broad, inclusive grassroots reform During this period, an emerging done to regulate and control the prin- Pursuing a domestic agenda based ers of the Religious Right and the example of environmental concern movement. This environmental move- Christian environmentalism began cipal polluters of our air and water.”7 on tax reforms and deep budget cuts, person credited for luring influential revealed the political divide within the ment expressed concern for a wide to take shape within the Southern Government regulation was central Reagan launched what has been pastors such as Jerry Falwell into the SBC, including drastically different range of quality-of-life issues from Baptist Convention, the nation’s to the environmentalism of Southern referred to as a “conservative assault political arena, has stated that what views regarding the appropriate role of pollution to the use of pesticides to largest Protestant denomination. Baptists during the late 1960s and on government regulations.” This launched the Religious Right was government in American society. global population to ecological preser- Disasters such as the Santa Barbara oil throughout the 1970s as the SBC assault especially targeted environ- “Jimmy Carter’s intervention against At the 1983 annual meeting of the vation. 2 spill in 1969 caught the attention of dealt with the pollution crisis, popula- mental regulations.14 Central to the Christian schools.” 17 SBC in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, The first Earth Day celebration on the nation as well as some Southern tion issues and grappled with several Regan’s political philosophy was the The origins of the Religious Right messenger William Wallace Finlator April 22, 1970, served as the coming Baptists. National catastrophes, envi- nationwide energy crises. The reso- view of government as the problem then are appropriately traced back introduced a resolution titled “On the out party for this new environmental ronmental protests and celebrations lutions of other state conventions rather than a solution to the nation’s to serious concern over the expand- Care of Our Environment.” Finlator movement, putting environmental- like Earth Day inspired Southern echoed that of Southern Baptists in challenges. And, consequently, he ing role of government. In his book was a prominent Southern Baptist ism front-and-center in American Baptists to confront the pollution Texas who insisted that only govern- attributed the nation’s economic American Evangelicals, historian Barry pastor and longtime progressive social society in a very visible way. With crisis. Denominational publica- ment could control pollution. 8 struggles to excessive government reg- Hankins noted that many evangeli- activist from North Carolina, who over 20 million participants, Earth tions began to highlight pollution This defining conviction of early ulations.15 An important component cals and fundamentalists viewed the was well-known for his participa- Day displayed the popularity of many as a problem of moral significance. Southern Baptist environmentalism of Reagan’s anti-regulation campaign government’s attempt to regulate tion in worker’s rights and civil rights environmental concerns from clear Southern Baptists also adopted envi- was also seen in the SBC’s 1977 reso- was the selection of industry leaders church-related schools as “an attack marches.21 air to clean water. As the nation was ronmental statements at both the lution calling on government lead- hostile to popular environmentalism on their ability to live their lives in Finlator’s resolution began in typical caught in cultural turmoil over civil national and state levels, including ers to develop an equitable national to high positions in his administra- accordance with their own private fashion for an environmental state- rights and the Vietnam war, envi- a pollution resolution two months evergy policy and again in 1979 when tion, such as property rights advo- religious views.”18 Intrusive govern- ment, affirming “God is Creator… ronmentalism provided bipartisan after the first Earth Day that called on Southern Baptists turned to the fed- cate James Watt as Secretary of the ment regulation was deemed the and has placed us here as responsible issues to which both Democrats and churches to help “remedy…environ- eral government to ensure the devel- Interior. These appointments assisted problem. It should then come as no stewards” and that abuse of the Earth Republicans could support to some mental mismanagement” and urged opment of “safe, clean and renewable the emergence of an anti-environmen- surprise that conservative evangelicals “through reckless greed is a sin against extent. 3 Christians to practice environmental energy forms.” 9 Even as government tal movement, a movement which, and fundamentalists who supported our Creator.” The resolution called During the late 1960s and imme- stewardship and “work with govern- distrust was building in the nation, according to historian Katrina Lacher, the Religious Right also embraced the on Southern Baptists to commit their diately following Earth Day 1970, ment and businesses to solve the pol- Southern Baptists continued to place enjoyed “remarkable cohesion” during anti-regulation campaign of Ronald lives to a “deeper reverence for the Christian denominations and ecu- lution problem.”6 an enormous amount of faith in the Reagan’s presidency. Lacher noted that Reagan. earth and to a more sparing use of menical bodies began to address Throughout the 1970s, the SBC’s federal government and its ability to “The conjoined rise of Ronald Reagan Southern Baptist conservatives its limiting resources.” The resolu- environmental issues. The American ethics agency hosted environment- “fix” environmental problems under and the antienvironmental movement were key leaders in the Religious tion urged industry and commerce Lutheran Church adopted a statement themed conferences and promoted both Republican and Democratic are attributable to the resurgence of Right. Charles Stanley, senior pastor leaders to “impose upon themselves in 1970 that chronicled the most education advocacy and activism presidents. [social and religious] conservatism of First Baptist Church of Atlanta, rigorous and verifiable standards of urgent environmental problems and through lectures, articles in denomi- Far different from the 1970s, which in the United States in the late 20th was one of the founders of the Moral protection and preservation of land, called on Christians to be responsible national publications and the devel- was regarded as the “environmental century.”16 Majority alongside Falwell. Other air and water.” Government officials stewards of God’s creation. Other opment and distribution of resource decade,” the 1980s were characterized This resurgence of religious con- notable Southern Baptist conserva- were asked to “faithfully and fearfully

6 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 7 enforce all legislation enacted, or to ensuring environmental protection post-World War II era. signed the Cornwall Declaration and 2007, just a month after the SBC’s ology from conservative politics. The be enacted, for the protection of the was replaced with no role for the gov- According to historian Kenneth participated in the Washington D.C. ethics agency helped launch this envi- two are not always the same.”39 natural environment.” The proposed ernment. Larsen, what had previously been news conference. This event and ronmental policy task force, Southern Shortly after the declaration made resolution concluded with a request Seven years passed before Southern “relatively infrequent and unorganized declaration marked the beginning of Baptist messengers meeting in San headlines, the SBC Ethics & Religious that the United States join “the family Baptists returned to the subject of the criticisms of environmentalism within the SBC’s relationship with Calvin Antonio, Texas adopted a resolution Liberty Commission along with of nations in solemn compact to pro- environment. During the summer of conservative evangelicalism coalesced Beisner. on global warming. The resolution the Cornwall Alliance and several tect, preserve and share the resources 1990, the now conservative-controlled into a concerted, organized effort to In February 2006, an alliance of rejected and depicted as “dangerous” Religious Right groups unveiled an of the oceans and seas.”22 convention adopted a resolution titled counter the evangelical environmen- evangelical leaders calling themselves government regulations mandating environmental campaign. This cam- This seemingly harmless resolution “On Environmental Stewardship,” tal movement.”27 Scholar Richard the Evangelical Climate Initiative limits on carbon dioxide and other paign sought the signatures of one- proved to be quite controversial. J. just two months after the 20th anni- Wright has argued that this Christian released a declaration calling for greenhouse gas emissions.37 million Christians who endorsed a Thurmond George, a conservative versary celebration of the first Earth anti-environmentalism developed into Christian concern and government Nine months after the SBC adopt- “biblical” view of the environment pastor from California, moved that Day. The 1990 resolution called on a movement with a distinct political action around the problem of climate ed its global warming resolution, that dismissed concerns about climate the word “reverence” be replaced with Southern Baptists to be “better stew- agenda to “restrict the regulatory pow- change.33 Responding to the declara- Jonathan Merritt, a 25-year-old semi- change. The SBC’s ethics agency also “regard.” George’s successful amend- ards” and warned that Christians are ers of government.”28 tion, Southern Baptists adopted a res- nary student and son of a former SBC joined up with Beisner’s Cornwall ment signaled that conservatives felt forbidden from worshipping cre- Wright noted that Christian anti- olution titled “On Environmentalism president, spearheaded the release of Alliance to release a 22-page docu- that “reverence” for the Earth implied ation.” Like the 1983 resolution, this environmentalists pursued this agenda and Evangelicals.” This was the SBC’s a declaration on climate change. This ment with a detailed set of public nature worship. This would become one did not urge any type of govern- through attacking the credibility of first environmental resolution in 16 statement, which received the sig- policy recommendations aimed at more apparent in the late 1980s when ment action or regulation and only the claims of prominent scientists and years. The resolution warned that natures of several dozen well-known rolling back existing environmen- Southern Baptist conservatives began asked individuals and churches to depicting environmentalists as New environmentalism was “threatening Southern Baptists, echoed much of tal regulations. This “Stewardship to express fears about the influence of make “an environmentally responsible Age earth-worshippers. According to to become a wedge issue to divide the the Evangelical Climate Initiative Agenda” stressed: “Environmental the “New Age Movement” and warn ethic” part of their lifestyle and evan- Wright, these two strategies were “red- evangelical community and further and chided the SBC’s previous envi- policies should harness human cre- against worshipping nature. gelistic witness.24 herrings” which masqued the political distract its members from the priority ronmental engagement as being “too ative potential by expanding political Albert Lee Smith, a prominent lead- Less than a year after adopting this anti-regulation motivations of these of the Great Commission” and made timid” and faulted this past engage- and economic freedom, instead of er in the SBC’s conservative move- resolution, the SBC’s ethics agency Christian anti-environmentalists.29 the news-grabbing assertion that “the ment for “failing to produce a unified imposing draconian restructions or ment, also moved to make changes to hosted a conference on environmen- During the mid-to-late 1990s, free scientific community is divided on moral voice.” Unlike the Evangelical seeking to reduce the ‘human burden’ Finlator’s resolution. Smith had rep- tal issues with the theme “Finding market economist Calvin Beisner the effects of humankind’s impact on Climate Initiative, this declara- on the natural world.” The agenda resented the 6th district of Alabama a Biblical Balance Between Idolatry established himself as the most the environment.”34 tion made no specific public policy characterized government-imposed in the U.S. House of Representatives and Irresponsibility.” At the confer- prominent and influential Christian Calvin Beisner also responded to recommendations. However, it did environmental regulations as “anti- from 1981 to 1983. He was elected ence, SBC ethics chief Richard Land anti-environmentalist.30 In many of the Evangelical Climate Initiative commend government action — a thetical to the principles of steward- to Congress as a Moral Majority stressed that Southern Baptists had a his writings, Beisner has stressed the with a 12,000-word point-by-point position that stood in stark contrast ship and counterproductive to the candidate. In the 1980 Republican responsibility to teach biblical stew- instrumentality of nature and its value rebuttal that was endorsed by more to the SBC’s previous positions since environment.”40 The SBC promptly primary, Jerry Falwell’s organization ardship to their children in order to only in serving the needs of human- than 100 conservative evangelical 1983.38 acted on this agenda a few weeks later helped Smith to defeat longtime “inoculate our young people against ity. Arguing against environmental leaders including numerous Southern The declaration received widespread when its ethics agency sent out an Congressman John Buchanan Jr., who the false, anti-biblical teaching which regulations, Beisner has stated that Baptist academics. Beisner’s statement media coverage. This media attention “action alert” to Southern Baptists was a moderate Southern Baptist pas- so heavily suffuses so much of the “Humility applied to environmental refuted the most basic claims of the infuriated denominational leaders, urging readers to contact their sena- tor. modern, secular environmentalist stewardship should lead us, in light of environmental movement with regard especially the SBC’s ethics agency. tors to oppose the Lieberman-Warner Smith requested that the messen- movement.”25 Like the 1983 and the vast complexity of human society to climate change. It concluded that Almost immediately, Baptist Press, Climate Security Act of 2007, a bipar- gers remove the resolution’s final two 1990 resolutions, there were no calls and the earth’s ecosystems, to hesitate global warming would have “moder- the denomination’s public relations tisan bill which sought to combat cli- paragraphs referencing the role of the for government action at the confer- considerably at the notion that we ate and mixed — not only harmful entity, published an article titled, mate change through the regulation of government in protecting the envi- ence. Environmental legislation was know enough about them to manage but also helpful” consequences in the “Seminary student’s climate change corporate emissions.41 This campaign ronment. After debate on the conven- not a subject of discussion.26 them.”31 foreseeable future. Human emissions project is not SBC’s.” Richard Land and “stewardship agenda” focused on tion floor, Smith’s motion to amend Scholars have noted that while In April 2000, just a few days of greenhouses gases were, according offered his rationale for not signing opposition to regulation model what passed. The final adopted resolution, the 1990s marked the flowering of before the 30th Earth Day anniver- to the statement, only “a minor and the declaration, emphasizing that it Southern Baptist anti-environmen- however, now concluded with a evangelical environmentalism, the sary, Beisner and a group of Religious insignificant” contributor to global would be “misleading and unethi- talism has continued to look like in charge to businesses and corporations decade also marked the emergence Right leaders including D. James warming. The Southern Baptist- cal of the Ethics & Religious Liberty recent years. to “impose upon themselves” stan- of a new distinct environmental- Kennedy released a statement called backed statement argued forcefully Commission to promote a position at As this paper has detailed, in the dards to protect the environment.23 ism, best described as Christian the Cornwall Declaration cham- that government regulation of these variance with the convention’s express- late 1960s Southern Baptist leaders This amendment clearly displayed anti-environmentalism. Proponents pioning a free-market philosophy emissions would “cause greater harm ly stated position.” Over the follow- began to align themselves with the the anti-regulation ideology of con- of Christian anti-environmentalism of environmental deregulation and than good to humanity” — hurting ing week, Baptist Press published an modern environmental movement servative leaders. Whereas Southern like the conservative-led SBC were formed an organization to coun- the poor in developed and especially additional 13 stories that criticized and embrace an environmentalism Baptists had—in their first 15 years of fundamentally opposed to the envi- ter the message and advocacy of developing nations.35 the declaration. In response to this that urged government regulation environmental engagement—urged ronmental movement’s goals. The Christian environmental groups such From this statement, Beisner’s orga- reaction, Daniel Akin, president of and preached a stewardship ethic the federal government to take action, single defining characteristic of these as the Evangelical Environmental nization formed a task force to pro- Southeastern Baptist Theological focused on sacrificial living and the the new conservative leadership took anti-environmentalists was their loud Network and the Eco-Justice Working pose public policy recommendations Seminary where Merritt was a stu- divine responsibility to care for God’s a drastically different approach. A and consistent opposition to almost Group of the National Council of and selected SBC policy expert Barrett dent, stated, “Some Christians have a creation through conservation and strong role for the government in all environmental regulations in the Churches.32 The SBC’s Richard Land Duke to serve as co-chair.36 In June problem separating conservative the- preservation practices. This envi-

8 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 9 ronmentalism was abandoned with stream environmental movement. this story of the birthing of Baptist the conservative takeover within the In partnership with well-known (Anti)Environmentalism should denomination — a “conservative Christian anti-environmentalist lead to a new understanding of the Developing a Moral Vision for Climate Change: resurgence” that coincided with simi- Calvin Beisner, the SBC continued to Southern Baptist “takeover” or “con- lar transformations in American cul- utilize the language of stewardship but servative resurgence.” In my view, Overview of the Planet ture and politics, specifically the rise redefined stewardship to be extremely this case study of Baptist (Anti)envi- By Ingrid Lilly of the Religious Right and the Reagan anthropocentric and focused on eco- ronmentalism necessitates that this Revolution. nomic development. Echoing former denominational controversy be viewed Genesis 1:21-25 And God created Political talk of moral obligation Order governs the six-day work The pace of change within the SBC President Ronald Reagan, the SBC as being much more than a theo- great whales, and every living crea- almost always invokes future children; week as well. Days forge perfect paral- throughout the 1990s was incredibly has deemed government regulations as logical battle or as a battle over a par- ture that moveth, which the waters it is not politically controversial to lels between habitats and creatures. rapid as the new leadership demanded dangerous and has contended that an ticular moral issue or combination of brought forth abundantly, after their hope that our children and grandchil- It takes three days to create earth’s that the denomination affirm a par- economy largely free of environmental issues including women’s rights, abor- kind, and every winged fowl after dren will live on a safe planet. But the spaces and three days to fill them with ticular conservative political and theo- regulations is a prerequisite to “sound tion, school prayer and race. Instead, his kind: and God saw that it was moral dimensions of climate change correlating animate and inanimate logical orthodoxy. This rapid change ecological stewardship.” the famed “Battle for the Bible” good. And God blessed them, saying, are far more complex and granular: creatures. For example, on the second of pace is clearly reflected in the The anti-regulation ideology should be interpreted as a theological Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the food shortages here, extreme weather day, God creates the dome of heaven SBC’s embrace of a distinctly differ- that drove the Reagan Revolution and political battle deeply rooted in waters in the seas, and let fowl mul- events there, floods that displace peo- in the midst of the waters (vv. 6-8), ent environmentalism, more properly and inspired the formation of the drastically different convictions about tiply in the earth. And the evening ple in coastal regions, melting polar and then, on the fifth day, he fills the described and understood as Religious Right also fueled the the appropriate role of government in and the morning were the fifth day. icecaps causing increased extinctions, sky and the water with birds and fish anti-environmentalism as it was anti-environmentalism of the new a nation experiencing profound social And God said, Let the earth bring the vulnerability of the global poor. (vv. 20-23). Every day fits the scheme. opposed to the aims of the main- Southern Baptist leadership. Perhaps and economic changes. ■ forth the living creature after his A moral vision able to see these And poetic repetition of phrases like, kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and granular risks comes, I would argue, “It was good,” infuse Genesis 1’s spatial beast of the earth after his kind: and not from time (Obama’s “future chil- proportion with a moral aesthetic. it was so. And God made the beast dren” or the Pope’s “Creation will Genesis 1 insists that the meaning- of the earth after his kind, and cattle destroy us”) but from space. ful contours of the world are basic: after their kind, and every thing Since 1946, the modern world has sea, sky, and land. Land is where land that creepeth upon the earth after his been able to view images of the earth- animals roam. The sky is where birds kind: and God saw that it was good. from-space. Some four millennia ear- soar. The oceans are where fish obey Dear Readers: (KJV) lier, Hebrew scribes penned Genesis 1’s God’s command to ‘be fruitful and creation account of the whole known multiply’ (v. 22). The spatial propor- ope Francis recently proclaimed, world. Ancient and modern, these tion of the world allows earth’s diver- We continue to accommodate your requests P“Safeguard Creation, because are two portrayals of the earth, one to sity to flourish. Everything needs its if we destroy Creation, Creation begin the Scriptures and one iconic place. to send Christian Ethics Today electronically to will destroy us! Never forget this!” of the modern space age, both spatial Overview: “The Blue Marble” anyone who requests us to do so. Our process is The Intergovernmental Panel lenses offering moral vision about cli- In 1972, astronauts on the Apollo on Climate Change, National mate change. 17 took an earth-from-space pho- not perfect, so if you have not yet received the Aeronautics and Space Overview: Genesis 1 tograph. Called the Blue Marble, it Administration, the American Genesis 1 is like an earth-from- is the most shared and widely seen journal via email, or if you continue to receive hard Association for the Advancement of space image. The poem puts the image in all of modern history by Science and an overwhelming major- whole world in one frame, starting off some counts. The NASA caption copies in the mail which you wish for us no longer ity of scientific societies strongly in mystery (formless voids, windswept for the image was straight-forward, to send, please let us know….again, if necessary. warn of the human causes of climate chaos) and introducing a powerful descriptive and comprehensive: change. The near universal scientific voice with a benevolent arrangement “This translunar photograph extends consensus is that our activity endan- of animate and inanimate beings. The from the Mediterranean Sea to the Thank you for your patience and understanding. gers the stability of the planet’s future. moon feels like it has an organic, sil- Antarctica south polar ice cap... Note Last Monday, the Environmental very skin, and all of the creeping and the heavy cloud cover in the Southern Protection Agency announced its swarming things brim in fecundity. Hemisphere...” Please write to me directly at drpatanderson@ most aggressive plan ever to reduce Despite the mystery and virility, If you look in the right places, gmail.com if you wish to receive .pdf versions of carbon dioxide emissions in the Genesis 1 is really about order. Chaos overview images of the earth abound United States: 30 percent by 2030. is untangled into light and darkness, these days. One of my favorites is the journal. Cutting the poisonous greenhouse gas inchoate ground is divided into water NASA’s “Images of Change” which is the first of three objectives outlined and land, and a firmament is erected shows the effects of climate events in President Obama’s Climate Action to hold the rainstorms above at safe on granular regions, like Hurricane Plan (CAP) and forms part of what distance from the ground water below. Katrina’s impact on New Orleans and Obama calls “a moral obligation to Most of the language is about separat- Typhoon Haiyan’s on a river system in leave our children a planet that’s not ing and dividing, like the task of one the Philippines. polluted.” doing laundry. But the Blue Marble photograph

10 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 11 resembles Genesis 1 by putting the But the beauty and awe of the perhaps we could extend its vision of entire earth in one frame. The light overview can also dull our moral the morality of the spatial: Sea is for is separated from the darkness, as the attentiveness. Two days prior to the fish and sky is for birds and coral reefs The Real Origins of the Religious Right glowing earth floats in the black ocean NASA photo shoot, a cyclone killed are for urchins. Deep sea trenches are By Randall Balmer of the universe. 80 people and 150 cattle in Tamil for bioluminescent fish. Arctic ice Two moral issues attend the Blue Nadu, India. The deathly cyclone can sheets are for polar bears. Rain forests Marble image. The first is marvelous, be seen swirling in the photograph, are for rare spiders. hey’ll tell you it was abortion. for several years after Roe, evangeli- liberty, human equality and justice are and the second is pretty eerie. The described above as ‘the heavy cloud Bible Study Questions TSorry, the historical record’s clear: cals were overwhelmingly indifferent advanced by the Supreme Court abor- astronauts and first people to view the cover in the Southern Hemisphere.” 1. What moral vision can be fostered It was segregation. to the subject, which they consid- tion decision,” wrote W. Barry Garrett image all report feelings of awe: That cyclone swirl is how the Blue by an overview of the earth? One of the most durable myths in ered a “Catholic issue.” In 1968, for of Baptist Press. “It was profound.” Marble got its name. 2. Why are so many people only recent history is that the religious right, instance, a symposium sponsored by In May 1969, a group of African- “Such a different perspective.” Seen from above, the earth-from- interested in Genesis 1 as a temporal the coalition of conservative evangeli- the Christian Medical Society and American parents in Holmes County, “The focus had been ‘we’re going space conceals what I have been story (e.g., 7-day creation)? cals and fundamentalists, emerged as a Christianity Today, the flagship magazine Mississippi, sued the Treasury to the stars, we’re going to the other calling the granularity of the planet’s 3. In addition to the Blue Marble and political movement in response to the of evangelicalism, refused to charac- Department to prevent three new planets,’ and suddenly we look back climates. What Genesis 1 kept at level NASA’s “Images of Change,” what U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade terize abortion as sinful, citing “indi- whites-only K-12 private academies at ourselves.” of sky, sea, land, and what the Blue other images offer compelling visions ruling legalizing abortion. The tale vidual health, family welfare, and social from securing full tax-exempt status, “A new kind of self awareness.” Marble obscures in its gorgeous swirl- of climate change? ■ goes something like this: Evangelicals, responsibility” as justifications for arguing that their discriminatory poli- “Looking back at the Earth... may ing surface are the countless habitats who had been politically quiescent for ending a pregnancy. In 1971, delegates cies prevented them from being con- have been the most important reason on the earth and the different risks Ingrid Lilly is a Visiting Scholar at the decades, were so morally outraged by to the Southern Baptist Convention sidered “charitable” institutions. The we went.” posed to each of them. Pacific School of Religion. This article Roe that they resolved to organize in in St. Louis, Missouri, passed a resolu- schools had been founded in the mid- “You’re overwhelmed... it’s this “Just as no country is immune first appeared on Huffington Post on order to overturn it. tion encouraging “Southern Baptists to 1960s in response to the desegregation dynamic alive place that you see glow- from the impacts of climate change, 06/09/2014 and is printed here with This myth of origins is oft repeated work for legislation that will allow the of public schools set in motion by the ing all the time.” no country can meet this challenge permission of the author. by the movement’s leaders. In his possibility of abortion under such con- Brown v. Board of Education decision of “Realizing your interconnected- alone” (CAP). There are rumblings 2005 book, Jerry Falwell, the firebrand ditions as rape, incest, clear evidence 1954. In 1969, the first year of deseg- ness with that beautiful blue ball.” that China will follow the U.S. in For Further Reading: fundamentalist preacher, recounts his of severe fetal deformity, and carefully regation, the number of white students These descriptions of viewing the capping emissions. Right now, the 1. “Overview,” 20-minute film by distress upon reading about the ruling ascertained evidence of the likelihood enrolled in public schools in Holmes earth-from-space have implications United Nations are meeting in Bonn, the Planetary Collective about astro- in the Jan. 23, 1973, edition of the of damage to the emotional, mental, County dropped from 771 to 28; the for our moral vision of the planet: Germany for twelve days of climate nauts viewing the earth-from-space. Lynchburg News: “I sat there staring at and physical health of the mother.” following year, that number fell to zero. overwhelmed, self-aware, intercon- talks. Indeed, the contours of climate 2. “On the Pulse of Morning,” a the Roe v. Wade story,” Falwell writes, The convention, hardly a In Green v. Kennedy (David Kennedy nected. God reports a similar sense risk do not correlate with national poem relevant to climate change by “growing more and more fearful of redoubt of liberal values, reaffirmed was secretary of the treasury at the of awe every day of Genesis 1 when boundaries. The contours of climate Maya Angelou the consequences of the Supreme that position in 1974, one year after time), decided in January 1970, the he utters, “It was good.” These are risk run along ridges, rivers, coast- William P. Brown, The Seven Court’s act and wondering why so Roe, and again in 1976. plaintiffs won a preliminary injunc- expressions of a cognitive shift that lines, and watersheds. We need to see Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, few voices had been raised against it.” When the Roe decision was handed tion, which denied the “segregation can unleash a moral desire to see to it our spaces anew. and the Ecology of Wonder (Oxford: Evangelicals, he decided, needed to down, W. A. Criswell, the Southern academies” tax-exempt status until that “it was and will stay -- good.” If we could zoom in on Genesis 1, Oxford University Press, 2010) organize. Baptist Convention’s former president further review. In the meantime, the Some of these anti-Roe crusaders even and pastor of First Baptist Church in government was solidifying its posi- went so far as to call themselves “new Dallas, Texas—also one of the most tion on such schools. Later that year, abolitionists,” invoking their antebel- famous fundamentalists of the 20th President Richard Nixon ordered the lum predecessors who had fought to century—was pleased: “I have always Internal Revenue Service to enact a eradicate slavery. felt that it was only after a child was new policy denying tax exemptions But the abortion myth quickly col- born and had a life separate from its to all segregated schools in the United Colossians 1:15-20 tells us that all things are made by God, sustained through lapses under historical scrutiny. In fact, mother that it became an individual States. Under the provisions of Title VI it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years person,” he said, “and it has always, of the Civil Rights Act, which forbade God, exist for God. Christ redeems and reconciles all things ... and we get to after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at therefore, seemed to me that what is racial segregation and discrimination, play a part in that. Christ’s reconciliation is carried out, in part, by the way we the behest of conservative activist Paul best for the mother and for the future discriminatory schools were not—by live our lives right where we are. God has put each of us, as part of his church Weyrich, seized on abortion not for should be allowed.” definition—“charitable” educational moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to Although a few evangelical voices, organizations, and therefore they had on earth, in a particular place. We are to minister not just to the people of that deny President Jimmy Carter a second including Christianity Today maga- no claims to tax-exempt status; simi- place, but to the place itself. term. Why? Because the anti-abortion zine, mildly criticized the ruling, the larly, donations to such organizations Maya Angelou, interview with Kelly B. Trujillo, Relevant Magazine, April 22, 1913 crusade was more palatable than the overwhelming response was silence, would no longer qualify as tax-deduct- religious right’s real motive: protecting even approval. Baptists, in particular, ible contributions. segregated schools. So much for the applauded the decision as an appro- On June 30, 1971, the United new abolitionism. priate articulation of the division States District Court for the District of Today, evangelicals make up the back- between church and state, between Columbia issued its ruling in the case, bone of the pro-life movement, but it personal morality and state regula- now Green v. Connally (John Connally hasn’t always been so. Both before and tion of individual behavior. “Religious had replaced David Kennedy as sec-

12 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 13 retary of the Treasury). The decision in schools, the proposed Equal Rights The school also stipulated that any stu- might motivate conservatives where evangelical audience, toured the coun- the hostages’ freedom. The electorate, upheld the new IRS policy: “Under the Amendment to the Constitution, even dents who engaged in interracial dat- it hadn’t in the past. That year in try with these films, which depicted the once enamored of Carter’s evangelical Internal Revenue Code, properly con- abortion. “I was trying to get these ing, or who were even associated with Minnesota, pro-life Republicans cap- scourge of abortion in graphic terms— probity, had tired of a sour economy, strued, racially discriminatory private people interested in those issues and organizations that advocated interracial tured both Senate seats (one for the most memorably with a scene of plastic chronic energy shortages and the Soviet schools are not entitled to the Federal I utterly failed,” Weyrich recalled at a dating, would be expelled. unexpired term of Hubert Humphrey) baby dolls strewn along the shores of Union’s renewed imperial ambitions. tax exemption provided for charitable, conference in 1990. The IRS was not placated. On as well as the governor’s mansion. In the Dead Sea. Schaeffer and Koop After the election results came in, educational institutions, and persons The Green v. Connally ruling pro- January 19, 1976, after years of warn- Iowa, Sen. Dick Clark, the Democratic argued that any society that counte- Falwell, never shy to claim credit, was making gifts to such schools are not vided a necessary first step: It captured ings—integrate or pay taxes—the agen- incumbent, was thought to be a shoo- nanced abortion was captive to “secular fond of quoting a Harris poll that sug- entitled to the deductions provided in the attention of evangelical lead- cy rescinded the school’s tax exemption. in: Every poll heading into the election humanism” and therefore caught in a gested Carter would have won the pop- case of gifts to charitable, educational ers, especially as the IRS began sending For many evangelical leaders, who showed him ahead by at least 10 per- vortex of moral decay. ular vote by a margin of 1 percent had institutions.” questionnaires to church-related “seg- had been following the issue since Green centage points. On the final weekend Between Weyrich’s machinations it not been for the machinations of the Paul Weyrich, the late religious conserva- regation academies,” including Falwell’s v. Connally, Bob Jones University of the campaign, however, pro-life and Schaeffer’s jeremiad, evangelicals religious right. “I knew that we would tive political activist and co-founder own Lynchburg Christian School, was the final straw. As Elmer L. activists, primarily Roman Catholics, were slowly coming around on the have some impact on the national elec- of the Heritage Foundation, saw his inquiring about their racial policies. Rumminger, longtime administrator leafleted church parking lots (as they abortion issue. At the conclusion of tions,” Falwell said, “but I had no idea opening. Falwell was furious. “In some states,” at Bob Jones University, told me in an did in Minnesota), and on Election the film tour in March 1979, Schaeffer that it would be this great.” In the decades following World he famously complained, “It’s easier to interview, the IRS actions against his Day Clark lost to his Republican pro- reported that Protestants, especially Given Carter’s political troubles, the War II, evangelicals, especially white open a massage parlor than a Christian school “alerted the Christian school life challenger. evangelicals, “have been so sluggish on defection of evangelicals may or may evangelicals in the North, had drifted school.” community about what could happen In the course of my research into this issue of human life, and Whatever not have been decisive. But it is certain- toward the Republican Party—inclined One such school, Bob Jones with government interference” in the Falwell’s archives at Liberty University Happened to the Human Race? is causing ly true that evangelicals, having helped in that direction by general Cold University—a fundamentalist college affairs of evangelical institutions. “That and Weyrich’s papers at the University real waves, among church people and propel Carter to the White House War anxieties, vestigial suspicions of in Greenville, South Carolina—was was really the major issue that got us all of Wyoming, it became very clear that governmental people too.” four years earlier, turned dramatically Catholicism and well-known evangelist especially obdurate. The IRS had sent involved.” the 1978 election represented a forma- By 1980, even though Carter had against him, their fellow evangelical, Billy Graham’s very public friendship its first letter to Bob Jones University in Weyrich saw that he had the begin- tive step toward galvanizing everyday sought, both as governor of Georgia during the course of his presidency. with Dwight Eisenhower and Richard November 1970 to ascertain whether nings of a conservative political move- evangelical voters. Correspondence and as president, to reduce the inci- And the catalyst for their political activ- Nixon. Despite these predilections, or not it discriminated on the basis of ment, which is why, several years into between Weyrich and evangelical lead- dence of abortion, his refusal to seek a ism was not, as often claimed, opposi- though, evangelicals had largely stayed race. The school responded defiantly: It President Jimmy Carter’s term, he and ers fairly crackles with excitement. In constitutional amendment outlawing tion to abortion. Although abortion out of the political arena, at least in any did not admit African Americans. other leaders of the nascent religious a letter to fellow conservative Daniel it was viewed by politically conserva- had emerged as a rallying cry by 1980, organized way. If he could change that, Although Bob Jones Jr., the school’s right blamed the Democratic president B. Hales, Weyrich characterized the tive evangelicals as an unpardonable the real roots of the religious right lie Weyrich reasoned, their large numbers founder, argued that racial segregation for the IRS actions against segregated triumph of pro-life candidates as “true sin. Never mind the fact that his not the defense of a fetus but in the would constitute a formidable voting was mandated by the Bible, Falwell schools—even though the policy was cause for celebration,” and Robert Republican opponent that year, Ronald defense of racial segregation. bloc—one that he could easily marshal and Weyrich quickly sought to shift mandated by Nixon, and Bob Jones Billings, a cobelligerent, predicted that Reagan, had signed into law, as gover- The Bob Jones University case behind conservative causes. the grounds of the debate, framing University had lost its tax exemption a opposition to abortion would “pull nor of California in 1967, the most lib- merits a postscript. When the school’s “The new political philosophy their opposition in terms of religious year and a day before Carter was inau- together many of our ‘fringe’ Christian eral abortion bill in the country. When appeal finally reached the Supreme must be defined by us [conserva- freedom rather than in defense of racial gurated as president. Falwell, Weyrich friends.” Roe v. Wade had been law for Reagan addressed a rally of 10,000 Court in 1982, the Reagan admin- tives] in moral terms, packaged in segregation. For decades, evangelical and others were undeterred by the more than five years. evangelicals at Reunion Arena in Dallas istration announced that it planned non-religious language, and propa- leaders had boasted that because their niceties of facts. In their determination Weyrich, Falwell and leaders of the in August 1980, he excoriated the to argue in defense of Bob Jones gated throughout the country by our educational institutions accepted no to elect a conservative, they would do emerging religious right enlisted an “unconstitutional regulatory agenda” University and its racial policies. A new coalition,” Weyrich wrote in the federal money (except for, of course, anything to deny a Democrat, even a unlikely ally in their quest to advance directed by the IRS “against indepen- public outcry forced the administra- mid-1970s. “When political power is not having to pay taxes) the govern- fellow evangelical like Carter, another abortion as a political issue: Francis dent schools,” but he made no mention tion to reconsider; Reagan backpedaled achieved, the moral majority will have ment could not tell them how to run term in the White House. A. Schaeffer—a goateed, knickers- of abortion. Nevertheless, leaders of by saying that the legislature should the opportunity to re-create this great their shops—whom to hire or not, But Falwell and Weyrich, having wearing theologian who was warning the religious right hammered away at determine such matters, not the courts. nation.” Weyrich believed that the whom to admit or reject. The Civil tapped into the ire of evangelical lead- about the eclipse of Christian values the issue, persuading many evangelicals The Supreme Court’s decision in the political possibilities of such a coali- Rights Act, however, changed that cal- ers, were also savvy enough to recognize and the advance of something he to make support for a constitutional case, handed down on May 24, 1983, tion were unlimited. “The leadership, culus. that organizing grassroots evangelicals called “secular humanism.” Schaeffer, amendment outlawing abortion a lit- ruled against Bob Jones University in moral philosophy, and workable vehicle Bob Jones University did, in fact, try to defend racial discrimination would considered by many the intellectual mus test for their votes. an 8-to-1 decision. Three years later are at hand just waiting to be blended to placate the IRS—in its own way. be a challenge. It had worked to rally godfather of the religious right, was Carter lost the 1980 election for a Reagan elevated the sole dissenter, and activated,” he wrote. “If the moral Following initial inquiries into the the leaders, but they needed a different not known for his political activism, variety of reasons, not merely the oppo- William Rehnquist, to chief justice of majority acts, results could well exceed school’s racial policies, Bob Jones issue if they wanted to mobilize evan- but by the late 1970s he decided that sition of the religious right. He faced a the Supreme Court. ■ our wildest dreams.” admitted one African-American, a gelical voters on a large scale. legalized abortion would lead inevitably spirited challenge from within his own But this hypothetical “moral major- worker in its radio station, as a part- By the late 1970s, many to infanticide and euthanasia, and he party; Edward M. Kennedy’s failed Randall Balmer is the Mandel family profes- ity” needed a catalyst—a standard time student; he dropped out a month Americans—not just Roman was eager to sound the alarm. Schaeffer quest for the Democratic nomination sor in the arts and sciences at Dartmouth around which to rally. For nearly later. In 1975, again in an attempt to Catholics—were beginning to feel teamed with a pediatric surgeon, C. undermined Carter’s support among College. His most recent book is Redeemer: two decades, Weyrich, by his own forestall IRS action, the school admit- uneasy about the spike in legal abor- Everett Koop, to produce a series of liberals. And because Election Day fell The Life of Jimmy Carter. This article first account, had been trying out different ted blacks to the student body, but, tions following the 1973 Roe decision. films entitled Whatever Happened to the on the anniversary of the Iran Hostage appeared in the May 27, 2014 issue of issues, hoping one might pique evan- out of fears of miscegenation, refused The 1978 Senate races demonstrated Human Race? In the early months of Crisis, the media played up the story, Politico.com Magazine and is reprinted gelical interest: pornography, prayer to admit unmarried African-Americans. to Weyrich and others that abortion 1979, Schaeffer and Koop, targeting an highlighting Carter’s inability to secure here with permission.

14 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 15 their rolls. As a result, few Americans riage primarily as an expression of Christian-oriented computer-match- held commercialized matchmaking romantic love between two individu- ing program on the market. A Short History of Christian Matchmaking bureaus in high esteem. And most als, love that could cross boundaries His program, already techno- By Paul Putz Americans simply did not need addi- of religion, race, and sex. Journalist logically advanced for its time, was tional matchmaking help—friends Naomi Schaefer Riley points out a natural fit for the transition to the and family played the part just fine. in her 2013 book Til Faith Do Us Internet. He made the move online n 1904, The New York Times picked them. Sites for evangelical Protestants prominence by saturating television With many romantic relationships Part: How Interfaith Marriage is in 1995 when he started the Single Iup an unusual story from Omaha. offer perhaps the greatest market for airwaves with testimonials promising in the early 20th century occurring Transforming America, “[O]ur cultural Christian Network at singleC.com, A wealthy Nebraska rancher named growth. With a large pool of adher- to help “find God’s match for you.” under the watchful eye of family messages today seem to reinforce the which launched around the same James Snell had requested the help of ents, combined with the common Its ubiquitous presence on television members, friends, and church lead- idea that marriage is a purely indi- time as the first widely used, main- Omaha Pastor Charles W. Savidge in belief that one must not be “unequally makes the brand an easy punch line. ers, marriages tended to be religiously vidual choice.” stream personals site, Match.com. finding a spouse. In exchange, Snell yoked,” evangelicals provide a ready- “I have already found God’s match for and racially homogenous. Before the The romanticized individualiza- Sloan’s website caught the eye of Sam offered to finance a matchmaking made market for matchmaking entre- me,” James Napoli wrote in a satirical 1960s, fewer than 20 percent of all tion of the marriage relationship has Moorcroft, who cited singleC.com as agency that would be run and owned preneurs. open letter for the Huffington Post last marriages were interfaith marriages, also led to dramatic changes in how one of the websites that inspired him by the Rev. Savidge. According to the Currently the name most closely year, “and it is pizza.” Likewise, in while interracial marriages were even Americans find their future spouses. to launch his own Christian match- story, Savidge—a back-to-the-Bible associated with Christian online early 2012 “The Colbert Report” more miniscule, making up less Compared to the early 1900s, the making site, ChristianCafe.com, in revivalist and pastor of an indepen- dating is ChristianMingle.com. devoted a segment to lampooning than three percent of marriages. Yet, role of the family has decreased, now 1999 (singleC.com is now a site affili- dent holiness church—turned the Launched by the Jewish founders Christian Mingle. “It’s a great site to changes were under way by the early playing a part in only 10 percent of ated with ChristianCafe.com). offer down. Still, the details made of J-Date, it is one of the 20-plus find other singles who like long walks 1900s. New freedoms arising from all matches. In its place, friends and By 2001, evangelical involvement for sensational type, and newspapers niche dating sites operated under the on the beach … where Jesus is carry- improvements in transportation and college became more important. And, in the online matchmaking trend across the country printed the dis- Spark Networks umbrella. Similar to ing them,” the host said. communication allowed many young since the 1990s, the Internet has risen was prominent enough to receive patch. its competitors like ChristianCafe. Products which cater to the con- men and women to expand their as the prime matchmaking power. notice from Christianity Today. Just Despite rejecting Snell’s offer, com, ChristianSingles.com, and servative Christian subculture are social circles. Progressive Era reform- Evangelicals—a small core of them a year earlier, Neil Clark Warren had Savidge received hundreds of letters EquallyYoked.com, it appeals largely generally not promoted to a wide ers and radicals (studied by scholars launched eHarmony, which at first expressing romantic interest in the mainstream audience, which helps to like Christiana Simmons and Clare catered to conservative Christians. wealthy rancher. Suddenly realizing explain why Colbert’s audience would Virginia Eby) supported companion- “If you are not creating Early marketing claimed that the site the potential demand for a match- Modern matchmaking have been amused by the Christian ate marriage ideals that, theoretically was “based on the Christian principles making agency, Savidge reconsidered. services like Christian matchmaking site. There is also a at least, enhanced the autonomy of families, there’s nothing of Focus on the Family author Dr. News of this development apparently sense of novelty in going national each individual in the marriage rela- to focus on,” he recalled Neil Clark Warren.” By 2005, how- spread across the Atlantic, leading Mingle have the potential with a faith-based dating market- tionship. Regardless of how much ever, Warren decided that the conser- London’s St James Gazette to report to be more than a punch ing campaign. That sense of novelty Progressive Era notions of compan- telling them, “and in 20 vative Christian niche market was not that Savidge “is thinking of inau- pervaded the responses to Charles ionate marriage changed mainstream years you’re going to good for developing the brand. “We’re gurating a matrimonial bureau for line: They can also Savidge’s bureau as well, but there marriage power dynamics, there cer- trying to reach the whole world— Christian men and women.” Eight play a role in ensuring are key differences between the two. tainly was a shift in American concep- have a problem.” people of all spiritual orientations, all years later, the minister did launch a that conservative Savidge’s enterprise, existing at a time tions of marriage. As historian Nancy political philosophies, all racial back- matchmaking service, complete with of white, Protestant hegemony, was an Cott put it her book Public Vows: A grounds,” Warren told USA Today in an office in downtown Omaha and evangelicals marry interesting historical footnote without History of Marriage and the Nation, at least—were early adopters of the 2005. “And if indeed, we have Focus a secretary. The oddity of having a within the faith, raise much of a lasting impact. Modern “Where mid-nineteenth-century judg- online dating trend, and Clark Sloan on the Family on the top of our preacher playing the role of Cupid matchmaking services like Christian es and other public spokesmen had was one of the pioneers. Out of a job books, it is a killer.” Warren further made the rounds in newspapers for children in the faith, and Mingle have the potential to be more hardly been able to speak of marriage in the early 1990s, Sloan drew entre- eschewed his conservative Christian decades, with stories on Savidge’s mat- maintain prominence than a punch line: They can also play without mentioning Christian moral- preneurial inspiration from an ink- credentials in response to a lawsuit rimonial bureau and on-demand wed- a role in ensuring that conservative ity, mid-twentieth-century discourse and-paper Christian singles periodical complaining that eHarmony did not ding services appearing in print from on the national stage for evangelicals marry within the faith, saw the hallmarks of the institution in published by his father. “Classified provide services for LGBT couples. Spokane to New York. “I just simply generations to come. raise children in the faith, and main- liberty and privacy, consent and free- ads back then didn’t seem to work The company launched a separate bring the man who wants a wife and tain prominence on the national stage dom.” very well,” Sloan recalled. “I thought, site for gay and lesbian couples, the woman who wants a husband for generations to come. The changes in marriage were ‘why not take this into the com- finally merging it with eHarmony in together,” Savidge told the Boston to conservative evangelicals. THE HISTORY OF readily apparent in the 1960s. From puter stage?’” The ensuing company, 2010. Globe. “God and nature do the rest.” One need only browse through MATCHMAKING as a mass-market- the introduction of the birth control Christian Computer Match, utilized THAT WARREN HAD A century after Savidge’s enter- the site’s endorsement section to see ed commercial enterprise stretches at pill in 1960, to anti-miscegenation a computer program created by Sloan TO renounce his conservative prise, faith-based matchmaking ser- its audience: Its proponents include least as far back as the late 19th centu- laws being declared unconstitutional to match people based on answers to a Christian connections in order to vices are thriving—but online, where Southern Baptist pastors, Concerned ry. The earliest matchmaking bureaus in 1967, to California enacting the 50-question application. Sloan adver- reach a mainstream audience was a nearly a quarter of all couples now Women for America, and indi- advertised their services in newspaper nation’s first “no fault” divorce law tised his new service in the handful of telling sign of the limits of conserva- find each other. From Muslima.com viduals connected to the evangelical personals sections. They developed in 1969, the liberalization and indi- Christian singles newspapers still in tive evangelical leverage in American to the Jewish dating site, J-Date, near- mega-churches Willow Creek and a reputation for fraud because they vidualization of love and marriage circulation. By 1994, he claimed to culture. On the other hand, the suc- ly all religious traditions have online Saddleback Church. often exaggerated and embellished the accelerated. In the following decades, have 8,000 members in his database, cess Spark Networks has achieved by dating sites marketed specifically to Christian Mingle has gained number of single, wealthy clients on Americans increasingly viewed mar- which, as far as he knew, was the only catering its Christian Mingle brand

16 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 17 Essays From Experience to the same audience that Warren while still remaining true to conserva- surprise; evangelicals have been a disavowed shows that evangelicals are tive evangelical insistence on intra- fluid and difficult-to-define group Dr. William E. Hull: A Different Kind of Saint still a numerical force worth reaching faith marriage. “We want Christians throughout their history, so making out to. Indeed, it is possible that dat- to marry Christians,” Moorcroft said. predictions for their future is tenu- A Memorial Sermon on 16 December 2013 ing sites like Christian Mingle—con- “We don’t want Christians to marry ous at best. But while the scope and Mountain Brook Baptist Church, Birmingham, AL servative Christian cul-de-sacs—may nominal Christians or nonbelievers at extent to which Christian online dat- Walter B. Shurden turn out to be one key to the contin- all.” ing services affect evangelicals and ued influence of evangelicalism in the And once their customers are American culture remains to be seen, “ n his holy flirtation with the world,” eyes, or an innocent little crumb did wondered what he could not do. My United States. After all, dating sites married, Christian dating sites claim we do know that more Americans are Isaid Buechner, “God occasionally not have the slightest chance of sur- bet is that when he died he knew as are increasingly a portal from which to provide help on another account: finding their spouses online and that drops a handkerchief. These hand- vival. much about ALS as any non-medical new Christian families can begin their They supposedly facilitate more com- Christian matchmaking services are kerchiefs are called saints” (Wishful And when he finished, that coun- person in this country. existence. Sam Moorcroft emphasized patible matches, which, according to growing. Christian Mingle’s member- Thinking, 83). Bill Hull was a dif- ter looked just like every sentence he So what kind of different saint was this fact when he pitched a partner- ChristianCafe.com’s Fred Moesker, ship rolls, for example, now total 13 ferent kind of saint. The challenges ever constructed, polished, shiny, not he? ship with Focus on the Family for his will help “to decrease divorce rates.” million people, 4 million of whom he leaves us are not simply about a word out of place. That counter Part of his peculiar saintliness site. “If you are not creating fami- Moesker’s claim may seem dubious, have joined in the past year.* private devotions and public worship, looked just like every tie he ever tied was that he was himself. If I asked lies, there’s nothing to focus on,” he but it does have at least the modest We also know that the combina- about prayer and scripture reading on himself, in a perfectly balanced you whom did Bill Hull preach like? recalled telling them, “and in 20 years support of initial research from John tion of happy marriages (which online and Christian generosity, traits of Windsor knot. That counter looked Whom did Bill Hull teach like? Most you’re going to have a problem.” T. Cacioppo and others for the matchmaking sites claim to provide) conventional spirituality. All of those like the Sermon on the Mount that of you would be stumped. Because Bill Evangelical marriages provide National Academy of the Sciences. and religiously homogenous marriages were natural parts of his spirituality, as he so exquisitely outlined and every Hull preached like Bill Hull. Others a conducive setting for children to They conducted a recent study show- have led to higher rates of religious natural to him as breathing. But they sermon he organized so symetrically. of us have tried to imitate him, but he accept and remain followers of their ing that marriages that began online retention for children in the past. For are not the cardinal characteristics of That counter looked like every biblical was the original. If you tried to imitate parents’ faith. It’s a pressing concern: were slightly less likely to end in evangelical supporters, these devel- his peculiar kind of sainthood. text he ever exegeted, every committee him, you ended up being a stereotype The religious retention rate for evan- divorce and were “associated with opments may suggest that sites like So here at the beginning rather report he ever wrote, every speech he or at worse a caricature. He was just gelicals has been dropping since the slightly higher marital satisfaction” Christian Mingle and ChristianCafe. than the end, I give you my summary ever made. He cleaned that counter that unrepeatable. He did not have to 1990s, according to David Campbell than marriages that began offline. com, even if they appear to be just statement: there was a Quality to exactly like he compiled that three find out what others thought. He did and Robert Putnam in American Of course, not all evangelicals another expression of the oft-derided the man. The word is Quality, with ring notebook after he was stricken not dress his soul in others piety. He Grace: How Religion Unites and view Christian online dating in a “Christian bubble,” have the poten- a capital Q. Other synonyms come with ALS. It was entitled “End of Life had his own spirituality, and it never Divides Us. They also suggest “the positive light. In 2011, Christianity tial to be key players in the continu- begging to be used. They are words Agenda,” and it covered everything dawned on him that it should be like most important factor predicting reli- Today ran an opinion roundtable ing effort to “make disciples of all such as Excellence, Distinction, Class, that he, Wylodine, David and Susan somebody else’s. gious retention” is whether or not a with the headline, “Is Online Dating nations”—starting with the United Eminence, and Superiority. But the needed to know about his dying, his I have a file folder on my comput- person’s family was religiously homog- for Christians?” Answers ranged States and with each evangelical fam- best word, from my angle of observa- death, and the aftermath of it all. er designated “Hull.” I made that file enous and observant. Meanwhile, from “With Gusto!” to “With ily that is created online. ■ tion, is Quality. It was the Quality of Ours is an era where people know long before Bill got sick. The historian the rate of interfaith marriage has Caution” to “No; Trust God.” the man that made him a different more and more about less and less. in me wanted an oral history of him. more than doubled since the 1950s, More recently, Jonathan Merritt, a Paul Putz is a PhD candidate in his- kind of saint. But one of the questions that will So I sent him “20 Questions.” He accounting today for 45 percent of senior columnist at Religion News tory at Baylor University and a regular Six years ago Kay and I were always remain for many of us about answered those twenty questions for all marriages. That trend, according Service, wondered if online dating contributor at the Religion in American in Birmingham for a Baptist meet- Bill Hull was: Exactly where did me just as he cleaned that counter that to Riley, has had the unintended con- websites actually served to undermine History blog. Research related to Charles ing and we spent the night with Bill Hull’s expertise lay? He seemed to do morning after breakfast. sequence of eroding the strength of Christian values, concerns that were Savidge in this article was originally and Wylodine. The next morning everything so well. Is there a plural to In one of the questions I asked some faith traditions, partly because echoed from another corner of the produced with the partial support of Wylodine prepared us a super break- expertise? Expertises, maybe? him who had influenced him in his “interfaith families are less likely to evangelical world by the Gospel a 2012 research grant provided by the fast, and we enjoyed ourselves around He could be unrivaled teacher, ministerial career. He gave me four raise their children religiously.” Coalition. For wary evangelicals, the Nebraska State Historical Society. the table. After breakfast, when insightful theologian, profound bib- names: Louie Newton, Duke McCall, Given the reality of our increasing- turn to online matchmaking could Wylodine and Kay had gone to their lical interpreter and incomparable George Buttrick and John Claypool. ly online, increasingly digital world, carry the potential for further detach- This article originally appeared in rooms, I saw Bill pick up a dish towel, preacher of the gospel---all of us knew But Bill Hull was not like any of them Christian niche dating sites serve as an ment from involvement in local Religion & Politics, an online journal folding it carefully so that the sides he could do those ministries in spades. and they were not like him. He lived easily identifiable online companion church bodies at a time when more from the Danforth Center on Religion were completely even. And he began But if you turned your head, he would his own life. If the primal freedom is to more traditional offline means used and more Americans are willing to & Politics at Washington University in to clean that kitchen counter. He become a sociologist whose footnotes the freedom to be the self and if being by evangelicals to find a spouse. They shun affiliation with formal religious St. Louis and is printed with permiss- cleaned that kitchen counter like I had indicated that he had read the litera- one’s self under God is a part of saint- allow evangelicals to adopt the broad- organizations. sion. www.religionandpolitics.org never seen a counter cleaned before in ture, a historian with an imaginative liness, his legacy, his different kind of er cultural turn towards individualism That evangelicals would take all my life. Methodically, meticulously, and nuanced interpretation, a student saintliness, is that he was unsparingly in the selection of romantic partners opposing positions on an issue is no he hygienically scoured and mastered of leadership who sounded as though himself. So far as I know, he never that counter. He had a strategy: he he should be teaching the course, a went on a journey in search of himself. went from back to front, from end to pastoral strategist who somehow saw He knew who he was. He was Bill Apologies to Sarah Bessey whose blog post, “I am damaged Goods,” was published in our Spring 2013 end, into crevices and corners, around far and deep and around corners, an Hull. issue without prior permission. We regret our oversight and again refer readers to Sarah’s writings at faucets, carefully vacuuming every institutional mapmaker who sensed Another part of his peculiar A Deeper Story and at SheLoves Magazine. millimeter of that counter. A soiled the change that should transform saintliness was, of course, his bril- spot, unnoticeable to most human structures and policies. Some of us liance. It is a shame that we do not

18 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 19 more often associate the mind with ity of work he produced. After all, He wanted to reconcile theologi- than head. And if you missed that, Story,” that “entering the ministry was You don’t ever let go of the thread. sainthood. Saints, we say, are the mar- the man wrote five books while dying cal education with practical ministry, you missed something very important for me a leap in the dark . . . and yet The thread never changed for tyrs and the mystics, people who die with Lou Gehrig’s disease! the campus with the congregation, about him. What birthed his scholar- it was the most certain thing I have Bill Hull. It was a spiritual calling to heroic deaths and pray long prayers. And he absolutely loved the work churchmanship with scholarship, ship, his writings, his sermons, and ever done, a resolve from which I have do good in life in the name of Jesus But I would like to lift up “smarts” God gave him! I got the feeling that preaching with teaching, profound his entire life was a calling, a calling never wavered.” Christ. As far as I can read his life, he and intelligence as characteristics he worked his whole life in the Toy research with practical wisdom, spe- that he experienced his second year William Stafford’s poem reminds never let go of that thread. of some of the greatest of all the Department. He loved what he did. cialists with generalists, left with right, of college. It was a calling that took me of Bill Hull. We err when we equate holiness saints. After all, we call them “Saint” Some will be surprised when I say moderates with fundamentalists. him away from the study of medicine The Way It Is and sanctity with moral perfection, Augustine and “Saint” Thomas and that Bill Hull would have been a good This penchant for “bringing toward the ministry. There’s a thread you follow. flawless personalities or world deny- “Saint” Hildegaard. I measure my monk, if Baptists had monks. You together” was not born of cowardice His salvation experience, so he told It goes among things that change. ing asceticism. Bill Hull was none of words when I tell you that in the know what monks do. They wor- or of hugging the middle of the road me in my “20 Questions,” was a natu- But it doesn’t change. those. He was a man of QUALITY, a last fifty years there has not been ship. They sing. By the way, he loved where the yellow line is. Not a few ral unfolding of a life nurtured and People wonder about what you are pur- different kind of saint. a smarter minister of the gospel music. When a youngster, he studied times he found himself in boiling hot marinated in the faith. But “My call suing. There is an old Jewish Hasidic among white Baptists of the South violin for twelve years and became the water because of stands he took, mak- to ministry,” he said, “was like that of You have to explain about the thread. teaching that says: “There are three than Bill Hull. concert master of the Alabama State ing enemies he did not intend and the `twice born,’ a total surprise both But it is hard for others to see. ascending levels of how one mourns: One of those rare ten talent per- Student orchestra. And monks study. certainly did not want. to me and to everyone else, representing While you hold it you can’t get lost. With tears--- that is the lowest. With sons about whom the Bible speaks, And monks work. I believe he would And this obsession with recon- a complete break with my vocational Tragedies happen; people get hurt or die; silence---that is higher. And with a Bill Hull would have knocked the top have been right at home, if they had ciliation was not born of secular aspirations.” He says in his helpful and you suffer and get old. song---that is the highest.” out of any profession he had chosen. given him a classroom or a pulpit as wisdom but of biblical conviction. autobiographical sermon, “This is My Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding. Let us sing. ■ But he chose and he was chosen for an outlet for all that work and study. He spelled it out in his 1981 book, the Christian ministry. Within that Another aspect of Dr. Hull’s recently revised. The title should be broad calling of ministry, he superbly distinctive sainthood was that he noted: Beyond the Barriers: A Study served as teacher, preacher, theologian, had deep roots and wide wings. He of Reconciliation for the Contemporary administrator, and pastor. What is was unapologetically rooted denomi- Church. Ethics Bytes: not reflected in those specific roles, nationally but decidedly ecumenical With one foot neck-deep in the Conventional pollutants from existing conventional coal plants to create electricity contribute to however, is the enormous contribu- in attitude and actions. His little best of New Testament scholarship asthma, other ling diseases, and heart attacks…joint study by the Harvard School of Public Health and tion he made in each of those roles as booklet, The Meaning of the Baptist and one foot resolutely set in the a denominational leader among the Experience, is the best book on the Christian pulpit, he gives a sterling Syracuse University Center for Health and the Global Environment. Baptist vision of the Christian faith Baptist people. exposition of Ephesians 2:11-22, one Ethics Bytes…blasts from the past: Wherever he served…Southern that I have ever read. Yet he was that will make a preacher want to Seminary, First Baptist Shreveport, never threatened by the best of world preach like Chrysostom and, if you are “What the Moral Majority is calling for, perhaps unknowingly, is a restoration of civil religion…which Samford…he led the Baptist people. scholarship that came from widely not careful, get run out of town like may be defined as the state’s use of religion for its own political ends….The establishment of morals Dr. Hull really could not help being a divergent sources. He embraced all Roger Williams. derives from inner conviction and obedience rather than a mere outward conformity. Consequently, leader. He stood on a higher hill than Christians, indeed, all of human- Tell me if you can, what greater Falwell’s alternative to the current moral decadence of America is more consistent with the morality of the rest. He saw more. He not only ity. legacy can a Christian minister leave civil religion than the morality of the Christian faith.” Another part of his peculiar saw a bigger picture than others, he in our polarized age than a passion for —Wheaton theology professor, Robert Webber in his 1984 book, The Moral Majority: Right or Wrong? also saw connections, intersections, sainthood was the major theme breaking down these earthly walls we and nuances that others did not see. of his life, and that theme was build. “Morality can be defined as the rightness or wrongness of human actions…Moralism means But here is yet another part of his Reconciliation. When I asked him An unusual kind of saint: he was different kind of saintliness. Bill Hull in my “20 Questions” to identify the himself, he was intelligent, he was a something else. It is not morality because it assumes the validity of one judgmental answer to every was not simply smarter than most pivotal points in his spiritual journey, worker bee, he was rooted but expan- moral question…” of us; he worked harder than most this is how he answered: In the first sive, and his theme was reconciliation. —St. Olaf College professor Erlings Jorstad in his 1981 book The Politics of Moralism, of us. Part of his genius, often hidden quarter century of my life, I lived deeply I must speak briefly of one more char- to his listening and reading public, across the entire spectrum of Baptist acteristics of his atypical sainthood. Ethics Bytes was that he knew how to work, and culture from the simplistic fundamental- Actually this is not atypical of saints in “We also need to…have international law that would prevent the continued abuse of girls in early he worked hard. He was often the first ism of my grandparents’ church to the general but it is grossly overlooked in child marriage and international trade in human beings is horrendous. one at the building and the last one to theological sophistication of Southern Bill Hull. “[In Atlanta Georgia] we have more than 200 girls every month, little girls, who are sold into slavery, leave. For all of his brilliance, Bill Hull Seminary. I loved the entire venture Dr. Hull was a spirit person. I primarily because Atlanta has the largest airport on Earth, and also because we have a lot of did not just wake up one morning and thus developed a deep passion to have noted with interest the public and bam! produce those quality ser- reconcile rather than to alienate these statements that have circulated about passengers coming in from the southern hemisphere, where girls can be bought for slavery and mons and quality lectures. You don’t contrasting groups within the wider his death. Most have headlines such prostitution for about $1000. And so prostitution goes on.” become a person of quality by simply denominational family. as “Scholar, author dies at 83.” One Former President Jimmy Carter Interview with Elizabeth Willoughby May 28, 2014 on looktothestars.org being born smart. Sure, much of it Bill Hull wanted to reconcile can never nit-pick that description, was genes, but much of it was grit. It everything; he did not want to live because he was a Baptist scholar of the took work and desire and dedication dualistically, dividing life into “them” first rank. to churn out the quantity and qual- and “us.” I quibble because Bill Hull was more

20 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 21 and said, “choose,” what would you any of these roles at first but eventu- seek success. say? ally felt at home in all of these roles Bill Hull’s Twenty Questions All of my life I have been asked when I had mastered them. Once I 9. Critique your preaching for me. BY Walter B. Shurden whether I enjoyed preaching, teach- felt I had gone as far as I could in Almost all of my preaching has been ing, or administering the most. one of these roles, I became restless to an effort to mediate the best insights Each has assets and liabilities try another, feeling that endless rep- of serious Christian scholarship to 1. In your sermon, “This is My so good that I was chosen as con- were three-eyed? not shared with the others. For etition is not the best way to grow. laypersons not satisfied with sim- Story,” you paint the picture of a cert master of the Alabama State The scientific revolution has car- example, at Southern I loved to I suppose I am like Margaret Mead plistic and even anti-intellectual, rather financially deprived childhood. Student Orchestra. At that level, I ried specialization to an extreme, work daily with a cadre of sharp who confessed to her biographer that mindless sermonizing from the Am I reading too much into your either had to practice several hours causing us to lose some of the syn- doctoral students, all of us having she was guilty of the sin of gluttony pulpit. In Shreveport, for example, comments when I say that you were a day or fail to continue to grow thesizing strengths of the Middle access to a major research library. because she was always hungry for First Baptist was clearly the last stop “financially deprived?” musically. Thus, in college I shifted Ages. I loved New Testament as a In Shreveport, however, I loved the new experiences! for thoughtful Baptists on the way My father lost everything in the to choral directing which led natu- scholarly discipline and, with the interaction with every age group, to Presbyterian or Episcopal church- Depression, forcing us to move to rally to conducting the BSU choir example of Robertson and Davis with whole family units, and with 8. You say in “This is My Story” that es. In a sense, I tried to make the a chicken farm where my mother and then on to youth revival music before me, could have studied it as the entire city as a civic advocate you “have experienced a full measure gospel creditable to thinking people toiled as housekeeper and cook for leadership. I have not played the a one-eyed professor for the rest of on behalf of the Christian faith. of setbacks and defeats.” Where, spe- of whatever faith or of no faith who the bachelor owner to keep a roof violin seriously during my adult my life. However, I soon saw that At Samford, I loved getting outside cifically have you experienced such? I were put off by the mindlessness over our head. The family did years but music has always been the specialists did not know how to the inbred ministerial hothouse don’t know of anyone who knows you that is epidemic in many pulpits. I not really recover financially until extremely important to me. integrate the knowledge of theol- and seeking to apply the Christian who thinks you have experienced set- knew that my preaching would be after World War II. However, our ogy with the practice of ministry (a faith to life as it is actually lived backs and defeats! appreciated best by a minority, but financial deprivations were never 4. Can you say more about your call phrase coined by Krister Stendahl to by lawyers, school teachers, nurses, At Southern, as dean and provost, I quickly realized that Christianity discussed with me as a child, even to preach than what you wrote in describe the purpose of the D.Min. pharmacists, and all the rest. In I was never able to get the faculty must speak persuasively not only to though I seldom got what I wanted “This is My Story?” pp. 10-11. Had Program). Therefore, I always bal- terms of administration in all three to truly integrate their scholarship the majority who follow but to the for Christmas. Instead, we majored you been thinking of the ministry? anced the two whether working in a places, those sheltered from the com- with the most pressing needs of the minority who lead. on enjoyable relationships with Was there any particular person that seminary, a church, or a university. plex tasks of strategizing, decision churches, thereby avoiding the disas- family and friends, most of them as made the difference for you? Some people work well approaching making, and consensus building ters that fell upon them following 10. You said, “I have sought to hard-up as we were; thus I never felt As implied above, my call to minis- their vocation as a one-eyed person. among diverse groups simply miss a my departure. In Shreveport, I was base my ministry on the primary of financially deprived because I had try was entirely a matter of divine I chose to be three-eyed because the huge part of what life is really like not able to get the city to outgrow preaching” (17, Harbingers). Did you never known what it was like to initiative. I had never had any need was greater. At Southern, and, to be honest, become episte- its ingrown provincialisms and cross do that even when you were a semi- have plenty. relatives in the ministry, had never faculty were losing focus on how mologically naive. So if you put a artificial barriers constructed by nary professor? been talked to by anyone about to build authentic communities of gun to my head and said “choose,” race, class, and culture. At Samford At Southern, I am sure that I used 2. You describe your salvation experi- becoming a minister, and had not faith, partly because of the stress I would reply that if you threat- and in higher education generally, I much of my preaching, particularly ence almost in Bushnellian terms: thought of entering the ministry. As on specialization in the academic ened my chance to grow in all these was never able to build a consensus chapel appearances on campus, as You grew up as a Christian and never Paul put it in Galatians 1:12, “I guilds, while at Shreveport, pastors areas, you might as well just pull the about how to apply the Christian an outlet to share insights from my knew yourself otherwise. Is this the did not receive my ministry from were in danger of losing the intel- trigger and end it all because I do faith to higher education, thereby New Testament studies in popular case? Is there a pivotal religious experi- man, nor was I taught it, but it lectual moorings of their ministry, not want to be a one-sided person. sparing us the kind of debacles we fashion. However, I itinerated ence in your life? Your calling account came through a revelation of Jesus putting out stuff that would be an (Even a violin has four strings!) have seen in recent years at Baylor. across the land almost every Sunday sounds very experiential. Christ.” Indirectly, I was influenced embarrassment to any thinking Denominationally, of course, I was trying to set an example in a mul- Experientially, my spiritual pilgrim- by the youth revival movement com- layperson. While I did “return to 7. Another way to get at the previous never able to build a viable middle titude of churches as to what could age is like an ellipse with two foci. ing out of Baylor after World War the pastorate” in 1975, that did not question is to ask: Where have you ground between fundamentalism on happen if preaching were taken To borrow from William James, II, particularly Charles Wellborn change my determination to main- felt most at home: in the classroom, the right and fundamentalism on seriously. I would have to say that my conversion was that of the “once and Howard Butt, although I never tain a healthy dialectic between the pulpit, or the administrative the left. Incidentally, many of these the seminary culture I knew did not born” which unfolded as naturally had any direct contact with either of head and heart throughout my office? failures were a matter of timing. In magnify the primacy of preaching as other aspects of growing up. My them about entering the ministry. entire ministry. None of my family or friends had my senior years, a host of folks from because of its preoccupation with call to ministry, however, was like ever been a classroom professor, a Southern, Shreveport, and Samford disciplinary skills. When I became that of the “twice born,” a total 5. After I joined the faculty at 6. If you had your life to do over congregational pastor, or an edu- have insisted on telling me that I a pastor responsible for building surprise both to me and to everyone Southern Baptist Theological again, what vocational part of it, if cational administrator; thus I had was right about some important an energized community of faith, I else, representing a complete break Seminary, I heard a professor say any, would you change? I guess I won- to learn all three jobs on my own issues that those views could not be quickly realized that bland preach- with my vocational aspirations to that if one were not one-eyed one der where you received the most satis- largely by trial and error. At first implemented because I was “ahead ing set the tone for a bland week. that point, which had been defined should not be a theological professor faction in your ministry. Let me force I did not feel “at home” in any of of my time.” In other words, many in terms of a medical career. at SBTS. He meant, I think, that one you to rank these three: Southern these roles but I determined to stay of the “setbacks and defeats” of the 11. Bill, what are the three most had to focus on a single discipline in Seminary, Shreveport, Samford. I do with the job until I felt completely past have become the advances formative and shaping influences on 3. Can you still play the violin? Has a very academic way. You were never not assume that your ranking dimin- at home, which eventually became and victories of the present. I your life? What are the pivotal points music been a big part of your life? one-eyed. You preached, you taught, ishes any of the three, because I know the case in all three areas. So my believe that the essential stance of a in your journey? you administered. Could this explain how much you have enjoyed each. answer would have to be develop- Christian is to live ahead of his or (1) In the first quarter century of my I studied violin for 12 years and got your return to the pastorate, that you However, if I put a gun to your head mental. I did not feel at home in her time, but that is hardly a way to life, I lived deeply across the entire

22 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 23 spectrum of Baptist culture from the never had one mentor but rather without being basically “conserva- Her greatest influence was probably up at night and robbed you of sleep? stretch only preparing sermons, I simplistic fundamentalism of my was nourished by a number of tive.” And yet the central message in the pastoral ministry where she Or do you simply sleep through the have to stop and do something rig- grandparents’ church to the theo- group relationships such as kindred of Scripture is that God is continu- exercised an enormous influence storms? orously critical to keep another part logical sophistication of Southern spirits in the pastorate that I came ally in the business of transforming partly because we both worked in I have always slept well and have of my mind alive. Likewise, when Seminary. I loved the entire venture to know through the Metropolitan human life, which is an essentially the same context. As a shrewd judge seldom used the midnight hours all I do is theological research, I and thus developed a deep passion Pastor’s Conference. Much of my liberal idea. I have not deliberately of human nature, she knew who to rehash the work of the day. hunger to say something that makes to reconcile rather than to alienate spiritual nourishment has come tried to keep my liberalism in the could be trusted, knew how to tell Probably the nearest that I have greater use of the imagination these contrasting groups within the through reading and reflection. closet, which is one reason why my me when a sermon was a dud, and been robbed of sleep is when strug- and more skillful use of symbolic wider denominational family. ministry has often been controver- knew how to cheer me up when I gling over a major career decision. language. I would soon become (2) Shortly thereafter, Louie Newton 14. What is the most important sial. However, I would have to was unfairly criticized. Both Wylodine and I get very deeply cognitively impaired if I did not do taught me, and by example showed idea in your life? Grace? Calling? say that I have found it as hard to rooted where we are and form so both with some regularity. That me, how the minister is to be a Stewardship? As the Christian commend conservatism to liberals 18. What moves you to tears? many loving relationships that it is is why, throughout my ministry, I man of public affairs who takes the Century once asked. “What idea has as I have to commend liberalism to Tears may flow from either joy or heartbreaking even to contemplate have always insisted in having one faith into every corner of society used you?” conservatives. I can live with the sorrow, in my case almost always the move to another place, such as foot planted in academia and the where it can shape the very ethos in In a word, my controlling idea is idea of being labeled as “orthodox,” from the former rather than the moving from Southern to Shreveport other in the church. For me this is which people live and work. Reconciliation. I seek to overcome but do not prefer that word since I latter. I do not find it helpful to or from Shreveport to Samford. as essential as using right brain/left (3) My two sabbaticals at Goettingen that polarization by which we keep find that, for most people, orthodoxy cry because of anger, frustration, Those struggles were always more brain, or as breathing in/breath- and Harvard taught me not to apart those realities that belong harbors more conservatism than or defeat. Rather, the eyes begin to intense than any of the controversies ing out, or as the two sides of a chase after what other denomina- together. Fear and anger almost liberalism and therefore is some- glisten when I see ordinary people in which I was involved. single piece of paper. Right now, tions might offer but rather to try always lurk where alienation is what unbalanced. I do try not to do acts of simple kindness and dis- for example, I have just finished to do for Baptists what the best rep- allowed to flourish. I deplore the “offend” a weaker brother or sister, play incredible generosity without 20. Would you rather prepare a ser- preparing the sermon to be preached resentatives of other traditions have ideological rigidity that has rent but I try to do so by “speaking the thought of recompense. Just now, mon for a congregation or a theologi- at Mountain Brook Baptist Church, done for their part of the Christian both our denomination and our truth in love,” making sure that I for example, tears of joy can come cal paper for professors? which I greatly enjoyed doing; family. Stated differently, the pivotal country into competing groups. I am offering them as much love as I as our children outperform even our By now you know that I cannot but the next day I started writ- points in my journey were the moves realize that since both ideas and am truth. highest expectations of them. choose between these options but ing a technical paper on Southern from Birmingham to Louisville, people differ greatly, some type of rather would strive for a balance Seminary at its Sesquicentennial Louisville to Shreveport, and uniformity is both impossible and 16. Tell me about Wylodine. 19. Over the years, what has kept you between them. When I go for a long and relish that work just as much. ■ Shreveport back to Birmingham. undesirable; but I am always striv- The question is not out-of-bounds, It was not the geographical transfer ing to achieve balanced complemen- but my ability to frame an adequate that was important, since I could tarity even when it involves holding response is. Like me, she came out have reinvented myself by staying in tension a great deal of diversity. of a background that was economi- in one place. Rather, each of these cally, culturally, intellectually, and moves presented fresh challenges and 15. You are hard to pigeonhole. even religiously deprived. Thus we demanded new learning experi- Your theology strikes me as basically grew together as we were offered ences. conservative or middle of the road. I far more opportunities in all of know that you have offended funda- these areas than any of our parents 12. Like the previous question, name mentalists in some areas, especially in had ever known. Her faith is fed the four most influential people in your view of the Bible, but you are a primarily by relationships, which your life, apart from Wylodine and rather orthodox person, are you not? offered a good balance when I was the children and grands. Where are you progressive? Are you working in highly academic settings Most influential in my ministe- more liberal than you have said? Have where faith was shaped primarily by rial life have been Duke McCall, you kept silent at points so as not “to ideas. Her capacity to love is limit- John Claypool, Louie Newton, and offend” a weaker brother or sister? less; thus I have spent our entire life George Buttrick. In the Deere Lectures at Golden together trying to catch up in that Gate Seminary around 1980, I area but am certainly not there yet! 13. A bit different from the former argued that one must be simultane- question, tell us who shaped you ously both conservative and liberal 17. Tell me about Wylodine’s influ- theologically and ministerially and as the “not destroy/but fulfill” dia- ence on your ministry. spiritually. Where did you go to feed lectic of Matthew 5:17-18 makes When I was involved primarily your own soul? so clear. In four presentations I in graduate theological education, Ethics Bytes: Theologically I was shaped by argued that this was the overwhelm- my work was so technical that her 44% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in “the church or organized religion” Theron Price who gave me a grand- ing testimony of the Christian faith influence was minimal. When I today, just below the low points Gallup has found in recent years, including 45% in 2002 and 46% in er concept of living in the sweep of biblically, historically, theologically, moved into administration, howev- 2007. This follows a long-term decline in Americans’ confidence in religion since the 1970s. Christian history. Ministerially, and practically. The Bible is cen- er, and had to deal with many con- I was shaped by those listed in the tral to me, and there is no way to fidential matters involving persons, previous question. Spiritually, I make a 2000-year-old book central she was always a trusted confidante.

24 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 25 Notes from My File Cabinet: Wisdom from J.M. Dawson Verse By James Dunn

t was in a comfortable fireplace E.C. Routh, editor of the 3. It must be in harmony with Wondering How Jesus Felt Iroom in the Stagecoach Inn, Baptist Standard Jesus’ emphasis upon sharing Salado, Texas, that 92-year-old J.M. J.M. Dawson, publicity chair and whatever you have, whatever you Or Dawson set out his “Seven Tests spokesman of the Campaign. know, whatever you see, what- of Social Religion.” The audience Dawson’s own church, First Baptist ever is righteous, religious, and Jesus Wept consisted of several of us doctoral Church of Waco, Texas, gave over good. students of ethics at Southwestern $214,000 which was the second larg- 4. It must express fullness, all- “Forgive those who disagree with us,” Baptist Theological Seminary on a est amount of any church in the SBC. outness. It is not languid, feeble, The pious Christian leader prayed. retreat sponsored by the Texas Baptist I leave it to an enterprising reader or weak. It is heroic, vigorous, Presuming in the theological fuss Christian Life Commission. The date to calculate what that amounts to in virile, full of life. Both institu- The other faction surely strayed-- was December 6, 1970. 2014 dollars. tionally and individually, social Dawson was best known in The long-term result of the “75 religion represents life to the Cocksure the Christ who’d died was on his side. Baptist life as the first executive of Million Campaign,” however, was the utmost, involving all of one’s Perhaps the Christ just sighed, the Baptist Joint Committee, serving Cooperative Program which became abilities. It is never ephemeral or Perhaps he cried, from 1946 through 1953. The annual the financial plan of the Southern superficial. It is not a fad. It is, Perhaps he cried. recognition given by the Baptist Joint Baptist Convention, the lifeblood rather, the essence of Christianity Committee is named in his honor. of the SBC and the glue that held it as it is described in the final test Dawson was also known as one of together. for the Christian as outlined in By Richard D. Kahoe, Woodward, Oklahoma the founders of Americans United for While cleaning out some files in Matthew 25. the Separation of Church and State. my Wake Forest University office, 5. It denies dominant self-interest. Less known was his role as the public- I came across the document Dr. What it does for humanity is the ity director of the Southern Baptist Dawson shared with us that day at the final test. “I shudder when I con- Convention’s “75 Million Campaign” Stagecoach Inn. It is timeless. Here it template my own sons…their during the depths of the Great is -- exactly as he presented it: successes.” They Did Not Know Depression. 6. Christian ethics must be just. It’s The Southern Baptist Convention SEVEN TESTS OF SOCIAL a cruel hoax to construe justice They did not know was in desperate straits for money RELIGION in penal terms. Justice is the Right from wrong during the Great Depression. They J.M. Dawson golden rule. The golden rule is When they first reached formally turned to seven leaders for December 6, 1970 the quintessence of justice. For the proffered fruit, rescue: 7. It must answer human need. But they blinked with its S.P. Brooks, President of Baylor Remarks made to Th.D. students Wealth is rapacious. “I don’t University in social ethics from Southwestern think there’s a multi-millionaire Strange taste and F.L. Groner, executive secretary Baptist Theological Seminary at the in the world who wouldn’t like Knew it then. of the Baptist General Christian Life Commission retreat. to control the whole thing.” ■ Convention of Texas As consciousness startled George W. Truett, pastor of the 1. Christian Ethics must be con- James Dunn is retired executive of the First Baptist Church of strued as an effort at righteous Baptist Joint Committee, Wake Forest Their now troubled eyes, Dallas, Texas religion. University School of Divinity profes- And placed their nakedness B. H. Carroll, president of 2. It must be useful, not just dis- sor, and sponsor along with his wife of In that particular garden, Southwestern Baptist cussion and dialogue, study and the James and Marilyn Dunn Chair of Their silent dream broke Theological Seminary analysis, but practical help. Baptist Studies at Wake Forest. Into mirrored shards, And the wonder of self Buckled their knees.

Your financial contribution to the work of Christian Ethics Today, great and small, is greatly By James R. Wade, a member of First appreciated, earnestly needed, and gladly received. Please make a gift to help us produce Baptist Church, Arlington, Texas the journal.

26 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 27 Book Reviews ing Micah 6:8, “And what does the Bible, is an ideal found in this good ogy which is sometimes difficult for Lord require of you, but to do justice, volume. ■ some readers to grasp. He makes “Of making many books there is no end. . . “ Ecclesiastes 12:12 NRSV love mercy, and to walk humbly with this rather nebulous concept of your God.” Then comes the major imaginative ideas understandable in applications of this ideal in a world If I Had Lunch With C.S. some of Lewis’ books. What a way Sessions with At once Sapp acknowledges that hope. Seven weeks in study of this of racism, prejudice, poverty, politics, Lewis: Exploring the to approach Lewis’s Narnia novels, Revelation: The Last many a believer has struggled with book will lead participants to stron- cultural and religious clashes. He books which amaze us all in their this writing. He points out that we ger confidence in the Risen Christ. expands these principles grounded in Ideas of C.S. Lewis on increasing popularity among children. Days of Evil struggle so because of our inadequate Seven weeks in this study will offer to the Old Testament and in the words the Meaning of Life When one adds up the sheer genius by David Sapp (Macon, GA Smyth & knowledge of the Old Testament, each of us a deeper blessing of grace. of Jesus with vigorous interpreta- (Carol Stream, IL, Tyndale House of Lewis, plus the influence of friends Helwys, 2014 especially the prophets. He goes on Whether one does this study for indi- tions of familiar Biblical material Publishers, 2014, $17.99hb) in Oxford, the raw suffering emerging Reviewed by Bo Prosser to point out that our struggles may vidual reflection or in a group inter- which yield in turn insights which By Alister McGrath from his wife’s lost battle with cancer, he newest in the Sessions series also be because Revelation is a work action, the assurances will resound are brimming with current consid- Reviewed by Darold Morgan the war years compassing both con- T(published by Smyth and of art, a work written in dangerous and the faithful will be affirmed. erations. Keller has genuine skills flagrations in Britain, one concludes Helwys) takes us into the complexi- times, and an intimate letter to seven Until then, let us continue to pray, for the way he uses quotations from major interpreter of C.S. Lewis, that these events have colored these ties of the Book of Revelation. In particular churches. Even so, despite “Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” ■ the unusual and interesting sources AAlister McGrath, has given us in writings which have helped multi- full disclosure, I am also an author the struggles, the book of Revelation such as Jonathan Edwards, Walter this brief book a remarkable approach tudes to a stronger and more balanced in the Sessions series, Sessions with is as relevant to our churches today Rauchenbush, Christopher Hitchens, to Lewis’ major ideas about the faith in God. Philippians. That being said, this as it was to the churches of John of Generous Justice Gustavo Gutierrez, Anders Nygren, Christian life. This volume makes Using this imaginative approach series has become a quite popular and Patmos. This revelation of John has by Timothy Keller John Newton, C.S. Lewis, and many for interesting reading. Its format is of “Lunch with Lewis,” McGrath practical Bible Study curriculum. the power to change lives. (New York: Riverhead Books, 2010, $15pb) more. unique and of genuine value in the brings Lewis out the past with the This is another informative and My opinion is that as small Reviewed by Darold Morgan The issues of Justice have current realm of apologetics, espe- rush of events of our day. The prob- interactive study delivered from Series groups of Christians study this work long been ignored or minimized cially regarding a rational defense of ing and insistent questions about Editor, Michael McCullar of Johns together, pray over it together, and ny book that can wisely and in local churches for a variety of Christian truth in an age of dominant faith, hope, heaven, suffering, and Creek Baptist Church in Atlanta, engage one another in conversation, Aeffectively call Christians to a reasons. Keller’s book wisely and secularism. McGrath, well-known science permeate the book. This and author and retired pastor, David individual and corporate relationships Biblical basis for justice and mercy Biblically calls the church back to for his recent biography of Lewis as technique is arresting, informative, Sapp. The book is not intended to will be transformed. Having taught is a welcome addition for concerned a major theme, repeated often in a world class theologian, has given us and genuinely helpful today as so be the “end all” scholarly word on through this Revelation several times Christians in this roiling world. both Testaments. Today it would intelligent and live ammunition in many make technology the source Revelation. Instead, the author writes in my ministry, I can testify that the Generous Justice in our age is an include concern for the poor, bal- the intriguing conflict with current of answers to large questions. One’s to instruct and to stimulate a curios- study is indeed difficult. Teacher imperative of unchallenged propor- anced approaches to discrimination atheism. In fact, Lewis’ famous move own Christian experience finds both ity about the Revelation that will lead and student can get lost in the seven tions. Sadly, many secularists in and conflicts against women, wages, from atheism to theism is one theme a strong intellectual surge combined to consistent study. These sessions churches, the seven seals, the seven current society (and their number is extreme politics, confusion about the author pursues with verve and with the essentials of faith and com- unpacking Revelation bring a similar trumpets and the seven bowls. In the legion) equate the Bible as the source immigration policies, diversity in wisdom, resulting in explicating ideas mitment emerging from these pages. flavor of previous “Sessions” books, battle for good and evil, the entangle- of multiple prejudices and regressions marriage values…the list is long and of relevance for students today. Whether or not one is a Lewis helping students engage in meaning- ments of code words, prayers, warn- rather than the ultimate source of complex. McGrath also elaborates help- d’evotee, here is an engaging, dis- ful scholarship that leads to purpose- ings, and drama might leave one generous justice. But the call to Generous Justice fully on Lewis’ use of imagination, tinctly original book that will leave ful discipleship. frustrated enough to avoid a study all Timothy Keller has wisely chosen grounded in personal experience with not only in his writings, but as a the reader exceptionally glad to have I have loved the Book of together. (This has been the case for this title for his brief book which is the Grace of God, grounded in the creative way to understand theol- read and digested it. ■ Revelation since my seminary days. many a Christian through the years.) a superb study of the Biblical basis, For decades, the imagery and lan- The author has done an excellent job promoting a life of justice, mercy, and guage have drawn me in as student, distilling the basic truths of a compli- compassion in a secular age. Those teacher, and preacher of the texts. cated set of scenarios. qualities emanate from a genuine This new contribution quickly Each chapter first gives pertinent experience with the grace of God engages the reader with a quick insights into the complications of the in Jesus Christ, according to Keller. overview of the writing, authorship, text. Then, participants are invited With the author’s recognized and date, and styles of writings found in into relevant reflection and discus- competent abilities in Biblical foun- the text. The author then moves into sions about THEIR personal context, dations, coupled with contemporary the 10 sessions examining the basic THEIR personal faith, THEIR per- applications and quotations, this pro- themes of Revelation. Each chapter sonal discipleship. Ultimately, this lific writer and preacher has produced is followed up with a set of discus- book (as in the book of Revelation) another volume of value and useful- sion questions to facilitate personal ends with a reassurance that a new ness. reflection or small group interactions. creation is on the way. The Risen The “Notes” section is one of An extensive bibliography follows the Christ will bring glory. the exceptional contributions to conclusion of the study, leading the 21st century believers and first Christian Ethics which is so needed learner to many of the classic texts for century believers both crave the in the local church. further reading. same thing -- a blessing of grace and Keller defines justice by quot-

28 • spring 2014 • christian ethics today Christian ethics today • spring 2014 • 29 captives!” saying, “Are you the one?” writing letters, counseling, witnessing as God was talking to him from a Or think of Jesus, arrested in the to guards and fellow prisoners, asking burning bush trying to convince him Remember Those Who Are In Prison Garden, then subjected to enhanced his friends for help, and keeping the to go back down to Egypt, Moses By Patrick Anderson interrogation all night, beaten, kept faith. was no doubt thinking in the vein of unjustly while Barabbas was released, Finally, do not forget John, a pris- the Country and Western singer and and who was finally put to death. oner on Patmos, where he experienced songwriter R. Dean Taylor, “Egypt? merica’s addiction to locking How has so much of the rest of the Remember Peter, jailed along with the most wonderful Revelation. Egypt wants me! Lord I can’t go back Apeople in prison for interminable Church lost sight of the plight of pris- terrible. He was served a loaf of bread John in the temple jail, beaten and The Bible starts and ends with pris- there! I’m a wanted man!” periods of time began in the 1970s. oners? From whence comes the over- a day and finally cast into a dry well then released; Peter, locked up by oners. Yes, let us remember those David, a man after God’s own Prior to that time, a relatively small emphasis on primitive law codes which where he sank to his armpits in the Herod after James had been executed, who are in prison, today as well as heart, first used his considerable number of criminal offenders were predate Jesus? Why the manic support mud where he would have died had chained to guards in the Tower of then. power to take the wife of his military incarcerated. Today, America’s mass for “10 Commandments” displays in not Ebedmelech rescued him, and Antonia from which he escaped. But, some may reply, “But those leader to his bed, and then, upon her incarceration of large numbers of poor the public square and the neglect of then had him transferred back to that And, Paul. Who can forget Paul prisoners we remember in the Bible pregnancy, David put in motion a persons is a scandal, disproportionately Christian passages in the Bible? The courtyard prison. “a prisoner of the Gospel”? This were good people. They were not like dastardly plan to have the husband affecting black and Latino young men. Bible calls us toward redemption and We remember Zedekiah, blinded Paul himself had imprisoned many the evil-doers of our modern age. Uriah the Hittite abandoned on the This outrage is the result of a badly away from retribution. after watching his sons killed before believers before his Damascus Road Surely, it is not the same injunction battle field to be killed. It was murder, conceived “war on drugs,” mandatory The Hebrews writer stated, his eyes, and then locked up for the experience. Remember Paul in stocks for us as it was for the present day in any code of law. sentences and “three-strikes laws”, and “Remember those who are in prison rest of his life by Nebuchadnezzar. beside Silas in the jail at Philippi, suf- readers of Hebrews.” Remember criminals like the thief other “get tough on crime” policies as though you were there with them.” Think of Jehoiakim, a prisoner of fering the effects of the “many stripes” Have you forgotten that the first on the cross, or Onesimus and his stemming from a politically manufac- Well that writer understood the Evilmerodach for 38 years before put on them by whips; Paul, kept family in the Bible suffered a most victim Philemon, and also Barabbas. tured fear of crime. pathos of imprisonment, and readers being released to the king’s table for in chains in the Tower of Antonia heinous murder, that Cain smashed Think of Jesus the lawbreaker, brush- The politicization of crime has from Israelite or Christian heritage, the rest of his life. and later locked up in Caesarea’s his brother’s skull and left Abel to ing up against the legal system of his occurred largely with the quiet com- people of the Book, have resonated Remember Hananiah, Mishael, praetorium of Herod for two years. bleed to death on the ground? And, day, breaking the Sabbath, social- plicity of some white Christians and with those words through the ages. and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach, Remember how he was interviewed arguably the two greatest men in the izing with white collar criminals like the active support of others, especially “Remember them….as though you Abednego) thrown into a furnace for first by Felix and Drusilla, then Old Testament, Moses and David, Zacchaeus, associating with law viola- the Religious Right. The expansion of were there with them.” refusing to deny the Living God to Agrippa and Bernice, and finally by were both murderers. tors of many kinds. criminal justice “solutions” through We remember the prisoners of worship an idol of gold. Herod himself? Think of Paul being Moses killed a cop! If any one The words of the Hebrews writer harsh punishments is evidenced by Al the Old Testament such as Joseph Who can forget Daniel, cast into transported as a prisoner by ship of us were to intervene with deadly still ring in our ears, do they not? Mohler’s recent call for Christians to who was cast into a dry well by his a pit of lions by Darius who, after his to Rome, cast overboard and ship- violence in police action, no matter “Remember those who are in prison support the expanded use of execu- 10 older brothers and later sold into release saw his own accusers cast into wrecked. See him under house arrest what that action may be, we would as though you were there with them.” tions. The death penalty is not the slavery. This same Joseph was also that same pit? Remember Micaiah for two years, and finally confined face certain prosecution, imprison- The only difference between Bible only draconian social policy advocated falsely accused by Potipher’s wife and thrown into prison by Ahab and in the Mamertine Prison, the lower ment, maybe even death. Moses times and now is that we have so many by many Christians. For instance, locked up in the state prison; Joseph given only bread to eat, and Manasseh dungeon of Tertullian where prison- knew he had done wrong, regardless more people to remember, so many predominantly white Christians have who turned the tables on those same imprisoned by the Assyrians. ers condemned to death were kept in of his noble motivation. He fled to more people who are locked up. ■ called for harsh laws against abortion brothers by locking them up before The readers of Hebrews are their final days. See Paul the prisoner avoid prosecution. Forty years later, and have demonstrated a paucity of the great reconciliation. It was an told, “Remember those who are in redemptive efforts for prisoners. Some early example of what goes around prison as though you were there have exported their advocacy of death comes around. with them!” But Hebrews is a New for homosexuals to Uganda and else- In the Bible we see blinded Testament book, and the readers are where. Samson chained to a grinding mill at New Testament readers. Our story is The significant efforts of churches Gaza, pushing the wheels, dreaming found more in the New Testament to minister to offenders and their fami- of a day of revenge. We celebrate his where everybody did time. If you lies are found largely among African- growing hair, his prayer of destruction were a New Testament Christian and American Christians. Perhaps this is for his tormentors. did not spend some time in prison, because black folks bear the brunt of Remember the beaten Jeremiah your orthodoxy was in question. And the crime policies of recent decades. chained by the chief officer of the if somehow you escaped imprison- For sure, the redemptive theology temple for unpopular prophecies, ment, the Hebrews writer cajoles, found in many urban black churches is then later confined to a community- “Remember them…..” And, who steeped in Bible texts that point toward based correctional facility, a courtyard could forget? liberation, release to the captives, rec- prison where he transacted a real Do you not see John the Baptist onciliation, and redemption. The Bible estate deal. Think of Jeremiah, locked locked up by Herod as he awaited speaks strongly to the oppressed, and in an underground cell beneath the decapitation? Can you not share his oppression is the experience of many court secretary’s house for “a long longing for companionship as he Thank you, thank you, thank you….faithful readers and supporters of Christian Ethics families in African-American churches time,” begging Zedekiah to return receives his disciples as visitors, and Today. Your financial gifts are a great encouragement to us, and make this work possible. who have been on the receiving end of him to the courtyard prison because sends a plaintiff message to Jesus, the criminal justice practices. the conditions underground were so One who proclaimed “release to the

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Christian Ethics Today A Journal of Christian Ethics “We need now to recover the prophethood of all believers, matching our zeal for the priesthood of all believers with a passion for the prophethood of all believers.” —Foy Valentine, Founding Editor

MISSION The Christian Ethics Today Foundation publishes Christian Ethics Today in order to provide laypersons, educators, and ministers with a resource for understanding and responding in a faithful Christian manner to moral and ethical issues that are of concern to contemporary Christians, to the church, and to society. PURPOSES • Maintain an independent prophetic voice for Christian social ethics • Interpret and apply Christian experience, biblical truth, theological insights, historical understanding, and current research to contemporary moral issues • Support Christian ecumenism by seeking contributors and readers from various denominations and churches • Work from the deep, broad center of the Christian church • Address readers at the personal and emotional as well as the intellectual level by including in the Journal narratives, poetry, and cartoons as well as essays • Strengthen and support the cause of Christian ethics Christian Ethics Today was born in the mind and heart of Foy Valentine in 1995, as an integral part of his dream for a Center for Christian Ethics. In his words, the purpose of the Journal was “to inform, inspire, and unify a lively com- pany of individuals and organizations interested in working for personal morality and public righteousness.” When the Center was transferred to Baylor University in June 2000, the disbanding Board voted to continue the publication of Christian Ethics Today, appointing a new editor and a new Board. The Journal will continue to be pub- lished four times annually. From the beginning Christian Ethics Today has been sent without charge to anyone requesting it, “as money and energy permit.” More than ever before, your financial support is “greatly needed, urgently solicited, and genuinely ap- preciated.” The Christian Ethics Today Foundation is a non-profit organization and has received a 501 (c) (3) status from the Internal Revenue Service. Gifts are tax deductible. BOARD OF DIRECTORS Aubrey H. Ducker, Jr. Chair Patricia Ayres Carolyn Weatherford Crumpler Darold Morgan Larry Baker Carolyn Dipboye Kelly Reese Babs Baugh Wendell Griffen David Sapp Tony Campolo Fisher Humphreys

Contributions should be made out to the Christian Ethics Today Foundation and mailed to the address below. Your comments and inquiries are always welcome. Articles in the Journal (except those copyrighted) may be reproduced if you indicate the source and date of publication. Manuscripts that fulfill the purposes of Christian Ethics Today may be submitted to the editor for publication consideration and addressed to: OUR address and phone numbers Pat Anderson Office: (828) 387-2267 P.O. Box 1238 Cell (863) 207-2050 Banner Elk, NC 28604

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