What has Wheaton to do with Jerusalem?
That is the interesting title of an article in The Reformed Journal for May, 1982, by Mark A. Noll, a member of the history department at Wheaton College. The subtitle is “lessons from evangelicals for the Reformed.” The author professes great admiration for the Reformed Churches and displays intimate acquaintance with that tradition in America. He also is not uncritical of his own evangelical tradition as it is well represented in Wheaton College, but his thesis is that the evangelical movement has several good features from which the Reformed can benefit. Specifically he calls attention to three areas in which the history of America’s evangelicals offers lessons. They are: “(1) the virtues of practicality, (2) the individualism of grace, and (3) the intricacies of Americanization.”
Under the first point he shows how American evangelicals worked together across denominational lines in many areas such as missions, organized moral reform, etc. However, they were weak on theological understanding in which the Reformed often excel, while not being able to get much done because of their failure to cooperate with others. The second lesson has to do with the contrast between the evangelical emphasis on individual salvation and the Reformed covenantal approach. Noll feels that without going to the excess of some evangelical circles, the Reformed could well place more emphasis on conversion and a personal relationship with Christ. Finally, he points out from the history of the German Reformed Church, which has largely lost its identity as Reformed, that the Christian Reformed Church needs to Americanize, but should do so in such a way as to retain much that is valuable in its heritage.
It is always interesting to look at one’s self through the eyes of an “outsider.” Noll contributes some valuable insights that we do well to take into account.
Persecution of Christians
Two items in the Evangelical Newsletter of May 14, 1982, remind us that persecution of believers is still a terrible reality in our day, and call for our continued private and public prayers in behalf of these fellow Christians “under the cross.” “Communist Romania is continuing to tighten the screws on Christians in what some say is the worst outbreak of religious repression in more than 15 years in Eastern Europe.” Dr. Curtis Nims, board member of International Aid, accused the secret police of waging a campaign against Christians whose only crime is to practice their faith. Weapons used include arrests, beatings, use of mind-altering drugs, confinement in mental institutions, loss of jobs, refusal to grant food coupons and even murder. Eight Christian leaders were sentenced to long prison terms for distributing Bibles and a prominent Christian activist was released just four hours before he was to be tried for treason on the charge of telling Christians in the West about the wave of persecutions. Rising Hindu fanaticism in India is blamed for the deaths of Christians. Six Christians were killed and 27 injured when police fired on them in Mandaikadu, India, where Hindu fanatics are trying to make India an exclusively Hindu country. 300 members of a militant Hindu organization stoned the local Church of South India and the same day in two other towns Salvation Army Sunday school classes were looted and a Pentecostal church destroyed by an arson-related fire.
What’s Ahead in the School Prayer Controversy?
This is the title of an article in the June, 1982, Christian Herald recording an interview with Dr. Lynn R. Buzzard, executive director of the Christian Legal Society of Oak Park, IL, whose membership includes nearly 4000 attorneys and law students across the nation. Dr. Buzzard points out that the drive for legislation to restore some form of voluntary prayer to the public schools results from frustration with those schools and the removal of all religious teaching. He feels that trying to “get prayer back in our schools” is not the best approach to the problem. It is very difficult to conceive how the state can legislate “voluntary prayer” without using some form of compulsion. He is more concerned with recent cases in which courts have banned truly voluntary action in some schools. Cause for concern is the Lubbock, Texas, decision in which a group of students were forbidden to read the Bible and pray on the school premises. On the other hand, the Supreme Court decision in the Vincent case, in which students at the University of Missouri in Kansas City were upheld in their right to meet as a religious club on Campus is encouraging. It is alarming that “now we have the curious situation that one of the rights specifically protected by the First Amendment—religious rights—and an area of specific concern to the framers of the Constitution, is the one thing you can’t talk about.” The Christian Legal Society will be publishing a book this fall called The Battle for Religious Liberty. This should be of special interest to us as supporters of Christian schools whose rights are also threatened by the spirit of the day.
